and Revolutionary career of the European mind, the more generally
pernicious was the result. Such was the case with that scoffer, whose
genius could adapt itself to all the forms, moods, and styles of the
old French literature, and who wielding, as he did, with so masterly a
hand the weapon of a lawless wit, directed it without intermission
during his whole life against everything holy and venerable, of what
nature and kind soever. As those errors are the most dangerous, which
as containing a portion of truth, carry with them a greater power of
conviction; so Rousseau has perhaps exercised a more fatal influence
than that other spirit, who with his mockery polluted all things. We
cannot precisely term him un-christian--at least such an epithet
cannot be applied to him in the same unqualified and universal
extent--and when compared with the Atomical philosophy and the
Atheistical idolatry of nature, his fanatic worship of nature will be
found of a more spiritual cast. The great eloquence of this man
entitles him perhaps as clearly to the first rank among the orators of
his nation during the eighteenth century, as Bossuet with very
different religious principles holds in his own age. Eloquence less
powerful than Rousseau's could not well have sufficed to draw his age
into an admiration for that savage equality which he preached up--to
have excited its enthusiasm for the state of the Caribees and the
Iroquois, which, looking back with regret to man's original happiness
in the pure freedom of nature, he represented as his proper destiny,
utterly marred as he was, by European civilization. This was not a
mere idle freak of imagination, such as any false enchantment of
romance might display--but Rousseau endeavoured to demonstrate with
all the rigid deductions of mathematical proof, the happy equality of
the savage state; and with the most earnest conviction and blind
fanaticism, his system was applied to the actual relations of life.
The result was that period of godless freedom--freedom separated from
God and from every divine principle whether of conduct or belief, and
which, as usual, was soon succeeded by the false unity of a crushing
despotism, equally hostile to every heavenly and exalted motive of
human action. But such has been the frightfully accelerated march of
events in these latter times, that the former stages of the
Revolutionary course in ancient Rome--the attempt of the elder
Brutus--the establishment of a Republic--the wars with the rival
Carthage--the rapid career of military conquests--and the transition
to despotism, down to Tiberius or Dioclesian--have been here traversed
in the short period of scarcely one generation. It would be unjust
always to term this the French Revolution, or to consider it
exclusively as such--it was a general political malady--an universal
epidemic of the age. In Holland and Belgium a Revolution had
previously broken out--the Polish Revolution occurred about the same
time; but though the Belgian, and more particularly the Polish
Revolutions were of a totally different character from the French,
they still presented to the turbulent spirit of the age, one example
more of political commotion. But North America had been to France and
the rest of Europe, the real school and nursery of all these
Revolutionary principles. Natural contagion, or wilful propagation
spread this disorder over many other countries--but France continued
to be the centre and general focus of Revolution.
Even when the whole power of the Revolution had been concentrated in
the person of a single man, its general march was not materially
changed. With respect to Foreign states and countries, the French
Revolution produced a protracted religious war of twenty-one years;
for it was such not only from its origin, but from its Revolutionary
and destructive character, and from its fanatic opposition to
everything holy. There was a fixed principle at the bottom of this
modern Paganism. It was political idolatry--and it matters little what
may be the immediate object of this idolatry--what the idol of the
day, whether a Republic and the goddess of reason--the grande
nation--or the lust of conquest and the glory of arms. It is still the
same demon of political destruction--the same anti-Christian spirit of
government, which wishes to mislead the age, and control the world.
The great religious war, which has desolated all Europe, can be
finally terminated only by a new and general religious peace:--but the
great gulph of perdition to our age is that political idolatry,
whatever shape it may assume--whatever name it may bear. Until that
idolatry be abolished, until that abyss of ruin be closed up, the
house of the Lord, where peace and righteousness embrace each other,
can never be founded on a renovated earth.
[13] Prussia.
[14] Bavaria.
[15] The Treaty of Westphalia.
[16] Saxony.
[17] The passing of the Catholic Relief Bill has
happily rendered this observation obsolete.--_Trans._
[18] Peter the Great.
[19] The late Emperor Alexander.
END OF LECTURE XVII.
LECTURE XVIII.
On the general spirit of the age, and on the universal
Regeneration of Society.
"I come soon, and will renew all things."
There are in the history of the eighteenth century, many phenomena
which occurred so suddenly, so instantaneously, so contrary to all
expectation, that although on deeper consideration we may discover
their efficient causes in the past, in the natural state of things,
and in the general situation of the world, yet are there many
circumstances which prove that there was a deliberate, though secret,
preparation of events, as, indeed, in many instances has been actually
demonstrated. I must now say a few words on this secret and mysterious
branch of Illuminism, and on the progress it made during the period of
its sway, in order to complete the sketch of that period, and to shew
the influence of this principle, both in regard to the origin and
general spirit of the Revolution, (which in its fanaticism believed
itself a regeneration of the world), and in regard to the true
restoration of society founded on the basis of Christian justice. But
there is this peculiar circumstance in this historical enquiry, that
those who as eye-witnesses could best speak from their personal
experience, cannot always be considered the most credible vouchers;
for we never know, or can know what their particular views and
interests may lead them to say or conceal, to suppress wholly or in
part. However it has so happened, that in the universal convulsion and
overthrow of society, many things have come to light on this
mysterious and esoteric clue in modern history--things which when
combined together, furnish us with a not incorrect, and a tolerably
complete idea of this mighty element of the Revolution, and of
Illuminism both true and false, which has exercised so evident and
various an influence on the world. And it is only on such historical
grounds (which are quite sufficient for our purpose, and can alone be
made the matter of consideration here), I am at all competent to
pronounce an opinion on this subject, or, as I should rather say, to
give an account of this event; and it is from historical sources,
references and facts alone, that the following sketch has been taken.
As to the origin of this esoteric influence, the impartial historical
enquirer cannot doubt (whatever motives or views some may have to deny
the fact, or throw doubt on its authenticity), that the order of
Templars was the channel by which this society in its ancient and long
preserved form was introduced into the West. The religious
_Masonic_ symbols may be accounted for by the Solomonian
traditions connected with the very foundation of the order of
Templars; and indeed the occasion of these symbols may be traced in
other passages of Holy Writ, and in other parts of sacred history, and
they may very well admit of a Christian interpretation. Traces of
these symbols may be found in the monuments of the old German
architecture of the middle age. Any secret spiritual association,
however, diffused at once among Christians and Mahometans, cannot be
of a very Christian nature, nor long continue so. Nay the very idea of
an esoteric society for the propagation of any secret doctrines is not
compatible with the very principle of Christianity itself; for
Christianity is a divine mystery, which according to the intention of
its divine Founder, lies open to all, and is daily exposed on every
altar. For this reason, in a Revelation imparted to all alike, there
can be no secrecy, as in the Pagan mysteries, where by the side of the
popular mythology and the public religion of the state, certain
esoteric doctrines were inculcated to the initiated only. This would
be to constitute a church within a church--a measure to be as little
tolerated or justified, as an Imperium in Imperio; and in an age
where worldly interests and public or secret views of policy have far
greater ascendancy than religious opinions or sentiments, such a
secret parasitical church would unquestionably, as experience has
already proved, be very soon transformed into a secret directory for
political changes and Revolutions. That in this society the
un-christian principles of a negative Illuminism, veiled as they often
were in sentiments of universal philanthropy, were of a date tolerably
modern, all historical analogies would lead us to suppose. On the
other hand, the Christian opinions which survived in this order,
(though in our times, amid the innumerable factions which have
agitated this society by their contests, the adherents to Christian
principles form a small minority of its members,) the Christian
opinions surviving in this order partook, conformably to the
historical origin I have assigned, more of an oriental and Gnostic
character. The great, or at least, not inconsiderable influence which
this society exercises in politics, we may discover in those
Revolutions, which after having convulsed our quarter of the globe,
have rolled onwards to the new world, where the two principal
Revolutionary factions in one of those South American states, whose
troubles are not yet terminated, are called the Scots and the
Yorkists, from the two parties which divide the English Masonic
lodges. Who does not know, or who does not remember, that the ruler of
the world in the period just passed, made use of this vehicle in all
the countries he conquered, to delude and deceive the nations with
false hopes. And on this account he was styled by his partisans the
man of his age, and in fact he was a slave to the spirit of his age. A
society, from whose bosom, as from the secret laboratory of
Revolution, the Illuminés, the Jacobins, and the Carbonari, have
successively proceeded, cannot possibly be termed, or be in fact very
beneficial to mankind, politically sound, or truly Christian in its
views and tendency. Still I must here observe, that it has been the
fate of the oldest of all secret societies, that its venerable forms
which are known to all the initiated, should serve as a cloak to every
new conspiracy. In the next place, we must not forget that this order
itself appears to be split and divided into a multitude of different
sects and factions; and that on this account we must not suppose that
all those fearful aberrations, and wild excesses of impiety, all those
openly destructive or secretly undermining principles of Revolution
were universally approved of by this society. On the contrary, such a
supposition would be utterly false, or at least, very exaggerated. The
mere notice of all the highly estimable characters, mistaken but on
this point--of most distinguished and illustrious personages in the
eighteenth century, members of this association,--would suffice to
annul, or at least materially modify, this sweeping censure. From many
indications, we may consider it certain, or at least extremely
probable, that in no country did this esoteric society so well
harmonize with the state and the whole established order of things, as
in that country where all the conflicting elements of morals and
society are brought into a sort of strange and artificial equipoise--I
mean England. If now we turn our view to the Continent of Europe, and
even to those countries which were the chief theatre of the
Revolution, we shall see that there, among many other factions, a
Christian party had sprung up in this society--a party which, though
it formed a very small minority in point of numbers, possessed by its
profounder doctrines, and the interesting fragments of ancient
tradition it had preserved, a great moral ascendancy; and this many
historical facts, and many written documents, which have since
obtained publicity, place beyond the shadow of a doubt. Instead of
bringing forward the names of some German writers less generally
known, I prefer to allege, in confirmation of what I have said, the
example of a French writer, who well denotes the internal and more
hidden character of the Revolution. The Christian theosophist, St.
Martin, who was a disciple of this school, stands in his age quite
apart from the other organs of the then prevailing Atheistical
philosophy. He was however a most decided Revolutionist, (but a
disinterested fanatic, guided entirely in his conduct by high and
moral motives), from his utter contempt and abhorrence for the whole
moral and political system of Europe, as it then stood--a contempt in
which, if we cannot entirely agree with him, we cannot in many
instances withhold from him at least a sort of negative
approbation--and, secondly, he was a Revolutionist by his enthusiastic
hope of a complete Christian regeneration of society, conceived indeed
according to his own views, or the views of his party. Among the
French writers of the Restoration, none have so thoroughly understood
this remarkable philosopher, and so well known how to appreciate him
in all the depths of his errors, as well as in the many excellent
things which his writings contain, and to apply to him the necessary
corrections, as Count Maistre.
This secret clue in the history of the Revolution must not be
overlooked, if we would wish to form a due estimate of its character;
for it greatly contributed to the illusion of many, by no means
ill-intentioned persons, who saw or wished to see in the Revolution
but the inevitable, necessary, though in its origin, harsh and severe,
regeneration of Christian states and nations, then so widely gone off
from their original destination. This illusive notion of a false
restoration of society was particularly prevalent during the Imperial
sway of that extraordinary man, whose true biography--I mean the high
moral law of his destiny, or the theological key to his life--seems
still to exceed the critical powers of our age. Seven years were
allotted him for the growth of his power--for fourteen years the
world was delivered over into his hands; and seven years were left him
for solitary reflection, the first of which he misemployed in
embroiling the world anew. On the use he made of the extraordinary
power that had been imparted to him---of that formidable dominion
which had fallen to his lot, history has long pronounced her sentence.
Never is such power permitted but in the period of, and with a view
to, some awful reckoning, and a still more fearful probation of
mankind. But if his Restoration--that is to say, the Restoration which
his infatuated partisans attributed to him, was most certainly a false
one;--the question naturally occurs, whether the Restoration attempted
by his successors has been perfectly sound, or at least quite
complete; and what may be the defects in the new system, and how they
may be supplied?
A mere treaty of territorial arrangements could not and can never
constitute a great religious and international pacification for the
whole of Europe. The re-establishment of subverted thrones--the
Restoration of exiled sovereigns and dynasties, will not in themselves
have any security nor permanence, unless based on moral principles and
maxims. After the severe unexpected lesson again inflicted on Europe,
religion was at last made the basis of European policy; and we must
not make it a matter of reproach, that this principle still retained
so indefinite a character; for this was necessary at the beginning at
least, in order to remove any misconception, or any possible suspicion
of interested views. And not only doth the stability and future
existence of the whole Christian and civilized world depend on this
bond of religious confederacy,--which we can only hope may be ever
more and more firmly knit--but every great power in particular is more
especially called upon to take a part therein. That the moral strength
and stability of the Russian Empire mainly depends on religion--that
every departure from its sacred spirit must have the most fatal
effects on its whole system, has already been declared by her late
monarch, distinguished alike in adverse and in prosperous fortune, an
axiom of state-policy, and can scarcely ever be again forgotten. But
in that country, where the elements of Protestantism (to use that word
in its most comprehensive signification) obtained such weight in the
outset of its literary refinement, and are so incorporated with the
whole political system of the state, the toleration extended to every
form of worship, should not be withheld from that church, which is the
mother-church of the rest of Europe, and of Poland inclusively;[20]
nor should the religious liberty of individuals be in that respect at
all restricted.
It is equally evident that in that country of Europe where monarchy
has been restored, the restoration of religion must go hand in hand
with that of monarchy, and that the latter would lose all security
were the former removed. In the pacific monarchy,[21] unchangeably
attached as she is to her ancient principles, religion has ever been,
more than any other principle, the recognised basis of her existence.
As to the fifth[22] Germanico-European monarchy recently created, the
solid maintenance of religion is the only means to allay the disquiet
incident to such a state, and to secure its future existence. Any act
of even indirect hostility towards the Catholic body--one half of the
nation[23]--any infringement on the liberty of individuals in that
sacred concern--a liberty which must be guaranteed not only by the
letter of the law, but by real, effective and practical
measures--would not only be in utter opposition to those religious
principles, rapidly spreading as they are in all Europe, and
particularly in Germany; but would violate and render insecure the
great fundamental and long established principle of toleration; as has
hitherto been acknowledged. It is only in England that Anglicanism has
raised her doubts as to the utility of a religious fraternity among
the Christian states and nations--doubts which are connected with the
still exclusively Protestant character of the English Constitution,
and which on many occasions may lead England to a sort of schismatical
rupture with the rest of Europe. On several occasions we must
contemplate with regret, how that mighty England, in the eighteenth
century so brilliant and so powerful by the sway she exerted over the
whole European mind, no longer seems to feel herself at home in the
nineteenth century, nor to know where to find her place in the new
order of things.
But as respects Europe at large, the maxims and principles of
liberalism are only a partial return to the Revolution--they can have
no other tendency but to Revolution. Liberalism will never obtain a
majority among the well-thinking persons of any of the European
states, except by some gross error--some singular degeneracy in that
party, which really does not constitute a party, and ought not to be
called such--I mean the men who in politics are attached to monarchy,
and in religion to Christianity.
The mere principle of a mechanical Balance of Power to serve as a
negative check on overgrown dominion--a system which emanated from
England, and was in the eighteenth century universally received--has
ceased to be applicable, or to be of service to the existing state of
things in Europe; for all the remedies which it can offer, tend only
to aggravate the evil when it has once occurred. In religion alone are
to be found the remedies and the safeguards, the emancipation and
consolidation of the whole civilized world, as well as of every
particular state. The most imminent danger to our age, and the
possible abuse of religion itself, are the excesses of the absolute.
Great is the danger, when in a vindictive spirit of re-action, a
revolutionary conduct is adopted by the party of legitimacy; when
passion itself is consecrated into a maxim of reason, and held up as
the only valid and just mode of proceeding; and when, the sacredness
of religion itself is hawked about as some fashionable opinion; as if
the world-redeeming power of faith and truth consisted in the mere
dead letter, and in the recited formula. True life can spring only
from the vivifying spirit of eternal truth. In science the absolute is
the abyss which swallows up the living truth, and leaves behind only
the hollow idea, and the dead formula. In the political world the
absolute in conduct and speculation is that false spirit of time,
opposed to all good and to the fulness of divine truth, which in a
great measure rules the world, and may entirely rule it, and lead it
for ever to its final ruin. As errors would not be dangerous or
deceptive, and would have little effect, unless they contained a
portion or appearance of truth; this false spirit of time which
successively assumes all forms of destruction, since it has abandoned
the path of eternal truth, consists in this--it withdraws particular
facts from their historical connection, and holds them up as the
centre and term of a system, without any limitation, and without any
regard to historical circumstances. The true foundation, and the right
term of things, in the history of society as in the lives of
individuals, cannot be thus severed from their historical connection,
and their place in the natural order of events. In any speculation or
enterprise conducted by this passionate spirit of exaggeration, the
living spirit must evaporate, and only the dead and deadening formula
survive. What idols may successively be worshipped by the changing
spirit of time which easily bounds from one extreme to another, cannot
be determined before-hand. It is even possible that for a while
eternal truth itself may be profaned and perverted to such an idol of
the day--I mean the counterfeit form of truth;--for the spirit of
time, however it may assume the garb, can never attain the inward
essence and living energy of truth. Whatever may be the alternate
idol, and the reigning object of its worship, or of its passionate
rhetoric, it still remains essentially the same--that is to say, the
absolute, alike deadening to intellect, and destructive to life. In
science, the absolute is the idol of vain and empty systems, of dead
and abstract reason.