thin herself
without rising above herself, she would see only herself; it must be
above herself that my spirit will reach God."

God, creator, lawgiver, and preserver of the universe and of man,
everywhere and always present and potent, in permanent connection, nay,
communication, with man, at one time by natural and at another by
supernatural means, at one time by the channel of authority and at
another by that of free-agency, this is the point of departure, this the
fixed idea of the philosopho-theologians of the middle ages. There are
great gaps, great diversities, and great inconsistencies in their
doctrines; they frequently made unfair use of the subtile dialectics
called scholastics (la scolastique), and they frequently assigned too
much to the master's authority (l'autorite du maitre); but Christian
faith, more or less properly understood and explained, and adhesion to
the facts, to the religious and moral precepts, and to the primitive and
essential testimonies of Christianity, are always to be found at the
bottom of their systems and their disputes. Whether they be pantheists
even or sceptics, it is in an atmosphere of Christianity that they live
and that their thoughts are developed.

A breath from the grand old pagan life of Greece and Rome heaved forth
again and spread, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, throughout
this Christian atmosphere of the middle ages. Greek and Roman antiquity,
with its ideas and its works, had never been completely forgotten
therein. Aristotle and Plato, Seneca, Epictetus, Boetius, and other
ancients had taken their place amongst the studies and philosophical
notions of that period; but their influence had been limited to
professional scholars, and had remained without any social influence.
In spite of the stateliness of its ceremonies and the charm of its
traditions, paganism had never been, in plain truth, a religion; faith
and piety had held but a paltry place in it; instead of a God, the
creator and acting sovereign of the world, its gods were of human
invention and human nature: their adventures and the parts they played
were pleasing to the imagination, but gave no sort of satisfaction to the
deep instincts and higher aspirations of the soul. Christianity is God
hovering over, watching over, and descending to earth; paganism is earth,
its children and the stories of their lives transported, with their vices
rather than their virtues, to heaven. Olympus was peopl