[34] _L’Irréligion de l’Avenir_, p. 232; Eng. trans., p. 278.
[35] _Ibid_., p. 236; Eng. trans., p. 283.
With particular reference to his own country, Guyau criticises the religious education of women, the question of “mixed marriages,” the celibacy of the Roman Catholic clergy, and the influence of religious beliefs upon the limitation or increase of the family.
After having summed up the tendency of dogmatic religion to decay, he asks if any unification of the great religions is to-day possible, or whether any new religion may be expected? The answer he gives to both these questions is negative, and he produces a wealth of very valid reasons in support of his finding. He is, of course, here using the term religion as he has himself defined it. The claim to universality by all world-religions, the insistence by each that it alone is the really best or true religion, precludes any question of unity. As well might we imagine unity between Protestantism and the Roman Catholic Church.
In the “non-religious” state, dogma will be replaced by individual constructions. Religion will be a free, personal affair, in which the great philosophical hypotheses (_e.g._, Theism and Pantheism) will be to a large extent utilised. They will, however, be regarded as such by all, as rational hypotheses, which some individuals will accept, others will reject. Certain doctrines will appeal to some, not to others. The evidence for a certain type of theism will seem adequate to some, not to others. There will be no endeavour to impose corporately or singly the acceptance of any creed upon others.
With Guyau’s conception of the future of religion or non-religion, whichever we care to call it, we may well close this survey of the religious ideas in modern France. In the Roman Church on the one hand, and, on the other, in the thought of Renan, Renouvier and Guyau, together with the multitude of thinking men and women they represent, may be seen the two tendencies—one conservative, strengthening its internal organisation and authority, in defiance of all the influences of modern thought, the other a free and personal effort, issuing in a genuine humanising of religion and freeing it from ecclesiasticism and dogma.