At a distance of several years, however, the same great writer has reproduced the same thought, and in a more didactic form; which shows that it expressed his deliberate opinion. It is proper to combat it, not because it comes from Châteaubriand, but because it has got abroad, and so generally prevails.
“The material condition is ameliorated,” he says, “intellectual progress advances, and nations, in place of profiting, decay. Here is the explanation of the decay of society and the growth of the individual. Had the moral sense been developed in proportion to the development of intelligence, there would have been a counter weight, and the human race would have grown greater without danger. But it is just the contrary which happens. The perception of good and evil is obscured in proportion as intelligence is enlightened; conscience becomes narrowed in proportion as ideas are enlarged.”—Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe, vol. xi. [p513]
XXV.
RELATIONS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY WITH MORALS, WITH POLITICS, WITH LEGISLATION.[116]
WITH RELIGION.
A phenomenon is always found placed between two other phenomena, one of which is its efficient, and the other its final cause; [p514] and science has not done with that phenomenon as long as either of these relations remains undeveloped.
The human mind generally begins, I think, with the discovery of final causes, because they are more immediately interesting to us. No species of knowledge, besides, leads us with more force towards religious ideas, or is more fitted to make us feel in all the fibres of our heart a lively sense of gratitude for the inexhaustible goodness of God.
Habit, it is true, has so familiarized us with a great number of these providential intentions, that we enjoy them without thought. We see, and we hear, without thinking of the ingenious mechanism of the eye and of the ear. The sun, the dew, the rain, lavish upon us their useful effects, or their gentle sensations, without awakening our surprise or our gratitude. This is solely owing to the continued action upon us of these admirable phenomena. For let a final cause, although comparatively insignificant, come to be disclosed to us for the first time, let the botanist explain to us why this plant affects such or such a form, or why that other is clothed in such or such a colour, we immediately feel in our heart the unspeakable enchantment with which new proofs of the power, the goodness, and the wisdom of God never fail to penetrate us.
The region of final intentions, then, is for man’s imagination as an atmosphere impregnated with religious ideas.
But after we have perceived, or had a glimpse of the phenomenon in this aspect, we have still to study it in another relation, that is to say, to seek for its efficient cause. [p515]