a large inert mass of humanity untouched by the movement of thought.
From them we may expect a new religion, a new morality. We have denied
and disproved, as you say, so many things, that at last we shall come to
the sole reality. We have rendered man's personality vague and
mysterious, until it seems scarcely to exist except as a point of
development; we must seek deeper for his reality. And in any case,
Monsieur, you overrate the value of reason. In my charming walk through
life I had sufficient experience to learn that man is not entirely a
creature of reason. There are few people without a conscience. The fault
of this age is not so much that it is scientific, as that it is
mechanical and removed from the contemplation of Nature."
"I have sometimes thought," said Leo, "that the principal hope for
religion lies in the fact that the lower classes do not think."
"It is true," said Renan; "religion is some hidden consciousness working
toward unknown ends. Mankind is not entirely reasonable; it has a
conscience. We can no more say that this conscience is an artificial
product of society, than we can say that reason is an artificial product
also. The curiosity which is so amusing a feature of the intelligence of
cats and monkeys is an earlier stage of the scientific curiosity; and,
on the other hand, animals have shown gratitude to their masters, and
thus the rudiments of virtue. Man, in recognising his conscience, has
developed the abstract virtues of justice, of pity, of unselfishness; it
does not affect the main question that his choice between virtue and
vice should not be entirely free, nor that the distinction between them
should not be always clear. We do not reproach science because it has
not yet shown us what course our sun and its train of planets are taking
in their journey toward a star in Hercules, nor because it has been
unable, by its study of the rapidity and direction of other solar
systems, to give to them an approximate fixity in connection with
ourselves, to draw what would really be a map of the heavens.
"Oh, Monsieur, man is a naturally moral being, just as he is a naturally
curious and scientific being. To him both curiosity and morality are
natural needs, and because they are needs they are truths. It is
impossible to consider a world which does not act according to a law of
virtue, just as it is impossible to consider a world which does not act
in accordance with the law of gravitation, or, better still, as an
example, a species which has not developed in accordance with the law of
evolution; and just as the scientist finds behind all the fleeting
appearances and phenomena of the world a basis in matter, so, behind all
the phenomena and fleeting appearances of virtue we find a basis in God,
And just as an individual is governed by his conscience in regulating
his actions, so humanity as a whole regulates its actions by an appeal
to some abstract idea of right. Such dramatic crises as the Revolution,
and the establishment of the Roman Empire, seem equally the result of a
certain slow consciousness working toward perfection; or take the growth
of Christianity, which began obscurely and with a literally subterranean
movement, is it not an instance of this blind working toward the light.
One cannot outrage the collective conscience of mankind with impunity. A
sudden outburst of popular resentment like the Revolution, which had
been incubating for at least a century, cannot be considered as a mere
caprice; can, indeed, only be considered as a revelation of justice.
Such outbursts have a purely negative effect upon human progress;
progress is the development of a new spirit, not the destruction of an
old constitution."
"You offer no constructive policy, beyond the creation of a new spirit.
Socialism, at least, pretends to one."
"Socialism is a reactionary force," answered Renan; "and all reactions
are bound to be more constructive than a progressive force. Their
natural tendency, as I have already said, is to crystallise in a
definite form. The spirit of progress is, on the contrary, an intangible
if all-pervading thing. It develops spontaneously in a thousand ways,
and as it pushes towards the unknown it is impossible for us to predict
with any certainty what forms it may assume. Being purely experience,
and not a creed, it is liable to be extensively modified or even
completely changed by some unforeseen development in any of its parts; a
discovery in any branch of science may react upon all, as the progress
of palæontology reacted upon history. That is the reason progress seems
always to be a purely destructive force. It is only after it has
escaped, through imperceptible degrees, into a more or less clearly
defined new phase, that we can gauge its value as a constructive force
in the last."
"I see with you, Monsieur, the value of democracy and individual
liberty," said Leo. "Oh, I am reasonable. The character of a pope is to
be found less in the official acts of his reign, than in the temper
which he fosters in the Church. The nature of his office compels him to
claim the privileges and exemptions which his predecessors claimed. He
resigns nothing; but he allows some of his claims to remain in abeyance,
refusing to deprive his successors of a power, which, either for reasons
of expediency, or through personal dislike, he declines to exercise
himself. I came to the chair of Peter under disadvantageous
circumstances. The Papal States had been lost, and in exchange the
doctrine of a vague empire over spiritual things had been proclaimed.
Infallibility was no new thing; but the enunciation of it as an article
of faith crystallised a power which would have been of more value, if it
had been left indeterminate. I won back much that Pius had lost. I made
no use of the instruments which he had forged; I discouraged, rather
than condemned, the liberal movements within the Church; my policy was
one of insinuation, and, by skilfully leaving certain positions
undefended, I gained that they should not be assailed. Alas, Monsieur!
you smile at this panegyric of myself; but I have left no one behind who
would consider it an honourable office to praise me. The encyclical on
biblical studies, and the biblical commission, were perhaps my two
mistakes. The glorification of scholasticism was perhaps a mistake; but
I rather think it diverted the attention of my flock. However these
things may appear in the eyes of the world, my reign was wise,
temperate, and resulted in a great increase of power. I recognised
democracy and republican principles. I attempted to win the people. I
was defeated by the extremists on mine own side."
"An epitaph, Monsieur, not only on yourself, but on your office."
"Perhaps," answered Leo. "We do not know. The dead know so little of
what is taking place on Earth."
"On the contrary," said Renan, "voyagers from the Earth are constantly
arriving, and we are kept well advised."
"I can imagine a moderately successful issue to my policy if my
successor should be a man of tact. Even if institutions be only the
monuments of an idea, men must build them; and, in spite of your
argument, I think a period of authority, at least of a more correct
balance between authority and liberty, is setting in. I have still hoped
for the papacy. Comtism, some one said, was Catholicism with
Christianity left out. The qualifying clause is perhaps unnecessary.
Comtism, socialism, internationalism, are all 'Catholic' ideas. To the
Church the name of a nation is merely a geographical expression, it
knows no frontiers, no distinctions of race or language, it has no
preference for any form of government, being superior to all. The Latin
language is for it, a universal tongue, which no sane person could
consider inferior to Volapuk or Esperanto. The Church, properly
constituted, might draw into itself a great deal of this floating
idealism. We might approximate our ideals. You would say, Monsieur, that
we were all equally reactionary."
"All synthetic ideas are," said Renan. "Anarchism is in its essence more
truly progressive than socialism, because it is for the individual.
Socialism implies either that all men are made after the same pattern,
that in certain circumstances they will act in a certain manner, or that
external influences, education, and environment, will turn out a uniform
model. It is an error. If education were all-important, the Church would
not have lost ground consistently in Catholic Europe, where the Jesuits
have had practically the whole of education in their hands for two
centuries. If such a machine as the society has failed, though it was
backed by the State, and spoke with a quasi-spiritual authority, one
cannot imagine a State department succeeding. Liberty is the condition
of development, and education develops, it does not create."
"It is important, however, to control the means of development,"
answered Leo. "Of course our education would be modern."
"Monsieur, you spoke of an encyclical on biblical studies."
Renan's voice was seductive; Leo made a gesture of impatience.
"It was a mistake," he said quickly. "At certain moments the heads of
any organisation are liable to be driven into a false position by their
extreme supporters. My policy was to let things take their course; to
assimilate what we could of the new spirit, and let the rest die without
noise. My condemnation of Americanism was unobtrusive, and I did not
condemn the French Liberal priests who were busy with biblical exegesis,
because I saw that attacks on dogma do not interest the mass of people;
nine Catholics out of ten do not know what they believe in: and if your
methods of criticism, Monsieur Renan, had not been advertised by so many
fanatics, you would have been read almost entirely for the sake of your
style. There is a little man in France now, a little man with the smile
and features of Voltaire, whose criticism has rendered the work of all
those tedious Germans, and your own, quite obsolete. Our good
Ultramontanes wished to persecute him into popularity, and to advertise
him by excommunication. They told me he was a heretic. Of course he was.
All the Fathers of the Church were heretics. St Paul was a heretic. So
was St Augustine. So was St Francis. So were Lamennais, Lacordaire, and
Newman. But it is a pity that the world should know it. St Paul's
heterodoxy laid the foundations of the Church. St Augustine's
heterodoxy, that the sacred writings were not to be taken literally,
built it up. St Francis's heterodoxy staved off the Reformation for
three centuries. Lamennais and Lacordaire in France, Newman in England,
infused new life into our veins. Let us point to the names of our sons
and not to their works."
A subtle enjoyment illuminated Renan's face.
"Monsieur, you were always an enigma to me."
"It is simple," said Leo; "the impregnable rock upon which we build is
simply the impregnable ignorance of the majority. Do you think that
science can alter or influence the emotions of the plain man? It does
not touch him. He prefers to accept blindly a creed which he does not
understand in order that he may devote himself to the business and
pleasures of life. He has no time to pause, to question, to criticise,
to select. He aims at euthanasia. His doubts, such as he has, are almost
entirely subconscious; and for the sake of his own peace of mind he will
attempt to stifle them if they lift their heads. The number of men who
can look on life, the whole of life, with a tranquil mind is extremely
small; and even these have their moments of failure, weakness, and
spiritual lassitude, moments in which life seems a hideous nightmare, in
which the individual, grown morbidly conscious of his own being, sees it
as no more than an infinitesimal point in the great waste of time and
space, the great darkness of eternity, wherein all the worlds at present
existing are no more than a shower of sparks.
"Man, that creature of incredible vanity and innumerable petty egoisms,
refuses to consider for very long the melancholy spectacle of a world
hastening merely towards its death, and carrying with it his whole store
of spiritual experience, of poems and philosophies, theologics and
sciences, which his forefathers have created, and his descendants shall
renew. Therefore, when I considered the future of religion as an
indispensable condition of life, and when I imagined further a kind of
alliance between the proletariate and mine own Church, I based my
calculations principally upon the feet that the great majority of men do
not think; indeed, that they refuse to think.
"Creeds may pass away, but the individuality of man changes, if at all,
only by imperceptible degrees. Ages of faith and ages of scepticism
recur, and give place to each other, with almost the same regularity as
the ebb and flow of a tide. The age of Pericles was sceptical, the age
of Cæsar was sceptical, the ages of Leo X. and Louis XV. were sceptical;
but from age to age the peasant has sate by the fire after his day's
work, dreaming the same dreams, and hearing nothing of the world's
doubt. He is much the same kind of pagan as he always was. He has seized
upon, in a way we cannot understand, the primitive, elementary
conditions, which subsist in all religions. You were right, Monsieur, in
tracing religion to him. He is its source. Perhaps he has never accepted
Christianity; but Christianity has accepted him. Laborious, innocent,
stupid, scarcely more human than the cattle, who are literally his
foster-brothers, he looks out upon his little world with patient eyes,
wondering; and he brings us the fruits of the earth and the bread of
life."
"I have said with Voltaire," murmured Renan, "that if a God did not
exist we should have to invent one."
Once again a deep, ironic smile creased about Leo's jaws.
"You were perhaps right, Monsieur," he said; "but we should prefer not
to tax your ingenuity. The gods invented by science are always afar off;
or they sleep, perchance; or they are concerned with their own affairs;
in any case they do not hear us when we call to them. I consider our
Church capable of a larger growth if it will only remain silent on the
question of dogma, which should be left like seed to grow and quicken in
the earth. Time will obtain for any dogma a certain measure of tacit
acceptance, because truth to the majority is merely something which has
been said over and over again. Besides the psychological basis of my
calculations, the fact that the majority do not think, there is the
political basis. This has entered into a new phase. In the Middle Ages
the Church was allied with the State against the people. Its dogmas were
enforced by the secular arm. Innocent III. was a kind of suzerain over
the princes of Europe. But even here, already, the Church knew upon
occasion to ally herself with the people, and threaten a king through
his own subjects, by releasing a nation from its allegiance, and
troubling its internal peace by an interdict.
"Since my predecessor, the Church has definitely adopted this policy;
but with a more subtile and insinuating method. Infallibility relates
not only to matters of dogma, but to matters of State, _quoad mores_ as
well as _quoad fidem_. You will remember, Monsieur, that Antonelli
addressed a despatch to the Nuncio at Paris, in which he says: 'The
Church has never intended, nor now intends, to exercise any direct and
absolute power over the political rights of the State. Having received
from God the lofty mission of guiding men, whether individually or as
congregated in society, to a supernatural end, she has by that very fact
the authority and the duty to judge concerning the morality and justice
of all acts, internal and external, in relation to their conformity with
the natural and divine law. And as no action, whether it be ordained by
a supreme power, or be freely elicited by an individual, can be exempt
from this character of morality and justice, it so happens that the
judgment of the Church, though falling directly on the moral of the
acts, indirectly reaches over everything with which that morality is
conjoined. But this is not the same thing as to interfere directly in
political affairs.' That direct interference we must avoid."
Renan seemed to hesitate before he spoke.
"It may be," he answered, "as you say, that mankind does not progress,
but merely revolves. Sometimes I have thought so. But nothing is
repeated in precisely the same way. Neither an individual, nor a
society, is what it imagines itself to be, in its action upon the world.
The Church, as it is considered by its adherents, is something totally
different from the Church as it seems to its directors. Every
individual, and every age, examines the gospels in a different light and
from a different standpoint, just as they examine the movement of the
planets, the structure of the earth, the conception of kingship, of the
State, even of that most immediate object the body. The life of St
Francis seems to spring quite naturally out of the mediæval world, with
its crude cosmogony, its notion of the universe as a huge mechanical toy
in the hands of God. To such people the story of Joshua commanding the
sun was not childish; miracles quite as wonderful were part of their
daily lives; and the world for them acted not according to fixed
immutable laws, but by the direct interposition of a Providence
susceptible to the prayers of man. To us it is different. We cannot
imagine a St Francis appearing in the modern world. The Church, Your
Holiness, cannot control the new movement, which will either transform
or destroy it; but in what will you suffer it to be transformed?
"The evil of infallibility is that it cannot retract, or confess to
error. The Pope has been endowed with this fatal gift of infallibility,
a personal charisma, and through it he has become an incarnation of the
Divine Wisdom, even as the Dalai Lama becomes an incarnation of the
Buddha. To the historian, the heretical Pope Honorius, condemned equally
by Councils, and by his successors, is sufficient to disprove your
claims. But the Church can triumph over facts of history. What it cannot
triumph over is the spirit of the age. You have a large body of
adherents, who describe themselves as Catholic without knowing what the
term implies. You have a smaller, body, whose principal business in life
seems to lie in reconciling, by innumerable sophistries and subterfuges,
your dogmas with the modern world. The smallest body of all is made up
of those of your adherents, who accept you as the sole fount of truth.
But in each of these three sections there is not a solitary individual
who accepts your teaching without colouring it with his own ideas. Each
will explain a dogma from the point of view of his own prejudices, and
only accepts it with a kind of mental reservation. Of course it always
has been so. Your peril lies in the rapid exchange of ideas which
characterises modern life, the ease of communication, and the lack of
any effective machinery for preventing their diffusion. The moment any
crisis arises you cease to act as a solid body; and the action of your
leaders has far less influence upon public opinion than the action of
your laity excusing, or justifying, or explaining, the multitudinous
diversities which exist among you. If this lay action be not public, it
is the more insidious. I have noticed that when any important
pronouncement is published from the chair of Peter, your lay apologists
make no sign. There is an ominous silence. All are disenchanted. All are
suspect. They seem to turn away, silent and troubled, from what they
imagined to be the ultimate authority, and seek for their justification
at the tribunal of their private conscience."
"Oh!" interrupted Leo brusquely, "I for one do not regret that these
gentlemen should be made uncomfortable. A lay theologian has no adequate
reason for existing. It is altogether undesirable that laymen, mere
amateurs, should concern themselves with these things."
"Eh bien!" said Renan. "It is entirely owing to the laity that a certain
type of converts accrues to your ranks. Liberal Catholicism, though you
and I know what a vain, chimerical, and ridiculous thing it is, is, as
it were, the first step. Take Newman's theory of 'development' as an
example. Newman is the prophet dearest to the heart of laymen; because,
in a sense, his works are popular. The Anglican may read him as a
classic, and, while enchanted with the magic of that exquisite prose,
lays himself open to the attacks of a peculiarly subtile and insidious
mind. A certain temper is created in him. He becomes receptive of
Catholic ideas, and one watches him progressing more or less
unconsciously toward Rome, blind to his master's casuistry by reason of
the ineffable charm. He is like one implected with a morbid craving for
some narcotic drug, gradually increasing the dose as its effect lessens.
Liberal Catholics are the lures for such. Your Holiness had good reason
for saying that the Church had been founded by successive heresies. The
first step to a conversion is always a misunderstanding."
"It is perfectly true," said Leo; "but Liberal Catholicism is finished.
Only Newman's hat protects him from censure. The doctrine of development
ceased to have any value after the definition of infallibility. It was
valuable as leading up to the definition, but afterwards it became an
excuse for the introduction of novelties. Its sole value now is as a
proselytising medium. But, Monsieur, why do we continue? The Church is
dissolving; even Christianity itself seems to be dissolving, to take on
a fluid, personal form. That singular body, the Society of Friends,
alone seems to be untouched by the solvent of criticism. It has nothing
upon which the solvent may act, no dogmas, no sacraments, no depository
of tradition, no hierarchical organisation. It recognises only the
inward spirit, that informing and subtile essence which alone seems
capable of interpreting the righteousness of God, a religion of silence,
and of sudden illumination, a religion of patient hope, of resignation,
of a tacit understanding."
"Ah," said Renan, smiling, "a religion without forms, without
enthusiasms, is scarcely one to satisfy all men. It is fascinating to
consider the future of Christianity. After Catholicism no other form
will satisfy the Latins, and if criticism destroys Protestantism with
its infallible Bible, as it is destroying Catholicism with its
infallible Pope, these sophisticated nations will scarcely replace one
object of worship by another. You have said that a religion needs an
uncritical people, a people who do not think; so for any further
development we must turn toward a less complete civilisation, to a
virgin soil. Perhaps we find this in Russia. I can imagine that dreamy
and unsophisticated people, who have kept unpolluted through the ages
the temperament of wonder, reforming and developing the Greek Church.
When their Revolution comes, whether it be gradual and humane, or a
violent upheaval of disastrous passion, the Church will be
metamorphosed; the stock only will remain, and new boughs will be
grafted upon it. I can imagine a great growth because the field has lain
fallow for so long, and the modern spirit will scarcely touch it, not
only because the new Christianity will be more flexible in itself, but
also because the people will have inherited our results without having
endured our conflicts."
The clouds in front of them suddenly trembled and parted; the figure of
a man appeared.
"Mocenni!" exclaimed Leo.
He rose and went toward the newcomer.
"Who is Pope?" he enquired.
And the Cardinal Mocenni answered him in ill-humour.
"Sarto."
For a moment Leo stood, as if doubtful, without speaking.
"Sarto," he said at last incredulously. "Sarto!"
"Well, Monsieur," said Renan, "shall we not continue our discussion on
the future of the Church?"
But Leo had taken Mocenni's arm, and the pair walked slowly away.
"Sarto! Sarto!" Renan heard Leo say again, as the clouds gathered about
them; and Renan smiled.
"It is clear," he said, "that Sarto is not Leo."
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's Scenes and Portraits, by Frederic Manning