the Christian and the modern man: the Christian "who with-
draws from the converse of men, exclusively preoccupied with
his own salvation, which is a matter between God and himself"
and "the modern man who, accepting the world and its laws,
resolves to extract from them all the good that they contain".
Unlike the former, the latter "cannot detach himself from other
men: fully conscious of the solidarity which unites him with his
fellows, which makes him in a sense dependent on them, he
knows that he cannot work out his salvation by himself". ² So
another thinker, who is fond of mordant phrases, referred to the
Pope as "only a technician of individual salvation". And in an
article attacking Christian tradition, an educationist said the
same thing, though in rather a different manner: "The point
in question is whether education should prepare the individual
to ignore everything that exists in this world. If so, it will result
in the development of an egoism gone mad. Man will have only
one concern left to him, his individual salvation ; so much the
worse if others suffer and if untold misfortunes surround us.
And if everybody adopted this point of view the world and
mankind would have no further reason for existence, 'it would
only remain for us to go back to the deserts, to shut ourselves
up in the cloister, to scourge ourselves day and night' in order
to avoid hell and gain heaven. But all that is the very denial
of humanity and of life in society." ³

Séailles, Alain, Marcel Giron are all, each in his way, aggres-
sive free-thinkers. But such a calm philosopher as Hamelin is in
agreement with them on this point. In the course of a study on
Renouvier's analytical philosophy of history ⁴ Hamelin asserts
that, Christ having promised salvation not to communities but
to individuals and "all that is social in the efforts of humanity"
being, according to Christian belief, "condemned to perish",
"the entirely individualist point of view" which the Christian
therefore adopts involves "a contempt for justice". For, he
explains, "it is impossible to be just without admitting an
interest in the social life of the group to which one belongs and
in its future. Justice rejects, then, a strict individualism, and is
thus opposed to the doctrine of the struggle for existence and
that of Christian detachment."

In answer to all this we may quote this simple assertion of

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