"The solution cannot be comprehended by all," said M. Bertolot; "a preparation of mind is necessary ere we can solve the enigmas of history; and melancholy, indeed, are the facts presented. Look at the first events. Piety, which is another word for the endeavor to seek reunion with God, was renewed in the race of Seth, and, through them the pristine traditions were preserved. But soon these sons of God looked on the daughters of men and saw that they were fair, and again spirituality was overpowered, and the race lost itself in sensuality, and was destroyed by the flood. To the eight who survived, of course, the traditions were known, and Noah, priest, patriarch, king of the new race, lived three hundred and fitly years after the flood, to bear a long testimony to their truth. But the perversity of the human inclination was too strong. Man's choice had been to know good and evil; evil could only be known by separation from God, and it would seem as if he were fated to have his choice gratified; it was inevitable at any rate, if he must know evil. Accordingly we find that even one hundred and thirty-three years before the death of Shem, who had witnessed the deluge, and who lived five hundred years after it, in order to perpetuate the memory of it in the minds of men, it was necessary to set apart Abraham, by special provision, to keep intact the spiritual [{322}] meaning of the traditions of true religion. Already had the creature again taken the first place in human affection, to the neglect of the Creator. Already impersonations of human passion had arisen and mixed themselves with the traditions they received from their fathers. These traditions they hid under the false imagery that stole into their hearts; but perverted and debased though they may be, they form the basis of whatever truth may be discoverable under the garb of my theology, and the peopling the world with invisibly acting spirits is one of these notions which the heathens did not invent, but only perverted."
"I think I see what you mean," said Eugene; "but tell me if your philosophy has discovered why man himself is such an enigma, such a compound of loftiness and meanness, so grand in idea and so poor in execution? Why is truth so difficult, seeing that it is so necessary to him?"
"Man is a fallen being," mournfully responded the mentor. "The divine spark once inbreathed, though dimmed and clouded, still prompts to high hopes and high deeds; but severed from God, he can effect nothing to satisfy himself. That reunion is in fact the sole aim and object of existence. None other can satisfy the inward yearning. How that reunion is to be accomplished revelation comes to tell us, for human philosophy was at fault, and the first step I have already pointed out is prayer."
"There are many religions," said Eugene, "and how is the true one to be known?"
"Nay, that question is beyond philosophy, and philosophy was to be the subject of our interviews. I will assist you in distinguishing the functions of the mental faculties, but at the present stage of the inquiry I will not forestall your conclusions. We have already seen that the nature of man is compounded, and that his physical nature is the inferior portion of that compound, his moral and spiritual nature the highest. Intellect is the servant of one or the other, according as to which is accorded the predominance, and it is because that predominance is so often given to the inferior part of our being that we must be so surely on our guard against an undue bias; not but that even our spiritual and moral qualities need also to be watched, for pride and egotism corrupt even these. In fact, man's life here is the only that of an exile consequent his being born, severed from truth, his true end of being, but the consequences of that severing causes his life to be one struggle to replace his faculties in their pristine equilibrium, and to accord to each its fitting office. As for instance, when giving to the spiritual that precedence which is due to it we must beware lest we employ it to any other purpose than the worship of 'The True.' There is a spurious spirituality as well as a spurious morality."
"But why do you distinguish morality from spirituality? Will not one term comprehend both?"
"Scarcely, since morality means the relationship of man to man: spirituality, his relationship to God. The law of God may and does regulate man's morals in those persons who acknowledge that law; but were man to live without God, as is too often the case, he must have laws to regulate his intercourse with his kind; that is the spiritual man necessarily acknowledge the moral law, but the moral man does not necessarily acknowledge the spiritual law."
"And what, then, is the sanction of the moral law?" asked Eugene.
"Apart from the spiritual law, it must be regulated by reason," returned his friend.
"But," said Eugene, "reason differs in different minds; nat, in different localities. Turkey sanctions what England condemns, and ancient Sparta taught her children to practice what all Europe would now punish them for doing."