fended Jesus as he defended Calas; and even
for those who deny superhuman incarnations, what does the crucifix
represent? The assassinated sage.

In this nineteenth century, the religious idea is undergoing a crisis.
People are unlearning certain things, and they do well, provided that,
while unlearning them they learn this: There is no vacuum in the human
heart. Certain demolitions take place, and it is well that they do, but
on condition that they are followed by reconstructions.

In the meantime, let us study things which are no more. It is necessary
to know them, if only for the purpose of avoiding them. The counterfeits
of the past assume false names, and gladly call themselves the future.
This spectre, this past, is given to falsifying its own passport. Let
us inform ourselves of the trap. Let us be on our guard. The past has a
visage, superstition, and a mask, hypocrisy. Let us denounce the visage
and let us tear off the mask.

As for convents, they present a complex problem,--a question of
civilization, which condemns them; a question of liberty, which protects
them.

BOOK SEVENTH.--PARENTHESIS

CHAPTER I--THE CONVENT AS AN ABSTRACT IDEA

This book is a drama, whose leading personage is the Infinite.

Man is the second.

Such being the case, and a convent having happened to be on our road, it
has been our duty to enter it. Why? Because the convent, which is common
to the Orient as well as to the Occident, to antiquity as well as to
modern times, to paganism, to Buddhism, to Mahometanism, as well as to
Christianity, is one of the optical apparatuses applied by man to the
Infinite.

This is not the place for enlarging disproportionately on certain
ideas; nevertheless, while absolutely maintaining our reserves, our
restrictions, and even our indignations, we must say that every time we
encounter man in the Infinite, either well or ill understood, we feel
ourselves overpowered with respect. There is, in the synagogue, in the
mosque, in the pagoda, in the wigwam, a hideous side which we execrate,
and a sublime side, which we adore. What a contemplation for the mind,
and what endless food for thought, is the reverberation of God upon the
human wall!

CHAPTER II--THE CONVENT AS AN HISTORICAL FACT

From the point of view of history, of reason, and of truth, monasticism
is condemned. Monasteries, when they abound in a nation, are clogs in
its circulation, cumbrous establishments, centres o