Ary Scheffer – De Hemelse en Aardse Liefde (Heavenly and Earthly Love) 1850-

Dordrechts Museum, The Netherlands.

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Today’s sharing from the Blue House of Via-HYGEIA is an hymn from Jean-Baptiste-Claude Delisle de Sales’s ‘ ‘Philosophie de la Nature’, Volume 3, page 297 and 298. A survivor of the French revolution, Jean-Baptiste-Claude Delisle de Sales, known for his ‘Philosophy of Nature’, was a firm advocate of the direct experience of consciousness, rather than unfolding rationalist hypothesis. His conception of life was constructed upon three levels that he calls ‘doors to the soul’: The senses were at the first level, understanding was the second and the highest degree was virtue. He venerated the original philosophers, such as Pythagoras, Plato and Socrates. He was very found of Homer and the world of archetypes that he skillfully stages in his ‘Illiad’ and the ’Odysee ‘ and found consolation during his recurrent seclusion in prison, due to his ability of annoy successive governments, with the works of Marc-Aurelius. His interest into the history of the world lead him, through astronomical observations, to criticize the official Church dogma that the earth was only 6000 years old. He was fascinated by ancient civilizations, especially Atlantis. One of his disciples, Antoine Fabre, later called Fabre d’Olivet, would successfully pick up these interests and develop them further.

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‘Thou, that remains despite Brutus’ blasphemy or the outrages of hypocrisy, sublime attribute of the freedom of intelligence, O virtue! Do you want to bring happiness to the Earth? Then inspire also those who govern it and those who guide it; direct the will of the kings and the philosophers.

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Show yourself without a veil and without clouds; because, always played by their imagination, they cover you with strange ornaments and then they grow used to worship in you, what is not you.

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Teach to the despot that there is no virtue without freedom; to the citizen, that to obey the laws it is obeying to one’s self; to the superstitious man that piety is not in committing suicide (translator’s note: suicide in a generic meaning. For instance, mortification is a slow suicide); to the philosopher, that he must study the laws of nature in his heart and not in books.

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Especially, tear up the triple blindfold that fascinates  (charm) in the people the eye of understanding; may they admire less what they cannot conceive; may they stop objecting to the progress of reason and may they honor more the virtue of obscure men than the brilliant vices of the famous.

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O virtue! All beings wear away before you; You are the only good, before the fruits of opinion and those given by nature. You exist and evil takes it’s leave from the Earth.

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May you direct with the same success my understanding and my will; because all the powers of the soul are subject to you; when I study you, you are a brilliant idea and when I practice you, you become just one great feeling.

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I would recognize your soft influence, when I am pleased with my soul; when the love of order rises in me to the degree of passion; when I would feel that nature has imprinted in me a great character and that I would dare finish its work.

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And it is with such a feeling that I would wait without a word and without haste that death comes to strike me; if the heavens prolong my stay, I would bear peacefully, and perhaps with gratitude; if I die before my time, what would I fear? It is Virtue itself that would lay me into the bosoms of nature.’

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Original French

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