UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 THE FUTUEE OF SCIENCE. 
 
 »284 13
 
 WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF MY YOUTH. Crown 
 
 8vo, 8». 
 
 HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. 
 
 Vol. I.— till THE TIME OF KING DAVID. 
 Demy 8vo, lis. 
 
 Vol. II.— from THE REIGN OF DAVID UP TO 
 THE CAI'TURE OF SAMARIA. Demy 8vo, Hg. 
 
 Vol. III. — In the press.
 
 THE FUTUEE OF SCIENCE 
 
 IDEAS OF 1848. 
 
 BY 
 
 ERNEST RENAN. 
 
 " Hoc nunc os ex ossibus meis et caro de carne mea." 
 
 TltANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH. 
 
 LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, Limited. 
 
 1891.
 
 Transhtted by Alrekt T). Vandam to page 284, C. B. Pitman/zo??? page 284, 
 and Notes corresponding.
 
 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 The year 1848 made an exceedingly keen impression 
 upon me. Until then I had never given a thought 
 to socialistic problems. Those problems, starting 
 from the earth, as it were, and frightening people, 
 got hold of my mind and became an integral part 
 of my philosoi)hy. A paper on the study of Greek 
 in the Middle Ages which I had begun in answer 
 to a question of I'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles 
 Lettres had engrossed all my thoughts. After that I 
 passed my examination as Doctor of Philosophy 
 in September. Towards October I felt myself again. 
 I felt the need of summing up in a volume the 
 new faith which with me had replaced shattered 
 Catholicism. This took me the last two months 
 of 1848 and the first four or five months of 1849. 
 The beginner's naive but ambitious dream was to 
 publish that big volume there and then. On the 
 15th July, 1849, I gave an extract from it to La 
 Liherte de Penser with a note to the efi'ect that the 
 volume would appear in a few weeks. 
 
 It was a great piece of presumption indeed. 
 About the time I wrote those lines, M. Victor Le 
 Clerc bethought himself to have me, in conjunction 
 with my friend Charles Daremberg, entrusted with
 
 vi Preface. 
 
 various researches in the public libraries of Italy 
 in connection with the literary history of France 
 and a thesis I had begun on Averroism. This 
 journey which lasted eight months influenced my 
 mind very materially. The artistic side of life 
 which had till then been almost closed to me re- 
 vealed itself resplendent and comforting. A fairy 
 wielding an enchanting power seemed to say to me 
 what the Church in her hymn says to the wood of 
 the Cross. 
 
 Fleets ramos, arbor dlta, 
 Tensa Inxa viscera, 
 Et rigor lentescat ille 
 Quern dedit nativitas. 
 
 A sort of soothing breeze made me unbend, nearly 
 all my illusions of 1848 vanished as utterly im^oossible 
 of realization. I became aware of the fatal necessities 
 of human society, resigned to a state of things in 
 which a great deal of evil is the necessary condition 
 of a small amount of good, in which an imperceptible 
 quantity of aroma is extracted from an enormous 
 cajjut mortuum of spoiled matter. 
 
 I became reconciled in certain respects to the 
 reality, and when on my return I took up the book 
 written a twelvemonth before I found it to be harsh, 
 dogmatic, sectarian and hard. 
 
 My thought in its primary shape lay on my back 
 like a load sticking out on all sides and getting 
 entangled everywhere. My ideas too autocratic for 
 conversation were still less fit for publication as a 
 wliole. Germany, whose pupil I had been for some 
 years, liad made me too much in her own image 
 and that in a kind of production in which she does 
 not shine, in "book-making." I felt convinced
 
 Preface. vii 
 
 that French readers would find all this insufferably 
 clumsy. 
 
 I consulted several friends, especially Augustin 
 Thierry, who treated me like a son. This worthy 
 man finally persuaded me not to make my entree 
 in the literary world with this enormous bundle on 
 my head. He predicted a complete failure with the 
 public and advised me to proceed piecemeal, to con- 
 tribute to the Bevue des Deux Mondes and to the 
 Journal des Debats articles on various subjects in 
 which I would get rid retail of the stock of ideas 
 which presented in compact bulk would inevitably 
 frighten the reader. The boldness of the theories 
 would in that way be less likely to shock people's 
 notions. Men of the world often accept in small 
 doses what they refuse to swallow as a whole. 
 
 A little while after M. de Sacy encouraged me 
 to do the same thing. The old Jansenist was fully 
 alive to my heresies. When I read my articles to 
 him I noticed his smile at every respectful or cajoling 
 sentence. 
 
 There is no doubt that the huge volume whence 
 all this came with its heavy style and very indifi'erent 
 literary form would have simply horrified him. It 
 was plain enough that if I meant to appeal to culti- 
 vated people, I should be bound to leave a great 
 deal of my baggage at the door. My ideas dawn 
 upon me in an involved way, they only become clear 
 after a labour similar to that of a gardener who 
 trims a tree, lops away its dead branches and trains 
 it against the wall. 
 
 In that way I retailed the huge volume which 
 thanks to sound advice and friendly counsel had 
 been consigned to the bottom of one of my drawers.
 
 viii Preface. 
 
 The Coup d'Etat which happened shortly after- 
 wards had the effect of binding me more firmly 
 to the Beviie Deux Mondes and the Journal des 
 Debats, in my disgust at the people who on the 2nd 
 December greeted the signs of grief of the honest 
 citizen with ironical smiles. I was engrossed with 
 special studies, travel, my *' Origins of Christianity " 
 left me no time to think of anything else for twenty- 
 five years. I made up my mind that the old MSS. 
 should be published after my death, that it would 
 then afford pleasure to a select section of enlightened 
 minds, that it might succeed perhaps in fixing on 
 me once more that attention of the world of which 
 the dead stand in so much need in the unequal com- 
 petition the living thrust upon them in that respect. 
 
 My life having been prolonged beyond my expec- 
 tations I lately made up my mind to be my own 
 publisher. I flattered myself that perhaps some 
 people would read these ancient, honest pages not 
 without profit to themselves and that the rising 
 generation especially, which seems to be somewhat 
 uncertain about its road, would be pleased to find 
 out how a young man, very frank and very sincere 
 thought forty years ago, face to face with himself 
 only. Young people like the work of young people. 
 
 In my writings intended for men and women of 
 the world I have been compelled to make many 
 sacrifices. In the following pages which have 
 undergone no process of boihng down the reader will 
 meet with the young, conscientious Breton lad who 
 one day ran away frightened from Saint- Sulpice 
 because he fancied that part of what his masters had 
 told him was perhaps not strictly true. A day may 
 come when the critics will maintain that the Revue
 
 Preface. ix 
 
 des Deux Mondes and the Journal des Dehats spoilt 
 me insomuch that they taught me to write, that is, 
 constantly to condense and prune my ideas. That 
 lay they may perhaps like these pages for which I 
 only claim one merit, that of showing in his natural 
 and as yet uncorrupted state and suffering from 
 violent inflammation of the brain a young man living 
 solely with his own thoughts and believing frantically 
 in the truth. 
 
 In fact, the blemishes of this first work are 
 enormous, and if I had the slightest literary pride, I 
 should have suppressed it altogether. The way 
 I introduced my ideas lacks the commonest skill. 
 It is a dinner in which the primary materials are 
 good but which has been cooked and served up any- 
 how, the parings of the various ingredients not even 
 having been removed. I was too anxious not to lose 
 anything. Lest I should not be understood I insisted 
 too much, in order to drive home the nail I fancied 
 myself bound to knock with all my might. The art 
 of composing implying the cutting away of the 
 tangled growths that might obstruct the light in " the 
 forest of thought" was unknown to me. No one is 
 brief at his first start. 
 
 The clearness and tact exacted by the French 
 which, I am bound to confess, compel one to say 
 only part of what one thinks and are damaging to 
 depth of thought seemed to me so much tyranny. 
 The French only care to express that which is clear, 
 as it happens the most important truths, those that 
 relate to the transformations of life are not clear ; one 
 only perceives them in a kind of half-light. That is 
 why, after having been the first to perceive the truth 
 of what is called Darwinism nowadays, France has 
 
 h
 
 X Prejace. 
 
 been the last to rally to it. They saw it well enough, 
 but it was out of the beaten track of the language, it 
 did not fit the mould of well-constructed phrases. In 
 that way France passed by the side of precious truths 
 not without seeing them, but simply flinging them 
 among the waste paper as useless or impossible to 
 express. At the start I wanted to say everything 
 and I often said it badly. At the risk of tumbling into 
 the realm of the unintelligible I endeavoured to fix 
 the fleeting essence, hitherto considered as not 
 worthy of consideration. 
 
 However much and wisely or the reverse I may 
 have modified my habits of style as regards exposition 
 as little have I changed my fundamental ideas from 
 the moment I began to think for myself. My religion 
 ns now as ever the progress of reason, in other words 
 /'the progress of science. But in looking over these 
 pages of my youth, I often found a certain confusion 
 wliich distorted certain deductions. Intensive cul- 
 ture constantly adding to the sum total of human 
 knowledge is not the same thing as extensive culture 
 disseminating that knowledge more and more for the 
 welfare of the countless human beings in existence. 
 The sheet of water in expanding continues to lose in 
 depth. Towards 1700 Newton had acquired views on 
 the system by which the earth was governed infinitely 
 superior to everything that had been thought out 
 before kim without his matchless discoveries having in 
 the least affected the education of the people. On the 
 other hand one might reasonably conceive a state of 
 exceedingly perfect elementary education without the 
 higher sciences deriving much benefit therefrom. 
 Our real motive for advocating elementary education 
 is that a nation without education is fanatical and
 
 Prefixce. xi 
 
 that fanatical nations are dangerous to science, 
 governments being in the habit of shackUng freedom 
 of thought in the names of popular beliefs and the 
 so-called sanctity of family institutions. 
 
 Hence,; the idea of a state of civilization with 
 a levelling mission, such as it is presented in a few- 
 pages of this book is nothing more than a dream. 
 A school in which the pupils would make the laws 
 would be a sorry school indeed. Enlightenment, 
 morality, art will always be represented among 
 mankind by a magistracy, by a minority, preserving 
 the traditions of the true, the good and the beautiful. 
 But we must be on our guard against this magis- 
 tracy disposing of the public forces and appealing 
 to superstition and imposture in order to maintain 
 its power. 
 
 There were also a great many illusions in my 
 acceptance of the socialistic ideas of 1848 in bygone 
 days. While still believing that science alone is 
 capable of improving the unhappy lot of man here 
 below, I have ceased to believe in the solution of the 
 problem being as near as I believed it to be then. 
 Inequality is one of nature's written laws, it is the 
 consequence of liberty and the liberty of the indi- 
 vidual is a necessary postulate of human progress. 
 This progress implies a great sacrifice of individual 
 happiness. The actual condition of humanity, 
 for instance, demands the maintenance of separate 
 nations which are establishments exceedingly heavy 
 to bear. A condition which would afford the 
 greatest possible happiness to individuals would 
 probably, from the point of view of the ennobhng 
 pursuits of mankind, be a condition of profound 
 abasement.
 
 xii Preface. 
 
 The main error with which these old pages teem 
 is an exaggerated optimism which fails or is deter- 
 mined not to see that evil still exists and that we 
 have to pay dearly, that is in privileges, the power 
 that protects us against this evil. The reader will 
 also notice an old leaven of CathoUcism ; the idea 
 that we shall behold once more the age of belief when 
 a compulsory and universal religion will prevail as it 
 prevailed in the first half of the Middle Ages. 
 Heaven preserve us from being saved in that fashion. 
 Uniformity of belief, that is, fanaticism, can only 
 come back in this world of ours in company with the 
 ignorance and credulity of bygone centmies. I would 
 by far have an immoral people than a fanatical 
 people for immoral masses are by no means difficult 
 to deal with while fanatical masses reduce the world 
 to a state of imbecility, and a world condemned to 
 a state of imbecility has no longer anj'- claim on my 
 interest ; I would as lief see it perish. Let us 
 suppose every orange tree to be smitten with a 
 disease impossible of cure except on the condition 
 of its no longer producing oranges. It would be so 
 much time wasted seeing that the orange tree which 
 does not produce oranges is worthless. 
 
 In order not to make this publication utterly 
 devoid of all interest I had to submit to one con- 
 dition, namely ; to reproduce my essay in its simple, 
 matted, often abrupt form. I might just as well have 
 written a new book as have attempted to correct 
 numberless inaccuracies, to modify a great number 
 of thoughts which at present appear to me either 
 expressed in an exaggerated manner or which are no 
 longer just, and moreover the framework of my old 
 essay is by no means such as I would choose to-
 
 Preface. xiii 
 
 day.* Hence, I confined myself to the striking out 
 of mistakes resulting from carelessness, those big 
 blunders which one only notices in proof and which 
 would assuredly have been corrected if I had pub- 
 lished the book in times gone by. I have left the 
 notes as a whole at the end of the volume. Many a 
 passage will provoke a smile on the reader's part. It 
 will make no difference to me as long as he, the 
 reader, acknowledges that these pages contain the 
 expression of great intellectual rectitude and perfect 
 sincerity. 
 
 A great difficulty resulting from my decision of 
 printing mj piirana as it stauds was the resemblance 
 between certain pages of the present work and many 
 of works published before, a resemblance which 
 cannot fail to strike the reader. Besides the fragment 
 published in La Liberie cle Penser which has been 
 reproduced in my " Contemporary Essays," there are 
 many other passages that have found their way 
 either as regards the mere idea or as regards both the 
 idea and its expression in several of my writings, 
 notably in those belonging to my first period. I tried 
 at first to excise this dualism, but it soon became 
 patent to me that the book would not stand on its 
 legs at all in that way. The parts that had been re- 
 peated were the most important, the whole structure, 
 like a wall from which the most necessary stones 
 have been abstracted, was toppling over. The 
 simplest way out of the difficulty, I thought, was to 
 appeal to the indulgence of the reader. Those who 
 
 * I have left all the passages in which I presented German 
 culture as being synonymous with aspiration towards the ideal- 
 istic. They were true when I penned them. It is not I who 
 have changed.
 
 A'iv Preface. 
 
 do me the honour of reading my writings in the order 
 they were written will, I trust, pardon those repeti- 
 tious, if the present volume should succeed in show- 
 ing them my ideas arranged and combined in a way 
 that may present something novel and interesting 
 to them. 
 
 In attempting to strike a balance between what 
 has remained merely so much vision and what has 
 been realized in those dreams of half a century ago 
 I must confess to a feeling of appreciable moral 
 satisfaction. After all, I was right. Excepting a 
 few disappointments progress has travelled on the 
 lines laid down in my imagination. At that period 
 I did not see sufficiently clearly what man had left 
 behind in the purely animal kingdom, I had not a 
 sufficiently clear perception of the inequality of races 
 but I had a just conception of what I may call the 
 origin of life. 
 
 I perceived well enough that everything is accom- 
 plished in humanity and nature, ithat creation has no 
 part nor parcel in the series of effects and causes. 
 Too little of a naturalist to track the paths of life in 
 the labyrinth which we see without seeing it, I was 
 a determined evolutionist in all that ap23ertains to the 
 productions of humanity, language, literature, social 
 forms, writings. I began to perceive that the mor- 
 phological draughtboard of the vegetal and animal 
 species was indeed the indication of a genesis ; that 
 everything is born in accordance with a design of 
 which we can only see the obscure canvas. The 
 aim of science is an immense development of which 
 the cosmological sciences give us the first perceptible 
 links, of which history proper shows us the last ex- 
 pansions. Like Hegel I made the mistake of being
 
 Preface. xv 
 
 too confident in attributing to mankind a central 
 part in the universe. .„^ 
 
 /The whole of human development may be of no 
 more consequence than the moss or lichen with 
 which every moist surface is covered./ To us, though, 
 the history of man stands first and foremost, seeing 
 that humanity alone creates the conscience of the 
 universe. A plant's only worth lies in its producing 
 flowers, fi'uit, aroma, nourishing tubercules, which 
 are of no account as a mass, if they are compared to 
 the mass of the plant itself, but which possess the 
 character of finality in a much greater degree than 
 the leaves, branches and trunk. 
 
 Historical science and its auxiliaries, philological 
 sciences, have made immense conquests since I took 
 to them so fondly forty years ago. But the end can 
 already be foreseen. In another century mankind 
 will pretty well know everything that can be known 
 about its past ; and then it will be time to stop, 
 because the tendency of these studies is to begin 
 their own destruction the moment they have reached 
 comparative perfection. The danger of a revival of 
 superstition will alone keep up the habit of critical 
 disquisition at first hand. 
 
 The history of religion has been cleared up in its 
 most important branches. It has become patent, not 
 from a priori arguments, but from the very discussion 
 of evidence that' in the centuries open to men's 
 researches there has been neither revelation nor ,, , 
 supernatural fact. The onward course of civilization/^'J^^^-y 
 has been made manifest in its general laws. The "^ )ff^^j 
 inferiority of certain races to others is proved. The^^^/r,^ 
 claims of each human family to a more or less//n<'-./ 
 honourable mention in the history of progress are ^^ 
 pretty well decided. ^ ^j^ ^1(6 
 
 ■'^Zirmi
 
 xvi Preface. 
 
 With regard to the political and social sciences, 
 one may safely say that progress during the last 
 forty years has been slow. The old political economy 
 whose pretensions were so noisily shouted forth in 
 1848, has been wrecked. Socialism which has been 
 taken up again by the Germans so earnestly and 
 with so much study continues to trouble the world 
 without arriving at a clear solution. Prince Bismarck 
 who was to have stopped its progress in five years by 
 means of repressive legislation has evidently been 
 mistaken, at any rate this time. What appears very 
 probable indeed is that there will be no end of 
 socialism. But assuredly the socialism that will gain 
 the victory will be different from the Utopism of 
 1848. A keen observer might have seen in the year 
 300 of our era that Christianity will not end, but 
 ought also to have seen that tj^e world will not end, 
 that the latter will adapt the former to its needs and 
 out of a belief d estruc tive of all societ y, will make 
 a sedativ e,,^ -politicaLaiLachine, conse rvati Ye-iiQ a 
 degree. 
 
 In politics the situation is by no means more 
 clear. The national principle has since 1848 been 
 developed to an extraordinary exteut. Eepresenta- 
 tive government is established nearly everywhere. 
 
 But evident signs of the fatigue caused by national 
 burdens are looming on the horizon. Patriotism is 
 becoming local, national enthusiasm decreases. 
 Modern nations resemble the heroes borne down by 
 their armour, on the tomb of Maximilian at Inns- 
 bruck, ricketty bodies with iron masters over them. 
 \ France who was the pioneer on that road will, 
 following ordinary laws be the first to react against 
 the movement she started\^ In fifty years the 

 
 Preface. xvii 
 
 national principle will be on the decline. The 
 terrible harshness of the proceedings by which the 
 ancient monarchial States obtained the sacrifice of 
 the individual will have become impossible in free 
 States ; scarcely any one nowadays cares to provide 
 the materials for those towers of Tamerlane, built up 
 with corpses. In fact, it has become too clear that 
 the happiness of the individual is not in direct pro- 
 portion to the grandeur of the nation to which he 
 belongs, and as a rule one generation cares very little 
 about the why or wherefore a preceding generation 
 has sacrificed its life. 
 
 These variations spring from the uncertainty of 
 our ideas with regard to the object to be attained and 
 the higher end of humanity. Between the two 
 objects held out by political life, the grandeur of 
 nations, and welfare of individuals the choice is 
 prompted by interest or passion. There is no hint 
 afforded to us either as to nature's will or the aim 
 of the universe. For us, idealists, there exists but 
 one true doctrine, the transcendental doctrine accord- 
 ing to which) the aim of humanity consists in consti- 
 tuting a loftier consciousness of the universe, or as 
 we used to say, the highest glory of God ; but it is 
 very clear that this doctrine will afford no basis for a 
 practical policy. Such an aim must, on the contrary, 
 be carefully dissimulated. Men would revolt if they 
 knew they were being thus exploited. 
 
 How long will national spirit be able to hold out 
 against individual egotism ? Who, in centuries to 
 come, will have served humanity most, the patriot, 
 the liberal, the reactionary, the savant ? No one 
 knows and still it would be a capital thing to know, 
 for what is good in one of these hypotheses is bad
 
 xviii Preface. 
 
 in the other. One works the switches without know- 
 ing whither one wants to go. According to the goal 
 to be reached France is doing either detestable or 
 excellent work. Other nations are more enlightened. 
 Pohtics are like a desert in which one marches at 
 random towards the north or towards the south ; for 
 we must keep on marching. No one knows where 
 the good lies in the social order. There is one 
 comfort, oue is sure to land somewhere. In the kind 
 of rifle competition with which humanity is amusing 
 itself the mark hit is supposed to be the mark aimed 
 at. In that way the good and true men always have 
 a clear conscience. For the rest, in the existing 
 state of general doubt, liberty in any case, has its 
 value, since it is a means of allowing free play to the 
 secret sj)ring w^hicli moves humanity, and carries it 
 along with or against its will. 
 
 To sum up ; if through the constant labour of the 
 nineteenth century the knowledge of facts has con- 
 siderably increased, the destiny of mankind has on 
 the other hand become more obscure than ever. ^The 
 serious thing is that we fail to perceive a means of 
 providing humanity in the future with a catechism 
 that will be acceptable henceforth, except on the 
 condition of returning to a state of credulity. Hence, 
 it is possible that the ruin of idealistic beliefs may 
 be fated to follow hard upon the ruin of supernatural 
 beliefs and that the real abasement of the morality 
 of humanity will date from the day it has seen the 
 reality of things. Chimeras have succeeded in 
 obtaiuing from the good gorilla an astonishing moral 
 effort ; do away with the chimeras and part of the 
 factitious energy they aroused will disappear. Even 
 glory, as a motive-power implies in some respects
 
 Preface. xix 
 
 immortality, the fruit of it generally coming only 
 after death. ; Suppress the alcohol on which the 
 workman has hitherto relied for his strength, but 
 you must not ask him for the same amount of 
 work, i 
 
 Candidly speaking, I fail to see how, without the 
 ancient dreams, the foundations of a happy and noble 
 life are to be relaid. The hypothesis that the true 
 sage would be he who, barring to himself all distant 
 horizons, would confine himself to the perspective 
 of mere vulgar gratification, this perspective, I say, 
 is absolutely repugnant to us. However, man's 
 happiness and noble aims have rested before now on 
 false foundations. The wisest thing to do, then, is 
 to go on enjoying the supreme gifts vouchsafed to 
 us, life and the faculty of seeing the reality. Science 
 will always remain the gratification of the noblest 
 craving of our nature ; curiosity ; it will always 
 supply man with the sole means of improving his lot. 
 It protects him against error, though it may not 
 reveal the truth to him, but there is an advantage 
 in being certain of not being duped. Man fashioned 
 according to this discipline is on the whole a better 
 man than the instinctive man of the ages of faith. 
 He is not subject to the errors to which the un- 
 cultured fatally yield, he is more enlightened, he 
 commits fewer crimes, he is less sublime, but he is 
 also less ridiculous. All this, it will be said, is not 
 worth the heaven science takes away from us. First 
 of all, who knows whether it does take it away ; 
 secondly people are none the poorer for being robbed 
 of bogus shares and false banknotes. A little true 
 science is better than a great deal of bad science. 
 One is less liable to error by confessing one's ignor-
 
 IM 
 
 XX Preface. 
 
 ance than by fancying that one knows a great many 
 things one knows not. 
 
 Consequently I was right at the outset of my 
 intellectual career firmly to believe in science and to 
 make it the object of my life. If I had to begin 
 again I should do exactly as I have done, and during 
 the little time that remains to me I shall go on as I 
 began. 
 
 . Immortality means to labour at a lasting work. 
 According to the primitive Christian idea, the true 
 one, only those shall rise again who have contributed 
 to the divine work ; furthering God's kingdom on 
 earth. The punishment of the wicked and frivolous 
 2^/^ will be utter annihilation. Here a formidable objec- 
 f^J^j-on starts up against us. Can science be more ever- 
 lasting than humanity whose end is written down 
 from the very fact of its having had a beginning ? 
 It matters not ; human reason has not been engaged 
 consecutively for more than a hundred years on the 
 problem of matters mundane. It has already made 
 some wonderful discoveries that have increased man's 
 power a hundred, nay a thousandfold. What then 
 will it be a hundred thousand years hence ? And 
 pray remember that no truth is ever lost, that no 
 error ever strikes root. All this makes us feel secure. 
 We are really afraid of nothing except of the falling- 
 in of the sky, and even if the sky came crashing 
 down we should still go to sleep quietly with the 
 thought, " The Being of whom we were the transitory 
 blossom has always been, always wiU be."
 
 Preface. xxi 
 
 To Monsieur Eugene Burnouf, Member of the Academy, 
 Professor at the College de France, 
 
 MONSIEUB, 
 
 During the last twelvemonth my thoughts 
 have frequently gone back to that memorable 25th 
 February 1848, when after having scaled the barri- 
 cades to get to the College de France we found our 
 modest room transformed into a guardroom, to which 
 we were welcomed like so many suspected individuals. 
 That day I asked myself more seriously than ever 
 whether a man could do better than devote every 
 moment of his life to study and to thought, and after 
 having consulted my conscience and strengthened 
 my faith in human intellect, I resolutely answered ; 
 " No." If science were nothing more than an agree- 
 able pastime, a kind of diversion for the idle, a mere 
 costly ornament, a hobby for the amateur, in short 
 the least vain of all vanities, there might be times 
 when the savant would have occasion to say with 
 the poet ; 
 
 *' Shame to him wlio sings, tlie while Eome burns." 
 
 But if science be a serious matter, if the destinies 
 of mankind and the perfection of the individual be 
 bound up with it, if it be a religion, it has like 
 matters of religion its value every day, every moment 
 of our lives. To devote to study and intellectual 
 culture only our moments of peace and leisure is an 
 insult to the human intellect, it is tacitly supposing 
 that there is something more important than the 
 pursuit of truth. If such were indeed the case, if 
 science were only a matter of second rate importance 
 how could the man who has resolved to devote his
 
 xxii Preface. 
 
 life to the attainment of the perfect, who wishes to 
 be able to say at his last moments ; ''I have accom- 
 plished my task," how could that man devote so 
 much as a single hour to it, when he knows that 
 higher duties claim him ? 
 
 That revolutions and the dread of the future 
 offer a temptation to science ignorant of its aim, 
 to science that has never endeavoured to ascertain 
 its own value and true significance, is easily under- 
 stood. As for serious and philosophical science 
 which responds to a want of human nature, no social 
 upheavals will succeed in affecting it, they may, on 
 the contrary, be of use to it, by causing it to take 
 itself to task, to verify its titles, to be no longer 
 satisfied with the mere perfunctory judgment on 
 which it was wont to base itself formerly. 
 
 These are the reflections, Monsieur, I have made 
 for myself, while remaining isolated and calm amidst 
 the universally prevailing agitation; and which I have 
 embodied in these pages. Thanks to the sentiments 
 with which they have inspired me, I have gone 
 through many a sad day without cursing any one, full 
 of trust in the natural rectitude of human reason and 
 its necessary tendency towards a more enlightened, 
 consequently a more moral and happier state. I 
 hesitated a good deal before making up my mind to 
 disclose in this way the thoughts of my youth, the 
 critic of which T may become perhaps when older, 
 and which no doubt will have but scant value to 
 those further advanced on the road of science. Still, 
 I fancied that some young people enamoured of the 
 beautiful and true might derive comfort and strength 
 from this confidence of mine amidst the struggles 
 which every distinguished mind is bound to wage at a
 
 PrefiMe. xxiii 
 
 certain age in order to find out and to shape for him- 
 self the ideal of his life. I also wanted, at the outset 
 of my scientific career to proclaim my deeply rooted 
 belief in human reason and modern intelligence, 
 at a moment when so many faint-hearted brethren 
 drop tired and spent into the arms of those who 
 profess to regret ignorance while they anathematize 
 criticism. I would fain warn those who take advan- 
 tage of our weakness, who discount beforehand our 
 misfortunes, who found their hopes on the intellectual 
 fatigue and depression resulting from great suffering, 
 I would fain warn those against thinking that the 
 generation just entering upon "the life of thought" 
 is theirs. We shall be able to uphold the tradition of 
 the modern spirit both against those who wish to 
 bring back the past and against who those aim at 
 substituting for our living multiple civilization a kind 
 of architectural and petrified condition of society like 
 that in which the pyramids were built. 
 
 It is not a mere commonplace sentiment which 
 prompts the dedication of this essay to you. It was 
 really thought out before you. Whenever, in my 
 inward hesitations, my scientific ideal seemed to 
 become obscured the thought of you was sufiicient 
 to dispel the clouds, you were the answer to all my 
 doubts. It is your image I have had constantly 
 before me when trying to express the lofty ideal 
 which conceives life not as a part to be played or 
 as an intrigue to be accomplished successfully, but as 
 something earnest and true. In listening to your 
 lectures on the most beautiful of languages and 
 literatures of the primitive world I realized what 
 until then had been only a dream ; science becom- 
 ing philosophy and the highest results springing from 
 the most scrupulous analysis of details.
 
 xxiv Preface. 
 
 It is to this living proof that I would invite all those 
 whom I may not be able to convince of my favourite 
 thesis ; that the science of the human intellect 
 must be above all the history of the human intellect ; 
 and this history only becomes possible by the patient 
 and philological study of the works it has produced 
 at its different epochs. 
 
 Believe me, Monsieur, 
 Your respectful and admiring pupil, 
 
 ERNEST EENAN. 
 
 Paris, Marcli, 18i9.
 
 THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ^ "But one thing is needful." I grant in its widest 
 philosophical bearing this precept of the Great 
 Teacher of morality. I look upon it as the principle 
 of every life striving to be noble, as the expressive 
 formula — though dangerous in its briefness^of 
 human nature from the point of view of morality 
 and duty. The first step of him who aspires to 
 wisdom, as respectable antiquity expressed it, is to 
 divide his life into two parts ; the first, commonplace 
 and having nothing sacred in it, consisting of wants 
 and indulgences of an inferior order (material exist- 
 ence, pleasure, wealth, etc.) ; the other, which may 
 be termed the ideal one, heavenly, divine, disin- 
 terested, taking as its aim the purer forms of truth, 
 beauty, moral goodness. In other words, to employ 
 the most comprehensive expression hallowed by 
 reverence in the past, God Himself; God Himself, 
 ever felt, ever perceived, ever touched in His thousand 
 forms by the intelligent perception of all that is true, 
 by the love of all that is beautiful. This is the great 
 opposition of the hodij and the soul recognized by all 
 religions, by all lofty philosophical systems ; an 
 opposition superficial indeed if it be meant to denote 
 a dual substance in the human being, but perfectly 
 true, if judiciously enlarging the sense of these two
 
 The Future of Science. 
 
 words and applying them to two orders of phenomena, 
 we take them as signifying the two roads of hfe open 
 to man. To admit the distinction between these 
 two roads, is tantamount to admitting that the 
 higher hfe, the ideal one is everything, and that 
 the lower, the life spent in pursuit of pleasure and 
 interest is nothing, that the latter disappears before 
 the former as the finite before the infinite, and that 
 if practical wisdom commands us to think of it, it is 
 only in view and as a condition of the first-named. 
 
 I am aware that, by leading off with such 
 ponderous truths I have virtually written myself 
 down a slow-coach. But I am utterly without 
 shame on this point. For many years already I 
 have elected to take my stand among the simple 
 and dull-witted who take things conscientiously. 
 I am sufficiently weak-minded to look upon that 
 pretence at delicacy which refuses to take life as a 
 serious and sacred business as unbecoming, and vexy 
 easy to imitate ; and if there were no alternative ,'I 
 should prefer the most narrow dogmatism to this 
 flippancy which one honours too much by calling it 
 scepticism, the more appropriate names for it being- 
 sheer folly and trash. If it were true that human 
 life is nothing more than a profitless succession of 
 vulgar facts without any higher worth than that 
 derived from the senses, the first serious reflection 
 would lead man to make away with himself; there 
 would be no choice between intoxication, a tyrannical 
 occupation of one's every moment and suicide. To 
 live the intellectual life, to inhale the infinite through 
 every pore, to endeavour to realize the beautiful, to 
 attain the perfect, each according to his ability, that 
 is the only thing needful ; all the rest is vanity and 
 vexation of spirit. 
 
 Christian asceticism in proclaiming this grand 
 simplification of life understood the one thing 
 needful in so narrow a spirit that its principle 
 became in the course of time a galling yoke to the 
 human intellect. Not only did it wholly neglect
 
 The Fiiture of Science. 
 
 the true and the beautiful (philosophy, science, 
 poetry being mere "vanities"), but in clinging 
 exclusively to the good, it conceived it in the 
 meanest spirit. The good according to it meant the 
 realization of the will of a superior being, a kind of 
 subjection humiliating to human dignity; because 
 the realization of moral good no more means obedi- 
 ence to imposed laws than the realization of the 
 beautiful in a work of art means the carrying out of 
 certain rules. Consequently human nature was 
 mangled in its most noble members. In matters 
 intellectual, which are all equally holy, a distinction 
 was made between the sacred and the profane. The 
 X^rofane, thanks to the instincts of nature which 
 liappened to be stronger than the principles of an 
 artificial asceticism, was not altogether banished ; 
 though "vanity," it was tolerated; sometimes 
 Christian asceticism went even so far as to call it the 
 least vain of vanities, but if it had been consistent 
 the profane would have been pitilessly proscribed ; 
 it was considered a mere weakness of which the 
 ascetically perfect would have none. It was a fatal 
 distinction which poisoned the existence of many free 
 and beautiful natures born to relish the ideal in all 
 its infinity and whose lives were spent in sadness, 
 crushed in the grip of the fatal vice. Oh, the 
 struggles it has cost me ! The first philosophica' 
 victory of my youth was to proclaim from the depth 
 of my conscience that, " Everything appertaining to 
 the soul is sacred." 
 
 Hence, it is no narrow limit which I am laying 
 down for human nature in suggesting to its activity 
 one thing only as being worthy of it, for this sole 
 thing contains the infinite. It only excludes the 
 commonplace, which has no value except in so far 
 as it is felt and at the moment it is felt ; and this 
 inferior sphere is far more circumscribed than is 
 generally believed. There are very few things in 
 human life altogether profane. Our moral and 
 intellectual progress wiU disclose new standpoints
 
 The Future of Scienee. 
 
 that will invest acts in appearance most homely with 
 an ideal value. Has not Christianity, aided by the 
 instincts of the Celtic and Germanic races, raised to 
 the dignity of an testhetic and moral sentiment a 
 fact viewed by the whole of antiquity — with the 
 exception of Plato perhaps — as a mere gratification 
 of the senses ? Has not the act of nutrition, the 
 most material of life, received a most admirable mystic 
 significance at the hands of the first Christians ? 
 Manual labour which nowadays is scarcely anything 
 else but an irksome and brutalizing penalty to those 
 condemned to it, was not such to the craftsmen of 
 the Middle Ages who built cathedrals singing as 
 they built. Who knows but what one day the sight 
 of the general welfare of humanity for whom the 
 work is constructed may soften and sanctify the sweat 
 on the workman's brow ? For from the point of view 
 of humanity the most lowly works have an ideal 
 worth seeing that they are the means or at any rate 
 the implied condition of mental conquest. The 
 sanctifying of the material lower life by outward 
 ceremonies and practices is a trait common to all 
 religions. The progress of rationalism at once — 
 and without much merit — proclaimed these cere- 
 monies so many acts of pure superstition. What 
 has been the result? Baulked in its attempts 
 at idealizing, life has become something profane, 
 vulgar, prosaic, so much so that for certain acts in 
 which the need of religious significance was more 
 deeply felt, such as for instance in birth, marriage, 
 and death, the world has preserved the ancient 
 ceremonies, though it may no longer have faith in 
 their efficacy. I am inclined to think that eventual 
 progress will reconcile those two tendencies by sub- 
 stituting moral sentiment in all its purity for sacra- 
 mental acts, whose only value lies in their signification, 
 and which viewed in their material execution are 
 utterly inefficacious. 
 
 Hence, everything connected with the higher life 
 of man, the life by which he is distinguished from
 
 The Future of Science. 
 
 the animal, is sacred and deserving of the passionate 
 devotion of high-minded natures. A heautiful sen- 
 timent is worth a beautiful thought ; a beautiful 
 thought is worth a beautiful action. A system of 
 philosophy is worth a poem, a poem is worth a 
 scientific discovery; a life spent in the pursuit of 
 science is as good as a life spent in the practice 
 of virtue. The perfect man will be he who is a poet, 
 a philosopher, a savant, and a virtuous man in one 
 and that not at intervals (periodically) and at distinct 
 moments — for in that case he would only be such in 
 a restricted sense — but by an intimate simultaneous 
 interpenetration at every moment of his life, who will 
 be a poet at the same time that he is a philosopher, 
 a philosopher at the same time that he is a savant, in 
 whom, in one word, all the elements of humanity will 
 be blended in a superior harmony, as in collective 
 humanity itself. The weakness of our age of analysis 
 does not allow of such an elevated degree of unity ; 
 life has become a trade, a profession, a man is com- 
 pelled to advertise his title as a poet, artist or savant, 
 create for himself a little world of his own in which 
 he lives apart without understanding anything be- 
 yond, nay, often denying that anything beyond 
 exists. That this is a necessity of the actual con- 
 dition of the human intellect, it is impossible to 
 deny ; nevertheless we are bound to admit that such 
 a system of life, though warranted by the necessity 
 of it, is contrary to human dignity and the per- 
 fection of the individual. Tested as man a Newto n, 
 a C uvier, a Heyne sou nds less beautiful than an 
 anTique sage, a Solon or a Pythagoras for instance. 
 The final aim of man is not to know, to feel, to) 
 imagine, but to be perfect, that is, to be man in; 
 every acceptation of the word; to represent in an 
 individual type a condensed picture of complete 
 humanity, and to show blended in one powerful unit 
 ah the aspects of life which humanity has sketched 
 at different epochs and places. Man too frequently 
 fancies that morality and morality alone constitutes
 
 Thf Future of Science. 
 
 l^erfectioii, that the pursuit of the true and the 
 beautiful is nothing more than a mere enjoyment, 
 that the upright man is the perfect man, such, for 
 instance, as the Moravian brother. The model of 
 perfection is aiforded to us by humanity itself, the 
 most perfect life is that which best represents the 
 whole of humanity. And cultured humanity is not 
 only moral, it is also learned, inquiring, poetical, 
 impassiM^e^ 
 
 Xo'tmnK that the individual man may one day 
 embrace the whole field of intellectual culture would 
 no doubt be carrying one's hopes for the future of 
 humanity beyond the limits observed by the boldest 
 Utopian. But there are in the various branches 
 of art and science two totally distinct elements 
 which though equally necessary to the production 
 of work scientific or artistic, contribute in a very un- 
 equal measure to the perfection of the individual ; 
 there is on one side the technical process, the prac- 
 tical skill, indispensable to the discovery of the true, 
 the realization of the beautiful ; on the other the 
 mind that creates and animates, the soul that breathes 
 life into the work of art, the great law that lends 
 significance and value to such and such a scientific 
 discovery. It will always be impossible for the same 
 man to handle with the same skill the painter's 
 brush, the musician's instrument, the chemist's ap- 
 paratus. In all tliis there is a special education and 
 a practical skill which, to become spontaneous habit 
 calling for no jirevious consideration demands a life's 
 practice. But that which may become possible in a 
 more advanced form of intellectual "culture is the 
 sentiment that endows the composition of the poet 
 or artist with life, the penetration of the philosopher 
 or the savant, the moral sense of a lofty nature being 
 united in order to make but one soul, sympathetic 
 with everything that is good, true and beautiful, to 
 constitute a moral type of humanity in the aggre- 
 gate, an ideal which without being realized in this 
 man or that may be to the future generations what
 
 The Future of Science. 
 
 Christ has been to the past eighteen centuries, 
 namely — a Christ who would no longer represent 
 only the moral side in its highest power, but further- 
 more the aBsthetic and scientific side of humanity. 
 
 For after all, all these categories of pure forms 
 perceptible to the intellect constitute but the facets 
 of a same unity. Divergence only begins at a lower 
 level. There is a great central focus in which 
 poetry, science and morality are identical, in which 
 to know, to admire, and to love are one and the 
 same thing, in which all opposing sentiments drop 
 away, in which human nature recognizes the high 
 harmony of all its faculties and that grand act 
 of adoration which sums up the tendency of its 
 whole being towards the everlasting infinite, in the 
 identity of its aim. The saint is he who devotes his 
 life to this grand ideal and votes all the rest useless. 
 
 Pascal has shown the necessarily pernicious circle 
 of the positive life in a masterly way. Man labours 
 to obtain rest and then rest becomes unbearable. He 
 does not enjoy life, but only expects to enjoy it. The 
 fact is that worldly people have no well defined 
 system of life — at any rate, as far as I can see. 
 They cannot exactly say what is essential, what is 
 accessory, they are not sure what is the end and 
 what the means. Wealth cannot be the final aim 
 seeing that it has no value except in the enjoyments 
 it procures. Nevertheless, we see the most serious 
 faculties frittered away in the acquisition of wealth 
 and pleasure is looked upon as a relaxation only for 
 lost moments and useless years. The philosopher 
 and the religious man only can take their fill of rest 
 at any moment, seize upon and profit by the fleeting 
 hour without postponing anything to the future. 
 
 A man said once to a philosopher of antiquity that 
 he did not think he was born to be a philosopher. 
 " You poor, unfortunate mortal," replied the sage ; 
 '' for what then do you think you were born ? " No 
 doubt if philosophy were a specialty, a profession 
 like any other, if to philosophize meant to study
 
 8 The Future of Science. 
 
 or to seek tLe solution of a certain number of more 
 or less important questions, then the reply of the 
 sage would be singularly nonsensical. And yet if 
 Ave understand philosophy in its j)i'oper sense, the 
 man who is not a philosopher, that is, who has not 
 succeeded in grasping the loftier meaning of life 
 is indeed a wretched being. A great many people 
 equally willingly give up the title of poet. If to be 
 a poet meant the skilful use of the mechanism of 
 language they would be excusable. But if we under- 
 stand by poetr}^ the soul's faculty of being touched in 
 a certain way, of yielding a response of a particular 
 and undefinable nature when face to face with the 
 beauty of things, he who is not a poet is not a man, 
 and to give up the title is tantamount to abdicating 
 voluntarily the dignity of his nature. 
 
 If needs were illustrious examples could be found 
 to prove that this lofty harmony of the powers of 
 human nature is not an idle fancy. The lives of men 
 of genius nearly always present the delightful sight 
 of vast intellectual capacity allied to very lofty 
 poetical sentiment and charming good nature, to a 
 degree such as to make in most cases their lives in 
 their serene and sweet tranquillity their most beautiful 
 work of all and an essential part of their complete 
 works. Eeally and truly the words poetry, philo- 
 soi3hy, art, science do not signify so much diverse 
 objects offered to the intellectual activity of man as 
 ^ different waj^s of looking at the same object which 
 , /( is simply existence itself in all its manifestations, 
 k/ji^' A N That is why there is no great philosopher who is not 
 ^'J ',"- at the same time a poetxj^ the great artist is often 
 much more of a philosopher than those who bear the 
 name. AH these are merely so many different forms. 
 Inch like those of literature are capable of express- 
 ing everything. Bcranger found means to say every- 
 thing in the guise of songs, another haply in the 
 guise of novels, a third in the guise of history. All 
 genius is universal with regard to the object of its 
 efforts and the small minds are just as wrong in trying 
 
 I 
 
 i€
 
 The Future of Science. 9 
 
 to establish the exclusive pre-eminence of their art as 
 the great men are right in maintaining that their art 
 is the whole of man, seeing that it enables them, in 
 fact to express that which cannot be divided ; namely 
 — the soul, God. 
 
 Nevertheless one is bound to admit that the secret 
 to blend those diverse elements is as yet, not found. 
 In the actual condition of human intelligence a nature 
 too richly endowed suffers constant martyrdom. The 
 man born with one eminent faculty which absorbs 
 all the others is far happier than the one who is 
 always discovering within himself new wants which 
 he cannot satisfy. He would need one life to acquire 
 knowledge, another to feel and to love, a third to 
 act, or to speak correctly he would like to lead 
 abreast a series of parallel existences, while still 
 possessing in one superior unity the simultaneous 
 consciousness of each of these. Limited by time and 
 extraneous necessities, his concentrated activity 
 burns itself out inwardly. He requires so much time 
 to live for himself that he finds none to live for the 
 outer world. He does not wish to lose an atom of 
 this all-devouring, multiple existence which escapes 
 him and which he himself devours hurriedly and 
 greedily. He rolls from one world on to another 
 or rather worlds badly harmonized jostle one another 
 in his breast. He envies in turns — for he is capable 
 of understanding in turns — the simple soul that lives 
 by love and faith, the virile nature that takes lifelike 
 a muscular athlete, the critical and penetrating 
 intellect which enjoys the handling of its exact and 
 certain instrument at leisure. Then, when he finds 
 out the impossibility of realizing this multiple ideal, 
 when he sees how short, how fatally incomplete, how 
 necessarily divided is life, when he reflects that whole 
 sides of his rich and fruitful nature will never emerge 
 from semi-obscurity a reaction sets in full of un- 
 paralleled bitterness. He anathematizes this super- 
 abundance of life which only leads to his wearing him- 
 self out without result, or if he throws his energy on
 
 1 The Future of Science. 
 
 some extraneous work, he still suffers in being unable 
 to throw more than a part of himself into it. No 
 sooner has he realized one side of life than a thousand 
 others just as beautiful flash upon, deceive and lead 
 him on in their turn until the day comes when he is 
 bound to give up and when casting a glance behind 
 he can say at last with some comfort to himself; " I 
 have lived a great deal." It is the first time he has 
 found his rjeward. . . / I
 
 The Future of Science. 1 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 \T_o hiow is the keyword of the creed of natural 
 I'^ligion ; for to know is the first condition of the 
 commerce of mankind with the things that are, of 
 the penetrating study of the universe, which is the 
 intellectual life of the individual; to know is self- 
 initiation to God. By ignorance man is as it were 
 sequestrated from nature, shut np within himself, and 
 reduced to make himself a fanciful oion-ego on the 
 model of his personality. Hence arises the strange 
 world in which infancy lives, in which primitive 
 man lived. Man is only capable of communing with 
 things by knowledge and love ; without science he 
 only loves so many chimeras. Science only cahH 
 supply the foundation of reality necessary to life. If 
 like Leibnitz we conceive the individual soul as a 
 mirror in which the universe is reflected, it is by 
 science that it will be able to reflect a smaller or' 
 greater portion of what is, and travel towards itsj 
 final aim ; namely, towards its perfect harmony 
 with the universality of things. 
 
 To hioiD is of all acts of life the least profane, for 
 it is the most disinterested, the most independent 
 of gratifications, the most objective, to employ the 
 language of the schools. It is a waste of time to 
 prove its sanctity, for those only for wdiom there 
 is nothing sacred would dream of denying it. Those 
 who go no further than the mere facts of human 
 nature without venturing upon a qualification on the 
 value of things, even those will not deny that science
 
 12 The Future of Science. 
 
 at any rate is the first and foremost necessity of man- 
 kind. Man face to face with things is necessarily 
 impelled to seek their secret. The problem suggests 
 itself, and that by virtue of man's faculty of pene- 
 trating beyond the phenomenon he perceives. It is 
 first of all nature itself which whets this craving to 
 know, and he attacks the latter with the impatience 
 bred of a naive presumption, which fancies itself able 
 to draw up a system of the universe at the first 
 attempt and in a few pages. Then his curiosity is 
 tempted by the wish to know all about himself, and 
 much later on by the desire to solve the problem of 
 his species, of humanity at large, of its history. 
 Then comes the final problem, the great cause, the 
 supreme law. The problem gets varied, grows larger 
 and larger, according to the horizons appertaining to 
 each age, but it never ceases suggesting itself; face 
 to face with the unknown man always experiences a 
 dual sentiment ; a reverence for the mysterious, a 
 noble recklessness that promj)ts him to rend the veil 
 in order to know what is beyond it. 
 
 To remain indifferent face to face with the uni- 
 verse is utterly impossible to man. As soon as he 
 begins to think, he begins to seek, he puts problems 
 to himself and solves them ; he must needs have 
 a system on the world, on himself, on the primary 
 cause, on his origin, on his end. He lacks the 
 necessary data to answer the questions he puts to 
 himself, but no matter. He supplies them himself. 
 Hence, primitive religions, improvised solutions of 
 a problem that required long centuries of research, 
 but to which an immediate answer was necessary. 
 The scientific method is capable of resigning itself 
 to no-knowledge, or it does at any rate submit to 
 delay ; primitive science wanted there and then to 
 grasp the meaning of things. In fact, to ask man 
 to adjourn certain problems, to postpone to future 
 centuries the knowledge of what he is, what kind of 
 place he occupies in the world, what is the cause 
 of the world and of himself, to ask him to do this
 
 The Future of Science. 13 
 
 is to ask him to achieve the impossible. Even if he 
 did get to know the enigma insohihle, one could not 
 prevent him from worrying and wearing himself out 
 about it. 
 
 f I am aware that there is something irreverent, 
 something unlawful, something savouring of high 
 treason against the divine in this bold act of man 
 by which he endeavours to penetrate the mystery of 
 things. At any rate that is how all ancient peoples 
 looked at it. According to them science was a robbery 
 committed to the prejudice of God, an act of de- 
 fiance and disobedience. In the beautiful myth 
 with which the Pentateuch opens, it is the genius 
 of evil that prompts man to emerge from his state 
 of innocent ignorance in order to become like God 
 by the knowledge distinct and antithetic of good and 
 evil. The fable of Prometheus has no other meaning 
 than that ; the conquests of civilization presented 
 as an attempt against, an illicit rape upon, a jealous 
 divinity who wished to keep them to himself. 
 Hence, the proud character of daring against the 
 gods borne by the first inventors, hence, the theme 
 developed in so many mythological legends : that 
 the wish for a better state is the source of all evil 
 in the world. It will be easily understood that, 
 antiquity not having the " key-word " of the enigma, 
 progress was, as it were, bound to feel a respectful 
 dread in shattering the barriers erected, according 
 to it by a superior power, that not daring to rely 
 upon the future for a state of happiness, it conceived 
 it as having existed in a primitive golden age (1), 
 that it should have said, Audax lapeti gemcs, that 
 it called the conquest of the perfect a vetitimi nefas. 
 Humanity, in those days, had the sentiment of the 
 obstacle, not that of victory, but though caUing 
 itself all the while audacious and daring, it kept 
 marching onward and onward. As for us who have 
 reached the grand moment of our consciousness, it 
 is no longer a question of saying, " Coelum ipsum 
 petimus stuUitia!'' and to go on committing sacri-
 
 14 The Future of Science. 
 
 leges as it were. We must proceed with proudly 
 uplifted head and fearlessly towards that which is 
 ours and when we do violence to things in order to 
 tjrag their secret from them, feel perfectly convinced^ 
 that we are acting for ourselves, for them and for O^^ 
 
 Man does not at once become fully conscious of 
 his strength and creative power. Among primitive 
 peoples, all the marvellous exploits of the human 
 intellect are attributed to the Divinity; the wise 
 men believe themselves inspired and thoroughly con- 
 vinced of their mysterious relations with higher beings 
 and boast of them. Often the supernatural agents 
 themselves are credited with the authorship of works 
 that seemingly exceed the powers of man. ^ In 
 Homer it is Hephaestos who creates all the inge- 
 nious mechanisms. The credulous centuries of me- 
 diajvalism attribute all eminent science or all skill 
 above the common level to secret faculties, to com- 
 merce with the Evil One. As a rule the non-reflect- 
 ing or " little-reflecting " centuries are given to 
 substitute theological for psychological explanations. 
 It seems natural to believe that grace comes from 
 on high ; it is only later on discovered to emanate 
 from the inmost conscience. The untutored fancies 
 that the dew di'ops from the sky ; he scarcely believes 
 the savant who assures him that it emanates from the 
 plants themselves. 
 
 When I wish to picture to myself fact as of the 
 progenitor of science in all its primitive simplicity 
 and disinterested impulse, I revert with a feeling of 
 inexpressible charm to the first ratioual philosophers 
 of Greece. To the psychologist there is a priceless 
 ingenuousness and truth in this spontaneous ardour 
 of a few men who without traditional precedent 
 or official motive but from more inward impulse 
 of their nature take to grappling with the eternal 
 problem in its true form. Aristotle is ah-eady a deep- 
 tliinkiug sdrant conscious of his process who pro- 
 (kices science and philosophy as Virgil produces 
 verse. Those first thiukers, on the contrary, are
 
 The Future of Science. 15 
 
 moved by their spontaneous curiosity in a totally 
 different manner. The object is before them, whet- 
 ting their appetite; they attack it hke the child 
 who, growing impatient when confronted with a 
 complicated piece of machinery, tries it in every way 
 in order to get at its secret, and does not stop until 
 he has found the to him sufficiently satisfactory 
 explanation. This primitive science is nothing more 
 than the constantly repeated " WhijV of infancy; 
 with this difference though that with us the child 
 finds an instructed person to supply the answer to 
 his question while there it is the child itself who 
 gives the answer with the same simplicity. It seems 
 to me as difficult to understand the true point of 
 view of science without having studied those primi- 
 tive savants as to have the lofty sense of poetry 
 without having studied primitive poesy. 
 j A busy civilization like ours is by no means favour- 
 able to the glorifying of those speculative wants. 
 Nowhere is curiosity more keen, more disinterested, 
 more attracted by the outward than in the child and 
 the savage. How sincerely and simply interested 
 they are in nature, in animals, without a single second 
 thought or a respect for humanity (2). The busy manT" 
 on the contrary, is bored in the company of nature 
 and of animals ; those disinterested enjoyments 
 are no part or parcel of his egoism. Unsophisti- 
 cated man, left to his own thought, often conceives 
 a more complete and far-reaching system of things! 
 than he who has only received a conventional and 
 fictitious education. The habits of practical life; 
 weaken the instinct of pure curiosity ; but there is| 
 comfort to the lover of science in the thought that 
 nothing can destroy it, that the monument to which 
 he has added a stone is eternal, that like morality, 
 it has its guarantee in the very instincts of human 
 nature. 
 
 As a rule science is only looked at from the stand- 
 point of its practical results and its civilizing effects. 
 There is no great difficulty in finding out that modern
 
 16 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 society is indebted to it for its principal improvements. 
 This fs very true, but nevertheless, putting the thesis 
 in a dangerous way. One might just as well, in order 
 to establish the claims of morality point exclusively 
 to the benefits society derives from it. Science, as 
 well as morality is valuable in itself and indepen- 
 dently of all beneficent results. 
 
 These results are, moreover, nearly always con- 
 ceived in a mean and shabby spirit. As a rule 
 people remain blind to anything but practical appli- 
 cations which no doubt have their importance 
 inasmuch as by their rebound they powerfully con- 
 tribute to mental progress but which in themselves 
 have little or no ideal value. Moral applications, 
 in fact, almost always lead science astray from its 
 true aim. To study history for no other purpose 
 than the lessons of morality or practical wisdom to 
 be deduced from it is simply to revive the ridiculous 
 theory of those poor interpreters of Aristotle who 
 considered the only object of dramatic art to be the 
 cure of the passions it puts into action. The spirit 
 against which I am especially tilting here is that of 
 English science, so lacking inioftiness, in philosophy. 
 I know of no Englishman^^ Byroiy' perhaps excepted, 
 who has deei)ly grasped "th^'jphiloso2')hy of things. 
 To order one's life in accordance with reason, to 
 avoid error, not to embark /upon enterprises that 
 cannot be carried out, to provide for one's self a 
 gentle and assured existence!, to recognize the sim- 
 plicity of the laws of the universe, to get hold of a 
 few views of natural theology seems to be to the 
 Englishman who thinks the sovereign aim of science. 
 There is never as much as an idea of lofty and 
 harassing speculation, never a deep glance at that 
 which is. This, no doubt, irises from the fact, that 
 with our neighbours, positii^e rehgion, kept under a 
 conservative sequestrationj is held to be unassail- 
 able, is still considered as/capable of giving the key 
 to the enigma of great t]/ings (3). But science, in 
 fact, being only of value /in as far as it is capable of 
 
 /
 
 Tlie Future of Science. 17 
 
 replacing religion, what becomes of it under such a 
 system ? A kind of petty process to knock a little 
 bit of understanding into folk, a kind of help in 
 obtaining a social status, a means of acquiring useful 
 and interesting knowledge. All this is not worth a 
 moment's consideration. As for myself, I only admit 
 of one result of science, namely, the solution of the 
 enigma, the final explanation to mankind of the 
 meaning of things, the explanation of man to him- 
 self, the giving to him in the name of the sole legiti- 
 mate authority which is the whole of human nature 
 itself, of the creed which religion gave him ready 
 made and which he can no longer accept. To live 
 without a system whereby to explain things is not^ 
 to hve the life of man. I certainly understand scep- 
 ticism, it is a system that may be as good as any other ; 
 it has its grandeur and noble qualities. I understand 
 faith, I envy its possessors and regret perhaps not 
 possessing it myself. But what seems to me most 
 monstrous in humanity is indifference and flippancy. 
 As intelligent as you please, he who face to face 
 with the infinite fails to perceive that he is sur- 
 rounded by problems and mysteries is to me nothing 
 better than an imbecile. 
 
 It has become a hackneyed truth by now to say 
 that the world is governed by ideas. Still, it is after 
 all but saying what ought to be and what will be 
 rather than what has been. There is no gainsaying 
 that in history we should make large allowances for 
 force, for whim, and even for what is called accident, 
 that is to say, to that, the moral cause of which is not 
 proportionate to the effect (4). Philosophy, pure 
 and simple, scarcely had any immediate influence 
 on human progress until the eighteenth century, and 
 it would be much nearer tlie mark to assert that it 
 is the historical period which creates the philosophy 
 than that the philosophy creates the period. But 
 what admits of no doubt is that humanity amidst 
 its oscillations ever tends to a condition of greater 
 perfection, that it has the right and the power to
 
 1 8 The Future oj Science. 
 
 make reason more and more predominant over whim 
 and instinct in the government of things. It is of 
 no use arguing with him who has not recognized by 
 now that historj^ is not merely so much aimless agi- 
 tation, a movement without a result. One will never 
 succeed in proving the onward course of humanity 
 to him who has not managed to find it out for 
 himself. The first word of the creed of the nine- 
 teenth century is contained in the immense results 
 achieved b}^ the science of humanity during the last 
 hundred years. Above the individual stands collective 
 humanity which lives and develops like every other 
 organic being and which hke every organic being 
 tends towards perfection, that is, to the plenitude of 
 its being (5). After having groped for many long 
 centuries in the darkness of infancy without con- 
 sciousness of itself and by the mere motive power of 
 its organism, the grand moment came when, like the 
 individual, it took possession of itself, as it were, 
 when it became aware of its own strength, when it 
 felt itself to be a living unity ; a moment for ever 
 to be remembered, a moment we do not see because 
 it is too near to us, but which, it seems to me, will 
 be considered by future generations as a revolution 
 comparable to that which has marked a new era in 
 the history of all the nations. Barely half a century 
 has elapsed since humanity began to understand and 
 reflect upon, itself; and still we profess to be sur- 
 prised at the consciousness of its unity and mutual 
 adherence being so weak (6). The French Kevolution 
 is the first attempt of humanity to take the reins iu 
 its own hands and to drive itself. It is the advent 
 of the power of reflection in the government of 
 humanity. It is the moment correspondiug to that 
 in which the child hitherto led by spontaneous 
 instinct, by mere whim, by the will of others, takes 
 up his stand as a free, moral being, responsible for 
 his acts. All that went before may be called in the 
 words of Robert Owen " the irrational period of 
 human existence ; " and one day this period will only
 
 TJie Future of Science. 19 
 
 count in the history of humanity and in that of our 
 nation in particular as a curious preface, something 
 like that chapter on the history of the Gauls which 
 generally precedes the history of France. The real 
 history of France begins at 1789, all that goes before 
 is but the slow preparation of '89 and is of no interest 
 except as viewed in that light. In fact, study history 
 as you may you will find nothing analogous to that 
 immense fact presented by the whole of the eighteenth 
 century ; of philosophers, men of wit in no way con- 
 cerned with actual politics, radically changing the 
 whole of previously received ideas and carrying the 
 greatest of all revolutions, conscientiously, and with 
 deliberation on the faith of their systems. The revo- 
 lution of '89 is a revolution wrought by philosophers. 
 Condorcet, Mirabeau, Robespierre are the first 
 instances of theorists meddling with the direction 
 of afi'airs and endeavouring to govern humanity in 
 a reasonable and scientific manner. All the members 
 of the Constituent Assembly, of the Legislative 
 Assembly and the Convention were literally and 
 almost without exception disciples of Voltaire and i/ 
 Rousseau. I will show by and bye how this chariot 
 driven by such hands could not be driven so well at 
 first as it was when it rolled along by itself and 
 how it was almost bound to be shattered to pieces in 
 an abyss. For the present it is sufficient to note 
 the matchless audacity, the marvellous and bold 
 attempt to reform the world according to the dic- 
 tates of common sense, to attack everything savour- 
 ing of prejudice, the blind established thing, habits 
 to all appearances irrational, in order to replace them 
 by a system calculated like a formula, combined like 
 an artificial machine (7). This, I repeat, is a thing 
 unique and without example in all the preceding 
 centuries, nay, it constitutes in itself an age in the 
 history of humanity. Surely, an attempt such could 
 not be without blemish in every respect. Because 
 those institutions that seem so absurd are not alto- 
 gether so absurd as they seem, those prejudices have
 
 20 The Future of Science. 
 
 their sensible side Avhicli you fail to see. The prin- 
 ciple involved in all this admits of no controversy, 
 intelligence alone must reign, intelligence alone ; 
 in other words, sense must govern the world. But 
 are you sure that your analysis is complete, that you 
 are not led into denying what j^ou do not understand 
 and that a more advanced philosophy will not succeed 
 in justifying the spontaneous work of humanity ? 
 There is nothing easier than to show that the majority 
 of prejudices on which the old society was based ; 
 the privileges of the nobility, the law of primo- 
 geniture, legitimacy, etc., are irrational and absurd 
 from the point of view of abstract reason, that in a 
 society constituted regularly such superstitions would 
 find no abiding place. There is an analytical and 
 seductive clearness about this such as the eighteenth 
 century loved. But is that a reason to blame abso- 
 lutely these abuses in the old structure of humanity 
 in which they enter as an integral part ? It is certain 
 that the criticism of those first reformers was on 
 many points harsh, that it showed the non-intelligent 
 side of spontaneity, the arrogant pride of the easy 
 discoveries of analytical reason. 
 
 As a rule the philosophy of the eighteenth century 
 and the policy of the first Eevolution show the errors 
 inseparable from crude reflexion, the non-intelligent 
 side of mere mother-wit, the tendency to con- 
 sider as absurd that of which one fails to see the 
 immediate reason. That century only understood 
 itself and judged all the others by its own. Domi- 
 nated by the idea of the inventive power of man, 
 it extended too much the sphere of deliberate in- 
 vention. In poetry it substituted artificial com- 
 position for the innate inspiration that wells up from 
 the recesses of the heart without troubling about 
 literary composition. In politics man was supposed 
 to create freely and dehberately society and the 
 authority that rules it. In morahty man found and 
 established the principle of duty as a useful inven- 
 tion. In psychology he seemed to be the creator of
 
 The Future of Science. 21 
 
 the results most necessary to his constitution. In 
 philology the grammarians of the period spent their 
 time in showing the inconsistency, the errors of 
 speech such as the people had made it and in cor- 
 recting the deviations that had become habit by 
 logical argument without perceiving that the terms 
 which they want to suppress are as a rule more 
 logical, clearer and easier than those they want to 
 substitute for them. That century did not underr . 
 stand naiure^^^pontaneous activity. No doubt man 
 produce^T^^S'^rcerFain sens^ air~that comes out of 
 his nature. He spends all his active energy upon iti 
 he supplies the brute strength which brings about 
 the result, but the directing of all this does noi 
 belong to him. He supplies the material, the shap0 
 of it comes to him from on high ; the real author i^ 
 that living and truly divine force, secreted as it 
 were by the human faculty, which is neither con- 
 vention, nor calculation, but which produces its 
 effect out of its own self and by its own tensionj 
 Hence arises the tendency towards the artificiaI7\ 
 towards the merely mechanical with which we are! 
 still so deeply smitten. We fancy that we shall 
 be able to foresee all possible cases, but the work 
 is so complex as to set all our efforts at naught. 
 The hoi}'' horror of the arbitrary is carried so far 
 as to become destructive of all initiative. The in- 
 dividual is so swaddled round with rules and regu- 
 lations, cramping his every limb that a lay-figure 
 could do as much as he if we fashioned it to move 
 to the turning of a handle. The difference between 
 mediocrity and distinction in the individual has 
 in that way become almost insignificant, adminis- 
 tration has become a soulless machine which will 
 accomplish the work of a man. France is too apt 
 to believe that one may supply the private im- 
 pulse of the soul by mechanism and extraneous 
 process. Nay, there have been attempts to apply 
 this detestable spirit to even more delicate things, 
 to education, to morality (8). Have not we seen
 
 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 ministers of public instruction wJio- pretended to turn 
 "Sut'^eat m ouHbrfTiieans ofjiiitableregulations ? Did 
 not~~tfeey-eoiuieiv^ a processoFl^^ing man moral 
 as one makes fruit ripe by squeezing it between one's 
 fingers ? Ye of little faith in nature, why not leave 
 it to the sun ? 
 
 Such then are the excusable and necessary errors 
 of centuries in which reflection takes the place of 
 spontaneity (9). And although this first degree 
 of consciousness is an immense progress, the con- 
 dition resulting from it may have seemed in some 
 of its aspects inferior to that which went before, 
 and the enemies of humanity have been enabled to 
 take advantage of it by combating the dogma of 
 progress with some show of plausibility (10). In 
 fact during the blind and irrational state, affairs 
 proceeded spontaneously and by themselves by virtue 
 of established order. The world had institutions 
 made of one piece, the origin of which was never 
 questioned, dogmas that were accepted without criti- 
 cism. The world was a huge machine organized 
 so long ago and with so little thought that people 
 beheved it had been put together by God Himself. 
 Such w^as no longer the case the moment humanity 
 wanted to govern itself and to underpin the in- 
 stinctive structure of ages. Instead of old insti- 
 tutions whose origin was lost and which merely 
 seemed the necessary result of the equilibrium of 
 things, it had constitutions made by the hands of 
 men, brand-new, with corrections and sentences 
 struck out and from this very fact shorn of the old 
 prestige. And seeing that it knew the authors of 
 the new work, that mankind considered itself their 
 equal in authority, that the improvised machine had 
 visible defects, and that the whole of the business 
 was henceforth transferred to a field open to dis- 
 cussion there was no reason why it should ever be 
 declared closed again. The result was an era of 
 upheaval and instability during which the dull but 
 honest minded might well regret the old order of
 
 The Future of Science. 23 
 
 things. One might just as well prefer the positive 
 assertions of bygone science which was never at a 
 loss to the prudent hesitations and fluctuations of 
 modern science. No doubt, the uncontrolled reign 
 of absolutism in politics as in philosophy is the one 
 conducive to the greatest amount of rest and the 
 grands seigneurs who are fond of rest are most__ 
 likely to be fond of such a regime. Oscillation_on 
 the other hand is the necessary condition of true 
 human development, and modern constitutions are 
 perfectly consistent in laying down periodical terms 
 for their further modification. 
 
 Hence it is not surprising that after the disappear- 
 ance of the primitive state and the destruction of 
 the old edifices built up by the blind conscience of 
 ages, there should be some regrets, and that the new 
 structures should be by no means equal to the old. 
 Imperfect thought cannot reproduce at the first 
 attempt the works of human nature, acting with all 
 its innate forces. Combination is as powerless to 
 reconstruct the works of instinct as art is power- 
 less to imitate the blind work of the insect that 
 spins its web or builds its honey-cells. Is that a 
 reason to give up reflective science, to go back to 
 blind instinct ? Certainly not. It is a reason for 
 continuing to inquire to the end, with the assurance 
 that perfected thought will reproduce the same 
 works but with a higher degree of clearness and 
 reasoning. We must hope, march onward, and keep 
 on marching always, despising meanwhile the objec- 
 tions of sceptics. Besides, the first step has been 
 taken already, humanity has once for all begun the 
 task of its emancipation, it has attained its majority, 
 wishing to govern itself, and supposing even that 
 advantage might be taken of a moment's sleep to 
 impose fresh chains upon it, it will be mere child's 
 play to break them. The only means to reconsti- 
 tute the bygone condition of things would be to 
 destroy its consciousness by destxo^ing^science^^ 
 
 Lllectual culture. There ''arelix&oplg^'W ho'TmQ^ ^
 
 The Future of Science. 
 
 jthisv but I pledge you my word that they will not 
 succeed in doing it. 
 
 Such then is the condition of the human intelli- 
 gence. It has overthrown gothic edifices, constructed 
 one knows not well how, but which sufficed never- 
 theless to shelter humanity. Then it tried to rebuild 
 the edifice on better proportions, without, however, 
 succeeding ; for the old temples raised by humanity 
 had some wonderful subtleti^s_j3f_aj:chiiectiire--«^ 
 design whicirwei^^^iiot--pBrceived at first and which 
 "the uTodern engineers with all their geometry cannot 
 contrive to compass. Besides, the world has become 
 more difficult to please ana does not like to fatigue 
 itself in sheer waste. The preceding centuries did not 
 complain of the organization of society because there 
 was no organization to speak of. The evil was 
 accepted as emanating frofQ fate. What would arouse 
 an outcry nowadays did not provoke a murmur then. 
 The neo-feudalistic school has taken a singularly 
 unfair advantage of thi/s misunderstanding. What 
 are we to do ? Eeconstruct the old temple ? That 
 would be more difficuli still, for even if its original 
 plan were not lost, the materials could never be 
 found again. What is wanted, is to look for the 
 
 ish science to its furthermost 
 science alone is capable of re- 
 that without which it cannot 
 
 must be maintained at any cost 
 of intellect is the reforming of 
 its own principles ; that it is by 
 \ aoainst Providence to attempt 
 
 ^ 
 
 perfect beyond, to p^ 
 limits. Science an( 
 storing to humanit] 
 live ; a creed and a /law. 
 
 The dogma whic] 
 is that the missioi 
 society according ko 
 no means conspii 
 
 to improve its /work by well considered efforts. 
 True optimism /can only be conceived under such 
 conditions. Optimism would be a mistake if man 
 were not susceptible of beiug made more perfect if it 
 were not given/to him to improve the established con- 
 dition of things by science. The formula; " Every- 
 thiug is for the best," would without this be only a 
 bitter mocke/y (11). Yes, everything is for the be^ 
 
 /?^ 
 
 ^ y 
 
 ^ju>,m:y;^'^'
 
 The Future of Science. 25 
 
 thanks to human intelligence capable of reforming 
 the necessary imperfections of the first establishment 
 of things. Let us rather say, "Everything will be 
 for the best when man, having accomplished his 
 legitimate task, shall have restored harmony in the 
 moral world and conquered the physical world." As 
 for bygone conceptions of Providence in which the 
 world is conceived as made once for all, and bound 
 to remain as it is, in which the effort of mankind 
 against fate is considered as so much sacrilege, these 
 conceptions are vanquished and obsolete. What is 
 very certain, at any rate, is that they will not hinder 
 man in his task of reformation, that he will persist 
 per fas et nefas in correcting Creation ; that he will 
 pursue to the end his holy work, viz. to fight blind 
 causes and the fortuitous establishment of things, to 
 substitute reason for necessity. The religions of the 
 East enjoin man to put up with evil ; European 
 religion is summed up in the few words; '-Eight 
 against the evil." This race is verily the offspring 
 of lapetus ; it is bold against God. 
 
 The keen observer will notice that this is the 
 kernel of the problem, that the whole of the struggle 
 at this moment lies between the old and the new 
 ideas of theism and morality. It is sufficient that he 
 should see it. We have reached the sacred line 
 where the doctrines divide ; one point of divergence 
 between two rays starting from the centre places the 
 infinite between them. But this much should be 
 remembered ; that the theories of progress are irre- 
 concilable with the ancient doctrine of divine justice, 
 that their only meaning lies in attributing divine 
 action to the human intellect, in one word, by ad- 
 mitting as the primordial power in the world the 
 reforming power of the sinrit. 
 
 The secret link of these doctrines is nowhere more 
 apparent than in the last book of M. Guizot, a book 
 of the greatest value and which will retain the privi- 
 lege of being read by posterity, because it sets forth 
 in a highly original manner a curious intellectual
 
 i2(j TJk' Future of Science. 
 
 moment. Will people five hundred years hence 
 believe that one of the foremost minds of the nine- 
 teenth century could have said that since the eman- 
 cipation of various classes of society the number of 
 distinguished men has not increased in France, "as 
 if Providence," he adds, " did not permit human laws 
 to affect the intellectual order of things, with regard to 
 the extent and magnificence of his gifts " (12). The 
 Aristarchi of that time will consider this passage an 
 interpolation and will advance peremptory proofs to 
 that efi"ect. They will say that so narrow-minded a 
 conception of the government of the world could 
 have never entered the mind of the author of " The 
 History of Civilization." But how will they manage 
 to excuse an argument like the following; "Up to 
 this time society has always presented three types of 
 social condition ; men living on their income, men 
 exploiting their income, men living by their work. 
 Hence we may take this to be the natural condition 
 of humanity, and thus it will ever be." Equally 
 valid would the argument of antiquity have been ; 
 " Society has up till now always had three classes of 
 men, an aristocracy, freedmen, slaves. Hence we 
 may take this to be the natural condition of humanity, 
 hence it will always be." It would have been just as 
 reasonable to say in 1780, " Till now the State has 
 always contained three classes of men, the governors, 
 the aristocracy, limiting the power of the latter, the 
 plebeians ; hence we may take this to be the natural 
 condition of humanity ; hence, you who wish to 
 change this condition of things are nothing better 
 than a parcel of dangerous lunatics, of Utopians." 
 
 Assuredly no one is more profoundly convinced 
 than I am of the impossibility of reforming human 
 nature. But narrow-minded and dictatorial people 
 have a strange way of interpreting human nature. 
 To them human nature means that which they see 
 of it existing in their own times and the preservation 
 of which they ardently desire. There are a great 
 many better reasons for maintaining that a privileged
 
 The Future of Science. 27 
 
 aristocracy is essential to every society than for main- 
 taining that a moneyed aristocracy is necessary to it. 
 The truth is that human nature is only made up of 
 instincts and very general principles which by no 
 means sanction or sanctify one social condition in 
 preference to another, but only certain conditions 
 of the social fabric, such as for instance the family, 
 individual property. The truth is that with the 
 eternal princiiDles of his nature at work, man can 
 reform the political and social edifice ; he can do 
 this, seeing that undoubtedly he has already done 
 it, seeing that there is no one who does not admit 
 actual society to be better organized in certain re- 
 spects than that of the past. "It is the result of 
 religion; " people will say. Granted that it is, but 
 what is religion if not the most beautiful and energetic 
 creation of human nature ? The appeal to human 
 nature is the final argument in all social and philo- 
 sophical questions. But we should be careful not 
 to invoke this nature in a petty and narrow-minded 
 manner with regard to the habits and customs, the 
 order of things we are actually witnessing. It is a 
 much deeper ocean, the bottom of which is not so 
 easily reached, and which the w^eak-sighted cannot 
 even perceive. How numerous are the ridiculous 
 errors in commonplace psychology springing from 
 neglect of this principle ! They are nearly all due 
 to the narrow ideas that prevail with regard to the 
 revolutions already undergone by the moral and 
 social system, to ignorance of the profound difference 
 existing between the various literatures, and the 
 feelings of various peoples. 
 
 Without altogether pinning his faith to one 
 particular system of moral reform no lofty and pene- 
 trating mind will be able to deny that the very 
 question of that reform is of kind different from that 
 of political reform, the legitimacy of the latter being, 
 I trust, beyond controversy. The social fabric like 
 the political has been shaped under the influence of 
 blind instinct. It is the mission of human intelligence
 
 28 The Future of Science. 
 
 to correct it. It is not a bit more illegal to say- 
 that society may be improved than to wish the Shah 
 of Persia to improve his government. The first time 
 this terrible problem was assailed ; to reform political 
 society by human reasoning there was no doubt an 
 outcry at the boldness of the thought, at the unheard- 
 of attempt. The conservatives of '89 could oppose 
 to the revolutionaries what the conservatives of 1849 
 opposed to the socialists. You attempt to do a thing 
 which has no precedent, you are attacking the work 
 of ages, you do not take into account history and 
 human nature. The cheap bombast of the middle 
 classes against the hereditary nobility; "You only 
 had the trouble to be born, etc.," may with advantage 
 be retorted against the moneyed classes. It is very 
 patent that the existence of a nobility is not rational, 
 that it is the result of the blind ordering of humanity. 
 But if we are to argue in that way, where are we to 
 stop ? There is no great merit in twitting it with 
 its want of rationality ; it is simply an indefensible 
 truism. I am even bound to admit that, all things 
 considered, the attempt of the political reformers of 
 '89 seems to me a great deal bolder in its aim and 
 above all more wonderful than that of the social re- 
 formers of our days. Hence, I fail to understand 
 how people who admit '89 can reject as a matter of 
 right social reform. As for the means, I understand, 
 I repeat, the most radical diversity. No general 
 difficulties have been advanced against the socialists 
 which may not be equally advanced against the con- 
 stituents. It is a bold thing to assign limits to the 
 reformiug power of human reason and to reject no 
 matter what attemj^t on the plea that it is without 
 precedent. Every reform was characterized by the 
 same defect originally, and besides, they who prefer 
 that reproach do so nearly always because they have 
 not a sufficiently extensive idea of the various forms 
 of human society and of its history. 
 
 In the East thousands of people die of starvation 
 or of wretchedness without ever having thougbt of
 
 The Future of Science. 29 
 
 revolting against the established powers. In Europe, 
 rather than die of hunger a man thinks it simpler 
 to snatch up a rifle and to attack society, guided as 
 he is by that profound and instinctive view that 
 society has duties with regard to him which it has 
 never fulfilled. We find at every page of our actual 
 literature some remarkable turn, which is perhaps 
 not thirty years old ; it is merely a way of looking 
 upon individual suffering as a social evil and making 
 society responsible for the wretchedness and' degrad- 
 ing condition of its members. A novel idea, a 
 thoroughly novel idea, assuredly. We have ceased 
 to consider those evils as emanating from fate (13). 
 Well, we had better remember that humanity has 
 never taken up a standpoint to relinquish it im- 
 mMiately afterwards. 
 
 W Hence, by every way open to us we are beginning 
 \o proclaim the right of human reason to reform 
 society by means of rational science, and the theo- 
 retical knowledge of existing things. It is, therefore, 
 no exaggeration to say that science contains the future 
 of humanity, that it alone can give us the explana- 
 tion of its destiny and teach it the way to attain its 
 object. Until now it is not human reason that has 
 governed the world, but whim and passionate im-^ 
 pulse. The day will come when reason enlightened 
 by experience will resume its legitimate sway, the 
 only one that can claim the title of ''right divine," 
 and will lead the world, no longer at haphazard, but 
 with a clear perception of the goal to be reached. 
 Our period of passionate impulse and error will then 
 appear as so much pure barbarism, or as the capri- 
 cious and fantastical age which in the child divides 
 the charms of tender age from the rational existence 
 of the mature man. Our mechanical politics, our 
 blind and selfish parties will seem like so many 
 monsters of another age. People will no longer 
 understand how a century could have accorded the 
 title of " able " to a man like Talleyrand, who looked 
 upon the government of mankind as upon a mere game
 
 30 The Future of Science. 
 
 of chess, without having an idea as to the object to 
 be attained, without having as much as an idea of 
 humanity itself. The science which will govern the 
 world will not be politics. Politics, that is, the way 
 to govern humanity like a machine will vanish as a 
 special art as soon as humanity shall cease to be a 
 machine. The master science, the then sovereign, 
 will be philosophy, that is to say, the science which 
 will investigate the aim and conditions of society. 
 "In politics," says Herder, "man is a means, in 
 morality, he is an end. The revolution of the 
 future will be the triumph of morals over politics. 
 
 Hence, the scientific oi'ganization of humanity is 
 the final word of modern science, that is, its bold, but 
 legitimate pretension. I will go further still. The 
 universal task of all that breathes being to make God 
 perfect, that is, to further the grand final result 
 which will close the circle of humanity by the unitj^ 
 of the whole, it admits of no question that human 
 reason which until now has had no share in this 
 work, the latter having been accomplished blindly 
 and 'hj the mere tendency of everything that is, 
 it admits of no question, I repeat, that human 
 reason will one day take in hand the management of 
 this work and after having organized humanity 
 J will organize God (14). I do not insist upon this 
 " point and am willing that people should treat it as 
 a mere illusion, because to many worthy minds 
 which I wish to please, it would seem questionable 
 form ; besides, I do not require it in support of my 
 thesis. I will confine myself to saying that nothing 
 should astonish us, considering that the whole of the 
 progress accomplished up to the present moment is 
 perhaps no more than the first page of the preface of 
 a work without end.
 
 The Future of Science. 31 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 People may, if they like, consider the whole of the 
 foregoing as absurd and chimerical, but I beg of them, 
 in the name of Heaven, to grant me this, that science 
 alone can supply mankind with those vital truths, 
 without which life would be unbearable and society 
 impossible. If we could conceive the possibility of 
 arriving at those truths in any other way than by 
 the patient study of things, higher science would 
 have meaning no longer. We should have erudition, 
 the curiosity of the amateur, but not science in the 
 noblest acceptation of the term, and noble natures 
 would assuredly forbear engaging in researches, 
 having neither horizon nor future. Thus those who 
 think that metaphysical speculation, pure reasoning, 
 can, without the pragmatic study of what is, supply 
 us with the higher truths must necessarily despise 
 that which to them is nothing more than useless 
 lumber, an unnecessary and cumbersome burden to 
 the intellect. Malebranche has not been too severe 
 upon those savants, " who make their brain a store- 
 house in which they pile up without discernment 
 everything that presents a certain character of learn- 
 ing, and who pride themselves on their likeness to 
 those collections of curiosities and antiquities and 
 which have neither a monetary nor an archaeological 
 value, and the price of which simply depends upon 
 fancy, accident or passion." Those who think 
 that matter of fact sense, common sense is a suf- 
 ficiently efficient teacher to mankind must look upon
 
 f^2 TJie Future of Science. 
 
 the savant in about the same way that Socrates 
 looked upon the sophists ; as useless and subtle dis- 
 putators. Those who think that feehng and imagi- 
 nation, the spontaneous instincts of human nature 
 can get at essential truths of life by a kind of in- 
 tuition will be equally consistent in considering the 
 researches of the savant as ponderous and of no use, 
 or else as frivolous superfluities not having the merit 
 even of being amusing. In short those who think 
 that human reason cannot attain to the higher truths 
 and that a superior power only has the mission of 
 revealing these to them also contribute to the de- 
 struction of science by depriving it of what constitutes 
 its life and its true value. 
 
 What, in fact, does there remain, if you deny 
 science its philosophical aim ? Trifling details, 
 capable, no doubt, of w^hetting the curiosity of in- 
 quiring minds and of providing a pastime to those 
 who have nothing better to do ; very indifferent to 
 those who look upon life as a serious matter and who 
 above all, concern themselves with the moral and 
 religious needs of man. Science is of value only in 
 as far as it can investigate what revelation professes 
 to teach. If you take away that which constitutes its 
 worth you leave it only an insipid residuum, fit at best 
 to fling to those who feel the want of a bone to 
 gnaw. I sincerely congratulate the good souls that 
 are content with this, as for myself I will have none 
 of it. The moment a doctrine intercepts my horizon, 
 I declare it to be false, the infinite only is to be 
 my background. If you offer me a system ready- 
 made, what then remains there for me to do? To 
 verify by rational research what revelation teaches 
 me ? That would indeed be a useless exercise, a 
 frittering away of time most frivolous, for if I know 
 beforehand tliat what I have been taught is absolutely 
 true there is no need of my tiring myself in looking 
 for its demonstration. It is tantamount to wanting 
 to observe the stars with the naked eye when one 
 might use a telescope. It is tantamount to appeal-
 
 The Future of Science. 33 
 
 ing to men when one may claim the authority of 
 the Holy Spirit. I only know of one contradiction 
 more flagrant than that ; a constitutional pope. 
 
 I shall be told that there remaiDS a vast field of 
 inquiry in the natural truths which God has given for 
 disputation by mankind. Vast you call it, when 
 you take away God, man, mankind, the originsi of 
 the universe. I myself think it very narrow and at 
 best fit for those who to their need of believing add 
 the need of disputing. You think I ought to be 
 very thankful for allowing me to exercise my mind 
 on a few not clearly defined points by flinging to me 
 the world as a bone of contention and by warning 
 me distinctly that from the first word to the last 
 I shall not understand a syllable. Science is not 
 a disjDute of a few otiose minds on a few questions 
 left to them as food for their taste for controversy. 
 Lives there the lofty mind that would devote his 
 life to such humble and debasing labour? I feel 
 reluctant to answer because to remove beforehand 
 the objections that might be addressed to me here, 
 would require long explanations and numerous re- 
 servations ; profane science in any system of frankly 
 admitted revelation can only be a disputation (15). 
 That which is essential has been given ; the only 
 serious science will be that of commenting on the 
 revealed word ; no other will be of any value except 
 in connection with this. Orthodox people have as a 
 rule very little scientific honesty. They do not in- 
 vestigate, they try to prove and this must necessarily 
 be so. The result has been given to them before- 
 hand ; this result is true, undoubtedly true. Science 
 has no business with it, science which starts from 
 doubt without knowing whither it is going, and gives 
 itself up bound hand and foot to criticism which 
 leads it wheresoever it lists. I know the theological 
 method very well and may safely affirm that its pro- 
 cess is opposed to the true scientific spirit. Heaven 
 forbid I should deny that among the most sincere 
 believers there have been men who have rendered
 
 34 The Future of Science. 
 
 the most eminent services to science ; and to go no 
 further back than our contemporaries it is among 
 the sincerest Catholics that I should perhaps find the 
 men most sympathetic to my intellect and heart. 
 But if I were allowed to come to a very close under- 
 standing with them, we should soon see how far their 
 scieutific ardour partakes of the character of a noble 
 inconsistency. Let me be allowed to cite an instance 
 in point. To my mind Silvestre de Sacy is the type 
 of the orthodox savant. Undoubtedly, one could not 
 possibly demand science of a higher standard as far 
 as correctness and criticism of detail go. But if 
 one looks higher, we have the strange fact of one 
 of the most learned men of modern times never 
 having arrived at a single idea of lofty criticism. 
 When for critical or other purposes I am studying 
 the man's works — an eminently respectable man, I 
 am always tempted to ask him, " What is the good 
 of it all ? what is the use of knowing Hebrew, 
 Arabic, Samaritan, Syriac, Chaldaic, Ethiopian, Per- 
 sian, what is the good of being the foremost in Europe 
 in the knowledge of the literatures of the East, if 
 one has not grasped the idea of humanity, if the 
 whole of all this has been conceived without a higher 
 and religious aim." True higher science only com- 
 mence when human reason conceives its task 
 seriously, when it says to itself; "Everything else 
 fails me; my salvation depends upon myself." It is 
 only then that one resolutely sets to work ; it is then 
 that everything reassumes its value in view of a 
 final result. We have done with playing at science, 
 with making it a theme for insipid and pointless para- 
 doxes (16) ; we are upon the great business of man 
 and mankind ; hence, there is begotten a seriousness, 
 an attention, a respect unknown to those who only 
 embarked upon science with but one part of them- 
 selves. One must not be too exacting ; to work out 
 one's salvation is the only thing needful, one will 
 lend one's self to the rest as to a secondary matter, 
 one will not be comfortable in it ; if one's taste leans
 
 The Future of Science. 35 
 
 too much that way one will reproach one's self for it 
 as for a weakness, one wilJ be only semi-profane, one 
 will do like Saint Augustine and Alcuin who accuse 
 themselves of being too fond of Virgil. They are 
 not as guilty as they think they are. Human nature, 
 in reality stronger than all the religious systems hits 
 upon some secret modes of taking its revenge. Has 
 not Islamism, by the most flagrant of contradictions 
 nourished in its own bosom a development of purely 
 rationalistic science ? Kepler, Newton, Descartes 
 and the majority of the founders of modern science 
 were believers. Truly, a strange illusion, which 
 proves at least the good faith of those who under- 
 took that work, but more still the fate that impels 
 the human intellect, entering the paths of rationalism, 
 to an absolute breach, which at first it repels, with 
 all positive religion. With some of those great men 
 this was explained by the limited view they had of 
 science and its aim ; with others as with Descartes 
 (17), whose pretension was really to deduce from 
 reason the truths essential to mankind, there was 
 a manifest superfetation, the use of two mechanisms 
 to attain the same end. I beg the reader to re- 
 member that there is no need for me to take my 
 stand here as a controversialist, to prove that 
 science and revelation contradict one another ; it is 
 sufficient for me that there is double employment to 
 prove my actual thesis. In a revealed system, science 
 has only a very secondary value and does not deserve 
 devoting one's life to it, because that which con- 
 stitutes its worth is given elsewhere in a much more 
 eminent manner. No one can serve two masters, 
 aorworship a double ideal. 
 
 IL^ for me, I say it with the candour which, I trust, 
 the reader will not question (he who is not candid at 
 twenty-five is a wretch) that I cannot conceive the 
 higher science, the science understanding its aim 
 and its end, except as outside all supernatural belief. 
 It is the pure love of science that made me break 
 the bonds of all revealed belief, and the day I declared
 
 3G The Future of Science. 
 
 myself to be without any other master than human 
 reason, I felt that I was laying down the conditions 
 of science and philosophy. If on reading these lines 
 some religious soul should fancy that I am insulting 
 him, I should tell him ; " No, I am your brother; I 
 would insult nothing that belongs to the soul. It is 
 because I am in earnest that I speak like this, it is 
 because I look upon things religious in the most 
 serious light." If like so many others I looked upon 
 religion as merely a machine, a dyke, a useful pre- 
 judice, I should assume that indescribable semi-tone 
 which in reahty is only so much indifference and 
 flippancy. But seeing that I believe in truth, the 
 same that I believe Christianity to be a serious and 
 important thing, there is a quasi-air of the controver- 
 sialist about me and certain squeamish minds will I 
 am certain raise the outcry about a recrudescence of 
 Voltairianism. I am glad to have the opportunity 
 of telling people once for all that if I import into 
 religious discussion a frankness and heaviness of 
 hand which are no longer the fashion, it is because 
 I take it in sober earnest and with the deepest 
 respect. You have no more dangerous enemy, 
 gentlemen than those warj^, half-hearted and merely 
 insinuating critics. The least controversial age is 
 after all the most incredulous and frivolous one. If, 
 therefore, I am more candid and pointblank, it is 
 because I am more deferential to, more anxious 
 for intrinsic truth. Of course people will say that 
 it argues a want of tact to take things in that 
 way. 
 
 I shall often, in my life, have occasion to speak of 
 Christianity. How could I do otherwise ? The 
 glory of Christianity lies in the fact of its engrossing 
 still half of our earnest thoughts, of engrossing the 
 attention of all thinkers, of those who struggle as 
 well as of those who believe. I managed for a long 
 while to write and to think as if there were no 
 religions in the world, like so many rationalistic 
 philosophers who have written volumes upon volumes
 
 The Future of Science. 87 
 
 without broaching a word about Christianity. But 
 this abstention seemed to me subsequently so irre- 
 verent towards history, so partial, so great a denial 
 of all that is most sublime in human nature, that, at 
 the risk of offending inquisitors and philosophers 
 alike, I have made up my mind to take the human 
 intellect as it is and not to deprive myself of the 
 study of its more beautiful half. In my opinion 
 religions are worth speaking about and there is as 
 much philosophy in the study of them as in a few 
 chapters of dry and insipid moral philosophy. 
 
 The day is not far distant when with a little 
 candour on both sides and by the removal of mis- 
 understandings that divide those best fit to under- 
 stand one another, the world will be bound to admit 
 that the lofty perception of things, higher criticism, 
 deep love, truly divine art, and the sacred ideal of 
 morality are impossible except on the condition of 
 taking one's stand at the very outset in the divine ; 
 of declaring that everything which is pure, beautiful 
 and lovable is equally sacred and worthy of worship, 
 of considering everything that is as appertaining to 
 one sole order of things which is nature itself, as the 
 variety, the blossoming, the germination of a selfsame 
 and living substratum. 
 
 Science really worthy of the name is therefore 
 impossible except on the condition of most perfect 
 autonomy. Criticism is no respecter of things ; it 
 neither stops at mystery or prestige, it breaks every 
 charm, it pulls aside every veil. This power, utterly 
 lacking in reverence casting an unflinching and scru- 
 tinizing glance on everything alike, is from its very 
 essence guilty of high treason against the divine and 
 the human. It is the sole authority without control ; 
 it is the spiritual man of Saint Paul " who judgeth 
 all things, yet he himself is judged of no man." The 
 cause of criticism is the cause of rationalism, and the 
 cause of rationalism is the cause of the modern spirit 
 itself. To curse rationalism is to curse the whole 
 development of human intelligence from Petrarch
 
 38 The Future of Science. 
 
 and Bocaccio, that is, from the first appearance of 
 the critical spirit. It is crying back to the Middle 
 Ages. No, it is not that, because even the Middle 
 Ages had theii* bold attempts at rationalism. It is 
 tantamount to proclaiming the uncontrolled sway 
 of superstition and credulity. The real question at 
 issue is to know whether we are to go back five 
 centuries and to blame a development which was 
 evidently called for by the necessity of things. And 
 a j^riori and independently of all examination such 
 a development carries its own legitimacy with it, for 
 though the present century may not be infallibility 
 itself, it is symbolic of the moment, and if there be 
 an appeal against it, it must be an appeal to the 
 future, not to the past. If, in fact, we study the 
 march of modern criticism since Petrarch and 
 Bocaccio we shall find it always following the line 
 of its inflexible progress, overthrowing one after the 
 other all the idols of incomplete science, all the super- 
 stitions of the past. First of all it is Aristotle, the 
 god of mediaeval philosophy who succumbs beneath 
 the blows of the reformers of the fifteenth and seven- 
 teenth centuries with their grotesque procession of 
 Arabs and commentators ; then comes the turn of 
 Plato, who, set up for a little while against his rival, 
 his doctrines preached like the gospel, recovers his 
 dignity in droppiug once more from the rank of 
 prophet to that of man. After that it is the whole 
 of antiquity which resumes its real significance and 
 its importance — wrongly understood at first— in the 
 history of human intellect ; then comes Homer, the 
 ideal of ancient philology, who one day was missing 
 from his three thousand year old pedestal, and went 
 to drown himself in the fathomless ocean of humanity; 
 then comes the whole of primitive history, accepted 
 up till then in its grossest hteralness, which finds 
 ingenious interpreters, rationalistic hierophants who 
 lift the veil from before the old mysteries. Then 
 come writings hitherto considered sacred and which 
 tested by an ingenious and subtle exegesis become
 
 The Future of Science. 39 
 
 a most curious literature. Would you know what 
 the work of modern criticism is ? Well, it is simply 
 an admirable deciphering of a superstitious hiero- 
 glyph, it is the bold march from the letter to the 
 spirit. 
 
 The modern spirit, then, means criticism, well- 
 weighed intelligence. The belief in a revelation, in a 
 supernatural order of things is the negation of criti- 
 cism, it is the remains of the old anthropomorphic 
 conception of the world, conceived at a time when 
 man had not arrived at a clear perception of the laws 
 of nature. When speaking of the supernatural we 
 should say what Schleiermacher said of angels : " We 
 cannot prove their impossibility. Nevertheless, the 
 whole of this conception is such as to be impossible 
 in our days, it belongs exclusively to the idea of the 
 world as conceived by antiquit}^" (18). The belief in 
 miracles, in fact, is the consequence of an intellectual 
 view in which the world is considered as being 
 governed by fantasy and not by immutable laws. 
 No doubt, this is not the way in which the modern 
 supernaturalist looks at it. Compelled by science 
 which he dare not seriously offend to admit a stable 
 order of things in nature he falls back upon the sup- 
 position that the free action of God may change now 
 and then, and thus the miracle is conceived as a 
 deviation from the established laws. But this con- 
 ception, I repeat, was by no means that of primitive 
 man. The miracle in those days was not considered 
 as supernatural. The idea of the supernatural only 
 appears when the idea of the laws of nature has 
 been clearly formulated and makes its influence felt 
 even upon those who timidly attempt to reconcile 
 the marvellous and that which is proved by experi- 
 ment. It is one of the half-hearted compromises 
 between primitive ideas and the data of experiment 
 which are neither poetical nor scientific. To primi- 
 tive man the miracle was, on the contrary, perfectly 
 natural and confronted him at each step in life, or 
 to speak correctly, neither laws nor nature counted
 
 40 The Future of Science. 
 
 for much with those naive souls, perceiving every- 
 where the immediate action of free agents. The idea 
 of the laws of nature only appears very much later on 
 and only becomes accessible to cultivated intellects. 
 It is completely wanting in the savage and even 
 nowadaj'S the simple minded admit the miracle with- 
 out the smallest difficulty. 
 
 It is not from one argument only but from the 
 whole of modern science that the tremendous result 
 is derived. ''There is no such thing as the super- 
 natural." It is impossible to refute by direct argu- 
 ments one who persists in believing in it ; he will 
 snap his fingers at every a priori argument ; you 
 might just as well argue with the savage on the 
 absurdity of his fetishes. You cannot convert a 
 believer in fetichism ; the only means to bring him 
 to a superior religion is not to preach it to him 
 directly, for if he accepts it in that condition, he 
 Tvdll only accept it as another kind of fetichism, 
 but to civilize him, to raise him to the rung of the 
 human ladder to which that religion corresponds. 
 The orthodox supernaturalist is equally unassailable. 
 No logical or metaphysical argument has the slightest 
 effect on him. But by taking one's stand on a high 
 level of the development of human nature super- 
 naturalism appears only as a conception that has 
 been left behind. The sole cure of this strange 
 malady, which to the disgrace of civilization has not 
 disappeared as yet from humanity, is modern culture, 
 liaise the intellect to the level of science, nourish 
 it according to the rational method, and without a 
 struggle, without arguments those superannuated 
 superstitions will drop away. Since the dawn of 
 existence everything that has happened in the pheno- 
 menal world has been but the regular development 
 of tlie laws relating to such existences, laws that 
 constitute but one sole order of government which 
 is nature. Whosoever speaks of anything as being 
 above or beyond nature in the order of facts is guilty 
 of contradiction, just as one would be in speaking
 
 The Future of Science. 41 
 
 of the superdivine in the order of substances. It 
 is simply a vain attempt to rise above the highest. 
 All facts have for their stage space or mind. Nature 
 is simply human reason, it is the immutable, the ex- 
 clusion of everything savouring of the whimsical; and 
 our modern task will not be accomplished until we have 
 destroyed the belief in the supernatural, no matter 
 in what shape — the same that we have destroyed the 
 belief in magic, in witchcraft. All these belong to 
 the same order of things. Posterity will look upon 
 those who are fighting supernaturalism in our days 
 as we look upon those who fought against the belief 
 in magic in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
 No doubt, the latter rendered eminent service to 
 human reason, but their very victories have consigned 
 them to oblivion. It is the fate of all those who 
 fight against prejudices to be forgotten the moment 
 those prejudices disappear. Positive and experi- 
 mental science only, by imbuing man with a strong 
 sentiment of the reality of life, is capable of destroy- 
 ing supernaturalism. Metaphysical speculation is 
 far from attaining that object. India shows us the 
 curious phenomenon of perhaps the most powerful 
 metaphysical development ever realized by the human 
 mind side by side with the most exuberant mythology. 
 Speculations of the Kantian and Schelling order 
 have co-existed in the Brahmanic brain side by side 
 with fe;bles more extravagant than those sung by 
 
 f^^ideavouring to account for the motives that 
 caused me to cease to believe in the Christianity 
 that held my childhood and early youth spellbound, 
 it seems to me that the system of things, such as 
 I imderstand it to-day only differs from my first 
 conceptions in that I consider all the real facts as 
 
 belonging to the same order and that I have restored 
 to nature that which I formerly looked upon as 
 superior to nature. One is bound to admit that 
 there was something admirably powerful and lofty 
 in primitive supernaturalism, in the supernaturalism
 
 4 -J The Future of Science. 
 
 which created the mythologies of India and Greece 
 (19). I willingly forgive that supernaturalism, nay re- 
 gret it at times, hut it is no longer possible; reflection 
 has made too man}^ strides, and imagination has 
 cooled down too much to allow of such superb anti- 
 common sense. As for the half-hearted compromise 
 til at seeks to reconcile an enfeebled supernaturalism 
 with an intellectual condition incompatible with a 
 belief in the supernatural, such a compromise only 
 succeeds in outraging the most imperious scientific 
 instincts of modem times without reviving the 
 marvellous ancient poesy, henceforth and for ever 
 impossible. Everything or nothing ; absolute super- 
 naturalism or unreserved rationalism. 
 
 Simple faith has its charms, but semi-criticism 
 will never be anything but a burden to the spirit. 
 Tlie man who ponderously discusses fables shows 
 liimself as much of a simpleton and a gull though 
 far less of a poet than he who accepts them *' in a 
 lump." We look upon the hagiologists of the seven- 
 teenth century who in writing the " Lives of the 
 Saints " accepted certain miracles while rejecting 
 others as too extravagant as upon so many barbarians 
 — and not unjustly. It is very evident that with 
 such principles they should have rejected everything, 
 and from the artistic point of view we prefer for 
 instance the " Sainte-EUsabeth " of M. de Monta- 
 lembert where everything is unreservedly accepted. 
 In that case the line between the belief in nothing 
 and the belief in every thiug is very vague both as 
 regards the author and the reader. One may lean 
 towards the one or the other according to the mood 
 being rationalistic or poetic, while the work itself 
 preserves at least an indisputable value as a work 
 of art. That also was the beautiful and poetic 
 way of Plato, that is the secret of the matchless 
 charm which the half-sceptical, half-believing use of 
 popular myths imparts to his philosophy. But the 
 acceptance of a part can only proceed from a narrow 
 mind. Nothing can be less philosophical than to
 
 The Future of Science. 43 
 
 apply semi-criticism to narratives conceived beyond 
 all criticism. 
 
 Hence the task of modern criticism is to lay the 
 axe to every system of belief tainted with super- 
 naturalism. Islamism which, by a strange fate 
 scarcely constituted as a religion in its earlier years 
 has since then marched onward constantly acquiring 
 new degrees of strength and stability, Islamism, I say 
 will perish without striking a blow by the sheer in- 
 fluence of European science, and history will point 
 to our century as the one m which the first causes 
 of that immense event began to appear on the 
 horizon. The Turkish and Egyptian youth coming 
 to our schools in search of European science will 
 take back with them that which is its inseparable 
 corollary, the rational method, the spirit of experi- 
 ment, the sentiment of the real, the impossibility 
 of belief in religious traditions evidently conceived 
 beyond all sphere of criticism. Rigidly orthodox 
 Musulmans are already growing uneasy at this and 
 pointing out the danger to the emigrating younger 
 generation. Sheikh Rifaa in the interesting narra- 
 tive of his journey in Europe lays great stress on the 
 deplorable errors that disfigure our books on science, 
 such as for instance, the motion of the earth, etc. ; 
 and still deems it not utterly impossible to cleanse 
 them of this poison. It is, however, patent that 
 these heresies will shortly prove stronger than the 
 Koran with minds initiated to modern methods. I 
 fancy that there also will occur a Renaissance ana- 
 logous to that of Europe in the fifteenth century, 
 and which will be due, not to our literature, which 
 has no more meaning to the Oriental than had the 
 literature of the Greeks to the Arabs of the nmth 
 and tenth centuries, but to our science, which, like 
 that of the Greeks, having no stamp of nationality, 
 is a pure work of the human intellect (20). 
 
 I am aware that man has weakling, humble, 
 feminine instincts, a kind of yielding softness, if I 
 may so term it, possessing wide-spread analogies at
 
 44 The Future of Science. 
 
 which one guesses without wishing to define them 
 and which are as much perhaps the concern of the 
 physiologist as that of the psychologist v21), instincts 
 that suffer from the manly and firm attitude of 
 rationalism which sometimes looks like stiffness (22). 
 In the life of individuals, as in that of humanity 
 there is a kind of media)valism, a movement in 
 which reflection becomes veiled and obscured and 
 in which instinct takes the upper hand for the time 
 being. There are certain highly, delicately-strung 
 souls to whom it will ever be impossible to submit 
 to this severe system and austere discipline. Seeing 
 that those instincts are part and parcel of human 
 nature one should not blame them too much, and 
 the true moral and intellectual system will assign 
 their part to them ; but that part must never be 
 despondent depression or superstition. Great cala- 
 mities by humiliating man and blunting the edge 
 of his keenest and boldest faculties become in that 
 way a downright danger to rationalism and inspire 
 humanity, as illness inspires the individual with 
 a certain tendency to submission, abasement and 
 humiliation. A moisture-laden and enervating 
 breeze, relaxing our rigidity, loosening that which 
 held firm is wafted over us. One feels almost tempted 
 to strike one's breast in atonement for the bold- 
 ness felt while in good health, the mainsprings are 
 weakened, generous and vigorous instincts drop, one 
 feels a nameless inclination to become converted 
 and to kneel down. If the calamities of the Middle 
 Ages came back once more, the monasteries would 
 become peopled again, the superstitions of the 
 Middle Ages would return. The old beliefs have 
 no resource left but ignorance and public calamities. 
 Faith will always be in inverse ratio to vigour of 
 mind and intellectual culture (23). It is there in the 
 rear of humanity espying its weak moments to clasp 
 it in its arms and to pretend afterwards that it is 
 humanity which gave itself freely. As for ourselves 
 we will not yield, we will hold out like Ajax against
 
 The Future of Science. 45 
 
 the gods, if they count upon driving us back by 
 striking us they are mistaken. Shame upon the 
 timid ones that are afraid. Shame above all on those 
 cowards who take advantage of our misery, who 
 watch for the moment to conquer until misfortune 
 has already half-conquered us. 
 
 The everlasting objection which keeps away from 
 rationalism certain distinguished natures which from 
 their very delicacy of disposition feel the most urgent 
 need of belief, is the brevity of its creed, the con- 
 tradiction of its systems, the appearance of negation, 
 which imparts a look of scepticism to it. But 
 scantily gifted in the matter of intellect and critical 
 faculty they would like a ready made system uniting 
 a great many suffrages and lending itself to accept- 
 ance without intrinsic examination. "How," say 
 they, " can we put faith in those philosophers ; no 
 two speak in the same way " (24). All these objec- 
 tions are but the scruples of small minds, incapable 
 of rational discussion and only too glad of the oppor- 
 tunity of stopping at those outward characteristics ; 
 scruples, deserving of respect nevertheless, for they 
 are honest and imply faith in the truth. To reply to 
 these good and noble souls that it is a pity it should 
 be so, but that after all, rationalism is not to blame 
 for the inability of man to affirm so few things, that 
 it is better to affirm little with certainty than to 
 affirm that of which one has no legitimate knowledge, 
 that if the best intellectual system were that which 
 affirms most, none would be preferable to primitive 
 credulity which admits everything alike without 
 criticism, to reply all this to these gushing and un- 
 sophisticated souls would be tantamount to arguing 
 with an over excited appetite to prove that the 
 craving it feels is a morbid one. One must reply 
 only one thing and that one thing is the truth, 
 namely, that the brevity of the creed of science is 
 only so in appearance, that its contradictions are 
 only contradictions in appearance, that its negative 
 form is only so in appearance. Rational people con-
 
 46 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 tradict one another because they do not treat of the 
 same things, or because they treat the same things 
 from a different point of view. It is certain that two 
 men having had exactly the same education, having 
 gone through the same studies in exactly the same 
 manner would look at things exactly in the same way, 
 though they might feel differently. No doubt science 
 does not state its results like dogmatic theology, it 
 does not count its propositions, it does not stop at a 
 given number of its articles of belief. Its acquired 
 truths are not ponderous theorems, ostentatiously 
 "showing themselves off" for the benefit of the 
 coarsest intellects. They are merely delicate per- 
 ceptions, undefinable and even fugitive glimpses, 
 ways of framing one's idea rather than positive data, 
 ways of looking upon things absolutely undefinable ; 
 science is a culture of subtlety and delicacy rather 
 than a positive dogma. But the true form of moral 
 truths is, in reality, such that to apply to them those 
 inflexible moulds of mathematical sciences which are 
 only tit for truths of another order, and acquired by 
 different processes is tantamount to warping their 
 method. Plato has no symbol, no definite proposi- 
 tions, no fixed principles in the scholastic sense we 
 attach to the word ; to attempt to extract a dogmatic 
 theory from him is tantamount to warping his idea. 
 Still, Plato represents a spirit ; Plato is a religion. 
 A spirit, that is the thiug essential. The spirit is 
 everything, the positive dogma is little or nothing, 
 and the chauces are a thousand to one on its being 
 contradictory ; nay more, it must be fatally narrow, 
 if it be not contradictory. A spirit does not ex- 
 press itself by an analytical theory, in which every 
 point of science is successively elucidated. It is 
 neither by yes nor by no that it solves the delicate 
 problems it puts to itself. A spirit expresses itself 
 in its entirety at one and the selfsame time, it shows 
 itself in twenty pages as it would show itself in a 
 book ; in a book as it would show itself in a com- 
 plete collection of works. There is not a single
 
 The Future of Science. 47 
 
 dialogae of Plato which is not a philosophy in itself, 
 a -variation on the >selfsame, ever identical theme. 
 The word Voltairien expresses as clearly distinct and 
 as easily understood a shade as the word Gartesien ; 
 nevertheless Descartes has a system and Voltaire 
 has not. Descartes may be reduced to propositions, 
 Voltaire cannot be so reduced. But Voltaire has a 
 spirit, a way of taking things, the result of a whole 
 ensemble of intellectual habits. Eead through the 
 whole of his works and then say if it is not suf- 
 ficiently characteristic, whether the man has not 
 deliberately and definitely chosen his vantage point 
 to depict in his own way the grand landscape, 
 whether the man had not a system of life, a manner 
 exclusively his own of looking at things. When, oh 
 when shall we cease to be ponderous schoolmen, 
 insisting upon bits of phrases in geometrical fashion 
 on God, on the soul, on morality. We will suppose 
 those phrases to be as exact as possible, still they 
 must be false, radically false by reason of their 
 absurd attempts to define, to assign a limit to the 
 infinite. I would sooner you read me a dialogue of 
 Plato, a meditation of Lamartine, a page of Herder, 
 a scene of "Faust." These if you hke, contain a 
 philosophy, that is, a way of looking at life and 
 things. As for individual propositions each one 
 arranges them according to his own tendencies, and 
 this is the least important. But it worries small 
 minds who only like formulas of two or three lines, 
 easy to learn by rote. Then when they find that 
 each philosopher has his own, and that all this is 
 far from coinciding, they get grievously vexed in 
 spirit and wondrously impatient. "It is the tower 
 of Babel," they say, "each one speaks his own 
 tongue. Let us go to those whose propositions 
 stand better on their legs and to a creed settled once 
 foralL" 
 
 When I wish to initiate young minds to the science 
 of philosophy, I begin by no matter what subject, I 
 speak in a certain sense and in a certain tone ; I care
 
 48 The Future of Scie^ice. 
 
 little or nothing about their remembering the posi- 
 tive data I give them, I do not even attempt to prove 
 them, but I insinuate a certain spirit, a way, a turn ; 
 then when I have inoculated them with this new 
 sense, I leave them to search in their own way, to 
 build their temple according to their own style. For 
 there begins individual originality which we are 
 bound to respect rigorously. The positive results 
 of this order teach nothing, produce no effect, have 
 no value if transmitted in that way and merely ac- 
 cepted by rote. One must have been led to them, 
 one must have discovered them or guessed at them 
 almost before they left the lips of him who pro- 
 pounded them. Positive propositions are every one's 
 business ; the spirit only can be transmitted. I 
 frankly admit that I do not possess an ensevihle of 
 settled and clearly limited propositions constituting 
 a natural religion, nor do I think that science pos- 
 sesses such. But there is an intellectual standpoint 
 capable of being expressed in a book, not in a single 
 phrase, which is in itself a religion ; there is a lofty 
 and religious way of taking things, and that way is 
 my way. Those who have breathed — if only once in 
 their lives — the air of the unseen world, and tasted 
 of the ideal nectar, they will understand me (25). 
 
 It seems to me that it need not take long to find 
 out that too great a precision in things moral is as 
 uupliilosophical as it is unpoetical. Every system is 
 assailable by the very precision of it (26). How far 
 removed, for instance, are those admirable funeral 
 orations of Bossuet, in which he has commented 
 upon death in such magnificent language, how far 
 removed are they from that upon which our actual 
 mode of feeling would insist by reason of the cramped 
 and precise framework to wliich theology has reduced 
 the ideas concerning the future life. Nowadays, we 
 do not conceive an eloquent discourse over a tomb 
 without a doubt expressed in it, without an attempt 
 to draw the veil on what is beyond, with the mere 
 expression of a hope, left in the clouds as it were, a
 
 The Future of Science. 49 
 
 less eloquent standpoint perhaps, but certainly more 
 poetical and pliilosoptiical than a too definite dogma- 
 tism, supplying if I may be permitted to say so, the 
 map to the life to come. The savage of the Pacific 
 looks upon his island as the whole of the world. 
 Those who pretend to limit the lines of the infinite 
 are still more foolhardy. That is why of all studies 
 most brutalizing, most destructive of all poetry, 
 theology is the first. 
 
 A system means an epic on things. It would be 
 as absurd for a system to contain the last word on 
 reality as it would be for an epic to attempt to ex- 
 haust the whole range of the beautiful. An epic is 
 the more perfect in proportion as it corresponds best 
 with the whole of humanity, nevertheless after the 
 most perfect epic, the theme is still new and may 
 lend itself to infinite variations according to the 
 individual character of the poet, of the century or 
 nation to which he belongs. How can one have a 
 feeling for nature, how can one unrestrictedly inhale 
 the perfume of things if one only sees them in the 
 narrow and moulded forms of a system. I felt this 
 divinely one day on entering a small wood. But an 
 unseen hand repelled me as it were, because at that 
 moment I pictured nature under I know not what 
 physical aspect and I only became reconciled to the 
 idea by saying to myself that all this was but a trait 
 seized from the infinite, a vapour on a pure sky, a 
 fluting on a vast curtain. We must dismiss the 
 narrow conception of the schools, looking upon the 
 human mind as a machine perfectly exact and ade- 
 quate to the absolute. 'Views, glimpses, gleams of 
 light, perceptions, sensations, colours, physiognomies, 
 aspects, these are the forms under which the intellect 
 perceives things (27). Geometry alone can be re- 
 duced to axioms and theorems. Elsewhere the vague 
 is the true view. 
 
 The activity of human intelligence is such that 
 to confine it in too narrow a circle is to force it 
 into alienation. ! The right to think for one's self is
 
 50 TJie Future of Science. 
 
 imprescriptible, if you bar vast horizons to man, lie 
 will resort to subtle arguments in revenge, if _ you 
 impose a text upon liim he will escape from it by 
 using it in the wrong sense. The wrong sense or 
 nonsense is the revenge of the human intellect in 
 periods of authority on the fetters imposed on it ; it 
 is a protest against the text. This text is infallible, 
 very well. But it lends itself to various interpreta- 
 tions, and there begins anew the diversity, the simu- 
 lacrum of freedom with which one puts up, in default 
 of another. Under the regime of Aristotle, as under 
 that of the Bible people were permitted to think as 
 freely as they are nowadays but on the condition of 
 proving that such and such a thought was really in 
 Aristotle or in the Bible, which was after all, not 
 very difficult. The Talmud, the Masora, the Cabbala 
 are curious proofs of the capability of the human 
 intellect when fettered to a text. One begins to 
 count its letters, its words, its syllables, the material 
 sound gets to count far more than the sense, one 
 goes on multiplying the exegetical subtleties, the 
 modes of interpretation, like the starving wretch who, 
 after having devoured his hunk of bread, carefully 
 collects the crumbs thereof. All the commentaries 
 on sacred writings are like one another, from those of 
 Manu to those of the Bible, from those of the Bible to 
 those of the Koran. All are a protest of the human 
 intellect against the enslaving tendency of literal in- 
 terpretation ; a miserable attempt to fertilize a barren 
 field. When the mind does not find an object com- 
 mensurate with its activity, it is fain to create one 
 by a thousand tricks. 
 
 That which the human intellect is apt to do before 
 a text imposed, it does before a settled dogma. Why 
 were people so terribly bored in the seventeenth cen- 
 tury ? Why did Madame de Maintenon die of ennui 
 at Versailles ? Alas ! because there was no horizon. 
 What resource is there left to the prisoner chained 
 up opposite a dead wall of which he has counted the 
 bricks over and over again ? That is the very reason
 
 The Future of Science. 51 
 
 why this century of orthodoxy and rule was the 
 century of equivocation. It is the narrow rule that 
 breeds equivocation. Why is law the science of 
 equivocation ? Because one is cribbed and confined 
 on every side by formulas ? Why was equivocation 
 so universal in the Middle Ages ? Because Aristotle 
 was there. Why is theology from beginning to^ end 
 nothing more than a long-drawn subtlety ? Because 
 the authority is ever present ; one rubs shoulders with 
 it constantly, its uncomfortable pressure is felt at 
 every moment. It is a perpetual struggle between 
 liberty and the divine text. A spout of water, left 
 free uprises in a straight line, compressed, confined 
 it swerves and deviates. Similarly the intellect left 
 free operates normally, compressed it subtilizes. 
 
 I am convinced that if minds cultivated by the 
 study of rational science were to interrogate them- 
 selves, they would find that, without formulating any 
 proposition capable of being reduced to one sentence, 
 they have sufficiently clear views on vital matters, 
 and that these views variously expressed for every 
 one come to about the selfsame thing ; only they do 
 not happen to be fixed into hard and fast forms and 
 settled once for all. Hence springs the individual 
 shade of all philosophies, and above all of German 
 philosophies. Each system is merely the way in 
 which an eminent mind has looked at the world, a 
 way always deeply stamped with the individuality of 
 the thinker. I do not doubt that each of these 
 systems assumed the shape of a very great truth in 
 the brain of its author, but the very fact of their 
 individuahty renders them incapable of being com- 
 municated and demonstrated (28). They are pure ex- 
 planatory hypotheses, like those applied to physics, but 
 which do not prevent the subsequent trial of others. 
 We must not absolutely say that it is thus for we 
 cannot have a conception adequate to primordial 
 causes ; all we can say is that things happen as if 
 it were thus (29). It is impossible for two well 
 ordered minds to look upon the same things and to
 
 52 The Future of Science. 
 
 come to a different conclusion. If the one says, 
 "Yes," and the other, " No," it is evident that they 
 do not speak of the same thing or that they do not 
 attach the same sense to the same words (30). That 
 is what Hegel meant when he averred that every 
 thinker is at liberty to create the world in his own 
 fashion. 
 
 It is not surprising, then, that the orthodox man 
 should be able to lock up his beliefs in a safer way 
 than the philosopher. Orthodoxy puts, if I may be 
 allowed to say so, the whole of its vital provision in 
 a hard and resisting tube, which is an outward and 
 palpable fact ; revelation, a kind of carapace that 
 protects, but at the same time, makes, it heavy and 
 ungraceful. The faith of the philosopher, on the 
 contrary is always nude, clad in nothing but its 
 simple beauty. One may fancy the temptation it 
 affords to brutal outrage. But the day will come 
 when the stiletto of criticism will in its turn, pierce 
 the carapace of the believer and reach the human 
 nature within. 
 
 Truth, to the thinker, is only a more or less ad- 
 vanced but always incomplete form, or at any rate 
 a form capable of being perfected. Orthodoxy, on 
 the other hand, petrified, stereotj^ped in its forms, 
 can never cast off its past. Seeing that it pretends 
 to have been made at one sitting and in one piece 
 it places itself beyond the pale of progress, it be- 
 comes rigid, overbearing, unbending, and while philo- 
 sophy is always abreast with humanity, theology at 
 a certain period lags behind. For it is immutable 
 and humanity marches onward. Not that theology 
 has not been forced to march now and then like the 
 rest. But it denies this, it lies to history, it warps 
 all criticism in order to prove that its actual state is 
 its primitive one, and it is obliged to do this on the 
 penalty of forfeiting the conditions of its existence. 
 The philosopher on the contrary, conceives under no 
 circumstances either absolute retrogression or pre- 
 determined immobility. He recommends concession
 
 The Future of Science. 53 
 
 to the successive modifications brought about by 
 time, without ever categorically severing one's self 
 from the past any more than being its slave. He 
 has no wish to deny that past, but endeavours to 
 explain it in a new sense, to show the part of ill- 
 defined truth it contained. There is nothing con- 
 tradictory in a philosopher exceeding the limits of 
 his own philosophy, in using several systems, by 
 which I mean several not equally perfect expressions 
 of tl uq truth ; this simply redounds to his honour, 
 flxhe problem of philosophy is ever new, it will 
 uever attain a definite formula, and the day we shall 
 be satisfied to abide by the assertions of the past by 
 accepting them as so many absolute truths, incapable 
 of reconstruction, that day will sound the death-knell 
 of philosophy. The orthodox man is never more 
 annoying than when, pluming himself upon his 
 immobility, he twits the thinker with his fluctuations 
 and philosophy with its constant modifications (31). 
 It is exactly those very modifications which prove 
 that philosophy is truth ; through them it is in 
 harmony with human nature, always in travail and 
 happily condemned to obtain all its conquests in 
 the sweat of its brow. Only that which is not pro- 
 gressive does not vary. There is nothing more 
 motionless than the nonentity who has never lived 
 the intellectual life, or the dullard who has never 
 seen aught but one side of things. The way not to 
 vary is not to think. If orthodoxy is immutable it 
 is simply because it has placed itself beyond the pale 
 of human nature and reason. 
 
 And I pray you not to say that this is scepticism. 
 It is criticism, that is, the ultimate and transcen- 
 dental discussion of what at first was admitted 
 without sufiicient inquiry, in order to deduce from 
 it a purer and more advanced truth. It is high 
 time that we should accustom ourselves to call 
 sceptics all those who do not believe as yet in the 
 religion of the modern spirit, and who still lingering 
 around effete systems, deny with blind hatred the
 
 54 The Future of Science. 
 
 acquired dogmas of the living century. We accept 
 the inheritance of the three great modern move- 
 ments ; protestantism, philosophy and the revolution, 
 without having the slightest inclination to become 
 converts to the symbols of the sixteenth century, 
 or Voltairians or to recommence another 1793 or 
 1848. There is not the shghtest need for us to 
 recommence what our fathers accomj)lished. Their 
 work is summed up in liberalism, we shall know how 
 to continue that work. 
 
 In logic, in morality, in politics man aspires to the 
 attainment of something absolute. Those who base 
 human knowledge, and duty and government on 
 human nature appear to deprive themselves of such 
 a foundation; for unhampered inquiry means dissent, 
 variety of views. It seems easier, therefore, to seek 
 for knowledge, morality and politics a basis outside 
 man, a revelation, a right divine for instance. It is 
 unfortunate that there exists nothing of the kind ; 
 that such a revelation would first of all have to be 
 proved, that it is not proved, and that if it were 
 proved, it could only be proved by reason, that con- 
 sequently diversity would uprise again with regard 
 to the appreciation of those proofs. Hence, it is 
 better to remain within the field of human nature, 
 to look for the absolute only in science and to do 
 away with all those timid palliatives which only pro- 
 duce illusions and postpone the difficulty. 
 
 Nowadaj^s there are only two systems confronting 
 one another ; one portion of humanity, despairing of 
 reason, believing it to be condemned to eternal con- 
 tradiction of itself, frantically embrace an outside 
 authority and become believers through scepticism 
 (a Jesuitical system; authority, the director, the 
 pope substituted for reason, for God). The other 
 portion from a more profound view of the march of 
 human intellect perceive progress and unity beneath 
 apparent contradictions. But let us remember this, 
 for it is essential ; unless one believes from instinct, 
 like the most simple minded, one can only believe
 
 The Future of Science. 55 
 
 from scepticism ; to despair of philosophy has become 
 the first basis of theology. I love and admire this 
 grand despairing scepticism the expression of which 
 has endowed modern literature with so many admir- 
 able works. But I can only laugh at and be disgusted 
 with that petty irony of human nature which results 
 in superstition and pretends to cure Byron by preach- 
 ing the Pope to him. 
 
 A great deal is said nowadays about the accordance 
 of human reason with faith, of science with revelation, 
 and some pedants who wish to make themselves in- 
 teresting and to pose as impartial and superior minds 
 have made this a theme full of ambiguity and frivo- 
 lous nonsense. The principal thing is to understand 
 one another. If revelation be really what it pretends 
 to be, the word of God, it is but too clear that it is 
 master, that it has no need to enter into a pact with 
 science, that the latter can only pack up its traps 
 in presence of this infallible authority, and that its 
 role (that of science) would be reduced to that of 
 serva et pedissequa, to comment upon or to explain 
 the revealed word. From that moment also the 
 custodians of this revealed word will be superior to 
 the investigators of human science, or rather they 
 will be the only power before which the other will 
 vanish, like the human before the divine. No doubt, 
 truth not admitting of self-contradiction, one would 
 be bound to conclude that sound science could not 
 very well contradict revelation. But seeing that 
 the latter is infallible and more clear, if science 
 appears to contradict it, one will conclude that it is 
 not sound science and impose silence on its objections. 
 But if, on the contrary, the fact of the revelation is 
 not real, or if at any rate, there is nothing super- 
 natural about it, then religions are nothing more 
 than human creations and the whole matter is re- 
 duced to the finding of the reason for the different 
 fictions of the human intellect. On such an hypothesis 
 man himself has done everything by means of his 
 natural faculties, in one case spontaneously and in
 
 56 The Future of Science. 
 
 the dark ; in the other scientifically and reflectingly ; 
 but in sum man has done everything, he finds him- 
 self everywhere face to face ^ith his own authority 
 and with his own work. The theologians are right 
 when they say that before everything one should 
 discuss the fact ; is this doctrine the word of God ? 
 And whether we reply yea or nay, the so-called 
 problem of the agreement between faith and reason, 
 supposLQg as it does two equal powers which it is 
 necessary to reconcile, is utterly devoid of sense ; for 
 in the first case, reason vanishes in the presence 
 of faith, like the finite betore the infinite and the 
 strictest orthodoxy has right on its side ; in the 
 second case there remains nothing but reason, mani- 
 festkig itself in various ways, but nevertheless always 
 remaining identical with it|fiLJp2). 
 
 It is you who are the 'sceptics, and we are the 
 believers. We believe in the work of modern days, 
 in its sanctity, in its future, it is you who curse it. 
 We believe in reason and you insult it ; we believe 
 in humanity, in its godlike destinies, in its imperish- 
 able future, and you laugh at it ; we beheve in the 
 dignity of man, in the goodness of his nature, in 
 the rectitude of his heart, in his right to attain the 
 perfect state, and you shake your head at these com- 
 forting truths and you complacently lay stress on the 
 evil, and the most saintUke aspirations towards a 
 divine ideahsm, you denounce them as the works of 
 Satan, and you talk of rebelUon, of sin, of punish- 
 ment, of expiation, of humiliation, of penitence, of 
 the hangman to him who should hear no words from 
 your lips save those of deification and expansion. 
 We believe in everything that is true, we love every- 
 thing that is beautiful (33) ; and you, wilfully blind 
 to the infinite charm of things, you pass through this 
 beautiful world of ours without deigning to bestow 
 a smile upon it. Is the world a cemetery and life 
 a funeral procession ? Instead of the reality you 
 cherish an abstraction. Which of us denies, you or 
 we ? And he who denies is he not the sceptic ?
 
 The Future of Science. 57 
 
 Our rationalism, therefore, is not that hauteur, ana- | 
 lytical, dry, negative, incapable of understanding the ' 
 things of the heart and the imagination which was 
 inaugurated by the eighteenth century ; it is not the 
 exclusive use of what has been called "the acid of 
 reasoning; " it is not the positive philosophy of M. , 
 Auguste Comte, nor the irreligious criticism of M. ', 
 Proudhon. It is the acknowledgment of human 
 nature, hallowed in all its parts, it is the simultaneous 
 and harmonious use of all the faculties, it is the ex>-^ 
 elusion of all exclusiveness. According to our views 
 M. de Lamartine is a rationalist, still in a more 
 restricted sense, he would no doubt deny this title, 
 seeing that he himself tells us that he attains his re- 
 sults not by combination or reasoning but by instinct 
 and direct intuition. Until now criticism has been 
 conceived as being only a dissolving agent, an analysis 
 destroying life ; from a more advanced point of view 
 it will be understood that higher criticism is only 
 possible on the condition of giving the whole of human 
 nature full play, and that reciprocally a higher love 
 and a great admiration are only possible on condition 
 of criticism. The pretended poetical natures who 
 imagined they could get to the true sense of things 
 without science will then turn out to be so many 
 chimera-mongers, and the austere savants who shall 
 have neglected the more delicate gifts whether from 
 scientific virtue or from a compulsory contempt of 
 what they did not possess will remind us of the in- 
 genious myth of the daughters of Minyas who were 
 changed into bats for having been unable to do any- 
 thing but argue in the presence of symbols to which 
 a more generous method of elucidation should have 
 been applied. 
 
 History appears to raise an objection against 
 science, criticism, rationalism, civilization — synony- 
 mous terms after all — which it is expedient to ex- 
 plain. It seems in fact to show us the most cul- 
 tured people always a prey to the most barbarous 
 people ; Athens to Macedonia, Greece to the Eomans,
 
 58 The Future of Science. 
 
 the Eomans to the barbarians, the Chinese to the 
 Manchoos. The process of thinking is a wearing 
 one. Our middle class families which in reality have 
 only been conscious of their own strength for one 
 or two generations are already wearing out. The 
 half-century that has elapsed since 1789 has ex- 
 hausted them to a greater extent than the innumer- 
 able generations of primitive darkness. Too much 
 knowledge aj^parently weakens humanity, a people of 
 philologists, thinkers and critics would probably be 
 too weak to defend its own civilization. The Ger- 
 many of the beginning of the century gave way dis- 
 gracefully to France and yet how superior from a 
 mental point of view was the Germany of Goethe and 
 Kant to the France of Napoleon. Barbarism being 
 unconscious of its own powers, is obedient and pas- 
 sive ; the individual, unaware of his individual worth 
 is lost in the masses, and obeys the command as he 
 would fate. Passive obedience is only possible on 
 the condition of stupidity. The man who thinks for 
 himself, on the other hand, calculates his interests 
 too well and asks himself with that feeling of posi- 
 tiveness which he applies to all things whether it is 
 really his interest to get himself killed. Besides, he 
 clings more tenaciously to life and the reason is plain 
 enough. His individualism is much stronger than 
 that of the barbarian, civilized man says I with un- 
 paralleled energy ; with the barbarian on the con- 
 trary, life is scarcely raised one degree above the level 
 of the dull sensation that constitutes the life of 
 the animal. He does not resist, for the reason that 
 he barely exists. Hence the contempt for human 
 life (for his own as well as that of others) which is 
 the secret of the barbarian's heroism. The culti- 
 vated man whose life has a real value, sets too much 
 store by it to stake it casually (34). Brutal strength 
 appears to him such an extravagant idea that he 
 revolts against such absurd means and cannot make 
 up his mind to pit himself against weapons which 
 a savage handles better than he does. In those rude
 
 The Future of Science. 59 
 
 struggles the most benighted conscience is the best ; 
 personality, reflection are simply so many causes of 
 inferiority. Hence, the liberty to think for one's 
 self has up till now been by no means favourable to 
 enterprises requiring the abdication of their individu- 
 ality by masses of men in order to yoke themselves 
 to the vehicle of a grand idea and to drag it majes- 
 tically through the world. What would Napoleon 
 have done with an army of reasoners ? 
 
 This is a real contradiction which like so many 
 others, cannot be cyphered away except by acknow- 
 ledging that humanity is as yet far removed from its 
 normal condition. While one portion of humanity 
 is still leading a brutal life, misunderstanding and evil 
 passions will succeed in exploiting barbarian humanity 
 against civilized humanity and in letting loose the 
 ferocious brute on reasonable men. The critics are 
 right, whether they are the stronger or the weaker 
 does not prevent them from being in the right, and 
 if they fall, it simply proves that the actual condition 
 of humanity is still far distant from the point when 
 justice and reason will be the only real forces as 
 they are the only legitimate ones. 
 
 Bear in mind, I pray you, that this is not a mere 
 academic question, a dream discussed in an idle hour. 
 It is the question of humanity itself and the legiti- 
 macy of its nature. If humanity is so constituted 
 as to require necessary illusions, if too much refine- 
 ment leads to dissolution and weakness, if too great 
 a knowledge of the reality of things becomes in- 
 jurious to it, if it wants superstitions and incomplete 
 views, if the legitimate and necessary development 
 of its own being prove its own degradation, then 
 humanity is badly constituted, it is based on false 
 foundations, it is only travelling towards its own 
 destruction, because those who have conquered 
 thanks to their illusions will be forcibly brought to 
 their own disillusion afterwards by civilization and 
 rationalism. Under such circumstances our symbol 
 is destroyed, for our symbol is the legitimacy of pro-
 
 60 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 gress. And ou this hypothesis, humanity would find 
 itself in a blind alley, its line of route would not be 
 the straight one, proceeding towards the infinite, 
 seeing that pushing forward and forward it would 
 discover in the end that it had gone backward. The 
 law, which in such a case one would have to enjoin 
 on human nature would no longer be to exert all its 
 strength in the attainment of the absolute, civiliza- 
 tion would have its inaximum, arrived at by an equi- 
 librium of opposites, and wisdom would consist in 
 stopping at that. The question, in one word, comes 
 to this ; the law of humanity is either an expression 
 such that by increasing all its variable quantities, one 
 increases the total value ; or else it must be assimi- 
 lated to those expressions that attain a tnaximum, 
 beyond which any addition brought to the several 
 factors results in a decrease of the total value. 
 
 Happy will they be who by means of a definite 
 experiment will be enabled to oppose a proved answer 
 to these terrible apprehensions. Our affirmations in 
 that respect may perhaps possess some of the merit of 
 faith which believes without having seen, and truth 
 to tell, when one looks at isolated facts, optimism 
 appears a very gratuitous liberality to God. As 
 for myself, if I were to see humanity collapse on its 
 own foundations, mankind slaughter one another in 
 some fateful darkness, if I were to see all this, I 
 should still go on proclaiming the rectitude of human 
 nature, that perfection is its final aim, that misunder- 
 standings will disappear, and that the day must come 
 when reason and perfection shall reign supreme. 
 Then we shall be remembered, and some will say; 
 "Oh, how they must have suff"ered." We must 
 take care not to assimilate our civilization and our 
 rationalism to the fictitious culture of antiquity and 
 above all to that of degenerate Greece. Our eighteenth 
 century was no doubt an epoch of moral depression, 
 nevertheless it closed with the greatest eruption of 
 devotion, of abnegation of life recorded in history. 
 Those philosophers, those Girondists who so proudly
 
 The Future of Science. 61 
 
 marched to the scaffold were they nothing more than 
 quaking rhetoricians ? Was it a superstitious illusion 
 that strengthened those noble souls ? There exists, 
 I know, a generation of egotists, a generation that 
 has grown up in the shadow of a prolonged peace, a 
 sceptical generation, born under the star of Mercury, 
 without faith or love, which at the first blush, seems 
 to be governing the world. But even if this were so, 
 we should not despair of humanity, without a doubt, 
 for humanity does not die, but we should have to 
 despair of France. But, after all, are these the men 
 whom in good faith, Ve ought to oppose as an ob- 
 jection to science and philosophy ? Is it too much 
 knowledge that has taken the muscle and marrow out 
 of them ? Is it too much thought that has destroyed 
 all feeling of patriotism and honour in them ? Is it 
 their too frequent excursions to the realms of the 
 intellect that have made them unfit for great things ? 
 They whose minds are closed to every idea, whose 
 only science is that of a fictitious world, whose philo- 
 sophy consists ctf frivoHty. For Heaven's sake, do 
 not talk to me of these men when we are discussing 
 philosophy and civilization. Even if it be proved 
 that the tone of the society which became more and 
 more powerful under Louis-Philippe was calculated to 
 hamstring all noble effort, it would be no argument 
 agaipst the society which will be brought to the front 
 by reason and human nature in its frankest and truest 
 development. Even if the final impotency of the 
 of&cial world were proved, if it were proved incapable 
 of creating aught original and strong, it would not 
 justify us in despairing of humanity, for humanity dis- 
 poses of unknown sources whither it goes constantly 
 to renew its youth. Is it too much rationalism that 
 has ruined unhappy Italy, which at the present moment 
 presents to us the deplorable spectacle of a member 
 of humanity stricken with paralysis ? Is it too much 
 criticism that has^ dried up the vessels that gave it 
 life ? Was it not stronger and more beautiful in the 
 fifteenth, and in the first half of the sixteenth, cen-
 
 62 The Future of Science. 
 
 turies, when it was the pioneer of the whole of Europe 
 along the roads of civilization, and spread its shelter- 
 ing wings over the boldest of rationalism ? Is it its 
 religious beliefs that have preserved its vigour ? Was 
 not the pagan Italy of Julius II. and Leo X. worth the 
 exclusively Catholic Italy of Pius V. and the Council 
 of Trent ? To knock down the Capitol or the Temple 
 of Jupiter Stator would have been tantamount to 
 overthrow Kome. Such things should no longer be 
 possible among modern nations, seeing that the rest 
 and be thankful in the matter of religious creeds is 
 sufficient to enervate a nation (35). A few months 
 ago the people of Eome cast their church bells into 
 the melting pot to make coppers of them. No doubt 
 if the religion of the moderns were like that of the 
 ancients, the spinal marrow of the nation itself, this 
 would have been a great piece of absurdity. One 
 might as well profess to enrich France by converting 
 the Vendome Column into money. But what are 
 people to do when the gods are departed ? Sym- 
 machus asking for the restoration of the altar dedi- 
 cated to Victory was simply playing the rhetorician.* 
 Seeing that antiquity never understood the great 
 object of literary culture, having always looked upon 
 it as a kind of mental drill with a view to " speaking 
 well," it is not very surprising that the strong and 
 energetic natures of those days should have so severely 
 condemned the puerile system of the rhetoricians and 
 the meretricious and sophistical education they im- 
 parted to the young. The ideal of virtue as conceived 
 by serious minded men was the rough and unculti- 
 vated character and their ideal of a society consisted 
 in a development exclusively tending to devotion to 
 the country and well-doing (Sparta, ancient Eome, 
 etc.). And seeing that literary culture was found 
 to be subversive of such a state, that culture was 
 denounced as offering the greater facility to the 
 
 * Symmachus, Prefect of Eome 384 of the Christian Era, CobsuI 
 in 391, reported to be the last adherent and advocate of Paganism 
 in the West. — Transl.
 
 The Future of Science. 63 
 
 enemy to vanquish. Hence those commonplaces 
 about the superiority of -well-doing over eloquent talk- 
 ing, of rough hewn virtue over refined civiHzation, 
 the contempt of the Grcecidus, primed with grammar, 
 etc. In our days all this would be so much nonsense. 
 From our point of view, Sparta and ancient Eome 
 represent, in fact, one of the most imperfect con- 
 ditions of humanity, seeing that one of the essential 
 elements of our nature, thought, intellectual perfec- 
 tion was utterly neglected there. No doubt the 
 simple and genuine cultivation of the love of country 
 is superior to that artificial culture of the latter days 
 of the empire, and if anything could inspire one with 
 fear for the future of modern civilization it would be 
 the fact that the so-called classical education given to 
 our young generation resembles that of that lament- 
 able epoch. But there is nothing superior to science 
 and to the grand and purely human civilization, and 
 it is only the superficial mind that could compare 
 this grand form of complete life to the artificial 
 centuries in which a man could have no noble senti- 
 ment apart from a rhetorical reminiscence, when he 
 sent for a philosopher to hear the reading of a Conso- 
 lation when he had lost his nearest and dearest, and 
 when people on their death-beds pulled fi'om their 
 pockets a speech prepared for the occasion. 
 
 Thus, if civilization were to founder once more in 
 presence of barbarism, it could not be argued as an 
 objection against it. It would have right on its side 
 even beyond that. It would once more vanquish its 
 conquerors, and so it will be always until the day 
 when there will be no longer any one to conquer, and 
 when sole mistress it will reign in its own right. 
 What does it matter by whom the work of civilization 
 and the welfare of humanity be accomplished ? In 
 the eyes of God and posterity, Eussians and French 
 are only so many human beings. We only appeal 
 to the principle of nationality when the nation 
 oppressed is superior intellectually to that which 
 oppresses her. The absolute partisans of nationality
 
 64 The Future of Science. 
 
 can only be narrow-minded people. Humanitarian 
 perfection is the aim, and from that point of view 
 civilization is always triumphant ; and it would be 
 strange indeed if an invisible weight dragged down 
 humanity in that sense, if that sense meant only 
 degeneration. 
 
 From the point of view of humanity there is no 
 'such thiug as decline. Decline is a word that ought 
 to be banished once for all from the philosophy of 
 history. Where does the decline of Kome begin ? 
 The narrow-minded, ever concerned with the preser- 
 vation of ancient habits and customs will aver that 
 it is after the Punic wars, that is, just at the very 
 moment when the preliminaries having been laid 
 down, Rome begins her mission and gets rid of the 
 habits of her infancy, which henceforth have become 
 impossible to her. Those who are preoccupied with 
 the idea of the republic will place the fatal line at 
 the battle of Actium ; they are the poor folk who 
 would have committed suicide in company with 
 Brutus ; they fancy they can see death in what was 
 after all but the crisis of ripe age. Can that decline 
 be placed with greater justice in the fourth century, 
 when the work of Eoman assimilation is at its height, 
 or in the fifth, when Rome imposes her civilization on 
 the barbarians that invade her ? And when we look 
 at Greece fi'om the Homeric times to the days of 
 Heraclius, where is her decline ? Is it at the epoch 
 of Philip, when she is on the eve of making her 
 brilliant first appearance in the work of humanisation 
 through Alexander ? Is it during the domination of 
 Rome, when she becomes the cradle of Christianity ? 
 bo true is it that the word decline has no sense 
 except from the narrow point of view of politics and 
 nationalities, not fi'om the grand and wide point of 
 view of the work of humanisation. When atrophy 
 takes hold of certain races, humanity has always 
 a sufficient reserve of living forces left to make good 
 such deficiencies. And if it be apprehended that 
 humanity having exhausted all its reserve stock be
 
 The Future of Science. 65 
 
 one day in the position of each nation in particular, 
 my answer must be that before then humanity will 
 no doubt have become stronger than all the destruc- 
 tive causes put together. In our actual condition, 
 criticism carried to extremes causes moral and phy- 
 sical weakness, in the normal condition science will 
 become the mother of streugth. Seeing that hitherto 
 science has only appeared in the guise of criticism, 
 it is difficult to conceive its ever becoming a powerful 
 active motor. Such will be the case, nevertheless, 
 the moment it has succeeded in creating in the 
 moral world a conviction equal to that produced of 
 yore by religious faith. All the arguments deduced 
 from the past in order to prove the impotence of 
 philosophy are no proofs at all with regard to the 
 future, for the past has only been a necessary intro- 
 duction to the grand era. Reflection has as yet not 
 shown itself as a creative power. Let us wait a 
 while, let us wait a while. . . . 
 
 Many of my readers will no doubt be surprised at 
 my frequent appeals to the future. It is because I 
 am really convinced that the majority of the argu- 
 ments advanced apologetically in behalf of science 
 and modern civilization are very faulty and lay them- 
 selves open to the attacks of the retrogressive schools 
 if they, the arguments, are to be considered by them- 
 selves and irrespective of the ulterior condition of 
 things to which they will have contributed. The 
 only means of understanding and justifying the 
 modern spirit is to look upon it as a necessary 
 stage towards the perfect, in other words, towards 
 the future. And this appeal is not the mere act of 
 blind faith which falls back upon the unknown. It 
 is the legitimate result emanating from the whole of 
 the history of the human intellect. '' Hope," says 
 G-eorge Sand, " is the faith of this century." 
 
 Side by side with theological dogmatism which 
 makes science useless and robs it of its dignity we 
 must place another dogmatism, still more narrow and 
 more absolute, that of superficial common sense.
 
 GO Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 which in reality is only so much self-sufficiency and 
 emptiness, and which not perceiving the difficulties 
 of problems, thinks it strange that their solution 
 should be looked for outside the beaten track. It is 
 too evident that the common sense in question is 
 not that resulting from straightforward action of the 
 human faculties on a sufficiently well-known subject. 
 The one I am tilting against is a somewhat rather 
 equivocal quality the exclusive possession of which 
 small minds claim for themselves and which they 
 liberally grant to those who agree with them, the 
 subtle triviality which succeeds in investing every- 
 thing with an appearance of evidence. Now, it is very 
 evident that common sense, thus understood, cannot 
 make up for science in its search for truth. First of 
 all, let us remember that the superficial minds who 
 are constantly appealing to common sense designate 
 by that name the very special and very limited form 
 of customs and habits under w^hich they happen to 
 have been born. Their common sense is the way of 
 looking at things of their century or of their province. 
 Only he who has systematically compared the various 
 facets of humanity would have the right to make 
 this appeal to universal opinions. Besides is it 
 common sense which will give me philosophical, 
 historical, philological knowledge, all of which are 
 necessary for the criticism of the most important 
 truths ? Common sense has every right to speak 
 when it comes to establishing the bases of morality 
 and psychology, seeing that in that case it is only 
 necessary to note that which appertains to human 
 nature, which should only be looked for in its general, 
 consequently in its most commonplace expression, 
 but common sense is only ponderous and clumsy 
 when it pretends to solve by itself problems, to the 
 elucidation of which divination is more essential 
 than sight, in connection with which one has to 
 catch a thousand shades almost imperceptible, to 
 pursue hidden and secret analogies. Common sense 
 is partial ; it always looks at its opinion from the
 
 The Future of Science. Q7 
 
 inside, it never emerges from it to judge it from the 
 outside. It so happens, however, that nearly every 
 opinion is true in itself, but only relatively true with 
 regard to the point of view whence it is conceived. 
 The really true in moral and historical sciences 
 appeals to subtle and refined intellects only, the same 
 that mathematics appeal to the systematic intellect 
 only. The truths of criticism do not lie on its surface, 
 they almost look like paradoxes, they do not plant 
 themselves, visible from all sides before the ordinary 
 understanding like theorems of geometry, they are 
 fugitive flashes of which the eye just catches a 
 glimpse, which one perceives in an absolutely indi- 
 vidual way, and which it becomes almost impossible 
 to communicate to others. The only resource left is 
 to bring the other minds to the same point of view 
 in order to show them things from the same side. 
 What business has this vulgar common sense, with 
 its blustering ways, loud voice and self-satisfied 
 laughter in that world of finesse and subtle thought ? 
 I can make neither head nor tail of it is its last and 
 sovereign sentence, and how very easy indeed is it 
 to say that much. The self-sufficient tone it assumes 
 when face to face with the results of science and 
 thought is one of the most aggravating nuisances 
 the thinker has to contend with. It unhinges him^ 
 and if he be not a philosopher at heart, he cannot 
 help getting annoyed with those who abuse their 
 privilege in that way against his dehcate and feeble 
 voice. 
 
 Hence it is inadmissible to appeal from science 
 to common sense, seeing that science is only en- 
 Hghtened common sense operating knowingly. The 
 really true is no doubt the voice of human nature, 
 but of nature fittingly developed and brought by 
 culture to its utmost capacity.
 
 68 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 CHAPTEE) IV. 
 
 Science has no enemies save those who consider truth 
 as useless and making no difference, and those who 
 granting to truth its priceless value profess to get at 
 it by other roads than those of criticism and rational 
 investigation. The latter are, no doubt to be pitied 
 as having strayed from the right method of the 
 human intellect, but they at any rate recognize the 
 ideal aim of life ; they may come to an understand- 
 ing and to a certain extent sympathize with the man 
 of science. As for those who despise science as they 
 despise lofty poetry, as they despise virtue, because 
 their degraded soul only understands the perishable, 
 we have nothing to say to them. They belong to 
 another world, they do not deserve the name of men, 
 seeing that they are without the faculty which con- 
 stitutes the noble prerogative of humanity. We are 
 rather proud that they should look upon us as men 
 of another age, as fools and dreamers, we glory in 
 knowing the routine of life less well than they do, 
 we delight in proclaiming our studies to be useless ; 
 their contem^Dt for them makes them valuable to us. 
 These men are the immoral ones, the atheists who 
 are impervious to every breath coming from on high. 
 The atheist is the indifferent, the superficial and 
 frivolous who has no cult save that of interest and 
 self-gratification. England to all appearance one of 
 the most religious countries of the world is in fact 
 the most atheistic ; for it is the least ideal. Unlike 
 some of the Latin orators I do not wish to fall into
 
 The Future of Science. G9 
 
 the convicium saeculi. I believe that there exist in 
 the souls of the nineteenth century just as many 
 intellectual needs as in those of any other epoch, and 
 am convinced that at no time v^ere there so many 
 minds open to criticism. The misfortune is that 
 the prevailing frivolity condemns them to form a 
 world apart, and that the aristocracy of the century, 
 which is that of wealth, has as a rule lost the ideal 
 sense of life. I am only speaking conjecturally ; for 
 that world is utterly unknown to me and it would be 
 easier to me to quote illustrious exceptions than ex- 
 actly point out those at whom in this instance my 
 reproach is aimed. Nevertheless it seems to me that 
 a society which de facto only encourages a wretched 
 literature in which everything is reduced to measure 
 and adjustment, that a society which finds no middle 
 course between an absence of moral ideas and a reli- 
 gion which it has first ^^ boned'' to make it more 
 acceptable, that such a society, I repeat, is far from 
 the true and grand sentiments of humanity. The 
 future is with those who taking life seriously, come 
 back to the eternal foundation of truth, that is to 
 human nature, taken in the mass and not in its 
 extreme refinements. For humanity will always be 
 serious, believing, religious and the frivolity which 
 believes in nothing will never hold the foremost place 
 in human affairs. 
 
 It seems to me that we ought not to attach too 
 much importance to all that speechifying which has 
 become trite against the utilitarian and realistic ten- 
 dencies of our days, and if aught could prove the 
 lack of sincerity of those lamentations it would be 
 the strange resignation with which those who utter 
 them submit to the inevitable necessities of the cen- 
 tury. In fact nearly all seem disposed to wind up 
 with the line : 
 
 " The good old time, the iron age." 
 
 Whatever one's opinion may be with regard to the 
 tendencies of the century, it would at any rate be
 
 70 The Future of Science. 
 
 fair to admit that, the sum total of activity having 
 increased there may have been increment on the one 
 side, without a falling off on the other. It cannot 
 be disputed that there is more commercial and in- 
 dustrial activity in our days then there was, for in- 
 stance, in the tenth century. And must we there- 
 fore conclude that the latter was better endowed 
 in respect of intellectual activity ? 
 
 There is a kind of optical illusion in history which 
 is very dangerous. The actual century is always seen 
 through a cloud of dust raised by the whirl of real 
 life and one can scarcely distinguish amidst this 
 whirlwind the pure and beautiful forms of the ideal. 
 On the other hand, this cloud of petty interests 
 having vanished from before the past, it appears to 
 us grave, severe, disinterested. Looking at it by 
 means of its books and monuments only, in other 
 words, in the manifestation of its thought, we are 
 tempted to believe that people did nothing else but 
 think. The noise of the street, the stir of the mart 
 do not come down to posterity. When the future 
 shall see us freed from that deafening tumult, it 
 will judge us as we judge the past. The race of 
 egoists who have no feeling either for art, science or 
 morality is " of all times." But they die without 
 leaving a trace, they have no place in that grand 
 piece of historical tapestry-work w^hich humanity 
 weaves and leaves to be unrolled behind it. They 
 are the noisy waves that plash beneath the paddle 
 wheels of the steamer in its course, but become 
 silent behind it. 
 
 Therefore, let those who dread to see the efforts 
 of the mind stifled by material preoccupations take 
 heart. Intellectual culture, speculative research, in 
 one w^ord, science and philosophy possess the best of 
 all guarantees, I mean, the needs of human nature 
 itself. Man will never live by bread alone ; the dis- 
 interested pursuit of the true, the beautiful and the 
 good, the realization of science, of art, of morahty is 
 1 as imperative a want to him as the need of satisfying
 
 The Futwe of Science. 71 
 
 his hunger and his thirst. Besides, the activity, the 
 apparent aim of which is only material improvement 
 has nearly always an intellectual value. What 
 speculative discovery has affected civilization as 
 much as the discovery of steam ? A railway does 
 more for human progress than a work of genius, 
 which, from purely extraneous circumstances may he 
 deprived of its influence. 
 
 It cannot be denied that Christianity has done a 
 great wrong to humanity in representing the actual 
 life as a matter of no moment and consequently dis- 
 suading man from the idea of improving it. For 
 though "it is the spirit that quiekeneth," and "the 
 flesh profiteth nothing," the grand reign of the spirit 
 will not commence until the material world shall be 
 completely under man's control. Besides, the actual 
 life is the stage of that perfect life which Christianity 
 relegated to the world beyond. There is nothing 
 exaggerated in the spiritualism of the Gospel nor in 
 the exclusive preponderance it gives to a higher life. 
 But it is here below and not in a fantastic heaven 
 that this life will be realized. It is essential there- 
 fore that man should commence by assuming the 
 mastership of the bodily world in order to be at 
 liberty afterwards for the victories of the spirit. 
 That is where the injustice lies of the anathema 
 flung by Christianity against the present life. All the 
 great material and social improvements of this life 
 have been accomplished outside Christianity and 
 have even been prejudicial to it. Hence the annoy- 
 ance of the actual representatives of Catholicism at 
 all the most rational reforms of the abuses of the 
 past, judicial reforms, penal reforms, etc. They are 
 well aware that all this hangs together, and that one 
 step on that road necessarily entails all the rest. 
 Posterity will, no doubt, not wholly approve our 
 materialistic tendencies. It will, no doubt, judge 
 our work as we judge that of Christianity and find it 
 equally one-sided. But it will at any rate admit 
 that unconsciously we have laid down the condition
 
 72 The Future of Science. 
 
 of future progress, and that our *' industrialism " has 
 been, mth regard to its results, a holy and meritorious 
 work. 
 
 A certain number of social doctrines are often 
 taunted with concerning themselves solely with 
 material interests, with the suj^position that there 
 exists only one kind of work for man and one kind of 
 food, with the ideal conception of an easy life for all. 
 This is unfortunately the case, nevertheless, one is 
 bound to observe that if those systems could really 
 bring about the material improvement of a consider- 
 able portion of humanity the reproach would not hold 
 water. Because the improvement of the material con- 
 dition is the necessary condition of moral and intel- 
 lectual improvement, and that item of progress will 
 like every other have to be accomplished by a special 
 work ; humanity cannot do two things at once. It is 
 evident that a man who has not the necessities of 
 life, or in order to procure them is compelled to 
 devote himself to some kind of mechanical labour 
 every minute of the day is forcibly condemned to 
 dependence and utter insignificance. At the present 
 period, the most signal service one could render to 
 the human intellect would be to discover a system 
 which would insure material comfort to every one. 
 The human intellect will only be free when com- 
 pletely emancipated from those material needs that 
 humiliate it and obstruct its development. Such 
 improvements possess no ideal value in themselves, 
 but they are the essential condition of the dignity of 
 humankind and the perfection of the individual. 
 That protracted labour by which the middle classes 
 managed to accumulate wealth during the whole of 
 the Middle Ages is apparently something sufficiently 
 vulgar. We cease to look at it in that way by re- 
 flecting that the whole of modern civilization which 
 is the work of the trading classes would have been 
 impossible without it. The secularization of science 
 could only be accomplished by an independent, 
 consequently a well-to-do class. If the urban popu-
 
 The Future oj Science. 73 
 
 lations had remained poor or fettered by incessant 
 manual labour like the peasant, science would be 
 up to this day, the monopoly of the priestly class. 
 Everything that contributes to the progress of 
 humanity, however humble and commonplace it 
 may appear, is by the very fact entitled to respect 
 and sacred. 
 
 It is odd that the two classes which nowadays have 
 divided French society between them fling recipro- 
 cally the charge of materialism. In common fairness 
 we are bound to say that the materialism of the 
 opulent class only is blamable. The striving of the 
 poorer classes after material welfare is just, legitimate 
 and sacred, seeing that the poorer classes cannot 
 attain real holiness, by which I mean moral and 
 intellectual perfection unless they acquire a certain 
 degree of material welfare. When a well-to-do man 
 still seeks after greater wealth, he does a thing which 
 to say the least is profane, seeing that his only aim 
 can be indulgence of self. But when a poor wretch 
 strives to lift himself above want he attempts a vir- 
 tuous task, for he tries to carry out the condition of 
 his redemption. He does the right thing at the 
 right moment. When Cleanthes spent his nights in 
 drawing water he did as saintly a work as when he 
 spent his days in listening to Zeno. I cannot help 
 getting angry whenever I hear the fortunate ones of 
 the century stigmatize the feeling with which the 
 proletarian looks upon the more distinguished exist- 
 ence of the superior classes as one of vile jealousy 
 and disgraceful lust. You think it disgraceful that 
 they should desire that which you enjoy. You would 
 preach to the people monastic confinement and 
 abstinence from all pleasure, when pleasure is the 
 alpha and omega of your life, when you have poets 
 who sing of nothing else. If the life is a good one, 
 why should not they desire to lead it also ? If it is 
 bad, why do you enjoy it ? 
 
 The tendency towards material improvements is 
 therefore far from prejudicial to the progress of the
 
 74 The Future of Science. 
 
 human intellect provided it be fittingly ordained to 
 its end. That which debases and degrades is the 
 mean spirit brought to bear upon it ; the petty com- 
 binations, the shabby processes resorted to in the 
 race for wealth. I honestly believe that it would be 
 better to leave the people to their poverty than to 
 educate them in that way. Ignorant and unculti- 
 vated, they blindly aspire to the ideal by virtue of 
 the powerful and inarticulate instinct of human 
 nature, they are energetic and true like all great 
 masses whose consciousness is still benighted. In- 
 spire them with those paltry instincts of lucre and 
 you lower them, you destroy their originality without 
 making them more moral or educated. The science 
 of Bonkomme Bicharcl has always seemed to me a 
 sufficiently bad science. Just fancy a man who sums 
 up his life in the words ; to malxe a fortune honestly ; 
 (and even then there is a suspicion that honesthj is 
 only recommended in order the better to make the 
 fortune) the last thing of which one needs to think, 
 a thing of no value save as a means to an ulterior 
 and ideal end. This is immoral, this is a narrow and 
 finite conception of existence ; this can only proceed 
 from a soul void of religion and poetry (36). Great 
 Heavens, what is the good, I ask you, what is the 
 good of having realized at the termination of the 
 short life of ours the more or less complete type of 
 outward happiness ? What is better is to have 
 thought and loved a good deal, to have cast a 
 resolute glance at all things, to be able to criticize 
 death itself while on one's death-bed. I prefer a 
 Jogui, I prefer an Indian Mouni, nay Simon Stylites 
 himself gnawed at by the worms on his strange 
 pedestal to a prosaic trader capable of pursuing for 
 a score of years the one selfsame idea of wealth. 
 
 Ye heroes of the disinterested life, saints, apostles, 
 cenobites, ascetics of all epochs, sublime poets and 
 philosophers who preferred to have no inheritance 
 here below ; sages who went through life having the 
 left eye fixed on earth, the right on Heaven, and
 
 Tlie Future of Science. 75 
 
 above all you, godlike Spinoza who remained poor 
 and forgotten for the sake of cultivating your idea 
 and in order the better to worship the infinite, how 
 much better did you understand life than those who 
 treat it as a narrow calculation of interest, as an 
 insignificant struggle of ambition and vanity. Better 
 would it have been, no doubt, not to have put your 
 God in so remote an abstract, not to have placed Him 
 on such a nebulous height where to contemplate Him 
 you were compelled to take up so uncomfortable 
 a position. God is not only in Heaven, He is near 
 every one of us ; He is in every flower you crush 
 beneath your feet, in the breath that wafts its odour 
 over you, in that small life which buzzes and mur- 
 murs everywhere around you, in your heart above 
 all. How much more proof of the needs and the 
 extremely sensitive instincts of humanity do I find 
 in your sublime madness than in those colourless 
 existences never lighted up by a single ray of the 
 ideal, of those existences which from their first to 
 their last moments have proceeded day by day, exact, 
 ruled like the leaves of a counter ledger. 
 
 Certainly we ought not to regret seeing the peoples 
 pass from spontaneous, blind aspiration to clear 
 and well considered perception, but it must be on 
 the condition that the object proposed to this 
 thoughtful consideration be not unworthy to occupy 
 it. j The tendency which at certain epochs of civili- 
 zation impels certain minds to be smitten with 
 admiration of barbaric and original peoples is a 
 logical and in a sense a legitimate one. ! For the 
 barbarian with his dreams and his fables is better 
 than the positive man who understanding stops at 
 the finite. Perfection would be the aspiration to- 
 wards the ideal, that is religion, not operating in the 
 world of chimeras and fantastic creations, but in that 
 of the reality. Until we have got to understand that 
 the ideal is near every one of us we shall not be 
 able to prevent certain natures (and these the most 
 beautifully constituted ones) from seeking it beyond
 
 76 The Future of Science. 
 
 the vulgar existence, and finding their delight in 
 asceticism. The sceptic and the frivolous minded 
 may shrug their shoulders as much as they like and 
 as long as they like at the folly of those beautiful 
 natures, it will make no difference to them. Re- 
 ligious and pure natures understand them, the philo- 
 sopher admires them, like every energetic manifesta- 
 tion of a real need which mistakes its road for want 
 of criticism and rationalism. 
 
 Nothing is easier with our positive spirit than to 
 point out the absurdity of all the sacrifices a man 
 makes of his welfare in obedience to the suprasen- 
 sible. To the realist the man on his knees before the 
 invisible looks uncommonly like an imbecile, and if 
 antique libations were still in usage (37), there are 
 many people who would say with the apostles ; 
 XJt quid perditio licec ? Why waste this liquor thus ? 
 You would have done better to drink or to sell it, 
 which might have given you pleasure or profit, than 
 to sacrifice it to the invisible. Saint-Eulalia fasci- 
 nated by the charm of asceticism escapes from the 
 paternal home, takes the first road she comes to, 
 wanders about at haphazard, gets lost in the bogs 
 and cuts her feet in the brambles. " The girl was 
 mad ; " I hear people say. You may call her mad, 
 as long as you like, I would give everything I pos- 
 sess to have seen her at that moment. Our judg- 
 ments on a life of asceticism all start from the same 
 principle ; the ascetic sacrifices himself to the use- 
 less ; hence he is absurd. Or else, if an apology for 
 the life is attempted, it will be solely for the material 
 services it has been able to render accidentally, 
 without the consideration that those services were 
 utterly foreign to its aim, and that those works that 
 are accounted a title to glory, had no value attached 
 to them, save in so far as they contributed to his 
 asceticism. Assuredly he who would embrace a 
 useless life, not from the need of contemplation but 
 simply for the sake of idleness (and this was what 
 happened during the degeneracy of the institution)
 
 The Future of Science. 77 
 
 would be thoroughly contemptible. As for pure 
 asceticism, it will always remain, like the pyramids, 
 one of those grand monuments of the inmost needs 
 of man, manifesting themselves with energy and 
 grandeur, but with too little conscience and reason. 
 The principle of asceticism is eternal in humanity, 
 the progress of thought will impart to it a more 
 rational direction (38). The ascetic of the future 
 will not be the Trappist monk, one of the most 
 imperfect types of man, he will be the lover of the 
 purely beautiful, sacrificing to this dear ideal all the 
 personal needs of the lower hfe. 
 
 The English have imagined that they were further- 
 ing the cause of sacred morality by prohibiting in 
 India the processions stained with the blood of 
 voluntary sacrifices, the suttee. A strange mistake 
 indeed. Do you really believe that the fanatic who 
 joyfully lays down his head under the wheels of the 
 car of Juggernauth is not happier and more beautiful 
 than you, insipid merchants. Do not you think that 
 he honours human nature more by attesting — in an 
 irrational, but none the less powerful manner, no 
 doubt — that man has within him instincts superior 
 to all the cravings for the finite and the love of self. 
 Undoubtedly if we looked upon those acts as the 
 mere sacrifice to a chimerical deity, they would be 
 simply absurd. But we look upon them as the 
 fascination which the infinite exercises on man, as 
 impersonal enthusiasm, the cult of the suprasensible. 
 And it is upon those magnificent outbursts of the 
 grand instincts of human nature that you would 
 impose limits, with your paltry morality and your 
 narrow common sense. ... In those sublime and 
 picturesque elaggerations of human nature there is 
 a foolhardiness, a spontaneousness which the healthy 
 and regular exercise of reason, do what it will, will 
 never equal, and which the poet and the artist will 
 always prefer (39). A morbid and exclusive develop- 
 ment is more original and shows in greater relief the 
 energy of nature, like an injected vein which stands
 
 78 The Future of Science. 
 
 out more clearly to the inspection of the anatomist. 
 Go and have a look in the Louvre at the marvellous 
 Spanish collection ; it is ecstasy and the superhuman 
 incarnated, saints whose feet scarcely touch earth; 
 virgins with necks craned, haggard eyes, staring into 
 space, martyrs who wrench their hearts from their 
 bodies or lacerate themselves, monks undergoing all 
 kinds of self torture, etc. Well, I love those monks 
 of Kiheira and Zurbaran, without which one would 
 fail to understand the Inquisition. It is the moral 
 force of man exaggerated, off the track, but original 
 and bold, in its excess. The apostle is certainly not 
 the pure type of humanity, nevertheless, where shall 
 we find a more powerful manifestation for the psycho- 
 logist from which to study the inmost energy of 
 human nature and its divine outbursts ? 
 
 We must make due allowance for everything. 
 Somie of the charges preferred against the middle 
 class civilization by the adversaries of the modern 
 spirit are unquestionably true. The Middle Ages 
 which assuredly understood the reality of life less 
 well than we do, understood in some respects the 
 suprasensible life better than we do. The error of 
 the neo-feudal school lies in its non-perception of the 
 fact that the faults of modern society are necessary 
 to its character of transition, that these faults arise 
 from a perfectly legitimate tendency operating under 
 an exclusive and partial form. And this very partial 
 form is also necessary ; for it is one of humanity's 
 laws that it must proceed with its phases the one 
 after the other, and in setting aside temporarily all 
 the rest ; whence arises the incomplete appearance 
 of all its successive developments. 
 
 If aught could inspire doubt in the mind of the 
 thinker with regard to the future of reason, it would 
 no doubt be the absence of grand originality and the 
 small initiative displayed by humanity as it proceeds 
 on its roads of reflection. When we compare the 
 timid works brought forth with so much travail by 
 our reasoning age with the sublime creations en-
 
 The Future of Science. 79 
 
 gendered by primitive spontaneity, engendered with- 
 out so much as a feeling of their difHculty ; when we 
 ponder the strange facts which must have taken 
 possession of men's consciences in order to create a 
 generation of martyrs and apostles, we might be 
 tempted to regret that man has ceased to be instinc- 
 tive in order to become rational. But We are com- 
 forted with the thought that if his inward potentiality 
 has diminished, his creation has become much more 
 personal, that he is much more the master of his 
 own work, that he is its author by virtue of a more 
 lofty title ; with the thought in sum that the actual 
 condition of things is only a painful, difficult condi- 
 tion, full of effort and hard striving through which 
 the human intellect will have had to pass towards a 
 superior state ; with the thought that the progress of 
 the rational state will bring about another phase, in 
 which the intellect w^ill be once more the creator, 
 /but freely and with more conscience of its work. It 
 is no doubt very sad for the man of intellect to have 
 to pass through thl)se ages of "little faith," to see 
 sacred things railed at by the profane and to be 
 exposed to the insulting laughter of triumphant 
 frivolity. But it matters not ; he is the custodian 
 of the sacred deposit, he is the standard bearer of 
 the future, he is man in the grand and extended 
 signification of the word. And he knows it, hence 
 his joy and his sadness ; his sadness because he is 
 permeated with the love of the perfect, it grieves him 
 to think that so many consciences should for ever be 
 closed to it ; his joy, because he knows that the 
 mainsprings of humanity never wear out ; that, 
 though momentarily overcome with sleep, they are 
 there nevertheless, deep down his inmost being and 
 that one day they will wake up to astonish by their 
 proud originality and their invincible energy both 
 their timid apologists and their insolent despisers. 
 
 Let us suppose for a moment that a thought as 
 original, as powerful as that of Christianity were to 
 appear to-day. At the first glance it looks as if it
 
 80 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 would make no headway at all. Selfishness is domi- 
 nant, the sense of grand devotion and of disinterested 
 apostleship is lost. The century seems to obey two 
 motives only; fear and interest. At such a spectacle 
 a deep sadness comes over the soul. It is all over 
 then ? We must bid farewell to great things ; noble 
 thoughts will have no existence save in the recollec- 
 tions of the orator ; religion will no longer be aught 
 but a check in the hands of the frightened wealthier 
 classes. The sea of ice is for ever spreading and 
 getting more solid. Who shall be able to break 
 through it ? 
 
 Timid friends who thus despair of humanity, let us 
 go back together eighteen hundred j^ears. Fancy 
 that you are living at that period when a handful of 
 obscure men founded in the East the dogma which 
 since then has governed humanity. Cast a glance 
 at the contemptible world that obeyed Tiberius, and 
 tell me whether the world is really dead. Chant once 
 more the funeral hymn of humanity ; for humanity 
 is no more, its heart is still in the cold grip of death. 
 How are these poor enthusiasts to endow it with life 
 once more ; how, without a lever, can they uplift 
 a world ? Well, they have done it nevertheless ; 
 three hundred years later the new dogma was master, 
 and four hundred years after that it became tyrant 
 in its turn. 
 
 This is our triumphant reply. The condition of 
 humanity will never be so desperate as to preclude 
 us from saying ; '' Many a time it was believed to be 
 dead. The gravestone seemed fastened down for 
 ever, and the third day it uprose from the dead."
 
 The Future of Science. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 [TTt is not altogether inadvertently that I designate 
 "by the name of science that which is generally called 
 philosophy. To philosophize is the word by which 
 I would most willingly sum up my life ; nevertheless, 
 seeing that the popular use of the word only ex- 
 presses a still partial form of the inner life, that, 
 besides, it only implies the subjective fact of the 
 solitary thinker we must employ the more objective 
 word ; to knoiv when assuming the standpoint of 
 humanity. Yes, the day will come when humanity 
 will no longer believe ; but when it shall know ; the 
 day when it shall know the metaphysical and moral 
 world as it already knows the physical ; the day 
 when the government of humanity will no longer be 
 given to accident and intrigue, but to the rational dis- 
 cussion as to what is best, and to the most efficacious 
 means of attainiug that best. If such be the aim of 
 science, if its object be to teach man its final aim 
 and its law, to make him grasp the true sense of life, 
 to make up, with art, poetry and virtue the divine 
 ideal which alone lends worth to human existence, 
 if such be its aim, then is it possible that it should 
 have its serious detractors ? 
 
 " But," it will be asked, " will science accomplish 
 these marvellous destinies ? " All I know is this, 
 that if science does not accomplish them, nothing 
 else will, and that humanity will for ever be ignorant 
 of the significance of things ; for science is the only 
 legitimate means of knowing, and that if it has been 
 
 G
 
 82 The Future of Science. 
 
 possible for the religions to exercise a salutary in- 
 fluence on the march of humanity it is solely because 
 science was obscurely mixed up with them, that is 
 to say, the regular exercise of the human intellect. 
 
 If we were to confine ourselves to what science 
 has done hitherto without considering the future we 
 might well ask ourselves whether it will ever carry 
 out this programme, whether it will succeed in pro- 
 viding humanity with a symbol comparable to that of 
 the religions. Up till now science has done little else 
 but destroy. Applied to nature itself, it has destroyed 
 its mystery and its charm by showing mathematical 
 forces there where the popular imagination saw life, 
 moral expression and liberty. Applied to the history 
 of the human intellect, it has destroyed those poetical 
 superstitions of privileged individuals, in the admira- 
 tion of which semi-science took so great a delight. 
 Applied to moral things it has destroyed the com- 
 forting beliefs which nothing can replace in the heart 
 that was at rest in them. Where is the man who 
 after having given himself up to science with all his 
 heart has not cursed the day when thought became 
 his birthright, who has not hankered after some fond, 
 lost illusion ? As for me, I admit having often been 
 torn with regret ; yes, there were days when I still 
 wished to be at rest with the simple-minded, when 
 I should have felt annoyed with criticism and ration- 
 alism, if it were possible to be annoyed with fate. 
 The first feeling of him who deserts the ranks of 
 naive belief for those of critical investigation, is that 
 of regret and almost anathema against that inflexible 
 power, which fi-om the moment it seizes upon him, 
 compels him to accompany it through every stage of 
 its irresistible march, until the flnal goal where one 
 stops to weep (40). Unhappy like the Cassandra of 
 Schiller through having seen too much of the reality, 
 he is almost tempted to exclaim, " Eestore me to my 
 blindness." But are we to conclude from this that 
 science is only fit to take the colour out of life, and 
 to destroy beautiful dreams ?
 
 The Future of Science. 83 
 
 Let me first of all frankly admit that if such be 
 the case, it is an evil beyond remedy, necessary and 
 for which we should blame no one. If there be 
 aught fatal on earth, it is reason and science. It is 
 useless to grumble at it and to get impatient, and the 
 anger of the orthodox folk against the freethinkers 
 really makes one laugh ; because it looks as if the 
 latter had really had it in their power to develop 
 themselves in a different fashion, as if a man were 
 free to believe what he likes. It is impossible to pre- 
 vent reason from taking up every object of belief, 
 and all these objects lending themselves to criticism, 
 reason is fatally bound to declare that they do not 
 constitute absolute truth. There is not a single link 
 in this chain which one was free to shake off for a 
 single moment ; the only culprit in the matter is 
 human natm-e and its legitimate evolution. And the 
 unquestionable principle is that human nature is 
 without reproach and proceeds towards the perfect by 
 means of forms successively and diversely imperfect. 
 
 The fact is that science will only have destroyed 
 the dreams of the past to put in their stead a reality 
 a thousand times superior. If science were to remain 
 what it is we should have to submit to it while cursing 
 it, for it has destroyed and not builded up again; it has 
 awakened man from a sweet sleep, without smoothing 
 the reality to him. What science gives me is not 
 enough, I am still hungry. If I believed in any re- 
 ligion, my faith, I admit, would have the greater 
 wherewithal to satisfy its hunger, but a small 
 modicum of good science is better than a great deal 
 of haphazard science. If we had to admit literally 
 all that legend-mongers and chroniclers tell us about 
 the origin of peoples and rehgions we should know a 
 great deal more about them than with the system 
 of Niebuhr and Strauss. The ancient history of 
 the East in its ascertained facts might be reduced 
 to a few pages ; if w^e were to put our faith in 
 Hebrew, Arabic, Persian and Greek histories, etc., 
 we should have a library full. Folk with whom the
 
 84 The Future of Science. 
 
 craving to believe is very developed may afford them- 
 selves the pleasure of swallowing all that. The 
 critical intellect is the sober man, or if yon like, the 
 fastidious man ; he makes sure above all and before- 
 hand, of the quality. He prefers abstention to in- 
 discriminate acceptance, he prefers truth to himself, 
 and sacrifices his most lovely dreams to it. Think 
 you then that it would not be much more pleasant to 
 us to sing in the temple with the women or to dream 
 with the children than to be pursuing on those in- 
 hospitable mountains a truth which is for ever fleeing. 
 Do not, therefore, twit us with knowing so very few 
 things, for you, you hnoiv nothing at all. The little 
 we do know is at any rate perfectly acquired and will 
 ever go on increasing. Our guarantee is the most 
 invincible of inductions, derived from the example 
 of the sciences of nature. 
 
 "If," as Burke maintains, "our ignorance of the 
 things of nature, is the principal cause of our admira- 
 tion of them, if this ignorance became to us the 
 source of the feeling for the sublime," we might ask 
 ourselves whether modern science by rending the 
 veil that hid from us the forces and the agents of 
 physical phenomena, and by showing us everywhere 
 a regularity subject to mathematical laws and con- 
 sequently devoid of mystery, has furthered the con- 
 templation of the universe, been of service to sesthe- 
 ticism, while furthering at the same time the know- 
 ledge of truth. The patient investigations of the 
 observer, the figures accumulated by the astronomer, 
 the long enumerations of the naturalist are scarcely 
 calculated to awaken the sense of the beautiful, but 
 the genuinely beautiful, that which is not based upon 
 fictions of human fantasy is hidden in the results of 
 analysis. To dissect a human body is to destroy its 
 beauty, and still by means of this dissection, science 
 arrives at the recognition of a much superior order 
 of beauty, which superficial examination would not 
 have as much as suspected. No doubt the enchanted 
 world in which humanity dwelt previous to its
 
 The Future of Science. 
 
 entrance upon life guided by thought, the world 
 conceived as being moral, replete with passion, life, 
 and sentiment, that world possessed an ineffable 
 charm ; and it is likely that face to face with that 
 inflexible and severe nature created for us by ration- 
 alism, some may be tempted to regret the miracle 
 and to reproach scientific experiments with having 
 banished it from the universe. But such a reproach 
 could only be based upon an incomplete view of the 
 results of science. For the real world revealed to us 
 by science is by far superior to the fantastic world 
 created by the imagination. If the human intellect 
 had been challenged to conceive the most surprising 
 marvels, if the limits which realisation imposes on 
 the ideal had been knocked down in favour of the 
 human intellect, if all this had been done even then 
 it would not have dared to conceive a thousandth 
 part of the splendours revealed by observation. We 
 may go on inflating our conceptions as long as we 
 like, we only bring forth atoms at the expense of the 
 reality of things. Is it not a strange fact that all 
 the ideas which primitive science had formed on the 
 world appear narrow, trivial, and ridiculous to us after 
 that which has been proved to be true. The earth 
 resembling a disc, a column, a cone, the sun as big 
 as the Peloponnesus, or else conceived to be a 
 meteor, lighting itself every day, the stars trundling 
 about at a few leagues distance on a solid vault, 
 concentric spheres, a universe closed, stifling, walls, a 
 narrow hemisphere against which the instinct of the 
 infinite is shattered (41), these were some of the 
 most brilliant hypotheses at which the human 
 intellect had arrived. Beyond these, truly, was the 
 world of angels with its everlasting splendour ; but 
 even there what narrow limits, what finite concep- 
 tions. Has not the temple of our God become 
 enlarged since science has revealed to us the infinity 
 of worlds ? And still people were free then to create 
 marvels ; there was plenty of stuff to cut from and to 
 spare, if I may so express it ; observation placed no
 
 86 The Future of Science. 
 
 check on fantasy ; but it was the experimental 
 method which many dehght in representing as 
 narrow and without ideahsm which had the honour 
 of reveahng to us not that metaphysical infinite the 
 idea of which is the foundation itself of man's reason, 
 but that real infinite which he never attains in his 
 boldest flights of fancy. Hence, we may fearlessly 
 contend that if the marvellous in fiction has up till 
 now seemed necessary to poetry, the marvellous in 
 nature, when it shall be unveiled in all its splendour 
 will constitute a poetry a thousand times more 
 subUme, a poetry which will be reality itself, which 
 will be science and philosophy at the same time. If 
 the experimental knowledge of the physical universe 
 has exceeded by far the dreams of imagination, 
 are we not justified in believing that the human 
 intellect by investigating more and more closely 
 the metaphysical and. moral sphere and applying its 
 severest method to it without any consideration for 
 chimeras and desirable dreams — if there be such, are 
 we not justified in believing that by doing this it will 
 simply shatter a narrow and paltry world to open 
 another world of infinite marvels ? Who knows but 
 what our metaphysics and theology are not to those 
 to be one day revealed by rational science as the 
 Cosmos of Anaximenes or Indicopleustes to the 
 Cosmos of Herschel and Humboldt. 
 
 The above consideration, it appears to me, is as 
 eminently calculated to reassure us on the future 
 and eventual results of science, as to justify all bold- 
 ness and to condemn all timid restriction. However 
 destructive a criticism may seem, we should give it 
 free scope, provided it be really scientific ; salvation 
 never comes by going backward. It is, first of all 
 too evident that the very consciousness of having 
 retreated before the salutary method, and the 
 permanent sentiment of a fictitious objection would 
 cast over the whole of ulterior existence a scepticism 
 more distressing than denial itself. We must either 
 never discuss at all, or discuss to the end. Besides,
 
 TJie Future of Science. 
 
 it is certain that the true moral system of things is 
 infinitely superior to the wretched hypotheses over- 
 toppled by severe reasoning, that one day science will 
 unfold a reality a thousand times more beautiful, and 
 that criticism in that way will have been a first step 
 in the direction of beliefs more comforting than those 
 which it seems to destroy. Yes, if I were to see all 
 the truths constituting what is called natural religion, 
 a personal God, Providence, prayer, anthropomor- 
 phism, personal immortality, etc. ; if I were to see 
 all these truths, without which there is no happy 
 life go to wTeck beneath the legitimate effort of 
 critical examination, I should clap my hands for joy 
 over their ruin, thoroughly convinced that the real 
 system of things, of which I may be still ignorant 
 but in the direction of which this very denial is a 
 step, infinitely surpasses the poor imaginations with- 
 out which we cannot conceiA'e the beauty of the 
 universe. The gods only go to make room for others. 
 That infinite beauty which we perceive only in vague 
 outlines and which w^e endeavour to reproduce by 
 paltry images exists, truly exists. It is more beauti- 
 ful, more comforting a thousand times by far than 
 that which my imagination may have conjured up. 
 When the old anthropomorphic conception of the 
 world disappeared before positive science, one might 
 have been for a moment tempted to exclaim : " Good- 
 bye to poetry, good-bye to the beautiful," and behold, 
 the beautiful has revived more beautiful than ever. 
 In the same way the moral world is far from having 
 received a mortal blow by the destruction of old 
 chimeras, the most realistic method being that which 
 will lead us to its most dazzling marvels, and until 
 we have discovered ineffable splendour, intoxicating 
 truths, delightful and comforting beliefs we may 
 rest assured that we are not within the truth, that 
 we are merely passing through one of those fatal 
 periods of transition when humanity ceases to believe 
 in chimerical beauties ere it arrives at the discovery 
 of the marvels of the reality. We should never get
 
 88 The Future of Science. 
 
 frightened at the onward march of science, seeing 
 that we may be sure that it will only lead to the 
 discovery of incomparably beautiful things. Let us 
 leave vulgar natures to exclaim with Micah when 
 they had taken away his idols; *' Ye have taken 
 away my gods." Let us leave them to say with 
 Serapion the converted anthropomorphist of Moimt 
 Athos ; "Alas, they have taken away my god, and 
 I no longer know what I worship." As for us, when 
 the temple topples down, instead of weeping on its 
 ruins, let us think of the temples, which more mag- 
 nificent and vast, will uprise in the future until the 
 day when for ever shattering their narrow walls, 
 thought will only have one temple, the roof of which 
 will be the sky. 
 
 Hence, science must pursue its road without mind- 
 ing with whom it comes in collision. Let the others 
 get out of the way. If it appears to raise objections 
 against received dogmas, it is not for science but the 
 received dogmas to be on the defensive and to reply 
 to the objections. Science should behave as if the 
 world were free from preconceived opinions, and not 
 heed the difficulties it starts. Let the theologians 
 come to an arrangement with one another to come 
 to an agreement with science. We may as well take 
 it for granted that that which is infinitely exceeds in 
 beauty any and everything that which may be con- 
 ceived ; that the Utopian who sets his fancy to work 
 in the creation of the best possible world only brings 
 forth child's work in comjDarison with the reality ; 
 that when positive science only reveals triviality and 
 finiteness, it is because it has not reached its final 
 result. Fourier, scattering broadcast belts, crowns 
 and aurorcB horeales over the various worlds is nearer 
 the truth than the physicist who thiuks his small 
 universe equal to that of God, and still, one day 
 Fourier will be surpassed by the realists who will 
 know the truth of things through unquestionable 
 scientific observation. 
 
 The reader will allow me to cite an example.
 
 The Future of Science. 89 
 
 The old manner of looking at immortality is in my 
 opinion a '^ survival" of the conceptions of the 
 primitive world and seems to me as narrow and as 
 unacceptable as the anthropomorphic God. Man, in 
 fact, is not to me, a composite of two substances, he 
 is a unit, an individual resultant, a great persistent 
 phenomenon, a thought prolonged. On the other 
 hand, as soon as we deny immortality in an absolute 
 manner, the world becomes colourless and sad. 
 Now, it is an unquestionable fact that the world is 
 beautiful beyond expression. Hence, we are bound to 
 admit that everything w^hich has been sacrificed in 
 the furtherance of progress will be recovered at the 
 end of the infinite, by a kind of immortality which 
 moral science is sure to discover one of these days 
 (42), and which will be to the fantastic immortality 
 of the past as the palace of Versailles to a house of 
 cards put together by a child. One may say as much 
 of all the dogmas of our natural religion and morality, 
 so colourless, so narrow, so lacking in the poetical 
 that I should be afraid of offending God by believing 
 in them. One may compare the old dogmas to those 
 hypotheses of the physical sciences which afford 
 sufficiently exact formulas for the representation of 
 facts, though their expression be very faulty and 
 contains a considerable part of fiction. One cannot 
 say ; " things are thus ; " but one may say that, 
 "things proceed as if it were thus." In calculating 
 by the light of these hypotheses, one will get at 
 exact results, because the error lies only in the ex- 
 pression and the illustration not in the schema and 
 the category itself. 
 
 For the sake of the ultimate welfare of humanity 
 there are centuries condemned to scepticism and 
 immorality. To get from the beautiful, poetical 
 world of the naive peoples we have had to pass 
 through the atomic and mechanical world. In the 
 same way, in order to create for itself a new world 
 of beliefs humanity must destroy the old, which can 
 only be done by passing through an age of incredulity
 
 90 The Future of Science. 
 
 and speculative immorality. I say speculative, for 
 uo one has the right to throw the blame of his per- 
 sonal immorality on the century ; elevated souls are 
 under the happy necessity of being virtuous and the 
 eighteenth century has proved that the most hideous 
 doctrines may go hand in hand with the purest con- 
 duct and the most honourable character. This is an 
 inconsistency, if you like. But there is no condition 
 of humanit}^ which can do without, and the first step 
 of him who would think is to grow bolder in the 
 face of contradictions, trusting to the future to re- 
 concile them. A man who is consistent in his system 
 of life is assuredly a na.rrow-minded one. For I defy 
 him, in the actual condition of the human intellect 
 to make all the elements of human nature agree. If 
 he w^ants a system without a joint, he will be reduced 
 to deny and to exclude. 
 
 Paltry and absolute criticism always springs from 
 the fact of looking a.t every development of philoso- 
 phical history by itself and not from the point of view 
 of humanity. All the conditions through which 
 humanity passes are faulty and assailable. Every 
 century proceeds towards the future, carrying its 
 objection in its side like a bullet in a wound. The 
 destruction of ancient beliefs and the formation of 
 new ones is not alwaj^s accomplished in the most 
 desirable order. Science often destroys a belief 
 when it is still necessary. Let us suppose that the 
 day will come when humanity shall have no longer 
 any need to believe in immortahty, can we imagine 
 the anguish the premature destruction of this com- 
 forting faith will have caused to the unfortunate ones 
 sacrificed to fate during our age of sorrow. In the 
 definite constitution of humanity science will be 
 happiness ; but in the imperfect state through which 
 we are passing it may be dangerous to know too soon. 
 
 My inmost conviction is that the religion of the * 
 future will be pure humanism, that is, the cult of 
 everything that appertains to man, the whole of life 
 sanctified and raised to a moral value. To tend
 
 The Future of Science. 91 
 
 one''s beautiful humanity (43) will then be the Law 
 and the Prophets, and that without any particular 
 form, without any limit which will remind one of 
 sect, or of exclusive brotherhood. The general 
 characteristic of religious works is their specialness, 
 that is, they require to be understood a special 
 sense which every one has not ; separate beliefs, 
 separate feelings, separate style, separate figures. 
 Religious works are for adepts ; for they, the works, 
 assume the existence of the profane. Assuredly 
 St. Paul was an admirable genius ; still, does the 
 beauty of his letters consist in the grand instincts 
 of human nature taken in the most general form as, 
 for instauce, in the dialogues of Plato? No. Seneca 
 and Tacitus, perusing these curious compositions 
 would not have considered them beautiful, at any 
 rate not to the same extent that we do, initiated as 
 we are in the data of Christian assthetics. Several 
 rehgious sects of the East, the Druses, the Mendaites, 
 the Ansarians have sacred writings affording them 
 a very substantial pabulum, but which to us are 
 ridiculous or utterly insignificant. The sectarian's 
 mind is closed to half of the world. Every sect pre- 
 sents itself to us circumscribed by limits ; and no 
 matter what limit is most antipathetic to our ex- 
 pansion of mind. We have seen so many of them 
 that we cannot resign ourselves to the belief that 
 the one any more than the other has got hold of the 
 absolute truth. While wiUingly admitting that grand 
 originality has up till now been sectarian or at any rate 
 dogmatic, we cannot fail to see with equal certainty 
 the absolute impossibility of confining the human 
 intellect in the future in auy of those vices. With 
 a consciousness of humanity as developed as ours, we 
 should soon bring about the reconciliation, we should 
 judge ourselves as we judge the past, we should 
 criticize ourselves whilst alive. Sectarian dogma- 
 tism is irreconcilable with criticism, for how can one 
 help testing on one's self the laws observed in the 
 development of other doctrines, and how can one
 
 92 The Future of Science. 
 
 reconcile absolute belief with such a reflective view ? 
 We may therefore say without hesitation that no 
 religious sect will henceforth spring up in Europe 
 unless new and ingenuous races strangers to thought, 
 stifle once more all civilization ; and even then 
 one may affirm that this form of religion will be far 
 less energetic than in the past and will not result 
 in anything very characteristic. People are not 
 converted from finesse to stupidity. One always 
 remembers having been a critic and is often taken 
 with laughter — even at one's adversaries in default 
 of others. And apostles never laugh ; laughter 
 means scepticism already, for after having laughed 
 at others, if one be consistent, one will also laugh at 
 one's self. 
 
 For a religious sect to become henceforth possible 
 we should want a deep moat of oblivion like that 
 dug by barbaric invasion in which all the recollec- 
 tions of the modern world must be shot. Keep but 
 one library, one school, one more or less significant 
 monument, and you preserve criticism, or at least, 
 the remembrance of a critical age. And, I repeat, 
 there is but one means of being cured of criticism as 
 of scepticism, namely, to forget radically its previous 
 development and to recommence on another footing. 
 That is why all the religious sects which for the last 
 half century have endeavoured to establish them- 
 selves in Europe have struck against the spirit of 
 criticism which took them on their ridiculous and 
 irrational side to a degree such that the sectaries in 
 their turn choose the wiser part of laughing at them- 
 selves. The century is so little religious as to have 
 been unable to give birth even to a heresy (44). To 
 attempt a religious innovation is to perform an act 
 of belief, and it is because the world knows well 
 enough that nothing is to be done in that order of 
 things that it becomes bad taste to change anything 
 in the statu quo of religion. France is of all countries 
 the most orthodox for it is the least religious country 
 in the world. If France had to a greater extent the
 
 The Future of Science. 93 
 
 sentiment of religion, it would have become Pro- 
 testant like Germany. But not understanding any- 
 thing of theology, and nevertheless feeling the need 
 of a belief she thinks it easier to take the ready made 
 system readiest to hand without caring in the least 
 to make it more perfect ; because to attempt to make 
 it more perfect would be to take it earnestly, it 
 would be assuming the part of theologian ; and it is 
 the correct thing with us to profess not to concern 
 one's self with that kind of thing. Nothing is nearer 
 to indifference than orthodoxy. The heresiarch has 
 then, nothing to hope for nowadays, either from 
 the severe orthodox who would anathematize him, 
 or from the freethinkers who would smile at the 
 attempt to reform that which cannot be reformed. 
 
 There is a very delicate line of demarcation beyond 
 which the philosophical school becomes a sect ; woe 
 to him who crosses it. In a moment the language 
 becomes altered ; one no longer speaks to the world 
 at large, there is an affectation of mystical form, a 
 kind of incredulity and superstition creeps into 
 doctrines — one knows not whence — that seemed 
 altogether rational, reverie becomes mixed with 
 science in an indistinguishable tissue. The school of 
 Alexandria presents the most curious instance of this 
 transformation. Saint- Simonism has renewed it in 
 our days. I am convinced that if that school had 
 kept to the lines of Saint- Simon, who, though 
 very superficial on account of his defective education 
 had really the scientific spirit, and under the direc- 
 tion of Bazard, who was certainly a philosopher in 
 the best acceptation of the word, it would have 
 become the original philosophy of the France of 
 the nineteenth century. But the moment the less 
 earnest spirits take the upper hand, the dross of 
 superstition appears, the school turns to religion, only 
 arouses laughter and breathes its last at Menilmon- 
 tant auaidst extravagances which wind up the history 
 of all sects. Assuredly a tremendous lesson for the 
 future. 1
 
 94 The Future of Science. 
 
 Large-miuded and unfettered science without any 
 bond but that of reason, without a defined creed, 
 without temples, without priests, living at ease in 
 what is called the profane world, that is the form 
 of the beliefs which henceforth will carry humanity 
 with them. The temples of this doctrine will be 
 not schools like those of to-day, childish, cramped, 
 scholastic, but resorts of leisure as in ancient times 
 (scholce) where men foregather to partake together 
 of the food provided for supra-sensible minds. The 
 priests are the philosophers, the savants, the poets, 
 the artists, that is, the men who have accepted the 
 ideal as part of their inheritance and have relinquished 
 the earthly portion (45). In this way the poetic 
 priesthood of the first pioneers of civilization will 
 come back to us. Many admirable intellects have 
 often expressed regret at philosophy not having its 
 temples and pulpits. Let us have them by all means, 
 provided that nothing shall be taught in them except 
 what is taught at the Sorbonne and the College of 
 France, that, in one word, they shall be schools, 
 shorn of their pedagogic varnish. Schools are the 
 real competitors with temples. If you raise altar 
 against altar, you will be told; "We prefer the old 
 ones, not because we have greater faith in them, but 
 because our fathers worshipped that way." If we 
 were entrusted with the religious education of the 
 people, we should have to begin by its so-called pro- 
 fane education, by teaching them history, science, 
 and languages. For real religion is only the 
 culmination of intellectual culture and it will not be 
 accessible to the masses, until education shall be 
 accessible to all. Our glory lies in always appealing 
 to light ; we pride ourselves in not being understood 
 save on the condition of superior culture, on our 
 strength being in direct proportion to our civilization. 
 The eighteenth century must in this respect, always 
 remain our model; the eighteenth century which 
 has changed the world and inspired energetic cou 
 victions without attempting to become a sect or a
 
 The Future of Science. 95 
 
 religion and by remaining purely scientific and 
 philosophical. Social and religions reform will 
 assuredly come, seeing that every one is wishing for 
 it, but it wdll not come from any one sect ; it will 
 come from the grand science, common to all, and 
 operating in the unrestricted midst of human intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 Hence the question of the future of religion must 
 be resolved in divers ways according to the meaning 
 attached to the word. If by religion we understand 
 an ensemble of doctrines traditionally bequeathed, 
 assuming a mythical form, exclusive and sectarian, 
 then we are bound to say unhesitatingly, that the 
 religions will have been the distinguishing mark of 
 an epoch of humanity, but that they are in no way an 
 integral part of human nature, and that one day they 
 will disappear (46). If on the other hand we take 
 the word to mean a belief accompanied by enthu- 
 siasm, crowning conviction with devotion and faith 
 with sacrifice, then there is no doubt that humanity 
 will never cease to be religious. But it is equally 
 certain that henceforth no doctrine will have a 
 chance of making headway without being solidly 
 interwoven with humanity at large, and eliminating 
 all speciality of form, without aj^pealing to every one 
 without distinction of adepts and profane. It causes 
 me genuine grief to see distinguished intellects 
 desert the grand audience of humanity in order to 
 enact the easy part, so flattering to their estimate of 
 self, of grand priests and prophets in conclaves which 
 up till now are nothing more than clubs. What a 
 difference between the philosopher whose name was 
 formerly Pierre Leroux and the patriarch of a small 
 church, surrounded by a knot of afllliated converts, 
 concerning whom one hesitatingly puts the question ; 
 "Are they stupid enough to be believers?" In 
 Heaven's name, if you do happen to have got hold 
 of the truth, do address yourself to the whole of 
 humanity. The man of secret societies is always 
 narrow-minded, suspicious, one sided. The famili-
 
 96 The Future of Science. 
 
 arity ^Yitll such a small world destroys the familiarity 
 with the great one ; one ends by becoming suspicious 
 of human nature and by founding the hope of success 
 on factitious means, and obscure manoeuvres. Great 
 things are accomplished in open daylight. I do not 
 mean to offend those whom present necessity com- 
 pels to lock themselves in conclaves ; very often, 
 I am bound to say, they cannot help themselves. 
 When the majority of the public is egotistical and 
 immoral, we must pardon those who constitute them- 
 selves into secret committees, however prejudicial a 
 blow such a life may strike at their intellectual 
 development. Who shall blame the first Christians 
 for having made unto themselves a world apart 
 amidst the corrupt society of their times? Never- 
 theless, such a necessity is always a misfortune. 
 One of the results of my historical studies, as far as 
 I am personally concerned, has been to make me 
 understand the apostle, the prophet, the founder of 
 a religion ; ' I am thoroughly aware of the sublimity 
 and the errors inseparable from such an intellectual 
 position. It seems to me that I have succeeded 
 now and then in reproducing within myself by means 
 of reflection the psychological facts that must have 
 naturally perturbed those lofty souls. Well, I do 
 not hesitate to say that the time for this kind of 
 parts is gone by. The universal, that is, the human 
 must henceforth be the outward criterion of a 
 doctrine that solicits the faith of human kind. All 
 that is sectarian must be placed on the same level 
 with those products of a puny, weak literature which 
 cannot live outside the atmosphere of the drawing- 
 rooms in which they blossomed. We must be on 
 our guard against those people who can only be 
 understood by a committee. Common sense has 
 relegated to its proper place that curious aesthetic 
 school of irony, brought into fashion by Schlegel, 
 where the artist proudly draping himself in his 
 virtuosity and geniality made it a point to present 
 nothing but insignificant and tasteless truisms, then
 
 The Future of Science. 97 
 
 shrugged his shoulders at the denseness of the public 
 which did not care for these platitudes. All that 
 partakes of the nature of monopoly in the world of 
 thought, all that requires, in order to be understood 
 a kind of special revelation, a sense apart, not 
 possessed by humanity, must be fatally driven 
 towards the like excess. 
 
 Hence, science is a religion, science alone will 
 henceforth make the creeds, science alone can solve 
 for men the eternal problems, the solution of which 
 his nature imperatively demands^^ 
 
 H
 
 98 The Future of Science. 
 
 CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 Why then is science whose fate is so closely bound 
 up with that of the human intellect so badly under- 
 stood as a rule ? Why does it seem only a pastime 
 or a supplementary thing ? Why is the learned man 
 in France I do not say an object of chaff to the 
 frivolous minded — that would be an honourable title 
 as far as he himself is concerned — but a useless piece 
 of furniture in the opinion of many refined minds, 
 something analogous to those literary abbes who were 
 part of the furniture of a nobleman's seat much in 
 the same way as the library itself. In fact, literature 
 proper is a great deal better understood. There is 
 no one who, from a more or less elevated standpoint, 
 does not admit the necessity of people to write plays, 
 novels, and periodical articles. Truly, there are few 
 who have a conception of the earnest side of litera- 
 ture and poetry ; the literary man is, in the opinion 
 of the majority, only fit to amuse them, and the 
 savant not having the same privilege is for that very 
 reason, voted useless and a bore. People are apt to 
 think that this is the case because he investigates, 
 edits and comments on the work of others. Besides 
 it is so very easy to ridicule his patient researches. 
 One must be dull indeed not to be able to coin a 
 feeble joke on the subject of a man who spends his 
 life in deciphering old marbles, in guessing at un- 
 known alphabets, at interpreting and commenting on 
 texts, wliich to the ignorant, are only ridiculous and 
 absurd. Those jokes have that false appearance of
 
 Jl-ie Future of Science. 99 
 
 common sense, so powerful in France and which too 
 often governs public opinion. A journalist, a manu- 
 facturer is considered a " serious " person. But the 
 savant is of no account, unless he be a professor. 
 Science should not put its head out of the college or 
 special school, the public at large has no business 
 with it. Let the professor occupy himself with it, 
 that is right enough, it is his trade. But every one 
 else who devotes his life to it meddles with what 
 does not concern him, something like the man who 
 learns a trade without ever intending to practise it. 
 Hence the discredit attached to every branch of 
 study not contributing directly to classical or peda- 
 gogical education, the necessity of which is accepted 
 in good faith, without much knowledge of the reason 
 why. The best judges acknowledge that all the 
 branches of philological studies, the East and India 
 above all may afford the history of the human 
 intellect its most precious data. Then why is this 
 California so little exploited ? Alas, let us give the 
 reason in its most prosaic harshness. It is because 
 there is no outlet. 
 
 Whence arises this ignoble mistake ? Let us first 
 of all admit that a feeling of enthusiasm for science 
 is much more rare and difficult in an age like ours 
 which has witnessed such unquestionable progress in 
 every branch of human knowledge than at an epoch 
 when all the sciences were merely being created. 
 Conquest and discovery imply a waking up and entail 
 an exertion of strength which must remain foreign 
 to those who need only march along in the already 
 beaten track. Where is the philologist of our days 
 who brings to his researches the intoxication of the 
 first classical students, Petrarch, Boccacio, Poggio, 
 Ambrose Traversari, the men who were so powerfully 
 moved by the desire to know% who carried the 
 worship of the new studies by which they enriched 
 the human intellect to a degree of lofty mysticism, 
 who suffered persecution, who starved in the pursuit 
 of their ideal object. Where is the Orientalist who
 
 100 The Future of Science. 
 
 raves on his subject like Guillaume Postel ? Where 
 is the astronomer capable of the ecstacies of Kepler, 
 the student of physical science capable of the pro- 
 phetic excitement of the two Bacons ? It was the 
 heroic age of science when one philologist haply- 
 counted among his Anecdota Homer, another Livy, 
 a thii'd Plato. It is very easy to stigmatize those 
 noble follies with the rather equivocal term of 
 pedantry, it is easier still to show that those pas- 
 sionate lovers of science had neither the good taste 
 nor the severe method of our century. But might 
 we not also envy them their powerful love and their 
 disinterestedness ? 
 
 It does not come within the scope of my plan to 
 inquire in how far the system of public education in 
 France is responsible for the decay of the scientific 
 sj^irit. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the small 
 importance attached among us to higher education, 
 the total lack of an institution corresponding to that 
 of the German universities is one of its principal 
 causes (47). I am the least likely man to libel the 
 teaching given at the faculties. Germany has 
 nothing to compare to the Sorbonne or to the College 
 of France. In fact, I am not aware of the existence 
 outside Paris of an institution whither savants and 
 thinkers come pretty well without a programme to 
 entertain regularly a public solely attracted by the 
 charm or the importance of their lectures. They are 
 two admirable institutions, essentially French, but 
 they are not like the German universities. They are 
 far beyond them, but they do not answer the same 
 jDurpose. Apart from a few courses of a character 
 altogether special, the lack of a constant and com- 
 pulsory audience does not allow of demonstration 
 of a very scientific nature. Face to face with a 
 public the majority of which wishes above aU to be 
 interestingly amused, the lecturer is bound to enun- 
 ciate ingenious views, to afi"ord ingenious glimpses, 
 rather than rely upon scientific discussion. I am 
 aware that those views are the principal aim which
 
 The Future of Science. 101 
 
 we should set ourselves in scientific research ; but 
 however excellent the manner in which they are pro- 
 pounded, it can scarcely be denied that the courses 
 which necessarily attract a great number of listeners 
 and which exercise the greatest influence on the 
 culture of the intellect, are the least likely to con- 
 tribute to the spread of the scientific spirit. A great 
 number of theories can, therefore, only find room 
 in the curriculum of the lyceums, where science does 
 not occupy its dignified position (48). How can 
 public opinion be favourable to science, when the 
 majority only know it from their old college recollec- 
 tions, which besides they are in a hurry to drop and 
 which cannot make them conceive it in its true light? 
 Hence, serious books and studies seem to have no 
 siguificance save with a view to education, while on 
 the contrary education should be only one of the 
 least applications of science. This ridiculous pre- 
 judice is one of the greatest troubles in the path of 
 him who devotes his life to pure science. 
 
 Thus by a strange reversal, science with us is only 
 made for the schools, while the school should only 
 be made for science. No doubt if the school in 
 modern days were like that of antiquity, a gathering 
 of men solely impelled by the desire to know and 
 united by a common method of philosophizing, one 
 might allow science to lock itself into it. But the 
 school with us having as a rule a practical or peda- 
 gogic purpose, the reduction of science to narrow 
 proportions, the supposition that philology is only of 
 use in so far as it aids classical education is the 
 greatest humiliation imaginable and most opposed 
 to good sense. The department of science and 
 serious research becomes in this way that of public 
 education as if such things had no value except in 
 so far as they are aids to education. Hence the idea 
 that as soon as one's education is finished, one need 
 not concern one's self any longer with them, and 
 that they only concern the professors. In fact, it 
 would be difacult indeed, I believe, to find among us
 
 102 The Future of Scienca. 
 
 a philologist who does not in some way belong to the 
 scholastic profession and a philological book, not 
 written for the use of schools or with some other 
 scholastic purpose. It is a strange vicious circle, 
 for if these things are of no use save for the purpose 
 of teaching, if they are to be studied only by those 
 who are to teach them, what is the good of teaching 
 them? 
 
 Heaven forbid that we should try to lower those 
 noble and useful functions that help to prepare the 
 seriousty-inclined intellect for every career; but it 
 appears to me that we should thoroughly distinguish 
 between science and instruction and give to the 
 former, apart from the latter a religious and philo- 
 sophical aim. The savant and the professor differ as 
 much from one another as the manufacturer and the 
 retailer. The confusion that has arisen in peoples' 
 minds with regard to them has contributed to throw 
 a kind of slight on the most important branches of 
 science, on the very ones which on account of their 
 importance were considered worthy of being selected 
 as the bases of classical studies. Fashion is not half 
 so severe with regard to studies of lesser importance 
 which do not happen to remind us in so awkward a 
 way of our college days. 
 
 Hence, we must accustom ourselves to consider 
 the application of certain branches of science and 
 especially of philology to classical studies as some- 
 tliiug accessory and secondary from the standpoint 
 of science. It is only in connection with positive 
 philosophy that everything has its price and its value. 
 The frivolous mind which does not understand 
 science, pedantry which understands it badly and 
 causes its depreciation both spring from an absence 
 of the philosophic spirit. We must accustom our- 
 selves to look for the value of knowledge in know- 
 ledge itself and not in the use one may make of it 
 for the education of childhood or youth. 
 
 No doubt, by the natural force of things, the men 
 most eminent in each branch of science will be called
 
 The Future of Science. 103 
 
 upon to teach them, and reciprocally the professors 
 will always have a gift apart. It is even worthy of 
 note that all the most illustrious names in modern 
 science are those of professors. One would look in 
 vain amoDg the free contingent of amateurs for 
 Heynes, Bopps, Sacys, Burnoufs. Nevertheless, one 
 cannot willingly blind one's self to the grave danger 
 of science becoming too exclusively a matter of 
 schools. It would contract habits of pedantry, 
 which by investing it with a particular colour would 
 drag it away from the grand midst of humanity. 
 No one is more profoundly convinced than I that 
 science cannot live without what we call the tech- 
 nique, no one has less sympathy than I have with 
 the kind of drawing-room science, emasculated in 
 form, trying to be interesting, a science of semi- 
 scientific, semi-fashionable reviews. True science is 
 that which belongs neither to the school, nor to the 
 drawing-room, but which responds exactly to the 
 want of man ; that which shows no trace of institu- 
 tion or fictitious custom, in one word that which re- 
 minds us most of the Schools of ancient Greece, 
 which in this as in everything has given us the 
 model of the pure and sincere. Look at Aristotle. 
 The scientific apparel takes up more space with him 
 that with no matter what modern savant, Kant per- 
 haps excepted. It is evident that the human in- 
 tellect delighted at the discovery of those orderly 
 pigeon holes of thought which dialectics bring to 
 light, attached at first too much importance to them 
 and naively believed that every idea might advan- 
 tageously be moulded in those forms. Still, is 
 Aristotle, though so eminently technical, exactly 
 scholastic'? No. Compare his "Rhetoric" to the 
 modern rhetorics, which after all and in reality are 
 but so many weak reproductions of it, and you will 
 on the one hand, have an original work, though 
 strange in form, a true, albeit somewhat idle analysis 
 of one of the facets of the human mind, on the other, 
 books utterly insignificant and absolutely useless
 
 104 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 outside the college. Compare the " Analytics " with 
 the *' scholastic logics" of the old school and you 
 will he confronted with the same contrast. There- 
 fore, in forhidding science to assume the scholastic 
 air, we make no concession to the superficial intellect 
 which should never he considered. We merely wish 
 to hring science back to its grand and beautiful form 
 which the French intellect understands so well. 
 There is '' good taste " in science as well as in litera- 
 ture which our countrymen have caught every now 
 and then in a very superior and delicate way. German 
 science is in this respect not bound to observe so 
 mauy precautions. It may assume the scholastic air 
 and surround itself with a scholastic perfume which 
 with us would be considered scandalous. Are we to 
 congratulate it on that account ? Grave intellects 
 readily make excuses for pedantry. They know that 
 this form of intellectual labour is often necessary, 
 always pardonable. No one objects to it in the 
 classics of the Carlovingian restoration, nor in those 
 of the Eenaissance ; the human intellect is sure to 
 amuse itself for some time with its discoveries and 
 the new results it introduces into science, it is bound 
 to make a pleasant pastime, nay a toy of it, before 
 making it an object of philosophic meditation. The 
 same tone will be sure to crop up once more and will 
 be equally pardoned in the exclusive and pre-occupied 
 .savant who works his mine with passion, especially 
 if a powerful spirit does not come to the rescue to 
 animate his patient researches, and if the simplicity 
 of his outward life reduces him to the everlasting and 
 uucliaijging role of sava7it. The higher philosophy, 
 intercourse with society or the practical pursuit of 
 business can alone preserve science from pedantry. 
 ]iut for many, many long years we shall still have to 
 l)ardon the savant for being neither a philosopher, 
 nor a man of the world, nor a statesman, even when 
 they bear the title of Court Councillors as in Germany. 
 Our sensitiveness in this respect is perhaps one of 
 the reasons why philology, though represented in
 
 Tlie Future of Science. ■ 105 
 
 France by so many illustrious names is always held 
 back by a kind of shamefacedness, and dares not pro- 
 claim itself openly. We are so terribly afraid of ridi- 
 cule that everything which can possibly lend itself to 
 it arouses our suspicion ; and the most worthy things 
 by slightly changing their name and shade lay them- 
 selves open to it. The term pedantry, which, if not 
 clearly defined, may be so mischievously applied, and 
 which with the unthinking is almost synonymous 
 with everything relating to serious and scientific 
 inquiry has in this way become a scarecrow to subtle 
 and refined intellects who have often preferred to 
 remain superficial rather than lay themselves open 
 to the attack the most painful of all to us. This 
 scruple has been carried so far that we have seen 
 critics of the highest order of intellect deliberately 
 leave their expressions incomplete rather than employ 
 the scholastic word, when the scholastic word was 
 the right one to employ. Scholastic jargon when 
 it merely hides the absence of thought or when 
 merely used to "show off" by the narrow intellect 
 is tasteless and ridiculous. But to deliberately 
 banish the exact and technical style, which alone 
 is capable of expressing certain delicate or deep 
 shades of thought, to do this is to fall into a purism 
 equally unreasonable. Kant and Hegel or even 
 minds as absolutely emancipated from the scholastic 
 traditions as Herder, Schiller and Goethe would, if 
 judged like that, not escape our terrible accusation 
 of pedantry. 
 
 We may congratulate our neighbours upon their 
 freedom from all such fetters, which, we are bound 
 to say, would be less hurtful to them than to us. 
 With them the school and science are in touch ; 
 with us, every system of higher education, which in 
 its manner, has still the scent of the school about it, 
 is voted "bad form " and unbearable. People think 
 they are showing great subtlety and tact by placing 
 themselves above everything that reminds them of 
 school instruction. Every one indulges in that small
 
 1 06 The Future of Science. 
 
 conceit, and fancies he is proving in that way that 
 he has got over his schooHng long ago. Does it 
 sound credible to us that in the ceremonies, resembhng 
 our distributions of prizes, when with us a display of 
 eloquence is the thing, the Germans confine them- 
 selves to the reading aloud of grammatical disserta- 
 tions of the severest kind and bristling with Greek 
 and Latin words (49) ? Should we be able to under- 
 stand solemn and public sittings, occupied with the 
 following lectures. " On the Nature of the Con- 
 junction.'' — "0/2. the Germaji pe^^iod.'" — " On the 
 Greek Mathematicians.'" — '' On the topography of 
 the Battle of Marathon.'' — " On the plain of Grissa." 
 — " On the centuries of Servius Tullius." — " On the 
 Vineyards of Attica." — " Classification of the Pre- 
 positions." — ^^Elucidation of the difficult words in 
 Homer." — " Commentary on tlie portrait of Thersites 
 in Homer;" etc.; etc. (50)? All this implies 
 among our neighbours a marvellous taste for the 
 serious, and also perhaps a certain amount of courage 
 in being bored without wincing when etiquette re- 
 quires it. Madame de Stael says that the Viennese 
 of her time amused themselves methodically and as 
 a matter of conscience. Perhaps the German public 
 may also be more patient than ours when it becomes 
 a question of being bored ceremoniously and by 
 ofiQcial invitation. It will soon become with us a 
 meritorious act to witness a sitting of the Academy 
 of Inscriptions, though the blame may not be laid 
 at the door of the Academies. Our public is too 
 difficult to please, it wants to be interested and even 
 amused where instruction should suffice ; and in fact 
 until one has a conception of the lofty and philo- 
 sophical aim of science, as long as people will look 
 upon it as a kind of curiosity, like any other curiosity, 
 it will be voted a bore and taxed vrith the ennui it 
 produces. Play for play there is no reason why the 
 least attractive should be chosen. 
 
 Montaigne who in many respects is the eminently 
 typical intellect of the Frenchman, represents that
 
 The Future of Science. 107 
 
 typical intellect above all by his horror of everything 
 that reminds him of pedantry. It is a treat to see 
 him do the "free and easy," the man of the world 
 who understands nothing of science and "knows 
 everything without having ever learned anything."* 
 "All these," he says; "are but so many dreams of 
 a man who has only tasted the upper crust of science 
 in his infancy, and has only retained a general and 
 vague impression of it ; a little of everything and 
 nothing at all, iii the French fashion. For in sum, 
 I know that there is a science of medicine, of juris- 
 prudence, four jDarts in mathematics, and roughly at 
 what they aim. And I may perhaps have an inkling 
 of the pretensions of sciences in general with regard 
 to their use in life, but as for having gone deeper 
 into them, as for having bitten my nails to the quick 
 in the study of Aristotle, the king of the modern 
 method, or having obstinately pursued any science 
 at all, I have never done so, there is no art of which 
 I can do more than lay down the first principles. 
 There is not a middle class child, but what may call 
 itself more learned than I, who could not make it 
 go through its first lesson. And if I were compelled 
 to do so, I should be obhged to draw absurdly from 
 said lesson some matter of general import, on which 
 I would examine his natural aptitude ; a lesson as 
 utterly unknown to him, as his is to me." 
 
 Nevertheless, he takes good care to show that he 
 understands as much about it as any one else, and to 
 reveal such traits of learning as may do credit to his 
 understanding, provided it be taken for granted that 
 he sets no store by them and that he is above such 
 pedantry. He prides himself upon having no memory 
 {retention) and "to be a capital hand at forgetting " 
 excellent en ouhliance. " 1 have got no store cup- 
 board ; " {Je n'ai pas de gardoire) he says ; " for it is 
 by that that the learned shine." Upon the whole, it 
 is a nice quiet way of snapping his fingers at the 
 virtues of the savant in order to raise himself in 
 * Moliere. — Transl.
 
 IQQ TJie Future of Science. 
 
 peoples' estimation by those of the man of sense and 
 the man of wit, a way eminently characteristic of the 
 French intellect and which Madame de Stael desig- 
 nates so very cleverly by the name of " the pedantry 
 of thoughtlessness " (51).
 
 Tlie Future of Science. 109 
 
 CHAPTEE VIL 
 
 <r. 
 
 Just as in the very bosom of religion there are 
 a great many men handhng sacred matters without 
 the least idea of their lofty meaning, and only look- 
 ing at them in the light of vulgar manipulation, so 
 in the field of science there are labourers — very 
 worthy people in the main — often utterly lacking in 
 the sentiment of their work and its value in the 
 fm-therance of the ideal. Let us hasten to add that 
 it would be unfair to require of the savant the ever 
 immediate consciousness of the aim of his work ; it 
 would be bad taste on our part to wish him to speak 
 of it deliberately in and out of season ; it would be 
 compelling him to head all his works with the self- 
 same prolegomena. Take the most beautiful scientific 
 works, peruse the works of Letronne, of Burnouf, of 
 Lassen, of Grimm and of the princes of modern criti- 
 cism generally and perhaps you would seek in vain 
 for a page directly and abstractedly philosophical. 
 The fact of their authors being thoroughly imbued 
 with the philosophic spirit is made manifest not so 
 much by an isolated flight of rhetoric as by the 
 general spirit and method. Nay, this prudent ab- 
 stention may often be taken as an act of scientific 
 virtue and the heroes of science are they who, though 
 more capable than no matter whom of indulging in 
 lofty speculation, have the strength of mind to con- 
 fine themselves to the strict statement of facts and ab- 
 staiuing voluntarily from anticipated generalizations.
 
 110 The Future of Science. 
 
 Works undertaken witliont this noble spirit may even 
 powerfully aid in the cultivation of the human intel- 
 lect irrespective of the more or less paltry intentions 
 of their authors. Is it at all necessary for the marble 
 quarrier to have an idea of the future monument of 
 which the blocks which he quarries will form a part ? 
 Among the laborious workers of science who have 
 raised the edifice of science many looked no further 
 than the stone they shaped, or at any rate no further 
 than the limited region where they placed it. Like 
 the ants, they each bring their individual tribute, 
 remove some obstacle, cross one another incessantly, 
 apparently without the slightest attempt at order, 
 and only get in one another's way. Nevertheless, it 
 happens that by the united labour of so many men 
 and without any preconceived plan a science is orga- 
 nized, and organized in noble proportions. An in- 
 visible genius has been the architect presiding over 
 the whole and has made all those isolated efforts 
 subservient to a perfect unity. 
 
 By studying the origin of each science one will 
 find that the first steps were nearly always taken 
 with no very distinct consciousness, and that 
 among others, philological studies owe a large debt 
 of gratitude to very mediocre intellects, which at the 
 outset laid down their material conditions. Hervas, 
 Paulin de Saint-Barthelemi, Pigafetta who must be 
 considered the founders of linguistic science were 
 certainly not geniuses. What an immense fact in 
 the history of the human intellect is the initiation of 
 the Latin world in the understanding of Greek litera- 
 ture. The two men who contributed most powerfully 
 to it, Barlaam and Leontius Pilatus were according 
 to Petrarch and Boccacio who knew them so very 
 intimately two nonentities who were as surly as 
 they were wbimsical. The majority of the Greek 
 emigrants who played so important a part in the 
 development of European intelligence w^ere men of 
 no parts whatsoever, downright labourers who took 
 advantage j»er alcuni denari of their knowledge of
 
 The Future of Science. Ill 
 
 Greek. For every Bessarion there were a hundred 
 Philelphuses. The lexicographers are as a rnle not 
 very great philosophers and still the best book on gene- 
 ralities has not had so great an influence on the higher 
 sciences as the dictionary — philosophically an ex- 
 ceedingly poor performance— by which Wilson made 
 the study of Sanskrit possible in Europe. There are 
 works requiring an amount of plodding drudgery to 
 which men impelled by too powerful a craving for 
 philosophical studies would with difficulty submit. 
 Would lofty and energetic minds have succeeded 
 in accomplishing the immense works issued from the 
 scientific workshops of the congregation of St. Maur ?* 
 Every scientific work, conducted according to a sound 
 method, keeps its unquestionable value, irrespective 
 of the wider or narrower views of its author. The 
 only useless works are those in which the smatterer 
 or the quack pretends to imitate the bearing of 
 genuine science, and those in which the author, 
 prompted by an interested thought, or by the pre- 
 conceived dreams of his imagination is bent at all 
 costs upon finding his chimeras everywhere. 
 
 Though it is not necessary for the workman to 
 have a perfect knowledge of the work he executes, 
 one could wish those who devote themselves to 
 special labours to have an idea of the whole which 
 alone imparts value to their researches. If the many 
 laborious workers to whom science owes its progress 
 had possessed the philosophical spirit of what they 
 did, if they had perceived in learning something- 
 more than the satisfaction of their vanity or curiosity, 
 how many precious moments would have been saved, 
 how many fruitless excursions spared, how many 
 lives given up to insignificant works would have 
 been devoted to more useful researches. When we 
 come to consider that the intellectual labour of whole 
 
 * The congregation of St. Maur, a reformed branch of the order 
 of St. Benedict, was founded in France in the seventeenth century 
 and has rightly been called the nursery ground of savants. — 
 Transl.
 
 112 The Future of Science. 
 
 ceuturies, of whole countries, of Spain for instance, 
 has heen wasted, for lack of a substantial object 
 in view, that millions of volumes have crumbled to 
 dust without producing the least result, we cannot 
 help regretting deeply this immense loss of human 
 force, brought about by the absence of guidance 
 and for want of a distinct perception of the goal to 
 be reached. The intensely sad impression one feels 
 on entering a library is due mainly to the thought 
 tliat nine-tenths of the books crowded together 
 there have missed their mark, and whether through 
 the fault of the author himself, or through the 
 fault of circumstances have never had nor will ever 
 have, any direct action on the onward march of 
 humanity. 
 
 It seems to me that science will only then recover 
 its dignity when it takes up its definite stand on the 
 grand and wide point of view of its veritable aim. 
 In former days there was room for that trivial and 
 more or less innocuous character of the savant of 
 the Restoration, a semi-courtier-like part, the actor 
 of which had a way of allowing himself to be taken 
 for a man of solid attainments who tossed his head 
 at ambitious innovations ; it was a way of securing 
 the patronage of some Maecenas, a duke or peer, 
 who as a mark of high favour admitted him in the 
 capacity of a bit of furniture of his drawing-room, 
 or of an antique curio of his collection ; and in the 
 whole transaction there was nothing deserving the 
 name of serious, there was nothing but the more or 
 less imbecile laughter of vanity, the laughter so terribly 
 aggravating when it presumes to meddle with serious 
 matters. That is the kind of thing which is doomed 
 to disappear for ever more, that is as good as buried 
 together with the playthings of a society in which 
 shams still played so important a part. To entice 
 science from the grandiose midst of humanity in 
 ordcx to make it an idle plaything of a court or a 
 drawing-room is degrading science, for the day is not 
 far distant wben everything that is not serious and
 
 The Future of Science. 113 
 
 true will be ridiculous. Let us, then, be true for 
 Heaven's sake, true like Thales when from his own 
 initiative and impelled from within he took to 
 speculating upon nature, true like Socrates, true 
 like Jesus, genuine like St. Paul, genuine like all 
 those great men which the ideal claimed as its own, 
 took possession of and dragged after it. Let us leave 
 old-world twaddle to plead lukewarmly in apology 
 for science that like everything else, it is a neces- 
 sity, an ornament, that it confers lustre on a country, 
 etc., etc. All this is so much sheer imbecility. 
 Where is the noble and philosophic soul, eager for 
 perfection, possessing the sentiment of its intrinsic 
 worth that would consent to sacrifice itself to such 
 vanities, that would gladly take up its place in the 
 inanimate tapestry of human nature, to enact in the 
 living world the part of a mummy in a museum. 
 As for myself, I confess frankly that if I could see 
 a form of hfe more beautiful than that of science, 
 I should run to embrace it. How can one be recon- 
 ciled to what one knows to be the second-best ? How 
 can one consent to put one's self among the waste, 
 to accept a mere part of show when life is so short, 
 when nothing can make up for the moments not 
 devoted to the delights of the ideal ? Oh, truth 
 and earnestness of life, oh holy poesy of things, what 
 is there to console us for having no feeling for thee ? 
 And to talk for a moment of the serious hour to 
 which everyone must look forward to appreciate 
 things in their true light, who will be able to breathe 
 his last tranquilly, when, in casting a glance back- 
 ward, he only finds in his life frivolity or gratified 
 curiosity ? The end only is worthy of being looked 
 at, the whole rest nothing but vanity. To live does 
 not mean to glide smoothly along a pleasant surface, 
 it does not mean making the world your plaything 
 in the pursuit of your own pleasure ; it means to 
 partake of many beautiful things, it means to be the 
 fellow-traveller of the stars; it means knowledge, 
 hope, love, admiration ; it means well-doing. He 
 
 I
 
 I t The Future of Science. 
 
 has lived most and most worthily who by his heart 
 and intellect, by his acts has worshipped most. 
 
 Hence, to look at science in the light of a mere 
 satisfaction of vanity or curiosity is as great an error 
 as to consider poetry merely the listless exercise 
 of frivolous minds, or literature the amusement of 
 which one tires least, and to which one comes back 
 most willingly. The collector and the amateur 
 may render signal services to science, but they are 
 neither savants nor philosophers. They are as far 
 removed from it as the manufacturer. For they 
 amuse themselves, they pursue their own pleasure 
 just as the manufacturer seeks his profit. I am 
 aware of there being various degrees of curiosity. 
 There is a wide difference between the paltry instinct 
 of the collector which scarcely difi"ers from the attach- 
 ment of the child to his toys, and the more elevated 
 form when it becomes a love of knowledge, that is ; 
 a legitimate instinct of nature and may be productive 
 of a very noble existence. Boj^e and Charles Nodier 
 are only mere inquirers, and still they closely trench 
 upon the philosoj^her. It is very rare, in fact, that 
 with the highest exercise of the intellect there is 
 not mixed up a certain amount of pleasure, which 
 though having no value as far as the ideal is con- 
 cerned, is none the less useful. It would be difiicult 
 to say how many discoveries have been simply due 
 to curiosity. How many compilations, precious in 
 view of ultimate researches would have never been 
 made but for that innocent love of labour with which 
 many mildly active natures cheat their craving. It 
 would be cruel indeed to refuse to those humble 
 workers the trivial and not very lofty pleasure, but 
 sweet withal, which M. Daunou has so well defined 
 as x>(J^perasser* We are all more or less glad at having 
 felt the same satisfaction, if for no other reason than 
 because it has helped us to devour the barren pages 
 
 * Pnprrasser means hotli a loVe of scribbling and of ferreting 
 among documents. Daunou was the author of a remarkable series 
 of iljbtorical JtisBays; died about 1840. — Transl.
 
 The Future of Science. 115 
 
 of science. Without this the first studies necessary 
 to master the material baggage of a language would 
 be unbearable, and thanks to this they become the 
 most attractive imaginable. 
 
 We may go further still and positively aflQrm that 
 without this attraction the most learned men of 
 modern times who were neither borne up by lofty 
 philosophical views, nor by directly religious motives, 
 would not have undertaken those immense labours 
 which have made the investigations of higher criti- 
 cism possible to us. He who, with our material 
 wants intensified to a greater pitch, would accom- 
 plish a similar act of abnegation to-day, would be 
 a hero. But it is important to maintain for all that, 
 that this curiosity has no immediate moral whatsoever, 
 and that its possession does not constitute the savant. 
 There are manufacturers who exploit science for their 
 benefit, the others exploit it for their amusement. 
 No doubt the latter is the better part, but there is 
 not an enormous difi'erence between the two. Plea- 
 sure being essentially personal and interested, there 
 is nothing whatsoever sacred or moral about it. All 
 literature, all poesy, all science whose only aim is 
 to amuse or merely to awaken interest is for this 
 very reason frivolous and vain, or to speak correctly, 
 has no right at all to call itseK literature, poesy or 
 science. The mountebanks in the streets and else- 
 where do as much, and what is more, succeed better. 
 How is it that one considers the perusal of Corneille, 
 Goethe, Byron as a serious occupation, and that the 
 perusal of such and such a modern novel or drama 
 is looked upon as merely a pastime ? For the same 
 reason that the Quarterly and Edinburgh Revieivs are 
 serious periodicals and that the Magasin Pittoresque 
 is a frivolous book. 
 
 Therefore, to take up science as merely interesting 
 and curious is to humiliate it. In that case Chris- 
 tian asceticism would be perfectly right in its oppo- 
 sition. The sole legitimate means of making one's 
 self the apologist of science is to look upon it as the
 
 116 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 essential element to human perfection. " The Imita- 
 tion of Christ," after having begun like the " master 
 of those who know " with the words ; " Every man is 
 naturally desirous to know," was thoroughly right in 
 adding; ''But what is the use of science without love? 
 Better by far the humble peasant who serves God, 
 than the proud philosopher who watches the course 
 of tlie stars and neglects himself. What is the use 
 of the knowledge of things, the ignorance of which 
 will not cause us to be condemned ? All is vanity, 
 save the love of God and to serve Him." There 
 is no gainsaying this, if science be conceived as a 
 simple series of formulas, if perfect love be possible 
 without knowledge. If we place perfection on one 
 side, on the other vanity, how can one fail to follow 
 perfection ? But it is this very division which is 
 illegitimate, because perfection is impossible without 
 science. The true way of worshii^ping God, is to 
 know and to love that which isj
 
 TJie Future of Science. 117 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 Of all branches of human knowledge j)liilology is the 
 one of which it becomes most difficult to grasp the 
 aim and the unity. Astronomy, zoology, botany 
 have all a determined object in view. But what is 
 that of philology ? The grammarian, the linguist, the 
 lexicographer, the literary man in the special meaning 
 of the word have, all of them, a right to the title of 
 philologists, and we observe, in fact, between those 
 various studies a connection sufficiently strong to 
 enable us to call them by a common name. In one 
 respect the words philology, philosophy, poesy and 
 a good many others are very much alike ; in that 
 their very vagueness is expressive. When after the 
 manner of the logicians we look for a phrase equiva- 
 lent to those comprehensive words, and which at the 
 same time gives their definition, we become greatly 
 embarrassed because they have neither in their ob- 
 ject nor in their method any unique characteristic. 
 Socrates, Diogenes, Pascal, Voltaire are termed 
 philosophers ; Homer, Aristophanes, Lucretms, Mar- 
 tial, Chaulieu and Lamartine are termed poets, but 
 it is not easy to find the family link which unites 
 minds so utterly different under the same name. 
 Such appellations have not been coined according to 
 preconceived and clearly defined notions ; they owe 
 their origin to a process less fettered in its applica- 
 tion and upon the whole more exact than that of 
 artificial logic. These words designate regions of the 
 human intellect between which we must be careful
 
 118 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 not to trace lines of demarcation too hard and fast. 
 Where does eloquence end, where does poetry com- 
 mence (52) ? Is Plato a poet, is he a philosopher ? 
 Puerile questions, these, no doubt, seeing that what- 
 soever name we give him he will be none the less 
 admirable, and that genius does not work in the 
 exclusive categories which language coins afterwards, 
 and on the strength of his work. The whole differ- 
 ence lies in a peculiar harmony, in a more or less 
 sonorous ring with regard to which an experienced 
 faculty never hesitates. 
 
 Antiquity, wiser in this respect and less distantly 
 removed from the origin of these words, was less 
 embarrassed in their application. The very complex 
 sense of its word grammar did not cause it the least 
 hesitation. Since we have drawn up a map of science 
 as it were we persist in assigning to philology, to 
 philosophy each a place apart ; and yet they are 
 less special sciences than different ways of treating 
 things intellectual. 
 
 At a time when the first question asked of the 
 savant refers to the nature of his studies, and the 
 results attained, philology can but find small favour. 
 One understands the physicist, the student of cheni- 
 istr)", the astronomer ; the philosopher is less well 
 understood, and the philologist still less. The 
 majority, wrongly interpreting the etymology of his 
 name imagine that he only works on words (and 
 what, say they, could be more frivolous ?) and never 
 dream of distinguishing like Zeno the philologist from 
 the logojJiile (5'S). The vague cloud that hangs over 
 the object of his studies, that sporadic character as 
 the Germans call it, that almost undefined latitude 
 which embraces so many divers researches under the 
 same name is apt to make one believe that he is 
 only an amateur, who fiits about amidst the variety 
 of his works, and undertakes exploring expeditious 
 into the past just as certain burrowing animals con- 
 struct subterranean passages for the mere pleasure 
 of constructing them. His place in the philosophical-
 
 The Future of Science. 119 
 
 organization is as yet not sufficiently defined, Ms 
 monographs keep on accumulating without any one 
 perceiving their purport. 
 
 Philology, in fact, seems at the first glance only 
 to offer an ensemble of studies without any scientific 
 unity. Everything that contributes to restore or to 
 illustrate the past has the right to a place in it. 
 Understood in its etymological meaning it should 
 only include grammar, exegesis and criticism of texts. 
 Works of pure learning, of archaeology, of esthetic 
 criticism should be excluded from it. But such ex- 
 clusion would, however, not be natural at all. For 
 there is the closest connection between these labours, 
 they form, as a rule, part of the studies of the same 
 individual, very often of the same work. To elimi- 
 nate some of these from the ensemble of philological 
 labours, would be to make an artificial and arbitrary 
 scission in a natural group. Let us take, for in- 
 stance, the school of Alexandria ; a few philosophical 
 and theurgical speculations apart, are not all the 
 labours of that school, even those which do not come 
 directly under the head of philology, stamped with 
 the same spirit, which one may call philological, 
 a spirit it carries even into poetry and philosophy ? 
 Would a history of philology be complete if it made 
 no mention of Apollonius of Rhodes, of Apollodorus, of 
 yElian, of Diogenes Laertius, of Athenseus and other 
 polygraphists, whose works are, however, far from 
 being philological, even in the most restricted mean- 
 ing ? If, on the other hand, we grant to philology its 
 widest possible extension, where are we to stop ? 
 If we do not look out, we shall be forcibly brought to 
 include nearly the whole of the literature of thought 
 into it. Historians, critics, polygraphists, the wiiters 
 of literary history will have to find a place in it (54). 
 Such is the drawback, grave no doubt, but necessary 
 withal and compensated for by great advantages, of 
 separating in that way a group of ideas, belonging to 
 the ensemble of the human intellect and to which it 
 clings with every one of its fibres. Let us add that
 
 120 The Future of Science. 
 
 the bearing of words changes with the revolution of 
 things and that in the appreciation of their meaning 
 we should only be g aided by their central notions, 
 without trying to imprison those notions in formulas 
 which are never theii' perfect equivalents. When it 
 becomes a question of ancient literature, criticism 
 and erudition enter by right into the framework of 
 philology ; on the other hand the historian of modern 
 philology will not deem it incumbent upon him to 
 speak of our grand collections of civil and literary 
 history, nor of those brilliant works of aesthetic criti- 
 cism that have attained the level of the noblest 
 philosophical creations {56). 
 
 Therefore, the field of the philologist can no more 
 be defined than that of the philosopher, for both in 
 fact are occupied not with a distinct object, but with 
 all things from a special standpoint. The true philo- 
 logist must be at once a linguist, a historian, an 
 archaeologist, an artist and a philosopher. Ever}'- 
 thing assumes to him a meaning and a value, in view 
 of the object he sets himself, and which renders 
 serious the most frivolous things distantly or closely 
 connected with it. Those who like Heyne and Wolf 
 have confined the role of the philologist to the re- 
 production in its purely scientific domain, and as in 
 a living library, of every trait of the ancient world 
 (56), do not appear to have understood the full extent 
 of their range. The aim of philology does not He 
 within itself; it has its value as a necessary con- 
 dition of the history of the human intellect and the 
 study of the past. No doubt a good many philolo- 
 gists whose learned studies have thrown open an- 
 tiquity to us, saw no further than the text they 
 interpreted and around which they grouped the 
 myriad spangles of their brilliant learning. In this, 
 as in every other science, the natural curiosity of the 
 human intellect coming to the aid of the philo- 
 sophical spirit and supporting the patience of investi- 
 gators has no doubt had its use. 
 
 A great many people feel inclined to laugh when
 
 The Future of Science. 121 
 
 they find grave intellects take an enormous deal of 
 trouble in explaining grammatical peculiarities, col- 
 lect glossaries, compare the variorum editions of some 
 ancient author whose only claim to notice often lies 
 in his oddity or mediocrity. All this arises through 
 not having understood in a sufficiently wide sense the 
 history of the human intellect and the study of the 
 past. Human intelligence after having traversed 
 a certain space likes to retrace its steps to behold 
 once more the road along which it has travelled, to 
 chew the cud of its own thoughts. The first creators 
 did not look behind them, they marched onward, 
 without any other guide than the eternal principles 
 of human nature. But, on the other hand, humanity 
 reaches a certain stage, when books have sufficiently 
 accumulated to be collected and compared, and then 
 the mind will only proceed with a full knowledge 
 of facts ; it wants to confront its work with that of 
 bygone ages ; that day witnesses the birth of the 
 literature of thought, and parallel with it, the birth of 
 philology. The apparition, therefore, is not, as has 
 been said, a sign of the death of various literatures, 
 it merely bears witness to their having accomplished 
 ah'eady one life. Greek literature was manifestly not 
 dead in the age of the Pisistratidae when the philo- 
 logical spirit shows itself already so characteristic. 
 In the Latin and French literatures, the philological 
 spirit was the forerunner of the grand productive 
 epochs. China, India, Arabia, Syria, Greece, Eome, 
 the modern nations have all known the moment when 
 the labour of the intellect from being spontaneous 
 becomes scientific and no longer proceeds without 
 consulting the archives deposited in museums and 
 libraries. The development of the Hebrew people 
 itself which previous to Christ appears to offer less 
 trace than any other of intellectual activity, shows 
 in its decline perceptible vestiges of that spirit of 
 comparison, of collecting, of " patching up " if I 
 may so call it, which terminates the original life of 
 all literatures.
 
 122 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 These considerations would, it appears to me, be 
 sufficient as an apology for the philological sciences. 
 Nevertheless, they are, in my opinion, very secondary 
 indeed, when we come to consider the new position 
 which the development of contemporary philosophy 
 ought to grant to these studies. It wants but one 
 step more for science to be proclaimed the true philo- 
 sophy of humanity, and the science of a being who is 
 in a perpetual condition of "to be " can only be the 
 history of that being. The history of the human 
 intellect not merely inquisitive but theoretical, that 
 is the philosophy of the nineteenth century. 
 
 And it so happens that this study is only possible 
 through the direct study of monuments, and that 
 those monuments "cannot be got at" without the 
 special researches of the philologist. Certain forms 
 of the past are each in itself sufficient to occupy 
 a laborious existence. An ancient language, often 
 utterly unknown, an isolated palaeography, an archae- 
 ology and a history painfully deciphered, each of 
 these is assuredly more than enough to engross all 
 the efforts of the most patient investigator, unless 
 humbler workers have given protracted labour to the 
 digging from the quarry and to the presentation in an 
 aggregate for his appreciation of the materials with 
 which he is to reconstruct the edifice of the past (57). 
 In the opinion of posterity, such and such a ponderous, 
 mediocre, but patient intellect, who has contributed 
 one important stone to this gigantic work will perhaps 
 occupy a loftier standpoint than such and such a 
 speculative mind of secondary order, who called him- 
 self a philosopher and who did nothing but talk about 
 the problem, without providing a single new datum 
 to its solution. The revolution which since 1820 has 
 completely changed the aspect of historical studies, 
 or which, to speak more correctly has really founded 
 the science of history among us, is obviously as 
 important a fact as the apparition of a new system. 
 Well; would the works of a Guizot, a Thierry, a 
 Michelet, works so full of originality, would they
 
 The Future of Science. 123 
 
 have been possible without the Benedictine collections 
 and other preparatory labours ? Mabillon, Muratori, 
 Baluze, Du Cange were not great philosophers, and 
 still they have done more for true philosophy than a 
 good many empty and systematic minds who wanted 
 to build the fabric of things on air, and of whom not 
 a single syllable will remain among our final acqui- 
 sitions. I am not alluding here to works in which 
 the most solid learning is wedded to a subtle or lofty 
 criticism, such as for instance the last volumes of 
 " L'histoire litteraire de la France " " L'Essai sur le 
 Buddhisme " of M. Eugene Burnouf, " L'Archeologie 
 Indienne " of M. Lassen, "La Grammaire Comparee " 
 of M. Bopp, or " Les Eeligions de I'Antiquite " of M. 
 Guigniaut. As for myself I have no hesitation in 
 saying that I have got more things philosophical out 
 of each one of these works than fi'om the whole of 
 the collected works of Descartes and of his school. 
 But I am speaking of those works of a severer cha- 
 racter which the profane consider as unreadable, 
 such as for instance ; Catalogues of Manuscripts, 
 grand compilations, "Libraries " like that of Fabricus, 
 etc. ; etc. Well I maintain that such books, almost 
 insignificant in themselves, have a priceless value if 
 looked upon as materials for the history of the human^ 
 intellect. Ten thousand volumes of philosophy like 
 the " Lessons " of La Eomiguiere or the " Logique " 
 of Port-Eoyal might burn before my eyes, and I 
 should prefer to save " La Bibliotheque Orientale " of 
 Assemani or the " Bibliotheca Ai'abico-Hispana " of 
 Casiri. For philosophy always benefits by taking up 
 things ah integro, and after all the philosopher can 
 always say; ^^ Omnia mecum porto ; " whereas the 
 noblest genius in the world could not restore to me 
 the documents in those collections bearing upon 
 Syriac and Arabic literature, two very secondary facets, 
 no doubt, but still, two facets of the human intellect. 
 It is very easy to ridicule those attempts at re- 
 storing obscure literatures, often of but mediocre 
 value. The error arises from the fact of not under-
 
 124 The Future of Science. 
 
 staDding the whole extent, the infinite variety of the 
 science of the human intellect. A learned disciple 
 of M. Biirnonf, M. Foucaux has for the last few years 
 tried to introduce into France the study of Thibetic. 
 I should not be surprised in the least but that his 
 praiseworthy enterprise has already caused many an 
 epigram to be flung at him ; well I declare, I, that 
 M. Foucaux is doing more meritorious work with 
 regard to the philosophy of the future than three 
 fourths of those who claim the position of philo- 
 sophers and thinkers. When Mr. Hodgson dis- 
 covered in the monasteries of Nepaul the primitive 
 monuments of Indian Buddhism, he did greater 
 service to thought than a generation of scholastic 
 metaphysicians could have done. He provided one 
 of the most essential elements to the explanation of 
 the Gospel and Christianity by revealing to criticism 
 one of the most curious religious apparitions and the 
 only fact possessing a close analogy to the grandest 
 phenomenon in the history of humanity. He who 
 should bring us back from the East a few works in 
 Zend or Pehlvi, who should make known to Europe 
 the epic poems and the whole of the civilization of 
 the Rajpoots, who should make his way into the 
 libraries of the Djains of Guzerat, who should give us 
 an exact knowledge of the books of the Gnostic sect 
 which is still being preserved under the name of 
 Meudeans or Nasoreans, he who should do all this 
 would be certain to have contributed an imperishable 
 stone to the grand fabric of the science of humanity. 
 Where is the abstract thinker who can make sure of 
 a similar satisfaction ? 
 
 Hence, it is in philosophy that we must look for 
 the real value of philology. Each branch of human 
 knowledge has its special results which it brings as a 
 tribute to the general science of things and to uni- 
 versal criticism, one of the first needs of thinking 
 man. Herein lies the dignity of all special research 
 and of the last details of learning which have no 
 meaning for the frivolous and light-minded. Looked
 
 The Future of Science. 125 
 
 at in this light, there is no such a thing as trivial or 
 useless research. There is no study, however unim- 
 portant its object may seem, but what brings its ray 
 of light to the science of the whole, to the true philo- 
 sophy of the realities. The general results which 
 alone, we are bound to admit, have a value in them- 
 selves, and are the final aim of science, become only 
 possible by the means of knowledge, and of learned 
 knowledge of details. We go further still and say 
 that the general results not based on the knowledge 
 of the latest details are necessarily hollow and arti- 
 ficial; whereas special researches, even if destitute of 
 the philosophical spirit may be of the greatest value 
 if they are exact and conducted according to a severe 
 method. The spirit of science is that intellectual 
 communion which links the scholar to the thinker, 
 gives to each his deserved glory and establishes the 
 point of convergence at w^hich their several labours 
 meet at last. 
 
 The union of philology and philosophy, of learning 
 and thought should, therefore, be the characteristic 
 of the intellectual labour of our age. It is either 
 philology or learning which will provide the thinker 
 with that forest of things {silva rerum ac sententiarum, 
 as Cicero has it) without which philosophy will never 
 be aught else than a Penelope web which will 
 constantly have to be recommenced. We must once 
 for all abandon the attempt of the old school, to con- 
 struct the theory of things by the play of formulas 
 void of all spirit, just as if by manipulating the 
 shuttle of the weaver without putting thread into it, 
 we should pretend to manufacture hnen, or by setting 
 a mill into motion without providing corn we should 
 expect to get flour. The thinker im.plies the scholar ; 
 and if it were only for the sake of the severe training 
 of the mind, I should set very little store by the 
 philosopher who had not for once in his life worked 
 at the elucidation of some special point of science. 
 No doubt the roles may be divided and such division 
 is often desirable. But there should be at any rate
 
 126 The Futuy^e of Science. 
 
 a close commerce between these various functions, 
 the works of the scholar should no longer remain 
 buried among the mass of learned collections, where 
 for all the good they do, they might just as well not 
 exist at all ; the philosopher on the other hand should 
 no longer insist upon evolving from his own con- 
 sciousness the vital truths of which the sciences 
 outside possess such enormous wealth for him who 
 explores them intelligently and critically. 
 
 Whence come so many novel views on the progress 
 of the different literatures and the human intellect, 
 on spontaneous poetry, on the primitive ages, 
 unless they have sprung from the patient study of 
 barren detail ? Would Vico, Wolf, Niebuhr and 
 Strauss have been able to endow thought with so 
 many new views, without the possession of most 
 minute erudition? What if not erudition, has opened 
 to us the worlds of the East, the knowledge of 
 which has made possible to us the comparative 
 science of the developments of the human intellect ? 
 Why is one of the noblest geniuses of modern 
 times, Herder, so frequently inexact, chimerical, 
 inaccurate in his treatise on the "Poetry of the 
 Hebrews," in which he has put forth all his soul, 
 unless it be because he failed to support that ad- 
 mirable aesthetic sense with which he was gifted by 
 scientific criticism ? From this point of view the 
 study even of the follies of the intellect has its 
 value as regards history and psychology. Many 
 important problems of historical criticism will not be 
 solved until an " intelligent " scholar shall have 
 devoted his hfe to the dissection of the Talmud and 
 the Cabbala. If Montesquieu in classifying the laws 
 of the Ripuarians, Visigoths and the primitive Bur- 
 gundians was justified in comparing himself to Saturn 
 devouring stones, what will have to be the strength 
 of the mind capable of digesting such a farrago? And 
 still, there might be extracted fi-om it a number of 
 data exceeding valuable to the history of comparative 
 rehnrion.
 
 The Future of Science. 127 
 
 Ever since the fifteenth century the sciences 
 having for their object the human intellect and its 
 works have made no discovery to be compared to 
 that which has revealed to us in India an intellectual 
 world of marvellous wealth, variety and depth, in 
 one word, another Europe. If we review our most 
 settled ideas in comparative literature, in linguistic 
 knowledge, in ethnography, in criticism we shall find 
 the whole of them stamped and modified by this grand 
 and capital discovery. As far as I am concerned, I 
 find few elements of my thoughts whose roots are 
 not deeply planted in that sacred ground, and I aver 
 that no philosophical creation has furnished so many 
 living parts to modern science as this patient restora- 
 tion of a world the existence of which was not so 
 much as suspected. Here then we meet with a 
 series of essential results introduced into the current 
 of the human intellect by philologists, and scholars, 
 men by whom the partisans of the a prmri would no 
 doubt set little store. What then will it be when 
 this mine, scarcely touched, shall have been worked 
 in every direction ? What will it be when every 
 nook and corner of the human intellect shall have 
 been explored and compared in a like way ? And 
 philology alone is capable of accomplishing this task. 
 Anquetil-Duperron was undoubtedly a patient and 
 zealous student. Why did all his works have to be 
 ''propped up" as it were and radically reformed? 
 Because he was not a philologist. 
 
 One might fancy that the very fact of summoning 
 erudition to renewed intellectual activity implies its 
 being exhausted and that we are assimilating our 
 century to those epochs when literature, no longer 
 capable of producing anything original, becomes 
 critical and retrospective. There would be no doubt 
 of this, if our erudition were nothing more than a 
 dead and meaningless letter, if like some narrow 
 intellects we looked for nothing else in the know- 
 ledge and admiration of the works of the past than 
 the pedantic right of despising the works of the
 
 128 The Future of Science. 
 
 present. But in addition to our creations being 
 more spii'ited than those of the ancients, and apart 
 from the fact of every modern nation possessing 
 sufficient sap for two or three engrafted literatures, 
 our manner of conceiving philology is very much 
 more philosophical and fruitful than that of antiquity. 
 Philology is not with us, as in the school of Alex- 
 andria, the mere curiosity of the erudite man ; it is 
 an organized science having a lofty and serious aim ; 
 it is the science of the productions of the human in- 
 tellect. I am not afraid of exaggerating in saying 
 that philology inseparably bound up with criticism is 
 one of the most essential elements of the modern 
 spirit, that without philology the modern world would 
 not be what it is, and that philology constituted the 
 vast difference between the Middle Ages and modern 
 times. If we surpass the Middle Ages in clearness, 
 in precision, in criticism, it is due solely to philo- 
 logical education. 
 
 The Middle Ages worked as much as we do, the 
 Middle Ages produced intellects, as active, as pene- 
 trating as ours ; the Middle Ages had their philoso- 
 phers, their savants, their poets ; but it had no 
 philologists (58) ; hence that lack of criticism which 
 reduced them to the condition of intellectual infancy. 
 Impelled towards antiquity by that urgent need which 
 impels all the neo-Latin nations towards their intel- 
 lectual origin, it was unable to get at the truth for 
 want of the necessary instrument (59). There were 
 as many Latin authors and as few Greek authors in 
 the West at the time of Vincent of Beauvais as at 
 the time of Petrarch. And yet Vincent of Beauvais 
 knows nothing of antiquity, he possesses only a few 
 insignificant and detached scraps of it, lacking 
 coherent sense, constituting no spirit. Petrarch, on 
 the other hand, who as yet has not read Homer, but 
 who has a manuscript of him in the original language, 
 who worships him wdthout understanding him (60), 
 has instinctively guessed the spirit of antiquity ; he 
 himself has its spirit to a degree as eminent as any
 
 The Future of Science. 129 
 
 savant of the subsequent centuries ; he understands 
 with his soul that which he cannot grasp hterally, 
 his enthusiasm is aroused by an ideal, the worth of 
 which he can only surmise. It is because the philo- 
 logical spirit makes its first appearance in him. That 
 is why he should be considered tiie founder of the 
 modern spirit in criticism and literature. He is the 
 landmark between inexact fragmentary and mere 
 material knowledge, and comparative, delicate and in 
 one word, critical knowledge. Is the faulty under- 
 standing of the philosophy of the ancients by the 
 Middle Ages, for instance, to be attributed to in- 
 sufficient study ? Who would dare to affirm such a 
 thing of the century that produced the vast com- 
 mentaries of an Albertus Magnus, of a Thomas 
 Aquinas ? Is it for lack of sufficient documents ? 
 Not at all. It had the complete materials of the 
 Peripatetic philosophy, that is, the philosophical 
 encyclopaedia of antiquity ; it had furthermore nu- 
 merous documents on Platonism, and had the works 
 of Cicero, Seneca, Macrobius, of Chalcidius, and the 
 commentaries on Aristotle afforded it almost as much 
 information on the philosophy of the ancients as we 
 ourselves possess. What then did they lack, those 
 laborious workers who devoted so many vigils to that 
 deep study? They lacked that which the Eenaissance 
 possessed ; philology. If instead of wasting their 
 lives on barbarous translations and second-hand 
 works, the scholastic commentators had mastered 
 Greek and read in the original text, Aristotle, Plato, 
 Alexander Aphrodisiensis, the fifteenth century 
 would have been spared the spectacle of the war 
 between two Aristotles, the one left solitary and 
 forgotten in his original pages, the other artificially 
 created by successive and scarcely perceptible devia- 
 tions from the primitive text. The original texts of 
 a literature are its true and complete presentment. 
 Translations and second-hand renderings are en- 
 feebled copies and always leave gaps which the 
 imagination takes upon itself to fill up. In pro-
 
 130 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 portion to the copies belonging to a period removed 
 from the original and getting reproduced in still 
 more imperfect copies, the gaps increase, conjectures 
 become multiplied and the true colour of things 
 vanishes. The classical trauslations of the sixteenth 
 century were to antiquity, as the Aristotle and the 
 Galen of the Faculties, for which pupils and pro- 
 fessors were referred to the traditional class books, 
 to the real Aristotle, to the real Galen, as Greek 
 culture to the insignificant fragments collected after 
 other compilers by Martinus Capella or Isidore of 
 Seville. It is neither original production nor the 
 inquiring interest into the past, nor the perseverance 
 to work that the Middle Ages lack. The literati of 
 the Renaissance were superior neither in penetration 
 nor in application to an Alcuin, an Allain of Lille, 
 an Alexander of Hales, a Roger Bacon. But they 
 were more critical, they eujoyed the advantages 
 of the progress made in their times and of the know- 
 ledge acquired, they benefited by the favourable 
 circumstances w^hich successive events had brought 
 about. It has been the fate of philology as well as 
 of every other science to be inseparably linked to 
 the march of things, and to be unable to accelerate 
 by a single day by the effort of its own will the pro- 
 gress to be accomplished. 
 
 This OLKpLaia then may be taken as the general 
 character of the knowledge of antiquity in the Middle 
 Ages, or to be more exact, of the whole intellectual 
 condition of that period. Politics as well as litera- 
 ture had its share of it. Those fictions of hings, of 
 patricians, of emperors, of Ccesars, oi Augustuses, trans- 
 ferred to rank barbarism ; those legends of Brut, 
 of Francus, the opinion that all authority must 
 necessarily date back to the Roman Empire, as all 
 high nobihty to Troy, the way of looking upon Roman 
 law as absolute law, Greek knowledge as absolute 
 knowledge, wheuce did all this come, if not from the 
 rough ''guesswork knowledge" of antiquity, from 
 the semi-fantastic liglit by whicli that ancient world
 
 The Future of Science. 131 
 
 was viewed, that ancient world to which they aspired 
 to link themselves ? The modern spirit, that is, 
 rationalism, criticism, liberalism, was founded on the 
 same day that philology was founded. The founders 
 of the modern spirit are the jyhilologists. 
 
 Philology constitutes also one of the claims to 
 superiority of the moderns over the ancients. Anti- 
 quity can show no noble type of philological philo- 
 sopher in the style of Humboldt, Lessing, Fauriel. 
 If some Alexandrian like Porphyrus and Longinus 
 happen to add philology to philosophy, the two 
 realms with them scarcely touch one another ; philo- 
 logy does not beget philosophy ; philosophy is not 
 philological. What are Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 
 Aristarchus, Aphtonius, Macrobius compared to those 
 subtle and excellent intellects which from a certain 
 point of view constitute the philosophers of the nine- 
 teenth century (61) ? What are questions like the 
 following: "Why did Homer begin the catalogue 
 of the ships with those of the Boeotians ? " " How 
 could the head of Medusa be at one and the selfsame 
 time in the nether regions and on the shield of a 
 God ? " '' How many rowers had Ulysses ? " What 
 are questions like these and other problems that 
 supplied the subjects for the wrangUng of the schools 
 of Alexandria and Pergamos, when compared to the 
 ingenious, comprehensive and delicate way of 
 examining every aspect of things, of culling the 
 essence of every subject, of strolling through a corner 
 of " the universal " Hke a many-sided observer, which 
 nowadays we call criticism ? Such inferiority is, 
 after all, easy to explain. The ancients lacked the 
 means of comparison ; wherever they had sufficiently 
 authentic documents at hand, as in the Homeric 
 question, they left little for us to do, except in the 
 higher criticism to which the comparison of the 
 diiSerent literatures is indispensable. That is why 
 their grammar is above all defective, because they 
 only know their own language, and special gram- 
 matical systems derive their life from general gram-
 
 132 The Future of Scierice. 
 
 mar, and general grammar presupposes a comparison 
 of idioms. The ancients were equal to the modern 
 philologists most enamoured of their subjects in 
 the minuteness of their details and the patience of 
 their comparisons. As for the criticism of texts, 
 their position was far different to ours. They had no 
 inventory of manuscripts of acknowledged authority 
 and settled once for all to guide them, as we have. 
 Hence they were compelled to think less than we 
 do, of comparing and counting them. Aulus Gellius, 
 for instance, in the critical discussions in which he 
 frequently indulges argues nearly always a priori and 
 appeals very seldom to the authority of ancient copies. 
 Cicero said that Aristarchus rejected as interpolations 
 such verses of Homer as did not please him (62). 
 The imperfection of lexicography, the infant state of 
 linguistic knowledge caused a great deal of uncer- 
 tainty with regard to the exegesis of archaic texts. 
 At the philological epoch the ancient tongue had 
 already become a learned idiom, requiring special 
 study, almost like the literal language of the far East, 
 and it is not surprising that the moderns should often 
 censure the interjDretations of the ancient philo- 
 logists, for they were scarcely more competent than 
 we are as regards the scientific theory of their own 
 language, and we have unquestionably hermeneutical 
 means at our disposal which they had not (63). The 
 ancients, in fact, knew no language but their own 
 and only the classical and settled form of that 
 language. 
 
 But the inferiority of antiquity was above all per- 
 ceptible in erudition. The want of elementary books, 
 of manuals containing common and ordinary notions 
 (64), of biographical, historical and geographical dic- 
 tionaries, etc., threw back everyone upon his own 
 researches, and multiplied errors even with the most 
 skilful writers (65). Where should we be, if in order 
 to learn history or geography, we were reduced to 
 the scattered facts to be picked up in books that do 
 not treat of sucli science ex prnfesso ?■ The paucity
 
 The Future of Science. 133 
 
 of books, the absence of indexes and concordances 
 whicli so greatly facilitate our researches often com- 
 pelled them to quote from memory, that is, in a very 
 inaccurate manner. And last of all, the ancients had 
 not the experience of a tolerably great number of 
 literary revolutions to fall back upon ; they could not 
 compare sufficiently many literatures to soar very high 
 in aesthetic criticism. Let us remember that our 
 superiority in that way only dates from a few years 
 back. In this respect the ancients were exactly on 
 the level of our seventeenth century. When one 
 reads the opuscida of Dionysius of Halicarnassus on 
 Plato, on Thucydides, on the style of Demosthenes, 
 one might well fancy to be reading the " Memoirs " 
 of M. and of Madame Dacier and other worthy savants 
 which fill up the first volumes of the Transactions 
 of the Academic cles Inscriptions et Belles-Letti^es. 
 What artificiality, what puerility do not we meet 
 with even in the " Treatise of the Sublime " itself, 
 that is, in the best critical work of antiquity, a work 
 that we may compare with the productions of the 
 French school of the eighteenth century (66) ? Per- 
 haps the very ages that know best how to produce 
 the beautiful may know least how to give its theory. 
 Nothing could be more insipid than what Kacine and 
 Corneille have left us in the way of criticism. One 
 is tempted to say that they did not understand the 
 beauties of their own works. 
 
 To appreciate the value of philology we should 
 not ask ourselves what is the worth of this or that 
 obscure monograph, this or that note which the 
 scholar crams in at the bottom of a page of his 
 favourite author ; we have as much right to inquire 
 about the use in natural history of this or that mono- 
 graph ;on a certain variety lost among fifty thousand 
 species of insects. We must consider the revolution 
 philology has wrought ; we must examine what the 
 human intellect was before the advent of philological 
 culture, what it has become since it has felt the 
 influence of this culture ; what changes the critical
 
 134 The Future of Science. 
 
 understanding of antiquity has wrought in the 
 manner of inquiring practised by modern students. 
 And, it seems to me that a carefully written history 
 of the human intellect from the fifteenth century 
 onwards would show that the most important revolu- 
 tions of thought have been brought about by the 
 men whom we should call litterateurs or philologists. 
 At any rate there can be no doubt that such men 
 have had a more direct influence than those properly 
 called philosophers. When posterity shall regulate 
 the ranks in the Pantheon of humanity according to 
 the influence brought to bear on the progress of 
 things, the names of Petrarch, of Voltaire, of Eous- 
 seau, of Lamartine will no doubt take precedence of 
 those of Descartes and Kant. The first reformers, 
 Luther, Melanchthon, Eobanus Hessus, Calvin, all 
 the abettors of the Eeformation, Erasmus, the 
 Etiennes were philologists, the Reformation was born 
 when philology was in full swing. The eighteenth 
 century, though suj^erficial in erudition gets at its 
 results much more by criticism, history and positive 
 science than by metaphysical abstraction (67). Uni- 
 versal criticism is the only characteristic one can 
 assign to the delicate, fleeting, undefinable thought 
 of the nineteenth century. By what name shall we 
 call so many chosen intellects which without ab- 
 stractedly dogmatizing have shown thought a new 
 way of exercising itself in the world of facts ? Let 
 us take M. Cousin himself; is he a philosopher? 
 No ; he is a critic who devotes himself to philosophy, 
 as another devotes himself to history and another 
 again to what we call literature. Criticism^ then, is 
 the form, in which in every field, the human intellect 
 tends to exercise its faculties ; and if criticism and 
 philology are not identical, they are at least insepar- 
 able. To criticize is to assume the position of a 
 spectator and a judge amidst the variety of things ; 
 and philology is the interpreter of things, the means 
 of entering into communication with them and of 
 understanding their language. The day that philo-
 
 The Future of Science. 135 
 
 logy should perish, criticism would perish with it, 
 barbarism would be born again, credulity would be 
 once more the mistress of the world. 
 
 That immense mission which philology has under- 
 taken in the development of the modern spirit is far 
 from accomplished ; it is perhaps only at its begin- 
 ning. Has rationalism which is the general result of 
 the whole of philological culture penetrated among 
 the masses of mankind? Strange beliefs, which 
 cause the critical sense to revolt, are not they gulped 
 down like water even by distinguished intellects ? 
 Is there a widespread sense of psychological laws, or 
 at any rate does it sufficient^ influence the turn of 
 thought or ordinary speech ? The sane view of 
 things, which is not the result of an argument, but 
 of an entire system of critical culture, of a complete 
 intellectual training, is it the view accepted by 
 the greatest number ? The mission of philology is 
 to accomplish this task in concert with the physical 
 sciences. To dissipate the mist which envelops the 
 world of thought as well as that of nature to the 
 ignorant, to substitute for the fantastic imaginations 
 of the primitive dream, the clear perceptions of the 
 scientihc age, that is the common goal to which 
 those two orders of research so powerfully converge. 
 Nature is the word in which they are summed up. 
 I repeat, all this is not the outcome of an isolated 
 demonstration ; all this is the result of a clear and 
 unbiassed glance cast at the world, of the intellectual 
 habits begotten of modern methods. Two roads, 
 which make but one, lead to the direct and pragmatic 
 knowledge of things ; the physical sciences to that 
 of the physical world, the science of mental facts to 
 that of the intellectual world. And for this science 
 I can find no other name than that of philology. 
 All supernaturalism will receive its death-blow from 
 philology. The supernatural only holds its ground 
 in France because France is not philological. 
 
 When I question myself with regard to the most 
 important and the most definitely acquired articles
 
 136 The Future of Science. 
 
 of my scientific creed, I place in the front rank my 
 ideas on the constitution and the mode of govern- 
 ment of the universe, on the essence of life, its 
 development and phenomenal nature, on the sub- 
 stantial foundation of all things and its everlasting 
 delimitation in transient forms, on the apparition of 
 humanity, the primitive facts of its history, the laws 
 of its progress, its aim and its end, on the meaning 
 and the value of things aesthetic and moral, on the 
 right of every living being to light and the attain- 
 ment of the perfect, on the eternal beauty of human 
 nature expanding at every point of space and on the 
 duration of immortal poems (religion, art, temples, 
 myths, virtues, science, philosophy, etc.), in short 
 on the divine part which is in everything, which 
 constitutes the right to existence and which suitabty 
 brought to light, constitutes the beautiful. Is it by 
 reading this or that philosopher that I have formu- 
 lated to myself things in this way ? Is it by the 
 a priori hypothesis ? No ; it is by the universal 
 experimentalizing of life, — it is by pushing forward 
 my thoughts in all directions, in scouring every tract, 
 in analyzing and digging deeply into all things, in 
 watching the successive development of the waves 
 of that eternal ocean, in casting a friendly and in- 
 quisitive glance here and there. I am convinced of 
 owing everything to experiment ; but it is impossible 
 for me to say by which road I arrived at it, out of 
 what elements I have composed this whole (which, 
 no doubt, may possess very little value, but which 
 after all is my life). A balancing of all things, an 
 inmost tissue, a vast equation of which the variable 
 quantity constantly oscillates owing to the accession 
 of new data, such are the images by which I endeavour 
 to represent to myself the fact, without being satis- 
 fied. I feel that I have benefited as much in the 
 formation of my general conception of things by the
 
 The Future of Science. 137 
 
 Baghavat-Gita or the Koran, as by Leibnitz, Hegel, 
 Goethe or Lamartine. Nevertheless, it is neither 
 Manu nor Knlluku-Bhatta, Antar nor Beidhawi ; it is 
 not the knowledge of the sheva and the virama, of 
 the Kal and the Nij)hal, of the Parasmaipadam and 
 the Attmanepadam that has given me my philosophy. 
 But it is the general and critical view, it is the uni- 
 versal induction ; and I feel that, if I had ten human 
 lives to live in parallel, so as to be able to explore all 
 the worlds, I being there in the centre, sniffing the per- 
 fume of all things, judging and comparing, combining 
 and inducting, I should get at the system of things 
 (68). Well, that which no individual can accomplish, 
 humanity will accomplish ; for it is immortal, and 
 everyone works. for it. Humanity will succeed in 
 fathoming the true p)hysiognomy of things, that is ; the 
 truth in all order of things. And who, after that, 
 will dare to say that those w^ho have contributed to 
 that immense work, who shall have polished one of 
 the facets of that diamond, w^ho shall have removed 
 a particle of the dross that dims its native brilliancy, 
 are only pedants, idlers, ponderous intellects who 
 waste their time, and who being unfit to carve their 
 way in the world of the living took refuge in that of 
 mummies and graveyards. 
 
 To philosophize is to know things ; it is according 
 to the beautiful phrase of Cuvier, to instruct the icorld 
 in theory. I believe with Kant that every purely 
 speculative demonstration has no more value than a 
 mathematical demonstration and can teach us no- 
 thing with regard to existing reality. Philology (69) 
 is the exact science of things intellectual. It is to 
 the sciences of humanity as physics and chemistr}'' 
 to the philosophical science of matter. 
 
 This has not been sufficiently understood by an 
 intellect otherwise eminent by its originality and its 
 honourable independence ; M. Auguste Comte. It 
 is strange that a man, above all preoccupied with the 
 method of the physical sciences and aspiring to 
 transfer this method to the other branches of human
 
 138 The Future of Science. 
 
 knowledge, should have conceived in the narrowest 
 fashion the science of the human intellect and of 
 humanity and should have applied to it the coarsest 
 
 jKn\I. Comte has failed to understand the infinite 
 rAriety of this shifting, capricious, multiple, unde- 
 finable material, which is human nature. Psychology 
 is to him an aimless science ; the distinction between 
 psychological and physiological facts, the contempla- 
 tion of the mind by itself an illusion. Sociology is 
 the summary of all the sciences of humanity, and 
 sociology to him is not the earnest and patient ascer- 
 tainment of all the facts of human nature ; sociology 
 is not (I am quoting M. Comte' s own words) that 
 incoherent compilation of facts which we call history 
 and over which presides the most radical irrational- 
 ism. It merely borrows examples from this indiges- 
 tible comj^ilation after which it sets to work on its 
 own account without paying heed to literary hnoio- 
 ledr/e, considered as very useless. Hence, M. Comte's 
 method with regard to the sciences of humanity is 
 the purely a j^yriori one (70). M. Comte, instead of fol- 
 lowing the infinitely flexible lines of human societies, 
 their offshoots, their apparent whimsicalities, instead 
 of calculating the definite resultant of this immense 
 oscillation aspires from the very first to a simplicity 
 which the laws of humanity present even to a less 
 degree than the laws of the physical world. M. 
 Comte proceeds exactly like the hypothetic natu- 
 ralists who forcibly reduce to the straight line the 
 numerous ramifications of the animal world. When 
 he has tried to prove that the human intellect pro- 
 ceeds from theology to metaphysics and from meta- 
 physics to positive science his task as far as the 
 tracing of the history of humanity goes is virtually 
 at an end. Morality, poetry, religion, mythology, ail 
 these occupy no place whatsoever in his system, all 
 these are pure fantasy without the least value. If 
 liunian nature were such as it is conceived by M. 
 Comte, every noble soul would hasten to commit
 
 The Future of Science. 139 
 
 suicide ; it would not be worth while wasting one's 
 time to turn the handle of such an insignificant piece 
 of mechanism. True, M. Comte believes with us that 
 one day science will endow humanity with a creed ; 
 but the science in his " mind's eye " is that of 
 Galileo, of Newton, of Descartes, remaining as it 
 is. On that day, the Gospel, poetry would be super- 
 fluous. M. Comte thinks that man lives exclu- 
 sively upon science ; nay, upon little scraps of phrases, 
 like the theorems of geometry, barren formulas. 
 Unfortunately for M. Comte he has a system and 
 he does not take up a sufficiently commanding stand- 
 point on the field of the human intellect, open 
 to every breeze that blows. To pretend to write 
 the history of the human mind, one must have very 
 extensive literary attainments. The laws in this 
 instance being of a very delicate nature and not 
 presenting themselves broadside, the faculty most 
 essential is that of the literary critic, of the delicate 
 turn (it is generally the turn which expresses most), 
 the subtlety of perception, in short, the very reverse 
 of the geometrical spirit. What would M. Comte 
 think of a physicist who should be content to observe 
 in the aggregate the physiognomy of natural facts, 
 of the student of chemistry who should neglect the 
 theory of equilibrium ? And does not he commit a 
 similar error when he proclaims as useless all those 
 patient explorations in the past, when he declares it 
 to be a waste of time to study those centres of civili- 
 zation which have no direct connection with ours, 
 when he says that it is only necessary to study 
 Europe in order to determine the law of the human 
 mind and then to apply this law a priori to the other 
 developments ? In this M. Comte is much more 
 influenced than he thinks by the old historical theory 
 of the Four Empires, the germ of which may be 
 found in the non-canonical book of Daniel (71), and 
 which since the days of Bossuet has been the 
 foundation of Cathohc teaching. He imagines that 
 humanity has really traversed the three conditions of
 
 140 The Future of Science. 
 
 fetichism, of polytheism, of monotheism, that the 
 first men were cannibals, like the savages, etc. As 
 it happens, this is not to be admitted for a moment. 
 The fathers of the Semitic race had from their origin 
 a secret teodency to monotheism ; the Vedas, those 
 matchless songs, really afford the ideas of the original 
 aspirations of the Indo-Germanic race. Among these 
 races, morality dates from the very first beginnings. 
 In one word, M. Comte fails utterly to understand 
 the sciences of humanity, because he is not a philo- 
 logist. 
 
 M. Proudhon, though receptive to every idea, on 
 account of the extreme pliability of his mind and 
 capable of understanding in turns the most diverse 
 aspects of things, does not seem to me to have con- 
 ceived science in a sufficiently broad manner.. No 
 one better than he has understood that science alone 
 is henceforth yjos-szYj/e, but his science is neither poetic 
 nor religious ; it is too exclusively abstract and 
 logical. M. Proudhon is as yet not sufficiently eman- 
 cipated from the scholasticism of the seminary ; he 
 argues a great deal, he does not appear to have under- 
 stood sufficiently that in the sciences of humanity, 
 logical argumentation means nothing and that 
 delicate mental perception means everything. Argu- 
 mentation is only possible in a science like geometry, 
 where the principles are plain and absolutely true, 
 without any restriction. But this is not the case 
 in the moral sciences where the principles are only 
 of a " more or less " character, imperfect expressions, 
 founded more or less, but never "in full," on the 
 truth. In this instance the light thrown on to 
 the idea is the only possible demonstration. The 
 form, the style are tln-ee-fourths of the idea ; and 
 this is not an abuse of the idea as some puritans 
 pretend. Those who inveigh against the style and 
 beauty of form in philosophical and moral science 
 strangely misconceive the true nature of the results 
 of those sciences and the delicate nature of their 
 principles. In geometry, in algebra, a man may
 
 The Future of Science. 141 
 
 fearlessly abandon himself to the play of formulas, 
 without worrying himself, in the course of the argu- 
 ment, as to the realities which they represent. In the 
 moral sciences, on the contrary, it is never allowed 
 to trust one's self in that way to formulas, to combine 
 them indefinitely as did the old theology, being 
 certain that the result emanating from it, must be 
 strictly true. It will only be logically true and may 
 not even be as true as the principles ; for the conse- 
 quence may happen to bear solely on some error 
 or misunderstanding that was in the principles, 
 but sufficiently hidden to make the principle accept- 
 able. Hence, it may happen that while arguing very 
 logically, a man may arrive, in the moral sciences, at 
 consequences absolutely false, though he started from 
 principles sufficiently true. The books written to 
 defend property hy argument are as bad as those that 
 attack it by the same method. The truth is, that 
 argument in that order of things should not be 
 listened to, that the results of reasoning in that 
 instance are only legitimate on the condition of being 
 controlled at each step by immediate experience. 
 And whenever we are led by logic to extreme con- 
 sequences, we should not be frightened at them, for 
 the facts " delicately perceived " are in that instance, J| 
 the sole criterion of the truth. ^^
 
 142 The Future of Science. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 What then is the meaning of this superficial and idle 
 contempt? Why is the philologist, manipulating 
 as he does, things human in order to extract from 
 them the science of humanity, less understood than 
 the student of chemistry and the physicist, manipu- 
 lating nature, in order to get at the theory of nature ? 
 No doubt the existence of the curious man of eru- 
 dition who h'as spent his life in amusing himself 
 learnedly and in treating serious things frivolously 
 has been a profitless existence indeed. Men and 
 women of the world are not altogether wrong in 
 looking upon such a role as a mere clever trick 
 of memory, suited to those who have only been 
 endowed with second rate qualities. But theirs is 
 a short and narrow view, in that they fail to perceive 
 that the knowledge of many arts and sciences is the 
 condition of the high assthetic, moral, religious, 
 poetical intelligence. A philosopher who thinks that 
 he can evolve everything from his own bosom, that 
 is, from the study of the soul and from purely 
 abstract consideration must necessarily despise eru- 
 dition and look upon it as prejudicial to the progress 
 of reason. From this point of view, the fretful 
 temper of Descartes, of Malebranche and of the 
 Cartesians in general with regard to erudition is 
 legitimate and accounted for by reason. Leibnitz 
 was the first to realize in a magnificent harmony 
 that elevated conception of a critical pJdloso^^her 
 t(j wliicli Bayle could not attain through insufiicient
 
 The Future of Science. 143 
 
 concentration of mind. The nineteenth century is 
 destined to be called upon to realize it and to 
 introduce the positive method in every branch of 
 knowledge. M. Cousin's glory will lie in his having 
 proclaimed criticism as a new method in philosophy, 
 a method which may lead to results as dogmatic 
 as abstract speculation. His eclecticism has only 
 lost its strength when outward necessities, which he 
 could not resist, have compelled it to embrace ex- 
 clusively particular doctrines which have made it as 
 narrow as they themselves are, and to screen itself 
 behind certain names, which should be honoured 
 otherwise than by fanaticism. Such was not the 
 grand eclecticism of 1828 and 1829, and of the 
 23reface to Tennemann. The new philosophical 
 generation will understand the necessity of transport- 
 ing itself to the living centre of things, of no longer 
 making philosophy a collection of speculations with- 
 out unity, of restoring to it at last its ancient and 
 broad acceptation, its eternal mission of giving vital 
 truths to man. 
 
 Philosophy, in fact, is not a science apart, it is one 
 side of all sciences. In each science we should 
 distinguish the technical and special part, which has 
 no value except in so far as it contributes to discovery 
 and exposition, from the general results which the 
 science in question provides on its own account 
 towards the solution of the problem of things. Phi- 
 losophy constitutes the common head, the central 
 part of the grand fabric of human knowledge, the focus' 
 wiiere all the rays touch one another in an identical 
 light. There is not a line which traced to the very end 
 does not lead to that focus. Psychology which one 
 has become accustomed to consider as the whole of 
 philosophy is after all one of many sciences, nay, it 
 may not even provide the most philosophical results. 
 Logic understood as the analysis of reason is only a 
 part of psychology ; considered as a repertory of 
 processes to lead the mind to the discovery of the 
 truth, it is simply useless, seeing that it is impossible
 
 144 The Fttture of Science. 
 
 to ^ive recipes for the discovery of truth. Eefined 
 culture and the multiple training of the intellect are 
 from this point of view the only legitimate logical 
 methods. Morahty and the theory of divine justice are 
 not sciences apart, they become heavy and ridiculous, 
 when one pretends to treat them according to a 
 definite and scientific programme, they should only 
 he the divine resonance resulting from all things or at 
 most the esthetic education of the pure instincts of 
 the soul, the analysis of which belongs to psychology. 
 By what right then can we constitute a whole, 
 having the right to assume the name of philosophy, 
 seeing that this whole, in the only limits one can 
 assign to it, has already a particular name, that 
 is psychology (72) ? Antiquity grasped this lofty 
 and broad acceptation of philosophy in a marvellous 
 manner. Philosophy was to it the sage, the investi- 
 gator, Jupiter on MounU Ida, the spectator taking up 
 his stand in the world. " Among those who rush to 
 the public festivals of Greece, some are attracted by 
 the wish to contest and to dispute the palm ; others 
 come thither to transact their commercial business ; 
 a few again come neither for glory, nor for profit, 
 but merely to see ; and these are the noblest, for the 
 spectacle is provided for them, and they are there for 
 no one's sake but their own. So on entering life, 
 some aspire to mingle in the strife, others are am- 
 bitious to make a fortune ; but there are some noble 
 souls wlio despise vulgar cares and while the common 
 herd of combatants rend one another to pieces in 
 the arena, look upon themselves as spectators in the 
 vast amphitheatre of the universe. They are the 
 philosophers (73)." — Never has philosophy been 
 more perfectly defined. 
 
 At the origin of rational research, the word 
 " philosophy" might without causing inconvenience 
 represent the whole of human knowledge. But when 
 each of the series of studies became sufiiciently exten- 
 sive to absorb whole existences and to present a 
 side of universal life, each branch became an inde-
 
 The Future of Science. 145 
 
 pendent science and left the common trunk im- 
 poverished by those successive curtailments. The 
 ripe fruits, having thrived upon the common sap 
 became detached from the stalk and left the tree 
 bereft. In that way philosophy only preserved the 
 least denned notions, those which were unable to 
 group themselves in distinct unities and which had 
 no other reason for being united under one name 
 than the impossibility of arranging each of them under 
 another name. The time has come to revert to the 
 acceptation of antiquity, assuredly not to confine 
 once more all the sciences with their infinite details 
 within philosophy, but to make it the common 
 centre of the conquests of the human intellect, the 
 arsenal of vital stores. Who will dare to say that 
 natural history, comparative anatomy and physiology, 
 astronomy, history and above all the history of the 
 human intellect do not afford to the thinker results 
 as philosophical as the analysis of the memory, of the 
 imagination, of the association of ideas ? Who will 
 dare to pretend that Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, Cuvier, 
 the Humboldts, Goethe, Herder, had not as much 
 right to the title of philosopher as Dugald Stewart 
 or Condillac ? The philosopher means a mind 
 sacredly inquisitive of all things : it is the gnostic in 
 the primitive and elevated sense of that word; the 
 philosopher is the thinker, no matter what the object 
 be on which he exercises his thought. 
 
 No doubt the days are gone long ago when every 
 thinker summed up his philosophy in a Hepl (jyva-ecos. 
 When we come to reflect that the human intellect 
 in its legitimate impatience and naive presumption 
 deemed itself able at the very outset to trace the 
 system of the universe in a few pages, then the 
 patient investigations of modern science, the in- 
 numerable ramifications of the problems, the limit 
 of research retreating before advancing discovery, in 
 short the infinity of things — will warrant the belief 
 that any "summary" of the world must be infinite 
 as the world itself. An Aristotle would nowadays 
 
 L
 
 146 The Future oj Science. 
 
 be an imposRibilit}^ Not only has the alhance of 
 psychological and moral studies with the physical and 
 mathematical sciences become a rare phenomenon ; 
 but a subdivision, even restricted as to its object, 
 of a branch of human knowledge is often too vast 
 a field for the labours of a laborious life and a 
 deepty penetrating intellect. I do not say this in 
 a critical spirit ; this onward march of science is 
 legitimate. The strictness of scrupulous analysis 
 should succeed to primitive syncretism, to vague and 
 approximative study. The superficial study of the 
 whole must make room for the deep and successive 
 investigation of parts ; but we must guard ourselves 
 against the belief that the circle of the human in- 
 tellect closes there, and that the knowledge of par- 
 ticulars is its final term. If the end of science were 
 the counting of the spots on the wings of the butter- 
 fly or the enumeration of the diverse species in the 
 flora of a country, in a language often barbarous, it 
 would be better, I think, to come back to the Pla- 
 tonic definition and to declare that there is no such 
 thing as a science of that which passes away. It 
 is no doubt right that experimental studies should 
 be wide enough to include the analysis of all the 
 individualities of the universe, but on the condition 
 of being one day gathered into a perfect synthesis, 
 which will be much superior ta the primitive syncre- 
 tism, because it will be based on a distinct knowledge 
 of parts. When dissection shall have been carried 
 to its utmost limits (and we may believe that in 
 some sciences that limit has been reached), then and. 
 not till then will begin the movement of comparison 
 and reconstruction. We shall have had the humiliat- 
 ing and laborious task ; nevertheless, when posterity 
 shall have gone far beyond us by profiting by our work, 
 the science of the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- 
 turies will perhaps incur as harsh a reproach for 
 having been too minute and pragmatic as we reproach 
 the ancients for having been too summary and 
 hypothetical. It will only prove the difficulty of
 
 The Future of Science. ] 47 
 
 knowing how to appreciate the necessity and legiti- 
 macy of the successive revolutions of the human 
 intellect. 
 
 One consequence of this fragmentary and partial 
 method of modern science has been to banish from 
 philosophy the cosmology which at its origin almost 
 wholly constituted the former. He whom we look 
 upon usually as the founder of rational philosophy, 
 Thales, would nowadays be no longer called a phi- 
 losopher. We feel ourselves bound to divide into 
 two or three parts scientific lives like those of 
 Descartes and Leibnitz or even like that of Newton 
 (albeit that with him the part of pure philosophy is 
 already very much weaker), and still those lives have 
 been perfectly " one " ; and the word by which their 
 unity was expressed was that of philosophy. The 
 time has, no doubt, gone by to appeal against this 
 necessary elimination ; philosophy, after having held 
 in its bosom all the nascent sciences has been 
 compelled to see them separate from it when they 
 attained a sufficient degree of development. Will 
 the day come when they shall return to it, not with 
 the mass of their details, but with their general 
 results ; the day when philosophy shall be less a 
 science apart than a focus of all the sciences, a kind 
 of luminous centre in which all branches of human 
 knowledge will meet at their summit, diverging in 
 proportion to their descent into details ? The regular 
 law by which their progress takes its start from 
 syncretism and gets to synthesis by way of analysis 
 which alone is the legitimate method, which alone 
 has a philosophic value, may warrant such hope. 
 The appearance of a work like the " Cosmos " of M. 
 von Humboldt, in which a single savant renewing 
 in the nineteenth century the attempt of a Timaeus or 
 a Lucretius, reviews the Cosmos in its entirety proves 
 that it is still possible to grasp once more the cosmic 
 unity swamped by the infinite multitude of detail. 
 If the final aim of philosophy be the truth on the 
 general system of things, how then could it remain
 
 148 The Future of Science. 
 
 indifferent to the science of the universe ? Has not 
 cosmology the same claim to holiness as the psycho- 
 logical sciences ? Does not it start problems the 
 solution of which is as imperatively demanded by our 
 nature as that of questions related to ourselves and 
 to the primary cause ? Is not the world the first 
 object that excites the curiosity of the human in- 
 tellect, is it not the first to whet the craving to 
 know which is the marked trait of our rational 
 nature, and which makes of us beings capable of 
 i:)hilosophizing ? Take the mythologies, which give 
 us the true measure of the spiritual needs of man ; 
 they all open with a cosmogony ; the cosmological 
 mj^ths occupy a space in them at least as great as 
 those relating to morals or theosophy. And even in 
 our days though the particular sciences are far from 
 having reached their final form, how many precious 
 data have they not afforded to the mind that aspires 
 to know philosophically ? He who has not learnt 
 from geology the history of our globe and of the 
 beings who have successively populated it ; from 
 physiology the laws of life ; from zoology and botany, 
 the laws of form of all breathing things, and the 
 general plan of animate nature (74) ; from astronomy, 
 the structure of the universe ; from ethnography 
 and from history, the science of humanity in its 
 evolution ; he who has not learned this can he pre- 
 tend to know the law^ of things, nay, to know man 
 whom he only stndies in the abstract and in indi- 
 vidual manifestations ? 
 
 I will endeavour to explain by an instance the 
 manner in which one might use the particular sciences 
 in the solution of a philosophical question. I select 
 the problem which from the very first years that I 
 began to philosophize has occupied my mind most ; 
 the problem of the origins of manJdjid. 
 
 There can be no doubt as to the existence of 
 mankind having had a beginning. It is equally 
 certain that the appearance of mankind on earth was 
 iccomplished in accordance with the permanent laws
 
 The Future of Science. 149 
 
 of nature (75), and that the first facts of his psycho- 
 logical and physiological life, though so strangely 
 different from those that characterize his actual 
 condition were the development pure and simple of 
 the laws that are still in force to-day, operating in a 
 medium profoundly different. Hence we are con- 
 fronted by an important problem, if ever there was 
 one, and from the solution of which would spring data 
 of capital importance on the whole of the meaning of 
 human life. And in my opinion this problem should 
 be divided into six subordinate questions all of which 
 should be solved by different sciences. 
 
 1st. Ethnographic Question. — If and up to what 
 point the races actually existent are deducible from 
 one another. Were there several centres of creation ? 
 which are they, etc.? — The investigator should there- 
 fore have at command the ensemble of the whole of 
 modern ethnography, in its certain as well as hypo- 
 thetical parts, also the anatomical and linguistic 
 knowledge without which the study of ethnography 
 is impossible. 
 
 2nd. Chronological Question. — At what epoch did 
 mankind or eacli race make its appearance on earth ? 
 — This question should be resolved by the collating 
 of two means ; on the one hand, the geological 
 data ; on the other, the data supplied by the antique 
 chronologies and above all by the monuments. Hence 
 the author must be learned in geology, and well 
 versed in the antiquities of China, Egypt, of India, of 
 the Hebrews, etc. 
 
 3rd. Geographical Question. — At which point of the 
 globe did mankind or the diverse races take their 
 starting point ? — Here the knowledge of geography 
 in its most philosophic part would be necessary and 
 above all the deepest scientific knowledge of antique 
 literatures and the traditions of the various peoples. 
 Languages in this instance supplying the principal 
 element the author should be an able linguist, or if 
 not, he should at any rate have at his disposal the 
 results acquired by comparative philology.
 
 150 The Future of Science. 
 
 4th. Physiological Question. — Possibility and mode 
 of apparition of organic life and of human life. _ The 
 laws that have produced that apparition, which is 
 still continued in the hidden corners of nature. To 
 deal with this side of the question, a thorough know- 
 ledge of comparative physiology is necessary. The 
 author should be able to form an opinion on the most 
 dehcate point of that science. 
 
 5th. Psychological Question. — The condition of man- 
 kind and of the human intellect at the first stages 
 of its existence. Primitive languages. Origin of 
 thought and of language. Must have a deep in- 
 sight into the secrets of spontaneous psychology, an 
 habitual practice of the higher branches of psychology 
 and philosophical sciences. Must be thoroughly 
 versed in the experimental study of the child and the 
 first exercise of its reason, in the experimental study 
 of the savage, consequently must be extensively 
 acquainted with the literature of the great travellers, 
 and as much as possible have travelled himself among 
 the primitive peoples which are fast disappearing from 
 the face of the earth, at any rate in their original 
 condition of spontaneous impulse ; must have a 
 knowledge of all primitive literatures, of the com- 
 parative genius of the various peoples, of comparative 
 literature, a refined and scientific taste, tact, and 
 spontaneous initiative ; a childlike and at the same 
 time serious nature, susceptible of great enthusiasm 
 with regard to the spontaneous and capable of repro- 
 ducing it within himself, within the very seat of 
 deeply reflected thought. 
 
 6th. Historical Question. — The history of mankind 
 before the definite apparition of reflected thought. 
 
 I am convinced that there is a science of the 
 origins of mankind, and that it wall be constracted 
 one day not by abstract speculation but by scientific 
 research. What human life in the actual condition 
 of science would sujBfice to explore all the sides of this 
 single problem ? And still, how can it be resolved 
 without the scientific study of the positive data?
 
 Tlie Future of Science. 151 
 
 And if it be not resolved how can we say that we 
 know man and mankind ? He who would contribute 
 to the solution of this problem, even by a very im- 
 perfect essay, would do more for philosophy than by 
 balf a century of metaphysical meditations.
 
 152 TJie Future of Science. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Psychology, such as it has been understood up till 
 now, appears to me to have been conceived in rather 
 too narrow a spirit and not to have yielded its most 
 important results (76). First of all, it has generally 
 confined itself to the study of the human intellect in 
 its complete development and such as it appears 
 nowadays. That which is done by physiology and 
 anatomy for organized matter, psychology has done 
 for the phenomena of the soul, of course with the 
 differences of method required by objects so different 
 in their nature. But, just as by the side of the 
 science of the organs and their operations, there is 
 another dealing with the history of their formation 
 and development, so, by the side of psychology which 
 describes and classifies the functions of the soul there 
 should be an eiJibryogoiiy of the human mind which 
 would study the apparition and the first exercise of 
 those faculties, the action of which, so regular now, 
 makes us almost forget that at the start, they were 
 only rudimentary. Such a science would no doubt 
 be more difficult and hypothetic than that which 
 simply confines itself to the observation of the present 
 state of the conscience. Nevertheless, there are 
 sure means that may lead us from the actual to the 
 primitive state, and if direct experiments with regard 
 to the latter are impossible, the method of induction 
 bearing upon the present may bring us to the 
 precedent condition of which the former is but the 
 expansion. If, in fact, the primitive condition has
 
 The Future of Science. 153 
 
 disappeared for ever, the phenomena characteristic of 
 it have still their analogies among us. Each indi- 
 vidual travels in his turn along the line which the 
 whole of mankind has followed, and the series of the 
 development of human reason is exactly parallel to 
 the progress of individual reason, with the exception 
 of old age, which will never be known by humanity, 
 destined as it is to be for ever blossoming afresh into 
 eternal youth. Hence, the phenomena of infancy 
 present to us the phenomena of primitive man (77). 
 On the other hand the onward march of humanity is 
 not simultaneous in all its parts ; while in the one 
 case it rises to sublime heights, in the other it 
 still wallows in the mire which was its cradle, and 
 such is the infinite variety that animates it, that at 
 a given moment one might find in the different 
 countries inhabited by man all the various ages we 
 find disposed " in echelon " in its history. Eaces 
 and climates produce simultaneously in humanity 
 the same differences which time has shown succes- 
 sively in the series of their developments. The 
 phenomena which, for instance, marked the dawn of 
 human consciousness, may be traced back again in 
 the everlasting infancy of those non-perfectible races, 
 which have remained as witnesses to what happened 
 at the outset of man's existence. Not that we should 
 absolutely maintain that the savage is the primitive 
 man ; the infancy of the various human races must 
 have differed very much according to the sky under 
 which they were born. No doubt the wretched 
 creatures who first stammered forth inarticulate 
 sounds on the forbidding soil of Africa and Oceania 
 were very unlike those simple and graceful beings 
 that became the progenitors of the religious and theo- 
 cratic race of the Semites and the vigorous ancestors 
 of the philosophical and rational race of the Indo- 
 Germanic people. But those differences no more 
 militate against general inductions than the varieties 
 of character among individuals impede the psycho- 
 logists' progress. Hence the infant and the savage
 
 154 The Future of Science. 
 
 must be the great objects of study of him who would 
 scientifically construct the primeval ages of humanity. 
 How is it that people have failed to understand that 
 there lies a science of the highest interest in the 
 psychological observation of those races, which the 
 civihzed man superciliously neglects, and that those 
 anecdotes reported by travellers which apparently are 
 only fit to amuse children contain in fact the most 
 profound secrets of human nature ? 
 
 Science has a still more direct means of communi- 
 cation with those distant ages ; the products them- 
 selves of the human mind at its different epochs ; the 
 monuments in which man has expressed. himself, and 
 which he has left behind to trace his footsteps. Un- 
 fortunately, they only date from a period too near our 
 own, and the cradle of humanity remains still wrapt 
 in mystery. How, in fact, could man have bequeathed 
 the testimony of an age when he was scarcely in 
 possession of his own powers, and when having no 
 past, he could bestow no thought upon the future ? 
 But there is one monument in which are inscribed 
 all the diverse phases of this marvellous Genesis, 
 which in its thousand aspects represents each of 
 the conditions, sketched in turns by humanity, a 
 monument not of one epoch only, but each part of 
 which, if we can only assign a date to it, contains 
 the materials of all the previous centuries capable 
 of being revealed by analysis ; an admirable poem 
 which was born and developed with man, which 
 accompanied him at each step and received the 
 imprint of each of his different modes of thinking, 
 of feeling. This monument, this poem is language. 
 The deep study of its mechanism and history will 
 always prove the most efficacious means of mastering 
 primeval psychology. In fact, the problem of its 
 origin is identical with that of the origin of the 
 human mind, and thanks to it, we stand face to face 
 with the primeval epoch like the artist who is to 
 restore an antique statue in accordance with the 
 mould in which its limbs were cast. No doubt, 
 
 i
 
 The Future of Science. 155 
 
 primeval languages have as far as science is concerned, 
 disappeared — disappeared together with the condition 
 of humanity they represented, and no one will hence- 
 forth be tempted to tire himself in their pursuit with 
 such ancient linguistic knowledge as he may command. 
 But it is not a mere hypothesis that, among the 
 idioms, the knowledge of which has become possible 
 to us, there are some that more than others have pre- 
 served the trace of the various processes that presided 
 at the birth and the development of language and 
 which have undergone a less complicated wear and tear 
 of decomposition and reconstruction ; it is a result 
 proven by the most elementary notions of compara- 
 tive philology. It is well to remind people of this ; 
 seeing that arbitrary whim could not possibly have 
 played the smallest part in the invention and the 
 formation of language. There is not a single one of our 
 most time-worn dialects which is not connected by 
 a more or less direct genealogy with one of the first 
 attempts which themselves were the spontaneous crea- 
 tion of all the human faculties, " the living product of 
 the whole inward man" (Fr. Schlegel). But who 
 would be capable of finding the trace of the primeval 
 world amidst that immense network of artificial com- 
 plication with which certain languages have become 
 enwrapped beneath the numerous layers of peoples 
 and idioms which have absolutely been piled upon 
 one another in certain countries ? Keduced to such 
 data, the problem would be insoluble. Fortunately 
 there are other languages that have been less worked 
 up by successive revolutions, that are less variable in 
 their forms, and spoken by peoples doomed to remain 
 stationary, with whom the motion of ideas has not 
 necessitated constant modification in the instrument 
 of ideas ; they still remain as witnesses, not by any 
 means, of the primeval language^ nor even of a 
 primeval language, but of the primitive process by 
 means of which man succeeded in imparting to his 
 thought an outward and social expression. _ 
 
 Hence, we should have to create a primeval psy-
 
 15G The Future of Science. 
 
 clioloqij showing the tables of facts of the hamaii 
 intellect at its first awakening, the influences by 
 which it was governed at first, the laws that governed 
 its first manifestations. Our vulgar mode of per- 
 ception scarcely allows us to conceive the difference 
 between that condition and ours, the wondrous 
 activity secretly stored by those fresh and stirring 
 organizations, those powerful but still obscured con- 
 sciences, giving full and unfettered play to all the 
 native energy of life's spring. Who can, in our 
 reflective state, with our metaphysical refinements, 
 and our senses that have become coarse, form a 
 correct idea of the antique harmony, then existing 
 between the thought and the sensation, between man 
 and nature ? Looking back to that horizon where 
 heaven and earth become confoundedwith one another, 
 man was god, and the god was man. Alienated from 
 himself, to use Maine de Biran's expression, man, as 
 Leibnitz says, became the concentric mirror in which 
 was depicted that nature from which he could scarcely 
 distinguish himself. It was not a coarse materialism, 
 only understanding, only feeling the physical ; it was 
 not an abstract spiritualism substituting entities for 
 life ; it was a high harmony, perceiving the one in 
 the other, expressing by one another the two worlds 
 lying open before man. The sensitiveness (the sym- 
 pathy with nature, Naturgefuhl as Fr. Schlegel says) 
 was the more delicate, seeing that the rational faculties 
 were the less developed. The savage possesses an 
 amount of perspicuity, of curiosity that astonishes 
 us ; his senses detect a thousand imperceptible shades 
 that escape the senses or rather the attention of the 
 civilized man. Unfamiliar as we are with nature we 
 only see uniformity there where nomadic or agricul- 
 tural peoples have perceived numerous instances of 
 individual originality. We must assume primeval 
 man to have possessed an infinitely delicate tact 
 which enabled him to grasp, with a finesse of which 
 we can no longer form an idea, the qualities "to be 
 felt " which were to he the basis of the nomenclature
 
 The Future of Science. 157 
 
 of things. The faculty of interpretation which is 
 simply an extremely great sagacity in perceiving a 
 connection hetween things was more developed in 
 them. They saw ever so many things at once. Nature 
 spoke to them more intelligibly than she does to us, 
 or rather they found in themselves a secret echo 
 which replied to all those voices from without and 
 reproduced them in articulations, in words. Hence 
 those abrupt passages the trace of which is utterly 
 lost to our slow and laboured systems. Who could 
 once more seize upon those fleeting impressions ? 
 Who could once more find the truant paths along 
 which the imagination of primeval man travelled, the 
 association of ideas that guided him in this work of 
 spontaneous production, in which now man, then 
 nature herself " spliced " the broken strand of analo- 
 gies, and wove their reciprocal action in an indissoluble 
 unity ? What shall we say of that marvellous intel- 
 lectual synthesis, necessary to the creation of a 
 metaphysical system like the Sanskrit language, a 
 sweet and sensuous poem like the Hebrew ? What 
 shall we say of that infinite liberty to create, of that 
 boundless fancy, of that wealth, of that exuberance, 
 of that complexity which is beyond our grasp ? We 
 should not be capable of speaking Sanskrit, our most 
 eminent musicians would fail to execute the octuple 
 and nonuple quavers of the Song of the Illinois. Ye 
 sacred ages, primeval ages of humanity, who can 
 understand you ? 
 
 In view of those strange productions of earlier 
 ages, of those facts that seem outside the normal 
 order of the universe, we are inclined to suppose 
 specific laws that have now been abrogated. But 
 there is no temporary government in nature ; the 
 same laws that govern the world to-day are those 
 that have presided at its constitution. The for- 
 mation of the different planetary systems and their 
 preservation, the apparition of organized beings and 
 of life, that of man and of conscience, the first feats 
 of humanity were only the development of an aggre-
 
 158 The Future of Science. 
 
 gate of physiological and psychological laws settled 
 once for all, without the superior agent, who moulds 
 his action according to these laws, having interposed 
 a specially intentional will in the mechanism of 
 things. No doubt everything springs from the pri- 
 mary cause, hut the primary cause does not act upon 
 partial motives, by special manifestations of will, as 
 Malebranche would say. What it has done is and 
 remains the best, the means once established are and 
 remain the most efficacious. But how, it will be said, 
 can we explain facts so diverse by the same system ? 
 Why do those strange facts that marked the origin of 
 man no longer repeat themselves, if it be true that 
 the laws which produced them still exist ? It is 
 because the circumstances are no longer the same ; 
 the incidental causes that determined those laws at 
 their grand phenomenal moments do no longer exist. 
 As a general rule we only formulate the laws of 
 nature with a view to the actual condition, and the 
 actual condition is only a particular case. It is like 
 a partial equation drawn from a more general equa- 
 tion by a special hypothesis. The general equation 
 virtually contains all the others, and its truth lies in 
 the special truth of all the others. 
 
 It is the same with all the laws of nature. Applied 
 amidst different surroundings, they produce altogether 
 different effects, if the same circumstances present 
 themselves, the same effects will reappear. Hence 
 there are no two series of laws co-operating with one 
 another in order to fill up their voids and to supply 
 their individual insufficiency ; there is no interim in 
 nature ; creation and preservation are wrought by 
 the same means, operating under different conditions. 
 Geology, after having appealed for a long while to 
 causes different from those operating to-day, to ex- 
 plain cataclysms and the successive phases of the 
 globe, is coming back from every direction to proclaim 
 that the actual laws were suf^cient to produce these 
 revolutions. Those conditions of life which appear 
 to us fantastical because they were different from
 
 The Future of Science. \ 5 9 
 
 ours, what strange combinations they must have 
 wrought ! And when man appeared on this earth 
 which was still in process of creation, without beino- 
 suckled by a woman, nor tended by a mother, without 
 the lessons of a father, without ancestors or father- 
 land, can we form an idea of the astonishing facts 
 that must have happened at the first awakening of 
 his intellect, at the sight of that fruitful nature, 
 whence he was beginning to be divided. Those first 
 apparitions of human activity must have been marked 
 by an energy, a spontaneousness of which nothing 
 nowadays can convey an idea to us. Necessity, in 
 fact, is the real incidental cause of the exercise of all 
 power. Man and nature went on creating as long as 
 there was a void in the scheme of things, they 
 forgot to create as soon as the need of it no longer 
 compelled them. It is not that from that moment 
 they were one power short ; but those productive 
 faculties, which at the origin were exercised on an 
 immense scale, henceforth deprived of nutrition, were 
 reduced to an obscure role, and as it were, relegated 
 to a back corner in nature. Thus for instance, 
 spontaneous organization, which in the beginning 
 brought forth everything that lives, is still preserved 
 on an imperceptible scale on the lowest rungs of the 
 animal ladder ; thus the spontaneous faculties of the 
 human mind still live in the facts of the instinct, but 
 they are lessened and almost stifled by reflected 
 thought ; thus the creative spirit of the language is 
 still met with in that which presides at its revolu- 
 tions ; for the force that sustains life is in reality 
 that which brings forth, and to develop is in one 
 sense to create. If man were to lose language, he 
 would once more create it. But he finds it ready 
 made, hence his productive force, in default of an 
 object, withers away like every faculty not exercised. 
 The infant still possesses it before it is able to speak, 
 but loses it as soon as science from without renders 
 the creation from within useless. 
 
 How, indeed, is it possible to reduce the science of
 
 GO The Future of Science. 
 
 man to a system by studying man in bis age of 
 reflection only, as Scotch psychology has done, when 
 his originality is as it were effaced by artificial culture, 
 when artificial motors have replaced the powerful 
 instincts under the influence of which he formerly 
 
 .yrofkft f] at his own development with so much energy ? 
 W Tlie second void with which I meet in psychology 
 
 land which in the same way can be filled up only by 
 the philological study of the works of the human 
 mind is in its application to the mere individual, 
 without ever rising to the consideration of humanity 
 at large. If the immense historical development of 
 the latter end of the eighteenth and the nineteenth 
 centuries has been productive of any result at all, 
 it is that which proves that there is a life of 
 humanity just as there is a life of the individual ; 
 that history is not a purposeless series of isolated 
 facts, but a spontaneous tendency towards an ideal 
 goal, that the perfect is the centre of gravity of 
 humanity as of everything that lives (78). Hegel's 
 claim to immortality consists in having been the 
 first to express with perfect clearness this vital force 
 which neither Vico nor Montesquieu had noticed, of 
 which even Herder had but the vaguest notion. 
 Through this he has insured for himself the title of 
 the definite founder of the philosophy of history. 
 Henceforth, history will be no longer what it was to 
 Bossuet, the unfolding of a particular plan conceived 
 and realized by a power superior to man, which leads 
 man, who can only bestir himself according to its 
 designs ; it will no longer be what it was to Montes- 
 quieu, an interlinked chain of facts and causes ; 
 what it was to Yico, a lifeless and almost reasonless 
 movement. It will be the history of a being, de- 
 veloping himself by his inward power, creating him- 
 self and attaining . by diverse degrees to the full 
 possession of himself. There is, no doubt, a move- 
 ment, as Vico meant, there are, no doubt causes, in 
 Montesquieu's sense ; there is, no doubt, a previously 
 imposed plan, agreeing wdth Bossuet's theory. But
 
 The Future of Science. IGl 
 
 what they failed to perceive was the active and living 
 force impelling that movement, animating those 
 causes, and which wdthout any co-operation from 
 without, and solely hy its tendency towards the 
 perfect, accomplishes the providential plan. Perfect 
 autonomy, inward creation, in short, life ; such is the 
 law of humauit^l 
 
 Assuredly Sonet's plan is simple enough ; simple 
 like a pyramid ; commandment on one side ; obedience 
 on the other ; God and man, the King and the subject, 
 the Church and the behever. It is simple but harsh, 
 and after all it is doomed. We shall, henceforth, 
 have great difficulty to imagine in what manner those 
 who do not believe in progress conceive the world. 
 If there be a notion w^e have outgrowm, it is that of 
 nations succeeding one another, traversing the same 
 periods in order to die in their turn, then to revive 
 under other names, and thus without cessation re- 
 commencing the same dream. In that case what a 
 nightmare humanity would be ; what a tissue of 
 absurdities the various revolutions ! What a colour- 
 less, vapid thing life I Amidst such a poor system, 
 would it be really worth while to aspire ardently to 
 the beautiful and the true, to sacrifice one's happi- 
 ness and peace of mind to them ? I can conceive 
 such a paltry conception of actual existence in the 
 severely orthodox, who transports the whole of his 
 present existence to the one beyond ; I fail to con- 
 ceive it in the philosopher. The idea of humanity is 
 the grand line of demarcation between the ancient 
 and the new philosophies. Consider w^ell why the 
 ancient systems no longer satisfy you ; you will find 
 that it is because that idea is utterly absent from it. 
 In that, I repeat, lies the w^hole of the new philo- 
 sophy (79). 
 
 The moment we admit that humanity is conceived 
 as a conscience that shapes and developes itself, we 
 admit the necessity of a psychology of humanity, 
 just as there is a psychology of the individual. 
 The irregular and fortuitous appearance of its progress 
 
 M
 
 1G2 The Future of Science. 
 
 must not hide from us the laws that govern it. 
 Botany shows us that all the trees would be as 
 regular as the coniferse with regard to their form, 
 the arrangement of then leaves and branches, were it 
 not for abortion and suppression which, destroying the 
 symmetry, impart to them such fantastic shapes. 
 A river would flow straight to the sea but for the 
 hills which compel it to turn so frequently aside. 
 In the same way humanity, apparently given up to 
 chance, yields to laws which other laws may cause 
 to deviate, but which are nevertheless the reason of 
 its movement. History is the necessary form of the 
 science of everything contained in the " luill-'be.'" 
 The science of languages means the history of lan- 
 guages ; the science of literatures and religions means 
 the history of literatures and religions. The science 
 of the human intellect means the history of the 
 human intellect. To attempt to seize a given 
 moment only of those successive existences in order 
 to dissect and to fixedly examine it is simply falsi- 
 fying their nature. For they are not complete at a 
 given moment, they are merely tending towards 
 completion. Such is the human intellect. By what 
 right do you select the man of the nineteenth century 
 to illustrate the theory of it ? I am aware that 
 there are common elements which the examination 
 of all countries and all peoples will yield to analysis. 
 But these, on account of their very stability are not 
 the most essential to science. The variable and 
 characteristic element is much more important. The 
 only reason why physiology often appears so much 
 tautology and emptiness is because it confines itself 
 too exclusively to those generalizations of small value 
 which make it look like the lesson of philosophy of 
 the "Bourgeois Gentilhomme." Philology commits 
 the same mistake when instead of taking languages 
 in their individual varieties, it confines itself to the 
 general analysis of the forms common to all, to what 
 we call gc7ieral grammar. 
 
 How unsuitable, in fact, is our dry and abstract
 
 The Future of Science. 163 
 
 mode of treating psychology for the purpose of put- 
 ting into relief the differential shades of the senti- 
 ments of humanity. It would lead us to conclude 
 that every race, every century understood God, the 
 soul, morality in an identical manner (80). We 
 never seem to suspect that each nation with its 
 temples, its divinities, its poesy, its heroic traditions, 
 its fantastic beliefs, its laws and its institutions re- 
 presents a unity, a way of its own of taking life, a 
 separate tone in humanity, a distinctive faculty of 
 the great soul. The trae psychology of humanity 
 would consist in analyzing the one after the other 
 those various lives in their complexity, and as 
 every nation has generally tied its suprasensitive 
 life into a spiritual sheaf, which is its literature, 
 true psychology would consist above all in the history 
 of literatures. Tlie second volume of M. von Hum- 
 boldt's Cosmos (the history of a sentiment traced in 
 all its varieties and shades among every race and 
 through the lapse of all the centuries) may be 
 taken as an example of this historical psychology. 
 Ordinary psychology is too much like that literature 
 which by dint of representing humanity in its 
 general characteristics and rejecting local and indi- 
 vidual colour will perish through lack of vitality of its 
 own and originality. 
 
 I am under the impression that the comparative 
 study of the different literatures has afforded me a 
 much wider idea of human nature than that generally 
 conceived. No doubt there is a good deal that is 
 universal, there are a great many common elements 
 in human nature. No doubt we may see that there 
 is but one psychology the same that there is but one 
 literature, seeing that all literatures live on the same 
 common fund of sentiments and ideas. But this 
 universality is not where we believe it to be, and 
 to apply a rigid and imbending theory to mankind of 
 different epochs is simply to falsify the complexion 
 of facts. That which is universal, is the great 
 divisions and the great needs of nature ; they are, if
 
 1G4 The Future of Science. 
 
 I may so express it, the natural pigeon-holes, filled 
 up successively by those diverse and variable forms ; 
 religion, poesy, morality, etc. Looking at the 
 past of humanity only, religion for instance would 
 seem to be essential to human nature ; and still 
 religion in the ancient forms is fated to disappear. 
 That which will remain is the place it occupied, the 
 want to which it corresponded, and which will be 
 satisfied one day by something analogous to it. Has 
 morality itself been a form of all ages — provided we 
 attach to the word the complete and quasi-evangelical 
 sense we give to it ? A not over delicate analysis, 
 taking no account of the difi"erent physiognomy of 
 facts, might aifirm such a thing. True psychology 
 which takes care not to designate by the same name 
 facts of a different complexion, though they may be 
 analogous cannot make up its mind to this. Is the 
 word morality applicable to the form which the idea 
 assumed in the ancient Arab, Hebrew and Chinese 
 civilizations, which it still assumes among savage 
 peoples, etc. ? I am not making one of those common- 
 place objections here, which have been so often 
 repeated since the days of Montaigne and Bayle, 
 and which attempted to -prove by means of a few 
 divergencies or a few ambiguous terms that in certain 
 peoples the moral sense was entirely absent. I admit 
 that the moral sense or its equivalents appertain to 
 the essence of humanity, but I maintain that to apply 
 the same denomination to facts so diverse is to speak 
 incorrectly. There exists in humanity a faculty or 
 a need, in one word a capacity which in our days 
 is supplied by a code of morals, and which has always 
 been supplied, which will always be supplied by some- 
 thing analogous. In the same way I conceive that 
 in the future the word morality will not be the 
 proper word and that it will be replaced by another. 
 As far as my personal use goes, I prefer to substitute 
 the word sestheticism for it. Face to face with a 
 given action, I ask myself whether it is ugly or 
 beautiful rather than whether it be good or bad, and
 
 Tlie Future of Science. 165 
 
 I believe that mine is a good criterion ; because 
 v/ith the simple morality that constitutes the honest 
 man, it is still possible to lead a sufficiently paltry 
 existence. Be this as it may, the immutable should 
 only be looked for in the divisions of human nature 
 themselves, in its compartments, if I may so express 
 it, and not in the forms that are adjusted to it, and 
 which may be replaced by substitutes. This is some- 
 thing analogous to the fact of chemical substitution 
 in which analogous bodies may in their turn fill up 
 the same frames. 
 
 China ofi"ers me the best example to elucidate what 
 I have just said. It would be altogether incorrect to 
 say that the Chinese are a nation without morality, 
 without religion, without a mythology, without God ; 
 in that case tliey would be a monster among man- 
 kind, and yet it is very certain that the Chinese have 
 neither morality, religion, a mythology, nor a God in 
 the sense we understand them. Theology and the 
 supernatural occupy no place in the minds of these 
 people ; and Confucius only acted in accordance with 
 the spirit of his nation when he dissuaded his disciples 
 from the study of things divine (81). So vague are 
 the ideas of the Chinese with regard to the Godhead, 
 that since the days of Francis Xavier the missionaries 
 have had the greatest difficulty to find a Chinese 
 term, signifying God. The Catholics, after a good 
 deal of groping about, succeeded at last in agreeing 
 upon a word ; but when, about thirty years ago, the 
 Protestants began to translate the Bible into Chinese, 
 there was a repetition of the difficulties. The variety 
 of terms emj^loyed by the different Protestant mission- 
 aries to designate God became such, that they had 
 to have recourse to a council, which it appears to 
 me, decided nothing at all, seeing that Mr. Medhurst 
 who has recently published a dissertation on the 
 subject which was printed at Shanghai still discusses 
 the sense in which the classic authors employ each of 
 the terms that have been proposed as equivalents for 
 the word God. We might point out similar analogies
 
 IGG The Future of Science. 
 
 \vitli regard to morality and religion, and prove that 
 morality with the Chinese is only the observance of 
 an established ceremonial and religion the respect 
 due to ancestors. M. Saint-Marc-Girardin when he 
 compared Voltaire's " Orphelin de la Chine" with 
 the original has pertinently pointed how the pathetic 
 and passionate elements disappear from the Chinese 
 system to become systematic duty, how^ the family 
 affections disappear by the family becoming an 
 institution (82). A careful study of the different 
 zones of the affections of the human species would 
 reveal everywhere, not an identity of elements, but 
 analogous composition, the same plan, the same dis- 
 position of parts in diverse proportions. A given 
 element, prominent in a given race, is only rudimen- 
 tary in another. " Mythologism " so dominant in 
 India scarcely shows in China, but is nevertheless 
 perceptible on an infinitely reduced scale. Philosophy, 
 the dominant element in the Indo- Germanic races 
 appears to be altogether foreign to the Semites, and 
 still, on looking very closety, one perceives in the 
 latter, not the thing itself, but its rudimentary germ. 
 At the outset of our scientific career we are apt 
 to imagine the laws of the psychological and physio- 
 logical world as absolutely non-deviating formulas, 
 but before long the scientific spirit modifies this 
 conception. VVe meet with individualism every- 
 where ; the genus and the species almost melt into 
 one in the analysis of the naturalist ; each fact shows 
 itself as sui generis; the most simple phenomenon 
 appears incapable of being reduced ; the order of real 
 things is only a vast oscillation of tendencies j^ro- 
 ducing by their infinitely varied combinations con- 
 stantly varying apparitions. Keason is the only 
 one law that governs the world ; it is as impossible 
 to reduce to fornnilas the law of things as to 
 reduce to a settled number of schemes the turns of 
 speech of the orator, as to enumerate the precepts 
 on wliicli the moral man bases his conduct towards 
 the good. "Endeavour to be beautiful (83), and
 
 The Future of Science. 1G7 
 
 then do at every moment that with which yonr heart 
 will inspire you ; " that is morality in a nutshell. 
 All the other rules in their absolute form are faulty 
 and mendacious. The general rules are only trumpery 
 makeshifts to hide the absence of the grand moral 
 sense, which in itself is sufficient to show man at all 
 times what is most beautiful. It is an attempt to 
 substitute previously prepared instructions for inmost 
 spontaneousness. The variety of cases constantly 
 baffles all previsions. There is nothing, absolutely 
 nothing that can replace the soul ; no amount of 
 teaching can make up with man for the inspiration 
 of his nature. , -- 
 
 Psychology, as understood up till now, is to true 
 historical psychology what the comparative philology 
 of Bopp and W. von Humboldt is to that " skimpy " 
 part of dialectics, formerly entitled comparative 
 grammar. In the latter one treated language like 
 a petrified thing, settled once for all, stereotyped 
 in its forms, as something finished, and which 
 was supposed to have been always, and to remain 
 always as it was. In the former, on the other 
 hand, they take the living organism, the specific 
 variety, the movement, the process of evolution, in 
 short, the history. Its history is the true form of the 
 science of languages (84). It is no doubt useful to 
 take an idiom at a given moment of its existence, if 
 it be an idiom one is learning to speak. But to stop 
 there is as little profitable to science as if we limited 
 the study of organized bodies to the examination of 
 what they are at a definite moment without inquiring 
 into the laws of their development. No doubt if 
 languages were like inanimate bodies condemned to 
 immobility, grammar should be purely theoretical. 
 But they are alive, like man and mankind who speak 
 them, they are constantly being decomposed and 
 reconstructed ; it is a real inward growth, a constant 
 circulation from within to without, and from without 
 to within, a continual " becoming." As such they 
 are like everything that lives subject to the laws of
 
 lOS The Future of Science. 
 
 changing and successive existence, to their progress 
 and phases, in consequence of that secret impulsion, 
 which allows neither man nor the productions of his 
 mind to remain stationary. 
 
 In the same way psvcliology lias insisted too much 
 on considering man from the point of view of his 
 "being" and has not inquired sufficiently into his 
 evolution. Everything that Hves has a history : the 
 psychological man as well as the human body, aggre- 
 gate humanity as well as the individual lives and 
 renews its life. They constitute a moving picture 
 in which the masses of colour, blending with one 
 another by imperceptible gradations should by a 
 constant play tone down and absorb one another, 
 expand and at the same time limit one another. It 
 is a reciprocal action and reaction, a commerce of 
 common parts, a growth on a common trunk. In 
 this eternal evolution one would in vain look for the 
 stable element to which to apply the anatomical 
 process. The word soul, so admirably fit to designate 
 the supra-sensitive life of man will always be fallacious 
 and imtrue if apphed in the sense of a permanent 
 basis which would be the ever identical subject of 
 phenomena. It is this false connection of a fixed 
 sub-stratum which has given to psychology its hard 
 and fast forms. The soul is taken for a fixed, per- 
 manent being, and analyzed like a natural body, 
 while after all it is only the ever variable resultant 
 of the multiple and complex facts of existence. The 
 soul means individual evolution, just as God means 
 universal evolution. It is certain that if there 
 were an invariable •'beincr" which we mi£rht call 
 the soul, just as there are creations we call Iceland 
 spar, quartz, mica, there would be a science called 
 psycholo^jif. which would be analogous to mineralogy. 
 So tme is this that ui taking up this standpoint 
 we should cease studying the science of the souly 
 for there are various kinds, and take to studving 
 the science of souh. This is how Aristotle under- 
 stood it, who was far less guilty than people generally
 
 Th<^ Future of Science. 169 
 
 thiDk him, for to him the soul is only the persistent 
 phenomenon of life. This ahove all, is the manner 
 in which it was understood hy ancient philosophy 
 which made itself grotesque to the extent of found- 
 ing a science called jjneamatology or the science of 
 spiritual heings (" God, man, the angel, and may- 
 be animals," they said) just as, in natural history, we 
 might found a science treating of the horse, the 
 unicorn, the whale and the butterfly. The Scotch 
 psychology avoided those scholastic absurdities, but 
 still, it clung too much to the point of view of the 
 "being" and not enough to the point of view of 
 the evolution, it still conceived philosophy as the 
 study of man in an abstract and absolute manner, 
 and not as the study of the eternal "becoming." 
 The science of man will only then be placed in 
 its true light when students are persuaded that 
 conscience evolves itself, vague, feeble, non-cen- 
 tralized at first, in the individual as well as in aggre- 
 gate humanity, that it only attains its plenitude 
 after having gone through diverse phases. It will 
 then be seen that the science of the individual soul 
 is the history of the individual soul, and the science 
 of the human intellect, the history of the human 
 intellect. ' ' 
 
 The great progress of modern thought has been 
 the substitution of the category of evolution for the 
 category of the " being " ; of the conception of the 
 relative for the conception of the absolute, of move- 
 ment for immobility. Formerly eveiything was con- 
 sidered as " being " (an accomplished fact) ; people 
 spoke of law, of religion, of politics, of poetry^ in an 
 absolute fashion (85). At present eveiything is 
 considered as in the process of formation (86). Not 
 that formerly evolution and development were not, 
 as they are to-day, general laws ; but people had no 
 perception of them. The earth revolved before 
 Copernicus, albeit that it was thought to be stationary. 
 Substantial hypotheses always precede phenomenal 
 hypotheses. The Egyptian statue, motionless with
 
 170 Tlte Future of Science. 
 
 its bands "stuck" to its knees is the natural ante- 
 cedent of the Greek that hves and moves. 
 
 But how is it possible to establish the history of 
 the liuman intellect without the most extensive 
 learning and without the study of the monuments 
 bequeathed to us by every epoch ? From that point 
 of view nothing is useless, the most insignificant 
 works are often the most important in so far as they 
 energetically depict one aspect of things. The 
 Talmud is a very curious monument of moral de- 
 pression and extravagance ; but I maintain that no 
 one who has not studied that unique work can form 
 an idea of how far the human intellect may go in its 
 aberration from the paths of common sense. The 
 works of the Latin poets of the decline are insipid 
 enough in all conscience, nevertheless, unless one 
 reads them, it is impossible to conceive the charac- 
 teristics of a decadence, to get an idea of the exact 
 colour of an epoch in which the intellectual sap is 
 exhausted. Of all literatures, the Syriac is, I imagine, 
 the most colourless. The writings of that nation are 
 pervaded by a suave mediocrity for which I can find 
 no name. Herein lies its very interest, no study 
 affords a better idea of the viediocre co?iditio?i of the 
 human intellect. And, natural, unsophisticated 
 mediocrity being a facet of human life just like any 
 other, it has a claim to our attention. No doubt, 
 such studies possess very little value from the 
 aesthetic point of view, they are very precious from 
 the scientific one. There is certainly very little to 
 be learned from, and to admire in, the Latin poems of 
 the Middle Ages and the scientific literature in 
 general of those days ; still, can we pretend to know 
 the human miud if ignorant of the dreams that 
 haunted their sleep of ten centuries' duration. 
 
 Among the special works in connection with the 
 Semitic languages I know of none more urgent in 
 tlie state of actual science than a comjilete and 
 definitely authentic publication of the books of the 
 small gnostic sect which subsists still at Bassora
 
 The Future of Science. 171 
 
 under the name of Meudaites or Christians of St. 
 John. Those books do not contain a single line of 
 sense ; they are simply so much raving composed in 
 a barbarous and indecipherable style. It is that 
 which constitutes their very value. For it is easier 
 to study diverse natures in their crises than in their 
 normal condition. The regularity of life only shows 
 one surface and conceals in its depth the inmost 
 mainsprings ; in a state of ebullition, on the other 
 hand, everything rises in its turn to the surface. 
 Sleep, madness, delirium, somnambulism, hallucina- 
 tion afford the study of individual psychology a much 
 more profitable field of observation than the regular 
 condition. For the phenomena which in the latter 
 state are effaced, as it were, by their insignificance 
 show themselves in extraordinary crises in a more 
 conspicuous manner by reason of their exaggeration. 
 The physicist does not study galvanism in the feeble 
 quantity presented by nature, but multiplies it by 
 ex23eriment in order to study it with more facility, 
 being perfectly sure, after all, that the laws thus ob- 
 served in their exaggerated condition are identical 
 with those of the natural condition. In the same way 
 the psychology of humanity should take its lessons 
 above all from the study of the aberrations of mankind, 
 of its dreams, of its hallucinations, of all those strange 
 absurdities that may be met with at every page of 
 the history of the human intellect. 
 
 The philosophical spirit can extract philosophy 
 from no matter what. If I were condemned to make 
 a special study of heraldry, it seems to me that I 
 should cheerfully make up my mind to it and gather 
 a honey that would have its sweetness like the 
 veriest bee among a well stocked flowerbed. If I 
 were incarcerated at Vinceunes with the Anecdota of 
 Pez or Martene and the Collection of d'Achery, 
 I should consider myself the happiest of mortals. T 
 commenced, and I hope to have the courage to 
 finish a work on the history of Hellenism among the 
 Eastern peoples (Assyrians, Arabs, Persians, Arme-
 
 172 The Future of Science. 
 
 niaDS. Georgians, etc.). I can pledge my word that 
 tliere is no more wearisome business, no more 
 monotonous spectacle, no more colourless and less 
 original page in literary llistor3^ Nevertheless, I 
 hope to extract from this insignificant study some 
 curious traits for tlie history of the human intellect ; 
 we shall meet in it with two profoundly dijfferent 
 spirits, in presence of, and incapable of penetrating, 
 one another, a superficial education without lasting 
 effects which, by its contrast, will make us under- 
 stand the immense fact of the Hellenic education of 
 tlie Western peoples ; singular misunderstandings, 
 strange instances of utter nonsense will disclose 
 voids, the knowledge of which will be useful in 
 drawing up in a more exact way the map of the 
 Semitic spirit and the Indo- Germanic spirit. 
 
 The history of the Origins of Cliristianity written 
 by a critic who would go to the direct sources would 
 undoubtedly be a work of importance. Well, that 
 marvellous history, which if carried out in a scientific 
 and final manner would revolutionize thought, with 
 what should it be constructed? W^ith utterly in- 
 significant books, such as the book of Enoch, the 
 Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Testament 
 of Solomon, and in general the Apocryphal books of 
 Jewisli and Christian origin, the Chaldaic paraphrases, 
 the Mishna, the Deutero-Canonical books, etc. On 
 that day, Fabricius and Thilo who have prepared 
 a creditable edition of these texts, Bruce who brought 
 back from Abyssinia, the book of Enoch, Laurence, 
 I\Iurray and A. G. Hofl'mann who have elaborated 
 tlie text, will have done more for the work than 
 Voltaire with the whole of the eighteenth century 
 by his side. 
 
 Thus, from the vast point of view of the science of 
 the human intellect works deemed insignificant at 
 the first glance may prove to be the most important. 
 A given literature in Asia which has absolutely no 
 intrinsic value may afford data for the history of the 
 liiiiti;iM intellect more cuiious than no inatter which
 
 The Fiitare of Science. 173 
 
 modern literature. The scientific study of the savage 
 races would be attended with still more decisive 
 results, if it were undertaken by truly philosophical 
 minds. Just as the worst popular jargon is more apt 
 to initiate us in the science of languages than an 
 artificial language polished by the hand of man 
 like French, so may a man be thoroughly versed in 
 various literatures such as the French, the German, 
 the English, the Italian, without having as much as 
 perceived the great problem. Orientalists often 
 make themselves ridiculous by attributing an absolute 
 value to the literatures they cultivate. It would be 
 too painful to have devoted the whole of one's life to 
 deciphering a difficult text and then to have to admit 
 that the text was not admirable. On the other 
 hand, superficial minds smile and joke when they 
 see serious people amuse themselves in translating 
 and commenting books, possessing no form or style, 
 which in our opinions would be only absurd and 
 ridiculous. They are both in the wrong. We ought 
 not to say; "This is absurd; this is magnificent." 
 We should say; "This belongs to the human 
 intellect, consequently it has its value." It is very 
 patent at once that from the point of view of positive 
 science there is nothing to be gained by the study 
 of the East. A few hours given to the perusal of a 
 modern work on medicine, mathematics or astronomy 
 will be more useful as regards the knowledge of those 
 sciences than long years of learned research devoted 
 to the physicians, mathematicians and astronomers 
 of the East (87). Even history is scarcely a 
 sufiicient motive to invest those studies with any 
 value. For, first of all, the ancient history of the 
 East is absolutely fabulous ; secondly, the moment 
 it becomes more or less trustworthy, the political 
 history of the East becomes almost insignificant. 
 The platitude of the Arabian and Persian historians 
 who have transmitted to us the history of Islamism 
 is absolutely without a parallel. And, in fairness be 
 it said, the history itself is much more to blame than
 
 174 The Future of Science. 
 
 the historians. What could the latter make out 
 of a world of ice, as it were, consisting of whims and 
 freaks of ahsiird and bloodthirsty despots, revolts of 
 governors, changes of dynasties, successions of viziers, 
 a world from which humanity is apparently com- 
 ])letely absent, in which the voice of nature seems 
 dumb, in which there is not a single true or original 
 movement of the people ? Certainly, those who are 
 under the impression that a man studies Turkish 
 literature with the same object that he would study 
 German literature ; to find something to admire, are 
 right when they smile at those who devote their 
 vigils to it, in looking at them as benighted intellects, 
 incapable of doing aught else. As a rule, the 
 modern literatures of the East are weak, and would 
 not in themselves, deserve the attention of the 
 serious student (88). But they become exceedingly 
 valuable when bearing in mind that they afford 
 important elements for the study of ancient litera- 
 ture and the comparative study of idioms. Nothing 
 is useless when we know how to reduce it to its aim, 
 but we must not lose sight of the fact that mediocrity 
 has only its value in the whole of which it is a part. 
 
 But has the study of the ancient literatures of the 
 East a value of its own, and irrespective of the history 
 of the human intellect ? I confess that there is real 
 and incontestable beauty in those ancient productions 
 of the East. Job and Isaiah, the Ramaj^ana and the 
 ]\Iahabarata, the pre-Islamite poems are beautiful for 
 the same reason that Homer is beautiful. But, if we 
 anatyze the feeling produced in us by those ancient 
 works, what, as far as we are concerned, is their claim 
 to the award of beauty ? We admire a poem of M. de 
 Lamartine, a tragedy of Schiller, a canto of Goethe, 
 because we meet with our ideal in it. Do we equally 
 meet with our ideal in the poetical dissertations of 
 Job, in the sweet psalms of the Jews, in the picture 
 of Arabian life of Antara, in the hymns of the Vedas, 
 in tlie admirable episodes of Nal and Damayanti, of 
 Yaduadatta, of Savitri, of the descent of the Ganga ?
 
 The Future of Science. 175 
 
 Is it our ideal we meet with in the symboHcal figure 
 of Um or of Brahma, in an Egyptian pyramid, or in 
 the Caverns of Ellora ? Certainly not. We can only 
 admire on the condition of transporting ourselves to 
 the times to which these monuments belong, of 
 placiug ourselves in the centre of human intellectuality, 
 of regarding all this as the eternal growth of hidden 
 forces. That is why limited and more or less rigid 
 intellects who judge these ancient productions by 
 clinging obstinately to the modern point of view 
 cannot make up their minds to admire them, or else 
 admire exactly that which is not worthy of admira- 
 tion, or what is altogether absent from it (89). Just 
 submit the myths of the Maruthas or the visions of 
 Ezekiel to a man who is not versed in strange litera- 
 tures, he will simply vote them hideous and repulsive. 
 From his point of view, Voltaire was right in 
 ridiculing Ezekiel (90), just as Perrault and some 
 critics of the school of Alexandria were right in de- 
 claring Homer ridicidous, and Madame Dacier and 
 Boileau are wi'ong when they undertake to defend 
 Homer while still adhering to the same strange 
 manner of viewing antiquity. To understand the 
 true sense of those exotic beauties, we must have 
 become identified with the intellect of aggregate 
 humanity ; we must feel, live, with it in order to 
 grasp its originality, its life, its harmony even in its 
 most eccentric creations wherever we meet with 
 them. Champollion wound np by perceiving beauty 
 in the Egyptian heads ; the Jews consider the 
 Talmud replete with a morality as lofty as that of the 
 Gospel ; the lovers of the Middle Ages stand lost 
 in admiration before grotesque statues which the 
 profane do not deem worthy of a look. Think you 
 that this is the mere illusion of the erudite man or 
 the ardent amateur? No ; it simply arises from the 
 fact that in every fold and corner of the handiwork of 
 man there is hidden a ray of divine light, the careful 
 observer knows where to find it. The altar on which 
 the patriarchs sacrificed to Jehovah was, materially
 
 76 The Future of Science. 
 
 speaking, only a heap of stones ; considered in its 
 Immanitariau significance, as a symbol of the sim- 
 plicity of those ancient modes of worship and of the 
 natural and amorphous God of primeval humanity, 
 that heap of stones was worth a temple of anthro- 
 ])omorphic Greece, and was certainly a thousand- 
 fold more beautiful than our temples of gold and 
 marble raised and admired by people who do not 
 believe in God. A little cowdung and a handful 
 oi Kousa herbs are enougli for the Brahmin's sacrifice 
 and for his reacliing God in his own way. The 
 rough-hewn cippus by which the Hellenes represented 
 the Graces was more eloquent to them than beau- 
 tiful allegorical statues. The value of things lies in 
 what humanity can see in them, in the feelings it 
 has attached to them, in the symbols it drew from 
 them. So true is this that the imitations of primeval 
 works, however perfect they are supposed to be, are 
 not beautiful, while the works themselves are sublime. 
 An exact reproduction of the pyramid of Ghizeh on 
 the common of Saint-Denis would be mere child- 
 ishness. In the latter days of Hebraic literature, the 
 learned men composed psalms imitated from the 
 ancient Canticles, so perfect as to puzzle every one. 
 Well ; we can only say that the old psalms are 
 beautiful, while the modern ones are merely in- 
 genious ; and still the greatest adept can scarcely 
 distinguish them from one another. 
 
 The beauty of a work should never be considered 
 from an abstract point and independently of the 
 surroundings that gave it birth. If the Ossianic 
 poems of Macpherson were authentic they should 
 be ranked with those of Homer. The moment it 
 is proved that they are the work of a poet of the 
 eighteenth century, they have only a mediocre value. 
 For it is the true breath of humanity and not the 
 literary merit that constitutes the beautiful. Let 
 us suppose that a man of parts (it is almost the 
 case with Apollonius of Ehodes) succeeded in catch- 
 ing a very fair imitation of the Homeric style in such
 
 Tlie Future of Science. 177 
 
 a way as to produce a poem in exactly the same 
 style, a poem that should be to Homer's what " Les 
 Paroles d'lm Croyant " are to the Bible, that poem in 
 many people's opinion, ought to be superior to 
 Homer's ; for the author would be able to avoid what 
 we consider blemishes, or at any rate, the wants of 
 transition, the contradictions. I should like to know 
 how the absolute critics would manage to prove that 
 such a poem is not in fact superior to the " Iliad," or 
 rather to prove effectually that the " Iliad " is worth 
 a world's ransom while the work of the modern man 
 is doomed to mildew and oblivion on the shelves of a 
 library after having for an instant diverted the quid- 
 nuncs. In what then does the beauty of Homer 
 consist, seeing that a poem absolutely like his, written 
 in the nineteenth century would not be beautiful ? 
 It is because the Homeric poem of the nineteenth 
 century would not be true. It is not Homer who is 
 beautiful, it is the Homeric life, the phase of man- 
 kind's existence as described in Homer. It is not 
 the Bible that is beautiful, it is the Biblical manners 
 and customs, the form of existence depicted in the 
 Bible. It is not this or that Indian poem that is 
 beautiful, it is the Indian life. What do we admire 
 in " Telemaque" ? Is it the perfect imitation of the 
 antique form ? Is it this or that description, this or 
 that comparison borrowed from Homer or Virgil ? 
 No, they simply elicit the cool remark, as if we were 
 stating a mere fact, " This man has caught the 
 antique style in a remarkably delicate way." That 
 which arouses our admiration and our sympathy in 
 that beautiful book is exactlj^ the modern spirit 
 breathing through it, the genius of Christianity which 
 prompted Fenelon in his description of the Elysian 
 Fields ; it is that policy so moral and so rational 
 guessed at by a miracle as it were amidst the Satur- 
 nalia of an absolute monarchy. 
 
 The true literature of an age is that which expresses 
 and depicts that age (91). Some sacred orators of 
 the Eestoration have bequeathed us funeral orations
 
 178 The F tit arc of Science. 
 
 imitated from those of Bossuet and almost entirely 
 composed of the phrases of that great man. Well ; 
 these phrases which are beautiful in the work of the 
 seventeenth century, because of their sincerity at 
 that time, are insignificant later on because they are 
 false and because they do not express the sentiments 
 of the nineteenth century. Independently of any 
 system, except that which dogmatically preaches 
 utter annihilation, the tomb has its poesy, and this 
 poesy is never more affecting perhaps than when an 
 involuntary doubt mingles with the certainty latent in 
 every heart, as if to moderate the too great prosaism 
 of dogmatic affirmation. The chiaro-oscuro affords 
 a softer and sadder tint, a less distinctly drawn 
 horizon, more vague than and more analogous to the 
 tomb. The few pages of M. Cousin on Santa-Rosa 
 are more valuable, as far as our feelings go than 
 a funeral oration imitated from those of Bossuet. A 
 beautiful cojiy of a picture by Raphael is beautiful 
 because it pretends nothing more than to represent 
 Raphael. But a nineteenth century imitation of 
 Bossuet is not beautiful, because it is a false applica- 
 tion of forms that were true once upon a time ; it 
 does not express the humanity of its epoch. 
 
 It has been pointed out in a delicate manner how 
 much the works of art with which our museums are 
 crowded lose in their sesthetic value. There can be 
 no doubt as to that, seeing that their position and 
 their significance at the epoch when they were true 
 contributed three-fourths of their beauty. A work 
 lias no value save in its framew^ork and the frame- 
 work of every work is its epoch. Did not the sculp- 
 ture of the Parthenon possess a greater vahie in the 
 place to which it belongs than stuck in little bits 
 on the walls of a museum ? I deeply admire the old 
 religious monuments of the Middle-Ages, but face 
 to face with our modern Gothic churches, built by an 
 architect in a frock coat, piecing together the 
 designs borrowed from the ancient fanes my feeling 
 is only one of pain. Absolute admiration is always
 
 llie Future of Scicmce. 179 
 
 artificial ; I yield to no man in my admiration of 
 the " Pensees " of Pascal, the Sermons of Bossuet ; 
 but I admire them as works of the seventeenth 
 century. If those works were to appear in our days, 
 they would scarcely deserve attention. True admi- 
 ration is historial. Local colour possesses an incon- 
 testable charm when real ; it is insipid when copied. 
 I like the Alhambra and Broceliande in their reality ; 
 I cannot help laughing at the romanticist who 
 imagines that by combining these words, he can 
 construct a beautiful work. Therein lies the error 
 of Chateaubriand and the cause of the incredible 
 mediocrity of his school. He is no longer himself 
 when he leaves the domain of critical appreciation 
 and tries to produce after the model of the works, 
 the beauties of which he so judiciously points out. 
 
 Among the works of Voltaire those in which he 
 has copied the forms of the past are unmistakably 
 forgotten. Who, outside the college, reads the 
 "Henriade" or his tragedies. But those in which 
 he has shown the elegant proofs of his subtle tact, of 
 his immorality, of his witty scepticism will live, for 
 they are true. I prefer " La Fete de Bellebat " or 
 *' La Pucelle " to " La Mort de Cesar " or the poem 
 on Fontenoy. It may be as infamous as you please ; 
 but it belongs essentially to the century, it is the 
 man himself. Horace is more lyrical in Nunc est 
 hihendum than in Qualem mijiistrum fulminis aliteni. 
 
 Hence, true admiration of primitive works is only 
 possible from the sole point of view of human in- 
 tellect and by diviug into its history not out of 
 mere curiosity, but from a deep-rooted feeling and 
 intimate sympathy. Every dogmatical point of view 
 is absolute, all appreciation based on modern lines is 
 out of place. The literature of the seventeenth 
 century is no doubt admirable, but on the condition 
 of it being transported to its own medium, the seven- 
 teenth century. It is only the pedant of the college 
 who is capable of seeing in it the eternal type of 
 beauty. In this as in everything else criticism is
 
 180 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 the condition of the greater aesthetics. The true 
 meaning of things can only be grasped by him who 
 takes up his position at the fountain head itself 
 of beauty ; and who from the centre of human nature 
 contemplates with rapturous ecstasy and in every 
 direction those eternal productions in their infinite 
 variety ; temples, statues, poems, philosophical 
 systems, religions, social forms, passions, virtues, 
 sufferings, love, and nature itself which would have 
 jQovalue without the conscient being who idealizes it. 
 r^^cience, art, philosophy would no longer have 
 tjany value outside the point of view of the human 
 ' race. He only is capable of grasping the great 
 beauty of things who sees in everything a form 
 of the intellect, a step towards God. For we are 
 bound to say humanity in this instance is but a 
 symbol ; perfect beauty dwells in God alone, that 
 is to say, in the whole. The most sublime works are 
 those which humanity has made collectively and 
 to which no name can be attached. The most 
 beautiful things are anonymous. The critics who 
 are simply scholars and nothing else regret this 
 and bring all the resources of their art to bear 
 upon the penetration of that secret. All this is so 
 much blundering. Do they imagine that they have 
 enhanced the beauty of this or that national epic 
 because they discovered the name of the weak 
 mortal who indited it. What do I care for that 
 man who stands between humanity and me ? What 
 do I care for the insignificant syllables of his name ? 
 That name itself is a lie ; it is not he, it is the 
 nation ; it is humanity toiling at a point of time and 
 space who is the real author. Anonymousness in 
 this instance is much more expressive and true ; the 
 only name which should designate the author of 
 those spontaneous works is the name of the nation 
 among which they saw the light ; and that name 
 instead of being inscribed on the title, is inscribed on 
 every page. If Homer were a real and single 
 personage it would still be absurd to say that he
 
 The Future of Science. 181 
 
 is the author of the "Iliad." A like composition, 
 evolved in one piece from an individual brain, with- 
 out traditional antecedent, would have been insipid 
 and impossible to read, we might as well suppose 
 that it is Matthew, Mark, Luke and John who 
 invented Christ. "Only rhetoric," said M. Cousin, 
 "can ever suppose the plan of a grand work to 
 belong to him who carries it out." The rhetoricians 
 who look at everything from the literary side, who 
 admire the poem, while they remain profoundly 
 indifferent to the thing that has been perpetuated in 
 song will never understand the part of the people 
 in those works. It is the people that provides the 
 material, and that material the rhetoricians are 
 blind to and simply imagine that it is the inven- 
 tion of the poet. The Revolution and the Empire 
 have produced no poem worthy of being mentioned ; 
 they did better. They left us the most marvellous 
 epic in action. It is foolish in the extreme to 
 admire the literary expression of the feelings and 
 the acts of mankind and not to admire those senti- 
 ments and acts in mankind. Humanity alone is 
 admirable. Genius ;is only the editor of the in- 
 spirations of the crowd. Their glory lies in being 
 so deeply sympathetic with the ever creative soul, 
 as to feel the throbbings of that great heart resound 
 beneath their pen. To endeavour to exalt them 
 by revealing their individuality is merely to lower 
 them ; it is to destroy their true glory in order 
 to ennoble them by chimeras. True nobility does 
 not consist in having a name of one's own, a glory 
 of one's own, but in belonging to the noble race of 
 the children of God, in being a soldier lost in the 
 immense army marching onward towards the con- 
 quest of the perfect. 
 
 If transported to those open fields of humanity 
 with what pity will the critic look upon that paltry 
 admiration that clings to the handwriting of the 
 writer rather than to the genius of him who has 
 dictated. No doubt good criticism should allot a
 
 182 The Future of Science. 
 
 great share to great men. They are valuable among 
 huiuauity and through humanity. They distinctly 
 and eminently feel what the world feels only vaguely. 
 They impart a language and a voice to those mute 
 instincts, which, pent up in the crowd — a stammer- 
 in«T being if ever there was one — aspire to find 
 their expression and recognized themselves in their 
 accents. *' Oh, sublime poet," they say to him, " we 
 were mute and thou hast given us a voice. We 
 were seeking in the dark for ourselves and thou 
 hast revealed us to ourselves." It is an admirable 
 dialogue between the man of genius and the crowd. 
 The crowd lends him the grand material, the man of 
 genius gives expression to it, gives it shape and 
 creates it ; then the crowd that feels but cannot 
 speak, recognizes itself and shouts for joy. It sounds 
 like one of those musical choruses, arranged in 
 dialogue wliere now one, then several alternate with 
 and reply to one another. Now it is the solitary 
 voice, thin and prolonged which resounds in sweet 
 but penetrating notes. Then comes the grand out- 
 burst, apparently discordant, but powerful in effect, 
 amidst which the small still voice continues, but 
 heucefo^'th absorbed in the grand concert w^hich at 
 last gets beyond, and carries it along. Great men 
 have the faculty of guessing beforehand that which 
 becomes ere long patent to all ; they are the scouts of 
 the great army ; they in their rapid and venturesome 
 advance, can catch sight before the others of the 
 smiling plains and lofty peaks. But in reality it is 
 the army that has brought them where they are and 
 has i)usli('d them forward ; it is the army that sup- 
 l)orts them and gives them confidence ; it is the army 
 which in them advances beyond its ow^n lines, and 
 the conquest is not realized until the main body 
 in its slower but surer march ruts with its millions 
 of footsteps the path which they scarcely touched and 
 encamps its heavy masses on the ground where they 
 iirst appeared as bold adventurers. 
 
 ilow often, in fact, have great men been literally
 
 Tlie Future of Science. 183 
 
 made by humanity, which removing from their exist- 
 ence every stain and every trace of vulgarity, idealizes 
 and consecrates them like statues erected on the 
 various stages of its march, in order to remind itself 
 of what it is, and to become enthusiastic over its own 
 image. Happy those whom legend thus sequestrates 
 from criticism. For alas, we may well believe that 
 if we touched them we should find at their feet a 
 greater or smaller clod of earth. That which is ad- 
 mirable, heavenly, divine belongs nearly always by 
 right to humanity. As a rule, good criticism must^ 
 be on its guard against individuals and not allot to ^ 
 them too great a share. It is the masses that I / 
 create, because the masses eminently possess, and to \ ^ 
 a thousandfold superior degree of spontaneity, the J 
 moral instincts of human nature. The beauty oi 
 Beatrice belongs to Dante, and not to Beatrice ; the 
 beauty of Krishna belongs to the genius 53f India, and 
 not to Krishna ; the beauty of Jesus and Mary 
 belongs to Christianity and not to Jesus and Mary. 
 No doubt it is not merely pure chance which has 
 marked out this or that individual for idealization. 
 But there are cases in which the woof of humanity 
 completely covers the primitive reality. By this 
 powerful labour and transformed by this j)lastic 
 energy the most ugly caterpillar might become the 
 most ideal of butterflies. 
 
 This labour of the crowd is an element which has 
 been too much neglected in the history of philosophy. 
 The debates are supposed to be finally closed when 
 a few proper names have been opposed to one another. 
 But no one concerns himself as to how the people 
 looked at life, or with the intellectual system on 
 which the age reposed ; this, however, is the great 
 motor principle. The history of the human in- 
 tellect is, a rule composed ■ in too individual a 
 matter. It is like the scene of a play supposed to 
 occur in a public thoroughfare in which there are at 
 most two or three persons moving about. This or 
 that history of German philosophy deems itself com-
 
 184 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 plete in devoting separate articles to Kant, Ficlite, 
 Schelling, Hegel, Hamaun, Herder, Jacobi, Herbart. 
 But wliere is the grand humanit}^ amidst which they 
 lived ? That ought to be the permanent background 
 on which the individuals should be shown. In one 
 word, the history of philosophy should be the history 
 of the thoughts of mankind. The current ideas of a 
 people and of an age contain an unwritten philosophy 
 and literature which should be inserted in the great 
 total. It is thought that a people has no literature 
 until it has definite and settled monuments. But 
 the true literary productions of a people in its in- 
 tellectual childhood are the mythical ideas that are 
 not written down (the conception of a regular 
 system of editing and the faculties implied by such 
 work only appear among a people at a comparative^ 
 advanced degree of thought), ideas rolling their 
 current throughout the whole of the nation, filter- 
 ing tradition through a thousand secret rivulets to 
 which every one gives a form according to his own 
 taste. At the first glance, one would be tempted to 
 believe that the Breton peoples have no literature, 
 because there would be a difficulty in giving an 
 extensive catalogue of Breton books really and truly 
 ancient and original. But the fact is that they have 
 a complete traditional literature in their legends, 
 their stories, their mythological fantasies, their 
 superstitious worships, their poems hovering about 
 liere and there. It was the same with the greater 
 part of our heroic legends before they were repudiated 
 by tlie cultured part of the nation and got into low 
 company in the " Bibhotheque Bleue." 
 
 On entering the Spanish galleries at the Louvre 
 we derive no doubt a great deal of pleasure from the 
 close examination of this or that picture of Murillo 
 or liibeira. But there is something still more beauti- 
 ful and that is tlie impression we derive from the 
 galleries as a whole, from the ordinary 2^ose of the 
 personages, from the general style of the pictures, 
 from the dominant colouring. Not a nude figure,
 
 The Future of Science, 185 
 
 not a smile on a single pair of lips. It is Spain in 
 her habit as she lived that we see before us. The 
 principle of grand criticism should in like manner con- 
 sist in grasping the physiognomy of each portion of 
 humanity. To praise this, to blame that is to fall into 
 a paltry method indeed. We must take the work for 
 what it is, perfect in its order, eminently representing 
 what it does represent, and not reproach it for what it 
 has not. The idea that the author has made a mistake 
 is altogether out of place in literary criticism, unless 
 we are treating of literatures altogether artificial, like 
 the Latin literature of the decadence. No doubt, 
 not everything is of equal value, but as a rule a piece 
 is what it is capable of being. We must place it on 
 a higher or lower rung in the scale of the ideal, but 
 we should not blame the author for having conceived 
 the thing in this or that tone, and for having 
 voluntarily shunned this or that order of beauty. 
 We may criticize the point of view from which each 
 work is conceived rather than the work itself, J^or 
 all its great authors are perfect from their point of 
 view, and the criticisms addressed to them are as 
 a rule merely so many reproaches for not having 
 been what they were not. 
 
 I have perhaps repeated too often, still I will 
 repeat once more that there is a science of humanity 
 which, I hope, will have as much right to assume 
 the title of philosophy as the science treating of the 
 individual ; a science which is impossible of attain- 
 ment save by the erudite trituration of the works of 
 humanity. W^e need not look for any other motive 
 in many studies whose object is the past. Why 
 should the most noble intellect devote itself to the 
 translation of the Bhagavata-Purana, to commenting 
 the Yashua ? He who has accomplished this task 
 in so learned a manner will answer you ; " To analyze 
 the works of human thought, by assigning to each 
 its essential character, to discover the analogies 
 which connect them with one another, and to look 
 for the reason of those analogies in the nature of
 
 18G TJie Future of Science. 
 
 iutelligeuce itself, which without losing aught of 
 its iudi visible unity, gets multiplied by the very 
 varied products of art and science ; to the solution 
 of this problem the genius of the philosophers of 
 all times has clung from the moment that Greece 
 bestowed upon mankind the two powerful levers of 
 analysis and observation (92)." Therein lies the only 
 value of erudition. No one dreams of crediting it 
 with any practical utility, apart from the fact that 
 curiosity pure and simple would not suffice to ennoble 
 it. Hence, all that remains is to look upon it as the 
 condition of the science of the human intellect ; tlie 
 science of the j^roducts of the human intellect. 
 
 Both the ordinary observer and the .savant admire 
 a beautiful llower to the same degree, but they do 
 not admire the same things in it. The ordinary 
 observer only sees bright colours and shapely form. 
 The savant is so delighted, is so enraptured with 
 the marvels and secrets of its inner life as scarcely to 
 notice those superficial beauties. It is not exactly 
 the flower he admires, it is life, universal force which 
 in one of its forms manifests itself in it. Criticism 
 has up till now admired the masterpieces of literature 
 as we admire the beautiful forms of the human hody. 
 The critic of the future will admire them like the 
 anatomist, who penetrating beyond those perceptible 
 beauties, finds in the secrets of their organization an 
 order of beautiful things a thousand times superior. 
 A dissected body is in a certain sense horrible to a 
 degree, and yet the eye of science discovers in it a 
 world of marvels. 
 
 Looked at in tliis way, the most eccentric litera- 
 tures, those which, judged according to our ideas, 
 would possess the least value, those that take ns the 
 farthest away from the actual world are the most 
 important. Comparative anatomy obtains many 
 more results from the observation of inferior animals 
 than from tlie observation of the superior species. 
 Cuvior might have gone on dissecting domestic 
 animals all his life without so much as suspect
 
 The Future of Science. 1 87 
 
 the higher problems revealed to him by the study 
 of the molluscs and amielids. In the same way 
 those who study only regular literatures which, in 
 the order of products of the intellect, are as the 
 big classical animals in the animal scale will never 
 succeed in arriving at a larger conception of the 
 science of the human intellect (93). They only see 
 the literary and esthetic side ; nay more ; they 
 cannot even understand that in a grand and thorough 
 manner. For they fail to see the divine force at 
 work in every creation of the human intellect. For 
 instance, what are literary works in France ? Ele- 
 gant and subtle bits of moral gossip, never majestic 
 and scientific works. No problem is ever pro- 
 pounded ; there is no perception of the higher cause. 
 The science of literatures is treated of as botany 
 would be treated of by an amateur florist who would 
 be content to finger and admire the petals of each 
 flower. The higher and grander criticism, on the 
 contrary, does not scruple to tear away the flower in 
 order to study its roots, to count its stamens, to 
 analyze its tissues. But we^ should not infer from 
 this that it relinquishes its higher admiration. On 
 the contrary, the higher and grander criticism alone 
 has the right to admire, inasmuch as it alone is certain 
 not to admire blunders, mistakes of copyists; the 
 higher criticism alone knows the reality, and the 
 reality only is admirable. That will be our system, 
 we who belong to the second half of the nineteenth 
 century. We may not possess the subtlety of those 
 masters of atticism, their delightful way of gossiping, 
 their witty innuendo. But we shall have the 
 dogmatic view of human nature, we will plunge into 
 the ocean instead of taking a pleasant dip in shaUow 
 water, and we shall return laden with primeval 
 pearls. All that appertains to the work of the 
 human intellect is divine, and the more primeval, 
 the more divine. It is said that M. Yillemain called 
 M. Fauriel " an atheist in literature:' He should 
 have said -a pantheist, which is not the same thing.
 
 188 The Future of Science. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Hence we must look upon philology or the study 
 of aucieut literatures as a science having a distinct 
 object, viz. the knowledge of the human intellect. 
 To consider those literatures merely as a means of 
 intellectual culture is, in my opinion, to deprive them 
 of tlieir true dignity. To restrict their influence 
 merely to contemporary literary production is to 
 take a still narrower view. In a remarkable lecture 
 delivered before the Congress of German philologists 
 at Bonn in 1841, M. Welcker in endeavouring to 
 define the accepted meaning of philology {Uber die 
 Bedeutung der PJiilologie), looked at it almost ex- 
 clusively in that way (94). To M. Welcker philology 
 is the science of classic literatures, that is, of model 
 literatures, which, offering us as they do, the 
 general type of higher learning ought to suit all 
 peoples and be made to serve equally in their educa- 
 tion. M. Welcker appreciates the study of anti- 
 quity above all on account of the happy influence 
 it may exercise on the literature and sesthetic educa- 
 tion of the modern nations. The ancients are to him 
 models and objects of admiration rather than objects 
 of science. Still, M. Welcker does not altogether 
 preach servile imitation. What he asks for is an 
 intimate and secret influence, analogous to that of 
 electricity, which without communicating anything 
 of its own, develops a similar state in other bodies ; 
 what he blames is the attempt of those who pretend 
 to /hid iu the modern peoples sufficient material for
 
 The Future of Science. 189 
 
 a moral and aesthetic education. Consequently M. 
 Welcker only looks upon philology from the point of 
 view of the classical scholar, and not from the point 
 of view of the savant. As far as we are concerned, it 
 seems to us that we should be placing philosophy in 
 a much more certain and higher sphere, by investing 
 it with a scientific and philosophical value with 
 reference to the history of the human intellect, than 
 by reducing it to a mere means of education and 
 literary culture. If modern nations could find in them- 
 selves a sufliciently intellectual leaven, a running 
 and primary source of original inspirations we should 
 becareful indeed not to trouble that vein of fresh supply 
 by an admixture of the antique. Tone in literature 
 is the more beautiful in proportion to its being more 
 true and more pure ; to the scholar and to the critic 
 belong the universal use and intelligent appreciation 
 of the most diverse forms ; a foreign note, on the 
 contrary will trouble and worry the original and 
 creative poet. But admitting that modern times 
 could find a poesy and a philosophy as truly repre- 
 sentative of them as Homer and Plato are repre- 
 sentatives of the Greece of their days, even then the 
 study of antiquity would have its value from the 
 point of view of science. Besides ; M. Welcker's 
 considerations would not constitute a valid apology 
 for all philological studies. If ancient literatures 
 are only cultivated for the sake of finding models, 
 what would be the use of cultivating those which, 
 though having their original beauties, do not lend 
 themselves to our imitation ? We should be obliged 
 to confine ourselves to the study of Greek and Latin 
 antiquity, and even within those limits, the study 
 of masterpieces only would have its value. But the 
 literatures of the East which M. Welcker treats with 
 great contempt, and the second rate works of classical 
 literature, if less suitable as models for taste, some- 
 times present more philosophical iuterest and teach 
 us more of the history of the human intellect than 
 the most finished monuments of the ages of perfection.
 
 190 The Future of Science. 
 
 The fact of classical languages has, moreover, 
 nothiDcr absolute in it. The Greek and Latm litera- 
 tures are classical so far as we are concerned, not 
 because they are the most excellent of hteratures, 
 but because they have been imposed upon us by 
 history. This fact of an ancient language being 
 selected to serve as a basis for the education, and 
 couceutratiDg around it the literary efforts, of a nation 
 which has made for itself a new idiom long ago, is not 
 as people would too often lead us to believe the effect 
 of an arbitrary choice, but purely and simply one of 
 the most general laws of language, a law that owes 
 nothing to the whim or to the literary opinions 
 of this or that epoch. In fact, to invest this deno- 
 mination of classical with an absolute sense and to 
 restrict it to one or two idioms as if they were pre- 
 destined by an essential privilege resulting from their 
 nature to be the educational instrument of all peoples 
 is to misapprehend greatly the role and nature of 
 classical languages. Their existence is a universal 
 fact in the linguistic organism, and their selection, 
 just as it imphes nothing absolute with regard to all 
 peoples, has nothing arbitrary for any of them. 
 
 The general history of languages has long ago 
 demonstrated the fact that in every country where 
 there has been an intellectual movement, there has 
 already occurred the formation of two strata of lan- 
 guages ; not through the method of one language 
 abruptly displacing the other, but through that of 
 the second emergiug by imperceptible transformations 
 from the dust of the first. The ancient language has 
 been replaced everywhere by a vulgar idiom which in 
 reality does not constitute a different language but 
 rather a different age from that which preceded it ; 
 the former is more scholarly, more synthetical, full of 
 inflections cxprossiug the most delicate connections 
 of thought, richer in its order of ideas, albeit that 
 this order of ideas was comparatively more restricted ; 
 it is, in short an image of primeval spontaneity, in 
 wiiich the mind confounded the elements in one
 
 Tlie Future of Science. 191 
 
 obscure unity, and lost in the whole the analytical 
 view of parts. On the contrary, the second dialect, 
 corresponding with a clearer and more explicit pro- 
 gress of analysis, divides what the ancients united 
 and shatters the mechanism of the ancient language 
 in order to provide each idea, each connection with 
 its isolated expression. 
 
 By taking the one after the other the languages 
 of every country in which humanity has a history it 
 would be possible to verify that progress, which is 
 the progress of the human intellect itself. In India 
 it is Sanskrit with its admirable wealth of gram- 
 matical forms with its eight cases, its six moods, its 
 numerous terminations, its involved and powerfully 
 knitted phraseology which in its modification pro- 
 duces Pali, Prakrit and Kawi, dialects less rich, 
 more simple and clear which in their turn are 
 analyzed into dialects still more popular, the Hindu, 
 Bengali, Mahratta and other vulgar dialects of 
 Hindustan, and in their turn become dead, learned 
 and sacred languages ; Pali in the island of Ceylon 
 and Indo-China, Prakrit among the Djainas, Kawi, in 
 the islands of Java, Bali, and Madura. In the region 
 of India to the Caucasus, Zend with its long and 
 complicated words, its absence of prepositions and 
 its mode of supplying them by means of cases formed 
 by inflection, the Persian of the cuneiform inscriptions, 
 so perfect in its structure, are replaced by modern 
 Persian, almost as decrepit as English which has 
 reached its last stage of erosion. In the region of the 
 Caucasus modern Armenian and Georgian succeeded 
 to the ancient Armenian and Georgian. In Europe 
 the position of the ancient Sclavonic, the Teutonic, 
 the Gothic, the Norman, is below that of the Scla- 
 vonic and Germanic idioms. And to wind up, it is 
 from the analysis of Greek and Latin, subjected to the 
 process of decomposition of the barbarous centuries 
 that the modern Greek and the neo-Latin languages 
 have sprung. 
 
 The Semitic languages, though dead languages
 
 102 The Future of Science. 
 
 to a greater degree than the Indo- Germanic ones 
 have followed an analogous course. Hebrew, their 
 most ancient type, disappears at a remote period, 
 to leave the field absolutely to Chaldaic, Samaritan, 
 Syriac, dialects more analytically constructed, longer 
 and sometimes more lucid also, which in their turn 
 become successively merged in Arabic. But Arabic 
 in its turn too scholarly for the everyday use of 
 strangers who are unable to observe its delicate 
 and varied inflections, beholds solecism usurping the 
 common right and in consequence by the side of 
 the hteral language, which becomes the exclusive 
 property of the schools, there springs up the vulgar 
 Arabic, more simple in its system and less rich in 
 grammatical forms. The languages of the West and 
 of Central Asia present several analogous phenomena 
 in the '' superposition " of the ancient Chinese and 
 the modern Chinese, of the ancient Thibetan and 
 the modern Thibetan, and the Malay languages in 
 that ancient language to which Marsden and Craw- 
 fnrd have given the name of "grand Polynesian" 
 which was the language of Javanese civilization and 
 which Balbi calls the Sanskrit of Oceania. 
 
 But what becomes of the ancient language ousted 
 in that way from everyday use by the new idiom ? 
 Its rule, though changed is, for all that, none the 
 less remarkable. If it ceases to be the intermediary 
 of the ordinary intercourse of Ufe, it becomes the 
 learned and nearly always the sacred language of 
 the people that decomposed it. Imbedded, as a rule 
 in an antique hterature, the storehouse of religious 
 and national traditions, it remains the patrimony of 
 savants, the language appertaining to the mental and 
 Kjti ritual domain, and it generally requires many 
 centuries before the modern idiom in its turn dares 
 to emerge from vulgar existence to venture into the 
 order of things intellectual. In one word, it becomes 
 classical, sacred, liturgical, correlative terms accord- 
 ing to the country where the fact is verified and 
 signifying uses which as a rule accompany one
 
 TJie Future of Science. T93 
 
 another. For instance, among the Orientals where 
 the antique book never fails to become sacred, 
 religions dogmas and the liturgy are generally con- 
 fided to the custody of that obscure, scarcely known 
 language. 
 
 Hence, it may be taken as a general fact of the 
 history of languages that each nation finds its 
 classical language in the very conditions of its 
 history and that its choice is not an arbitrary one. 
 It is also a fact that, among nations not very far 
 advanced in mental culture, all matters of the intel- 
 lectual order are confided to that language, and that 
 among the peoples whose more energetic intellectual 
 activity has forged a new instrument better adapted 
 to their needs, the antique tongue preserves a grave 
 and religious role ; that of accomplishing the educa- 
 tion of the faculty of thought and of its initiation into 
 the things of the intellectual world. 
 
 Modern language being, in fact, wholly made up 
 of the remains of the ancient, it becomes impossible 
 to master it in a scientific manner, except by bring- 
 ing back those fragments to the primeval structure, 
 where each of them had its value. Experience 
 shows how imperfect is the knowledge of modern 
 languages with those whose knowledge is not based 
 on the knowledge of the antique language from 
 which each modern idiom sprang. The secret of 
 grammatical mechanisms, of etymologies and con- 
 sequently of orthography being altogether contained 
 in the ancient dialect, the logical reason of the rules 
 of grammar is utterly lost to those who consider 
 those rules in an isolated way and irrespective of 
 their origin. Eoutine, in that case, becomes the 
 only method possible as in every case where practical 
 knowledge is aimed at to the exclusion of theoretical 
 reason. One knows the language as the workman 
 who employs the methods of geometry without 
 understanding them, knows geometry. Besides, 
 being indebted for its form to dissolution, modern 
 language will fail to imbue with life the shreds it has
 
 194 The Future of Science. 
 
 endeavoured to assimilate, unless it reverts to the 
 ancient synthesis in order to find the stamp that 
 must invest ^'ith a new unity those scattered elements. 
 Hence its inability to constitute itself by itself into 
 a literary language ; hence the utility of those men 
 who at given periods, had to provide its education 
 by the antique, to preside as it were at its *' classi- 
 cality." Without this necessary operation, the vulgar 
 tongue always remains what it was at its origin, a 
 popular jargon begotten by the incapacity for syn- 
 thesis, and inapplicable to matters intellectual. Not 
 that we should mourn for the loss of synthesis. 
 Anatysis is something much more advanced and corre- 
 sponds to a more scientific condition of the human 
 intellect. But it is incapable of creating anything 
 by itself. Eminently fit to decompose and to lay 
 bare the secret springs of language, it is powerless 
 to reconstruct the ensemble it has destroyed, unless 
 it resorts for this to the ancient system, and derives 
 from its commerce with antiquity its spirit of con- 
 structing a whole, and of scholarly organization. 
 This is the law to which all modern languages had to 
 submit in their development. And the processes by 
 which the vulgar tongue has risen to the dignity of 
 literary language are the very ones by which one 
 may attain to a perfectly intellectual grasp of it. 
 The model of philological education is traced in each 
 country by the training undergone by the vulgar idiom 
 in order to gain its patent of nobility. 
 
 The historical utihty of the study of ancient lan- 
 guage is in no way inferior to its philological and 
 literary utility. The sacred book to the antique 
 nation was that in which were recorded all the 
 national recollections; it was consulted by every one 
 in search of liis genealogy, the meaning of all the 
 acts of civil, political and religious life. The 
 classical langun^^es are in many respects, the sacred 
 book of the modern peoples. They contain the roots 
 of the nation, her titles, the sense of her words, 
 consequently of bor institutions. Without it a great
 
 The Future of Science. 195 
 
 many things would remain unintelligible and his- 
 torically unexplicable. Every modern idea is grafted 
 upon an antique stem, all actual development is the 
 emanation from a precedent. To consider humanity 
 from an isolated point of its existence is to condemn 
 one's self for ever to remain in ignorance of it ; it 
 has no sense except as a whole. There lies the prize 
 of erudition ; in the re-creation of the past, in the 
 exploration of every part of humanity ; whether it be 
 conscious or not of its mission, erudition prepares 
 the basis necessary to philosophy. 
 
 More modest education, compelled to set itself 
 limits, and unable to take in the whole of the past, 
 adheres to the portion of antiquity, which, as applic- 
 able to each nation, is classic. And this choice which 
 can never be doubtful is still less doubtful with us 
 than with any other people. Our civilization, our in- 
 stitutions, our languages have been constructed out of 
 Greek and Latin elements. Hence whether we like 
 it or not^ Greek and Latin are forced upon us by facts. 
 No law, no rule has given them or can deprive them 
 of this character which they derive from history, just 
 as education among the Chinese or Arabs will never 
 mean the acquiring of the vulgar Arabic or Chinese^ 
 but will always mean the acquisition of literal Arabic 
 or Chinese, just as modern Greece owes its slight 
 revival of literary life solely to the study of ancient 
 Greek, so will the study of our classical languages, 
 inseparable from one another, always constitute with 
 us, and by the force of circumstances, the basis of 
 education. Other nations, even European ones, 
 such as for instance the Sclavonic nations, nay the 
 Germanic peoples themselves though they were later 
 on so intimately connected with Latinism, may look 
 for their education elsewhere : they would at most 
 voluntarily deprive themselves of an admirable source 
 of the beautiful and the true ; but they would not 
 deprive themselves of direct intercourse with their 
 ancestors. But as for us, it would be tantamount to 
 denying our origin, to cut off all connection with our
 
 lOG The Future of Science. 
 
 forbears. Philological education cannot possibly 
 consist in the study of modem language, any more 
 than moral and political education can mean the 
 exclusive study of actual ideas and institutions, we 
 must go back to the primary source and take our 
 stand on the road of the past to arrive subsequently 
 at the full understanding of the present by the same 
 road over which humanity travelled.
 
 The Future of Science. 197 
 
 CHAPTER Xn.( 
 
 Consequently in my opinion the sole means of con- 
 stituting the apologia of philological sciences and of 
 learning in general is to group them into a whole 
 and to bestow upon them the title of Sciences of 
 humanity, in contrast to the sciences of nature. 
 Without this, there is no object in science, and it 
 exposes itself to all the objections so often directed 
 against it. 
 
 The modesty of the means it employs to attain 
 its end should not be argued as a reproach. Cuvier 
 dissecting snails would have raised a smile from 
 the frivolous minded who do not understand the 
 processes of science. The student of chemistry 
 manipulating his various apparatus looks very much 
 like a navvy, and still he accomplishes the most 
 liberal work of all, the inquiry into what is. M. de 
 Maistre has depicted modern science somewhere as 
 having " its arms full of books and instruments of 
 all kinds, pale with vigils and overwork, staggering 
 along on the road to truth, quivering and inkstained, 
 and bending its forehead wrinkled with algebra 
 towards the ground." A grand seigneur like M. de 
 Maistre must in fact have felt greatly humiliated 
 by such painful investigations, and truth was very 
 irreverent indeed by putting so many difficulties in 
 his way. He must have preferred the more easy 
 method of " Oriental science, free, isolated, flying 
 rather than plodding along, presenting in its whole 
 appearance something aerial and supernatural, letting
 
 198 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 the winds toy with its hair escaping from under 
 an Eastern mitre, its spurning foot seemingly only 
 touching the earth in order to get an impetus for its 
 flight." It is the characteristic and the pride of 
 modern science to attain its most lofty results only 
 through the most scrupulous methods of experiment 
 and to arrive at the knowledge of the highest laws of 
 nature, its hands resting on its apparatus. It leaves 
 to old-fashioned a jiriori the doubtful honour of seek- 
 ing its support only in itself; it prides itself upon 
 being nothing but the mere echo of facts, upon 
 mixing no invention of its own with its discoveries. 
 
 The most humble methods are in this way ennobled 
 by their results. The highest laws of the physical 
 sciences have been ascertained by manipulations 
 differing very little from those of the artisan. If the 
 highest truths can as it were emanate from the 
 alembic and the crucible, why should they not 
 equally be the result of the study of the remains of 
 the past, covered with the dust of ages ? Shall the 
 philologist who toils on words and syllables be less 
 honoured than the student of chemistry labouring in 
 his laboratory ? 
 
 The few results attained by certain branches of 
 philological studies constitutes in itself no objection 
 against them. For on embarking upon an order of 
 researches it is impossible to guess beforehand what 
 may result from them, any more than one can know, 
 in digging a mine, the wealth it may contain. The 
 veins of precious metal do not lend themselves 
 to prognostication. We may be on our way to the 
 discovery of a new world ; the laborious investiga- 
 tions undertaken may also lead to the sole conclusion 
 that nothing is to be gained from them. But do not 
 say that he who has merely attained this altogether 
 negative result has wasted his time. For apart from 
 the fact of there not being any absolutely fruitless 
 research or any which does not lead either directly or 
 accidentally to some discovery, the investigator will 
 save others the useless trouble he gave himself. A
 
 The Future of Science. 199 
 
 good many orders of researches will remain in that 
 way like mines, exploited at some previous period, 
 but abandoned since, because they did not sufficiently 
 reward the workers for their pains and because they 
 no longer afford hope to future explorers. We 
 should, however, bear in mind that results which at 
 a given moment may appear altogether insignificant 
 may turn out to be most important in connection 
 with new discoveries and new comparisons. Science 
 always presents itself to man as an unknown country, 
 he often enters upon it by an out-of-the-way corner 
 which fails to give him an idea of the whole. The 
 first navigators who discovered America were far 
 from suspecting the exact forms and true relations 
 to one another of those parts of this new world. 
 Was it an isolated island, a group of islands, a vast 
 continent or the prolongation of another continent ? 
 Only the subsequent explorers could answer these 
 questions. The same in science ; the most important 
 discoveries have often been brought about in a round- 
 about way; "on the slant" if I may so express it. 
 Very few problems have been deliberately grappled 
 with at the outset, "taken at the core." It was 
 through fragmentary translations that Anquetil- 
 Duperron began the study of Zend literature, as in 
 the Middle Ages it was through very imperfect 
 Arabic versions that the scientific authors of Greece 
 acquired their first knowledge of the West. The 
 celebrated passage of Clement of Alexandria on the 
 Egyptian writings attracted little or no notice until 
 the day when, in consequence of other discoveries, it 
 became the key to the study of Egyptian monuments. 
 The accessory may in this way become the principal 
 in consequence of a change of aspect (95). The theo- 
 logians who in the Middle Ages, occupied the prin- 
 cipal scene are very secondary personages to us. 
 The rare savants and thinkers who at that period 
 conducted their investigations by the true method, 
 and who at the time remained unnoticed or were 
 persecuted, occupy in our opinion the first and fore-
 
 200 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 most position, for only their method has been con- 
 tinued ; they alone had issue. No kind of research 
 should be branded at the outset as useless or puerile ; 
 one does not know what it may bring forth, nor the 
 value it may acquire from a more advanced stand- 
 point. 
 
 Pliysioal science affords a great number of instances 
 of isolated discoveries which for years remained 
 almost without significance and only acquired im- 
 portance long afterwards through the accession of 
 new facts. For a long while students may pursue 
 an apparently barren track, which they abandon at 
 last in despair, when all of a sudden there appears an 
 unexpected light ; the discovery bursts forth at two 
 or three points at the same time, and what until then 
 had looked as a mere isolated and insignificant fact 
 becomes in a novel combination, the basis of a whole 
 theory. There is nothing more difficult to foretell 
 than the importance with which posterity will invest 
 this or that order of facts, the researches that will be 
 abandoned, the researches that will be continued. 
 The attractive properties of yellow amber were 
 merely looked upon by the ancient students of 
 physics as a curious fact until a complete scientific 
 theory was constructed around that first atom. We 
 must not expect a hard and fast system of logic in 
 the order of scientific investigations, any more than 
 we must ask the explorer to give us beforehand a 
 plan of his discoveries. In looking for one thing one 
 may stumble upon another, in the pursuit of a mere 
 vision, one may hit upon a magnificent reality. 
 Accident, chance, on the other hand claims its share. 
 Universal exi)loration, a beating-up of the game on 
 all sides, that and that only is the sole possible 
 method. " We must look upon the fabric of science, 
 as we would upon that of nature ; " said Cuvier. 
 "Each fact occupies its defined position, which 
 cannot be occupied except by that fact." That 
 which has no value in itself may possess a great deal 
 as a necessary means.
 
 The Future of Science. 201 
 
 The critical consideration of an object is often 
 more serious than the object itself. One may com- 
 ment seriously on a madrigal or a frivolous novel ; 
 grave scholars have devoted their lives to comment- 
 ing works the authors of which only aimed at giving 
 pleasure. All that belongs to the past deserves 
 serious attention. Some day Beranger will become 
 an object of scientific comment and belong to the 
 domain of the Academic des Inscriptions. Would 
 not Moliere, who was so apt to ridicule the savarits 
 whose name ended in us, be more or less surprised 
 at having fallen into their hands ? The profane and 
 every now and then even they who call themselves 
 thinkers laugh at the minute investigations of the 
 past by archaeology. Such researches, if their aim 
 were strictly confined to their own domain, would no 
 doubt be nothing better than more or less interesting 
 fancies of the amateur, but they become invested 
 with the dignity of science, nay, in a certain sense 
 sacred if one admits their connection with the know- 
 ledge of antiquity, which it is impossible to attain 
 save through the knowledge of monuments. There 
 are a great many studies which possess no value 
 except with the view of an ulterior purpose. It 
 would be difficult perhaps to find anything philoso- 
 phical in the theory of Greek accentuation, but is 
 that a reason to vote it useless ? Certainly not, for 
 without it, the thorough knowledge of Greek would 
 be impossible. A like system of exclusion would 
 lead to the revival of the witty argument, by which, 
 in Voltaire's story, the education of Jeannot is sim- 
 plified with a vengeance. 
 
 Besides, how many works are there which though 
 possessing no absolute value, were highly important 
 in their own days, on account of their opposition to 
 rooted prejudices. We do not learn a great deal from 
 Naude's Apology for great r)ien wrongUj suspected 
 of magic, nevertheless it may have exercised true 
 influence in its own days. How many books of our 
 own century will be judged in the same way by
 
 202 The Future of Science, 
 
 posterity? Writings intended to combat an error 
 disappear with the error they combated. When a 
 result has been attained, it is diflficult to realize the 
 trouble its attainment has cost. It wanted a genius 
 to conquer the domain that afterwards may have 
 become a child's. 
 
 The researches relating to the cuneiform inscrip- 
 tions which constitute one of the most important of 
 Oriental studies in the actual condition of science 
 afibrd one of the most curious instances of studies 
 worthy of being pursued with the greatest zeal, not- 
 withstanding the uncertainty of their results. I 
 leave aside the Persian inscriptions, the explanation 
 of which is complete ; I am alluding to the Median, 
 Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions, which, even 
 according to those who have arduously laboured at 
 them, remain undeciphered. How far they will 
 continue to resist the learned onslaughts of the 
 savants, it is impossible to say. But granting the 
 most discouraging hypothesis, supposing they will 
 remain an enigma for ever, those who have devoted 
 their labours to them will none the less deserve as 
 well of science, as if, like Champollion, they had 
 restored a whole world ; for even if this happy result 
 should not be realized, its realization did not alto- 
 gether belong to the impossibilities, and there was 
 no means of knowing until they had tried. 
 
 In the actual condition of science, there is no work 
 more urgently needed than a critical catalogue of the 
 manuscripts contained in the various libraries. Those 
 who have been engaged in these researches know how 
 utterly insufficient they all are to convey an exact 
 idea, how for instance, those of the Bibliotheque 
 Nationale are full of mistakes and gaps. This, at the 
 first blush, is a very humble undertaking, for which 
 the merest pupil of the Ecole des Chartes * would 
 sudice. Nothing of the kind. There is no work. 
 
 The Ecole des Chartes is almost equivalent to our Record 
 OfRce of which the Master of the Rolls has the custody, but it 
 admits students bubsidized by the State. — Transl.
 
 The Future of Science. 203 
 
 requiring a wider knowledge, and all our most eminent 
 scientific men, each examining the manuscripts within 
 the most restricted circle of their own specific know- 
 ledge, would scarcely suffice to carry out the task in 
 a thoroughly sufficient manner. And still, learned 
 research will be hampered and remain incomplete 
 until this work be done in a final manner. Even the 
 Jews admit that in another hundred years the Tal- 
 mudic-Eabbinical literature will no longer attract 
 students. When these books shall cease to have a 
 religious interest, no one will have the courage to 
 tackle this chaos. And still they contain vast trea- 
 sures to the critic and the student of the history of 
 the human intellect. Had we not better be quick 
 and utilize the five or six men of the present genera^ 
 tion who alone are competent to let in the light 
 upon these precious documents ? I can assure you 
 that the few hundred thousand francs a Minister of 
 Public Education would devote to this would be 
 better spent than three-fourths of the money usually 
 spent upon the advancement of literature. But this 
 minister should at the same time and beforehand don 
 his armour against the epigrams of the " boobies " 
 and even of literary men who will " fail to conceive 
 why the money of the rate and tax payer should be 
 spent on such ' tomfoolery.' " 
 
 It is the law of science as of every human under- 
 taking to draw its plans on a large scale and with 
 a great deal that is superfluous around them. Man- 
 kind finally assimilates only a small number of the 
 elements of its food. But the parts that have been 
 eliminated, are they therefore useless, have they 
 played no part in the act of nutrition ? Certainly 
 not ; they have been useful in causing the remainder 
 to pass, they were so closely bound up with the 
 nutritive portion that the latter without the super- 
 fluous could have neither been taken nor digested. 
 Open a collection of antique epigraphs, and out of a 
 hundred only one or two perhaps will be of real 
 interest. But if the others had not been deciphered
 
 204 TJie Future of Science. 
 
 how should we have known that among them there 
 were not some still more important ? To have pub- 
 hshed those that seem useless cannot even be 
 deemed a work of superfluity, seeing that this or that 
 one which appears to he utterly insignificant now 
 may become of capital importance in a series of in- 
 vestigations which at present we cannot foresee. 
 
 The general design of the forms of humanity is like 
 those colossal figures intended to be seen from a dis- 
 tance and of which each line does not show as distinct 
 and clear as that of a statue or a picture. The forms 
 are largely outlined, there is a great deal too much, 
 and if we wished to reduce it to the strictly necessary, 
 we should have to take away a good deal. In history 
 the outline is coarse, each feature instead of being 
 represented by an individual or by a small number of 
 men is represented by large masses, by a nation, by 
 a system of philosophy or by a form of religion. On 
 the monuments at Persepolis the nations tributary to 
 the King of Persia are represented by a single indi- 
 vidual wearing the dress, and carrying in his hands 
 the products, of his country ; the latter to be offered 
 in homage to the suzerain. Here w^e have a picture 
 of hiiiiiaDity ; each nation, each form of intellect, of 
 religion, of morality leaves behind it a short sum- 
 mary, which is as it were the extract and the quint- 
 essence of it, and which is often contained in one 
 word. This abridged and expressive type remains as 
 the representation of the milHons of men who never 
 emerged from obscurity, v/ho lived and who died in 
 order to be grouped under that sign. Greece, Persia, 
 India, Judaism, Islamism, Stoicism, Mysticism, all 
 these forms were necessary in order to complete the 
 gniudiose figure, for in order to be represented in a 
 manner worthy of them, not a few individuals, but 
 enormous masses were needed. Pictorial representa- 
 tion by masses is the grand process of Providence. 
 There is a marvellous grandeur and a very deep 
 philosophy in the way in which the ancient Hebrews 
 conceived the government of God, treating nations
 
 The Future of Science. 205 
 
 like individuals, establishing between all the members 
 of a community a perfect a mutual and reciprocal 
 responsibility and dispensing with a majestic " there- 
 abouts " his distributive justice. God only sets Him- 
 self the large, general plan. Each created being 
 finds subsequently in himself the instincts which 
 make his lot as mild as possible. The thought of 
 how few traces are left behind by men, even by those 
 who seem to play a principal part is calculated to fill 
 us with terrible sorrow. And when we reflect that 
 millions upon millions of creatures were born and 
 died in that way, without leaving the slightest memo- 
 rial, one experiences the same terror as one would 
 feel in presence of utter annihilation or the infinite. 
 Only think for a moment of those wretched exist- 
 ences scarcely characterized by anything, which 
 among the savages appear and disappear like the 
 indistinct visions of a dream. Only think for a 
 moment of the countless generations which have 
 been piled upon one another in our country ceme- 
 teries. Dead, dead for ever and aye ? . . . No they 
 live in humanity ; they served to build the great 
 Babel which uprises towards the sky, and each layer 
 of which means a people. 
 
 I am going to tell you about the most charming 
 recollection of my early youth ; the thought of it 
 almost brings tears to my eyes. One day my mother 
 and I in one of those short excursions in the stony 
 byways on the coast of Brittany which leave such 
 sweet memories with all those who wander there, 
 came upon a small village church, surrounded as 
 usual by the churchyard, and we sat down to rest 
 ourselves. The walls of the church of rough-he w^n 
 granite and covered with moss, the neighbouring 
 bouses built of primitive blocks, the closely serried 
 tombs, the mouldering and overthrown crosses, the 
 numerous skulls ranged in tiers on the steps of the 
 tiny house which served as an ossuary (96), all these 
 showed that people had been buried there from the 
 most remote days, when the Saints of Brittany had
 
 oQg The Future of Science. 
 
 made their appearance for the first time on these 
 waves. On that day the terror-stricken feeling at 
 the immense obhvion and the vast silence amidst 
 which human life is swallowed up was such as to 
 haunt me still, and to have become one of the 
 elements of my moral existence. Among all these 
 simple, humble folk that lie there, in the shadow of 
 the old trees, not one, not a single one will live in 
 the future. Not a single one has stamped his acts 
 on the grand movement of things, not a single one 
 will count in the final statistics of those who have 
 given the impulse to the ever-moving wheel. In 
 those days I served the God of my infancy, and an 
 upward look at the stone cross on the steps of which 
 I was seated, a glance at the tabernacle visible through 
 the windows of the church was sufiicient to explain 
 all this to me. And besides, the sea was but at a 
 stone's throw, so were the rocks and the foam-crested 
 waves, I could sniff the winds from heaven, which 
 penetrating to the very brain, awakened a kind of 
 uudefinable and indescribable feeling of freedom and 
 expansion. My mother also was by my side ; and it 
 seemed to me that the humblest life was capable of 
 reflecting heaven through pure love and individual 
 affection. I considered those who lay there happy. 
 Since then I have shifted my tent and I account for 
 this vast darkness in a different way. They are not 
 dead those obscure children of the hamlet, for Brittany 
 still lives, and they have contributed to the making 
 of Brittany ; they played no part in the great drama, 
 but they formed part of the vast chorus, without 
 which the drama would be cold and lifeless and 
 destitute of sympathetic actors. And when Brittany 
 shall be no longer there, France will still be there ; 
 and when France is gone, humanity will remain, and 
 people will go on saying ; ''In days gone by, there 
 was a noble country in sympathy with all that was 
 beautiful, whose destiny it was to suffer for the sake 
 of huiuHuity and to fight in its behalf." On that day 
 the lowhest peasant who had but a few steps to go
 
 The Future of Science. 207 
 
 from his hut to his tomb, shall like ourselves, live in 
 that immortal name (97) ; he will have contributed 
 his small share in the great result. And when 
 humanity is gone, God will remain, and humanity 
 will have contributed to the making of Him, and in 
 his vast bosom all that lived will hve again, and then 
 it will be true to the very letter that not a glass of 
 water, not a word that has furthered the Divine work 
 of progress will be lost. 
 
 That is the law of humanity; an enormous and 
 lavish expenditure of the individual, a contemptuous 
 agglomeration of human beings (I can fancy the 
 modeller flinging his material about anyhow, and 
 taking little or no heed of three-fourths of it that 
 falls to the ground) ; the immense majority fated to 
 enact " the wall flowers " at the grand ball conducted 
 by destiny, or rather to figure in one of those multiple 
 personages which the ancient drama designated as 
 the chorus. Are they useless ? No ; for they also 
 have made their show ; without them the lines 
 would have been thin and paltry ; they have con- 
 tributed to the splendour of the whole, which is 
 more original and more grand. This or that nun 
 who vegetates unnoticed, forgotten in her convent 
 seems altogether lost as far as the living picture of 
 humanity is concerned. Not. at all; for she con- 
 tributes to the sketch of monastic life ; she enters as 
 an atom in the grand mass of black necessary to that. 
 Humanity would not have been complete without 
 monastic life ; monastic life could only be repre- 
 sented by a numberless group ; hence all those who 
 have made part of the group, however completely 
 they may be forgotten, have had their share in the 
 representation of one of the most essential forms of 
 humanity. In short, there are two ways of in- 
 fluencing the world, either by- one's individual force, 
 or by the body of which one forms a part, by the 
 ensemble in which one occupies a place. In the 
 latter case the action of the individual seems veiled ; 
 but on the other hand it is more powerful, and the
 
 208 TJie Future of Science. 
 
 proportioual part accruing to each is much stronger 
 than if he remained isolated. Those poor women, 
 divided, would have been vulgar, commonplace,_and 
 would iiave made no figure in humanity; united, 
 they represent energetically one of the world's most 
 essential elements ; sweet, timid and pensive piety. 
 
 No one, therefore, is useless in humanity. The 
 savage who scarcely exists, serves at any rate as 
 waste power. And as I have already said, it was 
 but fit that the plan of the forms of humanity should 
 be superabundantly provided for. The belief ^ in 
 immortality impHes nothing else than that invincible 
 faith in the future. No action is utterly lost. This 
 or that insect which had no other vocation than to 
 group under a living form a certain number of mole- 
 cules and to eat a leaf accomplished something 
 which still bears consequences in the eternal series of 
 causes. 
 
 Science, hke all the other facets of human life 
 must be represented in that large way. Scientific 
 results should not be arrived at in a meagre and 
 isolated manner. The final residue which will 
 remain in the domain of the human intellect must 
 necessarily be extracted from a vast mass of things. 
 Just as no man is useless in humanity, so is no 
 labourer useless in the field of science. Here, as 
 everywhere else, there must be an immense waste of 
 power. When we reflect upon the enormous amount 
 of intellectual work and activity that has been 
 engulphed for the last three centuries and even in 
 our days in the periodical publications, in the reviews, 
 etc. ; we experience the same feeling that comes 
 over us at seeing the eternal round of generations 
 swallowed up by the tomb, as it were putting one 
 another down. But this is bound to be ; for if every- 
 thing that is said and discovered were assimilated 
 there and then, it would be like a man taking abso- 
 lutely nothing but what is nutritious. After the 
 lapse of a century a genius of the first order is re- 
 duced to two or three pages. The score of volumes
 
 The. Future of Science. 209 
 
 of his complete works remain as a necessary develop- 
 ment of his fundamental idea. A volume for each 
 idea. The eighteenth century is summed up, as far 
 as we are concerned in a few pages expressing its 
 general tendencies, its spirit, its method ; all this is 
 hidden away in thousands of books, forgotten by this 
 time and teeming with gross errors. The biggest 
 library could be filled with the books relating to one 
 controversy only, such as for instance that of the 
 Reformation, of Jansenism, of Thomaism. All this 
 expenditure of intellectual force is not lost, provided 
 those controversies have contributed one single atom 
 to the fabric of modern thought. A great many 
 literary lives, apparently wasted, have been, in fact, 
 useful and necessary. Who, at present, bestows a 
 single thought on this or that grammarian of Alex- 
 andria, illustrious in his own time ? And still he is 
 not dead ; for he helped to sketch Alexandria, and 
 Alexandria remains an immense fact in the history 
 of mankind. 
 
 We can conceive no idea of the largeness of the 
 method by which the work of science should be 
 undertaken in a condition of humanity scientifically 
 organized. I may suppose that it took a thousand 
 laborious lives to collect all the local varieties of a 
 certain legend, such as for instance, that of the 
 Wandering Jew. It is by no means certain that such 
 labour would lead to any serious result ; but it matters 
 not ; the mere possibility of finding in it some subtle 
 induction, which by entering as an element into a 
 more vast ensemble should reveal a feature of the 
 system of things, would h®- sufiicient to venture upon 
 such an expenditure. For nothing is too dear when 
 it becomes a question of providing a single additional 
 atom to truth. Are not thousands of lives lost every 
 day, what is called absolutely lost, in the furthering 
 of the arts of luxury, in contributing a mere scrap 
 of nourishment for the pleasures of the idle, etc. 
 Humanity, after all, has a great deal of strength 
 which absolutely perishes for want of employment
 
 210 The Future of Science. 
 
 aud guidance. May not we hope that one day all 
 this neglected or utterly wasted strength will be 
 applied "to serious things or to the attainment of 
 supra-sensitive results ? 
 
 There are often a great many false conceptions 
 with regard to what will be the mode of life in the 
 future ;'^it is thought that immortality in literature 
 will consist in being read by future generations. 
 This is an illusion we had better abandon. We shall 
 not be read by future generations, we know it, we 
 rejoice in it and congratulate ourselves on it. But 
 we shall have contributed to the manner of looking 
 at things, we shall have enabled the future to do with- 
 out reading us, we shall have accelerated the day 
 when the knowledge of the world shall equal the 
 world, when the subject and the object having 
 become identified, God will be complete. By ac- 
 celerating progress, we accelerate our death. We 
 are not writers who are studied for their style of 
 exposition and their classical touch ; we are thinkers, 
 and our thought is a scientific act. Do people still 
 read the works of Newton, of Lavoisier, of Euler? 
 Their books are facts ; they have had their place in 
 the series of the development of science ; after which 
 their mission is at an end. Only the name of the 
 author remains in the annals of the human intellect 
 like the names of great statesmen and great captains. 
 The real savant never thinks of the immortality of 
 his book, but of the immortahty of his discovery. 
 In the same way we try to enrich the human intel- 
 lect by our observations, rather than to make it read 
 the expression itself of our thoughts. We would 
 wish our name to remain rather than our book. Our 
 immortality consists in the insertion of an imperish- 
 able element into the intellectual movement and in 
 that sense we may say as of old ; Exegi monumentum 
 cere prennius seeing that a result, an act in connec- 
 tion with humanity is immortal by reason of the 
 modification it introduces for evermore in the series 
 of things. The results of this or that obscure book
 
 The Future of Science. 21 1 
 
 which has crumbled to dust long since still last and 
 will last for ever. The destiny of the history of litera- 
 ture is to replace to a vast extent the direct perusal 
 of the works of the human intellect. Who nowadays 
 reads the polemical works of Voltaire ? And still, 
 are there any works that have ever exercised a 
 greater influence ? The study of the authors of the 
 seventeenth century is no doubt eminently useful to 
 the knowledge of the intellectual condition of that 
 period. Nevertheless I consider as good as wasted 
 the time devoted to such study. There is nothing 
 to be learned from it in the way of philosophical 
 ideas and views, nor, I am bound to confess, do I 
 conceive the result of a complete education to con- 
 sist in the knowledge by heart of La Bruyere, Mas- 
 sillon, Jean-Baptiste Eousseau, Boileau, all of whom 
 have but little connection with us. On the other 
 hand no young fellow can be said to have terminated 
 his studies without being up in Villemain, Gruizot, 
 Thiers, Cousin, Quinet, Michelet, Lamartine, Sainte- 
 Beuve. I yield to no one in my admiration of the 
 seventeenth century in its proper place in the history 
 of the human intellect but I revolt the moment this 
 heavy style of thinking utterly devoid of critical 
 acumen is held up as the model of absolute beauty. 
 Heaven preserve us from such a book as "L'Histoire 
 Universelle," the object of a kind of stereotyped 
 admiration, the work of a belated theologian, by way 
 of a text-book of historical philosophy for our liberal 
 rising generation. 
 
 The revolution which has transformed literature 
 into journalism and periodical writing, which has 
 reduced every work of the intellect to a work " of 
 actuality" that will be forgotten in a short time 
 naturally compels us to look at it from this stand- 
 point. In this way the work of intellect ceases to 
 be a monument in order to become a fact " a lever of 
 opinion." Every one harnesses himself to the cen- 
 tury for the purpose of dragging it in his own direc- 
 tion ; the moment the impulse has been given, there
 
 212 The Future of Science. 
 
 remains only the accomplished fact. All this suggests 
 the conception of a state of things in which the 
 privilege of writing will no longer be a right apart, 
 but in which masses of individuals would only think 
 of brinf^iug into circulation this or that order of ideas 
 without appending to them the label of their per- 
 sonality. Periodical production has already reached 
 with us a condition of exuberance such as to entail 
 obhvion to an immense extent and the swallowing 
 up of beautiful as well of mediocre productions. 
 Happy the classics who came at a period when lite- 
 rary individuality was so powerful. There are par- 
 liamentary speeches of to-day assuredly as good as the 
 best discourses of Demosthenes. Many of the forensic 
 speeches of Chaix-d'Est-Ange will stand a favourable 
 comparison with the invectives of Cicero ; still 
 Demosthenes and Cicero will continue to be pub- 
 lished, admired, commented upon as classics, while 
 the speeches of M. Guizot, of M. de Lamartine, of 
 M. de Chaix-d'Est-Ange will live and die only in the 
 columns of the journals of the day after these 
 speeches.
 
 The Future of Science. 213 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 _ T is, therefore, of great importance to understand 
 '"'the role of the savant's labours and the manner in 
 which he exercises his influence. His aim is not to 
 be read, but to insert a stone in the great edifice. 
 Scientific books are a fact ; the life of the savant 
 may possibly be summed up in two or three results, 
 the expression of which may consist of only a few 
 lines or may disappear entirely in more advanced 
 formulas. He may have recorded his researches in 
 bulky volumes that will only be- read by those who 
 travel over the same special road that he did. His 
 immortality does not lie there, but in the brief for- 
 mula in which he has summed up his life and which 
 in its more or less exact shape will become an element 
 in the science of the future. 
 
 Only art in which the form is inseparable from the 
 matter goes down in its entirety to posterity. And 
 one is compelled to admit that our worth does not 
 lie in our form. The authors of our own century 
 will be read very little, but they may take comfort, 
 they will be talked of a great deal in the history of 
 the human intellect. The monographers will read 
 them, and will compose on them curious theses, as 
 we do on d'Urfe, on La Boetie, on Bodin, etc. We 
 compose none on Racine and Corneille ; for they are 
 still read, and books are only written on books that 
 are no longer read. 
 
 Be this as it may, scientific and philosophical 
 progress is subject to conditions utterly different
 
 •J 14 The Future of Science. 
 
 from those of art. Art is not exactly a matter of 
 progress, but of variation of the ideal. Nearly every 
 literature has as its origin the model of its perfec- 
 tiou. Science on the contrary advances by utterly 
 opposite processes. By the side of its philosophical 
 results which are never very long in becoming cur- 
 rent, it has its special and technical part which is 
 only intelligible to the learned. Nay, several 
 sciences have as yet only that part and will probably 
 never have any othgjJUi 
 
 Scientific specialmes are the scandal of men of 
 the world, just as generalities are the scandal of 
 the savants. It is the result of our deplorable habit 
 of looking upon that which is general and philoso- 
 phical as superficial, and upon that which is scholarly 
 as heavy and impossible to be read. To preach 
 philosophy to certain savants is tantamount to pro- 
 claiming one's self a smatterer and a numskull. To 
 preach science to men of the world means numbering 
 one's self among the pedantic schoolmen. These 
 are no doubt very absurd prejudices but they are not 
 without their cause ; because philosophy up till now 
 has scarcely been anything but fancy a priori and 
 science has only been an insignificant display of 
 learning. The truth is, it seems to me, that speciali- 
 ties mean nothing except with a view to generalities, 
 but that again generalities are only possible by virtue 
 of speciahties ; the truth is, that there is a vital 
 science which deals with the whole of man and that 
 this science must needs be based on all other par- 
 ticular sciences, which are beautiful in themselves, 
 but above all beautiful in their ensemble. The 
 specials (if I may be allowed the expression) often 
 make the mistake of thinking that the aim of their 
 work lies in that w^ork itself, and on that account lay 
 themselves open to ridicule, everything savouring of 
 result alarms, and seems of no value to, them. No 
 doubt, if they confined themselves to making war upon 
 generahties advanced haphazard, upon superficial 
 observations we could only applaud their severity.
 
 The Future of Science. 215 
 
 But they often seem to set great store upon details 
 themselves. I can perfectly well understand that a 
 date happily ascertained, the recovery of the circum- 
 stances attending an important fact, the elucidation 
 of an obscure history may assume greater value than 
 whole volumes of the kind frequently boasting the 
 title of " liistorij of i^hilosophyy But truly, are such 
 discoveries worth anything in themselves ? Does not 
 it lie in the degree of their contribution to the found- 
 ing of the true and serious philosophy of history of 
 the future ? What does it matter to me whether 
 Alexander died in 324 or in 325, whether the Battle 
 of Platsea was fought on this or that hill, whether 
 the succession of the Greek and Indo- Scythian Kings 
 of Bactriana was effected in this or that order. Truly, 
 how much better off am I for the fact of knowing 
 that Asoka succeeded Bindusaro, and Kanerkes to I 
 do not know whom. If scholarship meant nothing 
 more than that, the Hermagoras of La Bruyere who 
 knows the names of the architects of the Tower of 
 Babel but who has not seen Versailles is the true 
 scholar, and all the ridicule levelled at scholarship 
 would i)e truly deserved, because vanity alone could 
 sustain people in such researches, and only mediocre 
 intellects could devote their lives to them. 
 
 The moment it is thoroughly agreed that learning 
 is only valuable by virtue of its results we cannot push 
 the division of scientific work too far. In the actual 
 condition of science, and above all of philological 
 science the most useful work is that which brings to 
 light new original sources. Until all the parts of 
 science are elucidated by special monographs, the 
 general works must be considered premature. And 
 monographs are only possible on the condition of 
 specialities within very severe limits. In order to 
 clear up a given point the whole intellectual region 
 in which it is situated must have been gone through, 
 we must have exx^lored aU the outskirts and be able 
 to take our stand in the centre, and with a full know- 
 ledge, of the subject. How much would not the works
 
 216 Tha Future of Science. 
 
 on Oriental literature gain if their authors were as 
 great specialists as the philologists who have created 
 piecemeal the science of the classical literatures. 
 The only works of use to science are those which may 
 be thoroughly rehed upon, and whose authors have 
 acquired, through long habit, if not the privilege of 
 infalhbility, at least that vast knowledge which con- 
 stitutes the assurance of the writer and the security 
 of the readers. Without this nothing can be said to 
 be definitely acquired, everything will constantly have 
 to be done over again. One may say without exag- 
 geration that i^wo-thirds of the works relating to 
 Oriental languages are not deserving of more confi- 
 dence than a work on classical languages by a fair 
 scholar in the fifth form. 
 
 I should be sorry if on this point the drift of this 
 work were misunderstood. I have eulogized poly- 
 mathy and varied knowledge as a philosophical 
 method, but I think that in the way of special work 
 one cannot too rigorously restrict one's self to one's 
 sphere. I like Leibnitz who under the common 
 term of philosophy unites mathematics, the natural 
 sciences, history and linguistic studies, but I cannot 
 approve of a WilHam Jones, who, without being a 
 philosopher fritters away his activity on numberless 
 subjects and who in a lite extending over forty- seven 
 years writes a Greek anthology, an "Arcadia," 
 an epic poem on the discovery of Great Britain, 
 translates the speeches of Isseus, the Persian poems 
 of Hafiz, the Sanskrit code of Manu, the drama of 
 Sacontala, one of the Arabian poems called " Moalla- 
 kat" at the same time tliat lie writes " A Means for 
 Preventing Plots during Elections," and several other 
 pamphlets on passing events, the whole " without 
 prejudice " to his profession as a barrister. 
 
 Still less can 1 forgive that culpable frittering 
 away of a scientific existence which causes science 
 to be looked u})on as a means of business and robs 
 the savanV.s lilo of its most ])i'ecious moments. Did 
 not Cuvier really waste his time when he devoted
 
 Uie Future of Science. 217 
 
 hours upon hours that might have been so fruitful, to 
 administrative functions which others might have 
 discharged as well as he ? A man only excels in 
 one thing ; I cannot conceive how one can thus 
 admit in one's life a principal and an accessory 
 aim. Only the principal has its value, existence has 
 not two aims. If I did not believe that everything 
 is sacred, that everything is of importance in the 
 pursuit of the beautiful and true, I should consider 
 as wasted the time devoted to anything else but 
 special research. I can conceive the fact of a very 
 vast, nay of a universal scope of life. That the 
 thinker, the philosopher, the poet should be actively 
 concerned in the affairs of his country, not in the 
 small details of administration but in the general 
 direction, well and good. But that the special savant 
 after having written a work or so, or after having 
 made a few discoveries should claim as a reward to 
 be absolved from doing any more and to be allowed 
 to enter the political arena is the sign of a paltry 
 nature, of a man who has never understood the noble- 
 ness of science. 
 
 Hence, the true interests of science demand more 
 than ever specialistic work and monographs. That 
 each paving stone should have its history is a con- 
 summation devoutly to be wished. There are as yet 
 few branches in philology and history in which 
 general work is possible with anything like full 
 security. Nearly all the sciences have already 
 " enacted " their grand histories ; the history of medi- 
 cine, the history of philosophy ; the history of philo- 
 logy. Well, we may unhesitatingly affirm that, with 
 the exception perhaps of the history of philosophy, 
 not one of these histories is capable of adequate 
 record, and that if the work of writing monographs 
 does not assume more extensive proportions, will not 
 be capable before another century. In fact, we 
 cannot expect of him who undertakes those vast 
 histories an equal special knowledge of all the parts 
 of his subject. He will be obliged to trust for a
 
 218 The Future of Science. 
 
 great many things to the works of others. And it so 
 happens that on raany innportant points, monographs 
 are as yet utterly lacking, so that the author is 
 reduced to gather here and there some sparse and 
 second-hand notions, frequently very inexact. Let 
 us take for instance, the history of medicine, one of 
 the most curious and one of the most important with 
 regard to the history of the human intellect. Let us 
 suppose that a savant should undertake to rewrite in 
 its ensemble the very imperfect work of Sprengel. 
 Bj^ means of his personal knowledge and works already 
 accomplished he might perhaps treat the ancient part 
 in a definite manner. But what of Arabic medicine, 
 mediaeval medicine, Indian medicine, Chinese medi- 
 cine ? Grranted even that he know Arabic, Chinese 
 or Sanskrit and that he were capable of making 
 useful monographies in one of these languages the 
 whole of his life would not be sufficient to go even 
 superficially over one of those fields still unexplored. 
 Hence, in condemning himself to he complete, he 
 condemns himself to be superficial. His book will 
 be valuable only in those parts where he applies a 
 special knowledge ; then why not confine himself to 
 those parts ? Why devote to worthless labour which 
 is moreover fated to become useless the time he 
 might employ so usefully in definite researches ? 
 Why write long volumes among which one only may 
 perhaps possess a real value ? It is pitiful to see 
 a savant in order not to lose a chapter of his book, 
 condemned to write the history of Chinese medicine 
 under about the same conditions as a man writing the 
 history of Greek medicine after some trashy Arabic 
 or medieval work. And still he would be fatally 
 condemned to do this by the very framework of his 
 book. 
 
 Tlie following is a curious experiment and I would 
 wager that it might be made without exception in 
 connection with all general histories. Present those 
 histories to each of the men who have a special 
 knowledge of one of the parts of which they are
 
 The Future of Science. 219 
 
 composed and I am certain that each of them will 
 find his own part execrably treated. Those who 
 have studied Aristotle are of opinion that Eitter has 
 badly summarized Aristotle, those who have studied 
 stoicism that he has spoken superficially of stoicism. 
 I once presented my learned friend Dr. Daremberg 
 with a copy of " the History of Philology " by Grae- 
 fenhan that he might examine the medical part. He 
 found it treated without the least understanding of the 
 subject. Is it not very probable that other specialist 
 savants would have judged the parts relating to 
 the objects of their researches in the same way ? 
 So that in wanting to do too much one satisfies no 
 one, unless, I repeat, the author of the general 
 history be himself a specialist in one branch of it, 
 to which branch he would have done better to confine 
 himself. 
 
 The work of the nineteenth century then, should 
 be the writing of monographs on every point of 
 science, a hard, humble and laborious task, no doubt, 
 requiring the most disinterested devotion, but a solid 
 and lasting work withal and immensely lifted out of 
 the common by the loftiness of the final aim. It 
 would certainly be more sweet and flattering to 
 human vanity to pluck at the outset the fruit which 
 will only be ripe in a distant future. It wants a 
 very deep-rooted scientific virtue to check one's self 
 on this fatal slope and to refrain from rushing on 
 when the whole of human nature clamours for the 
 final solution. The heroes of science are they who 
 capable of the loftiest views have been able at the same 
 time to resist all anticipated thought and to resign 
 themselves to the role of humble monographers, 
 when every instinct of their nature would have 
 impelled them to scale the high summits. To many, 
 nay to the majority, we are bound to say, this is but a 
 small sacrifice, there is but little merit in abstaining 
 from philosophic views to which they are not inchned 
 by nature. The really deserving are they who while 
 understanding in the loftiest sense the supreme aim
 
 220 The Future of Science. 
 
 of science, while experiencing the most urgent philo- 
 sophical and religious needs devote themselves for 
 the sake of posterity to the laborious calling of mere 
 navvies, and condemn themselves, like the plough 
 horse to see only the furrow it turns. This in the 
 style of the gospel is called; losing one's soul in 
 order to save it. To viahe uy one's mind to ignore so 
 that posterity may hnoiu, is the first and foremost con- 
 dition of the scientific method. For many long 
 years science will still stand in need of those patient 
 researches that take, or might take, the title of 
 ^' Memoraiida for the use of . . ." With a view to 
 the welfare of posterity lofty intellects will in that 
 way be compelled to condemn themselves to the 
 ergastuluni in order to store up in learned pages 
 materials which but a small number will be able 
 to read. To all appearance these patient investiga- 
 tors waste their time and their labour. There is no 
 public for them. They will be read by three or four 
 people, sometimes only by him who reviews their 
 work in some scientific periodical (98), or by him 
 who shall take up the same kind of work, that is, if 
 the latter care at all to know what his predecessors 
 have done. And still monographs are after all the 
 things that live longest. A book of generalities is 
 generally outstripped in about ten years, a monograph 
 being a fact in science, a stone laid in the edifice 
 is in a sense everlasting from its results. People 
 may neglect the name of the author, the book itself 
 may be forgotten, but the results to which it has 
 contributed remain. It is a sufficient reward to 
 a whole life, if it has provided a few elements 
 to the final creed, whatever transformations these 
 elements may undergo. Henceforth that will be the 
 true immortality (99). 
 
 One might cite a great number of researches which 
 to posterity will be summed up in a few lines, 
 wliich lines again will imply whole lives of patient 
 application. The Greek Kingdoms of Bactriana and 
 Pentapotamia have been for some years the object of
 
 The Future of Science. 221 
 
 researclies which would already make several vohimes 
 and are far from being terminated. Is it at all likely 
 that these studies with all their details will find 
 a lasting place in the science of the future ? 
 Certainly not. And still they were necessary to 
 show the character of the extent, of the importance 
 and physiognomy of those advanced colonies of 
 Greece ; without these laborious researches we 
 should have remained in the dark with regard to one 
 of the most curious aspects of the history of Hellen- 
 ism in the East. Those results attained, the works 
 that have been instrumental in attaining them may 
 disappear without much inconvenience to any one, 
 like the scaffolding when the building is finished. 
 And even supposing that the details remain necessary 
 for the more intelligent understanding of the general 
 results, the means, the machinery, if I may be per- 
 mitted to call it so, by which the Prinseps and the 
 Lassens have deciphered that page of history will 
 almost have lost its value or will at best be preserved 
 like bas-reliefs on the pedestal of the obehsk which 
 they were instrumental in raising. " The scholars 
 
 of the nineteenth century have proved " the text 
 
 will run. And that will be all. 
 
 Science should be represented to our minds as a 
 building of the ages which can only be raised by 
 the accumulation of enormous masses. A whole life 
 of assiduous labour will only be as an obscure and 
 nameless stone in that gigantic fabric, nay it may be 
 nothing more than an unnoticed stone hidden in the 
 thickness of the walls. No matter, one has one's 
 place in the temple, one has contributed to the 
 strength of its heavy foundations (100). The authors 
 of monographs cannot reasonably hope to see their 
 work endure in their proper form ; the results they 
 have put into circulation will undergo modifications, 
 they will be digested and thoroughly assimilated. 
 But through all metamorphoses, they will have the 
 honour of having furnished essential elements to the 
 life of humanity. The glory of the first explorers
 
 222 The Future of Science. 
 
 consists in being outstripped and in giving their 
 successors the means by which the latter can out- 
 strip them. " But this glory is immense and should 
 be the less contested by him who comes second, see- 
 ing that he himself will have no other merit in the 
 opinion of those who will busy themselves with the 
 same subject than the merit of having preceded 
 them (101)." 
 
 The faculty of forgetting occupies a large place in 
 the scientific education of the individual. A mass 
 of special data more or less painfully acquired drop 
 of themselves from the memory ; but for all that we 
 should be careful not to assume that they have been 
 lost. For the intellectual culture which was the 
 result of this travail, the progress accomplished by 
 the mind through these studies remains, and these 
 only are worth anything. It is the same in the edu- 
 cation of humanity. The particular elements dis- 
 appear, but the accomplished progress remains. 
 There are algebraical problems for which it is neces- 
 sary to employ unknown auxiliaries and to take very 
 wdde circuits. Do we regret, when the problem has 
 been solved, the elimination of all this baggage in 
 order to make room for a simple and final expression ? 
 
 Therefore, the' specialist-S(2z;<27z^, far from deserting 
 the true arena of humanity, is the one who labours 
 most efiicaciously to the progress of the intellect, 
 seeing that he alone can provide us with the materials 
 for its constructions. But his researches, I repeat, 
 cannot have an aim in themselves, for they do not 
 contribute to make the author more perfect, they 
 are of no value until they are introduced into the 
 grand current. We must admit that the specialist- 
 savants themselves are mainly responsible for propa- 
 gating strange misunderstandings on that point. 
 Exclusively occupied with their own studies, they 
 consider the rest useless and all those not engaged 
 in the same researches are so many profane ones to 
 them. In that way their speciality becomes a small 
 world to them, in which they obstinately and super-
 
 The Future of Science. 223 
 
 cilionsly shut themselves up. And still, if the special 
 object to which a man devotes his whole life had to 
 be taken as possessing an absolute value, every one 
 ought to apply himself to the same object that is, to 
 the most excellent of all. Among the ancient litera- 
 tures a man should exclusively study Greek litera- 
 ture ; among those of the East, Sanskrit literature, 
 and he who should devote his time and labour to 
 a mediocre literature would only be a mere blunderer. 
 Each of these studies has only its value in view of 
 its place in the great whole, and of its connection 
 with the science of the human intellect. The 
 Oriental studies, for instance, are subdivided into 
 three or four princijDal branches, to each of which 
 a small number of savants devote themselves exclu- 
 sively ; so that the researches relating to literatures 
 which are not the object of their studies possess no 
 interest to them. The result is that he who writes 
 a special work on Chinese, Persian, or Thibetic 
 literatures may hope to have about a dozen readers 
 in Europe. And even these, being engrossed, on 
 their side, with their own special labours, have no 
 time to trouble much about those of others and only 
 glance at them superficially, so that in those studies, 
 every one works for himself alone. A strange re- 
 versal of things. Are we to infer from this that it 
 would be desirable for every Orientalist to apply 
 himself to all the languages of Asia ? Certainly not. 
 But what would be desirable is that the savants who 
 are most specialistic should have the true and inmost 
 consciousness of their labours, and that the philo- 
 sophical intellects should not disdain to apply to 
 scholarship for the material of thought. For, I 
 repeat, if the monographer alone reads his mono- 
 graph, what is the use of writing it. It would be 
 too odd if science had no other aim than to supply 
 food for the curiosity of this or that man. Besides, 
 the various sciences have problems in common with, 
 and analogous to, one another as far as form goes 
 which are often more easy of solution by means of
 
 224 The Future of Science. 
 
 one science than by that of another. I am con- 
 vinced, for instance, that for the nndoubtedly philo- 
 sophical problem of the classification and the reality 
 of the species the naturalists would derive great light 
 from the study of the method of the linguists and 
 of the natural characters that help them to consti- 
 tute the families and groups according to the imper- 
 ceptible degradation of the grammatical processes. 
 Let the savants look to it ; there is a savour of vanity 
 iu that mania of condemning any and every study 
 not made at first hand as being of doubtful alloy. 
 Such a system, carried to extremes would lead to 
 the shutting up of every one within himself and to 
 the destruction of all intellectual and scientific com- 
 merce. What would be the use of monographs if for 
 every subsequent w^ork we were obliged to recom- 
 mence. This defect proceeds from still another 
 vanity of the savants, which in its turn is closely 
 allied to the spirit of superficiality of which they 
 have so righteous a horror, namely, the vanity of 
 writing books not for the sake of beiug read, but for 
 the purpose of proving their learning. 
 
 It cannot be repeated too often ; the true scien- 
 tific work is the work at first hand. As a rule results 
 only preserve their absolute purity in the writings 
 of him who first discovered them. It is difficult to 
 point out how scientific matters, in passing from 
 hand to hand, and deviating from their primary 
 source become altered and warped, and this without 
 the least illwill of those w^ho borrow them. This or 
 that fact is looked at in a light somewhat difi"erent 
 from that in which it was first observed ; a reflection 
 is added which the author of the original work would 
 not have made, but which he who adds it thinks 
 liimself justified in making. A general observation 
 is put forth which the primary investigator would 
 not have formulated for himself in the same manner. 
 A writer at third hand will improve in that way on 
 his predecessor, and thus, unless it reverts constantly 
 to its sources historical science is always inexact and 
 open to suspicion.
 
 The Future of Science. 225 
 
 The knowledge possessed by the Middle Ages of 
 classical antiquity affords the most striking instance 
 of those imperceptible modifications of primary facts 
 that lead to the strangest errors or to the most absurd 
 way of representing facts. The Middle Ages knew 
 a great many things appertaining to Greek antiquity, 
 but it knew nothing, absolutely nothing at first hand 
 (102), hence the most incredible errors. The me- 
 diaeval writers think that they can combine in their 
 own way the scattered and incomplete notions they 
 possess and in that way simply multiply inexact- 
 ness which at the end of three or four centuries 
 becomes such that when in the fourteenth century, 
 the true Greek antiquity came to be directly known, 
 it seemed to be the revelation of another world. The 
 Latin encyclopsedists, Martianus Capella, Boethius, 
 Isidore of Seville only compile school books and 
 string the traditional data together. Bede and 
 Alcuin know even less of antiquity than Martianus 
 Capella and Isidore. Vincent of Beauvais has left 
 the truth still further behind him. At last in the 
 fourteenth century (outside Italy), inexactness reaches 
 its furthest limits, the Greek civilization is no better 
 known than India would be, if, to reconstruct the 
 Indian world we only had the notions left to us by 
 the writers of classical antiquity. 
 
 Several parts of literary history which as yet, have 
 not been sufficiently endued with life by the direct 
 study of sources afford instances of inexactness with 
 which those committed in the Middle Ages will bear 
 comparison. Brucker is no doubt a scrupulous 
 investigator, but still the books he has devoted to 
 the philosophy of the Indians, of the Chinese or even 
 of the Arabs must be placed on the same rank as 
 the chapter dealing with ancient history in the 
 ^^ Speculum HistoriaW of Vincent of Beauvais. 
 What then shall we say of those who came after him 
 and who have only copied or arbitrarily extracted 
 from him without the least feeling as to what is 
 essential and what accessory? When people are 
 
 Q
 
 226 The Future of Science. 
 
 certain that the materials they possess are the only 
 ones extant they may allow themselves to indulge 
 in that kind of ingenious inlaid work in which are 
 grouped all the spangles at their disposal, on the 
 condition, however, of making reservations and 
 acknowledging their inability to determine the 
 mutual relations of parts, the proportions of the 
 whole. But when there are original sources only 
 waiting to be explored, there is something grotesque 
 in this dovetailing of scattered scraps, inexact, dis- 
 connected which are made into a system according 
 to fancy and without the least notion of the manner 
 in which the original producers proceeded. Hence 
 the inevitable defect of all the histories of literature 
 and philosophy composed outside the original sources 
 as has been the case so long with regard to the 
 Middle Ages, as is the case still with regard to the 
 East. Those who compose those histories only copy 
 the same errors and aggravate them by adding their 
 own conjectures to them. Try to read in Tennemann, 
 in Tiedemann, in Eitter the chapters treating of 
 Arabian philosophy. You will find nothing more 
 than you find in Brucker, that is, nothing more than 
 approximatives. We must definitely banish from 
 science those works at third and fourth hand, in 
 which the same data are simply copied without an 
 attempt at either completing or verifying them. 
 Whosoever, in the actual condition of science, should 
 undertake a complete history either of Arabian philo- 
 sophy or medicine would literally waste his time and 
 his labour for he would only repeat what is already 
 known. Such a work cannot possibly be accom- 
 pHshed until eight or ten of the most laborious 
 students gifted with the most special knowledge 
 have devotecl their whole lives to the publication, 
 translation and analysis of all the Arabian authors 
 of which we possess the text or the rabbinical 
 versions. Until then all the general works in that 
 direction will be utterly baseless. And it is very 
 probable that even then nothing very marvellous
 
 The Future of Science. 227 
 
 will result from all this, because I have no great 
 faith in the Arabian philosophy, but if the result 
 were a mere atom towards the history of the human 
 intellect a thousand well spent lives would not be 
 too much to pay for it. In the actual condition of 
 science we may feel a pang of regret that dis- 
 tinguished intellects should devote their time and 
 labour to objects in appearance so undeserving of 
 their concern. But if science were as it should be, 
 namely, cultivated by great masses of individuals 
 and practically worked in large scientific workshops, 
 the least interesting points would like the others be 
 cleared up. In the actual condition one may aver 
 that there are useless researches in the sense that 
 they take up time that would be better spent on 
 more serious subjects. But in the normal state in 
 which so much power, now spent upon perfectly 
 futile objects, would be devoted to serious things 
 there would be no ground for despising any kind of 
 work. For the perfect science of the whole will be 
 impossible of attainment save by the patient and 
 analytical exploration of the parts. Certain philo- 
 logists have devoted long dissertations to the particles 
 of the Greek language, others of the Benaissance 
 have written works on the conjunction quanquam ; 
 a grammarian of Alexandria has written a book on 
 the difference between ^Pl ^^^ ^^t. No doubt they 
 might have set themselves more important problems ; 
 still it would be rash to assert that such works 
 are useless. For they do something for the know- 
 ledge of classical languages and classical languages 
 do something for the philosophy of the human intel- 
 lect. In the same way the knowledge of Sanskrit 
 will not be perfectly grasped until plodding philo- 
 logists shall have composed monographs about every 
 part and every process of it. There exists a some- 
 what bulky volume of Byn^us ; " De Calecis HehrcB- 
 oru7n.'' It is a pity, no doubt that the shoes of the 
 Hebrews should have found a monographer before 
 the Vedas found a publisher. Nevertheless, I am
 
 228 The Future of Science. 
 
 convinced that this book which I mean to read one 
 of these days contains some vahiable information 
 and should make a useful appendix to the works 
 of Braun, Schroeder and Hartmann on the dress of 
 the Hebrew high priest and women. Pliny's saying 
 is literally true. " There is no book, however bad, 
 from which you may not learn something." It is 
 rash to exclude no matter what, to condemn before- 
 hand no matter what research as fruitless. What 
 priceless results have sprung from studies apparently , 
 frivolous ? Is it not the progress of grammar which 
 has contributed to the more perfect interpretation 
 of texts and through that to the more intelligent 
 understanding of the ancient world ? The most 
 important questions of Biblical exegesis in particular 
 to which the philosopher cannot remain indifferent 
 depend as a rule on the most humble and most 
 minute grammatical discussions (103). Nowhere 
 lias the process of making grammar and lexicography 
 more perfect wrought a more radical reform. There 
 are numerous other cases in which the most vital 
 questions with regard to the human intellect depend 
 on the most minute philological details. Far, there- 
 fore, from being the mere work of minds but little 
 given to philosophy special labours are the most 
 important to true science and betoken the best minds. 
 Who is there that could write more scholarly gene- 
 ralities on Indian literature than M. Eugene Burnouf ? 
 Well, he only does so reluctantly and casually, be- 
 cause he justly considers as the more essential and 
 most urgent work the publication of texts, the philo- 
 logical discussion of the same. In his preface to 
 the " Bhagavata-Purana," M.Eugene Burnouf while 
 apologizing to the savants for having given some 
 general views, protests that he has only done so for 
 the French reader and that he attaches but a secondary 
 importance to a work which will have to be done 
 later on, and which as it could be done to-day, would 
 necessarily be outstripped and rendered useless by 
 its follower. Are we to take this as the humility of
 
 The Future of Science. 229 
 
 the mind, or as the love for humble things for their 
 own sake ? No, it is simply the outcome of a healthy 
 method and an upright judgment. In the actual 
 condition of Sanskrit literature the publication and 
 translation of texts is of more value than any possible 
 number of dissertations whether on the history of 
 India or on the genuineness and completeness of the 
 works. Superficial minds may be inclined to think 
 that it would be more meritorious and glorious on 
 the part of a lofty intellect to write for instance 
 a literary history of India than to devote itself to 
 the unthankful task of editing and translating texts. 
 This is a mistake. There is, as yet, no occasion to 
 write dissertations on a literature all the elements 
 of which are not to hand. Petrarch, Boccaccio, 
 Poggio might as well have endeavoured to write the 
 theory of Greek literature. Petrarch and Boccaccio 
 by making Homer known ; Ambrogio Traversari by 
 translating Diogenes Laertius, Poggio by discovering 
 Quintilian and translating Xenophon ; Aurispa by 
 bringing to the West the manuscripts of Plotinus, 
 of Proclus, of Diodorus Siculus ; Lorenzo Valla 
 by translating Herodotus and Thucydides have 
 rendered greater services to the classical literatures 
 than if they had prematurely endeavoured to grapple 
 with the higher questions of history and criticism. 
 These early humanists, no doubt, fell fatally into 
 literary superstitions and errors of criticism, which 
 we, with our minds sharpened by the comparisons 
 of other literatures, are able to avoid. We at the 
 very outset are capable of performing on those almost 
 unknown literatures tricks of skill which were only 
 possible with regard to Greek and Latin literatures 
 after the lapse of two or three centuries. The first 
 students of Manu or the " Mahahharata " were enabled 
 to discover things which it took three or four hundred 
 years to discover in Homer or Moses. Nevertheless 
 we are bound to maintain '' that the period of disser- 
 tations and memoirs on India has not yet arrived, 
 or rather that is already past and that the labours
 
 230 The Future of Science. 
 
 of a Colebrooke, of a Wilson, of a Schlegel and a 
 Lassen have for a long while barred the career so 
 brilliantly opened by the talent of Sir William Jones 
 (104)." In fact, to write the history of India will 
 only become possible after two centuries of labour 
 such as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries de- 
 voted to the classical literatures. Works of the latter 
 order are the only ones which, in the actual condi- 
 tion of science, have a real and lasting value. Still, 
 as it is true enough that an incomplete system, pro- 
 vided we do not cling to it in too narrow a spirit, 
 is better than no system at all, one could wish that 
 some one without professing to write a definitely 
 scientific work, should attempt a kind of manual or 
 introduction to that literature, based upon the actual 
 state of Sanskrit studies. I confess that the greatest 
 obstacle I have met with in engaging upon Indian 
 studies is the utter absence of a summary work on 
 Sanskrit literature, its development, its principal 
 periods, the various ages of the language, the place 
 and rank occupied by the various works, in short, 
 something analogous to what Gesenius has done for 
 the language and literature of the Jews. Such a 
 work truly would be obsolete after the lapse of ten 
 years ; but it would have had its use and contributed 
 to facilitate the direct study of the sources. It 
 would assuredly be a pity for an eminent man to 
 spend upon it moments that might be better em- 
 ployed in making that very work useless, and still 
 who could do it if not the man who has a thorough 
 survey of the ground already travelled over ? 
 
 It is no doubt a drawback that those who devote 
 their lives to works of special learning should not be 
 imbued with the grand spirit that alone can impart 
 life to these labours, but which very often does more 
 harm to the moral perfection of the authors than to 
 the work itself. Perfection would mean grappling 
 closely with the particle while keeping at the same 
 time to the grand centre from a force of constant 
 hiibit that should penetrate the whole of the scientific
 
 The Future of Science. 231 
 
 life. For we may truly ask where the difference lies 
 between certain learned researches, certain collec- 
 tions made by intellects too feeble to set them- 
 selves an aim and the work of the -mere collector 
 who pins on his cardboard sheets butterflies of any 
 and every colour ? Oh ! when life is as short as it 
 is and when so many serious matters crop up into 
 it, would it not be better to listen to the numberless 
 promptings of the heart and the imagination and to 
 taste the delicious joys of the religious sentiment 
 than to fritter away a life that is irretrievable, and 
 which when lost, is lost for ever and ever ? 
 
 The great obstacle which checks the progress of 
 philological studies seems to me to lie in that dis- 
 persion of work, in that self-isolation among special 
 studies, which render the labours of the philologist 
 only available to himself and to a small number of 
 friends who are engaged upon the same subject with 
 him. Each savant developing in that way his part 
 without the least concern for the other branches of 
 science becomes narrow, egotistical and lost to the 
 lofty sense of his mission. A whole life would 
 scarcely suffice to exhaust the researches to be under- 
 taken on this or that special point of a science which 
 itself is but the infinitesimal part of a much more 
 extensive science. The same researches are con- 
 stantly begun over and over again, monographs 
 increase and accumulate to a degree such that their 
 very number annuls and renders them useless. It 
 seems to me that the time will come when philo- 
 logical students will collect and examine all those scat- 
 tered labours, and when the results are finally attained 
 the henceforth useless monographs will only be pre- 
 served as so many mementos. When the edifice has 
 been raised there is no harm in taking away the 
 scaffolding that was necessary to its construction. 
 That is how physical sciences proceed. The works 
 approved of by competent authorities are done once 
 for all and henceforth adopted in full confidence 
 without the self-imposed attempt of reverting to the
 
 232 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 researches of the first experimentalists except in rare 
 cases and at long intervals. It is thus that whole 
 years of assiduous studies have been often summarized 
 in a few lines or in a few figures and that the vast 
 whole of the science of nature has been composed 
 piece by piece and with admirable joint responsibility 
 on the part of all the labourers. The much more 
 delicate nature of the philological sciences would no 
 doubt not admit of the rigorous application of a 
 similar method. Still, I am under the impression 
 that we shall not get out of this maze of individual 
 and isolated work save by a great scientific organiza- 
 tion, in which everything shall be done without stint 
 as w^ithout waste of power and in so final a manner 
 as to render the results attained capable of accepta- 
 tion in full confidence. One cannot help thinking 
 now and again that the mass of scientific w^ork is 
 crushed by its own weight and that it would be for the 
 better if publicity were more restricted. But the 
 real defect is the want of organization and control. 
 In an efficiently ordered scientific state it would 
 be desirable that the number of w^orkers were still 
 much more considerable. For then the work would 
 not go a-burrowing and would not choke itself, like a 
 fire of which the fuel is too closely piled up. It is 
 sad to think that three-fourths of the minute things 
 which are still being sought for are already found, 
 while other mines in which treasures are lying await- 
 iug discovery remain without hands in consequence 
 of the inefiicient direction of the work. Science in 
 our days is not unlike a magnificent library turned 
 upside down. It contains everything, but so utterly 
 pell-mell, so thoroughly unclassified that it might 
 just as well not be there. 
 
 A moment's reflection will convince us of the abso- 
 lute necessity of supposing the future to have a 
 grand scientific reform in store for us (105). In fact, 
 the material claiming the attention of the scholar 
 keeps on increasing at so rapid a rate, either by reason 
 of fresh discoveries or by the multiplying of centuries
 
 Tlie Future of Science. 233 
 
 as to exceed in the long run the capacities of investi- 
 gators. A hundred years hence France will count 
 three or four literatures virtually piled atop of one 
 another. In five hundred years there will be two 
 ancient histories. And, if the elucidation of the first 
 which the times and the utter absence of the print- 
 ing press invested with such great simplicity to us, 
 sufficed to occupy so many laborious lives, what will 
 it be with ours which will have to be extracted from 
 such an enormous mass of documents ? The same 
 argument holds good with regard to our libraries. 
 If the National Library continues to accumulate all 
 the new productions, it will become absolutely im- 
 practicable in another hundred years and its very 
 wealth will make it useless (106). Hence, there is 
 a progressive march which cannot continue indefi- 
 nitely without producing a revolution in science. It 
 would be foolish to inquire how that revolution will 
 be brought about. Will there be an immense sim- 
 plification like that wrought by the barbarians ? We 
 cannot risk the slightest reasonable hypothesis on 
 the subject. 
 
 Without being a partisan of literary and scientific 
 commanism, I beheve,nevertlieless that the dispersion 
 of forces should be urgently opposed, and the concen- 
 tration of work as urgently called for. Germany has 
 in that respect some really useful customs. It is by 
 no means rare to find in the literary journals or in 
 the reports of philological conferences the notice of a 
 savant informing his iQ\\o^\- savants that he has under- 
 taken a special work on a certain subject and conse- 
 quently asking them to send him any and everything 
 bearing upon the subject which may have come in 
 their way in the course of their own particular studies. 
 Without attempting to lay down hard and fast rules 
 I have an idea that under a seriously organized 
 system one might throw open in that way public 
 problems to which every one should be welcome to 
 contribute his contingent of facts. The Acade'mies, 
 especially the academies devoted to works that ha^'e
 
 234 The Future of Science. 
 
 mucli in common, such as for instance the Academie 
 des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres supply the want I 
 am pointing out, but in order to supply it in a 
 thoroughly efficacious manner, they would have to 
 undergo radical transformations.
 
 The Future of Science. 235 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The plan of my work does not admit of my sug- 
 gesting any ideas of practical . application. My 
 complete ignorance of practical life would, moreover, 
 make me utterly unfit to do so. Organization, 
 demanding experience and the careful balancing of 
 principles by existing facts could not possibly be the 
 work of a young man. I shall, therefore, only lay 
 do w n principles. 
 
 ■♦jp^i cannot be gainsaid that it is the duty of the 
 State to patronize science as it patronizes art. The 
 State, in fact, represents society and should replace 
 individual enterprise with regard to works where 
 isolated effort would be insufficient. The aim of 
 society is the realization on a vast and complete 
 scale of all the facets of human life. As it happens 
 some of these facets can only be realized by collective 
 wealth. Individuals cannot build unto themselves 
 observatories ; they cannot create libraries, they 
 cannot found large scientific institutions. The State, 
 therefore, owes to science observatories, libraries, 
 scientific institutions. Individuals cannot by them- 
 selves undertake and publish certain works. The 
 State owes them subsidies. Certain branches of 
 science (and the most important) cannot provide 
 those that cultivate them with the necessaries of life. 
 The State is bound to afford in some shape or other 
 to deserving workers the necessary means to pursue 
 peaceably their labours and to keep them from 
 harassing want. I say that this is a duty of the State,
 
 236 The Future of Science. 
 
 and I say so unreservedly (107). I do not look upon 
 the State as a simple institution of police and for 
 preserving order. The State is society itself, that is, 
 man in his normal condition. It is consequently, 
 subject to the same duties as the individual, as 
 regards religious things. It must not merely let 
 things take their course, it is bound to provide man 
 with the conditions of his striving after perfection. 
 It is a plastic and really guiding power. For society 
 is not merely the atomic union of individuals, wrought 
 by the repetition of the unit ; it is the constituted 
 unit, it is primeval. 
 
 I am aware that England, like France of old in 
 some respects provides for nearly everything by 
 private foundations, and I can understand that in a 
 country where private foundations are so respected 
 one may dispense with a minster of Public Education. 
 The State, I repeat, should only step in where the 
 individual cannot or does not suffice, hence its part 
 is less important in a country where private indi- 
 vidaals can do and do a great deal. Besides, England 
 only realizes these grand things by association, that 
 is, by small societies within the large one, and 
 personally I consider the French organization, which 
 sprang from our Kevolution much more in accordance 
 with the modern spirit. It is above all in the shape 
 of religion that the watchfulness of the State over 
 the supra-sensitive interests of humanity has hitherto 
 been exercised. But as soon as the religious 
 tendency of man shall manifest itself in the purely 
 scientific and rational form all that the State formerly 
 granted to the budget of Public Worship will by right 
 revert to science, the sole definite religion. There 
 will be no budget of Public Worship, there will be a 
 budget of science, a budget of arts. The State must 
 provide for science as it does for religion, seeing that 
 science like religion is an essential part of human 
 nature. Science has even a higher claim on the 
 State, because religion though everlasting in its psy- 
 chological basis, is more or less transitory in its
 
 The Future of Science. 237 
 
 form ; unlike science it is not wholly an essential 
 f.bujJaaa,n^tm'e^ 
 
 !!feing that science can only exist under the con- 
 dition of the most perfect freedom, the patronage 
 which the State owes it, does not confer upon the 
 State the least right to control or to regulate it, any 
 more than the subsidy granted to public worship 
 gives it the right to frame articles of faith. In one 
 sense the State can exercise even less influence on 
 science than on religions ; because it can at least 
 impose certain regulations of police on the latter ; 
 while it can impose nothing, absolutely nothing on 
 science. Science, in fact, proceeding through the 
 intrinsic and objective consideration of things is not 
 itself free to yield obedience to him who would 
 command it ; if it were free in its opinions, one 
 might perhaps ask it for this or that opinion. But 
 it is not free ; there is nothing more fatally stubborn 
 than reason and consequently, science. To attempt 
 to direct it, to ask it to attain this or that result is 
 merely a flagrant contradiction ; it is acting upon the 
 supposition that it is pliable to every ^ensation, upon 
 the supposition that it is not sci ei^£g JP^ 
 
 Certain religious orders which applied to study that 
 tranquillity of mind — one of the most delightful fruits 
 of monastic life — realized of old those grand scientific 
 worJishoj^s the disappearance of which is so deeply 
 to be regretted. No doubt it would have been much 
 better had those workers been independent (108). 
 They would not have brought to their labours so 
 much patience and abnegation, but they certainly 
 would have brought a keener spirit of criticism. Be 
 this as it may, it cannot be denied that the abroga- 
 tion of the religious orders which devoted themselves 
 to study and of the "parliaments" which afforded 
 scholars so much studious leisure have struck a fatal 
 blow to learned researches. This gap will not be 
 iilled up until the State shall have instituted, in some 
 form or other, laj/ chapters, laij benefices, where the 
 great labours of learning will be resumed by profane
 
 238 The Future of Science. 
 
 and critical Benedictines. By the side of the 
 learned labour of the architect there is in sciencethe 
 drudgery of the hodman which requires unnoticed 
 patience and united labour. Dom Mabillon, Dom 
 Euinard, Dom Eivet, Montfau9on could not have 
 accomplished their gigantic tasks if they had not 
 had at command a whole community of laborious 
 workers who " fined down " the work to which they 
 afterwards put the finishing touch. Science will 
 make no rapid conquests until lay Benedictines 
 will harness themselves once more to the yoke of 
 learned research and devote lives of labour to 
 the elucidation of the past. Glory will not be the 
 reward of those humble workers ; but life has many 
 gentle and tranquil natures, but little exercised by 
 passions and desires, not harassed by philosophical 
 needs (take care not to infer from this that they are 
 cold and withered ; on the contrary, they often 
 possess intense faculties of concentration and are 
 exceedingly sensitive) who would be content with 
 this peaceful life and who, amidst modest comforts 
 and happy family surroundings, would exactly find 
 the atmosphere suited to such modest work. Truth 
 to tell, the most natural form of patronizing science 
 in that way is the form of sinecures. Sinecures are 
 indispensable in the scientific world ; they are the 
 most dignified and the fittest way of pensioning the 
 savant ; besides affording the advantage of grouping 
 around scientific institutions illustrious names and 
 eminent talents. Only barbarians and people " who 
 see no farther than their nose " will allow themselves 
 to be taken in by superficial objections like those 
 raised at the first blush by the employment of 
 extensive scientific staffs. It is very evident that 
 the work of this or that library which numbers ten 
 or twelve assistants would be done just as well by 
 two or three people (and in fact among the number 
 there are only two or three who do anything worth 
 mentioning). Certain people would conclude from 
 this that all the others ought to be dismissed. No
 
 The Future of Science. 239 
 
 doubt, if the sole aim were to provide for the raaterial 
 wants of the work. An odd thing. Science the one 
 truly liberal thing in this world is only largely 
 patronized in Bussia. 
 
 It is a pity, certainly that we should have to 
 descend to such considerations. But in the actual 
 condition of humanity money is an intellectual force 
 and in virtue of that deserves some consideration. 
 A million is as good as one or two men of genius, in 
 the sense that with a million well spent one may do 
 as much for intellectual progress as one or two first- 
 rate men could do, if reduced to intellectual force 
 onlj^ With a million I will undertake to drive 
 modern ideas deeper into the mind of the masses 
 than it could be done by a whole generation of poor 
 thinkers, commanding no influence. With a million 
 I could translate the Talmud, publish the Vedas, the 
 Nyaya with its commentaries and bring out a number 
 of works which would contribute more to the progress 
 of science than a whole century of metaphysical 
 thought. How frantic it drives one to think that 
 with the sums silly opulence scatters about to satisfy 
 mere whims, one might move heaven and earth. It 
 is idle to expect the savant to emancipate himself 
 from the conditions of ordinarj^ life and to do without 
 the everyday food. It is still more idle to hope 
 that the wealthy who are exempt from such cares, 
 will ever suffice for the needs of science. The grand 
 scientific instincts nearly always find their develop- 
 ment among well educated but poor young men. The 
 rich always import into science a tone of superficial 
 amateurishness of very doubtful alloy (109). Eeligion 
 has never been blamed for having ministers subject to 
 material wants like other men and claiming State aid. 
 As for those who look upon science as a mere money- 
 making machine, we will have nothing to say to them, 
 they are manufacturers like a good many other 
 manufacturers, they are not savants. Whosoever 
 has been able to dwell for a single moment on the 
 hope of becoming rich, whosoever has looked upon
 
 240 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 the outward needs in any other Hght than a heavy 
 and fatal chain to which unfortunately he must 
 submit, does not deserve the name of savant. Large 
 scientific stipends and plurality of appointments 
 would in that respect have the same serious draw- 
 backs that wealth had formerly on the clergy ; they 
 would attract mercenary characters who look upon 
 science as a means as good as any other to make 
 their fortune, disgraceful simoniacs who import into 
 sacred things their grovelling habits and their worldly 
 views. Students should feel sure beforehand that in 
 embracing the scientific career they condemned 
 themselves to lifelong poverty, though they should 
 not want for the strictly necessary ; in that way 
 there would be none but noble natures driven by 
 a powerful and irresistible instinct who would devote 
 themselves to it, and the scum of intriguers and 
 adventurers would carry their pretensions elsewhere. 
 The first condition has been already fulfilled ? 
 Why is it not the same with regard to the second ?
 
 Tlie Future of Science. 241 
 
 CHAPTEK XV. 
 
 In order to complete my idea and to make clearly 
 understood what I mean by a scientific philosophy 
 I am bound to give some instances here, which, 
 it seems to me, will make it evident that special 
 studies can lead to results as important to the 
 thorough knowledge of things as metaphysical and 
 psychological speculation. I will borrow them by 
 preference from historical or philological sciences, 
 the only ones with which I am familiar and with 
 which, besides, this essay specially deals. It is not 
 because the natural sciences do not afford data quite 
 as philosophical. I am not afraid of exaggerating 
 when I say that our most settled ideas on the system 
 of things are rooted more or less deeply in the phy- 
 sical sciences and that the most important differences 
 that distinguish modern fi'om antique thought are 
 due to the revolution those studies have wrought in 
 our manner of viewing the world. Our idea of the 
 laws of nature which has upset for ever and aye 
 the old conception of the anthromorphic world is the 
 grand result of physical sciences, not of this or that 
 experiment but of a very general mode of induction, 
 the result of the general physiognomy of phenomena. 
 It cannot be gainsaid that astronomy in revealing to 
 man the structure of the universe, the rank and 
 position of the earth, the order it occupies in the 
 system of the world has done more for true science 
 than all the conceivable speculations based upon the 
 exclusive consideration of human nature (110). This
 
 242 The Future of Science. 
 
 consideration, in fact, would lead either to the 
 ancient finalism, which made man the centre of the 
 universe or to pure Hegelism which admits no other " 
 manifestation of the divine conscience than humanity. 
 But the study of the world's system and of the place 
 man occupies in it, without upsetting either of these 
 two conceptions forbids us to take them in a too 
 absolute or exclusive manner. The idea of the infi- 
 nite is one of the most fundamental in human nature, 
 • — if it be not the whole of human nature itself; and 
 still man would not have succeeded in understanding 
 in its reality the infinitude of things, if the experi- 
 mental study of things had not brought him to it. 
 Of course it is not the telescope that has revealed 
 the infinite to him, but it is the telescope that has 
 taken him to the extreme limits beyond which there 
 is still an infinitude of worlds. Has not geology in- 
 troduced as essential an element into philosophy by 
 teaching man the history of our globe, the period at 
 which humanity first appeared, the conditions of that 
 appearance and the creations which preceded him ? 
 Physics and chemistry have done more for the inmost 
 constitution of the body than all the speculations of 
 the ancient and modern philosophers on the abstract 
 quality of matter, its essence, its divisible properties. 
 Physiology and comparative anatomy, zoology, botany 
 are in my opinion, the sciences that teach the greatest 
 number of things on the essence of life, and it is 
 from them that I have drawn the greatest number of 
 elements for my manner of regarding the individuality 
 and tlie mode of consciousness resulting from the 
 organism. Mathematics themselves, though afford- 
 ing no lesson on reality are precious in moulding 
 thought, and ofi"er us, in the way of pure reason in 
 action, the model of the most perfect logic. But I 
 wish to insist no longer on things of which I have 
 no special knowledge and come back to my funda- 
 ^gjB^ idea of a critical j^hilosojjJiy. 
 ^fro my idea the highest degree of intellectual culture 
 1^ to tmderstand humanity. The physical student
 
 The Future of Science. 243 
 
 understands nature, no doubt not in all its pheno- 
 mena, but at any rate in its general laws, in its true 
 physiognomy. The physical student is the critic of 
 nature, the philosopher is the critic of humanity. 
 Where the ordinary observer only sees whim and 
 miracle, the physicist and the philosopher see laws 
 and the manifestation of reason. And this true 
 intuition with regard to humanity, which is after all 
 only criticism, the historical and philological sciences 
 alone are able to give it. The first step in the science 
 of humanity is to distinguish two phases in human 
 thought ; the primeval age, an age of spontaneity in 
 which the faculties of their creative fruitfulness, 
 unconscious of themselves, as it were and by their 
 inmost tension attained an object at which they did 
 not aim ; and the age of reflection in which man 
 becomes conscious and master of himself, an age of 
 combination and painful process, of antithetical and 
 much-debated knowledge. One of the services ren- 
 dered to philosophy by M. Cousin has been to intro- 
 duce among us this distinction and to demonstrate it 
 with his admirable clearness of mind. But it will be 
 the mission of science to demonstrate it finally and 
 to apply it to the solution of the highest problems. 
 Primitive history, the epics and poetry of the spon- 
 taneous ages, their religions, their languages will 
 have no meaning until this grand distinction shall 
 have become current coin. The enormous errors of 
 criticism generally to be found in the essays on the 
 works of the primitive epochs arise from the ignor- 
 ance of this principle and from the habit of judging 
 all the epochs of the human intellect by the same 
 standard. Let us take for instance, the origin of 
 language. Why do people advance such absurd 
 arguments on that important philosophical question ? 
 Because they apply to the primitive epochs views 
 that have a meaning only in our age of reflection. 
 People say; " Seeing that the greatest philosophers 
 are powerless to analyze language how could the first 
 human beings have created it?" The objection
 
 244 T1i(i Future of Science. 
 
 holds good only with regard to deliberate invention. 
 Spontaneous action has no need to be preceded by 
 the analytical view. The mechanism of the intellect 
 is much more difficult still to analyze, and still while 
 knowing nothing of such analysis the simplest man 
 sets in motion all its springs. The fact is that the 
 words easy and difficult have no meaning whatsoever 
 when applied to spontaneous action. The child that 
 learns its language, humanity that creates science 
 experience no more difficulty than the plant that 
 germinates, than the organized body that arrives at 
 its complete development. It is the hidden God, 
 the universal force acting everywhere, producing 
 either during sleep or in the absence of the individual 
 soul, those marvellous effects, which are as much 
 above human skill, as the infinite power is beyond 
 limited strengtbJf 
 
 It is bec^ui^this creative force of spontaneous 
 reason has not been understood that the strangest 
 hypotheses on the origin of the human intellect have 
 been allowed to gain ground. When the Catholic 
 Condillac, M. de Bonald, conceives primeval man 
 after the model of a powerless statue, devoid of origi- 
 nality or initiation on which God "enamels" or 
 " lays on " if I may be permitted the expression both 
 language, moral feeling and thought, he only con- 
 tinues the reasoning of the eighteenth century and 
 denies the innate originality of the intellect ; (irre- 
 spective of the absurdity of making a stump or stock 
 utterly deprived of intelligence, speak and understand 
 by simply speaking to it, and as if such a revelation 
 did not imply the inherent faculty to understand ; as 
 if the receptive faculty were not correlative with the 
 productive one). It is as untrue to say that man 
 dehberately and with forethought created language, 
 religion, morahty as it is to say that those divine 
 attributes of his nature have been revealed to him. 
 All this is the work of spontaneous reason and of 
 that hidden and inward activity which while conceal- 
 ing from us the motor power only shows us the
 
 The Future of Science. 245 
 
 ejBfects. When we get as far down as this, it 
 matters little whether we attribute the primary cause 
 to God or to man, the spontaneous being both 
 divine and human at the same time. There lies 
 the point of conciliation between apparently con- 
 tradictory opinions, but which are in fact only partial 
 in their expression, according to their connection 
 with one aspect of the phenomenon rather than with 
 the other. 
 
 The false reasoning on the history of religions and 
 their origins springs from the same cause. The great 
 religious apparitions present a mass of inexplicable 
 facts to him who fails to look for the cause beyond 
 ordinary experience. The formation of the legend 
 of Jesus and all the primitive facts of Christianity 
 would be incapable of being explained in surround- 
 ings like ours. Let those who make themselves 
 a narrow and paltry idea of the laws of the human 
 intellect, who understand nothing beyond the com- 
 monplace of a drawing-room or the restricted limits 
 of ordinary common sense ; let those who have not 
 grasped the proud originality of the spontaneous 
 creations of human nature, let all those beware of 
 grappling with such a problem or let them content 
 themselves with timidly casting the solution of the 
 supernatural upon it. In order to understand those 
 extraordinary apparitions we must be hardened 
 against miracles ; we must lift ourselves above our 
 age of reflection and slow combination to be able to 
 contemplate the human faculties in their creative 
 originality ; when spurning our painful processes, they 
 evolved from their plenitude the sublime and the 
 divine. Then was the age of psychological miracles. 
 To have recourse to the supposition of the super- 
 natural in order to explain those marvellous effects 
 is simply to insult human nature ; it is to admit one's 
 ignorance of the hidden forces of the soul ; it is to 
 imitate the commonplace man who looks upon extra- 
 ordinary effects of which science explains the mystery 
 as so many miracles. In every order of things, the
 
 2-46 The Future of Science. 
 
 miracle is only apparent, the miracle means that 
 which has not been explained. The further we pene- 
 trate into the higher psychology of primordial 
 humanity, the deeper we pierce the origins of the 
 human intellect the more miracles we are likely to 
 find, miracles the more admirable in that they do not 
 require for their production a " God-machine," who 
 is always meddling with the course of things, the 
 more shall we become aware that they are the regular 
 development of immutable laws like reason itself and 
 the attainment of the perfect. The spontaneous 
 man looks upon nature and history with the eyes of 
 childhood ; the child casts upon everything the halo 
 of the marvellous which he finds in his own soul. 
 His curiosity, the lively interest he shows in every 
 new combination spring from his faith in the marvel- 
 lous. Biases with experiments we do not expect 
 anything very wonderful; but the child does not 
 know what will come next. Knowing the reality 
 less, he believes more in the possible. That delight- 
 ful intoxication of hfe which is contained within 
 liimself makes his head spin ; he only sees the world 
 through a delicately tinted mist ; casting a joyous 
 and inquisitive look at all things, he smiles at every- 
 thing, everything smiles on him. Hence spring his 
 joys but also his terrors ; he makes unto himself a 
 fantastic world that dehghts or frightens him; he 
 has not the faculty of distinguishing, which in the 
 age of reflection so clearly divides the ego and the 
 71071- eg ; and makes us such coldblooded observers of 
 the reahty. He makes himself part and parcel of all 
 his stories ; the simple and objective relation of the 
 fact is impossible with him ; he does not know how 
 to isolate himself from the judgment he has delivered 
 upon it, from the personal impression of it that has 
 remained with him. He does not relate things, he 
 relates the fancies he has conceived in connection with 
 things, or rather he relates himself. The child in his 
 turn creates for himself all the myths that humanity 
 created for itself; every fable that strikes his imagin-
 
 TJie Future of Science. 247 
 
 ation is accepted by him ; he himself improvises 
 strange ones, and then affirms their truth to himself 
 (111). Such is the process of the human intellect 
 at the mythical epochs. The dream is taken for the 
 reality and affirmed as such. Without the least 
 mendacious premeditation, the fable is born of itself; 
 accei^ted the moment it is born, it goes on gathering 
 like the snowball ; there is no criticism to stop it. 
 And it is not only at the origin of the human intel- 
 lect that the soul allows herself to be tricked by this 
 delightful deception ; the love of the marvellous 
 goes on bearing ample fruit until the final advent of 
 the scientific age, but less spontaneously and accom- 
 panied by the assimilation of many more historical 
 elements. 
 
 Here, then, we have a principle capable of be- 
 coming the basis of a complete philosophy of the 
 human intellect, and around which are grouped the 
 most important results of modern criticism. Chro- 
 nology counts for very little in the history of man- 
 kind. A combination of causes may once more 
 obscure thought and revive the instincts of the 
 primeval days. That is what did occur on the eve of 
 modern times, and subsequent to the grand civiliza- 
 tion of antiquity, when the Middle Ages recalled the 
 Homeric ones, and that of the childhood of humanity. 
 The theory of the primitive state of the human 
 intellect, so indispensable to the knowledge of the 
 human intellect itself, is our great discovery and has 
 introduced thoroughly new data into philosophical 
 science. The old Cartesian school took man in an 
 abstract, general, uniform manner. It constructed 
 the history of the individual as some Germans still 
 construct the history of humanity, a priori, and 
 without troubling itself about gradations which 
 facts alone can reveal. And when I say history, I 
 only do so for form's sake, for there was no history 
 for that creature without any connection with its 
 kind, who like the angels, saw everything in God. 
 And when he had asked himself whether his faculty
 
 248 The Future of Science. 
 
 to think is constant, whether his senses deceived him, 
 whether matter exists, whether the animals have a 
 soul, everything was said and done. And what in 
 the name of all that is sensible could they know of 
 the living, breathing man, those long-robed and stern 
 personages of the parliaments, of Port-Royal, of the 
 Oratoire, the personages that cut man into two parts, 
 the hody, the soul, without any space or passage 
 between them, and by this mere arrangement pro- 
 hibited themselves from studying life in its perfect 
 simplicity (112) ? There are strange things told of 
 the want of sensibility and sternness of Malebranche, 
 and this could not be otherwise. It is not in the 
 abstract world of pure reason that people beget a 
 sympathy with life, all that touches and moves us 
 belongs always more or less to the body. As for us, 
 we have shifted the field of the science of man. It 
 is his life we want to know, and life means both 
 the body and the soul, not placed facing one another 
 like clocks that tick in time, not soldered together 
 like two different metals, but united into one two- 
 fronted phenomenon which cannot be divided, with- 
 out destroying it. 
 
 Our science of man, then, is no longer an abstract 
 thing that may be built up a priori and from general 
 views ; it is the universal experimental method 
 apphed to human life, and consequently the study of 
 all the products within the sphere of its activity, above 
 all of its spontaneous activity. I prefer to the most 
 beautiful Cartesian disquisitions the theory of primi- 
 tive poesy and the national ejnc as Wolf viewed them, 
 as they have been definitely settled by the comparative 
 study of literatures. If aught can make us under- 
 stand the aim of criticism and the importance of the 
 discoveries we may expect from it, it is assuredly the 
 fact of having explained by the same laws Homer 
 and i\\Q Ramayana, the Niebelungen and the Shah- 
 Kameh, the romance of the Cid, our own mediaeval 
 legendary poems {Cltcuisons de Gestes) the heroic 
 songs of Scotland and Scandinavia (113). There
 
 The Future of Science. 249 
 
 are traits of liurtianity capable of being fixed once for 
 all, and for which the most ancient pictures are the 
 best. Homer, the Bible, and the Vedas will last for 
 ever. They will be read when the intermediary 
 works shall have been forgotten ; they will ever be 
 the sacred books of humanity. In fact, to the two 
 phases of human thought there are two corresponding- 
 literatures ; primitive literatures, the ingenuous out- 
 pourings of the peoples in their still spontaneous 
 condition, rustic but withal natural flowers, direct 
 manifestations of the national genius and traditions ; 
 literatures that are the outcome of reflected thought, 
 possessing much greater individuality than the 
 others, and with regard to which questions of authen- 
 ticity and integrity — impertinent in connection with 
 primitive literatures — are of the greatest significance. 
 Thus, two poems, like the " Iliad " and the " ^neid " 
 placed side by side of old, are placed at the two poles 
 of the idea. 
 
 The general theory of the mythologies as estab- 
 lished by Heyne, Niebuhr, Ottfried Muller, Bauer, 
 Strauss, comes within the same order of researches 
 and implies the same principle. The mythologies 
 are no longer to us a series of absurd and often 
 ridiculous fables, but grandiose, divine poems, iu 
 which the primeval nations have poured out their 
 dreams with regard to the supra-sensitive world. 
 They are, in a certain sense, more valuable than 
 history, for in history there is a necessary and 
 fortuitous part which is not the work of humanity ; 
 while in the fables everything is its own ; it is its 
 portrait painted by its own hand. Fable is un- 
 shackled, history is not. "The Book of Kings " of 
 Firdousi is decidedly a very inferior history of Persia ; 
 and still that lovely poem represents to us the genius 
 of Persia much better than would the most exact 
 history; it gives us her legends and epic traditions, 
 that is, her soul. Scholars often regret deeply that 
 India has left us no history of any sort. But in 
 reality we have something better than her history ;
 
 250 The Future of Science. 
 
 we have her sacred books, her philosophy. That 
 history would be no doubt, like all other histories of 
 the East, a mere dry nomenclature of her kings, a 
 series of insignificant facts. Is it not better to be 
 in direct possession of that which at great pains 
 we should have to extract from the history, that 
 which solely constitutes its value ; the spirit of the 
 nation ? 
 
 The races that are most philosophical are also the 
 most mythological. India presents the most astonish- 
 ing phenomenon of the richest mythology side by 
 side with a metaphysical development much superior 
 to that of G-reece ; perhaps even to that of Germany. 
 The three characteristics that distinguish the Indo- 
 Germanic peoples from the Semitic peoples are, that 
 the Semitic peoples have neither philosoiohy, — nor 
 mythologij, — nor epic (114) ; three things in reality 
 very closely connected and due to an entirely 
 different mode of looking at the world. The Semites 
 never conceived " sex " in God; the feminine of the 
 word " God" in Hebrew would be the strangest bar- 
 barism possible (115). Because of this they have 
 deprived themselves of the possibility of "making" 
 either a mythology or a divine epic ; a variety of 
 complications being out of the question under an 
 only and absolutely ruling God. Under such a 
 regime the struggle becomes impossible. The God 
 of Job replying to man with nothing but thunder- 
 claps, is very poetical, but in noway epic. He is too 
 strong, he crushes at the first blow. The angels do 
 not offer any individual variety ; and all the sub- 
 sequent efforts to invest them with a kind of 
 physiognomy ' (archangels, seraphim, etc.) have led 
 to nothing characteristic. And besides what interest 
 could we take in messengers, in ministers without 
 initiative, without passion ? Under the regime of 
 Jehovah mythological creation could only result in 
 depicting the executors of his orders. Hence the 
 roles assumed by the angels are as a rule cold and 
 monotonous, like those of the messengers and con-
 
 The Future of Science. 251 
 
 fidants.* Variety is the element most radically 
 Tvantiug in the peoples of Semitic origin ; their 
 original poems would not make more than one 
 volume. The themes are few in number and quickly 
 exhausted. This God, isolated from nature ; this 
 nature made by God, do not lend themselves to the 
 conception of incident and to historical composition. 
 "What an enormous distance indeed between that 
 vast deification of the forces of nature which is the 
 foundation of the great mythologies and the narrow 
 conception of a world fashioned like a bowl in the 
 potter's hands. And it is thither we strayed in 
 search of our theology. Doubtless, this mode of 
 conceiving things is simple and majestic, but how 
 colourless in comparison to those grandiose evolutions 
 of Pan which the Indo-Germanic race at its poetic 
 beginnings as well as at its end, understood so well. 
 Among the secondary sciences which must aid 
 in constituting the science of humanity, there is no 
 one more important than the philosophical and com- 
 parative theory of languages. When we remember 
 that this admirable science counts as yet but one 
 generation of labour, and the precious discoveries to 
 which it has already led, we cannot help wondering 
 at its being so little cultivated, so little understood. 
 Is it credible that there is not in the whole of Europe 
 a single chair of philology, and that the College de 
 France which boasts of representing in its ciirriculuin 
 the ensemble of the human intellect has no chair for 
 one of the most important branches of human know- 
 ledge, created by the nineteenth century? What 
 historical results may we not expect from the classi- 
 fication of languages into families, and above all 
 from the formation of that group of which we are 
 a part and the branches of which extend from the 
 island of Ceylon to the deepest recesses of Brittany ? 
 What lights to be thrown on ethnography, on primi- 
 
 * To the French "messengers and confidants" is expressive 
 enough. M. Eenan alludes to what in theatrical parlance we call 
 " the feeders " of Corneille and Racine's tragedies.
 
 IIO'J 
 
 TJie Future of Science. 
 
 tive history, on the origins of mankind ! What philo- 
 sophical results in the ascertaining of the laws that 
 have presided at the development of language, at 
 the transformation of its mechanism, at the perpetual 
 decompositions and recompositions which constitute 
 its history. AVould the analytical progress of thought 
 have been discovered if the various languages had 
 not shown us as in mirror the ceaseless march of the 
 human intellect from synthesis and from primitive 
 complexity to analysis and clearness ? Is it not 
 the study of the primitive languages that has revealed 
 to us the primitive characteristics of the exercise of 
 the thinking faculties, the jn-edominance of sensation 
 and that deep sj^mpathy which then bound man to 
 nature ? What synopsis of the human intellect, in 
 short, can be compared to that afforded by the com- 
 parative study of the processes by Avhich the various 
 races have expressed the different nexus of thought ? 
 I do not know of a more beautiful chapter of psycho- 
 logy than the dissertations of von Humboldt on 
 the dual number, on the adverbs of locality, or 
 those that might be written on the comparison of 
 Semitic and Indo-Germanic conjugations, on the 
 general theory of pronouns, on the formation of 
 roots, on the imperceptible deterioration and the 
 rudimentary existence of the grammatical process in 
 the various families, etc. What we cannot point out 
 too often is the fact that through languages we get 
 in touch with the primeval condition of man. 
 Languages, in fact, do not create for themselves new 
 processes, any more than they create new roots. 
 Their whole progress consists in developing this or 
 that process, in diverting the meaning of roots, 
 but never in adding new ones. The populace and 
 children alone enjoy the privilege of coining new 
 words and turns of phrases that have no antecedents 
 for their individual use. The thinking man never 
 attempts to combine in an arbitrary way sounds to 
 express a new idea, or to create a grammatical form 
 to express a new nexus. We may conclude from this
 
 The Future of Science. 253 
 
 that all the roots of the various families are the 
 outcome of the way the primitive peoples felt and 
 that all the grammatical processes proceed directly 
 from the manner in which each race treated ideas ; 
 that, in short, language in the whole of its construc- 
 tion dates from the first days of man and brings us 
 in touch with his origin. Personally, I am convinced 
 that the language spoken by the first thinking beings 
 of the Semitic race differed very little from the 
 common type of all those languages, such as it 
 presents itself to us in the Hebrew or Syriac. There 
 can, at any rate, be no doubt that the roots of these 
 idioms, the roots that still constitute the foundation 
 of a language spoken on a large part of the globe 
 were the first that rang in the deep and vigorous 
 chests of the fathers of that race. And though it 
 may seem paradoxical to maintain the same thing 
 with regard to our metaphysical languages, battered 
 about by so many revolutions, one may fearlessly 
 affirm that they do not contain a single word, a 
 single process we may not connect by a direct affilia- 
 tion to the first impressions of the first children of 
 God. Let us, therefore, remember in Heaven's 
 name what we have got in hand and let us labour to 
 decipher that medal of days gone long ago. 
 
 As a rule, people imagine the laws of the evolution 
 of the human intellect to be much more simple than 
 they are. It is very dangerous indeed to invest with 
 a historical and chronological value the evolutions 
 supposed to have been necessarily successive, to 
 suppose, for instance, that at his origin man was 
 a cannibal because that condition is considered 
 as the most degraded. The reality presents a very 
 much greater variation. There is not a thinker who 
 pondering the history of humanity does not succeed 
 in constructing a formula ; those formulas do not 
 coincide with, but they are not contradictory of, one 
 another. The fact is that there are no two absolutely 
 identical developments in humanity (116). There 
 are laws, and very deeply rooted laws, the simple
 
 254 The Future of Scieiice. 
 
 action of which is never perceived, the result being 
 always complicated by accidental circumstances. 
 The general names by which we designate the 
 variou^s phases of the mind never apply in a perfectly 
 ■iini vocal manner — as the schoolmen said — to two 
 different states. "The line of humanity,'' says 
 Herder, "is neither straight, nor uniform; it de- 
 viates in every direction, and presents all the curves 
 and all the angles imaginable. Neither the asymp- 
 tote, nor the ellipsis, nor the cycloid can give us an 
 idea of its law." The relations between things are 
 not on a plane, but in space. There are dimensions 
 in thought as there are dimensions in the expanse. 
 Just as a classification only explains one lineal 
 series of beings, and necessarily neglects several as 
 real which cross the first and would require a 
 classification apart so do all the laws express only 
 one system of relations and necessarily omit a thou- 
 sand others. It is like a body of three dimensions 
 projected on one plane. Certain traits will be pre- 
 served, others will be altered, others again altogether 
 omitted. The Middle Ages are in certain aspects 
 like the Homeric times, and yet who could care to 
 apply the same denomination to conditions so dif- 
 ferent ? In this vast picture every one lays hold 
 of a trait, a physiognomy, a ray of light ; no one 
 grasps the ensemble and the significance of the whole. 
 Let us take a traveller who has crossed France from 
 north to south ; another from east to west ; a third 
 following a different line ; each of them gives his 
 account as the complete description of France ; that 
 is the exact image of what up till now those have 
 done who have attempted to present a system of the 
 l)liilosophy of history (117). A geographical map 
 cannot possibly be drawn unless the country intended 
 to be represented has been explored in all directions. 
 And let us bear in mind that history is the true 
 philosophy of the nineteenth century. Our century 
 is not metaphysical. It cares little about the in- 
 trinsic discussion of questions. Its great concern is
 
 The Future of Science. 255 
 
 history, and above all the history of the human 
 intellect. Here lies the dividing point of the 
 schools ; a man is a philosopher or a believer ac- 
 cording to his manner of looking at history ; a man 
 believes in humanity or does not believe in it 
 according to the system he has conceived of its 
 history. If the history of the human mind be only 
 a succession of systems that upset one another, all 
 we can do is to throw ourselves into the arms of 
 scepticism or into those of faith. If the history 
 of the human intellect be the onward march towards 
 the truth between two oscillations which have the 
 effect of restricting more and more the domain of 
 error, we are justified in still putting our trust in 
 reason. Every one in our days is what he is accord- 
 ing to the way in which he understands history. 
 
 The comparative study of religions when once 
 definitely established on the solid basis of criticism 
 will constitute the noblest chapter in the history of 
 the human intellect, finding its place between the 
 history of mythologies and the history of philosophies. 
 Eeligion, like philosophy supplies a speculative want 
 of humanity. Like mythology, it contains a large 
 part of the records of spontaneous and non-premedi- 
 tated exertion of the human faculties. Hence its 
 priceless vahie from the j)hilosopher's point of view. 
 Just as a Gothic cathedral is the best piece of evidence 
 of the Middle Ages, because the generations have 
 dwelt there in the spirit ; so is religion the best 
 means of understanding humanity; for humanity 
 has dwelt there ; it is the deserted tent in which 
 everything attests the traces of those whom it 
 sheltered. Woe to him who passes by those vener- 
 able tenements with indifference, those venerable 
 tenements in the shadow of which humanity has 
 lingered so long and where so many noble souls still 
 find comfort and awe. Even if the roof lets in the 
 light of heaven and the torrents from the sky drench 
 the upturned face of the believer on his knees, 
 science would wish to study those ruins, to describe
 
 256 The Future of Science. 
 
 all the statuettes that adoru them, to lift the stained 
 window panes which only admit a mysterious semi- 
 ♦•■low, in order to introduce the radiant sun, and to 
 study at leisure those admirable petrifactions of 
 human thought. 
 
 The history of religions has, as yet, almost entirely 
 to be created. Numberless causes of respect and 
 timidity operate on that point against thorough 
 frankness, without which rational discussion becomes 
 impossible, and in reality, render the position of 
 those grand systems more unfavourable than advan- 
 tageous from the point of view of science. Keligions 
 seem to have been tabooed by humanity, it takes 
 them a long while to obtain the recognition of 
 their value, the value w^hich is theirs from the 
 standpoint of criticism ; and the silence concerning 
 them may breed an illusion as to the importance of 
 the part they have enacted in the development of 
 ideas. A history of philosophy (118), which should 
 devote a volume to Plato, ought, it seems, to devote 
 two to Jesus ; and still the chances are that His 
 name will not be mentioned once. It is not the 
 historian's fault ; it is the consequence of Jesus' 
 position. Such is the fate of everything that attains 
 religious consecration. How much, for instance, 
 has not Hebraic literature suffered from the stand- 
 point of science and taste by becoming the Bible ? 
 \Vhether from mere bad temper, or from the remains 
 of superstition, scientific and literary criticism, 
 shrinks from considering as its own works which have 
 been sequestrated in that way from profane and 
 natural influences, by w^hich we mean, that which is. 
 Nevertheless are the books themselves to blame ? 
 Could the author of that delightful little poem 
 called " The Song of Songs " have foreseen that one 
 day he would have to part company with Anacreon 
 and Hafiz to be made into an ius2oired singer who 
 01 dy sang of divine love ? It is really time that 
 criticism should become accustomed to take its 
 material wherever it finds it, and not to make dis-
 
 The Future of Science. 257 
 
 tinctions between the works of the human intellect 
 when it becomes a question of leading opinion, of 
 admiring. It is time for reason to cease to criticize 
 religions as ahen works, set up against it by a rival 
 power and to finally recognize its own concern in all 
 the productions of humanity without distinction or 
 antithesis. It is time to proclaim the fact that one 
 sole cause has wrought everything in the domain of 
 intellect, the human mind, operating according to 
 identical laws, but among different surroundings. To 
 hear certain rationalists, we should be tempted to 
 believe that religions came from heaven to confront 
 reason for the pleasure of thwarting it ; as if human 
 nature had not done everything by different aspects 
 of itself. No doubt, we may oppose religion and 
 philosophy as we oppose two systems, but in recog- 
 nizing that they have the same origin and occupy 
 the same ground. The old method of polemics 
 seemed to concede that religions have a different 
 origin, and from this very fact was induced to insult 
 it. By being bolder, we shall be more respectful. 
 
 The lofty serenity of science becomes possible 
 only on the condition of impartial criticism, which 
 without regard for the beliefs of a certain portion of 
 humanity, handles its imperturbable instrument with 
 the inflexibility of the geometrician, without anger 
 and without pity. The critic never insults. When 
 w^e shall have reached the point at which the history 
 of Jesus shall be as open to discussion as the history 
 of Buddha and of Mahomed, people will no longer 
 dream of addressing harsh reproaches to those whom 
 circumstances have deprived of the light of criticism. 
 I am certain that M. Eugene Burnouf has never 
 been angrj^ with the authors of the fabulous life of 
 Buddha, and that those among the Europeans who 
 have written the life of Mahomed have never felt 
 any violent spite against Abulfeda and the Mussulman 
 authors who have written the life of theii' prophet as 
 true behevers. The apologists maintain that it is 
 religion which has wrought all the great things of 
 
 s
 
 'Jo! 
 
 The Future of Science. 
 
 Immauity, and they are right. The philosophers 
 beUeve that they are striving for the honour of 
 philosophy by depreciating religion, and they are 
 wrong. As for ourselves who advocate but one sole 
 cause, the cause of the human intellect, our admira- 
 tion is much more unfettered. We should fancy that 
 we were wronging ourselves by withholding our admi- 
 ration from anything wrought by the human intel- 
 lect. We ought to criticize religions in the same 
 way that we criticize primitive poems. Do we show 
 any temper with Homer or Valmiki, because their 
 manner is not that of our own epoch ? 
 
 Heaven be praised, no one, nowadays, feels tempted 
 to enter upon the discussion of religion with that 
 spirit of disdainful criticism of the eighteenth century 
 wliich flattered itself that it was capable of explaining 
 everything by the use of words of superficial clear- 
 ness, superstition, credulity, fanaticism. To a more 
 advanced critic, religions are the philosophies of the 
 spontaneous, philosophies, amalgamated with hetero- 
 geneous elements, like food that is not solely made 
 up of nutritious parts. Apparently, the very finest 
 would be preferable but the stomach would not be 
 able to digest it. Exclusively scientific formulas 
 would afford but a dry food, and so true is this, that 
 with every great philosojDhical thought there is mixed 
 up a little mysticism ; that is, a compound of indi- 
 vidual fantasy and religion. 
 
 Rehgions, therefore, are the purest and most com- 
 plete expressions of human nature, the shell in which 
 its foruis are moulded, the bed on which it lies, on 
 which it leaves the impression of the curves of its 
 outlines. Rehgions and languages should be the 
 first studies of the psychologist. For humanity is 
 much more easily recognized in its products than in 
 its abstract essence, and in its spontaneous products 
 than in its premeditated ones. Science being wholly 
 ('Ijjective, has nothing that is personal or individual 
 in it, rehgions, on the other hand, are individual, 
 national by their very essence ; they are in one word,
 
 The Future of Science.' 259 
 
 subjective. Eeligions were made at a time when 
 man put himself into all his works. Take up a work 
 of modern science, ^'- VAstronomie Physique'' of M. 
 Biot or "/a Chimie'' of M. Eegnault ; you will find 
 it the most perfect specimen of objective treatment ; 
 there is a complete absence of the author himself, 
 the work bears neither an individual nor a national 
 stamp ; it is an intellectual, not a human work. 
 Popular science, and in many respects, ancient 
 science, only saw man through the prism of man and 
 dyed him with colours altogether human. For a 
 long while after modern men of science had created 
 for themselves more perfect means of observation, 
 there remained numerous causes of aberration which 
 disfigured, and impaired with false colours, the out- 
 lines of objects. On the other hand, the telescope 
 with which the moderns take their observations of 
 the world is perfectly achromatic. If there are any 
 other intellects than that of man we cannot well con- 
 ceive that they can see otherwise. Scientific works, 
 therefore, can in no way convey an idea of the 
 originality of human nature nor of its proper character, 
 while in a work in which fancy and the feehngs have 
 borne a large part is much more human and con- 
 sequently more adapted to the experimental study 
 of the instincts of psychological nature. 
 
 Hence the immense interest of everything that 
 appertains to religion, to the popular instinct, of 
 primitive narrative, of fable, of superstitious beliefs. 
 Each nation spends her very soul over it, creates it 
 out of her own substance. Tacitus, whatever may 
 be his talents for painting human nature, contains 
 less true psychology than the artless and credulous 
 narrative of the Gospels. It is because the narrative 
 of Tacitus is objective ; he narrates or endeavours 
 to narrate things and their causes as they really 
 were ; the narrative of the Evangelists, on the con- 
 trary, is subjective ; they do not recount things, but 
 the views they conceived of things, the manner in 
 which they appreciated them. I may be allowed to
 
 260 The Future of Scieyice. 
 
 give au instance in point. While passing by a church- 
 yard, at night, I have been pursued by a will o' the 
 wisp. In relating my adventure, I should express 
 myself thus; "One evening in passing by a church- 
 yard, I was pursued by a will o' the wisp." On the other 
 hand, a peasant woman who happens to have lost 
 her brother a few days before, and to whom a similar 
 adventure had occurred, would express herself as 
 follows ; " While I was passing by the churchyard 
 at night I was pursued by the soul of my brother." 
 Here we have two accounts of the same fact, both 
 jierfectly veracious. What then constitutes their 
 difference ? The first recounts the fact in its naked 
 reahty ; the second mingles a subjective element with 
 it, an appreciation, a judgment, a view of the narrator 
 herself. The one narrative was simple, the other is 
 complex and mingles with the affirmation of the fact 
 a judgment of cause (119). All the narratives of the 
 primitive ages are subjective ; those of the thinking 
 ages are objective. Criticism consists in recover- 
 ing, as far as possible the real colour of facts, from 
 tlie colours as refracted through the prism of the 
 nationality or individuality of the narrators. 
 
 Hence, the history of religions is the true history 
 of philosophy. The work most urgently wanted for 
 the advancement of the sciences of humanity would 
 be, therefore, a philosophical theory of religions. But 
 how could we possibly get such a theory without 
 erudition ? Islamism is certainly very well known 
 by the students of Arabian literature; there is no 
 religion which offers fewer obstacles to inquiry ; 
 nevertheless, in the ordinary books Islamism is the 
 object of the most absurd fables, of the most erro- 
 neous judgmoiits. And yet, Islamism, although the 
 weakest of all rehgions from the standpoint of creative 
 originality (the sap had already run dry), is of major 
 importance in that comparative study, because we 
 have authentic documents on its origins, which is 
 not the case with any other religion ; the primitive 
 facts of the apparitions of religions, occurring in the
 
 TJie Future of Science. 201 
 
 spontaneous conditions of humanity leaving no trace. 
 Religion does not become conscious of itself until it 
 has reached the adult and developed state, that is, 
 when the primitive facts have disappeared for ever. 
 Religions, no more than individual man, remember 
 their infancy, and it is very rare that extraneous 
 documents are found to dispel the darkness that 
 surrounds their cradle. Islamism affords the only 
 exception in that respect, it is born when history is 
 already in full swiug ; the traces of the disputes it 
 provoked and of the incredulity it had to fight against 
 still exist. The Koran is from beginning to end 
 nothing but a mass of sophistical argumentation. 
 There was a great deal of reflection in Mahomed and 
 even a little of what — if driven to it — we might call 
 imposture (120). The facts that succeeded the estab- 
 lishment of Islamism and which are eminently calcu- 
 lated to show the manner in which religions are 
 consolidated, do also, every one of them, belong to 
 the domain of history. 
 
 Buddhism does not share this advantage. Induc- 
 tion and conjectures will necessarily have to play a 
 large part in the history of its origins. But what 
 inestimable lights will not that vast development 
 afford for the discovery of the laws that presided at 
 the formation of a religious system ; that vast de- 
 velopment so analogous to Christianity, which start- 
 ing from India has invaded half of Asia and despatched 
 missionaries far and wide from the territories of the 
 Seleucidae to the uttermost corners of China. The pro- 
 blem of primitive Christianity will not be ripe until the 
 day when M. Eugene Burnouf shall have finished his 
 " Introduction to the History of Indian Buddhism." 
 
 And, the most important book of the nineteenth 
 century should bear the title of; "A Critical History 
 of the Origins of Christianity." Oh, the admirable 
 book, the author of which I envy and which will be 
 the work of my ripe age, if I am not prevented by death 
 and the many outwardly fatal incidents which so 
 often and forcedly cause a life to turn aside from its
 
 2G2 The Future of Science. 
 
 original purpose. People do so obstinately persist 
 in repeating such utterly erroneous platitudes on the 
 subject. They think that the subject is exhausted 
 when they have mentioned the fusion of Judaism, 
 Platonism and Orientalism, without having any 
 notion of what is Orientalism, without their being able 
 to say how Jesus and the apostles came by any tradi- 
 tions of Plato. Because as yet no one has dreamt of 
 looking for the origins of Christianity there where they 
 really exist, in the Deutero-Canonical books, in the 
 apocryphal writings of Jewish origin, in the Mishna, 
 in the Pirke-Avoth, in the works of the Judaso-Chris- 
 tians. People look for Christianity in the works of 
 the Platonist Fathers who only represent a second 
 moment of its existence. Christianity is primarily 
 a Jewish fact, just as Buddhism is an Indian fact, 
 albeit that Christianity like Buddhism was almost 
 exterminated from the countries that gave it birth 
 and that the admixture with foreign ingredients may 
 have cast a doubt upon its origin. 
 
 As for me, if ever I undertook that great work, 
 I should begin by an exact catalogue of the sources, 
 that is of everything that has been written in the 
 East from the captivity of the Jews in Babylon until 
 the moment Christianity is finally constituted, with- 
 out overlooking the very important aid to be derived 
 from monuments, engraved stones, etc. Then I 
 should devote a volume to the criticism of those 
 sources. I should take one after the other the frag- 
 ments of Daniel written in the time of the Maccabees, 
 the Book of Wisdom, the Chaldaic paraphrases, the 
 Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Books of 
 the New Testament, the Mishna, the Apocryphas, 
 etc., and I would try to ascertain by the most scru- 
 pulous criticism, the exact period, the locality, the 
 iiitclloctual surroundings in which those works were 
 composed. That done, I should be solely guided by 
 those data in the formation of my ideas and com- 
 pletely discard all the fancies in which others have 
 indulged either by the process of induction or on
 
 Tlie Future of Science. 263 
 
 nothing more substantial than vague analogies. No 
 doubt the universal knowledge of the human intellect 
 would be necessary for that history. But one should 
 be careful not to transform analogies into reciprocal 
 loans, if history says nothing about the reality of 
 such loans. Our French critics who have only studied 
 the Greek and Latin worlds would have great difficulty 
 in understanding that Christianity was at the outset an 
 exclusively Jewish fact. Christianity in their opinion 
 is the work of collective humanity; Socrates com- 
 posed, as it were, the prelude to it, Plato laboured 
 at it, Terence and Yii'gil are already Christians, 
 Seneca still more so. This is true, perfectly true, 
 provided one can grasp the meaning of it. Chris- 
 tianity in reality only became what it is when 
 humanity adopted it as the expression of the wants 
 and tendencies by which it had been stirred for ever 
 so long. Christianity, such as it prevails amongst 
 us, contains in fact, elements of every date, of every 
 country. But the important point to bring to light, 
 which is not sufficiently noticed, is that the primitive 
 germ is wholly Jewish, that the apparition of Jesus 
 is simply simultaneous with the Christianity antici- 
 pated by the Greco-Latin world ; that the Gospel 
 and Saint-Paul must be explained by the Talmud 
 and not by Plato (121). The soil whence Christianity 
 drew its sap, in which it spread its roots, is humanity, 
 and above all the Greco-Latin world ; but the kernel 
 from which it sprang is wholly Jewish. What I 
 wish to indicate here is the history of that curious 
 formation and development, the history of the roots 
 of Christianity up to the moment that_ the tree 
 appears above ground, while as yet it is only a 
 Jewish sect, up to the moment when it is adopted, 
 or rather absorbed by the nations. It is still wholly 
 a matter of conjecture; neither Christians, nor 
 Jews, nor Pagans having left us anything historical 
 on that first apparition, or on the principal hero. 
 But criticism may recover history from legend or 
 at any rate trace back the characteristic aspect of
 
 264 The Future of Science. 
 
 the period and its works. Scholastic precision, here 
 as always, excludes criticism. We may set ourselves 
 a number of questions on the Eesurrqction^^p^ the 
 miracles of the Gospel, on the character of Jesus and 
 of the Apostles which it is impossible to answer by 
 judging the first century after our own. If ^esus did 
 not really rise from the dead, how is it that the belief 
 in such resurrection spread? Are we to conclude 
 then that the Apostles were impostors, the Evangelists 
 liars ? How is it that the Jews did not protest ? 
 How is it that . . . etc., etc. All these are questions 
 that would have a meaning in our century of reflection 
 and publicity, but which had none in a period of credu- 
 lity when no critical thought raised its voice (122). 
 
 The first step in the comparative study of religion 
 will be, it seems to me, to establish two very distinct 
 classes among those curious products of the human 
 intellect ; organized religions, having sacred books 
 precise dogmas ; non-organized religions, possessing 
 neither sacred books, nor dogmas, being only more 
 or less pure forms of the worship of nature, and 
 having no pretensions whatsoever to spring from 
 revelations. The first class would comprise ; Judaism, 
 Christianity, Islamism, Parseeism, Brahminism, 
 Buddhism, to which may be added Manichaeism, 
 which is not merely a sect or a Christian heresy, as 
 people often imagine, but a religious apparition, 
 grafted like Christianity, Islamism and Buddhism on 
 an anterior religion. The second class should com- 
 prise the mythological polytheisms of the Greeks, 
 tlje Scandinavians, the Gauls and in general all the 
 mythologies of the peoples who had no sacred books. 
 Candidly speaking, these forms of worship scarcely 
 deserve the name of religions ; the idea of revelation is 
 utterly foreign to them ; it is pure naturalism expressed 
 by a poetical symbolism. It would perhaps be more 
 becoming to restrict the name of religions to the 
 dogmatic conipositions of Western and Southern Asia. 
 It is certain, though, that the existence of the sacred 
 book is the criterion that should determine the classi-
 
 The Future of Science. 265 
 
 fication of religions, because it is the mark of a more 
 profound character ; the dogmatic organization. It 
 is also certain that the East presents itself as the 
 soil whence sprang the great organized religions. The 
 East has always lived in that psychological condition 
 which is favourable to the birth of myths. It has 
 never arrived at that perfect clearness of consciousness 
 which is rationalism. The East has never understood 
 the true philosophical grandeur which can dispense 
 with miracles. It sets little store by a sage who is 
 not also a thaumaturge (123). The sacred book is 
 an exclusively Asiatic production. Europe has not 
 created a single one (124). 
 
 Another characteristic, not less essential, and which 
 may serve as well as the sacred book to distinguish 
 religions is tolerance or exclusivism. The old mytho- 
 logical forms of worship, not claiming to be the 
 absolute form of religion, but merely professing to be 
 local forms, did not exclude the other forms. 
 
 " I have my God whom I serve ; you shall serve 
 yours. They are two powerful Gods." 
 
 That is the pure expression of that religious form. 
 Each nation, each city has its gods, more or less 
 powerful ; it is perfectly natural that the one city 
 should not serve those of another. Jehovah himself 
 is often only the God of Jacob, cherishing his people 
 with the same feelings of national partiality as the 
 other local deities. Hence those challenges with 
 regard to the respective powers of the gods, each 
 nation insisting that her own are strongest, but which 
 challenges in no way imply that they are the only 
 gods. It is altogether differeut in the Judaism of 
 the times of the prophets, and in general in all the 
 great organized religions. Jehovah alone is God, all 
 the rest are so many idols. Hence the idea of a true 
 religion which had no meaning in the mythological 
 forms of worship. And seeing that in those epochs, 
 the truth is conceived as a revelation from the 
 Divinity, that characteristic manifests itself in 
 revealed religion (125).
 
 V(\Cy The Future of Science. 
 
 Last of all, the organized religions are distinguished 
 from the forms of mj^thological worship by a greater 
 character of stability and duration. It is literally 
 true that up till now, not a single great rehgion is 
 positively dead and that the most ill-treated ones, 
 Parseeism, Samaritanism, etc., still live in the faith 
 of some tribe or other, or relegated to some distant 
 nook of tlie globe. 
 
 Thus, on the one side ; organized religions, claim- 
 ing to be based upon revelation, absolute, exclusively 
 true and possessing a sacred book. — On the other ; 
 non-organized religions, local, not exclusive, not 
 having a sacred book. 
 
 The great Asiatic rehgions would group themselves 
 as it were in three families, or rather would claim 
 connection with three sources : (1) The Semitic 
 family (Judaism, Christianity, Islamism) ; (2) The 
 Aryan family (Parseeism, Manichseism) ; (3) The 
 Indian family (Brahmanism, Buddhism). Within 
 each family, the successive reforms have only been 
 the developments of the self-same foundation (126). 
 Strictly speaking we could not say that religions are 
 a question of racial idiosyncracy, seeing that the 
 Indo-Germanic peoples have created religions as well 
 as the Semitic peoples. Still it would be idle to 
 deny that the Indo-Germanic religions have a stamp 
 apart. They are very nearly systems of pure philo- 
 sophy. Buddha was only a philosopher ; Brahmanism 
 lias little in common with the other organized religions 
 save tJie sacred book and is in reality nothing more 
 than the most simple expression of naturalism. A 
 more noticeable difference still ; all the Semitic 
 religions are essentially monotheistic ; the race has 
 never had a developed mythology. All the Indo- 
 Germanic religious are, on the contrary, either 
 pantheistic or dualistic and boast a vast mythological 
 or symbohcal development (127). It would seem 
 that amoijg tlie peoples the creative faculties with 
 regard to religious were in inverse ratio to the philo- 
 sophical faculties. The premeditated, independent,
 
 The Future of Science. 2G7 
 
 severe, courageous — in one word — philosophical 
 search after the truth seems to have been the inherit- 
 ance of that Indo- Germanic race which from the 
 uttermost confines of India to the farthest extremes 
 of the West and the North, from the most distant 
 centuries to modern times, has endeavoured to ex- 
 plain God, man and the world to the rationalistic 
 sense, and has left behind it, posted as it were, at the 
 different stages of its history, those systems, those 
 philosophical creations, subject always and everywhere 
 to the unvarying and necessary laws of a logical de- 
 velopment. The Semites, on the contrary, who do 
 not show us a single attempt at analysis, who have 
 not produced a single school of native philosophy, 
 are par excellence the race of religions, destined to 
 give them birth and to propagate them. Theirs is 
 the privilege of those bold and spontaneous flights of 
 natures, still in the flush of youth, penetrating without 
 an effort and by a most natural movement as it were 
 into the very bosom of the infinite, and descending 
 from it thoroughly drenched with divine dew, then 
 letting their enthusiasm exhale in a form of worship, 
 in a mystic doctrine, in a revealed book. The philo- 
 sophical school has its cradle under the skies of 
 Greece and India; the temple and priestly science 
 explaining themselves in enigmas and in creeds, 
 veiling the truth beneath mystery, often soaring 
 higher because it is less afraid of looking backward 
 and making sure of its onward march, such is the 
 character of the religious and theocratic race of the 
 Semites. They are " God's people " par excellence, 
 and the exceptional atheist is to them a being devoid 
 of meaning, an enigma, a monster in the universe. 
 They have that moral instinct, that sound sense, 
 practical and not capable of analyzing very deeply, 
 but popular and easy-going which constitutes the 
 genius of religions, and added to this the prophetic 
 gift which often succeeds in speaking of God more 
 eloquently and above all more exuberantly than 
 science and rationalism (128). And in fact is it not a
 
 268 The Future of Science. 
 
 thing worthy of remark that the three religions which 
 up till now have plaj^ed the greatest part in the 
 history of civilization, the three religious stamped 
 with a special character of stability, fruitfulness and 
 proselytism, and moreover bound to one another by 
 such close relations as to make them seem three 
 branches of a same trunk, three versions — not equally 
 beautiful and pure— of a self-same idea, is it not 
 worthy of remark that all three should have been 
 born on Semitic ground, and from there should have 
 started forth to the conquest of high destinies. The 
 distance between Jerusalem and Sinai, and between 
 Sinai and Mecca is but a few miles (128a). 
 
 Still, seeing that races do not differ in virtue of 
 the possession of different faculties, but through the 
 different extension of the same faculties, seeing that 
 what constitutes the dominant characteristic in some 
 is found among others in a rudimentary condition, 
 Greece presents the unmistakable germs of the pro- 
 cesses which in the East created the revealer, the 
 man-god and the prophet. But they (the processes) 
 always miscarried before they could become a genuine 
 religious tradition. The system of Pythagoras with 
 its degrees, its initiations, its novitiates, its distinct 
 tinge of asceticism reminds one of the grand organized 
 systems of Asia. Pythagoras himself is very like 
 a theurge. He is infallible (auro? e(^a) ; a disciple 
 who has incurred his blame kills himself. He has 
 visited the nether regions, and remembers his trans- 
 migrations. He willingly lends himself to, or even 
 supplies the occasion for, such beliefs ; he recognizes 
 in a temple of Greece the arms he bore at the siege 
 of Troy. In the East Pythagoras would have been 
 Buddha. This colouring is even more striking in 
 Empedocles, who represents the Oriental theurge 
 in every trait. A priest and a poet, like Orpheus, 
 a physician and a thaumaturge the whole of Sicily 
 rings with his miracles. He raised the dead, stayed 
 the winds, averted the plague. He only appeared in 
 I'liblic amidst a train of servitors, the sacred crown
 
 The Future of Science. 2G9 
 
 on his head, the tinkling brass sandals on his feet, 
 with flowing locks, his hand holding the laurel 
 branch. His divinity was admitted throughout 
 Sicily, he himself proclaimed it. " Ye friends, who 
 dwell on the heights of the great city washed by the 
 yellow Acragas ; " he writes at the beginning of one 
 of his poems ; '' ye zealous observers of justice, hail ! 
 I am not a man, I am a God. On my entering the 
 flourishing cities men and women prostrate them- 
 selves. The multitude follow my footsteps. Some 
 ask me for oracles, others the cure for cruel maladies by 
 which they are tormented." The processes by which 
 his miraculous legend is constituted remind one in 
 every particular of those of the East. A trance from 
 which he has roused some one becomes a resurrection. 
 He arrests the Etesian gales that are devastating Agri- 
 gentum by closing a gap between two rocks ; hence 
 the surname of KoXvcrave{xa<5. He drains a marsh 
 close to Selinus, which is sufficient to make him an 
 equal of Apollo. Here we have analogies very 
 characteristic of the founders of religion in the East. 
 But alas, Greece was too flighty to dwell for very 
 long on those beliefs and to constitute them into 
 religious traditions ; the divinity of Empedocles came 
 to grief against the scepticism of the scoffers, and 
 spiteful legend made merry over his sandals that 
 were found on Etna. Asia has never known how to 
 laugh, and it is because of this that she is religious. 
 
 As for the mythological forms of worship that were 
 not organized, that had no sacred book, their variety 
 is much greater, or to speak correctly all classifica- 
 tion here becomes impossible. They are all so much 
 pure fantasy, it is human imagination constantly 
 broidering on a self-same canvas, which is natural 
 religion. Comparing poem with poem, creed with 
 creed, the variety in this instance becomes every 
 now and then almost individual, a simj^le family 
 affair. The most one can do is to indicate the diverse 
 degrees and ages of those curious processes. At the 
 lowest degree stands fetichism, that is, the individual
 
 •270 The Future of Science. 
 
 or familj^ mythologies, fables evolved from dreams 
 and affirmed in the most arbitrary way, fables with- 
 out the slightest traditional antecedent, without 
 the idea of their truth ever presenting itself to the 
 mind, any more than it did in the dream, the fable 
 for the fable's sake. Then came the more pre- 
 meditated myths, in which the instincts of human 
 nature express themselves in a more distinct manner, 
 that is, they already show a certain analysis, but 
 without reflection or perception of allegorical sym- 
 bolism. At last comes the thought-out symbolism, 
 the allegory created with the distinct consciousness 
 of the double meaning which utterly escapes the first 
 creators of myths. 
 
 In reality every mythological creation like every 
 religious development goes through two very distinct 
 phases ; the creative age when the grand traits of 
 legend are traced deep down the popular conscience, 
 and the age of remodelling, of adjustment, of verbose 
 amplification when the grand poetical vein is lost 
 and when the whole thing consists in the re-dishing 
 of the old poetical fables after a stereotyped process 
 beyond which they no longer go. Hesiod on the one 
 side, the Alexandrian mythologists on the other ; the 
 Vedas on the one side, the Puranas on the other ; 
 the canonical Gospels on the one side, the Apocryphas 
 on the other afford so many examples of this trans- 
 formation of mythologies. It is simply a way of 
 taking the myths of olden times and amplifying 
 them by fusing all the original traits in the new 
 narrative, and to a certain extent of composing the 
 monograph of what was but a mere detail in. the 
 grand primitive fable ; the whole of it requiring but 
 little power of invention, because there is never a 
 deviation from the given theme. That which must 
 have probably happened is added, the situation is 
 amplified, certain links are forged. It is, in short, 
 a carefully considered composition and in one sense, 
 a literary one, having for its bases a spontaneous 
 creation. That age is necessarily insipid and weari-
 
 The Future of Science. 271 
 
 some. For the spontaneous production, so full of 
 life, so graceful, does not admit of being remodelled. 
 What chance is there for the naive thoughts of a 
 child, ponderously commented on by pedants, delicate 
 flowers that wither by passing from hand to hand ? 
 Do not you think that to the primitive men that 
 created them, Venus, Pan, the Graces had a meaning 
 different from that which they convey in the park at 
 Versailles, reduced as they were to a chilling alle- 
 gorism by a thinking age, which from mere fantasy 
 goes in search of a mythology of the past, in order to 
 coin from it a conventional language for its own 
 use (129) ? 
 
 Those two phases in legendary creation correspond 
 with the two ages of every religion ; the primitive 
 age in which religion is evolved beautiful and pure 
 from man's conscience, like the sun's rays ; the age 
 of naive and simple faith without afterthought, with- 
 out objection or refutation ; and the thinking age, 
 marked by the rise of objection and apology ; the 
 subtle age in which reflection becomes exacting, 
 without being able to obtain satisfaction ; in which the 
 marvellous, formerly " so easily accepted," so beau- 
 tiful in its imaginings, so gentle in its conceptions, 
 the so eminently pure reflex of the moral instincts of 
 humanity, becomes timid and paltry, sometimes im- 
 moral, pettily supernatural, a series of miracles arro- 
 gated by coteries and brotherhoods, etc. Everything 
 shrinks and dwindles, the practice of religion becomes 
 devoid of meaning and materialized ; prayer becomes 
 a mere mechanical performance, worship a mere 
 ceremonial, formulas become a kind of Cabbalism, in 
 wbich words operate not as formerly by their moral 
 sense, but by their sound and articulation; legal 
 prescriptions, originally stamped with a deep sense 
 of morality become mere irksome prohibitions which 
 people seek to elude until the day when they shall 
 find some subtle argument to rid themselves alto- 
 gether of them (130). In the primeval age, rehgion 
 has no need of creeds ; it is a new spirit, a fire that
 
 272 The Future of Science. 
 
 goes on consuming everything before it, it is free and 
 boundless. Tlien, when the enthusiasm has sub- 
 sided, when the original and native force is ex- 
 tinguished, man begins to define, to combine, to 
 speculate upon that which the first believers had 
 embraced in faith and love. That day beholds the 
 birth of scholasticism, on that day the first germ of 
 iucreduHty is sown. I cannot state all my percep- 
 tions on this fruitful subject nor the wealth of 
 psychological knowledge that might accrue from the 
 study of those admirable works of human nature. 
 I am aware that our position face to face with those 
 strange works is a singular one. Eeplete with life 
 and truth to the peoples who created them, they are 
 to us merely an object of analysis and dissection. 
 This, in one sense, constitutes an inferior position 
 which will always debar us from arriving at a perfect 
 understanding of them. How often, in pondering the 
 mythology of India for instance, have I been struck 
 with the absolute impossibility, as far as we are 
 concerned of understanding the life and soul of it. 
 We, in this instance are confronted with works, 
 deeply expressive, brimful of significance to a por- 
 tion of humanity, we the sceptics, the analysts. 
 How could thej^ possibly tell us what they tell them ? 
 They who believed in Christ can understand Him. 
 In the same way, to understand in all their import 
 those sublime creations, one must have believed in 
 them, or rather (for the word to believe has no mean- 
 ing in the world of fantasy) one must have lived 
 with tliem. Would it not be possible to realize that 
 wonder by such a vast progress of the scientific spirit 
 as would make people profoundly sympathetic with 
 everything humanity lias accomplished ? It is diffi- 
 cult to say, but it is certain at any rate, that those 
 systems containing as they do, more or less precious 
 atoms of human nature, that is, of truth, he who 
 succeeds in understanding them, would find solid 
 nourishment there. It may be taken as a general 
 rule that when a work of the human intellect seems
 
 The Future of Science. 273 
 
 too absurd or too odd, it is because we do not uuder- 
 stand it, or take it in the wrong sense. If we placed 
 ourselves in the true light we should see the sense 
 of it. 
 
 I wanted to show by a few instances the philoso- 
 phical results to which the sciences of pure scholar- 
 ship may lead and how unjust is the contempt for 
 those studies felt by certain intellects, themselves 
 gifted with the philosophical sense. What if I 
 were to show, in the case of the philosophy of 
 history, that this marvellous science, which one day 
 will be the ruling science, will never succeed in 
 constituting itself in a serious and dignified manner 
 except by the aid of the most scrupulous learning, 
 that until then it will remain in the same condition 
 as were the physical sciences before Bacon, that is, 
 wandering from one hypothesis to another, without 
 a settled " way-bill," not knowing what form to 
 give to its laws and never going beyond the sphere 
 of artificial and fantastic creations ? 
 
 What, if I were to show that literary criticism 
 which is our domain proper, and of which we are 
 deservedly proud can never become serious and pro- 
 found except by the aid of learning ? How can we 
 grasp the physiognomy and originality of primitive 
 literatures, if we do not penetrate into the moral and 
 intimate life of the nation, if we do not place our- 
 selves on the same standpoint of humanity which 
 it occupied, in order to see and to feel as it did ; if 
 we do not watch its life, or rather if we do not share 
 its life, if only for a moment ? Besides, there is as 
 a rule nothing more silly than the admiration be- 
 stowed upon antiquity. People do not admire its 
 original and really admirable features ; but in a paltry 
 spirit pick out in the works of antiquity the traits 
 which approach our own; they endeavour to point 
 out the beauties which with us — one is bound to 
 admit it — would be considered as of a second rate 
 order. The way superficial intellects stand embar- 
 rassed when face to face with the grand productions
 
 274 The Future of Science. 
 
 of classical literature is very amusing indeed. They 
 start from the principle that those works must be 
 beautiful under any circumstances, seeing that the 
 connoisseurs have decided as much. But as they are 
 incapable — for lack of scholarship — to grasp their 
 iutense originality, their truth, their value in the 
 history of the human intellect, they wind themselves 
 up to a pitch of admiration, to an enthusiastic appre- 
 ciation of the beauties of antiquity, which in fact, 
 is only admiration of their own silliness. Utterly 
 conventional admiration, " turned on " for form's sake 
 and in order to escape from the self-reproach of 
 barbarism which the non-admiration of works ad- 
 mired by connoisseurs would imply. Hence the self- 
 inflicted tortures in order to rise to the occasion 
 when face to face with works which absolutely must 
 be voted beautiful, in order to discover a small detail, 
 an epithet, a brilliant trait, a sentence which trans- 
 lated into French would sound startling. If they 
 were honest about it, they would prefer Seneca to 
 Demosthenes (131). Certain people who have been 
 told that Kollin is beautiful are astonished at only 
 finding very simple phrases, and do not know where 
 to lay hold of a point for admiration, incapable as 
 they are of conceiving the beauty resulting from that 
 na'ive and delightfully upright nature. It is the man 
 himself, who is beautiful, it is the things themselves 
 that are beautiful, and not the way they are ex- 
 pressed. But there are so few people capable of 
 judging SBsthetically. They admire on trust and in 
 order not to remain behind. How many people, 
 standing before a picture by Raffaele know what con- 
 stitutes its beauty ? How many if they frankly 
 stated their opinion would prefer a modern picture, 
 with a clearer style and a more brilliant colouring ? 
 One of the keenest pleasures is to see mediocre in- 
 tellects tlounderiug about with regard to works they 
 have been told beforehand are beautiful. Freron 
 admires Sophocles for having respected certain con- 
 ventionahties which, assuredly were the last things
 
 The Future of Science. 275 
 
 to enter that poet's mind. As a rule the Greeks 
 knew nothing of the beauties of design, and the 
 credit we bestow upon them in that respect is purely 
 gratuitous. I have heard people express their ad- 
 miration of the entrance upon the scene of " Oedipus 
 Tyrannus," because his first line contains a pretty 
 antithesis for which there is an equivalent in a line 
 by Racine. 
 
 Ever since people have gone on repeating (and 
 justly) that the Bible is admirable, every one pro- 
 fesses great admiration of the Bible. The result of 
 this favourable disposition is precisely the admira- 
 tion of that which is not there. Bossuet, who is 
 supposed to be such a very Biblical scholar, and who 
 is scarcely anything of the kind, goes into ecstacies 
 over the blunders and the solecisms of the VulgatCj 
 and professes to discover beauties in them of which 
 there is no trace in the original (132). That worthy 
 Bollin is more ingenuous still and points out in " the 
 Song of Moses and Miriam " the exordium, the con- 
 nection of ideas, the plan, even the style. To wind 
 up, Lowth, more insipid than all the others, gives 
 us a treatise of Aristotelian rhetoric on the poesy of 
 the Hebrews, in which we find a chapter " On the 
 Metaphors of the Bible," another on the Comparisons, 
 a third on the prosopopoeia, a fourth on the sublime 
 in dictioUj etc. ; without suspecting for a moment 
 that which really does constitute the beauty of those 
 ancient poems, namely ; the spontaneous inspiration 
 — independent of artificial and premeditated forms — 
 of the human intellect, still young and fresh to the 
 world, carrying with it everywhere God of whom it 
 still preserves the recent impression. Admiration, 
 in order to be to the purpose and useful must, 
 therefore, be historical and scholarly. Each work 
 is beautiful when considered amidst its own sur- 
 roundings, and not because it fits one of the pigeon 
 holes that have been estabUshed more or less arbi- 
 trarily. To establish absolute divisions in literature, 
 to declare that a work shall be an epic, or an ode,
 
 276 The Future of Science, 
 
 or a novel, and to criticize the works of the past 
 according to the rules that have been laid down for 
 each of these kinds, to blame Dante for having 
 written a work which is neither an epic, nor a drama, 
 nor a didactic poem, to blame Klopstock for having 
 taken too perfect a hero, to do all this, is simply to 
 ignore the liberty of inspiration, and the right of the 
 intellect to blow from the quarter whence it chooses. 
 Every mode of realizing the beautiful is legitimate 
 and genius has ever the same right to create. The 
 beautiful is that which represents in finished and 
 individual traits, the eternal and infinite beauty of 
 human nature. 
 
 The savant alone has the right to admire. Not 
 only do criticism and sestheticism, considered as 
 opposed to one another, not exclude one another, but 
 they are inseparable. Everything is at the same time 
 admirable and susceptible of being criticized, and he 
 only who knows how to admire, knows how to criti- 
 cize. How, for instance can a man understand the 
 beauties of Homer unless he be a savant, unless he 
 know antiquity, unless he have the sense of primeval 
 things ? What do we generally admire in those 
 ancient poems ? Some small instances of great 
 simplicity, some traits that raise a smile ; not that 
 which is truly admirable, the picture of an age of 
 humanity in its inimitable truth. The admiration 
 of Chateaubriand is only therefore so often at fault 
 because the aesthetic sense with which he was so 
 eminently gifted was not based upon solid learning 
 (133). 
 
 Hence, in the actual condition of the human in- 
 tellect it is by labours in the direction of scientific 
 philosophy that we may hope to add to the domain 
 of already acquired ideas. When we reflect upon 
 the roles in the history of human intellect enacted 
 by men hke Erasmus, Bayle, Wolf, Niebuhr, Strauss, 
 when we reflect upon the ideas they have put into 
 circulation, and the advent of which they accelerated 
 oiie fetils suiprised that the name of philosopher, so
 
 The Future of Science. 277 
 
 lavishly bestowed upon obscure pedants, canuot be 
 applied to such men. I am aware that the results 
 of the higher sciences are a long while in becoming 
 current. Of the immense labours already accom- 
 plished by modern students of Indian literature, only 
 a very few have as yet become common property. A 
 numberless hive of learned philologists has produced 
 a complete reformation in biblical exegesis in Ger- 
 many without France being the wiser, as yet, with 
 regard to a single word of their works. Still there 
 are secret canals for science as well as for philosophy 
 by means of which results do filter through. The 
 ideas of Wolf on the epic or rather those to which 
 he has led have become public property. The grand 
 pantheistic poesy of Goethe, of Victor Hugo, of 
 Lamartine implies an acquaintance with the whole 
 of the labours of modern criticism, the final upshot 
 of which is literary pantheism. I can scarcely 
 imagine that M. Hugo has read Heyne, Wolf, William 
 Jones, still his poesy would breed that supposition. 
 The day comes when the results of science fill the 
 air, if I may be allowed the expression, and affect 
 the general formation of literature. M. Fauriel was 
 only a critical savant ; the gift of artistic production 
 was almost denied to him ; nevertheless, there are 
 few men who have wielded so profound an influence 
 on productive literature. 
 
 But the mines of the past are still very far from 
 having yielded all the treasures they contain. The 
 task of modern scholarship will only be accomplished 
 then when all the facets of humanity, that is, all the 
 nations shall have been explored definitely, when China, 
 Judaea, Egypt shall have been restored to us in their 
 primeval aspects, when we shall have finally arrived 
 at the perfect understanding of the whole of human 
 development. Then, and then only the reign of 
 criticism will be inaugurated. For criticism will only 
 proceed with perfect surety when the field of uni- 
 versal comparison shall be thrown open to it. Com- 
 parison is the great instrument of criticism. The
 
 278 TJie Future of Science. 
 
 seventeenth century was ignorant of criticism, be- 
 cause the comparison of the different facets of the 
 human intellect was impossible to it. Herodotus 
 and Livy must have been considered serious his- 
 torians ; Homer must have passed muster as an in- 
 dividual poet, previous to the comparative study of 
 literatures having revealed the very delicate facts 
 connected with mythism, primitive legend and apo- 
 cryphism. If the seventeenth century had been 
 acquainted, like ourselves, with India, Persia and 
 ancient Germania, it would not have admitted in 
 so ponderous a fashion the fables of the Greek and 
 Roman origins. Bossuet, whose claim to eminence 
 rests upon the fact of having represented in a mar- 
 vellous abridgment the whole of the seventeenth 
 century, its grandeur as well as its weakness, would 
 he have brought to bear so detestably critical a 
 method on his exegesis, if instead of having derived 
 his Biblical education from Saint-Augustine, he had 
 got it from Eichhorn and Von Wette (134) ? 
 
 People are not inoculated with the critical sense 
 in an hour ; he who has not cultivated it by means 
 of a protracted scientific and intellectual training 
 will always find arguments to oppose to the most 
 delicate inductions. The theses of refined criticism 
 are not of the kind that are demonstrated in a few 
 minutes and on which one can force the ignorant 
 adversary or the one determined not to fall in with 
 the views proposed to him. If there be myths on the 
 face of them among the works of the human intellect, 
 they are assuredly the first pages of Eoman history, 
 the story of the tower of Babel, of Lot's wife, of 
 Samson ; if there be a thoroughly characteristic 
 historical romance, it is that of Xenophon ; if there 
 be a historian story-teller, it is Herodotus. Still, it 
 would be so much time wasted to endeavour to per- 
 suade to that effect those who decline to take that 
 view. To elevate and to cultivate the minds of the 
 majority, to popularize the great results of science, 
 these are the only means of spreading the understand-
 
 The Future of Science. 279 
 
 ing and acceptance of the new ideas of criticism. 
 It is science, it is philology, it is the vast perception 
 and comparison of things, it is, in short, the modern 
 spirit, that converts. We may leave to mediocre 
 intellects the satisfaction of believing themselves 
 invincible in their ponderous arguments. We should 
 not as much as try to refute them. The results of 
 criticism cannot be proved, they must be perceived, 
 to understand them requires long training and a 
 thorough culture of the perception of the finesse of 
 things. It is impossible to convince the man who 
 obstinately rejects them, just as it is impossible to 
 prove the existence of microscopic animalculse to 
 the man who refuses to make use of a microscope. 
 Determined to shut their eyes to delicate considera- 
 tions, to take count of no shades whatsoever, they 
 fling their everlasting " prove to us that it is im- 
 possible," at your head. (There are so few things 
 that are impossible.) The critic will leave them to 
 enjoy their triumph by themselves and abstain from 
 discussing with narrow intellects, determined to 
 remain such, he will pursue his road, supported by 
 the thousands of inductions which the universal 
 study of things will cause to spring forth from all 
 parts and which so powerfully converge towards the 
 rationalistic point of view. Obstinate denial cannot 
 be grappled with' ; in no matter what order of things 
 is it possible to make a man see who is determined 
 not to see. It is moreover inflicting a wrong upou 
 the results of criticism to clothe them in that heavy 
 syllogistic form in which the mediocre intellects, 
 excel, and which delicate considerations could never 
 assume. 
 
 An instance in point. The four canonical Gospels, 
 often report the same fact with very considerable 
 variations of circumstances. These are easily ac- 
 counted for by natural hypothesis for we have no 
 right to be more exacting with regard to the Gospels 
 than with regard to other historical or legendary 
 narratives which often present more startling contra-
 
 280 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 dictions. But it would appear that this constitutes 
 an altogether unanswerable objection against those 
 who think it incumbent to see in each of these 
 narratives a history literally true and exact in the 
 most minute details. This is, however, not the 
 case. For if the circumstances are only different 
 and not absolutely irreconcilable, they will say that 
 one of the texts has preserved details omitted by the 
 others and they will endeavour to make the various 
 circumstances meet at the risk of concocting the 
 most grotesque narrative out of them. If the cir- 
 cumstances are decidedly contradictory, they will 
 aver that the fact narrated occurred two or three 
 times, albeit that in the eyes of sound criticism 
 the narrators had the same event in view. Hence, 
 the narratives of John and the synoptics (by which 
 collective name are meant Matthew, Mark, and 
 Luke) of the last entry of Jesus into Jerusalem 
 being irreconcilable, the sticklers for harmony suppose 
 that he came thither twice, with scarcely an interval 
 between the two occurrences. Similarly, the three 
 denials of Peter being told differently by the four 
 Evangelists constitute in the opinion of those critics 
 eight or nine different denials, while Jesus predicted 
 that he would deny him only thrice. The circum- 
 stances attending the Besurrection give rise to 
 analogous difficulties, to which they oppose similar 
 soUitious. What is there to be said about such an 
 explanation ? That it is metaphysically impossible ? 
 No. It will always be impossible to silence the man 
 who will obstinately maintain it ; but it will always 
 be rejected by whosoever is gifted with more or less 
 critical education as contrary to all the laws of logical 
 hermeneutics, especially if it is often repeated. There 
 is no difficulty of which one cannot get rid by some 
 subtle argument, and in reality, a subtle argument 
 may sometimes be a true one. But there is no possi- 
 bihty of a hundred subtleties being true at the same 
 time. We may say the same with regard to the 
 " non-suit " opposed by certain exegetists to what
 
 The Future of Science. 281 
 
 they term negative argument, that is, to the induc- 
 tions drawn from the silence or absence of texts. 
 For instance ; because the most ancient of histories 
 of the Jews settled in Palestine offers no trace of 
 the accomplishment of the Mosaic prescriptions, the 
 rationalistic critic concludes from it that these pre- 
 scriptions did, as yet, not exist. " How do you 
 know," says the orthodox student, " but what they 
 may have existed without their being mentioned?" 
 The romance of Antar and the Moallacats does not 
 lead us to suppose the existence of any judiciary 
 institution, of any penalty whatsoever among the 
 Arabs, before the advent of Islamism. " How do you 
 know but what they may have had a jury without it 
 being mentioned?" To cope with such criticism, 
 we should want a text conceived as follows ; " The 
 Arabs at that period had no jury;" which text, I 
 admit, it would be difficult to find. You may as well 
 require a similar text to prove that artillery was not 
 known in Homeric times, and in general, for all the 
 results of criticism expressed in negative form. 
 
 This impossibility of imposing his results and of 
 silencing his adversaries may at first make the critic 
 impatient and goad him into entering that coarse 
 arena. That would be an unpardonable error. For 
 many long years to come still the critic will be a 
 soHtary creature and ought to confine himself to 
 merely regretting that the necessary education to 
 understand him should be confined to so small a 
 circle. How can it be otherwise, when the first 
 instruction received in childhood and which is often 
 the only philosophical doctrine of life, is the very 
 negation of criticism? Poetical and vague super- 
 stition is gross and nothing else. If the critical 
 spirit is much more wide-spread in Northern Germany 
 than in France, the cause lies no doubt in the differ- 
 ence of religious instruction, with us positive and 
 hard, with them not hard and fast and purely human. 
 
 \
 
 282 TJie Future of Science. 
 
 GHAPTEE XYI. 
 
 ffi WONDER whether I have succeeded in making people 
 ^understand the possibility of a scientific philosophy 
 which would no longer be a system of vain and 
 empty speculation, aiming at no real object, of 
 a science which would no longer be dry, barren, 
 exclusive, but which in becoming complete, would 
 become religious and poetical ? There is no word to 
 express that intellectual condition in which all the 
 elements of nature would be blended into one superior 
 harmony, and which, when realized in a human 
 being, would constitute the perfect man. I am 
 inclined to call it synthesis, in the special sense which 
 I will expl ainj ) 
 
 Just as tS^implest fact of the human understand- 
 ing as applied to a complex object is composed of 
 three actions ; (1) a general and confused view of 
 the whole ; (2) a distinct and analytical view of the 
 parts ; (3) a synthetical recomposition of the whole 
 with the knowledge one possesses of the parts ; so 
 the human intellect, in its march, traverses three 
 conditions which may be defined under the three 
 names of syncretism, analysis, synthesis, and which 
 correspond with these three phases of the under- 
 standing. 
 
 The first age of the human intellect which we too 
 often fancy to have been that of simplicity, was that 
 of complexity and confusion. We are too easily 
 persuaded that the simplicity which we conceive to 
 be logically anterior to complexity is also chrono-
 
 The Future of Science. 283 
 
 logically anterior to it ; as if that which, in regard to 
 our analytical processes is the simpler, ought to have 
 come into existence before the whole of which it is 
 a part. The language of the child, apparently more 
 simple, is in fact more compreliensive and more 
 closely knit together that that which explains word 
 for word the most carefully analyzed thought of ripe 
 age. The most profound linguists have been sur- 
 prised to find at the origin and among the peoples 
 we call children rich and complicated languages. 
 The primitive man has not the faculty of division, he 
 sees things in their natural state ; that is, organically 
 and in the plenitude of life (135). Nothing is abstract 
 to him, for abstraction means life piecemeal ; every- 
 thing is concrete and alive. The power of dis- 
 tinguishing is not given to man at his origin, the 
 first view is a general one, comprehensive, but ob- 
 scure and incorrect ; everything is huddled together 
 without distinction. Like the beiogs who are meant 
 to be perpetuated, the human intellect was, from its 
 initial moments, complete, though not developed ; 
 nothing has been added since, but everything has 
 been unfolded in its natural proportions, everything 
 has been put in its proper place. Hence, the extreme 
 complexity of the primitive works of the human 
 intellect. Everything was contained in a single 
 work, all the elements of humanity were gathered 
 into one unity, which was undoubtedly very far 
 removed from modern clearness, but which, it must 
 be admitted, was incomparably majestic. The sacred 
 hook is the expression of that first condition of the 
 human intellect. Let us take the sacred books of 
 ancient peoples and what do we find in them ? The 
 whole of the supra-sensitive life, the whole of a 
 nation's soul; her poesy; her heroic recollections; 
 her legislation, her politics, her code of morals ; her 
 history, her philosophy and science ; in short, her 
 religion. For the whole of this first development is 
 wrought in a religious form. The religion, the sacred 
 book of primitive peoples, is the syncretic accumu-
 
 284 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 latiou of all the Iminan elements of the nation. 
 Everything is there in a confused but withal beauti- 
 ful unit3^ Hence arises the lofty placidity of those 
 admirable works; antithesis, contention, distinctions 
 beiug banished from them, harmony and peace reign 
 supreme without ever being disturbed. To struggle 
 is the characteristic of the state of analysis. How 
 could religion and philosophy, poesy and science, 
 morality and politics have contended in those grand 
 primitive works, seeing that they repose side by side 
 on the same page, often in the same line ? The 
 rehgion was the philosophy, the poesy was the science, 
 the legislation was the morahty ; the whole of 
 humanity was condensed in each of its acts, or rather 
 tlie power of humanity was emitted complete in each 
 of its efforts. 
 
 Therein lies the secret of the incomparable beauty 
 of these primitive books, which are still the most 
 adequate representations of complete humanity. It 
 is idle to look specially for science in them ; the 
 science of our time is unquestionably better than 
 that which they contain. It is idle, too, to look for 
 philosophy in them, for we are beyond doubt better 
 analysts. It is, again, equally idle to look in them 
 for legislation and public law ; for the rulers of our 
 day are better informed, and that is not saying much. 
 But what we do find in them is " simultaneous 
 humanity," the grand harmony of human nature, 
 the likeness of our glowing youth. Hence, also, is 
 derived the superb poesy of those primitive types 
 in which was incarnated the doctrine of those demi- 
 gods who stand as religious ancestors to all nations 
 — Orpheus, Tlioth, Moses, Zoroaster, Vyasa and 
 Fohi, who are at once savants, poets, legislators, 
 social organizers, and, summing up all these qualities, 
 priests and mystagogues. These admirable types 
 still lasted for some time in the early ages of 
 analytical reflection, producing those primitive 
 "sages" who, though something more than mysta- 
 gogues, are not quite philosophers, and who have
 
 The Future of Science. 285 
 
 also their legend (a fabulous biography), though one 
 not so well formed as that of the initiators (a pure 
 myth). Such are Confucius, Lao-Tseu, Solomon, 
 Locman, Pythagoras. Empedocles, who form a 
 connecting link with the early philosophers by means 
 of the still more refined types of Solon, Zaleucus, 
 Numa, etc. 
 
 Such is human intelligence in the primitive ages. 
 It has its beauty, which our timid analysis cannot 
 rival. It is the divine life, of childhood, during 
 which God reveals Himself so closely to those who 
 know how to adore. I admire not less than M. de 
 Maistre does this ancient wisdom, wearing the crown 
 of the sage and the priestly robe. I regret its loss, 
 but I do not, on that account, blame the ages 
 devoted to the toilsome work of analysis, which, 
 inferior as they are in certain respects, represent, 
 after all, a necessary progress of the human mind. 
 
 The human mind, in fact, cannot remain steadfast 
 in this primitive unity. Thought, when applied 
 more closely to objects, recognizes their complexity 
 and the necessity of studying them piecemeal. 
 Primitive thought could see only one world; thought 
 in its second stage of years perceives a thousand 
 worlds, or rather sees a world in all things. Its gaze, 
 instead of becoming more extensive, pierces and 
 plunges downward; instead of taking a horizontal 
 direction, it extends vertically ; instead of losing 
 itself in a boundless horizon, it settles earthwards 
 and upon itself. It is the age of partial sight, 
 of exactitude, of precision, of the making of dis- 
 tinctions ; instead of creation we have analysis. 
 Thought becomes broken up and divided. The 
 primitive style possessed neither the division of 
 phrases nor the division of words. Analytical style 
 calls to its assistance a complicated mode of punctua- 
 tion, intended to dissect the different members. 
 There are poets, savants, moralists, philosophers, 
 politicians; there are even still theologians and 
 priests (136). This is singular, for as theology and
 
 ogg The Future of Science. 
 
 sacerdotalism are the complete form of primitive 
 developiueiit, oue would imagine that they would 
 liave disappeared with it. So they would have done 
 if humanity advanced with perfect harmony and pre- 
 cision. As such is not the case, theology and sacer- 
 dotalism survive that which should have been mortal 
 to them ; they remain one specialty among many 
 others. This is a contradiction in terms, for how are 
 you to make a specialty of that which is only some- 
 thing upon condition of being everything ? But as 
 analytical science imposes itself as a necessity, the 
 timid endeavour to conciliate this necessity with the 
 remains of institutions which are opposed to analysis, 
 and tbey fancy that they succeed in maintaining the 
 two things face to face. I repeat that if theology was 
 worth preserving, it would necessarily take the prece- 
 dence of all else, and all other things t\'ould only be 
 of importance by comparison with their bearing on 
 it. The theological point of view is in contradiction 
 with the analytical point of view ; the analytical 
 age ought to be atheistic and irreligious. But 
 Immanity, fortunately, prefers contradicting itself to 
 leaving without sustenance one of the essential 
 cravings of its being. 
 
 It is not of his own choice, it is by the fatality of 
 his nature, that man thus quits the delights of his 
 primitive garden, so smiling and so full of romance, 
 to j)lunge into the quicksands of critique and science. 
 One may regret these early attractions, just as, in the 
 prime of life, one often regrets the dreams and joys of 
 cbildboud; but one must go manfully onward, and, 
 JUbti-ad of casting longing looks behind, follow the 
 Iiard i)ath which will lead, no doubt, to a state of things 
 u tliousaud tiuies better. Even if the analytical 
 condition which we are traversing were distinctly 
 inferior to the primitive state (and it is only so in 
 certain i)articulars), analysis would, nevertheless, 
 represent a more advanced stage than syncretism, 
 because it is an intermediate stage which must be 
 gone througli m order to reach a higher state. True
 
 The Futuy^e of Science. 287 
 
 progress sometimes seems a retrogression and then 
 a return. The introgradations of humanity are like 
 those of the planets. Viewed from earth, they are 
 retrogradations ; but in reality they are not so. The 
 retrogradation appears as such only to the gaze of 
 those whose sight embraces but a limited portion 
 of the curve. Whether circular or spiralj as Goethe 
 would have it, the march of humanity is along a line 
 the two extremities of which meet. A vessel 
 navigating along the western and wild coast of the 
 United States in order to reach the eastern and 
 civilized coast, would, to all appearances, be nearer 
 its destination when starting than when it was being 
 assailed by the storms and snows of Cape Horn. 
 And yet, looking at the reality, this vessel would be 
 nearer its destination when off Cape Horn than it 
 was upon the banks of the Oregon. This great 
 circuit was unavoidable. In the same way, the 
 human mind will have had to traverse deserts in 
 order to reach the promised land. 
 
 Analysis is war. In the primitive synthesis, with 
 men's minds scarcely differing, harmony was a very 
 simple matter. But in the state of individualism, 
 liberty is ready to take umbrage ; each person is bent 
 upon saying what he thinks fit and cannot see why 
 he should subject his will and thought to those of 
 others. Analysis is the revolution and the negation 
 of the one, absolute law. Those who dream of peace 
 in this state dream of death. Eesolution is a neces- 
 sary element in it, and, whatever one may do, it will 
 take its course. Peace is not the lot of the analytical 
 state, and the analytical state is necessary for the 
 progress of human intelligence. Peace will only re- 
 appear with the great synthesis, upon the day when 
 men shall once again meet in the fond embrace of 
 reason and of human nature properly cultivated. 
 While this necessary transition is in progress, any- 
 thing like a general association is impossible. The 
 individual existence of each is too strong ; individu- 
 alities so marked in their characteristics will not
 
 288 The Future of Science. 
 
 allow themselves to be gathered up in sheaves. It 
 would be impossible in the present day to create 
 those great religious unities, those vast agglomera- 
 tions of souls into the one doctrine called religious, 
 or those military orders of the Middle Ages in which 
 BO many individualities quite insignificant in them- 
 selves became fused in view of one common aim. It 
 is easy to bind up the ears when they have been 
 cut or knocked off by the storm, but not so long as 
 they are growing. To allow oneself to become thus 
 absorbed in a great corporation, through which one 
 lives, and with the fame or prosperity of which one 
 becomes identified, one must have little individuality, 
 few views of one's own, simply a great fund of unre- 
 flecting energy ready to place at the service of a great 
 common idea. Eeflection would be insufficient to 
 bring about the unity ; diversity is the essential 
 characteristic of the philosophical epochs ; any great 
 dogmatic foundation is impossible in them. The 
 ju-imitive state was the age of solidarity. Crime 
 even was not regarded as individual; the substitu- 
 tion of the innocent for the guilty appeared quite 
 natural ; a misdeed was transmitted and became 
 hereditary. In the age of reflection, on the contrary, 
 such dogmas seem absurd ; each man answers only 
 for hinjself, each man is his own artificer. With us, 
 all knowledge is antithetical ; in face of good we see 
 evil ; in face of the beautiful the ugly ; when we 
 make an alTirmation, we deny, we see the objection, 
 we harden ourselves, we argue. In the primitive 
 age, on the contrary, an affirmation was plain and 
 bimple, with no going back upon it. 
 
 Assuredly, if analysis had no ulterior aim, it would 
 be distinctly inferior to the primitive syncretism. 
 For the latter seized the whole life, whereas analysis 
 docs not grasp it. But analysis is the necessary 
 condition of the true synthesis; this diversity will 
 anew dissolve itself into unity ; perfect science is 
 only possible upon condition of its being first of all 
 b:ibcd upon analysis and a clear view of the parts.
 
 The Future of Science. 289 
 
 The conditions of science are for humanity the same 
 as they are for the individual ; the individual only 
 knows thoroughly the whole of which he also knows 
 the separate elements one by one, as also the part 
 which these separate elements play on the whole. 
 Humanity will not be learned until the day that 
 science has explored every corner and put the living 
 being together again after having taken him to pieces. 
 Do not, therefore, sneer at the savant who sinks 
 deeper and deeper into this slough. No doubt, if 
 this toilsome operation was an end in itself, science 
 would be only an ungrateful and degrading pursuit. 
 But all is noble in view of the grand definite science, 
 wherein poetry, religion, science and morality will 
 find their lost harmony in complete reflection. The 
 primitive age was religious but not scientific ; the 
 later age will be at once religious and scientific. 
 Then there will be once more an Orpheus and a 
 Trismegistos, not to sing to peoples in a state of 
 childhood their fanciful dreams, but to teach a 
 humanity grown wise the marvels of reality. Then 
 there will be once more sages, poets and organizers, 
 legislators and priests, not to govern humanity in 
 the name of a vague instinct, but to lead it rationally 
 into its paths, which are those of perfection. Then 
 will appear, once more, superb types of human 
 character, which will recall the marvels of the early 
 ages. Such a state will seem a return to the primi- 
 tive age ; but between the two there will be the 
 abyss of analysis ; there will have been centuries of 
 patient and attentive study ; there will be the possi- 
 bility, in embracing the whole, to gain simultaneously 
 consciousness of the parts. No two things can be 
 more like each other than syncretism and synthesis ; 
 nothing can in reality be more diverse, for synthesis 
 virtually preserves within itself all analytical process ; 
 it assumes it and builds itself thereupon. All the 
 phases of humanity are, therefore, good, seeing that 
 they tend to what is perfect ; the only thing is that 
 they may perhaps be incomplete, because humanity
 
 290 The Future of Science. 
 
 accomplishes its work bit by bit, and draws its 
 sketches oue after the other, all in view of the grand 
 final tableau and of the ulterior epoch, in wjiich, 
 after having traversed syncretism and analysis, it 
 will complete the circle with synthesis. A little 
 reflection may have rendered impossible the marvel- 
 lous creations of instinct ; but complete reflection 
 will bring to life again the same works with a superior 
 degree of clearness and of determination. 
 
 Analysis is powerless to create. A simple synthesist, 
 devoid of critique, has more power to change the face 
 of the world and to make proselytes than the stern 
 and inaccessible philosopher. It is a great misfortune 
 to have discovered within oneself the springs of the 
 soul ; for one is always fearful of becoming self- 
 duped ; one regards with suspicion one's feelings, 
 joys and instincts. The simple-minded marches 
 straight ahead, with a determined step and with 
 uncouquered energy. The age in which criticism is 
 the most advanced is by no means the one best able 
 to realize the beautiful. Germany is the only country 
 in which literature allows itself to be influenced by 
 the preconceived theories of criticism. Each new 
 growth of literary production is brought about in that 
 country by a new system of aesthetics ; to which may 
 be attributed so much of what is artificial and affected 
 in its literature. The defect of the intellectual de- 
 velopment of Germany is the abuse of reflection : 
 I mean to say, the deliberate and intentional appli- 
 cation to spontaneous production of the laws which 
 are recognized in the anterior phases of thought. 
 The great result of the historical critique of the 
 nineteenth century, as applied to the history of the 
 human intelligence, is to have recognized the neces- 
 sary ebb and flow of the systems, to have got a dim 
 i<h3a of some of the laws according to which they are 
 piled the one upon the other, and the way in which 
 they incessantly oscillate towards the truth, when 
 they foflow their natural course. This is a specula- 
 tive truth of the first order, but one which becomes
 
 The Future of Science. 291 
 
 very dangerous when put into application. For to 
 conclude from this principle "The ulterior system 
 is always the best," that any superficial or frivolous 
 person who may happen to utter some drivel after 
 a man of genius is preferable to the latter because he 
 is chronologically posterior to him, this is, in sooth, 
 to give mediocrity too much the best of it. And yet 
 this is what too often happens in Germany. After 
 a great philosophical or critical work has appeared, 
 it is certain that a whole swarm of " advanced 
 thinkers," so-called, will spring up, with the pre- 
 tension of outvying it, when in reality they often 
 merely contradict it. I cannot too strongly insist 
 that the law of the progress of systems is only 
 applicable when their production is perfectly spon- 
 taneous, and when their authors, without thinking 
 of anticipating each other, concentrate their atten- 
 tion only on the intrinsic and objective consideration 
 of things. To neglect this important condition is to 
 hand over the development of the human intelligence 
 to chance or to the grotesque claims of a few vain 
 and presumptuous individuals (137). 
 
 Criticism does not understand the art of assimila- 
 tion. Dogmatic eclecticism is only possible upon 
 the condition of not being too closely tied down. 
 Our attempts to effect a fusion between doctrines 
 fail because we know them too well. The early 
 Christians, the Alexandrians, the Arabs, the men of 
 the Middle Ages and Mahomet were able to practise 
 an eclecticism far more powerful than ours, because 
 it was much more in the rough. They did not 
 possess such exact knowledge as we do, and they had 
 less of criticism ; these elements they mixed up, 
 without knowing whence they came. They amalga- 
 mated without scruple, mixing up the whole without 
 any particular regard to details, putting in their 
 originality without being aware they were doing so. 
 Criticism, upon the contrary, cannot digest; the 
 morsels remain whole ; so that it is easy to see the 
 difference. The dogma of the Divinity would never
 
 SJl 
 
 The Future of Science. 
 
 have been foriued if the Cliristiau doctors had takeu 
 iuto account the thousand variations of detail which 
 we see. Modern eclecticism is excellent as a prin- 
 ciple of criticism, but barren as an attempt at 
 dogmatic fusion ; it will never be anything more 
 than a piece of marquetery work ; a juxtaposition of 
 distinct pieces. In former times, a new spirit or new 
 institutions were formed by a thorough mixture of 
 different principles, just as our coarsest ahments are 
 transformed by cooking. The institutions or dogmas 
 of the past were taken as they came, and arranged 
 according to individual fancy. The Middle Ages 
 made for themselves an empire out of ancient and 
 very inaccurate recollections. If the Middle Ages 
 had been as famihar with history as we are, they 
 would not have indulged in this pretty fancy. The 
 counter-sense {contreseuii) had much to do with these 
 strange creations, and I hope some day to show the 
 part it played in the formation of our most essential 
 dogmas ; or rather the uncritical tendency sought to 
 discover its aim in the past, and, in order to do so, 
 fashioned the past at its fancy. This, assuredly, is a 
 rude kind of science, if ever there was one. Never- 
 theless, it created more than ours has, thanks to its 
 very rudeness. Clear and dehcate vision serves only 
 to draw distinctions ; analysis can never be more 
 tljan mere analysis. 
 
 And yet analysis is, in its way, a progress. In 
 syncretism, all the elements were jumbled together 
 without that precise distinction which characterizes 
 analysis ; without that splendid unity which results 
 from perfect synthesis. It is only in the second 
 degree that the parts begin to outline themselves 
 clearly, and this is done, it must be confessed, at the 
 cost of that unity of which the primitive state offered 
 Ht all events the outward show. Then it is the 
 njultiplicity, the division which predominate until 
 synthesis, taking possession of these isolated parts— 
 which having had a separate existence, are hence- 
 forth conscious of the fact— fuses them anew in a 
 superior unity.
 
 The Future of Science. 293 
 
 In reality, this great law is not solelj^ the law of 
 human intelligence (138). Evolution from a primi- 
 tive and syncretic germ by the analysis of its 
 members, and fi-esh unity resulting from this analysis, 
 such is the law of all that has life. A germ is 
 deposited, containing in posse, without distinction, 
 all that the beiug will some day become ; the germ 
 develops, the forms become constituted in theii' 
 regular proportions, that which was potential be- 
 comes a fact ; but nothing is created, nothing is 
 added. I have often successfully used the following 
 comparison to make this view understood. Let us 
 imagine a mass of homogeneous hemp, drawn out in 
 separate strands, the mass will represent syncretism, 
 in which all instincts have a confused existence ; the 
 strands will represent analysis. If we imagine the 
 strands, while remaining distinct, to be afterwards 
 interlaced so as to form a rope, we have the 
 synthesis, which differs from the primitive syn- 
 cretism, insomuch as that the individualities, while 
 knotted together in unity, remain distinct. In an 
 hypothesis which I am far from assuming as dog- 
 matically certain, but merely as a striking illustra- 
 tion of the system of things, the law of God would 
 not be very different from this. Primitive unity was 
 without life, for life can only exist upon the condition 
 of analysis and of the opposition of the parts. The 
 being was as if he did not exist ; for nothing was 
 distinct in him ; the whole was without individual- 
 ization or separate existence. Life only began when 
 the obscure and confused unity was developed in 
 multiplicity and became the universe. But the 
 universe, again, is not the complete form ; the unity 
 is not sufficiently distinct in it. The return to unity 
 operates in it by the intelligence, for the intelligence 
 is merely the unique outcome of a certain number of 
 multiple elements. The history of the being will 
 only be complete when multiplicity is entirely con- 
 verted into unity, and when from everything that 
 exists shall issue an unique resultant which will be
 
 294 * Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 God, just as iu mau, the soul is the resultant of all 
 the 'elemeuts which compose it. God will then 
 be the soul of the universe, and the universe will be 
 the body of God, and life will be complete ; for all 
 the parts of that which is will have lived apart 
 and will be ripe for unity. The circle will then be 
 closed, and the being, after having traversed the 
 multiple, will anew rest in the unity. But why, it 
 may be asked, emerge therefrom to re-enter it again ? 
 What good will the voyage athwart the multiple 
 have done? The good will be that all will have 
 lived its own life, and that thus analysis will have 
 been introduced into the unity. For life is not 
 absolute unity or multiplicity; it is multipKcity in 
 unity, or rather multiplicity resolving itself into 
 unity (139). 
 
 The perfection of life in the animal is in direct 
 ratio to the distinctiveness of its organs. The lower 
 animal, in appearance more homogeneous, is, in 
 reality, inferior to the vertebrated animal, because 
 a grand central existence is the outcome, in the 
 latter, of several perfectly distinct elements. France 
 is the first among nations, because she is the unique 
 concert resulting from an infinity of different sounds. 
 The perfection of humanity will not be the extinction, 
 but the harmony of nationalities ; nationalities con- 
 tinue to increase rather than diminish in strength ; 
 to destroy a nationality is to destroy a sound 
 in humanity. "Genius," writes Michelet, "is only 
 genius in that it is at once simple and analytical, at 
 once child and full-grown man and woman, barbarian 
 and civilized (140)." In the same way, science 
 will only be perfect when it is at once analytical 
 and synthetical ; when exclusively analytical, it is 
 narrow, dry and scanty; when exclusively syn- 
 thetical, it is chimerical and gratuitous. Man will 
 only really have knowledge when, while affirming the 
 general law, he has a clear view of all the detailed 
 facts which it implies. 
 
 All the special sciences start by the affirmation of
 
 The Future of Science. 295 
 
 unity, and only begin to distinguish when analysis 
 has revealed numerous differences where before had 
 been visible nothing but uniformity. Bead the 
 Scottish psychologists, and you will find at each 
 page that the primary rule of the philosophical 
 method is to maintain distinct that which is distinct, 
 not to anticipate facts by a hurried reduction to 
 unity, not to recoil before the multiplicity of causes. 
 Nothing can be better, but upon the condition that, 
 by an ulterior outlook, one makes sure that this 
 reduction to unity, which is not yet ripe, will one 
 day be effected. It would, assuredly, be very strange 
 that there should be in nature sixty-one simple 
 bodies, neither more nor less ; that there should be in 
 man eight or ten faculties, neither more nor less. 
 Unity is at the foundation of things, but science 
 must wait for its appearance, while still feeling 
 assured that it will appear. It is an error to reproach 
 science with thus reposing in diversity, but science, 
 upon the other hand, would be wrong if it did not 
 make its reservations and recognize this temporary 
 diversity as being destined to disappear some day 
 after a deeper investigation of nature. 
 
 The present state is open to criticism and is incom- 
 plete. True science, the complete and felt science, 
 will be for the future, if civilization is not once again 
 arrested in its march by blind superstition and the 
 invasion of barbarism, in one form or another. But, 
 whatever happens, even should a Renaissance become 
 necessary, it is unquestionable that it would take 
 place, that the barbarians would look to us as to the 
 ancients to advance further than we have done, and 
 to obtain in their turn new points of view. Then 
 pity will be felt for us, the men of the age of analysis, 
 reduced to see nothing but a corner of things ; but 
 we shall be honoured for having preferred humanity 
 to ourselves, for having deprived ourselves of the 
 pleasure of general results, in order to put the future 
 in the position of being able to deduce them with 
 certainty, very different from those egotistical
 
 ngg The Futwe of Science. 
 
 thinkers of the early ages, who endeavoured to im- 
 provise for themselves a system of things rather than 
 to rather for the future the elements of the solution. 
 Our method is par excellence the disinterested one ; 
 we do not labour for ourselves ; we are willing to be 
 ignorant in order that the future may have know- 
 ledge ; we labour for humanity. 
 
 This patient and severe method seems to me to be 
 suited to France, which, of all countries, has prac- 
 ticed with the most firmness the positive method, 
 but which is also the one in which abstruse specula- 
 tion has been the most barren. Without accepting 
 in all its fulness the reproach which Germany levels 
 at us, of understanding absolutely nothing in religion 
 or iu metaphysics, I admit that the religious sense 
 is a very weak one in France, and it is precisely on 
 that account that we attach more importance than 
 others, in religion, to narrow formulae which exclude 
 altogether the ideal. This is why there will never 
 ill France be any medium between the strictest 
 Catholicism and incredulity ; this is why it is so 
 difficult to make people understand that, if you are 
 not a Catholic, you are not necessarily a Voltairian. 
 The metaphysical speculations of the French school 
 (excepting, perhaps, Malebranche) have always been 
 l)altry and timid. The true French philosophy is 
 the scientific pliilosophy of a Dalembert, a Cuvier, 
 or a Geoffrey St. Hilaire. Theological development 
 has been quite null in France ; there is no country 
 in Europe where religious thought has been less 
 active. Strange to say, the very men who have 
 been so quiet, so delicate, so swift to note the 
 bhglitest shades of difference in real life are regular 
 snnpletons in metaphysics, and accept without 
 question enormities which to the critical sense are 
 simply revolting. They feel this, and do not concern 
 tluausolves with them. But as the need for a 
 religion is one common to humanity, they find it 
 couvenieut to take ready made the system which lies 
 handy, without stopping to consider whether it is
 
 The Future of Science. 297 
 
 acceptable (141). Eeligion has always in France 
 been a sort of separate wheel, a stereotyped form, 
 like "■ Louis by the grace of G-od," having no con- 
 nection with the remainder and which is not read ; 
 a dead letter. Our religious wars are in reality only 
 civil or party wars. If France had possessed a 
 stronger religious sentiment, she would have become 
 Protestant, like Germany. But not having the 
 sentiment of the theological movement, she saw no 
 half-way house between a given system and the dis- 
 dainful repudiation of this system. France is in 
 religion what the East is in politics. The East can 
 imagine no other government than an absolute one. 
 Only, when absolutism becomes intolerable, the 
 sovereign is stabbed. This is the only political 
 tempering understood there. France is the most 
 orthodox country in the world, for it is the least 
 religious and the most positive country. The 
 Franklin type of man, the man of the present day 
 who is as atheistic as possible, is often the one most 
 closely attached to formulae. If clever people look 
 into the matter at all closely, they either fall back 
 with characteristic facility upon our incompetency 
 to judge matters of this kind, or else they fairly 
 laugh at us. There is among unbelievers even, in 
 France, a certain fund of Catholicism. The pure 
 ideal religion, which, in Germany, has so many 
 proselytes, is quite unknown with us (142). A system 
 ready made, which it is not necessary to understand 
 and which spares us the pains of searching, that is 
 what France requires in religion, because she quite 
 understands that she has not the delicate perception 
 of things of this kind. France pre-eminently repre- 
 sents the analytical, revolutionary, profane and irre- 
 ligious period of humanity ; and it is because of her 
 very powerlessness in religion that she clings with 
 this sceptical indifference to tbe formulae of the past. 
 It may be that some day France, having accom- 
 plished her task, will become an obstacle to the 
 progress of humanity and disappear ; for the parts
 
 298 TJie Future of Science. 
 
 !ire quite distinct; the man who has effected the 
 analysis does not do the synthesis. To each his 
 work, such is the law of history. France will have 
 been the great revolutionary instrument, will she be 
 equally powerful for religious re-edification ? The 
 future will show, but, be this as it may, she has done 
 enough for fame in having delineated one side of 
 liunianity.
 
 The Future of Science. 299 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Would to God that I could have succeeded in making 
 clear to a few lofty minds that there is in the pure 
 cultivation of human faculties and of the divine 
 objects which they attain a religion as suave, as rich 
 in delights, as the most venerable forms of worshi}?. 
 I have tasted in my childhood and early youth the 
 purest joys of the believer, and I say from the bottom 
 of my heart that these joys are nothing by comparison 
 with what I have felt in the pure contemplation of 
 the beautiful and the passionate search after truth. 
 I wish to all my brethren who have remained orthodox 
 a peace to be compared with that in which I live 
 since my struggle is over and since the appeased 
 storm has left me in the midst of this great pacific 
 ocean, a sea without wind or shore, upon which one 
 has no star but reason, no compass but one's own 
 heart. 
 
 A scruple, however, sometimes rises within me, 
 and the idea which I have endeavoured to express in 
 these pages would be incomplete if I did not offer 
 the solution of it here. It is, in fact, the grand 
 objection incessantly raised against rationalism ; and 
 I am anxious to express my feelings upon this point. 
 Science and humanism, I may be told, offer you 
 sufficient religious sustenance. But can the religion 
 be that of all the world ? Can the man of the people, 
 bending beneath a never-ending toil, the limited 
 intelligence, to which the secrets of a higher life 
 must ever be a closed book, hope to have his part in
 
 300 The Future of Science. 
 
 this worsliip of the perfect ? That if your rehgion 
 is for a small miuority, that if it exchides the poor 
 aud tlie humble, it is not the true oue ; more than 
 that, it is barbarous and immoral, inasmuch as it 
 bauishes from the kingdom of Heaven those who are 
 already dispossessed of the joys of earth. 
 
 Tliese objections are all the stronger because I am 
 the first to admit that science, to arrive at this 
 deo^ree in which it offers a religious and moral aliment 
 to the soul, must elevate itself above the vulgar 
 level, that ordinary scientific education is here quite 
 iusuflicient, that you must have, in order to realize 
 this idea, a life entirely devoted to study, a scientific 
 asceticism which never falters and the most absolute 
 renunciation of the pleasures, the business and the 
 affairs of this world ; that not only the ignorant man 
 is radically incapable of understanding a word of this 
 system of life, but that even the immense majority 
 of those who are looked upon as educated and culti- 
 vated are absolutely incapable of attaining to it. 
 
 Yes, I admit that rational and pure religion is only 
 accessible to the small minority. The number of 
 philosophers has been, as it were, imperceptible in 
 humanity. The most modest of religions has had a 
 thousand times as many followers and has had more 
 iufluenoe upon the destinies of humanity than all the 
 schools put together. Philosophy after our fashion 
 presupposes a long period of culture and habits of 
 thought which very few are capable of. I do not 
 know_ whether it is possible anywhere in France out- 
 bide Paris to place oneself properly at this point of 
 view, and I should be afraid of going too far if I said 
 that there are now in the world two or three thou- 
 sand persons capable of worshipping after this fashion. 
 But the humble are not, on that account, excluded 
 from the ideal. Their formulae, although inferior, 
 suffice to make them lead a noble life, and the people 
 more especially have in their grand instincts and 
 powerful spontaneousness an ample compensation 
 lor wliiit is (lc)ii(Ml tlicm in tlic way of science and
 
 The Future of Science. :30t 
 
 reflection. Is he who can understand the preaching 
 of a village Jocelyn, and these parables, 
 
 Oil le maitre, abaisse jusqu'au sens des humains, 
 Faisait toucher le ciel aux plus petites mains, 
 
 disinherited from the heavenly life ? All men, by 
 the sole fact of their participation in human nature, 
 have their right to the ideal ; but it would be running 
 counter to evidence to pretend that all are equally 
 apt to taste the delights of it. While repeating with 
 Michelet " Oh ! who will deliver me from the bond 
 of inequality!" while admitting that, in respect to 
 intelligence, inequality is harder to bear for the 
 privileged man than for the inferior, it must be said 
 that this inequality is in the nature of things, and 
 that the theological formula is in this particular 
 perfectly true ; all men have sufficient grace to work 
 out their own salvation ; but all are not called to the 
 same state of perfection. Mary has the better part 
 which shall not be taken from her. What may be 
 regarded as certain is that if humanity were as 
 highly cultivated as we are, it would have the same 
 religion as we have. 
 
 If, therefore, you blame the philosopher for the 
 exceptional excellence of his religion, you mnst also 
 blame the man who seeks in the ascetic life a higher 
 perfection for being called to an exceptional state. 
 You must also reproach the man who cultivates his 
 mind for breaking the vulgar line of humanity. It 
 must be allowed, painful as the admission may be, 
 that perfection, in the present state of society, is 
 possible only to very few. Are we to conclude from 
 this that perfection is bad and injurious to humanity? 
 Assuredly not ; we need only rpgret that it is subject 
 to such narrow conditions. It is intolerable pride 
 on the part of the philosopher to imagine that he 
 has the monopoly of the higher life ; it would be 
 a very blameworthy piece of egotism for him to 
 rejoice in his isolation and designedly to prolong 
 the degradation of his fellow-men in order that he
 
 302 The Future of Science. 
 
 might have no equals. But it cannot be imputed as 
 [I crime to him that he should raise himself above 
 the common level, and exclaim with St. Paul : Cupio 
 ovines fieri quails et ego cum. Do not therefore con- 
 tend that the inferiority of philosophy consists in 
 its being accessible to the small minority ; for this 
 is, on the contrary, its chief title to glory. The only 
 ])ractical conclusion to be drawn from this melancholy 
 truth is that one should labour to hasten the advent 
 of the blessed day in which all men will have their 
 jilace in the sunshine of intelligence and will be 
 called to the true light of the children of God. 
 
 It would be a very pleasant but very chimerical 
 optimism to hope that this day is at hand. But it 
 is the property of faith to hope against hope, and 
 there is nothing, after all, which the past does not 
 justify us in hoping from the future of humanity. 
 For how different were the conditions of intellectual 
 culture in the antiquity of Greece from what they 
 are to-day. In the present day, science and philo- 
 sophy are a profession. " One does not get credit 
 with the world," says Pascal, "for understanding 
 poetry if one has not hung out the poet's sign, nor 
 for being clever at mathematics, if one has not dis- 
 ])layed that of the mathematician." In the noble 
 ages of antiquity, a man was philosopher or poet, as 
 one is an honest man in all situations of life. No 
 practical interest, no official institution were 
 necessary to stimulate the zeal for research or for 
 the production of poetry. Spontaneous curiosity, 
 the instinct of what was beautiful, sufficed. Am- 
 monius Saccas, the founder of the highest and most 
 leanied philosophical school of antiquity, was a 
 porter. Imagine a market porter of the present day 
 creating in Prance an order of speculation analogous 
 to the philosophy of Schelling or of Hegel. When 
 I think of the noble people of Athens, where every 
 one felt and lived the life of the nation, of this 
 l>eople whicli applauded Sophocles' plays, of this 
 people which criticized Isocrates, of this people
 
 The Future of Science. 303 
 
 where the women said : "This, then, is Demosthenes," 
 of this people where a female vendor of herbs detected 
 Theophrastiis to be a stranger, where every one had 
 been taught in the same gymnasia and had learnt 
 the same songs, where every one knew Homer and 
 understood him in the same sense, I cannot help 
 feeling rather sore at our society being so profoundly 
 divided into men of culture and barbarians. With 
 the Greeks, all men had their share in the same 
 souvenirs, all gloried in the same trophies (143), all 
 had contemplated the same Minerva and the same 
 Jupiter. What are Racine, Bossuet, Buffon and 
 Flechier to our fellow-countrymen? What do they 
 know of the heroes of Louis XIV., of Conde and 
 Turenne ? What meaning do Nordlingen and Fon- 
 tenoy (144) convey to them ? The people in our day 
 are disinherited from the intellectual life ; there is 
 no literature for them. There was only one kind of 
 taste at Athens — the taste of the people, good taste. 
 With us there is the popular taste and the taste of men 
 of refinement ; the distinguished kind and the petty 
 kind. In order to appreciate our literature, a man 
 must be well-read, a critic and more or less of a wit. 
 The vulgar herd admires without knowing why, and 
 does not venture upon a judgment of its own upon 
 works which exceed the limits of its intelligence. 
 Germany does not know what provincial taste is 
 because she has no taste of the capital; antiquity 
 had nothing of the weak and popular style because 
 it had no aristocratic literature. 
 
 I cannot conceive an elevated mind remaining 
 indifferent to sach a spectacle and not suffering at 
 the sight of the greater part of humanity being 
 excluded from the domain which it possesses and 
 which might so readily be divided. There are some 
 people who do not understand happiness except as 
 an exceptional favour to themselves, and who would 
 not appreciate wealth, education and intelhgence if 
 they were the possession of all the world. These 
 latter do not love perfection in itself, but relative
 
 ;}04 The Future of Science. 
 
 superiority; they are full of vanity and egotism. 
 For my own part, perfect happiness is, as I under- 
 stand it, that all men should be perfect. I cannot 
 understand how the opulent man can fully enjoy his 
 opulence, while he is obliged to veil his face in 
 presence of the misery of a portion of his fellow- 
 creatures. My greatest sorrow is to reflect that all 
 cannot share my happiness. There will only be 
 happiness when all are equal, but there will only be 
 equality when all are perfect. What pain for the 
 savant and the thinker to find themselves, through 
 their very excellence, isolated from humanity, having 
 their world apart and their behef apart ! And yet you 
 wonder that with this they are sometimes sad and 
 solitary I But even if they were in possession of the 
 infinite, of absolute truth, they could not but be 
 pained at possessing it alone, or fail to regret the 
 commonplace dreams which they at least had in 
 common with their fellow-men. There are souls 
 which cannot endure this isolation, and wrhich prefer 
 attaching themselves to the weak rather than to 
 stand out by themselves in humanity. I admire 
 and like these men. . . . xVt the same time, the 
 savant cannot follow this course, even if he wished to 
 do so, for what has been proved to him to be false is 
 henceforward incapable of being accepted. The 
 spectacle of the physical sufi'erings of the poor is, no 
 doubt, a lamentable one, but I confess it does not 
 come home to me so keenly as to see the immense 
 majority of my fellow-men condemned to intellectual 
 helotism, to see men similar to myself, possessing 
 perhaps intellectual and moral faculties superior to 
 my own, reduced to a state of brutal degradation, 
 unfortunate passengers through life who are born, 
 live and die without having for a moment lifted their 
 eyes from the servile instrument which gives them 
 tlieir daily bread, without having for a single moment 
 Ijreathed in God. 
 
 One of the commonplaces most frequently repeated 
 by vulgar minds is this : To initiate the masses
 
 The Future of Science. 305 
 
 devoid of fortune into the intellectual culture usually 
 reserved for the higher classes of society is too often 
 for them a source of pain and suffering. Their edu- 
 cation will merely serve to make them feel the social 
 want of proportion, and to render theii' condition in- 
 tolerahle. That is, I repeat, just the bourgeois view, 
 which only envisages intellectual culture as a com- 
 plement to worldly fortune, and not as a moral good. 
 Yes, I admit that the simple are the happiest ; but 
 is that a reason for not raising oneself ? Yes, 
 these poor creatures will be more unhappy when 
 their eyes are opened. But it is not a question of 
 being happy ; it is a question of being perfect. They 
 are as well entitled as others to the nobility of suffer- 
 ing. Eemember that the question at issue is true 
 religion, the only thing which is serious and sacred. 
 
 I can understand the most radical divergencies as to 
 the best means of operating for the greatest good of 
 humanity, but I do not understand that honest minds 
 should differ as to the aim and substitute egotistical 
 ends for the great divine end : perfection and life for 
 all. Upon this first question, there are only two 
 classes of men : the honest men who subordinate 
 themselves to the great social end, and the immoral 
 men who are resolved to get enjoyment, and who 
 care little whether they do so at the cost of others. 
 If it were true that humanity was so constituted that 
 there was nothing to be done for the general good, 
 if it were true that politics consisted in stifling the 
 cries of the wretched and in looking with folded arms 
 upon evils as if they w^ere without a remedy, nothing 
 could induce noble minds to endure life. If the 
 world were thus constituted, we should have no 
 alternative but to curse God and then commit suicide. 
 f^^ not enough for the progress of human intelli- 
 gence that a few isolated thinkers should reach very 
 advanced posts, and that a few heads should shoot 
 up like wild oats above the common level. Of what 
 service is the most magnificent discovery if only a 
 hundred persons or so are to profit by it ? How is
 
 306 The Future of Science. 
 
 humanity served if seven or eight persons have been 
 able to perceive the true reason of things ? A result 
 can only be regarded as acquired when it has entered 
 into general circulation. Now the results of abstruse 
 science are not of the kind which have simply to be 
 enunciated. Mens' minds have to be raised up to 
 them. It would be all very well for Kant and Hegel 
 to be right ; their science, in the present condition 
 of things, would be incapable of being communicated. 
 Would this be their fault ? Not at all, but that of 
 the barbarians who cannot understand them, or 
 rather the fault of the society responsible for the 
 existence of barbarians. A civilization is only really 
 strong when it has a widely extended basis. An- 
 tiquity had thinkers almost as advanced as our own, 
 and yet ancient civilization perished owing to its 
 paucity, buried beneath the multitude of barbarians. 
 It did not rest upon a sufficiently large number of 
 men ; it disappeared not for want of intensity, but 
 for lack of extension. It is a matter of great urgency, 
 I take it, to enlarge the whirl of humanity ; other- 
 wise a few individuals might reach heaven while the 
 mass is still dragging along upon the earth. A pro- 
 gress of that kind would not be a genuine one and 
 would be of no effect. 
 
 If intellectual culture was merely a form of enjoy- 
 ment, it would not be a cause of complaint that only 
 a minority had a share in it, for man has no right to 
 enjoyment. But from the moment that it is a religion, 
 and the most perfect of rehgions, it becomes barbarous 
 to deprive a single soul of it. Formerly, in the age 
 of Christianity, that was not so revolting ; upon the 
 contrary, the lot of the unfortunate and the simple was 
 in one sense to be envied, inasmuch as they were nearer 
 to the kingdom of God. But the charm has been 
 broken and cannot be restored. The outcome of this 
 is very shocking, for we see men condemned to suffer, 
 without a single moral thought, without an elevated 
 idea, without a noble sentiment, retained only by force^ 
 hke brutes in a cage. That, assuredly, is intoleral
 
 The Future of Science. 307 
 
 But what is to be done ? Are these beasts to be 
 let loose upon men ? No, for humanity and civiliza- 
 tion must be saved at any cost. Are the brutes to 
 be kept under lock and key and well beaten when 
 they offer resistance ? That is a horrible alternative. 
 No, they must be made men of, they must be given 
 their part in the delights of the ideal, they must be 
 elevated, ennobled, made worthy of liberty. Till 
 that is done, to preach liberty will be equivalent to 
 preaching destruction; it will be very much as if, 
 out of respect for the right of bears and lions, one 
 opened the bars of a menagerie. Until then, violent 
 actions are necessary, and although to be condemned 
 in the analytical appreciation of facts, they are, in 
 effect, legitimate. The future will absolve them, as 
 we absolve the great Ee volution, while deploring its 
 culpable acts and stigmatizing those who provoked 
 them. 
 
 But it is a waste of time to vex one's mind over 
 these problems. They are in a speculative sense 
 insoluble ; they will be solved by brute force. It is 
 like reasoning upon the crater of a volcano, or at the 
 foot of a dyke when the waters are rising. Humanity 
 has many a time thus found itself arrested in its 
 march like an army brought up short by some un- 
 fathomable precipice. The shrewdest then lose their 
 heads, and human prudence is at its wit's end. The 
 wisest suggest turning back and making a circuit of 
 the precipice. But the crowd behind is ever pressing 
 forward ; those in the foremost ranks are toppled 
 over into the yawning gulf, and when their bodies 
 have filled up the abyss, the last comers pass over 
 on the level. God be praised, the abyss is crossed. 
 A cross is erected at the spot, and the tender hearted 
 come and weep there. 
 
 Or, to take another comparison, it is as when an 
 army has to cross a broad and deep river. The 
 cooler heads wish to build a bridge or to construct 
 pontoons, but the more impatient determine to let 
 the men swim across ; three-fourths perish, but any-
 
 308 The Future of Science. 
 
 how the river has been crossed. Humanity, having 
 at its disposal forces without limit, does not show 
 itself very economical in regard to them. These 
 terrible problems are insoluble, and one can only 
 fold arms and look on in despair. Humanity will 
 leap over the obstacle and do all for the best. Abso- 
 lution for the living, and holy water for the dead ! 
 
 Oh ! how fortunate it is that passion undertakes 
 these cmel executions. Men of delicate mind would 
 hesitate too much and go to work too timidly. 
 ^Yhen the work to be done is to found the future 
 while inflicting blows upon the past, you require 
 some of those redoubtable sappers who are not 
 affected by woman's tears, and who are not afraid to 
 use the axe. It is only by a revolution that institu- 
 tions which have been long since condemned can be 
 destroyed. In a time of tranquillity, people cannot 
 make up their mind to strike, even when that at 
 which the blow is aimed has ceased to have any 
 raison cVetre. Those who believe that the renovation 
 which was necessitated by all the intellectual triumph 
 of the eighteenth century could have been effected 
 peacefully are mistaken. Efforts would have been 
 made to compromise, a thousand personal considera- 
 tions, which in time of peace are much prized, would 
 have been brought into "play ; " no one would have 
 dared to abolish outright either the privileges or the 
 religious orders, or so many other abuses. The 
 tempest took this in hand. The temporal power of 
 the Popes is assuredly out of date. Yet if everybody 
 had this opinion, no one would make up his mind to 
 clear away this relic of the past. We must wait for 
 the next earthquake to do that. Nothing is done in 
 times of tranquillity; it is only in revolution that 
 people show daring. One should always endeavour 
 to lead humanity in the paths of peace and to let 
 revolutions glide along the soft inchnes of time, but 
 if one is more or less critical, one is fain to admit to 
 oneself that this is impossible, that the matter 
 cannot be effected in that way. But in any case the
 
 The Future of Science. 309 
 
 thing will be done in one way or another. It is a 
 waste of time to calculate and cunningly combine the 
 means ; for brutality will have its finger in the pie, 
 and there is no calculating with brutality. We have 
 here an antinomy and an unstable equilibrium, as in 
 so many other questions relative to humanity, when 
 we envisage them exclusively in the present. There 
 are men who are necessarily detested and cursed by 
 their age ; the future will explain them and say with 
 calm impartiality : it was necessary that there should 
 be men of that stamp (145). Moreover, this pos- 
 thumous rehabilitation is not rigorously just ; for as 
 they are nearly always immoral, they have had their 
 reward in the satisfaction of their brutal passions. 
 I can imagine in theory a virtuous revolutionist, who 
 would act in a revolutionary spirit through the sense 
 of duty and in view of the calculated good of hu- 
 manity, so that circumstances alone would be to 
 blame for his acts of violence. But as a matter of 
 fact there has never been any individual of the sort, 
 and it may be that such a character is outside the 
 limits of humanity. For such acts cannot occur 
 without passion being imported into them, and, upon 
 the other hand, such passions cannot fail to evoke 
 some disinterested view. The character of revolu- 
 tionists is very complex, and the extremely simple 
 explanations given of them are convicted of being 
 false by their very simplicity. 
 
 Theophylactus relates that Philippicus, a Eoman 
 general, being on the point of giving battle, began 
 to weep as he thought of the great number of men 
 who were about to be killed. Montesquieu calls that 
 bigotry, but it was, perhaps, merely the result of 
 a large heart. It is good to weep over these terrible 
 necessities, provided that the tears do not prevent 
 you from marching forward. What a cruel alterna- 
 tive for the high minded ! Either to form alliance 
 with the wicked and draw upon one the curses of 
 those one loves, or to sacrifice the futurCc 
 
 fWoe to him who brings about revolutions ; happy
 
 310 The Future of Science. 
 
 he who enjoys their fruits, and happier still they 
 who, born in a better age, will no longer need to 
 have resort to the most irrational and absurd means 
 to effect the triumph of reason. The moral point of 
 view is too narrow to explain history. One must 
 raise oneself up to the level of humanity, or, let it 
 rather be said, one must soar above humanity and 
 raise oneself to the Supreme Being, where all is 
 reason and where all differences are reconciled. 
 There is the great white light, which, lower down, 
 is refracted in a thousand hues separated by undis- 
 cernible limits. 
 
 M. Pierre Leroux is right. We have destroyed 
 paradise and hell. Whether we have done right 
 or wrong, I cannot say, but it is certain that we 
 have done this. One cannot replant a paradise, 
 one cannot relight a hell. We must not remain 
 half-way. We must bring down paradise upon earth 
 that aU may enter it. And paradise will be here 
 below when all have their share in light, perfec- 
 tion, beauty, and therefore in happiness. When 
 the priest, with a congregation of believers around 
 him, preached resignation and submission, because, 
 after all, it was merely a question of suffering for 
 a short time, after which would come eternity, when 
 all sufferings would be reckoned as merits, that was 
 all right enough. But we have destroyed the in- 
 fluence of the priest, and it is not in our power to re- 
 estabhsh it. We decline to submit to it ourselves ; 
 it would be a strange thing that we should wish to 
 impose it upon others. Even supposing that we still 
 liad some influence upon the people, supposing that 
 our advice had some weight and would not rather 
 excite their mistrust, with what sort of a face could 
 we sceptics go and preach Christianity, which we 
 admit that we no longer have need of, to people who 
 require it, in order to make things comfortable for 
 us? What would be the name to give to such 
 a procedure ? For, since the beginning of the world, 
 has there been a single instance of such a miracle
 
 The Future of Science. 311 
 
 as lying and hypocritical scepticism making men 
 believers. Conviction alone effects conviction. I 
 have read — where, I forget — a history of some bonzes 
 guaranteeing to an old woman paradise in another 
 world, if she would give them her fortune in this one. 
 But the sceptic who preaches paradise and hell, in 
 which he does not believe, to a people which does 
 not believe in it either, plays a much more contemp- 
 tible part. " My friends, leave me the enjoyment 
 of this world, and I promise you enjoyment in the 
 next." This, assuredly, would be a very good comedy 
 scene, and the people, who have a very keen sense 
 of the humorous, would be much amused by it. 
 
 God forbid that I should say that belief in immor- 
 tality is not in one sense necessary and sacred. But 
 I maintain that when the sceptic preaches this con- 
 soling dogma to the poor without believing in it, 
 simply to keep him quiet, this should be termed 
 a swindle ; it is equivalent to making a payment in 
 notes which one knows to be bad ; it is turning the 
 simple out of the track of the real and the true by 
 means of a chimera. It cannot be denied that too 
 much concern for the life of the future is in some 
 respects injurious to the welfare of humanity. When 
 one reflects that all things will be rectified above, it 
 is no longer worth while to pursue so eagerly order 
 and equity here below. Our principle is that we 
 should regulate our present life just as if the future 
 life did not exist, that it is never justifiable to refer 
 to what is beyond in extenuation of any social con- 
 dition or action. To appeal incessantly to the future 
 life is to deaden the spirit of reform, to relax the zeal 
 for the rational organization of humanity. All the 
 work of social reform accomplished by the French 
 bourgeoisie since the eighteenth century rests upon 
 this implicitly recognized principle, that the present 
 life must be organized without regard to the future. 
 It is the surest way of not letting any one be made 
 a dupe. 
 
 But, it will be said, at all events do not interfere
 
 312 The Future of Science. 
 
 with the priest, who is a believer himself, and who, 
 therefore, may effect a conversion. True enough ; 
 but do not i^lace too much reliance upon this apostle- 
 ship improvised in a moment of panic ; the people 
 will feel that j^ou are very pleased that they should 
 be thus preached to, and will notice that you 
 remain incredulous. You may pay missionaries to 
 preach in all the villages ; but your incredulity 
 will be a more effective sermon than any they can 
 preach. 
 
 Well, then, let us be converted ourselves. To 
 make the people believe, we must ourselves believe. 
 Of all courses, this is the most impracticable ; re- 
 ligions are not to be resuscitated. A man cannot 
 be converted at will. You will believe in a moment 
 of panic ; you will try to believe. But what strange 
 Christians are the Christians of fear ! As soon as the 
 sun comes out, you will revert to your incredulity. 
 You may have driven Voltaire out of your library ; 
 you will not drive him out of your memory, for 
 Voltaire is yourself. 
 
 The idea, then, of containing the people by means 
 of ancient ideas must be given up. There remains 
 brute force, but be on your guard. Do not place much 
 rehance upon that ; helots in a minority are still the 
 stronger. One false step, one maladroit act will be 
 sufiicient for them to push you down and trample 
 upon you. Are you quite certain of not making 
 one false step in twenty years ? Remember that they 
 are there, behind you, waiting their opportunity. 
 And besides, this is immoral and intolerable when 
 one comes to think upon it. The happiness which 
 I enjoy is only to be had at the cost of a portion of 
 my fellow-creatures. If, for an instant, the mastiffs 
 whicli keep watch at the door of the ergastulum relax 
 tlieir vigil, all is over. I never have been able to 
 realize a sense of security in a country constantly 
 threatened with the invasion of the waters, nor moral 
 liajipmess in a society wliich presupposes the degra- 
 datioji of a part of the human race.
 
 The Future of Science. 313 
 
 Nor must you fail to remark the fatality which has 
 brought things to thi« point, and which has riveted 
 each link in the chain, and do not think that you 
 have said all there is to be said when you have 
 declaimed against this or that. It was by sheer 
 force of things that cultured humanity broke off the 
 yoke of ancient creeds, and was led to find them 
 unworthy of acceptation. Can it be blamed for this, 
 and can people believe what they please ? There is 
 nothing more fateful than reason. It was by the 
 fatal working of things, and without any impulse 
 from the philosophers, that the people in turn became 
 incredulous. Who is to be blamed for this, seeing 
 that it did not rest with the first sceptics to remain 
 believers, and that they would have been hypocrites 
 had they simulated a belief which they did not possess, 
 while it would have been of very little effect, seeing 
 that falsehood is powerless in the history of humanity. 
 It is, lastly, by the force of things, that the unbe- 
 lieving people has risen up against its masters in 
 unbelief and has said to them : " Give me my share 
 here below, seeing that you take from me my share 
 in heaven." Thus there is nothing but what har- 
 monizes in this development of the modern spirit ; 
 the whole march of Europe for four centuries is 
 summed up in this practical conclusion : to elevate 
 and ennoble the people, and to let all men have a share 
 in the delights of the intelligence. Turn the problem 
 about as you will, that is what it amounts to. In my 
 opinion, this is the capital question of the nineteenth 
 century ; all the other reforms are secondary and 
 premature, for they presuppose that one. To main- 
 tain a portion of humanity in a state of brutality is 
 immoral and dangerous, to give back to it the chain 
 of the ancient religious beliefs, which had a fairly 
 moralizing effect upon it, is impossible. Only one 
 course, therefore, remains, and that is to widen the 
 basis of the family and to find room for all at the 
 banqueting-table of light. Eome only escaped from 
 social wars by opening its ranks to allies, after having
 
 314 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 vanquished them. Thank God, we also have con- 
 (lu ered. Let us, therefore, open our ranks. 
 jT^ociety is not, in my opinion, a merely conven- 
 tional tie, an external institution and a simple matter 
 of pohce. Society has the charge of souls, it has 
 duties towards the individual ; it does not owe him 
 life, but the possibihty of life ; that is to say, the 
 first fund which, fertilized and multiplied by each 
 man's labour, will in due course become the aliment 
 of his physical, intellectual and moral life. Society 
 is not the atom-like and fortuitous assemblage of 
 individuals, as is, for instance, the tie which brings 
 together passengers by the same vessel. It is primi- 
 tive (146). If the individual were anterior to society, 
 his acceptance would be necessary for him to be 
 considered as a member of society and subject to its 
 laws, and one might conceive, for instance, the possi- 
 bihty of his refusing to participate in its liabilities 
 and advantages. But seeing that man is born into 
 society, as he is born to reason, he is no more free 
 to repudiate the laws of society than those of reason. 
 Man is not born free, with full liberty to afterwards 
 embrace voluntary servitude. He is born part of 
 society, he is born under the law. He is no more 
 entitled to complain of being subject to a law which 
 he has not accepted than he is to complain of being 
 born a man. The old societies had their sacred 
 books, their epics, their national rites, and their 
 traditions, which were, so to speak, the depot of 
 education and national culture. Each individual, 
 upon coming into the world, found, in addition to 
 the family, which does not suffice to make man, the 
 nation, which is the depository of another and higher 
 life. Christianity, which has destroyed the ancient 
 conception of the nation and of country, has taken 
 the place with modern peoples of this great national 
 culture, and for a long time has quite sufficed. Thus, 
 man lias always had open before him a grand school 
 of the higher life. Man, like the plant, is wild by 
 nature ; to be a man does not mean merely to have
 
 The Future of Science. 315 
 
 the human face or to reason upon a few plain sub- 
 jects after the fashion of other people. To be a man, 
 you must have intellectual and moral cultni^ej/ 
 
 I believe, with the Cathohcs, that our promne and 
 irreligious society, paying heed solely to order and 
 discipline, caring little about the immorality and de- 
 gradation of the masses, so long as they continue 
 to turn the mill in silence, rests upon an impossi- 
 bility. The State owes the people religion ; that is 
 to say intellectual and moral culture ; it owes them 
 the school even more than the temple. The indi- 
 vidual is only completely responsible for his acts if 
 he has received his share of the education which 
 makes the man. By what right do you punish this 
 wretch who has been shut off since his youth from 
 moral ideas, having barely the power of discerning 
 between good and evil, impelled by coarse appetites 
 which are his sole law, and perhaps also by pressing 
 needs ? You punish him for being a brute, but is it 
 his fault if no one took him at his birth to cause him 
 to be born to the moral life ? Is it his fault if the 
 only escape he has received has been that of vice ? 
 And to remedy these crimes which you have been 
 unable to prevent, you have only the galleys and 
 the scaffold. The true culprit in all this is the 
 society which has not elevated and ennobled this 
 poor wretch. What a strange coincidence that 
 nearly all criminals should spring from the same 
 class ! Nature, I would say with Pascal, is not so 
 uniform. Is it not evident that if nineteen-twentieths 
 of the crimes punished by society are committed by 
 persons deprived of all education and prompted by 
 want, the cause lies in this lack of education and in 
 this want ? God forbid that I should ever seek to 
 excuse crime or disarm society against its enemies. 
 But crime is only crime when it is committed with 
 full consciousness. Do you suppose that this poor 
 wretch would not, like you, have been honest and 
 good if he had, like you, been cultivated by a long 
 course of education and ameliorated by the salutary
 
 316 The Future of Science. 
 
 iutiueuces of the family ? We must start from the 
 priiici])le that man is not actually born good, but 
 Avilh the x)ower of becoming good, any more than he 
 is born a savant, but with the power of becoming so ; 
 tiiat the main thing is to develop the germs of virtue 
 which he has in him, that man is not inclined to evil 
 of his own choice, but by want, by the fatality of 
 things, and especially for lack of moral culture. 
 Assuredly, in the present state, when society cannot 
 exercise a civilizing influence upon all its members, 
 it is important to maintain punishment so as to deter 
 those whom education has failed to keep from crime. 
 But this is not the normal state of humanity, for, I 
 repeat, you do not punish a man for being savage, 
 though, if you have savages to govern, you may, 
 so as to keep them in order, have recourse to the 
 sanction of punishment. In that case, it is no longer 
 a moral punishment ; it is making an example, 
 nothing more. I willingly admit that for a man to 
 reach the utmost limits of want, the point where 
 morality expires in presence of want, there must at 
 one time or another of his life have been some fault 
 of his own — I except of course the infirm and women 
 — that with morality and intelligence a man can 
 always find a way out of his difficulties and resources 
 of some kind. But is it the fault of these poor 
 people if they do not possess this morality and 
 intehigence, seeing that these faculties need to be 
 cultivated, and that no one has taken any pains to 
 develop them ? 
 
 All the evil which there is in humanity proceeds, 
 as I think, from lack of culture, and society is not 
 entitled to complain of this, seeing that it is, to a 
 great extent, responsible for it. When calling the 
 two parties which now dispute for the mastery in 
 the world aristocrats and democrats, we may say that 
 tlie one and the other are, in the present state of 
 liiunanity, equally impossible. For the masses being 
 blind and deficient in intelligence, to appeal only to 
 them is to appeal from civiHzation to barbarism.
 
 The Future of Science. 317 
 
 Upon the other hand, the aristocracy constitutes an 
 odious monopoly if it does not set before it for its 
 aim the tutelage of the masses ; that is to say their 
 gradual elevation. I was a spectator of those fatal 
 days concerning which we may say : 
 
 Excidat ilia dies airo, nee postera credant 
 Sa3cula, nos etiam taceamus, et oblita multa 
 Nocte tegi nostras patiamur crimina gentis. 
 
 God knows that never for a moment did I desire the 
 triumph of the barbarians ; and yet I suffered pain to 
 hear honest men pouring out mockery or anger upon 
 these lamentable follies. It irritated me to hear 
 people applauding the bloodiest acts of revenge or 
 regretting that there were not more such. For, 
 after all, did these senseless people know what they 
 were doing, and was it their fault if society had left 
 them in this state of imbecility through which they 
 were destined, upon the first day of trial, to become 
 the tool of the perverse and the foolish ? 
 
 No one can deplore popular folly more than I do, and 
 I am glad that it should be put down. But these acts 
 of folly evoke in me only one regret, and that is that 
 one half of humanity should be thus abandoned to 
 its native bestiality, and I cannot understand any 
 honest and clear-sighted mind failing at once to draw 
 this conclusion. Of these beasts let us make men. 
 People who laugh over these follies irritate me ; for 
 these follies are, in part, their work. 
 
 It used to be said in respect to hapless Italy : 
 " Look and see if this people be worthy of liberty. 
 Look what use they make of it and in what a way 
 they defend it." No doubt, but whose is the fault '? 
 Is it the fault of those who are condemned to nullity 
 and who, advanced in age, wake up children ; or of 
 those who have kept them under, and who then come 
 and reproach a great country with the immorality 
 of which they themselves have been guilty (147) ? 
 This indignation will ever remain among the most 
 vivid recollections of my youth. A guardian has 
 made his ward imbecile in order to preserve the
 
 318 The Future of Science. 
 
 management of his property. Chance restores to 
 the ward for a moment the use of his fortune, and, 
 as a matter of course, he makes ducks and drakes 
 of it ; from which fact the guardian draws a strong 
 argument for placing his ward again under his charge. 
 So it is not " Away with the harbarians," but " Let 
 there be no more barbarians," that we should ex- 
 claim, for as long as there are any, an invasion will 
 always be on the cards. If there were, face to face 
 with each other, two races of men, the one civilized, 
 the other incapable of civilization, the only policy 
 would be to stamp out the uncivilizable race, or to 
 make it strictly subject to the other. If it was true, 
 as Aristotle believes (148) that, just as the soul is 
 destined to command and the body to obey, so there 
 are in society men who have their reason within 
 themselves, and others who, having their reason out 
 of themselves, are only fitted to execute the will 
 of others, the latter would naturally be slaves ; it 
 would be just and expedient that they should obey, 
 their revolt would be as great a misfortune and crime 
 as if the body revolted against the spirit. From this 
 point of view, the conquests of the democracy would 
 be the conquests of the spirit of evil, the triumph of 
 the flesh over the spirit. But it is this very point 
 of view which is dece})tive ; an incontrovertible 
 degree of progress has put a ban upon this aristocratic 
 theory and laid down as an axiom the inviolable 
 rights of those who are weak in body and mind as 
 against the strong. All men bear within them the 
 same principles of morality. It is impossible to love 
 the people as they are, and it is only the ill-inten- 
 tioned who are desirous of keeping them in their 
 present condition, in order to be able to make them 
 answer their own purposes. But let them have a 
 care ; one day or other, the wild beast may likely 
 enough turn and rend them. I am firmly convinced, 
 for my own part, that unless we make haste and 
 elevate the people, w^e are upon the eve of a terrible 
 outbreak of barbarism. For if the people triumph
 
 The Future of Science. 319 
 
 in their present state, it will be worse than it was 
 with the Franks and Vandals. They will destroy of 
 their own accord the instrument which might have 
 served to elevate them ; we shall then have to wait 
 until civilization once more emerges spontaneously 
 from the profound depths of nature. We shall have 
 to traverse another period of the Middle Ages, to 
 pick up the broken thread of learned tradition. 
 
 Morality, like politics, is summed up, then, in this 
 grand saying: To elevate the people. Morality 
 should have prescribed this course at all times ; 
 policy dictates it more imperiously than ever, now 
 that the people have been admitted to share in 
 political privileges. Universal suffrage will only be 
 legitimate when all men shall possess that share of 
 intelligence without which one does not deserve 
 the name of man, and if, in the interim, it is to be 
 maintained, this is solely because it is calculated to 
 hasten the advent of that condition of things. Stu- 
 pidity has no right to govern the world. How is it 
 possible, I ask of you, to entrust the destinies of 
 humanity to unfortunate beings, whose ignorance 
 lays them open to all the tricks of charlatanism, 
 who are scarcely entitled to rank as moral beings ? 
 A deplorable state of things truly, when, in order 
 to obtain the suffrages of an omnipotent multitude, 
 the great point is not to be true, learned, clever or 
 virtuous, but to possess a name or to be a brazen 
 charlatan ! 
 
 I will suppose some learned and laborious searcher 
 to have discovered, if not the definite solution, at all 
 events the most advanced solution of the great 
 social problem. It is undeniable that this solution 
 would be so complicated that there would be barely 
 twenty people in the world capable of understanding- 
 it. Let us hope that he may be gifted with patience 
 if he intends waiting, in order to get his discovery 
 accepted, the adhesion of universal suffrage. An 
 empiric who proclaims loudly that he has found the 
 solution, that it is as clear as noonday, and that
 
 320 Tlic Future of Science. 
 
 only the bad faith of interested persons can refuse to 
 recognize it, who repeats every day in the cohimns of 
 a newspaper certain stale commonplaces, such a man 
 as this will assuredly make his fortune more quickly 
 f hpn one who looks for success to science and reason. 
 fLet it, therefore, be well understood that those 
 who refuse to enlighten the people are those who 
 want to make tools of them, and who need their 
 blindness in order to succeed. Shame to those 
 who, when they talk of an appeal to the people, 
 know that they are only making an appeal to imbe- 
 ciht5^ Shame upon those who base their hopes upon 
 stupidity, who rejoice in the multitude of fools as 
 in the multitude of their own partisans, and who 
 believe that they triumph when, thanks to an 
 ignorance which they themselves have fostered, they 
 can say|_: " You see that the people will have none of 
 3'our modern ideas." If there w^ere no more fools to 
 be got over, the profession of sycophant and parasite 
 of the people would soon be at an end. The im- 
 moral means of government, a Machiavelian police, 
 and restrictions upon certain natural liberties and so 
 forth, have hitherto been both necessary and legiti- 
 mate. They will cease to be so when the State is 
 composed of intelligent and cultivated men^ The 
 question of government reform is nofT^Tnerefore, 
 political ; it is moral and rehgious ; the Ministry of 
 PubHc Education is the most important, I was 
 going to say the only important one. After scrutiniz- 
 ing all the necessary antinomies of the present 
 poHtical programme, it will, I think, be admitted 
 that the intellectual rehabilitation of the people is 
 the remedy for them all, and that the most liberal 
 institutions will be the most dangerous, as long as 
 what has been so w^ell called " the slavery of ignor- 
 aiice " shall last. Until then, government a pi-iori 
 will 1)6 tlie most detestable of all governments. 
 
 At the first dawning of modern liberalism, it was 
 for a moment thought that absolutism was dependent 
 i')v existence upon the force of a strong government.
 
 The Future of Science. 321 
 
 But we have since found out that it has a much 
 more powerful support in the stupidity and ignorance 
 of the governed, inasmuch as we have seen peoples 
 which have been set at liberty regret their chains 
 and ask to have them forged afresh. It is no great 
 thing to destroy tyranny ; that has been done a 
 thousand times in the course of history. But to get 
 on without it. . . . In the view of some, that is the 
 best apology which can be offered for those who 
 govern ; to my mind it is their gravest offence. 
 Their offence is that they should have rendered 
 themselves necessary and have maintained mankind 
 in such a state of degradation that they themselves 
 ask for slavery and shame. M. de Falloux has 
 expressed his surprise that the Tiers Etat of '89 
 should have sought to avenge ancestors who were 
 not conscious of any injury having been done them. 
 That is true, and the most revolting part of the 
 business, and that which cries most for vengeance, 
 is that these forefathers did not, as a matter of fact, 
 feel that they had been wronged. 
 
 As the greatest good of humanity should be the 
 aim of every government, it follows that the opinion 
 of the majority is only entitled to impose itself 
 when that majority represents the most enlightened 
 reason and views. What ! In order to please the 
 ignorant masses, you will do a perhaps irreparable 
 wrong to humanity ? I will never consent to recog- 
 nize the sovereignty of unreason. The only sovereign 
 by divine right is reason, the majority only has power 
 so far as it is supposed to represent reason. In the 
 normal state of things, the majority will, as a matter 
 of fact, be the most direct criterion for ascertaining 
 the party which is in the right. If there was a 
 better means for ascertaining the truth, it would be 
 expedient to have recourse to it and take no account 
 of the majority. 
 
 If we were to be guided by certain politicians who 
 dub themselves liberals, the sole duty of a govern- 
 ment is to follow public opinion without ever 
 
 Y
 
 322 The Future of Science. 
 
 attempting to direct the movement. It is, they 
 say, an intolerable piece of tj^ranny that the central 
 power should impose upon the provinces institutions, 
 men and schools which are little in harmony with 
 the prejudices of these provinces. They cannot 
 admit that it is right that the administrators and 
 teachers from these provinces should come to Paris 
 and acquire an education which will render them 
 superior to the people over whom they are placed. 
 This is a singular scruple. Paris, enjoying a supe- 
 riority of initiative and representing a more advanced 
 stage of civilization, has the full right to impose 
 herself and to carry forward towards perfection the 
 less enlightened masses. Shame be to them who 
 have no other prop than ignorance and stupidity, 
 and who endeavour to preserve them as their best 
 auxiliaries. The question of the education of 
 humanity and the progress of civilization takes pre- 
 cedence of all others. No injury is done to a child 
 in endeavouring to draw him out of his natural in- 
 difference, for the development of his intellectual 
 and moral culture. The time is not yet near at 
 hand when there will be no need to do good to 
 humanity in spite of itself. To govern in the spirit 
 of progress is to govern by right divine. 
 
 Universal suffrage presupposes two things : (1) 
 that all men are competent to form an opinion upon 
 questions of government; (2) that there is not, at 
 the time of its being instituted, any absolute dogma ; 
 that humanity is at that moment without a fault and 
 in the condition which M. Jouffroy has called prac- 
 tical scepticism (scepticisme de fait). These epochs 
 are epochs of liberalism and toleration. 'When one 
 man is not more richly endowed than his neighbour 
 with the knowledge of the truth, the simplest way is 
 to count heads ; numbers constitute the right, or at 
 least an external and practical right, which may very 
 possibly not convert the minority but compels its 
 acceptance. In reality, this is not very logical, for 
 as numbers are not an indication of intrinsic truth,
 
 Tlie Future of Science. 323 
 
 the minority might say : " You force yourselves upon 
 us not because you are right, but because you are 
 stronger in numbers. That would be right, if 
 numbers represented force ; for then, instead of 
 fighting the question, it would be more reasonable 
 to count heads and so avoid useless evils. But, 
 although less numerous than you, we have better 
 muscles and we are braver ; so let us fight it out. 
 We are no more or less in the right than you ; you 
 are the more numerous, we are the stronger ; so let 
 us come to." The fact is that such a state of 
 things is not normal for humanity ; and reason alone, 
 that is to say the established dogma, confers the 
 right of imposing one's will ; numbers are, in short, 
 of as superficial a character as force, and that 
 nothing can be firmly established except upon the 
 basis of reason. \ 
 
 I say it with due deference, and with the con- 
 viction that those who read these pages will not set 
 me down as a sedition-monger. I say it as a pure 
 critic, looking at the revolutions of the present day 
 as we do at those of Eome, for instance, and just 
 as people will look at ours five centuries hence ; 
 a triumphant insurrection is often a better criterion 
 as to which party is right than is a numerical 
 majority. For the majority is often composed or at 
 all events based upon people who are very insigni- 
 ficant and inert, regardful only of their own repose, 
 who do not deserve to be taken into account ; 
 whereas an opinion capable of stirring the masses 
 and above all of causing them to triumph testifies 
 by that very fact to its force. The vote by battle 
 is at all events as trustworthy as any other form of 
 vote, for with that only the living forces are counted; 
 or rather the energy which opinion gives to its 
 partisans is weighed ; and that is an excellent cri- 
 terion. People do not fight for what is dead; what- 
 ever stirs the pulse the most is that which is fullest 
 of life and truth. Those who are attached to what 
 is absolute and to clearly defined solutions are ready
 
 324 The Future of Science. 
 
 to appeal to the numerical tests, for nothing can be 
 clearer than numbers ; all you have to do is to count 
 heads. But this would be making things too easy, 
 and humanity does not go to work in quite so simple 
 a way. Do what we will, we cannot find any other 
 absolute basis than reason, and until humanity shall 
 have reached a definitely scientific age, we shall 
 have no other criterion of reason than the definite 
 fact. The fact does not constitute reason, but in- 
 dicates it. The best proof that the insurrection of 
 June (1848) was unlawful was that it did not succeed. 
 Here we have a necessary, insoluble antinomy, 
 and one which will endure until some great dogmatic 
 formula has once more englobed humanity. In the 
 periods of scepticism, when people are aspiring to a 
 new form which has not yet taken shape, no one 
 being quite sure as to what the true religion is, it 
 would be intolerable that such an one should, of his 
 own individual authority, come and impose his creed 
 upon others. People only declare all religions to be 
 equally good when no particular one is suflicient. 
 If there were any religion really alive, which corre- 
 sponded to the requirements of the age, we may be 
 sure that it would not be long in establishing its 
 claims and that the nation would not be inclined to 
 haggle with it. Indifference in politics is what scep- 
 ticism is in philosophy, a halt between two dogma- 
 tisms, one dead, the other in the germ. Duriug 
 this interregnum, each person is free to attach him- 
 self to any doctrine, to be, according to his fancy, 
 Pythagorean or Platonian, stoic or peripatetic. All 
 forms are equally inoffensive, and the only function 
 of autliority is to keep the peace between them and 
 to preveut them from exterminating one another. 
 It is not the same in the dogmatic states, in which 
 tliere is a living and actual reason, a doctrine outside 
 of which is no salvation. Strong in all the life of 
 tlie nation, it is the prime necessity and right of that 
 nation. It is in one sense superior to the political 
 law, inasmuch as it finds therein its reason and its
 
 The Future of Science. 325 
 
 sanction. The government is then absolute and is 
 carried on in the name of the doctrine which is 
 universally accepted. All bends before it, and the 
 spiritual power, which represents it, is all the more 
 above the temporal power because the spiritual 
 requirements of man are above his material interests, 
 or, as it used to be said, the spirit is above the flesh. 
 And this absolute rule is not tyranny. Tyranny only 
 comes in when the chain is felt, when the ancient 
 dogma has grown old and uses the same authoritative 
 methods to maintain its supremacy. We are some- 
 times unjust towards the persecutions of the Church 
 in the Middle Ages. She was bound to be intolerant 
 at that time, for so long as a whole society accepts a 
 dogma and proclaims this dogma to be absolute 
 truth, and that without any opposition, it is chari- 
 table to persecute. It is neither more nor less than 
 defending society. The wars of the Albigenses, the 
 persecutions of the Waldenses, the Cathares, the 
 Bogomites and the poor of Lyons do not shock me 
 more than the crusades ; they were, as a matter of 
 fact, stray sheep, who had quitted the great flock of 
 humanity ; and as to the really advanced men of the 
 Middle Ages, Scotus Erigena, Arnauld de Bresse, 
 Abelard and Frederick II., they underwent the just 
 punishment of being in advance of their time. The 
 reason why these acts of the Inquisition in the 
 Middle Ages excite our indignation is that we judge 
 them from the standpoint of our own sceptical age ; 
 it is very evident that in our day, when there is no 
 longer any dogma, such acts would be execrable. 
 To massacre other people for an individual opinion is 
 horrible. But when it is done for the dogma of 
 humanity, the whole question is altered. That a 
 man should be violent and even cruel in the defence 
 of his disinterested faith is regrettable, but may 
 always be excused. Persecution only becomes odious 
 when it is the work of interested agents, who 
 sacrifice the thoughts of others to their own ease 
 and comfort.
 
 32(5 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 This is why the persecutions of the Church in the 
 Middle Ages and in our time must be judged quite 
 differently. For in these modern times, persecution 
 has ceased to be what it was in the Middle Ages ; 
 it is now no more than an antiquated form of oppres- 
 sion, worn out, cumbersome and illegitimate ; all 
 that it does to retain its power is odious, for it no 
 lonf^er has any raison d'etre. The death of John 
 Huss itself excites my anger, for he represented the 
 future ; the death of Yanini and Giordano Bruno 
 revolts me, for the modern spirit had already become 
 definitely emancipated, and as to the absurd religious 
 persecutions of Louis XI Y., no one but a narrow- 
 minded and hard woman, Jesuits and Bossuet could 
 have been capable of advising them to a worn-out 
 and aged king. When the Church was the legitimate 
 authority, she had much less cause to persecute 
 than since she has ceased to be so. That great and 
 odious persecution, the Inquisition, did not become 
 positively monstrous until the sixteenth century, that 
 is to say when the Church had been finally van- 
 quished by the Eeformation. Louis XIV. had not, 
 so far as I can recall, a single act of severity to per- 
 form in order to maintain his absolute authority, and 
 this was almost a matter of course ; for his sove- 
 reignty was legitimate and accepted ; no prince could 
 have been more absolute and less tyrannical. The 
 llestoration, upon the contrary, was always upon the 
 qui vive to maintain a power assuredly much less 
 extensive, and the smallest act of violence upon its 
 part was revolting, for it was self-imposed. The 
 measure of the violence which a power is obliged to 
 display to maintain its position, and especially the 
 indignation which this violence excites, is the 
 Uieasure of its legitimacy. We are legitimists in 
 our own way. The legitimate government is that 
 which is based upon the reason of the age ; the 
 illegitimate government is that which employs force 
 or corruption to maintain itself in opposition to 
 patent facts.
 
 Tlie Future of Science. 327 
 
 It is through not comprehending the difference 
 between these two ages of humanity that so many 
 sophisms are current as to the relations between 
 Church and State. In the earliest age, that in 
 which there is a true religion, the embodiment of 
 society, the State and religion are one and the same 
 thing, and so far from the State salarying religion, 
 religion maintains itself, and it is rather the State 
 which, upon certain occasions, appeals to the Church. 
 It is even superior to the State, inasmuch as the 
 State derives from it the principle of its existence. 
 But in periods when the State, having no creed, says 
 publicly : " I do not understand anything about 
 theology, do as you please," it should not give a salary 
 (it is then only that this ignoble word comes into ex- 
 istence) to any one form of worship, or, what amounts 
 to the same thing, it should do so to all. What 
 the State gives to religions is but mere alms ; 
 they may well blush in taking it, and I can quite 
 understand the indignation of the Ultramontane s 
 when they see God inscribed in the State budget 
 like some pubhc functionary. In these days, there 
 are nothing except mere opinions, and why should 
 the State pay a salary to opinions. I can understand 
 the State recognizing a single creed, or not recog- 
 nizing 'any. But I do not understand it recognizing 
 all the creeds (149). The liberal theory of indif- 
 ferentism is superficial. Humanity requires some 
 doctrine. If Catholicism is true, the most extreme 
 claims of the Ultramontanes are well grounded, the 
 Inquisition is a beneficent institution. In fact, as 
 from this point of view sound belief is the greatest 
 good to which all the rest should be sacrificed, the 
 sovereign does a fatherly act in separating the grain 
 from the chaff and in burning the latter. All must 
 give way to the one necessary fact : the saving of 
 souls. The principle of compelle intrare is legitimized 
 by its results. If in sacrificing a thousand polluted 
 souls you may hope to save a single one, from an 
 orthodox point of view the sacrifice is justified (150).
 
 328 The Future of Science. 
 
 I am sorry that it should be so, but there is no 
 gettin^^ away from the dogmatic question. Those 
 who want to keep this question apart are m the 
 impossibihty of reaching a logical solution. 
 
 It shows want of shrewdness to presuppose an 
 absolutely legal order of things, against which no 
 objection can be raised and which imposes itself 
 absolutely. Society is never in either a perfectly 
 legal or totally illegal state. Every social state of 
 thmgs is inevitably illegal, so far as it is imperfect, 
 and tends always to become more legal, that is to say 
 towards being perfect. It is not less superficial to 
 suppose that the government is merely the expression 
 of the will of the gi'eatest number, so that universal 
 suffrage would be a natural right, and that, this 
 suffrage being acquired, there would be nothing left 
 but to let the will of the people express itself. That 
 would be too simple and easy. Only college pedants, 
 superficial and simple minds could be deceived by 
 the ajDparent evidence of the representative theory. 
 The mass is only entitled to govern if we suppose 
 that it know^s better than any one else what is best. 
 The government represents reason, God, or, if that 
 phrase be preferred, humanity in the highest sense 
 (that is to say the lofty tendencies of human nature) 
 not a set of figures. The representative principle 
 was all very well to uphold in opposition to the 
 ancient dispositions of individuals, when the sovereign 
 considered himself entitled to command of his own 
 right, which is much more absurd still. But, as a 
 matter of fact, universal suffrage is only legitimate 
 if it can hasten the march of social improvement. 
 A despot who eff'ected this improvement against the 
 wishes of the greatest number would be entirely in 
 his right. When the Napoleon we want, the great 
 political organizer, shall come upon the scene, he 
 will be able to do without the papal benediction or 
 iioLLLilar sanction. 
 
 9unt ideal government would be a scientific one, 
 in which competent specialists would treat govern-
 
 The Future of Science. 329 
 
 ment questions as scientific ones and would seek for 
 a rational solution of them. Up to the present time, 
 it has been birth, intrigue or the privilege of first 
 come first served which have generally conferred 
 grades upon the governing class; and the first in- 
 triguer who succeeds in sitting down in front of a 
 board of green cloth is dubbed a statesman. I am 
 not at all sure whether some day we shall not have, 
 in some form or other, something equivalent to the 
 Chinese institution of men of letters, and whether 
 the government will not become the natural pos- 
 session of competent men, of a sort of academy of 
 moral and political sciences. Politics may be re- 
 garded as a kind of science and required as much 
 study and knowledge as any other. In the primitive 
 societies, the college of priests governed in the name 
 of the gods ; in the societies of the future, savants 
 will govern in the name of rational search for what 
 is best. In our day, such an academy would have a 
 hard task if it had to demonstrate to ignorant and 
 headstrong presumption the legitimacy of its action. 
 The mania of foolish people for a reason to explain 
 what they do not understand and to be angry when 
 they do not understand is one of the greatest 
 obstacles to progress. The wise men of the future 
 will despise it. 
 
 But, it will be said, how are you to impose upon 
 the majority that which is best, if it refuses your 
 offer. That is the very point which requires the 
 most dehcate handling. The sages of old had some 
 very convenient auxiliaries in the oracles, the 
 augurs, the Egeri^e, etc. Others had armed forces 
 at their disposal. All these means have become im- 
 possible. The religion of the future will cut the 
 knot with its heavy sword. Let us learn at all events 
 not to be so severe upon those who have resorted to 
 a certain amount of ruse and what it is the fashion to 
 call corruption, if in reality (and that is the essential 
 condition) they have only had in view the welfare of 
 humanity. If, upon the contrary, they have only
 
 330 The Future of Science. 
 
 Lad selfish considerations in view, they are tyrants 
 and wretc hesjf 
 
 It is doing a disservice to a ward to place him too 
 soon in possession of his property. But it is a crime 
 to keep him in a state of imbecility in order to retain 
 perpetual control over him. Better far is a pre- 
 mature emancipation, for, after a brief period of 
 dissipation, it may contribute to render him amen- 
 able to reason. 
 
 Until the people has become initiated to intel- 
 lectual life, intrigue and falsehood are evidently put 
 up for public sale. It is a question of securing the 
 good graces of a blind old man, and, in order to do so, 
 you must lie and cajole. The vivid scenes of Aristo- 
 phanes are not in the least exaggerated. ' The suf- 
 frage of the unenlightened people can only lead to the 
 rule of the demagogue or of the aristocracy of birth, 
 never to a government based on reason. The philo- 
 sophers, who are sovereigns by right divine, are 
 unsympathetic in the eyes of the peoj^le and exercise 
 little influence over them. Look at what was the 
 fate of all the sages {o'i dristoi) at Athens : Miltiades, 
 Themistocles, Socrates and Phocion. They are not 
 brilliant externally, they do not flatter, they are 
 serious and severe, they do not laugh, they speak a 
 language which is not understood of the multitude ; 
 that of reason. How can you expect that men of 
 this kind, if they attempt to speak to the multitude, 
 will fail to get into disfavour? Only those who 
 ajipeal to the passions of the people, or who style 
 tbemselves dukes or counts, speak a language which 
 is intelligible. These two languages are easily 
 understood. 
 
 This explains the disfavour the people has always 
 sliown against the philosophers, especially when 
 they have had the temerity to concern themselves 
 with pubhc affairs. Left to choose between the 
 charlatan and the genuine physician, the people 
 always incline to the former. The people like to 
 be told only things which are clear and easy of com-
 
 The Future of Science. 331 
 
 prehension, and tlie unfortunate part of the matter 
 is that in nothing is truth to be found upon the 
 surface. The people are fond of banter. The most 
 superficial and State views put in a grossly humorous 
 vein which set the teeth of refined persons on edge, 
 transport the ignorant with delight. The true in- 
 terests of the people are rarely to be found where 
 they appear to be. The wise men who go to the reality 
 are regarded as the people's enemies, and the char- 
 latans who confine themselves to commonplaces are 
 as a matter of course their friends. Besides, there 
 is, somehow or other, in the wise an indefinable 
 degree of pride, however hard they try to be humble 
 and condescending. It is not their fault ; pride (and 
 the word is not used in a depreciatory sense) is innate 
 in them. The grand seigneur is proud too ; but his 
 pride does not shock the people so much. They 
 console themselves for not possessing the gold and 
 the ribbons of the grand seigneur ; but they cannot 
 forgive the thinker for being superior to them in in- 
 telligence, and they regard themselves as being at least 
 as competent as he is in politics. The people are much 
 more indulgent for the great than for the middle 
 classes which are well educated and enlightened. 
 The latter they regard as being upon the same level 
 as themselves, and they look upon their superiority 
 with great jealousy. The king and the royal family 
 are as demigods and attract his affection. But a 
 plain bourgeois, whose talents have carried him into 
 power, cannot fail to be a thief and an intriguer. 
 The great are too much above the people to excite 
 their envy ; jealousy can only exist among equals. 
 A government composed of men Vvith no great names 
 is bound to be suspected and vilified. " What has 
 this man, who is my equal, done that he should 
 have attained this position ? He must be a dis- 
 honest man, for otherwise he would be my superior, 
 which, of course, is impossible. He has had the 
 handhng of the State funds, he must have let some 
 of it stick to his fingers ; for I know that if I had
 
 332 Tlir Future of Science. 
 
 been in his place, I should have been much tempted 
 to do so." Such is the language of coarse and 
 vulgar envy. These suspicions never are directed 
 upon those who are looked upon as being of another 
 species and with whom it is hopeless to compare 
 oueself. When in the company of some peasants, 
 I noticed that they were very dissatisfied at the idea 
 of their representatives in Parliament receiving a 
 small salary even during the vacation when they 
 were doing nothing for it ; yet these same people 
 had nothing to say against the millions of the 
 civil list. 
 
 Assuredly, if everybody was like us, not only would 
 government be much easier, but there would scarcely 
 be any need of one. Governmental restrictions are 
 in inverse proportion to the perfection of individuals. 
 Now, all other people would be like us if they all had 
 our culture, if all possessed like us the complete idea 
 of humanity. Why is it that all liberty is accom- 
 panied by a corresponding danger and stands in need 
 of a corrective ? The reason is that liberty is the 
 same for the wise as for the foolish. But w^hen all 
 men are wise, orw^hen public reason is strong enough 
 to keep the foolish in order, no restriction will be 
 necessary. 
 
 Fichte has gone so far as to conceive a social state 
 of things so perfect that the very thought of evil is 
 banished from the mind of man. I believe with him 
 tliat moral evil will have marked but one age of 
 humanity, the age in which man was neglected by 
 society and did not receive from it the moral in- 
 heritance to which he was entitled. "There are 
 men," says ^[. Guizot, "who have full confidence in 
 human nature. According to them, when left to 
 itself, it tends in the direction of what is good. All 
 tbe ills of society come from government, which cor- 
 rupts mankind by violence or fraud." I am one of 
 those who feel this confidence. But I believe that 
 the evil is derived not from governments committing 
 deeds of violence or fraud, but because they do not
 
 The Future of Science. 333 
 
 elevate. I, as a man of culture, do not find any evil 
 in myself, and I am impelled spontaneously towards 
 what seems to me the most noble. If all others had 
 as much culture as myself, they would all, like my- 
 self, be incapable of doing an evil act. Then it might 
 be said with truth : you are gods and sons of the 
 Most High. Morality has hitherto been conceived 
 in a very narrow spirit, as obedience to a law, as an 
 internal struggle between contradictory laws (151). 
 For my own part, I can declare that when I do right, 
 I do not obey any one, that I do not engage in any 
 struggle or win any victory, that I accompUsh an act 
 as independent and as spontaneous as that of the 
 artist who derives from his inner sense the beauty 
 of which he gives an external realization, that I have 
 merely to follow with delight and in perfect acqui- 
 escence the moral inspiration which comes out from 
 the recesses of my heart. The man of elevation has 
 only to follow the pleasant beat of his inward im- 
 pulse ; he might adopt the motto of St. Augustine 
 and of the Abbey of Thelema : " Fais ce que tu 
 voudras," for he can only wish what is good. The 
 virtuous man is as an artist who realizes the beautiful 
 in human life as the sculptor does in marble, or the 
 musician in sound. Is there anything like obedience 
 or struggle in the act of the sculptor or the musician ? 
 This is pride you will say. But that depends. If by 
 humility is meant the small value which man attaches 
 to his nature, the slight esteem in which he holds 
 his estate, I utterly decline to give to such a senti- 
 ment the title of virtue, and I reproach Christianity 
 with having sometimes taken this view. The basis 
 of our moral law is excellence, the perfect autonomy 
 of human nature ; the foundation of all our philo- 
 sophical and literary system is the absolution of all 
 that is human. 
 
 The ennobling and the emancipation of all men 
 by the civilizing action of society, such is, then, the 
 most pressing duty of government in the present state 
 of things. Everything which is done outside of that
 
 334 The Future of Science. 
 
 is useless or premature. People are always talking 
 about liberty, the right of public meeting, the right 
 of association. Nothing could be better if the in- 
 telligence of those who are to profit by them were 
 in a normal state ; but until such is the case, nothing 
 could be more frivolous. It will be all very well for 
 people who are imbecile or ignorant to meet in con- 
 clave ; no good can come out of their assemblage. 
 Sectaries and party men imagine that it is only com- 
 pression which prevents their ideas from prevailing, 
 and they fret against this compression. They are 
 mistaken. It is not the ill-will of governments which 
 gags theii' ideas ; it is that their ideas are not yet 
 ripe ; just as it is that peoples are kept in subjection 
 not by the force of an absolute government but by 
 the depression of the subjects of that government. 
 Do you suppose that, if they were ripe for Uberty, 
 they would not secure it for themselves at once ? 
 Our French liberalism, thinking that it can explain 
 away everj'thing by means of despotism, thinking 
 exclusively of liberty, regarding government and its 
 subjects as natural enemies, is in reality very super- 
 ficial. Let us get to understand that it is not a 
 question of liberty, but of acting, of creating, of 
 working. The true always finds enough liberty to 
 make itself visible, and liberty can only be hurtful 
 when it is sought for by those who have not got 
 good sense. It serves only to favour anarchy, and is 
 of no service for the real progress of humanity. If 
 a commissioner of police comes into a room where a 
 few weak and empty headed individuals are mutually 
 exciting their instinctive passions, we declare that 
 we are shocked at such a violation of liberty. Do 
 you imagine that it is these poor wretches who are 
 going to solve the problem ? We use force to pre- 
 serve for everybody the right of twaddling at his 
 pleasure ; would it not be much better to speak the 
 language of reason and teach all men to speak and 
 understand their language. Close the clubs and open 
 schools in their stead, and you will be doing true 
 service to the popular cause.
 
 The Future of Science. 335 
 
 The liberty of saying what one pleases presupposes 
 that those to whom one addresses oneself have the 
 intelligence and discernment required for passing an 
 opinion upon what is said to them ; for accepting it 
 if it is good advice, for rejecting it if it is bad. If 
 there were a class legally to be defined incapable of 
 showing this discernment, it would be necessary to 
 exercise supervision over what was said to them ; for 
 liberty is only tolerable when accompanied by the 
 corrective of public good sense which takes due 
 account of errors. This is why liberty of teaching 
 is an absurdity, as regards children. For as the child, 
 accepting what is taught him, without being able 
 to pass criticism upon it, regards his master not 
 as a man who gives his opinion to his fellow-men 
 that they may examine it, but as an authority, it is 
 evident that supervision should be exercised over 
 what is taught him, and that some other liberty 
 should be substituted for his in order to effect this 
 discernment. As it is impossible to trace categories 
 between adults, liberty becomes, so far as they are 
 concerned, the only course possible. But it is cer- 
 tain that until a people is educated, all liberties are 
 dangerous and require restrictions. As a matter of 
 fact, in questions relating to the liberty of expressing 
 one's thoughts, we have not only to consider the 
 right appertaining to the speaker — a right which is 
 a natural one and only limited by that of others — 
 but also the position of the listener, who, not always 
 possessing the necessary discernment, is placed, as 
 it were, under the tutelage of the State. It is from 
 the point of view of the hearer and not from that 
 of the speaker that restrictions are permissible and 
 legitimate. The liberty of saymg what one pleases 
 can only be admissible when all men will have the 
 necessary discernment, and when the best punish- 
 ment for the foolish will be the contempt of the 
 public. 
 
 I am sorry not to be able to make sufficiently clear 
 my conviction as to the vanity and hollowness of
 
 336 TJie Future of Science. 
 
 our political and liberal agitation, which would be 
 all very well in a State where men's minds were 
 generally cultivated, and where many scientific ideas 
 came into existence (for science cannot exist without 
 liberty) ; but in a society composed for the most 
 part of ignorant people open to every kind of seduc- 
 tion, and in which intellectual power is evidently on 
 the decline, to do no more than defend these empty 
 formula is to neglect the essential for almost insigni- 
 ficant legal forms, inasmuch as authority can always 
 exclude them or interpret them in its own way. 
 
 M. Jouffroy has expressed this most clearly in his 
 admirable discourse upon the scepticism of the time, 
 which I might copy word for word as expressing my 
 own views on this subject : " Each one of our liberties 
 has appeared to us in turn as the object we have been 
 longing for, and its absence as the cause of all our 
 woes. And yet we have gained these liberties, and 
 we are no better off, and the day following each 
 revolution finds us in a hurry to draw up the pro- 
 gramme of the next one. The fact is that we mis- 
 conceive the true state of things ; the truth is that 
 each of these liberties we have so eagerly desired, 
 that liberty itself is not and cannot be the aim for 
 which a society like ours aspires. . . . Take them 
 one after another, the liberties which we enjoy, and 
 you will see that they are no more than guarantees 
 and means ; guarantees against whatever might stand 
 in the way of the moral revolution, which alone can 
 cure us, means of hastening on this revolution, etc." 
 It is not saying much to declare that the pubhc 
 liberties are better guaranteed now than they were 
 at the dawn of Christianity ; and yet I maintain that 
 a great idea would find in our day more obstacles in 
 the way of its propagation than Christianity did at 
 its birth. If Jesus were to appear now. He would 
 be brought up before the magistrates ; which is worse 
 tlian being crucified. Imagine the life of Jesus being 
 crowned by a commonplace death ; what a difference ! 
 People are too ready to believe that liberty is favour-
 
 The Future of Science. 337 
 
 able to the development of really original ideas : As 
 it has been remarked that, in the past, every new 
 system has been born and has grown outside the law, 
 until it has in time become law in its turn, it was 
 not unnatural to expect that in recognizing and 
 legalizing the right of new ideas to develop, the state 
 of things would improve. But it is the very con- 
 trary which has happened. There has never been 
 so little originahty in thought as since thought has 
 been free. A true and original idea does not require 
 j)ermission to come into existence, and it matters 
 little whether its right is recognized or not ; it always 
 finds enough liberty, for it makes for itself all the 
 liberty wdiich it requires. Christianity did not re- 
 quire liberty of the press or the right of public meet- 
 ing in order to conquer the world. A liberty which 
 is officially recognized requires to be regulated. Now 
 a regulated, or restricted liberty constitutes a tighter 
 chain than the absence of the law. In Judeea, under 
 Pontius Pilate, the right of meeting was not recog- 
 nized, and, as a matter of fact, people were all the 
 more free to meet ; for by the very fact of the right 
 not being recognized, it was not in any sense re- 
 stricted. Originality, I repeat, is better served by 
 arbitrary methods and the drawbacks it entails than 
 by the tangled web in which we are enfolded by 
 thousands of laws and rules, which are an arsenal 
 for weapons of every kind. Our formalistic liberalism 
 is only really of service to agitators and to the petty 
 originality which is so injurious to great originality 
 and which is of so little use to the true progress 
 of the human mind. We wear out our strength in 
 defending our liberties, forgetting that these liberties 
 are only a means, that they are only of value in so 
 far as they may facilitate the advent of new ideas. 
 We are above all things anxious to be free to pro- 
 duce, and as a matter of fact we produce nothing. 
 
 We shudder at the idea of the outward bond, and 
 we understand nothing of the great boldness of 
 thought. The very shadow of the Inquisition terrifies
 
 338 The Future oj Science. 
 
 even the Catholics, and inwardly we are timid and 
 devoid of "go;" we are only too ready to resign 
 ourselves to public opinion and to habit ; we sacrifice 
 our oric^inality to it, and whatever travels at all 
 outside the commonplace routine is declared to be 
 absurd. Germany, no doubt, at the end of the last 
 century and the beginning of this had less outward 
 liberty than we have, and yet I defy any one to deny 
 that all the free thinkers in our Eepublic had not a 
 quarter of the boldness and liberty which are breathed 
 in the writings of Lessing, of Herder, of Goethe and 
 of Kant. In reality, thought was more free half a 
 century ago at the Court of Weimar, under an 
 absolute Government, than in our country which 
 has fought so many battles for liberty. Goethe, the 
 friend of a Grand Duke, might have been prosecuted 
 if he had written in France ; the translator of 
 Feurbach could not find a publisher who ventured 
 to bring out his book. This is our peculiarity ; we 
 are an external and superficial nation, more con- 
 cerned for the form than for the reality. The great 
 and broad ideas about God have been and still are in 
 Germany the doctrine of all philosophically culti- 
 vated minds ; in France, no one has yet had the 
 courage to profess them, and if he did he would 
 encounter greater obstacles than he would have done 
 at Tubingen or Jena under absolute governments. 
 If it be asked whence the obstacle would come, the 
 answer is fi'om the intellectual timidity which closes 
 our minds against any idea and traces around us the 
 narrow horizon of the finite. France, I repeat, has 
 only understood external liberty, but not in any 
 respect liberty of thought. Spain, in reality as free 
 and as philosophical as any other nation, has not felt 
 the need of an external emancipation, and can you 
 imagine that if she had seriously desired it, she would 
 not have secured it ? Liberty there is entirely 
 internal ; Spaniards have preferred to think freely 
 in the dungeons and at the stake. Mystics like 
 St. Theresa of Avila, indefatigable theologians hke
 
 The Future of Science. 339 
 
 Soto, Baiiez and Suarez were in reality as bold specu- 
 lators as Descartes or Diderot. 
 
 Let us, therefore, set ourselves to think more 
 freely and scientifically, rather than to be more free 
 to express our thoughts. The man who is right is 
 always sufficiently free. Is it not very probable that 
 those who protest against the violation of liberty are 
 not so much the people who, possessed of the truth, 
 suffer pain because they cannot divulge it, as those 
 who, having no ideas of their own, work to their own 
 advantage that liberty which ought only to serve for 
 the rational progress of human intelligence? The 
 innovators who have been right in the eyes of the 
 future may, perhaps, have been persecuted ; but 
 persecution has never retarded for much more than a 
 year the triumph of their ideas, and has in other 
 ways been of more service to them than if they had 
 secured immediate acceptance. 
 
 No doubt, it is our duty carefully to preserve the 
 liberties which we have acquired with so many efforts, 
 but, what is of greater importance still, is to convince 
 ourselves that this is merely a primary condition 
 which is advantageous if one has ideas and fatal if 
 one has not. For what boots it to be free to meet 
 if one has nothing of value to communicate to one 
 another ? What boots it to be free to write and 
 speak, if one has nothing new or true to say ? Each 
 side has its part to play ; persecutors and persecuted 
 alike have their shoulders to the everlasting wheel ; 
 and after all the persecuted owe a debt of gratitude 
 to the persecutors, as but for them they would not 
 have the same title to admiration. 
 
 Persecution has the great advantage of getting rid 
 of the petty originality which endeavours to gain 
 kudos by a paltry kind of opposition. When men 
 risk their lives for their ideas, it is only those who 
 are possessed of God, those who are carried away 
 by a powerful conviction and by the invincible need 
 to utter their thoughts who put themselves in the 
 forefront. Our guaranteed semi-liberties give too
 
 340 The Future of Science. 
 
 fine a field for intrigue ; for one does not incur much 
 risk, and the annoyances to which one exposes one- 
 self are, at most, but a good investment for the 
 future. This makes things too easy, whereas in 
 former times, out of ten innovators nine were put to 
 a violent death, so that the tenth was really original. 
 The pruning hook which lops off the weak branches 
 does but give more strength to the others. In these 
 days, there is no pruning hook, but there is no more 
 sap. In short, all this is a matter of little impor- 
 tance, and humanity will go on its way without the 
 liberals and despite the retrogrades. The mind is 
 never bolder and more self-reliant than when it just 
 feels the hand checking it. Leave it quite unfettered, 
 and it will be lacking in ballast, so contented with its 
 liberty that it will think only of preserving it with- 
 out any idea of profiting by it. The history of the 
 human mind shows us how all ideas are born outside 
 the law and grow in secret. If we go back to the 
 origin of all reforms, they will appear in the regular 
 course of things to be incapable of being put into 
 force. Let us take our stand, for instance, in 1520, 
 and ask ourselves how the new idea will succeed in 
 piercing this sea of ice. It is impossible ; the chain 
 is too strong, what with the Pope, the Emperor, 
 kiugs, religious orders and universities ; and against 
 all these only a poor monk. It is quite impossible. 
 Or let us take the origin of modern rationalism. 
 The age is in the meshes of the Jesuits, the oratory, 
 priests, and kiugs. The Jesuits have made of educa- 
 tion a machine to shrink the heads and to depress 
 the minds, according to Michelet's expression. And 
 against all this what have we except a few poor and 
 obscure savants, with no backing in the masses, 
 such as Galileo and Descartes. What can they 
 expect to do, and how are they to lift such a weight 
 of authority ? Yet a century and a half later it was 
 done. 
 
 TJius all reforms would have been prevented if the 
 law had been ligcjrously observed, but the law never
 
 Tlie Future of Science. 341 
 
 provides for every contingency, and the mind is so 
 subtle that a very small outlet suffices for it. So 
 that it matters little whether the law grants or 
 refuses liberty to new ideas, for they make their way 
 all the same ; they come into existence without the 
 law and despite the law, and they are all the better for 
 this than if they had grown in full legality. When 
 a river which has overflown its banks pours onward, 
 you may erect dykes to arrest its progress, but the 
 flood continues to rise ; you may work with eager 
 energy and employ skilful labourers to make good all 
 the fissures, but the flood will continue to rise until 
 the torrent has surmounted the obstacle, or until, 
 by making a circuit of the dyke, it comes back by 
 some other way to inundate the land which you have 
 attempted to protect from it.
 
 342 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 The end of humanity, and therefore the aim which 
 pohtical conduct should keep before it, is to realize 
 the highest human culture possible, that is to say 
 the most perfect religion, by science, philosophy, art 
 and morality : in a word hj aU the means of attaining 
 the ideal which are in the nature of man. 
 
 This high culture of humanity could only be solid 
 in so far as it was realized by the individual. Con- 
 sequently, the end would not be attained if a 
 civilization, however elevated, was only accessible to 
 a small number, and especially if it constituted a 
 personal enjoyment and one without any tradition. 
 The end wiU only be attained when all men shall 
 have access to this true religion, and when all 
 humanity shaU possess culture. 
 
 Every man has a right to the true religion, to 
 what makes man perfect ; that is to say every man 
 ought to find in the society into which he is born 
 the means of attaining the perfection of his nature, 
 according to the formula of the day ; in other words, 
 every man ought to find in society, as regards the 
 intelligence, what the mother furnishes him as 
 regards the body, the milk, the primordial element, 
 the primary foundation which he cannot procure for 
 himself. This perfection needs a certain degree of 
 material well-being. So that in a normal state of 
 society, man would also be entitled to the primary 
 funds necessary for procuring this livelihood. 
 
 In a word, society owes to man the possibility of
 
 The Future of Science. 343 
 
 life, of the life which man, in his turn, is bound, if 
 necessary, to sacrifice to society. 
 
 If socialism were the logical consequence of the 
 modern intelligence, one would have to be a sociahst ; 
 for the distinguishing feature of modern intelligence 
 is the unquestionable. Many persons, indeed, with 
 opposite intentions, maintain that socialism is the 
 direct filiation of modern philosophy. Whence the 
 one side concludes that socialism must be admitted 
 as a necessity, while the other side maintains that 
 modern philosophy should be rejected. 
 
 Nothing causes more misunderstandings in the 
 moral sciences than the absolute use of names for 
 designating systems. Wise men never accept any 
 of these names, for a name is a limit. They criticize 
 doctrines, but never take them just as they are. 
 What man of any mark in our day would take for 
 himself the names of pantheist, materiahst, sceptic, 
 etc. ? Give me ten lines of any author, and I will 
 prove to you that he is pantheist, and with ten more 
 I will prove that he is not. These words do not 
 designate a unique and constant shade of ideas ; 
 they vary according to the aspects. 
 
 It is the same with socialism. For my own part 
 I would willingly adopt as my formula of opinion in 
 this respect what M. Guizot says : " Sociahsm derives 
 its ambition and its strength from sources which no 
 one can dry up. But dominated by the forces of 
 unity and order in society, it will always be combated 
 and vanquished in so far as it is absurd and perverse, 
 while gradually taking its place and its share in the 
 immense and imposing development of humanity 
 which is going on in our days." 
 
 What constitutes the force of socialism is that it 
 corresponds to a perfectly legitimate tendency of 
 the human mind, and in this sense it is the genuine, 
 natural development of it. One must be blind not 
 to see that the work begun four centuries ago m the 
 literary, scientific and political order is the successive 
 exaltation of the whole human race, the realization
 
 344 T}ie Future of Science. 
 
 of that inmost craving of our nature for " more 
 
 light." 
 
 x\t tlie present juncture, the problem is set forth 
 in particularly difficult terms. For, upon the one 
 hand, it is necessary to preserve the conquests already 
 secured for civilization, while upon the other all 
 must have their share in the blessings of this civili- 
 zation. This will appear contradictory, for it must 
 seem at first sight as if the abjection of a certain 
 number and even of the majority was a necessary 
 condition of society as it has been moulded by 
 modern epochs, and especially by the eighteenth 
 century. 
 
 I do not hesitate to assert that never, since the 
 origin of things, has the human intelligence set itself 
 60 terrible a problem. That of slavery in antiquity 
 was much less so, and yet it took centuries to con- 
 ceive the possibility of a society without slavery. 
 
 In proportion as humanity advances, the problem 
 of its destiny becomes more complicated ; for it has 
 to combine more data, to weigh more motives, to con- 
 ciliate more contradictions. So humanity marches 
 on, with one hand clutching within the folds of its 
 robe the conquests of the past, and in the other 
 holding the sword which is to efi"ect fresh conquests. 
 Formerly, the question was very simple ; the most 
 advanced views, merely because they were the most 
 advanced, might be regarded as the best. It is no 
 longer so. No doubt it is always w^ell to take the 
 sliortest route, and I do not at all approve those who 
 maintain that we should walk, but not run. We 
 should always do the best we can, and do it as 
 quickly as possible. But the essential thing is to 
 discover what is the best, and that is not an easy 
 matter. It is barely fifty years ago that humanity 
 saw clearly the object which it had hitherto been 
 unconsciously pursuing. This is an immense pro- 
 gress, but it is also an undeniable danger. The 
 traveller who looks only at the horizon of the plain 
 risks not seeing the precipice or the quagmire at his
 
 The Future of Science. 345 
 
 feet. In the same way, humanity, when looking 
 only to the distant object, is tempted to make a jump 
 for it, without regard to the intermediate objects 
 against which it may not improbably dash itself to 
 pieces. The most remarkable characteristic of the 
 Utopists is not to be historical, not to take into 
 account of what we have been brought to by accom- 
 plished facts. Supposing that the society of which 
 they dream were possible, supposing even that it 
 were absolutely the best, it would still not be the 
 true society, that which has been created by all the 
 antecedents of humanity. The problem is, there- 
 fore, more complicated than it may appear ; the 
 solution can only be obtained by balancing two 
 orders of consideration ; upon the one side, the 
 object to be attained, upon the other the present 
 state of things, the ground we are treading. When 
 humanity went instinctively forward, one might put 
 confidence in the divine genius which directed its 
 course, but one shudders at the thought of the dread 
 alternatives it holds in its hands since it has reached 
 an age of consciousness, and of the incalculable con- 
 sequences which a blunder or an act of caprice might 
 have. 
 
 With these great problems confronting them, 
 the philosophers reflect and wait ; among those who 
 are not philosophers, some deny the problem and 
 maintain that the present state of things must at 
 any cost be preserved, while others hope to meet 
 what is wanted by solutions too simple and too self- 
 evident. It is needless to say that each side has 
 good arguments to adduce, for the reformers throw 
 in the teeth of the conservatives undeniable wrongs 
 and evils which call loudly for a remedy, while the 
 conservatives have no difficulty in demonstrating 
 that with the system proposed by the reformers there 
 would be no society possible. And better by far is 
 a defective society than one which does not exist. 
 
 I have often reflected that a pagan of the time of 
 Augustus might have urged in favour of the main-
 
 34G The Future of Science. 
 
 tenance of ancient society all that is said in our 
 days to prove that nothing ought to be changed in 
 the present state of society. What is the aim of 
 this sombre and melancholy creed? "What strange 
 people these Christians are, people who avoid the 
 light, unsociable, the very residuum of the people 
 (152). I should be very much surprised if some 
 of the self-satisfied people of those days did not say 
 as in our own : We must not refute Christianity, 
 but suppress it. Society in the presence of Chris- 
 tianity is as it were in the presence of an implacable 
 enemy. Society must crush it, or it will itself be 
 crushed. In these conditions, all discussion is 
 reduced to a struggle, and all reasoning to a weapon. 
 What do we do in presence of an irreconcilable 
 enemy ? Do we enter into controversy with him ? 
 No, we go to war with him. In the same way, 
 society must defend itself against Christianity, not 
 by reasonings but by force. It must not discuss or 
 refute its doctrines, but suppress them. I can fancy 
 Seneca coming by chance across those words of St. 
 Paul : '' Non est Judseus neque Graecus ; non est 
 servus neque liber ; non est masculus neque femina ; 
 omnes enim vos unum estis in Christo." " Surely," 
 he would have said, " Here we have a Utopian. How 
 can a society exist without slaves ? Would you 
 have me cultivate my land with my own hands ? 
 This is subversive of public order and then what is 
 this Christus who is playing so singular a part ? 
 These people are dangerous. I will speak to Nero 
 about tJiem." No doubt if the slaves, taking literally 
 and as being immediately applicable the words of 
 St. Paul, had established their dominion upon the 
 smoking ruins of Eome and of Italy and had deprived 
 the world of the benefits it was to derive from the 
 dominion of Eome, Seneca would have been to a 
 certain extent right. But if a Christian slave had 
 said to the philosoiDher : " Oh ! Annaeus, I know 
 the man who wrote these words, he preaches only 
 submission and patience. What he has written will
 
 TJie Future 0/ Science. 347 
 
 be accomplished, without rebellion and by the masters 
 themselves. A day will come when society will be 
 possible without slaves, although you, as a philoso- 
 pher, cannot imagine this," Seneca would not, in 
 all probabihty, have behoved him ; but perhaps he 
 would not have had the simple-minded dreamer 
 flogged. 
 
 Socialism is, therefore, right to the extent of dis- 
 cerning the problem, but solves it badly ; or rather 
 socialism is not yet possible of solution. Individual 
 liberty, in fine, is the primary cause of the evil. 
 Now, the emancipation of the individual is secured, 
 finally secured, and must for ever be preserved. 
 "Society," said Enfantin, "does not consist solely 
 of idlers and workers ; pohtics should have for aim 
 the moral, physical and intellectual improvement of 
 the lot of the workers and the progressive efi"acement 
 of the idlers." Here we have a clearly defined pro- 
 blem. Now let us listen to the solution. " The 
 means are, as regards the idlers, the destruction of 
 all the privileges of birth, and, as regards the workers, 
 a classification according to capacities and a scale 
 of rewards according to the work done." This is a 
 remedy worse than the disease. It is a necessity of 
 the human mind that when a problem is thus stated 
 for the first time, certain ingenuous and generous 
 minds, not possessed of enough rational critique nor 
 a sufficient experience of history, nor of any idea of 
 the extreme complexity of human nature, should 
 dream of the formation of a society too simple to be 
 possible, and should imagine that they had found 
 the solution in some obvious or superficial idea, 
 which, if it could be realized, would go directly 
 counter to their object. No social problem can be 
 attacked from the front ; whenever a solution appears 
 to be clear and easy, we must be on our guard. The 
 truth, in this order of things is deep and hidden. 
 But the duller minds, which do not seize these deH- 
 cate shades of difference, blunder straight on through 
 morasses and quagmires. This is an inevitable and
 
 348 The Future of Science. 
 
 irremediable error. Persuaded that they hold the 
 ke}' of the enigma, these worthy souls are impor- 
 tunate and very eager to be doing ; they are anxious 
 to be given a free course, and they are convinced 
 that only selfishness and ill-will stand in the way 
 of tlieir system being adopted. Those who laugh 
 at these simple enthusiasts or who insult them are 
 still less excusable ; for they are not any better in- 
 formed, and they are perhaps still more backward, 
 for they have not grasped the problem. My con- 
 viction is that the day will come when it will be said 
 of sociahsm as of all reforms : It has attained its 
 object, not according to the aim of the sectaries, but 
 for the good of humanity. Reforms never triumph 
 directly ; they triumph by compelling their adver- 
 saries, in order to overcome them, to partially adopt 
 them. It is like a storm which draws back into its 
 vortex those who attempt to face it (153), a stream 
 which carries with it those who seek to withstand it, 
 a knot which tightens when you attempt to untie it, 
 a fire which kindles when you blow to put it out. 
 Humanitj'-, like God of the Old Testament, accom- 
 phshes the will by the efforts of its enemies. Ex- 
 amine the history of all great reforms, and it will 
 seem at first sight as if they were defeated. But in 
 reality the reaction which has resisted them has only 
 triumphed over them by conceding what was just 
 and legitimate in their demands. It might be said 
 of the reforms as of the crusades : Not one suc- 
 ceeded; all succeeded. Their defeat is their victory, 
 or ratlior no one gains an absolute triumph in these 
 great struggles unless it be humanity, which profits 
 by the energetic initiative of the innovators, and by 
 the reaction which undesignedly corrects and im- 
 l)roves that which it sought to suppress. 
 
 We sliould, in my opinion, feel grateful to those 
 wlio attempt to solve a problem, even when they are 
 fated not to succeed. For, before reaching the true 
 solution, many erroneous ones must be tried, and the 
 panacea and tlio philosopher's stone must be allowed
 
 The Future of Science. 349 
 
 to have their chance. I cannot profess much re- 
 spect for that negative wisdom, so much in favour 
 with us, which consists of making light of those who 
 seek the truth and of remaining motionless and in- 
 active so as not to risk heing regarded as subversive. 
 It is a poor merit not to fall when one does not move. 
 The first people to enter upon a new order of ideas 
 are bound to be charlatans more or less in earnest. 
 It is easy for us nowadays to sneer at Paracelsus, 
 Agrippa, Cardan, and Van Helmont, and yet without 
 them we should not be what we are. Humanity only 
 reaches the truth through a series of successive errors. 
 It is the aged Balaam who falls and whose eyes are 
 opened (154). As one sees the tide bringing the ever 
 collapsing waves upon the shore, the feeling aroused 
 is one of powerlessness. The wave arrived so 
 proudly, and yet it is dashed to pieces against the 
 sand, and it expires in a feeble career of the shore 
 which it seemed as though about to devour. But 
 upon reflection, one finds that this process is not so 
 idle as it seems, for each wave, as it dies away, has 
 its effect, and all the waves combined make the 
 rising tide against which heaven and hell would be 
 powerless. 
 
 ^Foreign nations often laugh at the waste of time 
 and strength which a revolution entails in France, 
 and at the disappointments which cause her to revert 
 to the point from which she started, after having 
 paid very dearly for her excursion. It is very easy 
 for them, seeing that they do not attempt to do 
 anything, leaving us to make experiments at our 
 own cost, to laugh when we make a false step upon 
 this unexplored ground. But let tbem try what they 
 can do, and we shall see. England, for instance, is 
 obstinately attached to the most flagrant contradic- 
 tions. Her religious system is the most absurd of 
 any, and she is not to be moved from it. She refuses 
 to open her eyes. Her quietism and her prosperity 
 are a shame to her, and testify to her nulhty. 
 
 Such, then, is the situation of the human mind.
 
 350 The Future of Science. 
 
 A vast problem lies before it, the solution of which 
 is urgent ; but the solution is impossible and perhaps 
 will not be ripe for a century. Then come the 
 empirics with their deplorable naivete ; each one of 
 them has discovered at a glance what has so per- 
 plexed and baffled the wise and the experienced ; 
 each of them undertakes to effect a general pacifica- 
 tion, the only condition he asks for the salvation of 
 society being that he should be left a free hand. The 
 wise men who know how difficult the problem is shrug 
 their shoulders. But the people have not the senti- 
 ment of the difficulty of a problem, and the reason 
 is very simple ; they imagine it to be too simple and 
 do not take account of all its elements. 
 
 To seek a perfect equilibrium and repose at such 
 an epoch as this is to seek the impossible ; for we are 
 by necessity in the midst of what is provisional and 
 unstable. The calm is but an armistice and a breath- 
 ing space. Humanity, when it is fatigued, is willing 
 to pause, but to pause is not to rest. It is impos- 
 sible for society to find calm in a state when it is 
 suffeiing from an open wound such as that of to-day. 
 The mere consciousness of the malady prevents re- 
 pose, and one can but doze between one attack and 
 another. At such a period, no one can be right 
 unless it is the critic who does not offer a decided 
 opinion. For the age is oppressed by a problem at 
 once inevitable and insoluble. At these epochs, 
 doubt and iudecision are the truth ; the man who is 
 not in doubt is either a simpleton or a charlatan. 
 The life of humanity, like the life of the individual, 
 rests upon necessary contradictions. Life is but a 
 transition, an intolerable burden long endured. There 
 is not a moment in which one can say that one rests 
 upon any solid foundation ; one is always hoping to 
 reach tliat solid basis, but only hoping. 
 
 We must not, therefore, be surprised at these in- 
 soluble contradictions. Only narrow minds can 
 construct for tbemselves at any given moment a well- 
 defined and rounded-off system, and imagine that
 
 The Future of Science. 351 
 
 this infinite void (155) can be filled up with an a 
 ^priori constitution. The party man feels it necessary 
 to think that he is entirely in the right, that he is 
 fighting for a sacred cause, that those opposed 
 to him are criminal and perverse. The party man 
 seeks to force his antipathies upon the future, not 
 reflecting that the future is devoid of passion against 
 any one, that Spartacus and John of Leyden are 
 merely objects of interest to us. Strange to say, we 
 are only impartial and critical for the fanaticisms of 
 the past, and we are fanatical ourselves. We barri- 
 cade ourselves in our party in order not to see the 
 reasons of the other side. The wise man does not 
 feel anger against any one, for he knows that human 
 nature only has its passions moved for the incom- 
 plete truth. He knows that all parties are at once 
 wrong and right. The conservatives are wrong, for 
 the state of things which they uphold as good and 
 which they do right to uphold, is bad and intolerable. 
 The revolutionists are wrong ; for, if they discern the 
 evil, they do not possess, any more than the con- 
 servatives, the idea of organization. But it is absurd 
 to destroy when you have nothing to put in place of 
 what you destroy. Eevolution will be sacred and 
 legitimate when the regenerating idea, that is to say 
 the new religion, having been discovered, all that 
 will be needed will be to upset the worn-out state 
 of things to give it its legitimate place ; or rather 
 there will no longer be any need to effect a revolu- 
 tion ; it will come of itself. Any constitution would 
 be at once abrogated by it ; for it would be absolute 
 sovereign. So it was in 1789. The revolution was 
 ripe at that period ; it had already been effected in 
 the public mind ; for every one saw what a flagrant 
 contradiction there was between the new ideas created 
 by the eighteenth century, and existing institutions. 
 It was the same in 1830. The liberal revolution 
 had preceded it, the liberal principles were accepted 
 in advance. Was it so in 1848? The future will 
 show, but it is a remarkable fact that the victorious
 
 352 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 side was the one most embarrassed on the morrow 
 of tlie victory. The revohition of '48 was not at all 
 a pohtical revolution; compare the politicians and 
 the politics of to-day with those of the epoch pre- 
 ceding the 24th of February, and you will find them 
 to be absolutely identical. Its signification was that 
 of social revolution, and as such it was certainly pre- 
 mature, inasmuch as it proved abortive. Revolutions 
 must be made for well-ascertained principles, and not 
 for tendencies which have not yet been formulated 
 in a practical manner. 
 
 Herein, then, lies the secret of our situation. The 
 present state of things being defective and felt to be 
 so, whoever comes forward with a proposed remedy 
 is welcome. Upon the morrow of one revolution, 
 the germ of another begins to form. This accounts 
 for the favourable consideration which may be 
 reckoned upon by any party which has not yet been 
 put to the test. But no sooner has it triumphed 
 than it is in as great a difficulty as the rest, for it 
 does not know any more than they do. Hence arises 
 the inevitable unpopularity of all authority, and the 
 fatal position in which every Government finds itself. 
 For it is expected to provide in a moment what it 
 cannot give and what no one possesses, the solution 
 of the problem of the hour. Every government thus 
 becomes, by the force of things, a target for every 
 weapon, and is condemned to be unable to fulfil its 
 task. It is an unfair piece of tactics to remind the 
 governing body of what they have said and promised 
 during the time they were in opposition and to make 
 them appear inconsistent ; for this inconsistency is 
 necessary, and those who declare so stoutly that they 
 wouhl do differently if they were in power either lie 
 or deceive themselves. If they were in power, they 
 would be subject to the same necessities and would 
 act in the same way. For the last sixty years there 
 has not been a single Head of the State who has 
 not died on the scaffold or in exile, and it was neces- 
 sary that sucli should be the case. Any future one
 
 The Future of Science. 353 
 
 will have the same fate, unless a periodic law, more 
 favourable to him in reality than he may think, 
 comes in time to deliver him from office. How is 
 it possible to avoid succumbing beneath an impos- 
 sible task ? In reality, this does honour to France ; 
 it proves that she has a high idea of perfection. It 
 is to our credit that we are hard to please and dis- 
 satisfied. Mediocrity is easily satisfied ; lofty minds 
 are always full of disquiet and agitated, for they are 
 constantly aspiring after something better. Only 
 the infinite could thoroughly satisfy them. 
 
 Thus humanity is in the position of a sick person, 
 who suffers in whatever position he may be, and 
 yet who allows himself to be constantly lured by the 
 hope that he will be better if he turns round. Revo- 
 lutions are the upheavals of the everlasting Enceladus 
 turning over when ^tna weighs too heavily upon 
 him. It is superficial to envisage history as being 
 composed of periods of stability and periods of tran- 
 sition. It is transition which is the customary state. 
 No doubt humanity remains fixed for a more or less 
 lengthened period upon the same ideas ; but it is 
 like the bird of paradise in the legend, which broods 
 as it flies. All is the end, everything is the means. 
 In human life, mature years are not the aim of youth, 
 old age is not the aim of maturity. The aim is life 
 taken in its unity. 
 
 1 There is an optical illusion to which we who were 
 born between 1815 and 1830 are subject. We have 
 not been the witnesses of great events, so we go 
 back to the Revolution for our estimate of every- 
 thing ; that is our horizon, the hill of our childhood, 
 our world's end. Now it so happens that this horizon 
 is a mountain; we measure everything by that. 
 This is deceptive, and cannot form any induction 
 for the future, as since the invasion which constitutes 
 the limit of ancient and of modern history, there has 
 been no fact like that, and perhaps will not be agam 
 for centuries. But whenever there is any question 
 of revelation, even if the reference be to mere child's 
 ' 2 A
 
 354 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 play, we at once carry our minds back to this gigantic 
 cataract, and never to the much slower changes 
 recorded by earher history, say that of the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth centuries. 
 
 I will take care not to follow political economy 
 in its deductions, for the economists would no doubt 
 attribute to my incompetence the suspicion which 
 these deductions arouse in me ; but I am competent 
 in matters of morality and of the philosophy of 
 humanity. I do not concern myself with the means ; 
 I speak of what should be and consequently of what 
 will be. Well, I am convinced that humanity will 
 succeed within a century in realizing that towards 
 which it is now tending, with the exception, of 
 course, that it will then be guided by new require- 
 ments. Then one will be in a position to criticize 
 both sides : those who resisted, and those who 
 fancied that society could be reconstructed like a 
 house of cards. Each man will have his part to 
 play; we, the critics, like the rest. What may be 
 taken for granted is that nobody will be altogether 
 right or absolutely wrong. Barbes himself, the 
 unreasonable revolutionist, will then become an 
 exponent of legitimacy, and the mutual explanations 
 which must then ensue will be interesting. The 
 common error of the socialists and of their opponents 
 is to suppose that the question of humanity is a 
 question of ease and enjoyment. If that were so, 
 Fourier and Cabet would be perfectly right. It is 
 horrible that one man should be sacrificed to the 
 enjoyment of another. Inequality is only con- 
 ceivable and just from the standpoint of moral 
 society. If it were merely a question of self-indul- 
 gence, it would be better that all should have Spartan 
 fare than that some should have luxuries and others 
 go hungry. Would it, in fact, be worth while to 
 sacrifice one's life and happiness for the good of 
 society if the sole result was to procure a little 
 insipid enjoyment for a few insignificant idlers who 
 have put themselves beyond the pale of humanity,
 
 The Future of Science. 355 
 
 in order to live more at their ease ? Let me repeat 
 that if the object of life was but self-indulgence, it 
 would not be unreasonable that each one should 
 claim his share, and from this point of view any 
 enjoyment which one might procure at the expense 
 of others would be in reality an injustice and a 
 robbery. The communistic follies are, therefore, 
 the consequence of the hideous hedonism of the last 
 few years. When the socialists say : The aim of 
 society is the happiness of all ; when their adver- 
 saries say : The aim of society is the happiness- of a 
 few, both are alike wrong, but the former less so 
 than the latter. What should be said is : The aim 
 of society is the greatest possible perfecting of all, 
 and material ease is only of value in so far as it is 
 to a certain extent the indispensable condition of 
 intellectual perfection. The State is neither an 
 institution of police, as Smith would have it, nor a 
 charity bureau and a hospital, as the socialists would 
 have it. It is a machine for making progress. 
 Every sacrifice of the individual which is not an 
 injustice, that is to say the spoliation of a natural 
 right, is permissible in order to reach this end ; for 
 in this case the sacrifice is not effected for the enjoy- 
 ment of another individual, it is made upon behalf 
 of society as a whole. It is the idea of the ancient 
 sacrifice, the man for the nation : expedit unum 
 hominem mori pro populi. 
 
 Inequality is legitimate whenever inequality is 
 necessary for the good of humanity. A society is 
 entitled to what is necessary for its existence, how- 
 ever great may be the apparent injustice resulting 
 fo r tlie individual. 
 
 ,^pP&e principle that there are no such things as indi- 
 viduals is true as a physical fact, but not as a teleo- 
 logical proposition. In the plane of things, the 
 individual disappears; the large shape mapped out 
 by individuals generally is alone of any account. 
 Socialists are not really consistent when they preach 
 equality, for equality is derived mainly from the
 
 356 The Future of Science. 
 
 consideration of the individual, and inequality is 
 only conceivable from the point of view of society. 
 The possibihty and the requirements of society, the 
 interests of civilization, take precedence of all the 
 rest. Thus, individual liberty, emulation and com- 
 petition being conditional to all civilization, the 
 present iniquity is better than the final servitude of 
 socialism. Thus, learned and lettered culture being 
 absolutely indispensable in the scheme of humanity, 
 even when it can only fall to the share of a small 
 minority, this flagrant privilege would be excused 
 by necessity. For there is not, as a matter of fact, 
 any tradition for happiness, but there is a tradition 
 for science. I will go so far as to say that if at any 
 time slavery was necessary for the existence of 
 society, slavery was legitimate, for in such a case 
 the slaves were slaves of humanity (156), slaves of 
 the divine scheme — a thing which is no more repug- 
 nant than the existence of so many beings inexorably 
 attached to the yoke of an idea which is above them 
 and which they do not understand (157). If a day 
 arrived when humanity once more needed to be 
 governed in the old way, to be subject to a Lycurgus- 
 like code, that would be quite justifiable (158). In 
 the same way, the day may come when international 
 rights will reach such a point that each nation will 
 be sensitive like the limb of a body to what is going 
 on in others. With a more perfect code of morality, 
 rights which are now false and dangerous will be 
 unquestioned, for the condition of these rights will 
 be laid down, which has not yet been done (159). 
 This may be conceived when once you attribute to 
 humanity an objective aim (that is to say independent 
 of the well-being of individuals) the realization of the 
 perfect, the great deification. The subordination 
 of animals to man, that of the sexes the one to the 
 other, does not shock any one, because it is the work 
 of nature and of the inevitable organization of things. 
 At bottom, the hierarchy of men according to their 
 dogree of perfection does not shock one's ideas of
 
 The Future of Sciefice. 357 
 
 fitness a whit more. What is shocking is that the 
 individual, of his own right and for his personal 
 enjoyment, should enslave his fellow-man in order 
 to have self-indulgence at his expense. The in- 
 equality is revolting when we consider solely the 
 personal and egotistical advantage which the superior 
 derives from the inferior ; it is natural and right if 
 considered as an inevitable law of society, the tran- , 
 sitory condition at all events of its per fectiond J 
 Those who envisage rights, like the rest, as bemg 
 always rigorously the same, launch anathemas against 
 the most necessary facts of history. But this way 
 of looking at things has grown obsolete ; the human 
 mind has passed from the absolute to the historical, 
 envisaging everything from the point of view of 
 becoming. Rights create themselves like other things ; 
 they are created, not, of course, by positive laws, 
 but by the successive exaltation of humanity, which 
 manifests itself in the conquest which it efi'ects of 
 these rights. The fact does not constitute the right, 
 but manifests the right. All rights must be con- 
 quered, and those who cannot conquer them prove 
 that they are not ripe for these rights, that these 
 rights do not exist for them, unless it be potentially. 
 The freeing of the negroes was neither achieved nor 
 deserved by the negroes, but by the progress in 
 civilization of their masters. It is not because you 
 have proved to a nation that it is entitled to its 
 independence that it rises to claim it; the young 
 lion goes off to hunt for his food when he feels strong 
 enough, without any one telling him. The wishes 
 of humanity do not constitute the right, as Jurieu 
 would have it ; but it is, in its general tendency and 
 its main results, the indication of the right. The 
 champions of the absolute right, like the jurists, and 
 of blind facts, like CalUcles, are both wrong. The 
 fact is the criterion of right. The French Revo- 
 lution is not legitimate because it has taken place ; 
 but it took place because it was legitimate. Right 
 is the progress of humanity ; there is no right m
 
 358 The Future of Science. 
 
 opposition to this progress, and, vice versa, progress 
 is sufficient to legitimize everything. Whatever 
 serves to advance the work of God is permissible. 
 
 We Frenchmen, who are gifted with an absolute 
 and exclusive spirit, fall into strange illusions in this 
 respect, and we often reason much in this way, 
 which is a very scholastic one. " Such a system of 
 institution would be intolerable with us, at the point 
 we have reached ; it must be so, therefore, every- 
 where, and it must have been so always." The 
 simple minded carry this to a most delightfully ludi- 
 crous point, and a few months ago they wanted to 
 make all Europe republican willy nilly. We want to 
 establish everywhere the government which suits us 
 and to which we are entitled. We think that we 
 should be doing wonders if we established the consti- 
 tutional regime among the savages of Oceania, and 
 we shall soon be sending diplomatic notes to the 
 Grand Turk to advise him to call together a Parlia- 
 ment.* We reason in the same way with regard to 
 the emancipation of the blacks. Assuredly, if there 
 is a reform which is urgent and ripe this is the one. 
 But we conclude that we are without transition to 
 apply to the negro the regime of individual liberty 
 which suits civilized peoj)le like ourselves, not re- 
 flecting that what is above all things necessary is 
 to educate these unhappy creatures, and that this 
 regime is not suitable for doing so. The best system 
 to be followed for the education of the negro races is 
 that which Providence has followed in the education 
 of huruanity, for it is not, seemingly, by chance that 
 it has made its selection. Look by how many 
 stages the peoples have passed. It is certain that 
 civilization cannot be improvised, that it requires a 
 long course of discipline, and that it is doing a dis- 
 service to uncultivated races to emancipate them 
 all at once. I imagine that they need to traverse a 
 
 * What M. Eenan suggests as a joke in 1850 was actually done 
 if not hy France, at all events by other Western Powers in 1876. 
 — Transl.
 
 The Future of Science. 359 
 
 state analogous to the ancient theocracies. Slavery 
 does not elevate the negro, nor does liberty. True, 
 he will sleep all day, or will run, like a child, about 
 the woods. Abolitionism carried to an extreme 
 betrays a profound ignorance of the psychology of 
 humanity. I imagine, moreover, that the scientific 
 and experimental study of the education of barbarous 
 races will become one of the most striking problems 
 offered to the mind of Europe, when the attention of 
 the continent can for a moment be taken off from 
 itself. 
 
 The history of humanity is not only the history of 
 its enfranchisement, it is above all the history of its 
 education. What would humanity be if it had not 
 traversed the ancient theocracies and the severe 
 codes of a Lycurgus ? The whip has been a necessity 
 in the education of humanity. We have ceased to 
 envisage these forms except as obstacles which 
 humanity has been compelled to break. She has 
 broken them, no doubt, but only after having turned 
 them to her profit. And was it not she, after all, 
 who had created them for herself ? The effort which 
 is made to destroy them renders us blind to their 
 anterior use. The revolutionary histories make the 
 mistake of presenting the destruction of ancient forms 
 as the great resultant of the progress of humanity. 
 To destroy is not an end. Humanity has lived in 
 the ancient moulds until they have become too 
 narrow, and then has caused them to burst, but does 
 any one suppose that this was out of anger against 
 these moulds ? Do you suppose that when the bird 
 breaks the shell of the egg, his object is to break ? 
 No ; his aim is to pass to a new life. The most we 
 can say is that if the egg resisted, he might show 
 rather more temper. In the same way, the moulds 
 of humanity having grown hard and as it were petri- 
 fied, a great effort was required to break them ; 
 humanity was compelled to gather together its forces 
 and to set itself to the work of destruction for destruc- 
 tion's sake. It is in the order of things that the
 
 360 The Future of Science. 
 
 moulds of humanity should acquire a certain solidity, 
 that all thought should aspire to stereotype itself and 
 to pose for heing eternal (160). That becomes in the 
 long run an obstacle, when the need comes for 
 breaking ; and in the same way one might say that 
 only mud huts or tents w^hicli can be taken down 
 in an hour and leave no ruins behind them should 
 be erected because, if you build palaces, they will be 
 very troublesome to demolish. 
 
 Alas, we are only too given to these ephemeral 
 constructions. Humanity, in our day, is encamped 
 beneath the tent. We have lost the long-sustained 
 hope and the vast thoughts. The idea of demolition 
 preoccupies and blinds us. Christianity, for instance, 
 is no longer anything but a dam, a pyramid built 
 across the road, a mountain of stones w^hich stands 
 in the way of the new buildings. But does it follow 
 that those who built the pyramid were wrong ? The 
 mould, as it gains hardness, becomes a prison. No 
 matter, for it is essential that, in order to impress its 
 shape, it should be hard. It only becomes a prison 
 when the object which has been moulded attempts 
 to emerge. Then we have struggles and recrimina- 
 tions, for it is regarded as nothing but an obstacle. 
 It is alw'ays the way ; the matter is looked at from 
 only one side, and becomes a partial one because of 
 the practical aim in view. He who destroys cannot 
 be just towards what he destroys, for he regards it 
 only as a stumbling-block, a stupidity, an absurdity. 
 But, if you reflect a little, you must see that it is 
 humanity which has fashioned it. Take the most 
 odious of institutions, the Inquisition. Spain made 
 it and put up with it, and w^ould apparently have got 
 rid of it if she had been so inclined. No doubt if we 
 looked at it from the Spanish point of view, we should 
 understand it. The speculative man alone can be 
 critical ; liberals are not so ; they are superficial. 
 Humanity is responsible for everything. We only 
 declaim against force because w^e fancy the chain has 
 been imposed by a force foreign to humanity. Yet
 
 The Future of Science. 361 
 
 it is humanity alone which has forged fetters for 
 itself. 
 
 There are in humanity elements which seem solely 
 destined to arrest or moderate its progress. We must 
 not assume them on that account to be useless. 
 Eeaction has its place in the plan of Providence ; it 
 works unwittingly for the general good. There are 
 declivities down which the role of the traction engine 
 consists solely in holding back. Those who seek to 
 arrest a movement render it a double service : they 
 accelerate and they regulate it. The aim of humanity 
 is to get to the bottom of all the modes of life, to 
 hatch them, to digest them, so to speak, in order to 
 assimilate whatever they may contain of what is true 
 and to cast out what is bad and useless. It is essen- 
 tial, therefore, that it should keep them for a certain 
 time, in order to effect this analysis at leisure ; other- 
 wise too hasty a digestion of them would only result 
 in weakening it ; the accumulation of a number of 
 really nutritive elements would be prevented. If the 
 men who play this part were disinterested, that is to 
 say if they had solely in view the highest progress of 
 humanity, they would be heroes ; for the part of re- 
 actionist is an ungrateful one and is not highly 
 prized. The essential thing for humanity is to do 
 well what it embarks upon, so that there may be no 
 need to go back upon it. It is not by swaying hither 
 and thither, by swallowing and rejecting all kinds of 
 ideas with ungoverned voracity, without either mas- 
 ticating or digesting them, that so serious a work can 
 be accomplished. 
 
 I repeat that if one only regarded in civilization 
 the personal good which results from it for those who 
 are civilized, one would perhaps hesitate to sacrifice 
 for the good of civilization one portion of humanity 
 to the other. But the object in view is to realize a 
 more or less beautiful form of humanity, and for that 
 the sacrifice of the individual is lawful. How many 
 generations was it not necessary to sacrifice in order 
 to raise the gigantic terraces of Nineveh and Babylon?
 
 362 The Futu7'e of Science. 
 
 Positive minds regard that as quite absurd. No 
 doubt, if the object in view had been to gratify the 
 pride of some stupid tyrant this would have been 
 true. But the object was to outhne in stone one of 
 the stages of humanity. Let there be no mistake 
 about it ; the generations buried beneath these 
 masses lived a fuller life than if they had vegetated 
 happy beneath their vine and fig-tree (161). 
 
 I see before me, as I write these lines, the marvel 
 of Eoyal France, Versailles. I repeople in fancy its 
 deserted corridors with all the century which passed 
 away. The king in the centre ; here Conde and the 
 princes ; there, in the pathway of the gardens, Bossuet 
 and the bishops ; here, in the theatre, Racine, Lulli, 
 Moliere and a few libertines ; on the terrace of the 
 Orange-House Madame de Se'vigne and the great 
 ladies, and, in the distance, within the gloomy walls 
 of St. Cyr, Madame de Maintenon and her melan- 
 choly. There you have a civilization open to plenty 
 of criticism, no doubt; but perfectly one and com- 
 plete ; it is one form of humanity among many. It 
 would have been a great pity if it had not been repre- 
 sented, and yet it could not have been except at the 
 price of great sacrifices. The degradation of the 
 people, arbitrary and capricious conduct, court in- 
 trigues and lettres de cachet, the Bastille, the gibbet 
 and the Grands-Jours are the essential parts of this 
 edifice, so that if you repudiate the abuses you must 
 also repudiate the edifice, for they are integral parts 
 of its construction. I should prefer, for my own 
 part, the age of Louis XIV. although it is very much 
 against my individual taste and although 1 regard as 
 rather silly the craze there was for this epoch during 
 the last years of the ancien regime, to a perfectly 
 regular state of things, with each person living at his 
 ease, creating nothing, founding nothing, producing 
 notliing. For the aim of humanity is not that indi- 
 viduals should hve at ease, but that the beautiful 
 and well-defined forms should be represented, and 
 that perfection should be made flesh.
 
 The Future of Science. 363 
 
 From the point of view of the individual, liberty 
 and equality seem to be inherent rights. From the 
 point of view of the human species, government and 
 inequality are easily understood. It is better to have 
 some brilliant personification of humanity, such as 
 the king and his court, than a general mediocrity. 
 It is desirable that the noble life should be led by a 
 few as it cannot be by all. This privilege would be 
 odious if only the self-indulgence of the privileged 
 individual were regarded ; it ceases to be so if we see 
 in it the realization of a humanitarian form. Our 
 petty system of bourgeois government, aspiring above 
 all else to guarantee the rights and to secure the 
 ease and comfort of each one, is conceived from the 
 point of view of the individual, and has failed to pro- 
 duce anything grand. Would Louis XIV. have 
 built Versailles if he had carping deputies to cut 
 down his budgets ? Only the accession of the people 
 can revive these lofty aspirations of the ancient 
 aristocratic world. It would be better no doubt that 
 all should be great and noble. But so long as that 
 remains impossible, it is important that the tradition 
 of stately human life should be maintained among 
 the elite. Would the lowly be greater because the 
 great were brought down to their level ? Equality 
 will only be of inherent right when all men are able 
 to be perfect in their measure. I say " in their 
 measure ; " for absolute equality is as impossible in 
 humanity as it would be in the animal reign. Hu- 
 manity, in short, would not exist as a unity, if it 
 was formed of perfectly equal unities, without any 
 relation of subordination between them. Unity only 
 exists upon the condition that diverse functions work 
 towards the same end ; it presuj^poses the hierarchy 
 of the parts. But each part is perfect when it is all 
 that it can be, and that it does well all that it ought 
 to do. Each individual will never be perfect, but 
 humanity will be, and all will share in its perfection. 
 
 Nothing is capable of explanation in the moral 
 world from the individual's point of view. All is
 
 ;',(U The Future of Science. 
 
 confusion, chaos, revolting iniquity, if we do not 
 envisage the transcendent resultant in which all 
 things harmonize and justify themselves (162). 
 Nature shows us upon an immense scale how the 
 inferior species is sacrificed to the realization of a 
 higher plan. It is the same in humanity. Perhaps, 
 even, we ought to look beyond this too narrow 
 horizon, and only look for justice, the perfect peace, 
 the definite solution, the complete harmony in a 
 vaster whole, to which humanity itself would be 
 subordinated, in that mysterious to irav, which will 
 still endure when humanity shall have disappeared.
 
 The Future of Science. 365 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 There is a tendency to believe that modern civil- 
 ization must have a destiny analogous to ancient 
 civilization and undergo, like it, an invasion of 
 barbarians. It is forgotten that humanity never 
 repeats itself, and does not twice employ the same 
 methods. Upon the contrary, all goes to show that 
 this fact of a civiHzation being nipped in the bud by 
 barbarism will be unique in history, and that modern 
 civilization is destined to propagate itself ad infi- 
 nitum. It would probably have been so with the 
 Greco-Roman civilization but for the great cataclysm 
 which swept it away. The fourth and fifth centuries 
 are only so meagre and superstitious in the Latin 
 world because of the calamities of the times. If the 
 barbarians had not come, it is probable that the fifth 
 and sixth centuries would have presented to us a 
 great civilization, analogous to that of Louis XIV., 
 a grave and severe Christianity, tempered by philo- 
 sophy. Certain persons find a malicious pleasure in 
 putting their finger upon points in our literature 
 and philosophy which recall the Greek and Roman 
 decadence, and they draw from it this conclusion 
 that the modern spirit, after having (as they say) 
 had its brilliant epoch in the seventeenth century, is 
 losing caste and is gradually dying out. Our poets 
 remind them of Statins and Silius Italicus ; our 
 philosophers of Porphyrins and Proclus ; eclecticism 
 upon both sides closes the series. Our publishers, com- 
 pilators, abbreviators, philologists and critics would
 
 306 The Future of Science. 
 
 answer to the rhetoricians, grammarians and scho- 
 hasts of Alexandria, Ehodes and Pergamus. Our 
 lettered politicians would answer to the sophist 
 statesmen, such as Dion Chrysostomus, Themistius 
 and Libanius. Oar pretty imitations of the classical 
 style, and our pasticcios of exotic colour are just like 
 Lucianus. But the true critics use with extreme 
 caution this deceptive word ''decadence." The 
 rhetoricians who would have us believe that Tacitus, 
 compared to Livy, is an author of the decadence, 
 will doubtless also urge that Thierr3'' and Michelet 
 are of the decadence, by comparison with RoUin and 
 d'Anquetil. The human mind does not proceed by 
 so simple a path as this. How are you to explain by 
 a decadence that prodigious development of German 
 literature, which, at the close of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, opened up, a fresh life to Europe? Say that 
 St. Augustin, St. John Chrysostom and St. Basile 
 are geniuses of the iron age. The human mind is 
 only obscured in one of its aspects for another to 
 glow with all the more brilliant Ught. Decadence 
 only exists in the view of those narrow minds which 
 hold obstinately to a single point of view in litera- 
 ture, in art, in philosophy, and in science. No doubt 
 the man of letters finds St. Augustine and St. Ambrose 
 inferior to Cicero and Seneca, the learned rationalist 
 regards the legend tellers of the Middle Ages cre- 
 dulous and superstitious by comparison with Lucretius 
 and Euhemerus. But he who invisages the totality 
 of the human mind does not know what decadence 
 means. The eighteenth century has neither Racine 
 nor Bossuet, and yet it is very superior to the 
 seventeenth ; its science, its critique, its preface to 
 the Encyclopaedia, its luminous essays by Yoltaire 
 are its literature. There was but one form of life 
 for these ancient States. To overthrow the ancient 
 institutions of Sparta is to overthrow Sparta itself. 
 In those times, in order to be a good patriot, it 
 was necessary to be a thorough-paced conservative ; 
 the wise man of old is obstinately attached to the
 
 The Future of Science. 367 
 
 national customs. It is not the same with us, for 
 the day upon which France destroyed her ancient 
 institution was the day upon which her epic history 
 began. For my part, I expect that five hundred 
 years hence the history of France will begin with 
 the Jeu de Paume, and that what preceded it will be 
 treated as a background, as an interesting preface, 
 much like the notions on ancient Gaul which are 
 placed at the head of our own histories of France. 
 
 It is an easy commonplace to speak at large of 
 social palingenesis, of renovation. It is not a question 
 of being born again, but of continuing to live ; the 
 modern spirit and civilization are founded for ever, 
 and the most terrible revolutions will serve solely 
 to signal the infinitely varied phases of this develop- 
 ment. 
 
 In accepting as a necessity the great fact of the 
 invasion of the barbarians and passing an a priori 
 criticism upon it, we find that it might have occurred 
 in two ways. In the first (that in which it actually 
 did occur), the barbarians, stronger than Rome, 
 destroyed the Roman edifice, then, for long centuries 
 to come, they endeavoured to reconstruct something 
 upon the model of this edifice aud with Roman 
 materials. But another way would have been equally 
 practicable. Rome had succeeded in perfectly 
 assimilating the provinces and causing them to hve 
 after her way of civilization ; but she had been 
 unable to act in the same way upon the barbarians 
 who poured in during the fourth and fifth centuries. 
 It is impossible to believe that she could not, if 
 she had desired, do so, when we observe the eager- 
 ness with which the barbarians, upon their entry 
 into the Empire, embrace Roman forms, and drape 
 themselves in Roman tinsel, titles of Consul and 
 Patrician, in Roman insignia and costumes. Our 
 Merovingians, among others, embraced the Roman 
 mode of life with charming candour, and as to the 
 two civilizations of the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, 
 they are so thoroughly the direct prolongation of the
 
 368 The Future of Science. 
 
 Roman civilization that they added an important 
 chapter, though one containing little that was 
 original, to the history of classic literature. The 
 barbarians did not at first make any change in the 
 order of things which they found established. In- 
 different to learned culture, they regarded it without 
 much attention and consequently without displeasure. 
 Some of them, even, such as Theodoric and Chilperic, 
 took it with a promptitude and ease which sui-prise 
 one. I believe that if the Empire had had as great 
 men in the fourth century as in the second, and 
 especially if Christianity had been as strongly cen- 
 tralized in Rome as it was in the following centuries, 
 it would have been possible to render the barbarians 
 Romans before or immediately uj)on their entry, and 
 thus to have maintained the continuity of things. 
 The world was within a hair's breadth of having no 
 Middle Ages, and of the Roman civilization con- 
 tinuing without interruption. If the Gallo-Roman 
 schools had been strong enough to effect in a century 
 the education of the Franks, humanity would have 
 economized ten centuries. If that did not occur, 
 the fault was with the schools and institutions, not 
 with the Franks ; the Roman mind was too much 
 weakened to effect immediately this immense work. 
 The question, in fine, was whether this ancient 
 edifice, into which so many fresh materials were 
 waiting to enter, should be renewed by a slow sub- 
 stitution of parts which would not break its identity, 
 or whether it should undergo a thorough demolition, 
 to be built anew with a combination of the old and 
 new materials, but again upon the old plan. 
 
 As Rome was too weak at once to assimilate these 
 fresh and violent elements, the change was effected 
 in the other way. The barbarians overthrew the 
 Empire, but in reality, when they attempted to re- 
 construct they reverted to the plan of the Roman 
 society, which had struck them from the very first 
 by its beauty, and which was the only one, moreover, 
 they knew. Their conversion to Christianity was in
 
 The Future of Science. 369 
 
 plain truth their affiliation to Kome by the Bishops, 
 who were the direct continuers of the Roman dress, 
 language and habits. The Empire of which they 
 caught up the idea for themselves was but a way of 
 attaching themselves to Rome, the only source of all 
 legitimate authority. And the Papacy what is its 
 origin if it be not the selfsame idea, that all comes 
 from Rome, that Rome is the capital of the world ? 
 The Roman Empire should not be regarded so much 
 as a State which has been overthrown to make way 
 for others as the first effort of universal civilization, 
 being continued with a momentary extinction of 
 reflection (which is the Middle Ages) in modern 
 civilization. The invasion and the Middle Ages are 
 really no more than the crisis provoked by the violent 
 intrusion of fresh elements which vivified and en- 
 larged the ancient circle of life : they are but 
 accidents in the great voyage, accidents which may 
 have caused unfortunate delays, well compensated 
 for by the inestimable advantages which humanity 
 has derived from them. All this may be applied, 
 word for word, to the future of modern civilization. 
 In the very improbable hypothesis of the barbarians 
 (who are only to be looked for among ourselves) 
 suddenly overturning it, and without its having time 
 to assimilate them, it is unquestionable that after 
 having overthrown it, they would come back to its 
 ruins in order to extricate from them the materials 
 of the future edifice, that we should become, in re- 
 lation to them, classics and educators, that it would 
 be the rhetoricians of the ancient society who would 
 initiate them into the intellectual life and would be 
 the occasion of another Renaissance, that there 
 would again be a Martianus Capella, a Boethius, a 
 Cassiodorus, an Isidore of Seville, putting into a 
 portable and easily handled compass the civilizing 
 data of the ancient culture, in order to form the 
 intellectual aliment of the new society. But it is 
 infinitely more probable that modern civilization will 
 be sufficiently full of life to assimilate these new 
 
 Z B
 
 .'{7u The Future of Science. 
 
 barbarians who are desirous of entering, and to con- 
 tinue its march in their company. For look how the 
 barbarians appreciate this civilization, how they press 
 around it, how they seek to understand it with their 
 simple yet keen perception, how they study it with 
 curiosity, how pleased they are when they have 
 guessed its meaning. Who could fail to be touched 
 at seeing the interest which our uninstructed classes 
 take in this civilization which is there in the midst 
 of them, but not for them. They remind me of the 
 simple wonder of the barbarians, in presence of the 
 Bishops speaking Latin and when brought face to 
 face with the vast machine of Eoman organization. 
 It would, no doubt, have been difficult for Sidonius 
 Apolliuaris and the keen wits of the Gauls to have 
 sliouted : "Vive les barbares ! " And yet they 
 should have done so if they had the sentiment of 
 the future (163). We who see things clearly, after 
 fourteen centuries, take sides with tlie barbarians. 
 What was it they asked for ? Land to till, sunshine, 
 civilization. Ah ! blessed is he who asks only to 
 increase the family of the children of light. The 
 barbarians are those who receive these new-comers 
 with blows, for fear that their own share may be 
 diminished. 
 
 But, it will be said, your hopes rest upon a con- 
 tradiction. You admit that intellectual culture, in 
 order to become civilizing, demands a whole life of 
 application and study. The immense majority of the 
 human race, condemned to manual labour, is never 
 therefore to enjoy the fruits of it. 
 
 No doubt, if intellectual culture was always to 
 remain what it is among us, a profession of its own, 
 a speciality, we might despair of seeing it become 
 universal. A state in which no one would have any 
 other profession but that of poet, man of letters or 
 philosopher, would be the strangest of caricatures. 
 Intellectual culture is as if it did not exist for 
 humanity, when people study only with a view to 
 write. Serious literature is not that of the rhetorician,
 
 T}ie Future of Science. 371 
 
 who embarks upon literature for literature, who is 
 interested in things spoken and written, and not in 
 the things themselves, who does not care about 
 nature, but who likes to read a description, who, 
 unmoved by a moral sentiment, only understands it 
 when expressed in sonorous verse. Beauty is in 
 things themselves ; literature is imagery and parable. 
 Strange is the man of letters who troubles himself 
 about morality or philosophy, not because that is 
 human nature, but because there are works upon this 
 subject, just as the man of erudition only concerns 
 himself about agriculture and war because there are 
 poems upon these subjects. This is to assume that 
 the thing which is related is more real and important 
 than the thing which is. Art, literature, and elo- 
 quence are only so far true as they are not empty 
 forms, but as they serve and express a human 
 cause. If the poet was merely, as Malherbe under- 
 stood him an " arranger of syllables," if literature 
 were merely an exercise, an attempt to do artificially 
 what the ancients did naturally, it would, I admit, 
 be a very trifling misfortune if all men could not be 
 initiated into it. 
 
 We must, therefore, come to conceive the possi- 
 bility of an intellectual life for all, not in the sense 
 that all participate in scientific work, but that all 
 participate in its results. We must, consequently, 
 conceive the possibility of associating philosophy 
 and the cultivation of the mind with a mechanical 
 art. 
 
 This was what Greek society, so true and so 
 unartificial, thoroughly realized. Greece was ignorant 
 of our aristocratic prejudices which brand with 
 ignominy any one exercising a manual profession and 
 exclude him from what may be called the distingue 
 world. A man might reach the noblest and most 
 elevated life, though poor and working with his 
 hands ; or rather the morality of the individual so 
 effaced his profession that regard was had only to 
 the individual, whereas now we regard only the
 
 The Future of Science. 
 
 profession. Ammoniiis was not a porter who was a 
 philosopher, he was a philosopher who happened to 
 he a porter. May we not hope that humanity will 
 some day revert to this heautiful and true conception 
 of life in which the mind is everything, in which no 
 one is defined according to his calling, in which the 
 manual profession would merely he an accessory to 
 which httle attention would he paid, much as the 
 trade of glass polishing was for Spinoza, a mere trifle 
 which is done hy the insignificant part of the 
 individual without his attaching any importance to 
 it or others doing so either. Work of this kind 
 would not then be more servile than that which 
 I am now doing in moving my fingers to write these 
 lines. 
 
 What makes a manual labour brutalizing now is 
 that it absorbs the individual and becomes his self, 
 his all. The definition of this unfortunate being 
 is, in fact, shoemaker, or carpenter. This word 
 tells his nature, his essence ; he is merely a human 
 machine which makes boots and furniture. You 
 cannot define in this way Spinoza as a maker of 
 telescope glasses, or Mendelssohn as a shopman 
 (164). The professional individuality only effaces 
 the moral and intellectual individuality when the 
 latter is insignificant. Imagine a well-instructed 
 and noble-hearted man exercising one of these trades 
 which require only a few hours' labour ; so far from 
 the higher hfe being closed to him, he is in a situation 
 a thousand times more favourable to philosophical 
 development than three-fourths of those who occupy 
 the so-called hberal professions. Most of the liberal 
 professions, in fact, absorb every hour of a man's time, 
 and, what is worse, of his thoughts ; whereas the 
 trade requiring no reflection or attention leaves 
 liim who exercises it free to live in the world of juire 
 spirits. For my own part, I have often thought that 
 it I was ofiored a manual profession which, by my 
 workiug four or five hours a day, would ensure me a 
 living, I would abandon for it my calling of graduate
 
 Tlie Future of Science. 373 
 
 of philosophy ; for as this calling would occupy only 
 my hands, it would not divert my thoughts so much 
 as the necessity for speaking for two hours from 
 what is not the actual object of my reflections. I 
 should have four or five liours of delightful promenade, 
 and I should have the rest of the time for the mental 
 exercises which exclude all manual occupation. I 
 should acquire during these hom's of leisure positive 
 knowledge, I should ruminate during the rest of the 
 time upon what I had acquired. These are certain 
 callings which ought to be reserved for philosophers, 
 such as tiller of the soil, stone cutter, weaver and 
 other occupations which require only the action of 
 the hand (165). Any complicated work, anything 
 which requhed the least attention, would be a 
 depredation upon one's thought. Manufacturing work 
 would, in this respect, be much less advantageous. 
 
 Do you suppose that a man, in this position, would 
 not be much more free to philosophize than a lawyer, 
 a doctor, a banker or a government official ? All 
 official positions are moulds more or less close ; to 
 enter them, you must break and bend by force all 
 originality. The teaching profession is now the 
 almost unique resort left to those who, having a 
 vocation for mental labour, are reduced by the 
 necessities of fortune, to accept some external pro- 
 fession, and teaching is very prejudicial to the higher 
 qualities of the mind, as it absorbs and wears out 
 much more than manual labour would do. None of 
 us have forgotten the Lollards of the Middle Ages, 
 those mystic weavers who, as they worked, hummed 
 {lollarent) in cadence, and mixed the rhythm of the 
 heart with that of the spindle. The heguards of 
 Flanders, the humiliate of Italy, also reached a high 
 degree of mystical and poetical exaltation, beneath 
 the vivid pressure of that mysterious bow which 
 crises new and candid souls to vibrate so powerfully, 
 pmost of those who exercise the so-called servile 
 mnctions are really brutalized, it is because they 
 are empty-headed, because they are only put to
 
 374 The Future vf Science. 
 
 these functions as being fit for nothing else, because 
 this function, purely animal and significant as it is, 
 absorbs them altogether and still further degrades 
 them. But if they had their heads full of literature, 
 history, philosophy and humanism, if, in a word, 
 they could, while working, talk to each other of 
 higher things, what a difi"erence that would make ! 
 Many men devoted to things of the mind set apart 
 a few hours of each day to hygienic pursuits, some- 
 times differing but little from those which working 
 men perform as a matter of necessity, and these do 
 not appear to brutalize them (IGG). In the state 
 of things which I should like to see, manual labour 
 would be the recreation of mental labour. If I am 
 told that there is no calling w^hich would be sufii- 
 cieutly remunerative with four or five hours' work 
 a day, I w^ill reply by saying that in a properly 
 organized society, where useless w'aste of time and 
 unproductive superfluities would be eliminated, where 
 everybody would work to some purpose, and espe- 
 cially w^here machinery w-as employed not to do 
 without the workman, but to help him in his task 
 and abridge his liours of labour, I am persuaded 
 (incompetent as I am in such matters) that very few 
 hours of labour would be sufficient for the good of 
 the society, and for the wants of the individual ; the 
 rest would be for the mind. 
 
 " If every instrument," says Ai'istotle, "could upon 
 an order being given or even guessed, work of its own 
 accord, like the statues of Doedalus or the tripods of 
 Vulcan, which, as the poet tells us, went of their own 
 accord to the meetings of the gods, if the spindles 
 worked of themselves, if the bow played the violin 
 without being held, the contractors would do without 
 workmen and the masters without slaves (167)." 
 
 This siniultaneousness of two lives, having nothing 
 in common with each other, on account of the in- 
 finity which separates them, is by no means without 
 example. I have often felt that I never lived more 
 energetically by imagination and sensibility than
 
 The Future of Science. 375 
 
 when I was applying myself the closest to all that is 
 most technical in science and seemingly the most 
 arid. When the scientific object has some aesthetic 
 or moral interest in itself, it quite absorbs the 
 person who applies himself to it ; when, upon the 
 contrary, it does not appeal at all to the imagination 
 and the heart, it leaves these two faculties free to 
 vagabond at their ease. I can conceive, in the 
 erudite man, a very active life of the heart, and all 
 the more active when the object of his erudition 
 offers less aliment to the sensibility ; you then have 
 two mechanisms quite independent of each other. 
 It is the division which is fatal. A philosopher may 
 exist in a state of things which requires only manual 
 co-operation, such as work in the fields. He cannot 
 exist in a position in which he must exercise his 
 mind and concern himself seriously with petty affairs, 
 such as commerce or finance. And, as a matter of 
 fact, these professions have not produced a single 
 man of mark in the history of the human mind. 
 
 Far be it from me to believe that such a system 
 of society is ai)plicable for the moment, or even that, 
 if applied, it would serve the cause of intelligence. 
 We must not forget that the immense majority of 
 humanity is still at school, and that to let them out 
 too soon would be to encourage them in idleness. 
 Necessity, says Herder, is the weight of the clock, 
 which causes all the wheels to turn. Humanity is 
 only what it is owing to the severe course of gymnastics 
 it has gone through, and liberty would only involve 
 decadence if it resulted in diminishing its activity. 
 I was only anxious to explain the possibility of a state 
 of things in which the highest intellectual and moral 
 culture, that is to say true religion, would be acces- 
 sible to the classes now regarded as the lowest in 
 society. Do you imagine that if the working man 
 possessed education, intelligence, morality, a mild 
 and beneficent culture, that he would complain of 
 his outward inferiority ? No, for, apart from the 
 fact that morality and inteUigence would infalhbly
 
 376 The Future of Science. 
 
 secure for him order and ease, this culture would 
 cause him to be highly considered and liked, would 
 bring him within the limits of that enviable circle 
 where delicate perceptions prevail and from which 
 he grieves to see himself excluded. The peasant 
 does not feel his moral and intellectual objection, 
 but the working man in large towns sees our higher 
 classes, he feels that we are more perfect than he is, 
 he finds himself condemned to live in a fetid atmo- 
 sphere of intellectual depression and immorality, he 
 who has smelt the pleasant odour of the civilized 
 world is fated to seek his enjoyment (for man cannot 
 live without enjoyment of some kind, the trappist 
 even has his) in ignoble haunts Avhich are repugnant 
 to him, repelled as he is by his lack of culture rather 
 than by opinion, from more delicate pleasures. How 
 could he do otherwise than rebel against such a state 
 of things ? 
 
 Chimerical as it may appear from the point of view 
 of our present habits, I maintain that this simul- 
 taneousness of the intellectual life and of professional 
 labour is possible. Greece is an illustrious instance 
 of this ; I do not speak of the most primitive 
 societies, such as those of the Hindoos and the 
 Hebrews, from which all idea of outward decorum 
 and human respect was completely absent. The 
 Brahmin of the forest, clothed in a few rags, feeding 
 on leaves often dry, reaches a degree of intellectual 
 si)eculation, a height of conception, a nobility of life 
 unknown to the immense majority of those among 
 us who call ourselves civilized. 
 
 There are men very highly endowed by nature 
 but scautily endowed by fortune, who become proud 
 and almost intractable, and who would die rather 
 tlian accept for their liveliliood what public opinion 
 regards as an external humiliation. Werther leaves 
 his ambassador because he meets silly and imper- 
 tiiieiit peo})lo in his salon ; Chatterton commits 
 suicide because a lord mayor offers him a situation 
 as valet. This extreme sensitiveness as to externals
 
 The Future of Science. 377 
 
 proves a certain liumility of raind, and testifies that 
 those who feel it have not yet reached the highest 
 philosophical summits. They are, in fact, upon the 
 borders of the highly ridiculous, for if they are not 
 in reality geniuses (and who can assure them that 
 they are ? How many others have believed that 
 they were without being so in reality?), they run 
 the risk of resembling the most stupid, ridiculous 
 and self-conceited of men, the unappreciated young 
 men of genius, who look upon everything as being 
 beneath them, who anathematize society because 
 society does not make a suitable allowance to those 
 who devote themselves to sublime thoughts. Genius 
 is in no wise humiliated because it works with its 
 own hands. Of course, one cannot demand of it that 
 it should surrender itself with all its soul to its task, 
 that it should become absorbed in its office or its 
 workshop. But dreaming is not a profession, and it 
 is an error to imagine that the great writers would 
 have thought much more if they had not had any- 
 thing else to do but think. Genius is patient and 
 full of life ; I would almost say robust and hardy as 
 the peasant. *' The force of living is essentially 
 a part of genius." It is amidst the struggles of an 
 external situation that the great geniuses have de- 
 veloped themselves, and if they had not had any 
 other profession than that of thinkers, perhaps they 
 would not have been so great. Beranger was a clerk 
 in a government office. The man who is really 
 elevated has all his pride within him. To take 
 account of the external humiliation is to show that 
 one takes some account of that which is not the 
 soul. The degraded slave, who felt his inferiority to 
 his master, endured the blows inflicted upon him as 
 due to fatality, without dreaming of resenting them. 
 The cultivated slave, who felt himself superior to his 
 master, could not have felt himself in the least 
 humiliated at having to serve him. To have been 
 irritated with him would have been to put himself 
 on a par with him ; it was better to despise him
 
 378 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 inwardly and say nothing. To be sparing of showing 
 him respect and submission would have been equiva- 
 lent to attaching importance to this. One only feels 
 the insults of one's equals ; those of a blackguard 
 affect people of his own kidney, but do not reach us. 
 In the same way those whose inward excellence 
 renders them susceptible, irritable and jealous of an 
 outward dignity in proportion to their worth, have 
 not yet passed a certain level, or understood the true 
 royalty of men of high intelligence. 
 
 The ideal of human life would be a state in which 
 man had so mastered nature that material require- 
 ments were no longer a motive, in which these 
 requirements were satisfied as soon as felt, in which 
 man, tbe king of the world, would scarcely have to 
 make an effort to maintain it under his dependence, 
 in which all human activity would, in short, be 
 directed towards the things of the mind, and in 
 which man would merely have to live the celestial 
 life. Then would prevail the true reign of the spirit, 
 the perfect religion, the worship of God as spirit and 
 truth. Humanity still has need of a material stimu- 
 lus, and at present such a state of things would be 
 prejudicial, as it would only engender idleness. But 
 this drawback is merely relative. For us, men of 
 intelligence, the labour of existence and material 
 necessities are merely an obstacle ; it is a part of 
 the time we give to ransom the rest. If we were 
 delivered from the thought of material wants, like 
 the religious orders or the Brahmin, who plunges 
 naked into the forest, we should be navigating with 
 all sails set, we should conquer the infinite. . . . 
 
 Patriarchal life realized this lofty independence 
 of man, but it was at the sacrifice of not less essential 
 elements ; civilization, in fact, can only exist where 
 there is a parallel development of the intelligence, 
 of the moral condition and of comfort. In ancient 
 times, the same result was reached by slavery ; the 
 free man was really in a very fine position, dispensed 
 from terrestrial cares, and at liberty to cultivate things
 
 The Future of Science. ^70 
 
 of the mind. The careful organization of humanity 
 will bring "back this state of things, but in a much 
 more complicated form than in patriarchal times, 
 and without needing slavery. The work of the 
 nineteenth century will have been the conquest of 
 this material comfort, which, at first sight, may 
 appear profane but which becomes hallowed if we 
 reflect that it is one of the conditions of tlie 
 enfranchisement of the mind. No one is more 
 strongly opposed than I am to those who urge 
 the rehabilitation of the flesh, and I believe never- 
 theless that Christianity was wrong in preaching 
 the struggle, the revolt of the senses, the mortification 
 of bodily desires. That may have been all very well 
 for the education of humanity, but there is some- 
 thing more perfect still. That is not to think any 
 more of the flesh, to live so energetically the life of 
 the spirit that these gross temptations may have no 
 hold. Abstinence and mortifications are the virtues 
 of barbarians and materialists, who, subject to coarse 
 instincts, can conceive of nothing more heroic than 
 to resist them ; so that these virtues are held in 
 special esteem in sensual countries. In the eyes of 
 those with coarse appetites, a man who fasts, who 
 flagellates himself, who is chaste, who passes his 
 life upon a column, is the ideal of virtue. For he, 
 the barbarian, is gluttonous, and he quite feels tliat 
 it would be a great sacrifice for him to live in tliis 
 way. But in our eyes, such a man is not virtuous, 
 for these pleasures of the palate, of the senses, are 
 nothing to us ; we think that there is no merit in 
 foregoing them ; affected fasting proves that one sets 
 great store by the things which one goes without. 
 Plato was not so mortified as Dominic Loricat, and 
 apparently was more of a spiritualist. The Cathohcs 
 sometimes assert that the disuse into which the 
 fasting of the Middle Ages has fallen shows our 
 sensuality; but, upon the contrary, it is owing to 
 the progress of the mind that these practices have 
 become unmeaning and out of date. ^^ e must
 
 380 The Future of Science. 
 
 destroy the antagonism of the body and of the mind, 
 not by equalKng the two terms, but by prolonging 
 one of them ad infinitum, so that the other may be 
 anniliilated and become as zero. That being done, 
 let the body have its enjoyments, for to refuse them 
 to it would be to imply that these trifles are of some 
 importance. The motto of the Saint- Simonians : 
 " Sanctify yourself by pleasure " is abominable ; it 
 is 23ure gnosticism. " Sanctify yourself by abstain- 
 ing from pleasure" also leaves something wanting. 
 " Sanctify yourself, and pleasure will become insig- 
 nificant, and you will not think of pleasure " is what 
 we spiritualists would say. Holiness consists in 
 living for the spirit, not for the body. Gross minds 
 may have imagined that in cutting themselves off 
 from the bodily life, they rendered themselves more 
 apt to the spiritual life. 
 
 It is very possible that some day a still higher 
 conception will be reached. The reason why plea- 
 sure is quite a profane thing for us is that we take 
 it always as a personal enjoyment, whereas personal 
 enjoyment has absolutely no suprasensible value. 
 But if we took pleasure with the mystical ideas 
 Avhich the ancients attached to it, when they asso- 
 ciated it with their temples and their festivals, if we 
 succeeded in eliminating all idea of enjoyment, to 
 see in it only the perfecting process which results 
 from it for our being, the mystical union with nature, 
 the sympathy which it establishes between us and 
 things, I am not sure that it might not be elevated 
 to the rank of a hallowed object. In my bare and 
 cold room, abstemious and poorly clad, I seem to 
 understand beauty from a somewhat lofty point of 
 view. But I ask myself whether I should not under- 
 stand it still better with my brain stimulated by a 
 generous fluid, richly clad, perfumed and tete-a-tete 
 with the Beatrice whom I have seen only in my 
 dreams. If the creation of my fancy were incarnate 
 at my side, should 1 not love and adore it the more ? 
 I-)oubtless, if there is one thing more revolting than
 
 The Future of Science. 381 
 
 another, it is that people should seek delight in 
 intoxication. But if a man merely tries to aid his 
 ecstasy by a very noble material element, and one 
 which has called forth such noble poetry, the matter 
 is quite a different one. I have read somewhere 
 that a poet or a philosopher (a German, I think) 
 made a point of getting intoxicated regularly once 
 a month, in order to attain that mystical state in 
 which one gets closest to the infinite. I should not 
 like to say whether all pleasures could stand this 
 purifying process, and become exercises in piety, from 
 which all thought of self-indulgence was excluded. 
 
 The imperfection of the present state is that 
 external occupations absorb all one's time, so that 
 people devote themselves mainly to some profession, 
 only cultivating the mind if they have time and 
 inclination. The accidental thus becomes life itself, 
 while the truly human and religious part almost 
 disappears. If we come to look closely at the spec- 
 tacle of human activity, we see that the greatest 
 part of it is quite wasted. Eaise yourself in fancy 
 above a city like Paris, and try to analyze the motives 
 which guide the hurried footsteps of so many thou- 
 sands of men. You will find that the desire for gain, 
 basiness, or material cares are the main cause of 
 nine-tenths of these movements ; that pleasure is 
 the motive of perhaps a twentieth part of this 
 agitation, that scarcely one-hundredth part of tlie 
 crowd is guided by affection, and that barely one in 
 a thousand is impelled by scientific or religious 
 motives. 
 
 It seems as if external affairs are the main object 
 of life, that the aim of the great majority of the 
 human race is to live beneath the pressing and 
 absorbing thought of how they are to gain their 
 daily bread, so that life has no other aim than to 
 sustain itself. What a vicious circle this is ! In 
 a better state of human society, a man would first 
 of all be himself, that is to say that the first care of 
 each person would be the perfecting of his nature.
 
 382 The Future of Science. 
 
 Then, in quite a secondary way, to which scarcely 
 any heed would be paid, one would belong to such 
 aud such a profession. That would be the antique 
 id}^, the pastoral life conceived in their dreams by 
 all the bucolic poets, a life in which material occu- 
 pation is of such small account that no thought is 
 given to it, and that a man is quite free for poetry 
 and the beautiful. Then it will be said: "Our 
 fathers had to place their paradise in heaven. But 
 we can do without the paradise of God, for the 
 celestial life is brought down to us here below." 
 
 Such a state of perfection would not exclude intel- 
 lectual variety ; upon the contrary, the originalities 
 would be much more marked in it, owing to the free 
 development of the individualities. And even if the 
 variety of minds was destined to disappear in pre- 
 sence of a more advanced culture, where would the 
 harm be ? But let us hasten to say that uniformity 
 would, as things now are, be the extinction of 
 humanity. The hive has never been a centre of 
 progress. We are traversing the age of analysis, 
 that is to say of partial views, an age during which 
 the diversity of views is necessary. When Plato 
 desired, in his ideal Bepublic, that all should see 
 with the same eyes and hear with the same ears, he 
 purposely left out of the calculation one of the most 
 essential elements of humanity. Humanity, in fact, 
 is only what it is through variety. W^hen two birds 
 respond to each other, in what do their accents differ 
 from an elegy ? Only from their variety. So far 
 from preaching communism in the present state of 
 tiie human intelligence, we ought to preach indi- 
 vidualism and originality. No two men ought to 
 resemble each other, for those who are alike count 
 only as one. 
 
 In the primitive sjmcretism, all men of the same 
 race resembled one another like fish of the same 
 kind. There are no individual characters in the 
 primitive epics ; what the ancient critics told us 
 about the characters in Homer is very exaggerated,
 
 The Future of Science. 383 
 
 and, moreover, the Greek world, so full of life, so 
 varied, so multiform, attained from the very first a 
 very nice sense of distinction in these matters. The 
 old Hebrew literature has Uttle more than two cate- 
 gories of men, the good and the bad, and in the 
 Indian literature there is scarcely even this much. 
 All the characters are presented as being very much 
 the same. Our more finely drawn types do not 
 appear until much later. 
 
 As it is, education and the variety of the objects of 
 study which create the varieties of' mind, everything 
 which tends to put all minds into one registered 
 mould is prejudicial to the progress of human in- 
 telligence. Men's minds, as a matter of fact, differ 
 much more by what they have learnt, by the facts 
 upon which they base their judgments, than by their 
 actual nature (168). The habits of French society, 
 so severe upon all originality, are, from this point of 
 view, altogether to be deplored. " As," says Madame 
 de Stael, "what constitutes individual existence is 
 always a peculiarity of some kind, this peculiarity ex- 
 cites ridicule, so that as people dread this above every- 
 thing else they endeavour to avoid whatever would 
 cause them to be remarked one way or the other." 
 The truly noble and gifted natures are not those in 
 which the opposing elements neutralize one another, 
 but those in which extremes meet, not simultaneously, 
 but successively, and according to the surface 
 which has to be delineated. The perfect man would 
 be one as inflexible as a philoso|)her, as weak as a 
 woman, as hardy as a Breton peasant, as ingenuous 
 and gentle as a child. The colourless natures, 
 formed of a kind of proportional medium between 
 extremes, are of no value in an epoch of analysis. 
 
 Analysis, in fact, exists only through the diversity 
 of the points of view, and upon condition of all the 
 sides of a subject being completely elucidated ; to 
 each his task, to each his atom to explore, such is 
 its motto. What is required in a given state of 
 things is the greatest possible variety among in-
 
 384 The Future of Science. 
 
 dividnals ; for each originality is the outline of one 
 Avay of looking at things ; it is one way of taking the 
 world. But it may be that some day or other 
 humanity will reach such a state of individual per- 
 fection, so complete a synthesis, that all men will 
 have reached an equally advanced stage, and that 
 they will make their fresh starting-point from there 
 towards the future. And this harmony will be 
 realized not by theocracy, not by the suppression of 
 the individual, not by the ''Father king" of the 
 Saint- Simonians who regulated belief as well as all 
 else, but by a mutual and unfettered aspiration, as 
 is the case with the ideal in heaven. It is easy to 
 bind the sheaves which have been cut. But it is 
 another matter to bind the living sheaves ! At the 
 present time, all are harnessed to the same car ; but 
 some are pulling forward, some backward, others in 
 different directions, and so there is no progress. 
 But then all will pull in the same direction ; then, 
 science, which is now only cultivated by a few obscure 
 men lost in the crowd, will be pursued by millions of 
 men, seeking in unison the solution of the problems set 
 before them. Oh ! for the day when there will no 
 longer be any great men, because all will be equally 
 great, and when humanity, coming back to unity, 
 wdll march like one man to the conquest of the ideal 
 and of the secret of things (169) ! What will be able 
 to resist science when humanity itself is scientific and 
 marches with one accord to the assault of the truth ? 
 Why, it will be said, take account of these 
 chimeras? Let the future take care of itself, and 
 have to do with the present. My answer is that 
 nothing can be done without chimeras. Man needs, 
 in order that he may bring into play all his activity, 
 to place before himself an object capable of rousing 
 his energies. What is the use of labouring for the 
 future if the future is to be colourless and insignificant ? 
 AVould it not be better to think of his ease and 
 l)leasure in this life than to sacrifice himself for a 
 void ? The first Mussulmans would not have
 
 The Future of Science. 385 
 
 marched from one end of the world to the other if 
 Abu Bekr had not told them that they had Paradise 
 before them. The Conquistadores would not have 
 undertaken their perilous expeditions if they had not 
 hoped to find the El Dorado, the fountain of Jouvence, 
 the Cipangu with its golden roofs. Alexander went 
 in pursuit of the Griffins and the Arimaspes. 
 Columbus, on returning from the islands of St. 
 Brandon and the earthly paradise, discovered America. 
 With the idea that the paradise is in the remote 
 distance, the world marches on and on, and dis- 
 covers something better than paradise. " The 
 heart," says Herder (170), "beats only for that 
 which is distant." Hopes, moreover, which may be 
 chimerical in form are not envisaged as such when 
 regarded as the symbol of the future of humanity. 
 The Jews had the Messiah because they fervently 
 looked for Him. No idea is realized without the 
 inward working of faith and hope. The early 
 Christians daily expected to see the New Jerusalem 
 coming down out of heaven and Christ descending 
 to reign. You will say that they were mad. But 
 hope never deceives, and I am convinced that all 
 the hopes of the believer will be fulfilled and even 
 more than fulfilled. Humanity realizes perfection by 
 desiring it and hoping it, as the woman is said to im- 
 press upon the child in her womb the objects which 
 strike her senses. These hopes are so far from being 
 objects of indifference that they alone explain and 
 render possible the life of sacrifice and devotion. 
 What use, indeed, is it to devote oneself to reheviug 
 misfortunes which only come into existence at the 
 moment they are felt ? Why sacrifice one's comfort 
 to that of others, if, after all, only a mere question of 
 enjoyment is at stake ? My happiness is as precious 
 to me as that of others, and I should be very stupul 
 to sacrifice it for them. If I did not beUeve that 
 humanity is called to a divine end, to the reahzatiou 
 of the perfect, I should become an Epicurean, if I were^ 
 capable of doing so, and if not, I should commit su^
 
 386 The Future of Science. 
 
 CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 I SHOULD be much misunderstood if it were concluded 
 from what precedes that I had any intention of 
 suggesting that science should descend from its 
 eminence to put itself on a level with the people. 
 I have a profound antipathy for popular science, 
 because it cannot be the true science. Over the 
 portals of an ancient school were inscribed the 
 words: "Let no man enter here unless he knows 
 geometry." The modern philosophical school should 
 have for motto : " Let no man enter here un- 
 less he knows the human mind, history, literature, 
 etc." Science loses all its dignity when it lowers 
 itself to these childish formulae and to a language 
 which is not its own. In order to render these lofty 
 philosophic theories intelligible to the vulgar, we are 
 obliged to strip them of their true form, to subject 
 them to the narrow measure of common sense, to 
 distort them. It would be very desirable that the 
 mass of the human race should elevate itself to the 
 comprehension of science, but science must not abase 
 itself in order to be understood. It must remain upon 
 its lofty eminence and raise humanity up to it. I am 
 not opposed to the literature of the working classes.; 
 Upon the contrary. I believe, with M. Michelet, 
 that the people possess a true fund of feeling, superior 
 in one sense to that of nearly all our aristocratic 
 poets. The most original poems written since 
 Lamartine and Victor Hugo ceased composing are, 
 perhaps, those of working men. This is all the 
 
 I
 
 The Future of Science. 387 
 
 more meritorious seeing that the instrument which 
 we put into their hands is extremely aristocratic and 
 inflexible and the very antithesis of popular thought. 
 With respect to the social and philosophical 
 writings, in which the form is of less consequence 
 than in hterature, working men often display more 
 intelligence than the bulk of well-read men. The 
 man who has only had primary instruction is nearer 
 to positivism and to the negation of the supernatural 
 than the bourgeois who has had a classical education, 
 for this latter often inclines people to be content with 
 mere words. But the working men often commit a 
 really unpardonable error ; that of discarding the 
 line in which they might excel to treat of subjects 
 in regard to which they are incompetent and which 
 require a culture very different from that afforded by 
 little school books. M. Agricol Perdiguier was 
 original as long as he was content to be only the 
 workman. What people liked in him was that he 
 told them what was the way of thinking of a certain 
 class of society, and also the ingenuous effort of the 
 half-educated man to find an instrument for his 
 thoughts. But one fine day, he set himself to com- 
 pile a Universal History, a work in which Bossuet 
 had failed. It is all very well for M. Perdiguier to 
 say that it was a history for the working man ; that 
 all his predecessors had treated history fi'om the point 
 of view of the classics and like college pedants. 
 There are not, so far as I am aware, two histories, 
 one for the learned and the other for the unlearned, 
 and I only know one class of men capable of writing 
 it, and that is the savants who are broken by a long 
 course of intellectual culture to all the fine points of 
 criticism. Science and philosophy must preserve 
 their lofty independence, that is to say only pursue 
 the truth in all its objectivity, without troublmg 
 themselves about any popular or worldly form. 
 Drawing-room science is just as little true science as 
 is the science of petty popular treatises. Science 
 degrades itself when it ceases to correspond directly.
 
 388 The Future of Science. 
 
 like poetry, music, and religion, to a disinterested 
 requirement of human nature. How rare, with us, 
 is this pure cult of all the parts of the human soul. 
 Collecting by themselves, and as it were in a useless 
 bundle of religious cares, we make vulgar interests 
 the essential of life. Knowledge, we are told, does 
 not suffice to ensure salvation ; knowledge does not 
 serve to make one's fortune ; consequently, know- 
 ledge is useless (171). 
 
 The great misfortune of contemporary society is 
 that intellectual culture is not recognized in it as a 
 religious concern ; that poetry, science, and literature 
 are regarded as an artistic luxury apj^ealing only to 
 the classes privileged by fortune. Greek art pro- 
 duced for the sake of the countr}^, for the national 
 thought ;1 the art of the seventeenth century produced 
 for the king, which was, in one way, to produce for 
 the nation. Art, in our day, produces only at the 
 express or understood command of individuals. The 
 artist corresponds to the amateur, as the cook does to 
 the gastronomist. This is a deplorable situation at 
 an epoch when, with rare exceptions, the subdivision 
 of property makes it impossible for private individuals 
 to achieve great things. Greece owed her poems, 
 her temples, and her statues to her inward spon- 
 taneousness, the}^ were due to her own fecundity and 
 to her craving to satisfy one of the needs of human 
 nature. With us, art is granted a few sparing sub- 
 sidies, which are made not from a desire to see the 
 national thought finding expression in great works, 
 not by the inward impulsion which inclines man to 
 realize beauty, but from a calm and critical con- 
 sideration that art should have its place and from a 
 reluctance to be behind the past. But if people 
 merely obeyed the pure and spontaneous love of what 
 is beautiful, little would be done. One of the reasons 
 recently advanced in favour of the scheme for the 
 completion of the Louvre was that it would be a 
 means of giving employment to artists. I should be 
 curious to know whether Pericles advanced this
 
 The Future of Science. r.SO 
 
 argument to the Athenians when the question of 
 building the Parthenon was discussed. 
 
 Eeflect for a moment on the consequences of this 
 deplorable regime which subjects art, and more or 
 less literature and poetry, to the fancy of individuals. 
 In the productions of the mind, as in all other kinds, 
 the question of supply and demand prevails, and it must 
 necessarily happen that it is wealth which makes the 
 demand. So that the man who contemplates living 
 by intellectual production must first of all anticipate 
 the demand of the rich man in order to comply with 
 it. Now what does the rich man demand in the way 
 of intellectual productions ? Is it serious literature ? 
 Is it high philosophy, or, in the way of art, pure and 
 severe productions, high moral creations ? Assuredly 
 not. It is amusing literature ; serial stories, romances, 
 clever plays in which his opinions are flattered, and 
 so on. Thus, with the rich man regulating the 
 literary and artistic production by his tastes, which 
 are pretty well known, and these tastes being as a 
 rule (there are a few noble exceptions) for frivolous 
 literature and for art unworthy of the name, it was 
 bound to happen that such a state of things would 
 lower literature, art, and science. For with the rich 
 man's taste setting the value of things, a jockey or a 
 danseuse who correspond to this taste are persons of 
 more value than the savant or the philosopher, whose 
 works he does not want. That is why a composer of 
 novels for serials may make a brilliant fortune and 
 attain what is called a position in the world, while a 
 real savant, had he achieved the distinction of _a 
 Bopper or Lassen, could not make a living out of his 
 woAs. 
 
 |Tmean by plutocracy a state of society in which 
 wealth is the principal thing, in which one can do 
 nothing unless one is rich, in which the chief object 
 of ambition is to become rich, in which capacity and 
 morality are generally valued (and more or less 
 accurately) by a money standard, so that the best 
 criterion of the elite of a nation is the cess-rate.
 
 390 The Future of Science. 
 
 It will not, I imagine, be questioned that the society 
 of the present day combines these different charac- 
 teristics. That being granted, I maintain that all 
 the faults of our intellectual development come from 
 plutocrac}^, and that it is in this respect above all that 
 our modern societies are inferior to Greek society. 
 In fact, when wealth becomes the principal aim of 
 human life, or at all events the necessary condition 
 of all other ambitions, let us consider what will be 
 the direction given to the mind. What is needed to 
 become rich ? Is it to be a savant, a wise man, or a 
 philosopher ? Not at all ; these are, upon the con- 
 trary, more obstacles than anything else. He who 
 devotes his life to science may rest assured that he 
 will die in want, unless he has a patrimony, or unless 
 he finds a means of utilizing his science, that is to say, 
 unless he can make a livelihood out of pure science. 
 For it will be observed that when a man makes a 
 living by intellectual labour, it is not as a rule his 
 true science that he brings into play, but his inferior 
 qualities. M. Lebronne has made more by compiling 
 second-rate elementary books than by the admirable 
 researches which have rendered his name famous. 
 Vico earned his living by composing prose and poetic 
 pieces of the most contemptible rhetoric for princes 
 and nobles, and could not find a publisher for his 
 Science Nouvelle. So true is it that it is not the 
 intrinsic value of things which constitutes their value, 
 but the relation which they bear to those who hold 
 the purse-strings. I may without vanity consider 
 myself to possess as much capacity as any clerk or 
 shopman. Yet the latter are able, in serving purely 
 material interests, to gain an honest living, while I, 
 who appeal to the soul, I, the priest of true religion, 
 do not, in sober truth, know where I am to look for 
 my daily bread next year. 
 
 The profound truth of the Greek intelligence is 
 derived, as it seems to me, from the fact that riches 
 constituted, in their highly organized civilization, 
 merely a motive of itself, but not a necessary condi-
 
 Tlie Future of Science. 30 1 
 
 tion to any other ambition. Hence arose the perfection 
 of spontaneousness in the development of individual 
 characters. A man was a poet or a philosopher 
 because it was part of his human nature, and because 
 he was specially endowed in that way. With us, 
 upon the contrary, there is a tendency imposed upon 
 whomsoever seeks to make a situation for himself in 
 external life. The faculties which he must cultivate 
 are those which serve to make rich : the industrial 
 spirit and practical intelligence. Now these faculties 
 are of very small value : they do not make a man 
 better, or more elevated, or more clear-sighted in 
 divine things ; quite the contrarj^ A man devoid of 
 worth or morality, selfish and lazy, will be more likely 
 to make his fortune upon the Stock Exchange than 
 one who concerns himself with serious matters. That 
 is not just, and therefore it will disappear. Plutocracy, 
 then, is not very favourable to the legitimate develop- 
 ment of intelligence. England, the country of wealth, 
 is of all civilized countries the one in which you find 
 the minimum of the philosophical development of 
 the intelligence. The nobles in former times regarded 
 it as beneath their dignity to concern themselves 
 with literature. The rich generally have coarse 
 tastes and attach the idea of good form {hon ton) to 
 matters which are ridiculous or purely of convention. 
 A gentleman rider, however insignificant he is, may 
 pass for a model of fashion. But I call him in so 
 many words a fo olj r 
 
 Plutocracy, in"l!nother order of ideas, is the source 
 of all our wars, because of the evil feelings it inspires 
 among those whom fate has made poor. The latter, 
 in truth, seeing that they are nothing because they 
 possess nothing, direct all their activity towards this 
 one aim ; and as, in many cases, this is slow, difficult, 
 and even impossible, evil thoughts germ ; jealousy 
 and hatred of the rich, the idea of stripping him of 
 what he possesses. The remedy for this is not to 
 contrive so that the poor may become rich, nor to 
 excite this desire in him, but so to act that riches
 
 392 The Future of Science. 
 
 may become a secondary and insignificant thing ; that 
 without it one may he very hapjiy, very great, very 
 noble, and very handsome ; that without it one may 
 become influential and highly esteemed in the State. 
 The remedy, in other words, is not to excite among 
 men appetites which all cannot satisfy, but to destroy 
 this appetite or to change the object of it, seeing that 
 this object does not belong to the essence of human 
 nature ; but that, on the contrary, it impedes the 
 proper development of it.
 
 The Future of Science. 393 
 
 CHAPTEE XXL 
 
 Science being one of the true elements of humanity, 
 it is independent of all social and fixed form like 
 human nature. No revolution will destroy it, for no 
 revolution will change the deep-rooted instincts of 
 man. Doubtless one can, while devoting oneself to 
 it, find spare moments for other duties ; but this 
 must be only a suspending not an abrogation of the 
 worship. A man must maintain the elevated aud 
 ideal value of science even when attending to other 
 and more pressing duties. There are, I admit, 
 sciences which may be termed umhratiles, which are 
 the better for security and peace. Only a M. de 
 Sacy could have published in the terrible year of 
 1793, at the Louvre printing-press, a work upon 
 Persian antiquities and upon the coins of the Sassa- 
 nides kings. But, taking human intelligence in the 
 mass, estimating progress by the movement accom- 
 plished in ideas, we are led to say : God's will be 
 done ! and we recognize the fact that a three days' 
 revolution does more for the progress of the human 
 mind than a generation of the Academic des Inscrip- 
 tions. 
 
 If there is one commonplace to v/hich facts give 
 the lie more than to another, it is that a revolu- 
 tionary period is very unpropitious for mental labour, 
 that literature, in order to produce masterpieces, has 
 need of calm and leisure, and that the arts deserve 
 in reality the classic epithet of " friends of peace." 
 History demonstrates, upon the contrary, that action,
 
 394 The Future of Science. 
 
 war, and rumours of war are the true medium in 
 which humanity develops itself, that genius only 
 puts out its full vegetation amid the storm, and that 
 all the great creations of thought have appeared in 
 troublous times. Of all ages, the sixteenth century 
 is beyond doubt that in which the human mind dis- 
 played the most energy and activity in all directions ; 
 it is the creative century par excellence. There was 
 a want of regularity in it, no doubt ; it was a thick 
 and luxuriant growth amid which art had not, as yet, 
 traced paths. But what fertility we have in this 
 the century of Luther and of Raphael, of Michael 
 Angelo and of Ariosto, of Montaigne and of Erasmus, 
 of Gralileo and of Copernic, of Cardan and of Vanini. 
 All branches of learning and knowledge are embraced 
 in it : philology, mathematics, astronomy, physical 
 science and philosophy. And yet this wonderful 
 century, in which the modern spirit was definitely 
 constituted, was the century of universal struggles 
 and contentions : religious, political, literary, scien- 
 tific. Italy herself, which then took the lead of all 
 Europe in the paths of investigation, was the theatre 
 of barbarous wars such as the future, let us hope, 
 will never see again. The sacking of Rome did not 
 disturb the brush of Michael Angelo ; left an orphan 
 at the age of six, mutilated at Brescia, Tartaglia 
 worked out mathematics for himself. Rhetoricians 
 alone can prefer the calm and artificial work of the 
 ivriter to the burning and genuine work which was 
 an act, and stood out in its day as the spontaneous 
 cry of an heroic or impassioned soul. ^Eschylus had 
 been a soldier at Salamis before being the poet. It 
 was in camp and amid the risks of a life of adventure 
 that Descartes thought out his method. Would 
 Dante have composed in an atmosphere of studious 
 ease those cantos of his which are the most original 
 in a period of ten centuries ? Are not the sufi"erings 
 of the poet, his wrath, his passions, and his exile half 
 the poem ? Can one not feel in Milton the man 
 who has been wounded in political strife ? Would
 
 The Future of Science. 305 
 
 Chateaubriand have been what he is if the nine- 
 teenth century had been an uubroken continuation 
 of the eighteenth ? 
 
 I The customary state of Athens was one of terror. 
 Never were political habits more violent, or the 
 security of the individual less. The enemy was 
 always a few leagues off; not a year elapsed but 
 what he appeared at the gates, but what it was 
 necessary to go out and fight against him. And 
 within, what an interminable series of revolutions ! 
 To-day an exile, to-morrow sold as a slave ; then 
 regretted, honoured as a god, liable each day to be 
 dragged before the most pitiless revolutionary tri- 
 bunal, the Athenian, who amid this life of rush and 
 uncertainty, was never sure of the morrow, pro- 
 duced with a spontaneousness which overwhelms us 
 with surprise. Let us not forget that the Parthenon 
 and the Propyloea statues of Phidias, the Dialogues 
 of Plato, the stinging satires of Aristophanes, were 
 the work of an epoch very similar to 1793, of a 
 political state of things which entailed, in proportion 
 to the number of people concerned, more violent 
 deaths than our first revolution at its paroxysm. 
 Where in these masterpieces do we find a trace of 
 the terror? Some strange timidity seems to have 
 taken hold of our minds. As soon as the smallest 
 cloud appears upon the horizon, everybody withdraws 
 himself inside his shell, so to speak, and is overcome 
 with fear? "What can be done in times like 
 these ? We want security. There is no inclination 
 to produce anything, when there is no certainty as 
 to the morrow." But we might remember that the 
 morrow has never been certain since the beginning 
 of the world, and that if the great men whose labours 
 have made us what we are had reasoned in this way, 
 the human mind would have remained for ever sterile. 
 Montaigne ran the risk of assassination as he walked 
 round his chateau, but this did not prevent him from 
 writing his Essais. This fatal craving for repose has 
 come from the long period of peace we have gone
 
 306 The Future of Science. 
 
 through, and which has had so great an mfluence 
 npou the current of our ideas. The mascuHne gene- 
 ration which grew to manhood in 1815, had the good 
 fortune to be cradled amid great achievements and 
 great perils, and to have had a high-spirited struggle 
 to carry on as a training for its youth. But we, who 
 l)egan to think in 1830, born beneath the influence of 
 Mercury, first saw the world as a machine in regular 
 working order ; peace seemed to us as being the 
 natural medium of the human mind ; our only expe- 
 rience of struggle and contention was under the 
 petty proportions of a purely personal opposition. 
 The least disturbance surprises us. Our horizon is 
 limited to the timid preservation of what our fathers 
 have accomplished. Woe to the generation which 
 has only had experience of a regular state of adminis- 
 tration, whose sole conception of life is as a rest and 
 of art as an enjoyment. Great achievements never 
 are accomplished in these lukewarm periods. ' But 
 it would not do to deny all value to the productions 
 of a period of calm and regularity. They are highly 
 finished, sensible, reasonable, full of a delicate criti- 
 cism ; they are agreeable to read in hours of leisure ; 
 but there is nothing decided or original about them, 
 nothing which breathes militant humanity, nothing 
 which approaches the hardy works of those won- 
 derful ages in which all the elements of humanity 
 while in a state of ebullition appear alternately upon 
 the surface. The universe created only in its primi- 
 tive periods and beneath the reign of chaos. Mon- 
 sters could not come into being under the peacefal 
 re'gime of equilibrium which has succeeded the 
 tempests of the earliest ages. 
 
 It is not, therefore, either material ease or even 
 liberty which contribute much to the originality and 
 the energy of intellectual development ; it is the 
 medium of great things, it is universal activity, it is 
 the spectacle of revolutions, it is the passion developed 
 in combat. The work of the mind would only be 
 seriously threatened when humanity came to be too
 
 The Future of Science. 397 
 
 much at its ease. Thank God ! that day is still far 
 distant. 
 
 A newspaper some time since called upon the 
 National Assemhly to decree the right to rest ; an 
 ingenious metaphor the meaning of which no' one 
 could mistake. No doubt, if life were to be regarded 
 merely as a period of rest and pleasure, we might 
 well regard the agitation of thought as a curse, 
 and as perverse those, who in order to satisfy their 
 feeling of unrest, disturbed this pleasant slumber. 
 Eevolutions can be only absurd and odious dis- 
 turbances in the eyes of those who do not believe in 
 progress. Without the idea of progress, all the ideas 
 of humanity are incomprehensible. If human life 
 had no other horizon than to vegetate somehow ; if 
 society were merely an aggregation of persons each 
 one living for himself and invariably subject to the 
 same vicissitudes ; if every one was born, lived, and 
 died in much the same manner, the best thing to do 
 would be to put humanity to sleep and patiently 
 submit to this commonplace monotony. There are 
 some who think it a good thing that the time of 
 religious controversies is over. For my own part, 
 I regret it, and I regret the disappearance of that 
 most beneficent Protestant controversy which, for 
 more than two centuries, sharpened up and kept on 
 the qui-vive the mind of all civilized Europe ; I regret 
 the time when Tureune and Lesdiguiere were in 
 controversy, when a book by Claude or Jurieu was 
 an event, when Caton and Turretin, matched against 
 each other, arrested the attention of all Europe. 
 The wars of religion are, after all, the most reason- 
 able of all wars, and henceforward they will be the 
 only ones such. We must be fair, and admit that 
 never was life more free than from 1830 to 1848, and 
 we shall perhaps have to wait a long time before we 
 have a regime affording so large a share of liberty. 
 But can it be said that during this period humanity 
 was enriched by many new ideas, that morality, 
 intelligence, and true religion made any real pro-
 
 398 The Future of Science. 
 
 gress ? Just as the monastic life, where all is cnt 
 and dried in advance, destroys the picturesque part 
 of life and effaces all originality, so a regular civiliza- 
 tion, tracing too narrow a road for existence, and 
 placing constant fetters upon individual liberty, is 
 more detrimental to spontaneousness than the 
 arbitrary regime (172). " This formalist liberty," 
 says M. Villemain, " engenders more petty vexations 
 than great struggles, more intrigues than great 
 passions." The human mind was infinitely more 
 active in the years of compression of the Restoration 
 than in the years of reasonable liberty which followed 
 1830. Poetry became egotistical, and its sole value 
 was as a delicate accompaniment of pleasure ; 
 originahty was out of place. It was admired and 
 sought out with curiosity in the past, but it was re- 
 garded with contumely in the present. Keen interest 
 was felt in the well-defined figures to be found in 
 history, and no mercy was shown to the contem- 
 poraries whom the future will regard with the same 
 interest. Thus a regime which realized the ideal of 
 eclecticism will get the reputation of being a some- 
 what barren period as regards the history of human 
 intelligence. 
 
 Upon the other hand, an epoch may, so long as it 
 emerges from the commonplace, give birth to the 
 most original and contradictory apparitions. Have 
 we not seen the selfsame revolution producing at 
 one and the same time the true formula of the rights 
 of man, and the new symbol of liberty, equality, and 
 fraternity, and, npon the other hand, the massacres 
 of September and the scaffold in permanence ? Did 
 not the same century give birth to the Talmud and 
 the Gospel, the most fearful monument of intellectual 
 depression and the loftiest creation of the moral 
 sense — to Jesus upon the one hand and Hillel and 
 Schammai on the other? Anything maybe antici- 
 pated in these great crises of the human mind, 
 whether in the way of what is sublime or absurd. 
 It is only the colourless productions of periods of
 
 The Future of Science. 399 
 
 repose wliich are consistent with themselves. The 
 appearance of Christ would he inexpUcable in a 
 logical and regular state of things ; it is compre- 
 hensible during the singular crises which at that 
 period characterized the reasoning sense of Judaea. 
 Those solemn periods during which human nature, 
 in a state of exaltation, half beside itself, emits the 
 most extravagant sounds, are the periods of great 
 revelations. If the same circumstances occurred 
 again, the same phenomena would reappear, and we 
 should again see Christs, not probably represented 
 by individuals, but by a new spirit, which would be 
 of spontaneous growth, without perhaps being per- 
 sonified so exclusively in any one particular person. 
 
 It must not be imagined that human nature is so 
 clearly marked off as to be unable to extend beyond 
 a commonplace horizon. There are rents in this 
 horizon, through which the eye pierces the infinite ; 
 there are vistas which go direct beyond the goal. 
 There may spring up among the stronger races and 
 at periods of crises monsters in the intellectual order, 
 which, while participating in human nature, ex- 
 aggerate it so much in one sense that they catch 
 a glimpse of the unknown worlds. These beings 
 were less rare than is generally believed in the 
 primitive epochs. It may be that more of these 
 strange natures, placed upon the limit of man and 
 open to different combinations, will one day appear. 
 But assuredly these ancestors will not be born in 
 our jog-trot time. A narrow and fixed conception 
 of life weakens the creative faculties. Civilization, 
 owing to the extreme definition of rights which it 
 introduces into society, and by the fetters which 
 it imposes upon individual liberty, becomes in the 
 long run a very irksome burden, and deprives man 
 in a great measure of the keen sense of his inde- 
 pendence. I can understand German writers re- 
 gretting from this point of view the old Germanic 
 life and deploring the Eoman and Christian influence 
 which changed its rough-and-ready sincerity. Com-
 
 400 The Future of Science. 
 
 pare the modern man, swathed about with a thousand 
 clauses of hiw, unable to take a step without being 
 confronted by a sergeant or a regulation, with Antar 
 in his desert, knowing no other law than the fire of 
 his race, dependent only upon himself, in a world 
 where no idea of penal law or of coercia exercised in 
 the name of society exists. 
 
 All is fruitful except common sense. The prophet, 
 the apostle, the poet of the early ages would be re- 
 garded as madmen in the midst of the colourless 
 mediocrity in which human life is imprisoned. A 
 man who shed tears without any apparent cause, who 
 wept over the universal sorrow, or laughed with a 
 long, mysterious laugh, would be shut up in a mad- 
 house because he did not make his thoughts fit to 
 our accustomed moulds. And yet I would ask why 
 this man is not nearer to God than a self-sufficient 
 little tradesman, huddled up in the corner of his 
 shop. How touching is the custom prevalent in 
 Judea and Arabia, where the lunatic is honoured as 
 a favourite of God, as a man who sees into the world 
 beyond ! The Soufi and the Corybant believed, in 
 losing their senses, that they touched the divinity ; 
 the instinct of different peoples has sought for reve- 
 lations from the hallowed state of slumber. The 
 prophets and the inspired men of ancient times 
 would have been classed by our physicians as victims 
 of hallucination. So true is it that an undetermined 
 line divides the legitimate and the exorbitant exer- 
 cise of the human faculties, and that they cover a 
 serial scale of which the centre alone is attainable. 
 The same instinct, in the one case normal, in the 
 other perverse, inspired Dante and the Marquis de 
 Sade. The greatest of religions was marked at its 
 cradle by incidents of the purest enthusiasm and by 
 the extravagances of convulsionists equal to anything 
 to be seen among the most exalted of sectaries. 
 
 We must, therefore, resign ourselves to the fact 
 that the most beautiful of things are born amid tears; 
 sorrow is not too high a price to pay for beauty. \
 
 The Future of Science. 401 
 
 The new faith will only be born amidst terrible dis- 
 turbances, and when the human intelligence has 
 been checkmated, thrown off the rails, so to speak, 
 by events as yet unparalleled. We have not yet 
 suffered sufficiently to see the kingdom of heaven. 
 When a few millions of men have died of hunger, 
 when thousands have devoured one another, when 
 the brains of the others, carried off their balance of 
 these darksome scenes, have plunged into extrava- 
 gances of one kind and another, then life will begin 
 anew. Suffering has been for man the mistress and 
 the revealer of great things. Order is an end, not a 
 beginning. 
 
 So true is it that institutions bear their best fruit 
 before they have become too official. It would be 
 very foolish to imagine that now there is a discus- 
 sion forum on the Quai d'Orsay, there will be greater 
 political speakers. The first Ecole Normale was 
 unquestionably regulated with less care than that of 
 to-day, and had no teachers to compare with the 
 present ones. And yet the generation it produced 
 is beyond all comparison with what is produced now. 
 An institution only possesses its full strength when 
 it corresponds to the real and clearly felt want which 
 led to its establishment. At first, it may appear to 
 be imperfect, and people are too ready to imagine 
 that when the period of tranquillity and of peaceful 
 organization comes, it will do wonders. This is all 
 a mistake; the petty improvements spoil the work; 
 the motive force disappears, and the whole becomes 
 petrified. Official regulations do not impart life, and 
 I am convinced for my part that an education like 
 ours will always have the defects so often imputed 
 to it of being mechanical and artificial. Eegulatious 
 are supposed to take the place of the spirit, to achieve 
 with men devoid of self-devotion or morality what 
 could be accomplished with men who were devoted 
 and religious. This is attempting the impossible; 
 life cannot be simulated ; no machinery however well 
 combined will produce more than an automaton. 
 ^ 2d
 
 402 The Future of Science. 
 
 This evil is not to be corrected by regulations, in- 
 asmuch as they are the very source of the mis- 
 chief. Rule existed, it is true, at the outset, but 
 it was vivified by the spirit, just as the Christian 
 ceremonies, which have become a mere series of 
 closely regulated movements, were in the beginning 
 true and sincere. What a difference there is be- 
 tween chanting a tag of Latin called the Epistle and 
 reading in company the Correqwndence of colleagues, 
 between a piece of consecrated bread which no longer 
 has any meaning and the feast of early times ! The 
 jnimitive gathering, the wjape, had no need to be 
 regulated, for it was spontaneous. Painting pro- 
 duced masterpieces before there was such a thing as 
 a yearly exhibition. Men of letters and artists did 
 not enjoy, in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
 turies, the amount of dignity they should have done, 
 and therefore, now that they have obtained the place 
 which is due to them, they will do much better. 
 These are erroneous conclusions, for they presuppose 
 that the regulating of the external conditions of 
 intellectual production is favourable to it, whereas 
 this production depends solely upon the abundance 
 of the inner and living sap of humanity. 
 
 Some one said, speaking of the beatific calm in 
 which Austria was previous to 1848 : " What can you 
 expect ; these people are foolish enough to be happy." 
 That is not so ; it is not a vulgar thing to be happy. 
 Only the high-strung souls know how to attain hap- 
 piness. But to be at one's ease is the most prosaic 
 of aspirations. None but a simpleton can be so eager 
 for the regime of a full stomach. 
 
 As soon as a country begins to show signs of agita- 
 tion, we are inclined to regard its condition as 
 unsatisfactory. If, upon the contrary, it is in a dead 
 calm, we say, and in this case with more truth, 
 " This country feels the want of action." Agitation 
 appears to be a regrettable transition and repose 
 seems to be the aim ; but repose never comes, and 
 if it did that would be the worst thing that could
 
 The Future of Science. 403 
 
 happen. No doubt, order is a desirable thing, and 
 all efforts should tend towards it ; but order is only 
 to be desired in view of progress. When humanity 
 has reached its rational state, but not till then, revo- 
 lutions will appear detestable, and pity will be due 
 to the age which stands in need of them. 
 
 The aim of humanity is not repose ; it is intellec- 
 tual and moral perfection. How can people talk of 
 repose, I should like to know, when they have the 
 infinite to traverse and the perfect to reach? Humanity 
 will only repose when it has reached the perfect. It 
 would be too strange if a few profane persons could, 
 from motives of <£ s. d. or personal interest, arrest 
 the progress of the mind, the true religious progress. 
 The most dangerous state for humanity would be that 
 in which the majority, finding itself quite at ease and 
 not wishing to be disturbed, should retain its repose 
 at the cost of thought and of an oppressed minority. 
 When that occurred, the only safety would be in the 
 moral instincts of human nature, which, no doubt, 
 would not be found wanting. 
 
 The traction force of humanity has hitherto resided 
 in the minority. Those who find themselves well off 
 in the world as it is cannot like movement, unless 
 they raise themselves above self-interested views. 
 Thus the greateu become the number of the well-to- 
 do, the harder is it to stir humanity ; it has to be 
 dragged along. The good of humanity being the 
 supreme aim, the minority must not scruple to lead 
 along against its will, if needs be, the stupid or selfish 
 majority. But in order to do that it must have 
 reason on its side, otherwise it is an abominable 
 tyranny. The essential thing is not that the will 
 of the great majority should be carried out, but that 
 right should be done. What ! there are people who, 
 in order to make a few sous the more, would sacri- 
 fice humanity and country, who would have the right 
 to say : " You shall go no further ; do not teach this, 
 as it might stir up men's minds and be injurious to 
 our business ? " The only portion of humanity which
 
 404 The Future of Science. 
 
 deserves to be taken into consideration is the active 
 and liviDg part, that is to say, the part which is not 
 well to do. It will, therefore, be quite in vain that 
 our fathers, having become reasonable, will beg us no 
 longer to think and to keep ourselves quiet, for fear 
 of throwing the delicate machine out of gear. We 
 ask for ourselves the liberty which they have taken 
 to themselves. We will let them be converted, and 
 we will appeal from Voltaire out of sorts to Voltaire 
 in good health. 
 
 Eeflect, then, for a moment upon what you are 
 attemj^ting to do, and remember that it is a sheer 
 impossibility, that which since the beginning of the 
 world all intelligent conservatives have attempted 
 without success ; to check the human mind, to 
 deaden intellectual activity, to persuade youth that 
 all thought is dangerous and leads to evil. You have 
 had your liberty of thought, so will we ; we will 
 admire, as you have taught us to do, the great men 
 of the past and the illustrious promoters of thought 
 whom now you repudiate. We will remind you of 
 what you have taught, we will protect you against 
 yourselves. You are old and sickly, and you can 
 become converted ; but we, your pupils in liberalism, 
 we, young and full of life, we to whom the future 
 belongs, why should we accept a share in your terrors ? 
 How can you expect that a rising generation should 
 be content to shrivel up with ill-humour and fear ? 
 Hope is a thing of our age, and we prefer succumb- 
 ing in the struggle to dying of cold or fear. 
 
 There is something really comical in this ill- 
 humour which has suddenly been manifested against 
 the free thinkers, as if, after all, they could help the 
 result of their speculations, as if they could have 
 done different from what they have, as if they were 
 free to see things different from what they are. One 
 might have supposed that it was out of pure caprice 
 and fancy that they suddenly attacked the beliefs 
 of the past, and as if it depended upon them whether 
 tlie world retained its faith or not. A book only
 
 The Future of Science. 405 
 
 succeeds when it responds to the secret thought of 
 all ; an author does not destroy faiths ; if they appa- 
 rently fall beneath his blows, it was because they 
 were already very much shaken. I have met people 
 who, imagining that the mischief comes from Ger- 
 many, regretted that there was no inquisition against 
 Kant, Hegel, Strauss. Sheer fatality this ! You 
 admire Luther, Descartes, and Voltaire, and you 
 anathematize those who, without intending to imitate 
 them, carry on their work, and if there was in our 
 day a Luther, a Descartes or a Voltaire, you would 
 treat them as enemies of society, as dangerous inno- 
 vators. You condemn the eighteenth century which 
 you formerly liked so well ; you should, to be logical, 
 condemn the Eenaissance, the whole modern spirit 
 and fatality into the bargain. You may condemn 
 and curse as much as you please, but I defy you to 
 deaden the human mind beneath a perpetual charm, 
 I defy you to persuade it to remain idle, to rest 
 motionless for fear of risk, for that is death. We will 
 not allow it, we will cry out to the people : " It is 
 false, it is false, you are being led astray," rather 
 than tolerate this irreverent way of treating truth as 
 being of less importance than the tranquillity of a 
 few cowards. 
 
 'The whole secret of the intellectual situation of 
 the moment is, therefore, in this fatal truth, viz. 
 that intellectual labour has been degraded to the 
 rank of a pleasure, and that in the day of serious 
 things it has become insignificant like the pleasures 
 themselves. It is not, therefore, the fault of events, 
 for they should rather have had the effect of awaking 
 men's minds and stirring them up to thought; the 
 whole fault is in the general depression brought 
 about by the exclusive attention given to repose ; 
 the shameful hedonism of which we gather the fruits 
 and of which communistic follies are, after all, but 
 the extreme consequence. There are times when 
 to amuse oneself is a crime, or at all events an 
 impossibility. The silly Hterature of coteries and
 
 40G The Future of Science. 
 
 salons, the science of the inquisitive and of amateurs 
 is much depreciated by these terrible spectacles ; 
 the serial story loses much of its interest when it 
 appears in a paper containing the recital of the real 
 and passionate drama of the hour ; the amateur may 
 well fear to see his collections carried off or blown 
 all over the place by the wind of the storm. In 
 order to appreciate these peaceful tastes, a man need 
 have nothing to do and nothing to fear ; to seek out 
 such innocent diversions, time must hang heavy on 
 the hand. But nothing of that which contributes 
 to the awakening of humanity is lost to the true 
 progress of the mind ; philosophical thought is never 
 more free than in the great days of history. Intel- 
 lectual exercise is more vigorous at those times, for 
 it is less tainted with amusement. It is imperative 
 that the world should school itself to maintain, amid 
 no matter what cataclysms, the value of intellectual 
 culture, of science, of art, and of philosophj^ What 
 is good is always good, and if we wait for tranquillity, 
 we may have to wait a long time. If our fathers had 
 reasoned in this way, they would have folded their 
 arms and done nothing, and we should not enjoy 
 their inheritance. And what matters it, after all, 
 whether to-morrow be sure or not ? What matters 
 it whether the future belongs to us or does not ? Is 
 the sky less blue, Beatrice less beautiful, or God less 
 great ? If the world were to collapse, it would still 
 be well to philosophize, and I am convinced that 
 if ever our planet is the victim of a fresh cataclj^sm, 
 which at this moment seems impending, it will find 
 some few minds of men which, amid this general 
 upheaval and chaos, will have disinterested and 
 scientific thoughts, and which, forgetting their im- 
 pending death, will discuss the phenomenon, and 
 endeavour to draw from it some consequences bear- 
 ing upon the general system of things (173).
 
 The Future of Science. 407 
 
 CHAPTER XXIT. 
 
 I ASK the reader to pardon numberless views to some 
 extent exaggerated which he will have encountered 
 in the preceding chapter, and I beg him to judge 
 this book not by an isolated passage, but by its 
 general spirit. A man can only give expression to 
 his mind by the successive delineation of various 
 points of view, each of which is only true when taken 
 as a whole. A single page is, as a matter of neces- 
 sity, false ; for it expresses only one thiug, and truth 
 is only the compromise betw^een an infinity of things 
 (174). Now what I have sought above all to inculcate 
 in this book is faith in reason, faith in human nature. 
 "I w^ould have it serve to react against the sort of 
 moral enfeeblement which is the malady of the rising 
 generation ; I w^ould have it guide back into the true 
 road of life some of those enervated souls which com- 
 plain of being lacking in faith, which know not which 
 way to go and which search everywhere in vain for an 
 object of worship and devotion. Why complain so 
 bitterly that in the world, as it is constituted, there 
 is not enough employment for all intelligences ? Is 
 not serious and calm study available ? and does not 
 it contain a hope and a career within the reach of 
 each one of us. Armed with this, we can endure 
 the evil days, without feeling the weight of them, 
 we can work out our own destiny, we can make a 
 noble use of Hfe (175). That is what I have done," 
 added the noble martyr to science from wdiom I have 
 borrowed these lines, ''and what I would do again
 
 408 The Future of Science. 
 
 if I had to recommence my journey. Blind and 
 suffering without hope of recovery, almost un- 
 ceasingly, I can bear this testimony which, from my 
 lips, will not be open to cavil : there is in the world 
 something better than fortune, better than health 
 i tgglf, and that is devotion to science." 
 jTI know that in the eyes of many people, this faith 
 in science and in the human intelligence will seem 
 a piece of absurdity, and that it will not please those 
 who, too clever to believe in the truth, regard scep- 
 ticism itself as too doctrinal, and who, without pay- 
 ing too much heed to these cumbrous categories of 
 truth and error, treat the enjoyments of life and the 
 calculations of intrigue as the serious business of life. 
 There is nothing but raillery for those who concern 
 themselves with the reality of things, and who, in 
 order to form an opinion upon morality, religion, 
 social and philosophical questions, are so simple 
 minded as to reflect upon objective reasons, instead 
 of addressing themselves to the much easier criterion 
 of interests and of good taste (IJ^l^ Only the form 
 of expression is taken into account ; the intrinsic 
 consideration of things is regarded as useless and in 
 bad taste ; or else, if it is thought distingue to assume 
 the air of a believer, people accept some ready-made 
 system, the absurdities of which they see very clearly, 
 just because they think it amusing to admit these 
 absurdities in order to make sport of reason. In this 
 way, a man becomes all the grosser in the object of 
 his belief as he has been more sceptical and has 
 shown more levity in his motive for accepting it. It 
 would be bad "form" to ask oneself for a moment 
 whether it is true ; it is accepted as one accepts a 
 certain shape of coat or hat ; one becomes super- 
 stitious to a degree because one has been sceptical 
 — not to say frivolous. Pronounced scepticism has 
 never been very prevalent in France ; our sceptics, 
 to begin with Montaigne and Pascal, have been 
 either men of wit or believers ; two forms of scep- 
 ticism very close to each other and mutually inter-
 
 The Future of Science. 409 
 
 dependent. Pascal sought to borrow from Montaigne 
 his sceptical arguments and give them the first place 
 in his Apologia : " One cannot," he says, " fail to see 
 with pleasure how, in this author, the magnificent 
 reasoning is so invincibly rumpled by his own arms 
 . . . and one would love with one's whole heart the 
 i^^try of so great a vengeance, if . . . " (177) 
 'jjBWhen scepticism has become a fashion, it does 
 not imply penetration of mind nor keenness of criti- 
 cism, but much rather dulness and incapacity to 
 understand the truth. ''It is very convenient," 
 says Fichte, "to cover with the high-sounding name 
 of scepticism lack of intelligence. It is pleasant to 
 pass off this lack of intelligence which prevents us 
 from seizing the truth for marvellous penetration of 
 mind, which reveals to us motives of doubt unknown 
 and inaccessible to the rest of mankind " (178). It 
 is easy, by placing oneself as outside all dogma, to 
 play the part of one in advance of his age, and the 
 stupid, who are more afraid of being dupes than of 
 anything else, carry this even further. Just as in 
 the eighteenth century it was the fashion not to 
 believe in feminine honour, so in our day there is 
 not a provincial person with pretensions who does 
 not make a glory of having no political creed and 
 of not being a believer in the probity of those who 
 govern. This is one way of having one's revenge, 
 and also of making the world believe that one is 
 initiated into deep secrets. 
 
 It is the honour of philosophy to have always had 
 as its enemies the frivolous and the immoral. Who, 
 not having in themselves the instinct of what is 
 beautiful, boldly declare that human nature is ugly 
 and bad, and embrace with frenzy any doctrine 
 which humiliates man and keeps him entirely under 
 dependence. Therein lies the secret of the faith of 
 the " golden youth" of the Catholic creed, thoroughly 
 sceptical, hard and scornful, which finds amusement 
 in calling itself Catholic, because by so doing it puts 
 an insult the more upon modern ideas. That dis-
 
 410 The Future of Science. 
 
 penses it from harbouring noble thoughts ; by dint 
 of saying to oneself that human nature is vile and 
 corrupt, one in the end resigns oneself to this and 
 takes it in good part (179). The Church will be 
 indulgent for errors of the heart, and then it is so 
 easy for aristocratic fatuity to believe that the mass 
 of mankind is absurd and ill-intentioned, and to have 
 under control a potent authority to cut short the 
 reasonings of these impertinent philosophers, who 
 dare to believe in truth and beauty. sordid souls, 
 how dark you are within, seeing how few are the 
 things you love ! And you will be called believers, 
 while we are called impious ! This is more than can 
 be endiiYedJf^ 
 
 God forHid that I should speak slightingly of those 
 who, devoid of the critical sense and impelled by 
 very powerful religious motives, are attached to one 
 or other of the great established systems of faith. I 
 love the simple faith of the peasant, the serious con- 
 viction of the priest. I am convinced, for the honour 
 of human nature, that Christianity is, with the im- 
 mense majorit}" of those who profess it, a purely noble 
 form of life. But I cannot help saying that, for a 
 great part of aristocratic youth, Catholicism is merely 
 a form of scepticism and frivolity. The first basis of 
 that sort of Catholicism is scorn, malediction, and 
 irony ; malediction against anything wdiich has caused 
 the human mind to progress and which has broken 
 the old chain. Compelled to hate whatever has 
 aided the modern spirit to shake itself free of Catholi- 
 cism, these frenzied partisans are full of hatred for 
 everything and everybody : for Louis XIV. who, by 
 constituting the central unity of France, worked so 
 efficaciously for the triumph of the modern spirit, as 
 for Luther, for science as for the industrial spirit, for 
 humanity in short. They think that they are offer- 
 ing an apologia for Christianity when they make 
 sport of all that is serious and philosophical. 
 
 It is impossible for me to express the physiological 
 and psychological effect this sort of parody which
 
 The Future of Science. 4 1 1 
 
 lias become so much the fashion in provincial circles 
 of late years has upon me. It irritates and annoys 
 me beyond endurance. It is so easy to elude in 
 this way anything serious or original. Barbarians 
 that you are, do you forget that we have had Voltaire, 
 and that we might fling in your face Father Nico- 
 demus, Abraham Chaumeix, Sabathier and Nonotte ? 
 We do not do so, because you have told us that it 
 was unfair. But why, then, use against us a weapon 
 which you have reproached us with employing ? Do 
 3^ou suppose that if we wanted to make sport of 
 theologians, we should not have as fine an opening 
 as you, when, in order to raise a laugh from the 
 triflers, you put silly arguments into the mouths of 
 the j)hilosophers ? I happened to take up a pamphlet 
 against eclecticism, in which Descartes is repre- 
 sented as a fool whose sole contribution to philosophy 
 is the question " whether reason is not a thing which 
 reasons falsely," Kant as an idol who does not 
 know whether he exists and whether the world 
 exists, Fichte as an impertinent fellow who asserts 
 that "he, Fichte, is at once God, nature, and 
 humanity," all the philosophers, in short, as greater 
 lunatics than the magicians, the alchemists, and the 
 astrologers. I can fancy the light laughter which 
 the reading of these charming remarks would have 
 excited at some country fireside. The author may 
 be assured of making his fortune much better than 
 dull-witted persons like us who are so stupid as to 
 take things seriously. . . . 
 
 It is time that all parties who have truth at heart 
 should abandon such unscientific ways. There is, I 
 know, a philosophical form of merriment, which could 
 not be suppressed without doing injury to human 
 nature ; and that is the merriment of the Greeks, 
 who liked to weep and to laugh over the same sub- 
 ject, to see the comedy after the tragedy, and often 
 the parody of the very piece they had just been wit- 
 nessing. But pleasantry in scientific matters is 
 always unreal, for it is the exclusion of elevated
 
 412 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 criticism. Notbiug is ridiculous in the works of 
 humanity ; to give this aspect to serious things, 
 they must be looked at from a narrow side, and what 
 is majestic and true in them must be neglected. 
 Voltaire makes mock of the Bible, because he has 
 not the intuition of the primitive works of the human 
 mind. He would, in the same way, have made mock 
 of the Vedas, and no doubt of Homer. Banter com- 
 pels one to regard things solely from their gross 
 aspect ; it is a bar against delicate distinctions. The 
 first step in the philosophical career is to become 
 proof against ridicule. If a man allows himself to 
 become subject to vulgar jesters, and to take any 
 account of their frivolities, he shuts himself out from 
 all moral beauty, from all lofty aspirations, from all 
 elevation of character, for all these can be turned 
 into ridicule. The jester has the immense advantage 
 of being dispensed from furnishing proofs ; he is free 
 to cast ridicule, at his will, upon what he pleases, 
 and this without appeal, at all events in countries 
 where, as in France, tyranny is accepted as legitimate 
 authority. The only things which escape ridicule 
 are those which are commonplace and vulgar, so that 
 he who is weak enough to keep clear of anything 
 which may lend itself to ridicule, ipso facto cuts him- 
 self off from all that is lofty. The ages of reflection 
 risk seeing the noblest sentiments and the most 
 sublime conditions of the soul distorted by stupid 
 plagiarists, the ridicule of whom sometimes recoils 
 upon the types which they aspire to imitate. A 
 certain amount of courage is required to resist the 
 reaction which these coxcombs excite among the 
 right-minded. It is unreasonable to resign oneself 
 to commonplace vulgarity, because in following up 
 an elevated type, one runs the risk of resembling 
 great men who have just missed their mark and the 
 unsuccessful asp>irants after genius. One may regret 
 tbe time when a great man was fashioned without 
 giving any thought to the matter, unconsciously so 
 to speak ; but the ridiculous attitude of a few weak-
 
 TJie Future of Science. 413 
 
 headed persons cannot suffice to condemn those who 
 with well-resolved and deliberate will set themselves 
 to accomplish something great and noble. The false 
 Eenes and the false Werthers should not cause us to 
 denounce the true ones. How many timid and 
 modest souls have been kept back from attaining the 
 beautiful for fear of resembhng them ! All praise to 
 the Olympian thinker, who, pursuing in all things 
 critical truth, has no need to become a dreamer in 
 order to escape the platitude of the bourgeois life, or 
 to become a bourgeois in order to avoid the ridicule 
 of the dreamers. 
 
 I sometimes regret that Moliere, when stigmatizing 
 the absurdities of the Hotel de Eambouillet, laid 
 himself open to the suspicion of setting up as models 
 types inferior in one way to those which he ridiculed. 
 The only defect in the pure affection of Armande and 
 of Belise in the Femmes Savantes, even that of Cathos 
 and of Madelon in the Precieuses Ridicules, is that it 
 is affected, and serves as a cover to vacuousness under 
 the guise of a ridiculous jDathos. If it were true, it 
 would be preferable to the commonplace love of 
 Clitandre and of Henriette. I prefer even the affec- 
 tation of what is elevated to mere triteness. Boileau 
 makes game of Clelie, ''that admirable young woman, 
 w^ho so conducted herself that she had not a lover 
 but was compelled to conceal himself under the guise 
 of a friend; for otherwise they would have been 
 turned out of the house." Doubtless, subtlety is not 
 truth ; but it is better to be ridiculous than vulgar, 
 and taking refuge in commonplace is a very easy 
 mode of escaping ridicule. It w^ould be too much 
 that superficial jesters should have the power of 
 casting suspicion, whenever it pleased them, ujion 
 whatsoever is noble, pure and elevated, of treating 
 enthusiasm as an extravagance, and morahty as a 
 dupery. One thing only does not lend itself to jest, 
 and that is the atrocious. Let the mind travel over 
 the scale of moral characters ; jests may have been 
 made of Socrates, Plato, Jesus Christ, God. Men
 
 414 21ie Future of Science. 
 
 may have made mock of savants, poets, philosophers, 
 religious men, politicians, plebeians, nobles, rich 
 traders. No one has ever made mock of Nero or 
 Eobespierre. Laughter cannot, therefore, be a cri- 
 terion. Action appears to many a means of avoiding 
 the dupery to which frivolous people suppose that 
 men of thought and sentiment fall victims. It seems 
 as if the warrior, the politician, the financier are not 
 so open to attack as the philosopher or the poet. 
 But this is a mistake. All things equally lend them- 
 selves to ridicule, and if there is one thing really 
 serious, it is the critical thinker who looks at the 
 objectivity of things ; for things are serious. Who 
 has not felt, in presence of a flower which blooms, of 
 a rivulet which is murmuring, of a bird watching 
 over its brood, of a rock in the midst of the sea, that 
 these things are sincere and true ? Who has not felt 
 in certain moments of tranquillity, that the doubts 
 which are raised as to human morality, are merely 
 ways of searching beyond the limits of reason that 
 which is within them, and of placing oneself in a 
 false hypothesis for the pleasure of torturing oneself? 
 Scepticism alone is entitled to jest, for it has no re- 
 prisals to fear. In what respect is it open to attack, 
 inasmuch as it is the first to make light of all things ? 
 But how can a believer who makes mock of another 
 believer fail to see that he lays himself open, by the 
 very fact of his being a believer, to the same ridicule ? 
 Let us, therefore, leave to negation and frivolity the 
 unenviable privilege of being invulnerable to attack, 
 and let us glory in the fact that, by reason of our 
 convictions and our seriousness, we lay ourselves open 
 to the jests of the sceptical. 
 
 Extreme refiection thus inevitably leads to a 
 species of insipidity and light scepticism, which would 
 be the death of humanity if it became universal. Of 
 all the intellectual states, this is the most dangerous 
 and the most incurable. Those who are attacked by 
 it are doomed to die. For how can they hope to 
 survive it, the unhappy beings who do not believe in
 
 The Future of Science. 4 1 
 
 serious things, who, if they attempted to shake oif 
 this intellectual paralysis, would he stopped by the 
 after thought that they, too, are going to be included 
 in the number of people at whom they have been in 
 the habit of laughing. But if there is no cure for 
 over-refining, humanity has methods of rejuvenation 
 and of obhvion which are impossible for individuals. 
 Young and keen generations, and sometimes even 
 new races, are constantly supplying it with sap, and 
 moreover this, by its very nature, could not last 
 more than a few years as a social evil. For, as its 
 essence is to take a purely arbitrary view of things, 
 those who come after do not feel themselves bound 
 by the views of the former ; upon the contrary, 
 whatever is conventional provokes almost a reaction 
 in the opposite direction ; it is impossible that a 
 fashion should be durable. Thus what is serious and 
 frivolous follow one upon the top of the other in the 
 records of fashion ; frivolity in time becomes silly, 
 and ridicule can be adapted to any subject. So that 
 in time the world will make mock of these mockers 
 and recover its liking for the serious life. Then will 
 come an age made dogmatic by science ; people will 
 recommence believing in the certain, and of resting 
 their feet firmly upon things, when they know that 
 they are on solid ground. 
 
 Keligion, philosophy, morality, and politics all 
 have their sceptics ; there are not any in the physical 
 sciences (not at least as far as concerns that j)art of 
 them which is definitely accepted or their method). 
 The method of these sciences has thus become the 
 criterion of practical certainty in the present day, 
 and if the moral sciences seem to furnish results 
 which are less positive, this is because they do not 
 respond to that model of scientific certainty which 
 they have formed for themselves. This is the sheet- 
 anchor which will save our age from the shipwreck of 
 scepticism ; scientific certainty is accepted, the only 
 complaint being that this certainty is only apphcablo 
 to so few subjects. Effort should all be concentrated
 
 416 The Future of Science. 
 
 upon enlarging this circle, but the great thing is that 
 the instrument is recognized, that people believe in 
 the possibility of believing. My conviction is that 
 results equally definite, though formulated in a 
 different way and arrived at by different methods, 
 will be attained in the moral sciences. There are 
 some natures which find pleasure in torturing them- 
 selves and in setting themselves insoluble problems. 
 The only proof of the morality and seriousness of 
 Hfe is in our nature. To carry one's investigations 
 beyond that and to doubt of the bases of human 
 nature is to vex one's spirit designedly, is like irri- 
 tating the sensitive pulse for the doubtful pleasure 
 of scratching oneself. 
 
 Those who make a jest of things will never be 
 supreme. The day is not distant when these would- 
 be fastidious people will be discovered so insignificant 
 in presence of the immensity of actual facts, so 
 incapable of producing, that they will collapse like an 
 empty bag. Only the eternal is of any value ; whereas 
 these frivolous persons cling to successive offshoots, 
 knowing that both will fade away. Like the worn- 
 out stomachs which soon turn against nourishment 
 and for which fresh culinary combinations have con- 
 stantly to be found, they concentrate all their interest 
 upon the various modes which succeed one another 
 every ten years. Theirs is a literature of epicureans, 
 well calculated to please a class which is rich and 
 has no ideal, but which will never be the literature of 
 the people, for the people are frank, strong and sin- 
 cere. This literature has no care for truth, but as a 
 mere matter of good taste and hon ton. The thing 
 is not to say what is, but what ought to be said. 
 " He who believes nothing is worth nothing," said 
 M. de Maistre. The ancient faith is impossible, but 
 there remains faith by science, the critical faith. 
 
 Criticism is not scepticism, much less levity. 
 Criticism is keen and fine drawn, subtle and winged, 
 without being frivolous. Germany was for a century 
 the country of criticism, and yet who would say
 
 Tlte Future of Science. 417 
 
 that Lessiug, Kant, and Hegel were frivolous men ? 
 In France, it is not easy to conceive of a inediuin 
 between the heavy erudition of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury and the sharp-witted and sceptical manner of 
 modern critics (180). When people talk of serious- 
 ness, they are thinking of the simple wit of Rollin, 
 which is certainly not what we want. What we 
 want is not the honlwmie which excites suspicion, 
 because it infers shortness of view. What we want 
 is complete criticism, at once learned and elevated, 
 indulgent and pitiless. Narrowness of mind is very 
 dangerous in France because of the suspicion which 
 it awakens, and because this suspicion is extended to 
 whatever is dogmatic and moral. What people most 
 dread in France is being duped. A man prefers 
 having the character of being easy of conscience and 
 of scruples to that of an honest fool, and if any idea 
 of dulness of perception is associated with morality 
 that is sufficient for it to be regarded with suspicion. 
 This is why the term hon esprit has fallen into dis- 
 repute. A title which should be the highest possible 
 compliment has become almost synonymous with 
 weak-mindedness, and is bestowed with surprising 
 freedom. For, as a matter of fact, people are always 
 ready to accord to others the qualities which they do 
 not care about for themselves, and it is thought that, 
 in applying to others the term hon esprit^ one will jjass 
 for having a great or brilliant intellect oneself. We 
 are so afraid of being duped that we are perpetually 
 on the look out for attempts to deceive us, and we 
 are ready to think that if our forefathers had been 
 sharper, they would not have been so serious or so 
 honest. And yet, if morality were only an illusion, 
 it would be so fine a thing to allow oneself to be 
 duped by it ! Domine, si error est, a te decepti sumus. 
 Oh thou who hast made sport of my simplicity, I 
 shall thank thee for having stolen my virtue ! 
 
 We reject in the same way frivolous scepticism 
 and scholastic dogmatism ; we are dogmatic critics. 
 We beheve in truth, although we do not claim to 
 
 2 E
 
 418 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 possess absolute truth. We do not desire to pen up 
 humanity for ever within our formula} ; but we are 
 religious, in the sense that we are firmly attached to 
 the belief of the present, and that we are ready to 
 suffer for this belief in view of the future. Enthu- 
 siasm and criticism are far from being incompatible. 
 We do not force ourselves upon the future any more 
 than we accept without verification the inheritance 
 of the past. We aspire to the high philosophical 
 impartiality which does not attach itself to any 
 party, not because it is indifferent to them, but 
 because it sees in each of them a mixture of truth 
 with error ; which has no feehng of exclusiveness or 
 hatred for any one, because it sees the necessity of 
 all these various groupings and the right which each 
 one of them has, by virtue of the truth which it pos- 
 sesses, to make its appearance upon the world's stage. 
 Error is not welcome to man ; a dangerous error is a 
 contradiction like a dangerous truth. The reasoning 
 of Gamaliel (181) is unanswerable. If a doctrine is 
 true, it is not to be feared ; if it is false still less so, 
 for it will explode of itself. Those who talk of doc- 
 trines as dangerous should add " for me." Cabet, I 
 am sure, never provoked any man's anger. Pure 
 error would only provoke in human nature, which 
 after all is kindly constituted, a sentiment of ridicule 
 or disgust. 
 
 What makes proselytism, what influences the 
 world, are incomplete truths. The complete truth 
 would be such a quintessence, would be so nicely 
 poised, that it would not excite the passions enough, 
 and would resemble scepticism. The breadth of 
 mind which eliminated in the declaration of its 
 views all limit or exclusion would seem sheer 
 folly. The brain reels when one goes too close 
 to identity ; the human mind can only have play 
 when within the limits of a finite frame and of 
 antithetical negation. Passion, while adoring its 
 object, must needs hate its counterpart. Would 
 France be so thoroughly herself if she had not the 
 
 I
 
 The Future of Science. 419 
 
 antithesis of England to keep her personality at high 
 pressure? Passion implies exclusion, antagonism 
 and partiality. Every doctrine, like every institution, 
 hears within itself the germ of life and the germ of 
 death. Called to life by its truth, the doctrine develops 
 with it a principle of death which becomes in time 
 intolerable and kills it. The fruit bears in it from 
 the very first hour the principle of its decay ; hidden 
 at first during the period of growth by the organizing 
 forces, this principle declares itself at maturity, and 
 then gains the mastery, until complete decomposition 
 has set in. What any one system affirms is its share 
 of truth, what it denies is its share of error. It only 
 errs because it excludes whatever is not itself, be- 
 cause it participates in human weakness which 
 cannot embrace all things at once and creates science 
 by an analytical and gradual process. The critic is 
 he who examines all affirmations, and perceives the 
 reason of all things. The critic runs his rule over 
 all systems, not like the sceptic, in order to find them 
 false, but to find them true in certain respects. And 
 that is why the critic is little adapted for proselytism. 
 For that which is partial is strongest ; men only 
 become impassioned for that which is incomplete, or, 
 to speak more accurately, passion, attaching them 
 exclusively to one object, blinds them to all the rest. 
 It is like the everlasting dupery of the lover who 
 sees only his or her object. Exclusive love is parallel 
 with hatred and anathema. The critic sees too 
 clearly the distinctions to be energetic in action. 
 Even when he takes a side, he knows that his adver- 
 saries are not altogether wrong. Now to act with 
 vigour, one needs be more or less i^itiless, believe 
 that one is entirely in the right, and that those whom 
 one is opposing are blind or bad. If M. Cavaignac 
 or M. Changarnier had been as critical as I am, they 
 would not have done us the service of saving us in 
 June, for I confess that since February (the revolu- 
 tion of 1848) the question has never appeared clearly 
 enough defined to my judgment for me to have
 
 420 The Future of Science. 
 
 ventured taking sides one way or the other. For, I 
 said to mj^self, perhaps my brother is on that side ; 
 perhaps I shall he killed by one whose will is as 
 mine. 
 
 Scepticism is thus graduated along the diverse 
 degrees of human intelligence, alternating with dog- 
 matism according to the more or less advanced 
 development of the intellectual faculties. At the 
 bottom of the ladder is the absolute dogmatism of 
 the ignorant and the simple, who affirm and believe 
 naturally, and have not seen any motives for doubt. 
 — When the mind, which has for a long time been 
 cradled in this simple faith, begins to discover that 
 it may have been the sport of its belief, it becomes 
 suspicious and imagines that the surest means of not 
 being deceived is to reject everything ; a primitive 
 scepticism which is not devoid of ?2<2weife (Sophists, 
 Montaigne, etc.). — Then a more extensive learning, 
 taking human nature in the mass, without concerning 
 itself as to radical problems, endeavours to build 
 upon common sense a reasonable but shallow dogma- 
 tism (Socrates, Th. Eeid). More vigorous views 
 soon show what little ground there is for this fresh 
 attempt ; the instrument itself is attached, and 
 thence arises a great, a terrible, a sublime scepticism 
 (Kant, Jouffroy, Pascal). — At last, the complete view 
 of the human mind, the consideration of humanity 
 aspiring after the true and enriching itself by the 
 elimination of error, brings about the dogmatic 
 criticism, which has no further dread of scepticism, 
 for it has been through it, knows what its actual 
 value is, and, very different from the dogmatism of 
 the early ages, which had not even suspected the 
 existence of any motives for doubt, is strong enough 
 to live face to face with its enemy. Like all the 
 men of this century, I have had my periods of scep- 
 ticism ; I have loved Lelia as much as Stenio did ; 
 but I have found a foothold in criticism, and even 
 when such and such a creed does not appear to be as 
 scientific as might be desired, I still say without hesi-
 
 The Future of Science. 421 
 
 tation : There is some truth in it, although I do not 
 happen to possess the formula for extracting it. In 
 the eyes of the schoolmen, Goethe is a sceptic, but 
 he who is full of enthusiasm for all the flowers which 
 he meets on his way and takes them to be good and 
 genuine of their kind, is not to be confounded with 
 one who passes disdainfully by without looking down 
 at them. Goethe embraces the universe in the vast 
 affirmation of love ; the sceptic has nothing but 
 narrow negation for everything. 
 
 While making the most liberal allowance to moral 
 scepticism, while admitting that life and the universe 
 are merely a series of phenomena of the same order, 
 and of which all one can say is that they exist, while 
 allowing that thought, feeling, passion, beauty and 
 virtue are merely facts, exciting different sentiments 
 in us, just like the various flowers of a garden or the 
 trees of a forest (whence it would result, as Byron 
 and Goethe thought, that everything is poetical), 
 while admitting that, having reached the final atom, 
 one is free, at will, to jest or to adore, so that the 
 option would depend upon the individual character 
 of each person, even from this point of view, from 
 which morality ceases to have any meaning, science 
 still would have. For what is certain is that these 
 phenomena are curious, that this world of manifold 
 movements interests and fascinates us. Morality is 
 also lacking in the world of insects which is all alive 
 in a sheet of water, and yet how delightful it is to 
 watch some flitting upwards to the sun, others, like 
 the salamanders, making for the bottom, and the 
 little worms forcing their way into the mud to seek 
 their prey. This is life, and ever life (18-2). This 
 explains how science formed an essential part of the 
 intellectual system of Goethe. To investigate, to dis- 
 cuss, to regard, to speculate in a word, will always have 
 been the most attractive thing, whatever may be the 
 case with the reahty (183). However much one may 
 be like Werther, there is so much j^leasure in describ- 
 ing all this that life becomes as it were coloured with
 
 422 TJte Future of Science. 
 
 it. Goethe, I am sure, was never tempted to shoot 
 himself. It is not impossible that humanity will 
 some da}^ come to an end, and that we shall have 
 been workiog for the benefit of the sea or volcanoes, 
 of ice or flame. But certain it is that the knowledge 
 and the realization of the beautiful will have had 
 their use, and that science, like virtue, imports into 
 the world facts of unquestionable value. The mys- 
 tical Christians have developed in all its various 
 forms the favourite theory that Mary, the symbol of 
 contemplation, has, even in this world, the better 
 part, and that he who has embraced the perfect life 
 finds here below a sufficient reward. This is true to 
 the letter of science. One of the noblest minds of 
 modern times, Fichte, assures us that he had reached 
 j)erfect happiness, and that at times he tasted such 
 delight as almost to tremble (184). And yet, poor 
 man, he was at the same time almost dying of star- 
 vation. How often, in my modest room, surrounded 
 by my books, I have tasted the plenitude of hap23i- 
 ness, and have defied the whole world to procure for 
 any one purer joys than those which I derived from 
 the calm and disinterested exercise of my thoughts. 
 How often, letting my pen drop, and surrendering 
 my soul to the thousand sentiments which, as they 
 come and go, bring about an instantaneous relief to 
 all our being, have I not said to heaven : Grive me 
 o n^ life. and I can see to the rest for myself. 
 
 |Would to God that all living and pure souls were 
 convinced tliat the question of the future of humanity 
 is entirely one of doctrine and belief, and that phi- 
 losophy alone, that is to say rational research, is 
 capable of solving it. The really efficacious revolu- 
 tion, that which will give its shape to the future, 
 will not be a political, it will be a religious and 
 moral revolution. Politics have supplied all that 
 they are capable of yielding, and they are now only a 
 barren and exhausted field, a battle-ground of passions i 
 and intrigues to which humanity is quite indifferent 
 and which interest only those who take a share in
 
 The Future of Science. 423 
 
 them. There are epochs when the whole question of 
 the day is in politics ; thus, for instance, at the 
 dividing line of the middle ages and of modern 
 times, at the epoch of Philippe-le-Bel, of Louis XL, 
 the doctors and the thinkers were of little account, 
 or had only a real value in so far as they served 
 politics. It was the same at the beginning of this 
 century. Politics then governed the world, the men 
 of intelligence whose ambition went beyond amusing 
 their contemporaries, had to become Statesmen, in 
 order to exercise their legitimate share of influence 
 upon their epoch. A thinker in the time of the 
 Empire was obliged to keep his thoughts to himself. 
 It was not a blameworthy ambition which carried off 
 into the melee all the intellectual notabilities of the 
 first half of this century; these eminent men did what 
 it was their duty to do in order to serve the society 
 of their time. But this age is reaching its close; the 
 leading part, as it seems to me, is more and more 
 devolving upon the thinkers. Beside the centuries 
 in which politics have occupied the centre of the 
 movement of humanity, there are others in which 
 they have been left to the petty world of intrigue, 
 and in which the main interest has been concentrated 
 upon things of the mind. Take, for instance, the 
 eighteenth century ; and consider who had the upper 
 hand of humanity during this grand epoch ! What 
 are the names which strike one at a first glance over 
 the history of this period ? Not Choiseul, or Eichelieu, 
 or Maupeou, or Fleury, but Voltaire, Kousseau, Mon- 
 tesquieu, and a whole school of thinkers who_ have 
 their hold upon the century, mould it according to 
 their will, and fashion the future. What are the War 
 of the Austrian succession, the Seven Years' War, 
 the Family Compact, compared with such events as 
 the Contrat Social or the Esjnit des Lois ? The affan-s 
 of State were in the hands of an incapable kmg, of 
 insignificant courtiers, and of great noblemen with- 
 out views or grasp. The true historical personages of 
 the period are writers, philosophers, men of mtellect
 
 424 The Future of Science. 
 
 or of genius. But these latter did not take any 
 active part in the direction of pubhc affairs, their 
 influence being indirect, and I imagine that, in the 
 same way, those who will restore us the great origin- 
 ality which has been lost will not be politicians but 
 thinkers. They will grow up and magnify outside 
 the official world, not even taking the trouble to 
 offer it any opposition, leaving it to expire within 
 its worn-out circl^(^g^ 
 
 Upon the poor pasTurages of the Brittany islands, 
 each ewe of the flock, tied to a stake in the centre, 
 could only nibble the scanty grass within a certain 
 narrow radius of the cord by which it is fastened. 
 Such appears to me to be the present condition of 
 politics ; they have exhausted their resources for 
 solving the problem of humanity. Morahty, philo- 
 sophy and true religion are not within their reach ; 
 they are powerless to get beyond a certain circle. 
 Can it be honestly hoped that, if the salvation of the 
 present century was to be due to cleverness, or 
 ability, we shall find men more able than M. Guizot 
 or M. Thiers ? Who would not shrug his shoulders 
 at the idea of inexperienced beginners having the 
 presumption to think that they could, at the first 
 attempt, do better than such men as these ? No, 
 they will be outrivalled not by doing like them, but 
 by doing different from them. If such men have 
 been rendered incapable, is this their fault, or was it 
 not rather because no amount of cleverness is on a 
 par with the situation ? 
 
 Let us take again the first three centuries of the 
 Christian era. Where do we find that the greatest 
 events were happening, where was the future being 
 founded, what were the names being marked out for 
 the respect of future generations ? Not, surely, 
 tliose of Tiberius or Sejanus, of Galba, Otho or 
 Vitellius. It was not they who occupied the centre 
 of humanity, as was doubtless believed in their time ; 
 the centre of the world was the most despised corner 
 of land in the East. The great men marked out
 
 Tlie Future of Science. 425 
 
 for apotheosis were enthusiastic beHevers entirely 
 strangers to the secrets of high poUtics. Five cen- 
 turies later, the only men referred to in history as 
 having been famous were Peter, Paul, John and 
 Matthew, simple persons who, assuredly, made a very 
 modest figure in the world. What would Tacitus have 
 said if he had been told that all those personages 
 whom he brings so skilfully on to the front of the 
 stage would be completely effaced by the leaders of 
 the Christians whom he treats witli so much con- 
 tempt ; that the name of Augustus would only be 
 saved from oblivion because at the head of the records 
 of the Christian year would be read : Imperante 
 Ccesare Augusto, Christus natics est in Bethlehem 
 Jiida: that Nero would only be remembered because, 
 during his reign, Peter and Paul, the future masters of 
 Rome, are said to have suffered martyrdom; that the 
 name of Trajan would still be found in a few narra- 
 tives, not for his victory over the Dacians and for 
 having put back to the Tigris the limits of the Empire, 
 but because a credulous Bishop of Rome in the sixth 
 century took it into his head to pray for him ? Here 
 then we have a vast development quietly in prepara- 
 tion for three centuries, growing in magnitude parallel 
 with the official society, persecuted by this latter, but 
 which, all at once, puts an extinguisher upon the 
 politics of the day, or, it may rather be said, remains 
 full of life and strength, while the official world is 
 dying of exhaustion. If St. Ambrose had remained 
 governor of Liguria, supposing even that he had 
 obtained promotion, and had become, like his father, 
 prefect of the Gauls, he would by this time have 
 been entirely forgotten. He did much better to 
 become a bishop. How can it be said after this that 
 there is no way of serving humanity except by join- 
 ing in the melee ^ I say, upon the contrary, that he 
 who embraces with his whole heart this humiliating 
 labour proves by that very fact that he has not a call 
 for the great work. What are pohtics in our day ? 
 Agitation without a principle or a law, a struggle of
 
 426 The Future of Science. 
 
 rival ambitions, a vast stage of cabals and personal 
 competitions. What are the qualities requisite for 
 success, for "becoming possible," as the saying 
 goes ? Is it great originality, an ardent and power- 
 ful train of thought, impetuous conviction ? These 
 are insurmountable obstacles in the way of success ; to 
 succeed, one must not think, or at all events not give 
 expression to one's thoughts ; one must make so much 
 use of one's personality that one ceases to exist ; 
 one must always be careful to say not that which is, 
 but that which it is expedient to say ; in short one 
 must shut oneself up within a lifeless circle of con- 
 ventional phrases and official falsehoods. And you 
 would argue that it is from this that can proceed 
 what we so stand in need of : an original sap, a new 
 method of feeling, a dogma capable of stirring anew 
 the pulse of humanity ? It would be as reasonable 
 to hope that scepticism will engender faith, and that 
 a new religion will be born out of the offices of a 
 ministry or the lobbies of an assembly. 
 
 The most important question in politics is '' Who 
 is to be Minister? " But will humanity, let me ask, 
 be any the better off if it is Mr. A instead of Mr. B 
 wdio holds office ? I assure you that Mr. A knows as 
 little as Mr. B the true secret of things, that the 
 problem will not be any nearer solution than it was 
 before, that all this is as of little importance as when 
 at Eome people speculated wdiether it would be 
 Didius Julianus or Flavins Sulpicianus who would 
 bid the higher, and that the 750 intelligent persons 
 who are grouped around this arena, following eagerly 
 all the different phases of the combat, waste their 
 time and their trouble. Not there is to be sought 
 the field for great achievements. What humanity 
 needs is a moral law and a creed ; and it is from the 
 depths of human nature that they will emerge, and 
 not from the well-trodden and sterile j)athways of 
 the official world. 
 
 Think for a moment how humiliating, in epochs 
 like our own, is the role of the politician. Banished
 
 Tl}e Future of Science. 427 
 
 from the high regions of thought, disinherited of the 
 ideal, he passes his life in fruitless and ungrateful 
 labour, administrative cares, office complications, 
 mines and countermines of intrigue. Is that the 
 place for a philosopher ? The politician is the off- 
 scouring of humanity, not its inspired teacher. Who 
 is there with any pride in his perfection who would 
 let himself he inveigled into such an atmosphere of 
 suffocation ? 
 
 M. de Chateaubriand has, I think, maintained, in 
 one of his writings, that the intrusion of men of letters 
 into active politics denotes a decline of political 
 intelligence in a nation. This is an error ; it proves 
 the weakening of philosophical intelligence, of specu- 
 lation, of literature ; it proves that the value and 
 dignity of the intelligence are no longer understood, 
 inasmuch as it no longer suffices to occupy the 
 thoughts of distinguished men ; it proves, in short, 
 that supremacy has passed away from the mind and 
 from doctrine to intrigue and petty activity. But 
 this activity will in due course declare itself to be 
 incompetent, and then it will be felt that the great 
 revolution can only come not from men of action, but 
 from men of thought and sentiment. This vulgar 
 kind of labour will be left to the uneasy spirits, and all 
 noble and elevated minds, leaving the earth to those 
 who have a liking for it, regarding the form of govern- 
 ment as a matter of indifference, will take refuge upon 
 the lofty summits of human nature, and, burning with 
 enthusiasm for the beautiful and the true, will create 
 new force which, rapidly descending upon earth, will 
 upset the frail erections of pohtics, and will become 
 in its turn the law of humanity. It does not do to 
 expect too much from governments. It is not for 
 them to reveal to humanity the law of which it is in 
 search. All that can be expected of them in epochs 
 such as ours is to sustain as well as they can the 
 conditions of outward hfe so as to render it endurable. 
 It is more to be desired than anticipated, too, that 
 they win not be too severe upon the efforts which are
 
 428 The Future of Science. 
 
 made in the new direction. Humanity will accom- 
 2)lisli the remainder, without asking any one for per- 
 mission. No one can say from what part of the sky 
 will appear the star of this new redemption. The 
 one thing certain is that the shepherds and the magi 
 will be once more the first to perceive it, that the 
 germ of it is already formed, and that if we were able 
 to see the present with the eyes of the future, we 
 should be able to distinguish in the complication of 
 the hour the imperceptible fibre which will bear life 
 for the future. It is amid putrefaction that the germ 
 of future life is developed, and no one has the right 
 to say : This is a rejected stone, for that may be the 
 corner-stone of the future edifice. Could a sage of 
 the early ages have ever imagined that the future 
 belonged to that despised and unsociable sect, the 
 ban of the human race, which was associated in 
 the imagination with darksome mysteries and odious 
 orgies. The wits of the present day would have 
 shown all the antipathy for this doctrine that they 
 do for innovators of the modern age. These Chris- 
 tians would have seemed to them to be a vile, igno- 
 rant and superstitious set of people. 
 
 It is certain that several Christian sects justified 
 the calumnies of the pagans. The distinction which 
 has since been established between the orthodox 
 Church L'.nd the gnostic sects was at that time very 
 vague ; they all formed one body, and there was a 
 certain solidarity between them all. In the orthodox 
 sect itself, there are a great many defects which we 
 can see. The faculty has a name for those who 
 believe that they possess the gift of tongues, of 
 preaching and of prophec3^ What are we to say 
 of those who are daily expecting the end of the 
 world : and the coming of a human body which will 
 descend upon earth to reign ? The extravagant ideas 
 of our maniacs of the phalanstery are nothing by 
 comparison with those of the early enthusiasts. Jean 
 Journet has recently been sent to the asylum at 
 Bicetre, but Jean Journet does not believe he can
 
 The Future of Science. 429 
 
 perform miracles, or speak a language be has never 
 learnt. The Journal des Debats would have made 
 fine game of these people, and yet they succeeded, 
 while four centuries later the sharpest wits were 
 found to be their disciples, and even in the nine- 
 teenth century many gifted minds regard them as 
 being inspired. The bad complexion of a movement 
 is never a decisive argument. Even if I had before 
 me a popular movement of the most odious kind, a 
 regular Jacquerie, egotism saying to egotism "Your 
 money or your life," I should still exclaim : " Long 
 live humanity ! here is the promise of great things 
 in the future." Great apparitions are always accom- 
 panied by extravagances, they only reach a high 
 degree of power when philosophical minds have 
 given form and shape to them. Who can say that 
 phalanstery will not have been the gnosis, the wild 
 aberration of the new movement ? It is at any rate 
 beyond question that the region is clearly enough 
 designated, that, in order to know whence will come 
 the religion of the future, we must always look in 
 the direction of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. 
 
 It is, therefore, to the mind and to the thought 
 that we must revert. Now thought will in future 
 only find true scope in the form of rational science. 
 It may seem, at first sight, as if science has had little 
 influence hitherto upon the development of things. 
 Eeckou up the men of intelligence who have put 
 their shoulders to the wheel, and you will find 
 among them thinkers and writers like Luther, Vol- 
 taire, Kousseau, Chateaubriand and Lamartine, but 
 very few savants or technical philosophers. The four 
 words from Locke which Voltaire knew have had 
 more influence upon the course of the human mind 
 than the whole of Locke's book. The few fragments 
 of German philosophy which have crossed the Khine, 
 put together in a clear and superficial way, have 
 effected more than the doctrines themselves. That 
 is the French method ; you take three or four words 
 of a system, just enough to indicate a tendency;
 
 430 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 the rest is all guesswork, and the thing is done. 
 Humanitj^, it must be confessed, has not hitherto 
 marched with much method, and many things have 
 (if I may be permitted the expression) been jumbled 
 together, in the progress of the human intelligence. 
 But the one thing certain is that if the human race 
 were as much in earnest as it ought to be, enlightened 
 and competent reason in each order of things would 
 govern the world. But what is enlightened and 
 specially competent reason if it is not science ? 
 Supposing even that the erudite man were never 
 destined to have a place in the great history of 
 humanity, his work and its results, assimilated by 
 others and raised to their full height, will find their 
 place in history by means of that secret influence 
 and that inward infiltration which leads to no part 
 of humanity being closed for the rest. 
 
 Contemporary Germany offers one of the rare 
 instances of the direct effects of science upon the 
 march of political events. The idea of German unity 
 came through science and literature. That nation 
 seemed resigned to death, it had lost all conscious- 
 ness, and no longer counted as an individuality in 
 the world, when an incomparable group of geniuses, 
 Goethe, Schiller, Kant, and Beethoven came and 
 revealed it to itself. These are the true founders 
 of German unity ; no sooner had the different parts 
 of that great country found each other once more in 
 the language, tongue, the glory and the genius of these 
 great men, than they felt the tie which bound them, 
 and were prompted to realize it in a political sense. 
 This has given rise to a characteristic iucideut, viz. 
 the learned, poetical and literary colour given to this 
 movement from the time of Arndt, Kleist and Sand 
 down to that gathering of doctors wliose clumsiness 
 and lack of adroitness may have made Europe smile 
 and have compromised for a time but not ruined 
 an idea which has been definitely set in motion.
 
 The Future of Science. 431 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 I ONE day visited this palace transformed into a 
 museum on the frontispiece of which was written in 
 a spirit of broad electicism ''' To all the glories of 
 France.'' I had passed through the Gallery of 
 Battles, the Hall of Marshals, those of various cam- 
 paigns ; I had seen the coronation of kings and 
 emperors, royal ceremonies, the capture of towns, 
 princes, great lords, faces foolish or insolent, w4ien 
 all of a sudden I asked myself: AVhere is the place of 
 talent ? Here are men born to greatness, coxcombs, 
 men without ideas, without morality, who never 
 did anything for humanity. But where is the 
 gallery of saints, the gallery of philosophers, the 
 gallery of poets, the gallery of savants, the gallery of 
 thinkers ? I see Louis XIV. founding I know not 
 what order of nobility, and I do not see Vincent de 
 Paul founding modern charity ; I see court episodes 
 of more or less insignificance, and I do not see 
 Abelard in the midst of his disciples discussing the 
 problems of the day on Mount Sainte Genevieve ; I 
 see the oath of the Tennis Court and I do not see 
 Descartes shut up in his room and swearing not to 
 relinquish his search until he had discovered the 
 true philosophy. I see brutal and vulgar iDliysiogno- 
 mies with nothing ideal, and I cannot see Gerson, 
 Calvin, Mohere, Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, 
 Condorcet, Lavoisier, Laplace, Chenier. Bossuet 
 and Fenelon are there rather as courtiers than as men 
 of talent. Can it be that Rousseau and Montesquieu
 
 432 The Future of Science. 
 
 did less for the glory of France than such or such 
 obscure general or long-forgotten courtier ? It is all 
 over, said I to myself, talent has been disinherited. 
 . . . But no. Over the uniform terraces of the 
 palace-museum see where rises that majestic edifice 
 crowned by the sign of Christ. Enter and tell me 
 if any glory equals the glory of Him who is sitting 
 there. Napoleon, whose name worked miracles, is 
 not enthroned on an altar. Thank God ! the chief 
 place is reserved for talent. The others have the 
 palace. He has the temj^le. 
 
 In the eyes of the philosopher the glory of talent 
 is the only true glory and it is permitted to hope that 
 the philosophers and the savants will inherit the 
 glory, which during its period of brutality and 
 antagonism, humanity was obliged to award to 
 military exploits. I am unable to approve of the 
 commonplace objection urged against conquerors ; 
 one must have a very superficial mind to see in 
 Alexander a madman who laid Asia in ashes. War 
 and conquest may have been in ages gone by instru- 
 ments of progress ; a manner, in default of any other, 
 of bringing people into contact and of realizing the 
 unity of humanity. Where would humanity be with- 
 out the conquests of Alexander, without the Roman 
 conquests? But when the world becomes rationalist, 
 the greatest man will be the one who has done the 
 most for ideas, who has searched the most, who has 
 discovered the most. The battle will not be gastro- 
 sophical, as Fourier wished ; it will be philosophical. 
 From the beginning it is talent which has taken the 
 lead in all things (Christianity, Crusade, Reform, 
 Revolution) and yet talent has remained humble, 
 misunderstood, persecuted. Napoleon did not trouble 
 the world as deeply as Luther, and yet what was 
 Luther all his life ? A poor unfrocked monk who 
 only escaped his enemies because it pleased some 
 little princes to take him under their protection. If 
 anything proves the intimate force of speculation 
 which exists in the human mind it is that in spite 
 
 I
 
 The Future of Science. 433 
 
 of the hard lot eudured up to the present by thinkers, 
 there have been men capable of devoting their Uves 
 notwithstanding insult, persecution and°poverty, to 
 the disinterested pursuit of truth. When one re- 
 flects that the whole intellectual movement accorn- 
 pHshed up to our day has been realized by men 
 unfortunate, suffering, harassed by internal and ex- 
 ternal afflictions and that we ourselves preserve the 
 tradition, with agitated heart, in the midst of fear 
 and anguish, one conceives a greater esteem for that 
 human nature, capable of pursuing an ideal object 
 with so much energy. 
 
 It is time to return definitively to the simplicity 
 of life and to renounce all that artifice of convention, 
 remnant of our aristocratical distinctions and the 
 artificial society of the seventeenth century ; it is 
 time to return to the simplicity of antique customs. 
 Take Plato, Socrates, Alcibiades, Aspasia ; fancy them 
 alive, acting according to the ravishing description 
 handed down to us by antiquity, especially Plato. 
 Do they possess that cold and insignificant pride 
 which constitutes the tone of our aristocratic 
 salons 1 Have they that silly air, that vulgar laugh, 
 that dull and prosaic appearance, that manner of 
 treating life as an affair of business, like the middle 
 class ? Have they that coarseness, that heavy look, 
 that degraded expression which, I say it with sadness 
 and without any idea of a reproach, marks our people? 
 No. They are simple, they are men. 
 
 Those honest minds of refined ages, Rousseau, for 
 example, Tacitus perhaps, through reaction against 
 what was artificial and false in their time, often 
 looked back with complacency on barbarous times 
 which they called the age of nature. Innocent illu- 
 sion which converted no one and which only inspires 
 refined persons with an easy sort of resignation. One 
 reads with pleasure those eloquent declamations: one 
 accepts them as given themes, but no matter what 
 Yoltaire says, no one after reading Rousseau ex- 
 periences the desire of walking on all fours. It is
 
 434 The Future of Science. 
 
 puerile to compare a barbarous state to refiued 
 civilizatiou ; it sliould be compared to the true 
 civilization of which Greece offers us an incomparable 
 examj^le. What we require, in the way of civilization, 
 is Greece without the slave system. Where can one 
 find more freedom given to the individual, more 
 personal originality, more spontaneousness, more 
 dignity ? We understand only royal or aristocratical 
 majesty. The majesty of the ideal is blended by us 
 with that of religion which we place beneath humanity, 
 and as for the majesty of the people we do not under- 
 stand it, because it does not exist. Athens, on the 
 contrary, is pure humanity. M. de Maistre declared 
 inajesiy to be entirely Roman. Certainly not. The 
 Olympian Jupiter and the Grecian Pallas, Salamis 
 and the Pireus the Pnyx and the Acropolis have 
 their majesty ; but that majesty is real and popular ; 
 whereas the Roman majesty is made up and worked by 
 machinery. There were not two fashions at Athens ; 
 on the contrary, the fine manners of the time of 
 Augustus were much the same as those of our aris- 
 tocracy, and alongside of all this was to be found a 
 ridiculous population. 
 
 Majesty is only to be found in true humanity, 
 poetry, religion, morality. All other prestige at a 
 certain moment becomes ridiculous. It is in the 
 natural order of things that what has been imposed 
 by force excites laughter as soon as its prestige is 
 destroyed. One likes to revenge oneself for one's 
 past respect as soon as the scaffolding has been 
 stripped of its hangings. One requires, for the vulgar 
 illusions of external respect, a simplicity which we 
 no longer possess ; w^e are too cunning not to lift 
 up the veil. We have demolished the old idol of 
 respect : an idol is not to be restored. How, I pray, 
 can one give oneself respect ? How can one recall 
 to life by means of reflection that which only existed 
 owing to the absence of reflection ? The child may 
 be afraid of the face he has besmeared ; but, once he 
 has laughed at it, will he not always remember that 
 it w^as to frighten himself that he besmeared it ?
 
 The Future of Science. 435 
 
 The essential condition for a show of performincr 
 dolls is not to see the wire. The simple minded 
 look on the thing as serious, as if the dolls were real 
 persons ; the clever people are amused even when they 
 get a glimpse of the wire for they know that there 
 is one. But if the demi-clever people have the mis- 
 fortune to perceive it they laugh at the performance 
 to show that they are not dupes. It is the same with 
 respect : respect is natural with the simple, super- 
 ficial people resist it with comical self-conceitedness ; 
 it flourishes among the wise in consequence of tlieir 
 perspicuity. The sages know of the existence of 
 the wire but do not think it worth while to make a 
 fuss over so simple a discovery. The superficial 
 minded, on the contrary shout and storm that 
 humanity must at any price he delivered from these 
 prejudices. '' One must have a hidden thought," says 
 Pascal, "and judge of everything by that, at the same 
 time, however, speaking like the people." But when 
 the number of artful people is too large cheating is 
 impossible, for it then becomes the fashion to pretend 
 to be knowing and to say to the simple, "Ah! how 
 foolish you are to allow yourself to be caught." 
 Therefore one must go to work with simplicity and 
 demand respect only for things which are respectable. 
 ' The advent of the middle classes has operated, 
 it must be admitted a great simplification in our 
 manners. Our costume is very narrow and very 
 artificial when compared with the simple and noble 
 fulness of the antique costume however it is no 
 longer false like that of the old aristocracy. There 
 is still much to be done ; it is necessary to simplify 
 and ennoble. The middle class has at times com- 
 mitted the error of wishing to return to the old airs 
 of the nobility ; it in no way succeeded and merely 
 rendered itself ridiculous. For nothing is so ridi- 
 culous as a false imitation of majesty. What w^e 
 require is real politeness, real gentleness, simplicity 
 of life, virtue as shown by amenity and grace of 
 manners. The Kepublicans who pretend to be
 
 436 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 austere delude themselves strangely in believing that 
 the idea of majesty can be banished from humanity. 
 Better the ancient idolatry, surrounding some indi- 
 viduals with splendour, than that colourless life in 
 which the majesty of humanity is not represented. 
 But it were better still to return to the truth and to 
 recognize no other majesty than that of the nation 
 and the ideal. 
 
 These manners I would willingly call democratic 
 manners, in this sense that they do not repose upon 
 any artificial distinction (186) but simply upon the 
 natural and moral relations of men among themselves. 
 People often imagine that these democratic manners 
 are the manners of the wine shop and this is a little 
 the fault of those who have confiscated this expression 
 for their profit. But true democratic manners would 
 be the most charming, the most gentle, the most 
 amiable. They would be morality itself, more or 
 less attractive, more or less harmonious, according 
 as the individuals were more or less happily endowed. 
 They would be the manners of poems and of ideal 
 romances, where human sentiments would appear in 
 their primitive simplicity, without a bourgeois or 
 refined air. The real democratic manner would 
 necessitate upon one hand the abolition of the 
 aristocratic salon and the cafe and on the other 
 hand the extension of family relations and of public 
 gatherings. It is true that with regard to the latter 
 our society offers a hiatus difi&cult to fill up. We 
 have nothing analogous to the antique school. Our 
 school is exclusively destined for children and there- 
 fore condemned to be demi-ridiculous like everything 
 w^hich is pedagogical; our club is entirely political 
 and yet man requires intellectual assemblies. The 
 ancient school was for persons of all ages the 
 gymnasium of the mind. The sage, like Socrates, 
 Stilpo, Autisthenes not writing but speaking to their 
 disciples or frequenters (ot crwovTes:) is now impossible. 
 The philosophical conversation such as Plato has 
 given us in his dialogues (187), the antique Sympasie
 
 The Future of Science. 437 
 
 is not conceivable in our days (188]. The Church 
 and the press have killed the school. Now that the 
 Church is no longer anything for the people, what 
 will replace her ? 
 
 What is called society is far from being favourable 
 to good manners and noble characters. I would not 
 dare to say it, if M. Michelet had not said it before 
 me : " After the conversation of men of genius and 
 savants that of the people is certainly the most 
 instructive. If one cannot talk with Beranger, 
 Lamennais or Lamartine, one must go into the fields 
 and converse with the peasants. What has one to 
 learn from the middle class ? As for the salons I 
 never left them without finding that my heart had 
 been diminished and had grown colder." The im- 
 pression which I carry away with me on quitting 
 a salon is despair of civilization. If civilization were 
 destined to terminate in this abortion, if the people 
 in their turn w^ere to exhaust themselves in this way, 
 and, at the expiration of a few centuries to grow 
 insipid in the bosom of vanity and pleasure, Cato 
 would be right, it would be necessary to regard as 
 instruments of feebleness and wisely to break every- 
 thing which in our eyes is an instrument of culture 
 and progress, but which, in this hypothesis, would 
 only serve to create generations greedy of servitude 
 in order to live at their ease. Nothing can equal, 
 especially in the provinces, the life of the middle class, 
 and I never see without sadness and a sort of terror 
 the physical and moral deterioration of the rising 
 generation; and yet these are the grandsons of the 
 heroes of a great epopee ! I get on better with the 
 simple, with a peasant, with a working man, with 
 an old soldier. We speak to some extent the same 
 language, I can at a pinch converse with them : this 
 is radically impossible with a vulgar citizen : we are 
 not of the same clay. 
 
 Herman lived only for himself, his family and a 
 few friends. With them he is simple, natural, and 
 full of life ; he reaches to heaven. In society he is
 
 The Future of Science. 
 
 in supportably stupid aud condemned to mutism in 
 the round of conversation which does not allow him 
 to insert -a single word. If he tries the strange 
 sound of his voice causes every head to be raised ; 
 it is discordant. It does not know how to give 
 change ; does he wdsh to indulge in repartee, he 
 takes fi'om his pocket gold instead of coppers. In 
 the Academy or the Portico, he would have held his 
 own, he would have had favourite disciples ; he 
 w^ould have figured in a dialogue of Plato like Lysis 
 or Charmides. If he had seen Dorothea lovely 
 courageous and proud standing by the fountain he 
 would have dared to say — Allow me to drink. If, 
 like Dante, he had seen Beatrice with downcast eyes 
 coming out of the church at Florence, perhaps a 
 ray of light would have traversed his life and 
 perhaps the daughter of Falco Portinari would have 
 smiled at his trouble. Well ! in presence of a young 
 lady he only experiences and causes awkwardness. — 
 Your Hermann, you will say, is a countryman let 
 him go to his village — not in the least. At his 
 village he would find vulgarity, ignorance and the 
 impossibility of comprehending delicate and beautiful 
 things. Now, Hermann is polished and cultivated, 
 more refined even than the gentlemen who frequent 
 the salons, but not of an artificial and fictitious 
 refinement. There is in him a world of thought and 
 sentiment which would be unable to understand 
 coarse stupidity or frivolous scepticism. He is a true 
 and sincere man taking a serious view of his nature and 
 adoring the inspirations of God in those of his heart. 
 Intellectual work therefore only possesses all its 
 value when it is purely human, that is to say when 
 it corresponds to this fact in human nature : man 
 does not hve by bread alone. The grand scientific 
 and religious feeling will only revive when people 
 return to a conception of life as true and as little 
 mixed with what is fictitious as if it were formed 
 alone in the midst of the forests of America, or by 
 some Brahmin, when, finding that he has lived long
 
 The Future of Science. 439 
 
 enough, he takes off his drawers, ascends the Ganges 
 and goes to die on the summits of the Himalayas. 
 Who has not experienced these moments of inward 
 solitude when the mind descending from stratum to 
 stratum pierces one after the other all the superposed 
 surfaces until it arrives at the real bottom, where 
 all convention expires and where one faces one's self 
 without fiction or artifice ? These moments are rare 
 and fugitive : we habitually live in presence of a 
 third person who hinders the fearful contact between 
 me and himself. Life is only sincere on condition 
 of piercing this intermediary veil and of constantly 
 reposing on the true depth of our nature, in order 
 to listen to the disinterested instincts which lead us 
 to learn to adore and to love. 
 
 This is why the sincere man so greatly admires 
 and tires himself out in adoration before simple life, 
 before the infant who believes in and smiles at every- 
 thing, before the young girl who does not know that 
 she is beautiful, before the bird which sings on the 
 branch merely for the sake of singing, before the 
 hen which struts out proudly in the midst of her 
 chickens. It is because God is seen there in sim- 
 plicity. The refined man considers as foolish the 
 things in which the people and men of genius take 
 the most interest, animals and children. Genius is 
 to possess at the same time the critical faculty and 
 the gifts of the siuiple. Genius is infant ; genius is^ 
 people ; genius is simple. 
 
 The Brahminic life offers the most powerful model 
 of life exclusively devoted to religion, or rather the 
 serious conception of existence. I do not know if 
 the picture of the life of the first Christian recluses 
 of the Thebaid, so admirably traced by Fleury, offers 
 such a halo of ideahsm. Besides the Brahminical 
 life has this superiority over the cenobitical and 
 hermitical hfe that it is at the same time human 
 life, that is to say family life and that it is allied 
 to positive Hfe, without lending it a value which 
 it does not possess: the Christian ascetic received
 
 440 The Future of Science. 
 
 his food from a celestial raven ; the Brahmin goes 
 into the forest and cuts his own wood ; he must have 
 his hatchet and his basket to collect his wild fruits. 
 During the sojourn of the sons of Pandou in the forest 
 their wife Draupadi offers to the strangers whom 
 she has received in her hermitage the game which 
 her husbands have killed.* The Lives of the Fathers 
 of the desert ofi'er nothing which can be compared 
 to the following sketch extracted from the Mahab- 
 harata : "The king advanced toward the sacred 
 grove, image of the celestial regions : the river was 
 filled with bands of pilgrims while the air resounded 
 with the voices of pious men who each one repeated 
 fragments of the sacred books. The King followed 
 by his minister and his high priest, advanced towards 
 the hermitage, animated with the desire of seeing 
 the holy man, inexhaustible treasure of religious 
 science; he looked at the solitary asylum, similar 
 to the region of Brahma ; he heard mysterious 
 sentences, taken from the Yedas, pronounced in 
 rhythmic harmony. . . . This spot sparkled with glory 
 owing to the presence of a certain number of 
 Brahmins. . . . some of whom sang the Samaveda 
 while another band sang the Bharoundasama. . . . 
 All were men of cultivated mind and imposing 
 appearance. . . . These places resembled the dwelling 
 of Brahma. The king heard on all sides the voices 
 of these men instructed by long experience in the 
 rites of sacrifice, of those who possessed the prin- 
 ciples of morality and the science of the faculties of 
 the soul, of those who were skilled in conciliating 
 texts which do not harmonize, or who knew all the 
 private duties of religion ; mortals whose minds 
 tended to free their souls from the necessity of re- 
 generation in this world. He heard also the voices 
 of those who, by indubitable proof, had acquired a 
 knowledge of the supreme being ; of those who knew 
 grammar, poetry and logic and who were versed in 
 
 * The sons of Pandou are supposed to have had but one wife — 
 Draupadi. — Transl.
 
 The Future of Science. 441 
 
 chronology; who had penetrated the essence of 
 matter, of movement and of quality; who knew 
 causes and effects, who had studied the language 
 of birds and that of bees (the good and the evil 
 omens) who believed in the works of Vyasa, who 
 offered models for the study of books of sacred origin 
 and the principal personages who search out the 
 trials and troubles of the world (189)." India in fact 
 represents to me the truest and most objective form 
 of human life, that where man, struck with the 
 beauty of things, pursues them without any personal 
 feeling and simply owing to the fascination which 
 they exercise over his nature. 
 
 Ueligion is the word under which has been resumed, 
 up to the present, the life of the mind. Take the 
 Christian of the first ages ; religion is his whole 
 spiritual life. Not a thought, not a feeling which is 
 not attached to it : material life is almost entirely 
 absorbed in this great movement of idealism. Sive 
 ma7iducatis, sive bibitis, says St. Paul. What a 
 superb system of life, all ideal, all divine and really 
 worthy of the children of God. There is no exclu- 
 sion there, the chain is not felt ; for, although the 
 limit is narrow our wants do not go beyond it. The 
 law, severe as it is, is entirely the expression of man. 
 In the Middle Ages this. great equation still existed. 
 The fairs, the meeting for business or pleasure are 
 religious fetes ; the scenic representations are mys- 
 teries ; voyages are pilgrimages ; wars are crusades. 
 Take, on the contrary, a Christian, even the most 
 severe, in the time of Louis XIV., Montausier,Arnauld, 
 Beauvilliers, you will find two divisions in his life : 
 the religious portion which, although the principal, 
 is not sufficiently strong to assimilate itself with the 
 rest ; the profane portion to which one must accord 
 some value. Then, but not before, the ascetics began 
 to preach renunciation. The first Christian had no 
 need to renounce anything for his life was complete ; 
 his law was adequate to his wants. Afterwards, 
 religion, not being able to provide for everything,
 
 442 The Future of Science. 
 
 cursed what escaped it. I am sure that Beauvilhers 
 took a very dehcate pleasure in the tragedies of 
 Racine, and perhaps even in the comedies of 
 Mohere ; and yet it is certain that in going to see 
 them he did not consider that he was performing a 
 rehgious act, perhaps he even thought that he was 
 sinning. This separation was a matter of necessity. 
 At that epoch rehgion was received as a letter closed 
 and sealed, which was not to he opened, but which 
 one was bound to receive and transmit, and yet, 
 human life always opening up, it was necessary that 
 new wants should overcome all scruples, and that, 
 not being able to find a place in religion, they should 
 take up a position opposite to it. Hence a system 
 of life both colourless and indifferent. Religion is 
 respected but people guard against its invasions; they 
 give it its share, to it which is only something on 
 condition of being everything. Hence these petty 
 theories concerning the separation of the two powers, 
 of the respective rights of reason and faith. 
 
 The result must be that religion, being isolated, cut 
 off from the heart of humanity, no longer receiving 
 anything from the general circulation, like a limb 
 which is bound, must wither and become an appen- 
 dage of secondary importance, while on the contrary 
 profane life, in which all the actual and living 
 feelings, all discoveries, all new ideas, are concen- 
 trated, must become the master portion. Without 
 doubt the great men of the eighteenth century were 
 more religious than they thought; what they banished 
 under the name of religion was clerical despotism, 
 superstition, narrow forms. The reaction however 
 carried them too far; the religious colour was almost 
 entirely wanting in that century. The philosophers 
 placed themselves without knowing it in the position 
 of their adversaries, and, under the empire of the 
 association of obstinate ideas, appeared to suppose 
 that the secularization of existence would bring 
 about the elimination of all religious habits. I think, 
 like the Catholics, that our society founded upon a
 
 The Future of Science. 443 
 
 supposititious pact, and our atheistical law, are tem- 
 porary anomalies, and that until we can speak of ''our 
 holy constitution'' stahihty will not be conquered. 
 Now, the return to rehgion can be nothing else than 
 the return to the great unity of life, to the religion 
 of the intellect without exclusion and without limit. 
 The sage has no need of praying at certain hours for 
 his whole life is a prayer. If rehgion is to have a 
 distinct place in life it must absorb life altogether. 
 The most rigorous asceticism is alone consistent. 
 Only superficial-minded or weak-hearted peoijle, once 
 Christianity admitted, can take any interest in life 
 in science in poetry, in the things of this world. 
 The mystics look with pity upon this weakness, and 
 they are right. The true philosophical religion would 
 not reduce this great tree, which has its roots in the 
 soul of man, to a few branches, it would only be a 
 manner of spending one's whole life in seeing beneath 
 everything the ideal and divine sense, and in sancti- 
 fying one's whole life by the purity of the soul and 
 th^a^levation of the heart. 
 
 jfReligion, as I understand it, is far removed from 
 what the philosophers call natural religion, kind of 
 petty theology without poetry, without action upon 
 humanity. All the attempts made in this direction 
 have been and will remain fruitless. Theodicy has no 
 meaning regarded as an individual science. Is there 
 any man of sense who can hope to make discoveries 
 in such an order of speculations ? True theodicy, is 
 the science of things physics, physiology, history 
 looked upon in a religious light. Religion is to know 
 and to love the truth of thiuffs^ A proposition is only 
 of value in so far as it is understood and felt. What 
 signifies this sealed formula, this unknown tongue, 
 this a Y. h theology, which you present to humanity 
 saying " This will preserve your soul for life eternal : 
 eat and you shall be healed," — a pill which you must 
 not bite on pain of feeling a cruel bitterness ? Well ! 
 what matters it to me if I do not taste it ? Give me 
 a leaden bullet to swallow, that wiU have the same
 
 444 TliG Future of Science. 
 
 effect. What to me are stereotyped phrases devoid 
 of sense, like the formulas of the alchemist and 
 the magicians which operate of themselves ex opere 
 02:)erato, as the theologians say ? Black and scholastic 
 doctors occupied only with your Incarnation and 
 your real Presence, the time has come when you 
 shall worship the father, not on this mountain nor in 
 Jerusalem, hut in spirit and in truth (190). 
 
 M. Proudhon is certainly a distinguished philo- 
 sopher of great intelligence. But I cannot pardon him 
 his airs of atheism and irreligiou. It is to commit 
 suicide to write such phrases as this — "Man is des- 
 tined to live without religion. A number of symp- 
 toms show that society, by an internal work constantly 
 tends to shake off this envelope henceforward useless." 
 That if 3'ou practice the worship of what is noble and 
 true, if the sanctity of morality speaks to your heart, 
 if all beauty, all truth, all goodness leads you to the 
 threshold of a holy life, to intelligence; that if, arrived 
 there, you refuse to speak, you wrap yourself up, 
 3^ou purposely mix up your thought and j^our language 
 in order to say nothing hmited in presence of the 
 infinite, how do you dare to speak of atheism ? That 
 if your faculties, resounding simultaneousl}^, have 
 never uttered that grand and unique rite, which we 
 call God, I have nothing more to say, you are devoid of 
 the essential and characteristic element of our nature. 
 
 Humanity is only converted when it falls in love 
 with the divine charm of beauty. Now beauty in 
 the moral order is religion. This is why a religion 
 dead and outstripped is still more efficacious than all 
 the institutions which are purely profane ; this is 
 why Christianity is still more creative, comforts more 
 suffering, acts more vigorously upon humanity than 
 all the i^rinciples acquired in modern times. The 
 men of the future will not be mean disputatious 
 reasoners, insulters, men of party, intriguers, without 
 ideal. They will be noble, they will be amiable, 
 they will be poetic. I, inflexible critic, I shall not 
 be suspected of ffattery for a man who searches the
 
 7 he Future of Science. 445 
 
 Trinity in all things and who beUeves, God pardon 
 me, in the efficacy of the name of Jehovah ; well ! 
 I prefer Pierre Leroux, mistaken as he is, to these 
 pretended philosophers who would recast humanity 
 in the narrow mould of their scholastic ideas and 
 triumph with politics over the divine instincts of the 
 human heart. 
 
 The word God having taken possession of the 
 respect of humanity, this word having a long pre- 
 scription in its favour and having been employed 
 in beautiful poems, it would perplex humanity to 
 suppress it. Although it is not very univocal, as the 
 scholastics say, it corresponds to an idea sufficiently 
 clear: the sunwium and the ultimum, the limit where 
 the mind stops in the scale of the infinite. Suppose 
 even that we philosophers should prefer another word, 
 reason for example, in addition that these words are 
 too abstract and do not sufficiently express real 
 existence, there would be a great inconvenience to 
 deprive us thus of all the poetic sources of the past 
 and to separate us by our language from the simj^le 
 who adore so well after their fashion. Tell the 
 simple to live by aspiration after truth and beauty ; 
 these words would have no meaning for them. Tell 
 them to love God, not to offend God ; they will under- 
 stand you perfectly. God, providence, soul, good old 
 words, rather heavy, but expressive and respectable, 
 which science will explain but will never replace with 
 advantage. What is God for humanity if not the 
 transcendent epitome of its suprasensitive wants, the 
 categorij of the ideal, that is to say the form under 
 which we conceive the ideal, as time and space are 
 categories, that is to say forms under which we conceive 
 bodies (191) ? Everything reduces itself to this fact of 
 human nature ; man in presence of the divine is no 
 longer himself, he chngs to a celestial charm, he 
 lays aside his paltry personaHty is carried away and 
 absorbed. What is that if it is not to adore ? 
 
 If one views the matter as regards substance and 
 asks oneself : This God does He or does He not exist ?
 
 446 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 — Oh, God would I reply, it is He who is and all 
 the rest which appears to be. If the word to he has 
 any meaning, it is assuredly applied to the ideal. 
 What, you would admit that matter exists, because 
 your hands aud your eyes say so, and you would doubt 
 of the divine being which all your nature proclaims 
 from the first ? What is the meaning of this phrase : 
 '' Matter is " ? what would remain of it in the hands 
 of a strict analysis ? I do not know and to tell the 
 truth I consider the question senseless ; for one must 
 confine oneself to simple notions. Beyond is the 
 gulf. Eeason only attains a certain mean region ; 
 above and below it loses itself as a sound which by 
 dint of becoming sharp or flat ceases to be a sound 
 or at least to be perceived. I like, for my own part 
 to com]3are the object of reason to those foaming or 
 frothy substances where the substance is hardly any- 
 thing and which only exist thanks to their effer- 
 vescence. If one pursues too closely the substantial 
 foundation nothing remains but the bare unity ; as 
 mathematical formulas too closely pressed render all 
 identity fundamental and only mean something on 
 the condition of not being too simplified. Every 
 intellectual act, like every equation, reduces itself at 
 bottom to A = A. Now, with this limit, there is no 
 more knowledge there is no more intellectual work. 
 Science commences only with details. In order that 
 there should be any efibrt of the mind a superfices 
 is necessary, something variable, ^iverse, otherwise 
 one loses oneself in the infinite One. The One only 
 exists and is perceptible when developing itself in 
 diversity, that is to say in phenomena. Beyond, it 
 is repose, it is death. Knowledge is the infinite 
 poured into a finite mould. The knot alone has any 
 value. The faces of the unity are alone an object of 
 science. 
 
 There is not a word in the philosophical language 
 which may not give rise to great errors if one takes 
 it in its substantial and vulgar sense, instead of using 
 it to design classes of phenomena. Realism and
 
 The Future of Science. 447 
 
 abstraction touch each other ; Christianity may- 
 have been turn about with good reason accused of 
 reahsm and of abstraction. Phenomenahsm alone is 
 genuine. I hope that no one will ever accuse me of 
 being materialist and yet I regard the hypothesis of 
 two substances joined together to form man as one 
 of the most clumsy inventions made by philosophy. 
 The words body and soul remain perfectly distinct in 
 so far as they represent the orders of irreducible 
 phenomena, but to make this diversity, entirely 
 phenomenal, synonymous to an ontological distinc- 
 tion, is to fall into a ponderous realism and to 
 imitate the ancient hypotheses of physical sciences, 
 which suppose as many causes as different effects, 
 and explain by those real and substantial fluids facts 
 in which a more advanced science sees nothing but 
 various orders of phenomena. Of a truth it is much 
 more absurd to say in a spirit of exclusion : man is a 
 body : the truth is that there is a unique substance, 
 which is neither body nor soul, but which reveals 
 itself by two orders of phenomena, which are the 
 body and the soul, that these two words have no 
 meaning except in their opposition, and that this 
 opposition exists only in acts. The spiritualist is 
 not him who believes in two substances coarsely 
 united ; it is he who is persuaded that the acts of 
 the mind alone have a transcendental value. Man 
 is ; he is matter, that is to say expanded, tangible, 
 endowed with physical properties ; he is mind, that 
 is to say thinking, feeling, adoriog. The mind is 
 the goal as the goal of the plant is the flower ; with- 
 out roots, without leaves, there are no flowers. 
 
 The most simple act of intelligence comprehends 
 the perception of God ; for it comprehends the per- 
 ception of being and the perception of the infinite. 
 The infinite exists in all our faculties and constitutes, 
 it is true, the distinctive feature of humanity, the 
 unique category of pure reason which distinguishes 
 man from the animal. This element may become 
 effaced in the vulgar acts of intelhgence ; but as it
 
 448 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 is to be found indubitably in the acts of the mind, 
 this is a reason to conclude that it is to be found in 
 all those acts ; for that which exists in one degree 
 exists in all the others ; and besides the infinite 
 shows itself much more energetically in the acts of 
 primitive humanity, in that life vague and without 
 conscience, in that spontaneous state, in that native 
 enthusiasm, in those temples and pyramids than in 
 our age of polished reflection and analytical view. 
 This is the God of whom we have an innate idea and 
 w^ho does not require demonstration. Against this 
 God atheism is impossible ; because people affirm 
 Him while denying Him. Everywhere man has out- 
 paced nature ; everywhere, beyond the visible, he 
 has supposed the invisible. This is the only feature 
 which is truly universal, the identical foundation 
 upon which divers instincts have embroidered infinite 
 varieties, from the multiple forces of savages to 
 Jehovah, from Jehovah to the Indian Oum. To 
 look for a universal consent on the part of humanity 
 to anything else but this psychological fact is to 
 misuse terms. Humanity has always believed in 
 something beyond the finite, this something, it is 
 suitable to call God. Therefore all humanity has 
 believed in God. Very well. But do not, mis- 
 using a definition of words, pretend that humanity 
 has believed in such and such a God, in a moral and 
 personal God formed by anthropomorphic analogy. 
 That God is so little innate that the half of humanity 
 has not believed in Him and that it has required ages 
 to formulate this system in a complete manner, in 
 ordering man to love God. It is not that I entirely 
 blame the method of anthropomorphic psychology. 
 God being the ideal of every one, it is right that 
 every one should fashion Him after his manner and 
 on his own model. One must not therefore fear to 
 employ all the goodness and beauty that can be 
 imagined. But it is contrary to all criticism to pre- 
 tend to erect such a method into a scientific method 
 and to raise, out of an ideal construction, a discussion
 
 The Future of Science. 449 
 
 on the qualities of a being. Let us say that the 
 supreme being is eminently possessed of all that is 
 perfection ; let us say that he has iu him somethiag 
 analogous, to intelligence, to liberty ; but do not let 
 us say that he is intelhgent that he is free : this 
 would be trying to limit the infinite, to give a name 
 to the ineffable (192). 
 
 One is accustomed to consider monotheism as a 
 definitive and absolute conquest, beyond which there 
 can be no ulterior progress. In my eyes monotheism 
 is, like polytheism, only an age in the religion of 
 humanity. This word, besides, is far from designating 
 a doctrine absolutely identical. Our monotheism is 
 only a system like another, inferring it is true very 
 advanced notions. It is the Jewish system, it is 
 Jehovah. Neither the ancient polytheism, which 
 also contained a great portion of truth ; nor India, 
 so learned in its conception of God, understood 
 things in this manner. The deva of India is a 
 superior being to man, by no means our God. 
 Although the Jewish system has entered into our 
 intellectual habits it should not make us forget all 
 that was profound and poetic in other systems. No 
 doubt, if the ancients had understood by God what 
 we ourselves understand, polytheism would have been 
 a contradiction of terms. But their terminology in 
 this matter reposed upon notions quite different from 
 ours respecting the government of the world. They 
 had not yet arrived at the conception of unity of 
 government in the universe. The Greek worship 
 representing at bottom the worship of human nature 
 and the beauty of things, and that without any 
 orthodox pretension, without any dogmatic organiza- 
 tion, is only a poetical form of universal religion 
 perhaps not far removed from that to which philo- 
 sophy will return (193). This is so true that where 
 the moderns have wished to make some trials of 
 natural worship they have been obhged to approach 
 it. The great moral superiority of Christianity makes 
 us too easily forget the breadth, the toleration, the 
 
 2 G
 
 450 The Future of Science. 
 
 respect for all that was natural which existed in 
 Grecian mythologism. The origin of the severe 
 manner in which we have judged it lies in the 
 ridiculous way in which mythology has been pre- 
 sented to us. One imagines a religious body obliged 
 to enter our conceptions by force. A religion which 
 has a God for thieves, another for drunkards, appears 
 to us the height of absurdity. Now, as humanity 
 has never lost its common sense, we must admit that 
 until we can conceive these fables naturally we do 
 not possess the key to the enigma. Polytheism only 
 appears absurd to us because we do not understand 
 it. Humanity is never absurd. The religions which 
 do not pretend to repose upon a revelation, so inferior 
 as machines of action to religions organized dogmati- 
 cally, are, in one sense, more philosophical, or rather 
 they only differ from truly philosophical religion by a 
 more or less symbolical expression. These religions 
 are, at bottom, only the State, the family, art and 
 morality elevated to a high and poetic expression. 
 They do not divide life in two ; they have no sacred 
 and profane. They know nothing of mystery, re- 
 nouncement and sacrifice since they accept and 
 sanctify nature at first sight. These were bonds, 
 but bonds of flowers. There lies the secret of their 
 feebleness in the work of humanity ; they are not 
 strong but also less dangerous. They do not possess 
 that prodigious psychological subtilty, that spirit of 
 limit, of intolerance, of particularism, if I dare say 
 so, that force of abstraction, veritable vampire which 
 has gone on absorbing all that is gentle and mild in 
 humanity ever since it was given to the wan image 
 of the crucified One to fascinate the human con- 
 science. It sucked everything even to the last drop 
 out of poor humanity : juice and force, blood and life, 
 nature and art, family, people, country; everything 
 went down, and on the ruins of an exhausted world 
 there remained but the phantom of the Me, tottering 
 ajid distrustful. 
 
 Tp to the present, men as far as religion is con-
 
 The Future of Science. 451 
 
 cerned have been divided into two categories : 
 religions men believing in a positive dogma, and 
 irreligious men holding themselves aloof from all 
 revealed belief. This is insupportable. Henceforth 
 they must be classed thus : rehgious persons taking 
 a serious view of life and the sanctity of things ; 
 frivolous men, without faith, without seriousness, 
 without morality. All those who adore something 
 are brothers, or certainly not such great enemies as 
 those who adore simply pleasure and interest. It 
 is indubitable that I resemble more a Catholic or 
 a Buddhist than a sceptical laugher and my intimate 
 sympathies are a proof of this. I love one, I detest 
 the other. I can even call myself a Christian, in 
 this sense that I admit being indebted to Christianity 
 for most of the elements of my faith, just as M. 
 Cousin might have called himself Platonician or 
 Cartesian without accepting all the inheritance of 
 Plato or Descartes, and above all without feeling 
 himself obliged to regard them as prophets. Do 
 not say that I am twisting words when I thus arro- 
 gate to myself a name the acceptation of which I 
 have greatly altered. No doubt if one understands 
 by religion a number of imposed dogmas and external 
 practices, then I admit that I am not religious ; but 
 I also maintain that humanity is not essentially so 
 and will not always be so in that sense. What is a 
 part of humanity, and will consequently be as eternal 
 as itself, is the religious want, the religious faculty, 
 to which up to the present the great ensembles of 
 doctrine and ceremonies have corresponded but 
 which will be sufficiently satisfied with the pure 
 worship of good and beautiful things. We have 
 therefore the right to speak of religion, since we 
 have the analogy, if not the thing itself; since the 
 want which was formerly satisfied by positive re- 
 Hgions is now satisfied by something equivalent 
 which has the right of being called by the same 
 name. If people absolutely persist in taking this 
 moral in a more restricted sense, we will not dispute
 
 452 The Future of Science. 
 
 over a free definition, we will merely remark that 
 religion thus understood is not essential and that it 
 will disappear from humanity, leaving vacant a place 
 which will he filled up by something analogous. 
 
 A great deal has been said within the last few 
 years of a religious revival, and I willingly admit 
 tliat this revival has generally shown itself in the 
 form of a return to Catholicism. This is as it should 
 be. Humanity feeling the imperious want of a religion 
 will always cling to that which it finds already made. 
 It is not to Catholicism, as Catholicism, that this 
 century has returned but to Catholicism as a religion. 
 It must also be admitted that Catholicism with its 
 harsh and absolute forms, its rigorous rules and its 
 perfect centralization, must please a nation which saw 
 in it the most perfect model of its own government. 
 France which finds it quite natural that a law 
 emanating from Paris should become at once applic- 
 able to the Breton peasant, to the Alsatian workman, 
 to the nomad shepherd of the Landes, must also find 
 it quite natural that there should be at Rome an 
 infallible being who regulates the belief of the world. 
 This is very convenient. Delivered from the care of 
 making one's creed and even of understanding it 
 one can, after that, attend in full security to one's 
 affairs saying — that does not concern me ; tell me 
 what I must believe ; I believe it. Strange con- 
 tradiction, for, formulas having no value except the 
 sense they contain it is of no advantage to say — " I 
 trust to the Pope ; he kuows what to believe and I 
 believe as he does." People believe that faith is 
 like a talisman which saves by its own virtue ; that 
 they will be saved if they believe some unintelligible 
 proposition, without taking the trouble to understand 
 it ; they do not feel that these things are only of 
 value according to the good which they do the soul, 
 by their personal application to the believer. 
 
 If a return towards Catholicism has taken place it 
 is therefore in no way because progress in the way of 
 criticism has brought it back, it is because the want
 
 The Future of Science. 453 
 
 of a religion has been more sharply felt and because 
 Catholicism alone was ready at hand. Catholicism 
 for the immense majority of those who profess it, is 
 no longer Cathohcism ; it is religion. It is repugnant 
 to pass one's life like the brute, to be born, to con- 
 tract marriage, to die without any religious ceremony 
 consecrating these holy acts. Catholicism is there 
 to satisfy this want ; then let us have Catholicism. 
 People do not examine matters more closely ; they 
 do not enter into details of dogmas, they pity those 
 who undertake so sterile a task ; they are heretics a 
 hundred times over without being aw^are of it. What 
 has made the fortune of Catholicism in our days, is 
 that it is little known. ; It is only seen through 
 certain imposing externals, one only takes into 
 consideration what is elevated and moral in its 
 dogmas; one does not enter into the brush-wood. 
 What is more, one bravely rejects or complacently 
 explains those dogmas which are too openly opposed 
 to modern ideas. If one were obliged to accept as 
 an article of faith every text of Scripture and every 
 decree of the Council of Trent, it would be a different 
 matter ; one would be surprised to find oneself 
 incredulous. Those who have been led by peculiar 
 circumstances to wage a death-struggle on this 
 ground have reasons for not being accommodating. 
 
 This then is the explanation of the return to 
 Cathohcism which appears to be so strongly opposed 
 to philosophy. The eighteenth century, having had 
 for its mission to destroy, found in it that pleasure 
 which every being experiences in accomplishing its 
 object. Scepticism and impiety were .pleasing in 
 themselves. But we who are not intoxicated with 
 this first burst of joy, we who, having returned to the 
 soul, have found in it the external want of rehgion, 
 which is at the bottom of human nature, we have 
 looked round us, and, rather than remam in this 
 penury which has become intolerable, we have re- 
 turned to the past, and we have accepted, as it 
 stands, the doctrine handed down to us. When
 
 454 The Future of Science. 
 
 one no longer knows how to create cathedrals one 
 imitates them. For one can do without religious 
 originality ; but one cannot do without religion. 
 
 Individuals pass through analogous phases in their 
 inward life. In the age of force, when the critical 
 spirit is in all its vigour, when life appears like an 
 appetizing prey, and when the sun of youth sheds 
 its golden rays on everything, the religious instincts 
 are easily satisfied ; one enjoys life without any posi- 
 tive doctrine ; the charm of intellectual labour tones 
 down everything, even doubt. But when the horizon 
 comes closer ; when the old man endeavours to chase 
 the cold terrors which assail him ; when the sick 
 man has exhausted the generous force which allowed 
 him to think boldly, then there is no rationalist how- 
 ever firm who does not turn towards the God of 
 women and children and ask the priest to comfort 
 him and to deliver him from the phantoms which 
 beset him under this pallid sun. Thus may be ex- 
 plained the iveahnesses of so many philosophers in 
 their last days. The death-bed requires a religion. 
 Which ? no matter ; but one is necessary. It seems 
 to me at this moment that I should die contented in 
 the communion of humanity and the religion of the 
 future. Alas ! I would not swear to this were I to 
 fall ill. Each time that I feel myself enfeebled I 
 experience a nervous excitability and a kind of return 
 to piety. 
 
 llole sua stat : such in our days is the reason why 
 Christianity exists. Who has not stopped, while 
 passing through our ancient towns, become modern, 
 at the foot of those gigantic monuments of the faith 
 of ages past ? Everything has been renewed around 
 them ; there is no longer a vestige of the dwellings 
 and customs of former times. The cathedral has 
 remained, somewhat damaged perhaps as far as the 
 hand of man can reach, but deeply rooted in the soil. 
 It has resisted the deluge which has swept everything 
 away around it, and the family of ravens which have 
 built their nests in the steeple have not been dis-
 
 The Future of Science. 455 
 
 turbed. Its magnitude is its right. Strange pre- 
 scription ! Those converted barbarians, those 
 builders of churches, Clovis, EoUo, William the 
 Conqueror tower over us still. We are Christians 
 because it pleased them to be so. We have reformed 
 their political institutions, become superannuated; 
 we have not dared to touch their religious estabhsh- 
 ment. It is considered wrong that we who are 
 civilized should meddle with the dogma created by 
 barbarians. And what right have they which we do 
 not possess ? Peter, Paul, Augustin lay down our 
 law, much as if we were still subject to the Salic 
 law and the Gombette law. So true is it that as far 
 as religious creation is concerned centuries are given 
 to calumniate themselves, and to refuse to them- 
 selves the privileges which they freely accord to 
 distant ages ! 
 
 Hence the immense disproportion which can, at 
 certain epochs, exist between religion and the moral 
 social and political state. Eeligions are petrified 
 and customs are continually modified. Like those 
 granite rocks consolidated in swallowing up in their 
 still liquid mass foreign substances, which will form 
 a portion of their body for ever, Catholicism has 
 solidified itself for ever and henceforward no puri- 
 fication is possible. I know that there is a milder 
 Catholicism which has known how to compound with 
 the necessities of the times and to throw a veil over 
 truths too unpalatable. But of all the systems that 
 is the most inconsistent. I can conceive orthodox 
 and incredulous people, but not the neo-catholics. 
 The profound ignorance which exists in France, 
 outside of the clergy, of bibhcal exegesis and theo- 
 logy, has alone given rise to that superficial school 
 so full of contradictions. It is in the Fathers and 
 in the Councils that true Christianity must be sought 
 for and not among those weak and light-miuded 
 spirits who have perverted it in toning it down, 
 without rendering it more acceptable. 
 
 For the great majority of men the established
 
 45G The Future of Science. 
 
 religion is only the ideal portion of human life and 
 looking at it in this light it is supremely respectable. 
 How charming to see in the cottages or in vulgar 
 houses, where everything appears to be buried under 
 the weight of useful preoccupations, pictures repre- 
 senting nothing real, saints and angels ! What con- 
 solation amid the tears of our state of suffering, to 
 see unfortunate people, bowed down under the weight 
 of six days' labour, come on the seventh day to repose 
 themselves on their knees, to look at lofty columns, 
 vaults, an altar, to hear and enjoy the singing, to listen 
 to a moral and consolatory sermon. Oh ! barbarians 
 are those who call this lost time and speculate on 
 the gain of suppressed Sundays and fete-days ! We 
 who have art, science and philosophy, we have no 
 need of the church. But the people, the temple is 
 their literature, their science, their art. The people 
 do not see what is dangerous and fatal in Christianity. 
 The mind which aspires to a high and reflective 
 culture must first of all shake off Catholicism ; for 
 there are in Catholicism dogmas and tendencies in- 
 consistent with modern culture. But what is this 
 to the simple minded ? They only pluck the flower ; 
 what does it matter to them that the roots are bitter? 
 I feel indignant on seeing a man however little ini- 
 tiated in the culture of the nineteenth century still 
 preserve the belief and the practices of the past. 
 On the contrary when I travel through the country 
 and I see at the angle of each road and in every 
 cottage signs of Catholic superstition my heart is 
 touched and I would rather hold my tongue all my 
 life than scandalize one of those children. A Holy 
 Virgin in the dwelling of a reflective man and in 
 that of a peasant, what a difference ! In that of a 
 reflective man it appears to me to be a revolting 
 absurdity, the symbol of an exhausted art, the amulet 
 of a degrading devotion ; in that of the peasant it 
 appears to me as a ray of the ideal which has pene- 
 trated beneath the cottage roof. I love this simple 
 faith as I love the faith of the Middle- Ages as I love
 
 The Future of Science. 457 
 
 the Indian prostrating himself before Kali or 
 Kristna, or placing his head under the wheels of the 
 car of Juggernaut. I adore the ancient sacrifice ; 
 I have no distaste for the foohsh taurobohum of 
 Julian. The peasant without religion is the ugliest 
 of brutes, without any distinctive sign of humanity 
 {animal religiosum). Alas ! a day will come when 
 they will undergo the common law and pass through 
 the hateful period of impiety. It will be for the 
 good of humanity; but, God, for nothing in the 
 world would I labour at such a work. Let the im- 
 proper undertake it ! These good people not belong- 
 ing to the nineteenth century must not be blamed 
 for belonging to the religion of the past. This is my 
 manner of acting : in the village I go to mg,ss ; in 
 the town I laugh at those who go themjlf ^^Y^^-^^ 
 
 I am sometimes tempted to shed tears when I 
 think that, by the superiority of my religion I isolate 
 myself in appearance from the great religious family 
 in which are all those I love, when I think that the 
 purest minds in the world must consider me impious, 
 wicked, damned ; must do so, be it remarked, owing 
 to the very necessity of their faith. Fatal orthodoxy, 
 thou which formerly caused the peace of the world, 
 thou art only good now to work separation. The 
 man of a ripe age can no longer believe what the 
 child believes ; the man can no longer beheve what 
 the woman believes ; and what is terrible is that the 
 woman and the child join their hands to say : In the 
 name of heaven, believe as we do or you will be 
 damned. Ah! not to believe them one must be very 
 savant or very hardhearted ! 
 
 A souvenir is recalled to my mind, it fills me with 
 sadness, without making me blush. One day at the 
 foot of the altar and under the hand of the bishop, 
 I said to the God of the Christians : Dominus pars 
 hcereditatis mecB et calicis mei ; tu es qui restitues 
 hcBreclitatem meam mild. I was very young then and 
 yet I had reflected a great deal. At every step that 
 I took towards the altar doubt followed me ; it was
 
 458 TJie Future of Science. 
 
 science and, child that I was I called it the demon. 
 Assailed by contradictory ideas ; tottering at twenty 
 years on the bases of my life, a luminous idea entered 
 my mind and for the moment re-established calm and 
 comfort : Whoever thou art, I exclaimed in my 
 heart, God of noble minds I receive thee as the 
 portion of my lot. Up to the present I have called 
 thee by the name of a man ; I believed on his word 
 him who said : I am the truth and the life. I will 
 be faithful to him in following the truth wherever it 
 may lead me. I will be the true Nazarene, while, 
 renouncing the pomps and vanities of the world, I 
 shall love only what is good and shall exert my 
 activity for nothing else. Well ! I do not repent of 
 these words to-day and I willingly repeat them : 
 Dominus pars licereditatis 7nece, and I am pleased to 
 think that I pronounced them during a religious 
 ceremony. The hair has grown again on my head ; 
 but I still belong to that holy militia, the disinherited 
 of the earth. I shall not look upon myself as an 
 apostate nntil material interests usurp in my mind 
 the place of what is holy, the day when, in thinking 
 of the Christ of the Gospel I no longer feel myself 
 his friend, the day when I prostitute my life to in- 
 ferior matters and when I become the companion of 
 the jovial of the earth. 
 
 Funes cecideriint mild in pr cedar is ! My lot will 
 always be with the disinherited : I shall belong to 
 the league of the poor of spirit. Let all those who 
 still adore something unite together in the object 
 they adore. The day for little men and little things 
 has passed ; the time for saints has arrived. The 
 atheist is the man who is frivolous ; the impious and 
 the pagans are the profane ; the egotists those who 
 understand nothing concerning the things of God ; 
 branded souls who affect to be clever and who laugh 
 at those who believe ; base and terrestrial souls 
 destined to grow yellow from egotism and to perish 
 from nullity. How, disciples of Christ, can you 
 enter into an alliance with those men ? Oh ! would
 
 The Future of Science. 459 
 
 it not be better for us to sit down side by side witli 
 poor humanity, seated gloomy and silent on the 
 side of the dusty road, to raise its eyes to the mild 
 heaven which it no longer regards ? For us the die 
 is cast : and even should superstition and frivolity, 
 henceforth inseparable auxiliaries, succeed in dead- 
 ening human conscience for a time, it will be said 
 in the nineteenth century, the ceutury of fear, that 
 there were still men, who, in spite of common con- 
 tempt, liked to be called men of the other world ; 
 men who believed in the truth, who were ardent in 
 its search, in the midst of an age, frivolous because 
 it was without faith and superstitious because it was 
 frivolous. 
 
 I was formed by the Church, I owe all to her and 
 I shall never forget her. The Church separated me 
 from profane men, and I thank her. He whom God 
 has touched will always be a being apart ; he is, no 
 matter what he does, out of place among men, he is 
 known by a sign. For him young men have no joys 
 to offer, and young girls have no smile. Since he 
 has seen God his tongue is embarrassed, he no longer 
 knows how to speak of terrestrial things. God of 
 my youth I have long hoped to return to Thee with 
 colours flying and in the pride of reason and perhaps 
 I shall return humble and vanquished like a feeble 
 woman. Formerly Thou listened to me ; I hoped 
 some day to see Thy face for I heard Thee answer my 
 voice. And I have seen Thy temple crumble away 
 stone by stone; the sanctuary has no longer an echo, 
 and,, instead of an altar ornamented with lights and 
 flowers, I have seen rise before me an altar of brass 
 against which prayer, severe, unadorned, without 
 images, without tabernacle, blood-stained by fatality 
 shatters itself. Is it my fault ? is it Thine ? Ah ! 
 how willingly I would beat my breast, if I could 
 hope to hear that beloved voice which formerly made 
 me tremble. But no, there is ouly inflexible nature; 
 when I search Thy fatherly eye I find only the orbit 
 of the infinite empty and baseless, when I search Thy
 
 460 Tlie Future of Science. 
 
 celestial brow I dash myself against a vault of brass 
 which coldly sends back my love. Farewell then, 
 God of my youth ! Perhaps wilt Thou be the God 
 of my death-bed. Farewell; although Thou hast 
 deceived me, I love Thee still !
 
 NOTES. 
 
 1. This tendency to place the ideal in the past is peculiar to ages 
 that repose on unassailed and traditional dogma. Ages of upheaval 
 like our own, on the other hand, in which the continuity of doctrinal 
 teaching has been broken, must of necessity ap})cal to the future, 
 seeing that to them the past is merely a mistake. All ancient 
 peoples placed the ideal of their nation at its origin ; the ancestors 
 Avere more than men (heroes, demi-gods). On the other hand, diu-ing 
 the Augustan period, when the disintegration of the ancient world 
 begius to manifest itself, observe the aspirations towards the future, 
 so eloquently expressed by the incomparable poet, in whose soul the 
 two worlds were locked in close embrace. Oppressed nations do 
 the same ; " Arthur is not dead ; Arthur will come again : " they 
 exclaim. The most puissant cry towards the future, ever uttered hv 
 any nation is the belief of the Jewish nation in the Messiah. That 
 belief had its birth and grew during the iron grip of alien persecu- 
 tion. The embryo is formed at Babylon, it gathers strength and 
 assumes a distinct character under the persecution of the Syrian 
 monarchs, it finds its climax under Roman oppression. 
 
 2. I have seen men of the people transported with genuine ecstasy 
 at the sight of the graceful movements of swans on a piece of water. 
 It is impossible to say at what depth the feelings of these two simple 
 lives were interpenetrated. But it is evident that the people, face to 
 face with the animal, regards it as his brother, as leading a life ana- 
 logous to his own. Lofty intellects, whose sym])athies reunite them 
 with the masses, experience the same feeling. 
 
 3. How modest and amiable, for instance, is that declaration of 
 savants — often eminent — at the beginning of their works that tliey 
 have no intention of encroaching on the domain of religion, that tliey 
 are not theologians, and that the tlieoiogians can have no objection 
 to their attempts at unambitious natural philosophy. There are in 
 France, men who vastly admire the religious "establishment" of 
 England, because it is the most conservative of all. In my opinion 
 this system is the most illogical and the most irreverent with regard 
 to things divine. 
 
 4. This seems to me to be the true definition of the accidental in 
 history rather than Et quia scepe latent causa; furtuita rotdliir.
 
 402 Notes. 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus is struck down by a cannon ball at Lutzen, and 
 his death changes the face of things in Europe. Here we have 
 a fact, the cause of which is by no means unknown, but which never- 
 theless may be termed chance or the irrational part of history, 
 because the direction of a cannon ball a few centimetres one way or 
 the other is not a fact proportionate to the immense consequences 
 resulting from it. 
 
 5. Life is nothing else but this ; the aspiration of the being to be 
 all it can be ; the tendency to pass from potentiality to act. Dante, 
 who in his book " De Monarchia " expresses ideas on humanity 
 almost as advanced as those of the boldest humanitarians, had an 
 enlightened perception of this fact. Proprium opus humani generis 
 totaiiter accepti est actuare semper totam potentiam intellectus 
 possibilis. (De Monarchia, I.) Herder says in the same way, 
 " The perfection of a thing consists in its being all that it should and 
 can be. Hence, the perfection of the individual is that he should be 
 himself in the Avhole of the successive phases of his existence " 
 (Ueber den Charakfer der Menschheit). 
 
 6. The year 1789 will be in the history of humanity a holy year 
 as having been the first to trace the outline of this previously 
 unknown fact — with marvellous ingenuity and incomparable energy. 
 The place in which humanity proclaimed itself, the Tennis Court, 
 will be one day a temple. It Avill be visited by the pilgrim, like 
 Jerusalem, when distance shall have sanctified and characterised 
 particular facts in symbols of general facts. Golgotha only became 
 hallowed ground two or three centuries after Jesus. 
 
 7. See as eminently characteristic the Declaration of Rights in the 
 Constitution of '91. It is the whole of the Eighteenth Century with 
 its claims to the control of nature and of things established, its 
 analysis, its craving for clearness and logical evidence. 
 
 8. What, for instance, shall we say of our university education, 
 reduced to pure outward discipline without the smallest regard for 
 the soul and moral culture ? As for other matters, is it surprising that 
 Napoleon should have conceived a college as a barracks or a 
 regiment ? Our system of education is still, without our being 
 aware of it, feature for feature, that of the eJesuits, based upon the 
 idea that man can be "licked" into moral shape by bringing 
 outward influences to bear upon him, totally forgetful of the soul 
 that imparts life, treating him, in short as a piece of intellectual 
 mechanism. 
 
 9. Languages afford a curious instance in point. Languages, mani- 
 pulated, twisted, remodelled by the hands of man, like French 
 show the indelible stamp of their treatment in their want of flexi- 
 bility, in their laboured construction, in their lack of harmony. The 
 French language, made by logicians is a thousand times less logical 
 thiiu Hebrew or Sanskrit created by the instincts of primitive man. 
 I have develoj)ed this })oint in an " Essay on the Origin of Language," 
 published in the philosophical review, " /,« JAherte de Penser'''' of 
 the 1.5th September and the 15th December 1848. 
 
 10. See for instance, " les Considerations sur la France" of M. de
 
 Notes. 463 
 
 Maistre. The ingenious writer has plainly perceived the defects of 
 the reformers, the artificiality, the formalism, the rage for writiuf 
 and publishing that which is much stronger when left unwrittcir. 
 But he has failed to perceive that these defects were a necessary 
 condition of ulterior progress. 
 
 11. Voltaire never professed to say anything else in his numerous 
 attacks on optimism ; they are just satires on the absurdities of his 
 century. 
 
 12. " De la Deniocratic en France" ; p. 76. A little further on, 
 the -principle is laid down that landed property is superior to anv 
 other, because the proceeds of it depend less upon the exertions of 
 men, and more on blind causes. 
 
 13. The greater or lesser extent of a people's belief in fate is the 
 test of her civilization. The Cossack blames no one for being 
 whipped, it is his fate ; the Turkish rayah bears no one a gruilge, 
 on account of the burdens imposed upon him ; it is his fate. The 
 poverty-stricken Englishman nurses no grievance ; if he starves to 
 death, it is his fate. The Frenchman revolts if he suspects that his 
 misery is the consequence of a social organisation capable of reforma- 
 tion. 
 
 14. By reason I do not solely mean human reason, but the reflec- 
 tion of every thinking being, extant or to come. If I could believe 
 in the endless perpetuation of humanity, I would unhesitatingly 
 infer that it must attain perfection. But it is physically possil)le 
 that humanity may be fated to perish or become exhausted, and that 
 the human species itself may gradually perish of atrophy when the 
 fountains of living force and new races shall have dried up. (Lucre- 
 tius has some weighty arguments on this point, V., 381, et seq.). 
 In that case it will have only been a transient form of the divine 
 progress of all things and of the evolution of the divine conscience. 
 For even if humanity should not exercise a direct influence on the 
 forms that will succeed it, it will have played its part in the 
 graduated progress as a branch necessary to the growth of higher 
 branches. For though these may not be offshoots of the first 
 branch, they will spread outwards from the same trunk. Hegel 
 has no foundation for attributing an exclusive role to humanity, 
 which is doubtless not the only conscious form of the divine, though 
 it may be the most advanced within our knowledge. To find the 
 eternal and perfect we must go beyond humanity and plunge into 
 the deep sea. Were I here to disclaim any tendency to pantheism, it 
 would look as if I did so in deference to a suspicious timidity, and 
 that I admitted the right of somebody to demand a profession of 
 orthodoxy ; I will, therefore not do so. Sufficient be it for me to 
 state my belief in a living reason for all things, and that I admit 
 human freedom and personality as evident facts ; consequently every 
 doctrine logically advanced in order to deny them would, in my 
 opinion, be false. I should add that if pantheism appears so absurd 
 to most people, it is because they do not understand it, and because 
 they interpret the principle ; ''All is God,'' in a distrihidivc and not 
 in a collective sense. In this instance all is not synonymous with
 
 464 Notes. 
 
 every any more than in the sentence ; " All the departments of 
 France constitute an area of so many square leagues." There 
 would be few absurdities comparable to this : "Every object is Grod." 
 Hegel has very well explained this. (Cours d^esthetique, t. ii., p. 
 108 ; Benard's translation.) 
 
 15. What else in fact is the science of the Middle-Ages but dis- 
 ])utation ? Wrangling is so dear to the schoolmen that they preserve 
 it like game, and provide one another with the opportunity for sport ; 
 they dispose their canons so as never to lack material for it. There 
 are propositions, acknowledged to be false, but Avhich are, neverthe- 
 less, not condemned in order to afford an opportunity for disputation. 
 Read the treatise the theologians call ; " I^es lienx Theologiques,'''' 
 and you will get an idea of that strange method. Never mind the 
 truth, the thing is to hit upon something lending itself to controversy ; 
 to know is nothing, to wrangle everything. 
 
 16. If you wish for a typical instance of this irreverent manner of 
 treating science, of taking it as a jcu cVesprif, fit at most to beguile 
 the tedium of an aimless life or to raise the inane laughter so dear 
 to those who are debarred from laughing genuinely, read the Journal 
 de Trevoux and in general the scientific works issued by the same 
 brotherhood, which, be it said by the way, has not produced a single 
 serious savant (except perhaps Kircher, who also drifts into sheer 
 folly at times, though his folly is at any rate that of his time), but 
 Avhich on the other hand has produced some matchless types of 
 scientific charlatanism, Bougeant, Hardouin, etc. All this belongs 
 to the same order of things as the thoroughly innocent and twaddling 
 minor poetry of the members of the society ; Du Cerceau, Commire, 
 Rapin, etc. And though the works of the Benedictines are of an 
 altogether different order, they do not disprove my thesis. The need 
 of l)eguiling the leisure of a tranquil and retired existence with 
 useful work, a taste for study, the instinctive love for compiling and 
 collecting may render immense service to scholarship, but they do not 
 constitute a love of science. 
 
 17. Let us suppose that the considerations of Descartes for theology 
 were not solely inspired by political motives, which 1 do not admit ; 
 the intellect of Descartes was of the absolute order, altogether 
 devoid of the critical faculty ; and it is quite possible that he may 
 have fully believed in Christianity. 
 
 18. This is so true that semi-critical intellects only resign them- 
 selves to admitting miracle in antiquity. Tales that would raise 
 a smile if they were related as contemporary, pass muster in virtue 
 of tiie enchantment lent by distance. It seems to be tacitly admitted 
 that primitive humanity lived under natural laws different from our 
 own. 
 
 19. The Avay in which every nation naively reflects herself in the 
 physiognomy of her miracles is truly marvellous. Compare the 
 miracle of the Hebrews, grave, severe, without variety like Jehovah 
 Himself ; the miracle of the Gospel, beneficent and moral ; the 
 Tahiindic miracle, disgustingly vulgar : the liyzantine miracle, dull 
 and devoid of poesy ; tlie miracle of tlie Middle-Ages, graceful and 
 
 P
 
 Notes. 4(55 
 
 sentimental ; the Jesuit and Spanish miracle, materialistic, cnor- 
 vatmg, immoral. This is not surprising seeing that each poopio 
 only puts upon the stage in its miracles the supernatural a-ents ol' 
 the government of the Universe, as it understanils them ; ami these 
 agents are fashioned by each race after its own model. 
 
 20. The study of Greek science and pliil()soi)hv had already pro- 
 duced an analogous result among the Mussuhniuis in the Aliddlc- 
 Ages. Averroes may be considered a rationalist pure and simple. 
 But this splendid onward movement was che(da3d by the rigid 
 Mussulmans. The numbers and the influence of the philosophers 
 were not sufficiently large to carry the day, as was the case in 
 Europe. 
 
 21. See the admirable description of the pietist reaction in the 
 beginning of the seventeenth century in Michelet's " Du Pretre, de 
 la Femme, de la Famille," Ch. I. and throughout the hook ; a 
 thoroughly vivid and original description of the most delicate and 
 indescribable facts. It contains a whole world of which people 
 scarcely care to speak with bated breath. See also the delicate 
 psychological analysis which M. Saiute-Beuve so unfortunately 
 entitled " Volupte." Nor should we forget Das eioig IVeiblichc at 
 the end of Fanst, and Mephistopheles, though blas[)heraing, van- 
 quished with roses, and the admirable episode of Dorothee and Agnes 
 in the "Pucelle." 
 
 " The damsel o'ercome by a contrite emotion 
 Determined a father confessor to seek ; 
 For there's only one step between love and devotion. 
 And dear are the weaknesses both — to the weak." 
 
 A rigorous psychological analysis would class the innate religious 
 instinct of women in the same category with the sexual instinct. 
 The first manifestation of all this occurs in a characteristic manner 
 in the Middle- Ages in the case of the lollards, beguards, fraticelli, 
 " poor men of Lyons," humiliati, flagellants, etc. 
 
 22. This opposition sometimes produces strange effects. Certain 
 ■weaknesses of the fiercest rationalists can only be explained in this 
 way. There are in life " melting moments " when everything thaws 
 — becomes moist, limp, deliquescent. I have often thought that this 
 type (of fierce intellectual pride combined with the most feniiinno 
 weakness) might be taken as the subject for a psy<diological novel. 
 Faust only corresponds to a part of my idea. The ancients dis- 
 tinguished between dry heat and moist heat by one of those distinc- 
 tions banished by our physical system, because they are not based on 
 sufficiently accurate facts, but Avhich contained nevertheless a great 
 deal of truth. This distinction is perfectly just, at any rate in 
 psychology. 
 
 23. I have heard a very excellent person rejoice over the cholera ; 
 " for," said he ; " those calamities are sure to bring in their wake 
 a return to religious ideas." After all, this is perfectly consistent. 
 What matter, so long as souls are saved ? 
 
 24. In reaUty, the divergences between religious sects arc not less 
 
 2 H
 
 466 Notes. 
 
 great. But they do not strike one so much, because they do not 
 exist simultaneously in the same country, while philosophy is looked 
 at synoptically, as inter-connected in all its parts. As a matter of 
 course in countries where several sects confront one another, scepti- 
 cism is never far behind. 
 
 25. Finding it impossible to define these ideas with accuracy, 
 I refer to the hymn, in which in my earliest youth, I tried to express 
 mv religious ideas, at the end of the volume. {^It has been suppressed.) 
 
 26. Such for instance are Descartes' proofs of the existence of 
 God. No mind laying claim to any subtelty has taken them 
 seriously, and I should deeply pity the man whose religious faith has 
 no better basis than this scholastic scaffolding. Still these proofs 
 are really true, all equally true, however narrow the spirit in which 
 they are expressed. 
 
 27. It is in this that Germany excels. The views of her writers 
 are thoroughly individual and absolutely untranslatable. Change 
 the form in which they are expressed however slightly, they vanish, 
 like the essence that evaporates in being transferred from one vase 
 to another. Certain German works of the highest order are intoler- 
 ably heavy in French ; take away the fragrance of rosewater and it 
 becomes worse than ordinary water. Take, for instance, the admir- 
 able introduction of Wilhelm von Humboldt to his essay on Kawi, 
 in which the most subtle views of German writers on the science of 
 language are brought together ; well, this essay, translated into 
 French, would have lost all meaning and would emerge simply as 
 a monumental platitude. This constitutes its very claim to praise, 
 because it proves the delicacy of the style. 
 
 28. Fichte, for instance, in his " Method to attain a happy life," 
 is never tired of repeating ; " Is not this as clear as daylight ? Can 
 any well-ordered mind fail to understand this .'' " When a sincere 
 man speaks in this tone, I always believe him. For how can a 
 straightforward mind, applying itself seriously to its object, fail to 
 see right ? It is, therefore, certain that Fichte's system was per- 
 fectly true to him, from his own standpoint. 
 
 29. Thus the hypotheses on electricity and magnetism, afford an 
 explanation of the phenomena ; they supply a convenient connection 
 between the facts ; but they are not to be taken as possessing an 
 absolute value, and as correspondent to physical realities. 
 
 30. " I see the sea, rocks, islands ; " says he who looks through 
 the windows on the northern side of the castle. " I see fields and 
 trees and meadows ; " says he Avho looks through the windows on 
 the south. They would make a mistake to dispute ; both are right. 
 
 31. The typical representative of this kind of intellect is assuredly 
 Joseph de Maistre, a grand seigneur who has no patience with the 
 slow discussions of philosophy. " In God's name, give us a decision, 
 and let there be an end of it. True or false it matters not, so long 
 as I am at peace. An infallible pope, that is the shortest way and 
 the best ! What do I say, an infallible pope ? That would be 
 honouring those vile mortals too much ! No, no ; a pope from 
 whom there is no appeal."
 
 Notes. 40 7 
 
 32. The mo^t naively touching thiug 1 know is the effort made 
 by the faithful, forcibly carried away by the scientific current of the 
 modern spirit, to reconcile their old doctrines with that formidal)l(; 
 power which dominates them, do what they may. If one could lav 
 bare this or that conscience, one would find in it hoards of pious 
 subtelties, truly edifying and indicating an exceedingly amiable cxh\v. 
 of morality. 
 
 33. One of those who have most vigorously insulted human nature 
 in the interests of revelation has said somewhere (See VUnivers of 
 26th March, 1849) that he greatly preferred Rabelais, Parny and 
 Pigault-Lebrun to Lamartine. I can easily believe it. Voltaire 
 also got along better with the Cure of Versailles Avho petted and 
 fleeced his flock in turns than with St. Vincent de Paul or St. 
 Francis de Sales. 
 
 34. A curious inquiry might be made into the higher or loimr 
 price of human life at different phases of the development of 
 humanity. It would be found that this price has always been 
 estimated according to the real value, that is, that human life was 
 much more respected at the periods when it really was worth more. 
 Hnman conscience is very gradually developed, and traverses sundry 
 different stages. The value of a conscience therefore is in direct 
 proportion to the advancement of its development. Civilized man 
 who is so energetically conscious of himself is much more man, if 
 I may be permitted to say so, than the savage who is scarcely con- 
 scious of his own existence, and whose life is only a small compara- 
 tively valueless phenomenon. This is Avhy the savage sets so little 
 store by life, relinquishes it with such strange unconcern and deprives 
 others of it in mere sport. With him the feeling of individuality 
 has scarcely commenced. The animal, and to a certain extent the 
 child, looks upon the death of one of his fellows without alarm. 
 The price one sets upon one's own life is generally the price one sets 
 upon that of others. Several facts of our Pevolution can only be 
 explained on this theory. Human life had become dreadfully cheap. 
 
 35. Christianity by its universal and catholic tendencies has been 
 instrumental in diminishing the antique love of country. The Chris- 
 tian forms a part of a much more extensive and holier society, which 
 if needs be he must prefer to his country. 
 
 36. Heaven forbid that I should insult so distinguished an intellect 
 as Frankhn. But it is difficult to conceive how a man endowed 
 with the least moral and philosophical feeling could have written 
 chapters, entitled ; " Advice how to make a fortune." — " Necessary 
 advice to those who wish to be rich." — " Tlie means always to have 
 money in your pocket." " Thanks to these means," he adds, " the 
 sky will be more bright to you, and a feeling of pleasure will cause 
 your heart to throb. Make haste to adopt these rules and to be 
 happy." Truly a charming way of ennobhng human nature. 
 
 37. Of all the usages of antiquity libation seems to me the most 
 poetical and the most religious ; it is the sacrifice (sheer waste tl)e 
 positivists would say) of the first fruits to the invisible powers. 
 
 38. The same irrational, but withal energetic and beautiful appli-
 
 4 68 Notes. 
 
 cation of human nature may be noticed in the ideas of the religious 
 on expiation. The need for expiation after an immoral or frivolous 
 life is indeed very lejj^itimate ; the error consists in having enter- 
 tained the belief that it was a question of punishing one's self. The 
 only rational penance is repentance and a more impassioned return to 
 a beautiful and earnest existence. 
 
 39. Small minds which conceive perfection as a state of medio- 
 crity resulting from the reciprocal neutralisation of extremes call 
 this excess, but this is a narrow and paltry way of explaining such 
 facts. The blame lies, not in the abundance of energy, but in the 
 wrong direction given to powerful instincts. 
 
 40. These harmonious complaints have become one of the most 
 fruitful themes of modern poesy. With the exception of that of 
 Jouttroy, I know of none more sincere than those of Louis Feuer- 
 bach, one of the most advanced representatives of the ultra-Hegelian 
 s(diool (" Recollections of my religious life " — a continuation of 
 "I'he Religion of the Future"). This regret is not noticeable 
 among the first sceptics (such for instance, as the philosophers of the 
 eighteenth century) who destroy with a marvellous joy without 
 feeling the need of any belief, engrossed as they are with their work 
 of destruction and the vivid consciousness of exerting their strength. 
 
 41. Heraclitus conceived the stars as meteors lighting themselves 
 at certain times at receptacles prepared for the purpose, as a kind of 
 cauldrons which by turning their dark side to us produced phases, 
 ecdipses, etc. Anaxagoras thinks that the vault of the sky is of 
 stone and conceives the sun and stars as so many stones on fire. 
 Cosmos Indicopleustes pictures to himself the world as an oblong 
 (rliest, of which the earth constitutes the bottom, at the four sides 
 rise strong walls and the sky forms the arched lid. The Hebrews 
 conceived the sky as a molten looking glass (Job xxxvii. 18) sup- 
 ])orted by pillars (Job xxvi. 11) ; above which are the upper waters, 
 dropping through it by means of channels or grated windows and 
 thus making the rain (Psalms Ixxviii. 23 ; Gen. vii. 11 ; viii. 2). 
 Strepsiades concocts for himself a system of similar meteorology, 
 only a little more burlesque (Aristoph., Clouds, line 372). 
 
 42. Shall I say that we are justified in already suspecting some- 
 thing of the kind ? The final term of progress being, in fact, a con- 
 dition in which there will be only one being, a state in which all 
 existing matter will beget a unique resultant, which will be God ; 
 in which God the universe will be the sonl of the universe, and the 
 universe the bodi/ of God, and in which, the period of individuality 
 having been traversed, the unity which is not the exclusion of the 
 individuality, but the harmony and combination of individualities, 
 sliall reign alone ; we may conceive, 1 say, that in such a condition, 
 which will be the result of the blind efforts of all that has lived, in 
 which exact individmility down to the tiniest insect will have had 
 its share, every individuality will be found again, as in the distant 
 sound of an immense concert. This, at any rate, is the way in which 
 J like to understand it. See some admirable pages of Spiridion, 
 though they are presented in too substantial a form..
 
 Notes. 4 (J 9 
 
 43. An admirable expression of Schiller. 
 
 44. I am specially alluding here to France. The successes of M. 
 Rouge and of the German Catholics prove that a religious move- 
 ment is uot altogether impossil)le in Germanv. The constant 
 apparition of new sects, with which the Catholics twit the Protes- 
 tants as a sign of Aveakness, proves on the contrary that the sentiment 
 of religion is still alive among them, seeing that it still possesses tlic 
 power of creating. There is no danger of such a thing hapj)cnirig 
 in France, everything has been battened down for ever and aye. 
 There is nothing more dead than that which no longer stirs. SeveVal 
 facts also attest that the religious power of production is not extinct 
 in England. As for the East, the Arabs show that the list of i)ro- 
 phets is not closed, and the successes of the Wahhabites proved that 
 the advent of another Mahomet is not among the impossibilities. I 
 have often thought that a clever European acquainted with Arabic 
 and presenting a legend professing to have some connection Avith a 
 branch of the Prophet's family, and in addition to this preaching the 
 doctrines of fraternity and equality, so likely to be properly under- 
 stood by the Arabs, might with eight or ten thousand men conquer 
 the Mussulman East, and create a movement analogous to that of 
 Islamism. 
 
 45. Fichte in the work in which he shows at its best his admir- 
 able moral sense, has forcibly expressed this priestly mission of 
 science. (" Of the Destiny of the Savant and the Man of Letters," 4th 
 Lesson. See also his "Method to attain a happy life," 4th Lesson.) 
 
 46. This is so true that entire peoples have been without such a 
 religious system, for instance the Chinese who have never knoAvn 
 anything but a code of natural morality, without the slightest mythi- 
 cal belief. The worship of Fo or of Buddha is, as is well known, 
 utterly foreign to China. 
 
 47. How can one help regretting at the same time the deplorable 
 nullity to which the provinces seem condemned, for want of a great 
 literary movement and institutions ? When we come to consider 
 that every small town in the Italy of the sixteenth century had its 
 grand master painter and master musician, and that every town of 
 3000 inhabitants in Germany is a literary centre Avith a printing 
 press, devoted to works of science, a library and often a university ; 
 when Ave consider all this we feel grieved at the want of initiative of 
 a great country, reduced to the servile imitation of her capital. The 
 distinction between Parisian good taste and provincial bad taste is 
 the consequence of the same intellectual organization ; but it so 
 happens that this distinction is as m.ischicvous lo the capital as to the 
 provinces ; it invests the question of taste with an exaggerated im- 
 portance. All this is a proof of the somewhat mcianciioly proposi- 
 tion that art, science and literature do not flourish among us in con- 
 sequence of an innate and spontaneous need, as in ancient Greece, as 
 in fifteenth century Italy ; for Avith us, in the absence of stimiilalion 
 from without there is no production. 
 
 48. The Germans who have studied our system of public ctluca- 
 tiou maintain that there are only certain courses at the lyceums, such
 
 470 Notes. 
 
 as for instance those of philosophy, that remind them of German 
 University teaching. See L. Hahn, " Das Unterrichtswesen in Frank- 
 reich," Breslan, 1848. 2"^ Theil. 
 
 49. The following is the programme of a University Commemora- 
 tion at.Koenigsberg. " Conditi Prussiarum regni memoriam anni- 
 versariam die xviii Jan. jidcccxl in auditorio maximo celebrandaiii 
 indicunt, prorector, director, cancellarius et Senatus Academia' 
 AlbcrtineB. Inest dissertatio de nominum terticB declinationis vicis- 
 sitndine. ... G. B. Winer made np the programmes of a dozen 
 academical solemnities with a series of dissertations on the use of 
 verbs compounded with a preposition in the Neio Testament. 
 
 50. See the Transactions of the Annual Congresses of the Ger- 
 man philologists. Verhandlungen der Versammlungen Deutscher 
 Philologen und Schulmfenner. 
 
 51. Malebranche in his admirable but too severe chapter on Mon- 
 taigne, had already called him nn pedant a la cavaliere (a free and 
 easy pedant). Pascal, the Logicians of Port-Poyal and Malebranche 
 thoroughly appreciated this innocent pretension on the part of the 
 author of " the Essays." 
 
 52. This is so true, that the same sentiment can furnish poesy, 
 eloquence, philosophy, according to the manner in Avhich it is made 
 to vibrate, almost in the same way as the divers vibrations of the 
 same fluid produce heat and light. 
 
 53. " Stobai-us, Apophth.,"' 8. ii. p. 44, Edit Gaisford. 
 
 54. Quintilian was perfectly right when he said ; Grammatica 
 plus habet in recessu quam fronte promittit. 
 
 55. See the history of classical philology in antiquity (" Ge- 
 schichte der Klassissichen Philologie im Altherthum "), by M. 
 Graefenhan, Bonn, 1843-46. The following are the various sub- 
 jects he includes in it : 1° Grammar and its various branches ; 
 Rhetoric, Lexilogy (Etymology, Synonymy, Lexicography, Glosso- 
 graphy, Onomatology, Dialectography). — 2° Exegesis, allegorical, 
 verbal. Commentaries of the Rhetoricians, of the Grammarians, of 
 the Sophists, Scholia, Paraphrases, Translations, Imitations. — 3° 
 CiUTicrSM of Texts, literary criticism (authenticity, etc.) criticism, 
 aesthetics. — 4° Erudition, Theology, Mythology, Politics, Chro- 
 nology, Geography, Literature (Compilers, Abridgers, Bil)liography, 
 Biography, Literary History), History and Theory of the Fine Arts. 
 — M. Haase in the Jenn Journal smartly criticises the use of so vast 
 a syllabus. {Neuo Jenaische Literatur-Zeitung., Febr. 1845, N" 
 35-37). The school of Heyne and of Wolf understood by philology 
 the thorough knowledge of the antique world (Greek and Roman) 
 in all its aspects, so far as it is necessary to the perfect understand- 
 ing of these two literatures. 
 
 56. This is how antiquity understood it. Grammar was the ency- 
 clopedia not for positive science itself, but as a necessary means to 
 the understanding of authors. Everything was reduced to this 
 literary aim. The most complete eiuuucration of all that an antique 
 grammarian liad to know will be found in the elogium of Statins on 
 his father ("■ Sylv.")
 
 Notes. 471 
 
 57. An epigram of Crates of Mallos ; " The grammarian is the 
 mason, the critic is the architect." Wegener, " De aula AttaH(!a ; " 
 Collection of the fragments of Crates. 
 
 58. I am speaking only of the Scholastic Middle-Ages — from the 
 eleventh to the fifteenth centuries. The rhetoricians of the Carlo- 
 vingian period are truly the successors of the Roman grammarians 
 and are, if anything, too philological in the narrow and literal sense. 
 Roger Bacon in whom we find the first spark of the modern sj)irit 
 and who almost alone, during the space of ten centuries, understood 
 science as we understand it, already foresaw the benefits of philology. 
 He devoted the third part of the " Opus Majus" to demonstrating 
 the usefulness of the study of ancient languages (Greek, Aral)ic, 
 Hebrew) and propounds perfectly just views on this delicate subject. 
 Tlie study of languages is to him no longer a means of exercising 
 the trade of interpreter or translator, as it nearly always was in the 
 Middle-Ages ; it is an instrument of scientific and literary criticism. 
 
 59. We can say as much with regard to the knowledge of Greek 
 literature possessed by the Syrians, the Arabs and other Orientals, 
 (except perhaps the Armenians). It was crude in the extreme, 
 because it was not philological. 
 
 60. These are his words : " I have placed the prince of poets by 
 the side of Plato, the prince of philosophers ; and I am obliged to 
 content myself with looking at them, seeing that Sergius is absent 
 and that death has deprived me of Barlaam, my old master. Some- 
 times 1 console myself by casting a glance at that masterpiece, at 
 others I embrace it and exclaim with a sigh. " With what pleasure, 
 oh, great man, would I listen to thee, if death had not closed one of 
 my ears (Barlaam) and absence had not rendered the other useless 
 (Sergius) ! " (Epist. Var., xx. 0pp. pp. 998, 999). 
 
 61. To get a clear understanding of the character of ancient criti- 
 cism, see the excellent article of M. Egger on Aristarehus (Revue 
 des deux Mondes, 1 Feb. 1846). 
 
 62. Aristarehus Homeri versum negat quern non probat. One 
 could have wished that Porson, Bruuck, and a good many other 
 German critics had not chosen this strange means of becoming 
 Aristarchi. 
 
 63. It is thus that European students of Arabic literature are 
 quite justified in behoving that they understand the Koran better 
 than the Aral)S. It is thus again that the modern Hebrew scholai- 
 corrects several explanations of ancient texts given in Hebrew books 
 of more modern composition, such as for instance in the " Chronicles 
 (or Paraleipomena) and point out in the ancient books themselves 
 etymologies more than doubtful. None of our philologists pretend 
 to know Greek better than Plato, or Latin better than Varro, yet 
 not one among them scruples to correct the etymologies ot 1 lato 
 and Varro, . , , 
 
 64. The real "manuals " of antiquity are the compdations ot iIm- 
 fifth and sixth centuries, those of Marcianus Capella, of Isidore ot 
 Seville, of Boethius, etc. The deluge of elementary books is als.. 
 with us but a recent fact and decidedly not a sign of progress. In
 
 472 Notes. 
 
 a system of education pretending to any vitality the child has to per- 
 form for himself the labour spared to him by these artificial means — 
 a labour of immense advantage to his originality. The seventeenth 
 century acquired a better knowledge of Latin in the authors them- 
 selves, or even in Despauteres than we did in Lhomoud or than 
 others are likely to do in even better grammars. In this as in many 
 other things people have been beguiled by the sophism ; " Our 
 fathers did wonders with comparatively imperfect methods. What 
 will not our children do when everything is regulated and perfected." 
 In gymnastic exercises the perfection of the dumb-bell or Indian 
 club is of no importance. 
 
 65. Polybius devotes a book of his history to the most elementary 
 notions of geography and pauses to explain the four points of the 
 compass, etc., as curiosities of great interest. Strabo (" Geogr.," 
 Book VIII. init.) tells us that Ephorus and several others did the 
 same. Let us suppose for a moment M. Thiers beginning his " His- 
 tory of the Revolution " with a short course of cosmography. The 
 undergraduate of to-day smiles at the animated controversy of 
 Cicero against Tiro on the knotty question whether all the cities of 
 the Peloponnesus are seaports and whether there are any ports in 
 Arcadia. (" Letter to Atticus," Book iv. 2.) 
 
 66. The ancients never definitely departed from the narrow point 
 of view according to which aesthetics are supposed to supply the 
 rules of literary composition, as if every work ought to be judged 
 according to its conformity with a given type, and not by the amount 
 of positive beauty it presents. One single rule may be given for the 
 production of the beautiful ; " Elevate your soul, feel nobly and say 
 what you feel." The beauty of a Avork lies in the philosophy it 
 contains. 
 
 67. The reformers of the sixteenth century are philologists. In 
 the eighteenth century the work is accomplished under the banner 
 of the positive sciences. D'Alembert and the " Encyclopedie " are 
 characteristic of this new spirit. 
 
 68. What, then, would be the result if to scientific experiment 
 one could add practical experiment on life ? Saint-Simon as an 
 introduction to philosophy led the most active life possible, trying 
 all kind of conditions, all kind of enjoyments, all the ways of seeing 
 and feeling, nay, creating for himself fictitious relations that do not 
 exist or rarely present themselves in reality. There is no doubt 
 that the habit of life does teach as much as books, and constitutes 
 a culture to those who have no other. The only uncultivated man 
 (inhumanus) is he who has not been able to partake of either 
 practical or scientific culture. 
 
 69. To avoid a misunderstanding which would strangely distort 
 my real views, I must re])eat that in the whole of the foregoing I 
 have taken the word " philology " in the sense of the ancients, as 
 synonymous with polymathy ; <is c^tAoAoyos eo-rt Kal TroAnAoyos (Plato, 
 Legg. i.,64l, E). — " QiKc (piideni erant cf}L\uXoya et diyiiitatis mcce,'''' 
 says Cicero speaking of certain demands he. had addressed to Cleo- 
 patra. ("Ad Atticum," lib. xv., ep, xv.)
 
 Notes. 473 
 
 70. Thus (torn, v., pp. 47, 48) M. Comte prophesies a priori that 
 the comparative study of language will lead to the recognition ol' 
 their unity as a historical fact; "for," he says; "each kind of 
 animal has only one cry." As a matter of fact, the result has hecn 
 precisely the reverse. 
 
 71. The visions of the pseudo Daniel are in my opinion the most 
 ancient essay on the philosophy of history, aiid on that account 
 remain very interesting. 
 
 72. The trouble taken by M. JoufFroy to invest the word "philo- 
 sophy" with a special meaning arises from his not having paid 
 sufficient attention to the conventional sense attributed to the word 
 in France. (See his memoir on "The Organisation of the Philosophical 
 Sciences.") 
 
 73. "Cicero, Tuscul," v. 3, there attributed to Pythagoras. 
 
 74. M. Villemain, after having read tlie general part of his " Cours 
 sur les Mammiferes," Avrote to Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire ; "Natural 
 history thus understood is the foremost of all philosophies." One 
 might say the same of all the sciences, were they treated by Geoffroy 
 Saint-Hilaires. 
 
 75. This must be admitted even in the ideas of ancient theism, 
 since according to that conception of the system of things, God is 
 considered as no longer creating in time, but as having created 
 everything in the beginning. 
 
 76. The true psychology is the poem, the novel, the comedy. 
 There are a great many things that can only be expressed in that 
 way. What Ave call psychology, for instance that of the Scotch, is 
 only a ponderous and abstract way, without any corresponding 
 advantages, of expressing that which subtle intellects had felt long 
 before the theorists reduced it to formulas. 
 
 77. Says M. Michelet ; "Let us gather round, and listen to, tliis 
 young master of olden times. He has no need, in order to instruct 
 us, to go very deeply into what he says, but he is like a living eye- 
 witness ; he was there, he knows the whole story best." (" Du 
 Peuple," p. 212.) 
 
 78. M. Ozanam shows clearly enough, without any special plead- 
 ing, that Dante conceived the unity of humanity in a manner almost 
 as advanced as that of the moderns. Christianity in^ virtue of its 
 catholicity made a long stride in the direction of this idea. Never- 
 theless it is only towards the latter end of the eighteenth century 
 that it appears to us in distinct outline. Old French humanity was 
 a virtue or a moral quality but with a good many shades that exidaui 
 the transition. " I give it you in the name of humanity ; " says 
 Moliere's Don Juan. "I know no word written in the seventeenth 
 century which conveys a more advanced idea." 
 
 79. M. de Maistre pushes the paradox so far as to deny tlic very 
 existence of human nature and its unity. "I know Frcnrhmen, 
 Englishmen, Germans," he says ; " I do not know /«f«." N> e out- 
 siders are under the impression that the aim of nature is enlightened 
 man, be he French, English, or German. 
 
 80. The psychological analysis of the faculties as given by tlie
 
 474 Notes. 
 
 Indian philosophers is utterly different from our own. The names 
 of their faculties are untranslatable for us ; at times their faculties 
 comprise several of ours under a common name ; at others they 
 subdivide ours. I have heard M. Burnouf compare this divergence 
 to that of pieces cnt by a punch out of the same surface, or, better 
 still, out of two maps of the same region, drawn at diiferent periods, 
 and placed above one another. Place a map of Europe according 
 to the treaties of 1815 above a map of Europe in the sixth century ; 
 the rivers, the seas, the mountains will coincide, but not the ethno- 
 graphical and political divisions, though even there certain groups 
 remain unchanged. 
 
 81. "A Dissertation on the Theology of the Chinese, with a view 
 to the Elucidation of the most appropriate term for expressing the 
 Deity in the Chinese Language, by M. H. Medhurst, 1847, in 8°." 
 See also the report of M. Mohl, Asittic Journal, Aug. 1848, p. 160. 
 
 82. " Cours de Litterature Dramatique," vol. i. ch. xvii. 
 
 83. KaAo's in the Greek sense. 
 
 84. The defect of most of our elemental y grammars lies in their 
 substituting rules and processes for a rational history of the mechan- 
 ism of the language. This is especially disgusting in the case of 
 ancient languages, which, properly speaking, had no rules but a 
 living organization the actual consciousness of which still existed. 
 
 85. " When once one has found what is fitting and beautiful, one 
 ought never to change," says Fleury. There are still people who 
 regret that the world no longer writes in the style of Louis XlVth's 
 time, as if that style were suitable to our mode of thought. 
 
 86. The same progress has occurred in mathematics. The ancients 
 considered quantity in its actual being, the moderns take it in its 
 generation, in its infinitesimal element. It is the immense revolution 
 of the differential calculus. 
 
 87. India alone deserves in some respects serious consideration as 
 capable of furnishing positive documents to science. We have still 
 much to learn from Indian metaphysics. The most advanced pro- 
 positions of modern philosophy which here are within the ken of 
 only a very small minority, are there official doctrines. India ought 
 to have nearly as good a right as Greece to furnish themes for art. 
 I have not given up all hope that one day our painters will borrow 
 subjects from Indian mythology as they do from Greek mythology. 
 Narayana lying on his lotus bed, contemplating Brahma who slowly 
 emerges from his navel, Lachmi reposing under his eyes, would not 
 this attbrd a picture comparable to the most beautiful Greek con- 
 (;ei)tions ? Mathematicians will also find in the Indian theory a 
 number of highly original algorithms. 
 
 88. The modern East is a corpse. There has been no education 
 for tlie East. It is as little ripe to-day for liberal institutions as in 
 the first days of history. It has been the lot of Asia to have enjoyed 
 a charming and poetic childhood, and to perish before arriving at 
 manhood. It seems like a dream to think that Hebrew poesy the 
 Moallacat and the admirnble literature of India have sprung from a 
 soil, in our own day so dead, so utterly burnt up. The sight of a
 
 Notes. A7') 
 
 Levantine excites in me the most painful feelings when I reliec!! 
 that this pitiful personification of stupidity or cunning hails from 
 the country of Isaiah and of Antara, from tlie country of the 
 mourners for Thammuz, of the worshippers of Jeliovali, wIumc 
 Mosaism and Islamism first appeared, where Jesus preached ! 
 
 89. Hence the aversion to, or the suspicion of, the literatures of 
 the East, to profess which is considered good taste in France, an 
 aversion no doubt due to a certain extent to tlie Avorthless criticism 
 too often brought to bear upon these literatures, but still more to 
 our national habit of thought, which is too exclusively literary and 
 not sufficiently scientific. "Do what we will," says M. Saint-Heuve, 
 " we in France do not care to lose sight of the Hellenic horizon 
 without knowing the reason why." Be it so, but why this incural)I(' 
 distrust in presence of methods ofTering every guarantee ? Dugaid 
 Stewart in his "Philosophy of the Human Understanding" (1827) 
 is still under the impression that Sanskrit is a worthless jargon com- 
 pounded haphazard of Greek and Latin. 
 
 90. After all Voltaire only followed the track of the apologists. 
 The latter took the Bible in the light of an absolute work, irre- 
 spective of time and space ; Voltaire criticizes it as he would have 
 criticized a work of the eighteenth century, and from that point of 
 view he finds in it, as a matter of course, not a few absurdities. 
 
 91. Hence the pedantry of all classical pretension. We must 
 leave each century to create its own form and original expression. 
 Literature goes on devouring its forms in proportion to their be- 
 coming exhausted by the wear and tear to which it subjects them, 
 for literature is bound to be contemporary with the nation. M. 
 Guizot justly points out that the true literature of the fifth and 
 sixth centuries consists no longer of colourless essays by the belated 
 rhetoricians of the Roman schools, but of popular works embodying 
 the Christian legend. 
 
 92. "Lecture of M. Bnrnouf at the Meeting of the Five Acade- 
 mies," 2oth October, 1848. 
 
 93. The great progress of literary history in our days consists in 
 its having drawn attention to origins and declines. That Avhich 
 occupies us most was never so much as thought of by Laharpe. 
 
 94. " Verhandlungen der Versammlungen Deutscher Philologen 
 and Schulmanner," Bonn, 1841.— See also a lecture of M. Creuzer 
 on the same subject, at the Congress at Mannheim, 1839. 
 
 95. That which interests us most in ancient writings is the very 
 thing to which their contemporaries never gave a thought ; namely, 
 peculiar manners and customs, historical traits, linguistic facts, etc. 
 
 96. It is not unusual in Brittany to enclose the head of the dea. 
 in a box of wood shaped like a small chapel, with a heartshai.c 
 opening in front, and it is through this that the head is sujiposed 
 to look upon the outer world. Care is taken to dispose the hea.l 
 in such a fashion as only to show the eye from the outside. Imoui 
 time to time those rehcs are buried and the procession passes roun.l 
 the place of interment every Sunday. . 
 
 97. It is on this account that the man of the people is far u.orc
 
 476 Notes. 
 
 sensitive to patriotic glory than the more deeply thinking man, who 
 possesses a pronounced individuality of his own. The latter may 
 stand out from the masses by his personal qualities, by his talents, 
 his titles, his wealth. The man of the people, on the contrary, who 
 possesses none of these takes unto himself, as a patrimony, as it 
 were, the national glory and identifies himself with the masses who 
 have accomplished these great things. It is his own, his patent of 
 nobility, and herein lies the secret of this almost universal adoption 
 of Napoleon by the people. The glory of Napoleon is the glory of 
 those who can lay claim to no other. 
 
 98. And, again, those who know how most of these reviews are 
 Avritten are of opinion that in many cases, the monographer cannot 
 reckon on having a single reader. The great art of reviewing con- 
 sists no longer, as in the time of Freron, in judging of the tchole 
 
 from the preface. The modern reviewer merely takes the title as 
 a peg on which to hang any amount of rigmarole on the same 
 subject as the author. 
 
 99. The historians of the seventeenth century who professed to 
 write and flattered themselves that they were read, Mezerai, Velly, 
 Daniel, are nowadays completely shelved, while the works of Du 
 Cange, Baluze, Duchesse and the Benedictines who never professed 
 to do more than collect materials are still as fresh as on the day 
 they were published. 
 
 100. The perfection of the Parthenon consists above all in the 
 fact that the parts not intended to be seen are as carefully executed 
 as those intended to be seen. So in science. 
 
 101. Eugene Burnouf. "Comment on the Ya^na," pref. p. v. 
 See also in the Journal des Savants, Ap. 1848, some excellent 
 reflections by M. Biot on the respect due to anterior works. 
 
 102. We are compelled to say as much with regard to the know- 
 ledge of Greek literature of the Arabs of the Middle-Ages. 
 
 103. Herewith an example which will prove interesting to others 
 besides theologians. With reference to the celebrated passage ; 
 " Regnum meum non est de hoc mundoP NUNC AUTEM regnum 
 meutn non est hinc (John xviii. 36) several schools with widely 
 different intentions have insisted on the vvv 8e, and, translating it 
 by now have deduced different consequences from it. This inaccurate 
 remark would not have been so frequently repeated if it had been 
 known that this idiom vvv 8e is the litera,! translation of a Hebrew 
 locution (^ve-atta) which serves as an adversative conjunction con- 
 noting no idea of time. The same locution in Greek and Latin is em- 
 ployed to denote ; and, moreover, but. The passage, therefore, should 
 simply be translated ; " But my kingdom is not of this world." 
 Another of the most important and liveliest discussions in the whole 
 of Biblical exegesis ("Isaiah," ch. liii.) turns entirely on the use of 
 a pronoun (lamo). 
 
 104. Translation of the Bha gavata-Purana by M. Burnouf, tom. 
 i. pref. pp. iv., clxii., clxiii. 
 
 105. M. Auguste Comte has paid great attention to this difficult 
 problem and proposes as a remedy for the dispersion caused by
 
 Notes. ^>j*j 
 
 specialities the creation of an additional speciality, namely that of 
 savants who without being specialists in any particular department, 
 should occupy themselves with the generalities of all the sciences! 
 ("Cours de Philosophic Positive," torn, i., 1st Lesson, pp. 30,81^ 
 etc.) 
 
 106. By the way, I can see only one means of saving this precious 
 collection and keeping it available for use, that is, to close it to all 
 further publications and to declare that no book posterior, sav, to 
 1850 shall be admitted. A separate library should be establi'shed 
 for more recent publications. There is evidently a limit beyond 
 which the wealth of a library becomes an obstacle to research, when 
 its abundance becomes truly poverty on account of the impossibility 
 of finding one's Avay about it. This limit, I believe has already been 
 reached. 
 
 107. The burdens imposed on the taxpayer to this intellectual 
 end are in reality a service rendered to him. He profits by the 
 outlay of his money in a way for which he was not sufficiently 
 enlightened to wish dehberately. The state affords the taxpayer, 
 often an inveterate materialist, the opportunity — a rare one in his 
 life — of performing an idealistic work. The day he pays his taxes 
 is really the best in his life, for on that day he expiates his egotism 
 and sanctifies his property, often ill-gotten and as often ill-applied. 
 As a rule rates and taxes are the best applied part of the fortune of 
 the layman and sanctify the rest. It is analogous to libation among 
 the customs of antiquity — an art of high idealism, a touching offer- 
 ing to the invisible, the useless, the unknown, which transforms a 
 vulgar into an ideal act. Taxes, almost wholly applied to civilizing 
 purposes, legitimize, as it were, by their supra-sensible significance 
 the wealth of the farmer and the tradesman ; at any rate they are 
 the best employed part of it. Wealth, under such conditions, from 
 being profane, becomes to a certain extent sacred. In our days taxes 
 are the equivalent of the part devoted under the old system by each 
 man to the Church and to pious works, " for the sake of his soul." 
 For the sake of the taxpayer himself we ought to make this part as 
 large as possible, without, however, giving the taxpayer the true 
 reason which he would never understand. 
 
 108. It must be admitted that in that case they would not have 
 existed at all. The thinker never lives by the produce of his thought. 
 Copernicus did not live by his discoveries, he lived by his strict 
 attendance in the choir at Thorn, where he was a canon. The 
 Benedictines of the seventeenth century lived upon ancient founda- 
 tions designed solely for monastic practices. In our days the thinker 
 and the savant live by their teaching, a social employment which 
 has scarcely anything in common with science. 
 
 109. The typical sample of that science of the grand seigneur 
 who flourishes a horsewhip is M. de Maistre. One could make a 
 collection of the blunders he perpetrates with the infallibility of a 
 perfect gentleman. Oratio he tells us, comes from os and ratio (the 
 reasoning from the lips, which he fancies is admirably profound), 
 ccBcutire, ccecus ut ire ; sortir, sehorstir ; maison is a Celtic word ;
 
 478 Notes. 
 
 sopha comes from the Hebrew, from the root snphnn^ which, he says, 
 means to elevate, whence comes the word sofetlm, judge, the educa- 
 tors of the peoples (another profound meauiui):) ! Unfortunately the 
 root saphan is unknown to any student of Hebrew, and the root 
 schafat, whence is derived the word " judges " does in no way 
 mean to elevate or to educate. What matters ? It is thus that 
 genius coruscates. 
 
 110. See a magnificent page at the end of Laplace, " Systeme du 
 Monde ; " 1st Edition. 
 
 111. See in the work of an English missionary, Robert MofFat 
 (" Twenty -three Years in South Africa," pp. 84, 157, 158), some 
 curious instances of mytli improvised on the spot. " I saw one day 
 a child who after thinking for some time all at once seriously main- 
 tained, and with strange persistency that a few days before it had seen 
 a human head in the sun. Now, it was very patent that this idea 
 had just sprung up in his mind, in combination perhaps with some 
 reminiscence of a passage in an almanac." This is the process that 
 presides at the formation of the most ancient myths ; the dream 
 affirmed. 
 
 112. Where is life more simple than in the animal ? Malebranche, 
 one day kicks a bitch who is about to litter. Fontenelle is shocked. 
 "What ddes it matter?" replies the hard Cartesian, "do not you 
 know she does not feel it ? " Father Poirson thus proves that 
 animals have no soul ; suffering is the penalty of sin ; now, animals 
 have not sinned, ergo, they cannot suffer ; ergo, they are mere 
 machines. Father Bougeant traverses the proposition by supposing 
 that animals are demons, consequently, that they have sinned. 
 
 113. No one has demonstrated these laws better than M. Fauriel. 
 See the analysis of his course of lectures in 1836 by M. Egger in a 
 series of articles in the Journal de F Instruction Puhlique of that 
 year, and the excellent notice by M. Ozanam of his illustrious 
 predecessor (^Correspondant 10 May 1845). 
 
 114. " Antar " though it has become the centre of a very 
 characteristic cycle, is not an epic. Everything in it is individual 
 and though the national pride of Arabia is its primary texture, no 
 national cause is sufficiently brought into play to justify us in rank- 
 ing this beautiful composition in any higher category than that of 
 the novel. 
 
 115. As a set-off, the Semites with remarkable facility have con- 
 ceived in God other relations, such as i)aternal, filial, distinctions of 
 power, of attributes ("Cabbala," etc.). 
 
 1 16. The efforts that have been made to trace back the laws which 
 determine the succession of the Greek systems to Indian philosophy, 
 are almost chimerical. It cannot be maintained that the law of the 
 development of the Semitic languages is from synthesis to analysis, 
 as is the case in the Indo-Germanic languages. In the same way 
 modern Armenian appears to have much more syntax and synthetic 
 construction than ancient Armenian in which the dissection of 
 thought is pushed to a much more extended limit. Nor can we say 
 that modern Chinese is more analytic than ancient Chinese, seeing
 
 Notes. 479 
 
 that on the contrary, the inflections in tlie latter are richer, aii.l t la- 
 expression of relations more exact. On these diflereiit sides ihu 
 laws are analogous but not the same, albeit tiiey are always perfectly 
 rational, because of the individual element of each race which 
 modifies the result. All formulas are partial because they are only 
 moulded on certain particular cases. 
 
 117. M. Auguste Comte, for instance, claims to have found tlie 
 definite law of the human understanding in the succession of three 
 conditions, theological, metctphy steal and scientific. This is, no doubt, 
 a formula containing a great part of the truth ; but how can we 
 credit it with explaining everything ? M. Comte commences by 
 saying that he only treats of Western Europe (" Philosophie Posi- 
 tive," tom. V. pp. 4, o). Everything beyond is a mere iuijier- 
 tinence not Avorth considering. And in Europe he only concerns 
 himself with the development of science. Poetry, religion, imagina- 
 tion, all these are ignored. 
 
 118. By taking the history of philosophy to mean the history of 
 the human intellect, and not the history of a certain number of 
 speculations. 
 
 119. Most of the popular judgments and proverbs are of this kind, 
 and express a true fact, complicated by a fictitious cause. The 
 simple statement of fact is one of the most diflicult things to the 
 people ; they always mix some apparent explanation with it. When 
 nursemaids aver that an angel ivatches over children, they express 
 a true fact, viz. ; that little children do not hurt themselves in the 
 least under circumstances in which grown up people would hurt 
 themselves severely, but not perceiving the cause of this, they con- 
 sider it more easy to ascribe the cause to a guardian angel. The 
 explanation of illnesses by attributing them to devils, Avhich is so 
 continually taken for granted in the Gospels has its own origin in 
 the same intellectual process. 
 
 120. Islamism only began to gather strength one or two centuries 
 after the death of the prophet, and since then it has always gone on 
 consolidating itself by the power of established dogma. It has been 
 proved that the immense majority of those who followed the hardy 
 Koreishite had not the slightest religious faith in him. After his 
 death it was seriously discussed whether they should not abandon 
 his religious work and only continue his political work. 
 
 121. This, of course, does not impair the originality of that divine 
 product. The learned Jews often try to prove that Jesus has stolen 
 the whole of his doctrine from Moses and the prophets, and that 
 what has been called Christian morality is in reality nothing l>nt 
 Jewish morality. This would be true if a religion consisted of a 
 given number of dogmatic propositions, and morality of sundry 
 aphorisms. Most of "those aphorisms being very simple and of all 
 ages, there are no new discoveries to be made as regards morality. 
 Originalitv in morals lies merely in an indefinable touch and in a 
 new way of feeling. In order to test this we have merely to place 
 side by side the Gospel and the collection of moral apophthegms ot 
 the rabbis contemporary with Jesus, the Pirke-Avoth, and to compare 
 the moral impression resulting from these two books.
 
 480 Notes. 
 
 122. See in Voltaire's " Dictionnaire Philosophique " the charm- 
 iiiji^ article " Gargantiia" iu which by arguments similar to those of 
 the apologists it is proved that the marvellous exploits recorded in 
 the history of Gargantua admit of no doubt. Rabelais bears witness 
 to them ; no historian has refuted them ; the sceptical Lamotte Le 
 Vayer was inspired with such respect for them, as not to have 
 breathed a single word concerning them. These prodigies were 
 performed in the sight of the whole Avorld. Rabelais, who testifies 
 to having seen them, was neither deceived nor a deceiver. If he 
 had departed from the truth, the newspapers would have soon 
 brought him to book. And, if that history were not true, who 
 would have dared to imagine it .'' The great proof of its being 
 worthy of belief is that it is incredible, etc. In fact, the defect of 
 the critical system of the supernaturalists is to judge all the periods 
 of the human understanding by the same test. 
 
 123. When the Arabs had adopted Aristotle as the grand master 
 of science they wove around him a miraculous legend as if he had 
 been a prophet. They pretended that he had been taken away from 
 heaven on a column of fire, etc. 
 
 124. It is strange that Europe should have adopted as the basis 
 of her spiritual life the books least adapted to her, the literature of 
 the Hebrews, the work of another race and emanating from a spirit 
 different from her own. As a matter of course she only accom- 
 modates herself to them by entirely misconceiving their meaning. 
 The Vedas would by far have a better claim to be the sacred book 
 of Europe than the Bible. They at least are truly the work of our 
 forefathers. 
 
 125. In the East an ancient book is always inspired, whatever 
 may be its contents. There is no other criterion with regard to the 
 canonicity of a book. As for primitive epochs, every book, from the 
 very fact of its being a written book, was sacred. For did it not 
 treat of things divine ? Was not its author a priest, in direct com- 
 munication with the gods ? The conception of the profane book, 
 the individual work, good, bad or indifferent, of this man or that, 
 belongs to a later period. 
 
 126. A few months ago, I heard a much-admired preacher in the 
 pulpit of Notre-Dame classify the religions in the following manner ; 
 " There are three religions : Christianity, Mahometanism, Paganism." 
 This is exactly as if someone were to classify the animal kingdom 
 b}'^ saying ; " There are three kind of animals : men, horses, and 
 plants." 
 
 127. I am not referring to China. That strange nation is perhaps 
 the least religious and the least supernaturalistic of all. Her sacred 
 books are nothing more than classics, much the same as " the 
 ancients " are to us, or at least as they were to our classical scholars. 
 l\\ this lies perhaps the secret of Ciiinese mediocrity. It is a beau- 
 tiful thing to dream, not like India, for ever, but to have dreamt 
 during one's childhood ; there remains a beautiful perfume of it 
 during our waking hours and a whole tradition of poesy on which to 
 fall back when age has chilled the imagination.
 
 Notes. 481 
 
 128 The religion of the Nomadic Semites is exceedingly simple 
 It IS the patriarchal worship of the only God, pure, chaste, without 
 creed or symbols, without mysteries, without orgies. All those 
 grand systems of Assyrian, Persian, Egyptian symbolism are not of 
 Seniitic origin, and disclose a different kind of spirit, much deeper 
 bolder, more inquhing. It is only in the sixth century before the 
 Christian era that ideas of this kind were introduced among the 
 Semites, There is a world-wide difference between the all-rulincr 
 and solitary God of Job, of Abraham, of the Arabs and those grand 
 pantheistic poems, disclosed to us by the Egyptian and Ass'^yrian 
 monuments. It appears, moreover, that the primitive worship of 
 Egypt came very near Semitic simplicity and that the polytheistic 
 symbolism was a foreign importation. 
 
 128a. The Arabs, to use the accepted phrase, have certainly 
 shown a philosophic and scientific development, but their science is 
 wholly borrowed from Greece. We should, moreover, point out that 
 Greco-Arab science by no means flourished in Arabia ; it flourished 
 in the non-Semitic countries under Islamite sway which adopted 
 Arabic as a learned language, in Persia, in the provinces of the 
 Oxus, in Morocco, in Spain. The Arabian peninsula has remained 
 almost free from Hellenism and has never understood aught but the 
 Koran and the ancient poems. 
 
 129. The real mythology of the moderns ought to be Christianity, 
 the monuments of which are still alive among us. But the age of 
 Louis Xiy th, which dogmatically took this mythology as a theology, 
 could not make a poetic machinery of it. Boileau is right. To 
 invest sacred truths ivith the semblance of fable, is a sin. I paid a 
 visit one day to M. Michelet, he led me round his drawing-room and 
 pointed out for my admiration the most beautiful Christian subjects 
 of the great masters, the Saint-Paul of Albert Diirer ; tlie Prophets 
 and Sibyls of Michael-Angelo, the " Disputa del Sacramento," etc., 
 and then he began to comment upon them. I am certain that 
 Racine, who was a believer, had Pagan images in his drawing-room. 
 If he had had Christian engravings he would have treated them as 
 devotional images. Syracuse did not consider it an act of bigotry 
 to stamp her medals with the beautiful head of Arethusa, nor Athens 
 with that of Minerva. Why then should there be an outcry about 
 encroachment if we were to put Saint Martin or Saint Remi on our 
 moneys ? Until people ceased to look upon Christianity as a 
 Theology, they were unable to begin looking upon it as a Poesy, 
 and I have often asked myself whether Chateaubriand aimal at any- 
 thing more than at a literary revolution. 
 
 130. The Mosaic prescriptions, for instance, on the abstention 
 from the flesh of certain animals killed in a certain fashion, respect- 
 able enough when looked at as a means of educating humanity, and 
 all of which had a highly moral and highly political justification 
 with an ancient tribe of the East, to what do they amount when 
 transferred to our modern States ? Merely to a good deal of incon- 
 venience which obliges people of a certain religion to have their 
 particular Ijutchers Avho are obliged to purvey cattle according to 
 
 2 1
 
 482 Notes. 
 
 certain rules ; simply a question of the slaughter-house and the 
 kitchen. 
 
 131. The Latin authors of the Decadence, the tragedies of Seneca, 
 for instance, often sound better when translated into French, than 
 the masterpieces of the grand epoch. 
 
 132. As a typical instance of this imbecile admiration consult the 
 Preface to the Translation of the Psalms by La Harpe. M. de 
 Maistre has very naively remarked, " To get a conception of the 
 beauties of the Yulgate, select a friend who has no knowledge of 
 Hebrew and you will find how a simple syllable, a simple word, and 
 an undefinahle lightness of touch imparted to the phrase, will cause 
 to spring forth under your very eyes beauties of the highest order," 
 (" Soirees de Saint-Petersbourg," 7th Conversation.) With such a 
 system, and especially with the aid of a friend who knows nothing 
 of Greek, I will undertake to find beauties of the highest order in 
 the most worthless translation of Homer or Pindar, independent of 
 those that are there. This reminds one of Madame Dacier going 
 into ecstasies about a certain passage of Homer, because it is 
 susceptible of five or six different interpretations, all equally 
 beautiful. 
 
 133. I will only point out one trait among many. We shall not 
 disparage the glory of the illustrious author of " Le Genie du 
 Christianisme " by refusing him the title of Hellenist. He admires 
 (" Genie du Christ.," Book v., ch. i. or ii.) the simplicity of Homer 
 in describing the grotto of Calypso by the simple epithet, " carpeted 
 with lilac." And now let us look at the passage ; Iv cnrecrcn y\a(f)v- 
 poicTL, XtXatofxivr) ttoctlv etvat (Od. i. 15). I believe. Heaven forgive 
 me, that he saw lilacs in XtXaiofjievr]. 
 
 134. Unless one has read the exegetical works of this great man 
 one can conceive no idea of his radical want of the critical faculty. 
 He is exactly on a par with Saint Augustin, his master. To quote 
 only one instance in point ; did not he write a book to justify the 
 policy of Louis XIV. by the Bible ? The annoyance shown by 
 Bossuet at the works of EUies Dupin, Richard Simon, Doctor Lan- 
 noy in which they sounded the first notes of higher criticism, and 
 the persecution he aroused against those intelligent pioneers are, 
 with the exception of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the 
 most deplorable episode in the history of the Galilean church in the 
 seventeenth century. 
 
 135. Says M. Michelet ; " The simple-minded are fond of con- 
 necting and linking ; they rarely divide and analyse. Not only is 
 all kind of division repugnant to their mind, but it pains them, they 
 look upon it as a dismemberment. They do not like to divide life 
 and to them everything seems endowed with life. Not only do they 
 not divide, but the moment they find a divided or partial thing, they 
 either neglect it or else join it mentally to the whole from which it 
 is divided. In this lies their existence as the simple of the earth" 
 See the whole of this admirable passage (" Du Peuple," pp. 242, 243). 
 One consequence of this simple mode of taking life is the perception 
 of the phi/siognomy of things, which is never vouchsafed to the
 
 Notes. 483 
 
 learned analysts, who only see the inanimate element. Most of the 
 categories of ancient science which the moderns have excluded cor- 
 responded to outward characteristics of nature which are no longer 
 considered, though indeed they contain their share of the truth. 
 
 136. Poetry itself shows an analogous onward movement. In 
 primitive poesy, all the styles were confounded ; the lyrical, elegiac, 
 didactic, epic elements co-existed in it in a confused harmony. Then 
 came the epoch of distinguishing styles, during which objections 
 would have been raised to the introduction of lyricism into the drama, 
 or of the elegy into the epic. This was succeeded by the higher 
 form in the grand j^oesy of Goethe, of Byron, of Lamartine, admit- 
 ting the simultaneous introduction of all the styles. " Faust," " Don 
 Juan," " Jocelyn " do not fall into any particular literary category. 
 
 137. This turn, peculiar to the German genius, explains the 
 strange progress of ideas in that country for something like the last 
 quarter of a century and how after the lofty and ideal speculations 
 of the grand school, Germany is now enacting her eighteenth century 
 after the French manner ; hard, bitter, negative, scoffing, swayed by 
 the instinct of the finite. For Germany, Voltaire comes after 
 Herder, Kant, Fichte, Hegel. The writings of the young school are 
 definite, destructive, realistic, materialistic. They boldly deny " the 
 beyond'''' {das Jenseits), that is, the supra-sensible, the religions 
 under all its forms, they declare that it is fooling mankind to make 
 him live in that fantastic world. Such is the sequel of the most 
 idealistic literary movement presented by the history of the human 
 intellect, a sequel not arrived at by logical deduction or as a neces- 
 sary consequence, but by a deliberate contradiction, and in virtue of 
 this foregone conclusion ; the great school has been ideahstic, we are 
 going to produce a reaction towards the realistic. 
 
 138. Languages present an analogous development. Let us take 
 a group of languages, comprising several dialects, such as for 
 instance, the Semitic group. Certain hnguists suppose that, at the 
 origin, there was only one Semitic language, from which all the 
 dialects are derived by alteration ; others suppose all the dialects 
 equally primitive. The truth is, it seems, that at the origin the 
 various characteristics, which, by forming themselves into groups, 
 became the Syriac, the Hebrew, etc., existed syncretically, though 
 without, as yet, constituting independent dialects. For instance ; 
 1° Confused and simultaneous existence of the dialectal varieties ; 
 2° Isolated existence of the dialects ; 3° Fusion of the dialects into 
 a more extensive unity. 
 
 139. The divine Spherus of Empedocles, in which everything 
 exists at first in the syncretic condition under the domination of the 
 </)tAia, previous to passing under that of Discord, vcZkos (analysis) 
 presents a beautiful picture of this grand law of divine evolution. 
 
 UO. "LePeuple,"p. 251. , n^ n i 
 
 141. The most curious instance of this is M. de lalleyiana 
 
 becoming converted at the close of his life. He had been sharp 
 
 enough to outwit all the diplomatists of Europe, and bold enougb to 
 
 celebrate the mass of liberty and to constitute himself a schismatic ;
 
 484 Notes. 
 
 but when it came to a theoretical question, he becomes weak-minded 
 and credulous, seeing nothing strange in Nebuchadnezzar being 
 changed into an animal, Balaam's ass conversing with his master, or 
 the diplomatists of the Council of Trent receiving the aid of the 
 Holy Ghost. Talleyrand, it will be said, did not admit all this. 
 No ; but he would have had to admit it, if he had been consistent 
 with himself. 
 
 142. Fichte, who (in France, I of course mean) would have been 
 set down as impious, always had family prayer in the evening ; 
 after which a few verses of a hymn were sung to the accompaniment 
 of the piano. The philosopher then delivered a short homily to his 
 family upon some few pages of the Gospel of St. «Tohn, adding, as 
 the opportunity suggested itself, some words of consolation or pious 
 exhortation. 
 
 143. Can a rag-picker, as he passes in front of the Tuileries, 
 exclaim : " This is my work ? " Can we realize the sentiment of 
 the artisans and the land tillers of Attica in presence of these 
 monuments which belonged to them, which they appreciated, and 
 which were in reality the expression of their thought ? 
 
 144. One of the benefits of the Empire was that it gave the 
 people heroic souvenirs and a name easy to understand and to 
 idolize. Napoleon, so frankly adopted by the popular imagination, 
 providing it, as he did, with a grand subject for national enthusiasm, 
 will have powerfully contributed to the intellectual elevation of the 
 ignorant classes, and has become for them what Homer was for 
 Greece : the initiator of great deeds, causing the pulse to vibrate and 
 the eye to sparkle. 
 
 145. It is needless to say that this excuse, if it be one, never 
 applies to the silly plagiarists, who imitate in cold blood the furies of 
 another age. I am glad to say once for all that those who credit 
 me with sympathies for any political party, especially with that 
 one, would quite misinterpret my ideas. I am for France and the 
 right ; for them and for nothing else. 
 
 146. How can a member of the Academy of Moral and Political 
 Sciences have come to Avrite, now in the middle of the nineteenth 
 century, such axioms as these : " Society is not human kind ; it is 
 only their union. Men live for themselves and not for this chimera, 
 this vain abstraction styled humanity. The destiny of a free 
 state could not possibly be subordinated to any other destiny." (See 
 V Homme ct la Sociefe, pp. 53, 81. And yet iifty years after Herder 
 had written : " Man could not, even if he so willed it, live for himself 
 alone. The beneficent influence of man upon his fellow man is 
 the aim of all human society. In addition to the individual fund, 
 which each one brings into play, there is the mass of capital, which, 
 ever accumulating, forms the common fund of the species, etc." See 
 Ueber den Charakter der Menscheit.) The bee's cell could not 
 exist without the hive, so the hive has a claim to make upon the bee. 
 
 147. What folly to take any interest in such degraded creatures, 
 says the master when speaking of the negroes, though it is he who 
 keeps them iu a state of degradation.
 
 Notes. 485 
 
 148. {Polit., book i. ch. ii. p. 8 and foil.). Aristotle goes so far as 
 to say that if beauty were a mark of individual worth, the least 
 handsome ought to be the slaves of those who are the handsomest. 
 
 149. If it were only for political or external reasons that such 
 important engines should be kept a close watch over. No doubt, 
 but there is another question. Let me add that it is somewhat 
 strange to find modern and unconcerned politicians giving salaries 
 to their mortal enemies, to those who have fought them to the death, 
 to those who embralce them only to stifle them or to get a profit 
 out of them. 
 
 150. The Inquisition is the logical consequence of the whole 
 orthodox system. The Church will be bound, when she has the 
 chance, to bring back the Inquisition, and if she does not, it is 
 because she cannot. For why is this kind of repression less neces- 
 sary to-day than it was in former times ? Is our opposition less 
 dangerous ? Assuredly not. The reason must, therefore, be that 
 the Church is weaker. We are tolerated because we cannot be 
 strangled. If the Church became once more what she was in the 
 Middle Ages, an absolute Sovereign, she would be bound to resume 
 her maxims of the Middle Ages, inasmuch as it is declared that 
 these maxims were good and beneficent. Power has always been 
 the measure of the Church's toleration. In reality, this is not a 
 reproach ; this is as it should be. It is a mistake to rate the orthodox 
 with regard to tolerance. Ask them to renounce orthodoxy, if you 
 like, but do not ask them, while remaining orthodox, to put up 
 with heterodoxy. With them, it is a question of life or death. 
 
 151. See Bossuet's admirable sermon upon the profession made 
 by Mile, de la Valliere and for the festival of Presentation. 
 
 152. The first impression which Christianity produced upon 
 barbarous peoples, subject to aristocratic and gross prejudices, was 
 one of repulsion for the spiritualistic and democratic part of its 
 precepts. In the Irish legends, Ossian, singing of wars, heroes, 
 grand hunts, etc., is often brought forward in comparison with St. 
 Patrick and his psalm-singing flock. Mihir-Nerseh, in a proclama- 
 tion addressed to the Armenians, in order to dissuade thera^ from 
 becoming Christians, asks them how they can put any faith in ill- 
 clad vagabonds, who prefer men of humble estate, to persons of 
 quality," and who are foolish enough to attach little importance to 
 wealth. 
 
 153. This change generally occurs in this wise. A day comes 
 when the retrograde party is obliged to pose as being persecuted 
 and to lay claim to the principles which it had fought against ; for 
 instance, the principles of the sovereignty of the people and of liberty. 
 Even those who had so strongly repudiated them when they were 
 contrary to them have found themselves brought by the force of 
 things to invoke them and to insist that the heresies which they 
 had dethroned should be carried to their extreme consequences. 
 The new ideas can only be vanquished by themselves, or rather it is 
 they which vanquish their opponents by compelling the latter to 
 have recourse to them in order to triumph. Children that you are, 
 
 2 I 3
 
 486 Notes. 
 
 do you not see that, when you think you are drawing the chariot 
 of humanity backward, that it is the chariot which is dragging you 
 along with it ? 
 
 154. Cadit et sic aperiuntur oculi ejus (Num. ch. xxiv. v. 4). 
 
 loo. How singular ! a month after the constitution has begun to 
 work, it stands in need of being interpreted. It is violated, says the 
 one side. — Not at all, says the other. Who is to decide ? M. de 
 Maistre is right ; to cut down disputes at the root, you must have 
 infallibility. The worst of the business is that infallibility does not 
 exist. Principles only apply to a certain extent. So Ave must give 
 up the idea of discovering the definite ulterior, and maintain well- 
 considered reason as the final authority. Yet it is so easy to find 
 repose in the infinite, to embrace with one's whole soul a narrow and 
 finite formula. The immensity of humanity excites awe ; the brain 
 reels before this deep abyss. 
 
 156. The result would be a very poetical situation and one as 
 yet unknown ; a system of slavery felt and endured with delicacy 
 and resignation. The slave of old was not poetical, because he was 
 not regarded as a moral being. The slave of ancient comedies is an 
 infamous and vile character ; he has only his baseness to console 
 him ; he is not susceptible to virtuous feelings. The slave as here 
 conceived would be the superior of his master, because he would 
 have a better perception of what is divine and would find in love an 
 escape from the hideous reality. 
 
 157. One is sometimes tempted to ask oneself whether humanity 
 was not emancipated too soon. Strong and intellectual consciences 
 like our own are with much more difficulty brought to set themselves 
 to a gi-eat work, being too much attached to their own will and to life. 
 How is humanity, with an individual liberty as highly developed as 
 ours, to conquer the desert places .'' Will it be said that humanity 
 has become incapable of subduing the whole universe because it has 
 been prematurely set free ? Any great enterprise of this kind 
 demands a first supply of men. Think of Avhat the English colonies 
 cost, those of the Presbyterians and Methodists in the United States, 
 for instance. Such sacrifices have become impossible now, for the 
 price of human life has gone up ; the world has got into the way of 
 counting the cost too closely. If a score or so of settlers fall ill 
 when a colony is founded, there is at once a great outcry. Yet one 
 must remember that the first generations of colonists have nearly 
 everywhere been scarificed. The Icaria of M. Cabel might have 
 succeeded two hundred years ago ; but in our day, and especially 
 with Frenchmen, it was an absurdity. The greatest things cannot 
 be done without sacrifice, and religion, which prompts sacrifice, no 
 longer exists. I sometimes delude myself with the hope that 
 machinery and the progress of applied science will one day com- 
 pensate for what humanity has lost in the way of aptitude for 
 sacrifice by the progress of reflection. Man is always ready to run 
 a risk, but he is less ready to face certain death. 
 
 158. Let me assume, for instance, that chemistry were now to 
 discover a means for rendering the acquisition of good food so easy
 
 Notes. 487 
 
 that one would only have to stretch out the hand to take it ; it is 
 certain that three-fourths of the human race would give itself over 
 to idleness, that is to barbarism. One might then use the whin to 
 compel them to build great social monuments, pyramids, etc. ; tyranny 
 would be legitimate to secm-e the triumph of the mind. 
 
 lo9. We are indignant at the way in which man is treated in tlio 
 East and in barbarian States, and at the small value set on human 
 life. This is not so revolting when it is remembered that the 
 barbarian has but httle command over himself and possesses, as a 
 matter of fact, much less value than civilized man. The death of a 
 Frenchman is an event in the moral world ; that of a Cossack is 
 little more than a physiological fact ; a machine was in motion 
 which is in motion no longer. And as to the death of a savage, it is 
 scarcely of more importance in the march of events than when a 
 watch-spring breaks, and even this latter occurrence may have much 
 graver consequences, owing to the very fact that the watch in 
 question arrests the thought and excites the activity of civilized 
 men. The deplorable thing is that a portion of humanity should be 
 so degraded that it scarcely counts for more than the animals ; for 
 all men are called to have a moral value. 
 
 160. For instance ; it was essential for humanity that the Jewish 
 nation should exist, should be hard, indestructible, made of l)ronze 
 as it has been. By the second or third century, they had answered 
 their purpose ; humanity had no further need for the Jcavs. The 
 Jews nevertheless continue to exist like a dead branch, while, if the 
 matter is looked at rather more closely, it will be seen that this dead 
 branch has not been so useless as may be imagined. 
 
 161. The picturesque is not taken sufficiently into account in the 
 guidance of himianity. And yet this is of at least as much impor- 
 tance as happiness. I have heard of an engineer who, in the tracing 
 of roads, endeavoured to secure for those who travelled over them 
 pretty views, at the cost of convenience and of time. That is the 
 sort of man I should have liked. 
 
 162. I do not allow that it is an unanswerable proof of immortality 
 to say that it is a necessity for divine justice to repair, in another 
 world, the acts of injustice which the general order of the universe 
 entails in this. Our forefathers suffered and we inherit the fruits 
 of then- suffering. The future will gain by this. Who knows but 
 that it will one day be said : "In those times there must havebeen 
 faith, for humanity then laid the foundations, by its sufferings, of 
 the better state of things which we enjoy. But for that, our fatiiers 
 would not have had the courage to endure the heat of the day. 
 But now we have the key of the enigma, and God is justified by 
 the greater good of the species." So long as belief in immortality 
 will have been necessary in order to render life endurable, so long it 
 will have been believed. 
 
 163. As a general rule, the barbarians were received with open 
 arms. The Bishops and all the most enlightened men such as 
 St. Augustine, Salvian, etc., opened their arms to them. Upon the 
 other hand, the last representatives of the old society, polite, corrupt
 
 488 Notes. 
 
 and effete, Sidoaius Apollinaris and Aurelius Victor, heap insults 
 upon them and cling to the abuses of the old Empu'e, without seeing 
 that it was inevitably condemned to perish. 
 
 16-4. Mendelssohn, already celebrated, already one of the first 
 critics in Germany, was still a warehouseman in a silk shop. 
 Lessing, who had come on purpose to see him, found him at the 
 counter, measuring out the silk. 
 
 165. The sordid or so-called low character of certain occupations 
 might also indicate them to persons devoted to literary labour ; for 
 this character Avould be likely to correspond either to a higher rate 
 of pay ; or, what amounts to the same thing, to fewer hours of 
 labour. Lowness of condition, according to worldly ideas, does not 
 exist for man, regarded from a moral point of view. 
 
 166. Gymnastics, for instance, are considered by many people as 
 a useful diversion for indoor work. But would it not be more useful 
 and pleasanter to follow for two or three hours the calling of 
 carpenter or gardener, than to tire oneself out with movements 
 which have no sort of aim ? 
 
 167. Aristotle, Polit., book i. ch. ii. 5. (See Translation by M. 
 Barthelemy St. Hilaire.) 
 
 168. I depict to myself the mind as a tree the branches of which 
 are studded with iron hooks. Study is, as it were, a cornucopia 
 pouring out from the top upon this tree objects of a thousand different 
 colours and shapes. The hooks do not catch all these objects 
 or hold them for an indefinite time. Such an object, after having 
 hung to one of the hooks for a certain time, drops, and then 
 comes the turn for another. So the mind, at its different epochs, is 
 as it were provided with a various assortment of things, and that, 
 added to the inward modifications of its being, causes the diversity 
 of its aspects. 
 
 169. I carry the respect of the individuality so far that I should 
 like to see women given a share in critical and scientific work, being 
 persuaded that they would open up new views of which we have no 
 idea. If we are better critics than the savants of the seventeenth 
 century, it is not that we know more than they did, but that we see 
 more clearly. Well, I am convinced that women would import into 
 this their individuality, and would reflect the object in fresh colours. 
 The socialists are quite mistaken as to the intellectual role of 
 woman ; they would like to make a man of her. But Avoman will 
 never be more than a poor sort of man. She must remain what she 
 is, but must be pre-eminently what she is. She is different from but 
 not inferior to man. A perfect woman is quite as good as a perfect 
 man. But she should be perfect in her own way, and not by 
 resembling man. She differs from him like positive from negative 
 electricity, that is to say as regards sense and direction, not as 
 regards essence. The negative is not inferior to the positive, but it 
 goes in the opposite direction ; any quantity may be considered either 
 as negative or positive at pleasure. The negative and the positive 
 combined form the complete. Everything seeks for its complement, 
 the positive naturally attracts the negative, the inner angle invites
 
 Notes. 489 
 
 the outward angle. Thus Ufe is divided ; all have the better part, 
 and there is room for love. 
 
 170. In his beautiful piece le Crepuscule. 
 
 171. "We shall have all that in Paradise" a clever answer made 
 by kind-hearted nuns, rather out of patience, to a scientific maniac, 
 who, having gone into a hospital, bored the worthy sisters who were 
 nursing him with his misplaced elucubrations. 
 
 172. Wherever you go in our towns and public promenades, you 
 will come upon barriers and notices, which are necessary, it is true, 
 for the preservation of order, but which make anything like free 
 action impossible. We all of us must have felt the humiliating antl 
 disagreeable effect which a prohibitive notice produces, even when 
 one knoAvs that it is general ; it is a limit fixed. When I walk 
 through the gardens at Versailles, with a hedge on each side 
 of me, I am never satisfied. I should hke to go in among the 
 shrubs, and that is forbidden. How monotonous our broad, straight 
 roads are ! I prefer by far the crooked roads of Brittany, with the 
 sheep feeding at the sides. What is more distasteful than a high 
 road, what can be more charming than a pathway ? 
 
 173. One of the most beautiful deaths conceivable is that of tlie 
 inquisitive man, indifferent to his end, and with his attention wholly 
 fixed upon the rising of the curtain which is about to take place, ami 
 upon the mighty problems about to be solved for him. 
 
 174. " When he thinks he has put forth something exaggerated," 
 says Goethe speaking of Albert, "something too general or doubtful, 
 he keeps on limiting, modifying, adding or retrenching until nothing 
 is left of his proposition." Many people will no doubt distort my 
 idea, because I have not adopted that plan. 
 
 175. Augustin Thierry, Dix Annees (T Etudes Historiques, 
 preface. 
 
 176. Study the characters of Polus and of KaUicles in Plato's 
 Gorgius. 
 
 177. See the curious conversation with Le Maistre de Sacy pre- 
 served by Fontaine. 
 
 178. Methode pour arriver a la vie bienheureuse, last lesson. 
 The whole of this lesson is an admirable one. Never did the pious 
 wrath of honest souls against scepticism find more eloquent expression. 
 
 179. One of the characteristic traits of the men about whom I am 
 speaking is to aflfect a profound contempt for ideal art, pure and 
 noble passion. They make mock at it, and are ready to say Avitii 
 Byron : " Oh ! Plato, you were only a pimp." They regard idealism 
 as a piece of stupidity, and declare that they much itrefer frank 
 epicureanism. 
 
 180. Or else the clever erudition of Barthelemy, which, thongli 
 of a more elevated order, is nevertheless not the grand philosopln<-al 
 and scientific method. 
 
 181. Acts of the Apostles, ch v., verses 38 and 39. 
 
 182. I once saw in a wood a swarm of nasty little insects, wiucii 
 had surrounded with their webs and were sucking its green shoots 
 with such a character of parasitism that one could not help tcehng
 
 490 Notes. 
 
 disgust. I was for a moment tempted to destroy them, but then I 
 said to myself : It is not their fault if they are ugly : it is one 
 way of life. It shows narrowness of mind to moralize nature and 
 impose one's judgments upon her. But now I see that I was wrong : 
 I ouo-ht to have killed them ; for the mission of man in nature is 
 to reform what is ugly and immoral. 
 
 183. The science which is the most devoid of an object, mathe- 
 matics, is the very one Avhich excites the most ardour, not so much by 
 its truth as by the play of faculties and the power of combination 
 which it implies. The pleasure which mathematics procure is of 
 the same kind as that of a game of chess. None is more despotic. 
 When Archimedes was absorbed in his demonstration table his slaves 
 had to tear him away from it to rub him over with oil, and even 
 then he would trace geometrical figures ujion the oily surface of his 
 body. 
 
 184. See Note 178. 
 
 185. " Some, seeing the place of the political government invaded 
 by incapable men, withdrew. And he who asked hoAV long it was 
 necessary to go on philosophizing, received this answer : ' Until 
 there are no more donkey-drivers to lead our armies.' " (Montaigne, 
 book i. ch. xxiv.) 
 
 186. The wars of the giants of the Revolution have made nobles 
 of us all. We are the sons of a race of heroes. Each of our fathers 
 was entitled to say of himself : " I am an ancestor." You are the 
 great grandchildren of crusaders ; I am the son of a soldier of the 
 ReA'olution, and am as good as you. 
 
 187. I assume that one of Plato's dialogues represents a conversa- 
 tion in Athens really held, very difierent from the similar com- 
 positions of Cicero, Lucian and so many others, who merely use the 
 dialogue as a factitious form for embodying their ideas, without 
 seeking to render any scene in real life. 
 
 188. The presence and the essential part played by woman in our 
 modern society is no doubt the cause of this. As nothing must be 
 said which would go above the heads of this part of the audience, 
 the circle of speech is somewhat limited. If the seven sages, at 
 their banquet, had been subjected to this condition, I doubt whether 
 their dissertation would have been as elevated as it was. 
 
 189. Nouveau Journal Asiatique, vol. i. p. 345. — Compare in the 
 Saint-Brandon poem the description of that marvellous island in 
 which the monks do not grow old and receive their bread from 
 heaven, in which the lamps light of themselves ; a life of silence, of 
 liberty, of calm, the ideal of the monastic life amid the water-floods. 
 
 190. Chateaubriand was altogether wrong in looking for poetry 
 in the present state of Christianity. His achievement was the 
 revealing to criticism of a view of beauty Avhich had been unnoticed 
 in the Christian dogma and worship ; but he ought to have confined 
 himself to tlie past and not have sought for poetry in the common- 
 places of Jesuitism. Christianity has lost its poesy since the six- 
 teenth century, and this has put him quite out of tune. Admirable 
 as he is when touching the high religious string, he lapses into
 
 Notes. 491 
 
 the trivialities of the preacher and the apologist when he enters into 
 what I may call vestry details. In this respect Madame de Stael is 
 far superior to him. 
 
 191. I would without hesitation have taken Malehranche's formula 
 Dieu est le lien dcs esprits comme Pespncc est le lien des corps if it 
 were not conceived from the substantial point of view, this giving ii 
 a somewhat coarse and inaccurate meaning. God, the sjtirit, the 
 body, are, in the sense he attaches to them, too objective words. 
 
 192. It is said, for instance, that God is a spirit, that lie has all 
 the attributes oP a spirit. As spirit merely signifies everything which 
 is not body, this reasoning is equivalent to saying that there aw 
 two classes of animals ; those which arc horses and those which are 
 not horses. The bird is a " not-horse." The fish is a not-horse. 
 Therefore the bird and the fish are of the same species, and what is 
 said of the one will also apply to the other. 
 
 193. Cloristianity only received its full development in the hands 
 of the Greeks ; so that it did not, in its definite form, gain the 
 sympathy of oriental peoples. If, upon the contrary, it had remained 
 what it was for the early Judfeo-Christians, for St. James let us 
 say, it would have conquered the East and there Avould have been 
 no Islam. But then, again, it would never have acquired any 
 influence in Europe. 
 
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