No More Learning

Prohibitory laws are no more sufficient for
the government of individuals than of states.
The social system is obliged to put animated
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? 334 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
interests into action, to give aliment to hu-
man life: it is the same with the religious
instructors of man; they can only preserve
him from his passions by exciting a living
and pure ecstacy in his heart: the passions
are much better, in many respects, than a
servile apathy; and nothing can moderate
them but a profound sentiment, the enjoy-
ments of which we ought to describe, if we
can, with as much force and truth as we have
introduced into our descriptions of the charm
of earthly affections.
Whatever men of wit may have said,
there exists a natural alliance between reli-
gion and genius. The Mystics have almost
all a bias towards poetry and the fine arts;
their ideas are in accord with true superiority
of every sort, while incredulous and worldly-
minded mediocrity is its enemy :--that me-
diocrity cannot endure those who wish to
penetrate into the soul: as it has put its best
qualities on the surface, to touch the core
is to discover its wretchedness.
The philosophy of Idealism, the Chris-
tianity of Mysticism, and the poetry of na-
ture, have, in many respects, all the same
end and the same origin : these philosophers,
these Christians, and these poets, all unite
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? MYSTICISM.
535
in one common desire. They would wish to
substitute for the factitious system of society,
not the ignorance of barbarous times, but an
intellectual culture, which leads us back to
simplicity by the very perfection of know-
ledge: they would, in short, wish to make
energetic and reflecting, sincere and generous
men, out of all these characters without dig-
nity; these minds without ideas; these jest-
ers without gaiety ; these Epicureans without
imagination, who, for want of better, are
called the human species.
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? 336 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
>
CHAPTER VI.
Of Pain,
That axiom of the Mystics has been much
blamed, which asserts that pain is a good.
Some philosophers of antiquity have pro-
nounced it not an evil; it is, however, much
more difficult to consider it with indifference
than with hope. In effect, if we were not
convinced that pain was the means of moral
improvement, to what an excess of irritation
would it not carry us? Why in that case
summon us into life to be consumed by pain?
Why concentrate all the torments and all the
wonders of the universe inv a weak heart,
which fears and which desires? Why give
us the power of loving, and snatch from us
at last all that we hold dear? In short, why
bring us to death, terrific death? When the
illusion of the world has made us forget it,
how is it recalled to our minds! It is in the
midst of the splendours of this world that
Death unfurls his fatal ensign.
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? OP PAIN. ? 337
fcosi trapassa al trapassar d' un giorno
Delia vita mortal il fiore e'l verde;
Ne perche faccia indietro April ritorno,
Si rinfiora ella Mai ne si rinverde*.
We have seen at a f? te that Princess . f,
"who, although the mother of eight children,
still united the charm of perfect beauty to all
the dignity of the maternal character. She
opened the ball; and the melodious sounds
of music gave a signal for the moments con-
secrated to joy. Flowers adorned her lovely
head; and dress and the dance must have
recalled to her the first days of her youth:
nevertheless, she appeared already to fear the
very pleasures to which so much success
might have attached her. Alas! in what a
manner was this vague presentiment realized!
--On a sudden the numberless torches, which
restored the splendour of the day, are about
to be changed into devouring flames, and the
most dreadful sufferings will take place of
the gorgeous luxury of the fete. --What a
contrast! and who can grow weary of re-
* "Thus withers in a day the verdure and the flower of
"mortal life; it is in vain that the month of spring returns
** in its season; life never resumes her verdure or her
"flowers. "--Verses of Tasso, sung in the gardens of Ar-
rnida.
f The Princess Paulina of Schwartzenberg.
VOL. III. Z
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? 338 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
fleeting upon it? No, never have the gran-
deur and the misery of man so closely ap-
proached each other; and our fickle thoughts,
so easily diverted from the dark threatenings
of futurity, have been struck in the same
hour with all the brilliant and terrible images
which destiny, in general, scatters at a dis-
tance from each other over the path of time.
No accident, however, had reached her,
who would not have died but for her own
choice. She was in safety; she might have
renewed the thread of that life of virtue
which she had been leading for fifteen years;
but one of her daughters was still in danger,
and the most delicate and timid of beings
precipitates herself into the midst of flames
which would have made warriors recoil.
Every mother would have felt what she did!
But who thinks she has sufficient strength to
imitate her? Who can reckon so much upon
their soul, as not to fear those shudderings
which Nature bids us feel at the sight of a
violent death? A woman braved them;
her hand seized that of her daughter, her
hand saved her daughter; and although the
fatal blow then struck her, her last act was
maternal; her last act preserved the object
of her affection; it was at this sublime in-
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? OF PAIN. 339
stant that she appeared before God; and it
was impossible to recognise what remained
of her upon earth except by the impression
on a medal, given by her children, which also
marked the place where this angel perished.
Ah! all that is horrible in this picture is
softened by the rays of a celestial glory.
This generous Paulina will hereafter be the
saint of mothers; and if their looks do not
dare to rise to Heaven, they will rest them
upon her sweet figure, and will ask her to
implore the blessing of God upon their
children.
If we had gone so far as to dry up the
source of religion upon earth, what should
we say to those who see the purest of victims
fall? What should we say to those who
loved this victim? and with what despair,
with what horror for Fortune and her perfi-
dious secrets, would not the soul be filled?
Not only what we see, but what we ima-
gine, would strike our minds like a thunder-
bolt, if there was nothing within us free
from the power of chance. Have not men
lived in an obscure dungeon, where every
moment was a pang, where there was no air
but what was sufficient for them to begin
suffering again? Death, according to the
z2
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? 340 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
incredulous, will deliver us from everything;
but do they know what death is? do they
know whether this death is annihilation? or
into what a labyrinth of terrors reflection
without a guide may drag us?
If an honest man (and the events of a life
exposed to the passions may bring on this
misfortune)--if an honest man, I say, had
done an irreparable injury to an innocent
being, how could he ever be consoled for it
without the assistance of religious expiation?
When his victim is in the coffin, to whom
must he address his sorrows if there is no
communication with that victim; if God him-
self does not make the dead hear the lamen-
tations of the living; if the sovereign Me-
diator for man did not say to Grief,--It is
enough; and to Repentance,--You are for-
given? --Jt is thought that the chief advan-
tage of religion is its efficacy in awakening
remorse; but it is also very frequently the
means of lulling remorse to sleep. There are
souls in which the past is predominant;
there are those which regret tears to pieces
like an active death, and upon which memory
falls as furiously as a vulture; it is for them
that religion operates as the alleviation of
remorse.
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? OP PAIN.
341
An idea always the same, and yet as-
suming a thousand different dresses, fatigues
at once, by its agitation and its monotony.
The fine arts, which redoubled the power
of imagination, augment with it the viva-
city of pain. Nature herself becomes im-
portunate when the soul is no longer in
harmony with her; her tranquillity, which
we once found so sweet, irritates us like in-
difference; the wonders of the universe
grow dim as we gaze upon them; all looks
like a vision, even in mid-day splendour.
Night troubles us, as if the darkness con-
cealed some secret misfortune of our own;
and the shining sun appears to insult the
mourning of our hearts. Whither shall we
fly then from so many sufferings? Is it to
death? But the anxiety of happiness makes
us doubt whether there is rest in the tomb;
and despair, even for atheists, is as a sha-
dowy revelation of an eternity of pains*
What shall we do then, what shall we do,
O my God! if we cannot throw ourselves
into your paternal bosom? He who first
called God our Father, knew more of the
human heart than the most profound
thinkers of the age.
It is not true that religion narrows the
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? 342 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
heart; it is still less so, that the severity of
religious principles is to be feared. I only
know one sort of severity which is to be
dreaded by feeling minds; it is that of the
men of the world. These are the persons who
conceive nothing, who excuse nothing that
is involuntary; they have made a human
heart according to their own will, in order to
judge it at their leisure. We might address
to them what was said to Messrs. de Port
Royal, who, otherwise, deserved much ad-
miration: " It is easy for you to comprehend
u the man you have created; but, as to the
real being, you know him not. "
The greater part of men of the world are
accustomed to frame certain dilemmas upon
all the unhappy situations in life, in order
to disencumber themselves as much as pos-
sible from the compassion which these situ-
ations demand from them. --" There are but
"two parts to take," they say: u you must
t* be entirely one thing, or the other; you
*4 must support what you cannot prevent;
"you must console yourself for what is
"irrevocable. " Or rather, " He who wishes
"an end, wishes the means also; you must
"do every thing to preserve that which you
"cannot do without," &c. and a thousand
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? op pain. 343
other axioms of this sort, which all of them
have the form of proverbs, and which are in
effect the code of vulgar wisdom. But what
connexion is there between these axioms
and the severe afflictions of the heart? All
this serves very weH in the common affairs
of life; but how apply such counsels to
moral pains? They all vary according tp
the individual, and are composed of a thou-
sand different circumstances, unknown to
every one but our most intimate friend, if
there is one who knows how to identify
himself with us. Every character is almost
a new world for him who can observe it
with sagacity; and I know not in the science
of the human heart one general idea which
is completely applicable to particular ex-
amples.
The language of religion can alone suit
every situation and every mode of feeling.
When we read the reveries of J. J. Rousseau,
that eloquent picture of a being, preyed
upon by an imagination stronger than him-
self, I have asked myself how a man whose
understanding was formed by the world,
and a religious recluse, would have endea-
voured to console Rousseau? He would have
complained of being hated and persecuted; he
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? 344 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
would have called himself the object of uni-
versal envy, and the victim of a conspiracy,
? which extended even from the people to
their monarchs; he would have pretended
that all his friends had betrayed him; and
that the very services, which they had ren-
dered him, were so many snares: what then
would the man of an understanding formed
by society have answered to all these com-
plaints?
"You strangely exaggerate," he would
have said, "the effect that you fancy you
"produce; you are doubtless a very distin-
"guished person; but, however, as each of
"us has his own affairs, and also his own
M ideas, a book does not fill all heads;
"the events^of war or of peace, and still
"less interests, but which personally con-
cem ourselves, occupy us much more than
"any writer, however celebrated he may
"be. They have banished you, it is true;
:" but all countries ought to be alike to a
"philosopher such as you are; and to what
"purpose indeed can the morals and the re-
"ligion, which you develope so well in your
"writings, be turned, if you are not able
*4 to support the reverses which have be-
*' fallen you? ? ? .
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? OF PAIN. 345
"Without doubt there are some persons
"who envy you among the fraternity of
"learned men; but this cannot extend to
"the classes of society, who trouble them-
"selves very little with literature; besides,
"if celebrity really annoys you, nothing is
"so easy as to escape from it. Write no
"more; at the end of a few years you will
"be forgotten; and you will be as quiet as
"if you never had published any thing.
"You say that your friends lay snares for
"you, while they pretend to serve you. In
"the first place, is it not possible that there
"should be a slight degree of romantic
"exaltation in your manner of considering
"your personal relations?
Your fine ima-
"gination was necessary to compose tha
"New Heloise; but a little reason is requi-
"site in the affairs of this world, and when
"we choose to do so, we see things as they
"are. If, however, your friends deceive
"you, you must break with them; but you
"will be very unwise to grieve on this ac-
"count; for, one of two things, either they
"are worthy of your esteem, and in that
"case you are wrong to suspect them; or,
"if your suspicions are well founded, then
"you ought not to regret such friends. "
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? 346 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
After having heard this dilemma,. J. J.
Rousseau might very weU have taken a third
part, that of throwing himself into the river;
but what would the religious recluse have
said to him?
"My son, I know not the world, and I
"am ignorant if it be true that they wish
"you ill in that world; but if it were so,
4* you would share this fate with all good
"men, who nevertheless have pardoned
"their enemies; for Jesus Christ and So-
"crates, the God and the man, have set
"the example. It is necessary for hateful
*4 passions to exist here below, in order that
"the trial of the just should be accom-
"plished. Saint Theresa has said of the
? ' wicked--Unhappy men, they do not love I
"and yet they live, long enough to have
"time for repentance.
"You have received admirable gifts from
"Heaven; if they have made you love what
"is good, have you not already enjoyed the
"reward of having been a soldier of Truth
"upon earth? If you have softened hearts
"by your persuasive eloquence, you will
4* obtain for yourself some of those tears
w which you have caused to flow. You
"have enemies near you; but friends at a
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? op pai>>. 347
"distance, among the votaries of solitude,
"who read you; and you have consoled the
"unfortunate better than we can console
"yourself. "Why have I not your talent to
"make you listen to me? That talent, my
"son, is a noble gift; men often try to
"asperse it; they tell you, wrongfully, that
"we condemn it in the name of God: this
"is not true. It is a divine emotion, which
"inspires eloquence; and if you have not
"abused it, learn to endure envy, for such
"a superiority is well worth the pain it may
"make you suffer.
""Nevertheless, my son, I fear that pride
44 is mixed with your sufferings; and this it
"is which gives them their bitterness; for
"all the griefs that continue bumble make
"our tears flow gently; but there is a poison
"in pride, and man becomes senseless when
"he yields to it: it is an enemy that makes
*4 her own champion, the better to destroy
u him.
"Genius ought only to serve for the
"display of the supreme goodness of the
M soul. There are many men who have
"this goodness, without the talent of ex-
"pressing it: thank God, from whom you
"inherit the charm of language, which is
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? 348 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
"formed to enchant the imagination of man.
"But be not proud, except of the feeling
"which dictates it. Every thing in life will
u be rendered calm for you, if you always
"continue religiously good: the wicked
"themselves grow tired of doing evil; their
"own poison exhausts them; and, besides,
"is not God above, to take care of the
"sparrow that falls, and of the heart of man
"that suffers?
"You say that your friends wish to
"betray you. Take care that you do not
"accuse them unjustly: woe to him that has
"repelled a sincere affection; for they are
*4 the angels of heaven who send it us; they
"have reserved this part to themselves in
"the destiny of man. Suffer not your
"imagination to lead you astray: you must
"permit her to wander in the regions of the
"clouds; but nothing except one heart can
"judge another; and you would be very
"culpable if you were to forget a sincere
M friendship; for the beauty of the soul
"consists in its generous confidence, and
"human prudence is figured by a serpent.
"It is possible, however, that in expia-
"tion of some transgressions, into which
"your great abilities have led you, you will
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? or PAIN.
349
"be condemned upon this earth to drink
"that empoisoned cup, the treachery of a
"friend. If it is so, I lament your fate:
"the Divinity himself laments it, while he
"punishes you. But do not revolt against
"his blows; still love, although love has
"distracted your heart. In the most pro-
"found solitude, in the cruellest isolation,
"we must not suffer the source of the de-
44 voted affections to be dried up within us.
"For a long while it was not believed that
"God could be loved as we love those who
"resemble ourselves. A voice which answers
"us, looks which are interchanged with our
"own, appear full of life, while the immense
"Heaven is silent, but by degrees the soul
"exalts itself even to feel its God near it as
"a friend.
"My son, we ought to pray as we
"love, by mingling prayer with all our
"thoughts; we ought to pray, for then we
"are no more alone; and when resignation
"shall descend softly into your heart, turn
"your eyes upon nature; it might be said,
"that every one there finds again his past
"life, when no traces of it exist among
"men. I think of your regrets as well as
"your pleasures, when you contemplate
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? 350 RELIGION AXD ENTHUSIASM.
"those clouds, sometimes dark and some-
"times brilliant, which the wind scatters;
"and whether death has snatched your
"friends from you, or life, still more cruel,
"has broken asunder your bonds of union
"with them, you will perceive in the stars
"their deified images; they will appear to
"you such as you will see them again here-
"after. "
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? THEOSOPHIST PHILOSOPHERS. S51
CHAPTER VII.
Of the religious Philosophers called
Theosophists.
When I gave an account of the modern
philosophy of the Germans, I endeavoured to
trace the line of demarcation between that
philosophy which attempts to penetrate the
secrets of the universe, and that which is
confined to an inquiry into the nature of our
own souls. The same distinction may be
remarked among religious writers; those of
whom I have already spoken in the pre-
ceding chapters have kept to the influence of
religion upon our hearts; others, such as
Jacob Boehmen in Germany, St. Martin in
France, and very many more, have believed,
that they found in the relation of Chris-
tianity mysterious words, which might serve
to develope the laws of creation. We
must confess, when Ave begin to think, it is
difficult to stop; and whether reflection
leads to scepticism or to the most universal
faith, we are sometimes tempted to pass
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? 352 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM*
whole hours, like the Faquirs, in asking
ourselves what is life? Far from despising
those who are thus devoured by contempla-
tion, we cannot help considering them as
the true lords of the human species, in
whose presence those who exist without re-
flection, are only vassals attached to the soil.
But how can we flatter ourselves with the
hope of giving any consistency to these
thoughts, which, like flashes of lightning,
plunge themselves again into darkness, after
having for a moment thrown an uncertain
brilliance upon surrounding objects?
It may, however, be interesting to point
out the principal direction of the systems of
the Theosophists; that is to say, of those
religious philosophers who have always ex-
isted in Germany from the establishment of
Christianity, and particularly since the re-
vival of letters. The greater part of the
Greek philosophers have built the system of
the world upon the action of the elements;
and if we except Pythagoras and Plato, who
derived from the East their tendency to
idealism, the thinking men of antiquity ex-
plain all the organization of the universe by
physical laws. Christianity, by lighting up
the internal life in the breast of man, na-
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? THEOSOPHIST PHILOSOPHERS. 353
turally excited the mind to exaggerate its
power over the body. The abuses to which
the most pure doctrines are subject, have in-
troduced visions and white magic (that is to
say, the magic which attributes to the will of
man the power of acting upon the elements
without the intervention of infernal spirits),
all the whimsical reveries, in short, which
spring from the conviction that the soul is
more powerful than nature. The sects of
Alchymists, of Magnetizers, and of the Illu-
minated, are almost all supported upon this
ascendancy of the will, which they carry
much too far, but which, nevertheless, in
some manner, belongs to the moral gran-
deur of man.
Not only has Christianity, by affirming the
spiritual nature of the soul, led them to be-
lieve the unlimited power of religious or phi-
losophical faith, but revelation has seemed,
to some men, a continual miracle, which is
capable of being renewed for every one of
them; and some have sincerely believed,
that a supernatural power of divination was
granted them, and that truths were mani-
fested in them, to which they testified more
clearly than the inventors.
The most famous of these religious philo-
VOL. III. A A
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? 354 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
sophers was Jacob Boehmen, who lived at
the beginning of the seventeenth century:
he made so much noise in his time, that
Charles the First sent a person express to
Gorlitz, the place of his abode, to study hia
work, and bring it back to England. Some
of his writings have been translated into
French by Monsieur de St. Martin; they are
very difficult to comprehend; nevertheless,
we cannot but be astonished that a man
without cultivation of mind should have
gone so far in the study of nature. He con-
siders it in general as an emblem of the prin-
cipal doctrines of Christianity; he fancies he
sees every where, in the phenomena of the
world, traces of the fall of man, and of his
regeneration; the effects of the principle of
anger, and of that of pity; and while the
Greek philosophers attempted to explain the
world, by the mixture of the elements of
air, water, and fire, Jacob Boehmen only
admits the combination of moral forces, and
has recourse to passages of the Gospel to in-
terpret the universe.
In whatever manner we consider those
singular writings, which for two hundred
years have always found readers, or rather
adepts, we cannot avoid remarking the two
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? THEOSOPHlST PHILOSOPHERS. 855
opposite roads which are followed, in order
to arrive at the truth, by the spiritual philo-
sophers, and by the philosophers of mate-
rialism. The former imagine, that it is by
divesting ourselves of all impressions from
without, and by plunging into the ecstacy
of thought, that we can interpret nature.
The latter pretend, that we cannot too much
guard against enthusiasm and imagination in
our inquiry into the phenomena of the uni-
verse. They would seem to say, that the
human understanding must be freed from
matter or from mind to comprehend nature,
while it is in the mysterious union of these
two that the secret of existence consists.
Some learned men in Germany assert, that
we find, in the works of Jacob Boehmen,
very profound views upon the physical world.
We may say, at least, that there is as much
originality in the theories of the religious
philosophers concerning creation, as in those
of Thales, of Xenophon, of Aristotle, of
Descartes, and Leibnitz. The Theosophists
declare, that what they think, has been re-
vealed to them, while philosophers, in ge-
neral, believe they are solely conducted by
their own reason. But, as both one and the
other aspire to know the mystery of mys-
AA %
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? 356 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
teries, of what signification, at this high
point, are the words of reason and folly?
and why disgrace with the name of insensate
persons those who believe they find great
lights in their exaltation of mind? It is a
movement of the soul of a very remarkable
nature, and which assuredly has not been
conferred upon us only for the sake of op-
posing it.
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? STIRIT OF SECTARISM. 357
CHAPTER VIII.
Of the Spirit of Sectarism in Germany.
The habit of meditation leads us to reveries
of every kind upon human destiny; active
life alone can divert our interest from the
source of things; but all that is grand or
absurd in respect to ideas is the result of that
internal emotion which we cannot expend
upon external objects. Many people are
very angry with religious or philosophical
sects, and give them the name of follies,
and of dangerous follies. It appears to me
that the wanderings even of thought are
much less to be feared than the absence of
thought, in respect to the repose and mo-
rality of men. When we have not within
ourselves that power of reflection which sup-
plies material activity, we must be inces-
santly in action, and frequently at random.
The fanaticism of ideas has sometimes led,
it is true, to violent actions, but it has al-
most always been because the advantages
of this world have been sought for by the
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? 358 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
aid of abstract opinions. Metaphysical sys-
tems are very little to be feared in them-
selves; they do not become dangerous till
they are united to the interests of ambition,
and it is therefore upon these interests that
we must gain a hold, if we wish to modify
such systems; but men who are capable
of a lively attachment to an opinion, inde-
pendently of the results which it may have,
are always of a noble nature. The philoso-
phical and religious sects, which, under dif-
ferent names, have existed in Germany, have
hardly had any connexion with political
affairs; and the sort of talent necessary to
lead men to vigorous resolutions, has been
rarely manifested in this country. We may
dispute upon the philosophy of Kant, upon
theological questions, uporf idealism or em-
piricism, without producing any thing but
books. The spirit of sect and the spirit of
party differ in many points. The spirit of
party represents opinions by that which is
most prominent about them, in order to
make the vulgar understand them; and the
spirit of sect, particularly in Germany, al-
ways leads to what is most abstract. In the
spirit of party we must seize the points of
view taken by the multitude to place our*
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? SPIRIT OF SECTARI8M. 359
selves among them; the Germans only think
of Theory, and if she was to lose herself in
the clouds, they would follow her there.
The spirit of party stirs up certain common
passions in men which unite them in a mass.