VII.
But it is time to pause. However incomplete may have been the development of the thesis I undertook to prove, I have said enough, I think, to make obvious the capital importance of philosophy, its necessity for the formation of the man and the Christian, of the influential citizen and the defender of the church. Hence I have a right to conclude that the far too narrow corner allotted by us to this study in the framework of a liberal education is a very great misfortune, and constitutes one of the gravest dangers of the actual state of things. A society which neglects to form the intellect of the new generation is evidently a society condemned to an inevitable decay.
Independently of this common peril, very capable it seems of awakening our solicitude, I have demonstrated that for the unfortunate youth launched into the midst of the mêlée of errors without having been prepared by a deep study of truth, there was a danger of disaster, from which he could only escape by miracle. On whom, I ask, falls the responsibility of this disaster, save on those who, with the power and obligation of giving this youth the preparation whose necessity has been pointed out to them, shall have neglected to acquit themselves of this duty?
It is not for me to say more. I know all the excuses that one may justly allege to throw off this terrible responsibility. The masters are hindered by the parents, the parents themselves are hindered by social necessities. The anti-rational spirit of this age of rationalism is like an impetuous wind which whirls away youth far from serious reflection, and which neutralizes the best directed teaching.
These excuses may quiet our consciences for the past, but they can in no wise lessen our fears for the future. The evil exists in all its gravity, and it is necessary at any cost to remedy it.
The first thing to do is clearly to use all our means of persuasion, in order to make parents and youth themselves comprehend the essential importance of philosophy. It is necessary to accustom them from the earliest period of life to regard this study as the indispensable completion of their education; the most solid guarantee for their future success, the act of emancipation of their manhood, the taking complete possession of their dignity as men, and the most powerful instrument which they are called upon to hold of influencing their fellows. If from the moment of entering upon this laborious career of education, we do not accustom them to consider the science of things as the reward most to be desired of all the labors they undertake in acquiring the science of words, we cannot expect that at the moment when custom authorizes them to reclaim their liberty, they will submit themselves willingly to bear two years longer the yoke of dependence.
Here we have the first thing necessary to do in order to ward off the immense danger with which the decline of philosophy threatens us.
But there is a remedy still more efficacious and still more necessary against this evil. If we wish philosophy to be esteemed and studied, let us render it worthy of the esteem we claim for it, and of the sacrifices at the cost of which it must be acquired. Let us lift it up from its fall; let us prove, not by a priori arguments, but by the very reality, that it is worthy of its name. Let it appear in our books and in our hearts no longer as we find it satirically represented in certain ancient pictures, as the combat between a lizard and a scorpion, but like that bee of which the church speaks to us in the beautiful Office of St. Cecilia, which, reserving for the enemies of truth its piercing sting, goes to place in the bottom of the chalice the most odorous essence of all the flowers to compose for it its honey, quasi apis argumentosa. Let us acknowledge, then, if philosophy is too neglected and so profoundly despised in our days, it is above all to those who have abused it that it ought to impute its disgrace. Christianity had made philosophy divine, as it made divine everything that it touched. It was a virgin as beautiful as she was pure whose earthly form was surrounded by a halo of heaven. Impure lovers of her human beauty have endeavored to force her to apostasy, in order to be able to make her the toy of their swollen pride. Alas! they have only been too successful. With its divine beauty its very human form has passed away, and nothing is left in their hands save a disfigured corpse. But God has made sciences curable as well as nations. He only waits for us to lift up philosophy from where she lies, and restore her to life and dignity.
Let us put an end to this senseless and fatal contest which during two centuries reason has waged against faith; let us cease from using against God the most noble gift with which he has endowed our nature; let us cease to oppose light to light, natural to supernatural truth; let us desist from converting the ray which illumines our soul into a veil to hide us from the sun, and taking the waters of the stream made turbid by our pride to trouble the source. Let us, in a word, understand the true conditions of the liberty and greatness of the creature: nothing of itself, it can rise even to the infinite, to the condition of union with it, and of leaning upon its strength.
Let reason understand this law which is so rational, and philosophy by that same law take back the glorious place which God marked out for it; it will remount the throne whence its revolt hurled it, and acquire anew the right of dictating to the other sciences the eternal principles and immutable laws on which the natural order depends.