foundations and the doctrines of Christian faith; this is all that Christians are entitled to, all that they need to demand. Thus far I have explained the actual state of the Christian religion in France, the sources of its strength and of its weakness, its awakening and its perils. It is my intention now to examine the actual state of those doctrines and systems which repudiate, or which more or less deny and combat Christianity. {217} When I have passed the hostile army in review, I will once more confront Christianity with its adversaries, and endeavor to distinguish, by contrasting them, on which side the truth is, on which side the right, and on which side the hope of future success. --------------------------------------- {218} Second Meditation. Spiritualism. I witnessed the birth--not, certainly, the birth of Spiritualism, for this was, like its twin brother Materialism, born in the cradle of Philosophy, and while the steps of Philosophy were still those of an infant--but the birth of the spiritualistic school of the nineteenth century. This birth was a national reaction against the Sensualism of the eighteenth century--just as the Christian Awakening was a reaction against the impiety of the same epoch. Theories do not escape the influence of events: after the ideas come the facts, to pour upon those ideas floods of light, and to reveal the vices, whether of philosophy or of policy, in all their practical consequences. {219} The Sensualism--that is to say, to style it by its true name, the Materialism--of the eighteenth century, did not pass triumphantly through this test: it still reigned in France at the commencement of the nineteenth century, but it was the reign of an antiquated sovereign in decline--a sovereign of whom the public know the defects, and whose successor is at hand.