without its advantages. When a man of practical mind says with a smile,
"Do you happen to believe in God?" one may reply to him, smiling in
turn, "Have I said that God is a real Being?" And if a religious man
asks, "Are you falling then into atheism?" one may assume an indignant
tone, and say: "We have never denied God: whoever says we have is a
slanderer!" So God remains, for the necessities of poetry and art. But
as we cannot know either what He is, or whether He is, real life goes on
in complete and entire independence of Him. The taking up of this
position with regard to religion may, in certain cases, be a literary
artifice. In other cases it is seriously done. There are certain natures
of extreme delicacy, which, touched by the breath of modern scepticism,
have lost all positive faith; but their better aspirations, and an
instinctive love of purity, guard and direct them, in the absence of all
belief, and they do not deny that which they believe no longer. Such a
mind is in an exceptional position. Is it yours? and would you preserve
it? Keep a solitary path, and do not seek to communicate your ideas to
others. Contact with the public, and such an unfolding even of your own
thoughts as would be required in carrying on a work of proselytism,
would place you under the empire of those laws which govern the human
mind in these matters. Now what are these laws? A poet has already
answered for us this question:
En présence du Ciel, il faut croire ou nier.[161]
A famous writer expands the same thought as follows: "Doubt about things
which it highly concerns us to know," says Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "is a
condition which does too great violence to the human mind; nor does it
long bear up against it, but in spite of itself comes to a decision one
way or another, and likes better to be mistaken than to believe
nothing."[162] Such is the law. We have met with the pretension to
maintain the mind independent of God, without either denying or
asserting His existence, and we have seen how completely this pretension
fails in the presence of facts. The sceptic makes vain efforts to
continue in a state of doubt, but the ground fails him, and he slips
into negation: he affirms that humanity has been mistaken, and that God
is not. But neither does this negation succeed any the more in keeping
its ground; it strikes too violently against all the instincts of our
nature. The human mind is under an imperious necessity to worship
something; if God fails it, it sets itself to adore nature or humanity;
atheism is transformed into idolatry. Recollect the destinies of the
critical school and of the positive philosophy! Let us now examine, with
serious attention, that attempt to _eliminate_ God which is the
starting-point in this course along which the mind is hurried so
fatally.
God is not, I grant, an object of experience. I grant it at least in
this sense, that God is not an object of sensible experience. The
experience of God (if I may be allowed the expression), the feeling of
His action upon the soul, is not a phenomenon open to the observation of
all, and apart from determined spiritual conditions. In order to be
sensible of the action of God, we must draw near to Him. In order to
draw near to Him, we must, if not believe with firm faith in His
existence, at least not deny Him. The captives of Plato's cavern can
have no experience of light, so long as they heap their raillery on
those who speak to them of the sun. I grant again that God cannot
possibly be the object of a demonstration such as the science of
geometry requires; I grant it fully, I have already said so. Every man
who reasons, affirms God in one sense; and the foundation of all
reasoning cannot be the conclusion of a demonstration. God therefore, in
the view of science formed according to our ordinary methods, is, I
grant, an hypothesis. And here, Gentlemen, allow me a passing word of
explanation.
When I say that God is an hypothesis, I run the risk of exciting, in
many of you, feelings of astonishment not unmixed with pain. But I must
beg you to remember the nature of these lectures. We are here far from
the calm retirement of the sanctuary, and from such words of solemn
exhortation as flow from the lips of the religious teacher. I have
introduced you to the ardent conflicts of contemporary thought, and into
the midst of the clamors of the schools. The soul which is seeking to
hold communion with God, and so from their fountain-head to be filled
with strength and joy, has something better to do than to be listening
to such discourses as these. Solitude, prayer, a calm activity pursued
under the guidance of the conscience,--these are the best paths for such
a soul, and the discussions in which we are now engaged are not perhaps
altogether free from danger for one who has remained hitherto
undisturbed in the first simplicity of his faith. But we are not masters
of our own ways, and the circumstances of the present times impose upon
us special duties. The barriers which separate the school and the world
are everywhere thrown down. Everywhere shreds of philosophy, and very
often of bad philosophy,--scattered fragments of theological science,
and very often of a deplorable theological science,--are insinuating
themselves into the current literature. There is not a literary review,
there is scarcely a political journal, which does not speak on occasion,
or without occasion, of the problems relating to our eternal interests.
The most sacred beliefs are attacked every day in the organs of public
opinion. At such a juncture, can men who preserve faith in their own
soul remain like dumb dogs, or keep themselves shut up in the narrow
limits of the schools? Assuredly not. We must descend to the common
ground, and fight with equal weapons the great battles of thought. For
this purpose it is necessary to make use of terms which may alarm some
consciences, and to state questions which run the risk of startling
sincerely religious persons. But there is no help for it, if we are to
combat the adversaries on their own ground; and because it is thus only
that, while we startle a few, we can prove to all that the torrent of
negations is but a passing rush of waters, which, fret as they may in
their channel, shall be found to have left not so much as a trace of
their passage upon the Rock of Ages.
I now therefore resume my course of argument. God is neither an object
of experience, nor yet of demonstration properly so called. In the view
of science, as it is commonly understood, of science which follows out
the chain of its deductions, without giving attention to the very
foundations of all the work of the reason,--God, that chief of all
realities for a believing heart, that experience of every hour, that
evidence superior to all proof, God is an hypothesis. I grant it. Hence
it is inferred that God has no place in science, for that hypothesis has
no place in a science worthy of the name. But this I deny; and in
support of this denial I proceed to show that the hypothesis which it is
pretended to get quit of, is the generating principle of all human
knowledge.
Whence does science proceed? Does it result from mere experience? No.
What does experience teach us when quite alone? Nothing. Experience,
separated from all element of reason, only reveals to us our own
sensations. This, a Scotch philosopher, Hume, has proved to
demonstration,--a demonstration which constitutes his glory. It is easy,
without having even a smattering of philosophy, to understand quite well
that science is formed by thought. Now, if we did not possess the
faculty of thinking, it would not be given to us by experience. Thought
does not enter by the eye or the ear. Imagine a living body not
possessed of reason: its eye will reflect objects like a mirror, its
tympanum will vibrate to the undulations of the air; but it will have no
thoughts, and will know nothing.
Is science formed by pure reason? No. No one can say what pure reason
is, for the exercise of our thought is connected indissolubly with
experience. But, without pausing at this consideration, let us ask what
pure reason can do, if deprived of all objects of experience? One thing
only, namely, take cognizance of itself. Now the reason, in taking
cognizance of itself, only creates logic, that is to say, the theory of
the laws of knowledge. Some philosophers, to be sure, have undertaken to
prove that reason, by dint of self-contemplation, might arrive at the
knowledge of all things. They have maintained that all the secrets of
the universe are contained in our thought, and that by just reasoning
one may form the science of astronomy without looking at the stars, and
write the history of the human race without taking the trouble to search
laboriously into the annals of the past. But these attempts to
_construct_ facts, instead of observing them, have succeeded too ill to
merit very serious attention.
Science does not proceed therefore either from pure experience or from
pure reason; whence does it really come? From the encounter of
experience and of reason. Man observes, and he ascertains that facts are
governed according to intelligent design. He creates mathematics, and
discovers that the phenomena of the heavens and the earth are ruled
according to the laws of the calculus. His thought meets in the facts
with traces of a thought similar to his own. If any one of you doubts
this, I once more appeal to the almanac. Science, then, has birth only
from a meeting of experience with reason; how is this meeting effected?
The whole question of the origin of science is here. This encounter is
not necessary; it does not result simply from perseverance in
observation. The encounter of mind and of facts constitutes a discovery.
The thought which has governed nature may remain long veiled from our
mind. All at once perhaps the veil is lifted, and the thought of man
meets and recognizes itself in the phenomena which it is contemplating.
We encounter in this case the exercise of a special faculty, which is
neither the faculty of observing nor the faculty of reasoning, but the
faculty of discovering. When a man possesses it to a certain degree, we
call him a man of genius. Genius, or the faculty of discovering, is the
generating principle of science. Still, strange to say, this principle
is scarcely pointed out by a great number of logicians. They develop at
length the rules of observation and the rules of reasoning; and it seems
that, in their idea, the conjunction of reason and experience is
effected all alone and of necessity. I taught logic myself in this way
for twenty years, until one day, thinking better upon the subject, I was
obliged to say to myself (forgive me this rather trivial quotation):
Tu n'avais oublié qu'un point:
C'était d'éclairer ta lanterne.[163]
The meeting together of the understanding and of facts is a discovery;
and discovery depends upon a faculty sung by poets, admired by mankind,
and too little noticed by logicians--genius. Genius has for its
characteristic a sudden illumination of the mind, a gratuitous gift and
one which cannot be purchased. But let us hasten to supply a necessary
explanation. Genius is a primitive fact, a gift; but the work of genius
has conditions, or rather a condition--labor. Labor does not replace
genius, but genius does not dispense with labor; nature only delivers up
her secrets to those who observe her with long patience. Newton was
asked one day how he had found out the system of the universe. He
replied with a sublime _naïveté_: "By thinking continually about it." He
so pointed out the condition of every great discovery; but he forgot the
cause--the peculiar nature of his own intellect. It was necessary to be
always pondering the motions of the stars; but it was necessary moreover
to be Isaac Newton. So many had thought on the subject, as long perhaps
as he, and had not made the discovery.
Labor, the condition of discoveries, should have as its effect to
recognize the methods really appropriate to the nature of the inquiries,
and to keep the mind well informed in existing science. In fact, every
scientific discovery supposes a series of previous discoveries which
have brought the mind to the point at which it is possible to see
something new. For this reason it is that a discovery often presents
itself to two or three minds at once, when there are found, at the same
epoch, two or three minds endowed with the same power. They see all
together because the onward progress of science has brought them to the
same summit: this is the condition; and because they have the same power
of vision: this is the cause. There is therefore a method for putting
ourselves on the road to discovery, but no method for making the
discovery itself. The man of genius sees where others do not see; and
when he has seen, everybody sees after him. If, furnished with Gyges'
ring, you could gain access to the studies of savants at the moment when
a great discovery has just been made, you would see more than one of
them striking his forehead and exclaiming: "Fool that I was! how could I
help seeing it? it was so simple." Truth appears simple when it has been
discovered.
Discovery therefore, which has labor for its condition, is the principle
of the progress of science. Under what form does a discovery present
itself to the mind of its author? As a supposition, or, which is the
same thing, as an hypothesis. Hypothesis is the sole process by which
progress in science is effected. If we supposed nothing, we should know
nothing. In vain should we look at the sky and the earth to all
eternity, our eye would never read the laws of astronomy in the stars of
heaven, nor the laws of life upon the bark of trees or in the entrails
of animals. This is true even of mathematics. The contemplation,
prolonged indefinitely, of the series of numbers, or of the forms of
space, would produce neither arithmetic nor geometry, if the human mind
did not suppose relations between the numbers and the lines, which it
can only demonstrate after it has supposed them. The conditions are very
clearly seen which have prepared and made possible a fruitful
supposition, but the hypothesis does not itself follow of any necessity.
It appears like a flash of light passing suddenly through the mind.
The carpenter's saw opens a plank from end to end on the sole conditions
of labor and time; but the discovery of truth preserves always a sudden
and unforeseen character. Archimedes leaps from a bath and rushes
through the streets of Syracuse, crying out, "I have found it!" Why? The
flash of genius has visited him unexpectedly. Pythagoras discovers a
geometrical theorem; and he offers, it is said, a sacrifice to the gods,
in testimony of his gratitude. He thought therefore, according to the
fine remark of Malebranche, that labor and attention are a silent prayer
which we address to the Master of truth: the labor is a prayer, and the
discovery is an answer granted to it.
When this wholly spontaneous character of discovery is not recognized,
and when it is thought that the observation of facts naturally produces
their explanation, it must needs be granted that a discovery is
confirmed by the very fact that it is made. But this is by no means the
case. Hypothesis does not carry on its brow, at the moment of its birth,
the certain sign of its truth. A flash of light crosses the mind of the
savant; but he must enter on a course, often a long course, of study, in
order to know whether it is a true light, or a momentary glare. Every
supposition suggested by observation must be confirmed by its agreement
with the data of experience. Let us listen to a great discoverer--
Kepler. He is giving an account of the discovery of one of the laws
which have immortalized his name.
"After I had found the real dimensions of the orbits, thanks to the
observations of Brahe and the sustained effort of a long course of
labor, I at length discovered the proportion of the periodic times to
the extent of these orbits. And if you would like to know the precise
date of the discovery,--it was on the eighth day of March in this year
1618 that,--first of all conceived in my mind, then awkwardly essayed by
calculations, rejected in consequence as false, then reproduced on the
fifteenth of May with fresh energy,--it rose at last above the darkness
of my understanding, so fully confirmed by my labor of seventeen years
upon Brahe's observations, and by my own meditations perfectly agreeing
with them, that I thought at first I was dreaming, and making some
_petitio principii_; but there is no more doubt about it: it is a very
certain and very exact proposition."[164]
All the logic of discoveries is laid down in these lines; and these
lines are a testimony rendered by one of the most competent of
witnesses. You see in them the conditions of a good hypothesis: Kepler
has long studied the phenomena of which he wishes to find the law; he
has studied them by himself, and by means of the discoveries of his
predecessor Brahe. The law has presented itself to his mind at a given
moment, on the eighth of March, 1618. But he does not yet know whether
it is a true light, or a deceptive gleam. He seeks the confirmation of
his hypothesis; he does not find it, because he makes a mistake, and he
rejects his idea as useless. The idea returns; a new course of labor
confirms it; and so the hypothesis becomes a law, a certain proposition.
Such is the regular march of thought. An hypothesis has no right to be
brought forward until it has passed into the condition of a law, by
being duly confirmed. There are minds, however, endowed with a sort of
divination, which feel as by instinct the truth of a discovery, even
before it has been confirmed. It is told of Copernicus, that having
discovered, or re-discovered, the true system of planetary motion, he
encountered an opponent who said to him: "If your system were true,
Venus would have phases like the moon; now she has none, and therefore
your system is false. What have you to reply?"--"I have no reply to
make," said Copernicus, (the objection was a serious one in fact); "but
God will grant that the answer shall be found."[165] Galileo appeared,
and by means of the telescope it was ascertained that Venus has phases
like the moon;--the confidence of Copernicus was justified. The
scientific career of M. Ampère, the illustrious natural philosopher,
supplies an analogous fact. Trusting, like Copernicus, to a kind of
intuition of truth, he read one day to the Academy of sciences the
complete description of an experiment which he had never made. He made
it subsequently, and the result answered completely to his
anticipations. Genius is here raised to the second power, since it
possesses at once the gift of discovery and the just presentiment of its
confirmation; but these are exceptional cases, and in general we must
say, with Mithridates, that--
.... To be approved as true
Such projects must be proved, and carried through.[166]
We would encourage no one to attempt adventures so perilous, but would
call to mind in a great example what is the regular march of science.
Newton, after he had discovered the law which regulates the motions of
the heavens, sought the confirmation of it in an immense series of
calculations. A true ascetic of science, he imposed on himself a regimen
as severe as that of a Trappist monk, in order that his life might be
wholly concentrated upon the operations of the understanding; and it was
not until after fifteen months of persistent labor that he exclaimed: "I
have discovered it! My calculations have really encountered the march of
the stars. Glory to God! who has permitted us to catch a glimpse of the
skirts of His ways!" And astronomy, placed upon a wider and firmer
basis, went forward with new energy.
It is thus that the human mind acquires knowledge. How then does
hypothesis come to be made light of? How can it be seriously said that
we have excluded hypothesis from the sphere of science, whereas the
moment the faculty of supposing should cease to be in exercise, the
march of science would be arrested; since, except a small number of
principles the evidence of which is immediate, all the truths we
possess are only suppositions confirmed by experiment? The reason is
here: Our mind forms a thousand different suppositions at its own will
and fancy; and it shrinks from that studious toil which alone puts it in
a position to make fruitful suppositions. We are for ever tempted to be
guessing, instead of setting ourselves, by patient observations, on the
road to real discoveries. It is therefore with good reason that theories
hastily built up have been condemned, and Lord Chancellor Bacon was
right in thinking that the human mind requires lead to be attached to
it, and not wings. Hence the inference has been drawn that the simplest
plan would be to cut the wings of thought, without reflecting that
thenceforward it would continue motionless. Because some had abused
hypothesis, others must conclude that we could do without it altogether.
Trivial and premature suppositions have therefore discredited
hypothesis, by encumbering science with a crowd of vain imaginations;
but this encumbrance would have been of small importance but for the
obstinacy with which false theories have too often been maintained
against the evidence of facts. If Ampère had found his experiment fail,
and had still continued to maintain his statements, he would not have
given proof of a happy audacity, but of a ridiculous obstinacy. Genius
itself makes mistakes, and experience alone distinguishes real laws from
mere freaks of our thought. We have maintained the rights of reason in
the spontaneous exercise of the faculty of discovery; but let us beware
how we ignore the rights of experience. It alone prepares discoveries;
it alone can confirm them. A system, however well put together, is
convicted of error by the least fact which really contradicts it. A
Greek philosopher was demonstrating by specious arguments that motion is
impossible. Diogenes was one of his auditory, and he got up and began to
walk: the answer was conclusive. You remember, if you have read Walter
Scott, the learned demonstration of the antiquary who is settling the
date of a Roman or Celtic ruin, I forget which; and the intervention of
the beggar, who has no archæological system, but who has seen the
edifice in question both built and fall to decay. Reason as much as you
like; if your reasonings do not accord with facts, you will have woven
spider's webs, of admirable fineness perhaps, but wanting in solidity.
It is time to sum up these lengthened considerations. Science does not
originate solely from experiment, nor does it proceed solely from
reason; it results from the meeting together of experience and reason.
Experience prepares the discovery, genius makes it, experience confirms
it. What distinguishes the sciences is not the process of invention,
which is everywhere the same; but the process of control over supposed
truths. A mathematical discovery is confirmed by pure reasoning. A
physical discovery is confirmed by sensible observation joined with
calculation. A discovery in the order of morals is confirmed by
observation of the facts of consciousness. Therefore it is that between
the physical and moral sciences there exists a broad line of
demarcation. Moral facts have not less certainty than physical
phenomena; but moral facts falling under the influence of liberty, all
men cannot perceive them equally under all conditions. An optical
experiment presents itself to the eyes, and all the spectators see it
alike, if at least they have one and the same visual organization; but a
case of moral experience has a personal character, and is only
communicated to another person on condition that he puts faith in the
testimony of his fellow. In this order of things a man can observe
directly only what he concurs in producing. With this reservation, we
may say that the control of moral truths is made by experience like that
of physical truths. In all departments of knowledge, a thought may be
held as true when it accounts for facts.
And so, Gentlemen, we conclude that every scientific truth is, in its
origin, a supposition of the mind, the result of which is to produce the
meeting together of experience and reason, and so to permit the rational
reconstruction of the facts.
Every system is shown to be at fault by facts, if facts contradict it.
When a system explains the facts, we hold it as proved just to the
extent to which it explains them. This accordance of our thought with
the nature of things is the mark of what we call truth.
If you grant me these premises, my demonstration is completed, and it
only remains for me to draw my conclusions.
It is said that the idea of God can have no place in a serious science,
because this idea comes neither from experience nor from reason; that it
is only an hypothesis, and that hypothesis has no place in science. I
reply, grounding my answer on the preceding reasonings: No science is
formed otherwise than by means of hypothesis. For the solution of the
universal problem there exists in the world an hypothesis, proposed to
all by tradition, and which bears in particular the names of Moses and
of Jesus Christ. This hypothesis has the right to be examined. If it
explains the facts, it must be held for true. The idea of God comes
therefore within the regular compass of science; the attempt to exclude
it is sophistical.
Let us separate the idea of God from the whole body of Christian
doctrine of which it forms part, in order that we may give it particular
consideration. What is this hypothesis which bears the names of Moses
and Jesus Christ? It is that the principle of the universe is the
Eternal and Infinite Being. His power is the cause of all that exists;
the consciousness of His infinite power constitutes His infinite
intelligence. In Himself, He is _He who is_; in His relation with the
world, He is the absolute cause, the Creator. This explanation of the
universe is not the privilege of a few savants; it is taught and
proposed to all; and this is no reason why we should despise it. If we
further observe that this thought has renovated the world, that it
upholds all our civilization, that thousands of our fellow-creatures
raise their voice to tell us that it is only from this source they have
drawn peace, light, and happiness, we shall understand perhaps that
contempt would be foolish, and that everything on the contrary invites
us to examine with the most serious attention an hypothesis which offers
itself to us under conditions so exceptional.
The hypothesis is stated. We must now submit it to the test of facts.
Where shall we find the elements of its confirmation? Everywhere, since
it is the first cause of all things which is in question: we shall find
them in nature and in humanity; in the motions of the stars as they
sweep through the depths of space, and in the rising of the sap which
nourishes a blade of grass; in the revolutions of empires, and in the
simplest elements of the life of one individual. There is no science of
God; but every science, every study must terminate at that sacred Name.
I shall not undertake, therefore, to enumerate all the confirmations of
the thought which makes of the Creator the principle of the universe: to
recount all the proofs of the infinite Being would require an eternal
discourse. We have stammered forth a few of the words of this endless
discourse, by showing that, without God, the understanding, the
conscience, and the heart lose their support and fall: this formed the
subject of our second lecture. We saw further that reason makes
fruitless attempts to find the universal principle in the objects of our
experience--nature and humanity. Let us follow up, although we shall not
be able to complete it, the study of this inexhaustible subject, by
showing that the idea of the Creator alone answers to the demands of the
philosophic reason.
Philosophy, in the highest acceptation of the term, is the search after
a solution for the universal problem the terms of which may be stated as
follows: Experience reveals to us that the world is composed of manifold
and diverse beings; and, to come at once to the great division, there
are in the world bodies which we are forced to suppose inert, and minds
which we feel to be intelligent and free. The universe is made up of
manifold existences; this is quite evident, and a matter of experience.
Reason on the other hand forces us to seek for unity. To comprehend, is
to reduce phenomena to their laws, to connect effects with their
causes, consequences with their principles; it is to be always
introducing unity into the diversity. All development of science would
be at once arrested, if the mind could content itself with merely taking
account of facts in the state of dispersion in which they are presented
by experience. Each particular science gathers up a multitude of facts
into a small number of formulæ; and, above and beyond particular
sciences, reason searches for the connection of all things with one
single cause. To determine the relation of all particular existences
with one existence which is their common cause; such is the universal
problem. This problem has been very well expressed by Pythagoras in a
celebrated formula, that of the _Uni-multiple_. In order to understand
the universe, we must rise to a unity which may account for the
multiplicity of things and for their harmony, which is unity itself
maintained in diversity.
If you well understand this thought, you will easily comprehend the
source of the great errors which flow from too strong a disposition to
systematize. Men of this mind attach themselves to inadequate
conceptions, and look for unity where it does not exist. The barrier
which we must oppose to this spirit of system is the careful
enumeration of the facts which it forgets to notice. Materialism looks
for unity in inert and unintelligent bodies; it suffices to oppose to it
one fact--the reality of mind. Fatalism seeks unity in necessity. Point
out to it that its destiny-god does not account for the fact of
repentance, for example, which implies liberty, and it is enough. The
worship of humanity forces you to exclaim with Pascal--A queer God,
that! There is in the bitterness of this smile a sufficient condemnation
of the doctrine. To seek for unity, is the foundation of all philosophy.
To seek for unity too hastily and too low, is the source of the errors
of absolute minds. Absolute minds, however great they may be in other
respects, are weak minds, in that they do not succeed in preserving a
clear view of the diversity of the facts to be explained. Take the
problem of Pythagoras; keep hold of the two extremities of the chain;
never allow yourselves to deny the diversity of things, for that
diversity is plainly evidenced by human experience; beware of denying
their unity, because it is the foundation of reason; then search and
look through the histories of philosophy: you will find one hypothesis,
and one only, which answers the requirements of the problem. It goes
back, as I believe, to the origin of the world; it was glimpsed by
Socrates, by Aristotle, and Plato; but, in its full light, it belongs
only to men who have received the God of Moses, and who have studied in
the school of Jesus Christ. If this hypothesis explains the facts, it is
sound, for the property of truth is to explain, as the property of light
is to enlighten.
The doctrine of the Creator can alone account to us for the universe, by
bringing us back to its first cause. The first cause of unity cannot be
matter which could never produce mind; the first cause of unity cannot
be the human mind, which, from the moment that it desires to take itself
for the absolute being, is dissolved and annihilated. The unity which
alone can have in itself the source of multiplicity, is neither matter
nor idea, but power; power the essential characteristic of mind, and
infinite, that is to say, creative power. The Creator alone could
produce divers beings, because He is Almighty, and maintain harmony
between those beings, because He is One. Thus is manifested an essential
agreement between the requirements of philosophy and the religious
sentiment; for religion, as we said at the beginning of these lectures,
rests upon the idea of Divine power. Reason and faith meet together
upon the lofty heights of truth. But let us not enter too far into the
difficulties of philosophy. Let us confine ourselves to considerations
of a less abstruse order.
The Creator is the God of nature. All the visible universe is but the
work of His power, the manifestation of His wisdom. The poet of the
Hebrews invites to offer praise to the Most High, not only men of every
age and of all nations, but the beasts of the field, the birds of the
air, and the cedars of the forest, the rain and the wind, the hail and
the tempest.[167] In the language of a modern poet:
Thee, Lord, the wide world glorifies;
The bird upon its nest replies;
And for one little drop of rain
Beings Thine eye doth not disdain
Ten thousand more repeat the strain.[168]
And such thoughts are not vain freaks of the imagination. Man, the
conscious representative of nature, the high-priest of the universe,
feels himself urged by an impulse of his heart to translate the
confused murmur of the creation into a hymn of praise to the Infinite
Being, the absolute Source of life,--to Him who _is_, One, Eternal,--the
first and absolute Cause of all existence.
The Creator is the God of spirits. He is not only the God of humankind;
"the immense city of God contains, no doubt, nobler citizens than man,
in reasoning power so weak, and in affections so poor."[169] But let us
speak of what is known to us: He is the God of humankind. All nations
shall one day render glory to Him. Mighty words have resounded through
the world: "Henceforth there is no longer either Greek or barbarian or
Jew; but one and the same God for all." The idols have begun to fall;
the gods of the nations have been hurled from their pedestals; they have
fallen, they are falling, they will fall, until the knowledge of the
only and sovereign Creator shall cover the earth as the waters cover the
sea.
The Creator shall one day be known of all His creatures; and in each of
His creatures He will be the centre and the object of the whole soul;
all the functions of the spiritual life lead on to Him. What is truth,
beauty, good? We have already replied to the question, but we will
repeat our answer.
To possess truth is to know God; it is to know Him in the work of His
hands, and it is to know Him in His absolute power, as the eternal
source of all that is, of all that can ever be, of all actual or
possible truth in the mind of His creatures. Truth binds us to Him, "and
all _science_ is a hymn to His glory."[170]
He is the eternal source of beauty. He it is who gives to the bird its
song, and to the brook its murmur. He it is who has established between
nature and man those mysterious relations which give rise to noble joys.
He it is who opens, above and beyond nature, the prolific sources of
art; the ideal is a distant reflection of His splendor.
And goodness, again, is none other than He; it is His plan; it is His
will in regard of spirits; it is the word addressed to the free
creature, which says to it: Behold thy place in the universal harmony.
Thus a triple ray descends from the uncreated light, and before that
insufferable brightness I am dazzled and bewildered. There is no longer
any distinction for me between profane and sacred; I no longer
understand the difference of these terms. Wheresoever I meet with good,
truth, beauty, be the man who brings them to me who he may, and come he
whence he may, I feel that to despise in him that gleam, would be not
only to be wanting to humanity, it would be to be wanting to my faith.
If my prejudices or habits tend to shut up my heart or to narrow my
mind, I hear a voice exclaiming to me: "Enlarge thy tent; lengthen thy
cords; enlarge thy tent without measure. Be ye lift up, eternal gates,
gates of the conscience and the heart! Let in the King of glory!" All
truth, all beauty, all good is He. Where my God is, nothing is profane
for me. To ignore any one of those rays would be to steal somewhat from
His glory.
Oh! the happy liberty of the heart, when it rests on the Author of all
good and of all truth. But if the heart is at liberty, how well is it
guarded too! What is the most beautiful jewel (if we may venture to use
such language) in the immortal crown of this King of glory? Powerful, He
created power; free, He created liberty. And to the free creature, in
the hour of its creation, He said: "Behold! thou art made in mine own
image! my will is written in thy conscience; become a worker together
with me, and realize the plans of my love." And that voice--I hear it
within myself. Ah! I know that voice well, I know the secret attraction
which, in spite of all my miseries, draws me towards that which is
beautiful, pure, holy, and says to me: This is the will of thy Father.
But I know other voices also which speak within me only too loudly: the
voice of rebellion and of cowardice, the voice of baseness and ignominy.
There is war in my soul. Enlightened by this inner spectacle, I cast my
eyes once more over that world in which I have seen shining everywhere
some divine rays; and I see that by a triple gate, lofty and wide, evil
has entered thither, accompanied by error and deformity. Then I
understand that all may become profane; I understand that there is an
erring science, a corrupting art, a moral system full of immorality. But
these words take for me a new meaning. There is no sacred evil, there is
no profane good; there are no sacred errors and profane truths. Where
God is, all is holy; where there is rebellion against God, all is evil.
And so the God who is my light is my fortress also; my heart is
strengthened while it is set at liberty, and I can join the ancient song
of Israel:
Jehovah is our strength and tower.
Yes, Sirs, God is in all, because He is the universal principle of
being; but He is not in all after the same manner. God is in the pure
heart by the joy which He gives to it; He is in the frivolous heart by
the void and the vexation which urge it to seek a better destiny; He is
in the corrupt heart by that merciful remorse which does not permit it
to wander, without warning, from the springs of life. God makes use of
all for the good of His creatures. He is everywhere by the direct
manifestation of His will, except in the acts of rebellious liberty, and
in the shadow of pain which follows that evil light which leads astray
from Him.
Having said that the idea of God the Creator alone satisfies the reason,
and raises up, upon the basis of reason, man's conscience and heart, I
should wish to show you, in conclusion, that this idea renders an
account of the great systems of error which divide the human mind
between them. Truth bears this lofty mark, that it never overthrows a
doctrine without causing any portion of truth which it may have
contained to pass into its own bosom.
What then,--apart from declared atheism, from the dualism which has
almost disappeared, and from faith in God the Creator,--are the great
systems which share the human mind between them? There are two: deism
and pantheism.
What is deism? It is a doctrine which acknowledges that there is one
God, the cause of the universe; but a God who is in a manner withdrawn
from His own work, and who leaves it to go on alone. God has regulated
things in the mass, but not in detail, or, to employ an expression of
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (who came at a later period to entertain better
opinions), "God is like a king who governs his kingdom, but who does not
trouble himself to ascertain whether all the taverns in it are good
ones." The idea of a general government of God which does not descend to
details--such is the essence of deism.
What is pantheism, in the ordinary meaning of the word? We have already
said: it is a doctrine which absorbs God in the universe, which
confounds Him with nature, and makes of Him only the inert substance,
the unconscious principle of the universe. These are the two great
conceptions which wrestle, in the history of human thought, against the
idea of the Creator. These two systems triumph easily one over the
other, because each of them contains a portion of truth which is wanting
to its antagonist. They cannot support themselves because each of them
has in it a portion of error. This is what we must well understand.
Deism contains a portion of truth; for it maintains a Creator
essentially distinct from the Creation, or, according to an expression
which I translate from an ancient Indian poem: "One single act of His
created the Universe, and He remained Himself whole and entire." This
thought is true. What is the error of deism? It is that it makes a God
like to a man who works upon matter existing previously to his action,
and who puts in operation forces independent of himself, and which he
does nothing but employ. In this way a watchmaker makes a watch which
goes afterwards without him, because the watchmaker only sets to work
forces which have an independent existence, and which continue to act
when he has ceased his labor. We work upon matter foreign to us. The
workman did not make matter, but only disposes of it, and he can never
do more than modify the action of forces which do not proceed from his
will, and have not been regulated by his understanding. But the Being
who is the cause of all cannot dispose of foreign forces which act
afterwards by themselves, since there exists in His work no principle of
action other than those which He has Himself placed in it.
Deism results therefore from a confusion between the work of a creature
placed in a preexisting world, and the work of the Supreme Will which is
in itself the single and absolute cause of all. It contains an element
of dualism: its God does not create; but organizes a world the being of
which does not depend on him. Take what is true in deism--the existence
of the only God; remember that the Creator is the absolute Cause of the
universe; and the distinction between _ensemble_ and detail will vanish,
and you will understand that God is too great that there should be
anything small in His eyes:
God measures not our lot by line and square:
The grass-suspended drop of morning dew
Reflects a firmament as vast and fair
As Ocean from his boundless field of blue.[171]
In other words, take what is true in deism, and accept all the
consequences of it, and you will arrive at the full doctrine of the
creation.
Pantheism recognizes the omnipresence of God in the universe, or, if you
like the terms of the school, the immanence of God; this is its portion
of truth. When I open the Hindoos' songs of adoration, and find therein
the unlimited enumeration of the manifestations of God in nature, I find
nothing to complain of. But when, in those same hymns, I see liberty
denied, the origin of evil attributed to the Holy One, and man cowering
before Destiny, instead of turning his eyes freely towards the Heavenly
Father, then I stand only more erect and say: You forget that if your
God is the Cause of all, He is the Cause of liberty. If liberty exists,
evil, the revolt of liberty, is not the work of the Creator. Your system
contradicts itself. You make of God the universal Principle, and you are
right; make of Him then the Author of free wills, so that He will be no
longer the source of evil, and we shall be agreed.
Deism and pantheism therefore, pushed to their legitimate consequences,
are transformed and united in the truth. And you see plainly that I am
not making, for my part, an arbitrary selection in these systems. I am
walking by one sole light, the light which has been given to us, and
which serves me everywhere as a guiding clue:--The Lord is God, and
there is no other God but He.
Such, Gentlemen, is the fundamental truth on which rests all religion,
and all philosophy capable of accounting for facts. Such is the grand
cause which claims all the efforts which we are wasting too often in
barren conflicts--the cause of God. But do I say the truth? Is it the
cause of God which is at stake? When a surgeon, by a successful
operation, has restored sight to a blind man, we are not wont to say
that he has rendered a service to the sun. This cause is our own; it is
that of society at large, it is that of families, that of individuals;
it is the cause which concerns our dignity, our happiness; it is the
cause of all, even of those who attack it in words of which they do not
calculate the import, and who, were they to succeed in banishing God
from the public conscience, would, with us, recoil in terror at sight of
the frightful abysses into which we all should fall together.
It is time to sum up these considerations.
Inert and unintelligent matter is not the cause of life and
intelligence.
Human consciences would be plunged in irremediable misery, if ever they
could be persuaded that there is nothing superior to man.
The universe is the work of wisdom and of power; it is the creation of
the Infinite Mind. What can still be wanting to our hearts? The thought
that God desires our good,--that He loves us. If it is so, we shall be
able to understand that our cause is His, that He is not an impassible
sun whose rays fall on us with indifference, but a Father who is moved
at our sorrows, and who would have us find joy and peace in Him. This
will be the subject of our next and concluding lecture.
FOOTNOTES:
[160] Firmissimum hoc afferri videtur, cur deos esse credamus, quod
nulla gens tam fera, nemo omnium tam sit immanis, cujus mentem non
imbuerit deorum opinio. Multi de diis prava sentiunt, id enim vitioso
more effici solet; omnes tamen esse vim et naturam divinam
arbitrantur.... Omni autem in re consentio omnium gentium, lex naturæ
putanda est.--_Tuscul._ i. 13.
[161] _In presence of Heaven, we must believe or deny._ See Lecture III.
[162] _Profession de foi du vicaire Savoyard._
[163]
Thou hadst only forgotten one point,
And that was, to light thy lantern.
[164] _Harmonices mundi libri quinque_.
[165] The authenticity of this reply is disputed; M. Arago gives it in
different terms; but the question is of small consequence here as one of
historical criticism, my object being not to establish a fact, but to
put an idea in a strong light by means of an example.
[166]
.... Pour être approuvés
De semblables projets veulent être achevés.
[167] Ps. cxlviii.
[168]
Le monde entier te glorifie,
L'oiseau te chante sur son nid;
Et pour une goutte de pluie
Des milliers d'êtres t'ont beni.
[169] Albert de Haller. _Lettres sur les vérités les plus importantes de
la révélation_. Lettre 2.
[170] Et toute la _science_ est un hymne à sa gloire.
[171]
Dieu ne mesure pas nos sorts à l'étendue.
La goutte de rosée à l'herbe suspendue
Y réfléchit un ciel aussi vaste, aussi pur
Que l'immense Océan dans ses plaines d'azur.
LAMARTINE.
LECTURE VII.
_THE FATHER._
(At Geneva, 8th Dec. 1863.--At Lausanne, 1st Feb. 1864.)
GENTLEMEN,
We have proposed for solution the problem which includes all others
whatsoever--the problem of the universe. What are the laws which govern
the universe? They are those which are the objects of science, taking
that word in its largest and most general meaning. What is the cause of
the universe? The eternal power of the Infinite Mind. These are the two
answers which we have hitherto obtained, but, as we have explained, a
study is not complete if it confine itself to these two answers. When we
know the law and the cause of an object submitted to our study, we
further look for the end designed. This is no freak of our fancy, but
the direct result of the constitution of our understanding. The universe
is the creation of God. What is the design of the creation? I answer:
the design of the creation is the happiness of spirits. Nature is made
for the spiritual beings to which it offers the condition of their life
and development; spiritual beings are made for felicity. The moving
spring of infinite power is goodness: this is my thesis. If I succeed in
establishing it, it will follow that we shall in imagination see issuing
from the supreme unity of the Infinite Being three rays: the power which
creates the being of things; the intelligence which orders them; and the
love which conducts them to their destination. It will also follow that
I shall have justified the title under which these Lectures were
announced: Power and wisdom are attributes of the Creator; the Father
reveals Himself in goodness.
What shall be our method? Can we enter into the counsels of God? By what
means? To place our understanding in the midst of the Divine
consciousness, there to behold the spring of the determinations of the
Infinite Being, were an attempt so far exceeding our capacity, that it
is impossible to point out any means whatever by which it could be made.
This would be to conceive of God in His eternal essence, independently
of His relation to the universe, to nature, and to our reason. I do not
say merely that the attempt would be fruitless; I say that we have no
means of attempting this metaphysical adventure. But might we not, in
looking at the work of God, discern in it the evidence of its design?
This is a process which we often follow in regard to our
fellow-creatures. Do we wish to know the object which a man has in view
in his labor? He may himself disclose that object to us directly in
words, or we may endeavor to discover it. We watch him at work, and by
observing the way in which he proceeds we sometimes come to know what
his thoughts are, because we find ourselves in presence of the work of a
mind, and we ourselves are mind. Can we in the same way, by looking at
the universe, that grand work, succeed in discovering its end?
The way on which we are entering raises two objections, which proceed
from the difficulties felt by two classes of men of opposite views; and
our first business will be to rid ourselves of these preliminary
difficulties.
You will never succeed, it has been said to me, in proving the goodness
of God, because evil is in the world. I am not inventing, Gentlemen. A
letter containing this challenge has been addressed to me by one of
you. It is manifest, since we propose to ourselves to recognize in the
work the intention of the Worker, and since our thesis is the goodness
of the First Cause of the universe, that evil, in all its forms, sin,
pain, imperfection, is the main objection which can be addressed to us.
Evil is real; it is a sad and great reality; I am forward to acknowledge
it. Any system which would prove that evil does not exist, or, which
comes to the same thing, that evil is necessary, that good and evil in
short are of the same nature, is an impossible, I had almost said a
culpable, system. The strongest minds have worn themselves out in such
attempts with no result whatever. The great Leibnitz attempted an
enterprise of this nature. His system consisted in extenuating evil as
far as possible, and in pronouncing that amount of evil, of which he
could not dissemble the existence, to be necessary. He failed. The
strong intellectual armor of one of the greatest geniuses the world has
ever seen was completely transpierced by the sharp and brilliant shaft
of Voltaire.
Sad reckoners of the woes which men endure,
Sharpening the pangs ye make pretence to cure,
Poor comforters! in your attempts I see
Nought but the pride which feigns unreal glee!
O mortals, of such bliss how weak the spell!
Ye cry in doleful accents--"All is well!"--
And all things at the great deceit rebel.
Nay, if your minds to coin the flattery dare,
Your hearts as often lay the falsehood bare.
The gloomy truth admits of no disguise--
Evil is on the earth![172]
For once, Gentlemen, we will not contradict our old neighbor of Ferney.
Yes, evil is on the earth; and it constitutes, in the question which we
are discussing, the greatest of problems, the most serious of
difficulties. Let us listen to a modern poet:
Why then so great, O Sovereign Lord,
Came evil from thy forming hand,
That Reason, yea, and Virtue stand
Aghast before the sight abhorred?
And how can deeds so hideous glare
Beneath the beams of holy light,
That on the lips of hapless wight
Dies at their view the trembling prayer?
Why do the many parts agree
So scantly in thy work sublime?
And what is pestilence, or crime,
Or death, O righteous God, to Thee?[173]
We have only to put this poetry into common prose to obtain this
argument, namely,--The presence of evil in the world is not compatible
with the idea of the goodness of God. Here is the objection in all its
force. And what is the answer? Simply this, that God did not create
evil. It was not He who brought crime into the world. He created
liberty, which is a good, and evil is the produce of created liberty in
rebellion against the law of its being. I borrow from Jean-Jacques
Rousseau the development of this thought. "If man," says he, "is a free
agent, then he acts of himself; whatever he does freely enters not into
the ordained system of Providence, and cannot be imputed to it. The
Creator does not will the evil which man does, in abusing the liberty
which He gives him. He has made him free in order that he may do not
evil but good by choice. To murmur because God does not hinder him from
doing evil, is to murmur because He made him of an excellent nature,
attached to his actions the moral character which ennobles them, and
gave him a right to virtue. What! in order to prevent man from being
wicked, must he needs be confined to instinct and made a mere brute? No;
God of my soul, never will I reproach Thee with having made it in Thine
image, in order that I might be free, good, and happy, like Thyself.
"It is the abuse of our faculties which renders us unhappy and wicked.
Our vexations and our cares come to us from ourselves."
Such is Rousseau's answer to the objection drawn from the existence of
evil. It is a good one. It is so good that it is impossible to find a
better. If we are determined not to outrage the human conscience by
denying the reality of evil; if God is the sovereign good, and if there
is no other principle of things than He; evil cannot be accounted for
otherwise than by the rebellion of the creature. But now, Rousseau's
answer, excellent in itself and in the abstract, becomes profoundly
inadequate, as the citizen of Geneva goes on to develop his theory. Evil
comes from the creature; but each individual is not the exclusive source
of the evils which he does and suffers. To attribute to each individual,
not only the responsibility of his acts, but the origin of the evil
germs which exist in his soul, is the untenable proposition of a
desperate individualism. There is evidently among men a common property
in evil; Rousseau sees it clearly enough, but he makes vain efforts to
find in the organization of society and in the condition of civilization
the causes of pain and of sin. When one has come to see clearly that the
source of evil is in the creature, the close mutual connection of
created wills and their relations with nature present a field for long
and difficult study; and Rousseau has no sooner discerned the road to
truth than he wanders away into byroads in which the solution of the
problem escapes him. This problem, Gentlemen, I have the intention and
desire of studying some day, if God permit, with those of you who may be
willing to undertake it with me. We shall then have to deal with an
objection, or rather with a difficulty. But this difficulty, which we
cannot now dispose of, must not hinder us from stating our thesis. In
every well-conducted study, the propositions to be maintained must be
laid down and supported before dealing with objections. If it were
maintained that evil is the principle of things, it would be necessary
first of all to endeavor to establish the thesis, in which the existence
of good would be brought forward, and would constitute the objection.
The objection would have to be answered--Why has good appeared in the
world? And I would just say in passing, that our libraries are full of
treatises upon the origin of evil, and I have never met with one upon
the origin of good. It appears therefore that reason has always
admitted, by a sort of instinct, the identity of good, and of the
principle of being. Our thesis is that the principle of the universe is
good. We are going to try to demonstrate it. Afterwards the difficulty,
evil, will present itself, of which it will be necessary to seek the
explanation. This will be the natural sequel, and the necessary
complement of the course of lectures which we are concluding to-day.
I pass to another difficulty, another challenge which also has been
addressed to me.
Your object, Christians have said to me, is to establish that the
principle and ground of all things is goodness. This you will not be
able to do without departing from your prescribed plan, and entering
upon the domain of Christian faith properly so called. In your
examination of the universe will you leave out of view Jesus Christ and
His work? Do you not know that it is by means of this work that the idea
of the love of God has been implanted in the world, and that it is
thence you have taken it? Do you think to climb to the loftiest heights
of thought, and to make the ascent by some other road than over the
mountain of Nazareth and the hill of Calvary?
Gentlemen, I declared my whole mind on this subject at first starting.
The complete idea of God demands, for its maintenance, the grand
doctrinal foundations of our faith. Christian in its origin, firm faith
in the love of God the Creator requires for its defence the armor of the
Gospel. But before defending this belief, we must first establish it; we
must show that it has natural roots in human nature. Christianity
purifies and strengthens it, but it does not in an absolute sense create
it. The mark of truth is that it does not strike us as something
absolutely new, but that it finds an echo in the depths of our soul.
When we meet with it, we seem to re-enter into the possession of our
patrimony. The Cross of Jesus Christ is without all contradiction the
most transcendent proof of the mercy of the Creator; but the Cross of
Jesus Christ rather warrants the Christian in believing in the Divine
love than gives him the idea of it. We must distinguish in the Gospel
between the universal religion which it has restored, and the act itself
of that restoration, which constitutes the Gospel in the special sense
of the word. Now what I am here maintaining is the fact of the existence
in modern society of the elements of the universal religion. I am far
from sharing in the illusions of my fellow-countryman Rousseau, when he
affirms that even if he had lived in a desert isle, and had never known
a fellow-man, he would nevertheless have been able to write the
_Profession de foi du Vicaire Savoyard_. I know very well that if I were
a Brahmin, born at the foot of the Himalayas, or a Chinese mandarin, I
should not be able to say all that I am saying respecting the goodness
of God. The light which we have received--I know whence it radiates;
but, by the help of that light, I seek its kindred rays everywhere, and
everywhere I find them in humanity.
Let us endeavor, then, according to our plan, to recognize in the
universe the marks of the Divine goodness. Let us first of all
interrogate the human soul, which is certainly one of the essential
elements of the world; and let us interrogate it with regard to the
great fact of religion.
The universal religion presents to observation two principal forms of
mental experience: the sense of the necessity for appeasing the Divine
justice, and the sense of the necessity for obtaining the help of God.
The sense of the necessity for appeasing justice reveals itself in
sacrifices. There are sacrifices which are merely offerings of
gratitude, and freewill gifts of love. But when you see the blood of
animals flowing in the temples, and not seldom human blood gushing forth
upon the altars, you will be unable to escape the conviction that man,
in presenting himself before the Deity, feels constrained to appease a
justice which threatens him.
The sense of the need of help shows itself in prayer; and this must be
the especial object of our study, because it is in the fact of religious
invocation that we shall encounter the idea, obscure perhaps, but real,
of the goodness of the First Cause of the universe.
Prayer is a fact of the universal religion. Whence is it that we derive
a large part of what knowledge we have of the ancient civilizations of
India and Egypt? From ruins: and the chief of these ruins are the ruins
of temples, that is to say, of houses of prayer. Would we go further
back than these monuments of stone? I interrogate those pioneers of
science who are searching for the traces of antiquity in old
languages,--in the ruins of speech. I inquire, for example, of my
learned fellow-countryman, M. Adolphe Pictet: "You who have studied,
with patient care, the first origins of our race--what have you
discovered in the way of religion?" He replies: "When I have gone as far
back as historical speculations can carry us by the aid of language, it
appears to me that I no longer see temples built by the hand of man,
but, beneath the open vault of heaven, I see our earliest ancestors
sending up together the chant of prayer and the flame of
sacrifice."[174]
And now, from this remote antiquity, I come down to the paganism, in
which modern civilization had its beginning. Tertullian teaches us that
the pagans, seeming to forget their idols, and to offer a spontaneous
testimony to the truth, were often wont to exclaim--Great God! Good God!
What in their mind was the order of these two thoughts, the thought of
greatness and that of goodness? The pediment of a temple at Rome bore
this famous inscription, _Deo optimo maximo_; and Cicero explains to us
that the God of the Capitol was by the Roman people named "very good" on
account of the benefits conferred by him, and "very great" on account of
his power.[175] It is the idea of goodness which here appears to be
first. But let us go more directly to the root of the question: What do
we gather from the universality of prayer? What is it to pray? To pray
is to ask. Prayer may be mingled with thanksgivings, and with
expressions of adoration, but in itself prayer is a petition. This
petition rises to God: and when does it so rise? In distress, in
anguish. It is misery, weakness, the heart cast down, the failing will,
which unite to raise from earth to heaven that long cry which resounds
across all the pages of history: Help!--I analyze this fact, and inquire
what it means. A request is made, and for what? For strength, for
tranquillity, for peace; for happiness under all its forms. And of whom
is happiness asked? Of goodness. Justice is appeased, power is dreaded,
but it is goodness which is invoked. It is so in human relations. The
man who supplicates the fiercest tyrant only does so because he supposes
that a fibre of goodness may still vibrate in that savage heart. Take
from him that thought; persuade him that the last gleam of pity is
extinct in the heart to which he appeals, and you will arrest the prayer
on the lips of the suppliant. There will remain for him only the silence
of despair, or the heroism of resignation.
To sum up:--Religion is a universal fact. "There is no religion without
prayer," said Voltaire, and he never said better. There is no prayer
without a confused, perhaps, but real, conviction of the goodness of the
First Cause of the universe. If you could stifle in man's heart the
feeling that the Principle of things is good, you would silence over the
whole globe that voice of prayer which is ever rising to God. Thus
humanity itself testifies to the truth for which I am contending.
Humanity prays; it believes therefore in the goodness of God. This fact
is an argument. The heart of man is organized to believe that God is
good: it is the mark set by the Worker Himself upon His work.
Let us study now another of the elements of the universe. We have heard
the answer of man's heart; let us ask for the answer of reason. Has
reason nothing to tell us respecting the intentions of the Creator? Let
us place it in presence of the idea of God--of the Infinite Being, and
see what it will be able to teach us.
To attain my object, I must explain more particularly than as yet I have
done, a word rendered frivolous by the levity of our heart, a word
defiled by the disorder of our passions, and too often by the
unworthiness, and worse, of poets and novelists, but which still, in its
virgin purity, is ever protesting against the outrages to which it has
been subjected: that word is _love_.
This word has two principal meanings. In the Platonic sense of it, it is
the search after what is beautiful, great, noble, pure,--after what, as
being of the very real nature of the soul, attracts, fills, and delights
it. But there is another sort of love, which does not pursue greatness
and beauty, but which gives itself; a love which seeks the wretched to
enrich him, the poor to make him happy, the fallen to raise him up.
These two kinds of love seem to follow different and even contrary laws.
Here, for instance, is a description of what often occurs in a large
city.[176] A man leaves his house in the evening in order to be present
at performances in which I am willing to believe that everything bears
the stamp of nobleness and grandeur, or at least of a pure and wholesome
taste. He experiences keen enjoyment, and that of an elevated kind. The
spectacle over, he returns to his dwelling, and at a still later hour he
retires at length to his repose. He has not long extinguished his
luxurious tapers, perhaps, when other men, who have slept while others
were seeking amusement, rise before daylight, and, lighting their small
lanterns, go forth to succor the unfortunate, without witnesses and
without ostentation.
I have taken this example from Xavier de Maistre. Let me give you
another from scenes more familiar to ourselves. You know those pure
summer mornings, when one may truly say that the Alp smiles and that the
mountain invites. A young man quits his dwelling at the first dawning of
the day, in his hand the tourist's staff, and his countenance beaming
with joy. He starts on a mountain excursion. All day long he quaffs the
pure air with delight, revels in the freedom of the pasture-grounds, in
the view of the lofty summits and of the distant horizons. He reposes in
the shade of the forest, drinks at the spring from the rock, and when he
has gazed on the Alpine chain resplendent in the radiance of the setting
sun, he lingers still to see--
Twilight its farewell to the hills delaying.[177]
Noble enjoyments! This young man enjoys because he loves. The spectacle
of the creation speaks to his heart and elevates his thoughts. He loves
that enchanting nature, which blends in a marvellous union the
impressions which in human relations are produced by the strong man's
majesty and the maiden's sweetest smile.
On this same summer-day, another man has also risen before the sun. He
is devoted to the assuaging of human miseries, and he has had much to
do. He has mounted gloomy staircases; he has entered dark chambers; he
has spent time in hospitals, in the midst of the pains of sickness; he
has come, in prisons, to the relief of pains which are sadder still.
Day, as it dawned, gilded the summits of the Alps, but he saw not that
pure light of the morning. Day, as it advanced, penetrated into the
valleys, but he did not notice its progress. The sun set in his glory,
but he had no opportunity to admire either the bright reflection of the
waters, or the rosy tint of the mountains. And yet he too is joyful
because he loves. He loves the fulfilment of stern duty, he loves
poverty solaced, and suffering alleviated.
Here are the two kinds of love. The disciple of Plato rises, far from
the vulgarities of life, into the lofty regions of the ideal, and feeds
on beauty. Vincent de Paul takes the place of a convict at the galleys
that he may restore a father to his children. These two kinds of love
seem to us to be contrary one to the other: the one seeks itself, and
the other gives itself. Still they are both necessary to life, for in
order to give we must receive. In the accomplishment of the works of
goodness, the soul would be impoverished and would end by drying up in
a purely mechanical exercise of beneficence, had it no spring from which
to draw forth the living waters. Man must himself find joy in order to
diffuse it amongst his fellows. But mark the incomparable marvel of the
spiritual order of things! The love which gives itself is able to find
its worthiest object and its purest satisfaction in the very act of
kindness. There is joy in self-devotion; there is happiness in
self-sacrifice: the fountain furnishes its own supplies. Thus are
harmonized the two contrary tendencies of the heart of man. "It is more
blessed to give than to receive;" words these, of Jesus Christ, which,
forgotten by the Evangelists, have been recorded by the Apostle St.
Paul. And since the thought is a beautiful one, it has adorned the
strains of the poets: says Lamartine--
Dost thou happiness resign
To another? It is thine--
Larger for the largess--still![178]
And Victor Hugo, personifying Charity, makes her speak as follows:
Dear to every man that lives,
Joy I bring to him who gives,
Joy I leave with him who takes.[179]
And because this thought is profound as well as beautiful, it has been
taken up by the philosophers. "To love," said Leibnitz, "is to place
one's happiness in the happiness of another." Here is the connecting
link between Platonic love and the love which is charity. Hear how a
Christian orator comments upon these words:--"This sublime definition
has no need of explanations: it is either understood at once, or it is
not understood. The man who has loved understands it; and he who has not
loved will never understand it. He who has loved knows that a shadow in
the heart of the beloved one would darken his own: he knows that he
would reckon no means too costly--watchings, labors, privations--by
which to create a smile on the lips of the sorrowful; he knows that he
would die to redeem a forfeited life; he knows that he would be happy
in another's welfare, happy in his graces, happy in his virtues, happy
in his glory, happy in his happiness. The man who has loved knows all
this; he who has not loved knows nothing of it:--I pity him!"[180]
But the great mistake, which seems peculiar to our nature, is that we
are ever connecting happiness with the idea of receiving, and are always
thinking of giving as of a loss to ourselves. We do not understand that
selfishly to keep is to be impoverished, while freely to relinquish is
to be enriched. Yet here is the grand discovery of the spiritual life;
and once this discovery made, in order that the spiritual life may
attain its object, it only remains to find the strength to put it into
practice. Selfishness is wrong, no doubt, but it is not only wrong, it
is ignorant, for it looks for happiness where it is not; and it is
unhappy, for it wanders from the paths of peace.
Let us now apply these considerations to the Infinite Being, and to the
problem of the end of the creation. Leaving ourselves to the guidance of
the laws of our reason, let us ask what object we shall be able to
attribute to the Creator in His work? Will creation be the effect of a
necessity? No, Sirs, for in that case everything in the world would be a
matter of fate, and liberty would remain inexplicable. If a blind power
were directing the Almighty Will, we should return to the worship of
destiny. Will creation, then, be the carrying out of a design of which
the motive is interest? But what conceivable interest can influence Him
who is the plentitude of being? Or will creation be a duty? But whence
should come the obligation for the Being who is in Himself the absolute
law? Creation can only be conceived of as a work of love. But of what
love? Of that which is the manifestation of absolute disinterestedness,
of supreme liberty. Allow me to introduce into this discussion some
eloquent words, uttered in the year 1848, in the midst of the
revolutionary agitations of Paris. The problem which we are debating was
treated then, in the presence of an excited crowd, by Père
Lacordaire.[181] He is entering upon this question: What can have been
the motive of the creation? And he distinguishes between love in the
Platonic sense of it, for which he retains the name of love, and the
love which gives itself, which he designates by the term--goodness.
"Was it then love," he asks, "which impelled the Divine Will, and said
to it unceasingly: Go and create? Is it love which we must thus regard
as our first father? But, alas! love itself has a cause in the beauty of
its object; and what beauty could that dead and icy shade possess before
God, which preceded the universe, and to which we cannot give a name
without betraying the truth?... There remained something, Sirs, be very
sure, more generous than self-interest, more elevated than duty, more
powerful than love. Search your own hearts, and if you find it hard to
understand me, if your own endowments are unknown to you, listen to
Bossuet speaking of you:--'When God,' says he, 'made the heart of man,
the first thing He planted there was goodness:' goodness; that is to
say, that virtue which does not consult self-interest, which does not
wait for the commands of duty, which needs not to be solicited by the
attraction of the beautiful, but which stoops towards its object all the
more, as it is poorer, more miserable, more abandoned, more worthy of
contempt! It is true, Sirs, it is true: man possesses that adorable
faculty. It is not genius, nor glory, nor love, which measures the
elevation of his soul,--it is goodness. This it is which gives to the
human countenance its principal and most powerful charm; this it is
which draws us together; this it is which brings into communication the
good and the evil, and which is everywhere, from heaven to earth, the
great mediating principle. See, at the foot of the Alps, yon miserable
_crétin_, which, eyeless, smileless, tearless, is not even conscious of
its own degradation, and which looks like an effort of nature to insult
itself in the dishonor of the greatest of its own productions: but
beware how you imagine that that wretched object has not found the road
to any heart, or that his debasement has deprived him of the love of all
the world. No: he is beloved; he has a mother, he has brothers and
sisters; he has a place at the cottage-hearth; he has the best place and
the most sacred of all, just because of all he may seem to have the
least claim to any. The bosom which nursed him supports him still, and
the superstition of love never speaks of him but as of a blessing sent
of God. Such is man!
"But can I say, Such is man, without saying also, Such is God! From whom
would man derive goodness, if God were not the primordial Ocean of
goodness, and if, when He formed our heart, He had not first of all
poured into it a drop from His own? Yes, God is good; yes, goodness is
the attribute which includes in it all the rest; and it is not without
reason that antiquity engraved on the pediment of its temples that
famous inscription, in which goodness preceded greatness."
Now, to say nothing of the sparkling beauty of these words, let us pause
at this definite idea: The Eternal, the first universal Cause of all
things, independently of which nothing exists, could only create under
the impelling motive of the goodness which gives, and not of the love
which seeks requital. This proposition is as clear in the abstract as
any theorem of geometry. But we have touched the threshold of the
infinite; and we never touch the threshold of the infinite without
falling into some degree of bewilderment. Clear as this thought is in
the abstract, if we wish to analyze it in its real substance, our view
is confused. You understand well that goodness increases in the
proportion in which its object is diminished. We are by so much more
good as we stoop to that which is poorer and more miserable. What then
shall be the infinite goodness? In order to find it, we must infinitely
diminish its object: and here we encounter mystery. To diminish an
object infinitely is an operation impossible to our thought. This
mystery is encountered even in the mathematical sciences. We take a
quantity, halve it, and again halve this half, and so on without end,
but we shall never obtain the infinity of smallness; for the quantity
indefinitely divided will always remain indefinitely divisible. At
whatever degree of division we may have arrived, between what remains
and nothingness there extends always the abyss of the infinite. So I
seek for the object of infinite goodness: that object must be infinitely
destitute. I diminish accordingly the existence of the universe: I
extinguish all the rays of its beauty; I take from it order, life,
measure, color, light; I reduce it until it is nothing but formless
matter, a something--I know not what--which has no longer a name. Vain
attempt! This nameless something, so long as it is anything, will not be
_nothing_. Between it and nothing there will always be the infinite. If
the goodness of God is applied to any object which was existing
independently of Him, however poor and abject that object be conceived
to have been, then God is no longer the unique, the absolute Creator. If
imagination will cross the abyss, we shall come of necessity to
say--what? that the object of infinite love must have been
non-existence. This is what the orator already quoted has done:--"All
perfection supposes an object to which to apply itself. The divine
goodness therefore requires an object as vast and profound as itself.
God discovered it. From the bosom of His own fulness He saw that being
without beauty, without form, without life, without name, that being
without being which we call non-existence: He heard the cry of worlds
which were not, the cry of a measureless destitution calling to a
measureless goodness. Eternity was troubled, she said to Time: Begin!"
This, Gentlemen, is eloquence. The thought in itself does not bear a
rigorous analysis; but do not think that the lustrous beauty of the
language is only a brilliant veil to what in itself is absurd. We have
arrived at darkness, but it is at darkness visible; the cloud is lighted
up by the ray that issues from it. Our goodness, finite creatures as we
are, is so much the greater as the object on which it is bestowed is
less. Infinite goodness must create for itself an object. It does not
love nothingness, but a creature which is nothing in itself, a creature
simply possible, which, before owing to it the blessings of existence,
shall owe to it that existence itself. The only being that we can
represent to ourselves, by a sublime image, as stooping towards
nothingness, is He whose look gives life. The creature is willed for
itself, or,--to quote the words of Professor Secrétan, addressed to you
last year,--the foundation of nature is grace.[182] We ask: What can
have been the object of creation? Our reason answers: The Infinite Being
can only act from goodness, He can have no other object than the
happiness of His creatures.
And now I recapitulate. We ask what is the object of creation; and
whereas we cannot transport ourselves into the inaccessible light of the
Divine consciousness, we question the work of God in order to discern
the intentions of the Creator. From the fact that humanity prays, we
gather the reply that man has a spontaneous belief in the goodness of
the First Cause of the universe. We place reason in presence of the
idea of the Infinite Being; reason declares to us that He who is the
plenitude of Being could not have created except from the motive of
love. We understand that God has made all for His own glory, and that
His glory consists in the manifestation of His goodness. These thoughts,
in their full light, belong to the Gospel revelation, but they appear,
under a veil, in the conceptions which lie at the basis of pagan
religions. Without entering the temple of idols, we may bow the knee
before the pediment of the ancient sanctuary, and, beneath the open
vault of heaven, adore, with the Roman people, that God whose goodness
takes precedence of His greatness.
The direct consequence of the principles which we have just laid down is
that happiness is the object of our existence. Created by goodness, we
can have no other end than blessedness.
But beware of supposing that we can take for our guide our desire of
happiness, and ourselves calculate its conditions. Happiness is our end;
it is the will of our Father; but we must let ourselves be conducted
into it. If, shutting our ears to the voice which lays upon us commands
and obligations, we would take our destinies into our own hands; if we
made the search after happiness our rule, understanding happiness in
our own way, we should be taking for light fantastic gleams which would
lead us into abysses of ruin. The unruly propensities of our heart would
lead us to make ourselves the centre of the world. To "live for self" is
the motto of selfishness, and the watchword of unhappiness. To live for
God is the way to happiness. To live to God, that is to say, over the
ruins of our shattered selfishness, to enter into order, to take our
place in the spiritual edifice of charity, and to share in the joy which
God allots to all His children--this is the end of our creation. Once
lifted to the height of this thought, we are able to understand the
great struggle which rent the conscience of the ancients, because in
their times the light of truth illumined only at intervals the clouds of
error which covered the world.
There are in man two voices; the one leading him to happiness, the other
calling him to holiness. The first impulse of his nature is to start in
eager pursuit of mere enjoyment; but ere long the second voice is heard,
the voice of conscience, striving to arrest him in his course. If man do
not obey her call, conscience becomes his chastiser. Hence arises a
painful struggle of conflicting feelings, and the human mind is the
subject of a strong temptation to pacify itself by silencing one of the
two voices. It is the history of antiquity. Socrates, the wise Socrates,
had indeed cried aloud: Woe! woe to the man who separates the just from
the useful; and had warned men that happiness may be found apart from
what is right and good. Cicero put into beautiful Latin the lessons of
the Grecian sage; but the torn heart of man was not long in tearing the
mantle of the philosopher. From the thought, full and complete as it is,
of Socrates issued two celebrated sects, one of which wished to
establish man's life on the basis of duty without reference to
happiness; and the other on the basis of happiness without reference to
duty.
The Stoics attached themselves to duty; but the need of happiness
asserted itself in spite of them, and sought satisfaction in the gloomy
pleasure of isolation, and in the savage joy of pride. The sage of these
philosophers sets himself free, not only from all the cares of earth,
but from all the bonds of the heart, from all natural affection.
Finally, by a consequence, at once sad and odd, of the same doctrine,
the highest point of self-possession is to prove that man is master of
himself, by the emancipation of suicide and in the liberty of death. The
Stoic philosopher declares himself insensible to the ills of life; he
denies that pain is an evil; and, on the other hand, he claims the right
to kill himself in order to escape from the ills of existence! So ended
this famous school. At the same period, the herd of Epicurus' followers,
giving themselves over to weak and shameful indulgences, were thus in
fact laboring with all their might (this is Montesquieu's opinion) to
prepare that enormous corruption under which were to sink together the
glory of Rome and the civilization of the ancient world.
This struggle which rent the ancient conscience, and which still rends
the modern conscience wherever the goodness of God continues
veiled--this great conflict is appeased when we have come to understand
that goodness is the first principle of things, that happiness is our
end, and that the stern voice of conscience is a friendly voice which
warns us to shun those paths of error in which we should encounter
wretchedness. The conscience is the voice of the Master; and the same
authority which, speaking in the name of duty, bids us--"Be good,"
adds, in the gentle accents of hope--"and thou shalt be happy."
Happiness, duty,--these are the two aspects of the Divine Will. Love is
the solution of the universal enigma. Therefore, surprising as the
thought may be, it is our duty to be happy. Our profession of faith,
when we look above, must be: "I believe in goodness;" and when we enter
again into ourselves, our profession of faith should be: "I believe in
happiness." And we do not believe in it. Not to believe in happiness is
the root of our ills; it is the original misery which includes all our
miseries. Triflers that we are, we give ourselves up to pleasure because
we do not believe in joy: frivolous, we run after giddy excitement
because we do not believe in peace: with hearts corrupt, we abandon
ourselves to the devouring flame of the passions, because we do not
believe in the serene light of true felicity. But the more the thought
of God's love enters our mind, the more will faith in happiness issue
from our soul as a blessed flower. Happiness is the end of our being; it
is the will of the Father. To each one of us are these words addressed:
God loves thee; be happy! If therefore (and I address myself more
particularly to the younger of my hearers), if in the depth of your
soul you are conscious of a sudden aspiration after true felicity, ah!
do not suffer the holy flame to be extinguished, do not talk of
illusions; do not, I pray you, resign yourselves to the prose of life;
to a dreary and gloomy contentedness with a destiny which has no ideal.
Your nature does not deceive you; it is you who deceive yourselves, if
you seek your own welfare in the world of foolish or guilty chimeras.
Listen to all the voices which speak to you of comfort; be attentive to
all the words of peace. Seek, labor, pray, till you are able to utter,
in quiet confidence, those words of the Psalmist:
In peace I lay me down to rest;
No fears of evil haunt my breast:
In peace I sleep till dawn of day,
For God, my God, is near alway:
On Him in faith my cares I roll;
He never sleeps who guards my soul.[183]
God in the heart--this it is which adds zest to our enjoyments,
sanctifies our affections, calms our griefs, and which, amidst the
struggles, the sorrows, and the harrowing afflictions of life, suffers
to rise from the heart to the countenance that sublime smile which can
shine brightly even through tears.
FOOTNOTES:
[172]
Tristes calculateurs des misères humaines,
Ne me consolez point, vous aigrissez mes peines;
Et je ne vois en vous que l'effort impuissant
D'un fier infortuné qui feint d'être content.
Quel bonheur, O mortels, et faible et misérable.
Vous criez: "Tout est bien" d'une voix lamentable;
L'univers vous dément, et votre propre coeur
Cent fois de votre esprit a réfuté l'erreur.
Il le faut avouer, le mal est sur la terre.
DESASTRE DE LISBONNE.
[173]
Pourquoi donc, O Maître suprême,
As-tu créé le mal si grand
Que la raison, la vertu même
S'épouvantent en le voyant?
Comment, sous la sainte lumière,
Voit-on des actes si hideux,
Qu'ils font expirer la prière
Sur les lèvres du malheureux?
Pourquoi, dans ton oeuvre céleste,
Tant d'éléments si peu d'accord?
A quoi bon le crime et la peste,
O Dieu juste! pourquoi la mort?
ALFRED DE MUSSET, _Espoir en Dieu_.
[174] _Les origines indo-européennes, ou les Aryas primitifs._--The
above is a _résumé_, not a verbatim quotation.
[175] Quocirca te, Capitoline, quem propter beneficia populus Romanus
OPTIMUM, propter vim MAXIMUM nominavit. (_Pro domo sua_, LVII.)
[176] See the _Voyage autour de ma chambre_ of Xavier de Maistre.
[177] _Le crépuscule aux monts prolonger ses adieux._
[178]
Tout le bonheur tu cèdes
Accroît ta félicité.
[179]
Chère à tout homme quel qu'il soit,
J'apporte la joie à qui donne
Et je la laisse à qui reçoit.
And Shakspeare--
".... Mercy ... is twice bless'd,
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes."
_Merchant of Venice._--[TR.]
[180] Lacordaire. _Conférences de 1848._
[181] _Conférences de 1848_, p. 78.
[182] _La raison et le Christianisme_: twelve lectures on the existence
of God, one vol. 12mo. In the _Philosophie de la liberté_ (2 vols. 8vo.)
M. Secrétan has set forth, in a severely scientific form, the arguments
of which the reader has just seen the oratorical expression from the pen
of Père Lacordaire. This agreement is worth notice, the dates showing
that no communication was possible.
[183]
Je me couche sans peur,
Je m'endors sans frayeur,
Sans crainte je m'éveille.
Dieu qui soutient ma foi
Est toujours près de moi,
Et jamais ne sommeille.
THE END.
* * * * *
Cambridge: Printed by John Wilson and Son.