“But until man is utterly demoralised he will always fight against such a position,” answered Heine. “The whole question turned upon that during the French Revolution. Saint-Simonism was only an attempt to teach every man how to own property—”
“By destroying competition,” interrupted Cæsar, “and in the end by destroying the rights and claims of paternity. That left a man no incentive to work but the certainty of having just as much property as every other member of the community.”
“But the competition was with the rest of the world, outside the community,” objected Heine.
“Yes,” replied Cæsar, “and if it had not failed for other reasons, its success would have destroyed it. I grant that it might have spread more widely. What then? When it had absorbed the greater part of the nation, the competition with the rest would have ended, and internal competition would have begun. Some parts of the community would have grown richer than some other parts, and the equal distribution of goods would have ceased. Factions would have gathered in centres, and centres would have allied themselves to form parties. The moment there are parties in a nation, there ensues the government of the weaker by the stronger, and the Saint-Simonist notions of equality forbade such a government. All such theories and systems are absurd because they are founded upon the supposition of the impossible — namely, the absolute similarity of all men, which I think has nothing to do with their equality.”
“Men may be free and equal,” said Pascal, “but they can never be brothers. Liberty and equality are facts, fraternity is a sentiment. Experience has proved that. You may put men into certain conditions which may be permanent. You cannot put into the men themselves sentiments which can be lasting. The French Revolution was partly reasonable, partly sentimental. The sentiment has vanished, and with it the way of addressing men as’ citizen’ and calling them ‘thou.’ The practical results have remained, with various modifications, and have been felt from one end of the world to the other.”
“I have noticed the same thing in regard to Christianity,” remarked Heine, with an angular, ironical smile. “Everybody says it has improved the morality of the world, but nobody says See how these Christians love one another,’ as Tertullian said in his day, with some reason.”
“Yes,” said Pascal, “but I am bound to confess that he wrote those words during a great persecution of the Christians, and that, after all, he broke with the Episcopal Church and died a sectarian. It appears that Christians were not, after all, so unanimous in treating each other as brothers in those days, as one might suppose. But the religious sentiment is the only one which all men may experience in a somewhat similar degree, because it is based on fact, supported by experience and presents the advantage of apparent probability even to the most sceptical intellect.”
“I always admired your theory of the probability of heaven,” observed Augustus.
“It was not precisely a theory of probability,” answered Pascal. “It was rather a demonstration of the advantage of taking it for granted. I put the question in the light of a wager. If there were a God, a heaven and a future existence, I represented that a man had everything to gain by living a good life, since the blessings to be obtained hereafter would be immeasurably great as well as eternal; and I argued that even if the wager were lost, and existence ended with death, a man who had lived in the hope of heaven would have lost nothing by his goodness.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Cæsar. “The question of religion was always of paramount importance, because it is the question of morality. I myself was obliged to make a profound study of religion, when I was endeavouring to be elected Pontifex Maximus. I am glad the works I wrote on the subject have perished, for I was conscious of sacrificing my convictions to the prejudices of the college of pontiffs, and even of the whole people. With the people, religion was a polytheism, an image-worship and a worship of genii. With me it was a mysticism very like what was afterwards called Neo-Platonism. We were very uncertain of everything in those days, but most of us were quite sure that there was something in which we ought to believe. At this interval of time it seems hard to understand how utterly in the dark we were. The only very definite thing which attracted every one to speculate about it was the certainty of the immortality of the soul, in one shape or another. Most people held Plato’s theory which, after all, was the best.”
“No nation of whom we know anything ever questioned the immortality of the soul,” said Pascal. “The consequence is that when any one denies it, he is simply told that he must prove its non-existence.”
“It is impossible to demonstrate a universal negative,” answered Augustus.
“No,” returned Pascal. “But that is not the case here. It would be enough to assume that the soul may exist, and then to demonstrate that if it exists an absurdity must follow as an unavoidable consequence.”
“I do not understand,” said Gwendoline. “What do you mean by an absurdity?”
“A generous uncle,” suggested Heine, with a laugh.
“Not exactly that,” continued Pascal, unmoved. “An absurdity in logic, is when it is shown that if something be assumed, something else is at the same time true and untrue; or in geometry, for instance, to assume an angle, and then to deduce that in the figure, if the angle is what it is supposed to be, then one line is at the same time longer and shorter than another line, which is impossible.”
“But then it could not be proved,” objected Gwendoline.
“It can be proved; but the fact that a thing manifestly untrue can be proved by means of an assumption, is enough to prove that the assumption itself is untrue. Apply this method to the non-existence of the soul. Assume that the soul exists and survives the death of the body. Then make all the deductions you can. When you can show me that if the soul exists, all men must inevitably be born with one leg, or must necessarily walk upon their heads, or are all murderers or all suicides, then I will grant you that the soul does not exist; because you will have shown me that if it existed, men would be different from what they are. But no such absurdity can be demonstrated. Assuming the existence of the soul, it is impossible to draw any deduction from the fact which is not in accordance with the evidence of our senses. A vast amount of ingenuity has been expended in the attempt, but it has signally failed. It is clearly impossible to disprove the fact. Therefore when a man stands up and says there is no soul, and fails to prove what he says, he utters as foolish a negation as though he had said that space contained no stars beyond the range of the most powerful telescope.”
“Evidently,” assented Augustus. “The modern argument is that it is not necessary to assume the existence of a soul, to account for man’s actions, nor to believe in God in order to account for man’s origin. Having stated this, scientists proceed to show to the best of their ability that life in the first instance resulted from the inevitable changes in the state of the matter upon the earth’s surface, and that an unbroken series of developments has produced the human animal from protoplasm. It is impossible to study the matter without perceiving that the series is in fact very far from complete, and that scientists are only too ready to pass lightly over the important lacunae in the history of evolution, in order to give undue weight to those facts which seem to support their hypothesis.”
“Just as a clever lawyer makes up a plausible narrative out of circumstantial evidence,” remarked Diana, thoughtfully.
“Yes,” answered Pascal, “and just as in law people are beginning to question how far merely circumstantial evidence can be trusted, so people are beginning to question the right of science to set up, as facts, theories which are only supported by a number of circumstances which give to the whole an air of probability. How many men have been convicted and put to death upon evidence which seemed absolutely conclusive, and have yet been found innocent when it was too late! How many scientific systems have been accepted and believed by civilised mankind for generations, and then suddenly upset and forgotten for ever! If durability be a proof of truth
, then Christianity has a stronger basis than any scientific theory with which we are acquainted.”
“When I was young,” said Cæsar, “the acknowledged road to popularity and notice was to bring accusations against prominent persons, and if possible to prove them. The surest course in order to get notoriety was to attack something or somebody of importance. The moderns know that and practise it. Nine-tenths of modern scientists are much more anxious to destroy than to build up, because science is slow and affords little material for building, whereas it is easy to find fault with the moral architecture of human ideas. The principle upon which the Athenians put Socrates to death was very reasonable. They held that scientists had a right to be inquirers, but were not entitled to attack received beliefs of the religious kind, because to undermine belief was really to weaken the state. We may condemn Socrates’s judges, because they profoundly misunderstood him. But we cannot deny that if the charges against him had been fully proved, the Athenians would have been justified in silencing him. Socrates was not a martyr to his own system of morality; he was the victim of an ignorant court, or of a popular prejudice. He was not condemned for what he did say, but for what ignorant or malicious persons swore that he said, as many a less remarkable man has been condemned before and since. The principle that men should not undermine the public morality is not bad because it has been often twisted to satisfy the hatred and prejudice of the ruling class, any more than our old law of perduellio was unjust because Labienus and I made use of it to work up a case against Caius Rabirius. He was condemned, but of course I never meant that he should die, and the accusation did him no harm whatever, while the success of the suit did me a deal of good. That was the way we handled the laws in my time, to our own advantage. But the laws themselves were good and founded on important truths. Similarly it follows that the criticism exercised by pure reason is not a bad thing in itself because modern scientists distort it in order to get notoriety by attacking so important a matter as religion, instead of being satisfied to employ it legitimately in their own sphere of inquiry.”
“That is the great division,” said Pascal. “My father, who was a wise and accomplished man, taught me that objects of faith are not objects of speculation, and I never saw any reason for thinking otherwise. I turned all my inquiries upon things in nature. I never applied myself to the curiosities of theology. It is not the part of science to dabble in transcendentalism. Scientists only speculate upon religion to destroy it. Fanatic believers build up theories about it and distort it out of all sense and proportion, like Swedenborg with his ideas about celestial marriage and the like. So soon as religion is made an object of curiosity, the vanity of the human mind appears in its fullest and most ludicrous proportions. Could anything be more outrageous in premisses, or more pernicious in results than the religions invented by man? Look at the Mormons, the Skopts, the Shakers, the howling dervishes, the Theosophists and the Fakirs. If anything should appeal to the common sense of mankind it is the divine moderation of Christianity at the present day, after nineteen centuries of existence. Who was the fanatic? Christ, who taught men in simple language to lead a pure life, or Giordano Bruno, who called Christ a charlatan, and boasted that he himself would perform greater miracles? The Archbishop of Paris, murdered by communists, or Jean Richepin who writes a poem called ‘Blasphemy,’ for which that word is too dignified and clean a title? Who are mad? The English country clergyman and the hard-worked London curate, giving their lives to help their fellow-creatures, or our so-called scientists, boasting themselves to be somebody and employing their choicest sneers in defaming a religion which they admit with truth that they cannot understand?”
“I think you are right in that,” answered Cæsar. “I lived before Christianity, and I have had a good opportunity of judging, from the point of view of a heathen and of a Christian. Religion has always been necessary to government. Otherwise, before Christianity, it was a matter of opinion, often a matter of taste. As for me, I always had a leaning towards monotheism and especially towards the Jews. The latter were deeply attached to me, and after my funeral they spent many nights before the rostra, where my body had been burned, keeping up fires and uttering lamentations. Yes — religion was necessary to government, both in its essence and in its forms, because there is no government without a morality of some sort. Christianity is acknowledged to be the best moral system, and is therefore the best basis for governing men. Indeed no ruler has ever tried to govern without it, since it has become universal. An attempt was made under the French Revolution, but Bonaparte soon put a stop to that. He was not an irreligious man. One of his earliest steps as First Consul was to cause the words ‘God protect France’ to be engraved upon the edges of the coins he struck. At Saint Helena he had a chapel in his house and attended the services every day. That may have been due to a change in his personal feelings; but as far as government was concerned, he showed the importance he attached to religion by the way he insisted on being crowned by the Pope. The Romans were naturally reluctant to give up their traditions in favour of a simple faith which inculcated a severe morality, but they could not resist the new influence for long. It was felt the sooner because it offered such a startling contrast to the immorality of some of my successors.”
“The morality and the importance of Christianity are beyond question,” said Augustus. “But different ages have thought differently about the practice of it.”
“It seems to me,” remarked Heine, who had said very little during the discussion, “that like everything transcendental which is so generally accepted as to affect the lives of men, Christianity has two aspects, the divine and the human. The human aspect is the practice and the result of the practice. The practice of anything at any particular period must depend upon the state of civilisation and thought at the time. In these days men will not go barefoot to Jerusalem for a penance. Most people would think it outrageous to give a tenth of their incomes to the poor, after giving five or six tenths to the government under which they live. Still less will you find men who will give all they have and go in rags in order to relieve the distress of others. Our friend Pascal, here, who was neither priest, nor monk nor hermit, gave up his house to a sick family of beggars when he was dying himself—”
“Why do you speak of that?” interrupted Pascal, deprecatingly.
“If you will mention an instance which will do as well, I will not speak of you,” returned Heine, with a smile. “I only say this to show what people formerly did. The force of contrast was what produced such surprising results. The great lord in former times was like a lion among rats, a creature superior in every way to the common herd. If he chanced to be a saintly man, the impression made on him by the poverty he saw, as compared with his own wealth, might well turn him to wild extremes. He became a fanatic. He longed for nothing so much as to sit in rags on his own doorstep, devouring mouldy crusts with a herd of other beggars. It either did not strike him that he could have done more good by devoting his income for many years to the poor, as Pascal did, instead of sinking his whole capital in one charity; or else property was too unstable a thing to be disposed of in such a way. But it was the contrast which attracted the man. He believed that poverty and humility were the same. He thought that a patched coat was the outward sign of a whole soul. He convinced himself that hunger was a means of salvation, and that the suffering of being dirty was pleasant to God. He advised his fellows to follow his example, and proposed to emancipate the soul by starving the body. When men suffer like that, they are in earnest. John Bunyan was in earnest when he renounced the pleasures of bell-ringing and tipcat, and he proved it afterwards. Saint Simon Stylites was thoroughly in earnest when he established himself on the top of his column, and so was poor Louise de la Vallière, when she abstained from drinking any kind of liquid, for a whole year, in the Carmelite Convent. It does not follow that everybody must renounce tipcat, live on a pillar and abjure liquids in order to be saved.”
“Really — I hope not!” exclai
med Lady Brenda.
“Certainly not,” continued Heine, “and that shows that the practice of Christianity differs in different ages and with different individuals. Asceticism and mortification of the flesh may do good in some cases, but if the population of the world consisted of one thousand million John Bunyans and one thousand million Saint Catherines of Siena, there would be a serious hitch in the progress of civilisation. Now, mankind are not meant to stand still.”
“No,” said Pascal. “Every man should do in his own sphere what he can for the general good. I was not an ascetic, except by necessity, through my illness. I would have thought it very wrong to starve myself, because I think it is impossible to suffer voluntarily any pain without feeling a moral satisfaction in the mortification of the body, and that satisfaction is vanity and destroys the good done. I ate and drank exactly what was prescribed for me, but I tried to take no pleasure in the eating and drinking. It seemed to me unworthy of the soul to perceive such base things. But my constitution was feeble and my appetites insignificant. There was little credit in what I did.”
“Do you suppose that a man like King Francis could live like that?” asked Lady Brenda.
“Certainly not, madam,” answered Heine. “Even Bayard could not. Strong men, who fought as people fought in those days, needed to eat and drink well, and I should be sorry to thinly that they never enjoyed their dinners. But Bayard was moderate where Francis was sensual. A hungry coal-heaver who eats a two-pound loaf at a sitting is moderate, while a lazy fine gentleman who takes an extra ounce or two of a pâté de gibier, or an extra glass of dry champagne, merely because he likes those things, is immoderate. Fortunately for the morals of humanity, in respect of eating and drinking, the hungry coal-heavers are in the majority.”
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 312
