ow that m. mazure, the archivist, had at last attained to academic honours, he began to regard the government with genial tolerance. but, as he was never happy unless he was at variance with someone, he now turned his wrath against the clericals, and began to denounce the scheming of the bishops. meeting m. bergeret in the place saint-exupère, he warned him of the peril threatening from the clerical party.
“finding it impossible,” said he, “to overturn the republic, the curés now want to divert it to their own ends.”
“that is the ambition of every party,” answered m. bergeret, “and the natural result of our democratic institutions, for democracy itself consists entirely in the struggle of parties, since the nation itself is not at one either in sentiments or interests.”
“but,” answered m. mazure, “the unbearable246 part of this is that the clericals should put on the mask of liberty in order to deceive the electors.”
to this m. bergeret replied:
“every party which finds itself shut out from the government demands liberty, because to do so strengthens the opposition and weakens the party in power. for the same reason the party in power curtails liberty as much as possible and it passes, in the sacred name of the sovereign people, the most despotic laws. for there is no charter which can safeguard liberty against the acts of the sovereign nation. democratic despotism theoretically has no limits, but in actual fact, and considering only the present period, i grant that its power is not boundless. democracy has given us ‘the black laws,’ but it never puts them in force.”
“monsieur bergeret,” said the archivist, “let me give you a piece of good advice. you are a republican: then don’t fire on your own friends. if we don’t look out, we shall fall back into the rule of the church. reaction is making terrible progress. the whites are always the whites; the blues are always the blues, as napoleon said. you are a blue, monsieur bergeret. the clerical party will never forgive you for calling jeanne d’arc a mascotte, and even i can scarcely pardon you for it, for jeanne d’arc and danton are my two special idols. you are a free-thinker.247 then join us in our anti-clerical campaign! let us unite our forces! it is union alone that can give us the strength to conquer. the highest interests are at stake in the fight against the church party.”
“it is just party interest that i see mainly at work in that conflict,” answered m. bergeret. “but if i were obliged to join a party at all, it must needs be yours, since it is the only one i could help without too much hypocrisy. but, happily, i am not reduced to this extremity, and i am by no means tempted to clip the wings of my mind in order to force it into a political compartment. to tell the truth, i am quite indifferent to your disputes, because i feel how empty they are. the dividing line between you and the clericals is a trifling matter at bottom. they would succeed you in office, provided there were no change in the position of the individual. and in the state it is the position of the individual that alone matters. opinions are but verbal jugglery, and it is only opinions that separate you from the church party. you have no moral system to oppose to theirs, for the simple reason that in france we have no religious code existing in opposition to a code of civil morality. those who believe that we have these two opposing systems of morality are merely deceived by appearances. i will prove this to you in a few words.
248 “in every era we find that there are habits of life which determine a line of thought common to all men. our moral ideas are not the fruit of thought, but the result of habit. no one dares openly to resist these ideas, because obedience to them is followed by honours, and revolt against them by humiliation. they are adopted by the entire community without question, independently of religious creeds and philosophic opinions, and they are as keenly upheld by those whose deeds by no means conform to their dictates, as they are by those who constrain themselves to live according to the rules laid down by them. the origin of these ideas is the only point that admits of discussion: so-called free-thinkers believe that the rules which direct their conduct are natural in origin, whilst pious souls discern the origin of the rules they obey in their religion, and these rules are found to agree, or nearly so, not because they are universal, that is, divine and natural, as people delight to say, but, on the contrary, because they are the product of the period and clime, deduced from the same habits, derived from the same prejudices. each epoch has its predominant moral idea, which springs neither from religion nor from philosophy, but from habit, the sole force that is capable of linking men in the same bond of feeling, for the moment we touch reason we touch the dividing principle in249 humanity, and the human race can only exist on condition that it never reflects on what is essential to its own existence. morality governs creeds, which are ever matters of dispute, whilst morality itself is never analysed.
“and simply because a moral code is the sum-total of the prejudices of the community, there cannot possibly exist two rival codes at the same time and in the same place. i could illustrate this truth by a great number of examples, but none of them could be more to the point than that of the emperor julian, with whose works i have lately been making myself somewhat familiar. julian, who fought on the side of the pagan gods with such staunchness and magnanimity—julian, who was a sun-worshipper, yet professed all the moral sentiments of the christians. like them, he scorned the pleasures of the flesh and vaunted the efficacy of fasting, because it brings a man into union with the divine. like them, he upheld the doctrine of atonement and believed in the purifying effect of suffering. he had himself initiated, too, into mysteries which satisfied his keen desire for purity, renunciation and divine love, quite as efficaciously as the mysteries of the christian religion. in a word, his neo-paganism was, morally speaking, own brother to the rising cult of christianity. and what is there surprising in that? the two creeds250 were the twin children of rome and of the east. they both corresponded to the same human habits, to the same deep instincts in the asiatic and latin worlds. their souls were alike, though in name and phraseology they differed from each other. this difference was enough to make them deadly enemies, for it is about mere words that men usually quarrel. it is for the sake of words that they most willingly kill and are killed. historians are in the habit of asking anxiously what would have become of civilisation, if the philosopher-emperor had conquered the galilean by winning a victory that he had rightly earned by his constancy and moderation. it is no easy game thus to reconstruct history. yet it seems clear enough that in this case, polytheism, which had already by the reign of julian been reduced to a species of monotheism, would have submitted to the new mental habits of the time and would have assumed precisely the same moral form that one sees it taking under christianity. look at all the great revolutionary leaders and tell me if there is a single one who showed himself in any way an original thinker, as far as morality is concerned. robespierre’s ideas of righteousness were to the end those in which he had been trained by the priests of arras.
“you are a free-thinker, monsieur mazure, and251 you think that man’s object on this planet ought to be to get the maximum amount of happiness out of it. m. de terremondre, who is a catholic, believes, on the contrary, that we are all here in a place of expiation in order that we may gain eternal life through suffering. yet, notwithstanding the contradiction in your creeds, you have both practically the same moral code, because morality is independent of creeds.”
“you make fun of things,” said m. mazure, “and you make me want to swear like a trooper. religious ideas, when all is said and done, enter into the formation of moral ideas to a degree that one cannot ignore. i am therefore right in saying that there is such a thing as christian morality, and that i heartily disapprove of it.”
“but, my dear sir,” answered the professor gently, “there are as many christian codes of morality as there are ages during which christianity has lasted and countries into which she has penetrated. religions, like chameleons, copy the colours of the soil over which they run. morality, though it is peculiar to each generation, since it is the one link to bind it together, changes incessantly along with the habits and customs of which she is the most striking representative, like an enlarged reflection on a wall. so true252 is this fact that it may actually be affirmed that the morality of these catholics who offend you resembles your own very closely, and yet differs widely from that of a catholic at the time of the league—to say nothing of those christians of the apostolic ages who would seem to m. de terremondre most extraordinary beings, were it possible for him to see them at close quarters. be impartial and just, if you can, and tell me this: in what essential respect does your morality as a free-thinker differ from the morality of those good people who to-day go to mass? they profess, as the bedrock of their creed, the doctrine of the atonement, but they are as indignant as you when that doctrine is put before them in a striking manner by their own priests. they profess to believe that suffering is good and pleasing to god. but—do you ever see them sit down on nails? you have proclaimed toleration for every creed: they marry jewesses and have stopped burning their fathers-in-law. what ideas have you which they do not share with you about sexual questions, about the family, about marriage, except that you allow divorce, though you take good care not to recommend it? they believe it is damnation to look at a woman and lust after her. yet at dinners and parties are the necks of their women any less bare than the253 necks of yours? do they wear dresses that reveal less of their figures? and do they bear in mind the words of tertullian about widows’ raiment? are they veiled and do they hide their hair? do you not settle their fashions? do you insist that they shall go naked because you don’t believe that eve covered herself with a branch of a fig-tree under the curse of javeh? in what way do your ideas about your country differ from theirs? for they exhort you to serve and defend it, just as if their own abiding city were not in the heavens. or about forced military service, to which they submit, with the solitary reservation of one point in ecclesiastical discipline, which in practice they yield? or on war, in which they will fight side by side with you, whenever you wish, although their god gave them the command: “thou shalt not kill.” are you anarchical and cosmopolitan enough to separate from them on these important questions in practical life? what can you name which is peculiar to you alone? you cannot even adduce the duel, which, on account of its being fashionable, is a part of their code as of yours, although it is neither in accordance with their principles, since both their kings and priests forbid it, nor with yours, for it is based on the incredible intervention of god himself. have you not the same moral code254 with respect to the organisation of labour, to private property and capital, to the whole organisation of society as it is to-day, under which you both endure injustice with equal patience—as long as you don’t personally suffer from it? you would have to become socialists for things to be otherwise, and were you to become socialistic, so doubtless would they. you are willing to tolerate injustice that survives from bygone days, every time that it works in your favour. and, on their side, your ostensible opponents gratefully accept the results of the revolution, whenever it is a question of acquiring a fortune derived from some former impropriator of national property. they are parties to the concordat, and so are you; so that even religion links you together.
“their creed has so little effect on their feelings that they love the life they ought to despise, quite as much as you do; and they cling as closely to their possessions, which are a stumbling-block in the way of their salvation. having practically the same customs as you, they have practically the same moral code. you quibble with them as to matters which only interest politicians and which have no connection with the organisation of a society which cares not a whit about your rival claims. faithful to the same traditions, ruled by255 the same prejudices, living in the same depths of ignorance, you devour one another like crabs in a basket. as one watches your conflicts of frogs and mice, one no longer craves for undiluted civil government.”
