Morality and Free Thought (translated from the Revue des duex Mondes) [pp. 494-513]

1875.] MORALITY AND FREE THOUGHT. 509
deliverance, of what shall be the employment of this higher
activity, of what salvation is to consist? M. Janet is too circumspect a mind to establish himself in a region where venturesome geniuses revel-he confines himself briefly to opposing exclusive systems. Aristotle has pronounced magnificent words
on the future life, words which Bossuet comments upon with
enthusiasm. Spinoza also rises very high when he speaks of
this superior and supreme existence; but why do both make
the future life consist in the preservation of pure thoughts?
Speculative philosophers, scientific men, they have conceived
the divine life on the model of what they have best loved in
the terrestial life. Very well, this is a trait of character which
has its reward; do not forget, however, that there is something
more than science, and let us re-echo the cry, so tenderly human,
of M. Janet, "What will you do with those who are not savans
Count, if you can, in the innumerable family of human beings,
those who have lived the life of the heart; who have lived
it simply, ingenuously; who, without any theory, have devoted
themselves to some person or some thing; who, without any
abstract speculative opinion, have naively confessed justice and
truth-what will you do with them? What will you do with
mothers who have worshipped their children and lost them?
Where is their place in this metaphysical paradise? How will
that which made the beauty of their moral character on earth
expand in the divine light? According to Aristotle and Spinoza,
there will be no future life, no divine. life, except for their emulators of glory or the disciples of their thought; never has the
sombre doctrine, which speaks of the small number of the elect,
taught a more discouraging dogma. It is impossible to resign
oneself to that which would exclude from the future life the
greatest part of humanity. No, cries M. Janet, it is not proved
that the heart is less divine than the mind. The heart has its
reasons which the mind knows not, it likewise has its general
truths, it likewise is eternal.
Thus starting from the observation of ourselves, and guided
by free thought, without preconceived ideas, without other
light than that of reason, we find ourselves on the threshold of
the highest religious verities. The last chapter of such a book
ought necessarily to bear the title-re1z~ion. After having established, step by step, all the principles which have led him