But what progress have "parties" been able to effect in the general morality of our species?
If Jesus, instead of founding his heavenly kingdom, had gone to Rome, had expended his energies in conspiring against Tiberius, or in regretting Germanicus, what would have become of the world?
As an austere republican, or zealous patriot, he would not have arrested the great current of the affairs of his age, but in declaring that politics are insignificant, he has revealed to the world this truth, that one's country is not everything, and that the man is before, and higher than, the citizen.
Our principles of positive science are offended by the dreams contained in the programme of Jesus.

We know the history of the earth; cosmical revolutions of the kind which Jesus expected are only produced by geological or astronomical causes, the connection of which with spiritual things has never yet been demonstrated.

But, in order to be just to great originators, they must not be judged by the prejudices in which they have shared.

Columbus discovered America, though starting from very erroneous ideas; Newton believed his foolish explanation of the Apocalypse to be as true as his system of the world.

Shall we place an ordinary man of our time above a Francis d'Assisi, a St.Bernard, a Joan of Arc, or a Luther, because he is free from errors which these last have professed?
Should we measure men by the correctness of their ideas of physics, and by the more or less exact knowledge which they possess of the true system of the world?
Let us understand better the position of Jesus and that which made his power.