Such is a summary of the ideas which shall be developed in our second conversation,[1] the object of which shall be, to present Christianity under a theoretical and scientific point of view, and to establish the authority of the Christian theory over all particular philosophies, as well religious as scientific.
Afterwards, in a third dialogue, I will treat directly of new or final Christianity. I will disclose its morality, its worship, and its doctrine. I will propose a profession of faith for the New Christians.
I will show them that this doctrine is the only social doctrine which can suit Europeans in the present state of their intelligence and civilization. I will prove that the adoption of this doctrine offers the best and most pacific means of remedying the enormous inconveniences which have resulted from the enslavement of the spiritual by the physical power at the fifteenth century, and of putting an end to this enslavement by organizing the spiritual power upon new bases, and giving it sufficient force to put a check upon the unlimited pretension of the temporal power.
I will then prove that the adoption of New Christianity will accelerate the progress of civilization infinitely more than could be done by any general measure, by giving a simultaneous impulse forwards to works that relate to the generalities of human knowledge, and to those which have for their object the perfection of specialities.
I terminate this first dialogue by declaring, frankly, what I think of the revelation of Christianity.
We are certainly very superior to our predecessors in the sciences of a positive and special utility. It is only since the fifteenth century, and principally since, the commencement of the last century, that we have
- ↑ The second and third Dialogue of New Christianity I have never seen; I suspect that the author died before he completed his work, as the copy which I translated was published by Olinde Rodrigue, his disciple, to whom he left his manuscripts, and the mantle of his spirit.—Trans.
