CHAPTER V--PRAYER

  They pray.

  To whom?

  To God.

  To pray to God,--what is the meaning of these words?

  Is there an infinite beyond us? Is that infinite there, inherent,permanent; necessarily substantial, since it is infinite; and because,if it lacked matter it would be bounded; necessarily intelligent, sinceit is infinite, and because, if it lacked intelligence, it would endthere? Does this infinite awaken in us the idea of essence, while we canattribute to ourselves only the idea of existence? In other terms, is itnot the absolute, of which we are only the relative?

  At the same time that there is an infinite without us, is there notan infinite within us? Are not these two infinites (what an alarmingplural!) superposed, the one upon the other? Is not this secondinfinite, so to speak, subjacent to the first? Is it not the latter'smirror, reflection, echo, an abyss which is concentric with anotherabyss? Is this second infinity intelligent also? Does it think? Doesit love? Does it will? If these two infinities are intelligent, each ofthem has a will principle, and there is an _I_ in the upper infinity asthere is an _I_ in the lower infinity. The _I_ below is the soul; the_I_ on high is God.

  To place the infinity here below in contact, by the medium of thought,with the infinity on high, is called praying.

  Let us take nothing from the human mind; to suppress is bad. We mustreform and transform. Certain faculties in man are directed towardsthe Unknown; thought, revery, prayer. The Unknown is an ocean. Whatis conscience? It is the compass of the Unknown. Thought, revery,prayer,--these are great and mysterious radiations. Let us respect them.Whither go these majestic irradiations of the soul? Into the shadow;that is to say, to the light.

  The grandeur of democracy is to disown nothing and to deny nothing ofhumanity. Close to the right of the man, beside it, at the least, thereexists the right of the soul.

  To crush fanaticism and to venerate the infinite, such is the law. Letus not confine ourselves to prostrating ourselves before the tree ofcreation, and to the contemplation of its branches full of stars. Wehave a duty to labor over the human soul, to defend the mystery againstthe miracle, to adore the incomprehensible and reject the absurd,to admit, as an inexplicable fact, only what is necessary, to purifybelief, to remove superstitions from above religion; to clear God ofcaterpillars.