No More Learning

What accidental malady can be compared
to age and death? And yet almost all men
resign themselves to age and death, because
they have no defence against them: whence
then does it arise that every one revolts
against particular misfortunes, when all ac-
quiesce in universal evil? It is because we
treat destiny as a government which we allow
to make all the world suffer, provided that
it grants no privileges to any one. The mis-
fortunes that we endure in company with
our fellows are as severe, and cause as much
misery, as our individual sufferings; and yet
they hardly ever excite in us the same re-
bellious feeling. Why do not men teach
themselves that they ought to support that
which concerns them personally, as they
support the condition of humanity in general?
It is because we fancy there is injustice in
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? 320 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
our particular allotment. --Singular pride of
man! to wish to judge the Deity with that
instrument which he has received from him!
What does he know of the feelings of an-
other? What does he know of himself? What
does he know at all, except his internal
feeling? And this feeling, the more inward
it is, the more it contains the secret of our
felicity; for is it not in the bottom of our soul
that we feel happiness or unhappiness? Re-
ligious love, or self-love, alone penetrates to
the source of our most hidden thoughts.
Under the name of religious love are included
all the disinterested affections; and under
that of self-love all egotistical propensities:
in whatever manner fortune may favour or
thwart us, it is always the ascendancy of one
of these affections over the other, upon
which calm enjoyment, or uneasy disquiet,
depends.
It is to be wanting entirely in respect for
Providence, as it appears to me, to suppose
ourselves a prey to those phantoms which
we call events: their reality consists in their
effect upon the soul; and there is a perfect
equality between all situations and all cir-
cumstances, not viewed externally, but
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? MYSTICISM. " 321
judged according to their influence upon re-
ligious improvement. If each of us would
attentively examine the texture of his life,
we should find there two tissues perfectly
distinct: the one which appears entirely sub-
ject to natural causes and effects; the other,
whose mysterious tendency is not intelligible
except by dint of time. It is like a suit of
tapestry hangings, whose figures are worked
in on the wrong side, until, being put in,
a proper position, we can judge of their
effect. We end by perceiving, even in this
life, why we have suffered; why we have
not obtained what we desired. The me-
lioration of our own hearts reveals to us the
benevolent intention which subjected us to
pain; for the prosperities of the earth them-
selves would have something dreadful about
them, if they fell upon us after we had been
guilty of great faults: we should then think
ourselves abandoned by the hand of Him,
who delivered us up to happiness here below,
as to our sole futurity.
Either every thing is chance, or there is
no such thing in the world; and, if there is
not, religious feeling consists in making our-
selves harmonize with the universal order, in
spite of that spirit of rebellion and of usurpa-
vol. Hi. y
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? 322 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
tion with which selfishness inspires each of
us individually. All doctrines, and all modes
of worship, are the different forms which
this religious feeling has assumed according
to times and countries; it may be depraved
by fear, although it is built upon confident
hope; but it always consists in the convic-
tion, that there is nothing accidental in the
events of life, and that our sole manner of
influencing our fate lies in our internal com-
merce with ourselves. Reason is not the less
operative in all that relates to the conduct of
life; but when this housekeeper of existence
has managed matters as well as it can, the
bottom of our heart is after all the seat of
love; and that which is called Mysticism, is
this love in its most perfect purity.
The elevation of the soul towards its
Creator is the supreme act of worship among
the Christian Mystics; but they do not ad-
dress the Deity to pray for this or that
worldly advantage. A French writer, who
has some sublimely bright passages, M. de
Saint-Martin, has said, that prayer was the
breathing of the soul. The Mystics are, for
the most part, convinced, that an answer is
given to this prayer; and that the grand re-
velation of Christianity may be in some de-
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? MYSTICISM.
S2S
gree renewed in the soul, every timethat it
exalts itself with fervour towards Heaven.
When we believe that there no longer exists
any immediate communication between the
Supreme Being and man, prayer is only a
monologue, if we may be allowed the ex-
pression; but it becomes an act much more
beneficial, when we are persuaded that the
Divinity makes himself sensibly felt at the
bottom of our hearts. In fact, it does not
appear to me possible to deny, that there are
emotions within us which do not, in the
least, take their origin from external things,
and which soothe and support us without
the possibility of our attributing them to
the ordinary concatenation of the events of
life.
Men who have introduced self-love into a
doctrine entirely founded on the renunciation
of self-love, have taken advantage of these
unexpected instances of. divine support,. to
deceive themselves with illusions of every de-
scription: they have fancied that they were
elect persons, or prophets; they have be-
lieved in visions; in a word, they have
become superstitious in looking at them-
selves. What must not be the power
of human pride, when it insinuates itself
y2
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? 324 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
into the heart, under the very shape of hu-
mility! But it is not the less true, that
there is nothing more simple and more pure
than the connexions of the soul with the
Deity, such as they are conceived by those
whom it is the custom to call Mystics; that
is to say, the Christians who introduce love
into religion.
In reading the spiritual works of Fenelon,
who is not softened? where can we find so
much knowledge, consolation, indulgence?
There no fanaticism, no austerities but those
of virtue, no intolerance, no exclusion ap-
pear. The differences of Christian commu-
nities cannot be felt at that height which is
above all the accidental forms created and
destroyed by time.
He would be very rash, assuredly, who was
to hazard foreseeing any thing relating to such
important matters: nevertheless, I will ven-
ture to say, that every thing tends to establish
the triumph of religious feeling in the soul.
Calculation has gained such an empire over
the affairs of the world, that those who do
not embrace it are naturally thrown into the
opposite extreme. It is for this reason that
solitary thinkers, from one end of the world
to the other, endeavour to. assemble in one
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? MYSTICISM.
325
focus the scattered rays of literature, philo-
sophy, and religion.
It is generally feared that the doctrine of
religious resignation, called Quietism in the
last ages, will disgust us with the necessary
activity of this life. But nature takes care
to raise individual passions in us sufficiently
to prevent our entertaining much fears of the
sentiment that is to tranquillize them.
We neither dispose of our birth, nor of
our death; and more than three fourths 01
our destiny is decided by these two events.
No one can change the primitive effects of his
nativity, of his country, of his period, &c. No
one can acquire the shape or the genius that
he has not gained from nature; and of how
many more commanding circumstances still
is not life composed? If our fate consists of
a hundred different lots, there are ninety-
nine which do not depend upon ourselves;
and all the fury of our will turns upon the
weak portion which yet seems to be in our
favour. Now the action of the will itself
upon this weak portion is singular! }' incom-
plete. The only act of liberty of the man
who always attains his end, is the fulfilment
of duty: the issue of all other resolutions
depends entirely upon accidents, over whick
Lot
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? 326 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
prudence itself has no command. The
greater part of mankind does not obtain
that which it vehemently wishes; and pro-
sperity itself, when it comes, often comes
from an unexpected quarter.
The doctrine of Mysticism passes for a se-
vere doctrine, because it enjoins us to dis-
card selfishness, and this with reason appears
very difficult to be done. But, in fact,
Mysticism is the gentlest of all doctrines; it
consists in this proverb, make a virtue of ne-
cessity. Making a virtue of necessity, in the
religious sense, is to attribute to Providence
the government of the world, and to find
an inward consolation in this thought. The
Mystic writers exact nothing beyond the line
of duty, such as honest men have marked
it out; they do not enjoin us to create
troubles for ourselves; they think that man
ought neither to invite affliction, nor be im-
patient under it when it arrives. What evil
then can result from this belief, which unites
the calm of stoicism with the sensibility of
Christians ? " It prevents us from loving/'
some one may say. Ah! it is not religious
exaltation which chills the soul: a single in-
terest of vanity has done more to annihilate
the affections than any kind of austere opi-
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? MYSTICISM. 327
nion: even the deserts of the Thebaic! do
not weaken the power of sentiment; and
nothing prevents us from loving but the mi-
sery of the heart.
A very weighty inconvenience is falsely
attributed to Mysticism. It has been said
that it renders us too indulgent in relation to
actions, by referring religion to the internal
impressions of the soul; and that it induces
men to resign themselves to their defects as
to inevitable events. Nothing, assuredly,
would be more contrary to the Gospel than
this manner of interpreting submission to
the will of God. If we admitted that re-
ligious feeling, in any respect, dispensed with
action, there would not only result from this
a crowd of hypocrites, who pretended that
we must not judge them by the vulgar proofs
of religion, which are called works, and
that their secret communications with the
Deity are of an order greatly superior to the
fulfilment of duties; but there would be also
hypocrites with themselves, and we should
destroy in this mariner the power of remorse.
In fact, who has not some moments of re-
ligious tenderness, however limited his ima-
gination may be? Who has not sometimes
prayed with fervour? And if this was suf-
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? 328 RELIGFON AND ENTHUSIASM.
ficient for us to be released from the strict
observance of duty, the greater part of poets
might fancy themselves more religious than
St. Vincent de Paul.
But the Mystics have been wrongfully
accused of this manner of thinking. Their
writings and their lives attest, that they are
as regular in their moral conduct as those
who are subjected to the practices of the
most severe mode of worship: that which is
called indulgence in them, is the penetration
which makes us analyse the nature of man,
instead of confining ourselves to the injunc-
tion of obedience. The Mystics, always
considering the bottom of the heart, have
the air of pardoning its mistakes, because
they study the causes of them.
The Mystics, and almost all Christians,
have been frequently accused of a tendency
towards passive obedience to authority, what-
ever It may be; and it has been pretended,
that submission to the will of God, ill under-
stood, leads a little too often to submission
to the will of man. Nothing, however, is
less like condescension to power than reli-
gious resignation. Without doubt it may
console us in slavery, but it is because it then
gives to the soul all the virtues of indepen-
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? MYSTICISM. 329
dence. To be indifferent by religion to the
liberty or the oppression of mankind, would
be to mistake weakness of character for
Christian humility, and no two things are
more different. Christian humility bends
before the poor and the unhappy; and weak-
ness of character always keeps well with
guilt, because it is powerful in the world.
In the times of chivalry, when Christianity
had more ascendancy, it never demanded the
sacrifice of honour; but, for citizens, justice
and liberty are also honour. God confounds
human pride, but not the dignity of the
human race; for thi3 pride consists in the
opinion we have of ourselves; and this dig-
nity in our respect for the rights of others.
Religious men have an inclination not to
meddle with the affairs of this world, without
being compelled to do so by some manifest
duty; and it must be confessed, that so many
passions are excited by political interests,
that it is rare to mix in politics without
having to reproach ourselves with any wrong
action: but when the courage of conscience
is called forth, there is nothing which can
contend with it.
Of all nations, that which has the greatest
inclination to Mysticism is the German. Be-
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? 330 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
fore Luther, many authors, among whom we
must cite Tauler, had written upon religion
in this sense. Since Luther, the Moravians
have shown this disposition more than any
other sect. Towards the end of the eigh-
teenth century, Lavater combated with great
strength the system of rational Christianity,
which the theologians of Berlin had sup-
ported; and his manner of feeling religion
is, in many respects, completely like that of
Fenelon. Several lyric poets, from Klop-
stock down to our days, have a taint of
Mysticism in their compositions. The Pro-
testant religion, which reigns in the North,
does not satisfy the imagination of the Ger-
mans; and Catholicism being opposed by its
nature to philosophical researches, the reli-
gious and thinking among the Germans were
necessarily obliged to have recourse to a
method of feeling religion, which might be
applied to every form of worship. Besides,
idealism in philosophy has much analogy
with Mysticism in religion; the one places
all the reality of things in this world in
thought, and the other all the reality of
things in heaven in feeling.
The Mystics penetrate, with an incon-
ceivable sagacity, into every thing which
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? MYSTICISM.
gives birth in the human mind to fear or
hope, to suffering or to happiness; and no
sect ascends as they do to the origin of emo-
tions in the soul. There is so much interest
in this sort of inquiry, that even those who
are otherwise of moderate understanding
enough, when they have the least mystical
inclination in their hearts, attract and cap-
tivate by their conversation, as if they were
endowed with transcendent genius. That
which makes society so subject to ennui, is,
that the greater portion of those with whom
we live, talk only of external objects; and
upon this class of things the Want of the
spirit of conversation is very perceptible.
But religious Mysticism includes so extensive
a knowledge, that it gives a decided moral
superiority to those who have not received
it from nature: they apply themselves to the
study of the human heart, which is the first
of sciences, and give themselves as much
trouble to understand the passions, that they
may lull them to rest, as the men of the
world do to turn them to advantage.
Without doubt, great faults may still ap-
pear in the character of those whose doc-
trine is the most pure: but is it to their
doctrine that we should refer them? W<<
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? 332 RELIGION AND ENTHUSIASM.
pay especial homage to religion by the ex-
actions we make from all religious men the
moment we know they are so. We call
them inconsistent if they commit any trans-
gressions, or have any weaknesses; and yet
nothing can entirely change the conditions of
humanity. If religion always conferred moral
perfection upon us, and if virtue always led
to happiness, freedom of will would vlo
longer exist; for the motives which acted
upon volition, would be too powerful for
liberty.
Dogmatical religion is a commandment;
mystical religion is built upon the inward
experience of our heart: the mode of preach-
ing must necessarily be influenced by the di-
rection which the ministers of the Gospel
may take in this respect; and perhaps it
would be desirable for us to perceive in their
discourses more of the influence of those
feelings which begin to penetrate all hearts.
In Germany, where every sect abounds, Zol-
likoffer, Jerusalem, and many others, have
gained themselves a great reputation by the
eloquence of the pulpit; and we may read
upon all subjects a quantity of sermons which
contain excellent things: nevertheless, al-
though it is very wise to teach morality, it is
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? MYSTICISM.
333
still more important to inspire motives to be
moral; and these motives consist, above every
thing, in religious emotion. Almost all men
are nearly equally informed as to the incon-
veniencies and the advantages of vice and
virtue; but that which all the world wants,
is the strengthening of the internal disposi-
tion with which we struggle against the vio-
lent inclinations of our nature.
If the whole business was to argue well
with mankind, why should those parts of
the service, which are only songs and cere-
monies, lead us so much more than sermons
to meditation and to piety? The greater
part of preachers confine themselves to de-
claiming against evil inclinations, instead of
showing how we yield to them, and how we
resist them ; the greater part of preachers are
judges who direct the trial of men: but the
priests of God ought to tell us what they
suffer and what they hope; how they have
modified their characters by certain thoughts;
in a word, we expect from them the secret
memoirs of the soul in its relations with the
Deity.
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
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-22 00:49 GMT / http://hdl.