PHILOSOPHY AND SPECIALTIES. 
19 
as any known people. Indeed the Mormons show lines of 
identity with both the Puritans and the Jesuits, to the 
former in bibliolatry and in bold independence, to the latter 
in employing all means to gain proselytes and in business 
skill, to both in theocratic militancy, but the whole un- 
philosophic world denies that they do good. The work of 
the Inquisition, or Holy Office, was logically correct on the 
principle advocated, which would also justify the massacre 
on St. Bartholomew’s eve. Most historians have united 
to censure Louis XIV., who refused to commission a noble¬ 
man who was reported to be a Jansenist, but who, on learn¬ 
ing that the nobleman did not have any religion whatever, 
straightway ordered him on important duty. The Grand 
Monarch knew his business as a ruler of men. The Jansen- 
ists were perhaps the best people among the Catholics in 
his kingdom, but they did not believe as he believed and 
worked on lines which were necessarily opposed to his policy 
and were therefore not to be trusted to command in his 
armies, but no danger was to be apprehended from an officer 
who cared only for his military orders. His action in re¬ 
voking the edict of Nantes, thereby driving away his most 
useful subjects, was in a different category. It showed that 
though a ruler he was not a philosopher, and that he could 
only see good in those who agreed with him. 
The good accomplished by belief, in its high activity, seems, 
therefore, subject to difference of opinion. It is also to be con¬ 
sidered whether the great and effective work, whether good 
or bad in result, of men and peoples has been done by and 
through such active belief. It is to be admitted that history 
is chiefly marked by convulsions and cataclysms which have 
been closely connected with religious beliefs and their reforms 
and revolutions, and that these alone are perceived by the 
unphilosophic observer. But these, together with their re¬ 
sulting wars, famines, and pestilences, correspond to the 
storms, earthquakes, and deluges of the material world. 
The secular story of our earth is, however, not mainly com¬ 
posed of, though it has been written in, storms and cat- 
