science may leave the Church, as in A.D. 476, the sole hope and guide of
those who survive the cataclysm.
One lesson of history is that religion has many lives, and a habit of
resurrection. How often in the past have God and religion died and been
reborn! Ikhnaton [Ikhnaton (Amenhotep IV), King of Egypt (r. 1380?-1362
B.C.)] used all the powers of a pharaoh to destroy the religion of Amon;
within a year of Ikhnaton’s death the religion of Amon was restored.
Atheism ran wild in the India of Buddha’s youth, and Buddha [Buddha
(563?-?483 B.C.)] himself founded a religion without a god; after his death
Buddhism developed a complex theology including gods, saints, and hell.
Philosophy, science, and education depopulated the Hellenic pantheon,
but the vacuum attracted a dozen Oriental faiths rich in resurrection myths.
In 1793 Hébert [Hébert, Jacques René (1757-94)] and Chaumette
[Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard (1763-94)], wrongly interpreting Voltaire,
established in Paris the atheistic worship of the Goddess of Reason; a year
later Robespierre [Robespierre, Maximilien de (1758-94)], fearing chaos
and inspired by Rousseau [Rousseau, Jean Jacques (1712-78)], set up the
worship of the Supreme Being; in 1801 Napoleon, versed in history, signed
a concordat with Pius VII [Pius VII (Luigi Barnaba Chiaramonti), Pope (r.
1800-23)], restoring the Catholic Church in France. The irreligion of
eighteenth-century England disappeared under the Victorian compromise
with Christianity: the state agreed to support the Anglican Church, and the
educated classes would muffle their skepticism, on the tacit understanding
that the Church would accept subordination to the state, and the parson
would humbly serve the squire. In America the rationalism of the Founding
Fathers gave place to a religious revival in the nineteenth century.
Puritanism and paganism–the repression and the expression of the senses
and desires–alternate in mutual reaction in history. Generally religion and
puritanism prevail in periods when the laws are feeble and morals must
bear the burden of maintaining social order; skepticism and paganism
(other factors being equal) progress as the rising power of law and
