Now that M. Mazure, the archivist, had at last attained to academic
honours, he began to regard the government with genial tolerance.
But, as he was never happy unless he was at variance with someone,
he now turned his wrath against the clericals, and began to denounce
the scheming of the bishops. Meeting M. Bergeret in the Place
Saint-Exupère, he warned him of the peril threatening from the clerical
party.
“Finding it impossible,” said he, “to overturn the Republic, the curés
now want to divert it to their own ends.”
“That is the ambition of every party,” answered M. Bergeret, “and the
natural result of our democratic institutions, for democracy itself
consists entirely in the struggle of parties, since the nation itself
is not at one either in sentiments or interests.”
“But,” answered M. Mazure, “the unbearable part of this is that the
clericals should put on the mask of liberty in order to deceive the
electors.”
To this M. Bergeret replied:
“Every party which finds itself shut out from the Government demands
liberty, because to do so strengthens the opposition and weakens
the party in power. For the same reason the party in power curtails
liberty as much as possible and it passes, in the sacred name of the
sovereign people, the most despotic laws. For there is no charter
which can safeguard liberty against the acts of the sovereign nation.
Democratic despotism theoretically has no limits, but in actual fact,
and considering only the present period, I grant that its power is not
boundless. Democracy has given us ‘the black laws,’ but it never puts
them in force.”
“Monsieur Bergeret,” said the archivist, “let me give you a piece
of good advice. You are a Republican: then don’t fire on your own
friends. If we don’t look out, we shall fall back into the rule of the
Church. Reaction is making terrible progress. The whites are always
the whites; the blues are always the blues, as Napoleon said. You are
a blue, Monsieur Bergeret. The clerical party will never forgive you
for calling Jeanne d’Arc a mascotte, and even I can scarcely pardon you
for it, for Jeanne d’Arc and Danton are my two special idols. You are a
free-thinker. Then join us in our anti-clerical campaign! Let us unite
our forces! It is union alone that can give us the strength to conquer.
The highest interests are at stake in the fight against the church
party.”
“It is just party interest that I see mainly at work in that conflict,”
answered M. Bergeret. “But if I were obliged to join a party at all,
it must needs be yours, since it is the only one I could help without
too much hypocrisy. But, happily, I am not reduced to this extremity,
and I am by no means tempted to clip the wings of my mind in order to
force it into a political compartment. To tell the truth, I am quite
indifferent to your disputes, because I feel how empty they are. The
dividing line between you and the clericals is a trifling matter at
bottom. They would succeed you in office, provided there were no change
in the position of the individual. And in the State it is the position
of the individual that alone matters. Opinions are but verbal jugglery,
and it is only opinions that separate you from the church party. You
have no moral system to oppose to theirs, for the simple reason that
in France we have no religious code existing in opposition to a code
of civil morality. Those who believe that we have these two opposing
systems of morality are merely deceived by appearances. I will prove
this to you in a few words.
“In every era we find that there are habits of life which determine a
line of thought common to all men. Our moral ideas are not the fruit of
thought, but the result of habit. No one dares openly to resist these
ideas, because obedience to them is followed by honours, and revolt
against them by humiliation. They are adopted by the entire community
without question, independently of religious creeds and philosophic
opinions, and they are as keenly upheld by those whose deeds by no
means conform to their dictates, as they are by those who constrain
themselves to live according to the rules laid down by them. The origin
of these ideas is the only point that admits of discussion: so-called
free-thinkers believe that the rules which direct their conduct are
natural in origin, whilst pious souls discern the origin of the rules
they obey in their religion, and these rules are found to agree, or
nearly so, not because they are universal, that is, divine and natural,
as people delight to say, but, on the contrary, because they are the
product of the period and clime, deduced from the same habits, derived
from the same prejudices. Each epoch has its predominant moral idea,
which springs neither from religion nor from philosophy, but from
habit, the sole force that is capable of linking men in the same bond
of feeling, for the moment we touch reason we touch the dividing
principle in humanity, and the human race can only exist on condition
that it never reflects on what is essential to its own existence.
Morality governs creeds, which are ever matters of dispute, whilst
morality itself is never analysed.
“And simply because a moral code is the sum-total of the prejudices
of the community, there cannot possibly exist two rival codes at the
same time and in the same place. I could illustrate this truth by a
great number of examples, but none of them could be more to the point
than that of the Emperor Julian, with whose works I have lately been
making myself somewhat familiar. Julian, who fought on the side of
the Pagan gods with such staunchness and magnanimity—Julian, who
was a sun-worshipper, yet professed all the moral sentiments of the
Christians. Like them, he scorned the pleasures of the flesh and
vaunted the efficacy of fasting, because it brings a man into union
with the divine. Like them, he upheld the doctrine of atonement
and believed in the purifying effect of suffering. He had himself
initiated, too, into mysteries which satisfied his keen desire for
purity, renunciation and divine love, quite as efficaciously as the
mysteries of the Christian religion. In a word, his neo-paganism was,
morally speaking, own brother to the rising cult of Christianity.
And what is there surprising in that? The two creeds were the twin
children of Rome and of the East. They both corresponded to the same
human habits, to the same deep instincts in the Asiatic and Latin
worlds. Their souls were alike, though in name and phraseology they
differed from each other. This difference was enough to make them
deadly enemies, for it is about mere words that men usually quarrel. It
is for the sake of words that they most willingly kill and are killed.
Historians are in the habit of asking anxiously what would have become
of civilisation, if the philosopher-emperor had conquered the Galilean
by winning a victory that he had rightly earned by his constancy and
moderation. It is no easy game thus to reconstruct history. Yet it
seems clear enough that in this case, polytheism, which had already
by the reign of Julian been reduced to a species of monotheism, would
have submitted to the new mental habits of the time and would have
assumed precisely the same moral form that one sees it taking under
Christianity. Look at all the great revolutionary leaders and tell me
if there is a single one who showed himself in any way an original
thinker, as far as morality is concerned. Robespierre’s ideas of
righteousness were to the end those in which he had been trained by the
priests of Arras.
“You are a free-thinker, Monsieur Mazure, and you think that man’s
object on this planet ought to be to get the maximum amount of
happiness out of it. M. de Terremondre, who is a Catholic, believes,
on the contrary, that we are all here in a place of expiation in order
that we may gain eternal life through suffering. Yet, notwithstanding
the contradiction in your creeds, you have both practically the same
moral code, because morality is independent of creeds.”
“You make fun of things,” said M. Mazure, “and you make me want to
swear like a trooper. Religious ideas, when all is said and done, enter
into the formation of moral ideas to a degree that one cannot ignore.
I am therefore right in saying that there is such a thing as Christian
morality, and that I heartily disapprove of it.”
“But, my dear sir,” answered the professor gently, “there are as many
Christian codes of morality as there are ages during which Christianity
has lasted and countries into which she has penetrated. Religions,
like chameleons, copy the colours of the soil over which they run.
Morality, though it is peculiar to each generation, since it is the one
link to bind it together, changes incessantly along with the habits
and customs of which she is the most striking representative, like
an enlarged reflection on a wall. So true is this fact that it may
actually be affirmed that the morality of these Catholics who offend
you resembles your own very closely, and yet differs widely from that
of a Catholic at the time of the League—to say nothing of those
Christians of the apostolic ages who would seem to M. de Terremondre
most extraordinary beings, were it possible for him to see them at
close quarters. Be impartial and just, if you can, and tell me this:
in what essential respect does your morality as a free-thinker differ
from the morality of those good people who to-day go to Mass? They
profess, as the bedrock of their creed, the doctrine of the atonement,
but they are as indignant as you when that doctrine is put before them
in a striking manner by their own priests. They profess to believe that
suffering is good and pleasing to God. But—do you ever see them sit
down on nails? You have proclaimed toleration for every creed: they
marry Jewesses and have stopped burning their fathers-in-law. What
ideas have you which they do not share with you about sexual questions,
about the family, about marriage, except that you allow divorce, though
you take good care not to recommend it? They believe it is damnation
to look at a woman and lust after her. Yet at dinners and parties
are the necks of their women any less bare than the necks of yours?
Do they wear dresses that reveal less of their figures? And do they
bear in mind the words of Tertullian about widows’ raiment? Are they
veiled and do they hide their hair? Do you not settle their fashions?
Do you insist that they shall go naked because you don’t believe
that Eve covered herself with a branch of a fig-tree under the curse
of Javeh? In what way do your ideas about your country differ from
theirs? For they exhort you to serve and defend it, just as if their
own abiding city were not in the heavens. Or about forced military
service, to which they submit, with the solitary reservation of one
point in ecclesiastical discipline, which in practice they yield? Or
on war, in which they will fight side by side with you, whenever you
wish, although their God gave them the command: “Thou shalt not kill.”
Are you anarchical and cosmopolitan enough to separate from them on
these important questions in practical life? What can you name which
is peculiar to you alone? You cannot even adduce the duel, which, on
account of its being fashionable, is a part of their code as of yours,
although it is neither in accordance with their principles, since both
their kings and priests forbid it, nor with yours, for it is based
on the incredible intervention of God Himself. Have you not the same
moral code with respect to the organisation of labour, to private
property and capital, to the whole organisation of society as it is
to-day, under which you both endure injustice with equal patience—as
long as you don’t personally suffer from it? You would have to
become Socialists for things to be otherwise, and were you to become
socialistic, so doubtless would they. You are willing to tolerate
injustice that survives from bygone days, every time that it works in
your favour. And, on their side, your ostensible opponents gratefully
accept the results of the Revolution, whenever it is a question of
acquiring a fortune derived from some former impropriator of national
property. They are parties to the Concordat, and so are you; so that
even religion links you together.
“Their creed has so little effect on their feelings that they love the
life they ought to despise, quite as much as you do; and they cling as
closely to their possessions, which are a stumbling-block in the way of
their salvation. Having practically the same customs as you, they have
practically the same moral code. You quibble with them as to matters
which only interest politicians and which have no connection with the
organisation of a society which cares not a whit about your rival
claims. Faithful to the same traditions, ruled by the same prejudices,
living in the same depths of ignorance, you devour one another like
crabs in a basket. As one watches your conflicts of frogs and mice, one
no longer craves for undiluted civil government.”