As for me, though I would not swear to it, I am inclined to think that M.Lamennais, already taken with scepticism, will die in a state of indifference.

He owes to individual reason and methodical doubt this expiation of his early essays.
It has been pretended that M.Lamennais, preaching now a theocracy, now universal democracy, has been always consistent; that, under different names, he has sought invariably one and the same thing,--unity.

Pitiful excuse for an author surprised in the very act of contradiction! What would be thought of a man who, by turns a servant of despotism under Louis XVI, a demagogue with Robespierre, a courtier of the Emperor, a bigot during fifteen years of the Restoration, a conservative since 1830, should dare to say that he ever had wished for but one thing,--public order?
Would he be regarded as any the less a renegade from all parties?
Public order, unity, the world's welfare, social harmony, the union of the nations,--concerning each of these things there is no possible difference of opinion.

Everybody wishes them; the character of the publicist depends only upon the means by which he proposes to arrive at them.

But why look to M.Lamennais for a steadfastness of opinion, which he himself repudiates?
Has he not said, "The mind has no law; that which I believe to-day, I did not believe yesterday; I do not know that I shall believe it to-morrow"?
No; there is no real superiority among men, since all talents and capacities are combined never in one individual.