Let us pause on the threshold of politics, properly so called. Nothing in them but these principles is fixed and invariable; all else is relative. The constitutions of states have something absolute by their relation to the inviolable rights which they ought to guarantee; but they also have a relative side by the variable forms with which they are clothed, according to times, places, manners, history. The supreme rule of which philosophy reminds politics, is that politics ought, in consulting all circumstances, to seek always those social forms and institutions that best realize those eternal principles. Yes, they are eternal; because they are drawn from no arbitrary hypothesis, because they rest on the immutable nature of man, on the all-powerful instincts of the heart, on the indestructible notion of justice, and the sublime idea of charity, on the consciousness of person, liberty, and equality, on duty and right, on merit and demerit. Such are the foundations of all true society, worthy of the beautiful name of human society, that is to say, formed of free and rational beings; and such are the maxims that ought to direct every government worthy of its mission, which knows that it is not dealing with beasts but with men, which respects them and loves them.
Thank God, French society has always marched by the light of this immortal idea, and the dynasty that has been at its head for some centuries has always guided it in these generous ways. It was Louis le Gros, who, in the Middle Age, emancipated the communes; it was Philippe le Bel who instituted parliaments—an independent and gratuitous justice; it was Henri IV. who began religious liberty; it was Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. who, while they undertook to give to France her natural frontiers, and almost succeeded in it, labored to unite more and more all parts of the nation, to put a regular administration in the place of feudal anarchy, and to reduce the great vassals to a simple aristocracy, from day to day deprived of every privilege but that of serving the common country in the first rank. It was a king of France who, comprehending the new wants, and associating himself with the progress of the times, attempted to substitute for that very real, but confused and formless representative government, that was called the assemblies of the nobility, the clergy, and the tiers état, the true representative government that is proper for great civilized nations,—a glorious and unfortunate attempt that, if royalty had then been served by a Richelieu, a Mazarin, or a Colbert, might have terminated in a necessary reform, that, through the fault of every one, ended in a revolution full of excess, violence, and crime, redeemed and covered by an incomparable courage, a sincere patriotism, and the most brilliant triumphs. Finally, it was the brother of Louis XVI. who, enlightened and not discouraged by the misfortunes of his family, spontaneously gave to France that liberal and wise constitution of which our fathers had dreamed, about which Montesquieu had written, which, loyally adhered to, and necessarily developed, is admirably fitted for the present time, and sufficient for a long future. We are fortunate in finding in the Charter the principles that we have just explained, that contain our views and our hopes for France and humanity.[244]
LECTURE XVI.
GOD THE PRINCIPLE OF THE IDEA OF THE GOOD.
Principle on which true theodicea rests. God the last foundation of moral truth, of the good, and of the moral person.—Liberty of God.—The divine justice and charity.—God the sanction of the moral law. Immortality of the soul; argument from merit and demerit; argument from the simplicity of the soul; argument from final causes.—Religious sentiment.—Adoration.—Worship.—Moral beauty of Christianity.
The moral order has been confirmed,—we are in possession of moral truth, of the idea of the good, and the obligation that is attached to it. Now, the same principle that has not permitted us to stop at absolute truth,[245] and has forced us to seek its supreme reason in a real and substantial being, forces us here again to refer the idea of the good to the being who is its first and last foundation.
Moral truth, like every other universal and necessary truth, cannot remain in a state of abstraction. In us it is only conceived. There must somewhere be a being who not only conceives it, but constituted it.
As all beautiful things and all true things are related—these to a unity that is absolute truth, and those to another unity that is absolute beauty, so all moral principles participate in the same principle, which is the good. We thus elevate ourselves to the conception of the good in itself, of absolute good, superior to all particular duties, and determined in these duties. Now, can the absolute good be any thing else than an attribute of him who, properly speaking, is alone absolute being?
Would it be possible that there might be several absolute beings, and that the being in whom are realized absolute truth and absolute beauty might not also be the one who is the principle of absolute good? The very idea of the absolute implies absolute unity. The true, the beautiful, and the good, are not three distinct essences; they are one and the same essence considered in its fundamental attributes. Our mind distinguishes them, because it can comprehend them only by division; but, in the being in whom they reside, they are indivisibly united; and this being at once triple and one, who sums up in himself perfect beauty, perfect truth, and the supreme good, is nothing else than God.
So God is necessarily the principle of moral truth and the good. He is also the type of the moral person that we carry in us.