A Materialist Profession of Faith.

— The Figaro of the 3rd of April, 1868, contained the following letter, apropos of the debates that took place around this time in the Senate, with respect to certain lessons taught at the School of Medicine.

“Paris, the 2nd of April, 1868.

“Sir Editor, “An error concerning me slipped into the last talk of doctor Flavius. I did not attend the opening lecture of Mr. Sée, last year and, consequently, I have no right to any part in that story. Besides, it is an error of form, and not of substance; but, to each his own deeds. My name must be replaced by that of my friend Jaclard, who no more believes than I do in the immortal soul. And, to tell the truth, I see in the whole Senate scarcely anyone but Mr. Sainte-Beuve, who dared, on that occasion, to entrust us with the care of his molars or the direction of his digestive tube. “And since I have the floor, permit me one more word. There must be an end to a joke that is beginning to become irritating, besides having the air of a retrogression. The School of Medicine, says doctor Flavius, stronger in childbirths than in philosophy, is neither atheistic nor materialist: it is positivist.

“But, in truth, what is positivism, if not a branch of that great materialist school, which goes from Aristotle and Epicurus down to Bacon, down to Diderot, down to Virchow, Moleschott and Büchner, not to mention the contemporaries and compatriots whom I do not cite – for that very reason.

“The philosophy of A. Comte had its usefulness and its glory in the time when ‘Cousinism’ reigned as master. Today that the banner of materialism has been raised in Germany by illustrious names, in France by young people, in whose midst I have the pride and pretension of counting myself, it is well that positivism retire to the modest role that befits it. It is well, above all, that it no longer affect, with regard to materialism, its master and its forebear, a disdain or reticence that are, to say the least, inopportune. “Receive, sir editor, the assurance of my distinguished consideration.”

A. Regnard, Former resident of the hospitals.

— As one sees, materialism too has its fanaticism. But a few years ago it would not have dared to exhibit itself so audaciously; today it openly throws down the challenge to spiritualism, and positivism is no longer, in its eyes, sufficiently radical. It has its public manifestations, and it is taught publicly to the youth; it has, moreover, that which it censures in others: intolerance, which goes as far as intimidation. Let one imagine the social state of a people imbued with such doctrines! These excesses, however, have their usefulness, their reason for being; they frighten society, and good always comes out of evil. The excess of evil is needed to make felt the need for what is better, without which man would not come out of his inertia; he would remain impassive before an evil that would perpetuate itself in favor of its small importance, whereas a great evil awakens his attention and makes him seek the means of remedying it. Without the great disasters that occurred at the beginning of the railways, and which terrified, since the small isolated accidents passed almost unnoticed, the measures of safety would have been neglected. In the moral order it is as in the physical: the more excessive the abuses, the nearer is the end. The primordial cause of the development of unbelief lies, as we have said many times, in the insufficiency of the religious beliefs, in general, to satisfy reason, and in their principle of immobility, which forbids them any concession regarding their dogmas, even in the face of evidence. If, instead of remaining in the rear, they had followed the progressive movement of the human spirit, keeping themselves always at the level of Science, they would certainly differ a little from what they were in the beginning, as an adult differs from the child in the cradle, but faith, instead of being extinguished, would have grown with reason, because it is a need for Humanity, and they would not have opened the door to the unbelief that comes to sap what remains of them; they reap what they have sown. Materialism is a consequence of the period of transition in which we are; it is not a progress, far from it, but an instrument of progress. It will disappear, proving its insufficiency for the maintenance of social order and for the satisfaction of serious minds, which seek the wherefore of each thing; for this it was necessary that they should see it in action. Humanity, which needs to believe in the future, will never content itself with the void that it leaves behind it, and will seek something better to compensate for it.