DIFFERENCES IN THE RELIGIOUS WANTS OF NATIONS--MATHEMATICS--MORAL
SCIENCES.
The progress of society, and the high degree of civilization and
refinement to which modern nations have attained, will no doubt be
urged against the authority which seeks to exercise jurisdiction over
the mind. In this way men will attempt to justify what they call the
emancipation of the human mind. For my own part, this objection seems
to have so little solidity, and to be so little supported by facts,
that, from the progress of society, I should, on the contrary, conclude
that there is the more need of that living rule which is deemed
indispensable by Catholics.
To say that society in its infancy and youth may have required
this authority as a check, but that this check has become useless
and degrading since the human mind has reached a higher degree of
development, is completely to mistake the connection which exists
between the various conditions of our mind and the objects over which
this authority extends. The true idea of God, the origin, the end, and
the rule of human conduct, together with all the means with which God
has furnished us to attain to our high destiny, such are the subjects
with which faith deals, and with respect to which Catholics contend
that it is necessary to have an infallible rule. They maintain that
without this it would be impossible to avoid the most lamentable
errors, and to protect truth from the effects of human passions.
This consideration will suffice to show, that private judgment would
be much less dangerous among nations still less advanced in the career
of civilization. There is, indeed, in a young nation, a great fund of
natural candor and simplicity, which admirably disposes it to receive
with docility the instructions contained in the sacred volume. Such
a people will relish those things which are easily to be understood,
and will bow with humility before the sublime obscurity of those pages
which it has pleased God to cover with a veil of mystery. Moreover, the
condition of this people, as yet exempt from the pride of knowledge,
would create a sort of authority, since there would be found within its
bosom only a small number of men able to examine divine revelation; and
thus a centre for the distribution of instruction would be naturally
formed.
But it is far otherwise with a nation far advanced in the career of
knowledge. With the latter, the extension of knowledge to a greater
number of individuals, by augmenting pride and fickleness, multiplies
sects, and ends by revolutionizing ideas and corrupting the purest
traditions. A young nation is devoted to simple occupations; it remains
attached to its ancient customs; it listens with respect and docility
to the aged, who, surrounded by their children and grand-children,
relate with emotion the histories and the maxims which they have
received from their ancestors. But when society has reached a great
degree of development, when respect for the fathers of families and
veneration for gray hairs have become weakened; when pompous titles,
scientific display, and grand libraries make men conceive a high idea
of their intellectual powers; when the multitude and activity of
communications widely diffuse those ideas, which, when put in motion,
have an almost magical power of affecting men's minds, then it is
necessary,--it is indispensable to have an authority, always living,
always ready to act whenever it is wanted,--to cover with a protecting
ægis the sacred deposit of truths which are the same in all times and
places; truths without the knowledge of which man would be left to the
mercy of his own errors and caprices from the cradle to the grave;
truths on which society rests as its surest foundation; truths which
cannot be destroyed without shaking to pieces the whole social edifice.
The literary and political history of Europe for the last three
hundred years affords but too many proofs of this. Religious revolution
broke out at the moment when it was capable of doing the most harm: it
found society agitated by all the activity of the human mind, and it
destroyed the control when it was most necessary.
Undoubtedly, it is necessary to guard against depreciating the mind of
man by charging it with faults which it has not, or by exaggerating
those which it has; but it is no less improper to puff it up by
exalting its strength too much. The latter would be injurious to it
in several ways, and would be little likely to advance its progress;
it would also, if properly understood, be little conformable to that
gravity and discretion which ought to distinguish true science. Indeed,
to merit the name, science ought to show the folly of being vain of
what does not rightly belong to it; it ought to know its limits, and
have sufficient candor and generosity to acknowledge its weakness.
There is a fact in the history of science, which, by revealing the
intrinsic weakness of the mind, palpably shows the flattery of those
unmeasured eulogies which are sometimes lavished on it, and also
demonstrates to us how dangerous it would be to abandon it to itself
without any guide. This fact is, the obscurity which increases in
proportion as we approach the first principles of science; so that
even in those sciences the truth, evidence, and exactness of which are
considered the best established, it seems that no firm ground is to be
obtained when we attempt to go to the bottom of them; and the mind, not
finding any security, recoils in the fear of meeting with something to
throw doubt and uncertainty on the truths of which it was convinced.
I do not participate in the ill-humor of Hobbes against the
mathematics. Devoted to their progress, and deeply convinced as I am of
the advantages which their study confers on the other sciences and on
society, I shall not attempt to underrate their merit, or deny any of
their great claims; but who can say that they are an exception to the
general rule? Have they not their weak points and their darksome paths?
It is true that, when we confine ourselves to the explanation of the
first principles of these sciences, and the deduction from them of the
most elementary propositions, the mind is on firm ground, where no
fear of making a false step occurs to it. I put aside at present the
obscurity which would be found in ideology and metaphysics, if they
were to discuss certain points according to the writings of the most
distinguished philosophers. Let us confine ourselves to the circle to
which the mathematics are naturally confined. Who that has studied
them is ignorant that you may reach a point in their theories, where
the mind finds nothing but obscurity? The demonstration is before
our eyes; it has been developed in all its parts; and yet the mind
wavers, feeling within itself a kind of uncertainty which it cannot
well describe. It sometimes happens that, after reasoning a long time,
the truth rushes upon us like the light of day; but it is not until we
have walked in darkness for a long period. When we fix our attention
upon those thoughts which wander in our minds like moving lights, on
those almost imperceptible emotions which, on these occasions, arise,
and then die away in the soul, we observe that the mind, in the midst
of its fluctuations, seeks instinctively for the anchor which is to be
found in the authority of another. To reassure ourselves completely, we
then invoke the authority of some great mathematicians, and we rejoice
that the fact is placed beyond a doubt by the series of great men who
have always viewed it in the same light. But perhaps our ignorance and
pride will not admit the truth of these reflections. Let us, then,
study these sciences, or at least read their history, and we shall
be convinced that they afford numerous proofs of the weakness of the
intellect.
Did not the extraordinary invention of Newton and Leibnitz find many
opponents in Europe? Were there not required to establish it, both the
sanction of time and the touchstone of experience, which made manifest
the truth of their principles and the exactness of their reasonings?
Do you believe that, if this invention were again, for the first time,
to make its appearance in the field of science, even fortified with
all the proofs which have been brought forward to strengthen it, and
surrounded with all the light which so many explanations have shed upon
it,--do you believe, I say, that it would not need a second time the
right of prescription, to regain its tranquil and undisturbed empire?
It is easy to suppose that the other sciences have no little share in
this uncertainty arising from the weakness of the human mind; as I do
not imagine that this assertion will be called in question, I pass on
to a few remarks on the peculiar character of the moral sciences.
The fact has not been sufficiently attended to, that there is no study
more deceptive than that of the moral sciences; I say deceptive,
because this study, seducing the mind by an appearance of facility,
draws it into difficulties which it is no easy matter to overcome. It
may be compared to those tranquil waters which, although apparently
but shallow, are in reality unfathomably deep. Familiarized from our
infancy with the language of this science, surrounded by its continual
applications, and having before our eyes its truths under a palpable
form, we possess a certain facility of speaking readily on many parts
of the subject; and we have the rashness to suppose that it would not
be difficult to master its highest principles and its most delicate
relations. But wonderful as it is, scarcely have we quitted the path
of common sense, and attempted to go beyond those simple impressions
which we have received from our mothers, when we find ourselves in a
labyrinth of confusion. If the mind gives itself up to subtilties, it
ceases to listen to the voice of the heart, which speaks to it with
equal simplicity and eloquence; if it does not repress its pride,
and attend to the wise counsels of good sense, it will be guilty
of despising those salutary and necessary truths, which have been
preserved by society to be transmitted from generation to generation:
it is then, while groping its way in the dark, that it falls into the
wildest extravagances, the lamentable effects of which are so often
exemplified in the history of the sciences.
If we observe attentively, we shall find something of the same kind
in all the sciences. The Creator has taken care to supply us with
knowledge necessary for the purposes of life, and for the attainment
of our destiny; but it has not pleased Him to gratify our curiosity by
discovering to us what was not necessary. Nevertheless, in some things
He has communicated to the mind a power which renders it capable of
constantly adding to its knowledge; but, with respect to moral truths,
it has been left sterile. What man is required to know, has been deeply
engraven on his heart, in characters simple and intelligible; or is
contained in the sacred volume; and moreover, he has had pointed out
to him, in the authority of the Church, a fixed rule, to which he can
apply to have his doubts explained. With respect to the rest, man
has been placed in such a position, that if he attempt to enter into
matters which are too subtle, he only wanders backwards and forwards
in the same road, at the extremities of which he finds on the one side
skepticism, on the other pure truth.
Perhaps some modern ideologists will urge, in opposition to this,
the result of their own analytical labours. "Before men began to
analyze facts," they will say, "and while they indulged in fanciful
systems, and satisfied themselves with verbal disputes without critical
examination, all this might be true; but now that we have explained
all the ideas of moral good and evil, in so perfect a way, and have
separated the prejudice in them from the true philosophy; now that
the whole system of morality is based upon the simple principles of
pleasure and pain, and we have given the clearest ideas of these
things, such, for example, as the sensations produced in us by an
orange; to maintain your assertion, is to be ungrateful towards
science, and to underrate the fruit of our labours."
I am aware of the labours of some moral ideologists, and I know with
what deceptive simplicity they develop their theories, by giving to
the most difficult things an easy turn, which affects to make them
intelligible to the most limited minds. This is not the place to
examine these analytical investigations, and their results. I shall,
however, remark that, in spite of their promised simplicity, it
does not appear that either society or science makes much progress
through their means, and that these opinions, although but a short
time broached, are already superannuated. This is not a matter of
astonishment to us; for it was easy to perceive that, in spite of
their positiveness, if I may be allowed to use the expression, these
ideologists are as hypothetical as many of their predecessors, who
are loaded by them with sarcasms and contempt. They are a poor,
narrow-minded school, devoid of the truth, and not even adorned by the
brilliant dreams of great men; a proud and deluded school, who fancy
they explain a fact, when they only obscure it; and prove a thing, when
they only assert it; and imagine that they analyze the human heart,
when they take it to pieces.
If such is the human mind; if such is its inability in matters of
science, whether physical or moral, that it has not advanced a single
step beyond the limit prescribed by a beneficent Providence; what
service has Protestantism rendered to modern society, by impairing the
force of authority, that power which could alone present an effectual
barrier to man's unhappy wanderings?[9]