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young men, but to many men of our time and generation in whom we recognize a moral lassitude and
weakness.
Frederick Myers, author of Human Personality, has also said on this subject, ‘Pessimism is the moral
malady of the times; there is a lack of confidence in the true value of life.’ The doctrines of Nietzsche, of
Schopenhauer, of Haeckel, have largely contributed toward developing this state of things. Their influence has
been far-reaching. To them we may attribute the skepticism and discouragement, in a great measure, which
emanates from the contemporaneous mind: the utter lack of all that makes the ardor of life, its joyousness, its
confidence in the future - those virile qualities of the race.
It is time to battle with vigor against these funeral doctrines, and to seek outside of the old official
beliefs new methods of instruction, which respond to the imperious needs of the present hour. We must
prepare souls for the necessities, for the combats of actual life, and life further on. We must above all teach
human souls to understand and develop, in view of the final end, the latent forces which sleep within.
Until now, thought has been confined in narrow circles, religions, schools, and systems that exclude
and combat all ideas at variance with their own. We must rise out of this rigid circle, and give our thoughts a
larger freedom; every system contains a part of the truth, no one contains the entire truth. The universe and life
have aspects too varied, too numerous for any one system of teaching to embrace wholly.
We must take the fragments of truth which each contains and fit them together until they form a united
pattern; then add to them the aspects of truth which we discover from day to day, through the majestic
harmony of our awakened thought. The decadence of our epoch comes largely from the imprisoned and
restricted state of the human mind. 2 We must stir it out of its inertia and its creed-bound limits, and lift it
toward high altitudes without losing sight of the solid base, which affords it and enlarged and renewed science.
This science of the future we must work to establish. It will procure the indispensable criterion, the means of
verification, and the control without which thought, left to its freedom, risks the danger of losing its way.
We have said that trouble and incertitude are everywhere found in our social conditions. Within and
without, there is a state of inquietude. Under the brilliant surface of a refined civilization is hidden a deep
malady. Irritation increases in social circles; the conflict of interests and the battle for life becomes every day
more acute.
Humanity, weary of dogmas, and speculations without proof, is plunged in materialism or
indifference. From whence, then, comes this doctrine? Toward what abyss are we being drawn? What new
ideal will come to give man the confidence in the future and ardor for achievement? In the tragic hours of
history, when the situation seemed desperate, succor was at hand. The human soul cannot perish: in the
moment when our old faiths are hidden by a veil, a new conception of life and destiny, based upon science and
facts, reappears. The Great Tradition is revived under new forms, larger and more beautiful. It reveals to all a
future full of hope and promise. Salute, then, the new reign of the idea, victorious over matter, and work to
prepare fair ways for its footsteps.
The task is great, and the education of mankind must be entirely reconstructed. This education, we
have seen, neither the university nor the Church is prepared to give, since neither possesses the necessary
synthesis to cast light upon the pathway of new generations. One doctrine alone can offer this synthesis - that
of scientific spiritual research.
Already it shows a horizon to the world, and promises to illuminate the future. And this philosophy,
this science, free, independent, liberated from all official restrictions, from all compromising politics, is adding
every day new and precious discoveries to its storehouse of knowledge. The phenomena of magnetism, of
radioactivity, of telepathy, are but applications of the one principle, the manifestation of the One Law, which,
regulated at the same time, beings and universes.
A few more years of patient labor, of conscientious experimentation, of persistent research, and the
New Education will have its scientific formulae, its essential base; this event will be the grandest fact since the
coming of Christianity. Education, we all know, is the most powerful factor in progress. It contains the germ of
the entire future; but to be complete, education should inspire the mind of man to study life in two alternating
forms - the visible and the invisible: ‘Life in its plenitude, in its evolution towards the summit of nature and of
thought.’
2 These lines were written before the war. We must recognize that, during the course of this gigantic strife, the young Frenchmen have shown a heroism
above all eulogy; but the national education does not show in that, it is rather the result of sleeping qualities which have wakened in the heart of the race.
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