ement is much more difficult in the
case of the Gospels, the public life of Jesus having been shorter and
less eventful than the life of the founder of Islamism. Meanwhile, the
attempt to find a guiding thread through this labyrinth ought not to
be taxed with gratuitous subtlety. There is no great abuse of
hypothesis in supposing that a founder of a new religion commences by
attaching himself to the moral aphorisms already in circulation in his
time, and to the practices which are in vogue; that, when riper, and
in full possession of his idea, he delights in a kind of calm and
poetical eloquence, remote from all controversy, sweet and free as
pure feeling; that he warms by degrees, becomes animated by
opposition, and finishes by polemics and strong invectives. Such are
the periods which may plainly be distinguished in the Koran. The order
adopted with an extremely fine tact by the synoptics, supposes an
analogous progress. If Matthew be attentively read, we shall find in
the distribution of the discourses, a gradation perfectly analogous to
that which we have just indicated. The reserved turns of expression of
which we make use in unfolding the progress of the ideas of Jesus will
also be observed. The reader may, if he likes, see in the divisions
adopted in doing this, only the indispensable breaks for the
methodical exposition of a profound, complicated thought.

[Footnote 1: _Loc. cit._]

If the love of a subject can help one to understand it, it will also,
I hope, be recognized that I have not been wanting in this condition.
To write the history of a religion, it is necessary, firstly, to have
believed it (otherwise we should not be able to understand how it has
charmed and satisfied the human conscience); in the second place, to
believe it no longer in an absolute manner, for absolute faith is
incompatible with sincere history. But love is possible without faith.
To abstain from attaching one's self to any of the forms which
captivate the adoration of men, is not to deprive ourselves of the
enjoyment of that which is good and beautiful in them. No transitory
appearance exhausts the Divinity; God was revealed before Jesus--God
will reveal Himself after him. Profoundly unequal, and so much the
more Divine, as they are grander and more spontaneous, the
manifestations of God hidden in the depths of the human conscience are
all of the same order. Jesus cannot belong solely to those who call
themselves his disciples. He