Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/239

Rh piety. Religion in a system such as this is not a portion of life: it is life itself. That which is seen to matter here is not the being in possession of some metaphysical phrases more or less correct: it is the giving to one's life a sure pole, a supreme direction—the ideal.

It is by so doing that your illustrious countryman has lifted up a banner which still avails to shelter beneath it all who think and-feel nobly. Yes, religion is eternal; it answers to the first need of primitive as well as of civilized man; it will only perish with humanity itself—or, rather, its disappearance would be the proof that degenerate humanity was about to reënter the mere animalism out of which it had emerged. And yet no dogma, no worship, no formula, can in these days of ours exhaust the religious sentiment. We must confront with each other these seemingly contradictory assertions. Woe to him who pretends that the era of religions is past! Woe to him who imagines it possible to restore to the old symbols the force they had when they leaned upon the imperturbable dogmatism of other days! With that dogmatism we, for our part, must needs dispense; we must dispense with those fixed creeds, sources of so many struggles and divisions, but sources no less of such fervent convictions; we must give up believing that it is our part to hold down others in a faith we no longer share. Spinoza was right in his horror of hypocrisy: hypocrisy is cowardly and dishonest, but, above all, hypocrisy is useless. Who is it, indeed, that is deceived here? The persistency of the higher classes in unqualifiedly patronizing, in sight of the uncultivated classes, the religious reforms of other days, will have but one effect: that of impairing their own authority at those times of crisis when it is important that the people should still believe in the reason and the virtue of a few.

Honor, then, to Spinoza, who has dared to say: "Reason before all." Reason can never be contrary to the well-understood interests of humanity. But we would remind those who are carried away by unreflecting impatience, that Spinoza never conceived of religious revolution as being aught else than a transformation of formulas. According to him, what was fundamental went on subsisting under other terms. If he, on one hand, energetically repudiated the theocratic power of the clergy, as distinguished from civil society, or the tendency of the state to occupy itself with metaphysics, on the other hand, he never denied either the state or religion: he wished the state tolerant and religion free. We wish for nothing more. One cannot impose on others beliefs one does not possess. That the believers of other days made themselves persecutors, proved them tyrannical, but at least consistent; as for us, if we were to act as they did, we should be simply absurd. Our religion is a sentiment capable of clothing itself in numerous forms. These forms are free from being equally good; but not one of them has strength or authority to expel all others. Freedom—this is the last word of Spinoza's religious policy.