I know how much there is of the frivolous and superficial in the return of our time to religious hopes and beliefs. I know how much even serious minds are doubtful and agitated upon this subject, the evils that are still at work, the problems that await solution, and that perhaps a tardy one. Nevertheless, we have got back to the right track. Man does not increase his distance from God; he has turned towards the East; he seeks the light. {41} Here we still yield rather to the force of facts than of ideas; and experience is credited rather than conviction. Still we believe in experience rather than in our own talent, and submit to facts though we hardly render a free and enlightened homage to the truths of which they witness. It is not yet adoration, but it is the fear of God, that beginning of wisdom. Had we already reached the point of adoration--were the wisdom for which we have so dearly paid really established amongst us, in the affairs of this world and in those of eternity, in questions political, moral, and religious, in short, in everything; and were we fully satisfied as to the rational lawfulness and practical utility of her counsels, if she enlightened our understandings as she rules our conduct--we should be far other than we are; more tranquil, more confiding, more firm, more worthy, more exalted. We should distinguish further; we should advance higher and faster in the paths of new and amending progress, in which we now walk slowly and with bended head, as if constrained and humbled. But, I repeat, it is needful, for this salutary transformation of our ideas to be accomplished, that our experience may become our reason. We have more good sense than enlightenment; we act better than we think. Inwardly and deeply we are imbued with prejudices which fetter although they do not rule us; we are still doubtful about the very truths by which we test our deeds; only doubt has changed its form and language. With our fathers it was infatuated and bold; with us it is detracting and useless. {42} Pride has turned it into contempt; and because we do not experience for human nature the unbounded ambition and chimerical hopes which formerly prevailed, we no longer love men tenderly, nor think well of their nature, nor take an interest in their destiny. We imagine that wisdom binds us to indifference and immobility.