object, and is itself that revelation; hence every doctrine taken from
this source is something real and positive. The defence of truth
against error will then only be attended with permanent success, when
the divine doctrine, in whatever department it may be, is represented
with intellectual energy as a living principle; and at the same time
placed in its historical connection, with a due regard to every other
historical reality. This calm, historical judgment of things--this
acute insight into subjects, whether they be real facts or
intellectual phenomena--is the invariable concomitant of truth, and
the indispensable condition to the full knowledge of truth. This is
the more so, indeed, as religion, which forms the basis of all truth,
and of all knowledge, naturally traces with attentive eye the
mysterious clue of Divine Providence and Divine permission through the
long labyrinth of human errors and human follies, be they of a
practical or a speculative nature. Error, on the other hand, is always
unhistorical; the spirit of time almost always passionate; and both
consequently untrue. The conflict against error cannot be brought to a
prompter and more successful issue, than by separating in every system
of moral and speculative error, and according to the standard of
divine truth, the absolute, which is the basis of such systems, into
its two component parts of truth and falsehood. For when we
acknowledge and point out the truth to be found in those systems,
there only remains error, whose inanity it requires little labour,
little cost of talent, or time to expose and make evident to every
eye. But in real life the struggle of parties often ceases to be
purely intellectual--their physical energy is displayed in violent
commotions; and in proportion as all parties become absolute, so their
struggle becomes one of violent and mutual destruction--a circumstance
which most fatally impedes the great work of religious regeneration--the
mighty problem of our age, which so far from being brought to a
satisfactory termination, is not yet even solved. In this respect it
is no doubt a critical fact, that in certain quarters of European
life, nay even in some entire countries, parties and governments
should be more and more carried away by the spirit of absolutism. For
this is not a question of names, and it is very evident that not those
parties, which are called, or call themselves absolute, are the most
so in reality; since now, as in all periods of violent party
struggles, a whimsical mistake in names, a great disorder of ideas,
and a Babel confusion of tongues, occur even in those languages
otherwise distinguished for their clearness and precision.
Fixedness of principle, consistency in reasoning, firmness of
character, and the severe, dogmatic precision of faith, as these are
the qualities which form the best test of man in the intercourse of
life, so they ought by no means to be confounded with absolutism
either in conduct or speculation; for all these qualities are very
compatible with the calm historical judgment of things, and a
conscientious regard for all historical circumstances. Among the
French writers of recent times who have devoted themselves to the task
of the religious regeneration of the public mind, no one possesses the
above-named qualities in a higher, or in so remarkable a degree, as
Count Maistre; and yet of all the writers of this class, he is the
least open to the charge of promoting a passionate spirit of reaction;
and in my own opinion, he must be entirely acquitted of such an
imputation. Some more rhetorical defenders, however, of religion in
France, cannot certainly be entirely absolved from the charge of
favouring this absolute and exaggerated spirit of re-action; and so
they unquestionably, even more than their opponents, injure the cause
which they wish to defend. But many imputations of this sort which
party spirit has alleged, are entirely without foundation; as when the
opposition in the country I speak of, extends to the government, and
to all the different ministries since the Restoration, the charge of
political absolutism, and of a spirit of re-action; every one must
clearly see that no cause has really been given for such imputations.
And that in a country where the most hostile parties and all
conceivable opinions are tolerated, a small number of Jesuits should
partake of the general toleration, is a circumstance that can excite
blame, jealousy and hypocritical alarm, only in the breasts of men
animated by the unjust and vindictive spirit of faction. To the
distant and impartial observer, the greatest and most imminent danger
to France appears to be a relapse to Revolution by means of
liberalism.[24]
The dogmatic decision and definiteness of Catholic faith on the one
hand, and the firmly rooted private convictions of Protestantism on
the other, are very compatible with an historical judgment of
historical events. Difficult as this may appear to the absolute spirit
of our age, it is this very historical impartiality which must prepare
the way for the complete triumph of truth, and the consummate glory of
Christianity. And it is in this consists the great distinction between
true toleration and the fatal indifferentism of our age, and of the
age immediately preceding. True toleration is founded on the humble
and consequently religious principle and firm hope, that while one
leaves in quiet what has already an historical existence, God will
conduct and arrange all things, and bring them to their appointed end.
This is widely remote from that pretended equality of all religions,
provided they inculcate but a good morality--a system which strikes at
the root of all religion. Intolerance, on the other hand, is grounded
in the proud, and therefore impious opinion, that it can mould all
things to what it fancies they ought to be, without any regard to the
limits of human weakness--and without reflecting that what is put
down by outward force, not unfrequently grows up in secret in an
altered, though still more dangerous, form. Of this truth, it would
not be difficult to adduce many historical proofs.
In the absolute spirit of our age, and in the absolute character of
its factions, there is a deep-rooted intellectual pride, which is not
so much personal or individual, as social, for it refers to the
historical destiny of mankind, and of this age in particular. Actuated
by this pride, a spirit exalted by moral energy, or invested with
external power, fancies it can give a real existence to that which can
only be the work of God: as from him alone proceed all those mighty,
and real regenerations of the world, among which Christianity--a
revolution in the high and divine sense of the word--occupies the
first place; and in these plastic moments, every thing is possible
that man can wish or dare to hope, if in what he adds on his own part,
he mars not much in what the bounteous monarch of the universe, from
the overflowings of his ineffable love, outpours upon his earth. For
the last three hundred years this human pride has been at work--a
pride that wishes to originate events, instead of humbly awaiting
them, and of resting contented with the place assigned to it among
those events, and of making the best and most charitable use of those
circumstances which Providence has decreed.
What I said before with regard to the Reformation may be equally
applied to the principle and period of Illuminism. The idea itself is
perfectly blameless, and it is unfair to pronounce on it an
indiscriminate censure, and to treat it as an unqualified abuse. It
was indeed but a very small portion of this illuminism of the
eighteenth century, that was really derived from the truths of
Christianity, and the pure light of Revelation. The rest was the mere
work of man, consequently vain and empty, or at least defective,
corrupt in parts, and, on the whole, destitute of a solid foundation,
and therefore devoid of all permanent strength and duration.
But when once, after the complete victory of truth, the divine
Reformation shall appear;--then that human Reformation, which till now
hath existed, will sink to the ground, and disappear from the world.
Then by the universal triumph of Christianity, and the thorough
religious regeneration of the age, of the world, and of governments
themselves, will dawn the era of a true Christian _Illuminism_.
This period is not perhaps so remote from our own, as the natural
indolence of the human mind, which after every great occurrence, loves
to sink again into the death-sleep of ordinary life, would be disposed
to believe. Yet must this exalted religious hope--this high historical
expectation be coupled with great apprehension, as to the full display
of divine justice in the world. For how is such a religious
regeneration possible, until every species, form, and denomination of
political idolatry be eradicated, and entirely extirpated from the
earth?
Never was there a period that pointed so strongly, so clearly, so
generally towards the future, as our own. On this account we should
endeavour clearly and accurately to distinguish between what on the
one hand man may by slow, progressive, but unweared exertions--by the
pacific adjustment of all disputed points--and by the cultivation of
his intellectual qualities, contribute towards the great work of the
religious regeneration of government and science--and what on the
other hand he should look for in silent awe from a higher
Providence--from the new creative fiat of a last period of
consummation, unable as he is to produce or call it forth. We are
directed much more towards the future than towards the past;--but in
order to comprehend in all its magnitude the problem of our age, it
sufficeth not that we should seek this social regeneration in the
eighteenth century--an age in no respect entitled to praise--or in the
reign of Lewis the Fourteenth, and his times of false national glory.
The birth of Christianity must be the great point of survey to which
we must recur, not to bring back, or counterfeit the forms of ages
past, which are no longer applicable to our own; but clearly to
examine what has remained incomplete, what has not yet been attained.
For unquestionably, all that has been neglected in the earlier periods
and stages of Christian civilization, must be made good in this true,
consummate regeneration of society. If truth is to obtain a complete
victory--if Christianity is really to triumph on the earth--then must
the state become Christian, and science become Christian. But these
two objects have never been generally, nor completely realized;
although during the many ages mankind have been Christian, they have
struggled for the attainment of both; and though this political
struggle and this intellectual aspiration form the purport of modern
history. The Roman Empire, even after the true religion had become
predominant, was too thoroughly and radically corrupt, ever to form a
truly Christian state. The sound, unvitiated natural energy of the
Germanic nations, seemed far better fitted for such a destiny, after
they had received from Christianity a high religious consecration for
this purpose. There was, if we may so speak, in the interior of each
state, as well as in the general system of Christendom, a most
magnificent foundation laid for a truly Christian structure of
government. But this ground-work remained unfinished, after the
internal divisions in the state, then the divisions between church and
state, and lastly, the divisions in the church and in religion itself,
had interrupted the successful beginnings of a most glorious work.
The ecclesiastical writers of the first ages furnish a solid
foundation for all the future labours of Christian science; but their
science does not comprehend all the branches of human knowledge. In
the middle age, undoubtedly, this foundation of a Christian science,
laid down by the early fathers, was slowly prosecuted and in detail;
but on the whole, many hurtful influences of the time had reduced
science and speculation to a very low ebb, when suddenly in the
fifteenth century all the literary treasures of ancient Greece, and
all the new discoveries in geography and physics, were offered to
philosophy. Scarcely had philosophy begun to examine these mighty
stores of ancient and modern science, in order to give them a
Christian form, and to appropriate them to the use of religion and
modern society, when the world again broke out into disputes; and this
noble beginning of a Christian philosophy was interrupted, and has
since remained an unfinished fragment for a later and a happier
period. Such then is the two-fold problem of a real and complete
regeneration which our age is called upon to solve;--on one hand, the
further extension of Christian government, and of Catholic principles
of legislation, in opposition to the Revolutionary spirit of the age,
and to the anti-Christian principle of government hitherto so
exclusively prevalent; and on the other hand the establishment of a
Christian philosophy, or Catholic science. As I before characterized
the political spirit of the eighteenth century by the term--Protestantism
of state (taking that word in a purely philosophic sense, and not as a
religious designation)--a system which found its one main support in
an old Catholic Empire;[25] and as I characterized the intellectual
spirit of the same age by the term Protestantism of science;--a
science which made the greatest progress and exerted the widest
influence in another[26] great Catholic country; systems in which
nothing irreligious was originally intended, but which became so by
their too exclusive or negative bearing: so I may here permit myself
to say, in like manner, that the destiny of this age--the peculiar
want of the nineteenth century, is the establishment of those Catholic
principles of government, and the general construction of a Catholic
system of science. This expression is used in a mere scientific sense,
and refers to all that is positively and completely religious in
thought and feeling. In the certain conviction that this cannot be
misunderstood in an exclusive or polemical sense, I will expressly add
that this foundation of Catholic legislation for the future political
existence of Europe may be laid by one, or more than one, non-catholic
power; and that I even cherish the hope, that it is our own Germany,
one half whereof is Protestant, which more than any other country is
destined to complete the fabric of Catholic science, and of a true
Christian philosophy in all the departments of human knowledge.
The religious hope of a true and complete regeneration of the age, by
a Christian system of government and a Christian system of science,
forms the conclusion to this Philosophy of History. The bond of a
religious union between all the European states will be more closely
knit, and be more comprehensive, in proportion as each nation advances
in the work of its own religious regeneration, and carefully avoids
all relapse to the old revolutionary spirit--all worship of the false
idols of mistaken freedom, or illusive glory, and rejects every other
new form or species of political idolatry. For it is the very nature
of political idolatry to lead to the mutual destruction of parties,
and consequently it can never possess the elements of stability.
Philosophy, as it is the vivifying centre of all other sciences, must
be the principal concern and the highest object of the labours of
Christian science. Yet history, which is so closely and so variously
connected with religion, must by no means be forgotten, nor must
historical research be separated from philosophic speculation. On the
contrary, it is the religious spirit and views already pervading the
combined efforts of historical learning and philosophic speculation,
that chiefly distinguish this new era of a better intellectual
culture, or as I should rather express myself, this first stage of a
return to the great religious restoration. And I may venture to assert
that this spirit, at least in the present century, has become ever
more and more the prevailing characteristic of German science, and on
this science, in its relation to the moral wants, and spiritual
calling of the nineteenth century, I have now a few observations to
make. Like an image reflected in a mirror, or like those symptoms
which precede and announce a crisis in human events, the centre-point
of all government, or the religious basis of legislation, is sure to
be reflected in the whole mental culture, or in the most remarkable
intellectual productions of a nation. In England, the equilibrium of a
constitution that combines in itself so many conflicting elements, is
reflected in its philosophy. The revolutionary spirit was prevalent in
the French literature of the eighteenth century long before it broke
out in real life; and the struggle is still very animated between the
intellectual defenders and champions of the monarchical and religious
Restoration, and of the newly awakened liberal opposition. In like
manner, as the German people were, and still are, half Catholic and
half Protestant, it is religious peace which in all literature, and
particularly in philosophy, forms the basis of their modern
intellectual culture. The mere æsthetic part of German letters, as
regards art and poetry,--that artist-like enthusiasm peculiar to our
nation--the struggles which convulsed the infancy of our
literature--the successive imitation and rejection of the French and
English models--the very general diffusion of classical learning--the
newly enkindled love for our native speech, and for the early history
of our country, and its elder monuments of art--all these are subjects
of minor interest in the European point of view we here take, and form
but the prelude and introduction to that higher German science and
philosophy, which is now more immediately the subject of our
enquiries. Historical research should never be separated from any
philosophy, still less from the German; as historical erudition is the
most effectual counterpoise to that absolute spirit, so prevalent in
German science and German speculation.
Art and poetry constitute that department of intellect wherein every
nation should mostly follow the impulse of its own spirit, its own
feelings, and its own turn of fancy; and we must regard it as an
exception when the poetry of any particular nation, (such, for
instance, as that of the English at the present day), is felt and
received by other nations as an European poetry. On the other hand,
history is a sort of intellectual common open to all European nations.
The English, who in this department were ever so active and
distinguished, have, in very recent times, produced works on their own
national history, which really merit the name of classical monuments
of the new religious restoration. Science in general, and philosophy
in particular, should never be exclusive or national--should never be
called English or German--but should be general and European. And if
this is not so entirely the case as in the nature of things it ought
to be--we must ascribe it to the defects of particular forms. Of this
truth the example of the French language may convince us; for no one
will deny the metaphysical profundity of Count Maistre, or the
dialectic perspicacity of the Viscount De Bonald. Although those
absolute principles which appear to characterize the European nations
at this time, have much less influence on real life and on the social
relations in Germany than in any other country; yet the false spirit
of the absolute seems to be quite native to German science and
philosophy; and for a long period, has been the principal cause which
has cramped the religious spirit and feelings so natural to the German
character, or at least has given them a false direction.
With regard to religious opinions, Protestantism in Germany has not
been split into a multitude of new, various, and jarring sects, as in
other countries, such as England, Holland, and North America, where it
was exclusively or for the most part predominant; for even the
Hernhutters were not properly a sect. It is only very recently the
Pietists have formed themselves into a party opposed to the
Rationalists--but their doctrines are not sufficiently precise and
determinate to constitute them a sect, according to the proper
signification of that word. Pietism consists rather in a deep, though
vague, sentiment of religion, and in a fusion of various and opposite
religious views and doctrines. Undoubtedly this moral fusion of
opinions, as well as that outward complication of the interests and
doctrines of Catholicism and Protestantism, and of so many private
views in matters of religion, produced many wild and fanciful
abortions peculiar to the age; many pure idiosyncrasies among the
Protestants, whether they made half advances towards the Catholic
church, or pursued the opposite path of absolute individualism--or
among the Catholics still more monstrous amalgamations--Protestant or
semi-Protestant innovations in doctrine aimed at by
individuals--innovations which originated in the principles of
Illuminism, and were countenanced by the well-known policy of certain
sovereigns. Much as we may feel disposed, or are even bound to oppose
with all our might, such moral abortions, when the question regards
their practical operation--yet I do not think we ought to pronounce
an absolutely unfavourable judgment on their general intellectual
tendency. The real primary evil of the eighteenth century--an utter
indifference for all religious doctrines and concerns,--the dangerous
spirit of complete indifferentism, from whose contagion many purely
Catholic countries did not escape, took less strong hold in Germany,
and obtained less general diffusion than in any other country. A deep,
indelible religious feeling still continued to characterize the German
nation, and to give a tone to its philosophical speculations. We should
not pay too much attention to some transient and partial paradoxes:--I
well recollect the words of an old, very experienced, pious, and
enlightened ecclesiastic, who well understood the German character,
and who used to say; "If we don't give a religion to the Germans, they
will make one out for themselves."
Even in the greatest errors of their philosophy, a certain religious
bearing and tendency can easily be pointed out. However in a country
like Germany, where religious opinions and interests are so various
and so intermixed, a long time must elapse before a profound
philosophy, which would satisfy these yearnings of religious desire,
can attain its full moral developement, or assume a clear outward
tangible form. If I before said of the English, in reference to the
struggle going on between the conflicting elements of their
government--a struggle which in one form or other every great European
nation has to settle in its own interior, and to bring to a successful
issue--that it would appear by many expressions in their parliamentary
proceedings, from those in particular at the head of affairs, and who
are best acquainted with them, that a secret self-apprehension besets
the minds of English politicians;--so I may now say of our German
nation, among whom the conflict lies principally, or more immediately
in the sphere of religion and philosophy; that more than all other
nations the Germans are destitute of self-knowledge and of mutual
concord; and the cause of this must be sought for in the unfulfilment
of their religious and philosophical destiny, and in the yet unallayed
discord between opposite elements of faith and various systems of
science.