LITTER DUMAS, PASTEUR, AND TAINE. 675 



called an agnostic. Without denying the existence of God and the 

 immortality of the soul, he dismissed them from his thoughts, as sub- 

 jects incapable of scientific demonstration. To this M. Pasteur re- 

 plies : 



" As for myself, holding that the words ' progress ' and ' invention ' 

 are synonymous, I ask by what new philosophical or scientific dis- 

 covery the soul of man can be torn from these lofty themes. They 

 seem to me to be eternal, because the mystery that infolds the uni- 

 verse, from which they emanate, is itself eternal. . . . 



" Positivism errs in more points than in its mistaken method. The 

 thread of its argument, though apparently close enough, has in it a 

 vast fault, which the sagacity of M. Littre might have detected. He 

 frequently remarks, in speaking of positivism from the practical point 

 of view, 'I call positivism all that is done by society to promote 

 social organization on a scientific basis, which is the positive con- 

 ception of the world.' I accept this definition if it be rigorously ap- 

 plied ; but the great and manifest fault of the system is that it omits 

 from the positive conception of the world the most important of posi- 

 tive ideas that of the infinite. 



"Beyond this starry firmament what is there? More skies and 

 stars. And beyond these ? The human mind, impelled by an irresisti- 

 ble power, will never cease to ask itself, what lies beyond ? Time and 

 space arrest it not. At the farthest point attained is a finite boundary, 

 enlarged from what preceded it ; no sooner is it reached than the im- 

 placable question returns, returns for ever in the curiosity of man. It 

 is vain to speak of space, of time, of size unlimited. Those words 

 pass the human understanding. But he who proclaims the existence 

 of the infinite and no man can escape from it comprehends in that 

 assertion more of the supernatural than there is in all the miracles of 

 all religions ; for the conception of the infinite has the twofold char- 

 acters that it is irresistible and incomprehensible. We prostrate our- 

 selves before the thought, which masters all the faculties of the under- 

 standing, and threatens the springs of intellectual life, like the sublime 

 madness of Pascal. Yet this positive and primordial conception is 

 gratuitously set aside by positivism, with all its consequences on the 

 life of human society. 



" The conception of the infinite in creation is everywhere irresisti- 

 bly manifest. It places the supernatural in every human heart. The 

 idea of God is a form of the idea of the infinite. As long as the mys- 

 tery of the infinite weighs upon the mind of man, temples will be 

 raised to it, be the object of adoration Brahma, Allah, Jehovah, or 

 Jesus. Metaphysics are but the study of this commanding notion of 

 the infinite. The same ideal conception is the faculty which, in pres- 

 ence of beauty, suggests the perfection of beauty. Science and the 

 true passion for discovery are the effects of that intense desire to 

 know, which is inspired by the mystery of the universe. And what is 



