It is true that another question arises: has not a religion which has
separated itself from special miracle, from local interventions of the
supernatural, and from mystery, lost its savor and its efficacy? For the
sake of satisfying a thinking and instructed public, is it wise to
sacrifice the influence of religion over the multitude? Answer. A pious
fiction is still a fiction. Truth has the highest claim. It is for the
world to accommodate itself to truth, and not _vice versa_. Copernicus
upset the astronomy of the Middle Ages--so much the worse for it! The
Eternal Gospel revolutionizes modern churches--what matter! When symbols
become transparent, they have no further binding force. We see in them a
poem, an allegory, a metaphor; but we believe in them no longer. Yes,
but still a certain esotericism is inevitable, since critical,
scientific, and philosophical culture is only attainable by a minority.
The new faith must have its symbols too. At present the effect it
produces on pious souls is a more or less profane one; it has a
disrespectful, incredulous, frivolous look, and it seems to free a man
from traditional dogma at the cost of seriousness of conscience. How are
sensitiveness of feeling, the sense of sin, the desire for pardon, the
thirst for holiness, to be preserved among us, when the errors which
have served them so long for support and food have been eliminated? Is
not illusion indispensable? is it not the divine process of education?
Perhaps the best way is to draw a deep distinction between opinion and
belief, and between belief and science.
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