by Victor Hugo
CHAPTER V.
PRAYER.
They pray.
To whom?
To God.
To pray to God,--what does this mean?
Is there an infinite power outside of us? Is this infinite power aunity, immanent and enduring,--necessarily material, because it isinfinite, and if it lacked matter, in so far it would be circumscribed;necessarily intelligent, because it is infinite, and if it lackedintelligence, again it would be limited? Does this infinite powerawaken in us the idea of the essence of things, while we can onlyascribe to ourselves the idea of existence? In other words, is it notthe Absolute of which we are the Relative?
While there is an infinite power outside of us, is there not aninfinite power within us? Do not these two infinites (what a fearfulplural!) rest one upon the other? Does not the second infinite dependupon the first? Is it not its mirror, its reflection, its echo, anabyss concentric with another abyss? Is this second infinite alsointelligent? Does it think? Does it love? Has it a will? If both theseinfinites are intelligent, each of them has volition, and there is anEgo in the infinite above, as there is an Ego in the infinite below.The Ego in the one below is the soul; the Ego in the one above is God.
To bring by thought the infinite below in contact with the infiniteabove is called praying.
Let us take nothing from the human spirit; to suppress anything iswrong. Let us regenerate and transform it. Some of man's faculties aredirected toward the Unknown,--thought, revery, prayer. The Unknownis an ocean. What is conscience? It is the mariner's compass of theUnknown. Thought, revery, prayer, these are great mysterious rays; letus respect them. Whither tend these grand radiations of the soul? Intothe darkness; that is to say, to the light.
The grandeur of democracy is in its denying nothing and abjuringnothing of humanity. Next to the right of man comes the right of thesoul.
To crush out fanaticism, and to reverence the infinite, such is thelaw. Let us not be content to prostrate ourselves under the tree ofCreation, and to contemplate its immense branches full of stars. Wehave a duty,--to work for the human soul, to distinguish betweenmystery and miracle; to worship the incomprehensible and reject theabsurd; to admit as inexplicable only what we must; to make faith morehealthy, to remove from religion the superstitions that encumber it; tobrush the cobwebs from the image of God.