Si mon cœur, fatigué du rêve qui l'obsède,
A la réalité revient pour s'assouvir,
Au fond des vains plaisirs que j'appelle à mon aide,
Je trouve un tel dégoût que je me sens mourir.
PART II.
SOCIETY.
We have just studied what life without God would be for the individual. Let us now direct our attention to those collections of human beings which form societies. We shall not speak here of the relations of civil with ecclesiastical authorities,—a complex question, the solution of which must vary with times, places, and circumstances. Let us only remark that the distinction between the temporal and spiritual order of things is one of the foundations of modern civilization. This distinction is based upon those great words which, eighteen hundred years ago, separated the domain of God from the domain of Cæsar. Religion considered as a function of civil life; dogma supported by the word of a monarch or the vote of a body politic; the formula of that dogma imposed forcibly by a government on the lips of the governed—these are débris of paganism which have been struggling for centuries against the restraints of Christian thought.[26] The religious convictions of individuals do not belong to the State; religious sentiments are not amenable to human tribunals; and it would be hard to say whether it is the spiritual or the temporal order of things which suffers most from the confusion of these distinct domains. Religion should have its own proper life, and its special representatives; civil life ought to be set free from all tyranny exercised in the name of dogma; but religion is not the less on that account, by the influence which it exerts over the consciences of men, the necessary bond and strength of human society.
"You would sooner build a city in the air," said Plutarch, "than cause a State to subsist without religion." Some have contested in modern times this opinion of ancient wisdom. The philosophy of the last century, as we have said already, wished to separate duty from the idea of God. It pretended to give as the only foundation for society a civil morality, the rules and sanction of which were to be found upon earth. The men of blood who for a short time governed France, gave once as the order of the day—Terror and all the virtues: this was a terrible application of this theory. Virtue rested on a decree of political power, and, for want of the judgment of God, the guillotine was the sanction of its precepts. Healthier views begin now to prevail in the schools of philosophy. One of the members of the Institut de France, M. Franck, has lately published a volume on the history of ancient civilization,[27] with the express intention of showing that the conception which a people has of God is the true root of its social organization. According to the worth of the religious idea is that of the civil constitution. Before M. Franck, twenty years ago, a man of the very highest distinction as a public lecturer, indicated this movement of modern thought. M. Edgard Quinet, in his Lyons course, taught that the religious idea is the very substance of civilization, and the generating principle of political constitutions. He announced "a history of civilization by the monuments of human thought," and added: "Religion above all is the pillar of fire which goes before the nations in their march across the ages; it shall serve us as a guide."[28] Benjamin Constant exhibits in the variation of his opinions the transition from the stand-point of the last century to that of the present. He had at first conceived of his work upon religion as a monument raised to atheism, he ends by seeking in religious sentiments the condition necessary to the existence of civilized societies.[29] Here is a real progress; and this progress brings us back to the thought above quoted from Plutarch. In fact, take away the idea of God, and the first consequence will be that you will sacrifice all the conquests of modern civilization; the next, that you will soon have rendered impossible the existence of any society whatever. I am going to ask your close attention to these two points successively.