Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 3. The Reaction in France

by Georg Brandes

Lamennais, who like De Maistre arrives at the conclusion that there are two infallible authorities, the authority of the state and the authority of the church, goes, as being a generation younger than his master, a stage farther on the road they both tread. When it proves to be impossible in the long run to uphold the two authorities, each in its own domain, he does not hesitate to decide which of them, in case of a collision, must give way to the other. He draws his final inference thus; "Spiritual authority corresponds to the inalterable law of justice and truth, temporal authority to the force which compels rebellious wills to submit to this law. Force is necessarily subordinate to the law, the state to the church. Otherwise we should have to acknowledge two independent powers—the one the preserver of justice and truth, the other blind, and therefore by its nature destructive of justice and truth."[3] A haughty conclusion this, and most characteristic of the beginning of the nineteenth century!

It proves what power Lamennais desired the Catholic Church to possess. We have still to note the last vault, by which it is proved that the Catholic Church is the authority of which so much has been written. Lamennais writes: "In the choice of a religion, then, the question reduces itself to this—Is there anywhere to be found such an authority as that which we have described, or, in other words, is there a spiritual and visible society which declares (!!) that it possesses this authority? We say a visible society, for every witness is external (remember that the witness of the inward voice is rejected), and we affirm that such witness would afford conclusive proof of the authority spoken of, because it would be the expression of the most universal reason."

"If such a society did not exist, the only true religion would be the traditional religion of the human race, i.e. the sum of the dogmas and precepts which are hallowed by their being traditional in every nation, and which were originally revealed by God."

"But if there is such a society, then its dogmas and precepts constitute the true religion." From this climax the rest of the argument follows of itself: "Since the death of Jesus Christ Christian society has incontestably been in possession of the highest authority. Of the various Christian communities the Catholic Church is clearly stamped as that possessing most authority. In it alone are to be found all the truths of which man stands in need; it alone provides him with perfect knowledge of the duties or laws of reason; in it alone he finds certainty, salvation, and life."

Now we have reached the desired haven. But it is not enough that we have reached it in a perfectly disabled condition—we suffer shipwreck within the harbour. For Lamennais frankly confesses at the end of his book that all religions rest upon authority, but that nevertheless the original traditions of all except one have been more or less corrupted by additions which must be regarded as errors. These errors have, however, also been validated by authority, exist only by its permission. What a confession! It destroys the virtue of his whole argument.

But of this Lamennais is quite unconscious. He approvingly quotes the following utterance of a Catholic writer: "The Catholic religion is a religion of authority, and therefore it alone is a religion of certainty and peace," and triumphantly recalls Rousseau's saying, that if any one could persuade him on Sunday that he was in duty bound to submit in matters of faith to the decision of another, he would on Monday become a Catholic, and that every thoughtful, truthful man placed in the same position would act in exactly the same manner. Lamennais claps his hands with delight at having produced such a proof of its being right for the individual to submit to authority in matters of faith. A pretty proof!

One of two things must be the case. The authority of the Catholic Church either does, or does not, rest upon the universal acknowledgment of its validity. If it does, then the authority of the church is universally acknowledged and needs no vindication, since no one denies it. If it does not, then, according to Lamennais' own theory, it is invalid, and no defence is of any avail.

But we cannot stop here. The doctrine that universal consent is the criterion of what is true, must itself prove its truth by being universally accepted. Can one imagine a more cruel instance of the irony of fate than that the doctrine in question should have been not only universally disputed but actually (in 1832) repudiated by the church itself? Lamennais was then suddenly left in the lurch, alone with the doctrine that it is the complete unanimity of all which proves truth. Can one imagine a more absurd contradiction? Yes, a more absurd is possible, namely, the very thing which presently happened—Lamennais, the obedient son of the church, bowing to its authority, himself renounced and abjured his doctrine that the authority of the church is the infallible seal of the truth.

But we do not need to look so far ahead as 1832 to see how the supporters of the principle of authority came into conflict with their own principle. Whatever men may support, their first requirement is liberty to speak. The divine thing about liberty is that even those who hate it need it and demand it. The Conservateur began by ardently vindicating the liberty of the press, but was soon exceedingly inconvenienced by it. One party could not well deny the other's right to a liberty which it had claimed for itself; it could not well do it—but it did it. And the very same thing happened in the matter of parliamentary government, or, as it was then called, the parliamentary prerogative. It was the journalists and orators of the Catholic and royalist school who, immediately after the restoration of the monarchy, overthrew the first ministry, a ministry chosen by the king. The Catholics desired to get the helm of the state into their own hands. Thus it was the school of the principle of authority which first sanctioned the very opposite principles—liberty of the press in the widest sense of the word and the power of the parliamentary majority. It undermined the ground upon which authority rested.

Following the career of the haughty, passionate priest, Lamennais, we can trace the process stage by stage. The constitution (la Charte), between which and the monarchy there was an inseparable connection, ensured liberty of religion, on paper at least. But this liberty of religion incensed Lamennais, who knew that one religion alone was the true one. The foolish phrase was then in vogue, that the right to freedom of conscience is the right to be free from conscience. Lamennais and his followers maintained that a man ought to obey his conscience; and this, in their opinion, their opponents did not do. But they forgot that there is a duty which comes before that of obeying one's conscience, namely, the duty of enlightening it. If it be immoral to act against one's conscience, it is not less immoral to manufacture a conscience with the aid of false and arbitrary principles.