Their religion, then, is the religion of
intellect. There you have the two worlds: Christianity brings and
preaches salvation by the conversion of the will, humanism by the
emancipation of the mind. One attacks the heart, the other the brain.
Both wish to enable man to reach his ideal. But the ideal differs, if
not by its content, at least by the disposition of its content, by the
predominance and sovereignty given to this for that inner power. For
one, the mind is the organ of the soul; for the other, the soul is an
inferior state of the mind; the one wishes to enlighten by making
better, the other to make better by enlightening. It is the difference
between Socrates and Jesus.
_The cardinal question is that of sin._ The question of immanence or of
dualism is secondary. The trinity, the life to come, paradise and hell,
may cease to be dogmas, and spiritual realities, the form and the letter
may vanish away, the question of humanity remains: What is it which
saves? How can man be led to be truly man? Is the ultimate root of his
being responsibility, yes or no? And is doing or knowing the right,
acting or thinking, his ultimate end? If science does not produce love
it is insufficient. Now all that science gives is the _amor
intellectualis_ of Spinoza, light without warmth, a resignation which is
contemplative and grandiose, but inhuman, because it is scarcely
transmissible and remains a privilege, one of the rarest of all.
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