[INSINUATIONS]
Esthetic Morality.
Perhaps we ought to renounce such distinctions as beautiful and ugly, good and bad, good and evil, and so on, and consider in life's acts only the curve of movements. Thus morality and esthetics would blend. Already men of more than average culture consider the subject of a painting only to judge whether the painter has submitted to the same logic the subject of the picture itself, the composition that compasses it, the color that unites it to the vital milieu. A subject, in art, may be criticized only in relation to the purpose of the work and the manner in which it is treated. It might be the same with human acts, in which case they would be judged only according to their opportunity and their esthetic curves. One must act,—must be always stirring; life is a series of movements, the lines of which interlace. This forms a design. Is it harmonious? That is the whole question; that is all of morality.
Another Point of View.
In order to make a system of morality by separating what is good from what is evil we must have fixed principles, a definite belief,—and we live in an age of skepticism. Doubtless religion is not true, but neither is anti-religion true: truth dwells in a perfect indifference. Governments should restrict themselves to a truly scientific neutrality and consider all manifestations of intelligence or feeling legitimate, whatever their nature. The State should be but a visible providence, a sovereign police that would protect the exercise of all human activity, opposing only those deeds which could fetter the plenitude of all liberties, of every kind.
It is here that one must make a distinction, though it is hardly scientific, between the body and the mind, sensitive matter and the will. Without a doubt acts directed against bodily sensibility should be repressed; but the case is not the same with acts against the intellectual sensibility. Acts called immoral may be prohibited in such a measure as custom recommends; provocations to immoral acts should be permitted. The only crime is the crime of violence. It matters little that I am asked to do something by written or spoken word; the evil begins only when I am made to do so by force.
The Word "God."
Renan loved it, finding it convenient for the connotation of an entire order of ideas, none of which is easily limited verbally. It is undefinable; and moreover, if it were defined it would lose all its value. God is not all that exists; God is all that does not exist. Therein resides the power and the charm of that mysterious word. God is tradition, God is legend, God is folklore, God is a fairy-tale, God is a romance, God is a lie, God is a bell, God is a church window, God is religion, God is all that is absurd, useless, invisible, intangible, all that is nothingness and that symbolizes nothingness. God is the nihil in tenebris—(nothing in the darkness)—men have made of him light, life and love.