The Philosophy of Misery | Page 6

was
conquered; and for centuries the enchanted imagination of mortals was
turned away from the spectacle of Nature by the contemplation of
Olympian marvels.
Let us descend from this fanciful region: pitiless reason knocks at the
door; her terrible questions demand a reply.
"What is God?" she asks; "where is he? what is his extent? what are his
wishes? what his powers? what his promises?"--and here, in the light of
analysis, all the divinities of heaven, earth, and hell are reduced to an
incorporeal, insensible, immovable, incomprehensible, undefinable
I-know-not-what; in short, to a negation of all the attributes of
existence. In fact, whether man attributes to each object a special spirit

or genius, or conceives the universe as governed by a single power, he
in either case but SUPPOSES an unconditioned, that is, an impossible,
entity, that he may deduce therefrom an explanation of such
phenomena as he deems inconceivable on any other hypothesis. The
mystery of God and reason! In order to render the object of his idolatry
more and more RATIONAL, the believer despoils him successively of
all the qualities which would make him REAL; and, after marvellous
displays of logic and genius, the attributes of the Being par excellence
are found to be the same as those of nihility. This evolution is
inevitable and fatal: atheism is at the bottom of all theodicy.
Let us try to understand this progress.
God, creator of all things, is himself no sooner created by the
conscience,--in other words, no sooner have we lifted God from the
idea of the social me to the idea of the cosmic me,--than immediately
our reflection begins to demolish him under the pretext of perfecting
him. To perfect the idea of God, to purify the theological dogma, was
the second hallucination of the human race.
The spirit of analysis, that untiring Satan who continually questions and
denies, must sooner or later look for proof of religious dogmas. Now,
whether the philosopher determine the idea of God, or declare it
indeterminable; whether he approach it with his reason, or retreat from
it,--I say that this idea receives a blow; and, as it is impossible for
speculation to halt, the idea of God must at last disappear. Then the
atheistic movement is the second act of the theologic drama; and this
second act follows from the first, as effect from cause. "The heavens
declare the glory of God," says the Psalmist. Let us add, And their
testimony dethrones him.
Indeed, in proportion as man observes phenomena, he thinks that he
perceives, between Nature and God, intermediaries; such as relations of
number, form, and succession; organic laws, evolutions, analogies,--
forming an unmistakable series of manifestations which invariably
produce or give rise to each other. He even observes that, in the
development of this society of which he is a part, private wills and
associative deliberations have some influence; and he says to himself
that the Great Spirit does not act upon the world directly and by himself,
or arbitrarily and at the dictation of a capricious will, but mediately, by
perceptible means or organs, and by virtue of laws. And, retracing in

his mind the chain of effects and causes, he places clear at the
extremity, as a balance, God.
A poet has said,--
Par dela tous les cieux, le Dieu des cieux reside.
Thus, at the first step in the theory, the Supreme Being is reduced to the
function of a motive power, a mainspring, a corner-stone, or, if a still
more trivial comparison may be allowed me, a constitutional sovereign,
reigning but not governing, swearing to obey the law and appointing
ministers to execute it. But, under the influence of the mirage which
fascinates him, the theist sees, in this ridiculous system, only a new
proof of the sublimity of his idol; who, in his opinion, uses his
creatures as instruments of his power, and causes the wisdom of human
beings to redound to his glory.
Soon, not content with limiting the power of the Eternal, man,
increasingly deicidal in his tendencies, insists on sharing it.
If I am a spirit, a sentient me giving voice to ideas, continues the theist,
I consequently am a part of absolute existence; I am free, creative,
immortal, equal with God. Cogito, ergo sum,--I think, therefore I am
immortal, that is the corollary, the translation of Ego sum qui sum:
philosophy is in accord with the Bible. The existence of God and the
immortality of the soul are posited by the conscience in the same
judgment: there, man speaks in the name of the universe, to whose
bosom he transports his me; here, he speaks in his own name, without
perceiving that, in this going and coming, he only repeats himself.
The immortality of the soul, a true division of divinity, which,