Scenes and Portraits

by Frederic Manning

"No ancient State, not even Athens, extended to its citizens the liberty which we enjoy," answered Renan. "The State intervened in the private affairs of the citizens; and Athens is notorious for having pursued the philosophers with accusations of impiety. The noble conservative families and the priesthood combined to stifle the new liberal thought. The State, however, was democratic; the people ruled, decided by their votes the policy of the State, and served on juries, or as judges. Socialism condemns democracy: it aspires to govern not by the will of the people, but according to its own interpretation of what it calls scientific principles; and it seems that in its application of these principles, it would be more bigoted and intolerant than the democratic State in Greece ever was."

"Nothing then is permanent, which crystallises into an hierarchy, or is limited by an institution," said Leo. "It seems to me that your gospel is purely destructive. The whole progress of modern science is marked by the ruins of ancient altars; you have freed mankind from all moral obligations in denying that he is a responsible agent, and in showing that he is merely a creature of inherited instincts; you have shown him that his life is no more than a ripple on the water, a sudden stir of wind in the leaves, a momentary light in the darkness; you have denied the God that his heart fashioned as a solace to his grief, a lamp to guide him; you have taught him to seek for the perishable glories of the earth. How will you make him a moral being again?"

Renan smiled.

"Our civilisation is not very deep, Monsieur," he said. "There is always a large inert mass of humanity untouched by the movement of thought. From them we may expect a new religion, a new morality. We have denied and disproved, as you say, so many things, that at last we shall come to the sole reality. We have rendered man's personality vague and mysterious, until it seems scarcely to exist except as a point of development; we must seek deeper for his reality. And in any case, Monsieur, you overrate the value of reason. In my charming walk through life I had sufficient experience to learn that man is not entirely a creature of reason. There are few people without a conscience. The fault of this age is not so much that it is scientific, as that it is mechanical and removed from the contemplation of Nature."

"I have sometimes thought," said Leo, "that the principal hope for religion lies in the fact that the lower classes do not think."

"It is true," said Renan; "religion is some hidden consciousness working toward unknown ends. Mankind is not entirely reasonable; it has a conscience. We can no more say that this conscience is an artificial product of society, than we can say that reason is an artificial product also. The curiosity which is so amusing a feature of the intelligence of cats and monkeys is an earlier stage of the scientific curiosity; and, on the other hand, animals have shown gratitude to their masters, and thus the rudiments of virtue. Man, in recognising his conscience, has developed the abstract virtues of justice, of pity, of unselfishness; it does not affect the main question that his choice between virtue and vice should not be entirely free, nor that the distinction between them should not be always clear. We do not reproach science because it has not yet shown us what course our sun and its train of planets are taking in their journey toward a star in Hercules, nor because it has been unable, by its study of the rapidity and direction of other solar systems, to give to them an approximate fixity in connection with ourselves, to draw what would really be a map of the heavens.

"Oh, Monsieur, man is a naturally moral being, just as he is a naturally curious and scientific being. To him both curiosity and morality are natural needs, and because they are needs they are truths. It is impossible to consider a world which does not act according to a law of virtue, just as it is impossible to consider a world which does not act in accordance with the law of gravitation, or, better still, as an example, a species which has not developed in accordance with the law of evolution; and just as the scientist finds behind all the fleeting appearances and phenomena of the world a basis in matter, so, behind all the phenomena and fleeting appearances of virtue we find a basis in God, And just as an individual is governed by his conscience in regulating his actions, so humanity as a whole regulates its actions by an appeal to some abstract idea of right. Such dramatic crises as the Revolution, and the establishment of the Roman Empire, seem equally the result of a certain slow consciousness working toward perfection; or take the growth of Christianity, which began obscurely and with a literally subterranean movement, is it not an instance of this blind working toward the light. One cannot outrage the collective conscience of mankind with impunity. A sudden outburst of popular resentment like the Revolution, which had been incubating for at least a century, cannot be considered as a mere caprice; can, indeed, only be considered as a revelation of justice. Such outbursts have a purely negative effect upon human progress; progress is the development of a new spirit, not the destruction of an old constitution."

"You offer no constructive policy, beyond the creation of a new spirit. Socialism, at least, pretends to one."

"Socialism is a reactionary force," answered Renan; "and all reactions are bound to be more constructive than a progressive force. Their natural tendency, as I have already said, is to crystallise in a definite form. The spirit of progress is, on the contrary, an intangible if all-pervading thing. It develops spontaneously in a thousand ways, and as it pushes towards the unknown it is impossible for us to predict with any certainty what forms it may assume. Being purely experience, and not a creed, it is liable to be extensively modified or even completely changed by some unforeseen development in any of its parts; a discovery in any branch of science may react upon all, as the progress of palæontology reacted upon history. That is the reason progress seems always to be a purely destructive force. It is only after it has escaped, through imperceptible degrees, into a more or less clearly defined new phase, that we can gauge its value as a constructive force in the last."

"I see with you, Monsieur, the value of democracy and individual liberty," said Leo. "Oh, I am reasonable. The character of a pope is to be found less in the official acts of his reign, than in the temper which he fosters in the Church. The nature of his office compels him to claim the privileges and exemptions which his predecessors claimed. He resigns nothing; but he allows some of his claims to remain in abeyance, refusing to deprive his successors of a power, which, either for reasons of expediency, or through personal dislike, he declines to exercise himself. I came to the chair of Peter under disadvantageous circumstances. The Papal States had been lost, and in exchange the doctrine of a vague empire over spiritual things had been proclaimed. Infallibility was no new thing; but the enunciation of it as an article of faith crystallised a power which would have been of more value, if it had been left indeterminate. I won back much that Pius had lost. I made no use of the instruments which he had forged; I discouraged, rather than condemned, the liberal movements within the Church; my policy was one of insinuation, and, by skilfully leaving certain positions undefended, I gained that they should not be assailed. Alas, Monsieur! you smile at this panegyric of myself; but I have left no one behind who would consider it an honourable office to praise me. The encyclical on biblical studies, and the biblical commission, were perhaps my two mistakes. The glorification of scholasticism was perhaps a mistake; but I rather think it diverted the attention of my flock. However these things may appear in the eyes of the world, my reign was wise, temperate, and resulted in a great increase of power. I recognised democracy and republican principles. I attempted to win the people. I was defeated by the extremists on mine own side."