De la situation faite au parti intellectuel
On the Situation Made for the Intellectual Party in the Modern World
Charles Péguy
Renan was not ignorant of all that. I mean that he was not ignorant of what the scientific apparatus of modern sanctions is. He had known, no doubt, those seminary enmities, which must in no way yield to enmities of the Ecole Normale, both being enmities of boarding schools. He had known, no doubt, some of those priestly enmities, which must in no way yield to enmities among scholars, both being priestly enmities.
It must be noted, however, that the Church had generally treated him gently, handled him with care so to speak constantly, at least in personal relations. In modern times the Church has virtually never treated roughly any of those who have left it decently. It has often shown a sort of courtesy, politeness, almost of coquetry and worldliness, in handling them, in speaking of them honorably, sometimes in treating them almost favorably. They are still her children, though they have become prodigal. They are her former children. She has for them the sentiments of a sort of ancient and honorary maternity. A somewhat dry maternity, milky maternities always having, as it were, a pagan undertone. Thus she is bound to them, she remains attached to them by a sort of secret understanding, a particular, unique, rare quality of preserved ancient intimacy, aromatic, essential, a little heady, a connivance of incense, of sacristy, of tabernacle, of cupboard and altar together, of fresh pure white linen and poor old yellowed lace, of the old cupboard of a great family, a common memory that goes from the furniture-like convenience of the sacristan to the divine authority of the priest, a collusion, a particular understanding above the heads of the public, the vulgar, third parties, particularly above the heads of those who are the most vulgar of all those third parties, and who certainly understand nothing at all anymore, above the heads of those who have made themselves the loudly proclaimed partisans, protectors, impromptu enthronizers of the deportee in his new religion.
To what extent the Church handled Renan with care — I mean naturally the true Church, the only one that is qualified, the ecclesiastical hierarchy, pontifical, episcopal, sacerdotal, the only one that is authorized, and not of course all those demagogic bands of clerical journalists, who are even worse, if possible, than the symmetrically demagogic bands of anticlerical and today anti-Catholic journalists — to what extent the only true Church handled Renan with care, the departure of Renan, the evacuation of Renan, the transition and arrangement of Renan, the first steps and first establishments of Renan in secular life, all his installation in the life of everyone else — all together so that there would be no scandal, or at least so that there would be as little scandal as possible, and also by an effect of that sort of continued affection that we have described, and finally all together by an application of wise policy and a sentimentally wise political affection, and also by an affectionate policy, it must be said, and even by a sincere affection sincerely continued — to what extent the only true Church, the only one that counts and that must be judged or that it is important or interesting to judge, handled Renan with care and almost protected him, we know from the confidences of Renan himself whenever they are somewhat sincere — and for anyone who knows how to read him there is no doubt on this point, the proofs are abundant to the point of being almost too many — we know it from all the texts and from good tradition — we know it from all the testimonies of third parties whenever those third parties have not been blinded by political passion or, a still graver blindness, by that very particular sort of mental obtuseness, or intellectual habit, which makes one believe that everything is friendly among apparent friends, and that everything is hostile among apparent and official and classified enemies, and that one sees neither the fissures that arise at the heart of apparent friendships nor the deep correspondences that bind from underneath apparent enmities.
In doing which the Church had, moreover, no particular merit with regard to Renan, for she was doing nothing more than what she has always done with all those who have decently left her. Her merit, if there was one, was with regard to herself: it was to have maintained, in this particular case and in the face of the modern temptations of publicity, the tradition of her ancient and deep discretion.
What is an intellectual? And first of all, what is the intellectual party? This is a question that we shall have to examine closely, for it is one of the gravest questions that modern times have raised.
An intellectual party is formed by intellectuals, just as a military party would be formed by the military. But what are intellectuals? In the most general sense, and in the sense in which this word has been employed in modern political struggles, and particularly in the Dreyfus affair, the intellectuals are all those who claim to live by the mind, and more particularly by speculative thought, as opposed to those who live by their hands, by manual labor, or by commerce, or by industry, or by agriculture, or by the military profession, or by any other practical profession.
But this definition, which would be the broadest, is also the vaguest and the most uncertain. For in reality there are very few men who live uniquely by speculative thought. Most of those who are called intellectuals, and who call themselves intellectuals, live in fact by the exercise of functions that are in no way purely speculative, and that are often entirely practical: they teach, they profess, they examine, they administer, they govern, they judge. In the exercise of these functions, there is perhaps not more speculation than in the exercise of any other human function, of commerce, industry, agriculture, or the military profession. And perhaps there is even less.
What characterizes the intellectual is not, then, that he thinks more than others. It is that he professes to think. It is that he makes a profession of thought, in the double sense of the word: he practices thought as a profession, as a trade, as a means of living; and he proclaims thought, he professes thought, he is a professor of thought. He thinks in public. He makes his thought public. He submits his thought to the public, and submits the public to his thought.
From this double character derives the double danger of the intellectual party, and the double temptation to which intellectuals are exposed in the modern world. Because they practice thought as a profession, they are tempted to consider thought as an instrument, as a tool, as a means, and not as an end. And because they profess thought, they are tempted to impose their thought, to make it reign, to make it govern, to make it the rule and measure of all things, to make it a power, to make it the power.
Renan occupied in his time and in the institution of the intellectual party a place that has no equivalent. He was at once the pride and the ornament and the honor of the intellectual party. He was its most brilliant and most illustrious representative. He was at the same time its most secret and most discreet critic. By the very splendor of his intelligence and by the very sincerity of his metaphysical preoccupation, he showed at once what the intellectual party could produce at its best and what the intellectual party could not do, what it could not reach, what it could not attain.
This situation was unique in the history of the modern world, and this is why we must dwell on it. For in Renan the two great forces of the modern world, the force of science and the force of religion, met, encountered each other, struggled, and came to a sort of accommodation, a sort of compromise, a sort of modus vivendi, which was at once the most brilliant and the most precarious of all the compromises of the modern world.
In a word, Renan was the greatest and the most honest of the modern intellectuals. He was the only one who perceived, and who dared to say, in his manner, which was indirect and enveloped and cautious and prudent and discreet and sometimes cowardly, but sometimes also courageous in its very cowardice, the only one who perceived and who dared to say that there are limits to the intellectual enterprise, and that there is something in the world, and in man, and in life, and in death, that the intelligence will never reach, and that all the apparatus of modern science, however immense, will never succeed in grasping.
This was his secret and his sadness. This was the meaning of all those famous smiles. This was the reason for all that worldliness and all those weaknesses. Under the appearance of facility, he hid the most terrible of difficulties. Under the appearance of irony, he hid the most desperate of anxieties. He knew. And he did not say. Or he said it so discreetly that no one understood.