advantages of the reform appeared to counterbalance its inconveniencies. Did not Bossuet even project a union between the Protestant Church and that of Rome? When we consider that Bagnoli, Le Maitre, Arnaud, Nicole, and Pascal, devoted themselves to the education of youth, we shall scarcely imagine that education at the present day is better understood or more scientifically conducted. The best classical books that we even now possess are those of Port Royal, and in all our elementary works we do no more than repeat them, often taking especial care to conceal our thefts.

Our superiority, then, is reduced to some little progress in the natural sciences,-a progress resulting from that of time, and by no means compensating for the loss of the imagination which is the consequence of it. The mind is the same in all ages; but it is more particularly accompanied either by the arts or by the sciences: it is only with the former that it possesses all its poetic grandeur and moral beauty.

But it may be asked, if the age of Louis XIV. conceived all kinds of liberal ideas, how happens it that it neglected to make the same use of them as we have done? Ah! let us not boast of our experiments. Pascal, Bossuet, Fénélon, saw much farther than we do; for, at the same time that they were as well acquainted with the nature of things as we are, and even better, they were aware of the danger of innovations. Did their works furnish no evidence of philosophical thought, yet could we suppose that these great men were not struck with the abuses which creep in on every side, and that they were unacquainted with the weak and the strong side of human affairs? But their principle was that a small evil ought not to be done even for the sake of a great good,1 and still less in behalf of vain systems, which are almost invariably productive of deplorable results. It was certainly not from any want of genius that this same Pascal, who, as we have already shown, understood so well the defect of laws in the absolute sense, observed in the relative sense, "How wise it is to distinguish men by external qualities! Which of us two shall give way to the other? the least clever? But I am as clever as he is; we must fight it out. He has four lacqueys, and

1 History of Port Royal.

I have but one; that is clear, if I will but count: I must give way, and I am a fool if I dispute the point."

Here is a reply to volumes of sophisms. The author of the Thoughts submitting to four lacqueys is a very different sort of philosopher from all those thinkers whom the four lacqueys have shocked.

In a word, the age of Louis XIV. continued tranquil, not because this or that thing was unperceived by it, but because, on making a discovery, it examined it thoroughly, considering it on every side and exploring all its dangers. If it did not plunge into the ideas of the times, the reason is that it was superior to them. We take its strength for its weakness; its secret and ours are comprised in this reflection of Pascal :

"The sciences have two extremities, which touch one another: the first is pure natural ignorance, the state of all mankind at their birth; the other extremity is that at which all great minds arrive, who, after traversing the whole circle of human knowledge, discover that they know nothing, and find themselves in the same ignorance from which they set out, but it is a scientific ignorance, which is acquainted with itself. Those who have left the state of natural ignorance, and have not been able to reach the other, have some tincture of that self-sufficient science, and are puffed up with conceit. These are disturbers of society, and their judgments are more false than those of any of the others. The vulgar and the real scholars compose the mass of the world; the others despise them, and are despised by them."

Here we cannot forbear to make a sorrowful reflection on ourselves. Pascal had undertaken to give to the world the work of which we now publish so small a portion. What a master-piece would such a philosopher have produced! If God permitted him not to execute his design, it was, probably, because it is not fit that all doubts on the subject of faith should be removed; that there may be matter left for those temptations and trials which produce saints and martyrs.

BOOK III.

HISTORY.

CHAPTER I.

OF CHRISTIANITY AS IT RELATES TO THE MANNER OF

WRITING HISTORY.

IF Christianity has so greatly conduced to the advancement of philosophical ideas, it must of course be favorable to the genius of history, which is but a branch of moral and political philosophy. Whoever rejects the sublime notions of nature and her Author which religion inspires wilfully deprives himself of an abundant source of images and ideas.

He, in fact, will be most intimately acquainted with man who has long meditated on the designs of Providence; he will be best able to fathom human wisdom who has penetrated into the depths of the divine intelligence. The designs of kings, the vices of cities, the unjust and crooked measures of civil policy, the restlessness of the heart from the secret working of the passions, those long agitations with which nations are at times seized, those changes of power from the king to the subject, from the noble to the plebeian, from the rich to the poor,-all these subjects will be inexplicable to you, if you have not, as it were, attended the council of the Most High, and considered the spirit of strength, of prudence, of weakness, or of error, which he dispenses to the nations whose salvation or whose ruin he decrees.

Eternity, therefore, should be the groundwork of the history of time, every thing being referred to God as the universal cause. You may extol, as much as you please, the writer who, penetrating into the secrets of the human heart, deduces the most important events from the most trivial sources: a God watching over the kingdoms of the earth; impiety, that is to say, the absence of moral virtues, becoming the immediate cause of the

calamities of nations; this, in our opinion, is an historical foundation far more noble and far more solid than the other.

The French revolution will afford an illustration of this remark. Were they any ordinary causes, we would ask, which in the course of a few years perverted all our affections and banished from among us that simplicity and greatness peculiar to the heart of man? The spirit of God having withdrawn from the people, no force was left except that of original sin, which resumed its empire as in the days of Cain and his race. Whoever would have followed the dictates of reason felt a certain incapability of good; whoever extended a pacific hand beheld that hand suddenly withered; the bloody flag waved over the ramparts of every city; war was declared against all nations; then were fulfilled the words of the prophet: "They shall cast out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of the princes thereof, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves.' 991 Streams of blood flowed in all quarters: culpable in regard to the past, fanaticism swept away the old institutions; culpable in regard to the future, it founded nothing new for posterity; the tombs of our ancestors and the rising generation were alike profaned. In that line of life which was transmitted to us by our ancestors, and which it is our duty to prolong beyond our own existence, each confined his views to the present, and, consecrating himself to his own corruption ast to an abominable worship, lived as if nothing had preceded and as if nothing was to follow him.

But, while this spirit of destruction was internally devouring France, a spirit of salvation was protecting her against external injury. She had neither prudence nor greatness except on her frontiers; within all was devastation, without all was triumph. The country no longer resided in the homes of her children; it exists in a camp on the Rhine, as in the time of the Merovingian dynasty. You would have imagined that you beheld the Jewish nation expelled from the land of Gessen, and subduing the barbarous nations in the desert.

Such a combination of things has no natural principle in human events. The religious writer alone can here discover the profound

Jerem. viii. 1.

counsels of the Most High. Had the combined powers attempted only to put an end to the excesses of Robespierre, and then left France entire to repair her calamities and her errors, they had, perhaps, gained their point. But God beheld the iniquity of courts, and said to the foreign soldier, "I will break the sword in thy hand, and thou shall not destroy the people of St. Louis." Thus religion seems to lead to the explanation of the most incomprehensible facts in history. There is, moreover, in the name of God something sublime, which imparts to the style a certain wonderful power, so that the most religious writer is almost invariably the most eloquent. Without religion, it is possible to have wit, but very difficult to possess genius. Add to this, you perceive in the Christian historian the tone, we had almost said the taste, of an honest man, which renders you disposed to give implicit credit to all that he relates. On the contrary, you mistrust the sophistical historian; for, as he almost always represents society in an unfavorable light, you are inclined to look upon him as a deceiver.

CHAPTER II.

OF THE GENERAL CAUSES WHICH HAVE PREVENTED MODERN WRITERS FROM SUCCEEDING IN HISTORY.

First Cause-The Beauties of the Ancient Subjects.

A POWERFUL objection here occurs: If Christianity is favorable to the genius of history, how happens it that modern writers are in general inferior to those of antiquity in this profound and important department of literature?

In the first place, the fact assumed in this objection is not strictly true, since one of the most beautiful historical monuments that exists among men-the Discourse on Universal History—was dictated by the spirit of Christianity. But, deferring for a moment our considerations on that work, let us inquire into the