You stop me, and you exclaim, "But that is an ideal convent."
It is enough that such a convent is possible to make it my duty to take it into account.
This is the reason that in the preceding book I have spoken of a convent in a tone of respect. Putting aside the Middle Ages, putting aside Asia, reserving the consideration of the historical and political question from the purely philosophical point of view, outside of the necessities of militant politics, upon the condition that the monastery should be wholly voluntary, and should shut up only those who freely consent, I should always regard the claustral community with attentive and on some accounts reverend gravity. Where the community is, there is the commune; where the commune is, there is human right. The monastery is the result of the formula: Equality, Fraternity. Oh, how great is Liberty! What a glorious transfiguration! Liberty is all that is needed to transform the monastery into the republic.
But these men or these women, who are behind these four walls, they wear sackcloth, they are equal, they call each other brother. Very well; but is there anything else that they do?
They look into the darkness, they fall upon their knees, and they clasp their hands.
Is there an infinite power outside of us? Is this infinite power a unity, immanent and enduring,--necessarily material, because it is infinite, and if it lacked matter, in so far it would be circumscribed; necessarily intelligent, because it is infinite, and if it lacked intelligence, again it would be limited? Does this infinite power awaken in us the idea of the essence of things, while we can only ascribe to ourselves the idea of existence? In other words, is it not the Absolute of which we are the Relative?
While there is an infinite power outside of us, is there not an infinite power within us? Do not these two infinites (what a fearful plural!) rest one upon the other? Does not the second infinite depend upon the first? Is it not its mirror, its reflection, its echo, an abyss concentric with another abyss? Is this second infinite also intelligent? Does it think? Does it love? Has it a will? If both these infinites are intelligent, each of them has volition, and there is an Ego 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.