[Footnote 4:  Luke xi. 27, and following.]

CHAPTER IV.

THE ORDER OF THOUGHT WHICH SURROUNDED THE DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS.

As the cooled earth no longer permits us to understand the phenomena of primitive creation, because the fire which penetrated it is extinct, so deliberate explanations have always appeared somewhat insufficient when applying our timid methods of induction to the revolutions of the creative epochs which have decided the fate of humanity.  Jesus lived at one of those times when the game of public life is freely played, and when the stake of human activity is increased a hundredfold.  Every great part, then, entails death; for such movements suppose liberty and an absence of preventive measures, which could not exist without a terrible alternative.  In these days, man risks little and gains little.  In heroic periods of human activity, man risked all and gained all.  The good and the wicked, or at least those who believe themselves and are believed to be such, form opposite armies.  The apotheosis is reached by the scaffold; characters have distinctive features, which engrave them as eternal types in the memory of men.  Except in the French Revolution, no historical centre was as suitable as that in which Jesus was formed, to develop those hidden forces which humanity holds as in reserve, and which are not seen except in days of excitement and peril.

If the government of the world were a speculative problem, and the greatest philosopher were the man best fitted to tell his fellows what they ought to believe, it would be from calmness and reflection that those great moral and dogmatic truths called religions would proceed.  But it is not so.  If we except Cakya-Mouni, the great religious founders have not been metaphysicians.  Buddhism itself, whose origin is in pure thought, has conquered one-half of Asia, by motives wholly political and moral.  As to the Semitic religions, they are as little philosophical as possible.  Moses and Mahomet were not men of speculation; they were men of action.  It was in proposing action to their fellow-countrymen, and to their contemporaries, that they governed humanity.  Jesus, in like manner, was not a theologian, or a philosopher, having a more or less well-composed system.  In order to be a disciple of Jesus, it was not necessary to sign any formulary, or to pronounce any confession of faith; one thing only was necessary—­to be attached to him, to love him.  He never disputed about God, for he felt Him directly in himself.  The rock of metaphysical subtleties, against which Christianity broke from the third century, was in nowise created by the Founder.  Jesus had neither dogma nor system, but a fixed personal resolution, which, exceeding in intensity every other created will, directs to this hour the destinies of humanity.