[21] Now Dean of the Protestant Faculty of Theology in Paris.
Renouvier’s great enthusiasm for his periodical is the main feature of this period of his life, although, owing to his tremendous energy, it does not seem to have interfered with the publication of his more permanent works. The political and general policy of this journal may be summed up in a sentence from the last year’s issue,[[22]] where we find Renouvier remarking that it had been his aim throughout “to uphold strictly republican principles and to fight all that savoured of Caesar, or imperialism.” The declared foe of monarchy in politics, he was equally the declared foe of the Pope in the religious realm. His attitude was one of very marked hostility to the power of the Vatican, which he realised to be increasing within the Roman Church, and one of keen opposition to the general power of that Church and her clergy in France. Renouvier’s paper was quite definitely and aggressively anti-Catholic. He urged all Catholic readers of his paper who professed loyalty to the Republic to quit the Roman Church and to affiliate themselves to the Protestant body.
[22] La Critique philosophique, 1889, tome ii., p. 403.
It was with this precise object in view that, in 1878, he added to his Critique philosophique a supplement which he entitled La Critique religieuse, a quarterly intended purely for propaganda purposes. “Criticism,” he had said, “is in philosophy what Protestantism is in religion.”[[23]] As certitude is, according to Renouvier’s doctrines, the fruit of intelligence, heart and will, it can never be obtained by the coercion of authority or by obedience such as the Roman Church demands. He appealed to the testimony of history, as a witness to the conflict between authority and the individual conscience. Jesus, whom the Church adores, was himself a superb example of such revolt. History, however, shows us, says Renouvier, the gradual decay of authority in such matters. Thought, if it is really to be thought in its sincerity, must be free. This Renouvier realised, and in this freedom he saw the characteristic of the future development of religion, and shows himself, in this connection, in substantial agreement with Renan and Guyau.
[23] Ibid., 1873, pp. 145-146.
Renouvier’s interest in theology and religion, and in the theological implications of all philosophical thought, was not due merely to a purely speculative impulse, but to a very practical desire to initiate a rational restatement of religious conceptions, which he considered to be an urgent need of his time. He lamented the influence of the Roman Church over the minds of the youth of his country, and realised the vital importance of the controversy between Church and State regarding secular education. Renouvier was a keen supporter of the secular schools (écoles laïques). In 1879, when the educational controversy was at its height, he issued a little book on ethics for these institutions (Petit Traité de Morale pour les Ecoles laïques), which was republished in an enlarged form in 1882, when the secular party, ably led by Jules Ferry, triumphed in the establishment of compulsory, free, secular education. That great achievement, however, did not solve all the difficulties presented by the Church in its educational attitude, and even now the influence of clericalism is dreaded.
Renouvier realised all the dangers, but he was forced also to realise that his enthusiastic and energetic campaign against the power of the Church had failed to achieve what he had desired. He complained of receiving insufficient support from quarters where he might well have expected it. His failure is a fairly conclusive proof that Protestantism has no future in France: it is a stubborn survival, rather than a growing influence. With the decline in the power and appeal of the Roman Catholic Church will come the decline of religion of a dogmatic and organised kind. Renouvier probably had an influence in hastening the day of the official severance of Church and State, an event which he did not live long enough to see.[[24]]
[24] It occurred, however, only two years after his death.
Having become somewhat discouraged, Renouvier stopped the publication of his religious quarterly in 1885 and made the Critique philosophique a monthly instead of a weekly Journal. It ceased in 1889, but the following year Renouvier’s friend, Pillon, began a new periodical, which bore the same name as the one which had ceased with the outbreak of the war in 1870. This was L’Année philosophique, to which Renouvier contributed articles from time to time on religious topics.
Some writers are of the opinion that Renouvier’s attacks on the Roman Catholic Church and faith, so far from strengthening the Protestant party in France, tended rather to increase the hostility to the Christian religion generally or, indeed, to any religious view of the universe.