,transcriber's note3 ,this production is based on https3_/_/archive4org_/details_/christia nityview#jj;guiz_/page_/n#f i ,christianity ,viewed ,in ,relation ,to ,the ,present ,state ,of ,society ,and ,opinion4 ,by ,m4 ,guizot4 ,translated ,under ,the ,superintendence ,of ,the ,author4 ,london3 ,john ,murray1 ,albemarle ,street4 #ahga4 ii ,by ,the ,same ,author4 ,the ,essence ,of ,christianity4 ,post #hvo1 #is4 #f;d4 ,no one can open this book1 and recollect the circumstances which produced it1 without feeling that it is a valuable contribution to the literature of the present controversy4 --,edinburgh ,review4 ,the ,present ,state ,of ,christianity4 ,post #hvo1 #ajs4 #f;d4 ,a remarkable series of religious meditations4 ,they form a sequel to a similar volume on the ,essence of ,christianity1 published two years ago1 and an introduction to a further series1 in which ,m4 ,guizot proposes to treat the great questions of the history of ,christianity1 and the future destiny of the ,christian religion4 ,the book is one of great interest4--,pall ,mall ,gazette4 iii iv v ,preface4 ,in the ,first ,series of these ,meditations1 ,i gave a summary of the facts and dogmas which constitute1 as ,i think1 the foundation and the essence of the ,christian ,religion4 ,in the next series ,i retraced the ,reawakening of ,faith and of ,christian ,life during the nineteenth century in ,france1 both amongst ,romanists and ,protestants4 ,with ,christianity thus reanimated and resuscitated amongst us1 after having passed through one of its most violent trials1 ,i confronted the principal philosophical systems which in these days reject and combat it3 ,rationalism1 ,positivism1 ,pantheism1 ,materialism1 ,scepticism4 ,i essayed to determine the fundamental error which seems to me to characterize each of those systems1 and to have always rendered them inadequate to the office either of satisfying or explaining man's nature and destiny4 vi ,that series of my ,meditations ,i concluded with these words3 ,why is it that ,christianity1 in spite of all the attacks which it has had to undergo1 and all the ordeals through which it has been made to pass1 has for eighteen centuries satisfied infinitely better the spontaneous instincts and invincible cravings of humanity8 ,is it not because it is pure from the errors which vitiate the different systems of philosophy just passed in review8 because it fills up the void that those systems either create or leave in the human soul8 because1 in short1 it conducts man nigher to the fountain of light8 ,footnote #a ,footnote #a3 ,meditations on the ,actual ,state of ,christianity4 ,eighth ,meditation3 ,impiety1 ,recklessness1 ,perplexity1 p4 #ccf4 ,far from wishing to elude any of the difficulties of this question1 ,i would now set ,christianity in contact with the ideas and forces that seem most contrary to it1 and with three of them more especially3 ,liberty1 ,independent ,morality1 and ,science4 vii ,assertions are running the tour of the world that ,christianity can accommodate itself neither to liberty nor science2 that morality is essentially distinct and separate from ,religious ,faith4 ,all this ,i hold to be false and highly prejudicial to the very cause of ,liberty1 of ,morality1 and of ,science1 which those who give utterance to such assertions affect to serve4 ,i believe ,christianity and ,liberty to be not only compatible with each other1 but necessary to each other4 ,i regard ,morality as naturally and intimately united to ,religion4 ,i am convinced that ,christianity and ,science need not make any mutual sacrifices1 that neither has anything to fear from the other4 ,this ,i establish in the first three ,meditations of the present series4 ,i then enter into the peculiar domain of ,christianity1 and determine what1 in the presence of ,liberty1 of ,philosophical ,morality1 and of ,human ,science1 is the principle and what the bearing of ,christian ,ignorance and of ,christian ,faith4 viii ,i finally apply to ideas their natural and inevitable law1 the law which obliges them to express themselves in facts2 ,i interrogate theory thus transformed into practice1 and ,i show that ,christianity alone supports this test victoriously4 ,christian ,life becomes a forcible demonstration of the ,legitimacy of ,christian ,faith4 ,with these three ,meditations the present series concludes4 ,but to complete my undertaking1 a final and capital question1 the historical question1 remains to be treated4 ,not that ,i think of retracing the ,history of ,christianity throughout the whole of its course2 such a design is far from my thoughts4 ,i neither can nor wish to do more than to demonstrate the grand historical facts which1 in my opinion1 are in ,christianity the stamp of a divine origin1 and of a divine influence upon the development and destiny of the human race4 ,of these facts the following is a summary3-- #a4 ,the authority of the sacred books4 #b4 ,the primitive foundation of ,christianity4 #c4 ,the ,christian ,faith persistent from age to age4 ix #d4 ,the ,church of ,christ persistent also from age to age4 #e4 ,romanism and ,protestantism4 #f4 ,the different ,antichristian crises1 their character and their issue4 ,it is upon these grand facts1 and the questions which they suggest1 that ,historical ,criticism has in our days exercised itself with ardour1 as it is continuing to do2 science1 severe and daring1 no invention of our epoch1 but beyond all doubt one of its glories6 ,if1 after concluding this final series of my ,meditations1 ,i shall have succeeded in appreciating at their real value the exigencies made and the results obtained by ,historical ,criticism1 where it has applied itself to the ,history of ,christianity1 ,i shall have realised the object which ,i proposed to myself on voluntarily entering upon this solemn and laborious study1 where ,i meet with so much that is obscure1 and so many quicksands4 x ,but as ,i draw near the close1 a scruple seizes me4 ,what have ,i been thinking of to persist obstinately in casting such a work into the midst of the events and the practical problems which are agitating the whole civilized world1 and which are demanding their instant solution8 ,what good result can ,i expect from studying the past history of the ,christian ,religion in my country1 or even speculating upon its future prospects1 when the actual condition of the present generation and the lot of that which is to succeed it on the stage1 are subject to so many troubles and plunged in such darkness8 ,the more narrowly ,i scrutinize generations--the honour and the destiny of which ,i have so much at heart1 for my children form part of them--the more am ,i struck and disquieted by two facts3 on the one side the general sentiment of fatigue and incertitude manifesting itself in society and in individuals3 on the other side not merely the grandeur but the unusual complexity of the questions agitated4 xi ,i fear that1 in her lassitude and in her sceptical vacillations1 ,france may not render an exact account to herself of the problems and perils scattered over her path1 of their number1 their gravity1 and their intimate connexion4 ,i fear that1 from not having an accurate conception of what her burthen is1 and from not having the courage at once to weigh it well1 the moment when she will have to bear it will come upon her with the necessary forces unmustered1 and the necessary resolutions unformed4 ,almost every great epoch in history has been devoted to some question1 if not an exclusive one1 at least one dominant both in events and opinions1 and around which the varying opinions and the efforts of men were concentrated4 ,not to go farther back than the era of modern history--in the sixteenth century the question of the unity of ,religion and of its ,reform2 in the seventeenth century the question of pure monarchy1 with its conquests abroad and administration at home2 in the eighteenth century that of the operation of civil and religious liberty3 such have been in ,france the different points on which ideas have culminated1 the different objects which each social movement had specially in view4 xii ,the systems of the day1 although opposed1 were clear2 the struggles ardent but well defined4 ,men walked in those days on high roads2 they did not wander about in the infinite complications of a labyrinth4 ,and it is in a very labyrinth of questions and of ideas1 of essays and events1 diverse in character1 confused1 incoherent1 contradictory1 in which in these days the civilized world is plunged4 ,i do not pretend to seize the clue to the labyrinth2 ,i propose but to throw some light upon the chaos4 ,first ,i turn my eyes to the external situation and relations of the ,states of ,christendom1 and consider the questions which concern the boundaries of territories and the distribution of populations between distinct and independent nations4 ,formerly these questions were all reducible to one--the aggrandizement or the weakening of these different ,states1 and the maintenance or the disturbance of that balance of forces which was called the balance of power in ,europe4 xiii ,war and ,diplomacy1 ,conquests and ,treaties1 discussed and settled this supreme question1 of which ,grotius expounded the theory1 and ,ancillon wrote the history4 ,now we are no longer in a situation so simple4 ,what a complication of ideas3 what ideas1 novel and ill-defined1 start up in these days to embarrass the course and entangle the relations of ,states6 ,the question of races1 the question of nationalities1 the question of little states and of great political unities1 the question of popular sovereignty and of its rights beyond the limits of nations as well as in their midst1--all these problems arise and cast into the shade1 as a routine which has served its turn1 the old public right and the maxims of the equilibrium of ,europe1 in their place seeking themselves to impose rules for regulating the territorial organizations and the external relations of ,states4 xiv ,not that the old traditional policy of ,europe does not mingle itself with1 and exercise a powerful influence upon1 the new ideas and questions which invade us2 however intellectual theories and ambitions may change1 the passions and interests of men are permanent4 ,war and the right of conquest have made good their old pretensions1 and this before our very eyes1 without any respect for the principle of ,nationalities and of ,races1 a principle nevertheless inscribed upon the very standards which the conquerors bore4 ,prussia has aggrandized herself in the name of ,german ,unity1 and at the very moment excluded from participating in the common affairs of ,germany1 the seven or eight millions of ,germans who form part of the ,empire of ,austria4 ,prussia seized the petty ,german ,republic of ,frankfort1 evidently against the will of its sovereign people1 and ,danish ,schleswick does not yet form part of the political group1 to the class of which she belongs by similarity of national origin and of language4 ,even while sheltering themselves under the gis of some general idea1 selfish interests and rude violence have not ceased to play a great part in the events which are passing before us1 and if the ambition of ,frederick the ,second was not more legitimate1 it was at least more logical than that of his successors4 xv ,i am far from meaning to deny that the new ideas which men follow1 and the desires which they evince1 contain a certain part of truth1 or to affirm that they have not a right to a certain share of influence4 ,the identity of origin and of race1 the possession in common of a single name and of one language1 have a moral value very capable of becoming itself a political force2 of this fair and prudent statesmanship is bound to hold account4 ,but policy becomes chimerical and dangerous when it attributes to these new ideas and these aspirations a supreme authority and right to dominion2 and what shocks all experience and common sense is to reject1 as out of date1 and no longer applicable1 maxims which were the foundation of the public law of nations1 and which1 up to the present time1 have presided over the relations of ,states4 xvi ,the equilibrium of ,europe1 the long duration of territorial agglomerations1 the right of small states to exist and be independent1 the ancient titles to government1 and the respect for ancient treaties1--all these elements of ,european order have not succumbed1 neither were they bound to succumb1 to the theory of nationalities1 and the fashionable doctrine of great political unities4 ,what would not be said1 and what would not be said with justice1 if ,france had proclaimed that1 as ,belgium and ,western ,switzerland speak ,french1 that1 as their populations have1 both in origin and manners1 great affinities with our fellow countrymen in ,french ,flanders and in ,franche-,comt1 the principal of ,national ,unity requires their incorporation with ,france8 ,prince ,metternich was wrong to say that ,italy was a mere ,geographical expression2 there are certainly between the nations of ,italy historical bonds1 both intellectual and moral1 which draw them towards one another1 and repel from their territories all foreign domination4 xvii ,but this relationship1 which may1 and ought to be1 a principle of union1 did not impose upon ,italy the form of political unity2 and the rgime of a confederation of ,states might have been established in the peninsula and yet its liberation from the foreigner might have been secured1 and a satisfaction might have been procured along our own frontier of the ,alps1 in the interests of our own security1 and of that of ,europe1 for the preservation of the equilibrium of power4 ,as soon as we look at the question with serious attention1 we are forced to admit that any general application of the principle of nationalities1 or of that of the great political unities1 would throw the civilized world into such a confusion and fermentation as would be equally compromising to the internal liberties of nations1 and to the preservation of peace between the different ,states4 xviii ,what if ,i had to sound the consequences of another principle1 the sovereign authority which men also seek in these days to set up1 the right1 ,i mean1 of populations1 or of some part of a population1 to dissolve the ,state with which they are connected1 and to range themselves under another ,state1 or to constitute themselves into new and independent ,states8 ,what would become of the existence1 or even of the very name of country1 if it also were thus left to be dealt with according to the fluctuating wills of men1 and the special interests of such or such of its members8 ,there is in the destiny of men1 whether of generations or individuals1 a great part which they have no share in deciding or disposing of2 a man does not choose his family1 neither does he select his country2 it is the natural state of man to live in the place where he is born1 in the society where is his cradle4 ,the cases are infinitely rare which can permit of the bonds being rent asunder by which man is attached to the soil1 the citizen to the state2 which can justify his leaving the bosom of his country1 to order to separate himself from it absolutely1 and to strive to lay the foundation of a new country4 xix ,we have just been spectators of such an attempt2 we have seen some of the ,states which form the nation of the ,united ,states of ,america1 abjure this union1 and erect themselves into an independent confederation4 ,wherefore8 ,in order to maintain in their bosom the institution of slavery4 ,by what right8 ,by the right1 it is said1 of every people1 or portion of a people1 to change its government at discretion4 ,the ,states which remained faithful to the ancient ,american ,confederation denied the principle and combatted the attempt4 ,they succeeded in maintaining the federal ,union1 and in abolishing slavery4 ,i am one of those who think that they had both right and reason on their side4 ,many years before the struggle commenced1 one of the most eminent men in the ,united ,states1 eminent by his character as well as his talents1 a faithful representative of the interests of the ,states of the ,south1 and an avowed apologist for negro slavery1 ,mr4 ,calhoun1 did me the honour of transmitting to me all that he had written and said upon the subject4 xx ,i was struck by the frank and earnest language with which he expressed his convictions1 but no less by the futility of the efforts which he made to justify1 upon general considerations and by historical necessities1 the fact of slavery in his country4 ,he would never have dared to paint it in its actual and living reality1 as ,mrs4 ,beecher ,stowe has done in her romances of ,uncle ,tom's ,cabin and of ,dred1 which have everywhere excited so much sympathy and emotion4 ,i became every day more and more convinced that there was here a radical iniquity and a social wound1 of which it was at last time to efface the shame and to conjure the danger4 ,it was with the motive of maintaining the system of slavery that the ,states of the ,south undertook to break up the great ,american ,state which was their country4 ,motive detestable for a deplorable act6 ,our epoch1 so unfortunate in many respects1 has1 in my opinion1 been fortunate in this1 that it produced a ,republic1 the greatest of all ,republics of ancient or of modern times1 which has afforded us the example of an uncompromising resistance to an illegitimate popular desire1 and of an unflinching respect for the tutelary principles of the life of ,states4 xxi ,so far of the territorial questions1 and those which concern the external relations of nations4 ,let me now speculate upon what the future has in store for those which involve domestic order and the organization of government4 ,i meet here with the same confusion1 the same complications1 the same fluctuations between ideas and essays incoherent or inconsistent4 ,at the base as at the summit of society1 the monarchy and the republic are in collision3 the monarchy reigns in events2 the republic ferments in opinions4 ,the proposition is now universally received that society has the right not only to see clearly and to intervene in its own government1 but to see so clearly and to intervene in such a manner as to justify the expression that it governs itself4 xxii ,the ,constitutional ,monarchy and the ,republic profess each to attain this object3 the one by a national representation1 by the monarch's inviolability and his ministry's responsibility2 the other by universal suffrage and the periodical elections of the great representatives of public power4 ,but neither the constitutional monarchy nor the republic has as yet succeeded amongst us in obtaining firm possession of opinions and of events1 of public confidence and of durable power4 ,after and in spite of thirty-four years of prosperity1 of peace1 and of liberty1 the constitutional power fell4 ,the republic1 accepted on its sudden appearance as the form of government which1 as was affirmed1 divided us least1 after a few months of turbulent and sterile anarchy1 fell also4 ,in the place of the constitutional monarchy and of the republic there arose another form of government1 a mixture of ,dictatorship and of ,republic1 a sort of personal government combined with1 universal suffrage4 ,will the essay have greater success8 ,events will decide4 xxiii ,in the meantime let us be sincere with ourselves2 the cause of so many painful and abortive attempts resides rather in the disposition of the people of ,france than in the acts of its governments3 our revolutionary existence since #aghi1 our ambitious aspirings and disappointments1 both equally immense1 have left us at once very excited and very fatigued1 full of impatience at the same time as of incertitude2 we know not very well what we think or what we would have2 our ideas are perplexed and confused2 our wills vacillating and feeble2 our minds have no fixed points1 our conduct no determined objects2 we often yield ourselves up readily against our better judgment1 nay against our very wish1 to whatever power extends its hand to seize us2 but soon1 very soon1 we evince towards that power not a whit less exigency or unfairness2 as soon as we feel ourselves rid of our most urgent cause for disquietude1 our discontent is as precipitate as was our submission in the hour of peril4 ,we are again disposed to be quarrelsome1 and demand instant action in the midst even of our doubts and hesitation4 ,our revolutions have taught us the lesson neither of resistance nor of patience4 ,yet these are virtues without which it is idle to propose to found any free government4 xxiv ,i pass from political questions to social questions1 and from the state of our political institutions to that of the relations existent between the different parts of society4 ,i say the different parts to avoid saying different classes1 for we cannot hear the word class pronounced without thinking that we are threatened with the re-establishment of privileges and exclusions1 of that entire rgime with its narrow compartments and inseparable barriers within which men were formerly enclosed1 and ranked according to their origin1 their name1 their religion1 or whatever other factitious or accidental qualification they might possess4 ,in effect1 this rgime has fallen--fallen completely and definitively2 all legal barriers have disappeared2 all careers are open2 all labour free3 by individual merit and by labour every man may aspire to everything1 and examples abound in confirmation of the principle4 xxv ,this was the great work1 the great conquest of #aghi2 we celebrate it unceasingly1 and we have often the air of forgetting that it ever occurred4 ,the different ancient classes are still full of jealousy1 of distrust1 and of restless irritation2 because they have to struggle for influence in the midst of liberty1 they persuade themselves that they are still risking life and limb in defence of their situation and of their right4 ,the ,restoration was attacked and undermined on account1 it was said1 of the evils that the bourgeoisie had to endure1 and the risks which it had to run at the hands of the nobles4 ,under the government of ,july1 the working classes were told incessantly that they were the victims of the privileges and of the tyranny of the middle classes4 ,facts and actual events gave singularly the lie to such assertions4 ,with what effect8 ,in the hurry of passions and the intoxication of thought1 men appealed to theories which had been already often produced on the stage of the world1--theories which have only served to agitate1 never to satisfy it4 xxvi ,landed property and capital1 labour and wages1 the artificial distribution of the means of material happiness amongst men1 have served sometimes as the subjects of unjust recrimination1 sometimes of chimerical expectations4 ,attacks were made upon things which the assailants had no right to take2 and promises were made to give things which the promisers had not the power to give4 ,i have heard it remarked by clear-sighted men who are good observers1 that this malady of the mind is decreasing1 and that even amongst the labouring classes themselves1 false notions as to the conflict of capital and labour1 as to the artificial settlement of wages1 and the intervention of the ,state in the distribution of the material means of existence1 are in discredit1 and that the ambitious aspirings of the people1 although continuing to be very democratic1 have ceased to assume the form of ,socialism4 xxvii ,i ardently wish it were so3 the passionate feelings which find their field in facts affecting the sphere of material subsistence1 are the rudest1 the most rebellious1 and the most recalcitrant to the principles of the moral order3 it is easier to deal with the aspirings of political ambition than with the ardent cravings for physical advantages4 ,but ,i fear1 ,i confess1 that errors such as those which presented themselves under the names of ,socialism and ,communism1 and which recently made so much noise1 are not so discarded as we might hope them to be2 that they are actually without a mouthpiece is not a sufficient proof of their defeat2 materialism1 and the evil instincts to which it leads or from which it springs1 have penetrated very far amongst us1 and a long period of social and moral progress in the midst of a society which has been well ordered will be necessary in order to surmount this danger4 ,several years ago ,i put to a great manufacturer of ,manchester1 who had been ,mayor of that immense centre of industry1 the following question3 ,what amongst you is the proportion between the laborious and well-conducted workmen1 who live respectably in their homes1 set aside money in the savings' bank1 and apply for books at the people's library1 and the idle and disorderly workmen who pass their time at taverns1 and only work so much as is necessary to furnish them with the means of subsistence8 xxviii ,after a moment's reflection1 he replied3 ,the former are two-thirds of the whole number4 ,after congratulating him1 ,i added1 ,allow me to put one more question4 ,if you had amongst you great disorders1 seditious assemblages1 and riots1 what would be the result8 ,with us1 sir1 he said without hesitation1 the honest men are braver than the ill-conditioned ones4 ,i congratulated him this time still more4 ,in these questions ,i had touched the root of the evil which afflicts us4 ,it is to their shortcomings in morality1 to their disorderly lives1 that we must attribute the favour with which the working classes receive the fallacious theories that menace social order4 ,the condition of these classes is hard and full of distressing accidents2 whoever regards it closely1 and with a little fairness and sympathy1 cannot fail to be deeply moved by all the sufferings which they have to support1 the privations from which they have no chance of escape1 and the efforts which they must make to ensure themselves a living at best monotonous and full of hazard4 xxix ,the happy ones of the earth feel sometimes alarm and irritation1 when they hear from the pulpit descriptions purer and more true to the life than are to be met with in philanthropical novels1 of the precarious state and distresses of the lower orders4 ,beyond doubt1 from pictures of this nature should be scrupulously excluded everything that would seem to excite sentiments of hostility1 or that would set one class against another2 still as the upper classes must resign themselves to the spectacle1 it devolves more especially upon ,christian ,painters to place it before them4 xxx ,nothing but strong moral convictions1 and the habits of well living amongst the labouring classes1 can furnish them with efficacious means of struggling against the temptations and resisting the ambitious yearnings1 suggested to them by the spectacle of the world which surrounds them1--a world now at length transparent to all1 a world of which the stir1 the noise1 the accidents1 the adventures1 penetrate with rapidity even to the workshops of our cities and the remotest recesses of our villages4 ,what influence shall protect the masses of the people from the irritating and demoralizing effect of such a sight1 unless it be the influence of religious principles1 the moral discipline which religion maintains1 and the moral serenity which religion diffuses over the rudest existences and the lives subjected to the greatest privations8 ,and it is precisely religious belief and religious discipline1 ,christian faith and ,christian law1 which are now being attacked and undermined1 and this far more in the obscurer classes1 than in the brilliant regions of society6 xxxi ,these attacks are of a general although of diverse nature1 and of unequal violence2 they occur in the bosom of ,roman ,catholicism1 of ,protestantism1 and of scientific philosophy2 some are direct1 open1 impetuous2 others indirect and full of reserves1 and of a tenderness sometimes affected1 sometimes sincere4 ,christianity counts amongst its enemies fanatics who persecute it in the name of reason and of liberty1 as well as adversaries who criticise it with moderation and prudence2 the latter admit its practical deservings1 are distressed by the wounds which they inflict1 and1 in the very act of dealing their blows1 seek to lessen their force4 ,this diversity of attack is a proof of the trouble1 of the incertitude1 and of the incoherence which reign in men's opinions1 both upon religious questions and upon questions which are only simply political and social2 many they are who would be inclined to save such or such a portion of the edifice which they are battering and seeking to destroy4 ,but the upshot is1 that all these blows are telling upon the same point1 and are concurring to produce the same effect2 it is the ,christian ,religion which receives them all2 it is the right and the empire of ,christ which1 in the world learned and unlearned1 is subjected to doubt and exposed to peril4 xxxii ,i have touched upon all the great questions which are agitating the human mind and human societies3 questions of public right1 questions of political organization1 questions of social institutions1 questions of religious belief4 ,everywhere ,i encounter two facts1 facts everywhere the same3 a great complication and a great incertitude in man's opinions and in his efforts4 ,nothing is simple1 no one decided4 ,problems of every kind--doubts of every kind weigh upon the thoughts of men1 and oppress their wills2 their ambitious aspirings are varied1 immense1 but everywhere they hesitate4 ,they may be likened to travellers already exhausted with fatigue1 yet feebly driving to feel their way through a labyrinth4 ,are we then to infer that we are living in an era of decay and impotence8 that we have nothing ourselves to do1 nothing to hope for1 in this situation so complicated and so obscure8 that we have only to wait until our lot is decided by that sovereign power called by some ,providence1 by others ,fate8 xxxiii ,i am far from thinking so4 ,of the men distinguished by singleness of views and strength of convictions whom ,i have known1 ,i consider the ,marshal ,gouvion ,saint-,cyr in these respects the most remarkable4 ,he was one day detailing his reasons for disapproving of the system of a royal or imperial guard1 or of privileged corps1 in an army3 ,few1 said he1 are really brave3 the best thing to be done is to disseminate them in the ranks1 where each singly1 by his presence and example1 will make eight or ten more brave men around him4 ,i am no judge as to the value of the ,marshal's maxim in a military sense2 ,i do not believe it to be invariably true1 or always applicable in the political sense2 there are epochs at which1 in order to further the progress of which a nation stands in need1 to withdraw it from its embarrassments or to rouse it from its apathy1 the most urgent thing to be done1 and the plan the most efficacious1 is to form in its bosom picked bodies of men 7the number is immaterial71 and then to incorporate with them others possessing distinguished qualities1 and animated by the same spirit1 decided in their opinions1 and resolute in their action1 single of purpose1 and full of confidence3 these would soon attract to themselves as associates many others who would never1 without such impulse1 begin to move in the same path4 xxxiv ,we are1 ,i believe1 at an era which calls for such a mode of influencing society1 and which authorises us to expect success if we adopt it4 ,i can never be accused of ignoring or extenuating the evil which torments us upon all the points which ,i have just indicated1 the rights of nations1 the civil organization of society and its economy1 moral and religious belief4 ,in all these directions an evil wind is blowing1 an evil current is hurrying away a part of ,french society1 and it is my constant design so to arouse the moral sense of the people1 and its good sense1 as to make them attentive to the existence of the ill1 and solicitous for its removal4 xxxv ,but at the side of this fact1 so deplorable and so full of peril1 a fact of contrary and salutary nature is occurring and developing itself3 a good wind there also is which is blowing1 a good current which is impelling us forwards2--at the same time that violent and revolutionary theories are being diffused1 the principles of legal order1 and of liberties1 serving mutually to control and check one another1 are proclaimed and maintained2 the maxims and the sentiments of the spirit of peace are heard at least as loudly pronounced1 as the souvenirs and the traditions of the spirit of adventure and conquest2 the sound principles of political economy have defenders no less zealous than the presumptuous and dreamy theories of ,socialism2 ,spiritualism raises its voice high at the side of ,materialism2 ,christianity is advancing at the same time as ,incredulity1 and with a progress also distinguished by its scientific method and its practical applications4 xxxvi ,following respectively their different objects1 there are on both sides groups of men of strong convictions1 activity1 and influence1 who hope for and pursue the triumph of their several causes4 ,like the ardent huntsman of ,brgers ballad1 ,france is solicited by two ,genii1 ever at her side1 ever present1 urgent1 contrary4 ,since the commencement of the nineteenth century1 our history is made up of this great struggle and of its vicissitudes1 of the series of victories gained and defeats sustained by these two forces1 which are disputing the future of our country4 ,they find a field of action in a people of quick1 various1 and keen feelings1 prone to generous impulses1 full of human sympathies and mobility1 at this moment chilled and intimidated by the checks imposed upon their ambitious yearnings1 by the disappointments which have befallen their hopes1 and so brought back by actual experience to confine their aspirations within the modest limits of good sense2 more occupied with the perils of their situation than with the rights of thought1 but always remarkable for intelligence and sagacity2 friendly to liberty even when they dread its abuse1 and to order although they only defend it at the last extremity2 more touched by virtue than shocked by vice2 honest in their instincts and moral judgments in spite of the weakness of their moral belief and their complacent indulgence of men whom they do not esteem2 and always ready1 in spite of their doubts and their alarms1 to recur to the noble desires which they have the air of no longer entertaining4 xxxvii ,we have in all this evidently matter to encourage the good genius of ,france4 ,the life of nations is neither easier nor less mixed with good and evil1 with successes and reverses1 than the life of individuals2 but assuredly1 in spite of what is wanting to it1 and in spite of its sorrows1 the actual state of our country1 as well as its long history1 open a wide field to the efforts and the hopes of the men of elevated1 resolute1 and honest minds1 who are occupying themselves in earnest with its destiny4 xxxviii ,what1 in order to attain their object1 can be1 ought to be1 the conduct of the men engaged in this patriotic design1 men who have it at heart to second the good current and to stem the evil current1 which have both set in amongst us8 ,upon what conditions and by what means can we hope to pass through the sieve of good sense and of moral sense the confused ideas which plague us1 and to find an issue for the public out of the doubts and hesitation which are a source of languor and enervation to the soul8 ,political ,liberty and ,belief in ,religion1 the movement of society in advance and the impulse of the soul towards eternity1 ,free ,government and ,christianity1 these are the two forces to which we should recur1 and the only ones capable of remedying this disease of trouble and doubt which afflict both our thoughts and our conduct1 and which at one time impairs1 at another paralyses1 our understanding4 xxxix ,i have no intention here to speak of political liberties in the abstract1 and of their necessity either to a country in order to guarantee to it a good administration at home and abroad1 or to individuals in order to secure their interests1 moral and material4 ,the right of ,france to these liberties1 and their opportuneness to her at this moment1 have recently been set in their clearest light1 and established in all their force on their highest stage1 in the bosom of the legislative body4 ,footnote #b ,it is solely because of its influence upon that ill of our epoch1 the complication of questions and the hesitations of opinion1 that ,i speak here of political liberty2 ,i regard it as one of the two great remedies against this ill4 ,footnote #b3 ,discourse of ,m4 ,thiers1 ,sur les liberts ncessaires et sur la libert de la presse1 in the sances of the #aath ,january1 #ahfd1 #acth ,february1 #ahff1 #cjth ,january1 #gth1 #hth1 #aeth1 #bast1 and #bbnd ,february1 #ahfh4 xl ,when all questions are agitated pell mell1 and all minds are perplexed1 the first salutary result consequent upon liberty is that it sets all opinions and all intentions in contact and in conflict4 ,at first1 and for a time1 this simultaneous invasion of so many complex facts1 and of so many diverse and contrary ideas1 does but add to the perplexity of the questions and to the confusion of minds2 but little by little1 and quickly too1 provided liberty endures1 the winnowing process produces its effect upon the questions1 and light penetrates into the understandings3 the different facts1 and problems which these facts suggest1 are set in turn in their place1 and valued only for as much as they are worth2 actors and spectators grow accustomed to them all1 and begin to form more precise conceptions of them4 ,little by little order takes the place of confusion2 opinions define and classify themselves2 and instead of the fermentation of opinions in a chaotic confusion1 we have a contest in regular form1 and upon intelligible issues1 ,i repeat that a result so salutary cannot be obtained unless upon the condition of a liberty universal1 real1 and durable2 partial or transitory1 it would serve only to aggravate the perturbation1 and to unsettle opinions still more4 xli ,political liberty has a second effect1 one1 perhaps1 still more important3 it forces all questions to submit to the test of practical experiment4 ,as long as the liberty is only in the thought1 it is vain and intemperate2 everything seems permitted1 and everything possible to those who are not responsible for the effects of an act3 man's thought1 intoxicated with itself1 runs riot in the vagueness of infinite space and time4 ,but when to liberty of thought is superadded political liberty1--when1 instead of treating questions speculatively1 they have to be virtually solved1--when men are charged as real actors to transform into facts their own opinions or those of the spectators who are looking on1--then it is that the human mind1 making its own strength the object of its reflection and examination1 is driven to the admission that it does not dispose at its own will of the world1 and that even in order to satisfy itself1 it must confine itself to the limits imposed by good sense1 by justice1 and by possibility1--then it is that it learns to govern itself1 and to hold itself responsible for its acts4 ,responsibility engenders discretion1 but is itself engendered by liberty alone4 xlii ,our own times have furnished us with three great examples of the salutary empire exercised by political liberty in furnishing an escape from the embarrassment of situations1 and in solving questions the most different--,i might say the most contrary--in their nature4 ,we have only to cast our eyes over the contemporary histories of ,england1 of the ,united ,states of ,america1 and of ,france herself1 to discover their examples and their authority as precedents4 ,from #agib to #ahah1 ,england was engaged in struggles first against the spirit of ,revolution1 and then against that termed by ,m4 ,benjamin ,constant the spirit of usurpation and of conquest4 ,with what forces and with what arms did ,england support these two formidable struggles8 ,with the forces and the arms of political liberty4 xliii ,it was by the elections1 by publicity1 by discussions continued in the midst of the energetic manifestations of all the parties1 --it was by appeals to public sentiments and opinions1--it was by setting in action all the springs of a free and representative government1 that ,england succeeded in her resistance to the most potent revolutionary and military movement which ever agitated ,europe4 ,that struggle over1 after the lapse of a few years1 during which the presiding policy prolonged its tenure of office by pursuing a pacific course1 ,england entered upon quite a different path2 sometimes under the ,government of ,liberals1 sometimes of ,conservatives1 the policy of ,reform took the place of the policy of resistance2 and since #ahbh1 it is in this path that ,england is progressing2 it is in favour of innovations1 sometimes prudent1 sometimes daring1 and sometimes1 perhaps1 improvident1 that she is exerting to the utmost all the forces of the country1 all the strength of its government4 ,political ,liberty has in turn1 and with similar efficacy1 served the cause and assured the success1 at one time of a policy of resistance1 at another of that of progress4 xliv ,the ,united ,states of ,america have been subjected to a still ruder trial4 ,their government has had to struggle against the insurrection of a notable portion of their people1 and against a civil war entered upon in the name of a principle1 popular independence4 ,the central power of the ,confederation has resisted an insurrection radically illegitimate1 which was entered upon to maintain the slavery of a part of the human race2 it defended the national existence of the ,state against the attempts which were made to dislocate it1 and which were founded upon the same motive2 and after a civil war which endured four years1 in the course of which each side was prodigal of efforts and sacrifices1 and displayed an equal energy1 the policy of resistance triumphed by the medium of a republican power1 and the liberal idea of the abolition of slavery vanquished the revolutionary idea of the right of insurrection4 xlv ,it is to political liberty1 and to the potent force of the institutions and manners founded under her influence1 that this victory of the great right of humanity was due2 and1 the war once over1 the civil rgime of ,american society resumed its action1 still stormy and perilous1 but free from every anarchical usurpation or military tyranny4 ,newer to ,france1 its principles less understood by it1 and not so well applied1 ,political ,liberty has not on these accounts remained without producing there some fruits4 ,in #ahcj and in #ahdh ,france passed through two revolutions1 one of which had been preceded by sixteen the other by eighteen years of civil liberty4 ,neither of the rgimes in operation immediately previous to each revolution sufficed to prevent it1 but they greatly changed its character and weakened its effects4 ,in #ahcj1 thanks to the instantaneous intervention of the public authorities which owed their existence to the previous rgime1 a regular government was promptly established1 and a new constitutional monarchy succeeded to that which had just fallen4 xlvi ,on the instant it set itself in opposition to the revolutionary movement which had given it birth2 but the principle of respect for the ,law and for ,liberty exercised1 as yet1 so incomplete and feeble an empire upon men's minds1 that the anarchical fermentation of opinions prolonged themselves even after the victory4 ,the doctrine of ,religious ,liberty1 in particular1 was more than once lost sight of and violated3 in ,february1 #ahca1 the funeral ceremonies in the church of ,saint ,germain l',auxerrois1 celebrated in commemoration of the ,duke de ,berri1 who had been assassinated eleven years previously1 was not allowed to be tranquilly celebrated2 a violent and riotous mob sacked the archiepiscopal palace of ,paris1 and was the cause of the church1 which had furnished them with a pretext for violence1 being closed for many months4 xlvii ,in #ahdh1 on the contrary1 during a revolutionary crisis which set men's passions far more furiously in movement1 and which was more profound than that of #ahcj1 neither the liberty of ,religion nor the peace of the churches was disturbed2 the ruling authorities were exposed to anarchy for a longer period1 but the rights of the individual were respected1 and he might affirm himself free even in the midst of the public troubles and perils4 ,thirty-four years of civil ,liberty have not disappeared with the governments which were then in force without leaving their traces2 their traditions and their examples have evidently exercised a salutary influence both upon the last ,revolution1 and upon the ,reaction which put an end to it4 ,that this influence may still surmount the great trials through which governments and people may have both to pass1 two things are necessary3 the one is1 that civil liberty should form real citizens1 that nations as well as governments should learn to make use of their rights1 and to submit to the limits imposed by their laws2 the other is1 that each country and ruling power1 at the same time that they are culling the fruits of civil liberty1 should accept its inconveniences and its perils4 xlviii ,a free government is not exempt from either vices or dangers2 it does not dispense men from the necessity of contemplating with resignation the imperfection of every work of man as well as of every human situation4 ,free institutions are not of themselves enough3 they leave room to nations for--what do ,i say8 they demand from them--great activity and much responsibility4 ,if nations strive to elude their part of responsibility and omit to exercise their share of action1 free institutions become idle words2 they are no longer anything but a picture-frame without the picture--a drama written1 not represented--in which the actors fail to assume their parts or to co-operate to produce the dnouement4 ,it is the absolute necessity of this co-operation of the public in the life of free government which gives so capital an importance to the popular beliefs1 moral and religious4 xlix ,when ,i say beliefs1 moral and religious1 ,i attach to the word a sense at once the largest and most positive3 these beliefs may have different dogmas and different internal organizations2 ,i am not one of those who believe that ,romanists are necessarily hostile to civil liberty1 or that the doctrine of the right of private judgment impels ,protestants inevitably to anarchy4 ,what is indispensable is1 that in their diversity the beliefs styled moral and religious should be beliefs really moral and religious--beliefs which recognize and attest that man is naturally moral and religious1 and which assign to man something essentially to distinguish him from the material world in the midst of which he lives1 in short a soul4 ,nations animated by such beliefs are the only ones which accept really under a free rgime a large share both of its responsibility and of its active duties3 it is only when so animated that they give consequently to civil ,liberty the potent support of which it stands in need1 for it is only then that they seriously believe in the existence of moral ,liberty4 ,the world has seen more than once how feeble and precarious an affection men feel for liberty when they no longer believe in the human soul2 and with what a tame complacency1 when they regard themselves as an ephemeral combination of material elements1 they submit to the empire of the material forces which assail them4 l ,many in these days are of opinion that it is enough in a free country if religious beliefs are freely practised by those who profess them1 and externally respected by others1 and that all which can be expected from them is an indirect influence in favour of the maintenance of order4 ,but this is a complete misapprehension of the great facts of nature and of human society4 ,there are two things which never fail finally to prove incompatible1 ,liberty and ,falsehood4 ,whether from prudence or in tenderness for the opinions of those who surround him1 a man isolated in position may preserve silence1 or may utter even a falsehood as to what he thinks and believes respecting the supreme questions concerning ,man's nature and ,man's destiny2 this is possible1 for such cases are seen2 a single isolated individual is so paltry a thing1 and passes so quickly1 that his silence or his falsehood can exercise but little influence upon the vast ocean of society in which he is plunged3 but the falsehood or the silence of a free people from feelings of respect or of prudence cannot be regarded as possible2 their opinions and their sentiments concerning the supreme questions of humanity manifest themselves necessarily1 and carry with them in such manifestation their natural and logical consequences4 li ,to engage a free people to treat with tenderness and respect1 to refrain from contesting1 perhaps even to reduce to practice1 moral and religious beliefs in which it does not itself believe1 is to give to it not only a very discreditable but a very impracticable counsel4 ,liberty in the domain of civil society calls for and infallibly induces veracity in the region of the intellect2 a free country can never escape in its public and practical life from the effectual influence of any ideas1 whether moral or immoral1 religious or irreligious1 which may happen to be fermenting and spreading themselves abroad in the minds of the people4 lii ,i leave generalities and call things by their proper names2 in all that ,i have just said respecting beliefs moral and religious1 it is of ,christianity that ,i am thinking4 ,that ,christianity on the one hand is necessary to the firm establishment of civil ,liberty amongst us1 and on the other hand is very reconcilable with the principles and the rights of modern society1 is what ,i have at heart to establish in the series of ,meditations which ,i am now publishing4 ,i do not deceive myself by imagining that it will be an easy task to effect this reconciliation1 and to restore at the present day to ,christianity1 the object of so many attacks1 that influence of which the interests most dear to us1 ,liberty as well as ,order1 stand equally in need4 ,still1 ,i believe that success is not only here possible but infallible4 ,i was speaking just now of two contrary currents which had set in in the domain of intellect as well as of ,politics1 and which lead to the formation of groups profoundly different1 ,conservatives and ,revolutionists1 ,liberals and ,radicals1 ,spiritualists and ,materialists1 ,christians and ,disbelievers4 liii ,no one of these groups really represents a dominant party in ,france3 amidst them and around them there is a scattered and hesitating population1 sometimes heedless1 sometimes anxious1 vacillating alternately between innovations and its traditions1 wearied of its agitations and of its doubt1 and not seeing clearly the quarter from which shall come that government of truth1 of liberty1 and of order1 which is to give repose to man's thoughts and life and enable him again to rise4 ,in this confused and wavering multitude there are to be found men whose ways of thinking1 whose desires1 and sometimes whose tastes1 are1 to appearance1 very decided1 but whose opinions or wills are in reality neither clear1 determined1 nor pronounced4 ,we have here a vast field open to all the winds1 accessible to every labourer1 a field ever fertile1 and1 although harassed by various and incoherent attempts1 still a field only demanding good seed to bear an abundant harvest4 ,if we sound the depths of ,french society in all directions1 and study it in all its elements and under all its aspects1 we shall find it to be as ,i have here described it4 liv ,above and below1 in all classes and parties1 amongst the powerful and the humble1 the learned and ignorant1 we shall find everywhere1 on one side groups of persons of resolute purposes devoting their activity to the service of opinions and causes the most contrary2 on the other a wavering1 vacillating crowd1 in search of a path to follow1 and impelled1 perhaps1 in the most different directions4 ,upon this population it is that we must act2 it is amongst them that there are immense and decisive conquests to make2 good aspirations1 moral and religious instincts1 those necessary preliminaries to faith in ,christ1 are by no means wanting2 but to conduct them to their goal1 to transform them into positive and effectual convictions1 we must accommodate ourselves to the general character of this population2 we must be of our time1 and speak its language2 an adequate satisfaction must be offered1 and a necessary confidence must be inspired1 before we can expect that a population1 anxious to ensure the rights and the interests of its new life1 should give in return its soul4 lv ,it is not a complacent indulgence that ,i am counselling1 it is not concessions that ,i ask from the contemporary defenders of ,christianity2 what their mission demands is1 that they should know1 that they should comprehend1 that they should love the society to which they are addressing themselves1 and that they should zealously occupy themselves with it to rally it under their banner1 not to cast it prostrate or to humiliate it under their blows4 ,not only must their work have this character1 but when it has it prospers1 and the nineteenth century has seen instances of such success4 ,i shall only cite two1 which occurred at different epochs1 and in which the modes of action were different4 ,why did ,chateaubriand and the ,father ,lacordaire exercise upon their times1 and especially upon the youth of their times1 so extraordinary an influence8 lvi ,first1 because the awakening of ,christianity which they provoked was a thing in harmony with the popular instincts1 but also because1 in the midst of the religious reaction of which they were the organs1 they each of them1 by degrees and by different processes1 respectively inspired the ,france of their days with the sentiment that they were its children and its friends1 that they shared its new aspirations1 that they accepted its political transformation1 and that it was not in order to reconstitute it on its ancient basis that they wished it to be ,christian4 ,they more than once astounded1 disquieted1 even shocked their country1 the one by his political career1 the other by his monastic zeal2 still their popularity continued1 and they influenced it1 the one by causing ,christianity to resume her place in the modern literatures of ,france1 the other notwithstanding his having re-established in ,france the monastic orders4 ,the reason of this is1 that in spite of the prejudices which it entertained against them1 and the opinions in which it differed from them1 ,france felt itself understood and honoured by them2 it rejoiced in their glory1 because it believed in their sympathy4 lvii ,men such as ,m4 de ,chateaubriand and the ,father ,lacordaire are rare2 but the spirit which animated them1 the comprehension of their age and country which distinguished them1 did not die with them1 nor are they without successors in their work of religion and patriotism4 ,beyond a doubt the ,faith of ,christ and the ,church of ,rome have in our days had no champion more eloquent and more liberal than ,m4 de ,montalembert1 and worthily the ,father ,hyacinthe occupies the pulpit from which once resounded the voice of the ,father ,lacordaire4 ,at the side of these names1 already more than once cited by me1 ,i see others start up of a different origin and with a different physiognomy1 but devoted to the same cause and to the same work4 lviii ,at the very moment at which ,i am terminating these ,meditations1 two compositions meet my eye1 published by men1 neither of whom ,i have the honour to know1 men very different in position and in ideas3 the one a ,romanist1 the other a ,protestant1 the one a great ,prelate in his ,church1 the other a simple ,pastor in his2 both firm ,christians1 and both sympathizers with the instincts1 the aspirations1 and the moral and intellectual ideas prevalent in the present state of ,french society2 both having the resolution and the ability required in order to present ,christianity to ,frenchmen under the form and in the language most proper to make it penetrate the soul4 ,the one is ,monseigneur ,darboy1 the ,archbishop of ,paris1 the other1 ,m4 ,decoppel1 pastor at ,alais4 ,the former has just addressed to the clergy of his diocese1 7,lent1 #ahfh17 ,a ,pastoral ,letter upon the ,truth of ,christianity4 ,footnote #c ,the second presented1 on the #gth of ,november in the previous year1 to the ,national ,evangelical ,conference assembled at ,nrac1 ,a ,report as to the ,actual ,requirements of ,preachers in the ,protestant ,churches4 ,footnote #d ,footnote #c3 ,this ,pastoral ,letter was published at full length in the ,gazette de ,france1 on the #beth and #bfth of ,february1 #ahfh4 ,footnote #d3 ,this report was published1 at ,toulouse1 by the ,society for the ,publication of ,religious ,books1 #ahfh4 lix ,i was struck1 in spite of their diversity1 by the substantially analogous character of these two documents1 and ,i cite them here because ,i would set in a clear light the great fact which each reveals1 that a general and contemporaneous work is now being prosecuted in order to maintain and reestablish the harmony between the ,christianity of former ages and the spirit of the present century1 a work of which the mission is to solve1 as far as the solution can rest with man1 the question whether our epoch is ,christian4 ,religion1 says the ,archbishop of ,paris1 is a fact that was contemporary with primitive man--a fact present in all ages1 ever paramount1 ever visible1 although not everywhere to the same degree4 ,never was there wanting in the world a voice to remind man of the truths of ,religion1 whether it proceeded from the tent of the ,patriarch1 the synagogue of the ,jew1 or the church of the ,catholic2 whether it was heard in the whisperings of a simple and upright conscience1 or emanated from legislators or prophet raised up by ,heaven1 or was the voice of ,god himself incarnate1 constituting ,himself the preceptor and the model of ,his creatures1 humanity was never so imperfect as that these lofty lessons did not draw forth from the generously faithful responses more or less unanimous4 lx ,heathen nations--their history proves it--have preserved something of these hopes and of the religious dogmas connected with them4 ,the grandsons of ,noah1 in dispersing in the plains of ,sennaar1 convey to the four quarters of the earth the traditions which they received from their grandsire1 and which are the common patrimony of the human race4 ,doubtless these traditions are gradually altered and deformed by the vain intermixtures of fables1 which owe their origin to the dreamers of the far ,east and to the poets of ,greece and of ,rome2 but in the eyes of the multitude1 and particularly of those who are its superiors and its governors1 the grand features of the truth are readily distinguishable4 ,thus1 the existence of ,god and the action of ,providence1 the distinction of good and of evil1 the original fall of man and the necessity for an atonement1 the immortality of the soul1 the rewards and punishments of another life2 all these doctrines1 more or less disfigured1 it is true1 live in the depths of the conscience of the people4 lxi ,even ,pagans have their souls by nature ,christian1 which testify in favour of justice and virtue2 and if ,pagans are to be condemned1 says ,st4 ,paul1 it is not for having ignored ,god1 but for having neglected to serve ,him and to glorify ,him4 ,at an era nearer to ourselves1 three centuries ago1 a sorrowful work was accomplished4 ,theological disputes led to religious wars1 and by a tearing asunder of ties which it is impossible too much to deplore1 ,europe divided itself into ,catholics and ,protestants4 ,but in spite of this fatal resolution it remained ,christian1 although not in the same degree4 ,their political charters and institutions1 their civil laws and social habits1 breathe all of ,christianity2 and the character of their baptism remains stamped upon their foreheads1 which it for ever ennobles4 lxii ,and now this fact1 which is the common work of so many generations1 made up of beliefs expressed in every kind of manner and sometimes practised even to heroism1 written in books sacred and profane1 engraved on marble and on brass1 in institutions and in laws1 in the mind and in the heart of nations--this fact1 what is its moral value1 and what its bearing8 ,are we to be told that it is purely natural--the spontaneous production of our habits1 the simple result of our instincts--and1 so to say1 an irrepressible necessity of mankind8 ,even in this case it is divine1 as divine as our nature itself1 which was directly created by ,god2 and so we must recognise and respect ,religion as a thing true1 necessary and divine4 ,it is reason1 it is common sense which tells us this4 ,but there is more than that1 my very dear brethren4 ,this fact1 as it presents itself1 so general and so constant1 is not merely the common work of the races of mankind4 ,our nature1 left to its own resources and its proper energy1 is incapable of producing it and of continuing it with a brilliancy that so endures1 and with a force which renews itself every day4 lxiii ,it is also1 it is more especially the providential and prodigious effect of a cause to which all of us are subject1 men and nations1 and which here shows itself that it is so by giving to its effects a supernatural character4 444 ,supernatural means were necessary1 that is to say1 a continual action of ,god always in relation to the varying exigencies of each different age1 and the constant requirements of humanity1 in order that the person of the ,revealer having disappeared1 and ,his direct action being no longer visible1 ,his teachings1 ,his spirit1 and ,his institutions should be maintained in the world in a manner authentic1 infallible1 and triumphant4 ,in a single word1 there was necessary a perpetual assistance of ,god1 accrediting the mission of ,his envoys by extraordinary facts--facts of a superhuman power1 miraculously protecting their work against the consequences of the weaknesses of some and of the perversity of others1 intervening with supernatural clat to enable the mission to develop itself amongst nations incessantly1 to act more and more efficaciously upon them in spite of their shortcomings and their revolts1 and to aid them and to support them in their religious and predestined course4 lxiv ,this paramount action1 this divine action1 is manifested in the highest degree in ,religion4 ,after the miracles and the prophecies of ancient times1 after the ,jewish nation1 whose history is a prophecy and one unceasing miracle1 ,christianity appears with signs so supernatural that it is impossible for us to deceive ourselves4 ,miraculous agency appears at every turn4 ,the ,saviour1 and what he affirms concerning himself1 ,his discourses1 ,his character and ,his actions1 the difficulties of ,his undertaking1 the marvels of wisdom and sanctity which ,he accomplished2 finally1 the survival and the development of ,his work through centuries2 everything here forces us to recur to the fact of the direct intervention of ,god--sole possible means of finding a satisfactory explanation of such grand results4 lxv ,the circular letter is throughout but a development of the ideas recapitulated in the passages of the text which ,i have cited--a development sometimes so prudent and so little precipitate as to assume the character of extreme circumspection1 yet always faithful to the same thought4 ,the writer indulges in no discussion purely theological1 makes no pompous display of ecclesiastical authority1 engages in no polemics with any class of dissent4 ,when ,i affirm that we have here the ,history of ,humanity1 a correct appreciation of the ideas and behaviour of man in his different stages2 ,religion in general and ,christianity in particular2 considered as a grand fact--a fact universal and permanent1 traceable everywhere and in all times1 even amongst the heathens2 a fact which survived all the divisions1 the scientific struggles1 and the civil wars which took place amongst ,christians themselves1 particularly amongst ,roman ,catholics and ,protestants1 all of whom are ,christians1 according to the writer1 by the same title1 if not in the same degree2 lxvi a fact at once human and divine--human by its accordance with man's nature1 divine by the direct and supernatural action of ,god1 of ,god the creator1 personal1 free1 whose presence and power reveal themselves1 now by the general and permanent order of events1 now by special miracles1 judged by ,him necessary for the accomplishment of ,his designs2 the ,christian faith thus associated with the whole life of the human race2 the principle of the supernatural and miraculous1 as well as the dogmas of ,christianity1 proclaimed aloud1 but without controversy1 without any appeal made to any external or exclusive dominion2 homage rendered to the right of the conscience simple and upright at the same time as to the biblical traditions and to the authority of the ,church3 when ,i affirm that all this is here1 am ,i not justified in also affirming that ,christianity is here presented under an aspect the least likely to shock opponents1 the most proper to rally the minds of the hesitating8 ,is it not in effect1 on the part of a ,prince of the ,church of ,rome1 the acceptance and pursuit of that great work of harmony between the ,christian ,religion and ,modern ,society1 which is manifesting itself in so many analogous manners and under banners so very diverse8 lxvii ,the pastor of ,alais chooses a subject more limited1 but is more vivid in thought and more incisive in manner than the ,archbishop of ,paris4 ,it is not the general history of ,christianity which he traces2 it is its actual state1 its religious bias and requirements in the nineteenth century which he observes and describes4 ,his ,report is no work of philosophy1 but is penetrated and animated throughout by a real liberalism4 ,he does not go in search of polemics3 on the contrary1 he recommends little use to be made of them2 but when the occasion or the necessity is there1 he does not evade it1 but enters upon the arena unhesitatingly and without compromise4 ,there are1 he says1 exigencies upon which all men concur in insisting1 and these depend upon the general state of men's minds in our epoch4 ,each age has its ideas and its sentiments1 its prejudices and its doubts1 a certain moral physiognomy which the preacher encounters more or less in our congregations4 lxviii ,our auditors1 perhaps we are too prone to forget this1 do not live isolated from their contemporaries2 they are of their time1 they inhale its intellectual and moral atmosphere1 they follow its movement1 they share in its shortcomings and in its aspirations4 ,we may indeed affirm that now more than ever men are of their time1 thanks to the rapidity with which ideas circulate and diffuse themselves4 ,although men read less in ,france than in many other countries1 they read more than they did formerly4 ,in ,france1 for good or for evil1 there are influences at work which have to be taken into account4 ,one of our first duties1 as preachers1 is1 then1 to know our age1 to be attentive to every symptom which can reveal to us its spirit and its tendencies4 ,to neglect this duty is to expose ourselves to the risk of addressing1 so to say1 fictitious auditors1 that is1 men who neither have the ideas nor feel the sentiments1 nor think of the objections which we attribute to them4 lxix ,in the midst of the discordant voices heard now-a-days1 it is easy1 alas6 to distinguish one high above the others--it is that of incredulity2 not as in the last century1 marked by a raillery or levity1 but by an earnestness and a high tone1 occasionally even by a certain melancholy1 and being for these very reasons more seductive4 ,it is in favour of the progress of liberty1 of the dignity of the soul1 that is to say1 of everything which is noblest and most sacred to man1 that that voice addresses our generation1 and invites it to bid for ever adieu to the faith of its infancy4 ,these sad words1 which pretend to toll the knell of ,christianity1 express but too faithfully the incredulity dominant now-a-days in the elevated regions of science and of thought1 whence it is diffused over all the classes of society4 ,it is impossible to deceive ourselves2 we are now in presence of a fresh and a great conspiracy1 not only against the faith of ,christ1 but against every religious faith4 ,the leaders of incredulity proclaim aloud that the cycle of ,religions is definitively closed1 and that we have1 once for all1 to efface ,god from our thoughts and from our lives1 just as if ,god were an obsolete hypothesis1 with which modern science has nothing to do4 lxx ,this ,atheism is so much the more dangerous and contagious in these days1 that it does not appear in the shape of a mere revolt or falling off of the mind1 but as a generous doctrine1 having for objects the enfranchisement of nations1 and their delivery from the yoke of priests and of tyrants1 who1 it is supposed1 are combined in order to prey upon them4 ,one of its principal adepts1 ,guillaume ,marr1 exclaimed1 a few years ago3 ',the faith in a personal and living ,god is the origin1 the fundamental cause of the miserable state of society in which we exist4 ,the idea of a ,god is the key-stone of the arch of the decayed and worm-eaten civilization4 ,away with it6 ,the true road to liberty1 equality1 and happiness1 is ,atheism4 ,there is no hope for the earth so long as man shall cling to heaven by even a thread4 444 ,let nothing henceforth stand in the way of the spontaneous action of the human understanding4 ,let us teach man that he has no other ,god than himself1 that he is himself the alpha and omega of all things1 the being paramount1 and the reality most real4' lxxi ,thus contemporary ,atheism seeks to conquer the masses by their weak side1 by their democratical and liberal instincts4 ,this is not a mere system2 it is a powerful party which has its lecturers1 its newspapers1 its associations1 its congresses1 and its ,propaganda4 ,a man of earnest meaning1 ,m4 ,pearson1 estimated at #fdj1jjj copies the number of publications avowedly atheistical which appeared in ,england in the course of the year #ahea4 ,and it is not only in ,england that ,atheism is raising its head1 it is in ,france1 ,germany1 and ,italy4 ,far from me the idea of setting in the same category our ,radical ,reformers1 and the disbelievers and free thinkers who seek to destroy every faith and all religion6 ,let us hope that the former never will go so far as these4 lxxii ,but1 definitively1 they openly extend to them a sympathizing hand2 they greet their writings with marked favour2 and1 say it we must1 when they go so far as to deny the supernatural1 stripping thus ,christianity of every divine authority1 or when merely they proclaim the unimportance of dogmas to a religious life1 they are making common cause with ,atheism1 and working1 without suspecting that they are doing so1 at the same work of destruction4 ,but although we have all this to deplore1 how many subjects have we for hope and encouragement6 ,moments of crisis are the most painful1 but they are not the least fruitful4 ,sow we do1 indeed1 with tears2 what matters1 after all1 that no hymn of triumph attends our harvest4 ,the thing essential is that we sow4 ,behold1 how magnificently the ground is in many respects prepared for the ,christian preacher4 ,the mere fact that religious questions are the fashion of the day gives us an immense advantage1 and one by which we may profit4 ,is it not very encouraging to know that in discussing such subjects we are answering to serious demands of general interest8 lxxiii ,the contest which divides our churches has been certainly hurtful to the growth of piety2 but has it not also shaken many a soul from its torpor8 ,has it not impelled many persons to search after the truth who were before indifferent8 ,is it not better to have to address ourselves to souls troubled if only by doubt1 than to souls plunged in the heavy torpor of indifference8 ,after all1 our age has its grandeur4 ,let us not underrate it3 we are not to imitate that ready and vulgar pessimism1 which sees everything dressed in the livery of woe1 and which delights to note the vices and shortcomings of an epoch1 without admitting the virtue to which it can lay just claim1 or its generous aspirations4 ,it is certain that1 even where rejecting the dogmas of ,christianity1 our age has made immense progress in the social application of ,christianity1 and especially in philanthropy4 ,the age passionately loves liberty1 equality1 tolerance1 and peace2 it insists upon respect for all consciences2 it dreams of the union of all nations2 it occupies itself with the material happiness and the amelioration of all classes in society4 lxxiv ,not so rich as other ages in men of a high temper of character1 men really original1 our age has nevertheless contributed1 more than others1 perhaps1 to the general awakening of men to their rights as individuals1 and of self-government1 and consequently1 to the sentiment of personal responsibility4 ,here assuredly we have noble tendencies2 precious points d'appui for the preachers of the ,gospel4 ,let us feel no dread for this breath of ,liberalism which is passing over nations4 ,liberty rightly understood leads to the ,gospel1 as the ,gospel leads to ,liberty4 ,and now what have we to say to this age so tormented8 ,what ought we to say to these souls who have confidence in us1 and who demand from us ,light and ,peace8 ,how often has this question overwhelmed the ,gospel preacher with the sentiment of his weakness and insufficiency8 ,how often has it made him prostrate himself in his agony at the feet of the ,lord8 ,how often torn from him the cry of the prophet--',ah1 ,lord ,god1 behold ,i cannot speak1 for ,i am a child6' lxxv ,let ,christian ,science proceed with its work6 ,she has1 assuredly1 much to do in these days4 ,in the teeth of the affirmations of ,positivism and of ,materialism let her make her own affirmation4 ,hers the task to show that the biblical dogmas respecting the origin of the world and of man are infinitely more rational and more scientific than all that in these days men seek to substitute in their place4 ,hers the task to prove that the supernatural1 far from being antagonistic to the science of ,nature1 is as much called for by ,nature as by the sentiment of ,religion itself4 ,let ,christian ,philosophy also accomplish her task4 ,hers it is to establish the profound harmony which exists between ,reason and ,faith2 hers to show that the systems by which men seek to replace ,christianity present to the thought as many difficulties1 if not more1 than any which follow from the evangelical dogmas4 lxxvi ,hers the task to lay the foundation of a new philosophy with the materials furnished by ,revelation1 and by the ,christian ,conscience4 ,let ,christian ,literature equally accomplish her mission6 ,let her spread the truth by the means1 infinitely diverse1 which the progress of the press has placed at her disposal6 ,let her make herself popular2 let her put on all forms to combat error2 let her oppose ,journal to ,journal1 ,review to ,review2 and1 if it must be so1 ,novel to ,novel6 ,let her make herself everything to everybody2 and follow the adversary upon every field1 and seize all his arms4 ,and for us ,preachers1 what have we to do8 ,what this day is our special mission in the special position in which ,god has placed us8 lxxvii ,having come to this1 the particular object of his study and of his ,report1 made by him to the ,evangelical ,conference of ,nrac1 ,m4 ,decoppel enters1 as to the ,mission and actual work of the preachers1 into details which although they are full of life1 and evince the greatest practical knowledge1 apply more especially to the ,protestant ,churches of ,france4 ,finally1 he reverts to the general question of ,christianity by a concluding remark of general application1 but announcing a truth of both practical and urgent importance for all the ,christian ,churches4 ,what is most essential1 says he1 is not so much to defend ,christianity1 as to present it to our age1 not as an enemy that comes to anathematize and to combat it1 but as a friend that comes to raise it and save it4 ,beyond a doubt1 we must not fear to lay stress upon ,christian ,truth1 and to present it with its most salient angles and its austerest face in advance2 but with anathemas and declamations we must have done4 ,what most is necessary is1 that we address a word of sympathy to the ,age2 we must show to it ,christianity1 ,i do not say so much in the aspect fitted to inspire love as in the aspect in which it is loving4 lxxviii ,regard ,st4 ,paul at ,athens4 ,he does not consider himself bound to confound the idolatry of his auditors2 he does quite the contrary2 he knows how to find in their idolatry itself a point d'appui for the ,gospel4 ,let us do as he did2 let us strive1 we also1 to find these points d'appui1 those keystones upon which the edifice of faith may in these days be made safely repose4 ,it is more especially true in our country that ,christianity is not known for what it is1 and the remark applies not only to the lower classes of society1 but even to the educated classes1 so that when they attack ,christianity it is1 as it were1 an attack upon a thing unknown4 ,the ,age is liberal3 let us show it that the ,gospel is still more liberal1 and that its liberality is of the genuine kind4 ,the ,age loves science1 and demands a rational faith3 let us show it that faith is sovereign reason1 and cannot but profit by every conquest achieved by science4 lxxix ,the ,age aspires to make progress in every branch of human activity3 let us show it that all genuine progress is contained in the principles of the ,gospel4 ,i make no more citations4 ,i neither examine nor discuss any of the particular ideas1 or phrases1 or words which these two documents contain3 ,i would solely draw attention to their main and common characteristic4 ,these writings are not only ,christian1 but uncompromisingly ,christian2 at the same time1 they aim at leading ,christianity and ,modern ,society to understand each other1 to accept each other mutually and freely1 and to exercise1 the one upon the other1 such an action as shall be salutary to both4 ,the authors are not authors1 or orators1 or amateurs in religion1 or in philosophy2 they are ecclesiastics by profession1 belonging to different churches who are entering upon this war1 regarded by each both as legitimate and necessary2 who are labouring to draw to it the populations placed naturally under their influence2 and are hoping1 without doubt1 that their efforts will be successful4 lxxx ,i think that they are right both in their hope and their endeavours1 and knowing that outside of the groups of persons pledged to particular opinions or sides in the contests of religion and politics1 there exists a vast population1 uncertain and vacillating1 now indifferent1 now anxious upon the subject of religious questions and the relations of ,christianity to ,modern ,society1 ,i think that this population1 which is1 in effect1 ,france1 is capable of feeling religious emotions1 of being informed and brought back to the great beliefs of ,christianity as well as to a sentiment of the natural and necessary agreement between ,christian faith and the principles of public ,liberty4 ,the profound desire which ,i feel1 and the hope from which ,i will not part1 of this great result1 have induced me to give still greater development to these ,meditations1 and to risk them amidst the events1 the issue of which is obscure1 which are now crowding upon each other1 and amidst questions1 passions1 and interests1 to which such subjects are all very strange4 lxxxi ,the more ,i consider the matter1 the more ,i feel persuaded that ,france is not so little busied as she would appear to be with religious questions1 and that in the midst of her languor and fluctuations she has a secret sentiment of their imperishable grandeur and their practical importance4 ,if this1 as ,i think1 is1 at bottom1 the public disposition1 ,i may consider myself well entitled to command attentive listeners4 ,in the course of my long life1 ,i have seen much and have done somewhat4 ,i have taken part in the world's affairs4 ,i have quitted it1 and am no longer anything more than a spectator4 ,for twenty years ,i have been essaying my tomb4 ,i have gone down into it living1 and have made no effort to issue forth again4 ,not only have ,i experience of the world1 but nothing attaches me to it4 lxxxii ,could ,i be still of some service to the two great causes1 in my eyes but one1 the cause of ,christian ,faith in men's souls1 and the cause of ,political ,liberty in my country1 ,i should await with thankfulness1 in the bosom of my seclusion1 the dawn of that eternal day which fools call death1 says ,petrarch3-- ,quel che morir chiaman gli sciocchi4 ,guizot4 ,paris1 ,april1 #ahfh4 lxxxiii ,contents4 ,page ,preface v ,i4 -- ,christianity and ,liberty #a ,,ii4 -- ,christianity and ,morality #eb ,,iii4 -- ,christianity and ,science #ic ,,iv4 -- ,christian ,ignorance #abh ,v4 -- ,christian ,faith #aec ,,vi4 -- ,christian ,life #aij ,appendix4 -- ,observations upon the ,work called ,ecce ,homo #bac lxxxiv #a ,meditations ,on ,christianity in its ,relation ,to ,the ,actual ,state ,of ,society ,and ,opinion4 ,first ,meditation4 ,christianity ,and ,liberty4 ,the passionate longing both of men and of nations in these days for ,liberty and ,equality1 is a fact not only evident but dominant in modern civilization4 ,sometimes this desire has for its object ,liberty only1 sometimes ,equality only1 sometimes both simultaneously4 ,sometimes the desire is at once intelligent and respectable1 sometimes nothing more than a blind and ill-regulated impulse4 #b ,sometimes the feeling displays itself in revolutions1 in which it develops itself in all its intensity2 sometimes it fades away1 and subsides amidst the reactions which those very revolutions have1 by their calamities and excesses1 called forth4 ,at one time men vaunt that the problem is solved1 at another they are discouraged1 and pronounce it to be insolvable4 ,but whether they vaunt or are discouraged1 the passionate desire continues to exist1 and the problem ever reappears4 ,such a state of opinion may be applauded or may be deplored2 it may have incense showered upon it or it may be visited with malediction2 but to escape from it is an impossibility4 ,it remains a trial which humanity is condemned to pass through2 it furnishes it with a task which it is bound to perform4 ,but it is not only this fact and this problem with which our epoch has to deal2 at their side there is another not less important1 the solution of which also falls within the mission of the age4 ,many of the friends of ,liberty and ,equality regard ,christianity1 and especially ,roman ,catholicism1 as their greatest enemy4 #c ,in his moments of perverseness and angry waywardness1 ,voltaire so treated it4 ,thousands of men1 not only men of intelligence1 but a multitude of others1 obscure enough1 still not deficient in activity1 speak and act under the empire of the same idea2 at one time brutal1 at another hypocritical1 the anti-,christian sentiment is at once ardent and far-spread4 ,is it well founded8 ,is ,christianity1 after all1 the obstacle to the progress of ,liberty and of ,equality8 ,or is it not1 on the contrary1 rather true that both already owe much to ,christianity1 and that both require its sanction and its support to ensure their legitimate and durable triumph8 ,the great question of the #aith century remains in suspense1 and social order in peril1 so long as that other question is not solved4 ,i meet at every step in the ,gospels words such as these--,what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world1 and lose his own soul8 or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul8 ,footnote #e ,footnote #e3 ,mark viii4 #cf1 #cg4 #d ,fear not them which kill the body1 but are not able to kill the soul2 but rather fear ,him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell4 ,footnote #f ,go ye into all the world1 and preach the ,gospel to every creature4 ,footnote #g ,footnote #f3 ,matthew x4 #bh4 ,footnote #g3 ,mark xvi4 #ae4 ,the dominant idea in the ,gospels is the infinite worth of the human soul1 of every human soul4 ,jesus came to influence and to save souls1 all souls without exception1--souls of the powerful and of the obscure1 of the rich and poor1 learned and ignorant1 happy or afflicted4 ,the condition and the salvation of souls is the foundation of the ,christian ,religion4 ,the human soul is no mere word1 no mere abstraction1 no mere hypothesis2 the soul is the human being himself1 the individual being who feels and thinks1 enjoys and suffers1 wills and acts1 who observes and knows himself1 in the complexity of his actual condition1 and to whom his destiny in remote futurity is an object of present solicitude4 #e ,to those who confound soul and body1 and see in man only a product1 an ephemeral form of matter1 ,i have nothing to say4 ,what have they to do with the words of the ,gospel--with the immense value attached to a fugitive shadow1 deceived according to them as to its own reality1 and only appearing to lose itself forthwith in nonentity8 ,it is ,spiritualists and ,christians who speak with propriety when they discourse in grand and elevated tones of the human soul2 and if they so discourse it is because they see in every human soul a true being1 a real and individual man1 with the grandeur of man's nature and of man's destiny4 ,what constitutes the essential worth of the human being1 of every human being1 is1 that he is free to act or not to act1 and that he is morally responsible how he acts4 ,man believes essentially in the distinction of moral good and evil and in the obligation which this entails2 he believes that he is at liberty to act up to it or not as he pleases1 that he is responsible for the use which he makes of his liberty4 ,it is because such is the nature of man1 whether his own conduct is in conformity to it or not1 that the ,gospel exalts man so nigh1 and accords to him so sublime a destiny4 #f ,philosophers1 ,christian and anti-,christian too1 have made great efforts1 in my opinion ill-judged efforts1 to solve the problem of man's liberty in relation to ,god's prescience2 the ,gospel recognises and proclaims human liberty without troubling itself about the problem of philosophy4 ,the ,christian ,religion entirely rests upon the fact which it assumes1 that man is a free and responsible being4 ,man's liberty is the point from which ,christianity starts in all that she says to humanity1 and in every command that she gives to humanity4 ,christianity1 then1 is essentially liberal1 in favour of all men1 and of them as men2 by her elementary and fundamental idea of man's nature1 she founds his liberty upon the most solid basis and the broadest right that human thought can conceive4 ,the most daring of the writers on public law never carried to so high a point as the ,gospel has done either the native universal dignity of man's nature or the consequences derivable from this fact4 #g ,christianity does not confine itself to this2--after having laid down the principle of ,liberty1 it gives to it the practical sanction which ,liberty requires3 it establishes the right of resistance to oppression4 ,the priests and the chiefs of the synagogue at ,jerusalem commanded them 7,peter and ,john7 not to speak at all1 nor teach in the name of ,jesus2 but ,peter and ,john answered them and said unto them1 ,whether it be right in the sight of ,god to hearken unto you more than unto ,god1 judge ye4 ,footnote #h ,footnote #h3 ,acts iv4 #ah1ai4 ,having been again summoned before the high priest1 who says to them1 ,did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name8 ,peter replies1 ,we ought to obey ,god rather than men4 ,footnote #i ,footnote #i3 ,acts v4 #bh1 #bi4 ,the multitude joins its acts of violence to the injunctions of the authorities4 ,stephen1 the first ,christian ,deacon1 avows his faith before the multitude1 and falls the first martyr to the principle of ,christian resistance4 ,footnote #aj ,footnote #aj3 ,acts vii4 #ei4 #h ,the most zealous of the persecutors of ,stephen1 ,paul of ,tarsus1 who had become ,christian1 is1 in his turn1 stoned and left for dead by the multitude of ,lystra and ,iconium2 in his turn he resists the multitude1 and returns again to ,lystra and ,iconium1 confirming the souls of the disciples1 and exhorting them to continue in the faith1 and representing to them that it is by much tribulation that we must enter into the kingdom of ,god4 ,footnote #aa ,resistance to oppression is an essential principle of ,christianity1 and the definitive guarantee of ,liberty4 ,footnote #aa3 ,acts xiv4 #ai1 #bb4 ,it is the peculiar characteristic and honour of ,christianity that it derives both the right of resistance to oppression1 and the principle of even ,liberty itself1 not from the temporal and transitory interests of earthly life1 but from the moral and eternal interests of the soul4 ,at the same time that it affirms the principle of ,liberty and proclaims its consequences1 it equally affirms and proclaims the principles and rights of ,authority4 #i ,i have referred to this upon another occasion2 when ,jesus made that reply to the question of the ,pharisees whether it was permissible or not to pay tribute to ,caesar1 ,render unto ,csar the things which are ,csar's2 and unto ,god the things that are ,god's1 he established in principle the distinction between the religious life and civil life1 between the ,church and the ,state4 ,csar has no right to intervene with his laws and material force1 between the soul of man and his ,god2 and on his side the faithful worshipper of ,god is bound to fulfil towards ,csar the duties which the necessity of the maintenance of public order imposes4 ,footnote #ab ,footnote #ab3 ,meditations upon the ,essence of ,christianity1 p4 #bgh4 ,london3 #ahfd4 ,it was by affirming and defending religious liberty1 the highest and proudest of all liberties1 that modern civilization commenced4 ,the principle and right of liberty once deeply rooted in the soul1 the flower and the fruit of this potent germ have strongly developed themselves in the course of ages1 and expanded with more or less of promptitude and fecundity1 according as the seasons were favourable or unfavourable2 but upon the whole1 history has confirmed the ,gospel4 #aj ,of all the ,religions which have appeared in the world1 ,christianity is the only one which conquered by means of ,liberty1 and which was founded upon ,liberty2 the only one which has been able to assume and keep her place amidst the greatest diversity of social institutions1 and which in them all1 as exigencies required1 accepted and supported at one time authority1 at another liberty4 ,even if ,i wished1 it would be impossible for me in this place to refer to more than the general and evident facts of history4 ,if ,i remount to the origins of the different religions1 ,i observe that ,christianity was the only one which did not appeal to force2 she was the only one which did not employ force to issue forth from her cradle and to grow4 ,during more than three centuries she alone combated and conquered her adversaries by vanquishing souls in the name of truth and by the arms of truth4 #aa ,if ,i interrogate the results1 ,i find that three great religious establishments--,paganism1 ,bouddhism1 and ,mahometanism--have held1 and1 with ,christianity1 still hold a great place in the world4 ,paganism1 after some fair but brief moments of progress1 attained to nothing but the anarchy of the ,greek and ,roman ,republics1 and the despotic decay of the ,roman ,empire4 ,bouddhism did nothing but generate the fantastic superstitions and the enervating abstractions of a pantheistic mythology1 amidst the immobility of the castes and the stagnation of absolute power4 ,mahometanism carried into every quarter to which she penetrated only the yoke of force1 the incurable animosity of races1 the sterility of conquest4 ,christianity alone accepted the spirit of ,liberty and ,progress where she found it already existing in the soul of man and in human societies1 and where she did not find it she awakened it4 ,let me not be accused of forgetting that since the triumph of ,christianity1 oppressive tyrannies and odious persecutions have occurred in1 different ,christian societies in the name of the ,christian faith4 #ab ,no one more than ,i deplores and detests such facts4 ,they were the work of the sins of men1 not of the principles of ,christianity1 which1 far from authorising them1 condemns them4 ,water from the purest source is changed and polluted in its course over the surface of the earth1 after it has been exposed to the stormy atmospheric influences4 ,in creating man free1 ,god left him a part and a share in his own destiny and in the events which determine it4 ,christianity1 emanating from ,god1 marks out and combats uncompromisingly all evil desires and bad motives1 all the excesses and all the weaknesses of man's selfishness3 she has not destroyed them2 she did not at once restore innocence to man nor make him a present of virtue3 he is bound to labour in the work of his own control and of his own reformation2 the ,gospel is a ,mirror in which1 if he looks at himself1 he may1 it is true1 behold the stains upon his soul and upon his life1 but those stains proceed from himself1 and not from the mirror1 which only enables him to see them4 #ac ,when we lay to the charge of the ,christian ,religion the fatal errors1 the unlawful passions and actions which have appeared under its name in the history of ,christian ,societies1 we acquit without reason men1 whether princes or nations1 learned or ignorant1 of the responsibility that weighs upon them2 we ignore what ,christianity commands and what she forbids2 we demand from her that which she has not promised4 ,of history thus far4 ,i now confine myself to the present epoch and to the problems which the actual relations of ,christianity to ,liberty present4 ,what are the principal obstacles at the present day in the way of the establishment of a real and lasting ,liberty1 and what are the means within our reach to surmount them8 ,in other terms1 which express my meaning more exactly1 ,what are our infirmities to retard1 what our strength to accelerate1 the establishment of a free government8 ,is ,christianity an obstacle to us in this work or a help1 an ill or a remedy8 #ad ,it is with a profound feeling of sadness that ,i see eminent men1 men truly ,christian1 incessantly depicting in the most sombre colours society as it now exists1 and representing it as only a prey to political and moral diseases now acute1 now indolent1 as deprived thereby of all title to respect1 and of all hope of amelioration1 incapacitated at one time for orderly life1 at another for ,liberty4 ,as for straightforward attacks upon our vices and failings1 our errors and shortcomings1 ,i complain not of them however violent3 nations as well as individuals require to be often admonished frankly and with severity2 the rudeness which shakes them is more salutary than the indulgence which cradles them to sleep4 ,but what ,i regret and deplore in the attitude and in the language of these worthy ,christian ,censors1 is not that they scrupulously and unsparingly expose prevalent evils1 our bad propensities1 and our foolish pretensions2 but that they ignore what good there is in us1 the progress which we make1 and the just and salutary results to which we are tending4 #ae ,the simultaneous presence1 the profound intermixture1 of good and evil1 of virtue and vice1 of wisdom and folly1 is the chronic sore of man and of human societies2 this is no new fact1 no evil which we are the first to endure and for which we are the first to be responsible2 it is the old condition of the world as it appears from the constant testimony of ,history2 each of its ages has incurred and has merited reproaches1 not the same1 but at least as serious as those laid to the charge of our age2 and if we were suddenly transported to any other epoch of the past1 it matters not to which1 ,i do not hesitate to affirm that we would not willingly accept that epoch in exchange for our own1 nor should we even very much like to contemplate the spectacle4 ,severity is well1 but justice is due to different periods and different conditions of society4 ,in the last hundred years we have gained more1 both in morality and in common sense1 than we have ever forgotten4 #af ,and here ,i am met by a question respecting which ,i will explain my view unreservedly and at once4 ,society in ,france has reached its actual condition only by a progressive effort1 an advance more or less perceptible1 more or less rapid1 but not without numerous interruptions and vicissitudes2 it has sought to escape in turn from the feudal system1 from the pretensions and the selfish contests of the great nobles1 from the predominance of the ,court1 from arbitrariness1 from the improvidence and caprices of absolute power4 ,national unity1 civil equality1 and political liberty have been1 throughout the whole course of our history1 the objects of our aim and desire4 ,our greatest thinkers1 the actors on the stage of our ,politics1 the nation itself1 with its tendency dimly marked1 yet powerful1 have constantly proceeded in this direction and towards this object4 ,the ,revolution of #aghi was the most violent and most serious explosion of this incessant travail of ,france4 ,was it pregnant with fruitful consequences1 or is the issue to be now deplored8 ,france believed that she had then gained a great victory1 not only for herself1 but for all mankind4 ,did she deceive herself8 #ag ,have we been for so many centuries proceeding in a good road or in a bad road1 towards success or towards delusion8 ,are we progressing1 or are we declining8 ,it is a question upon which eminent men1 and men whose opinions are entitled to every respect1 are1 at the present day1 not all of the same opinion2 for whereas some persist in a cry of triumph1 others give but utterance to gloomy and alarming prognostics4 ,i have some right to say that no one is more struck1 more shocked than ,i am by the crimes1 faults1 errors1 and follies both of opinion and action generated by this ,french ,revolution2 ,i never hesitated openly to characterise them as1 in my opinion1 they deserved2 indeed the severe contests through which ,i have had to pass in my public career may1 perhaps1 in some degree have originated in my sincerity upon this subject4 ,i had to confront many prejudices1 and to wound much self-love4 ,i regret no sentiment which ,i felt1 and ,i retract no language which ,i used4 #ah ,but in spite of the strong anti-revolutionary opinions which have been attributed to me1 ,i was and still am convinced that1 upon the whole1 whatever the evil which that ,revolution occasioned1 and is occasioning1 it nevertheless1 served the good cause both of the nation and of ,humanity2 ,i believe that ,france and the world will gain by it more than they suffered1 or are suffering1 and that we are1 in the midst of all our trials1 still in an ra of progress1 and not at the commencement of a decline4 ,i derive motives for my ,optimism upon this subject in the sphere of ideas as well as in that of facts4 ,theoretically the principles of #aghi contain a large share of truth1 truth pregnant of consequence1 truth superior to the share of error which they contain1 and which is1 nevertheless1 large4 ,historically the tendency and the travail of opinion which have been for centuries a source to ,france of incontestable progress in the way of justice1 liberty1 and social happiness1 cannot have become1 all of a sudden1 a cause of decline4 #ai ,practically1 in spite of all its ills and all its shortcomings1 the present century has no cause to dread a comparison with past centuries4 ,there never has been any epoch in the history of ,french society in which it would have bettered its condition by halting1 or to which it should wish to return4 ,i revert to my question2 what perils1 what obstacles1 do our social institutions and our manners oppose to the establishment of ,liberty with effect and upon a lasting footing8 ,is ,christianity of a nature to stand us in good stead1 or to hurt us in such a work8 ,all earnest men1 all clear-sighted men1 at the present day1 whether they are ,conservatives or ,liberals1 ,christians or ,free-thinkers1 ,catholics or ,protestants1 are unanimous in deploring the preponderance of material interests1 the thirst for physical and vulgar pleasures1 and the habits of selfishness and effeminacy which they generate4 #bj ,they are right2 we have indeed here an evil greater1 when we consider what is the mission of our epoch1 than perhaps even those believe it to be who deplore it4 ,the ,emperor ,napoleon said1 in a phrase marked by all the clear and forcible colouring of his habitual language3--,i do not fear conspirators who rise at ten o'clock in the morning1 and who cannot do without a fresh shirt4 ,footnote #ac ,footnote #ac3 ,je ne crains pas les conspirateurs qui se lvent dix heures du matin1 et qui ont besoin de mettre une chemise blanche4 ,there is no question of conspirators here1 and for the soul to be vigorous it is not essential that the care of the person should be neglected4 ,what concerns those who would be free1 whether individuals or nations1 is that they should not have their attention essentially absorbed by considerations affecting merely their material prosperity1 or their petty personal comforts2 they have especially to guard themselves against selfishness and ,epicureanism4 ,whether his tastes be refined or gross1 the ,epicurean does not readily resign himself to make either effort or sacrifice2 but he is not difficult to content if he is permitted to enjoy his pleasures and his repose4 #ba ,selfishness1 even where it is sober and gentle1 is a cold and sterile passion1 it owes its empire to its success in enervating and lowering a man's nature4 ,liberty calls for a character of more strength1 higher aspirations1 greater power of resistance2 a state of soul offering freer action to moral sympathy and disinterested motives4 ,it is precisely here that ,christianity can supply modern society with that of which it stands in need4 ,christianity teaches all men1 the great and the small1 the rich and the poor1 not to devote all their lives to material things2 she summons them to more elevated regions1 and whilst she inspires them with a purer ambition1 she opens to them a fairer hope even of happiness4 ,the ,christian1 whether his station be powerful or humble1 and his aspirations ambitious or modest1 can never find an exclusive object of attention1 or an exclusive motive to action1 even in that principle of interest which politicians1 using the word in its best sense1 vainly imagine to be a panacea4 #bb ,man1 whether towards his fellow-creatures1 or on his own account1 has another object to pursue1 other laws to accomplish1 other sentiments to display and to satisfy3 he can neither be an ,epicurean nor an ,egotist4 ,this is the first and the greatest of the services which ,christianity can and does render in our days to every society which aspires to ,liberty4 ,i proceed to mention a second service4 ,there is no liberty without a large measure of license4 ,they are dreamers who hope to enjoy the benefits of the one without incurring the risk1 and undergoing the inconveniences1 of the other4 ,they1 too1 are dreamers who believe that license will ever be effectually repressed by penalties1 courts of justice1 or measures of ,police4 ,two things are certain2 the one is1 that it is idle to attempt to repress license completely in a free country2 the other1 that the moral and preventive forces of society itself are alone to be relied upon1 both by governments and nations1 to enable them to support that license which they cannot suppress4 #bc ,christianity is the most efficacious1 the most popular1 and the most approved of these forces4 ,it is efficacious against license for two reasons and in two ways4 ,in principle1 ,christianity maintains to ,authority its right and its rank intact2 without humbling it before ,liberty1 ,christianity yet recognises the rights of ,liberty1 and demands that these should be admitted2 in fact ,christianity inspires men with a sentiment1 with which authority cannot dispense1 respect4 ,the absence of respect is the most serious danger to which authority is exposed2 authority suffers much more from insult than from attack2 it is precisely to the task of systematically insulting and debasing authority1 that its most ardent opponents1 in our days1 address themselves with most passion and with most art4 ,there exist licentious1 turbulent1 and insolent persons in ,christian societies1 just as such exist in other societies2 but ,christian principles and ,christian habits make and maintain friends to ,order in the great mass of the people as well as in the higher classes1 friends to order1 who respect order both in law and in morals1 men whom licentious and insulting2 conduct shock as much as they terrify1 and who1 equally free1 appeal in their own favour to the maxims and the arms of ,liberty4 #bd ,history supplies us on this subject with conclusive examples4 ,the nations of ,christendom are the only nations to which license has not brought as a final consequence anarchy and despotism1--the only nations which1 although they have on different occasions and by salutary reactions experienced the excesses both of power and of liberty1 have not succumbed under them morally and politically4 ,neither the states of ,pagan ,antiquity nor those of the ,east1 whether ,bouddhist or ,mussulman1 have stood such trials2 these have had their days of healthy vigour and even of glory2 but when the evils which license or tyranny generated have once come upon them1 they have fallen irretrievably1 and all their subsequent history has merely been that of a decline more or less rapid1 more or less stormy1 more or less apathetic4 #be ,it is the honour of the ,christian ,religion that it has within it that which can cure states of their maladies1 as well as individuals of their errors2 and that1 by the belief which it generates1 and the sentiments which it inspires1 it has already more than once furnished1 sometimes to the friends of ,order1 and sometimes to the friends of ,liberty1 a refuge in their reverses1 as well as strength to recover lost ground4 ,it would be as imprudent as ungrateful in these days for the friends of ,liberty to ignore this grand fact and its salutary admonishment4 ,they are called to a work much more difficult than any that they have hitherto had to accomplish3 their task is no longer merely to search after guarantees for ,liberty against the encroachments of pre-existent ,power1 or the accidental and transient ebullition of ,license4 ,they have to reconcile the normal and constitutional dominion of ,democracy with ,liberty1 and with the regular action and permanence of ,liberty4 #bf ,until modern times1 political liberty1 wherever it has existed1 has been the result of the simultaneous presence and of the conflict of different forces of society1 no one of them strong enough to rule alone1 but each too weak to resist efficaciously the attack of the others2 at one time the ,crown1 at another the ,aristocracy1 at another the ,church1 each previously powerful and independent1 have lived side by side with ,democracy when ,democracy has had limits and restrictions imposed upon its power and success2 but at the present day1 there are amongst us no distinct surviving influences which are powerful enough to play a similar part in society and in the government4 ,the ,crown1 the ,aristocracy1 and the ,church are no longer anything but frail wrecks of the past1 or instruments created by the ,democracy1 and indebted to it for a borrowed force4 ,is this to be henceforth the permanent condition of human society1 or is it only a phase1 more or less transitory1 of a series of ages and of revolutions1 which fresh ages and fresh revolutions will hereafter profoundly modify8 ,futurity must decide4 ,in any case1 it is only under the exclusive dominion of a single force1 ,democracy1 that in these days free institutions can be founded4 #bg ,that every dominant force when single is tempted to commit abuses and to become tyrannical1 is a truth so much in accordance with the lessons of experience and with the conclusions of reason1 that no pains need be taken to insist upon it4 ,not to speak of the dangerous acclivity upon which ,democracy1 in common with all other forces1 is placed1 it has peculiar characteristics which are not of a nature to set the friends of ,liberty at their ease4 ,democracy derives its origin and power from the right of every human will1 and from the majority of human wills4 ,truth and error press so very closely upon each other in this system1 that ,liberty is placed in a position of great peril4 ,man's volition is entitled to every respect2 but it is not all its law to itself1 nor is it in itself essentially a law at all3 it is bound to another law1 which does not emanate from itself1 and which comes to it from a higher source than man1 and which it is as unable to abrogate as it was to create4 #bh ,the law paramount is the moral law1--the law laid down by ,god1 to which all wills of men1 whatever their number1 are bound to submit4 ,democracy1 essentially busied with the wills of men1 is always inclined to attribute to them the character and the rights of divine law4 ,man occupies so much space in this form of government1 and has so elevated a position there1 that he easily forgets ,god--easily takes himself for ,god4 ,the result is a sort of political polytheism1 which1 unless it appeals to a gross1 material arbitrament1 and to the majority of human wills1 is incapable of arriving at that unity of law and of action1 with which no society or government can dispense4 ,i do not say that the individual man1 and that numbers of men1 are the only principles1 but ,i do say1 that they are principles characteristic of ,democracy2 it is against the absolute dominion of these two principles that ,democracy has1 in the interest of its own honour and of its own safety1 to be incessantly admonished and defended4 #bi ,a royal sage enjoined that he should be saluted every morning with the words1 ,remember thou art man4 ,this sublime and prudent admonition is no less needful for ,democracy than for ,royalty1 and it is precisely the salutary service which is rendered to it by ,christianity4 ,in ,christianity there is a light1 a voice1 a law1 a history1 which does not come from man1 but which1 without offending his dignity1 sets him in his proper place4 ,no belief1 no institution1 exalts man's dignity so highly1 and at the same time so effectually represses his arrogance4 ,the more democratic a society is1 the more it is important that this double effect shall take place within it4 ,christianity alone has this virtue4 ,i am aware of the capital objection made to its empire4 ,the ,physic without the ,physicians1 exclaimed ,rousseau1 in a sally against medical men1 but the expression shows nevertheless how little he was disposed to forget that it is possible for medicine to be good and salutary4 #cj ,how often have ,i heard men of intelligence and men in all other respects very worthy of consideration1 exclaim1 ,let me have ,religion without the priests3 ,i am a ,christian1 but no friend of the clergy4 ,i am far from seeking to leave this difficulty unnoticed1 or to elude it4 ,it is a difficulty of the gravest nature1 not in essence1 but in the actual circumstances and state of opinions at the present day4 ,as a ,protestant it does not concern me4 ,the clergy is not amongst ,protestants the object of any such uneasiness4 ,one of the best results1 in my opinion1 of the ,reformation of the #afth century1 whether regarded as ,lutheran or ,calvinistic1 as ,anglican1 or as the work of other ,dissidents in religion1 is that it strongly cemented the union between the ecclesiastics and the general religious community--between the spiritual and the lay members of the ,church4 ,the ,reformation produced this effect1 first1 by authorising the clergy to marry and to enter into the relations which a life of family brings with it2 and1 secondly1 by giving to the laity a share in the government of the ,church4 #ca ,the partition was not always judicious or equitable4 ,at one time the clergy1 at another the laity1 have been transported from their natural places1 and injured in their legitimate rights2 but the relations between the two classes ceased to present the appearance of either absolutism on the one hand1 or of entire subordination on the other2 the laity obtained a voice and influence in the affairs of the flock2 the priests1 although remaining religious pastors and religious magistrates1 ceased to be spiritual masters4 ,this organisation has led to the two social institutions combining themselves in a variety of ways4 ,at one time the civil power has invaded the government of the religious society1 and deprived the clergy1 not merely of empire1 but of independence2 at another time the two forms of society1 the ,state and the ,church1 have regulated by treaty the terms of their mutual relations2 whereas1 in the ,united ,states of ,america1 the two forms of society have been entirely separated1 and have mutually recovered their independence2 #cb elsewhere1 as amongst the ,quakers and the ,moravians1 all ecclesiastical authority and orders of priesthood have been abolished1 and laymen have lived in the isolation each of his individual conscience1 obedient only to its spontaneous impulses4 ,but amidst all this diversity1 it is the fundamental characteristic of the churches and of the sects which issued from the ,reform of the #afth century1 that priests do not in themselves constitute the necessary and sovereign mediators between ,god and man's soul1 nor the sole rulers of religious society4 ,it is particularly by virtue of this principle that the distinction between civil life and religious life has become an efficacious and a consecrated doctrine1 and that ,liberty has resumed its right and become an active influence in religious society itself4 #cc ,but amongst ,roman ,catholic nations1 priests are the objects of a persistent distrust which has been the fruitful source of much calamity to ,christianity4 ,history forbids surprise4 ,the ,roman ,catholic clergy has often presented the spectacle of ambition and passion1 of mundane and selfish interests1 strangely intermixed with faith and with earnest zeal for the furtherance of their religious mission4 ,serious ills and grave abuses have resulted therefrom in the relation of ,church to ,state1 and of priests to their flocks1 and even in the bosom of the ,church itself4 ,these are facts almost as undisputed as they are indisputable2 in proof of them the testimony1 not only of its adversaries1 but of the holiest members of the ,church of ,rome itself1 may be invoked4 ,nothing is more natural1 and indeed more inevitable1 than that this should have led and should still lead1 not only to ill-will towards priests1 but to their being regarded as proper subjects for attack4 ,it is not1 however1 on that account less certain that such an attack is1 in our days1 and as society is at present constituted1 unjust1 silly1 and inopportune1 as injurious to ,state as to ,church1 to ,liberty as to ,religion4 ,there may be injustice and ingratitude to institutions as well as to individuals4 #cd ,from the fall of the ,roman ,empire1 and during the rudest and most sombre ages of modern history1 the ,catholic clergy1 whether as ,popes1 ,bishops1 monastic orders1 or simple priests1 in the midst of their selfish pretensions and ambitious usurpations1 displayed and expended treasures of intellect1 courage1 and perseverance in order to affirm and protect the immaterial and moral interests of humanity4 ,they did not on all occasions accept their mission to its full extent2 they did not maintain the ,christian ,religion in all its breadth1 and in all its evangelical disinterestedness2 they had their share in the acts of violence1 iniquity1 and tyranny of the different masters of society for the time being2 they often made ,liberty pay dearly for the services which they rendered to civilization2 but when ,liberty has become one of the conquests of that very civilization1 the proof as well as the guarantee for its further progress1 there is injustice and ingratitude in forgetting what part the ,roman ,catholic clergy effected towards the constitution of that society1 the ultimate result of which has been so glorious4 #ce ,the injustice is the greater that it is now inopportune and useless4 ,from the acrimony1 the anger1 and alarm which characterise the attacks directed at ,roman ,catholicism and its ,priests1 we might suppose that the ,inquisition was at our gates1 that ,rome was making a perilous onslaught upon our civil and religious liberties1 and that we need to deploy all our force and all our passions to repulse the domination of the ,court of ,rome and of its army4 ,was there ever so strange a perversion of facts8 ,for a century past1 on which side has been the movement and the aggression8 ,is it not evidently the spirit of religious and political liberty which has now the initiative1 the impulsive1 onward movement8 ,the defensive is the natural and enforced situation of the ,roman ,catholic ,church2 ,romanism is much more menaced1 much more attacked by public opinion in these days than our liberties are menaced or attacked by her4 ,the supreme power in the ,church of ,rome1 the ,papacy1 does indeed maintain1 in principle1 certain maxims and certain traditions irreconcileable with1 the actual state of opinion and society2 it continues to condemn authoritatively some of the essential principles of modern civilization4 #cf ,in all earnestness1 yet with every feeling of respect1 ,i shall here make at once use of my right1 both as a ,protestant and as the citizen of a free country1 to declare my profound conviction that this systematic persistence1 however conscientious and dignified it may be1 shows a great want of religious foresight as well as of political prudence4 ,i think that ,romanism1 without abdication and without renouncing anything that is vitally essential to itself1 might assume a position in harmony with the moral and social state in these days1 and with the conditions also vitally essential to the existence of such state4 ,i may add1 that so long as the government of the ,romish ,church shall not have accepted and accomplished this work of conciliation--conciliation real and profound--the friends of ,liberty will be justified in keeping themselves on the alert1 and in maintaining a reserve towards it1 as representing1 themselves1 those moral and liberal principles which it disavows4 #cg ,but let them not attribute to this disavowal a greater importance than it deserves2 let them watch the ecclesiastical power which utters it1 without alarm2 it has in it nothing very menacing1 nothing that opposes any effectual barrier to the march of events2 ,liberalism is not the less victorious in these days1 and not the less advancing4 ,many faults have been committed1 and many probably will continue to be committed2 as has already been the case1 we shall have perhaps many a barrier opposed in our path1 many a reactionary movement to endure1 but the general onward impulse will nevertheless be the same1 and the final result1 the conquest of ,liberty1 religious1 civil and political1 not the less a certainty4 ,this is no mere philosophical aspiration4 ,it is already history4 ,there have been many vicissitudes in ,france1 and many a crisis of different kinds during the last hundred years in the struggle between ,liberalism and ,roman ,catholicism2 the former has often committed errors1 made mistakes1 by which ,romanism has adroitly profited2 but at every reverse ,romanism has recognised her own defeat1 and accepted some part of its consequences4 #ch ,the ,constituent ,assembly by the civil organisation of the clergy1 the ,national ,convention by its proscriptions1 had endeavoured1 the one to enslave1 the other to abolish the ,catholic ,church2 the great master of the revolution1 ,napoleon1 raised it up again by the ,concordat of #ahjb2 but the ,concordat at the same time consecrated many of the fundamental principles of the liberal regime1 and the ,catholic ,church of ,rome consecrated ,napoleon and signed the ,concordat1 even whilst protesting against some of its consequences4 ,at the ,restoration some wished to discuss again the question of the ,concordat1 and to re-establish the relation between ,church and ,state upon their ancient foundations2 but the attempt encountered1 in the ranks of the ,royalists themselves1 a decisive resistance1 and totally failed4 ,under the ,government of #ahcj1 ,roman ,catholicism regained its ground and resumed fresh vigour by both using the name of ,liberty and claiming its right4 #ci ,when the ,republic again appeared in #ahdh1 ,roman ,catholicism treated it with as much tenderness as it experienced itself from the ,republic4 ,i pause before the actual relations of the ,church of ,rome to the new ,empire2 ,rome has paid a dear price for all that she has received from the ,empire2 but even here she showed1 and appears disposed still to show1 a large measure of patience and resignation4 ,she is right4 ,one fact particularly arrests my attention in the course of this stormy history4 ,in the midst of her reverses and her concessions1 ,roman ,catholicism has displayed rare and energetic virtues of fidelity and independence4 ,she has opposed to the bloody persecution of ,terrorism1 the inexhaustible blood of her martyrs1 bishops1 priests1 monks1 men and women2 that ,clergy of ,france1 once so vacillating in faith and so mundane in morals1 bore their cross with an indomitable sentiment of ,christian honour4 #dj ,the despotism of the ,emperor ,napoleon encountered in the person of ,pope ,pius ,,vii41 in some ,cardinals1 and some ,bishops1 a passive but firm resistance1 which neither the power of the ,despot1 nor the contagious servility of their contemporaries1 could surmount4 ,and again1 in these days1 who can fail to perceive with what activity and devotedness1 with what sacrifices and efficacy1 ,roman ,catholicism1 by the mere force of its native energy1 upholds the cause of its chief and of itself8 ,if civil society had defended its liberties and its dignities as the ,church of ,rome defends hers1 ,liberalism in ,france would be farther advanced on its road and towards its object4 ,but let not ,romanists deceive themselves3 one cannot make use of ,liberty without being forced to enter into an engagement and compromise with ,liberty2 one cannot appeal to ,liberty without doing homage to her2 she lays her hand upon those to whom she lends her aid4 ,the great fact which ,i before invoked1 the work of reconciliation between modern society and ,roman ,catholicism1 is more advanced than those believe who still stand aloof from it and oppose it4 #da ,this is proved by two facts4 ,in the very bosom of ,roman ,catholicism1 and from amongst its most zealous defenders1 that group of liberal ,catholics was formed which has played and which continues to play so active a part in struggling for the ,liberties of their church1 and for the rights of their chief3 these are at once the ornaments of then church1 and its intellectual sword2 and the publication which supports their views1 the ,correspondant1 is1 next to the ,revue des deux ,mondes1 the periodical which meets with most success and has the greatest circulation4 ,passing from this brilliant group to the more modest ranks of the ,roman ,catholic clergy1 ,i ask what is the disposition1 the attitude1 the conduct of those faithful and humble priests who exercise the ,christian ministry in our provinces and in the inferior quarters of our cities2 they have not always all the science1 all the mental culture1 which one might desire2 but whilst adhering to ,catholic faith and giving the example of ,christian lives1 they live in the midst of the people2 #db they know it1 they understand it2 they are aware what the conditions are which permit them to live with and to exercise an influence upon the people2 they enter by degrees into its sentiments and its instincts2 without premeditation1 almost without perceiving it1 they become each day more and more men of their time and country1 more familiar with the ideas and liberal tendencies of modern society4 ,thus at the two poles of ,roman ,catholicism1 in its most elevated ranks and in its popular militia1 the same result is obtained1 in the one case by men of enlightened views and of superior ability1 and in the other case by men of good sense and honesty of purpose2 and thus in the ,roman ,church those moral and political principles of #aghi make their way1 which form the basis of the new social edifice1 of its laws1 and of its liberties4 ,i do not dispute1 neither do ,i attack2 ,i record facts as ,i observe and appreciate them4 ,and in my opinion1 with reference to ,french institutions1--for ,i speak only of ,france1--the essential consequences from these facts1 as far as they bear upon the relations of ,christianity to ,liberty1 are as follows4 #dc ,i have here not a word to say respecting the ,protestant ,church in ,france2 the questions which have agitated her for some time past are questions of faith and internal discipline1 entirely aloof from any incertitude or differences of opinion as to the rights of conscience or of religious society in their relations to civil society4 ,protestantism in ,france1 whether orthodox or not1 adopts and upholds the largest maxims as to religious liberty1 and as to the guarantee for it1 in the separation of religious life from civil life4 ,the most zealous ,liberals have nothing more in this respect to demand from even the most orthodox ,protestants2 these are indeed of their church the most urgent in claiming for religious society the right to have its internal autonomy1 and to stand independently of the state4 ,it is1 on the contrary1 ,roman ,catholics1 and the advocates of the essential principles of modern society1 who most dispute about the general question of liberty4 #dd ,the more ,i reflect1 the more ,i am convinced that henceforth this question can only be seriously and efficaciously dealt with in one of two ways3 the one is by the alliance of ,church and ,state1 on conditions which1 whilst distinguishing civil life from religious life1 shall guarantee to individuals religious liberty in civil society1 and to the church itself its internal autonomy in matters of faith and of religious discipline4 ,the other solution is the complete separation of ,church and ,state1 and their mutual independence4 ,that the ,church prefers the system of an ,alliance with the ,state to that of the ,church's ,liberty and isolation from the ,state1 ,i well understand4 ,she is right4 ,alliance with the ,state is to her a sign of strength1 a means of influence1 a pledge for her dignity and her stability4 ,the complete separation of the two societies leaves religious institutions1 and particularly their clergy1 in a fluctuating and precarious situation3 a system essentially democratic1 it rather places the ecclesiastical magistracy under the opinions and wills of its lay members1 than these under the influence of the religious authorities4 #de ,this system is especially alien to the origin1 the fundamental principle1 and the ,hierarchy1 of the ,roman ,catholic ,church2 it is impossible for this ,church to accept it unless urgently demanded by the interests of moral authority1 independence1 and liberty4 ,but let not the ,roman ,catholic ,church misapprehend2 an alliance of ,church with ,state has also conditions without which a ,church would vainly expect any advantage2 for the alliance to be serious and effectual1 there must be between ,church and ,state a large measure of harmony as to the essential principles of the religious society and of the civil society which the ,church and the ,state respectively represent3 if the two societies and those who govern them1 do not mutually admit their respective principles1 if they disavow each other incessantly1 and carry on in the bosom of their alliance1 a war1 open or secret1 all the good effect of such alliance disappears1 and the alliance itself is soon compromised4 #df ,the treaties concluded at different epochs1 under the name of ,concordats1 between ,chambers and ,states in different countries of ,christendom1 have only been possible and efficacious1 because there was a great basis of harmony in the fundamental institutions of the two contracting parties2 they differed upon some points2 they had reciprocally to make concessions and grant guarantees2 but taken altogether they approved of each other and were sincere in supporting each other2 peace was the point from which their alliance started1 and the dissentiments which existed on each side had no reference to any vital questions4 ,it suffices for us to cast a glance at the history of ,catholicism in ,france1 of the ,anglican ,church in ,england1 of the ,lutheran ,church in ,germany and in ,sweden1 to acknowledge this truth2 and what is occurring and forming matter of negotiation in our days in ,italy and in ,austria1 upon the subject of the relations of the ,church with the ,state1 furnishes a further striking confirmation4 #dg ,in an age of liberty1 of publicity1 and of continual discussion1 when it is possible for anything to be thought or said1 and for any opinion to be maintained or attacked1 it is more than ever indispensable that any treaty between ,church and ,state should be serious and sincere2 that is to say1 that the two contracting parties should recognise and accept in each other1 without equivocation and without subterfuge1 the character which each really possesses4 ,this is the only condition upon which an alliance can be real1 becoming1 and advantageous4 ,in presence of the undisguised movements and the ever recurring and daring ventures of ,liberty1 a policy of reticence and procrastination1 obscure and dim reservations1 inconsistent expedients1 and secret warfare1 is no longer practicable2 such policy1 far from lending any help1 discredits and weakens the power which places its trust in it4 #dh ,as for me1 ,i believe that the ,catholic ,church1 if not without endangering her habits1 at least without endangering her essential principles1 has it in her power to set herself at peace with the fundamental principles of modern society and of actual civil governments2 but should she either not wish or not know how to march towards this object and to obtain it1 let her not give way to any illusion2 alliance with the ,state would be rather a source of weakness and of peril to her than an advantage1 and she would only eventually be driven to seek a refuge in the system of separation and complete independence4 ,as for the ,state1 the system which separates the two societies would free it from many a burthen and much embarrassment2 but it would cause her other embarrassments1 and lead to the loss of many advantages4 ,it is convenient to discourse of the principle of a ,free church in a free country1 but after the long alliance which has existed between them1 it is easier to proclaim such principle than to apply it3 not only is it impossible to divorce ,church from ,state without violently wrenching asunder previous bonds1 but more lasting consequences ensue2 once disengaged from every connection with the civil power1 ministers of religion busy themselves no longer about the interests of civil society2 their thoughts are exclusively absorbed by questions of religion and its affairs4 #di ,governments have long been accustomed to derive1 and derive at the present day1 a moral influence of great value from an alliance with the ,church3 but this influence supposes one condition which is not only especially important in our days1 but of capital importance3 in the actual state of opinion and of manners1 no good results can be politically looked for from the alliance1 if the civil power do not abstain from all interference in questions purely religious2 the complete independence of the church and of its chiefs1 in matters of faith and of religious discipline1 is the only condition which can justify their giving their indirect support to the state government1 and which can purge their support of all impure motives4 #ej ,the alliance of the two powers could formerly1 in a certain degree1 co-exist with no inconsiderable confusion in their respective attributes1 and a somewhat earnest claim on the part of each to domineer over the other2 nothing similar can occur at the present day2 neither ,church nor ,state can any longer be the master or the servant of the other4 ,let neither princes nor priests deceive themselves2 their reciprocal independence1 and their uncontested empire1 each in its own province1 can alone give to their alliance the dignity which the alliance requires1 if it is to be real1 efficacious1 and lasting4 ,every road leads me to the same point2 to every question the facts give me the same answer4 ,liberty has need of ,christianity1 ,christianity has need of ,liberty4 ,as modern society demands to be free1 the religion of ,christ is its most necessary ally4 ,christianity and civil society have mutually1 ,i admit it1 a grave feeling of disquietude and distrust2 but this disquietude and distrust are not natural and inevitable results of principles essential to civil society and religious society1 of any compulsory relations existing between them2 they spring from the faults which the two institutions have committed towards each other1 and from the contest which each has forced upon the other4 #ea ,liberty alone can effectually combat such sentiments which have become habitual and traditional4 ,to dissipate them entirely1 something besides ,liberty is requisite2 but without ,liberty neither religious society nor civil society will obtain their legitimate objects1 these objects being peace in their relations to each other1 and the moral progress of man1 and of the ,state1 whether allied with or independent of the ,church4 #eb ,second ,meditation4 ,christianity ,and ,morality4 ,two attempts are now being simultaneously made1 of different characters1 although1 of the same origin and tendency4 ,seriously minded men1 who persist in believing and calling themselves ,christians1 are labouring to separate ,christian morals from ,christian dogmas1 and although they make ,jesus their moral idea of humanity1 are stripping him of his miracles and divinity4 ,others1 who declare openly that they are no ,christians1 endeavour to separate morality in the abstract from religion in the abstract1 and place the source of morality1 as well as its authority1 in human nature1 and in it alone4 ,on the one side we find a ,christian morality independent of ,christian faith2 on the other a ,morality independent of all religious belief1 either natural or revealed3 these two doctrines are in our days proclaimed and propagated with ardour4 #ec ,i frankly admit that their defenders are sincere in adopting and upholding them1 and that they do so in the name of truth alone4 ,in philosophy1 as in politics1 ,i believe error and honest intentions to be more general than falsehood and evil design4 ,moreover1 who would discuss convictions1 unless himself convinced that they are serious and earnest8 ,opinions founded on interested or hypocritical motives are not worth the honour of a discussion2 they merit only to be attacked and unmasked4 ,in the name of truth alone ,i combat the two doctrines to which ,i have alluded1 and which some now strive to accredit4 ,the true cause of this twofold attempt is the incredulity and the scepticism which prevail with regard to religion4 ,non-,christians are numerous2 few ,deists are quite sure of their belief and of its efficacy4 #ed ,a necessity for morality is felt to exist2 its right to regulate the actions of man is acknowledged2 it is in order to preserve to it its integrity and its force that efforts are made to separate it from religion1 from all religious creeds1 all of which1 it is here assumed1 are either ruined or tottering4 ,thus1 ,independent ,morality is1 as it were1 a raft1 offered to the human soul1 and to human society1 to save their time-worn vessel from being wrecked4 ,the idea is false1 the attempt of evil consequence4 ,they who flatter themselves that they can leave ,christian morality standing1 after wrenching it from ,christian dogmas1--and they who believe it possible to preserve morality1 after detaching it from religion1--err alike1 for they fail to recognise the essential facts of human nature and of human society4 ,both doctrines are derived from an inexact and incomplete observation of these facts4 ,i have already stated in these ,meditations what ,i think of the isolation of ,christian morality from ,christianity1 and the reason why ,i reject it4 #ee ,at present ,i apply myself to the idea of independent morality1 and in the name of a psychology1 pure at once and severe1 ,i affirm that there exists an intimate1 legitimate1 and necessary union between morality and religion4 ,a preliminary observation occurs to me4 ,those who adopt the theory of an independent morality1 start from the idea that there is a moral law1 strange to and superior to all interested motives1 to all selfish passions2 these rank duty above1 and treat it as independent of1 every other motive of action4 ,i am far from contesting this principle with them1 but they forget that it has been1 and still is1 strongly contested3 contested by both ancient and modern philosophers4 ,some have considered the pursuit of happiness1 and the satisfaction of individual interests1 as the right and legitimate aims of human life4 ,others have placed the rule of man's conduct1 not in personal interests1 but in general utility1 in the common welfare of all mankind4 ,others have thought that they could perceive the origin and the guarantee for morals in the sympathy of human sentiments4 #ef ,the moral and obligatory law1 or duty1 is far from being the recognised and generally accepted basis of morality2 systems the most varied have arisen1 and are incessantly forming themselves1 with respect to the principles of morals1 as with respect to other great questions of our nature2 and the human understanding fluctuates no less in this corner of the philosophic arena than in the others4 ,let the moralists of the new school not deceive themselves2 in proclaiming morality to be independent of religion1 they mean to give it one fixed basis1 the same for all1 and they believe that they succeed in the attempt4 ,they deceive themselves3 morality1 thus isolated1 remains as much as ever a prey to the disputes of man4 ,i pass over this grave misconception on the part of the defenders of the system1 and ,i examine the system itself4 ,let us see if it is the faithful and full expression of human morality1 if it contains all the facts which constitute its natural and essential elements4 #eg ,these facts ,i sum up as follows3 the distinction between moral good and evil2 the obligation of doing good and avoiding evil2 the faculty of accomplishing or not this obligation4 ,in brief and philosophic terms the ,moral ,law1 ,duty1 and ,liberty4 ,these are the natural1 primitive1 and universal facts which constitute human morality2 it is by reason and by virtue of these facts that man is a moral being4 ,i have not here to enter into a discussion of these same facts2 ,i do not occupy myself at this moment with systems which disregard or deny them1 in whole or in part2 all the three facts1 or any one of the three4 ,the partisans of the system of independent morality admit them all1 as ,i do2 the question between them and myself is this1 whether or not1 whilst rendering homage to the true principle of morality1 they fully comprehend its signification1 and accept its results4 #eh ,it is the characteristic and the honour of man that he is not satisfied with merely gathering facts which relate either to himself or to the external world1 but that he seeks to know their origin and object1 their import and bearing4 ,in morals1 as in physics1 statistics are only the point from which science sets out2 it is only after having well observed facts1 and having verified them1 that we have to discuss the questions which they raise1 and the further ultimate facts which the facts already ascertained contain and reveal4 ,the fact of human morality1 such as ,i have just described it in its three constituent elements1 the ,moral ,law1 ,duty1 and ,liberty1 cannot fail to suggest these two questions3 ,whence proceeds the moral law1 and whence is its authority8 ,what is the sense1 and what the ultimate result to the moral being himself1 of the fulfilment or violation of his duty2 that is to say1 of the use which he makes of his liberty8 ,no philosophical system can either suppress or elude these questions2 they present themselves to the mind of man as soon as he directs his attention to the moral character of man's nature4 ,i propose to consider in succession the three constituent elements of this great truth1 so as to determine rightly its source and bearing4 #ei ,moral law has neither been invented by man1 nor does it spring from any human convention2 man1 by acknowledging it1 admits that he has not created it1 that he cannot abolish or change it4 ,political and civil laws are diverse and ever varying2 they depend in a great measure upon time1 place1 social circumstances1 or human will2 when men adopt or reject them1 they do so with the feeling that they are the masters of them1 to deal with them accordingly as their interests or their fancies suggest4 ,but when a law presents itself to them in the form of a moral law1 they feel that this is not dependent on them1 that it takes its source and derives its authority elsewhere than from their own opinion or volition4 ,they may mistake in rendering or in refusing homage to a particular precept of conduct2 they may attach to laws a moral value which they do not intrinsically possess1 or pass unnoticed the really moral character of another law1 and the obligations which it imposes upon them2 but wherever they believe that they perceive the character of a moral law1 they bow before it as before something which does not emanate from them1 and before a power of a different nature from man's4 #fj ,the moral law no more belongs to the general mechanism of the world1 than to the invention of man2 it has none of the characteristics that mark the laws of physical order2 none of the results which follow from them2 it is by no means inherent in the forms or combinations of matter2 it does not govern the relations or movements of bodies2 obligatory1 and fixed as fate1 it addresses itself solely to that intelligent and free being1 of whom ,pascal said1 in his grand language1 ,if the universe were to crush him1 still man would be more noble than that which destroyed him1 because he knows that he dies2 and of the advantage that the universe has over him1 the universe knows nothing4 ,man does much more than know that he dies2 it happens1 sometimes1 that he encounters death voluntarily--that he chooses to die in obedience to the moral law4 ,it is the law of ,liberty4 #fa ,what mean these words1 ,law of ,liberty8 ,how does this law1 called ,duty1 come to establish itself in the human mind1 and command man's ,liberty to respect it8 ,some essay to found ,duty upon ,right1 and to derive its authority solely from the independence and dignity of humanity4 ,man1 it is said1 feels and knows that he is a free agent2 as such it is his right that no human being shall attack his independence or his dignity4 ,he finds in every other human being the same nature1 and therefore the same right as he possesses himself4 ,thus mutual right is derived from individual right1 and ,duty is nothing but the right which it is recognised that another possesses4 ,footnote #ad ,footnote #ad3 ,la ,morale ,independante1 a weekly journal1 ,no4 #a1 #fth ,august1 #ahfe4 #fb ,there is here a profound mistake1 and a strange forgetfulness4 ,why1 when a man finds himself in relation with his fellow-men1 does he attribute to them the same right which he recognises himself as possessing1 and which he calls upon them to see and admit there8 ,if this is a prudent calculation1 the wisdom which arises from a correct appreciation of his interest1 let us have done with it1 it is not morality4 ,if1 prudence and interest apart1 man regards himself as bound to pay1 to the independence and personal dignity of his fellow-men1 the same respect1 and to attribute to them the same right1 as he lays claim to for himself2 if reciprocity becomes in this manner the fundamental principle of morality1 what becomes of the obligation where there is no reciprocity8 ,will man be bound to respect in others the right which will not be respected in himself8 ,if he is bound to it in all cases1 and in spite of everything1 then ,duty has another source than the mutual respect of persons4 ,if he is1 on the other hand1 not bound to it in all cases1 what becomes of the paramount and absolute character of ,duty2 in other words1 of the moral law8 ,it is no longer anything but law upon condition4 #fc ,not merely the religion of ,christ1 but all the great doctrines of the world1 religious or philosophical1 peremptorily refuse to attach this conditional character of reciprocity to the moral law2 all maintain that duty is in every case absolute and imperative1 independently of the conduct of others4 ,if ye love them which love you1 what thank have ye8 for sinners also love those that love them4 ,and if ye do good to them which do good to you1 what thank have ye8 for sinners also do even the same4 ,love ye your enemies1 and do good1 and lend1 hoping for nothing again2 and your reward shall be great1 and ye shall be the children of the ,highest3 for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil4 ,footnote #ae ,footnote #ae3 ,luke vi4 #cb1 #cc1 #ce4 ,be ye1 say the laws of ,menou to the ,hindoos1 as the wood of the sandal tree1 that perfumes the hatchet which wounds it4 ,if we interrogate ,plato1 ,aristotle1 ,zeno1 ,kant2 in whatever other respect they may disagree1 they think upon this fundamental point with the ,gospel and the ,laws of ,menou4 #fd ,it is in the confusion of ,duty and of ,right1 and in the inversion of their natural and their true order1 that the error resides of those who maintain the ,theory of an ,independent ,morality4 ,duty is the moral law of men's actions2 law intimate1 personal4 ,right1 on the other hand1 is derived from the application of the moral law to the relations of men4 ,i will not deny myself the great yet melancholy pleasure of citing upon this subject a few words of a person whose mind and life were united to mine1 and who1 in a modest essay1 threw over this important subject a flood of light as vivid as it is pure3 ,the word ,right1 brings with it the idea of a relation to something4 ,as every ,right is an application of a moral law to the different relations of ,society1 there exists not a ,right of which ,society is not the occasion4 ,a ,right is only the moral power of an individual over the ,liberty of another3 a power attributed to him by virtue of the moral law which regulates the relations of men with one another4 #fe ,duty is the sole basis of ,right4 ,did there exist no duties there would exist no rights4 ,there is no claim of a right which does not affirm a ,duty to be its source4 ,duty applied as a rule to govern the relations of man to man constitutes justice2 justice cannot exist without ,duty2 a thing is neither just1 nor unjust1 as far as regards the being who has not had the duty prescribed to him of distinguishing between them4 ,ideas of ,right are as essential to men as ideas of duty2 for if the idea of ,duty is the social bond2--the means of peace and of ,union amongst mankind2--the idea of ,right constitutes the arms1 offensive and defensive1 which society gives to men1 for reciprocal use4 ,every man has a consciousness of his own rights1 which aids him to keep others in the line of their duty2 but rights only so far aid him to do this1 as the duty upon which they are founded is known and respected2 for with regard to that man who ignores his duty1 the man who has a right has absolutely nothing4 #ff ,right is a moral power producing its effects without the help of physical force2 if he who has both right and power must employ the power to enforce his right1 it is no longer his right which triumphs1 it is his power2 his right remains to him to justify the employment of force2 but it is not his right which has made his cause triumph4 ,thus it is that the idea of ,duty is the basis of society1 and is at the same time the basis of the idea of right1 an idea which in its turn contributes also to the stability of society4 ,to found society upon the sole idea of duty1 is to deprive society of one of its most powerful means of defence and of development2 to strip the tree of the buds which serve to give it at once strength and amplitude4 ,to found society upon the idea of ,right without the idea of duty1 is to cut away the very roots of the tree4 ,footnote #af ,footnote #af3 ,essai sur les ides de droit et de devoir considres comme fondement de la socit4 ,it is inserted in the work entitled1 ,conseils de ,morale1 ou ,essais sur l'homme1 les murs1 les caractres1 le monde1 les femmes1 l'education1 etc4 ,par ,madame ,guizot1 ne de ,meulan1 7#b vols4 #hvo1 #ahbh7 vol4 ii41 pp4 #adg-bga4 #fg ,this is not all4 ,besides the mistake which they commit in considering ,duty as a mere consequence of ,right1 derived from the independence and dignity of man as man1 the advocates of the theory of an independent morality forget an entire class of moral elements occupying an important position in our nature2 ,i mean1 the instinctive sentiments intimately allied to the ,moral ,law1 sentiments to which the notion of a ,right1 founded upon the independence and dignity of man's personality1 is completely strange4 ,is it on account of the independence and dignity of man's personality that fathers and mothers regard it as their duty to love their children1 to take charge of them1 to work for and devote themselves to them8 ,is it by virtue of this principle1 and of the right which flows from it1 that children are bound to honour their father and their mother8 ,man's soul1 man's existence1 is full of moral relations and moral acts1 in which the idea of ,right has no part2 no part1 ,i mean1 in the sense which these theorists of an independent morality attach to it3 their system is no more an explanation of ,sympathy than of ,duty4 #fh ,i am touching upon the source of their error4 ,if they make the principle of human morality consist in a ,right emanating from man's ,liberty and man's intelligence1 it is that they see in man only a free and intelligent being4 ,strange ignorance1 and mutilation of man's nature4 ,at the same time that he is a free and intelligent being1 man is a being dependent and subject3 he is dependent1 in the material order1 upon a power superior to his own2 and subject1 in the moral order1 to a law which he did not make1 which he cannot change1 which he is forced to admit even whilst he is free not to obey it2 a law from which he cannot withdraw himself without troubling his soul and endangering his future4 ,morality in a sense is in effect independent2 it is essentially independent of man2 man1 the free agent man1 is its subject4 ,morality is truly the law of ,liberty of ,action4 #fi ,liberty is not an isolated fact1 which exhausts itself by working its own completion1 and which1 once accomplished1 remains without further consequences4 ,to ,liberty is attached ,responsibility4 ,when the human being1 giving effect to his free will1 resolves and acts1 he feels that he is responsible for his resolution and his act4 ,the ,laws of ,society declare this to him in express terms1 for they punish him if they judge his act to be criminal2 not merely because they find his act to be hurtful1 but because they find it to be morally culpable3 for1 were its author pronounced to be mad1 or his mind or volition recognised as unsound1 the laws of society would acquit him4 ,and if a culprit escape legal punishment1 he does not escape from the internal punishment of remorse4 ,without speaking of penal laws1 remorse is at once the proof and the sanction of moral responsibility4 ,possible it is that all remorse may be lulled to sleep in the mind of the hardened offender2 but there are a thousand instances to prove that it may be always reawakened4 #gj ,neither in good nor in evil is man's nature entirely effaced4 ,repentance sometimes hides itself in recesses so profound1 that to penetrate thither is impossible1 except for the soul which feels repentance even when seeking to escape from it4 ,as ,liberty supposes responsibility1 so ,responsibility supposes an idea of merit or of demerit attaching naturally to the use made of liberty4 ,i set aside here all the questions1 in my opinion1 ill put and wrongly solved by ,theologians1 upon this subject of merit or demerit4 ,according to the general sentiment and common sense of all mankind1 there is merit for a man in the accomplishment of ,moral ,law1 there is demerit in its violation4 ,it is a fact recognised and proclaimed even in the simplest and most ordinary incidents of human life1 as well as in the political organisation of society1 and in the problems which concern the eternal future4 #ga ,however the recompense or the punishment may be accelerated or delayed2 whatever its nature or its measure2 the moral career of a man is not complete1 nor the moral order established1 until the responsibility inherent in his ,liberty has received its complement and arrived at its end in the just appreciation and equitable return made to him for his merits or demerits4 ,thus far ,i have spoken of ,independent ,morality2 ,i have scrupulously confined myself to studying moral facts as man's nature1 and man's nature alone1 presents them to us4 ,i have considered and described them as they are in themselves1 entirely apart from every other element and every other consideration4 ,those moral facts are briefly as follows3-- ,the distinction between moral good and moral evil4 ,the ,moral ,law1 the duty of doing good and avoiding evil4 ,moral ,liberty4 ,moral ,responsibility4 ,moral merit and demerit4 #gb ,these are1 ,i admit1 facts which man recognises in himself as the proper and intimate characteristics of his own nature4 ,but these truths once recognised and determined1 what is their import8 ,are they facts isolated in human nature1 as they are in ,psychology1 or have they anterior causes and necessary consequences6 ,are they self-sufficing1 or do they contain and reveal other truths which form their complement and their sanction8 ,the human mind cannot elude this question4 ,i have established that the moral law is not of human invention2 that it does not exist merely by man's agreement2 that it is not one of those laws of fate by which the material world is governed4 ,it is the law of the intellectual world1 of the free world2 a law superior to that world which1 by recognising it as law1 recognises itself at the same time both as free and subject4 ,who is the author of that law8 ,who imposes it upon man--upon man of whom it is not the work1 and whom it governs without enslaving8 ,who placed it above this world where the present life is passed8 #gc ,evidently there must be a superior power from which the moral law emanates1 and of which it is a revelation4 ,with the good sense which his frivolity and his cynicism made him so oft forget1 ,voltaire said1 speaking of the material world and the order reigning in it3-- ,je ne puis songer ,que cette horloge existe et n'ait point d'horloger4 ,i cannot think ,this clock exists and never had a maker4 ,in the moral world we have to do with something far different from a clock2 nor are we in the presence of a machine constructed1 regulated1 once for all2 the law of ,order1 that is to say1 the moral law1 is incessantly in contact with man's free agency2 man does homage to the law which he is yet at liberty to accomplish or to violate2 the law is a manifestation of the supreme legislator1 of whose thought and will it is the expression4 ,god moral sovereign1 and man free subject1 are both contained in the fact of the moral law4 ,in this fact alone ,kant found ,god2 he erred in not also finding ,god elsewhere2 but it is nevertheless true that it is in the moral law1 the rule of human ,liberty1 that ,god shows himself to man most directly1 most clearly1 most undeniably4 #gd ,just as the moral law1 without a sovereign legislator to impose it upon man1 is an incomplete and inexplicable fact1 a river without source1 just so the moral responsibility of the free agent man1 without a supreme judge to apply it1 is an incomplete and inexplicable fact1 a source without outlet1 which runs and loses itself no one can tell whither4 ,just as the moral law reveals the moral legislator1 just so does moral ,responsibility reveal the moral judge4 ,just as the moral law is no law of human invention1 just so human judgments1 rendered in the name of moral responsibility1 are hardly ever the judgments perfectly true and just which such responsibility expects and calls for4 ,god is contained in the moral law as its primal author1 and in moral responsibility as its definitive judge4 ,the moral system1 that is1 the empire of the moral law1 is incomprehensible and impossible if there is no ,god there1 not only to establish it in a region above and paramount to man's free agency1 but to establish it when troubled by man's conduct as a free agent4 #ge ,thus the moral truths1 inherent in and proper to the human nature--that is1 the distinction between moral good and moral evil1 moral obligation1 moral responsibility1 moral merit and demerit1--are necessarily and intimately connected with the truths of ,religion2 for instance1 with ,god moral legislator1 ,god moral spectator1 ,god moral judge4 ,thus morality is naturally and essentially connected with religion4 ,morality is1 it is true1 a thing special and distinct in the ensemble of man's nature and of man's life1 but it is in no respect independent of the ensemble to which it belongs4 ,it has its particular place in that ensemble1 but it is only in that ensemble that its existence is reasonable1 thence only that it derives its source and its authority4 ,morals may1 in the order of science1 be separately observed and described2 but in the order of actuality morality is inseparable from ,religion4 #gf ,what would be said of a physiologist if he maintained that the heart is independent of the brain1 because those two organs are distinct1 organs which are closely united and indispensable to each other in the unity of the human being8 ,the spectacle of the world leads us to the same result as the study of man1 and reads us the same lesson4 ,history confirms ,psychology4 ,what is the great action which makes itself most remarkable upon the stage of human societies8 ,the constant struggle of good with evil1 of just with unjust4 ,in this struggle what shocking disorders6 ,what iniquity perpetrated6 ,how frequent an interregnum in the empire of the moral law and of justice1 and what vicissitudes there6 ,at one time the moral decree is expected in vain1 and the human conscience remains painfully troubled by the successes of vice and of crime3 at another time1 contrary to all expectation1 and after the most deplorable infractions of the moral law1 the moral judgment comes4 #gg ,in vain1 said ,chateaubriand fifty years ago1 does ,nero prosper2 ,tacitus already lives in the empire2 he grows up unnoticed near the ashes of ,germanicus1 and already a just providence has left in the hands of an obscure child the fame of the master of the world4 ,chateaubriand was right3 ,tacitus was the avenger of the moral law outraged by the masters of the ,roman ,empire2 he was the judge of their triumphs2 but in that very ,empire the most victorious of its masters1 ,marcus ,aurelius1 after having consecrated his life to the search after and the practice of the moral law1 dies in profound sadness beneath his tent on the banks of the ,danube2 sad on account of his wife1 sad on account of his son1 and of the future of that world which he had governed1 and which was only to be renewed1 and regenerated1 by those ,christians whom he had persecuted4 ,everything is incomplete1 imperfect1 incoherent1 obscure1 contradictory1 in this vast conflict of men and actions called ,history2 and ,providence1 the personification of eternal wisdom and justice1 sometimes manifests itself there with clat1 and sometimes remains there1 inert and veiled1 beneath the most sombre mysteries4 #gh ,is such the normal1 definitive state of the universe8 ,shall truth1 shall justice1 never assume there more space than they now occupy8 ,when shall light dawn upon the darkness8 ,who restore order to this chaos8 ,man evidently is insufficient to the task2 in the world1 as in individual man1 the moral principle is still mutilated1 and too infirm for its mission1 unless it is intimately united to the religious principle4 ,morality can as little dispense with ,god in the life of the human race1 as in that of the individual man4 ,in these days more than ever morality has need of ,god4 ,i am far from thinking ill of my country or of my age2 ,i believe that they progress1 that they have a future2 but humanity is now-a-days exposed to a rude trial4 ,on one side we have been witnesses to events of the most contradictory character3 everything in the world of opinion has been questioned2 everything in that of facts has been shaken1 overthrown1 raised up again1 left tottering4 #gi ,oppressed by this spectacle1 what remains to men's minds more than feeble convictions--dim hopes8 ,on the other side1 in the midst of this universal shock of minds1 science1 and man's power over the surrounding world1 have been prodigiously extended and confirmed2 light has shone more and more brightly upon the material world1 at the very moment when it was becoming paler and paler1 declining more and more1 in the moral world4 ,we have plucked and are still plucking1 more actively than ever1 the fruit of the tree of knowledge2 whereas the rules of human conduct1 the laws of good and of evil1 have become indistinct in our thought4 ,man remains divided between pride and doubt2 intoxicated by his power1 and disquieted by his weakness4 ,man's soul1 how perturbed6 human morality1 how endangered6 #hj ,thus far ,i have treated the subject with far more reserve and indulgence for the opinions of others than ,i intended4 ,i have limited myself to the bounds assigned to the question by the advocates of the theory of independent morality themselves4 ,i have done nothing more than set in broad daylight the intimate1 natural1 and necessary connection of morals with religion2 of man1 moral being1 with ,god1 moral sovereign4 ,i am only at the threshold of the truth4 ,it is not merely to religion in general that morality pertains2 it is not merely the idea of ,god of which it has need2 it requires the constant presence of ,god1 his unceasing action upon the human soul4 ,it is from ,christianity alone that morality can now derive the clearness1 force1 and security1 indispensable for the exercise of its empire4 ,and it is not for her practical utility1 it is for her truth1 her intrinsic value1 that ,i hold ,christianity to be necessary to the human soul1 and to human societies4 ,it is because she is in perfect harmony with man's moral nature2 and because she has been already tested in man's history2 that ,christianity is the faithful expression of the moral law1 and the legitimate master of the moral being4 #ha ,the first and the incomparable characteristic of ,christianity1 is the extent1 ,i should rather say the immensity1 of her moral ambition4 ,the moral system established by ,christ has often been contrasted with the reforms aimed at by great men whose endeavour it also was to fix moral laws for man's conduct1 and to secure their empire over him4 ,jesus has been compared to ,confucius1 ,zoroaster1 ,socrates1 ,cakia-mouni1 ,mahomet4 ,the comparison is singularly inappropriate and superficial4 ,the wisest1 the most illustrious1 of these moral reformers1 even the most powerful1 understood and accomplished at best but a very limited and incomplete work2 sometimes they only sought to place in a clear light the rational principles of morality2 sometimes they gave to their disciples1 addressing themselves to these alone1 rules for conduct in conformity with rational principles of morality2 they taught a doctrine or established rules for discipline2 they founded schools or sects4 #hb ,the ,christian work was something quite different4 ,jesus was not a philosopher who entered into discussions with his disciples1 and instructed them in moral science2 nor a chief who grouped around him a certain number of adepts1 and subjected them to certain special rules which distinguish1 nay sever1 them from the mass of mankind3 ,jesus expounds no doctrine1 sets up no system of discipline1 and organises no particular society3 he penetrates to the bottom of the human soul1 of every soul2 he lays bare the moral disease of humanity1 and of every man2 and he commands his disciples with authority to apply the cure1 first to themselves1 and then to all men3--,save your soul1 for what would it profit a man to gain the whole world1 if he lose his own soul8 ,go and preach to all nations4 ,what philosopher1 what reformer1 ever conceived an idea so ambitious1 so vast8 ever undertook to solve so completely1 so universally1 the moral problem of man's nature and man's destiny8 #hc ,and this was no chimerical ambition2 the mission of ,christ has been pursued1 and is still being pursued in the world1 its onward movement often crossed1 interrupted1 altered1 never hopelessly arrested4 ,and during the first three centuries of ,christianity1 it was in the name and solely with the arms of ,faith and of ,liberty1 that she commenced her enterprise of vanquishing man and the world4 ,and in these days1 after the lapse of nineteen centuries1 in spite of the intermixture of error1 of crime1 and evil1 it is with the same arms1 and with them alone1 that ,christianity1 in the name of ,faith and of ,liberty1 and exposed to fresh and violent attacks1 resumes in the moral world the same task1 and promises herself fresh success4 ,without attempting1 indeed1 to sound them to their depths1 let me at least indicate the causes of this indomitable vitality of the ,christian ,religion1 and show why the hope is well founded which she entertains in the midst of her trials4 #hd ,of the moral philosophers1 almost all are either bitter censors1 cold observers1 or flatterers of human nature4 ,some of them proclaim that man is naturally good1 and that his vices are solely due to the bad institutions of society4 ,some1 again1 regard self-interest and self-esteem as the only springs of human actions4 ,others describe the errors and foibles of man with a careful sagacity1 and yet a sagacity that does not indispose them to jeer and mock at them1 as if they were actors in a drama1 both amused themselves and amusing the spectators4 ,how different the regard and the sentiment of ,jesus when contemplating man3 how serious that regard6 how profound1 how pregnant with effect that sentiment6 ,no illusion1 no indifference with respect to the nature of man2 full1 he knows it to be1 of evil and at the same time of good2 inclined to revolt against the moral law1 at the same time that it is not incapable of obeying it2 he sees in man the original sin1 source of the troubles and of the perils of his soul3 he does not regard the evil as incurable2 he contemplates it with an emotion at once severe and tender1 and he attacks it with a resolution superior to every discouragement1 and prepared for every sacrifice4 #he ,why should ,i not simply employ ,christian terms1 the most genuine of any1 as well as the most impressive8 ,jesus lays bare the sin without reserve1 and without reserve devotes himself to the sinner's salvation4 ,what philosopher ever comprehended man so well1 and loved him so well1 even whilst judging him so freely and so austerely8 ,jesus does not occupy himself less with man's futurity than with man's nature4 ,at the same time that he lays down1 in all its rigour1 the principle of the moral law1 the pure accomplishment of duty1 he forgets not that man has need of happiness1 and thirsts after happiness1 after a happiness pure and lasting2 he opens to virtue the prospect of its attainment1 he holds out a hope1 foreign to all worldly objects1 hope of an ideal happiness inaccessible to the curiosity of man's mind1 but apt to satisfy the aspirations of his soul1 and not1 as it were1 a conquest to be effected by merit1 nor the acquittal of a debt1 but a recompense to be accorded to the virtuous efforts of man by the equitable benevolence of ,god4 #hf ,the ,christian ,religion1 at the same time that it compels man during this life to constant and laborious exertion1 has in store for him1 if only he labour in accordance to the law1 the kingdom of ,god and the promises of eternal life4 ,thus1 ,jesus knows human nature entirely1 and satisfies it2 he keeps simultaneously in view man's duties and his necessities1 his weaknesses and his merits4 ,he does not allow the curtain to fall upon the rude scenes of life1 and the sad spectacles of the world1 without any dnouement4 ,he has a prospect1 and a futurity1 and a satisfaction for man1 superior to his trials1 and superior to his disappointments4 ,in what manner does ,jesus attain this result8 ,how does he touch all the chords of man's soul1 and respond to all its appeals8 ,by the intimate union of morality with religion1 of the moral law with moral responsibility3 sole view1 complete at once and definitive1 of the nature and destiny of humanity2 sole efficacious solution of the problems which weigh upon the thought and life of man6 #hg ,i say the sole efficacious solution4 ,efficacy is1 in truth1 the peculiar1 the essential characteristic of ,christianity4 ,however high-reaching the ambition of philosophy is1 it is infinitely less so than that of religion4 ,the ambition of philosophers is purely scientific4 ,they study1 observe1 discuss2 their labours produce systems1 schools4 ,the ,christian ,religion is a practical work1 not a scientific study4 ,at the base of its dogmas and of its precepts there is certainly a philosophy1 and1 in my opinion1 the true philosophy2 but this philosophy is only the point from which ,christianity departs1 not its object4 ,the object is to induce the human soul to govern itself according to the divine law2 and to attain this object it deals with man's nature as it is1 in its entirety1 with all its different elements1 all its sublime aspirations4 ,there1 to borrow the language of strategy1 we see the basis of operation of ,christianity2 the basis upon which it enters upon its moral struggle1 and upon which it undertakes to ensure the triumph in man of good over evil1 and to procure the salvation of man by his reformation4 #hh ,when ,i published1 two years ago1 the ,second ,series of these ,meditations--the subject of which is the actual state of the ,christian ,religion--,i essayed to characterise therein the fundamental errors of the different philosophical systems which combat it4 ,i sent1 according to my custom1 the volume to my companion in life1 and my confrre at the ,institute1 ,m4 ,cousin1 with whom1 notwithstanding our differences of opinion1 ,i maintained always very friendly relations4 ,on the #ast ,june1 #ahff1 he wrote to me from the ,sorbonne the following letter3-- ,my dear ,friend1 ,as soon as ,i received your book ,i hastened to read it1 and ,i tell you very sincerely that ,i am very content with it4 ,the little difference between our opinions1 which you have not pretended to conceal1 are inevitable1 because they are the consequence of a general dissimilarity in the manner in which we form our conceptions of the nature of philosophy and of the nature of religion4 #hi ,these two great powers may and ought to be in accord1 still they are different4 ,to ,religion belongs an influence of an elevated and universal kind2 to philosophy an influence more restricted1 and still very elevated4 ,the one addresses itself to the entire soul1 comprising in it the imagination2 the other only addresses itself to the reason4 ,the first sets out from mysteries1 without which there is no religion2 the second sets out from clear and distinct ideas1 as has been said both by ,descartes and by ,bossuet4 ,this distinction is the foundation of my philosophy and of my religion2 and this distinction is also1 in my view1 the principle of their harmony4 ,to confound them is1 ,i think1 an infallible mode of confusing them each by the other1 as ,malebranche has done4 ,to absorb philosophy in religion gave1 in ,pascal1 the result of a faith full of contradiction and of anguish2 to absorb religion in philosophy is an extravagant enterprise1 of which sound philosophy must disapprove4 ,to admit them both1 each in its place1 is truth1 grandeur1 and peace4 #ij ,hence you perceive the reason of our differences of opinion1 which are no more hurtful to our union1 than they are to our old and sincere friendship4 ,i replied to him on the #acth of ,june3-- ,i count1 as well as you1 my dear friend1 upon our dissentiments not being hurtful to our old and sincere friendship2 and ,i feel the more pleasure in so counting1 because1 independently of our particular and petty dissentiments1 there is1 as you say1 between us a general1 a profound difference of opinion4 ,i think1 as you do1 that philosophy is not to be confounded or absorbed in religion1 nor religion in philosophy4 ,i regard them both as free in their manifestations and in their influence2 but ,i do not found their distinction or their accord upon the same grounds as you do4 #ia ,to me1 philosophy is but a science1 that is the work of man1 limited in its sphere and reach1 as is man's mind itself4 ,religion1 in its principle and its history1 is of divine origin and institution4 ,the one springs from man's avidity of knowledge2 the other is the light coming from ,god1 'which shines upon every man that comes into the world1' and which ,god continues to maintain and to shed over the world1 according to his impenetrable designs1 by the act1 general or special1 of his free will4 ,i will not say more4 ,we know1 both of us1 how far our opinions are in the same road1 and where is the point of divergence4 ,i had left ,paris when ,i received ,m4 ,cousin's letter4 ,he was at ,cannes when ,i returned to ,paris4 ,we never saw each other afterwards4 ,he has preceded me to that region where light is shed upon the mysteries of this life4 ,but in our last correspondence we had each touched in a few words upon the knot of the whole question4 #ib ,it is this--,what are the points of resemblance1 and what of difference1 between ,religion and science1 between ,christianity and philosophy8 ,although ,m4 ,cousin and ,i agreed as to the reciprocal rights of these two influences to liberty of action1 we entertained different sentiments as to their origin and their nature1 and consequently as to the boundaries of their empire1 and the character of their mission4 #ic ,third ,meditation4 ,christianity ,and ,science4 ,it is the faith of ,christians1 and the point from which ,christianity starts1 that the ,scriptures1 which render an account of its origin1 its dogmas1 and its precepts1 are divinely inspired4 ,not that ,christians understand by these words that divine action upon the mind of man so often called inspiration1 and of which ,cicero said1 ,no one has ever been a great man without some divine inspiration2 ,footnote #ag and of which ,plato was thinking when he said1 ,it is not by art that they make these noble poems1 but because a ,god is in them1 by whom they are possessed4 444 ,they do not speak so by art1 but by divine power4 ,footnote #ah ,footnote #ag3 ,pro ,archi1 c4 #h4 ,footnote #ah3 ,i have translated the ,greek text literally1 which ,m4 ,cousin has rendered with his accustomed elegance4 7,jon41 vol4 iv4 p4 #bdi1 et passim47 ,note of author4 #id ,the inspiration of the holy book of ,christianity is quite a different thing3 it is special and supernatural4 ,there is divine inspiration in all the great works of man2 these books are a work directly and personally inspired by ,god3 they affirm this themselves4 ,the language used by ,jesus in the ,gospels incessantly implies it2 and1 in numerous passages1 the epistles of ,st4 ,peter and ,st4 ,paul1 as well as the ,acts of the ,apostles1 declare it positively4 ,footnote #ai ,footnote #ai3 ,in his ,history of ,christian ,theology in the ,apostolic ,age1 ,m4 ,reuss acknowledges it3 ,this inspiration1 says he1 was regarded as something unlike any other1 and reserved to a few individuals chosen by ,providence1 and only to them upon special and solemn occasions2 and he refers to the different texts of the ,new ,testament which prove his assertion4 7,vol4 i4 p4 #daa1 ed4 #ahfj47 ,this ,christian principle of the special and divine inspiration of the ,scriptures was not originally taken in so narrow an acceptation as in later times4 #ie ,in the first ages of the ,christian era1 the ,christians of the school of ,plato1 whilst carefully distinguishing the inspiration of the sacred volumes from the inspiration of the great poets1 strove to determine the process common to these two kinds of inspiration1 and to explain one by the other--,it is not by any effect of nature nor by any human faculty1 says ,st4 ,justin1 that it is in the power of men to know things so grand and so divine2 it is by the grace which descends from on high upon the saints4 ,they have no need for any art to be revealed to them2 pure themselves1 they must offer themselves to the action of the divine spirit1 in order that the divine bow1 descending itself from heaven and making use of the just1 in the same way as the musician does of the chords of a harp or lyre1 may unfold to us the knowledge of things divine4 ,i think1 says ,athenagoras1 that you are not ignorant of ,moses1 or of ,isaiah1 or of the other prophets1 who1 being turned aside from any process of individual reasoning1 and moved by the spirit of ,god1 proclaimed aloud that which echoed within them1 the holy spirit employing them and attaching itself to them as the player adds to his flute the breath which makes it discourse its music4 #if ,questions soon began to be agitated in ,christendom as to which of the religious books in circulation were really inspired1 and as to which did not possess this divine characteristic4 ,hence proceeded disputes in respect to the ,apocryphal books1 and the formation of the ,canon1 or collection of the ,holy ,scriptures4 ,but even in the very books1 received by all as divinely inspired1 great ,christian doctors1 not merely ,origen1 but ,st4 ,jerome and ,st4 ,augustin1 discovered grammatical errors and faults which it was impossible to attribute to divine inspiration2 and they distinguished1 with greater or less exactness1 the inspiration of ,god from the imperfection of man4 ,st4 ,jerome points out solecisms in the ,epistles of ,st4 ,paul2 and ,st4 ,augustin says1 in speaking of ,st4 ,john1 ,i venture to say that ,john perhaps has not spoken of the thing as it really was1 but only as it was in his power to speak2 for he is a man1 and he speaks of ,god4 #ig ,inspired1 no doubt1 by ,god1 but still a man4 444 ,when we meet with such diversity of expressions--although not in themselves contradictory--used by the ,evangelists1 we should regard1 in the words of each1 only the intent with which the words are pronounced1 and not1 like wretched cavillers1 attach an idea of truth to the external form of the letter2 for we must seek the very spirit1 not only in all the words1 but in everything else which serve as symptoms of the manifestation of the spirit4 ,it was in the presence and in spite of these discussions1 of this explanation and of this free criticism1 that the divine inspiration of the ,scriptures was nevertheless upheld in the fourth century as the common and positive faith of ,christians4 ,i pass by the twelve following centuries3 a long period2 full of darkness1 but yet with flashes of light2 silent yet full of uproar1 full of liberty and oppression3 period beginning with the invasion of the ,barbarians and terminating with the ,renaissance2 that period in short which1 taken together1 is called the ,middle ,age4 #ih ,i transport myself at once to the sixteenth century1 that epoch of political struggles1 when men reduced to systems1 and reasoned upon1 the different elements of moral and social institutions2 for they had1 ever since the fall of the ,roman ,empire1 been fermenting pell-mell in ,europe1 which1 although so small1 was yet destined to conquer and civilize that globe1 termed by us the world4 ,striving to discover what1 after the lapse of so many years and events1 had become of the principle of the divine inspiration of the sacred books1 that base of the religious faith and rule of ,christian societies1 ,i find that this question had received two solutions3 one in the name of the ,church of ,rome1 by its representative the ,council of ,trent2 the other in the name of the ,protestant churches1 by their great founders and teachers4 ,the ,council of ,trent receives all the books both of the old and of the new ,testament1 since the same ,god is the author of each2 surrounds them with the same respect1 and with an equally pious reverence2 inserts in its decree the complete catalogue of these books1 and anathematises whoever does not accept as sacred and canonical those books1 with all that they contain1 just as they are in use in the ,catholic ,church1 and as they exist in the ancient ,latin edition known as the ,vulgate4 ,footnote #bj ,footnote #bj3 ,le ,saint ,concile de ,trente1 translated by the ,abb ,chanut1 pp4 #aj--ac4 ,paris1 #afhf4 #ii ,the founders of the great ,protestant ,churches1 although they began to apply the right of historical criticism to both texts and manuscripts1 proclaimed nevertheless the absolute and complete inspiration of the holy volumes1 in form and sense1 narrative1 precepts1 and words4 ,the ,bible1 all the ,bible1 the old1 the new ,testament1 were1 according to them1 written at ,god's dictation to serve as the law of ,christian ,faith4 #ajj ,the ,decree of the ,council of ,trent remains the ,rule of the ,church of ,rome in the nineteenth century as much as it was in the sixteenth century2 and in our days a ,protestant ,divine1 justly respected for elevation of thought as much as for the energetic sincerity of his ,faith1 in maintaining the principle of the complete and divine inspiration1 and of the absolute infallibility1 of the ,bible1 has been driven so far as to make this strange assertion3 ,all the expressions and all the letters of the ten commandments were certainly written by the finger of ,god1 from the ,aleph with which they begin1 to the ,caph with which they end2 a few pages further on he says3 ,the ,decalogue1 we repeat1 was written entirely by the finger of ,jehovah upon the two stone slabs4 ,footnote #ba ,footnote #ba3 ,thopneustie4 ,by ,m4 ,gaussen4 #bnd ed41 #ahdb1 pp4 #bbe1 #bdb4 ,be on your guard1 said ,bossuet1 you assign to ,god arms and hands2 unless you strip these expressions of all that savours of humanity1 so as to leave nothing of arms and hands but their action and their force1 you err4 444 ,god does everything by command2 he has no lips to move1 neither does he strike the air with his tongue to draw forth sounds from it2 he has only to will1 and his will is accomplished4 ,footnote #bb ,footnote #bb3 ,elvations sur les ,mystres1 vol4 ix4 pp4 #ff-fh1 #he1 #aji2 and the ,sixime ,avertissement sur les lettres de ,jurieu1 vol4 xxx4 pp4 #eg1 #acd4 #aja ,the empire of circumstances1 both in the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries1 has had much to do with the adoption of these two doctrines1 thus conceived and expressed4 ,the ,council of ,trent1 in order to cut short all controversies with the ,reformers1 took the ,scriptures1 and the interpretation of the ,scriptures1 under the guardianship of the supreme and infallible authority of the ,church of ,rome4 ,the ,reformers1 in their turn1 found their fixed point and a basis1 firm in the midst of the movement to which they were giving the impulse1 in the infallibility of the ,bible1 itself divinely inspired4 ,and at the present time1 on the one side the ,church of ,rome in its new dangers1 and on the other side the ,protestants1 sincere in their ardent zeal to awaken that ,christian ,faith which is languishing1 have pushed the two doctrines1--the former of ecclesiastical authority1 the latter of biblical infallibility1--to their extremest verge3 in my opinion each beyond the limits of right and of truth4 ,history explains errors1 it does not justify them4 #ajb ,i resume1 briefly3 those with which ,i reproach the two doctrines referred to1--they severally infringe1 the one the rights of religious liberty1 the other those of human science4 ,in both cases they greatly endanger that ,christian ,religion which they have1 in these respects1 severally ill understood4 ,i have already expressed my views upon this subject4 ,footnote #bc ,footnote #bc3 ,meditations on the ,essence of ,christianity4 ,sixth ,meditation4 ,inspiration of the ,holy ,scriptures1 pp4 #ade-adf4 ,london1 #ahfd4 ,fervent and learned men maintain that all1 absolutely all1 in the ,scriptures is divinely inspired--the words as well as the ideas1 all the words used upon all subjects--the material of language1 as well as the doctrine which lies at its base4 ,in this assertion ,i see but deplorable confusion1 leading to profound misapprehension both of the meaning and the object of the sacred books4 ,it was not ,god's purpose to give instruction to men in grammar1 and if not in grammar neither was it his purpose to give instruction in geology1 astronomy1 geography1 or chronology4 #ajc ,it is on their relations with their ,creator1 upon duties of men towards ,him and towards each other1 upon the rule of faith and of conduct in life1 that ,god has lighted them by light from heaven4 ,it is to the subject of religion and morals1 and to these alone1 that the inspiration of the ,scriptures is directed4 ,i have read the ,holy ,scriptures scrupulously1 and over and over again1 with a view neither to criticise nor defend1 with the sole object of familiarising myself with their character and sense4 ,the more ,i advanced in this study1 the longer ,i had lived in the ,bible1 the more did the two facts seem clear to me1 the ,divine truths and the human faults at once profoundly distinct and in intimate contact4 ,i meet at each step in the ,bible with ,god and with man3 ,god1 ,being real and personal1 to whom nothing happens1 in whom nothing changes1 ,being identical and immovable in the midst of the universal movement1 who gives of himself the unparalleled definition1 ,i am that ,i am3 on the other side man1 ,being incomplete1 imperfect1 variable1 full of deficiencies and of contradictions1 of sublime instincts and gross desires1 of curiosity and ignorance1 capable of good and of evil1 and perfectible in the midst of his imperfection4 #ajd ,what the ,bible is incessantly showing us is1 ,god and ,man1 their points of connection and their contests1--,god watching over and acting upon man2 man at one time accepting1 at another rejecting1 ,god's influence4 ,the divine person and the human person1 if the expression is permissible1 are in each other's presence1 each acting upon the other and upon events4 ,it is the education of man after his ,creation3 his education as a religious and moral being1 nothing less and nothing more4 ,god does not1 in thus educating man1 change him3 he created him intelligent and free3 he enlightens him as to the religious and moral law with light from heaven2 in other respects he leaves him absorbed in the laborious and perilous exercise of his intelligence and of his liberty as a free agent4 #aje ,at each epoch1 in every circumstance1 during his continuous action upon man1 ,god takes him as he finds him1 with his passions1 vices1 defects1 errors1 ignorance2 just such a being as he has made himself2 nay1 every day is making himself1 by the good or bad use of his intelligence and of his freedom of action4 ,this is the ,biblical account1 and the ,biblical history of the relations of ,man with ,god4 ,what a strange contrast1 and still what an intimate and powerful connection exists1 in this history1 between those whom--how shall ,i dare to permit myself to call the two actors6 ,god does not appear so elevated1 so pure1 so strange to imperfection1 so untroubled by any human nature1 so immutable and serene in the plenitude of the divine nature1 so really ,god1 in any tradition1 invention of poetry1 or in any mythology1 as he is presented to us in the ,bible4 ,on the other hand1 in no nation1 in no historical narrative or document1 does man show himself more violent and ruder1 more brutal1 more cruel1 more prompt to ingratitude1 and more rebellious to his ,god1 than he is amongst the ,hebrews4 #ajf ,nowhere else1 and in no history1 is the distance so great between the divine sphere and the human region1 between the sovereign and the subject4 ,still1 ,israel never entirely separates itself from ,god2 and1 in spite of vices and excesses1 ,israel returns to ,god1 and recognises his law and empire1 even whilst incessantly violating them4 ,nowhere1 on the other hand1 does ,god appear1 in his turn1 so occupied with man1 does he at once exact so much from him and yet evince so much sympathy for him3 he does not change him suddenly1 by any act of his sovereign will2 he is a witness to all his imperfections1 all his weaknesses1 and all his errors2 nevertheless1 he abandons him not2 he holds ever steadily before him the torch of ,heavenly ,light1 and never omits to interest himself in his destiny4 ,the religious and moral idea is ever present and dominant2 nowhere else have the business and labour of human science held so small a place in man's thoughts and man's society4 ,god1 and the relations of ,god and man1 are the only subjects which fill the ,holy volumes4 #ajg ,in what do those relations consist8 ,by what results does this continuous action manifest itself1 of ,god upon man2 this incessant dialogue between ,god and man8 ,by laws1 precepts1 and commands1 religious and moral--,god proposes these to man2 he enjoins nothing more2 he speaks to him of nothing else2 demands nothing from him but obedience to his ,law4 ,god does not teach1 he commands2 ,god does not discuss1 he warns4 ,and the organs of ,god's speech1 the men whom he takes for his interpreters and his prophets1 ,moses1 ,samuel1 ,isaiah1 do neither less nor more4 ,although superior to most of their contemporaries by reason of possessing certain attainments1 they are no professors of human sciences3 just as they speak the language of the common people whom they address1 just so do they share most of their ignorance and errors respecting the objects and facts of the finite world1 in the midst of which they are living4 #ajh ,when they are made the medium for the religious and moral precepts and warnings of ,god1 it is then that they are no longer mere men of their time2 it is then1 only then1 that the light of divine inspiration descends upon them1 and that they diffuse it to all around them4 ,i do not wish to limit myself to a general summary only of what ,i regard as the essential character of the ,holy ,scriptures1--the simultaneous presence of the divine element and of the human element2 the one in all its sublimity1 the other in all its imperfection2 ,god revealing to man in a certain place his religious law and his moral law1 but without conveying elsewhere the divine light2 ,god taking man as he finds him1 in the points of time and of space in which he is placed1 with all his barbarism and imperfections4 ,i proceed1 therefore1 to consider some of the particular examples presented by the ,scriptures1 which make this great truth so evident as to be incontestable4 #aji ,i open the book of ,genesis and read3-- ,and it came to pass after these things1 that ,god did tempt ,abraham1 and said unto him1 ,abraham3 and he said1 ,behold1 here ,i am4 ,and he said1 ,take now thy son1 thine only son ,isaac1 whom thou lovest1 and get thee into the land of ,moriah2 and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which ,i will tell thee of4 ,and ,abraham rose up early in the morning1 and saddled his ass1 and took two of his young men with him1 and ,isaac his son2 and clave the wood for the burnt-offering1 and rose up1 and went unto the place of which ,god had told him4 ,then on the third day ,abraham lift up his eyes1 and saw the place afar off4 ,and ,abraham said unto his young men1 ,abide ye here with the ass2 and ,i and the lad will go yonder and worship1 and come again to you4 ,and ,abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering1 and laid it upon ,isaac his son3 and he took the fire in his hand1 and a knife3 and they went both of them together4 ,and ,isaac spake unto ,abraham his father1 and said1 ,my father3 and he said1 here am ,i1 my son4 ,and he said1 ,behold the fire and the wood3 but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering8 ,and ,abraham said1 ,my son1 ,god will provide himself a lamb for a burnt-offering3 so they went both of them together4 #aaj ,and they came to the place which ,god had told him of2 and ,abraham built an altar there1 and laid the wood in order2 and bound ,isaac his son1 and laid him on the altar upon the wood4 ,and ,abraham stretched forth his hand1 and took the knife to slay his son4 ,and the angel of the ,lord called unto him out of heaven1 and said1 ,abraham1 ,abraham3 and he said1 here am ,i4 ,and he said1 ,lay not thine hand upon the lad1 neither do thou any thing unto him3 for now ,i know that thou fearest ,god1 seeing thou hast not withheld thy son1 thine only son from me4 ,and ,abraham lifted up his eyes1 and looked1 and behold1 behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns3 and ,abraham went and took the ram1 and offered him up for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son4 ,a man who1 by his enlightened views1 and the elevation of his mind1 as well as by his faithfulness as a follower of ,christ1 is an honour to the church which he serves1 ,dr4 ,arthur ,stanley1 ,dean of ,westminster1 explains and characterises in these terms the ,biblical truths to which ,i am referring4 #aaa ,there have been1 he says1 in almost all ancient forms of religion1 and also in some of more modern date1 two strong tendencies1 each in itself springing from the best and purest feelings of humanity1 yet each1 if carried into the extremes suggested by passion or by logic1 incompatible with the other and with its own highest purpose4 ,one is the craving to please1 or to propitiate1 or to communicate with the powers above us1 by surrendering some object near and dear to ourselves4 ,this is the source of all sacrifice4 ,the other is the profound moral instinct that the ,creator of the world cannot be pleased1 or propitiated1 or approached by any other means than a pure life and good deeds4 ,on the exaggeration1 on the contact1 on the collision of these two tendencies1 have turned some of the chief difficulties of evangelical history4 ,the earliest of them we are about to witness in the life of ,abraham4 444 #aab ,the sacrifice1 the resignation of the will in the father and the son was accepted2 the literal sacrifice of the act was repelled4 ,the great principle was proclaimed that mercy was better than sacrifice1--that the sacrifice of self is the highest and holiest offering that ,god can receive4 444 ,we have a proverb which tells us that man's extremity is ,god's opportunity4 ,footnote #bd ,footnote #bd3 ,lectures on the ,history of the ,jewish ,church4 ,by ,arthur ,p4 ,stanley1 ,d4,d4 ,vol4 i4 pp4 #dg1 #dh1 #ej4 ,london1 #ahfg4 ,abraham was upon the point of accomplishing an act which1 even in the presence of virtuous motives and a divine command1 has been forbidden1 and is held accursed by the subsequent ,revelation and the sentiments of all whom it has enlightened4 ,at this moment the hand of ,abraham is stayed1 and patriarchal religion is saved from the antagonism of a conflict between the rigour of the ,hebrew law and the merciful dispensation of the ,gospel4 ,the sentiment which ,dean ,stanley expresses has my full concurrence2 but ,i go still further1 and maintain that there is in the pathetic narrative of ,abraham's sacrifice something more than he points out4 #aac ,this interposition of ,god in order to arrest the very act which he has required is in accord with the general doctrine of the ,bible1 expressly condemning human sacrifices2 ,footnote #be but ,abraham's as well as several other examples prove how such sacrifices continued to exist in the ferocious traditions and manners1 not only of several nations of ,semitic origin1 but even of the ,hebrews themselves4 ,god's intent is to try ,abraham1 and he pauses as soon as ,abraham's obedience to the divine order is beyond doubt4 ,abraham does not hesitate to execute the divine command2 he expresses no surprise at it4 ,the sacrifice of ,isaac is prepared1 and very nearly consummated1 as an event almost of course4 ,here we have man in the grossest and blindest condition of barbarism1 in the presence of ,god1 in whom as sovereign he believes1 and whose sovereignty it is not his purpose to dispute4 ,footnote #be3 ,leviticus xviii4 #ba2 ,deuteronomy xii4 #ca2 ,ezekiel xx4 #bf4 ,this question is treated and conclusively solved in the ,theologische ,encyclopedie of ,herzog1 art4 ,sacrifice1 vol4 x4 p4 #fba4 #aad ,it would be easy for me to multiply these examples1 and to show1 in many other passages of the ,bible1 the following fundamental characteristic of ,biblical ,history3 the thought and word of man1 although constantly in presence of the divine law and of the divine action1 yet in contact and contrast with the thought and word of ,god4 ,i prefer seeking for proofs in support of my conviction in a comparison of the ,old and ,new ,testaments1 and in the light which ,christianity sheds upon the ,hebrew ,revelation1 which it does not contradict1 but to which it applies a movement of progress4 ,i say progress1--progress immense1 infinitely grander than man's imagination could ever have conceived1--and at the same time the character of the divine work remaining absolutely the same4 ,it is no longer1 as in the ,old ,testament1 the stormy combat1 the continuous struggle of ,god and of man in the events of the world and in the life of the people4 ,god no longer interposes in the ,new ,testament to warn or direct1 to raise up or humble1 to recompense or to punish man in this world2 he decides no longer directly the issue of battle or the destiny of states4 #aae ,it is still ,god1 ,god in ,jesus ,christ1 with all his sublimity3 ,he1 and ,he only1 occupies and fills the place4 ,he appears there under a different aspect4 ,in his human form1 ,he is weakness itself1 intended and destined to become the very type of humility and of suffering2 the voluntary victim1 who expiates man's sin2 the victim of man's fall4 ,but in the midst of ,his miseries it is ,god1 ,god as ,he was for ,israel in all the splendour of ,his power4 ,christ's own knowledge of this appears throughout4 ,he says it1 ,he manifests it unceasingly by actions and by words2 sometimes by natural effects1 sometimes by miracles4 ,and yet how different6 what a range in the object and the bearing of ,his actions and of ,his words6 ,in the ,old ,testament the scene concentrates itself upon a corner of the world1 a single people1 a petty nation1 separated by ,god from the rest of the world1 in order to withdraw it from the contagion of idolatry2--but now it is for the whole world1 for all nations1 for future as well as for living generations1 for the ,gentile as well as for the ,jew1 for the barbarians of ,malta as well as for the ,greeks of ,athens1 that the ,god of the ,new ,testament manifests ,himself and speaks2 it is over the whole of humanity that ,he spreads ,his light and orders ,his servants to extend ,his empire4 #aaf ,he does more1 much more4 ,that divine light which ,jesus comes to spread over the whole world1 although it continues to emanate from the same fountain1 becomes more complete and more pure4 ,jesus is the first to recognise the fact that the ancient law1 although issuing from ,god1 bears here and there traces of human errors and passions4 ,i am not come1 says he1 to abolish the law1 but to fulfil it4 ,how fulfil it8 ,by removing the errors with which it had become intermixed owing to the imperfect nature of the men1 of the time1 and of the place1 at which it appeared1 and by filling up the gaps which that imperfection had entailed4 ,he disentangles the ancient law from every human element1 and brings it back to its one divine element1 its one pure and perfect source4 ,i refrain from all argument or commentary4 ,i will not cite anything in proof of this grand fact but those very texts of the ,ancient and of the ,new ,testament which embody their most essential precepts4 #aag ,i read in ,exodus1 ,eye for eye1 tooth for tooth1 hand for hand1 foot for foot1 burning for burning1 wound for wound1 stripe for stripe4 ,footnote #bf ,jesus effaces this lex talionis4 ,ye have heard that it hath been said1 ,thou shalt love thy neighbour1 and hate thine enemy3 but ,i say unto you1 ,love your enemies2 bless them that curse you1 do good to them that hate you1 and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you4 ,footnote #bg ,footnote #bf3 ,exodus xxi4 #bd1 #be4 ,footnote #bg3 ,matthew v4 #dc1 #dd4 ,it is said in the book of ,deuteronomy3 ,when a man hath taken a wife and married her1 and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes1 because he hath found some uncleanness in her3 then let him write her a bill of divorcement1 and give it in her hand1 and send her out of his house4 ,footnote #bh ,footnote #bh3 ,deuteronomy xxiv4 #a4 #aah ,i read in the ,new ,testament3 ,and the ,pharisees came to him1 and asked him1 ,is it lawful for a man to put away his wife8 444 ,and he answered and said unto them1 ,what did ,moses command you8 ,and they said1 ,moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement1 and to put her away4 ,and ,jesus answered and said unto them1 ,for the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this precept4 ,but from the beginning of the creation ,god made them male and female4 ,for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother1 and cleave to his wife2 and they twain shall be one flesh3 so then they are no more twain1 but one flesh4 ,what therefore ,god hath joined together1 let not man put asunder4 ,footnote #bi ,footnote #bi3 ,mark x4 #b-i2 ,matthew xix4 #c-i4 ,the ,mosaic law condemns to death every adulterer3 ,if a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband1 then they shall both of them die1 both the man that lay with the woman1 and the woman3 so shalt thou put away evil from ,israel4 ,footnote #cj ,footnote #cj3 ,deuteronomy xxii4 #bb4 #aai ,jesus is called upon to pronounce upon the very case3 ,and the scribes and ,pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery2 and when they had set her in the midst1 they say unto him1 ,master1 this woman was taken in adultery2 in the very act4 ,now ,moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned3 but what sayest thou8 ,this they said tempting him1 that they might have to accuse him4 ,but ,jesus stooped down1 and with his finger wrote on the ground as though he heard them not4 ,so when they continued asking him1 he lifted up himself1 and said unto them1 ,he that is without sin among you1 let him first cast a stone at her4 ,and again he stooped down1 and wrote on the ground4 ,and they which heard it1 being convicted by their own conscience1 went out one by one1 beginning at the eldest1 even unto the last3 and ,jesus was left alone1 and the woman standing in the midst4 ,when ,jesus had lifted up himself1 and saw none but the woman1 he said unto her1 ,woman1 where are those thine accusers8 hath no man condemned thee8 ,she said1 ,no man1 ,lord4 ,and ,jesus said unto her1 ,neither do ,i condemn thee3 go1 and sin no more4 ,footnote #ca ,footnote #ca3 ,john viii4 #c-aa4 #abj ,the ,mosaic law is full of minute ceremonial regulations1 and of rigorous conditions1 which attach to the performance of certain external acts1 in certain appointed places1 the duty of adoration and of prayer4 ,not only does ,jesus object to the ,scribes and ,pharisees that they place all their faith and their piety in the acts alone2 he does more2 he gives his disciples personally a lesson of striking simplicity by teaching them the ,lord's ,prayer2 and when the ,samaritan woman1 whom he meets near the well of ,jacob1 says to him3 ,our fathers worshipped in this mountain2 and ye say that in ,jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship4 444 ,jesus saith unto her1 ,woman1 believe me1 444 the hour cometh1 and now is1 when the true worshippers shall worship the ,father in spirit and in truth3 for the ,father seeketh such to worship him4 ,god is a ,spirit3 and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth4 ,footnote #cb ,footnote #cb3 ,john iv4 #bj1 #ba1 #bc1 #bd4 #aba ,thus ,jesus1 not to abolish but to accomplish the ancient law1 and to make it harmonise with the new and universal work which he is about1 separates from the law that which the imperfection of man had introduced in it in other times1 and for a more limited work2 he leaves in it nothing but the divine element in all its purity and empire4 ,he only leaves to the divine element its religious and moral empire1 for it is in its name alone that he speaks2 the religious and moral law is the only law revealed by ,jesus1 and extended over the entire world2 no other thought mixes itself with his doctrine1 no other motive influences his action2 political science1 human science1 have absolutely no place at all in the ,new ,testament2 ,jesus does not think of satisfying either social ambition or intellectual curiosity2 he desires to make neither kings nor doctors2 as soon as he finds such pretensions advanced1 he sets them aside2 #abb ,render unto ,csar the things which are ,csar's2 and unto ,god the things that are ,god's4 ,i thank thee1 ,father1 ,lord of heaven and earth1 because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent1 and hast revealed them unto babes4 ,footnote #cc ,footnote #cc3 ,matthew xxii4 #ba2 xi4 #be4 ,jesus occupies himself with man's soul alone1 with the human being in his native simplicity2 the relations of man1 of every man1 with ,god2 the state and destiny of the human soul1 of every human soul1 in the present and in the future3 this is the sole idea1 the sole mission1 of the ,new ,testament4 ,jesus knows that when once accomplished this will bring with it its own salutary consequences3 ,seek ye first the kingdom of ,god1 and his righteousness1 and all these things shall be added unto you4 ,footnote #cd ,footnote #cd3 ,matthew vi4 #cc4 #abc ,i do not hesitate1 then1 to affirm1 that human science1 in its different and special objects1--whether astronomy1 geology1 geography1 chronology1 physics1 historical criticism1--is as foreign to the object as it is to the source of the sacred ,volumes4 ,in the sciences we have the domain of the mind of man left to itself1 and to itself alone4 ,they are the fruits1 assiduously cultivated and slowly acquired by the laborious exertions of the human intellect during a succession of ages4 ,if1 then1 you meet1 in ,scriptural texts1 not treating of acts declared miraculous1 terms and assertions apparently repugnant to facts recognised as truths in these different sciences1 feel no disquietude4 ,it is not there that ,god has set up ,his divine torch2 it is not there that ,god has spoken4 ,the language is the language of the men of the different epochs1 men who speak according to the measure of their knowledge or of their ignorance1 the language which they are obliged to speak in order to be understood by their contemporaries4 ,i feel surprised that men should require to be told this1 so simple1 so clear is it4 #abd ,in matters of religion and of morality there have always existed1 and in every place there have existed1 spontaneous instincts1 aspirations1 and ideas common to all men1 which lead them to employ a similar language1--a language comprehended and received by all who hear it1 whatever in other respects may be their inequality in attainments and civilization2 whereas1 in matters purely scientific we find nothing at all like this2 men in the mass see and speak of these1 not as they are to the eye of science1 but according to their appearances1 and so men comprehend or do not comprehend them1 hear them or do not hear them1 according to the degree of scientific knowledge or of ignorance prevalent at the time and place at which they live4 ,what would the ,hebrews in the ,desert1 or the ,jews about the person of ,christ1 or the savages of the ,pacific have said to his missionaries1 if they had been told that it is the earth which turns round the sun1 that its shape is that of a spheroid1 that it is habitable and inhabited at opposite points of its circumference8 #abe ,what is more natural1 what more inevitable1 than that the language of the ,scriptures should agree with the scientific imperfection of men upon all these matters1 even where that language is full of divine inspiration as to the religious or moral law of humanity8 ,no one honours science more than ,i do1 no one feels a greater admiration for it4 ,it is a mission that man has to perform1 and it is one of his glories2 but it has no place in the relation of man with ,god1 and in the action of ,god upon man4 ,god is no sublime1 no mighty doctor1 who reveals truths of science to man1 to give him the noble pleasure of contemplating them1 or of publishing them2 he has left such researches to labours purely human4 ,the work of ,god is more complex and grander3 it is essentially practical4 ,that of which man1 every man1 stands in need1 that after which he thirsts1 that which all mankind asks of ,god1 simple as well as learned1 is to be enlightened as to the religious and moral truths which are to regulate his soul and his life1 and to decide his lot in eternity4 #abf ,it is to all mankind that ,god responds2 it is to the salvation of all men that the ,scripture applies itself4 ,a celebrated philosopher1 a man of a mind lofty and sincere1 but one of the most lost of the great lost ones of the human intelligence1 thought differently4 ,according to ,spinoza1 all men are far from being called to enjoy eternal life in the same plenitude4 444 ,after death the reason1--just ideas survive2 all the rest perishes4 ,souls governed by reason1 philosophical souls1 who even from the moment when their life in this world ceases1 live in ,god1 are consequently exempt from death2 for death deprives them only of that which is of no value4 ,but those dim and feeble souls1 upon which reason hardly gleams at all1 those souls made up entirely1 so to say1 of empty imaginings and passions1 perish almost entirely2 and death1 instead of coming to them as a simple accident1 penetrates to the very bottom of their being4 ,the soul of the sage1 on the contrary1 cannot be more than barely troubled2 possessing1 by a sort of eternal necessity1 the consciousness of itself and of ,god1 and of things as they really are1 it never ceases to exist2 and as for real tranquillity of soul1 it possesses it for ever4 ,footnote #ce ,footnote #ce3 uvres de ,spinoza4 ,according to the translation of ,emile ,saisset4 ,introduction1 vol4 iii4 p4 #bia4 #abg ,i know not if human pride ever gave expression to a thought showing a stranger aberration of intellect2 and in spite of the favour with which some men of distinguished abilities endeavour at the present day to encircle the name of ,spinoza1 ,i do not believe that there is any chance1 at an epoch when war is declared against all privileges1 for philosophers to make good their exclusive claim to the privilege of immortality4 #abh ,fourth ,meditation4 ,christian ,ignorance4 ,when ,i use the term ,christian ,ignorance1 ,i would not have either the sense which ,i attach to the expression1 or the intention with which ,i use it1 misunderstood4 ,i do not think that it should be denied to man to make any use of his intelligence1 to exercise any right to inquire freely after truth1 or after any kind of truth4 ,is the field which is open to the human mind limited in extent8 ,is the mind itself of limited reach8 ,is there a difference of degree in human knowledge according as the objects are different to which it is applied8 ,these are questions1 all of them1 fundamentally contained in the words ,christian ,ignorance2 and of these questions it is my aim to offer what appears to me to be the right solution4 #abi ,i am in the presence of four sciences1 and of six schools or systems1 which have made1 are making1 and will always continue to make1 much noise in the world4 ,the sciences are1 ,physiology1 ,psychology1 ,ontology1 and ,theology4 ,the systems to which these sciences have given birth are1 ,materialism1 ,positivism1 ,scepticism1 ,spiritualism1 ,scientific ,theology1 ,mystical ,theology4 ,i am far from meaning to discuss here the principles of these systems1 or to attempt to determine their value2 it would be to undertake the task of examining all philosophy and all philosophies4 ,i mean to touch only upon one of the special questions which furnish in our days matter of debate between ,christianity and these different schools4 ,it is thus1 and thus only1 that ,i can clearly establish the sense which ,i attach to the words ,christian ,ignorance2 and determine1 at the same time1 their bearing and their limitation4 #acj ,i have1 and for very simple reasons1 little to say respecting the first three systems to which ,i have just referred1 i4 e41 ,materialism1 ,positivism1 ,scepticism4 ,by its denial of the distinction of the soul and the body1 of mind and matter1 ,materialism rejects ,psychology1 and arrives1 as far as ,ontology is concerned1 only at ,atheism or at ,pantheism4 ,of the four great philosophical sciences1 ,physiology is the only one with which ,materialism has any concern4 ,amongst ,positivists1 some1 the more eminent1 admit1 it is true1 the reality of ,objects1 or to speak more exactly1 the reality of the domain of ,psychology and of ,ontology2 but in admitting it they declare it to be inaccessible to the human mind3 ,inaccessible1 says ,m4 ,littr1 not null or non-existent2 it is an ocean which washes our shore1 and for which we have neither bark nor sail4 ,footnote #cf ,footnote #cf3 ,a4 ,comte et la ,philosophie ,positive4 ,by ,m4 ,littr1 p4 #eai4 ,that is to say1 that1 according to ,positivists1 ,psychology1 ,ontology1 and ,theology are not--cannot be--sciences4 #aca ,as for sceptics1 they contest to the human mind all certitude1 and especially certitude with respect to the subject-matters of ,psychology1 ,ontology1 and ,theology4 ,the fundamental principle of ,christian belief is then too absolutely strange to those three schools for it to be necessary that ,i should discuss with them the source1 bearing1 and legitimacy of that which ,i term ,christian ,ignorance4 ,it is only with ,spiritualists1 with scientific ,theologians1 and with mystic ,theologians1 that it is possible to discuss this question of ,christian ,ignorance1 for the three schools to which they belong are the only ones which1 in the same way as ,christianity itself does1 open to the human mind the domain of the four sciences--,physiology1 ,psychology1 ,ontology1 and ,theology1 and which recognise the right of the human mind there to search after truth1 and the possibility of its being there discovered4 ,when ,i speak of ,spiritualists1 a preliminary remark is indispensable4 ,christianity is as spiritualistic1 not to say more so1 than ,spiritualism itself4 #acb ,it is not1 then1 with ,spiritualism in general1 and with all ,spiritualists without distinction1 that ,christians have to deal in the question of ,christian ,ignorance1 as it has in other questions2 the discussion here lies between ,christianity and ,rationalistic ,spiritualism alone2 and not only between ,rationalism and ,christian ignorance1 but also between ,rationalistic science and ,christian science4 ,rationalistic ,spiritualism admits the reality of ,psychology1 of ,ontology1 and of ,theology1 just as it does that of ,physiology2 it admits that these different sciences owe their birth and development necessarily to the spectacle of the universe1 of men and of things1 and have for their object the solution of the questions which this spectacle suggests4 ,but this great fact once admitted1 ,rationalism places in ,psychology1 and in ,psychology alone1 the starting-point and the fulcrum of ,ontology and of ,theology2 it only admits in these two sciences results to which the human mind attains by its own unaided efforts1 that is to say1 by way of observation and of reasoning2 it recognises for human knowledge1 with respect to ,ontology and ,theology1 no source other than human reason4 #acc ,christianity opens to ,ontology and ,theology a larger sphere and other sources of knowledge3 besides the psychological facts supplied to these two sciences by observation and reasoning1 it recognises historical facts as truths1 not only which they are bound themselves to admit1 but which they have a right to demand that others shall admit2 ,christianity does not make the human mind the sole object of its belief2 it believes also in the history of ,humanity1 and finds in that ,history facts to the truth of which centuries1 and the traditions of centuries1 have testified1 which it therefore holds1 and is bound to hold1 as well proved and as certain as any physical or psychological fact proved by the observations of contemporary science4 ,the ,creation1 the primitive ,revelation1 the ,mosaic ,revelation1 the ,evangelical ,revelation1 are in ,christian ,doctrine historical facts which ,ontology and ,theology take1 with reason1 as the elementary data and the legitimate bases of science4 #acd ,i am here met by a fundamental objection made to these facts and to their scientific authority2 they are1 it is said1 opposed to the permanent laws of nature and of reason1 as well as of human experience2 science cannot admit supernatural facts4 ,i have no intention in merely passing to re-enter here upon this great question2 ,i have already expressed unreservedly my opinion with respect to it1 ,footnote #cg and upon some other occasion ,i shall return to it2 for1 if ,i do not deceive myself1 the question has not hitherto been properly sounded and to the depth which it demands4 ,here ,i confine myself to referring to two ideas--facts1 rather--absolutely forgotten or ignored by the systematic opponents of the supernatural4 ,footnote #cg3 ,meditations on the ,essence of ,christianity4 ,third ,meditation3 ,the ,supernatural1 pp4 #hd-ajh4 ,london1 #ahfd4 ,liberty1 free agency1 in presence of the external or internal causes which operate upon the will1 is the peculiar and distinctive characteristic of man4 #ace ,it is by this that man separates himself from and raises himself above nature1 understanding by the term the ensemble of things determined by laws general1 anterior1 permanent4 ,man alone has it in his power to commence a new series of facts foreign to any general law1 and originating in his will alone4 ,to deny such facts1 is to deny that man is a free agent1 and to make him a machine regulated by external and fatal laws2 that is to say1 to drive man back to the condition of that nature which is substantially governed by laws of this kind1 and thus to abolish at one blow human morality and human liberty4 ,the blow strikes still higher--it would abolish ,god4 ,god1 who created man1 is1 and was previous to the existence of his creations1 a being essentially free2 for liberty cannot be the daughter of ,fatality4 ,it is in the free divine volition that human ,liberty has its source1 and man's ,liberty itself testifies to the source from which it emanates4 #acf ,by denying human liberty1 we throw not only man but ,god into the condition of physical nature1 that is to say1 into the ensemble of causes obedient to fate1 and deprived of all moral essence2 that is to say1 we plunge into ,pantheism1 which1 in spite of ,spinoza and ,goethe1 in spite of all the efforts of logical reasoning or poetic imagination1 is1 in ultimate analysis1 nothing more than ,atheism4 ,the systematic opponents of the supernatural must submit to this consequence4 ,most of them1 ,i am certain1 are far from being disposed to accept it1 and would indeed repudiate it with the most honourable perseverance4 ,vain efforts6 ,driven from entrenchment to entrenchment1 from fall to fall1 they will be finally reduced to this extremity2 and if divine wisdom had not assigned limits to the force of man's ,logic1 the practical consequences of such a system would soon make themselves evident in the moral and social condition of humanity4 #acg ,there is a second necessity to which the systematic opponents of the supernatural must make up their minds4 ,they must affirm that the laws proclaimed by them as general laws1 laws immanent and permanent in what they call nature1 are in effect the essential laws of all nature1 of the entire universe1 and of all the beings whose seeds are there sown4 ,they would have no right to reject absolutely facts as supernatural if they were not supernatural of necessity and everywhere2 if1 in short1 they were anywhere in harmony with laws of nature other than the laws of this hardly perceptible corner of nature which is the residence of man4 ,if the laws of our world are not universal and absolute1 who will venture to affirm that they cannot be changed or suspended1 even there where they reign8 ,is human science ready to maintain that the laws which she discovers from her infinitely small ,observatory are in effect universal and absolute laws in every place where matter exists1 and where life manifests itself1 in the midst of space and of time8 #ach ,here it is that ,christian ,ignorance begins to take its place2 it admits the unknown and the diverse in the universe--an unknown incommensurable1 a diverse infinitely possible4 ,i respect and admire science profoundly2 ,i am as moved1 ,i feel as proud as ,m4 de ,laplace could ever have been at the aspect of this sublime flight of the human intelligence1 which marches with sure footing in space and across worlds1 measures their distances1 and knows how many years are required for the light of the nearest of the fixed stars to reach us1 whereas the light of our own sun reaches us in a few minutes4 ,i am not less touched by the labours and the discoveries of the great modern ,physiologists1 who1 walking in the footsteps of ,bichat1 observe and note1 even in their minutest and most obscure details1 the different phenomena which life in the midst of matter presents4 ,but when ,i have rendered homage to these triumphs of human science1 ,i compare them with the reality of things1 with this universe infinitely great and infinitely minute1 which man makes his study1 and ,i cannot prevent the reflection1 that the universe contains infinitely more objects than man's mind attains to1 and infinitely more secrets than it discovers4 #aci ,what astronomer will dare to affirm that he has counted all the worlds1 and that his eye has reached the point beyond which no more exist8 ,what physiologist1 what naturalist1 will affirm that all those worlds have living inhabitants8 and that1 if so1 those inhabitants must have the same form1 and be subject to the same conditions and laws1 as govern the inhabitants of this globe4 ,our science becomes very modest when set side by side with our ignorance1 even in the matters appropriate to science2 and1 however extensive and various the conquests of the human mind may be1 the universe is infinitely vaster and more varied than is either the genius or the strength of its vain conqueror4 ,knowing this1 and without ceasing to admire the works of human science1 ,christian ,ignorance bows humbly before that work of ,god1 which outstrips and surpasses immeasurably every attainment of man4 #adj ,thus on two sides1 and by two different processes1 ,christianity has a higher point of view1 and penetrates further into the reality of things than ,rationalistic ,spiritualism4 ,on the one side1 by allowing its place to historic facts which are the life of mankind1 as well as to psychological facts which are the life of man's soul1 ,christianity gives to ,christian science a deeper1 a broader foundation than rationalistic science supplies4 ,on the other side1 ,christianity admits1 both with greater grandeur and with more modesty than ,rationalism1 the unfathomable immensity of the universe1 as well as the infinite diversity of its possible laws2 and by the avowal of a ,christian ,ignorance1 it places itself1 at least1 at the most elevated point to view the spectacle of which human science cannot traverse or measure the extent4 #ada ,it is in the presence of another rival1 ,i do not say of another adversary1 that ,i have now to set ,christian ,ignorance4 ,i begin by asking learned ,theologians to forgive the freedom of my thoughts and of my speech2 ,i feel for them a sincere sentiment of respect1 let me say brotherly respect2 for in the question to which ,i address myself ,i am now to deal with ,christians4 ,but actuated by the same feeling as that which influenced me when ,i was before speaking of the relation of the sacred writings to human science1 ,i must declare my profound conviction that the subject which is here being treated is of pressing interest to ,christian ,religion in the great struggle in which it is engaged4 ,the ,christian ,religion is founded upon facts1 upon an uninterrupted series of facts recorded in documents which exist4 ,whether the authenticity or the authority of any part of these documents1 the reality or even the possibility of any of the facts which they contain is admitted or contested1 it is not the less true that ,christianity is not1 as ,greek ,paganism was1 a poetical mythology attributed to fabulous times2 as the religion of ,zoroaster was1 a personification of the great forces and of the great phenomena of nature2 or as the writings of ,confucius were1 a collection of philosophical meditations1 and of moral precepts and counsels1 for the use of wise and simple1 of princes and subjects4 #adb ,i am far from contesting that poetry and philosophy1 human imagination and human meditation1 have their share in the books which form the documents of ,christianity2 it is at the same time incontestable1 however1 that the peculiar and essential characteristic of ,christianity1 from its very origin down to its latest development1 is that it is historical3 we behold the ,christian ,religion starting to life1 living1 traversing centuries1 growing great and independent1 just as we behold civil society doing1 in a series of facts which succeed to one another and are different from one another4 ,christianity is not merely a religious doctrine2 it is the history of the events wherein have been manifested the relations of ,god to man1 and the action of ,god upon the destinies of ,mankind4 #adc ,in proportion to the vigour with which these events have developed and spread themselves1 the human mind has been exposed to two temptations1 which constitute at once its honour and its peril1 the temptation of explanation and that of controversy4 ,what an undertaking6 to explain ,god6 his relation to man6 the means and the process of his action upon man6 ,even when he essays to study1 and to describe1 the ,nature of the ,god in whom he believes1 ,man's vision is troubled by the dazzling light2 his thought exhausts itself1 loses itself in the vain effort to attain1 by means of comparisons and figures of all kinds1 to the ,divine ,person3 he conceives that person1 he affirms that person1 he contemplates that person1 and yet that person he cannot know1 cannot explain4 ,the nearer he feels himself to ,god1 the more does ,man cast his eyes down1 the more lowly does he incline himself1 to adore1 where he cannot pretend to observe4 ,even the very presence of ,god does not aid man in attaining to the science of ,god4 ,what1 then1 the result where he would seek closely to follow the agency of ,god in the facts in which he only sees ,him imperfectly1--where he attempts to carry the torch of human science into the depths of the secrets of ,divine action8 #add ,i here enter into the domain which ,christianity ignores4 ,two examples will fully suffice1 ,i hope1 to make my meaning clear4 ,the ,divinity of ,jesus1 ,god's incarnation in ,jesus1 ,jesus ,god and ,man1 these are the truths admitted1 proclaimed1 incessantly repeated in different forms1 by the ,gospels and the primitive documents of ,christianity4 ,i have already said ,footnote #ch that it is the fact itself of the ,incarnation which constitutes the ,christian faith1 and which rises above all definitions and all theological controversies4 ,to disregard this fact--to deny the divinity of ,jesus ,christ--is to deny1 to overthrow the ,christian religion1 which would never have been what it is1 and would never have accomplished what it has1 but that the ,divine ,incarnation was its principle1 and ,jesus ,christ--,god and ,man--its author4 ,footnote #ch3 ,meditations on the ,essence of ,christianity4 ,second ,meditation1 pp4 #ge1 #gf4 #ade ,but ,christians have not confined themselves to the belief of this sublime truth2 they have striven to explain it2 they have sought to know and to define how1 and when1 the divine nature and the human nature became united in ,jesus ,christ1 to what extent such union took place1 and what effect it produced upon ,christ's personality4 ,hence all the questions1 all the controversies1 which were raised as to the mode and the consequences of the divine incarnation1 by ,nestorius and ,eutyches1 and which in the councils of ,constantinople1 of ,ephesus and ,chalcedon1 divided and agitated the ,christian ,church1 especially in the ,east4 ,man had here essayed to construct a science of ,religion and of divine ,history4 ,the ,gospels1 the ,acts of the ,apostles1 and the ,epistles1 as unanimously and persistently as they have proclaimed the ,incarnation1 contain and proclaim another great truth of ,christianity1 the co-existence of the ,father1 ,son1 and ,holy ,ghost1 and their combined action upon the human soul4 #adf ,the ,trinity is written in the ,new ,testament1 where it takes its place in the history and in the ,faith of ,christ from their very beginning4 ,here1 again1 men have refused to restrict themselves to ,history1 or to a belief in ,history2 they have essayed to determine the elements1 and to explain the quomodo of the religions truth2 in other words1 to transform history into science4 ,hence all the controversies1 all the contests1 all the authoritative decisions which have pretended to fix the nature1 rank1 and relations of the three ,divine persons1 or the manner of the one ,god's existence and action in the ,trinity of ,father1 ,son1 and ,holy ,ghost4 ,i enter into none of these controversies2 ,i examine none of the doctrines and decisions which those controversies have either originated1 or disputed2 ,i now only seek to determine their essential character2 it is the transition from divine truth to human science3 it is ,theology1 the offspring1 more or less legitimate1 of ,religion4 #adg ,when ,i say its offspring more or less legitimate1 and speak of ,theological science in these guarded terms1 it is not that ,i do not design to say openly all that ,i think upon the subject4 ,the scientific ,theology of ,christianity commands often my admiration1 always my respect4 ,in their effort to explain the grand facts of the ,old and ,new ,testament1 its writers have addressed themselves to a glorious task2 they have in pursuing it fallen upon and thrown light upon sublime truths2 they have engaged for the cause of ,christianity in formidable contests2 they have lent a moral influence often pregnant of effect to the institutions and authorised teachers of ,christ's religion4 ,but their efforts have been even more ambitious than energetic1 more compromising than efficacious2 they have1 even with the words unceasingly in their mouths1 shown an ignorance of the limits of human science4 ,the ,christian ,religion is a miracle1 the miraculous work of ,god2 this was the point from which they started1 their fundamental datum2 forgetting what they have so affirmed1 they have sought and they have thought to ensure the triumph of the divine truth by explaining it2 they have obscured and changed it by an intermixture of man's work4 #adh ,man can recognise as realities the facts which are at the same time both ,christian dogmas and ,christian mysteries4 ,man can recognise his own subjection to them1 but it is not given to man to make of them a science4 ,bossuet also essayed to fathom the ,trinity2 in the midst of his explanations and of his comparisons1 he stops short and exclaims3 ,i do not know who can vaunt that he understands that perfectly1 or who can satisfy himself as to what the modes of being can add to being1 or as to whence arises their distinction in the unity and the identity which they have with the being itself4 ,all this is not very comprehensible2 all this1 nevertheless1 is truth4 ,footnote #ci ,footnote #ci3 lvations sur les ,mystres4 ,works of ,bossuet1 vol4 ix41 p4 #di4 ,thus after this final effort of his genius1 it was in ,christian ignorance that the last great doctor of the ,church was forced to take refuge4 #adi ,it is not only that these attempts of ,scientific ,theology are unsuccessful1 they entail1 as experience painfully shows1 a serious danger4 ,pride is the ordinary companion of science1 and what pride equal to the pride of the science which dares to believe that it has penetrated the secrets of ,god's action and of man's destiny6 ,scientific ,theology has had the greatest share in religious persecutions2 its doctors have had to defend not only their faith but their system1 not only ,god's work but their own work and this simultaneously4 ,those whose systems were the most logical have generally been the most tyrannical2 history in this respect fully confirms what independently of history might fairly be presumed2 namely1 that supposing the faith equal1 ,christian ignorance is far more naturally and readily inclined to moderation and charity than ,theological science4 ,but it is not only the scientific ,theologians whose ambition and efforts have led them to mount beyond the sphere of human science2 others there are who fall in a different manner into the same error and the same peril4 #aej ,the ,mystic ,theologians ask for light as to the relations of ,god to man1 not from dialectics and reasoning1 but from sentiment and inspiration4 ,they admit between ,god and man a direct and mysterious communication1 which1 in certain cases and upon certain conditions1 conveys to the human being divine revelations of a character personal and individual4 ,with this torch in the hand they approach the questions which concern grace1 prayer1 and the destiny awarded by ,providence to each creature1 and flatter themselves that they are able to raise the veil by which the solution of such questions is hidden4 ,i cannot contemplate without profound emotion these pious impulses of the human soul1 desirous of penetrating the secrets of ,god4 ,what more excusable than that ardent and trembling curiosity in the midst of the darkness of our life and destiny8 ,whoever believes really in ,god cannot fail to believe himself under the eye and in the power of ,god2 how1 indeed1 would it be possible for him to admit that his ,creator is indifferent and powerless8 #aea ,there are1 it may be added1 very few who1 at certain moments and under certain circumstances1 have not felt1 in the innermost recesses of their being1 a stirring1 an impulsion1 not proceeding from themselves1 nor from the world around them1 inexplicable to them1 except as proceeding from a superior source and power4 ,who of us has not1 in the course of his life1 been sometimes aware of a design foreign to his own volition1 his own forecast1 conducting him to an end which he did not forecast8 ,and1 finally1 in the infinite number of prayers rising to ,god from the midst of human misery and suffering1 are there not some to which the event brings satisfaction1 just as there are others with respect to which the contrary is the case8 ,hence the problems of the divine ,grace1 the divine ,providence1 the efficacy of prayer4 ,no doubt the desire is very natural which passionately aspires to solve problems so grand1 and which1 in the hope to do so1 strives to rise to a direct and personal communication with their ,divine author4 #aeb ,but the more natural the desire1 the more profound the error4 ,no doubt ,god acts upon us1 upon our soul1 and upon our destiny1 by his providence and by his grace2 no doubt he hears and listens to our prayers2 but it is not given to us to foresee his action and his answer1 nor to appreciate them in their motives and their effects4 ,the ways of ,god are not our ways4 ,whether general problems are submitted to man's intelligence1 or questions touching him personally trouble his soul2 whether the ,doctors of ,theology construct systems1 or the ,mystic ,theologians fall into ecstasies1 we see in all these cases that man has arrived at limits which oppose an effectual barrier to his scientific vision1 and which no transports of piety will ever enable him to overleap4 ,beyond those limits1 the condition imposed by ,god upon man is confidence in spite of ignorance2 or in other words1 ,christian ,ignorance which is gage at once for his wisdom1 his charity1 and his liberty4 #aec ,fifth ,meditation4 ,christian ,faith4 ,forty years ago1 upon the appearance of a work of the ,abb ,bautain1 entitled ,the ,morality of the ,gospel compared with the ,morality of the ,philosophers1 ,i published1 in the ,revue ,franaise1 an essay upon that state of the human soul which is called ,faith1 upon the different intellectual facts which it expresses1 and the different ways by which man attains to it4 ,although my special subject1 at present1 is no longer ,faith in its abstract sense1 but of ,faith in ,christ1 it is not foreign to my purpose to lay before readers in the year #ahfh some passages which appeared in my essay in #ahbh4 ,for notwithstanding the imperfection of the essay referred to1 ,i have not ceased to regard it as founded on just reasoning2 it serves as a starting-point for that ,meditation upon ,christian ,faith which ,i now give to the press4 #aed ,by the word faith is commonly understood a certain belief in facts or dogmas of a special nature--in facts or dogmas of religion4 ,this word1 indeed1 has only this meaning1 when in speaking of the faith the term is used alone and absolutely4 ,this1 however1 is neither its sole meaning1 nor its fundamental meaning2 it has a still more extended sense from which its religious sense is derived4 ,expressions like the following are met with3--,i have full faith in your words2 this man has faith in himself--in his strength--in his fortune1 c4 ,this employment of the word faith in secular matters1 so to say1 occurs more frequently in the present day2 it is1 however1 no recent invention1 and religious ideas have never been so exclusively its sphere that the word faith has not had also other significations attached to it4 #aee ,it appears1 then1 by the usages of common speech and popular opinion1 #ast1 that the word faith designates a certain internal condition of the person who believes1 and not merely a certain species of belief3 that it refers to the nature itself of the conviction1 not to its object2 #bndly1 that this word was1 nevertheless1 in its origin1 and still is1 more generally applied to those kinds of belief termed religious4 ,what then1 in its special and ordinary application to religious belief1 are the variations which have taken place in its meaning1 and which are taking place every day8 ,men engaged in teaching and preaching a religion1 a doctrine1 a religious reform1 sometimes whilst appealing to the whole energy of the human mind in its state of liberty1 succeed in producing in their disciples an entire1 profound1 and powerful conviction of the truth of their teaching4 ,this conviction is called ,faith2 a name which neither masters and disciples will repudiate1 nor even their adversaries disallow4 #aef ,faith then is only a profound and imperious conviction of the truth of a dogma of religion2 it matters little whether the conviction has been acquired by way of reasoning1 or has been generated by controversy1 or by free and rigorous examination2 that which gives to it its character1 and entitles it to the name of ,faith1 is its energy1 is the empire which that energy gives to it over the whole man4 ,such at every time was the faith of the great ,reformers1 and more especially in the sixteenth century1 such the faith of their most illustrious disciples1 of ,calvin after ,luther1 and ,knox after ,calvin4 ,the same men have preached the same doctrine to persons whom it was impossible for them to convince by the use of reasoning1 by an appeal to examination1 or to science1 to women and crowds of persons incapable alike of laborious study and of lengthened reflection4 ,they spoke to the imagination1 to the moral affections1 where the persons whom they addressed were prone to feel emotion1 and to believe in consequence of emotion4 ,they gave the name of ,faith to the result of their action1 just as they had done so to the result of the process essentially intellectual of which ,i was before speaking4 #aeg ,faith thus instilled was a religious conviction1 not acquired by reasoning1 and deriving its origin in human sensibility4 ,this is the idea of faith as entertained by the ,mystic ,sects4 ,appeals to human sensibility and human emotion have not always sufficed to generate faith4 ,another spring of human influence has been resorted to2 and men have been commanded to adhere to practices and to form habits4 ,man must sooner or later attach ideas to the acts which are habitual to him1 and attribute a meaning to that which produces in him a constant effect4 ,the mind was led to the belief of the principles which had given birth to certain practices and habits4 ,a new kind of faith appeared1 it had for its principle and dominant characteristic1 the submission of the mind to an authority invested with the right at once to govern man's life and to regulate his thought4 #aeh ,finally1 faith has not everywhere nor constantly been generated in the human mind1 either by the free exercise of the intelligence1 or by appeals to sensibility1 or by the formation of habits4 ,it was then said that faith was incommunicable1 that it was not in man's power to impart faith1 or to acquire it by any exertion of his own1 that for this purpose ,god's intervention and the action of his grace were necessary4 ,divine grace became thus the preliminary condition of faith and its definitive character4 ,the word faith has1 consequently1 in turn expressed3 #ast1 a conviction acquired by the free efforts of the human intelligence2 #bndly1 a conviction acquired by way of the sensibility1 and without the concurrence of the reason1 and often even against its authority2 #crdly1 a conviction acquired by man's long submission to a power invested with a power from on high to command conviction2 #dthly1 a conviction induced by supernatural means1--by divine grace4 #aei ,what in the midst of this variety of sources from which it may emanate is the essential and invariable character of faith8 ,what is the state of the soul in which faith reigns when we consider it independently of its origin and of its object8 ,two kinds of belief exist in man3 the one1 ,i will not call it innate1 for this is an inexact and justly criticised expression1 but a belief natural and spontaneous which springs up and establishes itself in the mind of man1 if not without his being aware of it1 at least without the help of any reflection or volition on his part1 by the development alone of his nature and the influence of that external world in the midst of which his life is passed2 the other kind of belief is the result of laborious examination and reflection1 the fruit of voluntary study and of the power possessed by man either to concentrate all his faculties upon a certain object with the design of mastering it1 or to direct the thought inwards1 and realise what is there taking place--to render an account thereof to himself1 and thus to acquire by an act of volition and of reflection1 a knowledge which he did not before possess1 although the facts which form its object nevertheless existed as facts external--and which he might see by his eyes1--or as facts which were taking place within him4 #afj ,of these two kinds of belief which merits the name of faith8 ,it seems at first sight that the name is perfectly suitable to that kind of belief which ,i have termed natural and spontaneous3 such belief is exempt from doubt and disquietude2 it directs man in his judgment1 in his actions1 and with an empire which he dreams neither of eluding nor contesting2 it is ingenuous1 unhesitating1 practical1 sovereign2 who would not recognise in it the characteristics of faith8 ,faith has in effect two characters2 but it has at the same time others which belief natural and spontaneous has not4 ,almost unnoticed by the man who is yet guided by it1 this natural and spontaneous belief is to him1 as it were1 a law from without which he has received1 not accepted2 which he obeys by instinct without having given it any intimate and personal assent4 #afa ,it suffices for the exigencies of his life2 it guides him1 admonishes him1 impels him1 or checks him2 but without1 so to say1 any concurrence on his own part1 without giving birth in him to the sentiment that any active1 energetic1 or powerful principle is stirring within him1 without procuring him the profound joy of contemplating1 loving1 adoring the truth which reigns over him4 ,faith1 on the contrary1 has this power2 faith is not science1 neither is it ignorance2 the mind which faith penetrates has never yet1 perhaps1 rendered a true account to itself of that in which it has faith2 and1 perhaps1 never will do so2 but the mind is1 nevertheless1 certain of it2 to the mind it is present1 living2 it is no longer a general belief1 a law of human nature which governs the moral man1 as the law of gravitation governs bodies2 it is a personal conviction1 a truth which the moral man has made his own by force of contemplation1 of voluntary obedience1 and love4 ,henceforth this truth does much more than suffice to his life1 it satisfies his soul2 it does much more than direct him1 it enlightens him4 #afb ,how many1 for instance1 live under the empire of a natural and instinctive belief that moral good and moral evil exist1 without our being able to affirm that they have faith in them4 ,such belief is in them1 as it were1 a master undisputed2 to whom1 nevertheless1 they render no homage1 whom they obey without seeing and without loving4 ,but if a circumstance1 a cause1 however trivial1 revealing1 so to say1 the conscience to itself1 should attract and fix their attention upon this distinction between moral good and evil1 which is a spontaneous law of their nature2 should they knowingly acknowledge and accept it as their legitimate master1 should their intelligence honour itself by comprehending it1 and their liberty do itself honour by obeying it2 should they feel their soul1 as it were1 the sanctuary of a sacred law1 as the focus into which this truth concentrates and establishes itself in order thence to diffuse its rays of light2 this is no longer simple natural belief1 it is faith4 #afc ,faith1 then1 does not exclusively consist of either of the two kinds of belief which at first sight seem to share between them the soul of man2 it partakes at once of natural and spontaneous belief and of the belief which is the fruit of reflection and science2 yet it differs from each2 like the latter1 it is individual and intimate2 like the former confidant1 active1 dominant4 ,considered in itself1 independently of all comparison with any other particular and analogous state of the intellect1 faith is the full security of man in the possession of his belief1 as absolved from effort1 as exempt from doubt2 the path which the mind has pursued in arriving at it is obliterated1 and a sentiment only is left behind of the natural and pre-existent harmony between the mind of man and the truth itself4 ,to the man whose mind faith penetrates1 his intelligence and his volition present no longer any problems for solution as to the things which are the objects of his faith3 he feels himself in full possession of the truth to light and to guide him on his way1 and in full possession of himself to act according to the truth4 #afd ,as faith has internal characteristics which are peculiar to it1 it has also1 with some strange and rare exceptions1 external conditions which are necessary to it2 it is distinguishable from other modes of human belief1 not only by its nature1 but by its object4 ,up to a certain point these conditions may be determined and perceived1 although imperfectly1 according to the nature itself of that state of the soul and of its effects4 ,a belief may be so entire and sure of itself that no further effort of the intellect seems necessary1 and the believer1 wholly absorbed in the truth which in his judgment he possesses1 may lose all memory of the way by which he arrived at it4 ,a conviction may be so forcible as to become master of his every action1 as well as of every impulse of his mind1 and may imperatively force and morally oblige him to submit all things to its empire2 a state this of the intellect which is the fruit1 perhaps1 not merely of the exercise of the intelligence1 but of a strong emotion1 of a long obedience to certain practices1 and in the midst of which all the three great faculties of man1 the sensibility1 the intelligence1 and the will1 are simultaneously in activity1 and simultaneously satisfied4 #afe ,where all this is the case1 the occasion which has induced such a situation of the soul1 had need be one worthy of the soul1 and of its situation2 the subject with which it is so occupied1 had need be one which embraces the entire man1 which sets in play all his faculties2 responding to all the requirements of his moral nature1 it has a right in return to all his devotedness4 ,the characteristics of ideas proper to become really a faith would seem priori to be intellectual beauty1 and practical importance4 ,an idea which should present itself to the mind as true1 without at the same time striking it by the extent or the gravity of its consequences1 might produce certitude2 but the name of faith would not be suitably applied to it4 #aff ,nor would the practical merit1 or the immediate utility of an idea suffice of itself to generate faith2 to do so it must also attract1 it must also take possession of the human mind by the pure beauty of truth4 ,in other words1 in order that a simple belief1 whether instinctive1 or arising from reflection1 may become faith1 the thing believed must be of a nature to procure to man the united joys of contemplation and of activity1 to awaken in him the twofold sentiment1 that it is of lofty origin and of potent influence2 his idea must be such as that he shall be induced to regard it as a medium between the ideal world and the real world1 as a missionary charged to model the one upon the other1 and to unite them4 ,it is easy to understand why the name of faith is used almost exclusively to characterise religious beliefs2 no other belief possesses in so high a degree the two characteristics1 ,footnote #dj which provoke the development of faith4 ,footnote #dj3 ,intellectual beauty and practical importance4 #afg ,many principles of science are beautiful and fruitful in useful applications2 political theories may strike the mind by the elevation of the ideas which they embody1 and by the grandeur of their results2 the doctrines of a pure morality are still more surely and more commonly invested with this double power4 ,nor have these kinds of belief failed sometimes to generate faith in the human soul4 ,still1 to receive a clear and profound impression at one time of their intellectual beauty1 at another of their practical importance1 a certain measure of science and of sagacity1 or a certain turn for public life1 or for politics1 as the case may require1 is almost always necessary1 and this does not belong to all men1 nor to every epoch4 ,religious belief1 on the contrary1 has no need of such resources3 it carries in itself1 and in its very nature1 infallible means of effect2 having once penetrated into the heart of man1 however limited and undeveloped in other respects his intelligence may be1 or however rude and low his condition1 it seems to him a truth at once sublime and usual1 a truth which addresses itself to him as an habitant of this earth1 and at the same time which opens to him access to those lofty regions1 to those treasures of intellectual life1 which without the light of faith he would have never known2 it has for him the charm of the purest truth1 and exercises over him the empire of the most powerful interest4 #afh ,can it astonish us1 that the belief once existent1 its transition to a state of faith should be so rapid and so general8 ,but it is precisely on account of its instinctive tendency to transform itself into faith1 and into a faith of extraordinary energy1 that religious belief has need to continue always free and always subject to the tests which ,liberty has the right to impose4 ,legitimate faith1 that is1 as we understand it1 the faith which does not deceive itself as to its objects1 and which addresses itself really to the truth1 is beyond contradiction the loftiest condition to which the human mind1 in its present state1 can attain1 for it is that state in which man feels his moral nature fully satisfied1 in which he gives himself up entirely to the mission prescribed to him by his thought4 #afi ,but a faith may be illegitimate2 it is possible for this state of the soul to be produced by error2 the chance of error 7experience proves this at every step7 is even here greater1 the more the different routes which lead to faith are multiplied and the more its effects are energetic2 man may be led astray in his faith by his sentiments1 by his habits1 by the empire of moral affections or of external circumstances1 as well as by the defect or the abuse of his intellectual faculties2 for his faith may spring from any of these various sources4 ,nevertheless1 faith once there1 it is daring and ambitious2 it passionately aspires to diffuse itself1 to usurp1 to reign1 and constitute itself the law of opinions and facts4 ,not only is faith ambitious1 it is strong1 it possesses1 it displays1 in support of its pretensions and its designs1 an energy1 an address1 a perseverance1 which are almost always wanting to opinions simply scientific4 ,so that for this mode and degree of conviction and belief1 far more than for any other1 there is chance of the individual falling into error1 and of society falling under oppression4 #agj ,for these perils there is but one remedy1 ,liberty4 ,whether in belief or in action1 the nature of man is the same3 not only his will but his thought1 if it is not to become absurd or culpable1 has incessantly need of contradiction and of control4 ,where faith fails1 moral energy and moral dignity fail equally2 where liberty does not exist1 faith first usurps1--then becomes bewildered--finally destroys itself4 ,if human belief passes to the state of faith1 it is its progress and its glory2 if1 in its efforts toward this result1 and after having attained it1 it abides constantly under the control of the free intelligence2 we have1 in this fact1 at once a guarantee for society against the tyranny of that faith and a pledge that the faith is legitimate4 ,in the co-existence and mutual respect of these two forces consist the excellency and security of society4 ,footnote #da ,footnote #da3 ,revue ,franaise 7,january1 #ahbh71 ,mditations et tudes ,morales1 par ,m4 ,guizot1 pp4 #adc1 #agc-age 7edition of #ahfa74 #aga ,if ,i consider this essay1 or psychological portrait1 shall ,i rather call it1 of faith in general1 and compare with it ,christian faith1 ,i am immediately struck by two features as characterising it4 ,on the one side1 the ideas and the facts upon which ,christian faith is founded1 have evidently that twofold merit of intellectual beauty and of practical importance which has both the right and the power to compel faith4 ,on the other side1 ,christian faith may originate1 in fact does originate1 in sources the most diverse1 in study and rational meditation1 in sentiment1 in authority1 in an appeal to the divine grace4 ,what grander and more impressive to the mind of man than the principles of ,christian faith1 regarded as a whole8 ,god and ,man incessantly present the one to the other1 in the life of each man1 as in the history of the human race6 ,what more grave and more momentous1 regarded from a practical point of view8 ,in the present hour1 it is peace to the soul of man1 peace to his life2 in the future1 it is his destiny throughout eternity4 #agb ,the diversity of the sources of ,christian faith is not less evident than its intellectual beauty and its practical importance4 ,beyond a doubt1 the ,christian faith of the ,chancellor de l',hospital1 of ,pascal1 of ,bossuet1 of ,fnelon1 of ,luther1 of ,calvin1 of ,newton1 of ,euler1 of ,chalmers1 was as much the fruit of reflection and of learning1 was as freely meditated and adopted as the scepticism of ,montaigne and of ,bayle1 as the sensualism of ,hobbes1 and the pantheism of ,spinoza4 ,it is equally certain that all ,christian communities1 ,roman ,catholic or ,protestant1 have had their mystics1 their eminent and sincere believers1 whose faith was illumed and fed by sensibility and imagination2 in the former case in the emotions and practices of fervent piety2 in the latter1 in empassioned transports and strivings after a direct communication with ,god and with ,christ4 ,as for the faith founded upon authority1 the ,church of ,rome has presented the most extraordinary example which the world has ever seen1 and if ,protestantism has caused the faith of individuals to make great strides in the direction of liberty1 it has nevertheless taken for its fixed basis the divine inspiration of the ,sacred ,book1 and has thus ensured a great importance and very efficacious influence to the principle of authority4 #agc ,having thus placed ,christian ,faith in its true point of view1 and assigned to it its just rank in the history of the human soul1 let us see whence arises the contest in which that ,faith is engaged with natural ,religion and with religious philosophy8 ,what is the principle of this contest1 and what its character8 ,here we are met by that all-important question1 the question which has been agitated during nineteen centuries1 and to which all the intellect of modern times has applied itself4 ,is the ,christian ,faith in contradiction to human reason8 ,some affirm that a contest between the two is natural and inevitable2 of these there are who tell us that reason should give way to faith1 and again others who say that faith should yield to reason3 whereas1 on the contrary1 there are those also who deny that such contest is inevitable1 and who maintain that faith and reason1 as they ought to do1 may both live in peace with each other4 #agd ,in my opinion1 the difference between ,christian ,faith and that which is styled natural ,religion1 or religious philosophy1 is profound2 but ,i do not think that the question between the two has been rightly put1 or that the character of their opposition has been rightly defined4 ,to discover what1 in effect1 this character is1 ,i address myself1 first1 to the philosophers4 ,we know how ,descartes began his great philosophical inquiries1 to what state he brought his mind in order to enter upon his task3 ,i persuaded myself1 says he1 that ,i could not do better with respect to the opinions which up to that time ,i had entertained1 than to begin by ridding myself of them entirely1 in order then either to replace them by better opinions1 or to return to the old ones if ,i should find them1 on examination1 to conform to the standard of reason4 #age ,then proceeding to determine the precepts to be followed by him in this recasting of all his opinions by such standard1--,my first principle1 said he1 was never to accept anything as true1 unless ,i could evidently recognise its truth2 in other words1 to avoid carefully any precipitate judgment1 to allow my mind to follow no bias1 and not to comprise anything in its judgments but what presented itself so clearly and so distinctly to my mind as to leave me no room for doubt4 ,footnote #db ,footnote #db3 ,discours de la ,mthode4 ,works of ,descartes1 vol4 i41 pp4 #ace1 #ada2 edition of ,m4 ,cousin4 ,more than a century after ,descartes1 ,condillac1 wishing to trace to its source the origin of human knowledge1 and to write the history of its progressive development1 did far more than obliterate from his mind its primitive ideas4 ,he began his labours by curtailing the human mind of a great part of its proper proportions2 he reduced man to the primitive condition of a statue1 leaving to it no other faculty than the sensation3 and then he fancied he could derive from sensations all man's ideas1 all his knowledge1--in fact1 the entire man himself4 #agf ,thus these two great systems1 ,spiritualism and ,sensualism1 have their very commencement1 each in an arbitrary assumption4 ,descartes1 effacing from the human mind all that it has learnt to know or to believe1 solely by its spontaneous activity1 and by the natural course of human life1 has treated the mind as a tabula rasa1 and to fill up the void which he has so made1 he does not admit anything there unless it presents itself so clearly and so distinctly to his mind1 as to leave him no room to doubt respecting it4 ,condillac1 on the other hand1 suppresses not only all that which man has learnt spontaneously and without reflection1 but the man himself2 leaving in the place of man a statue1 sentient1 it is true1 but only sentient1 and with this statue and his sensations alone1 he undertakes to reconstruct the man--the entire man--with all the developments of his nature and of his thought4 #agg ,i see nothing in either of these processes more than a starting point entirely fictitious1 a false step made at the very commencement of philosophy1--in short1 a mere hypothesis4 ,descartes rendered admirable services to the cause of liberty and of intellectual sincerity2 ,condillac contributed to the progress of the method which ,i shall call1 the method of anatomy and scientific dissection applied both to the human mind and to the material world2 but from their very commencement both these philosophers threw themselves out of the high road1 the straight road of philosophy2 each from the very commencement substituted a mere hypothesis in the place of an exact and complete appreciation of facts4 ,it is far from my intention to discuss either of these two systems2 ,i am content to put aside the two hypotheses1 the tabula rasa of ,descartes1 and the statue of ,condillac1 and ,i proceed1 my way lighted by the facts1 as they are1 naturally produced in the history of the mind of man1 to inquire what is the cause1 and what the import1 of the struggle which is taking place between rationalistic religious philosophy1 and ,christian faith4 #agh ,the true point of departure of this history and the first of the facts which show themselves there1 is the co-existence of man and the universe1 spectator and spectacle1 the one confronting the other1 the moi and the non moi1 the subject and the object1 in the language of philosophy4 ,i hasten to say that ,i repudiate absolutely the different systems1--,pantheism1 whether materialistic or idealistic1--,scepticism1 whether idealistic or absolute1--which refuse to admit this primary fact1 deny the reality of the external world1 or the legitimacy of the knowledge of it which the understanding acquires1 see only illusions in the relations of man to the universe1 or absorb man and the universe together1 in the confusion and the obscure darkness of a pretended identity4 ,i do not dream of here discussing these different systems2 if ,i engaged in such discussion1 ,i should have to deal with something very different from the question to which ,i am applying myself at this moment4 #agi ,here ,i have only to do with ,rationalistic ,spiritualism4 ,this form of ,spiritualism has so much in common with ,christianity1 that it admits the reality and the distinction of the moi and of the non moi of the subject and the object1 of the spectator and the spectacle1 of spirit and matter1 of man and the universe4 ,for ,rationalistic ,spiritualists as well as for ,christians1 this is the great fact in the midst of which1 and under the empire of which1 man's intelligence is developed1 man's life passed4 ,man is there passive1 active1 and witness1 all simultaneously4 ,as spectator he receives impressions from the spectacle1 which both prompt him to act1 and which stir his being from within2 he is witness both to what is passing within himself and to what is passing without himself4 ,notwithstanding the diversity and the mobility of the impressions which he receives from without1 and of the acts which he originates himself1 he has a consciousness of his own personal and permanent existence1 and also the consciousness of existences other than his own2 he knows not1 by the way of reasoning or hypothesis1 but by instinctive and immediate intuition1 that which1 although it is not himself1 yet acts upon himself as something coming from himself4 #ahj ,man discovers the external world as he becomes aware of himself1 by the intercommunication which takes place between them1 and which1 nevertheless1 shows him how distinct from himself is that external world4 ,he observes and notes both what takes place without him and within him4 ,the results of this observation he terms facts1 nor are they for him vain appearances1 creations merely of his thought or volition2 they are manifestations to him of realities independent of himself1 and yet to which he stands in relation2 they are bonds of union in which he feels that he is highly interested1 not merely as any curious spectator might be1 but as a real being2 interested1 not merely for the sake of science1 but interested as one whose very destiny is therein involved4 #aha ,amongst these facts1 in their nature so numerous and so diverse1 ,i only select those which concern the religious instincts of man1 or the questions which they suggest4 ,i admit two kinds of these2 first1 the spontaneous and common religious beliefs1 which mankind professes1 although under very different forms and in very different degrees2 secondly1 the theories and systems of philosophy1 emanating from and promulgated by philosophers in order to bring under discussion the popular religious opinions1 and to resolve the questions which they involve4 ,on the one side is the natural and instinctive religion of humanity2 on the other is human science1 which1 when it addresses itself to the task of disengaging natural religion from every system of mythology1 is called religious philosophy4 ,are there in the nature and in the religious history of men no other great facts besides these instincts of humanity1 and these systems of human science8 ,natural ,religion with its mythologies1 and religious philosophy with its systems1 are these all the religious aid accorded to man to enlighten him upon subjects of religion8 #ahb ,to the question thus formalised1 ,rationalistic ,spiritualism says1 ,yes2 whereas ,christian ,faith replies1 ,no4 ,in addition to the facts to which ,i have just referred1 viz41 the instinctive beliefs of mankind1 and the systemised doctrines of human science concerning religion1 the ,christian faith admits and proclaims another great religious fact1 the real and active presence of ,god in the life of man and in the history of humanity4 ,what the ,christian faith affirms is1 that the real and active presence of ,god1 in man's life1 amidst the mysteries of ,providence1 of prayer1 and of grace1 and the real and active presence of ,god in the history of the human race1 amidst the mysteries of ,revelation1 of ,inspiration1 of the ,incarnation1 and of the ,redemption1 do not constitute simply a poetical mythology1 are not merely hypotheses of philosophy1 but are psychological and historic facts which human science cannot explain1 but which it nevertheless can1 nay1 is bound to recognise4 #ahc ,not philosophers only1 but the whole human race1 believers and disbelievers1 are placed in the same permanent position in which all originally stood2 that is to say1 ,man stands always confronting the ,universe1 ,man always at once spectator and actor1 greedy to know and comprehend the spectacle on which he is looking1 and of which he himself forms part4 ,the spectacle is immense1 infinite2 the spectator petty1 imperfect1 ephemeral1 diverse1 and with limited powers of vision4 ,accordingly as he is situated1 accordingly as he is disposed and his intelligence reaches1 he sees to a greater or less distance1 and with a vision more or less accurate1 all that the spectacle presents4 ,he observes more or less completely1 more or less exactly1 the facts which are occurring there4 ,hence the differences of opinion amongst mankind4 ,who are they amongst them who succeed best in appreciating and in describing these facts without altering their character or omitting any8 ,this is the fundamental question1 the question antecedent to and which governs all the others4 #ahd ,the contest1 then1 between ,christians and non-,christians1 is not a contest between ,faith and ,reason4 ,reason occupies a place1 and a large place1 in the ,faith of ,christians2 they attain to faith as well by reason as by sentiment or authority2 nor is there1 at the same time1 in the negations or the doubts of non-,christians1 as much reflection and as much accurate observation as they themselves suppose4 ,are ,christians right in affirming not only the existence of ,god1 but his real and active presence in the life of man and in the history of the human race8 ,are these psychological and historic facts which reason and science are bound to admit8 ,or are the ,deists who are not ,christians justified in denying these facts and in limiting ,god to existence alone1 and in treating him as subject to the general and permanent laws assigned to all other existences8 #ahe ,as far as ,christianity and ,rationalistic ,spiritualism are concerned1 this is the real question at issue4 ,having pointed out the source of the differences of opinion which we find amongst men1 ,i will now indicate their consequences4 ,rationalistic ,spiritualism affirms the existence of ,god1 and those who follow this system evince the strongest desire to demonstrate his existence4 ,they are right2 for the existence of ,god1 and the rational consequences of his existence1 form all their natural religion1 all their religious philosophy4 ,in these days1 men of minds1 as eminent as sincere1 ,m4 mile ,saisset1 ,m4 ,jules ,simon1 ,m4 ,ernest ,bersot1 ,m4 de ,rmusat1 have made earnest--,i would willingly say pious--efforts to elucidate the proposition of ,god's existence1 and to derive from it all the aid that reason can furnish to explain the instincts and satisfy the religious exigencies of humanity4 ,but these ,spiritualists deceive themselves4 ,they do not attain to ,god himself1 they only attain to the idea of ,god2 what they establish is the admissibility of the intellectual idea1 not the presence of a real being4 #ahf ,in rejecting the psychological and historical facts upon which ,christianity is founded1 that is to say1 the relations free and unintermitted of ,god with ,man1 whether in the individual life of each man or in the history of the mankind1 ,rationalistic ,spiritualism deprives itself of direct and positive evidence to prove ,god's existence2 it places a human argument in the place of the divine manifestation1 and a scientific work of man in the place of the real action of ,god4 ,in an excellent book1 justly entitled by him ,idea of ,god1 another contemporary philosopher1 ,m4 ,caro1 has valiantly1 and with brilliant success1 defended this idea against the different systems which reject or distort it4 ,and not limiting himself to polemics1 he has concluded his work by a forcible and clear enunciation of his own thought4 #ahg ,it is the living ,god1 the intelligent ,god1 whom we defend against the ,god of ,naturalism1 who would not be more than a law of geometry or a blind force2 against the ,god of ,hegel1 who would not be more than an indeterminate ,being1 an origin and a commencement of things1 or an absolute mind1 result at once and product of the world2 against the ,god of the new ,idealists1 who1 to save his divinity1 strip him of his reality4 ,we affirm1 in opposition to all these subtle and hazardous conceptions1 that a supposed perfect being1 unless he had an existence1 would not be perfect2 that a mere ideal of the mind is not a ,god2 that if he is not a substance he is but a conception1 a pure category of spirit1 a creation and dependence upon man's thought which1 in ceasing to exist1 annihilates its ,god2 that1 if he is not cause1 he is the most useless of beings2 and if he is cause1 he is mind supreme1 for were he not so he would be nothing but an unconscious and necessary agent1 a blind spring of the world1 inferior to what he produces1 since in the organic matter that emanates from him1 an intelligence displays itself1 of which he would possess nothing1 and since too in man is manifested a divine ,reason4 #ahh ,another remark1 and we have done with our definition4 ,this living ,god1 this ,god intelligent1 is also a ,god that loves 444 ,a ,god that loved not would not be worthy of being adored 444 ,we do not adore a law1 however simple it may be1 however fruitful in consequence2 we do not adore a force if it be blind1 however potent1 however universal it may be2 nor an ideal1 however pure it may be1 if it be only an abstraction4 ,we only adore a being who is living perfection1 the perfection of reality in its highest forms of mind and love4 ,every other adoration implies a contradiction if the object is a pure abstraction1 idolatry if the object be the substance of the universe or humanity4 ,this is ,god as he appears to reason1 and as the religious conscience of humanity will have him4 ,this is your ,god4 ,footnote #dc ,footnote #dc3 ,l',ide de ,dieu et ses ,nouveaux ,critiques4 ,by ,e4 ,caro4 p4 #dih4 #hvo4 ,paris1 #ahfd4 #ahi ,it is to be regretted ,m4 ,caro has not carried his conclusions still higher1 and completed his work by proceeding on from philosophical spiritualism to ,christian ,spiritualism4 ,rationalistic ,deism is merely an idea of ,god1 given as the philosophical solution of the grand problem1 which the spectacle of the ,universe and of ,man in the ,universe causes to weigh upon the soul of man4 ,christianity is faith in ,god1 ,being real1 ,sovereign real1 continually present1 and active in the government of the ,universe1 as he is in the soul of man and in the history of the human race4 ,rationalistic ,deism arrives at the idea of ,god1 and stops short there1 because it ignores the psychological and historical facts which go beyond this idea4 ,it is by holding account of these facts1 and by doing to them the homage which is their due1 that ,christianity forwards and justifies her faith4 #aij ,sixth ,meditation4 ,christian ,life4 ,every doctrine1 religious1 moral1 or political1 has yet to submit to a test--the great test--the practical application4 ,the idea has to be transformed into reality1 the thought to be made life4 ,philosophers pride themselves upon searching only for the truth1 upon busying themselves only with the theoretical truth of their ideas1 to the neglect of every other consideration4 ,they are right in one sense3 for the knowledge of truth1 of truth as it is in itself1 is that which the human mind proposes to itself as its object1 and is the only thing which can satisfy it2 if man pretends to it1 it is his right and his honour to do so3 whatever the object of his study1 the mind does not halt or rest until it believes that it has attained to the truth4 #aia ,this is no privilege of philosophers2 neither are they the only ones for whom truth is a law3 all men have a right to live under its empire1 whether as to facts or ideas4 ,no one1 not even those who affect most disdain for theory1 would venture to lay down the principle that we should be indifferent whether we are essentially in the right1 and that practically there is no difference between truth and error4 ,but by what signs is truth recognisable8 ,are there no other than the affirmations of that inquisitive spectator1 named the human mind8 ,is it only by language1 by reasoning1 and by discussion1 that the truth of an idea and of a doctrine manifests and proves itself8 ,to such a pretension1 if advanced1 ,i hesitate not to reply with a denial1 and in doing so1 to repeat what ,i have just said3 every doctrine1 religious1 moral1 or political1 has to submit to a test1--the practical application4 #aib ,the idea transformed into reality1 the thought made the life2 these are the most certain signs of an idea being intrinsically true1 these1 too1 are proofs of its reasonable legitimacy1 which it is bound to give4 ,there is a radical difference between the material world and the intellectual world4 ,the laws which regulate and maintain order in the material world1 are independent of man1 of both his thought and his volition4 ,it matters not that he knows these laws1 or is ignorant of them2 they do not the less exist and govern2 man has no power to change1 arrest1 or suspend their operation2 he cannot influence them4 ,galileo was right to say of the earth1 in spite of his judges1 ,still it moves2 it would have moved even if ,galileo1 as well as his judges1 had been ignorant of the fact1 and the contest between the whirlpool of ,descartes and ,newton's principle of attraction1 was a matter perfectly indifferent to the general system of the world4 ,there man's error is absolutely without effect or influence4 #aic ,in the intellectual and moral world it is otherwise2 here man is not only spectator1 he is an actor1 an actor free or not to act-- to act with effect4 ,he thinks and he wills1 and so contributes to the facts which take place in the world2 he knows1 or is ignorant of1 the laws1 he respects or violates the laws which preside here1 but which do not preside here as laws external to and independent of himself4 ,man's errors1 man's faults1 are not here without real and serious consequences2 they have the power of sowing evil and of carrying perturbation into the intellectual and moral world1 thus delivered up1 as the ,bible proclaims1 to the disputes of men4 ,learned men1 in the study and appreciation of the material world1 separate sciences absolutely1 and1 considering each apart from its practical application1 occupy themselves in their scientific investigations only with the pure theory4 ,this ,i understand and admit2 for such a course does not endanger the security of society or the results of their own labours4 #aid ,their ignorance and their errors have no doubt grave inconveniences2 the facts and the forces of the material world are either misconceived or not turned sufficiently to account2 man and human society do not reap all the advantages which the profound and exact knowledge of the truth might1 in this respect1 procure them4 ,such ill1 although real1 is of a negative description1 a good1 it may be1 missed or postponed2 but no general disturbance results in that material world upon which naturalists or chemists concentrate their labours2 the world will not have to undergo the effect1 nor to pay the penalty1 of their ignorance or of their errors4 ,the intellectual and moral world1 on the contrary1 runs a greater risk1 and imposes upon its teachers severer duties2 no doubt these study it as freely1 and make truth1 too1 their object2 but science does not here escape the weight of its own conclusions2 it is a power as formidable in its abuse as it is in itself sublime2 it may carry into the world to which it addresses itself trouble instead of order1 incendiarism instead of light4 ,if practical application is not here the object of science1 it is still its necessary and appropriate proof2 in facts as in a mirror are reflected the truth or the error1 the good or the ill1 of human opinions4 #aie ,christianity has now been subjected to this test for nineteen centuries3 it is subject to it at this moment1 it will continue ever to be so4 ,i need not say that ,i do not propose to retrace here the narrative of the manner in which it has supported and surmounted that test2 that would be to write the ,history of ,christianity4 ,i confine myself1 on the contrary1 to a single small part of this history1 the most modest part1 the least pretending3 and shall endeavour to bare a little to the view what ,christianity1 when it has been put into practice1 what ,christian ,faith1 after it has become ,christian ,life1 has in the different situations of man's life accomplished1 and is every day accomplishing1 for the ennoblement of his nature1 and the furtherance of his ultimate destiny4 #aif ,three words1 ,rights of ,man inscribed upon the banners of the ,french ,revolution1 constituted its force2 the rights of man as man1 rights by this title alone1 by virtue alone of his humanity4 ,three other words1 ,liberty1 ,equality1 ,fraternity1 have served as a commentary upon the three former4 ,it is in the name of these two maxims that the ,french ,revolution is making the tour of the world2 they are the sources of the good and the evil1 the movements in advance as well as the ruinous calamities of our time and of an unknown future4 ,whilst all of true and good that these two maxims contain is ,christian and was proclaimed by ,christianity1 all that they have of false and fatal is condemned and expressly repudiated by ,christianity4 ,not only in this terrible confusion does ,christianity proclaim in principle the part that is good1 and condemn in principle the part that is evil2 but ,christianity alone1 in point of fact1 has the necessary authority and moral force to suppress the evil without at the same time causing the good also to perish4 #aig ,it is a subject to us1 in these days1 of pride1 and of a pride that is just1 that we have at last begun to consider man himself1 the individual man1 his existence1 and his personal liberty1 his rights1 and the guarantees of his rights1 as the essential objects of social institutions4 ,we have at last emerged from the rut of pagan antiquity1 glorious at once and rude1 where the individual1 made wholly subordinate1 was sacrificed to the state1 where man was regarded simply as citizen1 and thousands of human creatures were degraded and treated as cyphers in favour of a single class4 ,men are no longer numbered as ,jews and ,gentiles1 ,romans and ,barbarians1 freemen and slaves4 ,christianity first not only proclaimed but put into practice this important truth4 ,the right of every man1 as man1 the worth of the human soul1 and of the human person1 irrespectively of his situation in life1 constitute the starting-point1 the fundamental idea1 the dominant precept of the ,christian religion4 #aih ,it was1 in effect1 in religious society1 in the rising ,christian ,church1 that this principle was first proclaimed1 and first put into practice2 ,christianity treated the relation of man to ,god as the chief concern of man's life1 and religious liberty as the chief of human liberties2 it was in the presence of ,god that ,christians admitted the equal importance of every soul2 as it was amongst ,christians themselves that they greeted each other as brethren1 and that fraternity engendered charity4 ,but although sprung from a source so elevated1 and applied at first upon a stage so small1 the ,christian idea was not on that account less potent1 or less fruitful2 in spite of obstacles and reverses it maintained itself1 and diffused itself through centuries and over distant countries2 it made constant efforts to penetrate civil society4 ,at the epochs of the history of ,christendom which are most to be deplored1 in the midst of the oppressions and the iniquities which have brought desolation upon it1 daring voices have never been wanting3 at one time it was the voice of the ,christian ,church itself directed against the masters of the earth2 at another a voice issuing from the bosom of the ,church itself1 full of generous protestations against the disorders and acts of violence which were taking place in its own bosom4 #aii ,jesus1 ,god and man1 having raised man before ,god1 man never afterwards entirely humiliated and degraded himself before any human tyranny4 ,in the presence of the greatest inequalities of earthly power1 the appellation1 brethren1 never ceased to be echoed in ,christian ,society2 and even at this day1 after all the progress which equality has made in civil society1 it is only in religious societies and in ,christian ,churches that men hear themselves greeted as brethren4 ,the ,christian faith has not only exercised a political influence in the state by changing the relations in which individuals stand to the political authorities1 or in which the different classes stand to one another3 it has also introduced a change in the constitution of the primary natural and imperishable association1 called family4 #bjj ,there1 also1 it has caused to disappear1 at one time1 the despotism of husband and father2 at another1 the degradation of wife1 and the brutal or licentious independence of children4 ,if we give ourselves the trouble to compare the ,christian family as religion1 laws1 and morals have made it1 with the family of antiquity which was most strongly constituted1 namely1 the ,roman family1--we shall not need to examine long before we discern clearly on which side order really is1 on which side the just appreciation of natural sentiments1 the respect for right and liberty4 ,i have said that at the same time that ,christianity proclaims and puts in practice all that is true and healthy in the popular maxims of our times1 man's rights and liberty1 his equality and fraternity1 it condemns and rejects all that they contain of false and deplorable4 ,there is one very striking fact in the history of the foundation of ,christianity1 a fact traceable not merely in the records of a few years1 but through three centuries4 #bja ,christianity began with resisting absolute power1 and with laying claim to liberty of conscience4 ,it owed its establishment to the same cause4 ,in the ,roman world no one any longer made even a show of resistance2 every kind of oppression was in force1 every claim to freedom abandoned3 the ,christians again raised high the banner of right1 and of resistance in the name of right2 but never did they raise their banner to encourage revolt or attacks upon authority2 they undertook the defence of liberty against tyranny1 and never made appeals to insurrection against authority4 ,martyrdom1 not murder2 such is the sum of the history of ,christianity from the day of its birth in the manger of ,jesus1 to the day when it mounted the throne of ,constantine4 ,the reason of this is1 that from the time when ,christianity was yet in its cradle1 and even afterwards when it was struggling to conquer its liberty1 liberty was not an exclusive idea for ,christians either in their doctrines or their lives3 they recognised1 respected1 and proclaimed with equal solicitude both principles upon which the moral order of the world reposes1 authority and liberty4 #bjb ,they never1 in any respect1 sacrificed the one to the other1 nor humiliated the one in the presence of the other2 masters and disciples1 all referred power to its true source1 and did homage to its right at the same time that they maintained their own right against power4 ,when ,jesus spoke1 the people were astonished at his doctrine1 for he taught as one having authority1 and not as the ,scribes4 ,footnote #dd ,footnote #dd3 ,matthew vii4 #bi4 ,jesus declared formally to his disciples his authority over them1 and the mission which it imposed upon them3 ,ye have not chosen me1 but ,i have chosen you1 and ordained you1 that ye should go and bring forth fruit1 and that your fruit should remain4 ,footnote #de ,footnote #de3 ,john xv4 #af4 ,and when ,st4 ,paul1 although exposed to all kinds of perils and struggles1 spread abroad throughout the ,roman ,empire the doctrines of ,jesus1 he said to the new ,christians1 ,let every soul be subject unto the higher powers4 ,for there is no power but of ,god3 the powers that be are ordained of ,god4 444 ,wherefore ye must needs be subject1 not only for wrath1 but also for conscience' sake4 ,footnote #df ,footnote #df3 ,romans xiii4 #a1 #e4 #bjc ,nor can ,i here omit again to cite the words which ,jesus himself addressed to the ,pharisees3 ,render under ,csar the things which are ,csar's1 and unto ,god the things that are ,god's4 ,footnote #dg ,footnote #dg3 ,matthew xxii4 #ba4 ,the respect for authority as much as for liberty1 the right of power as well as the right of conscience1 the separation of religious life from civil life1--all these were not1 for the primitive ,christians1 simple necessities arising out of their situation1 nor simple counsels of prudence2 they were principles of doctrine and precepts of life1 recognised and practised in the name of justice and of truth4 #bjd ,christian doctrine and ,christian practice have been1 ,i know1 greatly altered1 lost sight of1 violated1 in the course of the history of the ,christian world4 ,human nature succumbs readily to the temptations of victory and pleasure2 when ,christianity once became powerful it was too often invaded and disfigured by earthly interests and passions2 ambition1 cupidity1 pride1 the arrogance of power1 and the lies of cunning2 every evil inclination1 every vice which the ,christian faith rebukes and combats1 displayed themselves in this world which ,christianity had not conquered merely to hand it over to them1 but from which1 nevertheless1 it had not expelled them4 ,the grand and salutary doctrines of ,christianity have been often themselves perverted and profaned to the service of an egotism assuming every shape and carried to every pitch4 ,still they never were lost1 they never perished in this impure mixture and this unworthy use2 they survived1 they combated1 sometimes in obscurity1 sometimes in the broad light of day2 everywhere1 at every epoch1 ,christian voices1 ,christian lives1 and ,christian ,reforms protested and struggled against the passions and the corruptions of mankind4 ,and in spite of all these centuries1 so sombre1 so full of agitation1 of violence1 and of oppression1 so full of moral and material ill1 the decline of man and of human society did not ensue4 #bje ,greece and ,rome1 in their state of youthful growth1 were glorious and vigorous2 and glorious1 too1 was the development in them of human intelligence and dignity2 but their career was short1 and these two brilliant forms of society did not find in their ideas1 traditions1 or models1 a sufficiency of moral force to enable them to escape from1 or even survive1 the seductive and corrupting influence of material grandeur and of human success4 ,amidst all the sufferings1 all the darkness1 all the crimes which agitate her long career1 ,christianity has proved infinitely healthier and more sound2 she has made herself an incessant subject of study2 she has shifted her place upon her couch of sorrow2 she has raised herself up1 she has renewed1 regenerated herself2 she has grown and prospered at the same time that she has suffered2 and in spite of the ills1 vices1 and perils against which ,christianity has had to defend herself1 and against which she will ever have to defend herself1 she has before her1 over the whole face of the world1 a future immense and full of promise4 ,this she owes to her origin--she was born in the manger of ,jesus4 #bjf ,there is at present a disposition amongst earnest and enlightened men to recognise1 it is true1 the services which ,christianity has rendered to the world2 but to attribute them only to the morality of ,christianity4 ,they laud to the sky the moral character of ,jesus1 and his moral precepts2 but they repudiate1 nay1 deplore1 the dogmas with which1 in the ,christian faith1 ,christian morality is combined and incorporated2 they demand that the morality be separated from it1 and be presented to man without anything but its intellectual beauty and practical excellence4 ,although not disputing that there is somewhat of human in the origin and empire of morality1 ,i have established in this volume of ,meditations that it is necessarily allied to religious belief1 and that when separated from its divine source1 and viewed apart from that which gives it sanction1 it is incomplete1 illogical1 and powerless--a branch without root and without fruit4 #bjg ,i go farther now1 and express my meaning fully4 ,not only is ,christian morality intimately connected with ,christian faith1 as the ,christian faith is itself connected with ,christian dogmas1 but ,christian morals1 ,christian faith1 and ,christian dogmas have taken their origin1 and derived their force1 at a source still higher1 and in an authority still more decisive4 ,christianity did not begin1 it did not rise upon the world1 as one body of doctrines or code of precepts2 from its first step it was a truth1 strange to the ordinary course of human affairs1 and superior to them2 a fact divine1 and an act divine2 it was as such1 and by its character as such1 that1 sometimes all at once1 and sometimes gradually1 it struck men as by a blow and vanquished them1 at first the rude and simple1 then the great and learned1 publicans and emperors1 the disciples of ,plato1 and the fishermen of the sea of ,gennesareth4 #bjh ,at different moments1 and for different motives1 all of them saw in the cradle1 and the rapid extent of infant ,christianity1 a sublime and superhuman fact1 a ,god present and acting in and by ,jesus4 ,some recognised and adored him at the very moment of his appearing2 others observed him with troubled and angry feelings2 but1 in proportion as the truth developed itself1 even those who detested him doubted if they were right in doubting4 ,the council and all the senate of the children of ,israel had caused ,peter and the other apostles to be placed in prison1 and took counsel to have them put to death4 ,then stood there up one in the council1 a ,pharisee1 named ,gamaliel1 a doctor of the law1 had in reputation among all the people1 and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space2 and said unto them3 ,ye men of ,israel1 take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as touching these men4 ,for before these days rose up ,theudas boasting himself to be somebody1 to whom a number of men1 about four hundred1 joined themselves3 who was slain1 and all1 as many as obeyed him1 were scattered and brought to nought4 #bji ,after this man rose up ,judas of ,galilee in the days of the taxing1 and drew away much people after him3 he also perished2 and all1 even as many as obeyed him1 were dispersed4 ,and now ,i say unto you1 ,refrain from these men1 and let them alone3 for if this counsel or this work be of men1 it will come to nought3 ,but if it be of ,god1 ye cannot overthrow it2 lest haply ye be found even to fight against ,god4 ,footnote #dh ,footnote #dh3 ,acts v4 #ba1 #cc--ci4 ,the question which ,gamaliel thus put with respect to ,christianity at its birth was not new2 the high priest of ,israel had already made the same demand of ,jesus himself3 ,i adjure thee by the living ,god1 that thou tell us whether thou be the ,christ1 the ,son of ,god8 ,jesus saith unto him1 ,thou hast said4 ,footnote #di ,footnote #di3 ,matthew xxvi4 #fc1 #fd4 #baj ,the ,jews replied to the affirmation of ,jesus by crucifying him4 ,a short time afterwards1 when they sought to treat the apostles as their ,master had been treated1 ,gamaliel counselled them to abide the test of time1 and in the meanwhile to leave these people in repose4 ,they did not leave these people in repose1 and the proof was only on that account the more decisive3 after three centuries of persecutions and martyrdoms1 the grand facts of ,christianity1--the ,revelation1 the ,incarnation1 the ,redemption1 the ,inspiration of the ,scriptures1--became the grand dogmas of ,christianity1 the basis of ,christian faith1 which faith in its turn is the basis of ,christian ,life4 ,sixteen centuries elapsed from this trial of ,christianity in its cradle1 and it was made to undergo fresh and still ruder trials2 in these trials earthly interests and human errors and passions had a great part2 ,christ's precepts were sometimes forgotten1 and sometimes converted into human instruments2 no doctrine or idea was ever so constantly in contact with1 and at issue with1 facts2 never was theory more rigorously reviewed1 more subjected to the test of practical application in every form and every shape4 #baa ,the design which emanated from ,god traversed and surmounted all these perils2 it braved the faults of its adherents and the blows of its enemies4 ,it is engaged in our days in a new contest1 and is subjected to fresh trials2 it has entered upon it with the same arms1 which1 nineteen centuries ago1 secured its triumph1 with the grand facts which form the basis of ,christian faith1 and the great examples which furnish the rule of ,christian living4 ,the ,history of ,christianity is the strongest proof of its ,divinity1 and the surest guarantee for its future4 ,the authenticity and authority of this history will be the subject of the next and last series of my ,meditations4 #bab #bac ,appendix4 ,ecce ,homo3 such is the title of a work published anonymously1 at ,london and at ,cambridge in #ahff1 which produced on its appearance a great sensation in ,london1 a sensation which still continues3 all the papers and reviews1 whether religious1 philosophical1 or simply literary1 busied themselves with it1 either to praise or attack it2 the distinguished chief of the ,liberal ,party himself1 perhaps soon to be the ,prime ,minister of ,england1 ,mr4 ,gladstone1 has just made it the subject of three articles1 which are remarkable alike for acuteness1 elegance1 and eloquence4 ,they appeared in one of the most widely circulated periodicals in his country4 ,footnote #ej ,footnote #ej3 ,good ,words1 a ,monthly ,review1 edited by ,norman ,macleod1 one of the ,chaplains of her ,majesty ,queen ,victoria4 ,the articles referred to appeared in the numbers of ,january1 ,february1 and ,march1 #ahfh4 ,no anonymous book1 says he1 since the ',vestiges of ,creation' 7now more than twenty years old71 indeed1 it might almost be said1 no theological book1 whether anonymous1 or of certified authorship--that has appeared within the same interval1 has attracted anything like the amount of notice and of criticism which have been bestowed upon the remarkable volume1 entitled ',ecce ,homo4' #bad ,the anonymous author has expressed in a very short preface his intention in writing this volume1 as well as its fundamental ideas4 ,those who feel1 says he1 dissatisfied with the current conceptions of ,christ1 if they cannot rest content without a definite opinion1 may find it necessary to do what1 to persons not so dissatisfied1 it seems audacious and perilous to do4 ,they may be obliged to reconsider the whole subject from the beginning1 and placing themselves1 in imagination1 at the time when he whom we call ,christ bore no such name1 but was simply1 as ,st4 ,luke describes him1 a young man of promise1 popular with those who knew him1 and appearing to enjoy the ,divine favour1 to trace his biography from point to point1 and accept those conclusions about him1 not which ,church doctors1 or even apostles have sealed with their authority1 but which the facts themselves1 critically weighed1 appear to warrant4 ,this is what the present writer undertook to do for the satisfaction of his own mind1 and because1 after reading a good many books on ,christ1 he felt still constrained to confess that there was no historical character whose motives1 objects and feelings remained so incomprehensible to him4 ,the inquiry which proved serviceable to himself may chance to be useful to others4 ,what is now published is a fragment4 ,no theological questions whatever are here discussed4 ,christ as the ,creator of modern ,theology and ,religion will make the subject of another volume2 which1 however1 the author does not hope to publish for some time to come4 ,in the meanwhile1 he has endeavoured to furnish an answer to the question1 ',what was ,christ's object in founding the ,society which is called by his name1 and how is it adapted to attain that object8' #bae ,on merely considering1 even after a first perusal1 the brief words which ,i have here extracted1 it is1 ,i think1 impossible not to perceive how much there is that is artificial and embarrassed1 ,i had almost said how much there is that is false1 not only in the position in which the ,author has placed himself at the very outset1 but in the special intentions which he avows4 ,to study the life and the aim of the life of ,christ without considering him as the ,creator of ,modern ,theology and ,religion1 to defer all examination and conclusion upon this last subject2 to aspire to know the person and the mind of ,christ after thus separating him from his work2 to inquire what he meant to accomplish when living1 without considering what he in effect accomplished in the ages which followed his passage through the world2 to treat him1 in short1 and to examine him as we should treat and examine a person unknown to us--a fossil man1 so to say1 of which the features might be traceable in some contemporary document1 showing that he once existed1 but who has left no other trace to supply us with argument or proof of what he intended1 or what he performed2--this1 undoubtedly1 is a strange manner of proceeding1 one which holds out very little chance of an accurate and true comprehension of the immense fact called ,christianity1 thus mutilated in its very cradle1 ,christianity of which the writer limits himself to a bare search after the germ in the nascent thought of its owner1 whereas it might have been observed1 and its nature verified in its positive and vast development4 #baf ,this is a species of decomposition1 of which the great facts of history and morality do not admit4 ,we are not here1 like anatomists1 describing the autopsy of a corpse4 ,to know and comprehend such facts really1 we must study them in their different elements and in all the development of their life4 ,they form a drama in which we are actors1 not a manuscript which we are deciphering4 ,i can easily understand how the anonymous writer of the ,ecce ,homo came to conceive the idea of his book1 and to confine it within the limits which he has himself assigned3 ,i can also understand his motives4 ,like all his contemporaries1 he is placed and lives in presence of the grave questions agitated in these days respecting ,christianity and its author4 ,what was ,christ8--a man or very ,god1 or ,god and man at once8 ,how did the divine nature and the human nature manifest themselves in him8 ,did he really effect the miracles assigned to him8 ,can there be such things as miracles8 ,what are we to understand by the supernatural8 ,is ,god a real being personal and free1 existing and accomplishing his works in a region beyond that which we style ,nature8 ,christianity and the life of its founder inevitably suggest all these questions1 which in our days occupy and violently agitate men's minds4 ,the anonymous author of the ,ecce ,homo did not wish to enter upon them2 nay1 it was his aim to study and comprehend ,christ without touching them at all4 ,is it because upon these grave problems he entertains himself no positive and decided opinions8 ,or1 because he wished1 to a certain extent1 to accommodate himself to the state of opinion of some of his contemporaries1 and to treat ,christ as those speak of him who only see in him a man1 who regard ,christianity as a fact not supernatural1 owing its origin1 like other natural facts1 to the sole and proper force of mankind8 #bag ,upon this ,i can form no opinion2 ,i neither know the anonymous author of the ,ecce ,homo1 nor the motives which actuate him3 what is certain is1 that he is quite right in entitling his book ,ecce ,homo1 for it is only the ,man ,christ that he has proposed to study1 and it is by studying the ,man ,christ that he has proposed to explain ,christianity4 ,i do not know if1 after having written his book1 he was aware of the result to which it leads1 but the result is in effect a strange one1--it is condemnatory and destructive of the fundamental idea of the book1 it demonstrates by a sincere and honest1 although an incomplete and superficial study of the facts1 the impossibility of explaining either ,christ by the human nature alone1 or the ,christian ,religion by any merely natural operations of humanity4 ,the work is divided into two parts1 and contains altogether twenty-four chapters4 ,the first part is devoted to the study of ,christ personally1 his peculiar character1 his manner of dealing with men1 the mission which he proposed to himself to accomplish1 the nature of the society which he sought to found1 and the authority which he counted upon exercising4 ,in the second part1 the ,christian society itself1 its points of resemblance to the systems of philosophy and its points of difference therefrom1 its fundamental principles and positive laws1 and the habits and sentiments which are developed by those laws1 all become in turn the objects of the author's observations and descriptions4 ,observations often profound1 descriptions often exact and striking1 although somewhat minute and lengthy2 everywhere1 however1 there breathes forth a sentiment unquestionably moral1 and full of the gentlest sympathy for humanity4 #bah ,all this gives to the work a real attractiveness1 in spite of the vagueness of the ideas which reign there1 and in spite of the perceptible incertitude of the author's conclusions upon the solemn questions which he approaches1 but upon which he does not enter4 ,i have no intention of saying more2 ,i have not to render an account in detail of this book or to discuss any of the author's opinions or assertions upon which ,i may not agree with him2 my aim is only to determine the character of his work1 and to show plainly1 first its tendency and then its insufficiency4 ,there precisely is his originality2 in setting out1 and dealing with the subject of the purely human nature both of ,christ and of ,christianity1 he seems not far from participating the opinions of ,rationalistic criticism2 but the more he advances1 the farther he departs from the goal at which the ,rationalists arrive3 he appears predisposed in their favour2 the process of his thought seems often to conform to theirs2 his conclusions are not clearly contrary1 but in effect1 under the empire either of his instincts or under the influence of his historical and moral studies1 he is more ,christian than he appears1 perhaps even more so than he believes himself to be2 and if the firm doctrines of ,christianity find in him no sure and declared defender1 neither do they encounter in him the consistent hostility of a severe logician or the indifferentism of a mere sceptic4 #bai ,there are several passages of this remarkable work which are particularly distinguished by these characteristics4 ,to these ,i feel pleasure in referring the reader4 ,they are in both parts of the book2 that is to say1 in the first part1 chapter fifth1 entitled ,christ's ,credentials1 and chapter ninth1 ,footnote #ea entitled ,reflections on the ,nature of ,christ's ,society2 in the second part1 chapter tenth1 entitled ,christ's ,legislation compared with ,philosophic systems1 and chapter the eleventh1 ,the ,christian ,republic ,footnote #eb ,a perusal of these passages will1 if ,i do not deceive myself1 fully justify the impression which the work has made upon me1 and satisfy the reader that ,i am right in what ,i have said of the author's inconsistency with respect to religion4 ,footnote #ea3 ,ecce ,homo1 ed4 #ahff1 pp4 #da-ea1 #ha--ajb4 ,footnote #eb3 ,ibid1 pp4 #ajh--aai1 #abj--abf4 ,without expressly referring to any other passages ,i simply remark1 that there are in this book ideas expressed and particular assertions made1 which suggest numerous questions and call for many observations4 ,i find in the entire volume a singular mixture of plain and practical common sense with a subtlety sometimes tinctured with piety1 and sometimes with philosophy4 ,there reigns in it1 upon the nature of man and of human societies1 an intellectual elevation1 both moral and religious1 which embarrasses and obscures itself in a long and painful process of refinements4 ,it bears the impress of a grandeur of thought and of sentiment1 without presenting them1 however1 in a form sufficiently simple and vivid4 ,but ,i have no idea of examining or discussing here in detail this remarkable work2 my aim is only to make the result clear to the reader1 to which ,i have already referred1 and indeed it appears incontestable4 ,the author's aim has been to study and portray the human part of ,christ1 the human part of his doctrine as well as of his life4 ,he has declared this to be his aim by entitling his book ,ecce ,homo1 and by saying that he deferred to another volume every theological question1 every study of ,christ as the ,creator of ,theology and of ,modern ,religion4 #bbj ,he has already done much more than he is aware2 the striking inference from his first volume being that there was in ,christ much more than man1 and that if he had been but man1 however superior we may picture his nature to be to that of ordinary humanity1 the work of ,christianity1 such as it in fact was and is1 would have been to him a thing not only which he could not have accomplished1 but which he could not even have conceived4 ,the ,end4 ,bradbury1 ,evans1 ,and ,co41 ,printers1 ,whitefriars4