Part 3

But our wisdom has one grave defect. It is still, if I may so speak, but an outward good, which influences our life and conduct, but has not yet penetrated our soul and become for us a moral property, a moral wealth. It redounds to the honour and greatness of man that he is not content with what _is_, merely because it is. The mere fact does not suffice; he wishes to see more. For the fact he would discover an end, a reason. He wishes to attach it to the laws of his own inward nature, his own destiny; to feel it in relation to and harmony with his soul. Then only in man's eyes does a fact assume a moral aspect and acquire a moral power; then only does man accept it and obey it with respect as truth, instead of yielding and submitting to it with pain as a necessity. Moreover, we do not yet understand all the lessons of experience which we have received and recognized. They have not yet assumed in our moral being the rank which belongs to them. They are for us unimpeachable facts rather than great and good laws; and mistakes rather than progress. They direct more than they have enlightened us, and if we conform our actions and thoughts to them, it is because we are subdued rather than convinced.

Were it not so, why this dejection, this secret disgust, this indifference, this bluntness, this chill which now so often accompany wisdom and sound sense? You say you are discouraged, you do not hope, you do not dare any more to attempt aught that is difficult and great. What then has happened? {39} What has this experience, at the same time so much vaunted and so mournful, taught you? That duty, not interest or passion, is the principle of morality; that God has not ceased to watch over the world; that he resists the proud and punishes the guilty; that order has her natural and inviolable laws, and avenges herself on those who mistake them; that evil, always present, always at our door, in us and about us, needs to be incessantly resisted. Of what do you complain? These are advances, not mistakes; truths reconquered, power recovered, not hopes thrown away. It is true, man was carried away by an ambition beyond his strength and right; it must be brought down, his reason and his will must agree to restore what they attempted to usurp. Instead of setting up and adoring himself as a monarch, man here must acknowledge his primitive imperfection, his definite insufficiency, and yield submission in thought and life on the bosom of liberty. But is it nothing that this liberty is now more firmly established than man has ever known it? Is the general progress of justice and happiness in the world nothing? Is there not therein a fitting reward for the toils and sufferings of our age? Is there not, after so many mistakes, enough to satisfy the most exacting, to refresh the most exhausted?

Let us look higher. In return for the sacrifices required from our pride, in compensation for the demonstrated weakness of our nature and the marked bounds of our power, has nothing been given to us? {40} Do we not regain more than we lose? Do we not ascend more than we have been forced to descend? The eighteenth century had inflated us with pride, yet had in reality only lowered us. In making us monarchs of this world, it had at the same time confined and reduced us to it alone. No more immensity, no more eternity for the soul; no longer a bond of kindred between God and man. We came and passed over the earth like all that springs from and returns to it. Our noblest ambition, our purest desires, our most sublime flights, all that there is in us of noble and truly divine, was no more than a delusion and a burden. Not only in respect of our worldly goods and joys, but of ourselves and for ever, we had to exclaim, "vanity of vanities, all is vanity." We have escaped; we are leaving this confined and low condition; we are rising; we are again about to attain our dignity, our hope, our futurity, our soul. We can no more parade ourselves in our pride, but we are no longer plunged into and abandoned in misery; we find again a Master here below, and also "our Father which is in heaven."

I know how much there is of the frivolous and superficial in the return of our time to religious hopes and beliefs. I know how much even serious minds are doubtful and agitated upon this subject, the evils that are still at work, the problems that await solution, and that perhaps a tardy one. Nevertheless, we have got back to the right track. Man does not increase his distance from God; he has turned towards the East; he seeks the light. {41} Here we still yield rather to the force of facts than of ideas; and experience is credited rather than conviction. Still we believe in experience rather than in our own talent, and submit to facts though we hardly render a free and enlightened homage to the truths of which they witness.

It is not yet adoration, but it is the fear of God, that beginning of wisdom.

Had we already reached the point of adoration--were the wisdom for which we have so dearly paid really established amongst us, in the affairs of this world and in those of eternity, in questions political, moral, and religious, in short, in everything; and were we fully satisfied as to the rational lawfulness and practical utility of her counsels, if she enlightened our understandings as she rules our conduct--we should be far other than we are; more tranquil, more confiding, more firm, more worthy, more exalted. We should distinguish further; we should advance higher and faster in the paths of new and amending progress, in which we now walk slowly and with bended head, as if constrained and humbled.

But, I repeat, it is needful, for this salutary transformation of our ideas to be accomplished, that our experience may become our reason. We have more good sense than enlightenment; we act better than we think. Inwardly and deeply we are imbued with prejudices which fetter although they do not rule us; we are still doubtful about the very truths by which we test our deeds; only doubt has changed its form and language. With our fathers it was infatuated and bold; with us it is detracting and useless. {42} Pride has turned it into contempt; and because we do not experience for human nature the unbounded ambition and chimerical hopes which formerly prevailed, we no longer love men tenderly, nor think well of their nature, nor take an interest in their destiny. We imagine that wisdom binds us to indifference and immobility.

Many, too, of the ills of the eighteenth century, which sprung from the maxims then prevalent, and which, to all appearance, ought to have expired with them, still exist. We no longer have the same tenderness for man, nor do we show greater aversion to evil. Indifference has not made us more strict. For though human nature is no longer judged with the same blind partiality, we are still full of indulgence towards it, and cowardly in our treatment of it; we exhibit towards it the same complaisance, without feeling the former esteem and love. Materialist and impious doctrines are on the decline, but we are more than ever tormented by an eager thirst for immediate material happiness.

Is it true then, as is said, that we are in a state of moral decay? Is our age destined to continue the evil of its precursor, and while losing its virtues add to it its own evils?

I confidently answer in the negative. Nothing would tempt me to flatter the age I live in, but I love it. I am struck by its evil; I think a remedy urgently called for, an immediate struggle necessary; I also see in it much good, a good deep and fruitful and sufficient with the help of God to resist and conquer the evil.

{43}

I said just now that the great mistakes, the serious maladies of any period are those of the good. On the other side, it is in the sound ideas and good dispositions of the same class that the moral force of an epoch and its means of safety are to be found. Now the general and ruling disposition of the good at the present day is the spirit of order, the deep desire for order after so much trouble and contest.

This is said to be merely the result of prudence, of a clear idea of interest, not of morality.

In my opinion this is an inconsiderate sentence; one which shows little knowledge of man and of what passes within him, of which he is often himself unconscious. There is morality, true morality, in the spirit of order, especially when largely developed and hardly tried. The word _interest_ is pronounced disdainfully, as if it implied pure selfishness, and excluded virtue. Thanks be to God, who has created legitimate interests. Interests inherent to legitimate situations and relations are essentially moral and animated by moral impulsion. The father of a family who protects his household, the labourer who takes care of the fruit of his industry, act for their own interest it is true, and according to the dictates of prudence. But around and connected with this interest are grouped the most praiseworthy feelings, domestic affections, respect of the law, care for the future, defence of right, fulfilment of duty, efforts, devotion, sacrifice. {44} Who will refuse to these the name of morality? Public instinct answers this question. "There are but two parties," said a man of simple mind, and a stranger to all sophism, "that of honest men and that of rogues." When it was desired to define and rally under one banner the party of order in France, it was inscribed "The Charter and Property." [Footnote 2]

[Footnote 2: "La Charte et les gens de bien."]

In fact, at the present day the ideas of honesty, dignity, morality, and virtue are closely allied with that of order. Public morality is in the general mind the cause of order as well as of individual security. It is because, after so many convulsions as corrupt as painful, the taste for and love of order are amongst us the first effect, the first symptom of attachment to the maxims and practice of duty.

Besides, democratic societies, still so novel and mysterious, are little known and ill understood. Their virtues want the éclat,--I will go further, want the finish, the charm which belong to the elevation of persons, the beauty of form, the influence of time, the complete, varied and harmonious developement of great and glorious human nature. Yet they want neither virtue itself nor morality. There will be found in these crowded and unknown masses, in their laborious and modest lives, much uprightness, much simple justice, much active benevolence, much submission to law, much resignation to their lot, a rare power of effort and sacrifice, a noble and touching disposition to forgetfulness of self, without pretension, without noise, without reward.

{45}

Even the jealousy of all superiority, the passion of envy--that poison of democratic society,--does not always affect as much as might be apprehended their moral judgment. This venom has affected us deeply; nevertheless, excellence is met with joy and welcomed with gratitude as a service done to society, which feels the necessity of being elevated and purified. Respect is more genuine, taste more correct while it remains a stranger to systematic opinions, to mere flights of fancy, and to all romantic emphasis. By a singular and very significant phenomenon, the exaggeration and emphasis of the present period tend towards evil and disorder. The declaimer plunges into the mire. Our times wish good to be true, simple, sedate, and sensible. It is only because it is good, a moral good, that it is esteemed and loved. It is asked to appear but what it is.

Where such a disposition prevails; where good is thus honored for itself, and for itself alone, there may still be much evil, and very serious evil; but such can hardly be the lot of the future.

We are hardly yet advancing towards a future. As yet we have struggled, and still strive to acquire from the heritage of the last century a spoil that suits us; a heritage so loaded, so mingled, that it has plunged us in confusion. We have co-existing in us good and bad, true and false, in direct opposition. {46} We bear about in ourselves the most contradictory ideas and sentiments. We are driven about and stagger under their varying influence. Now we try to reject all absolutely, now to forget all and live from day to day without thought or design. Vain efforts! The problem harasses every soul, agitates or wearies it, leaves it in doubt or inactivity. None can elude it. A solution is necessary in moral as well as in political order, for individuals as for the state. For this is not a purely political question, which can be settled wholly and completely by charter, law, or cabinet. It is a matter which comes home to each of us; one for which each of us individually has to provide. We must keep, apart from the impulse which the eighteenth century has given to the world and the minds of men, that which agrees with the eternal order which that era often mistook for the world and the human mind. The new truths and laws which come to us from that date, as well as the immutable truths and laws which it overlooked, must live and reign together in our thoughts; we must know for a certainty and unhesitatingly practice what they demand from us. On this condition only shall we see the end of that mixture of agitation and depression, this doubting both of well and ill regulated minds, this barrenness of movement as of wisdom which are the peculiar evils of our era. Government and people reciprocally accuse each other of this evil, and charge on each other the task of applying a remedy. "Let Power be dignified, firm, active, fertile," says the one; "let it sustain and animate, rule and aid society; society will assist, evils will be remedied, good will be done; but it is for Power to take the initiative and responsibility in all this." {47} "How can I do it?" replies Power. "How undertake the responsibility? It is in society itself--in the mind itself--that the evil exists. They are weak, tottering, inactive; full of doubts and fears. Let people ascend in the social scale; let them show self-control. I do not prevent them. No one can ask me to do more; I can do no more."

The defence of both weakness of mind and heart is bad. The regeneration of our time demands from all both duty and exertion. From power, because it is set on high, it sees and is seen; it shows the light and holds the standard. If it lowers them, society falls into darkness and disorder. From society too, from every individual, for we are all infected by the evil which we call upon power to cure. Yet power of itself is not able to cure, individually and collectively, the evils for which we ask a remedy. Our active and intelligent co-operation is indispensible. And it is precisely in this coalition of public power and individual will that the value and honor of free governments consist. Hence they are morally and politically powerful, salutary for immortal souls as for temporal occasions.

This good must be the work of all. Power or society, rulers or plain citizens, let us each look to our own share in the great work, and perform our own part of the general duty. To him who shall be able the best and speediest to fulfil his, will belong the glory as well as the power inherent to success.

{48}

{49} Essay II.

On Religion In Modern Societies.

{50}

{51}

On Religion In Modern Societies.

(_February_, 1838.)

It is the fashion of the day loudly to lament over the condition of that great mass--the people. Their wants and sufferings are paraded. We are told of their lives so burdened and monotonous, so rude and precarious, so much fatigue, yet so little effect, so much danger and ennui, work so heavy, repose so slight, a future so uncertain.

This is true. The condition of the masses in this world is neither easy, cheerful, nor certain. It is impossible to contemplate without deep commiseration so many human creatures carrying, from their cradle to their tomb, so grievous a burden, and withal scarcely able to meet their wants, the wants of their children, of their father, their mother; incessantly seeking some necessary of life for those most dear, yet not always finding it; having it perhaps to-day, uncertain of it tomorrow; and continually preoccupied about their material existence, scarcely able to give a thought to their moral being. {52} It is painful, most painful to witness, most painful to reflect on. Yet is much reflection necessary. It were a grievous wrong and a grievous danger to forget it. More or less thought has been ever given to the subject. What said they who thought the most thereon?

They advised those who were the fortunate of this world to practise justice, goodness, charity; to apply themselves to seeking out and relieving the unhappy. To the unfortunate they recommended good conduct, moderate desires, submission to authority, resignation, and hope. They explained the destiny of man, showed all it possesses of sadness and sublimity, the compensations which are found in the different states, the pleasures which are common to all. They tried to cure, amongst the ills of men, those which men can cure; and, with regard to those which are incurable here below, they strove to raise men's eyes to the remedies in God's hands. This was the language of religion. These were the words and advice she addressed to high and low, rich and poor, to children in her catechisms, to men in her sermons, from the pulpit and from the sanctuary, by the sick bed, to all, at all seasons, and by every means.

The means of publicity and popular movement at that time belonged almost exclusively to religion. What the tribune, the press, the post--these trumpets of modern civilization--now are, the churches, the pulpit, religious instruction, pastoral superintendence formerly were Religion then addressed the masses. She never forgot the people. She was ever able to gain access there.

{53}

And while she thus interested herself for them, and strove to lighten or partly bear the burden of life, she also sympathised with men of all classes and all conditions, and with the burdens all bear, the blows which reach all, the wounds which all receive as they tread their appointed path.

To-day, while occupying ourselves much and justly with the material sufferings and fatigue which are shared by so many, we forget too much the moral fatigues and sufferings of which all partake; the trials, the agonies of the soul, the mistakes, the ennui, the anguish, in short, the universal lot of man--which are the more poignant as the mind has more freedom and life more leisure.

High or low, rich or poor, the _elite_ or the multitude, let us pity each other, let us pity every one. We are all, as we advance in our career, "weary and heavy laden"; we all deserve pity.

We deserve it now more than ever. Never, it is true, has the condition of man been more equal or better. But the desires of men have far outrun their progress. Never was ambition more impatient and widespread. Never were so many hearts a prey to the thirst for wealth and pleasure. Pleasures refined and grovelling, a thirst of material well-being and of intellectual variety, a spirit of activity and luxury, of adventure and idleness: everything appears possible, desirable, and accessible to all. It is not that passion is strong, or that man is disposed to take much trouble for the gratification of his desires. {54} He wishes feebly, desires immoderately; and the great scope of his desire throws him into a state of uneasiness, in which all that he already possesses appears but as the drop of water forgotten as soon as swallowed, and which irritates thirst instead of quenching it. The world has never seen such a conflict of imperfect desires, fancies, pretensions, exactions; never heard such a clamour of voices demanding together as their right all they have not and all that pleases them.

And these voices are not raised to God. Ambition, is at once extended and debased. When the teachers of the people were religious preceptors, they tried to detach the popular thought from the things of earth, and by raising desires and hopes to heaven, to restrain and calm them here. They knew that here, do what they might, satisfaction was impossible. The popular teachers of this day think otherwise and speak another language. In the presence of the hard lot and burning ambition of man, at the very time that they are displaying their misery and fomenting their desires, they are telling them that this earth contains what will satisfy them; and that if each be not as happy as he would be, it is not in the nature of things nor of his own nature that he should complain, but of the vices of society, and the usurpations of a certain class of men. All are placed in this world to be happy; all have the same right to happiness; the world can afford happiness to all.

Words like these resound daily in the ears of all, knock at the portals of every heart, penetrate by every crevice into the most remote folds of society.

{55}

And then we are astonished at the deep agitation and uneasiness under which nations and individuals, states and souls are labouring! For myself, I wonder the uneasiness is not greater, the agitation more violent, the explosion more sudden. Such ideas and such words are enough to set humanity astray and rouse it to revolt. And the preserving care of Providence, the innate and spontaneous wisdom which men cannot absolutely shake off, must be powerful to prevent such language--unceasingly repeated and universally heard--from plunging the world again into chaos.

No, it is not true that this earth possesses that which will suffice for the ambition and happiness of her inhabitants. It is not true that the untoward results or vices of human institutions are the sole or even the principal causes of the sad and painful lot of so many among men. Let these institutions become daily more just, more careful of the general welfare; it is the right of mankind. It is to the honour of our age that it adopted this thought and perseveres in trying to accomplish it. Former times took too light a share in the sufferings of the multitude. Their pretensions were too humble as regards justice and happiness for all. Ours are more extended, more lofty; and we give, with good reason, to our advance in this path the noble name of civilization. God forbid that we should turn aside from the noble work, or be discouraged about such a noble hope. But we must not feed ourselves with pride and illusion, we must not promise to ourselves that which we cannot expect to attain of ourselves and by our ingenuity. {56} There is a defect in our nature and an evil in our condition which eludes all human efforts. The disorder is within ourselves, and were every other source dried up, would arise from ourselves and our own will. An inequality of suffering is amongst the providential laws of our destiny. It is at once superiority and infirmity, greatness and misery. As free beings, we can create and do in fact without ceasing create evil. As immortal beings, neither the secrets of our lot nor the limits of our ambition are on this earth, and the life we lead here is but a very short scene of the unknown life which awaits us. Regulate institutions as you will, distribute all enjoyment as you please, neither your wisdom nor your wealth will fill the abyss. The liberty of man is stronger than the institutions of society. The mind of man is greater than worldly goods. There will always be found in him more desires than social knowledge can regulate or satisfy, more sufferings than it can either prevent or cure.