History is impossible, if we do not fully admit that there are many standards of sincerity.  All great things are done through the people; now we can only lead the people by adapting ourselves to its ideas.  The philosopher who, knowing this, isolates and fortifies himself in his integrity, is highly praiseworthy.  But he who takes humanity with its illusions, and seeks to act with it and upon it, cannot be blamed.  Caesar knew well that he was not the son of Venus; France would not be what it is, if it had not for a thousand years believed in the Holy Ampulla of Rheims.  It is easy for us, who are so powerless, to call this falsehood, and, proud of our timid honesty, to treat with contempt the heroes who have accepted the battle of life under other conditions.  When we have effected by our scruples what they accomplished by their falsehoods, we shall have the right to be severe upon them.  At least, we must make a marked distinction between societies like our own, where everything takes place in the full light of reflection, and simple and credulous communities, in which the beliefs that have governed ages have been born.  Nothing great has been established which does not rest on a legend.  The only culprit in such cases is the humanity which is willing to be deceived.

CHAPTER XVI.

MIRACLES.

Two means of proof—­miracles and the accomplishment of prophecies—­could alone, in the opinion of the contemporaries of Jesus, establish a supernatural mission.  Jesus, and especially his disciples, employed these two processes of demonstration in perfect good faith.  For a long time, Jesus had been convinced that the prophets had written only in reference to him.  He recognized himself in their sacred oracles; he regarded himself as the mirror in which all the prophetic spirit of Israel had read the future.  The Christian school, perhaps even in the lifetime of its founder, endeavored to prove that Jesus responded perfectly to all that the prophets had predicted of the Messiah.[1] In many cases, these comparisons were quite superficial, and are scarcely appreciable by us.  They were most frequently fortuitous or insignificant circumstances in the life of the master which recalled to the disciples certain passages of the Psalms and the Prophets, in which, in consequence of their constant preoccupation, they saw images of him.[2] The exegesis of the time consisted thus almost entirely in a play upon words, and in quotations made in an artificial and arbitrary manner.  The synagogue had no officially settled list of the passages which related to the future reign.  The Messianic references were very liberally created, and constituted artifices of style rather than serious reasoning.

[Footnote 1:  For example, Matt. i. 22, ii. 5, 6, 15, 18, iv. 15.]

[Footnote 2:  Matt. i. 23, iv. 6, 14, xxvi. 31, 54, 56, xxvii. 9, 35; Mark xiv. 27, xv. 28; John xii. 14. 15, xviii. 9, xix. 19, 24, 28, 36.]