On the subject of travelling and sojourning abroad, he speaks philosophically:
“When a man is absent from his country, he sees affairs more perfectly. Details do not obstruct his view, and important matters present themselves in their entireness. This is the reason why prophets and oracles lived alone in the world and remote. They were sages who studied subjects in their entirety and their judgment was not warped by the little passions of the day. The statesman, likewise, if he would judge and foresee the outcome, must often absent himself from the scene in which he performs the Drama of his time. To predict is impossible, for foreknowledge is for God alone; but to foresee is possible, and forethought is for man.”
Lamartine analyzes closely the doctrines of Saint-Simonism, and what he considers their weak points. “We must not,” he says, “judge new ideas by the derision which they encounter during the period. All great thoughts were first received in the world as aliens. Saint-Simonism has in it a something true, grand and beautiful; the application of Christianity to civil society, the legislation of Human Brotherhood.
“From this point of view I am a Saint-Simonian.
“What has placed this Society under an eclipse, though not under death, is not the want of an idea, nor the lack of disciples. In my opinion it wants a leader, a master, a manager. If there should be found a man of genius and virtue who was religious and at the same time prudent, who would bring the two horizons into one field of vision which should be placed under the direction of the nascent ideas, I have no doubt that he would transform it into a potent reality. Times in which there is an anarchy of ideas, are favorable seasons for the germinating of new and heroic thoughts.
“Society, to the eye of the philosopher, is in a state of disorder. It has neither direction, object nor leader; and it is reduced accordingly to the instinct of conservatism. A sect that is religious, moral, social and political,—that has a creed, a watchword, an object, a leader, and mind, if it were to advance compactly and directly at the midst of the disordered ranks in the present social order, would inevitably gain the victory. But it must bring safety and not ruin, attacking only what is injurious and not that which helps, and calling religion back to reason and love, prudence and Christian Brotherhood, having universal charity and usefulness as its only title and only foundation.