at last at the glorification of evil.  We have seen how is illustrated the morality of victory.  In the same current of ideas, a book famous now-a-days, and quite full of outrages to the conscience, supplies us with illustrations of the morality of falsehood.  M. Ernest Renan, in his explanation of Christianity, has applied, point after point, the theory which I have just set forth to you.  In order to estimate the grand movements of the human mind, he frees himself from the vulgar prejudices which make up the ordinary morals, and abandons himself to the impression of the spectacle which he contemplates.  Jesus had a success without parallel.  This success was based on charlatanism; and it is habitually so.  To lead the nations by deceiving them is the lesson of history, and the good rule to follow.  We find falsehood fortunate as matter of fact, we explain it, we approve it.

Whither then are we bound, under the guidance of modern science?  An irresistible current is drawing us on, and causing us to leave the morals of Philinthe in our rear.  We are coming to those which Racine has engraven in immortal traits in the person of Mathan.  When once conscience is put aside, all means are good in order to succeed; and the experience of the world teaches us that, to succeed, the worst means are often the best.

It is not only at the theatre that such lessons are received; they come out but too commonly from the ordinary dealings of life.  Set a young man face to face with the world as it exhibits itself, and tell him to give himself up to what he sees, to let himself be fashioned by life.  He will soon come to know that strict probity is a virtue of the olden times, chastity a fantastic excellence, and conscientious scruples an honorable simplicity.  Evil will become in his eyes the ordinary rule of life.  When the socialist Proudhon wrote that celebrated sentence, “Property is robbery,” there arose an immense outcry.  Ought there not to arise a louder outcry around a theory which arrives by a fatal necessity at this consequence:  “Evil is good”?

But do these doctrines exercise any influence for the perversion of public morals?  Much; their influence is disastrous.  And do the men who profess them believe them, taking the word ‘believe’ in its real and deep meaning?  No; they often do mischief which they do not mean to do, and do not see that they do.  They are intoxicated with a bad philosophy, and intoxication renders blind.  It is easy to prove that these optimists, who in theory find that everything is right, are perpetually contradicting themselves in practice.  Address yourselves to one of them, and say to him:  “Your doctrine is big with immorality.  You do not yourself believe it; and when you pretend to believe it, you lie.”  This man who tolerates everything will not tolerate your freedom of speech.  He will get angry, and, according to the old doctrines, he will have the right to be so, for insult is an evil.  Then say to him: