THE PROGRESS OF INDIVIDUALITY UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF CATHOLICITY.
IF we give a just and legitimate meaning to the word individuality,
taking the feeling of personal independence in an acceptation which is
not repugnant to the perfection of the individual, and does not oppose
the constitutive principles of all society; moreover, if we seek the
various causes which have influenced the development of this feeling,
without speaking of that which we have already pointed out as one of
the most important, viz. the true notion of man, and his connections
with his fellows, we shall find many of them which are quite worthy of
attention in Catholicity. M. Guizot was greatly deceived when, putting
the faithful of the Church in the same rank with the ancient Romans,
he asserted that both were equally wanting in the feeling of personal
independence. He describes the faithful as absorbed by the association
of the Church, entirely devoted to her, ready to sacrifice themselves
for her; so that, according to him, it was the interests of the
association which induced them to act. There is an error here; but as
this error has originated in a truth, it is our duty to distinguish the
ideas and the facts with much attention.
There is no doubt that from the cradle of Christianity the faithful
have had an extreme attachment to the Church, and it was always well
understood among them, that they could not leave the communion of
the Church without ceasing to be numbered among the true disciples
of Jesus Christ. It is equally undeniable that, in the words of M.
Guizot, "There prevailed in the Christian Church a feeling of strong
attachment to the Christian corporation, of devotion to its laws, and
an ardent desire to extend its empire;" but it is not true that the
origin and source of all these feelings was the spirit of association
alone, to the exclusion of all development of real individuality.
The Christian belonged to an association, but that association was
regarded by him as a means of obtaining eternal happiness, as the ship
in which he was embarked, amid the tempests of the world, to arrive
safe in the port of eternity: and although he believed it impossible
to be saved out of the Church, he did not understand from that that
he was devoted to the Church, but to God. The Roman was ready to
sacrifice himself for his country; the Christian, for his faith. When
the Roman died, he died for his country; the faithful did not die for
the Church, but for God. If we open the monuments of Church history,
and read the acts of the martyrs, we shall then see what passed in
that terrible moment, when the Christian, fully arousing himself,
showed in the presence of the instruments of torture, burning piles,
and the most horrible punishments, the true principle which acted on
his mind. The judge asks his name; he declares it, and adds, "I am a
Christian." He is asked to sacrifice to the gods. "We only sacrifice to
one God, the Creator of heaven and earth." He is reproached with the
disgrace of following a man who has been nailed to the cross; for him
the ignominy of the cross is a glory, and he loudly proclaims that the
Crucified is his Saviour and his God. He is threatened with tortures;
he despises them, for they are passing, and rejoices in being able to
suffer something for his Master. The cross of punishment is already
prepared, the pile is lighted before his eyes, the executioner raises
the fatal axe to strike off his head; what does it matter to him? all
this is but for a moment, and after that moment comes a new life of
ineffable and endless happiness. We thus see what influenced his heart;
it was the love of his God and the interest of his eternal happiness.
Consequently, it is utterly false that the Christian, like men of the
ancient republics, destroyed his individuality in the association to
which he belonged, allowing himself to be absorbed in that association
like a drop of water in the immensity of ocean. The Christian belonged
to an association which gave him the rule of his faith and conduct;
he regarded that association as founded and directed by God himself;
but his mind and his heart were raised to God, and when following the
voice of the Church, he believed that he was engaged with his own
individual affair, which was nothing less than his eternal happiness.
This distinction is quite necessary in an affair which has relations
so various and delicate that the slightest confusion may produce
considerable errors. Here a hidden fact reveals itself to us, which
is infinitely precious, and throws much light upon the development
and perfecting of the individual in Christian civilization. It is
absolutely necessary that there should be a social order to which
the individual must submit; but it is also proper that he should not
be absorbed by society to such an extent that he cannot be conceived
but as forming part of it, and remains deprived of his own sphere
of action. If this were the case, never would true civilization be
completely developed; as it consists in the simultaneous perfecting of
the individual and of society, it is necessary, for its existence, that
both should have a well determined sphere, where their peculiar and
respective movements may not check and embarrass each other.
After these reflections, to which I especially call the attention of
all thinking men, I will point out a thing which has, perhaps, not yet
been remarked; it is, that Christianity has eminently contributed to
create that individual sphere in which man, without breaking the ties
which connect him with society, is free to develop all his peculiar
faculties. From the mouth of an Apostle went forth that generous
expression which strictly limits political power: "We ought to obey
God rather than man." (Acts v. 29.) "Obedire oportet Deo magis quam
hominibus." The Apostle thereby proclaims that the individual should
cease to acknowledge power, when power exacts from him what he believes
to be contrary to his conscience. It was among Christians that this
great example was witnessed for the first time; individuals of all
countries, of all ages, of both sexes, of all conditions, braving
the anger of authority, and all the fury of popular passions, rather
than pronounce a single word contrary to the principles which they
professed in the sanctuary of conscience; and this, not with arms in
their hands, in the midst of popular commotions, where their impetuous
passions are excited, which communicate to the mind temporary energy,
but in the solitude and obscurity of dungeons, amid the fearful
calmness of the tribunals, that is, in that situation where man, alone
and isolated, cannot show force and dignity without revealing the
elevation of his ideas, the nobleness of his feelings, the unalterable
firmness of his conscience, and the greatness of his soul. Christianity
engraved this truth deeply on the heart of man, that individuals
have duties to perform, even when the whole world is aroused against
them; that they have an immense destiny to fulfil, and that it is
entirely their own affair, the responsibility of which rests upon
their own free will. This important truth, unceasingly inculcated by
Christianity at all times, to both sexes, to all conditions, must have
powerfully contributed to excite in man an active and ardent feeling of
personality. This feeling, with all its sublimity, combining with the
other inspirations of Christianity, all full of dignity and grandeur,
has raised the human mind from the dust, where ignorance and rude
superstitions, and systems of violence, which oppressed it on all
sides, had placed and retained it. How strange and surprising to the
ears of Pagans must have been those energetic words of Justin, which
nevertheless expressed the disposition of mind of the majority of the
faithful, when, in his Apology, addressed to Antoninus Pius, he said,
"As we have not placed our hopes on present things, we contemn those
who kill us, death being, moreover, a thing which cannot be avoided."
This full and entire self-consciousness, this heroic contempt of
death, this calm spirit of a man who, supported by the testimony of
intimate feeling, sets at defiance all the powers of earth, must have
tended the more to enlarge the mind, as they did not emanate from
that cold stoical impassibility, the constant effort of which was to
struggle against the nature of things without any solid motive. The
Christian feeling had its origin in a sublime freedom from all that
is earthly, in a profound conviction of the holiness of duty, and in
that undeniable maxim, that man, in spite of all the obstacles which
the world places in his way, should walk with a firm step towards
the destiny which is marked out for him by his Creator. These ideas
and feelings together communicated to the soul a strong and vigorous
temper, which, without reaching in any thing the savage harshness of
the ancients, raised man to all his dignity, nobleness, and grandeur.
It must be observed that these precious effects were not confined to a
small number of privileged individuals, but that, in conformity with
the genius of the Christian religion, they extended to all classes; for
one of the noblest characters of that divine religion is the unlimited
expansion which it gives to all that is good; it knows no distinction
of persons, and makes its voice penetrate the obscurest places of
society. It was not only to the elevated classes and philosophers,
but to the generality of the faithful, that St. Cyprian, the light of
Africa, addressed himself, when, summing up in a few words all the
grandeur of man, he marked with a bold hand the sublime position where
our soul ought to maintain itself with constancy. "Never," he says,
"never will he who feels himself to be the child of God admire the
words of man. _He falls from his noblest state who can admire any thing
but God._" (_De Spectaculis._) Sublime words, which make us boldly
raise our heads, and fill our hearts with noble feelings; words which,
diffusing themselves over all classes, like a fertilizing warmth, were
capable of inspiring the humblest of men with what previously seemed
exclusively reserved for the transports of the poet:
Os homini sublime dedit, cœlumque tueri
Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere cultus.
The development of the moral life, the interior life, that life
in which man, reflecting on himself, is accustomed to render a
circumstantial account of all his actions, of the motives which actuate
him, of the goodness or the wickedness of those motives, and the
object to which they tend, is principally due to Christianity, to its
unceasing influence on man in all his conditions, in all situations, in
all moments of his life. Such a progress of the individual life in all
that it has most intimate, most active, and most interesting for the
heart of man, was incompatible with that absorption of the individual
by society, with that blind self-denial, in which man forgot himself,
to think only of the association of which he formed a part. This moral
and interior life was unknown to the ancients, because they wanted
principles for supporting, rules for guiding, and inspirations for
exciting and nourishing it. Thus at Rome, where the political element
tries its ascendency over minds, when enthusiasm becomes extinguished
by the effect of intestine dissensions, when every generous feeling
becomes stifled by the insupportable despotism which succeeds to the
last agitations of the republic, we see baseness and corruption develop
themselves with fearful rapidity. The activity of mind which before
occupied itself in debates of the Forum and the glorious exploits
of war, no longer finding food, gave itself up to sensual pleasures
with an abandonment which we can hardly imagine now-a-days, in spite
of the looseness of morals which we so justly deplore. Thus we see
among the ancients only these two extremes, either the most exalted
patriotism, or the complete prostration of the faculties of the soul,
which abandons itself without reserve to the dictates of its irregular
passions; there man was the slave either of his own passions, of
another man, or of society.
Since the moral tie which united men to Catholic society has been
broken, since religious belief has been weakened, in consequence of
the individual independence which Protestantism has proclaimed in
religious matters, it has unhappily become possible for us to conceive,
by means of examples found in European civilization, what man still
deprived of real knowledge of himself, his origin and destiny, must
have been. We will indicate in another place the points of resemblance
which are found between ancient and modern society in the countries
where the influence of religious ideas is enfeebled. It is enough now
to remark, that if Europe had completely lost Christianity, according
to the insane desires of some men, a generation would not have passed
away without there being revived among us the individual and society
such as they were among the ancients, except the modifications which
the difference of the material state of the two civilizations would
necessarily produce.
The doctrine of free will, so loudly proclaimed by Catholicity, and
sustained by her with such vigour, not only against the old Pagan
teaching, but particularly against sectarians at all times, and
especially against the founders of the pretended Reformation, has
also contributed more than is imagined to develop and perfect the
individual, to raise his ideas of independence, nobleness, and dignity.
When man comes to consider himself as constrained by the irresistible
force of destiny, and attached to a chain of events over which he has
no control--when he comes to suppose that the operations of his mind,
those active proofs of his freedom, are but vain illusions--he soon
annihilates himself; he feels himself assimilated to the brute; he
ceases to be the prince of living beings, the ruler of the earth; he
is nothing more than a machine fixed in its place, which is compelled
to perform its part in the great system of the universe. The social
order ceases to exist; merit and demerit, praise and blame, reward
and punishment, are only unmeaning words. If man enjoys or suffers,
it is only in the same way as a shrub, which is sometimes breathed
upon softly by the zephyrs, and sometimes blasted by the north wind.
How different it is when man is conscious of his liberty! Then he is
master of his destiny; good and evil, life and death, are before his
eyes; he can choose, and nothing can violate the sanctuary of his
conscience. There the soul is enthroned, there she is seated, full of
dignity, and the whole world raging against her, the universe falling
upon her fragile body, cannot force her will. The moral order is
displayed before us in all its grandeur; we see good in all its beauty,
and evil in all its deformity; the desire of doing well stimulates,
and the fear of doing ill restrains us; the sight of the recompense
which can be obtained by an effort of free will, and which appears
at the end of the path of virtue, renders that path more sweet and
peaceful, and communicates activity and energy to the soul. If man is
free, there remains something great and terrible, even in his crime, in
his punishment, and even in the despair of hell. What is man deprived
of liberty and yet punished? What is the meaning of this absurd
proposition, a chief dogma of the founders of Protestantism? This man
is a weak and miserable victim, in whose torture a cruel omnipotence
delights; a God who has created him in order to see him suffer; a
tyrant with infinite power, that is, the most dreadful of monsters. But
if man is free, when he suffers, he suffers because he has deserved
it; and if we contemplate him in the midst of despair, plunged into
an ocean of horrors, his brow furrowed by the just lightnings of the
Eternal, we seem to hear him still pronounce those terrible words with
a haughty bearing and proud look, _non serviam, I will not obey_.
In man, as in the universe, all is wonderfully united; all the
faculties of man have delicate and intimate relations with each other,
and the movement of one chord in the soul makes all the others vibrate.
It is necessary to call attention to this reciprocal dependence of all
our faculties on each other, in order to anticipate an objection which
may be made. We shall be told, all that has been said only proves that
Catholicity has developed the individual in a mystical sense. No, the
observations which I have made show something more than this; they
prove that we owe to Catholicity the clear idea and lively feeling
of moral order in all its greatness and beauty; they prove that we
owe her the real strength of what we call conscience, and that if the
individual believes himself to be called to a mighty destiny, confided
to his own free will, and the care of which belongs entirely to him, it
is to Catholicity he owes that belief; they prove that Catholicity has
given man the true knowledge which he has of himself, the appreciation
of his dignity, the respect which is paid to him as man; they prove
that she has developed in our souls the germs of the noblest and most
generous feelings; for she has raised our thoughts by the loftiest
conceptions, dilated our hearts by the assurance of a liberty which
nothing can take away, by the promise of an infinite reward, eternal
happiness, while she leaves in our hands life and death, and makes us
in a certain manner the arbiters of our own destiny. In all this there
is more than mere mysticism; it is nothing less than the development
of the entire man; nothing less than the true, the only noble, just,
and reasonable individuality; nothing less than the collected powerful
impulses which urge the individual towards perfection in every sense;
it is nothing less than the first, the most indispensable, the most
fruitful element of real civilization.