With all that he
was full of passion and eloquence, somewhat sarcastic at times, but
witty and incisive. He had little literary culture, but he often came
out with some unexpected sally. You could feel that his was a
powerful individuality which faith kept under due control, but which
ecclesiastical discipline had not crushed. He was a saint, but had
very little of the priest and nothing of the Sulpician about him. He
did violence to the prime rule of the Company, which is to renounce
anything approaching talent and originality, and to be pliant to the
discipline which enjoys a general mediocrity.
M. Pinault had at first been professor of mathematics in the
university. In associating himself with studies which, in our
view, are incompatible with faith in the supernatural and fervent
catholicism, he did no more than M. Cauchy, who was at once a
mathematician of the first order and a more fervent believer than
many members of the Academy of Sciences who are noted for their piety.
Christianity is alleged to be a supernatural historical fact. The
historical sciences can be made to show--and to my mind, beyond the
possibility of contradiction--that it is not a supernatural fact, and
that there never has been such a thing as a supernatural fact. We do
not reject miracles upon the ground of _a priori_ reasoning, but upon
the ground of critical and historical reasoning, we have no difficulty
in proving that miracles do not happen in the nineteenth century, and
that the stones of miraculous events said to have taken place in our
day are based upon imposture and credulity.
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