Carnet 8, 322
REVOLUTIONARY PRACTICE.—Propositions:
- Every revolution is caused by the displacement of interests;
the oscillation of ideas;
the exhaustion of an ideal. - These three causes do not form a triad: the first two are correlatives of one another; — the 3rd is an addition of the mind: (the first two are objective; the 3rd subjective).
- The Ideal is the infinite in thought.
- It demands a real and intelligible basis.
- It strays from it endlessly.
- There is a tendency of the mind to give the ideal an ontological value apart from its basis; to affirm as reality what had at first been conceived as ideal.
- God, freed from speculative theories, is the affirmation of a higher ideal and an existence superior to man and nature.
- That affirmation is without foundation.
- That affirmation is illogical and contradictory.
- However, Humanity has need of a supreme ideal, which serves it as rudder and motor, and which is at the same time a reality; — there is something in God. —
- That ideal cannot be found outside of it; — (God is worn out, ridiculous, absurd); it must be found within it.
- So it changes its nature: it is the infinite, or rather the indefinite, in the life of Humanity, in its size, its composition, etc.
