THE MIGRATION OF SYMBOLS. 787 



for its ancient fetiches, which are thenceforth regarded as repre- 

 sentative signs of the divinities. Finally, when we come to con- 

 ceive a Supreme God, of whom the old divinities are simply min- 

 isters or hypostases, the ancient figurative representations may 

 still have a place, provided they are put in relation with the quali- 

 ties or attributes of the superior being into which the divine 

 world resolves itself. This is an evolution of which traces are 

 observed almost everywhere in ancient polytheism. Dogmas and 

 sacraments can always, on their side, be brought by symbolism 

 into an interpretation harmonious with the progress of knowl- 

 edge and reason. Such is the task to which are devoted — after 

 Schelling and Hegel in Germany, and Coleridge and Maurice in 

 England — a notable fraction of Protestant theologians, with a suc- 

 cess which would doubtless have been greater if the school had 

 not broken with the laws of historical truth by persisting in 

 projecting into the past interpretations inspired by the present. 



A religious condition may be conceived in which all cults be- 

 come purely symbolical. There will be nothing to hinder their 

 preserving with a pious care the rites and traditions of their 

 heritage ; only they will make of them particularly symbols of 

 the truths common to all religions, and will consequently be able 

 to treat one another — as we see in the rites of certain churches — 

 as local forms and equally legitimate in the universal religion. 



Such a syncretism looks, at first sight, to be very far from us. 

 It would imply that all religions have their share of the truth, but 

 that none possesses it all. This is hardly the language of the 

 larger contemporary churches, if we may judge by those that 

 touch us most nearly. But it must be observed that, in practice, 

 their adepts live among one another as if the divergence in doc- 

 trines were reduced to a diversity of symbols. At times we see 

 their chiefs — a thing unheard of in former centuries — co-operat- 

 ing on a footing of equality in works of philanthropy or social 

 peace, as if they recognized that charity and justice afford a com- 

 mon ground for religious activity. Lastly, the attribution of a 

 relative value — or symbolic, which is the same thing — to all cults 

 indistinguishably may serve hereafter as a basis for the normal 

 relations of the state with the churches in the countries which are 

 under the influence of modern law. Let this idea, already an- 

 chored in our laws and our customs, be accepted in our conscious- 

 ness, and for the first time in history the world will be able to 

 enjoy a religious peace, founded not on the unity of forms and 

 formulas, but upon the admission of what, under variety of sym- 

 bols, is true and fruitful in all religions. — Translated for The 

 Popular Science Monthly from the Revue des Deux Mondes. 



