The eighteen years of the monarchy of July were in reality a period of liberty, but the official direction given to things of the mind was often superficial and no better than would be expected of the average shopkeeper.  With regard to the second empire, if the ten last years of its duration in some measure repaired the mischief done in the first eight, it must never be forgotten how strong this government was when it was a question of crushing the intelligence, and how feeble when it came to raising it up.  The present hour is a gloomy one, and the immediate outlook is not cheerful.  Our unfortunate country is ever threatened with heart disease, and all Europe is a prey to some deep-rooted malady.  But by way of consolation, let us reflect upon what we have suffered.  The evil to come must be grevious indeed if we cannot say: 

  “O passi graviora, dabit deus his quoque finem.”

The one object in life is the development of the mind, and the first condition for the development of the mind is that it should have liberty.  The worst social state, from this point of view, is the theocratic state, like Islamism or the ancient Pontifical state, in which dogma reigns supreme.  Nations with an exclusive state religion, like Spain, are not much better off.  Nations in which a religion of the majority is recognized are also exposed to serious drawbacks.  In behalf of the real or assumed beliefs of the greatest number, the state considers itself bound to impose upon thought terms which it cannot accept.  The belief or the opinion of the one side should not be a fetter upon the other side.  As long as the masses were believers, that is to say, as long as the same sentiments were almost universally professed by a people, freedom of research and discussion was impossible.  A colossal weight of stupidity pressed down upon the human mind.  The terrible catastrophe of the middle ages, that break of a thousand years in the history of civilization, is due less to the barbarians than to the triumph of the dogmatic spirit among the masses.

This is a state of things which is coming to an end in our time, and we cannot be surprised if some disturbance ensues.  There are no longer masses which believe; a great number of the people decline to recognise the supernatural, and the day is not far distant, when beliefs of this kind will die out altogether in the masses, just as the belief in familiar spirits and ghosts have disappeared.  Even if, as is probable, we are to have a temporary Catholic reaction, the people will not revert to the Church.  Religion has become for once and all a matter of personal taste.  Now beliefs are only dangerous when they represent something like unanimity, or an unquestionable majority.  When they are merely individual, there is not a word to be said against them, and it is our duty to treat them with the respect which they do not always exhibit for their adversaries, when they feel that they have force at their back.