Moral
love places the center of the individual in the center of being. It has
at least salvation in principle, the germ of eternal life. _To love is
virtually to know; to know is not virtually to love_; there you have the
relation of these two modes of man. The redemption wrought by science or
by intellectual love is then inferior to the redemption wrought by will
or by moral love. The first may free a man from himself, it may
enfranchise him from egotism. The second drives the _ego_ out of itself,
makes it active and fruitful. The one is critical, purifying, negative;
the other is vivifying, fertilizing, positive. Science, however
spiritual and substantial it may be in itself, is still formal
relatively to love. Moral force is then the vital point. And this force
is only produced by moral force. Like alone acts upon like. Therefore do
not amend by reasoning, but by example; approach feeling by feeling; do
not hope to excite love except by love. Be what you wish others to
become. Let yourself and not your words preach for you.
Philosophy, then, to return to the subject, can never replace religion;
revolutionaries are not apostles, although the apostles may have been
revolutionaries. To save from the outside to the inside--and by the
outside I understand also the intelligence relatively to the will--is an
error and danger.
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