76 



INTELLECTUAL AND 



Newton.* The Semite feels God, if we may so express it ; and, 

 as if absorbed and astounded by this personified creative force, 

 whose shadow presses on him, he does not understand the arts 

 of reproduction, although among all the people who excel in it. 



In fact, history itself will teach us that these tendencies are 

 so much accused and so general, that they are found every- 

 where ; in one place rising even above conquest, in another, 

 modifying itself to imported religions. When a religion, in 

 accordance with the genius of the men to whom it has been 

 addressed from the cradle, passes from this race to another, it 

 is necessarily modified. Pure monotheism, born in the east, 

 has only conquered the west and the Iranian race by transform- 

 ing itself to their pleasure. The Persians accepted Islam ; 

 but they have not been able to renounce this necessity for 

 plastic reproduction, which is one of the characteristics of the 

 Iranian family : a schism became formed, which authorised all 

 the arts, and left in entire freedom that natural tendency which 

 could not be smothered. Far more than the monsters in 

 Isaiah's dream, the lions of the Alhambra were a terrible pro- 

 phesy. Those who see them may read in their huge figures 

 the vitality of a conquered nation, whose love of the living 

 form invaded even the palace of the conquerors, and which 

 were soon to make them fly. The race which flourished at 

 Athens and at Eome only accepted Christianity, which also 

 came from the east, by despoiling it of its original character ; 

 and this religion would, at the present day, be incapable of 

 making proselytes in that east where it first took its rise. The 

 preaching of Mohammed was, as M. Renan has remarked, but 

 a reaction of pure monotheism against degenerated Christianity, 

 concealing but badly its polytheistic tendencies. 



In truth, the psychological study of the human race is a new 

 science, which has been examined into on some points, but not 

 in all. To desire to sketch it would be to fall into the alter- 

 native either of doing what others have done perfectly, or to 

 fall into error for want of necessary materials. We can only 



* See Philosophies Naturalis Principia Mathematica, pp. 482, 483, 4to, Am- 

 stelodami, 1723. 



