Volume 7 — Translated From The French Of M. Vitet. Science And Faith. Meditations On The Essence Of The Christian Religion, By M. Guizot.

Some time ago political life seemed to be the prominent occupation in France. M. Guizot was then cautiously defending his opinions, and was really wearing out his energy and his life in this work. At that time, we have heard it wished more than once, not that the struggle should cease, but that death might not surprise him with his mind occupied solely with these passing events. He needed, as a last favor and at the end of an ambitious career, some years of quiet and retreat to meditate upon the future, and to revive the faith of youth by the lessons of riper years. He required this for himself, for the interest of his soul. Nothing then foretold that he would soon be engaged in the arena of metaphysical and religious controversy. The disputes about these questions seemed almost lulled to sleep. Not that doubt and incredulity had surrendered their arms; they followed their accustomed work, but without noise, without parade, and without apparent success. This was a truce which had allowed Christian convictions to become reanimated, to increase, and to gain ground. The proof of this was seen in those gloomy days, when the waves of popular opinion, which threatened to destroy, bent, completely subdued and submissive and with an unlooked-for respect, before sacred truths and the ministers of religion. This was the natural result of that bitter struggle which had lasted for fifteen years. The aggressors could not undertake two sieges at one time, and so political power became the target against which all their efforts were directed.

It is not the same now. Power is protected by an armor which has disheartened its adversaries; and the more surely it is guarded, the more exposed and compromised are other questions, which equal or even exceed it in importance. The spirit of audacity and aggression compensates itself for the forced forbearance from politics, imposed upon it by the political power. It sees that in religious matters the ground is not so well protected; it feels more at ease there and not nearly so hard pushed. From this fact there arises a series of bold attacks of a new order, which scandalize the believing, and astonish the most indifferent, when they think for a moment of the preceding calm. It is no longer men or ministers, it is not a form of government, it is God himself whom they attack? We do not ask that the government should place the least restriction on the rights of free thought, even should it be to the advantage of the truths that we venerate the most. We desire to state the fact, and nothing more. It may be that these attacks are not important enough to cause as much anxiety as they have done. They are passionate, numerous, and skilfully arranged; but they cannot shake the edifice, and will serve rather to strengthen it, by summoning to its aid defenders who are more enlightened, and protectors who are more vigilant. Still, they are a great source of trouble. The restlessness, the distress, and the vague fears that the agitation of political affairs seemed alone capable of producing, now arise in the heart of the domestic circle and in the depths of the individual soul from these new discussions. It is not personal interests that are now risked, but souls that are in danger; and if the crisis is apparently less violent and intense, it is really graver and more menacing, and no one can remain neutral in the struggle.

And so M. Guizot wishes to take a part, and has entered the fray. He is of the number who, at certain times and upon certain subjects, do not know how to be silent. In politics he held back and he forbore. He saw the events, but he did not say what he thought of them. His debt in politics is now amply paid; all the more since he owed it to himself, as well as to his cause, to reestablish the real sense, the true physiognomy of the things he did. He had to explain clearly his views, his intentions, his acts; to interpret them and to comment upon them, we can almost say, to finish them during his own life; to give the true key to his future historians; in a word, to write his own memoirs. This was his duty, and he has acted rightly in not delaying it. It was not less for other ends, and in the design of a greater work, that he wished for twenty years' solitude and repose at the end of his life. His desire was heard. The days of calm and retreat have come, not, perhaps, at the time that he desired, and still less under conditions that he would have chosen, but for his glory they are such that he can well think them fruitful, worthy, valuable, full of vigor and of ardor. Happy autumn! when the recollections of the world and the echoes of political strife are only the recreation of a soul incessantly engaged with more serious problems. It is in these heights, in these serene regions, while he is questioning himself on his destiny and on his faith, that war has come to seek him; not the personal war of former times, but another kind of war, less direct and more general, yet perhaps more provoking. He is not the man to refuse the contest. Under the weight of years that he bears so well, stronger, more resolute, younger than ever, he has entered the arena; he will be militant until the end.

What will he do? What is his plan? What position will he take? The volume which is before us is an answer to these questions. It is only a first volume; but it is complete in itself, it is a work that one cannot study too closely, nor diffuse too widely. The developments, the additions, and the supplements which the three remaining volumes will soon add to the work, will, without doubt, make it still more comprehensive and solid; but as it is now, we consider it, without any commentary whatsoever, to be a most effective reply to the attacks which have recently been levelled against Christian doctrines, or, to speak more correctly, against the essence of all religion.

Before entering into the work, let us say something of the manner in which it is written. We are not going to speak of the author's style. We would announce nothing new to the world by saying that M. Guizot, when he has time and really tries, can write as well as he speaks. His pen for many years has followed a law of progress and of increasing excellence. He has shown in these Meditations a new skill, perhaps higher than in his Memoirs even, in the art of clothing his ideas in excellent language; learnedly put together, yet without effort or stiffness, true in its coloring, sober in its effects, always clear and never trivial, always firm and often forcible. Something more novel and more characteristic appears in this book. It is in reality a controversial work, but a controversy which is absolutely new. It is more than courteous, it is an impersonal polemic. The author has, certainly, always shown himself respectful to his opponents; he has ever admitted that they could hold different opinions from his in good faith; and even at the rostrum, in the heat of contests, his adversaries were not persons, they were ideas; but the people he disputed with were always, without scruple, called by their names. Here it is different; there is not a single proper name, the war is anonymous. In changing the atmosphere—in passing, if we can be allowed the expression, from earth to heaven, or, at least, from the bar to the pulpit, from politics to the gospel, he changes his method and takes a long step in advance. He endeavors to leave persons entirely out of consideration, for they only embarrass and embitter the questions. He forgets, or at least he does not tell us, who his adversaries are; he refutes them, but he does not name them.

Is not this discretion at once, good manners and good taste? It is also something more. Without doubt, by speaking only of ideas and not of those who maintain them, one loses a great means of effective action. In abstract matters, proper names referred to here and there are a very powerful resource—they arouse and excite attention, they give interest and life to the argument; but what is gained on one hand is frequently lost on another. The use of proper names, though it may have nothing to provoke irritation, still always incurs the danger of causing the debate to degenerate into a personal dispute. The questions are reduced to the capacity of those who sustain them. Better take a plainer and more decided path, and keep persons completely out of view. M. Guizot has done well. In no part of his book is there reason to regret the vivacity and attraction of a more direct polemic; whilst the urbanity and the omission of names, without really changing or diminishing the questions, spread a calm gravity throughout the work, almost a perfume of tolerance, which gains the reader's confidence and disposes him to allow himself to be convinced. It is true that this kind of polemics can only be maintained when greatness of thought compensates for the lack of passion. It is necessary to take wing, mount above questions, conquer all and enlighten all. Such is the character of these Meditations. The comprehensiveness of his views, the greatness of his plan, and the clearness of his style, alike impress upon it the seal of true originality.

It is not a theology that M. Guizot has undertaken; he has not written for doctors; he discusses neither texts nor points of doctrine; he does not attempt to solve scholastic difficulties; still less does he wish to mingle in the discussion of incidental events, to descend to the questions of to-day, and to follow, step by step, the crisis which agitates the Christian world at this time. He has grappled with more weighty and more permanent questions. He wishes to show clearly the truth of Christianity in its essence, in its fundamental dogmas, or rather in its simplicity and innate greatness, without commentary, interpretation, or human work of any kind, and consequently before all disunion, schism, or heresy. He has tried to expose the pure idea of Christianity, so that he can be more able to demonstrate its divine character.

Such is his intention. What has he done to attain it? The book itself must answer this question. But in these few pages how can we speak of it? How can we analyze a work when one is tempted to quote every paragraph? And on the other hand to give many extracts from a book, is only to mutilate it and give an incorrect idea of its real value. Let us only try, then, to say enough to inspire our readers with the more profitable desire of studying M. Guizot himself.

I.

The beginning and the foundation of these Meditations is a well-known truth, which the author establishes with absolute certainty, and which at this time it is useful to keep in mind. This truth is, that the human race, since its first existence and in every place where it has existed, has been engaged in trying to solve certain questions which are, so to speak, personal to it. These are questions, of destiny, of life rather than science, questions it has invincibly tried to determine. For example, Why is man in this world, and why the world itself? Why does it exist? Whence do they come, and where do they both tend? Who has made them? Have they an intelligent and free Creator? or are they merely a product of blind elements? If they are created, if we have a Father, why, in giving us life, has he made it so bitter and painful? Why is there sin? Why suffering and death? Is not the hope of a better life only the illusion of the unhappy; and prayer, that cry of the soul in anguish, is it only a sterile noise, a word thrown to the mocking wind?

These questions, together with others which develop and complete them, have excited the deepest interest of the human race since it first existed upon the earth, and it alone is interested in them. They speak only to it; among all living creatures, it alone can comprehend and is affected by them. This painful yet grand privilege is the indisputable evidence of its terrestrial royalty; it is at once its glory and its torment.

This series of questions, or rather mysteries, M. Guizot places at the beginning of his Meditations, under the title of Natural Problems. Man, indeed, possesses them by his very nature; he does not create or invent them, he merely submits to them. We do not mean by this that for humanity in general these problems are not obscure and confused, without a distinct form or outline, surrounded with uncertainties and frequently rather seen than clearly apprehended. This must be true of the great mass of mankind, who live from hand to mouth, who go and come and work, absorbed in petty pleasures or occupied with dreary toil. Still we think that there is not a single one, even among these apparently dull and heedless men, in whatever way he may have lived and whatever hardships he has had to sustain, who has not at least once in his life caught a glimpse of these formidable questions and felt an ardent wish to see them solved. Make as many distinctions as you please between races, sexes, ages, and degrees of civilization; divide the globe and its inhabitants by zones or climates; you will no doubt discover more than one difference in the way in which these problems are presented to the soul; you will find them more or less prominent, and more or less attention paid to them; but you will find a trace of them everywhere and among all people. It is a law of instinct, a general law for all times and places.

If such is our lot, if these questions necessarily weigh upon minds, these questions which are "the burden of the soul," as M. Guizot calls them, are we not really compelled to try to solve them? It is on our part neither vain curiosity, nor capricious desire, nor frivolous habit which leads us to attempt it. It is a necessity, quite as serious and as natural to us as the problems are themselves; a need we feel in some way to have lifted from us the weight which oppresses. We must have a reply at any cost; who can give it to us?

Faith or Reason? Religion or Philosophy? At every moment we see in what a very limited manner reason, science, and all purely human resources suffice to satisfy us. It can be said that, from the very infancy of human society up to the present day, it has been from the various religions, thought to be divine and accepted as such by faith, that humanity has asked these indispensable responses.

We readily see from this, what a deep interest is attached to these natural problems. Who will presume to tell us that religion proceeds from an artificial and temporary want, which men have gradually overcome, if the problems to which it answers are inherent in the race and can only perish with it? It is the constant work and watchword of every materialistic and pantheistic system to distort the character of these problems and make them simply accidental and individual, the result of temperament or of circumstances. Farther than this, they had not yet gone. They did not dare to deny, in the face of universal testimony, the continued existence of the problems themselves. They disguised their significance, they did not aspire to destroy them. Now they take another step. In order to get the advantage in answering, they begin by suppressing the questions. This is the characteristic feature, the first step of a system which makes a great deal of noise in the world to-day, although it only claims to reproduce efforts which have been already more than once defeated. It has, however, this kind of novelty, this advantage over its associates which, like it, have issued from pantheism, that it is not vague. It sets forth its opinions clearly and without equivocation, and by this fact this school of philosophy has gained the title by which it is commonly known. We need hardly say that it is to Positivism that we are alluding. This promises with the greatest seriousness, if we will only lend it our attention, to free humanity from these untoward problems which now torment it.

Its remedy is extremely simple: it simply says to the human race, Why do you seek to know whence you have come and what is your destiny? You will never find out a word of this. Do then your real duty. Leave these vain fancies. Live, become learned, study the evolution of things, that is to say, secondary causes and their relations; on this subject science has wonders to reveal to you; but final causes and first causes, our origin and our destiny, the beginning and the end of the world, these are all pure reveries, words completely without meaning! The perfection of man as well as of society consists in taking no notice of these things. The mind becomes more enlightened, the more it leaves in obscurity your pretended natural problems. These problems are really a disease, and the way to cure it is, not to think of them at all.

Not to think of them! Ingenuous proposition! Wonderful ignorance of the eternal laws of human nature! "Our age," say they, "inclines to these ideas: but let us not be disturbed by this." Men will not be persuaded by speaking to them in such a clear way, any more than Don Juan could overcome Sganarelle by his discourses on "two and two are four." Positivism not only attempts the impossible, but it frankly acknowledges it. Let us suppose for a moment that by some miracle it should triumph; that man, in order to please this system, should cease to pay any attention to the problems which beset him, should renounce the idea of fathoming these questions, and should despise every attempt at a religious or even a metaphysical solution, every inspiration toward the Infinite. How long does any one believe this would continue? We do not think that the human mind would consent to be thus mutilated and imprisoned for two days in succession. Were this system far more fascinating, the human soul would still rise above the limit to which Positivism would confine it, and would say with a great poet:

"Je ne puis, l'infini malgré moi me tourmente."

And so we see, whatever may happen, Positivism is not destined to give us the solution of these natural problems. After, as before, its appearance, the mystery of our destiny claims the attention of the human race.

M. Guizot describes another attempt, of an entirely different character. It is apparently less bold, for its aim is not to suppress inquiry, but merely to elude any definite solution of these natural problems. It cannot be properly called a system; it is rather a state of the individual soul, which not unfrequently is found among cultivated minds; it is a tendency to substitute what is called religious sentiment for religion itself. They do not deny the great mysteries of life, but consider them as being very serious and extremely embarrassing. But in the place of precise solutions and categorical replies, which could be required of a system maintaining fixed and clearly defined dogmas, they content themselves with frequent reveries and long contemplations. "This is," say they, "the religion of enlightened intellects; we care for no solutions, for they only serve to agitate and annoy." It offers a complete contrast to Positivism. That recommends us, as a sort of moral hygiene, never to think of invisible things; but these "enlightened minds" would have us reflect much, if not continually, upon them, but always with the proviso that we must come to no conclusion.

The human race will not be satisfied with these modes of interpreting its destiny. It requires something more than the blind negations of the one, or the vague aspirations of the other. Man is not merely an intellectual or an emotional being; he is both united. He requires real answers, and not beautiful dreams; he requires true replies, which satisfy his intellect as well as his heart, which point out the way he must take, which sustain his courage, which animate his hope and excite his love. The ideal that he seeks is a system of facts, of precepts, and of dogmas, which will correspond to the wants that he finds within himself. Let us search for it, for it is the great question for us all. As we have already said, there are two sources from which we may hope to learn the truth, one entirely human, the other half divine. Does the first suffice? Let us see.

II.

If science can reply to the appeals of our souls, if by its own power and light it can reveal to us the end of this life, can make us see clearly the beginning and the end, so much the better; we will cling to science without asking for anything more. We have this exact and sure guide completely within our control; why should we seek adventitious aid and inexplicable revelations? It is true that everybody cannot be learned, but everybody believes in science. However scanty her proof may be, the most rebellious yield as soon as she has pronounced her decision. There is no schism or heresy with her. If sometimes the savans quarrel, which they can do perhaps even better than other men, they are not long in finding a peacemaker: they take a retort, a microscope, or a pair of scales; they weigh, compare, measure, and analyze, and the process is terminated: until new facts are ascertained, the decree is sovereign. What an admirable perspective opens before humanity if these hidden questions, which now puzzle and confuse, will in the future be cleared up and accurately determined by the aid of science. Time and the law of progress give us an easy way of putting an end to our perplexities. The fruit of divine knowledge, the old forbidden fruit, we can now pluck without fear, and we can satiate ourselves without danger of a fall!

Unfortunately, all this is only a dream. In the first place, the authority of science is not always admitted. It has more or less weight, according to the subject it may treat. In the investigations of natural things, in physics, and in mathematics, its decisions are law. But when it leaves the visible world, when it turns to the soul, interminable controversies arise. Its right to be called science is then disputed; for it appears to be only conjectural, and half the time its principal efforts consist in trying to demonstrate that it has the right to be believed. This is exactly the kind of science with which we have to do. The questions which disturb man are not the problems of algebra or chemistry; they are the secrets of the invisible world. We cannot expect unanswerable solutions of these doubts, for science, in the field of metaphysics, has none such to give us.

Can science gratify its fancy in these investigations with perfect liberty and without limit? No, an impassable barrier opposes and imprisons it in the invisible universe, as well as in the breast of physical and material nature. All science, whatever it may be, has its determined limit in the extent of finite things. Within this limit, everything is in its power; beyond it, everything escapes it. Could it possibly be otherwise? It is the product of our mind, which is finite; how then could human science be anything but the explication of the finite? Induction, it is true, transports us to the extreme frontier of this material world, to the door of the infinite, and the results of induction are with reason called scientific; yet what does this wonderful faculty, this great light of science, really do? Nothing else than to put us face to face with the unknown mysteries which are completely closed to us. It shows them in perspective, it makes us see enough to persuade us that they really do exist, but not enough to make known any truth precisely, exactly, practically, or experimentally—in a word, scientifically. The invisible finite, that is to say; the human soul, the dwelling of the human Ego, science is capable of explaining; the invisible infinite, the supreme, creative spirit, escapes it completely.

But this is exactly what must be penetrated and thoroughly known, if we expect to resolve the great problems which concern our destiny in a scientific manner. It is then impossible, it is more than an illusion—it is folly to hope for a solution of these questions from human science.

Is this equivalent to saying that philosophy is powerless to speak to us about natural problems? that it has nothing to say to us about our duties, our hopes, our destiny? No, certainly not. It is qualified, it has the right to treat of these questions; to treat concerning them, not to resolve them. The most daring effort of spiritual philosophy can never span the abyss; it can only make the borders more distinct. Noble task, after all! A sound philosophy, which abstains from useless hypotheses, which gives us that which it can give, namely, the clear proof that an invisible order does exist, that realities are behind these mysterious problems, that they justly disturb us, that we are right in wishing to solve them; all this, certainly, is not worthless knowledge nor a trifling success for the human race. As soon as this philosophy flourishes in a place, if it be only among a small number of generous spirits, the perfume is spread abroad, and, little by little, one after another, the whole people feel its influence, and society is reanimated, elevated, and purified. And religion, we do not fear to say it frankly, is badly advised and wants prudence, no less than justice, when, in the place of accepting the aid of this system and welcoming it as a natural auxiliary, seeing in it a kind of vanguard, which is to prepare minds and overcome prejudices, she keeps it at a distance almost with jealousy, combats it, provokes it, places it between two fires, and loads it with the same blame and bitter reproaches as the blindest errors and the most perverse doctrines receive. If these unfortunate attacks had not been made, perhaps we should not see certain reprisals, an excess of confidence, and a forgetfulness of its proper limits that its friends do not now always avoid; for if it is true that we should be just toward it, it is no less true that it should be held in check. M. Guizot, as a real friend, has frankly rendered it this service. Perhaps no one before him has traced with so sure a hand the limits of philosophical science. He claims for it the sincerest respect, and ably sustains its legitimate authority, but clearly points out the limit that must not be passed.

More than one, its adherents will complain: "You discourage us. If you wish us to maintain the invisible truths against so many adversaries, do not deprive us of our weapons; do not tell us in advance how far we may go; let us trust that some day this gate of the infinite, at which we have struggled for so many centuries, will at last be opened."

We could answer: "If you had only made some progress during these centuries, we could hope for more in the future. We would not have the right to say, 'So far shall you go, but no farther.' But where are the advances of metaphysics? Who has seen them? Possibly there has been a progress in appearance, that there is now more clearness and more method. In this sense, the great minds of modern times have added something to the legacy of the philosophers of ancient history; but the inheritance has ever remained the same. Who will presume to boast that he knows more of the infinite than did Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato? The natural sciences seem destined to increase. Feeble at first, they gradually go from victory to victory, until they have created an empire, which is constantly increasing and always more indisputable. Metaphysical science, on the contrary, is great at its birth, but soon becomes stationary; it is evidently unable ever to reach the end it is ever seeking. If anything is needed to prove this immobility of metaphysics, it will be done by referring to the constant reappearance of four or five great systems, which in a measure contain all the thousand systems that the human mind has ever, or will ever invent. From the very beginning of philosophy, you see them; at every great epoch, they are born again; always the same under apparent diversities, always incomplete and partial, half true and half false. What do these repeated returns to the same attempts, ending in the same result, teach us, unless the eternal inability to make a single advance? Evidently man has received from above, once for all and from the earliest times, the little that he knows of metaphysics; and human work, human science, can add nothing to it."

If, then, you rely on science to pierce the mystery of these natural problems, your hope is in vain. You see what they can attain—nothing but vague notions, fortified, it is true, by the firm conviction that these problems are not illusory, that they rest upon a solid foundation, on serious realities.

Is this enough? Does this kind of satisfaction suffice for your soul? What does it signify if a few minds, moulded by philosophy, comprehending everything in a superficial manner, remain in these preliminaries, contented with this half-light, and need no other help to go through life, even in times of the most severe trial? We are willing to grant what they affirm of themselves, but what can be concluded from this? How many minds of this character can be found? It is the rarest exception. The immense majority of men, the human race, could not live under such a system; it is too great a stranger to the philosophical spirit; it has too limited a perception of the invisible. All abstraction is Hebrew for it. And even supposing that the vague responses that come from science were to be presented in a more accessible form; still the essential facts would be for most men without value or efficacy, and a most inadequate help.

What is the human race going to do if, on one side, it cannot do without precise responses and dogmatic notions concerning the invisible infinite, and if, on the other, science is the only means of attaining this end? If it aspires to learn truths which transcend experience, and yet takes experience for its only guide? If, in short, it will only admit and accept the facts that it observes, confirms, and verifies itself? How shall we escape from this inextricable difficulty?

To Be Continued.