The key of science has been thrown to children; as might have been expected, it is now, therefore, mislaid and practically lost. This notwithstanding, a man of high intuitions and great moral courage, Count Joseph de Maistre, who was also a resolute catholic, acknowledging that the world was void of religion and could not so remain, turned his eyes instinctively towards the last sanctuaries of occultism and called, with heartfelt prayers, for that day when the natural affinity which subsists between science and faith should combine them in the mind of a single man of genius. “This will be grand,” said he; “it will finish that eighteenth century which is still with us.... We shall talk then of our present stupidity as we now dilate on the barbarism of the Middle Ages.” The prediction of Count Joseph de Maistre is in course of realisation; the alliance of science and faith, accomplished long since, is here in fine made manifest, though not by a man of genius. Genius is not needed to see the sun, and, moreover, it has never demonstrated anything but its rare greatness and its lights inaccessible to the crowd. The grand truth demands only to be found, when the simplest will be able to comprehend it and to prove it also at need. At the same time that truth will never become vulgar, because it is hierarchic and because anarchy alone humours the bias of the crowd. The masses are not in need of absolute truths; were it otherwise, progress would be arrested and life would cease in humanity; the ebb and flow of contrary ideas, the clash of opinions, the passions of the time, ever impelled by its dreams, are necessary to the intellectual growth of peoples. The masses know it full well, and hence they desert so readily the chair of doctors to collect about the rostrum of mountebanks. Some even who are assumed to be concerned in philosophy, and that perhaps especially, too often resemble the children playing at charades, who hasten to turn out those who know the answer already, lest the game should be spoiled by depriving the puzzle of the questions of all its interest. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” has been said by Eternal Wisdom. Purity of heart therefore purifies intelligence, and rectitude of will makes for precision in understanding. Whosoever prefers truth and justice before all things shall have justice and truth for his reward, because supreme Providence has endowed us with freedom in order that we may attain life; and very truth, all its exactitude notwithstanding, intervenes only with mildness, never does outrage to tardiness or violence to the errors of our will when it is beguiled by the allurements of falsehood.