{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_19711/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_19711","id":"gutenberg_19711","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19711","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Essays","Nobel Prizes in Literature"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Buried Temple\n\n\nBy\n\nMaurice Maeterlinck\n\n\n\n\nTranslated by Alfred Sutro\n\n\n\n\nLONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.\n\nRUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1\n\n\n\n\nPublished in April 1902\n\nReprinted:--\n  POCKET EDITION, March 1911\n  November 1911\n  July 1919\n  December 1921\n  October 1924\n\n\n\nTwenty first Thousand\n\n(All rights reserved)\n\nPrinted in Great Britain\n\n\n\n\nNOTE\n\nOf the five essays in this volume, two only, those on \"The Past\" and\n\"Luck,\" were written in 1901.  The others, \"The Mystery of Justice,\"\n\"The Evolution of Mystery,\" and \"The Kingdom of Matter,\" are anterior\nto \"The Life of the Bee,\" and appeared in the _Fortnightly Review_ in\n1899 and 1900.  The essay on \"The Past\" appeared in the March number of\nthe _Fortnightly Review_ and of the New York _Independent_; and parts\nof \"The Mystery of Justice\" in this last journal and _Harper's\nMagazine_.  The author's thanks are due to Messrs. Chapman & Hall,\nMessrs. Harper & Brothers, and the proprietors of _The Independent_ for\ntheir permission to republish.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n   I. THE MYSTERY OF JUSTICE\n  II. THE EVOLUTION OF MYSTERY\n III. THE KINGDOM OF MATTER\n  IV. THE PAST\n   V. LUCK\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE MYSTERY OF JUSTICE\n\n1\n\nI speak, for those who do not believe in the existence of a unique,\nall-powerful, infallible Judge, for ever intent on our thoughts, our\nfeelings and actions, maintaining justice in this world and completing\nit in the next.  And if there be no Judge, what justice is there?  None\nother than that which men have made for themselves by their laws and\ntribunals, as also in the social relations that no definite judgment\ngoverns?  Is there nothing above this human justice, whose sanction is\nrarely other than the opinion, the confidence or mistrust, the approval\nor disapproval, of our fellows?  Is this capable of explaining or\naccounting for all that seems so inexplicable to us in the morality of\nthe universe, that we at times feel almost compelled to believe an\nintelligent Judge must exist?  When we deceive or overcome our\nneighbour, have we deceived or overcome all the forces of justice?  Are\nall things definitely settled then, and may we go boldly on: or is\nthere a graver, deeper justice, one less visible perhaps, but less\nsubject to error; one that is more universal, and mightier?\n\nThat such a justice exists we all of us know, for we all have felt its\nirresistible power.  We are well aware that it covers the whole of our\nlife, and that at its centre there reigns an intelligence which never\ndeceives itself, which none can deceive.  But where shall we place it,\nnow that we have torn it down from the skies?  Where does it weigh good\nand evil, happiness and disaster?  Whence does it issue to deal out\nreward and punishment?  These are questions that we do not often ask\nourselves, but they have their importance.  The nature of justice, and\nall our morality, depend on the answer; and it cannot be fruitless\ntherefore to inquire how that great idea of mystic and sovereign\njustice, which has undergone more than one transformation since history\nbegan, is being received to-day in the mind and the heart of man.  And\nis this mystery not the loftiest, the most passionately interesting, of\nall that remain to us: does it not intertwine with most of the others?\nDo its vacillations not stir us to the very depths of our soul?  The\ngreat bulk of mankind perhaps know nothing of these vacillations and\nchanges, but for the evolution of thought it suffices that the eyes of\nthe few should see; and when the clear consciousness of these has\nbecome aware of the transformation, its influence will gradually attain\nthe general morality of men.\n\n\n2\n\nIn these pages we shall naturally have much to say of social justice:\nof the justice, in other words, that we mutually extend to each other\nthrough life; but we shall leave on one side legal or positive justice,\nwhich is merely the organisation of one side of social justice.  We\nshall occupy ourselves above all with that vague but inevitable\njustice, intangible and yet so effective, which accompanies and sets\nits seal upon every action of our life; which approves or disapproves,\nrewards or punishes.  Does this come from without?  Does an inflexible,\nundeceivable moral principle exist, independent of man, in the universe\nand in things?  Is there, in a word, a justice that might be called\nmystic?  Or does it issue wholly from man; is it inward even though it\nact from without; and is the only justice therefore psychologic?  These\ntwo terms, mystic and psychologic justice, comprehend, more or less,\nall the different forms of justice, superior to the social, that would\nappear to exist to-day.\n\n\n3\n\nIt is scarcely conceivable that any one who has forsaken the easy, but\nartificially illumined, paths of positive religion, can still believe\nin the existence of a physical justice arising from moral causes,\nwhether its manifestations assume the form of heredity or disease, of\ngeologic, atmospheric, or other phenomena.  However eager his desire\nfor illusion or mystery, this is a truth he is bound to recognise from\nthe moment he begins earnestly and sincerely to study his own personal\nexperience, or to observe the external ills which, in this world of\nours, fall indiscriminately on good and wicked alike.  Neither the\nearth nor the sky, neither nature nor matter, neither air nor any force\nknown to man (save only those that are in him) betrays the slightest\nregard for justice, or the remotest connection with our morality, our\nthoughts or intentions.  Between the external world and our actions\nthere exist only the simple and essentially non-moral relations of\ncause and effect.  If I am guilty of a certain excess or imprudence, I\nincur a certain danger, and have to pay a corresponding debt to nature.\nAnd as this imprudence or excess will generally have had an immoral\ncause--or a cause that we call immoral because we have been compelled\nto regulate our life according to the requirements of our health and\ntranquillity--we cannot refrain from establishing a connection between\nthis immoral cause and the danger to which we have been exposed, or the\ndebt we have had to pay; and we are led once more to believe in the\njustice of the universe, the prejudice which, of all those that we\ncling to, has its root deepest in our heart.  And in our eagerness to\nrestore this confidence we are content deliberately to ignore the fact\nthat the result would have been exactly the same had the cause of our\nexcess or imprudence been--to use the terms of our infantine\nvocabulary--heroic or innocent.  If on an intensely cold day I throw\nmyself into the water to save a fellow-creature from drowning, or if,\nseeking to drown him, I chance to fall in, the consequences of the\nchill will be absolutely the same; and nothing on this earth or beneath\nthe sky--save only myself, or man if he be able--will enhance my\nsuffering because I have committed a crime, or relieve my pain because\nmy action was virtuous.\n\n\n4\n\nLet us consider another form of physical justice: heredity.  There\nagain we find the same indifference to moral causes.  And truly it were\na strange justice indeed that would throw upon the son, and even the\nremote descendant, the burden of a fault committed by his father or his\nancestor.  But human morality would raise no objection: man would not\nprotest.  To him it would seem natural, magnificent, even fascinating.\nIt would indefinitely prolong his individuality, his consciousness and\nexistence; and from this point of view would accord with a number of\nindisputable facts which prove that we are not wholly self-contained,\nbut connect, in more than one subtle, mysterious fashion, with all that\nsurrounds us in life, with all that precedes us, or follows.\n\nAnd yet, true as this may be in certain cases, it is not true as\nregards the justice of physical heredity, which is absolutely\nindifferent to the moral causes of the deed whose consequences the\ndescendants have to bear.  There is physical relation between the act\nof the father, whereby he has undermined his health, and the consequent\nsuffering of the son; but the son's suffering will be the same whatever\nthe intentions or motives of the father, be these heroic or shameful.\nAnd, further, the area of what we call the justice of physical heredity\nwould appear to be very restricted.  A father may have been guilty of a\nhundred abominable crimes, he may have been a murderer, a traitor, a\npersecutor of the innocent or despoiler of the wretched, without these\ncrimes leaving the slightest trace upon the organism of his children.\nIt is enough that he should have been careful to do nothing that might\ninjure his health.\n\n\n5\n\nSo much for the justice of Nature as shown in physical heredity.  Moral\nheredity would appear to be governed by similar principles; but as it\ndeals with modifications of the mind and character infinitely more\ncomplex and more elusive, its manifestations are less striking, and its\nresults less certain.  Pathology is the only region which admits of its\ndefinite observation and study; and there we observe it to be merely\nthe spiritual form of physical heredity, which is its essential\nprinciple: moral heredity being only a sequel, and revealing in its\nelementary stage the same indifference to real justice, and the same\nblindness.  Whatever the moral cause of the ancestor's drunkenness or\ndebauch, the same punishment may be meted out in mind and body to the\ndescendants of the drunkard or the debauchee.  Intellectual blemish\nwill almost always accompany material blemish.  The soul will be\nattacked simultaneously with the body; and it matters but little\nwhether the victim be imbecile, mad, epileptic, possessed of criminal\ninstincts, or only vaguely threatened with slight mental derangement:\nthe most frightful moral penalty that a supreme justice could invent\nhas followed actions which, as a rule, cause less harm and are less\nperverse than hundreds of other offences that Nature never dreams of\npunishing.  And this penalty, moreover, is inflicted blindly, not the\nslightest heed being paid to the motives underlying the actions,\nmotives that may have been excusable perhaps, or indifferent, or\npossibly even admirable.\n\nIt would be absurd, however, to imagine that drunkenness and debauchery\nare the only agents in moral heredity.  There are a thousand others,\nall more or less unknown.  Certain moral qualities appear to be\ntransmitted as readily as though they were physical.  In one race, for\ninstance, we will almost constantly discover certain virtues which have\nprobably been acquired.  But who shall say how much is due to heredity,\nand how much to environment and example?  The problem becomes so\ncomplicated, the facts so contradictory, that it is impossible, amidst\nthe mass of innumerable causes, to follow the track of one particular\ncause to the end.  Let it suffice to say that in the only clear,\nstriking, definitive cases where an intentional justice could have\nrevealed itself in physical or moral heredity, no trace of justice is\nfound.  And if we do not find it in these, we are surely far less\nlikely to find it in others.\n\n\n6\n\nWe may affirm therefore that not above us, or around us, or beneath us,\nneither in this life nor in our other life which is that of our\nchildren, is the least trace to be found of an intentional justice.\nBut, in the course of adapting ourselves to the laws of life, we have\nnaturally been led to credit with our own moral ideas those principles\nof causality that we encounter most frequently; and we have in this\nfashion created a very plausible semblance of effective justice, which\nrewards or punishes most of our actions in the degree that they\napproach, or deviate from, certain laws that are essential for the\npreservation of the race.  It is evident that if I sow my field, I\nshall have an infinitely better prospect of reaping a harvest the\nfollowing summer than my neighbour, who has neglected to sow his,\npreferring a life of dissipation and idleness.  In this case,\ntherefore, work obtains its admirable and certain reward; and as work\nis essential for the preservation of our existence, we have declared it\nto be the moral act of all acts, the first of all our duties.  Such\ninstances might be indefinitely multiplied.  If I bring up my children\nwell, if I am good and just to those round about me, if I am honest,\nactive, prudent, wise, and sincere in all my dealings, I shall have a\nbetter chance of meeting with filial piety, with respect and affection,\na better chance of knowing moments of happiness, than the man whose\nactions and conduct have been the very reverse of mine.  Let us not,\nhowever, lose sight of the fact that my neighbour, who is, let us say,\na most diligent and thrifty man, might be prevented by the most\nadmirable of reasons--such as an illness caught while nursing his wife\nor his friend--from sowing his ground at the proper time, and that he\nalso would reap no harvest.  _Mutatis mutandis_, similar results would\nfollow in the other instances I have mentioned.  The cases, however,\nare exceptional where a worthy or respectable reason will hinder the\naccomplishment of a duty; and we shall find, as a rule, that sufficient\nharmony exists between cause and effect, between the exaction of the\nnecessary law and the result of the complying effort, to enable our\ncasuistry to keep alive within us the idea of the justice of things.\n\n\n7\n\nThis idea, however, deeply ingrained though it be in the hearts and\nminds of the least credulous and least mystic of men, can surely not be\nbeneficial.  It reduces our morality to the level of the insect which,\nperched on a falling rock, imagines that the rock has been set in\nmotion on its own special behalf.  Are we wise in allowing certain\nerrors and falsehoods to remain active within us?  There may have been\nsome in the past which, for a moment, were helpful; but, this moment\nover, men found themselves once again face to face with the truth, and\nthe sacrifice had only been delayed.  Why wait till the illusion or\nfalsehood which appeared to do good begins to do actual harm, or, if it\ndo no harm, at least retards the perfect understanding that should\nobtain between the deeply felt reality and our manner of interpreting\nand accepting it?  What were the divine right of kings, the\ninfallibility of the Church, the belief in rewards beyond the grave,\nbut illusions whose sacrifice reason deferred too long?  Nor was\nanything gained by this dilatoriness beyond a few sterile hopes, a\nlittle deceptive peace, a few consolations that at times were\ndisastrous.  But many days had been lost; and we have no days to lose,\nwe who at last are seeking the truth, and find in its search an\nall-sufficient reason for existence.  Nor does anything retard us more\nthan the illusion which, though torn from its roots, we still permit to\nlinger among us; for this will display the most extraordinary activity\nand be constantly changing its form.\n\nBut what does it matter, some will ask, whether man do the thing that\nis just because he thinks God is watching; because he believes in a\nkind of justice that pervades the universe; or for the simple reason\nthat to his conscience this thing seems just?  It matters above all.\nWe have there three different men.  The first, whom God is watching,\nwill do much that is not just, for every god whom man has hitherto\nworshipped has decreed many unjust things.  And the second will not\nalways act in the same way as the third, who is indeed the true man to\nwhom the moralist will turn, for he will survive both the others; and\nto foretell how man will conduct himself in truth, which is his natural\nelement, is more interesting to the moralist than to watch his\nbehaviour when enmeshed in falsehood.\n\n\n8\n\nIt may seem idle to those who do not believe in the existence of a\nsovereign Judge to discuss so seriously this inadmissible idea of the\njustice of things; and inadmissible it does indeed become when\npresented thus in its true colours, as it were, pinned to the wall.\nThis, however, is not our way of regarding it in every-day life.  When\nwe observe how disaster follows crime, how ruin at last overtakes\nill-gotten prosperity; when we witness the miserable end of the\ndebauchee, the short-lived triumph of iniquity, it is our constant\nhabit to confuse the physical effect with the moral cause; and however\nlittle we may believe in the existence of a Judge, we nearly all of us\nend by a more or less complete submission to a strange, vague faith in\nthe justice of things.  And although our reason, our calm observation,\nprove to us that this justice cannot exist, it is enough that an event\nshould take place which touches us somewhat more nearly, or that there\nshould be two or three curious coincidences, for conviction to fade in\nour heart, if not in our mind.  Notwithstanding all our reason and all\nour experience, the merest trifle recalls to life within us the\nancestor who was convinced that the stars shone in their eternal places\nfor no other purpose than to predict or approve a wound he was to\ninflict on his enemy upon the field of battle, a word he should speak\nin the assembly of the chiefs, or an intrigue he would bring to a\nsuccessful issue in the women's quarters.  We of to-day are no less\ninclined to divinise our feelings for the benefit of our interests; the\nonly difference being that, the gods having no longer a name, our\nmethods are less sincere and less precise.  When the Greeks, powerless\nbefore Troy, felt the need of supernatural signal and support, they\nwent to Philoctetes, deprived him of Hercules' bow and arrows, and\nabandoned him, ill, naked, and defenceless, on a desert island.  This\nwas the mysterious Justice, loftier than that of man; this was the\ncommand of the gods.  And similarly do we, when some iniquity seems\nexpedient to us, cry loudly that we do it for the sake of posterity, of\nhumanity, of the fatherland.  On the other hand, should a great\nmisfortune befall us, we protest that there is no justice, and that\nthere are no gods; but let the misfortune befall our enemy, and the\nuniverse is at once repeopled with invisible judges.  If, however, some\nunexpected, disproportionate stroke of good fortune come to us, we are\nquickly convinced that we must possess merits so carefully hidden as to\nhave escaped our own observation; and we are happier in their discovery\nthan at the windfall they have procured us.\n\n\n9\n\n\"One has to pay for all things,\" we say.  Yes, in the depths of our\nheart, in all that pertains to man, justice exacts payment in the coin\nof our personal happiness or sorrow.  And without, in the universe that\nenfolds us, there is also a reckoning; but here it is a different\npaymaster who measures out happiness or sorrow.  Other laws obtain;\nthere are other motives, other methods.  It is no longer the justice of\nthe conscience that presides, but the logic of nature, which cares\nnothing for our morality.  Within us is a spirit that weighs only\nintentions; without us, a power that only balances deeds.  We try to\npersuade ourselves that these two work hand in hand.  But in reality,\nthough the spirit will often glance towards the power, this last is as\ncompletely ignorant of the other's existence as is the man weighing\ncoals in Northern Europe of the existence of his fellow weighing\ndiamonds in South Africa.  We are constantly intruding our sense of\njustice into this non-moral logic; and herein lies the source of most\nof our errors.\n\n\n10\n\nAnd further, what right have we to complain of the indifference of the\nuniverse, what right to declare it incomprehensible, and monstrous?\nWhy this surprise at an injustice in which we ourselves take so active\na part?  It is true that there is no trace of justice to be found in\ndisease, accident, or most of the hazards of external life, which fall\nindiscriminately on the good and the wicked, the hero and traitor, the\npoisoner and sister of charity.  But we are far too eager to include\nunder the title \"Justice of the Universe\" many a flagrant act that is\nexclusively human, and infinitely more common and more destructive than\ndisease, the hurricane, or fire.  I do not allude to war; it might be\nurged that we attribute this rather to the will of the people or kings\nthan to Nature.  But poverty, for instance, which we still rank with\nirremediable ills such as shipwreck or plague; poverty, with all its\ncrushing sorrows and transmitted degeneration--how often may this be\nascribed to the injustice of the elements, and how often to the\ninjustice of our social condition, which is the crowning injustice of\nman?  Need we, at the sight of unmerited wretchedness, look to the\nskies for a reason, as though a flash of lightning had caused it?  Need\nwe seek an impenetrable, unfathomable judge?  Is this region not our\nown; are we not here in the best explored, best known portion of our\ndominion; and is it not we who organise misery, we who spread it\nabroad, as arbitrarily, from the moral point of view, as fire and\ndisease scatter destruction or suffering?  Is it reasonable that we\nshould wonder at the sea's indifference to the soul-state of its\nvictims, when we who have a soul, the pre-eminent organ of justice, pay\nno heed whatever to the innocence of the countless thousands whom we\nourselves sacrifice, who are our wretched victims?  We choose to regard\nas beyond our control, as a force of fatality, a force that rests\nentirely within our own hands.  But does this excuse us?  Truly we are\nstrange lovers of an ideal justice, we are strange judges!  A judicial\nerror sends a thrill of horror from one end of the world to another;\nbut the error which condemns three-fourths of mankind to misery, an\nerror as purely human as that of any tribunal, is attributed by us to\nsome inaccessible, implacable power.  If the child of some honest man\nwe know be born blind, imbecile, or deformed, we will seek everywhere,\neven in the darkness of a religion we have ceased to practise, for some\nGod whose intention to question; but if the child be born poor--a\ncalamity, as a rule, no less capable than the gravest infirmity of\ndegrading a creature's destiny--we do not dream of interrogating the\nGod who is wherever we are, since he is made of our own desires.\nBefore we demand an ideal judge, we shall do well to purify our ideas,\nfor whatever blemish there is in these will surely be in the judge.\nBefore we complain of Nature's indifference, or ask at her hands an\nequity she does not possess, let us attack the iniquity that dwells in\nthe homes of men; and when this has been swept away, we shall find that\nthe part we assign to the injustice of fate will be less by fully\ntwo-thirds.  And the benefit to mankind would be far more considerable\nthan if it lay in our power to guide the storm or govern the heat and\nthe cold, to direct the course of disease or the avalanche, or contrive\nthat the sea should display an intelligent regard to our virtues and\nsecret intentions.  For indeed the poor far exceed in number those who\nfall victims to shipwreck or material accident, just as far more\ndisease is due to material wretchedness than to the caprice of our\norganism, or to the hostility of the elements.\n\n\n11\n\nAnd for all that, we love justice.  We live, it is true, in the midst\nof a great injustice; but we have only recently acquired this\nknowledge, and we still grope for a remedy.  Injustice dates such a\nlong way back; the idea of God, of destiny, of Nature's mysterious\ndecrees, had been so closely and intimately associated with it, it is\nstill so deeply entangled with most of the unjust forces of the\nuniverse, that it was but yesterday that we commenced the endeavour to\nisolate such elements contained within it as are purely human.  And if\nwe succeed; if we can distinguish them, and separate them for all time\nfrom those upon which we have no power, justice will gain more than by\nall that the researches of man have discovered hitherto.  For indeed in\nthis social injustice of ours, it is not the human part that is capable\nof arresting our passion for equity; it is the part that a great number\nof men still attribute to a god, to a kind of fatality, or to imaginary\nlaws of Nature.\n\n\n12\n\nThis last inactive part shrinks every day.  Nor is this because the\nmystery of justice is about to disappear.  A mystery rarely disappears;\nas a rule, it only shifts its ground.  But it is often most important\nand most desirable that we should bring about this change of abode.  It\nmay be said that two or three such changes almost stand for the whole\nprogress of human thought: the dislodgment of two or three mysteries\nfrom a place where they did harm, and their transference to a place\nwhere they become inoffensive and capable of doing good.  Sometimes\neven, there is no need for the mystery to change its place; we have\nonly to identify it under another name.  What was once called \"the\ngods,\" we now term \"life.\"  And if life be as inexplicable as were the\ngods, we are at least the gainers to the extent that none has the right\nto speak or do wrong in its name.  The aim of human thought can\nscarcely be to destroy mystery, or lessen it, for that seems\nimpossible.  We may be sure that the same quantity of mystery will ever\nenwrap the world, since it is the quality of the world, as of mystery,\nto be infinite.  But honest human thought will seek above all to\ndetermine what are the veritable irreducible mysteries.  It will\nendeavour to strip them of all that does not belong to them, that is\nnot truly theirs, of the additions made by our errors, our fears, and\nour falsehoods.  And as the artificial mysteries vanish, so will the\nocean of veritable mystery stretch out further and further: the mystery\nof life, its aim and its origin; the mystery of thought; the mystery\nthat has been called \"the primitive accident,\" or the \"perhaps\nunknowable essence of reality.\"\n\n\n13\n\nWhere had men conceived the mystery of justice to lodge?  It pervaded\nthe world.  At one moment it was supposed to rest in the hands of the\ngods, at another it engulfed and mastered the gods themselves.  It had\nbeen imagined everywhere except in man.  It had dwelt in the sky, it\nhad lurked behind rocks, it had governed the air and the sea, it had\npeopled an inaccessible universe.  Then at last we peered into its\nimaginary retreats, we pressed close and examined; and its throne of\nclouds tottered, it faded away; but at the very moment we believed it\nhad ceased to be, behold it reappeared, and raised its head once more\nin the very depths of our heart; and yet another mystery had sought\nrefuge in man, and embodied itself in him.  For it is in ourselves that\nthe mysteries we seek to destroy almost invariably find their last\nshelter and their most fitting abode, the home which they had forsaken,\nin the wildness of youth, to voyage through space; as it is in\nourselves that we must learn to meet and to question them.  And truly\nit is no less wonderful, no less inexplicable, that man should have in\nhis heart an immutable instinct of justice, than it was wonderful and\ninexplicable that the gods should be just, or the forces of the\nuniverse.  It is as difficult to account for the essence of our memory,\nour will, or intelligence, as it was to account for the memory, will,\nor intelligence of the invisible powers or laws of Nature; and if, in\norder to enhance our curiosity, we have need of the unknown or\nunknowable; if, in order to maintain our ardour, we require mystery or\nthe infinite, we shall not lose a single tributary of the unknown and\nunknowable by at last restoring the great river to its primitive bed;\nnor shall we have closed a single road that leads to the infinite, or\nlessened by the minutest fraction the most contested of veritable\nmysteries.  Whatever we take from the skies we find again in the heart\nof man.  But, mystery for mystery, let us prefer the one that is\ncertain to the one that is doubtful, the one that is near to the one\nthat is far, the one that is in us and of us to the harmful one from\nwithout.  Mystery for mystery, let us no longer parley with the\nmessengers, but with the sovereign who sent them; no longer question\nthose feeble ones who silently vanish at our first inquiry, but rather\nlook into our heart, where are both question and answer; the answer\nwhich it has forgotten, but, some day perhaps, shall remember.\n\n\n14\n\nThen we shall be able to solve more than one disconcerting problem as\nto the distribution, often very equitable, of reward and punishment\namong men.  And by this we do not mean only the inward, moral reward\nand punishment, but also the reward and punishment that are visible and\nwholly material.  There was some measure of reason in the belief held\nby mankind from its very origin, that justice penetrates, animates as\nit were, every object of this world in which we live.  This belief has\nnot been explained away by the fact that our great moral laws have been\nforcibly adapted to the great laws of life and matter.  There is more\nbeyond.  We cannot refer all things, in all circumstances, to a simple\nrelation of cause and effect between crime and punishment.  There is\noften a moral element also; and though events have not placed it there,\nthough it is we alone who have created it, it is not the less powerful\nand real.  Of a physical justice, properly so called, we deny the\nexistence; but besides the wholly inward psychologic justice, to which\nwe shall soon refer, there is also a psychologic justice which is in\nconstant communication with the physical world; and it is this justice\nthat we attribute to we know not what invisible and universal\nprinciple.  And while it is wrong to credit Nature with moral\nintentions, and to allow our actions to be governed by fear of\npunishment or hope of reward that she may have in store for us, this\ndoes not imply that, even materially, there is no reward for good, or\npunishment for evil.  Such reward and punishment undoubtedly exist, but\nthey issue not from whence we imagine; and in believing that they come\nfrom an inaccessible spot, that they master us, judge us, and\nconsequently dispense us from judging ourselves, we commit the most\ndangerous of errors; for none has a greater influence upon our manner\nof defending ourselves against misfortune, or of setting forth to\nattempt the legitimate conquest of happiness.\n\n\n15\n\nSuch justice as we actually discover in Nature does not issue from her,\nbut from ourselves, who have unconsciously placed it there, through\nbecoming one with events, animating them and adapting them to our uses.\nAccident, disease, the thunderbolt, which strike to right or to left,\nwithout apparent reason or warning, wholly indifferent as to what our\nthoughts may be, are not the only elements in our life.  There are\nother, and far more frequent, cases when we have direct influence on\nthe things and persons around us, and invest these with our own\npersonality; cases when the forces of nature become the instruments of\nour thoughts, which, when unjust, will make improper use of them,\nthereby calling forth retaliation and inviting punishment and disaster.\nBut in Nature there is no moral reaction; for this emanates from our\nown thoughts or the thoughts of other men.  It is not in things, but in\nus, that the justice of things resides.  It is our moral condition that\nmodifies our conduct towards the external world; and if we find this\nantagonistic, it is because we are at war with ourselves, with the\nessential laws of our mind and our heart.  The attitude of Nature\ntowards us is uninfluenced by the justice or injustice of our\nintentions; and yet these will almost invariably govern our attitude\ntowards Nature.  Here once more, as in the case of social justice, we\nascribe to the universe, to an unintelligible, eternal, fatal\nprinciple, a part that we play ourselves; and when we say that justice,\nheaven, nature, or events are rising in revolt against us to punish or\nto avenge, it is in reality man who is using events to punish man, it\nis human nature that rises in revolt, and human justice that avenges.\n\n\n16\n\nIn a former essay I referred to Napoleon's three crowning acts of\ninjustice: the three celebrated crimes that were so fatally unjust to\nhis own fortune.  The first was the murder of the Duc d'Enghien,\ncondemned by order, without trial or proof, and executed in the\ntrenches of Vincennes; an assassination that sowed insatiable hatred\nand vengeance in the path of the guilty dictator.  Then the detestable\nintrigues whereby he lured the too trustful, easy-going Bourbons to\nBayonne, that he might rob them of their hereditary crown; and the\nhorrible war that ensued, a war that cost the lives of three hundred\nthousand men, swallowed up all the morality and energy of the empire,\nmost of its prestige, almost all its convictions, almost all the\ndevotion it inspired, and engulfed its prosperous destiny.  And finally\nthe frightful, unpardonable Russian campaign, wherein his fortune came\nat last to utter shipwreck amid the ice of the Berezina and the\nsnow-bound Polish steppes.\n\n\"These prodigious catastrophes,\" I said, \"had numberless causes; but\nwhen we have slowly traced our way through all the more or less\nunforeseen circumstances, and have marked the gradual change in\nNapoleon's character, have noted the acts of imprudence, folly, and\nviolence which this genius committed; when we have seen how\ndeliberately he brought disaster to his smiling fortune, may we not\nalmost believe that what we behold, standing erect at the very\nfountain-head of calamity, is no other than the silent shadow of\nmisunderstood human justice?  Human justice, wherein there is nothing\nsupernatural, nothing very mysterious, but built up of many thousand\nvery real little incidents, many thousand falsehoods, many thousand\nlittle offences of which each one gave rise to a corresponding act of\nretaliation--human justice, and not a power that suddenly, at some\ntragic moment, leaps forth like Minerva of old, fully armed, from the\nformidable, despotic brow of destiny.  In all this there is only one\nthing of mystery, and that is the eternal presence of human justice;\nbut we are aware that the nature of man is very mysterious.  Let us in\nthe meanwhile ponder this mystery.  It is the most certain of all, it\nis the profoundest, it is the most helpful, it is the only one that\nwill never paralyse our energy for good  And though that patient,\nvigilant shadow be not as clearly defined in every life as it was in\nNapoleon's, though justice be not always as active or as undeniable, we\nshall none the less do wisely to study a case like this whenever\nopportunity offers.  It will at least give rise to doubt within us, it\nwill stimulate inquiry; and these things are worth far more than the\nidle, short-sighted affirmation or denial that we so often permit\nourselves: for in all questions of this kind our endeavour should not\nbe to prove, but rather to arouse attention, to create a certain grave,\ncourageous respect for all that yet remains unexplained in the actions\nof men, in their subjection to what appear to be general laws, and in\nthe results that ensue.\"\n\n\n17\n\nLet us now try to discover in what way this great mystery of justice\ndoes truly and inevitably work itself out within us.  The heart of him\nwho has committed an unjust act becomes the scene of ineffaceable\ndrama, the paramount drama of human nature; and it becomes the more\ndangerous, and deadlier, in the degree of the man's greatness and\nknowledge.\n\nA Napoleon will say to himself, at such troubled moments, that the\nmorality of a great life cannot be as simple as that of an ordinary\none, and that an active, powerful will has rights which the feeble,\ninert will cannot claim.  He will hold that he may the more\nlegitimately sweep aside certain conscientious scruples, inasmuch as it\nis not ignorance or weakness that causes him to disregard these, but\nthe fact that he views them from a standpoint higher than that of the\nmajority of men; and further, that his aim being great and glorious,\nthis passing deliberate callousness of his is therefore truly a victory\nwon by his strength and his intellect, since there can be no danger in\ndoing wrong when it is done by one who does it knowingly, and has his\nvery good reason.  All this, however, does not for a moment delude that\nwhich lies deepest within us.  An act of injustice must always shake\nthe confidence a man had in himself and his destiny; at a given moment,\nand that generally of the gravest, he has ceased to rely upon himself\nalone; and this will not be forgotten, nor will he ever again be wholly\nhimself.  He has confused, and probably corrupted, his fortune by the\nintroduction of strange powers.  He has lost the exact sense of his\npersonality and of the force that is in him.  He can no longer clearly\ndistinguish between what is his own and comes from himself, and what he\nis constantly borrowing from the pernicious collaborators whom his\nweakness has summoned.  He has ceased to be the general who has none\nbut disciplined soldiers in the army of his thoughts; he becomes the\nusurping chief around whom are only accomplices.  He has forsworn the\ndignity of the man who will have none of the glory at which his heart\ncan only smile as sadly as an ardent, unhappy lover will smile at a\nfaithless mistress.\n\nHe who is truly strong will examine with eager care the praise and\nadvantages that his actions have won for him, and will silently reject\nwhatever oversteps a certain line that he has drawn in his\nconsciousness.  And the stronger he is, the more nearly will this line\napproach the one that has already been drawn by the secret truth that\nlies at the bottom of all things.  An act of injustice is almost always\na confession of weakness; and very few such confessions are needed to\nreveal to the enemy the most vulnerable spot of the soul.  He who\ncommits an unjust deed that he may gain some measure of glory, or\npreserve the little glory he has, does but admit that what he desires\nor what he possesses is beyond his deserving, and that the part he has\nsought to play exceeds his powers of loyal fulfilment.  And if,\nnotwithstanding all, he persist in his endeavour, his life will soon be\nbeset by falsehoods, errors, and phantoms.\n\nAnd at last, after a few acts of weakness, of treachery, of culpable\nself-indulgence, the survey of our past life can bring discouragement\nonly, whereas we have great need that our past should inspire and\nsustain us.  For therein alone do we truly know what we are; it is only\nour past that can come to us, in our moments of doubt, and say: \"Since\nyou were able to do that thing, it shall lie in your power to do this\nthing also.  When that danger confronted you, when that terrible grief\nlaid you prostrate, you had faith in yourself, and you conquered.  The\nconditions to-day are the same; do you but preserve your faith in\nyourself, and your star will be constant.\"  But what reply shall we\nmake if our past can only whisper: \"Your success has been solely due to\ninjustice and falsehood, wherefore it behoves you once more to deceive\nand to lie\"?  No man cares to let his eyes rest on his acts of\ndisloyalty, weakness, or treachery; and all the events of bygone days\nwhich we cannot contemplate calmly and peacefully, with satisfaction\nand confidence, trouble and restrict the horizon which the days that\nare not yet are forming far away.  It is only a prolonged survey of the\npast that can give to the eye the strength it needs in order to sound\nthe future.\n\n\n18\n\nNo, it was not the inherent justice of things that punished Napoleon\nfor his three great acts of injustice, or that will punish us for our\nown in a less startling, but not less painful, fashion.  Nor was it an\nunyielding, incorruptible, irresistible justice, \"attaining the very\nvault of heaven.\"  We are punished because our entire moral being, our\nmind no less than our character, is incapable of living and acting\nexcept in justice.  Leaving that, we leave our natural element; we are\ncarried, as it were, into a planet of which we know nothing, where the\nground slips from under our feet, and all things disconcert us; for\nwhile the humblest intellect feels itself at home in justice, and can\nreadily foretell the consequences of every just act, the most profound\nand penetrating mind loses its way hopelessly in the injustice itself\nhas created, and can form no conception of what results shall ensue.\nThe man of genius who forsakes the equity that the humble peasant has\nat heart will find all paths strange to him; and these will be stranger\nstill should he overstep the limit his own sense of justice imposes:\nfor the justice that soars aloft, keeping pace with the intellect,\ncreates new boundaries around all it throws open, while at the same\ntime strengthening and rendering more insurmountable still the ancient\nbarriers of instinct.  The moment we cross the primitive frontier of\nequity all things seem to fail us; one falsehood gives birth to a\nhundred, and treachery returns to us through a thousand channels.  If\njustice be in us we may march along boldly, for there are certain\nthings to which the basest cannot be false; but if injustice possess us\nwe must beware of the justest of men, for there are things to which\neven these cannot remain faithful.  As our physical organism was\ndevised for existence in the atmosphere of our globe, so is our moral\norganism devised for existence in justice.  Every faculty craves for\nit, and is more intimately bound up with it than with the laws of\ngravitation, of light or heat; and to throw ourselves into injustice is\nto plunge headlong into the hostile and the unknown.  All that is in us\nhas been placed there with a view to justice; all things tend thither\nand urge us towards it: whereas, when we harbour injustice, we battle\nagainst our own strength; and at last, at the hour of inevitable\npunishment, when, prostrate, weeping and penitent, we recognise that\nevents, the sky, the universe, the invisible are all in rebellion, all\njustly in league against us, then may we truly say, not that these are,\nor ever have been, just, but that we, notwithstanding ourselves, have\ncontrived to remain just even in our injustice.\n\n\n19\n\nWe affirm that Nature is absolutely indifferent to our morality, and\nthat were this morality to command us to kill our neighbour, or to do\nhim the utmost possible harm, Nature would aid us in this no less than\nin our endeavour to comfort or serve him.  She as often would seem to\nreward us for having made him suffer as for our kindness towards him.\nDoes this warrant the inference that Nature has no morality--using the\nword in its most limited sense as meaning the logical, inevitable\nsubordination of the means to the accomplishment of a general mission?\nThis is a question to which we must not too hastily reply.  We know\nnothing of Nature's aim, or even whether she have an aim.  We know\nnothing of her consciousness, or whether she have a consciousness; of\nher thoughts, or whether she think at all.  It is with her deeds and\nher manner of doing that we are solely concerned.  And in these we find\nthe same contradiction between our morality and Nature's mode of action\nas exists between our consciousness and the instincts that Nature has\nplanted within us.  For this consciousness, though in ultimate analysis\ndue to her also, has nevertheless been formed by ourselves, and, basing\nitself upon the loftiest human morality, offers an ever stronger\nopposition to the desires of instinct.  Were we to listen only to these\nlast, we should act in all things like Nature, which would invariably\nseem to justify the triumph of the stronger, the victory of the least\nscrupulous and best equipped; and this in the midst of the most\ninexcusable wars, the most flagrant acts of injustice or cruelty.  Our\none object would be our own personal triumph; nor should we pay the\nleast heed to the rights or sufferings of our victims, to their\ninnocence or beauty, moral or intellectual superiority.  But, in that\ncase, why has Nature placed within us a consciousness and a sense of\njustice that have prevented us from desiring those things that she\ndesires?  Or is it we ourselves who have placed them there?  Are we\ncapable of deriving from within us something that is not in Nature; are\nwe capable of giving abnormal development to a force that opposes her\nforce; and if we possess this power, must not Nature have reasons of\nher own for permitting us to possess it?  Why should there be only in\nus, and nowhere else in the world, these two irreconcilable tendencies,\nthat in every man are incessantly at strife, and alternately\nvictorious?  Would one have been dangerous without the other?  Would it\nhave overstepped its goal, perhaps; would the desire for conquest,\nunchecked by the sense of justice, have led to annihilation, as the\nsense of justice without the desire for conquest might have lured us to\ninertia?  Which of these two tendencies is the more natural and\nnecessary, which is the narrower and which the vaster, which is\nprovisional and which eternal?  Where shall we learn which one we\nshould combat and which one encourage?  Ought we to conform to the law\nthat is incontestably the more general, or should we cherish in our\nheart a law that is evidently exceptional?  Are there circumstances\nunder which we have the right to go forth in search of the apparent\nideal of life?  Is it our duty to follow the morality of the species or\nrace, which seems irresistible to us, being one of the visible sides of\nNature's obscure and unknown intentions; or is it essential that the\nindividual should maintain and develop within him a morality entirely\nopposed to that of the race or species whereof he forms part?\n\n\n20\n\nThe truth is that the question which confronts us here is only another\nform of the one which lies at the root of evolutionary morality, and is\nprobably scientifically unsolvable.  Evolutionary morality bases itself\non the justice of Nature--though it dare not speak out the word; on the\njustice of Nature, which imposes upon each individual the good or evil\nconsequences of his own character and his own actions.  But when, on\nthe other hand, it is necessary for evolutionary morality to justify\nactions which, although intrinsically unjust, are necessary for the\nprosperity of the species, it falls back upon what it reluctantly terms\nNature's indifference or injustice.  Here we have two unknown aims,\nthat of humanity and that of Nature; and these, wrapped as they are in\na mystery that may some day perhaps pass away, would seem to be\nirreconcilable in our mind.  Essentially, all these questions resolve\nthemselves into one, which is of the utmost importance to our\ncontemporary morality.  The race would appear to be becoming conscious,\nprematurely it may be, and perhaps disastrously, not, we will say, of\nits rights, for that problem is still in suspense, but of the fact that\nmorality does not enter into certain actions that go to make history.\n\nThis disquieting consciousness would seem to be slowly invading our\nindividual life.  Thrice, and more or less in the course of one year,\nhas this question confronted us, and assumed vast proportions: in the\nmatter of America's crushing defeat of Spain (although here the issues\nwere confused, for the Spaniards, besides their present blunders, had\nbeen guilty of so many acts of injustice in the past, that the problem\nbecomes very involved); in the case of an innocent man sacrificed to\nthe preponderating interests of his country; and in the iniquitous war\nof the Transvaal.  It is true that the phenomenon is not altogether\nwithout precedent.  Man has always endeavoured to justify his\ninjustice; and when human justice offered him no excuse or pretext, he\nfound in the will of the gods a law superior to the justice of man.\nBut our excuse or pretext of to-day is fraught with the more peril to\nour morality inasmuch as it reposes on a law, or at least a habit, of\nNature, that is far more real, more incontestable and universal than\nthe will of an ephemeral and local god.\n\nWhich shall prevail in the end, justice or force?  Does force contain\nan unknown justice that will absorb our human justice, or is the\nimpulse of justice within us, that would seem to resist blind force,\nactually no more than a devious emanation from that force, tending to\nthe same end; and is it only the point of deviation that escapes us?\nThis is not a question that we can answer, we who ourselves form part\nof the mystery we seek to solve; the reply could come only from one who\nmight be gazing upon us from the heights of another world: one who\nshould have learned the aim of the universe and the destiny of man.  In\nthe meanwhile, if we say that Nature is right, we say that the instinct\nof justice, which she has placed in us, and which therefore also is\nnature, is wrong; whereas if we approve this instinct, our approval is\nnecessarily derived from the exercise of the very faculty that is\ncalled in question.\n\n\n21\n\nThat is true; but it is no less true that the endeavour to sum up the\nworld in a syllogism is one of the oldest and vainest habits of man.\nIn the region of the unknown and unknowable, logic-chopping has its\nperils; and in the present case all our doubts would seem to arise from\nanother hazardous syllogism.  We tell ourselves--boldly at times, but\nmore often in a whisper--that we are Nature's children, and bound\ntherefore in all things to conform to her laws and copy her example.\nAnd since Nature regards justice with indifference, since she has\nanother aim, which is the sustaining, the renewing, the incessant\ndevelopment of life, it follows. . . .  So far we have not formulated\nthe conclusion, or, at least, this conclusion has not yet openly dared\nto force its way into our morality; but, although its influence has\nhitherto only been remotely felt in that familiar sphere which includes\nour relations, our friends, and our immediate surroundings, it is\nslowly penetrating into the vast and desolate region whither we\nrelegate all those whom we know not and see not, who for us have no\nname.  It is already to be found at the root of many of our actions; it\nhas entered our politics, our industry, our commerce; indeed it affects\nalmost all we do from the moment we emerge from the narrow circle of\nour domestic hearth, the only place for the majority of men where a\nlittle veritable justice is still to be found, a little benevolence, a\nlittle love.  It will call itself economic or social law, evolution,\ncompetition, struggle for life; it will masquerade under a thousand\nnames, forever perpetrating the selfsame wrong.  And yet nothing can be\nless legitimate than such a conclusion.  Apart from the fact that we\nmight with equal justification reverse the syllogism, and cause it to\ndeclare that there must be a certain justice in Nature, since we, her\nchildren, are just, we need only consider it as it stands to realise\nhow doubtful and contestable is at least one of its premisses.\n\nWe have seen in the preceding chapters that Nature does not appear to\nbe just from our point of view; but we have absolutely no means of\njudging whether she be not just from her own.  The fact that she pays\nno heed to the morality of our actions does not warrant the inference\nthat she has no morality, or that ours is the only one there can be.\nWe are entitled to say that she is indifferent as to whether our\nintentions be good or evil, but have not the right to conclude that she\nhas therefore no morality and no equity; for that would be tantamount\nto affirming that there are no more mysteries or secrets, and that we\nknow all the laws of the universe, its origin and its end.  Her mode of\naction is different from our own, but, I say it once more, we know not\nwhat her reason may be for acting in this different fashion; and we\nhave no right to imitate what seems to us iniquitous and cruel, so long\nas we have no precise knowledge of the profound and salutary reasons\nthat may underlie such action.  What is the aim of Nature?  Whither do\nthe worlds tend that stretch across eternity?  Where does consciousness\nbegin, and is its only form that which it assumes in ourselves?  At\nwhat point do physical laws become moral laws?  Is life unintelligent?\nHave we sounded all the depths of Nature, and is it only in our\ncerebro-spinal system that she becomes mind?  And finally, what is\njustice when viewed from other heights?  Is the intention necessarily\nat its centre; and can no regions exist where intentions no longer\nshall count?  We should have to answer these questions, and many\nothers, before we could tell whether Nature be just or unjust from the\npoint of view of masses whose vastness corresponds to her own.  She\ndisposes of a future, a space, of which we can form no conception; and\nin these there exists, it may be, a justice proportioned to her\nduration, to her extent and aim, even as our own instinct of justice is\nproportioned to the duration and narrow circle of our own life.  The\nwrong that she may for centuries commit she has centuries wherein to\nrepair; but we, who have only a few days before us, what right have we\nto imitate what our eye cannot see, understand, or follow?  By what\nstandard are we to judge her, if we look away from the passing hour?\nFor instance, considering only the imperceptible speck that we form in\nthe worlds, and disregarding the immensity that surrounds us, we are\nwholly ignorant of all that concerns our possible life beyond the tomb;\nand we forget that, in the present state of our knowledge, nothing\nauthorises us to affirm that there may not be a kind of more or less\nconscious, more or less responsible after-life, that shall in no way\ndepend on the decisions of an external will.  He would indeed be rash\nwho should venture to maintain that nothing survives, either in us or\nin others, of the efforts of our good intentions and the acquirements\nof our mind.  It may be--and serious experiments, though they do not\nseem to prove the phenomenon, may still allow us to class it among\nscientific possibilities--it may be that a part of our personality, of\nour nervous force, may escape dissolution.  How vast a future would\nthen be thrown open to the laws that unite cause to effect, and that\nalways end by creating justice when they come into contact with the\nhuman soul, and have centuries before them!  Let us not forget that\nNature at least is logical, even though we call her unjust; and were we\nto resolve on injustice, our difficulty would be that we must also be\nlogical; and when logic comes into touch with our thoughts and our\nfeelings, our intentions and passions, what is there that\ndifferentiates it from justice?\n\n\n22\n\nLet us form no too hasty conclusion; too many points are still\nuncertain.  Should we seek to imitate what we term the injustice of\nNature, we would run the risk of imitating and fostering only the\ninjustice that is in ourselves.  When we say that Nature is unjust, we\nare in effect complaining of her indifference to our own little\nvirtues, our own little intentions, our own little deeds of heroism;\nand it is our vanity, far more than our sense of equity, that considers\nitself aggrieved.  Our morality is proportioned to our stature and our\nrestricted destiny; nor have we the right to forsake it because it is\nnot on the scale of the immensity and infinite destiny of the universe.\n\nAnd further, should it even be proved that Nature is unjust at all\npoints, the other question remains intact: whether the command be laid\nupon man to follow Nature in her injustice.  Here we shall do well to\nlet our own consciousness speak, rather than listen to a voice so\nformidable that we hear not a word it utters, and are not even certain\nwhether words there be.  Reason and instinct tell us that it is right\nto follow the counsels of Nature; but they tell us also that we should\nnot follow those counsels when they clash with another instinct within\nus, one that is no less profound: the instinct of the just and the\nunjust.  And if instincts do indeed draw very near to the truth of\nNature, and must be respected by us in the degree of the force that is\nin them, this one is perhaps the strongest of all, for it has struggled\nalone against all the others combined, and still persists within us.\nNor is this the hour to reject it.  Until other certitudes reach us, it\nbehoves us, who are men, to continue just in the human way and the\nhuman sphere.  We do not see far enough, or clearly enough, to be just\nin another sphere.  Let us not venture into a kind of abyss, out of\nwhich races and peoples to come may perhaps find a passage, but\nwhereinto man, in so far as he is man, must not seek to penetrate.  The\ninjustice of Nature ends by becoming justice for the race; she has time\nbefore her, she can wait, her injustice is of her girth.  But for us it\nis too overwhelming, and our days are too few.  Let us be satisfied\nthat force should reign in the universe, but equity in our heart.\nThough the race be irresistibly, and perhaps justly, unjust, though\neven the crowd appear possessed of rights denied to the isolated man,\nand commit on occasions great, inevitable, and salutary crimes, it is\nstill the duty of each individual of the race, of every member of the\ncrowd, to remain just, while ever adding to and sustaining the\nconsciousness within him.  Nor shall we be entitled to abandon this\nduty till all the reasons of the great apparent injustice be known to\nus; and those that are given us now, preservation of the species,\nreproduction and selection of the strongest, ablest, \"fittest,\" are not\nsufficient to warrant so frightful a change.  Let each one try by all\nmeans to become the strongest, most skilful, the best adapted to the\nnecessities of the life that he cannot transform; but, so far, the\nqualities that shall enable him to conquer, that shall give the fullest\nplay to his moral power and his intelligence, and shall truly make him\nthe happiest, most skilful, the strongest, and \"fittest\"--these\nqualities are precisely the ones that are the most human, the most\nhonourable, and the most just.\n\n\n23\n\n\"Within me there is more,\" runs the fine device inscribed on the beams\nand pediment of an old patrician mansion at Bruges, which every\ntraveller visits; filling a corner of one of those tender and\nmelancholy quays, that are as forlorn and lifeless as though they\nexisted only on canvas.  And so too might man exclaim, \"Within me there\nis more;\" every law of morality, every intelligible mystery.  There may\nbe many others, above us and below us; but if these are to remain for\never unknown, they become for us as though they were not; and should\ntheir existence one day be revealed to us; it can only be because they\nalready are in us, already are ours.  \"Within me there is more;\" and we\nare entitled to add, perhaps, \"I have nothing to fear from that which\nis in me.\"\n\nThis much at least is certain, that the one active, inhabited region of\nthe mystery of justice is to be found within ourselves.  Other regions\nlack consistency; they are probably imaginary, and must inevitably be\ndeserted and sterile.  They may have furnished mankind with illusions\nthat served some purpose, but not always without doing harm; and though\nwe may scarcely be entitled to demand that all illusions should be\ndestroyed, they should at least not be too manifestly opposed to our\nconception of the universe.  To-day we seek in all things the illusion\nof truth.  It is not the last, perhaps, or the best, or the only one\npossible; but it is the one which we at present regard as the most\nhonourable and the most necessary.  Let us limit ourselves therefore to\nrecognising the admirable love of justice and truth that exists in the\nheart of man.  Proceeding thus, yielding admiration only where it is\nincontestably due, we shall gradually acquire some knowledge of this\npassion, which is the distinguishing note of man; and one thing, most\nimportant of all, we shall most undoubtedly learn--the means whereby we\ncan purify it, and still further increase it.  As we observe its\nincessant activity in the depths of our heart, the only temple where it\ncan truly be active: as we watch it blending with all that we think,\nand feel, and do, we shall quickly discover which are the things that\nthrow light upon it, and which those that plunge it in darkness; which\nare the things that guide it, and which those that lead it astray; we\nshall learn what nourishes it and what atrophies, what defends and what\nattacks.\n\nIs justice no more than the human instinct of preservation and defence?\nIs it the purest product of our reason; or rather to be regarded as\ncomposed of a number of those sentimental forces which so often are\nright, though directly opposed to our reason--forces that in themselves\nare a kind of unconscious, vaster reason, to which our conscious reason\ninvariably accords its startled approval when it has reached the\nheights whence those kindly feelings long had beheld what itself was\nunable to see?  Is justice dependent on intellect, or rather on\ncharacter?  Questions, these, that are perhaps not idle if we indeed\nwould know what steps we must take to invest with all its radiance and\nall its power the love of justice that is the central jewel of the\nhuman soul.  All men love justice, but not with the same ardent,\nfierce, and exclusive love; nor have they all the same scruples, the\nsame sensitiveness, or the same deep conviction.  We meet people of\nhighly developed intellect in whom the sense of what is just and unjust\nis yet infinitely less delicate, less clearly marked, than in others\nwhose intellect would seem to be mediocre; for here a great part is\nplayed by that little-known, ill-defined side of ourselves that we term\nthe character.  And yet it is difficult to tell how much more or less\nunconscious intellect must of necessity go with the character that is\nunaffectedly honest.  The point before us, however, is to learn how\nbest to illumine, and increase within us, our desire for justice; and\nit is certain that, at the start, our character is less directly\ninfluenced by the desire for justice than is our intellect, the\ndevelopment of which this desire in a large measure controls; and the\nco-operation of the intellect, which recognises and encourages our good\nintention, is necessary for this intention to penetrate into, and\nmould, our character.  That portion of our love of justice, therefore,\nwhich depends on our character, will benefit by its passage through the\nintellect; for in proportion as the intellect rises, and acquires\nenlightenment, will it succeed in mastering, enlightening, and\ntransforming our instincts and our feelings.\n\nBut let us no longer believe that this love must be sought in a kind of\nsuperhuman, and often inhuman, infinite.  None of the grandeur and\nbeauty that this infinite may possess would fall to its portion; it\nwould only be incoherent, inactive, and vague.  Whereas by seeking it\nin ourselves, where it truly is; by observing it there, listening to\nit, marking how it profits by every acquirement of our mind, every joy\nand sorrow of our heart, we soon shall learn what we best had do to\npurify and increase it.\n\n\n24\n\nOur task within these limits will be sufficiently long and mysterious.\nTo increase and purify within us the desire for justice: how shall this\nthing be done?  We have some vague conception of the ideal that we\nwould approach; but how changeable still, and illusory, is this ideal!\nIt is lessened by all that is still unknown to us in the universe, by\nall that we do not perceive or perceive incompletely, by all that we\nquestion too superficially.  It is hedged round by the most insidious\ndangers; it falls victim to the strangest oblivion, the most\ninconceivable blunders.  Of all our ideals it is the one that we should\nwatch with the greatest care and anxiety, with the most passionate,\npious eagerness and solicitude.  What seems irreproachably just to us\nat the moment is probably the merest fraction of what would seem just\ncould we shift our point of view.  We need only compare what we were\ndoing yesterday with what we do to-day; and what we do to-day would\nappear full of faults against equity, were it granted to us to rise\nstill higher, and compare it with what we shall do to-morrow.  There\nneeds but a passing event, a thought that uses, a duty to ourselves\nthat takes definite form, an unexpected responsibility that is suddenly\nmade clear, for the whole organisation of our inward justice to totter\nand be transformed.  Slow as our advance may have been, we still should\nfind it impossible to begin life over again in the midst of many a\nsorrow whereof we were the involuntary cause, many a discouragement to\nwhich we unconsciously gave rise; and yet, when these things came into\nbeing around us, we appeared to be in the right, and did not consider\nourselves unjust.  And even so are we convinced to-day of our excellent\nintentions, even so do we tell ourselves that we are the cause if no\nsuffering and no tears, that we stay not a murmur of happiness, shorten\nno moment of peace or of love; and it may be that there passes,\nunperceived of us, to our right or our left, an illimitable injustice\nthat spreads over three-fourths of our life.\n\n\n25\n\nI chanced to-day to take up a copy of the \"Arabian Nights,\" in the very\nremarkable translation recently published by Dr. Mardrus; and I\nmarvelled at the extraordinary picture it gives of the ancient,\nlong-vanished civilisations.  Not in the Odyssey or the Bible, in\nXenophon or Plutarch, could their teaching be more clearly set forth.\nThere is one story that the Sultana Schahrazade tells--it is one of the\nvery finest the volume contains--that reveals a life as pure and as\nadmirable as mankind ever has known; a life replete with beauty,\nhappiness, and love; spontaneous and vivid, intelligent, nourishing,\nand refined; an abundant life that, to a certain point, comes as near\ntruth as a life well can.  It is, in many respects, almost as perfect\nin its moral as in its material civilisation.  And the pillars on which\nthis incomparable structure of happiness rests--like pillars of light\nsupporting the light--are formed of ideas of justice so exquisitely\ndelicate, counsels of wisdom so deeply penetrating, that we of to-day,\nbeing less fine in grain, less eager and buoyant, have lost the power\nto formulate, or to discern, them.  And for all that, this abode of\nfelicity, that harbours a moral life so active and vigorous, so\ngraciously grave, so noble--this palace, wherein the purest and holiest\nwisdom governs the pleasures of rejoicing mankind, is in its entirety\nbased on so great an injustice, is enclosed by so vast, so profound, so\nfrightful an iniquity, that the wretchedest man of us all would shrink\nin dismay from its glittering, gem-bestrewn threshold.  But of this\niniquity they who linger in that marvellous dwelling have not the\nremotest suspicion.  It would seem that they never draw near to a\nwindow; or that, should one by some chance fly open and reveal to their\nsorrowful gaze the misery strewn in the midst of the revels and\nfeasting, they still would be blind to the crime which was infinitely\nmore revolting, infinitely more monstrous, than the most appalling\npoverty--the crime of the slavery, and the even more terrible\ndegradation, of their women.  For these, however exalted their\nposition, and at the moment even when they are speaking to the men\nround about them of goodness and justice--when they are reminding them\nof their most touching and generous duties--these women never are more\nthan objects of pleasure, to be bought or sold, or given away in a\nmoment of gratitude, ostentation, or drunkenness, to any barbarous or\nhideous master.\n\n\n26\n\n\"They tell us,\" says the beautiful slave Nozhatan, as, concealed behind\na curtain of silk and of pearls, she speaks to Prince Sharkan and the\nwise men of the kingdom; \"they tell us that the Khalif Omar set forth\none night, in the company of the venerable Aslam Abou-Zeid, and that he\nbeheld, far away from his palace, a fire that was burning; and drew\nnear, as he thought that his presence might perhaps be of service.  And\nhe saw a poor woman who was kindling wood underneath a cauldron; and by\nher side were two little wretched children, groaning most piteously.\nAnd Omar said, 'Peace unto thee, O woman!  What dost thou here, alone\nin the night and the cold?'  And she answered, 'Lord, I am making this\nwater to boil, that my children may drink, who perish of hunger and\ncold; but for the misery we have to bear Allah will surely one day ask\nreckoning of Omar the Khalif.'  And the Khalif, who was in disguise,\nwas much moved, and he said to her, 'But dost thou think, O woman, that\nOmar can know of thy wretchedness, since he does not relieve it?'  And\nshe answered, 'Wherefore then is Omar the Khalif, if he be unaware of\nthe misery of his people and of each one of his subjects?'  Then the\nKhalif was silent, and he said to Aslam Abou-Zeid, 'Let us go quickly\nfrom hence.'  And he hastened until he had reached the storehouse of\nhis kitchens, and he entered therein and drew forth a sack of flour\nfrom the midst of the other sacks, and also a jar that was filled to\nthe brim with sheep-fat, and he said to Abou-Zeid, 'O Abou-Zeid, help\nthou me to charge these on my back.'  But Abou-Zeid refused, and he\ncried, 'Suffer that I carry them on my back, O Commander of the\nFaithful.'  And Omar said calmly to him, 'Wilt thou also, O Abou-Zeid,\nbear the weight of my sins on the day of resurrection?'  And Abou-Zeid\nwas obliged to lay the jar filled with fat, and the sack of flour, on\nthe Khalif's back.  And Omar hastened, thus laden, until he had once\nagain reached the poor woman; and he took of the flour, and he took of\nthe fat, and placed these in the cauldron, over the fire; and with his\nown hands did he then get ready the food, and he quickened the fire\nwith his breath; and as he bent over, his beard being long, the smoke\nfrom the wood forced its way through the beard of the Khalif.  And at\nlast, when the food was prepared, Omar offered it unto the woman and\nthe two little children; and with his breath did he cool the food while\nthey ate their fill.  Then he left them the sack of flour and the jar\nof fat; and he went on his way, and said unto Aslam Abou-Zeid, 'O\nAbou-Zeid, the light from this fire I have seen to-day has enlightened\nme also.'\"\n\n\n27\n\nAnd it is thus that, a little further on, there speaks to a very wise\nking one of five pensive maidens whom this king is invited to purchase:\n\"Know thou, O king,\" she says, \"that the most beautiful deed one can do\nis the deed that is disinterested.  And so do they tell us that in\nIsrael once were two brothers, and that one asked the other, 'Of all\nthe deeds thou hast done, which was the most wicked?'  And his brother\nreplied, 'This.  As I passed a hen-roost one day, I stretched out my\narm and I seized a chicken and strangled it, and then flung it back\ninto the roost.  That is the wickedest deed of my life.  And thou, O my\nbrother, what is thy wickedest action?'  And he answered, 'That I\nprayed to Allah one day to demand a favour of him.  For it is only when\nthe soul is simply uplifted on high that prayer can be beautiful.'\"\n\nAnd one of her companions, captive and slave like herself, also speaks\nto the king: \"Learn to know thyself,\" she says.  \"Learn to know\nthyself!  And do thou not act till then.  And do thou then only act in\naccordance with all thy desires, but having great care always that thou\ndo not injure thy neighbour.\"\n\nTo this last formula our morality of today has nothing to add; nor can\nwe conceive a precept that shall be more complete.  At most we could\nwiden somewhat the meaning of the word \"neighbour,\" and raise, render\nsomewhat more subtle and more elastic, that of the word \"injure.\"  And\nthe book in which these words are found is a monument of horror,\nnotwithstanding all its flowers and all its wisdom  a monument of\nhorror and blood and tears, of despotism and slavery.  And they who\npronounce these words are slaves.  A merchant buys them I know not\nwhere, and sells them to some old hag who teaches them, or causes them\nto be taught, philosophy, poetry, all Eastern sciences, in order that\none day they may become gifts worthy of a king.  And when their\neducation is finished, and their beauty and wisdom call forth the\nadmiration of all who approach them, the industrious, prudent old woman\ndoes indeed offer them to a very wise, very just king.  And when this\nvery wise, very just king has taken their virginity from them, and\nseeks other loves, he will probably bestow them (I have forgotten the\nend of this particular story, but it is the invariable destiny of all\nthe heroines of these marvellous legends) on his viziers.  And these\nviziers will give them away in exchange for a vase of perfume or a belt\nstudded with jewels; or perhaps despatch them to a distant country,\nthere to conciliate a powerful protector, or a hideous, but dreaded,\nrival.  And these women, so fully conscious of themselves, whose gaze\ncan penetrate so deeply into the consciousness of others--these women\nwho forever are pondering the loftiest, grandest problems of justice,\nof the morality of men and of nations--never throw one questioning\nglance on their fate, or for an instant suspect the abominable\ninjustice whereof they are the victims.  Nor do those suspect it either\nwho listen to them, and love and admire them, and understand them.  And\nwe who marvel at this--we who also reflect on justice and virtue, on\npity and love--are we so sure that they who come after us shall not\nsome day find, in our present social condition, a spectacle no less\ndisconcerting?\n\n\n28\n\nIt is difficult for us to imagine what the ideal justice will be, for\nevery thought of ours that tends towards it is clogged by the injustice\nwherein we still live.  Who shall say what new laws or relations will\nstand revealed when the misfortunes and inequalities due to the action\nof man shall have been swept away; when, in accordance with the\nprinciples of evolutionary morality, each individual shall \"reap the\nresults, good or bad, of his own nature, and of the consequences that\nensue from that nature\"?  At present things happen otherwise; and we\nmay unhesitatingly declare that, as far as the material condition of\nthe vast bulk of mankind is concerned, the connection between conduct\nand consequences--to use Spencer's formula--exists only in the most\nludicrous, arbitrary, and iniquitous fashion.  Is there not some\naudacity in our imagining that our thoughts can possibly be just when\nthe body of each one of us is steeped to the neck in injustice?  And\nfrom this injustice no man is free, be it to his loss or his gain:\nthere is not one whose efforts are not disproportionately rewarded,\nreceiving too much or too little; not one who is not either advantaged\nor handicapped.  And endeavour as we may to detach our mind from this\ninveterate injustice, this lingering trace of the sub-human morality\nneedful for primitive races, it is idle to think that our thoughts can\nbe as strenuous, independent, or clear as they might have been had the\nlast vestige of this injustice disappeared; it is idle to think that\nthey can achieve the same result.  The side of the human mind that can\nattain a region loftier than reality is necessarily timid and\nhesitating.  Human thought is capable of many things; it has, in the\ncourse of time, brought startling improvement to bear upon what seemed\nimmutable in the species or the race.  But even at the moment when it\nis pondering the transformation of which it has caught a distant\nglimpse, the improvement that it so eagerly desires, even then it is\nstill thinking, feeling, seeing like the thing that it seeks to alter,\neven then it lies captive beneath the yoke.  All its efforts\nnotwithstanding, it is practically that which it would change.  For the\nmind of man lacks the power to forecast the future; it has been formed\nrather to explain, judge, and co-ordinate that which was, to help,\nfoster, and make known what already exists, but so far cannot be seen;\nand when it ventures into what is not yet, it will rarely produce\nanything very salutary or very enduring.  And the influence of the\nsocial condition in which we exist lies heavy upon it.  How can we\nframe a satisfactory idea of justice, and ponder it loyally, with the\nneedful tranquillity, when injustice surrounds us on every side?\nBefore we can study justice, or speak of it with advantage, it must\nbecome what it is capable of being: a social force, irreproachable and\nactual.  At present all we can do is to invoke its unconscious, secret,\nand, as it were, almost imperceptible efforts.  We contemplate it from\nthe shores of human injustice; never yet has it been granted us to gaze\non the open sea beneath the illimitable, inviolate sky of a conscience\nwithout reproach.  If men had at least done all that it was possible\nfor them to do in their own domain, they would then have the right to\ngo further, and question elsewhere; and their thoughts would probably\nbe clearer, were their consciences more at ease.\n\n\n29\n\nAnd further, a heavy reproach lies on us and chills our ardour whenever\nwe try to grow better, to increase our knowledge, our love, our\nforgiveness.  Though we purify our consciousness and ennoble our\nthoughts, though we strive to render life softer and sweeter for those\nwho are near us, all our efforts halt at our threshold, and have no\ninfluence on what lies outside our door; and the moment we leave our\nhome we feel that we have done nothing, that there is nothing for us to\ndo, and that we are taking part, ourselves notwithstanding, in the\ngreat anonymous injustice.  Is it not almost ludicrous that we, who\nwithin our four walls strive to be noble and faithful, pitiful, simple\nand loyal; we whose consciousness balances the nicest, most delicate\nproblems, and rejects even the suspicion of a bitter thought, have no\nsooner gone into the street and met faces that are unfamiliar, than, at\nthat very instant, and without the least possibility of our having it\notherwise, all pity, equity, love, should be completely ignored by us?\nWhat dignity, what loyalty, can there be in this double life, so wise\nand humane, uplifted and thoughtful, this side the threshold, and\nbeyond it so callous, so instinctive and pitiless!  For it is enough\nthat we should feel the cold a little less than the labourer who passes\nby, that we should be better fed or clad than he, that we should buy\nany object that is not strictly indispensable, and we have\nunconsciously returned, through a thousand byways, to the ruthless act\nof primitive man despoiling his weaker brother.  There is no single\nprivilege we enjoy but close investigation will prove it to be the\nresult of a perhaps very remote abuse of power, of an unknown violence\nor ruse of long ago; and all these we set in motion again as we sit at\nour table, stroll idly through the town, or lie at night in a bed that\nour own hands have not made.  Nay, what is even the leisure that\nenables us to improve, to grow more compassionate and gentler, to think\nmore fraternally of the injustice others endure--what is this, in\ntruth, but the ripest fruit of the great injustice?\n\n\n30\n\nThese scruples, I know, must not be carried too far: they would either\ninduce a spirit of useless revolt, possibly disastrous to the species\nwhose mild and mighty sluggishness we are bound to respect; or they\nwould lead us back to I know not what mystic, inert renouncement,\ndirectly opposed to the most evident and unchanging desires of life.\nLife has laws that we call inevitable; but we are already becoming more\nsparing in our use of the word.  And here especially do we note the\nchange that has come over the attitude of the wise and upright man.\nMarcus Aurelius--than whom perhaps none ever craved more earnestly for\njustice, or possessed a soul more wisely impressionable, more nobly\nsensitive--Marcus Aurelius never asked himself what might be happening\noutside that admirable little circle of light wherein his virtue and\nconsciousness, his divine meekness and piety, had gathered those who\nwere near him, his friends and his servants.  Infinite iniquity, he\nknew full well, stretched around him on every side; but with this he\nhad no concern.  To him it seemed a thing that must be, a thing\nmysterious and sacred as the mighty ocean; the boundless domain of the\ngods, of fatality, of laws unknown and superior, irresistible,\nirresponsible, and eternal.  It did not lessen his courage; on the\ncontrary, it enhanced his confidence, his concentration, and spurred\nhim upwards, like the flame that, confined to a narrow area, rises\nhigher and higher, alone in the night, urged on by the darkness.  He\naccepted the decree of fate, that allotted slavery to the bulk of\nmankind.  Sorrowfully but with full conviction, did he submit to the\nirrevocable law; wherein he once again gave proof of his piety and his\nvirtue.  He retired into himself, and there, in a kind of sunless,\nmotionless void, became still more just, still more humane.  And in\neach succeeding century do we find a similar ardour, self-centred and\nsolitary, among those who were wise and good.  The name of more than\none immovable law might change, but its infinite part remained ever the\nsame; and each one regarded it with the like resigned and chastened\nmelancholy.  But we of to-day--what course are we to pursue?  We know\nthat iniquity is no longer necessary.  We have invaded the region of\nthe gods, of destiny, and unknown laws.  These may still control\ndisease or accident, perhaps, no less than the tempest, the\nlightning-flash, and most of the mysteries of death--we have not yet\npenetrated to them--but we are well aware that poverty, wretchedness,\nhopeless toil, slavery, famine, are completely outside their domain.\nIt is we who organise these, we who maintain and distribute them.\nThese frightful scourges, that have grown so familiar, are wielded by\nus alone; and belief in their superhuman origin is becoming rarer and\nrarer.  The religious, impassable ocean, that excused and protected the\nretreat into himself of the sage and the man of good, now only exists\nas a vague recollection.  To-day Marcus Aurelius could no longer say\nwith the same serenity: \"They go in search of refuges, of rural\ncottages, of mountains and the seashore; thou too art wont to cherish\nan eager desire for these things.  But is this not the act of an\nignorant, unskilled man, seeing that it is granted thee at whatever\nhour thou pleasest to retire within thyself?  It is not possible for\nman to discover a retreat more tranquil, less disturbed by affairs,\nthan that which he finds in his soul; especially if he have within him\nthose things the contemplation of which suffices to procure immediate\nenjoyment of the perfect calm, which is no other, to my mind, than the\nperfect agreement of soul.\"\n\nOther matters concern us to-day than this agreement of soul; or let us\nrather say that what we have to do is to bring into agreement there\nthat from which the soul of Marcus Aurelius was free--three-fourths of\nthe sorrows of mankind, in a word--which have become real to us,\nintelligible, human, and urgent, and are no longer regarded as the\ninexplicable, immutable, intangible decrees of fatality.\n\n\n31\n\nThis does not imply, however, that we should abandon the old sages'\ndesire for \"agreement\"; and even though we may not be entitled to\nexpect such perfect \"agreement\" as they derived from their pardonable\negoism, we may still look for agreement of a provisional, conditional\nkind.  And although such \"agreement\" be not the last word of morality,\nit is none the less indispensable that we should begin by being as just\nas we possibly can within ourselves and to those round about us, our\nneighbours, our friends, and our servants.  It is at the moment when we\nhave become absolutely just to these, and within our own consciousness,\nthat we realise our great injustice to all the others.  The method of\nbeing more practically just towards these last is not yet known to us;\nto return to great, heroic renouncements would effect but little, for\nthese are incapable of unanimous action, and would probably run counter\nto the profoundest laws of nature, which rejects renouncement in every\nform save that of maternal love.\n\nThis practical justice, therefore, remains the secret of the race.  Of\nsuch secrets it has many, which it reveals one by one, at such moments\nof history as become truly critical; and the solutions it offers to\ninsuperable difficulties are almost always unexpected, and of strangest\nsimplicity.  The hour approaches, perhaps, when it will speak once\nmore.  Let us hope, without being too sanguine; for we must bear in\nmind that humanity has yet by no means emerged from the period of\n\"sacrificed generations.\"  History has known no others; and it is\npossible that, to the end of time, all generations may call themselves\nsacrificed.  Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the sacrifices,\nhowever unjust and useless they still may be, are growing ever less\ninhuman and less inevitable; and that the laws which govern them are\nbecoming better and better known, and would seem to draw nearer and\nnearer to those that a lofty mind might accept without being pitiless.\n\n\n32\n\nIt must be admitted, however, that a majestic, redoubtable slowness\nattends the movements of these \"ideas of the species.\"  Centuries had\nto pass before it dawned upon primitive men, who fled from each other,\nor fought when they met at the mouth of their caverns, that they would\ndo well to form into groups, and unite in defence against the mighty\nenemies who threatened them from without.  And besides, these \"ideas\"\nof the species will often be widely different from those that the\nwisest man might hold.  They would seem to be independent, spontaneous,\noften based on facts of which no trace is shown by the human reason of\nthe epoch that witnessed their birth; and indeed there is no graver or\nmore disturbing problem before the moralist or sociologist than that of\ndetermining whether all his efforts can hasten by one hour or divert by\none hair's-breadth the decisions of the great anonymous mass which\nproceeds, step by step, towards its indiscernible goal.\n\nLong ago--so long indeed that this is one of the first affirmations of\nscience when, quitting the bowels of the earth, the glaciers and\ngrottoes, it ceased to call itself geology and palaeontology and became\nthe history of man--humanity passed through a crisis not wholly unlike\nthat which now lies ahead of it, or is actually menacing it at the\nmoment; the difference being only that in those days the dilemma seemed\nvastly more tragic and more unsolvable.  It may truly be said that\nmankind never has known a more perilous or more decisive hour, or a\nperiod when it drew nearer its ruin; and the fact that we exist to-day\nwould appear to be due to the unexpected expedient which saved the race\nat the moment when the scourge that fed on man's very reason, on all\nthat was best and most irresistible in his instinct of justice and\ninjustice, was actually on the point of destroying the heroic\nequilibrium between the desire to live and the possibility of living.\n\nI refer to the acts of violence, rapine, outrage, murder, which were of\nnatural occurrence among the earliest human groups.  These crimes,\nwhich will probably have been of the most frightful description, must\nhave very seriously endangered the existence of the race; for vengeance\nis the terrible, and, as it were, the epidemic form which the craving\nfor justice at first assumes.  Now this spirit of vengeance, abandoned\nto itself and forever multiplying--revenge followed by the revenge of\nrevenge--would finally have engulfed, if not the whole of mankind, at\nleast all those of the earliest men who were possessed of energy or\npride.  We find, however, that among these barbarous races, as among\nmost of the existing savage tribes whose habits are known to us, there\ncomes a time, usually at the period when their weapons are growing too\ndeadly, when this vengeance suddenly halts before a singular custom,\nknown as the \"blood-tribute,\" or the \"composition for murder;\" which\nallows the homicide to escape the reprisals of the victim's friends and\nrelations by payment to them of an indemnity, that, from being\narbitrary at the start, soon becomes strictly graduated.\n\nIn the whole history of these infant races, in whom impulse and heroism\nwere the predominant factors, there is nothing stranger, nothing more\nastounding, than this almost universal custom, which for all its\ningenuity would seem almost too long-suffering and mercantile.  May we\nattribute it to the foresight of the chiefs?  We find it in races among\nwhom authority might almost be said to be entirely lacking.  Did it\noriginate among the old men, the thinkers, the sages, of the primitive\ngroups?  That is not more probable.  For underlying this custom there\nis a thought which is at the same time higher and lower than could be\nthe thought of an isolated prophet or genius of those barbarous days.\nThe sage, the prophet, the genius--above all, the untrained genius--is\nrather inclined to carry to extremes the generous and heroic tendencies\nof the clan or epoch to which he belongs.  He would have recoiled in\ndisgust from this timid, cunning evasion of a natural and sacred\nrevenge, from this odious traffic in friendship, fidelity, and love.\nNor is it conceivable, on the other hand, that he should have attained\nsufficient loftiness of spirit to be able to let his gaze travel beyond\nthe noblest and most incontestable duties of the moment, and to behold\nonly the superior interest of the tribe or the race: that mysterious\ndesire for life, which the wisest of the wise among us to-day are\ngenerally unable to perceive or to justify until they have wrought\ngrave and painful conquest over their isolated reason and their heart.\n\nNo, it was not the thought of man which found the solution.  On the\ncontrary, it was the unconsciousness of the mass, compelled to act in\nself-defence against thoughts  too  intrinsically, individually human\nto satisfy the irreducible exigencies of life on this earth.  The\nspecies is extremely patient, extremely long-suffering.  It will bear\nas long as it can and carry as far as it can the burden which reason,\nthe desire for improvement, the imagination, the passions, vices,\nvirtues, and feelings natural to man, may combine to impose upon it.\nBut the moment the burden becomes too overwhelming, and disaster\nthreatens, the species will instantaneously, with the utmost\nindifference, fling it aside.  It is careless as to the means; it will\nadopt the one that is nearest, the simplest, most practical, being\ndoubtless perfectly satisfied that its own idea is the justest and\nbest.  And of ideas it has only one, which is that it wishes to live;\nand truly this idea surpasses all the heroism, all the generous dreams,\nthat may have reposed in the burden which it has discarded.\n\nAnd indeed, in the history of human reason, the greatest and the\njustest thoughts are not always those which attain the loftiest\nheights.  It happens somewhat with the thoughts of men as with a\nfountain; for it is only because the water has been imprisoned and\nescapes through a narrow opening that it soars so proudly into the air.\nAs it issues from this opening and hurls itself towards the sky, it\nwould seem to despise the great, illimitable, motionless lake that\nstretches out far beneath it.  And yet, say what one will, it is the\nlake that is right.  For all its apparent motionlessness, for all its\nsilence, it is tranquilly accomplishing the immense and normal task of\nthe most important element of our globe; and the jet of water is merely\na curious incident, which soon returns into the universal scheme.  To\nus the species is the great, unerring lake; and this even from the\npoint of view of the superior human reason that it would seem at times\nto offend.  Its idea is the vastest of all, and contains every other;\nit embraces limitless time and space.  And does not each day that goes\nby reveal more and more clearly to us that the vastest idea, no matter\nwhere it reside, always ends by becoming the most just and most\nreasonable, the wisest and the most beautiful?\n\n\n33\n\nThere are times when we ask ourselves whether it might not be well for\nhumanity that its destinies should be governed by the superior men\namong us, the great sages, rather than by the instinct of the species,\nthat is always so slow and often so cruel.\n\nIt is doubtful whether this question could be answered to-day in quite\nthe same fashion as formerly.  It would surely have been highly\ndangerous to confide the destinies of the species to Plato or\nAristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Shakespeare, or Montesquieu.  At the very\nworst moments of the French Revolution the fate of the people was in\nthe hands of philosophers of none too mean an order.  It cannot be\ndenied, however, that in our time the habits of the thinker have\nundergone a great change.  He has ceased to be speculative or Utopian;\nhe is no longer exclusively intuitive.  In politics as in literature,\nin philosophy as in all the sciences, he displays less imagination, but\nhis powers as an observer have grown.  He inclines rather to\nconcentrate his attention on the thing that is, to study it and strive\nat its organisation, than to precede it, or to endeavour to create what\nis not yet, or never shall be.  And therefore he may possibly have some\nclaim to more authoritative utterance; nor would so much danger attend\nhis more direct intervention.  It must be admitted, however, that there\nis no greater likelihood now than in former times of such intervention\nbeing permitted him.  Nay, there is less, perhaps; for having become\nmore circumspect and less blinded by narrow convictions, he will be\nless audacious, less imperious, and less impatient.  And yet it is\npossible that, finding himself in natural sympathy with the species\nwhich he is content merely to observe, he will by slow degrees acquire\nmore and more influence; so that here again, in ultimate analysis, it\nis the species that will be right, the species that will decide: for it\nwill have guided him who observes it, and therefore, in following him\nwhom it has guided, it will truly only be following its own\nunconscious, formless desires, which shall have been expressed by him,\nand by him brought into light.\n\n\n34\n\nUntil such time as the species shall discover the new and needful\nexperiment--and this it will quickly do when the danger becomes more\nacute; nay, for all we know, the expedient may have already been found,\nand, entirely unsuspected of us, be already transforming part of our\ndestinies--until such time, while bound to act in external matters as\nthough our brothers' salvation depended entirely on our exertions, it\nis open to us, no less than to the sages of old, to retire occasionally\nwithin ourselves.  We in our turn shall perhaps find there \"one of\nthose things\" of which the contemplation shall suffice to bring us\ninstantaneous enjoyment, if not of the perfect calm, at least of an\nindestructible hope.  Though nature appear unjust, though nothing\nauthorise us to declare that a superior power, or the intellect of the\nuniverse, rewards or punishes, here below or elsewhere, in accordance\nwith the laws of our consciousness or with other laws that we shall\nsome day admit; and, finally, though between man and man, in other\nwords, in our relations with our fellows, our admirable desire for\nequity translate itself into a justice that is always incomplete, at\nthe mercy of every error of reason, of every ambush laid by personal\ninterest, and of all the evil habits of a social condition that still\nis sub-human, it is none the less certain that an image of that\ninvisible and incorruptible justice, which we have vainly sought in the\nsky or the universe, reposes in the depths of the moral life of every\nman.  And though its method of action be such as to cause it to pass\nunperceived of most of our fellows, often even of our own\nconsciousness, though all that it does be hidden and intangible, it is\nnone the less profoundly human and profoundly real.  It would seem to\nhear, to examine, all that we say and think and strive for in our\nexterior life; and if it find a little sincerity beneath, a little\nearnest desire for good, it will transform these into moral forces that\nshall extend and illumine our inner life, and help us to better\nthoughts, better speech, better endeavour in the time to come.  It will\nnot add to, or take from, our wealth; it will bring no immunity from\ndisease or from lightning; it will not prolong by one hour the life of\nthe being we cherish; but if we have learned to reflect and to love,\nif, in other words, heart and brain have both done their duty, it will\nestablish in heart and brain a contentment that, though perhaps\nstripped of illusion, shall still be inexhaustible and noble; it will\nconfer a dignity of existence, and an intelligence, that shall suffice\nto sustain our life after the loss of our wealth, after the stroke of\ndisease or of lightning has fallen, after the loved one has for ever\nquitted our arms.  A good thought or deed brings a reward to our heart\nthat it cannot, in the absence of an universal judge of nature, extend\nto the things around.  It endeavours to create within us the happiness\nit is unable to produce in our material life.  Denied all external\noutlet, it fills our soul the more.  It prepares the space that soon\nshall be required by our developing intellect, our expanding peace and\nlove.  Helpless against the laws of nature, it is all-powerful over\nthose that govern the happy equilibrium of human consciousness.  And\nthis is true of every stage of thought, of every class of action.  A\nvast distance might seem to divide the labourer who brings up his\nchildren honourably, lives his humble life and honourably does the work\nthat falls to his lot, from the man who steadfastly perseveres in moral\nheroism; but each of these is acting and living on the same plane as\nthe other, and the same loyal, consoling region receives them both.\nAnd though it be certain that what we say and do must largely influence\nour material happiness, yet, in ultimate analysis, it is only by means\nof the spiritual organs that even material happiness can be fully and\npermanently enjoyed.  Hence the preponderating importance of thought.\nBut of supreme importance, from the point of view of the reception we\nshall offer to the joys and sorrows of life, is the character, the\nframe of mind, the moral condition, that the things we have said and\ndone and thought will have created within us.  Here is evidence of\nadmirable justice; and the intimate happiness that our moral being\nderives from the constant striving of the mind and heart for good,\nbecomes the more comprehensible when we realise that this happiness is\nonly the surface of the goodly thought or feeling that is shining\nwithin our heart.  Here may we indeed find that intelligent, moral bond\nbetween cause and effect that we have vainly sought in the external\nworld; here, in moral matters, reigning over the good and evil that are\nwarring in the depths of our consciousness, may we in truth discover a\njustice exactly similar to the one which we could desire to recognise\nin physical matters.  But whence do we derive this desire if not from\nthe justice within us; and is it not because this justice is so mighty\nand active in our heart that we are reluctant to believe in its\nnon-existence in the universe?\n\n\n35\n\nWe have spoken at great length of justice; but is it not the great\nmystery of man, the one that tends to take the place of most of the\nspiritual mysteries that govern his destiny?  It has dethroned more\nthan one god, more than one nameless power.  It is the star evolved\nfrom the nebulous mass of our instincts and our incomprehensible life.\nIt is not the word of the enigma; and when, in the fulness of time, it\nshall become clearer to us, and shall truly reign all over the earth,\nthere will come to us no greater knowledge of what we are, or why we\nare, whence we come or whither we go; but we shall at least have obeyed\nthe first word of the enigma, and shall proceed, with a freer spirit\nand a more tranquil heart, to the search for its last secret.\n\nFinally, it comprises all the human virtues; and none but itself can\noffer the welcoming smile whereby these are ennobled and purified, none\nbut itself can accord them the right to penetrate deep into our moral\nlife.  For every virtue must be maleficent and steeped in artifice that\ncannot support the fixed and eager regard of justice.  And so do we\nfind it too at the heart of our every ideal.  It is at the centre of\nour love of truth, at the centre of our love of beauty.  It is kindness\nand pity, it is generosity, heroism, love; for all these are the acts\nof justice of one who has risen sufficiently high to perceive that\njustice and injustice are not exclusively confined to what lies before\nhim, to the narrow circle of obligations chance may have imposed, but\nthat they stretch far beyond years, beyond neighbouring destinies,\nbeyond what he regards as his duty, beyond what he loves, beyond what\nhe seeks and encounters, beyond what he approves or rejects, beyond his\ndoubts and his fears, beyond the wrong-doing and even the crimes of the\nmen, his brothers.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE EVOLUTION OF MYSTERY\n\nIt is not unreasonable to believe that the paramount interest of life,\nall that is truly lofty and remarkable in the destiny of man, reposes\nalmost entirely in the mystery that surrounds us; in the two mysteries,\nit may be, that are mightiest, most dreadful of all--fatality and\ndeath.  And indeed there are many whom the fatigue induced in their\nminds by the natural uncertainties of science has almost compelled to\naccept this belief.  I too believe, though in a somewhat different\nfashion, that the study of mystery in all its forms is the noblest to\nwhich the mind of man can devote itself; and truly it has ever been the\noccupation and care of those who in science and art, in philosophy and\nliterature, have refused to be satisfied merely to observe and portray\nthe trivial, well-recognised truths, facts, and realities of life.  And\nwe find that the success of these men in their endeavour, the depth of\ntheir insight into all that they know, has most strictly accorded with\nthe respect in which they held all they did not know, with the dignity\nthat their mind or imagination was able to confer on the sum of\nunknowable forces.  Our consciousness of the unknown wherein we have\nbeing gives life a meaning and grandeur which must of necessity be\nabsent if we persist in considering only the things that are known to\nus; if we too readily incline to believe that these must greatly\ntranscend in importance the things that we know not yet.\n\n\n2\n\nIt behoves every man to frame for himself his own general conception of\nthe world.  On this conception reposes his whole human and moral\nexistence.  But this general conception of the world, when closely\nexamined, is truly no more than a general conception of the unknown.\nAnd we must be careful; we have not the right, when ideas so vast\nconfront us, ideas the results of which are so highly important, to\nselect the one which seems most magnificent to us, most beautiful, or\nmost attractive.  The duty lies on us to choose the idea which seems\ntruest, or rather the only one which seems true; for I decline to\nbelieve that we can sincerely hesitate between the truth that is only\napparent and the one that is real.  The moment must always come when we\nfeel that one of these two is possessed of more truth than the other.\nAnd to this truth we should cling: in our actions, our words, and our\nthoughts; in our art, in our science, in the life of our feelings and\nintellect.  Its definition, perhaps, may elude us.  It may possibly\nbring not one grain of reassuring conviction.  Nay, essentially,\nperhaps, it may be but the merest impression, though profounder and\nmore sincere than any previous impression.  These things do not matter.\nIt is not imperative that the truth we have chosen should be\nunimpeachable or of absolute certainty.  There is already great gain in\nour having been brought to experience that the truths we had loved\nbefore did not accord with reality or with faithful experience of life;\nand we have every reason, therefore, to cherish our truth with\nheartiest gratitude until its own turn shall come to experience the\nfate it inflicted on its predecessor.  The great mischief, the one\nwhich destroys our moral existence and threatens the integrity of our\nmind and our character, is not that we should deceive ourselves and\nlove an uncertain truth, but that we should remain constant to one in\nwhich we no longer wholly believe.\n\n\n3\n\nIf we sought nothing more than to invest our conception of the unknown\nwith the utmost possible grandeur and tragedy, magnificence and might,\nthere would be no need of such restrictions.  From many points of view,\ndoubtless, the most beautiful, most touching, most religious attitude\nin face of mystery is silence, and prayer, and fearful acceptance.\nWhen this immense, irresistible force confronts us--this inscrutable,\nceaselessly vigilant power, humanly super-human, sovereignly\nintelligent, and, for all we know, even personal--must it not, at first\nsight, seem more reverent, worthier, to offer complete submission,\ntrying only to master our terror, than tranquilly to set on foot a\npatient, laborious investigation?  But is the choice possible to us;\nhave we still the right to choose?  The beauty or dignity of the\nattitude we shall assume no longer is matter of moment.  It is truth\nand sincerity that are called for to-day for the facing of all\nthings--how much more when mystery confronts us!  In the past, the\nprostration of man, his bending the knee, seemed beautiful because of\nwhat, in the past, seemed to be true.  We have acquired no fresh\ncertitude, perhaps; but for us, none the less, the truth of the past\nhas ceased to be true.  We have not bridged the unknown; but still,\nthough we know not what it is, we do partially know what it is not; and\nit is before this we should bow, were the attitude of our fathers to be\nonce more assumed by us.  For although it has not, perhaps, been\nincontrovertibly proved that the unknown is neither vigilant nor\npersonal, neither sovereignly intelligent nor sovereignly just, or that\nit possesses none of the passions, intentions, virtues and vices of\nman, it is still incomparably more probable that the unknown is\nentirely indifferent to all that appears of supreme importance in this\nlife of ours.  It is incomparably more probable that if, in the vast\nand eternal scheme of the unknown, a minute and ephemeral place be\nreserved for man, his actions, be he the strongest or weakest, the best\nor the worst of men, will be as unimportant there as the movements of\nthe obscurest geological cell in the history of ocean or continent.\nThough it may not have been irrefutably shown that the infinite and\ninvisible are not for ever hovering round us, dealing out sorrow or joy\nin accordance with our good or evil intentions, guiding our destiny\nstep by step, and preparing, with the help of innumerable forces, the\nincomprehensible but eternal law that governs the accidents of our\nbirth, our future, our death, and our life beyond the tomb, it is still\nincomparably more probable that the invisible and infinite, intervene\nas they may at every moment in our life, enter therein only as\nstupendous, blind, indifferent elements; and that though they pass over\nus, in us, penetrate into our being, and inspire and mould our life,\nthey are as careless of our individual existence as air, water, or\nlight.  And the whole of our conscious life, the life that forms our\none certitude, that is our one fixed point in time and space, rests\nupon \"incomparable probabilities\" of this nature; but rarely are they\nas \"incomparable\" as these.\n\n\n4\n\nThe hour when a lofty conviction forsakes us should never be one of\nregret.  If a belief we have clung to goes, or a spring snaps within\nus; if we at last dethrone the idea that so long has held sway, this is\nproof of vitality, progress, of our marching steadily onwards, and\nmaking good use of all that lies to our hand.  We should rejoice at the\nknowledge that the thought which so long has sustained us is proved\nincapable now of even sustaining itself.  And though we have nothing to\nput in the place of the spring that lies broken, there need still be no\ncause for sadness.  Far better the place remain empty than that it be\nfilled by a spring which the rust corrodes, or by a new truth in which\nwe do not wholly believe.  And besides, the place is not really empty.\nDeterminate truth may not yet have arrived, but still, in its own deep\nrecess, there hides a truth without name, which waits and calls.  And\nif it wait and call too long in the void, and nothing arise in the\nplace of the vanished spring, it still shall be found that, in moral no\nless than in physical life, necessity will be able to create the organ\nit needs, and that the negative truth will at last find sufficient\nforce in itself to set the idle machinery going.  And the lives that\npossess no more than one force of this kind are not the least\nstrenuous, the least ardent, or the least useful.\n\nAnd even though our belief forsake us entirely, it still will take with\nit nothing of what we have given, nor will there be lost one single\nsincere, religious, disinterested effort that we have put forth to\nennoble this faith, to exalt or embellish it.  Every thought we have\nadded, each worthy sacrifice we have had the courage to make in its\nname, will have left its indelible mark on our moral existence.  The\nbody is gone, but the palace it built still stands, and the space it\nhas conquered will remain for ever unenclosed.  It is our duty, and one\nwe dare not renounce, to prepare homes for truths that shall come, to\nmaintain in good order the forces destined to serve them, and to create\nopen spaces within us; nor can the time thus employed be possibly\nwasted.\n\n\n5\n\nThese thoughts have arisen within me through my having been compelled,\na few days ago, to glance through two or three little dramas of mine,\nwherein lies revealed the disquiet of a mind that has given itself\nwholly to mystery; a disquiet legitimate enough in itself, perhaps, but\nnot so inevitable as to warrant its own complacency.  The keynote of\nthese little plays is dread of the unknown that surrounds us.  I, or\nrather some obscure poetical feeling within me (for with the sincerest\nof poets a division must often be made between the instinctive feeling\nof their art and the thoughts of their real life), seemed to believe in\na species of monstrous, invisible, fatal power that gave heed to our\nevery action, and was hostile to our smile, to our life, to our peace\nand our love.  Its intentions could not be divined, but the spirit of\nthe drama assumed them to be malevolent always.  In its essence,\nperhaps, this power was just, but only in anger; and it exercised\njustice in a manner so crooked, so secret, so sluggish and remote, that\nits punishments--for it never rewarded--took the semblance of\ninexplicable, arbitrary acts of fate.  We had there, in a word, more or\nless the idea of the God of the Christian blent with that of ancient\nfatality, lurking in nature's impenetrable twilight, whence it eagerly\nwatched, contested, and saddened the projects, the feelings, the\nthoughts and the happiness of man.\n\n\n6\n\nThis unknown would most frequently appear in the shape of death.  The\npresence of death--infinite, menacing, for ever treacherously\nactive--filled every interstice of the poem.  The problem of existence\nwas answered only by the enigma of annihilation.  And it was a callous,\ninexorable death; blind, and groping its mysterious way with only\nchance to guide it; laying its hands preferentially on the youngest and\nthe least unhappy, since these held themselves less motionless than\nothers, and that every too sudden movement in the night arrested its\nattention.  And around it were only poor little trembling, elementary\ncreatures, who shivered for an instant and wept, on the brink of a\ngulf; and their words and their tears had importance only from the fact\nthat each word they spoke and each tear they shed fell into this gulf,\nand were at times so strangely resonant there as to lead one to think\nthat the gulf must be vast if tear or word, as it fell, could send\nforth so confused and muffled a sound.\n\n\n7\n\nSuch a conception of life is not healthy, whatever show of reason it\nmay seem to possess; and I would not allude to it here were it not for\nthe fact that we find this idea, or one closely akin to it, governing\nthe hearts of most men, however tranquil, or thoughtful, or earnest\nthey may be, at the approach of the slightest misfortune.  There is\nevidently a side to our nature which, notwithstanding all we may learn\nand master and the certitudes we may acquire, destines us never to be\nother than poor, weak, useless creatures, consecrated to death, and\nplaythings of the vast and indifferent forces that surround us.  We\nappear for an instant in limitless space, our one appreciable mission\nthe propagation of a species that itself has no appreciable mission in\nthe scheme of a universe whose extent and duration baffle the most\ndaring, most powerful brain.  This is a truth; it is one of those\nprofound but sterile truths which the poet may salute as he passes on\nhis way; but it is a truth in the neighbourhood of which the man with\nthe thousand duties who lives in the poet will do well not to abide too\nlong.  And of truths such as this many are lofty and deserving of all\nour respect, but in their domain it were unwise to lay ourselves down\nand sleep.  So many truths environ us that it may safely be said that\nfew men can be found, of the wickedest even, who have not for counsel\nand guide a grave and respectable truth.  Yes, it is a truth--the\nvastest, most certain of truths, if one will--that our life is nothing,\nand our efforts the merest jest; our existence, that of our planet,\nonly a miserable accident in the history of worlds; but it is no less a\ntruth that, to us, our life and our planet are the most important, nay,\nthe only important phenomena in the history of worlds.  And of these\ntruths which is the truer?  Does the first of necessity destroy the\nsecond?  Without the second, should we have had the courage to\nformulate the first?  The one appeals to our imagination, and may be\nhelpful to it in its own domain; but the other directly interests our\nactual life.  It is well that each have its share.  The truth that is\nundoubtedly truest from the human point of view must evidently appeal\nto us more than the truth which is truest from the universal point of\nview.  Ignorant as we are of the aim of the universe, how shall we tell\nwhether or no it concern itself with the interests of our race?  The\nprobable futility of our life and our species is a truth which regards\nus indirectly only, and may well, therefore, be left in suspense.  The\nother truth, that indicates clearly the importance of life, may perhaps\nbe more restricted, but it has a direct, incontestable, actual bearing\nupon ourselves.  To sacrifice or even subordinate it to an alien truth\nmust surely be wrong.  The first truth should never be lost sight of;\nit will strengthen and illumine the second, whose government will thus\nbecome more intelligent and benign: the first truth will teach us to\nprofit by all that the second does not include.  And if we allow it to\nsadden our heart or arrest our action, we have not sufficiently\nrealised that the vast but precarious space it fills in the region of\nimportant truths is governed by countless problems which as yet are\nunsolved; while the problems whereon the second truth rests are daily\nresolved by real life.  The first truth is still in the dangerous,\nfeverish stage, through which all truths must pass before they can\npenetrate freely into our heart and our brain; a stage of jealousy,\ntruculence, which renders the neighbourhood of another truth\ninsupportable to them.  We must wait till the fever subsides; and if\nthe home that we have prepared in our spirit be sufficiently spacious\nand lofty, we shall find very soon that the most contradictory truths\nwill be conscious only of the mysterious bond that unites them, and\nwill silently join with each other to place in the front rank of all,\nand there help and sustain, that truth from among them which calmly\nwent on with its work while the others were fretfully jangling; that\ntruth which can do the most good, and brings with it the uttermost hope.\n\n\nThe strangest feature of the present time is the confusion which reigns\nin our instincts and feelings--in our ideas, too, save at our most\nlucid, most tranquil, most thoughtful moments--on the subject of the\nintervention of the unknown or mysterious in the truly grave events of\nlife.  We find, amidst this confusion, feelings which no longer accord\nwith any precise, living, accepted idea; such, for instance, as concern\nthe existence of a determinate God, conceived as more or less\nanthropomorphic, providential, personal, and unceasingly vigilant.  We\nfind feelings which, as yet, are only partially ideas; as those which\ndeal with fatality, destiny, the justice of things.  We find ideas\nwhich will soon turn into feelings; those that treat of the law of the\nspecies, evolution, selection, the will-power of the race, &c.  And,\nfinally, we discover ideas which still are purely ideas, too uncertain\nand scattered for us to be able to predict at what moment they will\nbecome feelings, and thus materially influence our actions, our\nacceptance of life, our joys, and our sorrows.\n\n\n9\n\nIf in actual life this confusion is not so apparent, it is only because\nactual life will but rarely express itself, or condescend to make use\nof image or formula to relate its experience.  This state of mind,\nhowever, is clearly discernible in all those whose self-imposed mission\nit is to depict real life, to explain and interpret it, and throw light\non the hidden causes of good and evil destiny.  It is of the poets I\nspeak, of dramatic poets above all, who are occupied with external and\nactive life; and it matters not whether they produce novels, tragedies,\nthe drama properly so called, or historical studies, for I give to the\nwords poets and dramatic poets their widest significance.\n\nIt cannot be denied that the possession of a dominant idea, one that\nmay be said to exclude all others, must confer considerable power on\nthe poet, or \"interpreter of life;\" and in the degree that the idea is\nmysterious, and difficult of definition or control, will be the extent\nof this power and its conspicuousness in the poem.  And this is\nentirely legitimate, so long as the poet himself has not the least\ndoubt as to the value of his idea; and there are many admirable poets\nwho have never hesitated, paused, or doubted.  Thus it is that we find\nthe idea of heroic duty filling so enormous a space in the tragedies of\nCorneille, that of absolute faith in the dramas of Calderon, that of\nthe tyranny of destiny in the works of Sophocles.\n\n\n10\n\nOf these three ideas, that of heroic duty is the most human and the\nleast mysterious; and although far more restricted to-day than at the\ntime of Corneille--for there are few such duties which it would not now\nbe reasonable, and even heroic, perhaps, to call into question, and it\nbecomes ever more and more difficult to find one that is truly\nheroic--conditions may still be imagined under which recourse thereto\nmay be legitimate in the poet.\n\nBut will he discover in faith--to-day no more than a shadowy memory to\nthe most fervent believer--that inspiration and strength, by whose aid\nCorneille was able to depict the God of the Christians as the august,\nomnipresent actor of his dramas, invisible but untiringly active, and\nsovereign always?  Or is it possible still for a reasonable being,\nwhose eyes rest calmly on the life about him, to believe in the tyranny\nof fate; of that sluggish, unswerving, preordained, inscrutable force\nwhich urges a given man, or family, by given ways to a given disaster\nor death?  For though it be true that our life is subject to many an\nunknown force, we at least are aware that these forces would seem to be\nblind, indifferent, unconscious, and that their most insidious attacks\nmay be in some measure averted by the wisest among us.  Can we still be\nallowed, then, to believe that the universe holds a power so idle, so\nwretched, as to concern itself solely in saddening, frustrating, and\nterrifying the projects and schemes of man?\n\nImmanent justice is another mysterious and sovereign force, whereof use\nhas been made; but it is only the feeblest of writers who have ventured\nto accept this postulate in its entirety: only those to whom reality\nand probability were matters of smallest moment.  The affirmation that\nwickedness is necessarily and visibly punished in this life, and virtue\nas necessarily and visibly rewarded, is too manifestly opposed to the\nmost elementary daily experience, too wildly inconsistent a dream, for\nthe true poet ever to accept it as the basis of his drama.  And, on the\nother hand, if we refer to a future life the bestowal of reward and\npunishment, we are merely entering by another gate the region of divine\njustice.  For, indeed, unless immanent justice be infallible,\npermanent, unvarying, and inevitable, it becomes no more than a\ncurious, well-meaning caprice of fate; and from that moment it no\nlonger is justice, or even fate: it shrinks into merest chance--in\nother words, almost into nothingness.\n\nThere is, it is true, a very real immanent justice; I refer to the\nforce which enacts that the vicious, malevolent, cruel, disloyal man\nshall be morally less happy than he who is honest and good,\naffectionate, gentle, and just.  But here it is inward justice whose\nworkings we see; a very human, natural, comprehensible force, the study\nof whose cause and effect must of necessity lead to psychological\ndrama, where there no longer is need of the vast and mysterious\nbackground which lent its solemn and awful perspective to the events of\nhistory and legend.  But is it legitimate deliberately to misconceive\nthe unknown that governs our life in order that we may reconstruct this\nmysterious background?\n\n\n11\n\nWhile on this subject of dominant and mysterious ideas, we shall do\nwell to consider the forms that the idea of fatality has taken, and for\never is taking: for fatality even to-day still provides the supreme\nexplanation for all that we cannot explain; and it is to fatality still\nthat the thoughts of the \"interpreter of life\" unceasingly turn.\n\nThe poets have endeavoured to transform it, to make it attractive, to\nrestore its youth.  They have contrived, in their works, a hundred new\nand winding canals through which they may introduce the icy waters of\nthe great and desolate river whose banks have been gradually shunned by\nthe dwellings of men.  And of those most successful in making us share\nthe illusion that they were conferring a solemn, definitive meaning on\nlife, there are few who have not instinctively recognised the sovereign\nimportance conferred on the actions of men by the irresponsible power\nof an ever august and unerring destiny.  Fatality would seem to be the\npre-eminent tragical force; it no sooner appears in a drama than it\ndoes of itself three-fourths of all that needs doing.  It may safely be\nsaid that the poet who could find to-day, in material science, in the\nunknown that surrounds us, or in his own heart, the equivalent for\nancient fatality--a force, that is, of equally irresistible\npredestination, a force as universally admitted--would infallibly\nproduce a masterpiece.  It is true, however, that he would have, at the\nsame time, to solve the mighty enigma for whose word we are all of us\nseeking, so that this supposition is not likely to be realised very\nsoon.\n\n\n12\n\nThis is the source, then, whence the lustral water is drawn with which\nthe poets have purified the cruellest of tragedies.  There is an\ninstinct in man that worships fatality, and he is apt to regard\nwhatever pertains thereto as incontestable, solemn, and beautiful.  His\ncry is for freedom; but circumstances arise when he rather would tell\nhimself that he is not free.  The unbending, malignant goddess is more\nacceptable often than the divinity who only asks for an effort that\nshall avert disaster.  All things notwithstanding, it pleases us still\nto be ruled by a power that nothing can turn from its purpose; and\nwhatever our mental dignity may lose by such a belief is gained by a\nkind of sentimental vanity in us, which complacently dwells on the\nmeasureless force that for ever keeps watch on our plans, and confers\non our simplest action a mysterious, eternal significance.  Fatality,\nbriefly, explains and excuses all things, by relegating to a sufficient\ndistance in the invisible or the unintelligible all that it would be\nhard to explain, and more difficult still to excuse.\n\n\n13\n\nTherefore it is that so many have turned to the dismembered statue of\nthe terrible goddess who reigned in the dramas of Euripides, Sophocles,\nand Aeschylus, and that the scattered fragments of her limbs have\nprovided more than one poet with the marble required for the fashioning\nof a newer divinity, who should be more human, less arbitrary, and less\ninconceivable than she of old.  The fatality of the passions, for\ninstance, has thus been evolved.  But for a passion truly to be fatal\nin a soul aware of itself, for the mystery to reappear that shall make\ncrime pardonable by investing it with loftiness and lifting it high\nabove the will of man: for these we require the intervention of a God,\nor some other equally irresistible, infinite force.  Wagner, therefore,\nin \"Tristram and Iseult,\" makes use of the philtre, as Shakespeare of\nthe witches in \"Macbeth,\" Racine of the oracle of Calchas in\n\"Iphigenia\" and of Venus' hatred in \"Phedre.\"  We have travelled in a\ncircle, and find ourselves back once more at the very heart of the\ncraving of former days.  This expedient may be more or less legitimate\nin archaic or legendary drama, where there is room for all kinds of\npoetic fantasy; but in the drama which pretends to actual truth we\ndemand another intervention, one that shall seem to us more genuinely\nirresistible, if crimes like Macbeth's, such a deed of horror as that\nto which Agamemnon consented: perhaps, too, the kind of love that\nburned in Phedre, shall achieve their mysterious excuse, and acquire a\ngrandeur and sombre nobility that intrinsically they do not possess.\nTake away from Macbeth the fatal predestination, the intervention of\nhell, the heroic struggle with an occult justice that for ever is\nrevealing itself through a thousand fissures of revolting nature, and\nMacbeth is merely a frantic, contemptible murderer.  Take away the\noracle of Calchas, and Agamemnon becomes abominable.  Take away the\nhatred of Venus, and what is Phedre but a neurotic creature, whose\n\"moral quality\" and power of resistance to evil are too pronouncedly\nfeeble for our intellect to take any genuine interest in the calamity\nthat befalls her?\n\n\n\n14\n\nThe truth is that these supernatural interventions to-day satisfy\nneither spectator nor reader.  Though he know it not, perhaps, and\nstrive as he may, it is no longer possible for him to regard them\nseriously in the depths of his consciousness.  His conception of the\nuniverse is other.  He no longer detects the working of a narrow,\ndetermined, obstinate, violent will in the multitude of forces that\nstrive in him and about him.  He knows that the criminal whom he may\nmeet in actual life has been urged into crime by misfortune, education,\natavism, or by movements of passion which he has himself experienced\nand subdued, while recognising that there might have been circumstances\nunder which their repression would have been a matter of exceeding\ndifficulty.  He will not, it is true, always be able to discover the\ncause of these misfortunes or movements of passion; and his endeavour\nto account for the injustice of education or heredity will probably be\nno less unsuccessful.  But, for all that, he will no longer incline to\nattribute a particular crime to the wrath of a God, the direct\nintervention of hell, or to a series of changeless decrees inscribed in\nthe book of fate.  Why ask of him, then, to accept in a poem an\nexplanation which he refuses in life?  Is the poet's duty not rather to\nfurnish an explanation loftier, clearer, more widely and profoundly\nhuman than any his reader can find for himself?  For, indeed, this\nwrath of the gods, intervention of hell, and writing in letters of\nfire, are to him no more to-day than so many symbols that have long\nceased to content him.  It is time that the poet should realise that\nthe symbol is legitimate only when it stands for accepted truth, or for\ntruth which as yet we cannot, or will not, accept; but the symbol is\nout of place at a time when it is truth itself that we seek.  And,\nbesides, to merit admission into a really living poem, the symbol\nshould be at least as great and beautiful as the truth for which it\nstands, and should, moreover, precede this truth, and not follow a long\nway behind.\n\n\n15\n\nWe see, therefore, how surpassingly difficult it must have become to\nintroduce great crimes, or cruel, unbridled, tragical passions, into a\nmodern work, above all if that work be destined for stage presentation;\nfor the poet will seek in vain for the mysterious excuse these crimes\nor passions demand.  And yet, for all that, so deeply is this craving\nfor mysterious excuse implanted within us, so satisfied are we that man\nis, at bottom, never as guilty as he may appear to be, that we are\nstill fully content, when considering passions or crimes of this\nnature, to admit some kind of fatal intervention that at least may not\nseem too manifestly unacceptable.\n\nThis excuse, however, will be sought by us only when the persons guilty\nof crimes which are contrary to human nature, when the victims of\nmisfortunes which they could not foresee, and which seem undeserved to\nus, inexplicable, wholly abnormal, are more or less superior beings,\npossessed of their fullest share of consciousness.  We are loath to\nadmit that an extraordinary crime or disaster can have a purely human\ncause.  In spite of all, we persistently seek in some way to explain\nthe inexplicable.  We should not be satisfied if the poet were simply\nto say to us: \"You see here the wrong that was done by this strong,\nthis conscious, intelligent man.  Behold the misfortune this hero\nencountered; this good man's ruin and sorrow.  See, too, how this sage\nis crushed by tragic, irremediable wickedness.  The human causes of\nthese events are evident to you.  I have no other explanation to offer,\nunless it be perhaps the indifference of the universe towards the\nactions of man.\"  Our dissatisfaction would vanish if he could succeed\nin conveying to us the sensation of this indifference, if he could show\nit in action; but, as it is the property of indifference never to\ninterfere or act, that would seem to be more or less unachievable.\n\n\n16\n\nBut when we turn to the by no means inevitable jealousy of Othello, or\nto the misfortunes of Romeo and Juliet, which were surely not\npreordained, we discover no need of explanation, or of the purifying\ninfluence of fatality.  In another drama, Ford's masterpiece, \"'Tis\nPity She's a Whore,\" which revolves around the incestuous love of\nGiovanni for his sister Annabella, we are compelled either to turn away\nin horror, or to seek the mysterious excuse in its habitual haunt on\nthe shore of the gulf.  But even here, the first painful shock over, we\nfind it is not imperative.  For the love of brother for sister, viewed\nfrom a standpoint sufficiently lofty, is a crime against morality, but\nnot against human nature; and there is at least some measure of\npalliation in the youth of the pair, and in the passion that blinds\nthem.  Othello, too, the semi-barbarian who does Desdemona to death,\nhas been goaded to madness by the machinations of Iago; and even this\nlast can plead his by no means gratuitous hatred.  The disasters that\nweighed so heavily on the lovers of Verona were due to the inexperience\nof the victims, to the manifest disproportion between their strength\nand that of their enemies; and although we may pity the man who\nsuccumbs to superior human force, his downfall does not surprise us.\nWe are not impelled to seek explanation elsewhere, to ask questions of\nfate; and unless he appear to fall victim to superhuman injustice, we\nare content to tell ourselves that what has happened was bound to\nhappen.  It is only when disaster occurs after every precaution is\ntaken that we could ourselves have devised, that we become conscious of\nthe need for other explanation.\n\n\n17\n\nWe find it difficult, therefore, to conceive or admit as naturally,\nhumanly possible that a crime shall be committed by a person who\napparently is endowed with fullest intelligence and consciousness; or\nthat misfortune should befall him which seems in its essence to be\ninexplicable, undeserved, and unexpected.  It follows, therefore, that\nthe poet can only place on the stage (this phrase I use merely as an\nabbreviation: it would be more correct to say, \"cause us to assist at\nsome adventure whereof we know personally neither the actors nor the\ntotality of the circumstances\") faults, crimes, and acts of injustice\ncommitted by persons of defective consciousness, as also disasters\nbefalling feeble beings unable to control their desires--innocent\ncreatures, it may be, but thick-sighted, imprudent, and reckless.\nUnder these conditions there would seem to be no call for the\nintervention of anything beyond the limit of normal human psychology.\nBut such a conception of the theatre would be at absolute variance with\nreal life, where we find crimes committed by persons of fullest\nconsciousness, and the most inexplicable, inconceivable, unmerited\nmisfortunes befalling the wisest, the best, most virtuous and prudent\nof men.  Dramas which deal with unconscious creatures, whom their own\nfeebleness oppresses and their own desires overcome, excite our\ninterest and arouse our pity; but the veritable drama, the one which\nprobes to the heart of things and grapples with important truths--our\nown personal drama, in a word, which for ever hangs over our life--is\nthe one wherein the strong, intelligent, and conscious commit errors,\nfaults, and crimes which are almost inevitable; wherein the wise and\nupright struggle with all-powerful calamity, with forces destructive to\nwisdom and virtue: for it is worthy of note that the spectator, however\nfeeble, dishonest even, he may be in real life, still enrols himself\nalways among the virtuous, just, and strong; and when he reflects on\nthe misfortunes of the weak, or even witnesses them, he resolutely\ndeclines to imagine himself in the place of the victims.\n\n\n18\n\nHere we attain the limit of the human will, the gloomy boundary-line of\nthe influence that the most just and enlightened of men is able to\nexert on events that decide his future happiness or sorrow.  No great\ndrama exists, or poem of lofty aim, but one of its heroes shall stray\nto this frontier where his destiny waits for the seal.  Why has this\nwise, this virtuous man committed this fault or this crime?  Why has\nthat woman, who knows so well the meaning of all that she does,\nhazarded the gesture which must so inevitably summon everlasting\nsorrow?  By whom have the links been forged of the chain of disaster\nwhose fetters have crushed this innocent family?  Why do all things\ncrumble around one, and fall into ruins, while the other, his\nneighbour, less active and strong, less skilful and wise, finds ever\nmaterial by him to build up his life anew?  Why do tenderness, beauty,\nand love flock to the path of some, where others meet hatred only, and\nmalice, and treachery?  Why persistent happiness here, and yonder,\nthough merits be equal, nought but unceasing disaster?  Why is this\nhouse for ever beset with the storm, while over that other there shines\nthe peace of unvarying stars?  Why genius, and riches, and health on\nthis side, and yonder disease, imbecility, poverty?  Whence has the\npassion been sent that has wrought such terrible grief, and whence the\npassion that proved the source of such wonderful joy?  Why does the\nyouth whom yesterday I met go on his tranquil road to profoundest\nhappiness, while his friend, with the same methodical, peaceful,\nignorant step, proceeds on his way to death?\n\n\n19\n\nLife will often place such problems before us; but how rarely are we\ncompelled to refer their solution to the supernatural, mysterious,\nsuperhuman, or preordained!  It is only the fervent believer who will\nstill be content to see there the finger of divine intervention.  Such\nof us, however, as have entered the house where the storm has raged, as\nwell as the house of peace, have rarely departed without most clearly\ndetecting the essentially human reasons of both peace and storm.  We\nwho have known the wise and upright man who has been guilty of error or\ncrime, are acquainted also with the circumstances which induced his\naction, and these circumstances seem to us in no way supernatural.  As\nwe draw near to the woman whose gesture brought misery to her, we learn\nvery soon that this gesture might have been avoided, and that, in her\nplace, we should have refrained.  The friends of the man around whom\nall fell into ruins, and of the neighbour who ever was able to build up\nhis life anew, will have observed before that the acorn sometimes will\nfall on to rock, and sometimes on fertile soil.  And though poverty,\nsickness, and death still remain the three inequitable goddesses of\nhuman existence, they no longer awake in us the superstitious fears of\nbygone days  We regard them to-day as essentially indifferent,\nunconscious, blind.  We know that they recognise none of the ideal laws\nwhich we once believed that they sanctioned; and it only too often has\nhappened that at the very moment we were whispering to ourselves of\n\"purification, trial, reward, punishment,\" their undiscerning caprice\ngave the lie to the too lofty, too moral title which we were about to\nbestow.\n\n\n20\n\nOur imagination, it is true, is inclined to admit, perhaps to desire,\nthe intervention of the superhuman; but, for all that, there are few,\neven among the most mystic, who are not convinced that our moral\nmisfortunes are, in their essence, determined by our mind and our\ncharacter; and, similarly, that our physical misfortunes are due in\npart to the workings of certain forces which often are misunderstood,\nand in part to the generally ill-defined relation of cause to effect:\nnor is it unreasonable to hope that light may be thrown on these\nproblems as we penetrate further into the secrets of nature.  We have\nhere a certitude upon which our whole life depends; a certitude which\nis shaken only when we consider our own misfortunes, for then we shrink\nfrom analysing or admitting the faults we ourselves have committed.\nThere is a hopefulness in man which renders him unwilling to grant that\nthe cause of his misfortune may be as transparent as that of the wave\nwhich dies away in the sand or is hurled on the cliff, of the insect\nwhose little wings gleam for an instant in the light of the sun till\nthe passing bird absorbs its existence.\n\n\n21\n\nLet me suppose that a neighbour of mine, whom I know very intimately,\nwhose regular habits and inoffensive manners have won my esteem, should\nsuccessively lose his wife in a railway accident, one son at sea,\nanother in a fire, the third and last by disease.  I should, of course,\nbe painfully shocked and grieved; but still it would not occur to me to\nattribute this series of disasters to a divine vengeance or an\ninvisible justice, to a strange, ill-starred predestination, or an\nactive, persistent, inevitable fatality.  My thoughts would fly to the\nmyriad unfortunate hazards of life; I should be appalled at the\nfrightful coincidence of calamity; but in me there would be no\nsuggestion of a superhuman will that had hurled the train over the\nprecipice, steered the ship on to rocks, or kindled the flames; I\nshould hold it incredible that such monstrous efforts could have been\nput forth with the sole object of inflicting punishment and despair\nupon a poor wretch, because of some error he might have committed--one\nof those grave human errors which yet are so petty in face of the\nuniverse; an error which perhaps had not issued from either his heart\nor his brain, and had stirred not one blade of grass on the earth's\nwhole surface.\n\n\n22\n\nBut he, this neighbour of mine, on whom these terrible blows have\nsuccessively fallen, like so many lightning-flashes on a black night of\nstorm--will he think as I do; will these catastrophes seem natural to\nhim, and ordinary, and susceptible of explanation?  Will not the words\ndestiny, fortune, hazard, ill-luck, fatality, star--the word\nProvidence, perhaps--assume in his mind a significance they never have\nassumed before?  Will not the light beneath which he questions his\nconsciousness be a different light from my own, will he not feel round\nhis life an influence, a power, a kind of evil intention, that are\nimperceptible to me?  And who is right, he or I?  Which of us two sees\nmore clearly, and further?  Do truths that in calmer times lie hidden\nfloat to the surface in hours of trouble; and which is the moment we\nshould choose to establish the meaning of life?\n\nThe \"interpreter of life,\" as a rule, selects the troubled hours.  He\nplaces himself, and us, in the soul-state of his victims.  He shows\ntheir misfortunes to us in perspective; and so sharply, concretely,\nthat we have for the moment the illusion of a personal disaster.  And,\nindeed, it is more or less impossible for him to depict them as they\nwould occur in real life.  If we had spent long years with the hero of\nthe drama which has stirred us so painfully, had he been our brother,\nour father, our friend, we should have probably noted, recognised,\ncounted one by one as they passed, all the causes of his misfortune,\nwhich then would not only appear less extraordinary to us, but\nperfectly natural even, and humanly almost inevitable.  But to the\n\"interpreter of life\" is given neither power nor occasion to acquaint\nus with each veritable cause.  For these causes, as a rule, are\ninfinitely slow in their movement, and countless in number, and slight,\nand of small apparent significance.  He is therefore led to adopt a\ngeneral cause, one sufficiently vast to embrace the whole drama, in\nplace of the real and human causes which he is unable to show us,\nunable, too, himself to examine and study.  And where shall a general\ncause of sufficient vastness be found, if not in the two or three words\nwe breathe to ourselves when silence oppresses us: words like fatality,\ndivinity, Providence, or obscure and nameless justice?\n\n\n23\n\nThe question we have to consider is how far this procedure can be\nbeneficial, or even legitimate; as also whether it be the mission of\nthe poet to present, and insist on, the distress and confusion of our\nleast lucid hours, or to add to the clear-sightedness of the moments\nwhen we conceive ourselves to enjoy the fullest possession of our force\nand our reason.  In our own misfortunes there is something of good, and\nsomething of good must therefore be found in the illusion of personal\nmisfortune.  We are made to look into ourselves; our errors, our\nweaknesses, are more clearly revealed; it is shown to us where we have\nstrayed.  There falls a light on our consciousness a thousand times\nmore searching, more active, than could spring from many arduous years\nof meditation and study.  We are forced to emerge from ourselves, and\nto let our eyes rest on those round about us; we are rendered more\nkeenly alive to the sorrows of others.  There are some who will tell us\nthat misfortune does even more--that it urges our glance on high, and\ncompels us to bow to a power superior to our own, to an unseen justice,\nto an impenetrable, infinite mystery.  Can this indeed be the best of\nall possible issues?  Ah, yes, it was well, from the standpoint of\nreligious morality, that misfortune should teach us to lift up our eyes\nand look on an eternal, unchanging, undeniable God, sovereignly\nbeautiful, sovereignly just, and sovereignly good.  It was well that\nthe poet who found in his God an unquestionable ideal should\nincessantly hold before us this unique, this definitive ideal.  But\nto-day, if we look away from the truth, from the ordinary experience of\nlife, on what shall our eager glance rest?  If we discard the more or\nless compensatory laws of conscience and inward happiness, what shall\nwe say when triumphant injustice confronts us, or successful,\nunpunished crime?  How shall we account for the death of a child, the\nmiserable end of an innocent man, or the disaster hurled by cruel fate\non some unfortunate creature, if we seek explanations loftier, more\ndefinite, more comprehensive and decisive than those that are found\nsatisfactory in everyday life for the reason that they are the only\nones that accord with a certain number of realities?  Is it right that\nthe poet, in his eager desire to contrive a solemn atmosphere for his\ndrama, should arouse from their slumber sentiments, errors, prejudices\nand fears, which we would attack and rebuke were we to discover them in\nthe hearts of our friends or our children?  Man has at last, through\nhis study of the habits of spirit and brain, of the laws of existence,\nthe caprices of fate and the maternal indifference of nature--man has\nat last, and laboriously, acquired some few certitudes, that are worthy\nof all respect; and is the poet entitled to seize on the moment of\nanguish in order to oust all these certitudes, and set up in their\nplace a fatality to which every action of ours gives the lie; or powers\nbefore which we would refuse to kneel did the blow fall on us that has\nprostrated his hero; or a mystic justice that, for all it may sweep\naway the need for many an embarrassing explanation, bears yet not the\nslightest kinship to the active and personal justice we all of us\nrecognise in our own personal life?\n\n\n24\n\nAnd yet this is what the \"interpreter of life\" will more or less\ndeliberately do from the moment he seeks to invest his work with a\nlofty spirit, with a deep and religious beauty, with the sense of the\ninfinite.  Even though this work of his may be of the sincerest, though\nit express as nearly as may be his own most intimate truth, he believes\nthat this truth is enhanced, and established more firmly, by being\nsurrounded with phantoms of a forgotten past.  Might not the symbols he\nneeds, the hypotheses, images, the touchstone for all that cannot be\nexplained, be less frequently sought in that which he knows is not\ntrue, and more often in that which will one day be a truth?  Does the\nunearthing of bygone terrors, or the borrowing of light from a Hell\nthat has ceased to be, make death more sublime?  Does dependence on a\nsupreme but imaginary will ennoble our destiny?  Does justice--that\nvast network woven by human action and reaction over the unchanging\nwisdom of nature's moral and physical forces--does justice become more\nmajestic through being lodged in the hands of a unique judge, whom the\nvery spirit of the drama dethrones and destroys?\n\n\n25\n\nLet us ask ourselves whether the hour may not have come for the earnest\nrevision of the symbols, the images, sentiments, beauty, wherewith we\nstill seek to glorify in us the spectacle of the world.\n\nThis beauty, these feelings and sentiments, to-day unquestionably bear\nonly the most distant relation to the phenomena, thoughts, nay even the\ndreams, of our actual existence; and if they are suffered still to\nabide with us, it is rather as tender and innocent memories of a past\nthat was more credulous, and nearer to the childhood of man.  Were it\nnot well, then, that those whose mission it is to make more evident to\nus the beauty and harmony of the world we live in, should march ever\nonwards, and let their steps tend to the actual truth of this world?\nTheir conception of the universe need not be stripped of a single one\nof the ornaments wherewith they embellish it; but why seek these\nornaments so often among mere recollections, however smiling or\nterrible, and so seldom from among the essential thoughts which have\nhelped these men to build, and effectively organise, their spiritual\nand sentient life?\n\nIt can never be right to dwell in the midst of false images, even\nthough these are known to be false.  The time will come when the\nillusory image will usurp the place of the just idea it has seemed to\nrepresent.  We shall not reduce the part of the infinite and the\nmysterious by employing other images, by framing other and juster\nconceptions.  Do what we may, this part can never be lessened.  It will\nalways be found deep down in the heart of men, at the root of each\nproblem, pervading the universe.  And for all that the substance, the\nplace of these mysteries, may seem to have changed, their extent and\npower remain for ever the same.  Has not--to take but one instance--has\nnot the phenomenon of the existence, everywhere among us, of a kind of\nsupreme and wholly spiritual justice, unarmed, unadorned, unequipped,\nmoving slowly but never swerving, stable and changeless in a world\nwhere injustice would seem to reign--has this phenomenon not cause and\neffect as deep, as exhaustless--is it not as astounding, as\nadmirable--as the wisdom of an eternal and omnipresent Judge?  Should\nthis Judge be held more convincing for that He is less conceivable?\nAre fewer sources of beauty, or occasions for genius to exercise\ninsight and power, to be found in what can be explained than in what\nis, _a priori_, inexplicable?  Does not, for instance, a victorious but\nunjust war (such as those of the Romans, of England to-day, the\nconquests of Spain in America, and so many others) in the end always\ndemoralise the victor and thrust upon him errors, habits, and faults\nwhereby he is made to pay dearly for his triumph; and is not the\nminute, the relentless labour of this psychological justice as\nabsorbing, as vast, as the intervention of a superhuman justice?  And\nmay not the same be said of the justice that lives in each one of us,\nthat causes the space left for peace, inner happiness, love, to expand\nor contract in our mind and our heart in the degree of our striving\ntowards that which is just or is unjust?\n\n\n26\n\nAnd to turn to one mystery more, the most awful of all, that of\ndeath--would any one pretend that our perception of justice, of\ngoodness and beauty, or our intellectual, sentient power, our eagerness\nfor all that draws near to the infinite, all-powerful, eternal, has\ndwindled since death ceased to be held the immense and exclusive\nanguish of life?  Does not each new generation find the burden lighter\nto bear as the forms of death grow less violent and its posthumous\nterrors fade?  It is the illness that goes before, the physical pain,\nof which we are to-day most afraid.  But death is no longer the hour of\nthe wrathful, inscrutable judge; no longer the one and the terrible\ngoal, the gulf of misery and eternal punishment.  It is slowly\nbecoming--indeed, in some cases, it has already become--the wished-for\nrepose of a life that draws to its end.  Its weight no longer oppresses\neach one of our actions; and, above all--for this is the most striking\nchange--it has ceased to intrude itself into our morality.  And is this\nmorality of ours less lofty, less pure, less profound, because of the\ndisinterestedness it has thus acquired?  Has the loss of an\noverwhelming dread robbed mankind of a single precious, indispensable\nfeeling?  And must not life itself find gain in the importance wrested\nfrom death?  Surely: for the neutral forces we hold in reserve within\nus are waiting and ready; and every discouragement, sorrow, or fear\nthat departs has its place quickly filled by a certitude, admiration,\nor hope.\n\n\n27\n\nThe poet is inclined to personify fatality and justice, and give\noutward form to forces really within us, for the reason that to show\nthem at work in ourselves is a matter of exceeding difficulty; and\nfurther, that the unknown and the infinite, to the extent that they\n_are_ unknown and infinite--_i.e._ lacking personality, intelligence,\nand morality--are powerless to move us.  And here it is curious to note\nthat we are in no degree affected by material mystery, however\ndangerous or obscure, or by psychological justice, however involved its\nresults.  It is not the incomprehensible in nature that masters and\ncrushes us, but the thought that nature may possibly be governed by a\nconscious, superior, reasoning will; one that, although superhuman, has\nyet some kinship with the will of man.  What we dread, in a word, is\nthe presence of a God; and speak as we may of fatality, justice, or\nmystery, it is always God whom we fear: a being, that is, like\nourselves, though almighty, eternal, invisible, and infinite.  A moral\nforce that was not conceived in the image of man would most likely\ninspire no fear.  It is not the unknown in nature that fills us with\ndread; it is not the mystery of the world we live in.  It is the\nmystery of another world from which we recoil; it is the moral and not\nthe material enigma.  There is nothing, for instance, more obscure than\nthe combination of causes which produce the earthquake, that most\nterrible of all catastrophes.  But the earthquake, though it alarm our\nbody, will bring no fear to our mind unless we regard it as an act of\njustice, of mysterious vengeance, of supernatural punishment.  And so\nit is, too, with the thunderstorm, with illness, with death, with the\nmyriad phenomena and accidents of life.  It would seem as though the\ntrue alarm of our soul, the great fear which stirs other instincts\nwithin us than that of mere self-preservation, is only called forth by\nthe thought of a more or less determinate God, of a mysterious\nconsciousness, a permanent, invisible justice, or a vigilant, eternal\nProvidence.  But does the \"interpreter of life,\" who succeeds in\narousing this fear, bring us nearer to truth; and is it his mission to\nconvey to us sorrow, and trouble, and painful emotion, or peace,\nsatisfaction, tranquillity, and light?\n\n\n28\n\nIt is not easy, I know, to free oneself wholly from traditional\ninterpretation, for it often succeeds in reasserting its sway upon us\nat the very moment we strain every nerve to escape from our bondage.\nSo has it happened with Ibsen, who, in his search for a new and almost\nscientific form of fatality, erected the veiled, majestic, tyrannical\nfigure of heredity in the centre of the very best of his dramas.  But\nit is not the scientific mystery of heredity which awakens within us\nthose human fears that lie so much deeper than the mere animal fear;\nfor heredity alone could no more achieve this result than could the\nscientific mystery of a dreaded disease, a stellar or marine\nphenomenon.  No, the fear that differs so essentially from the one\ncalled forth by an imminent natural danger, is aroused within us by the\nobscure idea of justice which heredity assumes in the drama; by the\ndaring pronouncement that the sins of the fathers are almost invariably\nvisited on the children; by the suggestion that a sovereign Judge, a\ngoddess of the species, is for ever watching our actions, inscribing\nthem on her tablets of bronze, and balancing in her eternal hands\nrewards long deferred and never-ending punishment.  In a word, even\nwhile we deny it, it is the face of God that reappears; and from\nbeneath the flagstone one had believed to be sealed for ever comes once\nagain the murmur of the very ancient flame of Hell.\n\n\n29\n\nThis new form of fatality, or fatal justice, is less defensible, and\nless acceptable too, than the ancient and elementary power, which,\nbeing general and undefined, and offering no too strict explanation of\nits actions, lent itself to a far greater number of situations.  In the\nspecial case selected by Ibsen, it is not impossible that some kind of\naccidental justice may be found, as it is not impossible that the arrow\na blind man shoots into a crowd may chance to strike a parricide.  But\nto found a law upon this accidental justice is a fresh perversion of\nmystery, for elements are thereby introduced into human morality which\nhave no right to be there; elements which we would welcome, which would\nbe of value, if they stood for definite truths; but seeing that they\nare as alien to truth as to actual life, they should be ruthlessly\nswept aside.  I have shown elsewhere that our experience fails to\ndetect the most minute trace of justice in the phenomena of heredity;\nor, in other words, that it fails to discover the slightest moral\nconnection between the cause: the fault of the father, and the effect:\nthe punishment or reward of the child.\n\nThe poet has the right to fashion hypotheses, and to forge his way\nahead of reality.  But it will often happen that when he imagines\nhimself to be far in advance, he will truly have done no more than turn\nin a circle; that where he believes that he has discovered new truth,\nhe has merely strayed on to the track of a buried illusion.  In the\ncase I have named, for the poet to have taught us more than experience\nteaches, he should have ventured still further, perhaps, in the\nnegation of justice.  But whatever our opinion may be on this point, it\nat least is clear that the poet who desires his hypotheses to be\nlegitimate, and of service, must take heed that they be not too\nmanifestly contrary to the experience of everyday life; for in that\ncase they become useless and dangerous--scarcely honourable even, if\nthe error be deliberately made.\n\n\n30\n\nAnd now, what are we to conclude from all this?  Many things, if one\nwill, but this above all: that it behoves the \"interpreter of life,\" no\nless than those who are living that life, to exercise greatest care in\ntheir manner of handling and admitting mystery, and to discard the\nbelief that whatever is noblest and best in life or in drama must of\nnecessity rest in the part that admits of no explanation.  There are\nmany most beautiful, most human, most admirable works which are almost\nentirely free from this \"disquiet of universal mystery.\"  We derive no\ngreatness, sublimity, or depth from unceasingly fixing our thoughts on\nthe infinite and the unknown.  Such meditation becomes truly helpful\nonly when it is the unexpected reward of the mind that has loyally,\nunreservedly, given itself to the study of the finite and the knowable;\nand to such a mind it will soon be revealed how strangely different is\nthe mystery which precedes what one does not know from the mystery that\nfollows closely on what one has learned.  The first would seem to\ncontain many sorrows, but that is only because the sorrows are grouped\nthere too closely, and have their home upon two of three peaks that\nstand too nearly together.  In the second is far less sadness, for its\narea is vast; and when the horizon is wide, there exists no sorrow so\ngreat but it takes the form of a hope.\n\n\n31\n\nYes, human life, viewed as a whole, may appear somewhat sorrowful; and\nit is easier, in a manner pleasanter even, to speak of its sorrows and\nlet the mind dwell on them, than to go in search of, and bring into\nprominence, the consolations life has to offer.  Sorrows\nabound--infallible, evident sorrows; consolations, or rather the\nreasons wherefore we accept with some gladness the duty of life, are\nrare and uncertain, and hard of detection.  Sorrows seem noble, and\nlofty, and fraught with deep mystery; with mystery that almost is\npersonal, that we feel to be near to us.  Consolations appear\negotistical, squalid, at times almost base.  But for all that, and\nwhatever their ephemeral likeness may be, we have only to draw closer\nto them to find that they too have their mystery; and if this seem less\nvisible and less comprehensible, it is only because it lies deeper and\nis far more mysterious.  The desire to live, the acceptance of life as\nit is, may perhaps be mere vulgar expressions; but yet they are\nprobably in unconscious harmony with laws that are vaster, more\nconformable with the spirit of the universe, and therefore more sacred,\nthan is the desire to escape the sorrows of life, or the lofty but\ndisenchanted wisdom that for ever dwells on those sorrows.\n\n\n32\n\nOur impulse is always to depict life as more sorrowful than truly it\nis; and this is a serious error, to be excused only by the doubts that\nat present hang over us.  No satisfying explanation has so far been\nfound.  The destiny of man is as subject to unknown forces to-day as it\nwas in the days of old; and though it be true that some of these forces\nhave vanished, others have arisen in their stead.  The number of those\nthat are really all-powerful has in no way diminished.  Many attempts\nhave been made, and in countless fashions, to explain the action of\nthese forces and account for their intervention; and one might almost\nbelieve that the poets, aware of the futility of these explanations in\nface of a reality which, all things notwithstanding, is ever revealing\nmore and more of itself, have fallen back on fatality as in some\nmeasure representing the inexplicable, or at least the sadness of the\ninexplicable.  This is all that we find in Ibsen, the Russian novels,\nthe highest class of modern fiction, Flaubert, &c. (see \"War and\nPeace,\" for instance, _L'Education Sentimentale_, and many others).\n\nIt is true that the fatality shown is no longer the goddess of old, or\nrather (at least to the bulk of mankind) the clearly determinate God,\ninflexible, implacable, arbitrary, blind, although constantly watchful;\nthe fatality of to-day is vaster, more formless, more vague, less human\nor actively personal, more indifferent and more universal.  In a word,\nit is now no more than a provisional appellation bestowed, until better\nbe found, on the general and inexplicable misery of man.  In this sense\nwe may accept it, perhaps, though we do no more than give a new name to\nthe unchanging enigma, and throw no light on the darkness.  But we have\nno right to exaggerate its importance or the part that it plays; no\nright to believe that we are truly surveying mankind and events from a\npoint of some loftiness, beneath a definitive light, or that there is\nnothing to seek beyond, because at times we become deeply conscious of\nthe obscure and invincible force that lies at the end of every\nexistence.  Doubtless, from one point of view, unhappiness must always\nremain the portion of man, and the fatal abyss be ever open before him,\nvowed as he is to death, to the fickleness of matter, to old age and\ndisease.  If we fix our eyes only upon the end of a life, the happiest\nand most triumphant existence must of necessity contain its elements of\nmisery and fatality.  But let us not make a wrong use of these words;\nabove all, let us not, through listlessness or undue inclination to\nmystic sorrow, be induced to lessen the part of what could be explained\nif we would only give more eager attention to the ideas, the passions\nand feelings of the life of man and the nature of things.  Let us\nalways remember that we are steeped in the unknown; for this thought is\nthe most fruitful of all, the most sustaining and salutary.  But the\nneutrality of the unknown does not warrant our attributing to it a\nforce, or designs, or hostility, which it cannot be proved to possess.\nAt Erfurt, in his famous interview with Goethe, Napoleon is said to\nhave spoken disparagingly of the dramas in which fatality plays a great\npart--the plays that we, in our \"passion for calamity,\" are apt to\nconsider the finest.  \"They belong,\" he remarked, \"to an epoch of\ndarkness; but how can fatality touch us to-day?  Policy--_that_ is\nfatality!\"  Napoleon's dictum is not very profound: policy is only the\nmerest fragment of fatality; and his destiny very soon made it manifest\nto him that the desire to contain fatality within the narrow bounds of\npolicy was no more than a vain endeavour to imprison in a fragile vase\nthe mightiest of the spiritual rivers that bathe our globe.  And yet,\nincomplete as this thought of Napoleon's may have been, it still throws\nsome light on a tributary of the great river.  It was a little thing,\nperhaps, but on these uncertain shores it is the difference between a\nlittle thing and nothing that kindles the energy of man and confirms\nhis destiny.  By this ray of light, such as it was, he long was enabled\nto dominate all that portion of the unknown which he declined to term\nfatality.  To us who come after him, the portion of the unknown that he\ncontrolled may well seem insufficient, if surveyed from an eminence,\nand yet it was truly one of the vastest that the eye of man has ever\nembraced.  Through its means every action of his was accomplished, for\nevil or good.  This is not the place to judge him, or even to wonder\nwhether the happiness of a century might not have been better served\nhad he allowed events to guide him; what we are considering here is the\ndocility of the unknown.  For us, with our humbler destinies, the\nproblem still is the same, and the principle too; the principle being\nthat of Goethe: \"to stand on the outermost limit of the conceivable;\nbut never to overstep this line, for beyond it begins at once the land\nof chimeras, the phantoms and mists of which are fraught with danger to\nthe mind.\"  It is only when the intervention of the mysterious,\ninvisible, or irresistible becomes strikingly real, actually\nperceptible, intelligent, and moral, that we are entitled to yield or\nlay down our arms, meekly accepting the inactive silence they bring;\nbut their intervention, within these limits, is rarer than one\nimagines.  Let us recognise that mystery of this kind exists; but,\nuntil it reveal itself, we have not the right to halt, or relax our\nefforts; not the right to cast down our eyes in submission, or resign\nourselves to silence.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE KINGDOM OF MATTER\n\n1\n\nIn a preceding essay we were compelled to admit that, eager as man\nmight be to discover in the universe a sanction for his virtues,\nneither heaven nor earth displayed the least interest in human\nmorality; and that all things would combine to persuade the upright\namong us that they merely are dupes, were it not for the fact that they\nhave in themselves an approval words cannot describe, and a reward so\nintangible that we should in vain endeavour to portray its least\nevanescent delights.  Is that all, some may ask, is that all we may\nhope in return for this mighty effort of ours, for our constant denial\nand pain, for our sacrifice of instincts, of pleasures, that seemed so\nlegitimate, necessary even, and would certainly have added to our\nhappiness had there not been within us the desire for Justice--a desire\narising we know not whence, belonging, perhaps, to our nature, and yet\nin apparent conflict with the vaster nature whereof we all form part?\nYes, it is open to you, if you choose, to regard as a very poor thing\nthis unsubstantial justice: since its only reward is a vague\nsatisfaction, and that this satisfaction even grows hateful, and\ndestroys itself, the moment its presence becomes too perceptibly felt.\nBear in mind, however, that all things that happen in our moral being\nmust be equally lightly held, if regarded from the point of view whence\nyou deliver this judgment.  Love is a paltry affair, the moment of\npossession once over that alone is real and ensures the perpetuity of\nthe race; and yet we find that as man grows more civilised, the act of\npossession assumes ever less value in his eyes if there go not with it,\nif there do not precede, accompany, and follow it, the insignificant\nemotion built up of our thoughts and our feelings, of our sweetest and\ntenderest hours and years.  Beauty, too, is a trivial matter: a\nbeautiful spectacle, a beautiful face, or body, or gesture: a melodious\nvoice, or noble statue--sunrise at sea, flowers in a garden, stars\nshining over the forest, the river by moonlight--or a lofty thought, an\nexquisite poem, an heroic sacrifice hidden in a profound and pitiful\nsoul.  We may admire these things for an instant; they may bring us a\nsense of completeness no other joy can convey; but at the same time\nthere will steal over us a tinge of strange sorrow, unrest; nor will\nthey give happiness to us, as men use the word, should other events\nhave contrived to make us unhappy.  They produce nothing the eye can\nmeasure, or weigh; nothing that others can see, or will envy; and yet,\nwere a magician suddenly to appear, capable of depriving one of us of\nthis sense of beauty that may chance to be in him, possessed of the\npower of extinguishing it for ever, with no trace remaining, no hope\nthat it ever will spring into being again--would we not rather lose\nriches, tranquillity, health even, and many years of our life, than\nthis strange faculty which none can espy, and we ourselves can scarcely\ndefine?  Not less intangible, not less elusive, is the sweetness of\ntender friendship, of a dear recollection we cling to and reverence;\nand countless other thoughts and feelings, that traverse no mountain,\ndispel no cloud, that do not even dislodge a grain of sand by the\nroadside.  But these are the things that build up what is best and\nhappiest in us; they are we, ourselves; they are precisely what those\nwho have them not should envy in those who have.  The more we emerge\nfrom the animal, and approach what seems the surest ideal of our race,\nthe more evident does it become that these things, trifling as they\nwell may appear by the side of nature's stupendous laws, do yet\nconstitute our sole inheritance; and that, happen what may to the end\nof time, they are the hearth, the centre of light, to which mankind\nwill draw ever more and more closely.\n\n\n2\n\nWe live in a century that loves the material, but, while loving it,\nconquers it, masters it, and with more passion than any preceding\nperiod has shown; in a century that would seem consumed with desire to\ncomprehend matter, to penetrate, enslave it, possess it once and for\nall to repletion, satiety--with the wish, it may be, to ransack its\nevery resource, lay bare its last secret, thereby freeing the future\nfrom the restless search for a happiness there seemed reason once to\nbelieve that matter contained.  So, in like manner, is it necessary\nfirst to have known the love of the flesh before the veritable love can\nreveal its deep and unchanging purity.  A serious reaction will\nprobably arise, some day, against this passion for material enjoyment;\nbut man will never be able to cast himself wholly free.  Nor would the\nattempt be wise.  We are, after all, only fragments of animate matter,\nand it could not be well to lose sight of the starting-point of our\nrace.  And yet, is it right that this starting-point should enclose in\nits narrow circumference all our wishes, all our happiness, the\ntotality of our desires?  In our passage through life we meet scarcely\nany who do not persist, with a kind of unreasoning obstinacy, in\nthroning the material within them, and there maintaining it supreme.\nGather together a number of men and women, all of them free from life's\nmore depressing cares--an assembly of the elect, if you will--and\npronounce before them the words \"beatitude, happiness, joy, felicity,\nideal.\"  Imagine that an angel, at that very instant, were to seize and\nretain, in a magic mirror or miraculous basket, the images these words\nwould evoke in the souls that should hear them.  What would you see in\nthe basket or mirror?  The embrace of beautiful bodies; gold, precious\nstones, a palace, an ample park; the philtre of youth, strange jewels\nand gauds representing vanity's dreams; and, let us admit it, prominent\nfar above all would be sumptuous repasts, noble wines, glittering\ntables, splendid apartments.  Is humanity still too near its beginning\nto conceive other things?  Has the hour not arrived when we might have\nreasonably hoped the mirror to reflect a powerful, disinterested\nintellect, a conscience at rest: a just and loving heart, a perception,\na vision capable of detecting, absorbing beauty wherever it be--the\nbeauty of evening, of cities, of forests and seas, no less than of\nface, of a word or a smile, of an action or movement of soul?  The\nforeground of the magical mirror at present reflects beautiful women,\nundraped; when shall we see, in their stead, the deep, great love of\ntwo beings to whom the knowledge has come that it is only when their\nthoughts and their feelings, and all that is more mysterious still than\nthoughts and feelings, have blended, and day by day become more\nessentially one, that the joys of the flesh are freed from the after\ndisquiet, and leave no bitterness behind?  When shall we find, instead\nof the morbid, unnatural excitement produced by too copious, oppressive\nrepasts, by stimulants that are the insidious agents of the very enemy\nwe seek to destroy--when shall we find, in their place, the contained\nand deliberate gladness of a spirit that is for ever exalted because it\nfor ever is seeking to understand, and to love? . . .  These things\nhave long been known, and their repetition may well seem of little\navail.  And yet, we need but to have been twice or thrice in the\ncompany of those who stand for what is best in mankind, most\nintellectually, sentiently human, to realise how uncertain and groping\ntheir search is still for the happier hours of life; to marvel at the\nresemblance the unconscious happiness they look for bears to the\nhappiness craved by the man who has no spiritual existence; to note how\nopaque, to their eyes, is the cloud which separates all that pertains\nto the being who rises from all that is his who descends.  Some will\nsay that the hour is not yet when man can thus make clear division\nbetween the part of the spirit and that of the flesh.  But when shall\nthat hour be looked for if those for whom it should long since have\nsounded still suffer the obscurest prejudice of the mass to guide them\nwhen they set forth in search of their happiness?  When they achieve\nglory and riches, when love comes to meet them, they will be free, it\nmay be, from a few of the coarser satisfactions of vanity, a few of the\ngrosser excesses; but beyond this they strive not at all to secure a\nhappiness that shall be more spiritual, more purely human.  The\nadvantage they have does not teach them to widen the circle of material\nexaction, to discard what is less justifiable.  In their attitude\ntowards the pleasures of life they submit to the same spiritual\ndeprivation as, let us say, some cultured man who may have wandered\ninto a theatre where the play being performed is not one of the five or\nsix masterpieces of universal literature.  He is fully aware that his\nneighbours' applause and delight are called forth, in the main, by more\nor less obnoxious prejudices on the subject of honour, glory, religion,\npatriotism, sacrifice, liberty, or love--or perhaps by some feeble,\ndreary poetical effusion.  None the less, he will find himself affected\nby the general enthusiasm; and it will be necessary for him, almost at\nevery instant, to pull himself violently together, to make startled\nappeal to every conviction within him, in order to convince himself\nthat these partisans of hoary errors are wrong, notwithstanding their\nnumber, and that he, with his isolated reason, alone is right.\n\n\n3\n\nIndeed, when we consider the relation of man to matter, it is\nsurprising to find how little light has yet been thrown upon it, how\nlittle has been definitely fixed.  Elementary, imperious, as this\nrelation undoubtedly is, humanity has always been wavering, uncertain,\npassing from the most dangerous confidence to the most systematic\ndistrust, from adoration to horror, from asceticism and complete\nrenouncement to their corresponding extremes.  The days are past when\nan irrational, useless abstinence was preached, and put into\npractice--an abstinence often fully as harmful as habitual excess.  We\nare entitled to all that helps to maintain, or advance, the development\nof the body; this is our right, but it has its limits; and these limits\nit would be well to define with the utmost exactness, for whatever may\ntrespass beyond must infallibly weaken the growth of that other side of\nourselves, the flower that the leaves round about it will either stifle\nor nourish.  And humanity, that so long has been watching this flower,\nstudying it so intently, noting its subtlest, most fleeting perfumes\nand shades, is most often content to abandon to the caprice of the\ntemperament, be this evil or good, to the passing moment, or to chance,\nthe government of the unconscious forces that will, like the leaves, be\ndiscreetly active, sustaining, life-giving, or profoundly selfish,\ndestructive, and fatal.  Hitherto, perhaps, this may have been done\nwith impunity; for the ideal of mankind (which at the start was\nconcerned with the body alone) wavered long between matter and spirit.\nTo-day, however, it clings, with ever profounder conviction, to the\nhuman intelligence.  We no longer strive to compete with the lion, the\npanther, the great anthropoid ape, in force or agility; in beauty with\nthe flower or the shine of the stars on the sea.  The utilisation by\nour intellect of every unconscious force, the gradual subjugation of\nmatter and the search for its secret--these at present appear the most\nevident aim of our race, and its most probable mission.  In the days of\ndoubt there was no satisfaction, or even excess, but was excusable, and\nmoral, so long as it wrought no irreparable loss of strength or actual\norganic harm.  But now that the mission of the race is becoming more\nclearly defined, the duty is on us to leave on one side whatever is not\ndirectly helpful to the spiritual part of our being.  Sterile pleasures\nof the body must be gradually sacrificed; indeed, in a word, all that\nis not in absolute harmony with a larger, more durable energy of\nthought; all the little \"harmless\" delights which, however inoffensive\ncomparatively, keep alive by example and habit the prejudice in favour\nof inferior enjoyment, and usurp the place that belongs to the\nsatisfactions of the intellect.  These last differ from those of the\nbody, whose development some may assist and others retard.  Into the\nelysian fields of thought enters no satisfaction but brings with it\nyouth, and strength, and ardour; nor is there a thing in this world on\nwhich the mind thrives more readily than the ecstasy, nay, the debauch,\nof eagerness, comprehension, and wonder.\n\n\n4\n\nThe time must come, sooner or later, when our morality will have to\nconform to the probable mission of the race; when the arbitrary, often\nridiculous restrictions whereof it is at present composed will be\ncompelled to make way for the inevitable logical restrictions this\nmission exacts.  For the individual, as for the race, there can be but\none code of morals--the subordination of the ways of life to the\ndemands of the general mission that appears entrusted to man.  The axis\nwill shift, therefore, of many sins, many great offences; until at last\nfor all the crimes against the body there shall be substituted the\nveritable crimes against human destiny; in other words, whatever may\ntend to impair the authority, integrity, leisure, liberty, or power of\nthe intellect.\n\nBut by this we are far from suggesting that the body should be regarded\nas the irreconcilable enemy which the Christian theory holds it.  Far\nfrom that, we should strive, first of all, to endow it with all\npossible vigour and beauty.  But it is like a capricious child:\nexacting, improvident, selfish; and the stronger it grows the more\ndangerous does it become.  It knows no cult but that of the passing\nmoment.  In imagination, desires, it halts at the trivial thought, the\nprimitive, fleeting, foolish delight of the little dog or the negro.\nThe satisfactions procured by the intellect--the comfort, security,\nleisure, the gladness--it regards as no more than its due, and enjoys\nin fullest complacency.  Left to itself, it would enjoy these so\nstupidly, savagely, that it would very soon stifle the intellect from\nwhich it derived these favours.  Hence there is need for certain\nrestrictions, renouncements, which all men must observe; not only those\nwho have reason to hope, and believe, that they are effectively\nstriving to solve the enigma, to bring about the fulfilment of human\ndestiny and the triumph of mind over insensible matter, but also the\ncrowds in the ranks of the massive, unconscious rearguard, who placidly\nwatch the phosphorescent evolutions of mind as its light gleams on the\nworld's elementary darkness.  For humanity is a unique and unanimous\nentity.  When the thought of the mass--that thought which scarcely is\nthought--travels downwards, its influence is felt by philosopher and\npoet, astronomer and chemist; it has its pronounced effect on their\ncharacter, morals, ideals, their sense of duty, habits of labour,\nintellectual vigour.  If the myriad, uniform, petty ideas in the valley\nfall short of a certain elevation, no great idea shall spring to life\non the mountain-peak.  Down there the thought may have little strength,\nbut there are countless numbers who think it; and the influence this\nthought acquires may be almost termed atmospheric.  And they up above\non the mountain, the precipice, the edge of the glacier, will be helped\nby this influence, or harmed, in the degree of its brightness or gloom,\nof its reaching them, buoyed up with generous feeling, or heavily\ncharged with brutal habit and coarse desire.  The heroic action of a\npeople (as, for instance, the French Revolution, the Reformation, all\nwars of independence and liberation) will fertilise and purify this\npeople for more centuries than one.  But far less will satisfy those\nwho toil at the fulfilment of destiny.  Let but the habits of the men\nround about them become a little more noble, their desires a little\nmore disinterested; let but their passions and eagerness, their\npleasures and love, be illumined by one ray of brightness, of grace, of\nspiritual fervour; and those up above will feel the support, and draw\ntheir breath freely, no longer compelled to struggle with the\ninstinctive part of themselves; and the power that is in them will obey\nthe more readily, and mould itself to their hand.  The peasant who,\ninstead of carousing at the beershop, spends a peaceful Sunday at home,\nwith a book, beneath the trees of his orchard; the humble citizen whom\nthe emotions or din of the racecourse cannot tempt from some worthy\nenjoyment, from the pleasure of a reposeful afternoon; the workman who\nno longer makes the streets hideous with obscene or ridiculous song,\nbut wanders forth into the country, or, from the ramparts, watches the\nsunset--all these bring their meed of help: their great assistance,\nunconscious though it be, and anonymous, to the triumph of the vast\nhuman flame.\n\n\n5\n\nBut how much there is to be done, and learned, before this great flame\ncan arise in serene, secure brightness!  We have said that man, in his\nrelation to matter, is still in the experimental, groping stage of his\nearliest days.  He lacks even definite knowledge as to the kind of food\nbest adapted for him, or the quantity of nourishment he requires; he is\nstill uncertain as to whether he be carnivorous or frugivorous.  His\nintellect misleads his instinct.  It was only yesterday that he learned\nthat he had probably erred hitherto in the choice of his nourishment;\nthat he must reduce by two-thirds the quantity of nitrogen he absorbs,\nand largely increase the volume of hydrocarbons; that a little fruit,\nor milk, a few vegetables, farinaceous substances--now the mere\naccessory of the too plentiful repasts which he works so hard to\nprovide, which are his chief object in life, the goal of his efforts,\nof his strenuous, incessant labour--are amply sufficient to maintain\nthe ardour of the finest and mightiest life.  It is not my purpose here\nto discuss the question of vegetarianism, or to meet the objections\nthat may be urged against it; though it must be admitted that of these\nobjections not one can withstand a loyal and scrupulous inquiry.  I,\nfor my part, can affirm that those whom I have known to submit\nthemselves to this regimen have found its result to be improved or\nrestored health, marked addition of strength, and the acquisition by\nthe mind of a clearness, brightness, well-being, such as might follow\nthe release from some secular, loathsome, detestable dungeon.  But we\nmust not conclude these pages with an essay on alimentation, reasonable\nas such a proceeding might be.  For in truth all our justice, morality,\nall our thoughts and feelings, derive from three or four primordial\nnecessities, whereof the principal one is food.  The least modification\nof one of these necessities would entail a marked change in our moral\nexistence.  Were the belief one day to become general that man could\ndispense with animal food, there would ensue not only a great economic\nrevolution--for a bullock, to produce one pound of meat, consumes more\nthan a hundred of provender--but a moral improvement as well, not less\nimportant and certainly more sincere and more lasting than might follow\na second appearance on the earth of the Envoy of the Father, come to\nremedy the errors and omissions of his former pilgrimage.  For we find\nthat the man who abandons the regimen of meat abandons alcohol also;\nand to do this is to renounce most of the coarser and more degraded\npleasures of life.  And it is in the passionate craving for these\npleasures, in their glamour, and the prejudice they create, that the\nmost formidable obstacle is found to the harmonious development of the\nrace.  Detachment therefrom creates noble leisure, a new order of\ndesires, a wish for enjoyment that must of necessity be loftier than\nthe gross satisfactions which have their origin in alcohol.  But are\ndays such as these in store for us--these happier, purer hours?  The\ncrime of alcohol is not alone that it destroys its faithful and poisons\none half of the race, but also that it exercises a profound, though\nindirect, influence upon those who recoil from it in dread.  The idea\nof pleasure which it maintains in the crowd forces its way, by means of\nthe crowd's irresistible action, into the life even of the elect, and\nlessens, perverts, all that concerns man's peace and repose, his\nexpansiveness, gladness and joy; retarding, too, it may safely be said,\nthe birth of the truer, profounder ideal of happiness: one that shall\nbe simpler, more peaceful and grave, more spiritual and human.  This\nideal is evidently still very imaginary, and may seem of but little\nimportance; and infinite time must elapse, as in all other cases,\nbefore the certitude of those who are convinced that the race so far\nhas erred in the choice of its aliment (assuming the truth of this\nstatement to be borne out by experience) shall reach the confused\nmasses, and bring them enlightenment and comfort.  But may this not be\nthe expedient Nature holds in reserve for the time when the struggle\nfor life shall have become too hopelessly unbearable--the struggle for\nlife that to-day means the fight for meat and for alcohol, double\nsource of injustice and waste whence all the others are fed, double\nsymbol of a happiness and necessity whereof neither is human?\n\n\n6\n\nWhither is humanity tending?  This anxiety of man to know the aim and\nthe end is essentially human; it is a kind of infirmity or\nprovincialism of the mind, and has nothing in common with universal\nreality.  Have things an aim?  Why should they have; and what aim or\nend can there be, in an infinite organism?\n\nBut even though our mission be only to fill for an instant a diminutive\nspace that could as well be filled by the violet or grasshopper,\nwithout loss to the universe of economy or grandeur, without the\ndestinies of this world being shortened or lengthened thereby by one\nhour; even though this march of ours count for nothing, though we move\nbut for the sake of motion, tending no-whither, this futile progress\nmay nevertheless still claim to absorb all our attention and interest;\nand this is entirely reasonable, it is the loftiest course we can\npursue.  If it lay in the power of an ant to study the laws of the\nstars; and if, intent on this study, though fully aware that these laws\nare immutable, never to be modified, it declined to concern itself\nfurther with the affairs or the future of the anthill--should we, who\nstand to the insect as the great gods are supposed to stand to\nourselves, who judge it and dominate it, as we believe ourselves to be\ndominated and judged; should we approve this ant, or, for all its\nuniversality, regard it as either good or moral?\n\nReason, at its apogee, becomes sterile; and inertia would be its sole\nteaching did it not, after recognising the pettiness, the nothingness,\nof our passions and hopes, of our being, and lastly, of reason itself,\nretrace its footsteps back to the point whence it shall be able once\nmore to take eager interest in all these poor trivialities, in this\nsame nothingness, as holding them the only things in the world for\nwhich its assistance has value.\n\nWe know not whither we go, but may still rejoice in the journey; and\nthis will become the lighter, the happier, for our endeavour to picture\nto ourselves the next place of halt.  Where will this be?  The\nmountain-pass lies ahead, and threatens; but the roads already are\nwidening and becoming less rugged; the trees spread their branches,\ncrowned with fresh blossom; silent waters are flowing before us,\nreposeful and peaceful.  Tokens all these, it may be, of our nearing\nthe vastest valley mankind yet has seen from the height of the tortuous\npaths it has ever been climbing!  Shall we call it the \"First Valley of\nLeisure\"?  Distrust as we may the surprises the future may have in\nstore, be the troubles and cares that await us never so burdensome,\nthere still seems some ground for believing that the bulk of mankind\nwill know days when, thanks, it may be, to machinery, agricultural\nchemistry, medicine perhaps, or I know not what dawning science, labour\nwill become less incessant, exhausting, less material, tyrannical,\npitiless.  What use will humanity make of this leisure?  On its\nemployment may be said to depend the whole destiny of man.  Were it not\nwell that his counsellors now should begin to teach him to use such\nleisure he has in a nobler and worthier fashion?  It is the way in\nwhich hours of freedom are spent that determines, as much as war or as\nlabour, the moral worth of a nation.  It raises or lowers, it\nreplenishes or exhausts.  At present we find, in these great cities of\nours, that three days' idleness will fill the hospitals with victims\nwhom weeks or months of toil had left unscathed.\n\n\n7\n\nThus we return to the happiness which should be, and perhaps in course\nof time will be, the real human happiness.  Had we taken part in the\ncreation of the world, we should probably have bestowed more special,\ndistinctive force on all that is best in man, most immaterial, most\nessentially human.  If a thought of love, or a gleam of the intellect;\na word of justice, an act of pity, a desire for pardon or sacrifice; if\na gesture of sympathy, a craving of one's whole being for beauty,\ngoodness, or truth--if emotions like these could affect the universe as\nthey affect the man who has known them, they would call forth\nmiraculous flowery, supernatural radiance, inconceivable melody; they\nwould scatter the night, recall spring and the sunshine, stay the hand\nof sickness, grief, disaster and misery; gladness would spring from\nthem, and youth be restored; while the mind would gain freedom, thought\nimmortality, and life be eternal.  No resistance could check them;\ntheir reward would follow as visibly as it follows the labourer's toll,\nthe nightingale's song, or the work of the bee.  But we have learned at\nlast that the moral world is a world wherein man is alone; a world\ncontained in ourselves that bears no relation to matter, upon which its\ninfluence is only of the most exceptional and hazardous kind.  But none\nthe less real, therefore, is this world, or less infinite: and if words\nbreak down when they try to tell of it, the reason is only that words,\nafter all, are mere fragments of matter, that seek to enter a sphere\nwhere matter holds no dominion.  The images that words evoke are for\never betraying the thoughts for which they stand.  When we try to\nexpress perfect joy, a noble, spiritual ecstasy, a profound,\neverlasting love, our words can only compare them with animal passion,\nwith drunkenness, brutal and coarse desire.  And not only do they thus\ndegrade the noblest triumphs of the soul of man by likening them to\nprimitive instincts, but they incite us to believe, in spite of\nourselves, that the object or feeling compared is less real, less true\nor substantial, than the type to which it is referred.  Herein lies the\ninjustice and weakness of every attempt that is made to give voice to\nthe secrets of men.  And yet, be words never so faulty, let us still\npay careful heed to the events of this inner world.  For of all the\nevents it has lain in our power to meet hitherto, they alone truly are\nhuman.\n\n\n8\n\nNor should they be regarded as useless, even though the immense torrent\nof material forces absorb them, as it absorbs the dew that falls from\nthe pale morning flower.  Boundless as the world may be wherein we\nlive, it is yet as hermetically enclosed as a sphere of steel.  Nothing\ncan fall outside it, for it has no outside; nor can any atom possibly\nbe lost.  Even though our species should perish entirely, the stage\nthrough which it has caused certain fragments of matter to pass would\nremain, notwithstanding all ulterior transformations, an indelible\nprinciple and an immortal cause.  The formidable, provisional\nvegetations of the primary epoch, the chaotic and immature monsters of\nthe secondary grounds--Plesiosaurus, Ichthyosaurus, Pterodactyl--these\nmight also regard themselves as vain and ephemeral attempts, ridiculous\nexperiments of a still puerile nature, and conceive that they would\nleave no mark upon a more harmonious globe.  And yet not an effort of\ntheirs has been lost in space.  They purified the air, they softened\nthe unbreathable flame of oxygen, they paved the way for the more\nsymmetrical life of those who should follow.  If our lungs find in the\natmosphere the aliment they need, it is thanks to the inconceivably\nincoherent forests of arborescent fern.  We owe our brains and nerves\nof to-day to fearful hordes of swimming or flying reptiles.  These\nobeyed the order of their life.  They did what they had to do.  They\nmodified matter in the fashion prescribed to them.  And we, by carrying\nparticles of this same matter to the degree of extraordinary\nincandescence proper to the thought of man, shall surely establish in\nthe future something that never shall perish.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE PAST\n\n1\n\nOur past stretches behind us in long perspective.  It slumbers on the\nhorizon like a deserted city shrouded in mist.  A few peaks mark its\nboundary, and soar predominant into the air; a few important acts stand\nout, like towers, some with the light still upon them, others half\nruined and slowly decaying beneath the weight of oblivion.  The trees\nare bare, the walls crumble, and shadow slowly steals over all.\nEverything seems to be dead there, and rigid, save only when memory,\nslowly decomposing, lights it for an instant with an illusory gleam.\nBut apart from this animation, derived only from our expiring\nrecollections, all would appear to be definitively motionless,\nimmutable for ever, divided from present and future by a river that\nshall not again be crossed.\n\nIn reality it is alive; and, for many of us, endowed with a profounder,\nmore ardent life than either present or future.  In reality this dead\ncity is often the hot-bed of our existence; and, in accordance with the\nspirit in which men return to it, shall some find all their wealth\nthere, and others lose what they have.\n\n\n2\n\nOur conception of the past has much in common with our conception of\nlove and happiness, destiny, justice, and most of the vague but\ntherefore not less potent spiritual organisms that stand for the mighty\nforces we obey.  Our ideas have been handed down to us ready-made by\nour predecessors; and even when our second consciousness wakes, and,\nproud in its conviction that henceforth nothing shall be accepted\nblindly, proceeds most carefully to investigate these ideas, it will\nsquander its time questioning those that loudly protest their right to\nbe heard, and pay no heed to the others close by, that as yet, perhaps,\nhave said nothing.  Nor have we, as a rule, far to go to discover these\nothers.  They are in us and of us; they wait for us to address them.\nThey are not idle, notwithstanding their silence.  Amid the noise and\nbabble of the crowd they are tranquilly directing a portion of our real\nlife; and, as they are nearer to truth than their self-satisfied\nsisters, they will often be far more simple, and far more beautiful too.\n\n\n3\n\nAmong the most stubborn of these ready-made ideas are those that\npreside over our conception of the past, and render it a force as\nimposing and rigid as destiny; a force that indeed becomes destiny\nworking backwards, with its hand outstretched to the destiny that\nburrows ahead, to which it transmits the last link of our chains.  The\none thrusts us back, the other urges us forward, with a like\nirresistible violence.  But the violence of the past is perhaps more\nterrible and more alarming.  One may disbelieve in destiny.  It is a\ngod whose onslaught many have never experienced.  But no one would\ndream of denying the oppressiveness of the past.  Sooner or later its\neffect must inevitably be felt.  Those even who refuse to admit the\nintangible will credit the past, which their finger can touch, with all\nthe mystery, the influence, the sovereign intervention whereof they\nhave stripped the powers that they have dethroned; thus rendering it\nthe almost unique and therefore more dreadful god of their depopulated\nOlympus.\n\n\n4\n\nThe force of the past is indeed one of the heaviest that weigh upon men\nand incline them to sadness.  And yet there is none more docile, more\neager to follow the direction we could so readily give, did we but know\nhow best to avail ourselves of this docility.  In reality, if we think\nof it, the past belongs to us quite as much as the present, and is far\nmore malleable than the future.  Like the present, and to a much\ngreater extent than the future, its existence is all in our thoughts,\nand our hand controls it; nor is this only true of our material past,\nwherein there are ruins that we perhaps can restore; it is true also of\nthe regions that are closed to our tardy desire for atonement; it is\ntrue above all of our moral past, and of what we consider to be most\nirreparable there.\n\n\n5\n\n\"The past is past,\" we say, and it is false; the past is always\npresent.  \"We have to bear the burden of our past,\" we sigh, and it is\nfalse; the past bears our burden.  \"Nothing can wipe out the past,\" and\nit is false; the least effort of will sends present and future\ntravelling over the past to efface whatever we bid them efface.  \"The\nindestructible, irreparable, immutable past!\"  And that is no truer\nthan the rest.  In those who speak thus it is the present that is\nimmutable, and knows not how to repair.  \"My past is wicked, it is\nsorrowful, empty,\" we say again; \"as I look back I can see no moment of\nbeauty, of happiness or love; I see nothing but wretched ruins . . .\"\nAnd that is false; for you see precisely what you yourself place there\nat the moment your eyes upon it.\n\n\n6\n\nOur past depends entirely upon our present, and is constantly changing\nwith it.  Our past is contained in our memory; and this memory of ours,\nthat feeds on our heart and brain, and is incessantly swayed by them,\nis the most variable thing in the world, the least independent, the\nmost impressionable.  Our chief concern with the past, that which truly\nremains and forms part of us, is not what we have done, or the\nadventures that we have met with, but the moral reactions bygone events\nare producing within us at this very moment, the inward being they have\nhelped to form; and these reactions, that give birth to our sovereign,\nintimate being, are wholly governed by the manner in which we regard\npast events, and vary as the moral substance varies that they encounter\nwithin us.  But with every step in advance that our feelings or\nintellect take, a change will come in this moral substance; and then,\non the instant, the most immutable facts, that seemed to be graven for\never on the stone and bronze of the past, will assume an entirely\ndifferent aspect, will return to life and leap into movement, bringing\nus vaster and more courageous counsels, dragging memory aloft with them\nin their ascent; and what was once a mass of ruin, mouldering in the\ndarkness, becomes a populous city whereon the sun shines again.\n\n\n7\n\nWe have an arbitrary fashion of establishing a certain number of events\nbehind us.  We relegate them to the horizon of our memory; and having\nset them there, we tell ourselves that they form part of a world in\nwhich the united efforts of all mankind could not wipe away a tear, or\ncause a flower to lift its head.  And yet, while admitting that these\nevents have passed beyond our control, we still, with the most curious\ninconsistency, believe that they have full control over us; whereas the\ntruth is that they can only act upon us to the extent in which we have\nrenounced our right to act upon them.  The past asserts itself only in\nthose whose moral growth has ceased; then, and not till then, does it\nbecome redoubtable.  From that moment we have indeed the irreparable\nbehind us, and the weight of what we have done lies heavy upon our\nshoulders.  But so long as the life of our mind and character flows\nuninterruptedly on, so long will the past remain in suspense above us;\nand, as the glance may be that we send towards it, will it, complaisant\nas the clouds Hamlet showed to Polonius, adopt the shape of the hope or\nfear, the peace or disquiet, that we are perfecting within us.\n\n\n8\n\nNo sooner has our moral activity weakened than accomplished events rush\nforward and assail us; and woe to him who opens the door, and permits\nthem to take possession of his hearth!  Each one will vie with the\nother in overwhelming him with the gifts best calculated to shatter his\ncourage.  It matters not whether our past has been happy and noble, or\nlugubrious and criminal, there shall still be great danger in allowing\nit to enter, not as an invited guest, but like a parasite settling upon\nus.  The result will be either sterile regret or impotent remorse; and\nremorse and regrets of this kind are equally disastrous.  In order to\ndraw from the past what is precious within it--and most of our wealth\nis there--we must go to it at the hour when we are strongest, most\nconscious of mastery; enter its domain, and there make choice of what\nwe require, discarding the rest, and laying our command upon it never\nto cross our threshold without our order.  Like all things that only\ncan live at the cost of our spiritual strength, it will soon learn to\nobey.  At first, perhaps, it will endeavour to resist.  It will have\nrecourse to artifice and prayer.  It will try to tempt us, to cajole.\nIt will drag forward frustrated hopes and joys that are gone for ever,\nbroken affections, well-merited reproaches, expiring hatred and love\nthat is dead, squandered faith and perished beauty; it will thrust\nbefore us all that once had been the marvellous essence of our ardour\nfor life; it will point to the beckoning sorrows, decaying happiness,\nthat now haunt the ruin.  But we shall pass by, without turning our\nhead; our hand shall scatter the crowd of memories, even as the sage\nUlysses, in the Cimmerian night, with his sword prevented the\nshades--even that of his mother, whom it was not his mission to\nquestion--from approaching the black blood that would for an instant\nhave given them life and speech.  We shall go straight to the joy, the\nregret or remorse, whose counsel we need; or to the act of injustice we\nwish scrupulously to examine, in order either to make reparation, if\nsuch still be possible, or that the sight of the wrong we did, whose\nvictims have ceased to be, is required to give us the indispensable\nforce that shall lift us above the injustice it still lies in us to\ncommit.\n\n\n9\n\nYes, even though our past contain crimes that now are beyond the reach\nof our best endeavours, even then, if we consider the circumstances of\ntime and place, and the vast plane of each human existence, these\ncrimes fade out of our life the moment we feel that no temptation, no\npower on earth, could ever induce us to commit the like again.  The\nworld has not forgiven--there is but little that the external sphere\nwill forget or forgive--and their material effects will continue, for\nthe laws of cause and effect differ from those which govern our\nconsciousness.  At the tribunal of our personal justice, however--the\nonly tribunal which has decisive action on our inaccessible life, as it\nis the only one whose decrees we cannot evade, whose concrete judgments\nstir us to our very marrow--the evil action that we regard from a\nloftier plane than that at which it was committed, becomes an action\nthat no longer exists for us save in so far as it may serve in the\nfuture to render our fall more difficult; nor has it the right to lift\nits head again except at the moment when we incline once more towards\nthe abyss it guards.\n\nBitter, surely, must be the grief of him in whose past there are acts\nof injustice whereof every avenue now is closed, who is no longer able\nto seek out his victims, and raise them and comfort them.  To have\nabused one's strength in order to despoil some feeble creature who has\ndefinitely succumbed beneath the blow; to have callously thrust\nsuffering upon a loving heart, or merely misunderstood and passed by a\ntouching affection that offered itself--these things must of necessity\nweigh heavily upon our life, and induce a sorrow within us that shall\nnot readily be forgotten.  But it depends on the actual point our\nconsciousness has attained whether our entire moral destiny shall be\ndepressed or lifted beneath this burden.  Our actions rarely die: and\nmany unjust deeds of ours will therefore inevitably return to life some\nday to claim their due and start legitimate reprisals.  They will find\nour external life without defence; but before they can reach the inward\nbeing at the centre of that life, they must first listen to the\njudgment we have already passed on ourselves; and in accordance with\nthe nature of that judgment will the attitude be of these mysterious\nenvoys, who have come from the depths where cause and effect are poised\nin eternal equilibrium.  If it has indeed been from the heights of our\nnewly acquired consciousness that we have questioned ourselves, and\ncondemned, they will not be menacing justiciaries whom we shall\nsuddenly see surging in from all sides, but benevolent visitors,\nfriends we have almost expected, and they will draw near us in silence.\nThey know in advance that the man before them is no longer the guilty\ncreature they sought; and instead of bringing hatred, revolt, and\ndespair, or punishments that degrade and kill, they will come charged\nwith ennobling, consoling and purifying thought and penance.\n\n\n10\n\nThe things which differentiate the happy and strong from those who weep\nand will not be consoled, all derive from the one same principle of\nconfidence and ardour; and thus it is that the manner in which we are\nable to recall what we have done or suffered is far more important than\nour actual sufferings or deeds.  No past, viewed by itself, can seem\nhappy; and the privileged of fate, who reflect on what remains of the\nhappy years that have flown, have perhaps more reason for sorrow than\nthe unfortunate ones who brood over the dregs of a life of\nwretchedness.  Whatever was one day and has now ceased to be, makes for\nsadness; above all, whatever was very happy and very beautiful.  The\nobject of our regrets--whether these revolve around what has been or\nmight have been--is therefore more or less the same for all men, and\ntheir sorrow should be the same.  It is not, however; in one case it\nwill reign uninterruptedly, whereas in another it will only appear at\nvery long intervals.  It must therefore depend on things other than\naccomplished facts.  It depends on the manner in which men will deal\nwith these facts.  The conquerors in this world--those who waste no\ntime setting up an imaginary irreparable and immutable athwart their\nhorizon, those who seem to be born afresh every morning in a world that\nfor ever awakes anew to the future--these know instinctively that what\nappears to exist no longer is still existing intact, that what appeared\nto be ended is only completing itself.  They know that the years time\nhas taken from them are still in travail; still, under their new\nmaster, obeying the old.  They know that their past is for ever in\nmovement; that the yesterday which was despondent, decrepit and\ncriminal, will return full of joyousness, innocence, youth, in the\ntrack of to-morrow.  They know that their image is not yet stamped on\nthe days that are gone; that a decisive deed, or thought, will suffice\nto break down the whole edifice; that however remote or vast the shadow\nmay be that stretches behind them, they have only to put forth a\ngesture of gladness or hope for the shadow at once to copy this\ngesture, and, flashing it back to the remotest, tiniest ruins of early\nchildhood even, to extract unexpected treasure from all this wreckage.\nThey know that they have retrospective action on all bygone deeds; and\nthat the dead themselves will annul their verdicts in order to judge\nafresh a past that to-day has transfigured and endowed with new life.\n\nThey are fortunate who find this instinct in the folds of their cradle.\nBut may the others not imitate it who have it not; and is not human\nwisdom charged to teach us how we may acquire the salutary instincts\nthat nature has withheld?\n\n\n11\n\nLet us not lull ourselves to sleep in our past; and if we find that it\ntends to spread like a vault over our life, instead of incessantly\nchanging beneath our eye; if the present grow into the habit of\nvisiting it, not like a good workman repairing thither to execute the\nlabours imposed upon him by the commands of to-day, but as a too\npassive, too credulous pilgrim, content idly to contemplate beautiful,\nmotionless ruins--then, the more glorious, the happier that our past\nmay have been, with all the more suspicion should it be regarded by us.\n\nNor should we yield to the instinct that bids us accord it profound\nrespect, if this respect induce the fear in us that we may disturb its\nnice equilibrium.  Better the ordinary past, content with its befitting\nplace in the shadow, than the sumptuous past which claims to govern\nwhat has travelled beyond its reach.  Better a mediocre but living\npresent, which acts as though it were alone in the world, than a\npresent which proudly expires in the chains of a marvellous long ago.\nA single step that we take at this hour towards an uncertain goal, is\nfar more important to us than the thousand leagues we covered in our\nmarch towards a dazzling triumph in the days that were.  Our past had\nno other mission than to lift us to the moment at which we are, and\nthere equip us with the needful experience and weapons, the needful\nthought and gladness.  If, at this precise moment, it take from us and\ndivert to itself one particle of our energy, then, however glorious it\nmay have been, it still was useless, and had better never have been.\nIf we allow it to arrest a gesture that we were about to make, then is\nour death beginning; and the edifices of the future will suddenly take\nthe semblance of tombs.\n\nMore dangerous still than the past of happiness and glory is the one\ninhabited by overpowering and too dearly cherished phantoms.  Many an\nexistence perishes in the coils of a fond recollection.  And yet, were\nthe dead to return to this earth, they would say, I fancy, with the\nwisdom that must be theirs who have seen what the ephemeral light still\nhides from us: \"Dry your eyes.  There comes to us no comfort from your\ntears: exhausting you, they exhaust us also.  Detach yourself from us,\nbanish us from your thoughts, until such time as you can think of us\nwithout strewing tears on the life we still live in you.  We endure\nonly in your recollection; but you err in believing that your regrets\nalone can touch us.  It is the things you do that prove to us we are\nnot forgotten, and rejoice our manes; and this without your knowing it,\nwithout any necessity that you should turn towards us.  Each time that\nour pale image saddens your ardour, we feel ourselves die anew, and it\nis a more perceptible, irrevocable death than was our other; bending\ntoo often over our tombs, you rob us of the life, the courage and love\nthat you imagine you restore.\n\n\"It is in you that we are, it is in all your life that our life\nresides; and as you become greater, even while forgetting us, so do we\nbecome greater too, and our shades draw the deep breath of prisoners\nwhose prison door is flung open.\n\n\"If there be anything new we have learned in the world where we are\nnow, it is, first of all, that the good we did to you when we were,\nlike yourselves, on the earth, does not balance the evil wrought by a\nmemory which saps the force and the confidence of life.\"\n\n\n12\n\nAbove all, let us envy the past of no man.  Our own past was created by\nourselves, and for ourselves alone.  No other could have suited us, no\nother could have taught us the truth that it alone can teach, or given\nthe strength that it alone can give.  And whether it be good or bad,\nsombre or radiant, it still remains a collection of unique masterpieces\nthe value of which is known to none but ourselves; and no foreign\nmasterpiece could equal the action we have accomplished, the kiss we\nreceived, the thing of beauty that moved us so deeply, the suffering we\nunderwent, the anguish that held us enchained, the love that wreathed\nus in smiles or in tears.  Our past is ourselves, what we are and shall\nbe; and upon this unknown sphere there moves no creature, from the\nhappiest down to the most unfortunate, who could foretell how great a\nloss would be his could he substitute the trace of another for the\ntrace which he himself must leave in life.  Our past is our secret,\npromulgated by the voice of years; it is the most mysterious image of\nour being, over which Time keeps watch.  This image is not dead; a mere\nnothing degrades or adorns it; it can still grow bright or sombre, can\nstill smile or weep, express love or hatred; and yet it remains\nrecognisable for ever in the midst of the myriad images that surround\nit.  It stands for what we once were, as our aspirations and hopes\nstand for what we shall be; and the two faces blend, that they may\nteach us what we are.\n\nLet us not envy the facts of the past, but rather the spiritual garment\nthat the recollection of days long gone will weave around the sage.\nAnd though this garment be woven of joy or of sorrow, though it be\ndrawn from the dearth of events or from their abundance, it shall still\nbe equally precious; and those who may see it shining over a life shall\nnot be able to tell whether its quickening jewels and stars were found\namid the grudging cinders of a cabin or upon the steps of a palace.\n\nNo past can be empty or squalid, no events can be wretched: the\nwretchedness lies in our manner of welcoming them.  And if it were true\nthat nothing had happened to you, that would be the most remarkable\nadventure that any man ever had met with; and no less remarkable would\nbe the light it would shed upon you.  In reality the facts, the\nopportunities and possibilities, the passions, that await and invite\nthe majority of men, are all more or less the same.  Some may be more\ndazzling than others; their attendant circumstances may differ, but\nthey differ far less than the inward reactions that follow; and the\ninsignificant, incomplete event that falls on a fertile heart and brain\nwill readily attain the moral proportions and grandeur of an analogous\nincident which, on another plane, will convulse a people.\n\nHe who should see, spread out before him, the past lives of a multitude\nof men, could not easily decide which past he himself would wish to\nhave lived were he not able at the same time to witness the moral\nresults of these dissimilar and unsymmetrical facts.  He might not\nimpossibly make a fatal blunder; he might choose an existence\noverflowing with incomparable happiness and victory, that sparkle like\nwonderful jewels; while his glance might travel indifferently over a\nlife that appeared to be empty whereas it was truly steeped to the brim\nin serene emotions and lofty, redeeming thoughts whereby, though the\neye saw nothing, that life was yet rendered happy among all.  For we\nare well aware that what destiny has given, and what destiny holds in\nreserve, can be revolutionised as utterly by thought as by great\nvictory or great defeat.  Thought is silent; it disturbs not a pebble\non the illusory road we see; but at the crossway of the more actual\nroad that our secret life follows will it tranquilly erect an\nindestructible pyramid; and thereupon, suddenly, every event, to the\nvery phenomena of earth and heaven, will assume a new direction.\n\nIn Siegfried's life, it is not the moment when he forges the prodigious\nsword that is most important, or when he kills the dragon and compels\nthe gods from his path, or even the dazzling second when he encounters\nlove on the flaming mountain, but indeed the brief instant wrested from\neternal decrees, the little childish gesture, when one of his hands,\nred with the blood of his mysterious victim, having chanced to draw\nnear his lips, his eyes and ears are suddenly opened; he understands\nthe hidden language of all that surrounds him, detects the treachery of\nthe dwarf who represents the powers of evil, and learns in a flash to\ndo that which had to be done.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nLUCK\n\n1\n\nOnce upon a time, an old Servian legend tells us, there were two\nbrothers of whom one was industrious, but unfortunate, and the other\nlazy, but overwhelmingly prosperous.  One day the unfortunate brother\nmeets a beautiful girl who is tending sheep and weaving a golden\nthread.  \"To whom do these sheep belong?\" he asks.  \"They belong to\nwhom I belong.\"  \"And to whom do you belong?\"  \"To your brother: I am\nhis luck.\"  \"And where is my luck then?\"  \"Very far from here.\"  \"Can I\nfind it?\"  \"Yes, if you look for it.\"\n\nSo he wanders away in search of his luck.  And one evening, in a great\nforest, he comes across a poor old woman asleep under a tree.  He wakes\nher and asks who she is.  \"Don't you know me?\" she answers.  \"It is\ntrue you never have seen me: I am your luck.\"  \"And who can have given\nme so wretched a luck?\"  \"Destiny.\"  \"Can I find destiny?\"  \"Yes, if\nyou look long enough.\"\n\nSo he goes off in search of destiny.  He travels a very long time, and\nat last she is pointed out to him.  She lives in an enormous and\nluxurious palace; but her wealth is dwindling day by day, and the doors\nand windows of her abode are shrinking.  She explains to him that she\npasses thus, alternately, from misery to opulence; and that her\nsituation at a given moment determines the future of all the children\nwho may come into the world at that moment.  \"You were born,\" she says,\n\"when my prosperity was on the wane; and that is the cause of your\nill-luck.\"  The only way, she tells him, to hoodwink or get the better\nof fortune would be to substitute the luck of Militza, his niece, for\nhis own, seeing that she was born at a propitious period.  All he need\ndo, she says, is to take this niece into his house, and to declare to\nany one who may ask him that all he has belongs to Militza.\n\nHe does as she bids him, and his affairs at once take a new turn.  His\nherds multiply and grow fat, his trees are bent beneath the masses of\nfruit, unexpected inheritances come in, his land bears prodigious\ncrops.  But one morning, as he stands there, his heart filled with\nhappiness, eyeing a magnificent cornfield, a stranger asks him who the\nowner may be of these wonderful ears of wheat that, as they sway to and\nfro beneath the dew, seem twice as heavy and twice as high as the ears\nin the adjoining field.  He forgets himself, and answers, \"They are\nmine.\"  At that very instant fire breaks out in the opposite end of the\nfield, and commences its ravages.  Then he remembers the advice that he\nhas neglected to follow: he runs after the stranger shouting, \"Stop,\ncome back: I made a mistake: what I told you was not true!  This field\nis not mine: it belongs to my niece Militza!\"  And the flames have no\nsooner heard than they suddenly fall away, and the corn shoots up\nafresh.\n\n\n2\n\nThis naive and very ancient image, which might almost serve to-day as\nan illustration of our actual ignorance, proves that the mysterious\nproblem of chance has not changed, from the time of man's first\nquestioning glance.  We have our thoughts, which build up our intimate\nhappiness or sorrow; and upon this events from without have more or\nless influence.  In some men these thoughts will have acquired such\nstrength, such vigilance, that without their consent nothing can enter\nthe structure of crystal and brass, they have been able to raise on the\nhill that commands the wonted road of adventures.  And we have our\nwill, which our thoughts feed and sustain; and many useless or harmful\nevents can be held in check by our will.  But around these islets,\nwithin which is a certain degree of safety, of immunity from attack,\nextends a region as vast and uncontrollable as the ocean, a region\nswayed by chance as the waves are swayed by the wind.  Neither will nor\nthought can keep one of these waves from suddenly breaking upon us; and\nwe shall be caught unawares, and perhaps be wounded and stunned.  Only\nwhen the wave has retreated can thought and will begin their beneficent\naction.  Then they will raise us, and bind up our wounds; restore\nanimation, and take careful heed that the mischief the shock has\nwrought shall not reach the profound sources of life.  Their mission\nextends no further, and may, on the surface, appear very humble.  In\nreality, however, unless chance assume the irresistible form of cruel\ndisease or death, the workings of will and thought are sufficient to\nneutralise all its efforts, and to preserve what is best and most\nessential to man in human happiness.\n\n\n3\n\nRedoubtable, multitudinous chance is for ever threading its watchful\nway through the midst of the events we have foreseen, and round and\nabout our most deliberate actions, wherewith we are slowly tracing the\nbroad lines of our existence.  The air we breathe, the time we\ntraverse, the space through which we move, are all peopled by lurking\ncircumstances, which pick us out from among the crowd.  The least study\nof their habits will quickly convince us that these strange daughters\nof hazard, who should be blind and deaf as their father, by no means\nact in his irresponsible fashion.  They are well aware of what they are\ndoing, and rarely make a mistake.  With inexplicable certainty do they\nmove to the passer-by whom they have been sent to confront, and lightly\ntouch his shoulder.  Two men may be travelling upon the same road, and\nat the same hour; but there will be no hesitation or doubt in the ranks\nof the double, invisible troop whom fortune has ambushed there.\nTowards one a band of white virgins will hasten, bearing palms and\namphorae, presenting the thousand unexpected delights of the journey;\nas the other approaches, the \"Evil Women,\" whom Aeschylus tells of,\nwill hurl themselves from the hedges, as though they were charged to\navenge, upon this unwitting victim, some inexpiable crime committed by\nhim before he was born.\n\n\n4\n\nThere is scarcely one of us who has not been able, in some measure, to\nfollow the workings of destiny in life.  We have all known men who met\nwith a prosperity or disaster entirely out of relation to any of their\nactions; men upon whom good or bad luck seemed suddenly, at a turn of\nthe road, to spring from the ground or descend from the stars,\nundeserved, unprovoked, but complete and inevitable.  One, we will say,\nwho scarcely has given a thought to some appointment for which he knows\nhis rival to be better equipped, will see this rival vanish at the\ndecisive moment, another, who has counted upon the protection of a most\ninfluential friend, will see this friend die on the very day when his\nassistance could be of value.  A third, who has neither talent nor\nbeauty, will arrive each morning at the Palace of Fortune, Glory or\nLove at the brief instant when every door lies open; while another, a\nman of great merit, who long has pondered the legitimate step he is\ntaking, presents himself at the hour when ill-luck shall have closed\nthe gate for the next half-century.  One man will risk his health\ntwenty times in imbecile feats, and never experience the least\nill-effect; another will deliberately venture it in an honourable\ncause, and lose it without hope of return.  To help the first,\nthousands of unknown people, who never have seen him, will be obscurely\nworking; to hinder the second, thousands of unknown people labour, who\nare ignorant of his existence.  And all, on the one side as well as the\nother, are totally unaware of what they are doing; they obey the same\nminute, widely-distributed order; and at the prescribed moment the\ndetached pieces of the mysterious machine join, dovetail, unite; and we\nhave two complete and dissimilar destinies set into motion by Time.\n\nIn a curious book on \"Chance and Destiny,\" Dr. Foissac gives various\nstrange examples of the persistent, inexplicable, fundamental,\npre-ordained, irreducible iniquity in which many existences are\nsteeped.  As we go through page after page, we feel almost as though we\nwere being conducted through the disconcerting laboratories of another\nworld where, in the absence of every instrument that human justice and\nreason might hold indispensable, happiness and sorrow are being\nparcelled out and allotted.  Take, for instance, the life of\nVauvenargues, one of the most admirable of men, and certainly, of all\nthe great sages, the most unfortunate.  Whenever his fortune hangs in\nthe balance, he is attacked and prostrated by cruel disease; and\nnotwithstanding the efforts of his genius, his bravery, his moral\nbeauty, day after day he is wantonly betrayed or falls victim to\ngratuitous injustice; and at the age of thirty-two he dies, at the very\nmoment when recognition is at last awaiting his work.  So too there is\nthe terrible story of Lesurques,[1] in which we see a thousand\ncoincidences that might have been contrived in hell, blending and\njoining together to work the ruin of an innocent man; while truth,\nchained down by fate, dumbly shrieking, as we do when wrestling with\nnightmare, is unable to put forth a single gesture that shall rend the\nveil of night.  There is Aimar de Ransonnet, President of the\nParliament of Paris, one of the most upright of men, who first of all\nis suddenly dismissed from his office, sees his daughter die on a\ndunghill before his eyes, his son perish at the hands of the\nexecutioner, and his wife struck by lightning; while he himself is\naccused of heresy and sent to the Bastille, where he dies of grief\nbefore he is brought to trial.\n\nThe calamities that befell Oedipus and the Atrides are regarded by us\nas improbable and fabulous; and yet we find in contemporary history\nthat fatality clings with no less persistence to families such as the\nStuarts, the Colignys,[2] &c., and hounds to their death, with what\nalmost seems personal vindictiveness, pitiable and innocent victims\nlike Henrietta of England, daughter of Henry IV., Louise de Bourbon,\nJoseph II., and Marie-Antoinette.\n\nAnd again in another category, what shall we say of the\ninjustice--unintelligent but apparently almost conscious, almost\nsystematic and premeditated--of games of chance, duels, battles,\nstorms, shipwrecks, and fires?  Or of the inconceivable luck of a\nChastenet de Puysegur who, after forty years' service, in the course of\nwhich he took part in thirty battles and a hundred and twenty sieges,\nalways in the front rank and displaying the most romantic courage, was\nnever once touched by shot or steel, while Marshal Oudinot was wounded\nthirty-five times, and General Trezel was struck by a bullet in every\nencounter?  What shall we say of the extraordinary fortune of Lauzun,\nChamillart, Casanova, Chesterfield, &c., or of the inconceivable,\nunvarying prosperity that attended the crimes of Sylla, Marius, or\nDionysius the Elder, who, in his extreme old age, after an odious but\nfantastically successful life, died of joy on learning that the\nAthenians had just crowned one of his tragedies?  Or, finally, of\nHerod, surnamed the Great or the Ascalonite, who swam in blood,\nmurdered one of his wives and five of his children, put to death every\nupright man who might chance to offend him, and yet was fortunate in\nall his undertakings?\n\n\n6\n\nThese famous examples, which might be indefinitely multiplied, are in\ntruth no more than the abnormal and historic presentments of what is\nshown to us every day, in a humbler but not less emphatic fashion, by\nthe thousand and one caprices of propitious or contrary fortune at work\non the small and ill-lit stage of ordinary life.\n\nDoubtless, we must, first of all, when closely examining such insolent\nprosperity or unvarying disaster, attribute a royal share to the\nphysical or moral causes which are capable of explaining them.  Had we\nourselves known Vauvenargues, we should probably have detected a\ncertain timidity, irresolution or misplaced pride in his character\nwhereby he was disabled from allowing the opportunity to mature or from\nseizing it with sufficient vigour.  And Lesurques, it may be, was\ndeficient in ability, in one knows not what, in that prodigious\npersonal force that one expects to find in falsely-accused innocence.\nNor can it be denied that the Stuarts, no less than Joseph II. and\nMarie-Antoinette, were guilty of enormous blunders that invited\ndisaster; or that Lauzun, Casanova, and Lord Chesterfield had flung to\nthe winds those essential scruples that hinder the honest man.  So too\nis it certain that although the existence of Sylla, Marius, Dionysius\nthe Elder, and Herod the Ascalonite may have been externally almost\nincomparably fortunate, few men, I fancy, would care to have lurking\nwithin them the strange, restless, blood-stained phantom, possessed\nneither of thought nor of feeling, on which the happiness must depend\n(if the word happiness be indeed applicable here) that is founded upon\nunceasing crime.  But, this deduction being made, and on the most\nreasonable, most liberal scale (which will become the more generous as\nwe see more of life and understand it better, and penetrate further\ninto the secrets of little causes and great effects), we shall still be\nforced to admit that there remains, in these obstinately recurring\ncoincidences, in these indissoluble series of good or evil fortune,\nthese persistent runs of good or bad luck, a considerable, often\nessential, and sometimes exclusive share that can be ascribed only to\nthe impenetrable, incontrovertible will of a real but unknown power;\nwhich is known as Chance, Fatality, Destiny, Luck, Fortune, good or\nevil Star, Angel with the White Wings, Angel with the Black Wings, and\nby many other names, that vary in accordance with the more or less\nimaginative, more or less poetic genius of centuries and peoples.  And\nhere we have one of the most serious, most perplexing problems of all\nthose that have to be solved by man before he may legitimately regard\nhimself as the principal, independent and irrevocable inhabitant of\nthis earth.\n\n\n7\n\nLet us reduce the problem to its simplest terms, and submit it to our\nreason.  First, however, let us consider whether it affects man alone.\nWe have with us, upon this curiously incomprehensible globe, silent and\nfaithful companions of our existence; and we shall often find it\nhelpful to let our eyes rest upon these when, having reached certain\naltitudes that perhaps are illusory, giddiness seizes our brain and\ninclines us too readily to the idea that the stars, the gods or the\nveiled representatives of the sublime laws of the universe, are\nconcerned solely with us.  These poor brothers of our animal life, that\nare so calmly, so confidently resigned, would appear to know many\nthings that we have forgotten; they are the tranquil custodians of the\nsecret that we seek so anxiously.  It is evident that animals, and\nnotably domestic animals, have also a kind of destiny.  They too know\nwhat prolonged and gratuitous happiness means; they also have\nencountered the persistent misfortune for which no cause can be found.\nThey have the same right as we to speak of their star, their good or\nbad luck, their prosperity or disaster.  Compare the fate of the\ncab-horse, that ends its days at the knacker's, after having passed\nthrough the hands of a hundred brutal and nameless masters, with that\nof the thorough-bred which dies of old age in the stable of a\nkind-hearted master; and from the point of view of justice (unless we\naccept the Buddhist theory, that life in this world is the reward or\npunishment of an anterior existence) explanation is as completely\nlacking as in the case of the man whom chance has reduced to poverty or\nraised to wealth.  There is, in Flanders, a breed of draught-dogs upon\nwhich destiny alternately lavishes her favour and her spite.  Some will\nbe bought by a butcher, and lead a magnificent life.  The work is\ntrifling: in the morning, harnessed four abreast, they draw a light\ncart to the slaughter-house, and at night, galloping joyously,\ntriumphantly, home through the narrow streets of the ancient towns with\ntheir tiny, lit-up gables, bring it back, overflowing with meat.\nBetween-times there is leisure, and marvellous leisure, among the rats\nand the waste of the slaughter-house.  They are copiously fed, they are\nfat, they shine like seals, and taste in its fulness the only happiness\ndreamed of by the simple and ferreting instinct of the honest dog.  But\ntheir unfortunate brethren of the same litter, that the lame\nsand-pedlar buys, or the old collector of household refuse, or the\nneedy peasant with his great, cruel clogs--these are chained to heavy\ncarts or shapeless barrows; they are filthy, mangy, hairless,\nemaciated, starving; and follow till they die the circles of a hell\ninto which they were thrust by a few coppers dropped into some horny\npalm.  And, in a world less directly subject to man, there must\nevidently be partridges, pheasants, deer, hares, which have no luck,\nwhich never escape the gun; while others, one knows not how or why,\nemerge unscathed from every battue.\n\nThey, therefore, are exposed, like ourselves, to incontestable\ninjustice.  But it does not occur to us, when considering their\nhardships, to set all the gods in motion or seek explanation from the\nmysterious powers; and yet what happens to them may well be no more\nthan the image, naively simplified, of what happens to us.  It is true\nthat we play the precise part, in their case, of those mysterious\npowers whom we seek in our own.  But what right have we to expect from\nthese last more consciousness, more intelligent justice, than we\nourselves show in our dealings with animals?  And in any event, if this\ninstance shall only have deprived chance of a little of its useless\nprestige and have proportionately augmented our spirit of initiative\nand struggle, there will be a gain the importance of which is by no\nmeans to be despised.\n\n\n8\n\nStill further allowance must therefore be made; but yet there\nundoubtedly remains--at least as far as the more complex life of man is\nconcerned--a cause of good or evil fortune as yet untouched by our\nexplanations, in the often visible will of chance, which one might\nalmost call the \"small change\" of fatality.  We know--and this is one\nof those formless but fundamental ideas on the laws of life that the\nexperience of thousands of years has turned into a kind of instinct--we\nknow that men exist who, other things being equal, are \"lucky\" or\n\"unlucky.\"  Circumstances permitted me to follow very closely the\ncareer of a friend of mine who was dogged by persistent ill-fortune.  I\ndo not mean to imply by this that his life was unhappy.  It is even\nremarkable that the malign influences always respected the broad lines\nof his veritable happiness; probably because these were well guarded.\nFor he had in him a strong moral existence, profound thoughts and\nhopes, feelings and convictions.  He was well aware that these were\npossessions that fortune could not touch: which indeed could not be\ndestroyed without his consent.  Destiny is not invincible; through\nlife's very centre runs a great inward canal, which we have the power\nto turn towards happiness or sorrow; although its ramifications, that\nextend over our days, and the thousand tributaries that flow in from\nexternal hazards, are all independent of our will.\n\nIt is thus that a beautiful river, streaming down from the heights and\nashine with magnificent glaciers, passes at length through plains and\nthrough cities, whence it receives only poisonous water.  For an\ninstant the river is troubled; and we fear lest it lose, and never\nrecover again, the image of the pure blue sky that the crystal\nfountains had lent: the image that seemed its soul, and the deep and\nthe limpid expression of its great strength.  But if we rejoin it, down\nyonder, beneath those great trees, we shall find that it has already\nforgotten the foulness of the gutters.  It has caught the azure again\nin its transparent waves; and flows on to the sea, as clear as it was\non the days when it first smilingly leapt from its source on the\nmountains.\n\nAnd so, as regards this friend of mine, although forced more than once\nto shed tears, they were at least not of the kind that memory never\nforgets, not of those that fall from our eyes as we mourn our own\ndeath.  Every failure, the inevitable disappointment once over, served\nonly in effect to knit him the closer to his secret happiness, to\naffirm this within him, and draw a more sombre outline around it, that\nit might thereby appear the more precious, and ardent, and certain.\nBut no sooner had he quitted this charmed enclosure than hostile\nincidents vied with each other in their attacks upon him.  As for\ninstance--he was a very good fencer: he had three duels, and was\nwounded each time by a less skilful adversary.  If he went on board\nship, the voyage would rarely be prosperous.  Whatever undertaking he\nput money into was sure to turn out badly.  A judicial error, into\nwhich a whole series of curiously malevolent circumstances dragged him,\nwas productive of long and serious trouble.  Further, although his face\nwas agreeable, and the expression of his eyes loyal and frank, he was\nnot what one calls \"sympathetic\": he did not arouse at first sight that\nspontaneous affection which we often give, without knowing why, to the\nunknown who passes, to an enemy even.  Nor was he more fortunate in his\naffections.  Of a loving disposition, and infinitely worthier of being\nloved than most of those to whom he was sacrificed by the\nchance-governed heart of women--here again he met with nothing but\ntreachery, deceit and sorrow.  He went his way, extricating himself as\nbest he could from the paltry snares that malicious fortune prepared at\nevery step; nor was he discouraged or deeply saddened, only somewhat\nsurprised at so strange a persistence; until at last there came the\ngreat and solitary good fortune of his life: a love that was the\ncomplement of the one that was eager within him, a love that was\ncomplete, passionate, exclusive, unalterable.  And from that moment it\nwas as though he had come under the influence of another star, the\nbeneficent rays of which were blending with his own; vexatious events\ngrew slowly remoter, fewer, warier of attacking him, tardier in their\napproach.  They seemed reluctantly to abandon their habit of selecting\nhim as their victim.  He actually saw his _luck turn_.  And now that he\nhas gone back, as it were, into the indifferent and neutral atmosphere\nof chance common to most men, he smiles when he remembers the time when\nevery gesture of his was watched by the invisible enemy, and aroused a\ndanger.\n\n\n9\n\nLet us not look to the gods for an explanation of these phenomena.\nUntil these gods shall have clearly explained themselves, there is\nnothing that they can explain for us.  And destiny, which is merely the\ngod of which we know least, has less right than any of the others to\nintervene and cry to us, as it does from the depths of its inscrutable\nnight: \"It is I who so willed it!\"  Nor let us invoke the illimitable\nlaws of the universe, the intentions of history, the will of the\nworlds, the justice of the stars.  These powers exist: we submit to\nthem, as we submit to the might of the sun.  But they act without\nknowing us; and within the wide circle of their influence a liberty\nremains to us still that is probably immense.  They have better work on\nhand than to be for ever bending over us to lift a blade of grass or\ndrop a leaf in the little paths of our anthill.  Since we ourselves are\nhere the parties concerned, it is, I imagine, within ourselves that the\nkey of the mystery shall be found; for it is probable that every\ncreature carries within him the best solution of the problem that he\npresents.  Within us, underlying the conscious existence that our\nreason and will control, is a profounder existence, one side of which\nconnects with a past beyond the record of history, the other with a\nfuture that thousands of years cannot exhaust.  We may safely conceive\nthat all the gods lie hidden within it; that those wherewith we have\npeopled the earth and the planets will emerge one by one, in order to\ngive it a name and a form that our imagination may understand.  And as\nman's vision grows clearer, as he shows less desire for image and\nsymbol, so will the number of these names, the number of these forms,\ntend to diminish.  He will slowly arrive at the stage when there shall\nbe one only that he will proclaim, or reserve; when it shall be\nrevealed to him that this last form, this last name, is truly no more\nthan the last image of a power whose throne was always within him.\nThen will the gods that had gone forth from us be found again in\nourselves; and it is there that we will question them to-day.\n\n\n10\n\nI hold therefore that it is in this unconscious life of ours, in this\nexistence that is so vast, so divine, so inexhaustible and\nunfathomable, that we must seek for the explanation of fortunate or\ncontrary chances.  Within us is a being that is our veritable ego, our\nfirst-born: immemorial, illimitable, universal, and probably immortal.\nOur intellect, which is merely a kind of phosphorescence that plays on\nthis inner sea, has as yet but faint knowledge of it.  But our\nintellect is gradually learning that every secret of the human\nphenomena it has hitherto not understood must reside there, and there\nalone.  This unconscious being lives on another plane than our\nintellect, in another world.  It knows nothing of Time and Space, the\ntwo formidable but illusory walls between which our reason must flow if\nit would not be hopelessly lost.  It knows no proximity, it knows no\ndistance; past and future concern it not, or the resistance of matter.\nIt is familiar with all things; there is nothing it cannot do.  To this\npower, this knowledge, we have indeed at all times accorded a certain\nvarying recognition; we have given names to its manifestations, we have\ncalled them instinct, soul, unconsciousness, sub-consciousness, reflex\naction, presentiment, intuition, &c.  We credit it more especially with\nthe indeterminate and often prodigious force contained in those of our\nnerves that do not directly serve to produce our will and our reason: a\nforce that would appear to be the very fluid of life.  Its nature is\nprobably more or less the same in all men; but it has very different\nmethods of communicating with the intellect.  In some men this unknown\nprinciple is enshrined at so great a depth that it concerns itself\nsolely with physical functions and the permanence of the species;\nwhereas in others it would seem to be for ever on the alert, rising\nagain and again to the surface of external and conscious life, which\nits fairy-like presence quickens; intervening at every instant,\nwarning, deciding, counselling; blending with most of the essential\nfacts of a career.  Whence comes this faculty?  There are no fixed or\ncertain laws.  We do not detect, for instance, any constant relation\nbetween the activity of the unconsciousness and the development of the\nintellect.  This activity obeys rules of which we know nothing.  So far\nas we at present can tell, it would seem to be purely accidental.  We\ndiscover it in one man, and not in another; nor have we any clue that\nshall help us to guess at the reason of this difference.\n\n\n11\n\nThe probable course pursued by fortunate or contrary chances may well\nbe as follows.  A happy or untoward event, that has sprung from the\nprofound recesses of great and eternal laws, arises before us and\ncompletely blocks the way.  It stands motionless there: immovable,\ninevitable, disproportionate.  It pays no heed to us; it has not come\non our account, but for itself, because of itself.  It ignores us\ncompletely.  It is we who approach the event; we who, having arrived\nwithin the sphere of its influence, will either fly from it or face it,\ntry a circuitous route or fare boldly onwards.  Let us assume that the\nevent is disastrous: fire, death, disease, or a somewhat abnormal form\nof accident or calamity.  It waits there, invisible, indifferent,\nblind, but perfect and unalterable; but as yet it is merely potential.\nIt exists entire, but only in the future; and for us, whose intellect\nand consciousness are served by senses unable to perceive things\notherwise than through the succession of time, it is as though it were\nnot.  Let us be still more precise; let us take the case of a\nshipwreck.  The ship that must perish has not yet left the port; the\nrock or the shoal that shall rend it sleeps peacefully beneath the\nwaves; the storm that shall burst forth at the end of the month is\nslumbering, far beyond our gaze, in the secret of the skies.  Normally,\nwere nothing written, had the catastrophe[3] not already taken place in\nthe future, fifty passengers would have arrived from five or six\ndifferent countries, and have duly gone on board.  But destiny has\nclearly marked the vessel for its own.  She must most certainly perish.\nAnd for months past, perhaps for years, a mysterious selection has been\nat work amongst the passengers who were to have departed upon the same\nday.  It is possible that out of fifty who had originally intended to\nsail, only twenty will cross the gangway at the moment of lifting the\nanchor.  It is even possible that not a single one of the fifty will\nlisten to the insistent claims of the circumstance that, but for the\ndisaster ahead, would have rendered their departure imperative, and\nthat their place will be taken by twenty or thirty others in whom the\nvoice of Chance does not speak with a similar power.  Here we touch the\nprofoundest depths of the profoundest of human enigmas; and the\nhypothesis necessarily falters.  But is it not more reasonable, in the\nfictitious case before us--wherein we merely thrust into prominence\nwhat is of constant occurrence in the more obscure conjunctures of\ndaily life--to regard both decision and action as emanating from our\nunconsciousness, rather than from doubtful, and distant, gods?  Our\nunconsciousness is aware of the catastrophe: it must be: our\nunconsciousness sees it; for it knows neither time nor space, and the\ndisaster is therefore happening as actually before its eyes as before\nthe eyes of the eternal powers.  The mode of prescience matters but\nlittle.  Out of the fifty travellers who have been warned, two or three\nwill have had a real presentiment of the danger; these will be the ones\nin whom unconsciousness is free and untrammelled, and therefore more\nreadily able to attain the first, and still obscure, layers of\nintellect.  The others suspect nothing: they inveigh against the\ninexplicable obstacles and delays: they strain every nerve to arrive in\ntime, but their departure becomes impossible.  They fall ill, take a\nwrong road, change their plans, meet with some insignificant adventure,\nhave a quarrel, a love affair, a moment of idleness or forgetfulness,\nwhich detains them in spite of themselves.  To the first it will never\nhave even occurred to sail on the ill-starred boat, although this be\nthe one that they should logically, inevitably, have been compelled to\nchoose.  But the efforts that their unconsciousness has put forth to\nsave them have their workings so deep down that most of these men will\nhave no idea that they owe their life to a fortunate chance; and they\nwill honestly believe that they never intended to sail by the ship that\nthe powers of the sea had claimed.\n\n\n12\n\nAs for those who punctually make their appearance at the fatal tryst,\nthey belong to the tribe of the unlucky.  They are the unfortunate race\nof our race.  When the rest all fly, they alone remain in their places.\nWhen others retreat, they advance boldly.  They infallibly travel by\nthe train that shall leave the rails, they pass underneath the tower at\nthe exact moment of its collapse, they enter the house in which the\nfire is smouldering, cross the forest on which lightning shall fall,\nentrust all they have to the banker who means to abscond.  They love\nthe one woman on earth whom they should have avoided, they make the\ngesture they should not have made, they do the thing they should not\nhave done.  But when fortune beckons and the others are hastening,\nurged by the deep voice of benevolent powers, these pass by, not\nhearing; and, vouchsafed no advice or warning but that of their\nintellect, the very wise old guide whose purblind eyes see only the\ntiny paths at the foot of the mountain, they go astray in a world that\nhuman reason has not yet understood.  These men have surely the right\nto exclaim against destiny; and yet not on the grounds that they would\nprefer.  They have the right to ask why it has withheld from them the\nwatchful guard who warns their brethren.  But, this reproach once\nmade--and it is the cardinal reproach against irreducible\ninjustice--they have no further cause of complaint.  The universe is\nnot hostile to them.  Calamities do not pursue them; it is they who go\ntowards calamity  Things from without wish them no ill; the mischief\ncomes from themselves.  The misfortune they meet has not been lying in\nwait for them; they selected it for their own.  With them, as with all\nmen, events are posted along the course of their years, like goods in a\nbazaar that stand ready for the customer who shall buy them.  No one\ndeceives them; they merely deceive themselves.  They are in no wise\npersecuted; but their unconscious soul fails to perform its duty.  Is\nit less adroit than the others: is it less eager?  Does it slumber\nhopelessly in the depths of its secular prison: and can no amount of\nwill-power arouse it from its fatal lethargy, and force the redoubtable\ndoors that lead from the life that unconsciously is aware of all things\nto the intelligent life that knows nothing?\n\n\n13\n\nA friend in whose presence I was discussing these matters said to me\nyesterday: \"Life, whose questions are more searching than those of the\nphilosophers, will this very day compel me to add a somewhat curious\nproblem to those you have stated.  I am wondering what the result will\nbe when two 'lucks'--in other words, two unconsciousnesses, of which\none is adroit and fortunate, the other inept and bungling--meet and in\nsome measure blend in the same venture, the same undertaking?  Which\nwill triumph over the other?  I soon shall know.  This afternoon I\npropose to take a step that will be of supreme importance to the person\nI value above all others in this world.  Her entire future may almost\nbe said to depend upon it, her exterior happiness, the possibility of\nher living in accordance with her nature and her rights.  Now to me\nchance has always been a faithful and far-seeing friend; and as I\nglance over my past, and review the five or six decisive moments which,\nas with all men, were the golden pivots on which fortune turned, I am\ninduced to believe in my star, and am morally certain that if I alone\nwere concerned in the step I am taking to-day, it would be bound to\nsucceed, because I am 'lucky.'  But the person on whose behalf I am\nacting has never been fortunate.  Her intellect is remarkably subtle\nand profound, her will is a thousand times stronger and better balanced\nthan my own; but, with all this, one can only believe that she\npossesses a foolish or malignant unconsciousness, which has\npersistently, ruthlessly, exposed her to act after act of injustice,\ndishonesty, and treachery, has robbed her again and again of her due,\nand compelled her to travel the path of disastrous coincidence.  Be\nsure that it would have forced her to embark on the ship that you speak\nof.  I ask myself, therefore, what attitude will my vigilant,\nthoughtful unconsciousness adopt towards this indolent and sinning\nbrother, in whose name it will have to act, whose place, as it were, it\nwill take?\n\n\"How, and where, is the momentous decision being at this moment arrived\nat, in search of which I shall so soon set forth?  What power is it\nthat now, at this very moment, while I am speaking, is balancing the\npros and cons, and decreeing the happiness or sorrow of the woman I\nrepresent?  From which sphere, or perhaps immemorial virtue, from what\nhidden spirit or invisible star, will the weight fall that shall\nincline the scale to light or to darkness?  To judge by outward\nappearance, decision must rest with the will, the reason, the interest\nof the parties engaged; in reality it often is otherwise.  When one\nfinds oneself thus face to face with the problem which directly affects\na person we love, this problem no longer appears quite so simple; our\neyes open wider, and we throw a startled, anxious, in a sense almost a\nvirgin glance, upon all this unknown that leads us and that we are\ncompelled to obey.\n\n\"I take this step therefore with more emotion, I put forth more zeal\nand vigour, than if it were my own life, my own happiness, that stood\nin peril.  She for whom I am acting is indeed 'more I than I am\nmyself,' and for a long time past her happiness has been the source of\nmine.  Of this both my heart and my reason are fully aware; but does my\nunconsciousness know?  My reason and heart, that form my consciousness,\nare barely thirty years old; my unconscious soul, still reminiscent of\nprimitive secrets, may well date centuries back.  Its evolution is very\ndeliberate.  It is as slow as a world that turns in time without end.\nIt will probably therefore not yet have learned that a second existence\nhas linked itself to mine, and completely absorbs it.  How many years\nmust elapse before the great news shall penetrate to its retreat?  Here\nagain we note its diversity, its inequality.  In one man, perhaps,\nunconsciousness will immediately recognise what is taking place in his\nheart; in another, it will very tardily lend itself to the phenomena of\nreason.  There is a love, again, such as that of the mother for her\nchild, in which it moves in advance of both heart and reason.  Only\nafter a very long time does the unconscious soul of a mother separate\nitself from that of her children; it watches over these at first with\nfar more zeal and solicitude than over the mother.  But, in a love like\nmine, who shall say whether my unconsciousness has gathered that this\nlove is more essential to me than my life?  I myself believe that it is\nsatisfied that the step I propose to take in no way concerns me.  It\nwill not appear; it will not intervene.  At the very moment when I\nshall be feverishly displaying all the energy I possess, when I shall\nbe striving for victory more keenly than were my salvation at stake, it\nwill be tending its own mysterious affairs deep down in its shadowy\ndwelling.  Were I seeking justice for myself, it would already be on\nthe alert.  It would know, perhaps, that I had better do nothing\nto-day.  I should probably have not the slightest idea of intervention;\nbut it would raise some unforeseen obstacle.  I should fall ill; catch\na bad cold, be prevented by some secondary event from arriving at the\nunpropitious hour.  Then, when I was actually in the presence of the\nman who held my destiny in his hands, my vigilant friend would spread\nits wings over me, its breath would inspire me, its light would dispel\nmy darkness.  It would dictate to me the words that I must say: they\nwould be the only words that could meet the secret objections of the\nmaster of my Fate.  It would regulate my attitude, my silence, my\ngestures; it would endow me with the confidence, the nameless\ninfluence, which often will govern the decisions of men far more than\nthe reasons of reason or the eloquence of interest.  But here I am\nsorely afraid that my unconsciousness will do none of these things.  It\nwill remain perfectly passive.  It will not appear on the familiar\nthreshold.  In its obtuseness, impervious to the fact that my life has\nceased to be self-contained, it will act in accordance with its ancient\ntraditions, those that have ruled it these hundreds of years; it will\npersist in regarding this matter as one that does not concern me, and\nwill believe that in helping my failure it will be doing me service;\nwhereas in truth it will afflict me more grievously, cause me more\nsorrow, than if it were to betray me at the approach of death.  I shall\nbe importing, therefore, into this affair, only the palest reflection,\na kind of phantom, of my own luck; and I ask myself with dread whether\nthis will suffice to counterbalance the contrary fortune which I have,\nas it were, assumed, and which I represent.\"\n\n\n14\n\nSome days later my friend informed me that his action had been\nunsuccessful.  It may be that this reverse was only due to chance or to\nhis own want of confidence.  For the confidence that sees success ahead\npursues it with a pertinacity and resource of which hesitation and\ndoubt are incapable; nor is it troubled by any of those involuntary\nweaknesses which give so great an advantage to the adversary's\ninstinct.  And there may probably be much truth also in his manner of\ndepicting unconsciousness.  For truly, there are depths in us at which\nunconsciousness and confidence would seem to blend, and it becomes\ndifficult to say where the first begins, or the second leaves off.\n\nWe will not pursue this too subtle inquiry, but rather consider the\nother and more direct questions that life is ever putting to us\nconcerning one of its greatest problems--chance.  This possesses what\nmay be called a daily interest.  It asks us, for instance, what\nattitude we should adopt towards men who are incontestably unlucky; men\nwhose evil star has such pernicious power that it infallibly brings\ndisaster to whatever comes within the range--often a very wide one--of\nits baleful influence.  Ought we unhesitatingly to fly from such men,\nas Dr. Foissac advises?  Yes, doubtless, if their misfortunes arise\nfrom an imprudent and unduly hazardous spirit, a heedless, quarrelsome,\nmischief-making, Utopian or clouded mind.  Ill-luck is a contagious\ndisease; and one unconsciousness will often infect another.  But if the\nmisfortunes be wholly unmerited, or fall upon those who are dear to us,\nflight were unjust and shameful.  In such a case the conscious side of\nour being--which, though it know but little, is yet able to fashion\ntruths of a different order, truths that might almost be the first\nflowers of a dawning world--is bound to resist the universal wisdom of\nunconsciousness, bound to brave its warnings and involve it in its own\nruin, which may well be a victory upon an ideal plane that one day\nperhaps shall appeal to the unconsciousness also.\n\n\n15\n\nWe ask ourselves, therefore, whether unconsciousness, which we regard\nas the source of our luck, is really incapable of change or\nimprovement.  Have we not all of us noticed how strange are the ways of\nchance?  When we behold it active in a small town, or among a certain\nnumber of men within the range of our own observation, the goddess\nwould seem to become as persistent as a gadfly, and no less fantastic.\nHer very marked personality and character will vary in accordance with\nthe event or being whereon she may fasten.  She has all kinds of\neccentricities, but pursues each one logically to the finish.  Her\nfirst gesture will tell us nothing; from her second we can predict all\nthat she means to do.  Protean divinity that no image could completely\ndescribe, here she leaps suddenly forth, like a fountain in the midst\nof a desert, to disappear after having given birth to an ephemeral\noasis; there she returns at regular intervals, collecting and\nscattering, like migratory birds that obey the rhythm of the seasons.\nOn our right she fells a man and concerns herself with him no further;\non our left she bears down another, and furiously worries her victim.\nBut, though she bring favour or ruin, she will almost always remain\nastoundingly faithful to the character she has once and for all assumed\nin a particular case.  This man, for instance, who has been\nunsuccessful in war, will continue to be unsuccessful; that other will\ninvariably win or lose at cards; a third will infallibly be deceived; a\nfourth will find water, fire, or the dangers of the street especially\nhostile; a fifth will be constantly fortunate or unfortunate in love,\nmoney matters, &c., and so to the end.  All this may prove nothing, but\nwe may regard it at least as some indication that her realm is truly\nwithin us and not without; and that a hidden force that emanates only\nfrom us provides her with form and with vestment.\n\nHer habits at times will suddenly alter, one eccentricity producing\nanother; some brusque change of front will give the lie to her\ncharacter, to confirm it the instant after in a new atmosphere.  We say\nthen that \"luck turns.\"  May it not rather be our unconsciousness that\nis gradually developing, at last displaying some prudence, attention,\nand slowly becoming aware that important events are stirring in the\nworld to which it is attached?  Has it gained some experience?  Has a\nray of intelligence, a spark of will-power, filtered through to its\nlair and hinted at danger?  Does it learn, after years have flown, and\ntrial after trial has had to be borne, the wisdom of casting aside its\nconfident apathy?  Can external disaster arouse it from perilous\nslumber?  Or, if it always has known what was happening over the roof\nof its prison, is it able, after long and painful effort, at last, at\nthe critical moment, to contrive some sort of crevice in the great\nwall, built by the indifference of centuries, that separates it from\nits unknown sisters; and does it thus succeed in entering the ephemeral\nlife on which a part of its own life depends?\n\n\n16\n\nAnd yet we must admit that this hypothesis of unconsciousness will not\nsuffice to account for all the injustice of chance.  Its three most\niniquitous acts are the three disasters--the most terrible of all to\nwhich man is exposed--that habitually strike him before birth: I refer\nto absolute poverty, disease (especially in the shocking forms of\nphysiological degradation and incurable infirmities, of repulsive\nugliness and deformity), and intellectual weakness.  These are the\nthree great priestesses of unrighteousness that lie in wait for\ninnocence and brand it, on the threshold of life.  And yet, mysterious\nas their method of choice may appear, the triple source whence they\nderive these three irremediable scourges is less mysterious than one is\ninclined to believe.  We need not look for it in a pre-established\nwill, in fatal, hostile, eternal, impenetrable laws.  Poverty has its\norigin in man's own province; and though we may marvel why one should\nbe rich and the other poor, we are well aware that the existence, side\nby side, of excessive wealth and excessive misery, is due to human\ninjustice alone.  In this wickedness neither gods nor stars have part.\nAnd as for disease and mental weakness, when we shall have eliminated\nfrom them what now is due to poverty, mother of most of our moral and\nphysical sorrows, as well as to the anterior, and by no means\ninevitable, faults of the parents, then, though some measure of\npersistent and unaccountable injustice may still remain, this relic of\nmystery will very nigh go into the hollow of the philosopher's hand,\nand there he shall, later, examine it at his leisure.  But we of today\nshall be wise in refusing to allow our life to be unnecessarily\ndarkened, or hedged round with imaginary maledictions and foes.\n\nAs far as ordinary luck is concerned, we shall do well to believe, for\nthe moment, that the history of our fortune (which is not necessarily\nthe history of our real happiness, since this may be wholly independent\nof luck) is the history of our unconscious being.  There are more\nelements of probability in such a creed than in the assumption that the\nstars, eternity, or the spirit of the universe are taking part in our\npetty adventures; and it gives more spur to our courage.  And this\nidea--even though it may possibly be as difficult to alter the\ncharacter of our unconsciousness as to modify the course of Mars or of\nVenus--still seems less distant and less chimerical than the other; and\nwhen we have to choose between two probabilities, it is our imperative\nduty to select the one that presents the least obstacles to our hopes.\nFurther, should misfortune be indeed inevitable, there would be I know\nnot what proud consolation in being able to tell ourselves that it\nissues solely from us, and that we are not the victims of a malign will\nor the playthings of useless chance that in suffering more than our\nbrothers we are perhaps only recording, in time and space, the\nnecessary form of our own personality.  And so long as calamity do not\nattack the intimate pride of man, he retains the force to continue the\nstruggle and accomplish his essential mission: which is, to live with\nall the ardour whereof he is capable, and as though his life were of\ngreater consequence than any other to the destinies of mankind.\n\nThis idea is also more conformable to the vast law which restores to\nus, one by one, the gods wherewith we had filled the world.  Of these\ngods the greater number were merely the effects of causes that reposed\nin ourselves.  As we progress we shall discover that many a force that\nmastered us and aroused our wonder was only an ill-understood fragment\nof our own power; and this will probably become more apparent every day.\n\nAnd though we shall not have conquered the unknown force by bringing it\nnearer or enclosing it within us, there yet shall be gain in knowing\nwhere it abides and where we may question it.  Obscure forces surround\nus; but the one that concerns us most nearly lies at the very centre of\nour being.  All the others pass through it: it is their trysting-place:\nthey re-enter and congregate there; and only in the degree of their\nrelation to it have they interest for us.\n\nTo distinguish this force from the host of others we have called it\nunconsciousness.  And when we shall have succeeded in studying this\nunconsciousness more closely, when its mysterious adroitness, its\nantipathies and preference, its helplessness, shall be better known to\nus, we shall have most strangely blunted the teeth and nails of the\nmonster who persecutes us under the name of Fortune, Destiny or Chance.\nAt the present hour we are feeding it still as a blind man might feed\nthe lion that at last shall devour him.  Soon perhaps the lion will be\nseen by us in its true light, and we shall then learn how to subdue him.\n\nLet us therefore unweariedly follow each path that leads from our\nconsciousness to our unconsciousness.  We shall thus succeed in hewing\nsome kind of track through the great and as yet impassable roads that\nlead from the seen to the unseen, from man to God, from the individual\nto the universe.  At the end of these roads lies hidden the general\nsecret of life.  In the meanwhile let us adopt the hypothesis that\noffers the most encouragement to our existence in this life; in this\nlife which has need of us for the solution of its own enigmas, seeing\nthat in us its secrets crystallise the most limpidly and most rapidly.\n\n\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n[1] His history is concisely summed up by Dr. Foissac as follows:--\"On\nthe eighth Floreal of the year IV. the courier and postillion who were\ntaking the mail from Paris to Lyons were attacked and murdered, at nine\nin the evening, in the forest of Senart.  The assassins were Couriol,\nwho had taken a seat in the cabriolet by the side of the courier;\nDurochal, Rossi, Vidal, and Dubosq, who had come to meet him on hired\nhorses; and lastly Bernard, who had procured the horses, and took part\nin the subsequent distribution of plunder.  For this crime, in which\nfive assassins and one accomplice shared, _seven_ individuals, within\nthe space of four years, mounted the steps of the guillotine.  Justice,\ntherefore, killed one man too many: her sword fell upon one who was\ninnocent; nor could he have been one of these six individuals, all of\nwhom confessed their crime.  The innocent man was Lesurques, who had\nnever ceased to declare that he was not guilty; and all his alleged\naccomplices disavowed any knowledge of him.  How then came this\nunfortunate creature to be implicated in an affair that was to confer\nso sad an immortality upon his name?  Fatality so contrived that, four\ndays before the crime, Lesurques, who had left Douai with an income of\neighteen thousand livres, and had come to Paris that he might give a\nbetter education to his children, happened to be lunching with a\nfellow-townsman named Guesno when Couriol came in and was invited to\njoin them.  Suspicion having at once fallen upon Couriol, the fact of\nthis lunch was sufficient to cause Guesno to be put under arrest for a\nmoment; but as he was able to prove an alibi, the judge, Daubenton,\nimmediately set him at liberty.  Only, as it was late, Daubenton told\nhim to come the following day to fetch his papers.\n\n\"In the morning of the eleventh Floreal, Guesno, on his way for this\npurpose to the Prefecture of Police, met Lesurques, whom he invited to\naccompany him; an invitation which Lesurques, who had nothing special\nto do, accepted.  While they were waiting in the antechamber for the\nmagistrate to arrive, two women were shown in who had been asked to\nattend in connection with the affair; and they, deceived by Lesurques'\nresemblance to Dubosq, who had fled, unhesitatingly denounced him as\none of the assassins, and unfortunately persisted in this statement to\nthe end.  The antecedents of Lesurques pleaded in his favour; and among\nother facts that he cited to prove that he had not left Paris during\nthe day of the eighth Floreal, he declared that he had been present at\ncertain dealings that had taken place at a jeweller's named Legrand,\nbetween this last and another jeweller named Aldenoff.  These\ntransactions had actually taken place on the eighth; but Legrand, on\nbeing requisitioned to produce his books, found that he had by a\nclerical blunder inscribed them under the date of the ninth.  He\nthought the best thing he could do would be to scratch out the nine and\nconvert it into an eight.  He did this with the idea that he would\nthereby save his fellow-townsman Lesurques, whom he knew to be\ninnocent, whereas he actually succeeded in ruining him.  The alteration\nand substitution were easily detected; from that moment the prosecution\nand the jury declined to place the least confidence in the eighty\nwitnesses for the defence called by the accused; he was convicted and\nhis property confiscated.  Eighty-seven days elapsed between his\ncondemnation and execution, a delay that was altogether unusual at that\nperiod; but grave doubts had arisen as to his guilt.\n\n\"The Directorate did not possess the right of reprieve; they felt it\ntheir duty to refer the case to the Council of Five Hundred, asking\n'whether Lesurques was to die because of his resemblance to a\ncriminal?'  The Council passed to the Order of the Day on the report of\nSimeon; and Lesurques was executed, forgiving his judges.  And not only\nhad he constantly protested his innocence, but at the moment the\nverdict was given Couriol had cried out, in firm tones, 'Lesurques is\ninnocent!'  He repeated this statement both on the fatal hurdle and on\nthe scaffold.  All the other prisoners, while admitting their own\nguilt, also declared the innocence of Lesurques.  It was only in the\nyear IX. that Dubosq, his double, was arrested and sentenced.\n\n\"The fatality that had attacked the head of the family spared none of\nits members.  Lesurques' mother died of grief; his wife went mad; his\nthree children languished in insignificance and poverty.  The\ngovernment, however, moved by their great misfortune, restored to the\nfamily of Lesurques, in two instalments, the five or six hundred\nthousand francs which had been so iniquitously confiscated; but a\nswindler robbed them of the greater part of the money.  Sixty years\nelapsed; of Lesurques' three children two were dead: one alone\nsurvived, Virginia Lesurques.  Public opinion had for a long time\nalready proclaimed the innocence and the rehabilitation of her\nunfortunate father.  She wanted more; and when the law of the 29th June\n1867 was passed, authorising the revision of criminal judgments, she\nhoped that the day had at last come when she might proclaim this\nrehabilitation in the sanctuary of justice; but, by a final fatality,\nthe Court of Appeal, arguing on legal subtleties, declared by its\ndecree of 17th December 1868 that no cause had been shown for\nre-opening the case, and that Virginia Lesurques had not made good her\nclaim to revision.\"\n\nIt is as though one were enthralled by a horrible dream, in which some\npoor wretch was being delivered into the hands of the Furies.  Ever\nsince the fatal meal, no less tragic than that of Thyestes, which\nLesurques took at Guesno's house, events have been dragging him nearer\nand nearer the gulf that yawns at his feet; while his destiny, hovering\nabove him like an enormous vulture, hides the light from those who\napproach him.  And the circles from above press magically forward to\nmeet those from below: they advance, they contract, and then, uniting\nat last, their eddies blend and fasten upon what is now a corpse.\n\nHere, truly, the combination of murderous fatalities may well seem\nsupernatural; and the case is typical, it is formidable, it is as\nsymbolic as a myth.  But there can be no doubt that analogous chains of\ncircumstances reproduce themselves daily in the countless petty or\nridiculous mortifications of merely ordinary lives which are beneath\nthe influence of an evil or malicious star.\n\n[2] The misfortunes of the Stuarts are well known; those of the\nColignys are less familiar.  Of these last the author we have already\ncited gives the following lucid account:--\"Gaspard de Coligny, Marshal\nof France under Francis I., was married to the sister of the Constable\nAnne de Montmorency.  He was reproached with having delayed by half a\nday his attack on Charles V., at a time when such might have been most\nadvantageously offered, and with having thereby let slip an almost\ncertain opportunity of victory.  One of his sons, who had been made\nArchbishop and Cardinal, embraced Protestantism, and was married in his\nred cassock.  He fought against the King at the battle of St. Denis,\nand fled to England, where, in the year 1571, a servant of his\nattempted to poison him.  He escaped, however, and, seeking\nsubsequently to return to France, was captured at Rochelle, condemned\nto death, and executed.  The Admiral de Coligny, brother of the\nCardinal, was reputed one of the greatest captains of his time: he did\nmarvels at the defence of Saint-Quentin.  The place, however, was taken\nby storm, and he was made a prisoner of war.  Having become the real\nleader of the Calvinists, under the Prince de Conde, he displayed the\nmost undaunted courage and extraordinary fertility of resource; neither\nhis merit nor his military skill was ever called in question; and yet\nhe was uniformly unsuccessful in every one of his enterprises.  In 1562\nhe lost the battle of Dreux to the Duc de Guise; that of St. Denis to\nthe Constable de Montmorency; and, finally, that of Jarnac, which was\nno less fatal to his party.  He endured yet another reverse at\nMontcontour, in Poitou, but his courage remained unshaken; his skill\nwas able to parry the attacks of fortune, and he appeared more\nredoubtable after his defeats than his enemies in the midst of their\nvictories.  Often wounded, but always impervious to fear, he remarked\none day quietly to his friends, who wept as they saw his blood flow:\n'Should not the profession we follow cause us to regard death with the\nsame indifference as life?'  A few days before the Massacre of St.\nBartholomew, Maurevert shot him with a carbine from a house in the\ncloister of St. Germain-l'Auxerrois, and wounded him dangerously in the\nright hand and left arm.  On the eve of that sanguinary day, Besme, at\nthe head of a party of cutthroats, contrived to enter the admiral's\nhouse, and ran him several times through the body, then flinging him\nout of the window into the courtyard, where he expired, it is said, at\nthe feet of the Duc de Guise.  His body was exposed for three days to\nthe insults of the mob, and finally hung by the feet to the gibbet of\nMontfaucon.\n\n\"Thus, though the Admiral de Coligny passed for the greatest general of\nhis time, he was always unfortunate and always defeated; while the Duc\nde Guise, his rival, who had less wisdom but more audacity, and above\nall more confidence in his destiny, was able to take his enemies by\nsurprise and render himself master of events.  'Coligny was an honest\nman,' said the Abbe de Mably; 'Guise wore the mask of a greater number\nof virtues.  Coligny was detested by the people; Guise was their idol.'\nIt is stated that the Admiral left a diary, which Charles IX. read with\ninterest, but the Marshal de Retz had it flung into the fire.  Finally,\na fatal destiny clinging to all who bore the name of Coligny, the last\ndescendant of the family was killed in a duel by the Chevalier de\nGuise.\"\n\n[3] It is a remarkable and constant fact that great catastrophes claim\ninfinitely fewer victims than the most reasonable probabilities might\nhave led one to suppose.  At the last moment a fortuitous or\nexceptional circumstance is almost always found to have kept away half,\nand sometimes two-thirds, of the persons who were threatened by the\nstill invisible danger.  A steamer that goes to the bottom has\ngenerally fewer passengers on board than would have been the case had\nshe not been destined to go down.  Two trains that collide, an express\nthat falls over a precipice, &c., carry less travellers than they would\non a day when nothing is going to happen.  Should a bridge collapse,\nthe accident will generally be found to occur, in defiance of all\nprobability, at the moment the crowd has just left it.  In the case of\nfires in theatres and other public places, things unfortunately happen\notherwise.  But there, as we know, the principal danger does not lie in\nthe fire, but in the panic of the terror-stricken crowd.  Again, a\nfire-damp explosion will usually occur at a time when the number of\nminers inside the mine is appreciably inferior to the number that would\nhabitually be there.  Similarly, when a powder factory is blown up, the\nmajority of the workmen, who would otherwise all have perished, will be\nfound to have left the mill for some trifling, but providential,\nreason.  So true is this, that the almost unvarying remark, that we\nread every day in the papers, has become familiar and hackneyed, as: \"A\ncatastrophe which might have assumed terrible proportions was\nfortunately confined, thanks to such and such a circumstance,\" &c.,\n&c.; or, \"One shudders to think what might have happened had the\naccident occurred a moment sooner, when all the workmen, all the\npassengers,\" &c.  Is this the clemency of Chance?  We are becoming ever\nless inclined to credit it with a personality, with design or\nintelligence.  There is more reason in the supposition that something\nin man has defined the disaster; that an obscure but unfailing instinct\nhas preserved a great number of people from a danger that was on the\npoint of taking shape, of assuming the imminent and imperious form of\nthe inevitable; and that their unconsciousness, taking alarm, is seized\nwith hidden panic, which manifests itself outwardly in a caprice, a\nwhim, some puerile and inconsistent incident, that is yet irresistible\nand becomes the means of salvation.","title":"The Buried Temple","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":49120}