Protestantism and Catholicity. Balmes Jaime Luciano
revolution, they are identified with it, and regard it as their only rampart, or to overturn it, if, some motive having urged them into the opposite ranks, they see their most terrible enemy in the existing power, and a sword continually suspended over their heads. These men belong to an association, are devoted to an association, are ready to sacrifice themselves for it, for they cannot live alone; they know, they comprehend, at least instinctively, that the individual is nothing; for as the restraints that maintain social order have been broken, the individual no longer has a tranquil sphere where he can live in peace and independence, confident that a power founded on legitimacy and guided by reason and justice watches over the preservation of public order and the respect due to individual rights. Then timid men are alarmed and humbled, and begin to represent that first scene of servitude where the oppressed is seen to kiss the hand of the oppressor, and the victim to reverence the executioner. Daring men resist and contend, or rather, conspiring in the dark, they prepare terrible explosions. No one then belongs to himself; the individual is absorbed on all sides, either by the force which oppresses or by that which conspires. The tutelary divinity of individuals is justice; when justice vanishes, they are no more than imperceptible grains of dust carried away by the wind, or drops of water in the stormy waves of ocean. Imagine to yourself societies where this passing frenzy does not prevail, it is true, but which are yet devoid of true ideas on the rights and duties of individuals, and of those of public authority; societies where there are some wandering, uncertain, obscure, imperfect notions thereon, stifled by a thousand prejudices and errors; societies under which, nevertheless, public authority is organized under one form or another, and has become consolidated, thanks to the force of habit, and the absence of all other government better calculated to satisfy urgent necessities; you will then have an idea of the ancient societies, we should rather say, societies without Christianity, and you will understand the annihilation of the individual before the force of public power, either under an Asiatic despotism or the turbulent democracy of the ancient republics. And what you will then see will be precisely what you have observed in modern societies at times of revolution, only with this difference, that in these the evil is transitory and noisy, like the ravages of the tempest, while among the ancients it was the normal state, like the vitiated atmosphere which injures and corrupts all that breathe it.
Let us examine the cause of these two opposite phenomena, the lofty patriotism of the Greeks and Romans, and the state of prostration and political degradation in which other nations lay, and in which those still lie who are not under the influence of Christianity; what is the cause of this individual abnegation which is found at the bottom of two feelings so contrary? and why do we not find among any of those nations that individual development which is observed in Europe, and which with us is connected with a reasonable patriotism, from which the feeling of a legitimate personal independence is not excluded? It is because in antiquity man did not know himself, or what he was; it is because his true relations with society were viewed through a thousand prejudices and errors, and consequently were very ill understood. This will show that admiration for the patriotism, disinterestedness, and heroic self-denial of the ancients has been sometimes carried too far, and that these qualities, far from revealing in the men of antiquity a greater perfection of the individual, a superior elevation of mind to that of the men of modern times, rather indicate ideas less elevated and feelings less independent than our own. Perhaps some blind admirers of the ancients will be astonished at these assertions. Let them consider the women of India throwing themselves on the funeral-pile after the death of their husbands, and slaves putting themselves to death because they could not survive their masters, and they will see that personal self-denial is not an infallible sign of elevation of mind. Sometimes man does not understand his own dignity; he considers himself devoted to another being, absorbed by him, and then he regards his own existence only as a secondary thing, which has no object but to minister to the existence of another. We do not wish to underrate the merit which rightly belongs to the ancients; we do not wish to lower their heroism, as far as it is just and laudable, any more than we wish to attribute to the moderns an egotistical individuality, which prevents their sacrificing themselves for their country: our only object is to assign to every thing its place, by dissipating prejudices which are excusable up to a certain point, but do lamentable mischief by falsifying the principal features of ancient and modern history.
This annihilation of the individual among the ancients arose also from the weakness and imperfection of his moral development, and from his want of a rule for his own guidance, which compelled society to interfere in all that concerned him, as if public reason was called upon to supply the defect of private reason. If we pay attention, we shall observe that in countries where political liberty was the most cherished, civil liberty was almost unknown. While the citizens flattered themselves that they were very free, because they took part in the public deliberations, they wanted that liberty which is most important to man, that which we now call civil liberty. We may form an idea of the thoughts and manners of the ancients on this point, by reading one of their most celebrated writers, Aristotle. In the eyes of this philosopher, the only title which renders a man worthy of the name of citizen, seems to be the participation in the government of the republic; and these ideas, apparently very democratic and calculated to extend the rights of the most numerous class, far from proceeding, as one would suppose, from an exaggeration of the dignity of man, was connected in his mind with a profound contempt for man himself. His system was to reserve all honor and consideration for a very limited number; the classes of citizens who were thus condemned to degradation and nullity were all laborers, artisans, and tradesmen. (Pol. l. vii. c. 9, 12; l. viii. c. 1, 2; l. iii. c. 1.) This theory supposed, as may be seen, very curious ideas on individuals and society, and is an additional confirmation of what I have said respecting the eccentricities, not to say monstrosities, which we see in the ancient republics. Let us never forget that one of the principal causes of the evil was the want of an intimate knowledge of man; it was the little value which was placed upon his dignity as man; the individual, deprived of guides to direct him, could not conciliate esteem; in a word, there was wanting the light of Christianity, which was alone capable of illuminating the chaos.
The feeling of the dignity of man is deeply engraven on the heart of modern society; we find everywhere, written in striking characters, this truth, that man, by virtue of his title of man, is respectable and worthy of high consideration; hence it is that all the schools of modern times that have foolishly undertaken to exalt the individual, at the imminent risk of producing fearful perturbations in society, have adopted as the constant theme of their instructions, this dignity and nobility of man. They thus distinguish themselves in the most decided manner from the democrats of antiquity; the latter acted in a narrow sphere, without departing from a certain order of things, without looking beyond the limits of their own country; in the spirit of modern democrats, on the contrary, we find a tendency to invade all branches, an ardent propagandism which embraces the whole world. They never invoke mean ideas; man, his reason, his imprescriptible rights, these are their perpetual theme. Ask them what is their design, and they will tell you that they desire to level all things, to avenge the sacred cause of humanity. This exaggeration of ideas, the pretext and motive for so many crimes, shows us a valuable fact, viz. the immense progress which Christianity has given to ideas with relation to the dignity of our nature. When they have to mislead societies which owe their civilization to Christianity, they find no better means than to invoke the dignity of human nature. The Christian religion, the enemy of all that is criminal, could not consent to see society overturned, under the pretence of defending and raising the dignity of man; this is the reason why a great number of the most ardent democrats have indulged in insults and sarcasms against religion. On the other hand, as history loudly proclaims that all our knowledge and feeling of what is true, just, and reasonable on this point, is due to the Christian religion, it has been recently attempted to make a monstrous alliance between Christian ideas and the most extravagant of democratic theories. A celebrated man has undertaken this enterprise; but true Christianity, that is, Catholicity, rejects these adulterous alliances; it ceases to acknowledge its most eminent apologists when they have quitted the path of eternal truth. De Lamennais now wanders in the darkness of error, embracing a deceitful shadow of Christianity; and the voice of the supreme Pastor of the Church has warned the faithful against being dazzled by the illusion of a name illustrious by so many titles.16
CHAPTER XXIII.
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