MMATE VIRTUE, NOBLE CHARACTER, I should not
like it, and should complain,--first, because such eulogies are never
deserved; and, second, because they furnish a bad example. But I wish,
in order to reconcile you to equality, to measure for you the
greatest literary personage of our century. Do not accuse me of envy,
proletaires, if I, a defender of equality, estimate at their proper
value talents which are universally admired, and which I, better than
any one, know how to recognize. A dwarf can always measure a giant: all
that he needs is a yardstick.

You have seen the pretentious announcements of "L'Esquisse d'une
Philosophie," and you have admired the work on trust; for either you
have not read it, or, if you have, you are incapable of judging it.
Acquaint yourselves, then, with this speculation more brilliant than
sound; and, while admiring the enthusiasm of the author, cease to pity
those useful labors which only habit and the great number of the
persons engaged in them render contemptible. I shall be brief; for,
notwithstanding the importance of the subject and the genius of the
author, what I have to say is of but little moment.

M. Lamennais starts with the existence of God. How does he demonstrate
it? By Cicero's argument,--that is, by the consent of the human race.
There is nothing new in that. We have still to find out whether the
belief of the human race is legitimate; or, as Kant says, whether
our subjective certainty of the existence of God corresponds with the
objective truth. This, however, does not trouble M. Lamennais. He says
that, if the human race believes, it is because it has a reason for
believing.

Then, having pronounced the name of God, M. Lamennais sings a hymn; and
that is his demonstration!

This first hypothesis admitted, M. Lamennais follows it with a second;
namely, that there are three persons in God. But, while Christianity
teaches the dogma of the Trinity only on the authority of revelation, M.
Lamennais pretends to arrive at it by the sole force of argument; and he
does not perceive that his pretended demonstration is, from beginning to
end, anthropomorphism,--that is, an ascription of the faculties of the
human mind and the powers of nature to the Divine substance. New songs,
new hymns!

God and the Trinity thus DEMONSTRATED, the philosopher passes to the
creation,--a third hypothesis, in which M. Lamennais, always eloquent,
varied, and sublime, DEMONSTRATES that God made the w