THE ATTITUDE OF PHILOSOPHY 



because they come, not from a peevish and igno- 

 rant priest, but from a man of wide culture, 

 worldly wisdom, and undoubted intellectual 

 power — may be seen the violence of the reac- 

 tion against that negative philosophy which, in 

 its effort to break entirely with the past, had 

 assisted in bringing about the speculative athe- 

 ism and practical anarchy of 1793. We have 

 now to note that, from the statical point of view 

 which he occupied, De Maistre was perfectly 

 right in regarding modern scientific thought as 

 an enemy to society which must be put down at 

 whatever cost. For as modern science had not 

 yet reached that conception of gradual change 

 which underlies the Doctrine of Evolution, 

 while it had become distinctly conscious of its 

 hostility to the current mythologies, it assumed 

 the attitude of Atheism with reference to Chris- 

 tian theology and of Jacobinism with reference 

 to the institutions of Christian society. Now it 

 is perfectly true that the practical outcome of 

 these kindred forms of iconoclasm, could they 

 be allowed to have their way unhindered, would 

 be the dissolution of society and the return to 

 primeval barbarism. For since it is impossible 

 for a given state of civilization to be made to 

 order, even by the greatest political genius, or 

 to be produced in any way save by evolution 

 from an antecedent state, it follows that the dis- 

 solution of the social relations existing at any 



333 



