{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_46728/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_46728","id":"gutenberg_46728","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46728","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","French essays -- Translations into English","Philosophy"],"text":"Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this\n      file which includes the original illustration.\n      See 46728-h.htm or 46728-h.zip:\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/46728/pg46728-images.html)\n      or\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46728/46728-h.zip)\n\n\n      Images of the original pages are available through\n      Internet Archive. See\n      https://archive.org/details/decadenceotheres00gouriala\n\n\n\n\n\nDECADENCE AND OTHER ESSAYS ON THE CULTURE OF IDEAS\n\nby\n\nREMY DE GOURMONT\n\nAuthorized Translation by William Aspenwall Bradley\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLondon\nGrant Richards Ltd.\nSt Martin's Street\nMDCCCCXXII\n\n\n\n[Illustration: REMY DE GOURMONT\nFrom a hitherto unpublished portrait by H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Dufau in\nthe possession of Miss Barney.]\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n    I. The Disassociation of Ideas\n   II. Glory and the Idea of Immortality\n  III. Success and the Idea of Beauty\n   IV. The Value of Education\n    V. Women and Language\n   VI. St\u00e9phane Mallarm\u00e9 and the Idea of Decadence\n  VII. Of Style or Writing\n VIII. Subconscious Creation\n   IX. The Roots of Idealism\n\n\n            Note.--The first, sixth, seventh, and eighth\n            essays are translated from La Culture des\n            Id\u00e9es; the ninth is from the Promenades\n            Philosophiques; and the remaining essays are\n            from Le Chemin de Velours.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nWhen, more than ten years ago, I wrote the first article on Remy de\nGourmont which, so far as I know, appeared in America--North America,\n_bien entendu_, for the author of _La Culture des Id\u00e9es_ and _Le Chemin\nde Velours_ was already well known and admired in such South American\nliterary capitals as Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and La Plata--it\nwas refused by one editor on the ground that he could not assume\nthe responsibility of presenting a writer of Gourmont's dangerous,\nsubversive, and immoral tendencies to the readers of his conservative\nand highly respectable journal. Gourmont's revenge--and mine--came a\nfew years later when, at the time of his death, in 1915, the same paper\npaid him editorial tribute, recognizing the importance of the place\nhe had occupied in the intellectual life of France for a quarter of a\ncentury.\n\nWhat was this place precisely? An attempt has been made to define it\nby a recent French writer, M. Jules Sageret, who speaks of Gourmont as\nhaving represented in our time the _encyclop\u00e9diste honn\u00eate homme_ of\nthe eighteenth century, and this is sufficiently accurate, in spite\nof the fact that Gourmont was no deist, and that he made a much more\nextended application of that _esprit critique_ which he inherited from\nDiderot and Voltaire. He himself notes the paradox presented by the\nlatter, who, while combating the principle of authority so violently\nin one field--that of dogmatic theology--accepted it so absolutely\nand unquestioningly in another--that of poetic art, as stated once\nand for all by Boileau. Gourmont recognized no such limits of the\ncritic's function. He was, in fact, a fearless, uncompromising, and\nuniversal free-thinker--_libertin_--who, endowed with a restless\nscientific curiosity, a profound irrespect, and an extraordinarily\nsharp and supple analytical intelligence, confronted all affirmations,\nall dogmas, in the fixed intent of liberating the life imprisoned in\nthem. \"I dislike prisons of any sort,\" he declared in the preface to\n_Le Probl\u00e8me du Style_, and he scouted the claims of those who, having\nconstructed a cell, claimed to cabin the truth.\n\nEven the pursuit of truth seemed, to this convinced sceptic of the race\nof Montaigne, an idle undertaking, unworthy of any truly philosophic\nintelligence. \"It is as absurd to seek the truth--and to find it--once\nwe have reached the age of reason, as to put our shoes on the hearth\nChristmas Eve.\" And he cites \"one of the creators of a new science,\"\nwho said to him, \"At the present moment we can establish no theory, but\nwe are in a position to demolish any theory that may be established.\"\nHe adds, summing up: \"We must seek to rest always at this stage; the\nonly fruitful quest is the quest of the non-true.\" Yet Gourmont himself\nwas carried beyond it in his destructive zeal, when he snatched,\nsomewhat hastily, at the theories of his friend Ren\u00e9 Quinton, the\nbiologist, to which the fates have not proved altogether kind since\nthey were first stated. For there is usually a positive flaw in the\narmour of even the most discreet \"sower of doubts,\" and how could\nGourmont, who took Pierre Bayle's famous profession as his own device,\nresist the temptation to avail himself of so formidable an arsenal\nagainst the pretentions of the human reason to impose its frail and\narbitrary laws upon the universe?\n\n\"Reason,\" he says, writing of Kant's method in _Promenades\nPhilosophiques_, \"is only a word--expression of the most convenient\nways of comprehending the multiple relations which unite the varied\nelements of nature. The reason is only a unity of measure, though a\nnecessary unit, and one without which there would be such differences\nbetween men's judgments that no society would be possible. But this\nnecessity is not anterior to life; it is posterior to it. What is\nnecessary, what is reasonable, is what is; but any other mode of\nbeing, as soon as it was, would be equally necessary and reasonable.\"\nInstead of any rationalistic system whatsoever, we need \"a flat-footed\nphilosophy, familiar and scientific, always provisional, always at the\ndisposal of the new fact which will necessarily arise, a philosophy\nwhich is merely a commentary on life, but on life as a whole. Man\nseparated from the rest of nature is a pure mystery. To understand\nsomething of our own constitution, we must plunge ourselves, humbly,\ninto the vital milieu whence religious pride has withdrawn us, in order\nto raise us to the dignity of jumping-jacks of the ideal.\"\n\nIt was thus that, in his essay on _La Physique de l'Amour_, Gourmont,\nin order to disassociate the idea of love, which, rationalized, has\nitself become a sort of religion, with poets for priests, sought\nto \"situate\" man's sexual experience in the vast vital milieu of\nuniversal sexuality, and such were the aim and method of all his\ndisassociations. In them he reveals himself as perhaps the most potent\ncorrosive intellectual agent of our time, after Nietzsche, to whom\nhe owed a certain \u00e9lan, and whom he helped to make known in France.\nAll he offers is, in accordance with his own requirement, a simple\ncommentary on life--on life as a whole--when it is not, more simply\nstill, as in his literary criticism, a mere record of his sensations;\nbut this commentary is so shot through with the light of his searching\nintelligence, and with his sensual irony, that there is little in\nthe ramshackle structure of accepted truth capable of resisting its\nimplications. To taste it to the full, one needs, no doubt, a certain\npreliminary preparation in disillusion, but, for those who have already\nhad this, no intellectual poison is more subtly stimulating--or more\nsalutary, either.\n\nWhere, as in the case of Gourmont, the wealth to draw upon is so\ngreat, a book of selections is particularly difficult. A word may be\nadded here as to the plan of the present volume. In the preface to _La\nCulture des Id\u00e9es_, which gave him his first reputation, and which\nremains the cornerstone of his critical achievement, Gourmont refers\nto the incoherence in its composition, which \"no preface can either\ncorrect or palliate.\"\n\n\"What good is it for me to pretend, for example,\" he asks, \"that these\nmiscellaneous articles are closely bound together by a common idea?\nDoubtless some of them hang together fairly well, and seem even to\ngrow one out of the other; but, in its ensemble, the book is merely a\ncollection of articles. When Voltaire wanted to give his opinion on a\ncurrent topic, he published a pamphlet. We, to-day, publish an article\nin a review or a journal. But Voltaire, at the end of the year, did\nnot gather his various pamphlets into a volume. He let them follow\ntheir destiny separately. They were collected only in his complete\nworks, where, then, it was possible, grouping them according to their\naffinities, to avoid that variegated air necessarily assumed by our\ncollections of articles.\"\n\nWhat has here been attempted is a first _triage_ of a part--the\nessential part--of Gourmont's work, and its logical rearrangement. At\nthe head of the volume I have placed that article on _La Dissociation\ndes Id\u00e9es_, which Gourmont himself regarded as having \"perhaps a little\nmore importance than the others\" in _La Culture des Id\u00e9es_, since in\nit he exposes his method; and this I have followed with four articles\nfrom _Le Chemin de Velours_, which are there grouped together under\nthe general head of _Nouvelles Dissociations_, and which form its\nnatural suite or sequence. In this way I feel I have been able, not\nonly to offer a book more homogeneous than either of the two from which\nits contents have been taken, but also, in a measure, to realize for\nGourmont a project which, as he explained, the conditions of modern\npublishing alone prevented him from realizing. So far as I know, this\nis the first English translation of his essays authorized by Gourmont\nor his personal representatives.\n\nFor the hitherto unpublished portrait of Gourmont which appears as\nfrontispiece to this volume, I am indebted to the very great kindness\nof Miss Natalie Clifford Barney, of Paris.\n\n                                                           W. A. B.\n\nVence (A.M.), France, 26 March, 1921.\n\n\n\n\nDECADENCE\n\nAND OTHER ESSAYS ON\n\nTHE CULTURE OF IDEAS\n\n\n\n\nTHE DISASSOCIATION OF IDEAS\n\n\nThere are two ways of thinking. One can either accept current ideas and\nassociations of ideas, just as they are, or else undertake, on his own\naccount, new associations or, what is rarer, original disassociations.\nThe intelligence capable of such efforts is, more or less, according\nto the degree, or according to the abundance and variety of its other\ngifts, a creative intelligence. It is a question either of inventing\nnew relations between old ideas, old images, or of separating old\nideas, old images united by tradition, of considering them one by one,\nfree to work them over and arrange an infinite number of new couples\nwhich a fresh operation will disunite once more, and so on till new\nties, always fragile and doubtful, are formed.\n\nIn the realm of facts and of experience such operations would\nnecessarily be limited by the resistance of matter and the\nuncompromising character of physical laws. In the purely intellectual\ndomain they are subject to logic; but logic itself being an\nintellectual fabric, its indulgence is almost unlimited. In truth,\nthe association and the disassociation of ideas (or of images, for\nthe idea is merely a worn-out image) pursue a winding course which\nit is impossible to determine, and whose general direction, even, it\nis difficult to follow. There are no ideas so remote, no images so\nill-assorted, that an easy habit of association cannot bring them\ntogether, at least, momentarily. Victor Hugo, seeing a cable wrapped\nwith rags at the point where it crossed a sharp ridge, saw, at the\nsame time, the knees of tragic actresses padded to break the dramatic\nfalls in the fifth act;[1] and these two things so remote--a rope\nanchored on a rock, and the knees of an actress--are evoked, as we\nread, in a parallel which takes our fancy because the knees and the\nrope are equally \"furred,\"[2] the first above and the latter below, at\nthe bend; because the elbow made by a cable thus cast bears a certain\nresemblance to a leg that is bent; because Giliatt's situation is quite\ntragic; and, finally, because, even while perceiving the logic of these\ncomparisons, we perceive, no less clearly, their delicious absurdity.\n\nSuch an association is perforce extremely fugitive, unless the language\nadopts it and makes of it one of those figures of speech with which\nit delights to enrich itself. It should occasion no surprise were\nthis bend of a cable to be called its \"knee.\" In any event, the two\nimages remain ever ready to be divorced, divorce being the permanent\nrule in the world of ideas, which is the world of free love. This fact\nsometimes scandalizes simple folk. Whoever first dared to say the\n\"mouth\" or the \"jaw\" of a cannon, according to which of those terms is\nthe older, was, without doubt, accused either of preciousness or of\ncoarseness. If it be improper to speak of the \"knee\" of a rope, it is\nquite proper to speak of the \"elbow\" of a pipe or the \"paunch\" of a\nbottle. But these examples are presented merely as elementary types of\na mechanism which is more familiar to us in practice than in theory.\nLeaving aside all images still living, we shall concern ourselves\nexclusively with ideas--that is to say, those tenacious and fugitive\nshades which flutter about eternally bewildered in men's brains.\n\nThere are associations of ideas so durable that they seem everlasting,\nso closely knit that they resemble those double stars which the naked\neye seeks in vain to separate. They are usually called \"commonplaces.\"\nThis expression, relic of an old rhetorical term, _loci communes\nsermonis_, has, especially since the development of individualism,\nassumed a slighting sense which it was far from possessing at the\nstart, and even as late as the seventeenth century. The meaning of\n\"commonplace\" has also been narrowed, as well as debased, till it has\ncome to be a variant of clich\u00e9, or hackneyed expression--that which has\nalready been seen or heard; and, for the mass of men, who employ words\nwithout precision, commonplace is now one of the synonyms of _clich\u00e9_.\nBut _clich\u00e9_ refers to the words, commonplace to the ideas. _Clich\u00e9_\ndefines the form or the letter, commonplace the substance or the sense.\nTo confound them is to confound the thought with the expression of the\nthought. The _clich\u00e9_ is immediately perceptible. The commonplace very\noften escapes notice if clothed in an original dress. There are not\nmany examples, in any literature, of new ideas expressed in a new form.\nThe most captious mind must commonly content itself with one or other\nof these pleasures, only too happy when not deprived of both at once,\nwhich is not very rarely the case.\n\nThe commonplace is both more and less than a hackneyed expression. It\nis hackneyed, but sometimes unavoidably so. It is hackneyed, but so\nuniversally accepted that it comes consequently to be called a truth.\nMost truths which travel the world (truths are great travellers) may\nbe regarded as commonplaces, that is to say, associations of ideas\ncommon to a large number of men, none of whom would dare deliberately\nto disassociate them. Man, in spite of his lying tendency, has great\nrespect for what he calls the truth. This is because truth is the staff\nwith which he travels through life, because commonplaces are the bread\nin his wallet, the wine in his gourd. Deprived of the truth contained\nin commonplaces, men would be without defence, without support, and\nwithout nourishment. They have so great a need of truths that they\nadopt new ones without rejecting the old. Civilized man's brain is a\nmuseum of contradictory truths. This does not disturb him, because he\nis a \"successive.\" He ruminates his truths one after the other. He\nthinks as he eats. We should vomit with horror if we had presented to\nus, in a large dish, the various aliments, from meat to fruit, mixed\nwith soup, wine and coffee, destined to form our \"successive\" repast.\nOur horror would be as great were we shown the repellent amalgam\nof contradictory truths which find lodgment in our mind. Some few\nanalytical intelligences have sought vainly to draw up in cold blood\nthe inventory of their contradictions. To each objection offered by\nreason, sentiment opposes an immediately valid excuse; for, as M.\nRibot has pointed out, the sentiments are what is strongest in us,\nrepresenting the elements of permanence and continuity. It is not\nless difficult to inventory the contradictions of others, where a\nsingle individual is concerned; for here we come up against hypocrisy\nwhich has, precisely, as its social r\u00f4le, to dissimulate the too\nstrident clash of our variegated convictions. We should then question\nall men--that is to say, the human entity--or at least groups of men\nsufficiently numerous for the cynicism of some to compensate the\nhypocrisy of others.\n\nIn the lower animal regions and in the vegetable world, budding is\none of the ways in which life is created. Scission is seen to take\nplace equally in the world of ideas; but the result, instead of being\na new life, is a new abstraction. All general grammars, or elementary\ntreatises on logic, teach how abstractions are formed. They have\nneglected to teach how they are not formed--that is, why a given\ncommonplace persists in living on without posterity. It is a somewhat\ndelicate question, but it would suggest interesting remarks for a\nchapter to be called \"Refractory commonplaces, or the impossibility of\ndisassociating certain ideas.\" It would, perhaps, be useful to examine\nfirst how ideas become associated, and to what end. The method of this\noperation is of the simplest sort. Its principle is analogy. There are\nvery remote analogies; there are others so close that they lie within\nreach of all.\n\nA great many commonplaces have an historic origin. One day two ideas\nbecame united under the influence of events, and this union proved more\nor less lasting. Having seen with its own eyes the death-struggle of\nByzantium, Europe coupled these two ideas, Byzantium-Decadence, which\nbecame a commonplace, an incontestable truth for all men who read and\nwrite, and thus necessarily for all the rest--for those who cannot\nverify the truths offered them. From Byzantium, this association of\nideas was extended to the whole Roman Empire, which is now, for sage\nand respectful historians, nothing but a succession of decadences.\nWe read recently in a weighty newspaper: \"If the despotic form of\ngovernment possessed a special virtue, conducive to the creation of\ngood armies, would not the establishment of the empire have inaugurated\nan era of development in the military power of the Romans? It was, on\nthe contrary, a signal for downfall and destruction.\" This commonplace,\nof Christian origin, has been popularized, in modern times, as\neveryone knows, by Montesquieu and Gibbon. It has been magisterially\ndisassociated by M. Gaston Paris, and is now nothing but nonsense.\nBut, as its genealogy is known--as its birth and its death have been\nwitnessed--it may serve fairly well as an example to explain the\nnature of a great historic truth.\n\nThe secret purpose of the commonplace is, in fact, to express a truth.\nIsolated ideas represent merely facts or abstractions. To form a truth,\ntwo factors are needed--a fact and an abstraction. Such, at least, is\nthe commonest mode of generation. Almost every truth, almost every\ncommonplace, may be resolved into these two elements.\n\nThe word \"truth\" may almost always be employed concurrently with\nthe word \"commonplace,\" and is thus defined, once and for all, as a\ncommonplace which has not yet been disassociated, disassociation being\nanalogous to what, in chemistry, is called analysis. Chemical analysis\nchallenges neither the existence nor the qualities of the substance\nwhich it disassociates into diverse elements often disassociable in\ntheir turn. It limits itself to liberating these elements and offering\nthem to synthesis which, varying the proportions and adding new\nelements, will, if it likes, obtain entirely different substances. With\nthe fragments of a truth can be constructed another truth \"identically\ncontrary.\" Such a task would be a mere game, but useful, nevertheless,\nlike all those exercises which limber the intelligence and lead it\ntowards that state of disdainful nobility to which it should aspire.\n\nThere are, however, truths that one dreams neither of analyzing nor of\ndenying. Whether furnished us by the secular experience of humanity,\nor forming part of the axioms of science, they are incontestable. The\npreacher who proclaimed from the pulpit, before Louis XIV, \"Gentlemen,\nwe shall all die!\" proffered a truth which the king, though he scowled,\ndid not pretend seriously to dispute. It is, however, one of those\ntruths that have doubtless experienced the greatest difficulty in\nbecoming established, and are not, even now, universally admitted.\nIt was not all at once that the Aryan races connected these two\nideas--that of death and that of necessity. Many black tribes still\nhave not reached this point. There is no natural death, no necessary\ndeath, for the Negro. The sorcerer is consulted, at each decease,\nin order to ascertain the author of this secret and magic crime. We\nourselves are still somewhat in the same mental state, and every\npremature death of a prominent man gives immediate rise to rumours of\npoisoning, of mysterious murder. Everyone remembers the legends started\nby the death of Gambetta and of F\u00e9lix Faure. They connect naturally\nwith those that stirred the end of the seventeenth century--with those\nwhich, far more than the facts, doubtless rare, darkened the sixteenth\ncentury in Italy. Stendhal, in his Roman anecdotes, overworks this\npoison superstition which must still, in our day, claim more than one\njudicial victim.\n\nMan associates ideas, not at all in accordance with verifiable\nexactitude, but with his pleasure and his interest. That is why most\ntruths are merely prejudices. Those that are least open to question are\nalso those that he has always sought to combat cunningly with the ruse\nof silence. The same inertia is opposed to the work of disassociation\nseen operating slowly on certain truths.\n\nThe state of disassociation reached by moral commonplaces seems to bear\na rather close relation to the degree of intellectual civilization.\nHere, too, it is a question of a sort of struggle, carried on, not\nby individuals, but by peoples formed into nations, against palpable\nfacts which, while augmenting the intensity of the individual life,\ndiminish, for that very reason, as experience proves, the intensity of\ncollective life and energy. There is no doubt that a man can derive\nfrom immorality itself--from his refusal to subscribe to the prejudices\ninscribed in a decalogue--a great personal benefit; but a collectivity\nof individuals too strong, too mutually independent, makes but a\nmediocre people. We have, in such cases, the spectacle of the social\ninstinct entering the lists against the individual instinct, and of\nsocieties professing, as such, a morality that each of its intelligent\nmembers, followed by a very large part of the herd, deems vain, outworn\nor tyrannical.\n\nA rather curious illustration of these principles will be found by\nexamining the present state of sexual morality. This morality, peculiar\nto Christian peoples, is based upon the exceedingly close association\nof two ideas--that of carnal pleasure and that of generation. Any\nman or people that has not disassociated these two ideas, has not\nmentally liberated the elements of this truth, namely, that outside\nof the properly generative act, accomplished under the protection of\nthe laws, whether religious or civil--the second being mere parodies\nof the first, in our essentially Christian civilizations--sexual acts\nare sins, errors, faults, weaknesses. Whoever consciously adopts\nthis rule, sanctioned by the codes, belongs evidently to a still\nrudimentary civilization. The highest civilization being that in which\nthe individual is freest, the most exempt from obligations, this\nproposition would be open to question only if taken as a provocation\nto libertinism, or as a depreciation of asceticism. It does not matter\nhere whether it be moral or immoral. It ought, if exact, to be seen,\nat the first glance, in the facts. Nothing is easier. A statistical\ntable of European natality will convince the stubbornest that there\nis a very close bond--a bond of cause and effect--between a people's\nintellectuality and its fecundity. The same is true for individuals\nas for social groups. It is as a result of intellectual weakness that\nworking-men allow their homes to be flooded with offspring. The slums\nare full of unfortunate individuals who, having begotten a dozen\nchildren, are surprised to find life harsh. These poor creatures, who\nlack even the excuse of religious beliefs, have not yet learned to\ndisassociate the idea of carnal pleasure and that of generation. In\ntheir case, the first determines the second, and their acts respond to\na childish, almost animal cerebral process. The man who has reached a\nreally human stage in the scale of intelligence, limits his offspring\nat will. It is one of his privileges, but it is among those that he\nattains only to die of them.\n\nFortunate for the individual whom it sets free, this particular\ndisassociation is, in fact, far less fortunate for a people. However,\nit will favour the further development of civilization, by maintaining\nupon the earth, the spaces required for human evolution.\n\nIt was not till fairly late that the Greeks succeeded in separating\nthe idea of woman and that of generation; but they had already\ndisassociated, at a very early date, the idea of generation and that\nof carnal pleasure. When they ceased to consider woman solely as an\ninstrument of generation, the reign of the courtesans began. The Greeks\nseem, moreover, always to have had an extremely vague sexual morality,\nthough this did not prevent them from cutting a certain figure in\nhistory.\n\nChristianity could not, without forswearing its own principles,\nencourage the disassociation of the idea of carnal pleasure and that\nof generation; but it successfully promoted, on the other hand, the\ndisassociation of the idea of love and that of carnal pleasure, and\nthis was one of the great conquests of humanity. The Egyptians were so\nfar incapable of understanding such a disassociation, that the love of\na brother and sister would have seemed nothing to them if it had not\nled to sexual intercourse. The lower classes of great cities are often\nenough quite Egyptian in this regard. The different sorts of incest\nwhich occasionally come to our notice, testify to the fact than an\nanalogous state of mind is not absolutely incompatible with a certain\nintellectual culture. The peculiarly Christian form of chaste love,\nfreed from all idea of physical pleasure, is divine love, such as it\nis seen flowering in the mystical exaltation of the contemplatives.\nThis is the really pure love, since it corresponds to nothing that\ncan be defined. It is the intelligence adoring itself in its own\ninfinite self-made image. Whatever sensual element may be involved\nhas its source in the very constitution of the human body, and in the\nlaw governing the interdependence of the organs. No account should,\ntherefore, be taken of it in a non-physiological study. What has been\nclumsily called Platonic love is thus a Christian creation. It is in\nthe last analysis a passionate friendship, as vital and jealous as\nphysical love, but freed from the idea of carnal pleasure, just as\nthe latter had already been freed from the idea of generation. This\nideal state of the human affections is the first stage on the road to\nasceticism, and asceticism might be defined as the state of mind in\nwhich all ideas are disassociated.\n\nWith the waning of the Christian influence, the first stage of\nasceticism has become a less and less frequent halting-place, and\nasceticism itself, grown equally rare, is often reached by another\nroute. In our day the idea of love has once more been closely connected\nwith the idea of physical pleasure, and moralists are busy refashioning\nits primitive association with the idea of generation. It is a rather\ncurious retrogression.\n\nAn historical psychology of humanity could be attempted by determining\nthe precise degree of disassociation attained, in the course of the\ncenturies, by a certain number of those truths which the orthodox agree\nto call primordial. This method ought even to form the base, and this\ndetermination the very aim, of history. Since everything in man comes\nback to the intelligence, everything in history ought to come back to\npsychology. It would be some excuse for the facts, were they found to\nadmit of an explanation neither diplomatic nor strategic. What was\nthe association of ideas, or the truth not yet disassociated, which\nfavoured the accomplishment of the mission which Jeanne d'Arc believed\nto have been received from heaven? To answer this question, it would\nbe necessary to discover certain ideas capable of uniting equally in\nFrench brains and in English, or a truth at that time indisputably\nadmitted by all Christendom. Jeanne d'Arc was regarded, at once by her\nfriends and by her enemies, as possessing a supernatural power. For\nthe English, she was a very potent sorceress. Opinion is unanimous on\nthis point, and there is abundant evidence. But for her partisans? For\nthem she was doubtless a sorceress also, or rather, a magician. Magic\nis not necessarily diabolical. Supernatural beings, that were neither\nangels nor demons, but Powers which man's intelligence could bring\nunder its dominion, were afloat in the imagination. The magician was\nthe good sorcerer. Were this not so, would a man as wise and as saintly\nas Albertus Magnus have been taxed with magic? The soldier who followed\nJeanne d'Arc, and the soldier who fought her, sorceress or magician,\nformed of her, quite probably, an idea identical in its dreadful\nabsurdity. But if the English shouted the name of sorceress, the French\nwithheld the name of \"magician,\" doubtless for the same reason which so\nlong protected the usurper Ta-Kiang through the marvellous adventures\nnarrated by Judith Gautier in her admirable _Dragon Imp\u00e9rial_.\n\nWhat idea, at any given moment, did each class of society form of the\nsoldier? Would not the answer to this question contain a whole course\nin history? Coming down to our own time, it might be asked at what\nmoment the idea of honour and the military idea became united in the\ncommon mind. Is the union a survival of the aristocratic conception\nof the army? Was the association formed as a result of the events of\nthirty years ago, when the people decided to exalt the soldier for its\nown encouragement? This idea of honour should be clearly understood. It\ncontains several other ideas--ideas of bravery, of disinterestedness,\nof discipline, of sacrifice, of heroism, of probity, of loyalty, of\nfrankness, of good humour, of openness, of simplicity, etc. The word\nitself would, in fine, be found to sum up the qualities of which the\nFrench race believes itself to be the expression. To determine its\norigin would be, then, to determine automatically the period when\nthe Frenchman began to believe himself a compendium of all the manly\nvirtues. The military man has remained in France, in spite of recent\nobjections, the very type of the man of honour. The two ideas are\nunited very energetically. They form a truth which is scarcely disputed\nto-day, except by individuals of slight authority or of doubtful\nsincerity. Its disassociation is, therefore, very little advanced as\nregards the nation as a whole. It was, however, for a moment at least,\ncompletely effected in certain minds. This involved, from the strictly\nintellectual point of view, a considerable effort of abstraction which\nwe cannot but admire when we regard dispassionately the cerebral\nmachine in its functioning. Doubtless the result achieved was not\nthe product of normal reasoning. The disassociation was accomplished\nin a fit of fever. It was unconscious, and it was momentary; but it\n_was_, and that is the important point for the observer. The idea of\nhonour, with all it implies, became separated from the military idea,\nwhich, in this instance, is the factual idea, the female idea, ready\nto receive all the modifiers, and it was perceived that, if there\nwas a certain logical relation between them, this relation was not\nnecessary. There is the decisive point. A truth is dead when it has\nbeen shown that the relations between the elements are habitual, and\nnot necessary; and, as the death of a truth is a great benefit for\nmankind, this disassociation would have been very important if it had\nbeen definitive, if it had remained stable. Unfortunately, after the\neffort to attain the pure idea, the old mental habits resumed their\nsway. The former modifying element was instantly replaced by an element\nby no means new, less logical than the other, and even less necessary.\nThe operation seemed to have miscarried. Association of ideas occurred\nagain in the very same form as before, though one of the elements had\nnow been turned inside out, like an old glove. For honour had been\nsubstituted dishonour, with all the adventitious ideas belonging to\nthe old element transformed into cowardice, deceitfulness, lack of\ndiscipline, falseness, duplicity, wickedness, etc. This new association\nof ideas may have a destructive value, but it offers no intellectual\ninterest.\n\nThe moral of this anecdote is that the ideas which seem to us the\nclearest, the most evident,--the most palpable, as it were--are, even\nso, not strong enough to impose themselves in all their nakedness\nupon the average mind. In order to assimilate the idea of the army,\na contemporary brain must swathe it with elements which have only a\nchance or current relation with the main idea. A humble politician\ncannot, doubtless, be expected to adopt Napoleon's simple idea of\nan army as a sword. Very simple ideas lie within the reach of very\ncomplicated minds only. It seems, however, that it should not be absurd\nto regard the army merely as the exteriorized force of a nation, and\nthen to demand of this particular force only those very qualities which\nare demanded of force in general. But perhaps even this is too simple?\n\nWhat excellent opportunities the present offers for one who would\nstudy the mechanism of the association and disassociation of ideas!\nWe often talk of ideas. We write on the evolution of ideas. Yet no\nword is vaguer or more ill-defined. There are na\u00efve writers who hold\nforth on the Idea, with a capital I. There are co-operative societies\nthat start out suddenly in quest of the Idea. There are people who\ndevote themselves to the Idea, who live with their gaze fixed upon the\nIdea. Just what is meant by such rambling? That is what I have never\nbeen able to understand. Employed thus, alone, the word is perhaps a\ncorruption of the word Ideal. Is the modifying term perhaps understood\nalso? Is it a stray fragment of the Hegelian philosophy which the\nslow advance of the great social glacier has, in passing, deposited\nin certain heads, where it rolls and clatters about like a rock? No\none knows. Employed as a relative, the word is not much clearer in\nordinary phraseologies. Its primitive meaning is too far forgotten, as\nwell as the fact that an idea is nothing but an image that has reached\nthe state of abstraction, of notion; but it is forgotten also that,\nin order to be entitled to the name of idea, a notion must be free\nfrom all compromise with the contingent. A notion, reaching the estate\nof idea, has become indisputable. It is a cipher, a sign--one of the\nletters in the alphabet of thought.\n\nIdeas cannot be classed as true and false. The idea is necessarily\ntrue. An idea that can be disputed is an idea mingled with concrete\nnotions, that is to say, a truth. The work of disassociation tends,\nprecisely, to free the truth from all its fragile part, in order\nto obtain the pure, one, and consequently unassailable idea. But\nif words were never used save in their unique and absolute sense,\nconnected discourse would be difficult. There must be left a little\nof that vagueness and flexibility which usage has given them; and, in\nparticular, too much stress must not be laid upon the gap separating\nthe abstract from the concrete. There is an intermediate state between\nice and water--that in which the latter begins to congeal, when it\nstill cracks and yields under the pressure of the hand plunged into\nit. Perhaps we should not even demand that the words contained in\nphilosophic handbooks should abdicate all pretension to ambiguity.\n\nThe idea of army, which aroused serious polemics, and which was\nliberated an instant, only to be obscured anew, is one of those\nthat border on the concrete and cannot be spoken of without minute\nreferences to reality. The idea of justice, on the contrary, can be\nconsidered in itself, _in abstracto_. In the inquiry made by M. Ribot\non the subject of general ideas, almost all those who heard the word\nJustice pronounced, saw, in their mind's eye, the legendary lady with\nthe scales. There is, in this traditional representation of an abstract\nidea, a notion of the very origin of that idea.\n\nThe idea of justice is, in fact, nothing but the idea of equilibrium.\nJustice is the dead-point in a series of acts--the ideal point at\nwhich contrary forces neutralize each other to produce inertia. Life\nwhich had passed this dead-point of absolute justice could not longer\nlive, since the idea of life, identical with that of a conflict of\nforces, is necessarily the idea of justice. The reign of justice could\nonly be the reign of silence and of petrification. Mouths cease to\nspeak--vain organs of stupefied brains--and arms uplifted in suspended\ngesture describe nothing further in the frozen air. Theologians\nsituated justice beyond the world, in eternity. There only can it be\nconceived, and there only can it, without danger to life, exercise\nonce and for all its tyranny which knows but one sort of decree, the\ndecree of death. The idea of justice, then, clearly belongs to the\nseries of ideas that are indisputable and undemonstrable. Nothing can\nbe done with it in its pure state. It must be associated with some\nelement of fact, or we must cease using a word which corresponds only\nto an inconceivable entity. To tell the truth, the idea of justice\nis perhaps here disassociated for the first time. Under this name\nmen allege sometimes the idea of punishment, which is very familiar\nto them, sometimes the idea of non-punishment--a neutral idea, mere\nshadow of the former. It is question of punishing the guilty and of\nnot disturbing the innocent--a distinction which, in order to be\ncomprehensible, would immediately imply a definition of guilt and\na definition of innocence. That is difficult, these words from the\nmoral dictionary having to-day nothing but a dwindling and entirely\nrelative significance. And why, it might be asked, should a guilty man\nbe punished? It would seem, on the contrary, as if the innocent man,\nwho is supposed to be healthy and normal, were much more capable of\nsupporting punishment than the guilty man, who is sick and weakly. Why\nshould not the imbecile, who has let himself be robbed, be punished\ninstead of the robber, who has certain excuses to offer? That is\nwhat justice would decree if, instead of a theological conception,\nit were still, as at Sparta, an imitation of nature. Nothing exists\nsave by virtue of disequilibrium, of injustice. Every existence is\na theft practised upon other existences. No life flourishes except\nin a cemetery. If, instead of being the denier of natural laws,\nhumanity wished to become their auxiliary, it would seek to protect\nthe strong against the coalition of the weak, and give the people to\nthe aristocrats as a footstool. It would seem, on the contrary, as if\nthat which is to-day understood by justice were, simultaneously with\nthe punishment of the guilty, the extermination of the strong, and,\nsimultaneously with the non-punishment of the innocent, the exaltation\nof the humble. The origin of this complex, bastard, hypocritical idea\nshould then be sought in the Gospel, in the \"woe to the rich\" of\nthe Jewish demagogues. Thus understood, the idea of justice appears\ncontaminated at once by hatred and by envy. It no longer retains\nanything of its original meaning, and one cannot attempt its analysis\nwithout danger of being duped by the vulgar meaning of the words.\nYet, with a little care, it would be seen that the depreciation of\nthis useful term arose originally from a confusion between the idea\nof right and the idea of punishment. The day when justice came to\nmean sometimes criminal justice, sometimes civil justice, the world\nconfused these two practical notions, and the teachers of the people,\nincapable of a serious effort of disassociation, have come to magnify\na misunderstanding which, moreover, serves their own interests. The\nreal idea of justice appears then, finally, as quite non-existent in\nthe very word which figures in the human vocabulary. This word resolves\nitself, on analysis, into elements which are still very complex, and\namong which may be distinguished the idea of right and the idea of\npunishment. But there is so much that is illogical in this curious\ncoupling, that we should be inclined to doubt the accuracy of our\noperation, did not the social facts furnish its proof.\n\nWe might here examine this question: do abstract words really exist for\nthe people, for the average man? Probably not. It would even seem as if\nthe same word attained only graduated stages of abstraction, according\nto the degree of intellectual culture. The pure idea is more or less\ncontaminated by concern for personal, caste or group interests, and\nthe word justice, for example, thus clothes all sorts of particular\nand limited meanings under the weight of which its supreme sense\ndisappears, overwhelmed.\n\nThe moment an idea is disassociated and it enters thus, quite\nnaked, into circulation, it begins to pick up, in the course of its\nwanderings, all sorts of parasitic vegetations. Sometimes the original\norganism disappears entirely, devoured by the egoistic colonies which\ndevelop in it. A very amusing example of the way in which ideas are\nthus deflected was recently given by the corporation of house-painters,\nat the ceremony called the \"Triumph of the Republic.\" These workmen\ncarried a banner on which their demands for social justice were summed\nup in the cry: \"Down with Ripolin!\" The reader should know that Ripolin\nis a prepared paint which anyone can apply, in order to understand the\nfull sincerity of this slogan as well as its artlessness. Ripolin here\nrepresents injustice and oppression. It is the enemy, the devil. We\nall have our ripolin with which we colour, according to our needs, the\nabstract ideas which otherwise would be of no personal use to us.\n\nIt is under one of these motleys that the idea of liberty is presented\nto us by the politicians. Hearing this word, we now perceive little\nother than the idea of political liberty, and it would seem as if all\nthe liberties which man is capable of enjoying were summed up in this\nambiguous expression. Moreover, it is the same with the pure idea of\nliberty, as with the pure idea of justice; it is of no use to us in\nthe ordinary business of life. Neither man nor nature is free, any\nmore than either is just. Reasoning has no hold upon such ideas. To\nexpress them is to assert them, but they would necessarily falsify\nevery argument into which one might wish to introduce them. Reduced\nto its social significance, the idea of liberty is still incompletely\ndisassociated. There is no general idea of liberty, and it is difficult\nto form one, since the liberty of an individual is exercised only at\nthe expense of the liberty of others. Formerly liberty was called\nprivilege. Taking everything into account, that is perhaps its true\nname. Even to-day one of our relative liberties--the liberty of the\npress--is an ensemble of privileges. Privileges also are the liberty\nof speech granted to lawyers, the liberty of trade unions, and,\nto-morrow, the liberty of association as it is now proposed to us. The\nidea of liberty is perhaps only an emphatic corruption of the idea of\nprivilege. The Latins, who made great use of the word liberty, meant by\nit the privilege of the Roman citizen.\n\nIt is seen that there is often an enormous gap between the common\nmeaning of a word and its real significance in the depths of obscure\nverbal consciousnesses, whether because several associated ideas\nare expressed by a single word, or because the primitive idea has\nbeen submerged by the invasion of a secondary idea. It is thus\npossible--especially in dealing with generalizations--to write\nsentences having at once an apparent and a secret meaning. Words,\nwhich are signs, are almost always ciphers as well. The unconscious\nconventional language is very much in use, and there are even matters\nwhere it is the only one employed. But cipher implies deciphering. It\nis not easy to understand even the sincerest writing, and the author\nhimself often goes astray because the meaning of words varies not only\nfrom one man to another, but from moment to moment, in the case of the\nsame man. Language is thus a great cause of deception. It evolves in\nabstraction, while life evolves in complete concrete reality. Between\nspeech and the things designated by speech, there is the same distance\nas between a landscape and the description of a landscape. And it must\nstill further be borne in mind that the landscapes which we depict\nare known to us, most often, only through words which are, in turn,\nreflections of anterior words. Yet we understand each other. It is a\nmiracle which I have no intention of analyzing at present. It will\nbe more to our purpose, in concluding this sketch, which is merely a\nmethod, to undertake the examination of the quite modern ideas of art\nand of beauty.\n\nI am ignorant of their origins, but they are later than the classic\nlanguages, which possess no fixed and precise words to express them,\nthough the ancients were as well able as we to enjoy the reality\nthey contain--better, even. They are intertangled. The idea of art\nis dependent upon the idea of beauty; but this latter idea is itself\nnothing but the idea of harmony, and the idea of harmony reduces\nitself to the idea of logic. The beautiful is that which is in its\nplace. Thence arise the sentiments of pleasure given us by beauty. Or\nrather, beauty is a logic which is perceived as a pleasure. If this\nbe admitted, it will at once be understood why the idea of beauty, in\nsocieties dominated by women, is almost always restricted to the idea\nof feminine beauty. Beauty is a woman. There is in this an interesting\nsubject for analysis, but the question is somewhat complicated. It\nwould be necessary to show, first, that woman is no more beautiful than\nman; that, situated on the same plane in nature, constructed on the\nsame model, made of the same flesh, she would appear to a sensitive\nintelligence, exterior to humanity, exactly the female of man--exactly\nwhat, for man, a jenny is to a jack. And, observing them more closely,\nthe Martian, who wished to learn something concerning the aesthetics of\nterrestrial forms, would even note that, if there be a real difference\nin beauty between a man and a woman of the same race, of the same\ncaste, and of the same age, this difference is almost always in favour\nof the man; and that, moreover, if neither the man nor the woman be\nentirely beautiful, the defects of the human race are more accentuated\nin the woman, where the twofold projection of the belly and the\nbuttocks--sexual attractions, no doubt--breaks unpleasantly the double\nline of the silhouette. The curve of the breasts is almost inflected\nunder the influence of the back, which has a hollow tendency. Cranach's\nnudes confess na\u00efvely these eternal imperfections of woman. Another\ndefect which artists, when they have taste, remedy instinctively, is\nthe shortness of the legs, so marked in the photographs of nude women.\nThis cold anatomy of feminine beauty has often been made. It is, then,\nuseless to insist upon it--all the more because, unfortunately, its\nverification is only too easy. But if woman's beauty be so vulnerable\nto criticism, how does it happen that, in spite of all, it remains\nindisputable--that it has become for us the very basis and leaven of\nthe idea of beauty? It is a sexual illusion. The idea of beauty is\nnot a pure idea. It is intimately connected with the idea of carnal\npleasure. Stendhal had an obscure perception of this line of reasoning\nwhen he defined beauty as \"a promise of happiness.\" Beauty is a woman,\neven for women themselves, who have carried docility with regard to\nmen to the point of adopting this aphorism which they are capable of\nunderstanding only under the form of extreme sensual perversion. We\nknow, however, that women have a particular type of beauty, which men\nhave naturally branded \"doll-like.\" If women were sincere, they would\nlong ago have stigmatized equally the type of feminine beauty by which\nman most readily lets himself be seduced.\n\nThis identification of woman and beauty goes so far to-day that we\nhave had innocently proposed us the \"apotheosis of woman,\" meaning the\nglorification of beauty, with all the promises contained in Stendhal's\ndefinition taken in its erotic sense. Beauty is a woman and woman is a\nbeauty. The caricaturists accentuate the common sentiment by invariably\ncoupling with a woman, whom they strive to render beautiful, a man\nwhose ugliness they stress to the extreme of vulgarity; and this in\nspite of the fact that pretty women are so rare in life, that after\nthirty a woman is almost always inferior, age for age, in plastic\nbeauty, to her husband or lover. It is true that this inferiority is no\neasier to demonstrate than it is to feel, and that reasoning remains\nineffective, once the page is finished, for the reader as well as for\nthe writer; and this is very fortunate.\n\nThe idea of beauty has never been disassociated save by aestheticians.\nThe common run of men accept Stendhal's definition, which amounts to\nsaying that this idea does not exist--that it has been absolutely\ndevoured by the idea of happiness--of sexual happiness, happiness given\nby a woman. That is why the cult of beauty is suspect for moralists who\nhave analyzed the value of certain abstract words. They translate this\none by the cult of the flesh, and they would be right, if that last\nexpression did not imply a somewhat silly attack upon one of man's most\nnatural tendencies. The necessary result has been that, in opposing\nsuch excessive apotheosis of woman, they have infringed upon the rights\nof art. Art being the expression of beauty, and it being possible to\nunderstand beauty only under the material aspects of the true idea\nwhich it contains, art has become almost uniquely feminine. Beauty is\nwoman; and art, also, is woman. But the latter is less absolute. The\nnotion of art is even fairly clear for artists and for the _\u00e9lite_. The\nidea of art has been extremely well liberated. There is a pure art\nwhich is concerned exclusively with self-realization. No definition\nof it even should be given; for such a definition could not be made\nwithout connecting the idea of art with ideas which are foreign to it,\nand which would tend to obscure and sully it.\n\nPrevious to this disassociation, which is recent, and whose origin\nis known, the idea of art was connected with diverse ideas which are\nnormally foreign to it--ideas of morality, of utility, or education.\nArt was the edifying illustration introduced into religious or\nphilosophical catechism. This was the conception of the last two\ncenturies. We freed ourselves from that yoke. There are now those who\nwould like to put it back upon our necks. The idea of art has again\nbeen sullied, this time with the idea of utility. Art is called social\nby modern preachers. It is also called democratic, both epithets being\nwell chosen, if it was meant by them to imply complete negation of its\nprincipal function. Admitting art because it can improve individuals\nor the masses, is like admitting roses because an eye-wash can be\nextracted from them. It is confounding two series of notions which\nthe well-regulated exercise of the intelligence places upon entirely\ndifferent planes. The plastic arts have a language; but this language\ncannot be translated into words and phrases. The work of art says\nthings which are addressed directly to the aesthetic sense, and to\nit alone. What it can add, in such a way as to be understood by our\nother, faculties, is not worth listening to. And yet it is this\nnegligible element which interests the boosters of social art. They\nare the majority and, as we are governed by the law of numbers, their\ntriumph seems assured. The idea of art will, perhaps, prove to have\nbeen disassociated for a few years only, and for a small group of\nintelligences.\n\nThere are, then, a very large number of ideas that are never employed\nby men in their pure state, either because they have not yet been\ndisassociated, or because this disassociation has been incapable of\nachieving stability. There are also a great many ideas which exist in\nthe state of disassociation, or that can provisionally be considered so\nto exist, but which have a special affinity for other ideas with which\nthey are most commonly encountered. There are still others which seem\nrefractory to certain associations, whereas the facts to which they\ncorrespond are, in reality, extremely frequent. Here are a few examples\nof these affinities and of these repulsions, chosen in the profoundly\ninteresting realm of commonplaces, or truths.\n\nFlags were originally religious tokens, like the oriflamme of\nSaint-Denis, and their symbolic utility has remained at least as\ngreat as their real usefulness. But how, outside of war, have they\nbecome symbols of the idea of country? This is easier to explain by\nthe facts themselves than by abstract logic. To-day, in nearly all\ncivilized countries, the idea of country and the idea of flag are\ninvincibly associated. The two words are even interchangeable. But\nthis is a question of symbolism quite as much as of association of\nideas. Insistence upon it would lead us to the language of colours,\ncounterpart of the language of flowers, but still more unstable and\narbitrary. If it is amusing to note that the blue of the French flag is\nthe consecrated colour of the Virgin and of the children of Mary, it\nis no less so to find that the pious purple of the robe of Saint-Denis\nhas become a revolutionary symbol. Like the atoms of Epicurus, ideas\ncling together as best they may, through chance encounters, shocks and\naccidents.\n\nCertain associations, though very recent, have rapidly acquired a\nsingular authority, like those of education and intelligence, of\neducation and morality. But, at most, education may have something\nto say for one of the particular forms of memory, or for a literal\nknowledge of the commonplaces contained in the Decalogue. The\nabsurdity of these forced relations appears very clearly in that\nwhich concerns woman. It seems clear that there is a certain sort of\neducation--that which they receive to-day--which, far from stimulating\ntheir intelligence, tends rather to blunt it. Since they have been\neducated seriously, they no longer have the least influence either\nin politics or in literature. Compare, in this connection, our last\nthirty years with the last thirty years of the _ancien r\u00e9gime_.\nThese two associations of ideas have, nevertheless, become veritable\ncommonplaces--truths which it is as useless to expose as to combat.\nThey take their place with all those which infest books and the\ndegenerate lobes of man's brain--with old and venerable truths like:\nvirtue-recompense, vice-punishment, God-goodness, crime-remorse,\nduty-happiness, authority-respect, unhappiness-punishment,\nfuture-progress, and thousands of others, some of which, though absurd,\nare useful to mankind.\n\nIt would be equally possible to make a long catalogue of the\nideas which men refuse to associate, while delighting in the most\ndisconcerting _d\u00e9bauches_. We have given above the explanation of this\nstubborn attitude, namely, that their principal occupation is the\npursuit of happiness, and that they are much more concerned with\nreasoning in accordance with their interests than with the rules of\nlogic.\n\nThence the universal aversion to connecting the idea of nothingness\nwith the idea of death. Though the former is evidently contained in the\nlatter, humanity insists upon considering them separately. It opposes\ntheir union with all its force, never tiring of driving between them a\nchimerical wedge upon which resound the hammer-blows of hope. This is\nthe finest example of the illogical that we can offer ourselves for our\ndiversion, and the best proof that, in the gravest matters, as in those\nof slightest concern, it is sentiment which always triumphs over reason.\n\nIs it a great thing to have learned that? Perhaps.\n\nNovember, 1899.\n\n\n[1] _Les Travailleurs de la Mer_, 2nd part, 1st Book, VII.\n\n[2] Technical term.\n\n\n\n\nGLORY AND THE IDEA OF IMMORTALITY\n\n\nI\n\n\nThe idea of glory is not one of the most difficult to resolve. It can\nbe identified with the general idea of immortality, of which it is\nbut one of the secondary and na\u00efver forms, differing from it only in\nthe substitution of vanity for pride. In the one we have the idea of\nduration fortified by the pride of a being who believes himself of\nimmortal importance, but who consents to enjoy without fuss an absolute\nperennity. In the other, vanity, replacing pride, puts aside the idea\nof the absolute, or, declaring itself incapable of attaining it,\nclings to a desire of eternity, no doubt, but an objective eternity,\nperceptible to others--a ceremonial eternity which wastes in world-wide\nrepute that which absolute immortality gains in depth and in proud\nhumility.\n\nAbstract words define inadequately an abstract idea. It is better to\nfall back upon the common opinion. Everybody knows what glory is. Every\nwriter pictures to himself literary glory. Nothing is clearer than this\nsort of illusion. Nothing is clearer than love and desire. Definitions,\nwhich are indispensable for dictionaries only, contain of reality\nprecisely what a net, raised at the wrong moment from the sea where\nit awaited its prey, contains of obscure, squirming life. Sea-weed\nwrithes in its meshes. Lanky creatures stir their translucent claws,\nand here are all sorts of helices or of valvules which a mechanical\nsensibility keeps tight-shut. But reality, which was a big fish, with\na sudden swish of its tail, flopped overboard. Generally speaking,\nclear, neat sentences have no meaning. They are affirmative gestures,\nsuggesting obedience, and that is all. The human mind is so complex,\nand things are so tangled up in each other that, in order to explain a\nblade of grass, the entire universe would have to be taken to pieces;\nand in no language is there a single authentic word upon which a lucid\nintelligence could not construct a psychological treatise, a history\nof the world, a novel, a poem, a drama, according to the day and the\ntemperature. The definition is a sack of compressed flour contained in\na thimble. What can we do with it, unless we are antarctic explorers?\nIt is more to the point to place a pinch of flour under the microscope\nand seek patiently, amid the bran, the living starch. In what is left\nafter analyzing the idea of immortality, the idea of glory will be\nfound a shining speck of gold.\n\nMan still believes himself the last achievement of the creative\npower. Darwin, corroborating the Bible, ushered the human couple out\nof the shades on the sixth day only; and the leading scientists take\nthe same stand--a fact which favours those dubious books in which\nthe questionable concordance of Science and Faith is celebrated. But\nDarwinism is on the eve of disappearing before preciser notions.\nTo-morrow we shall no longer be obliged to believe that the creator of\nthe universe, having organized the lower species without moral ideas,\ninvented man for the purpose of depositing in his brain a principle\nwhich it had got along very well without itself, in the course of its\npreparatory labours. If man is no longer the latest arrival,--if he\nis a very old animal in the history of life,--if the flower of the\nlife-tree is not Adam but the Dove,--then the whole metaphysic of\nmorals will collapse. What! after the masterpiece, Man, He (or She,\naccording to which meaningless word may be professed) humbles Himself\nto make the Bird! What! the stork after Abraham's ancestor! Yet so it\nis. M. Quinton's labours[1] will no longer permit us to doubt it. It\nbecomes certain that the human intelligence, far from being the goal of\ncreation, is only an accident, and that moral ideas are but parasitic\nvegetations arising from an excess of nutrition. The phenomena of\nintelligence, moral consciousness, and all the titles of nobility\nengrossed on the parchment, might perfectly well, no doubt, have\nappeared in any other species whatsoever. The birds, whose evolution\nis as yet incomplete, will not, perhaps, be exempted from them. Their\narterial system is superior to man's--simpler and stronger. They can\neat without interrupting their breathing. They steal, they speak, they\ncan recite the Rights of Man or the Nicene Creed--supreme achievements\nof large numbers of men. The bird, chronological king of creation, has\nremained, till now, and in spite of its improvements, an animal. The\nbird series does not seem, in point of intelligence, superior to that\nof the mammals, among which Man figures as an inexplicable exception.\nIntelligence could then be regarded as an end, only if each of the\nanimal species were rigorously determined and stationary. This is M.\nQuinton's opinion, at least provisionally. The species, since they\nare species--since the individuals which compose them are reproduced\nin beings identical with themselves--the species, such as they are\ndefined, by these very syllables--spec-i-es--may disappear, but they\ncan no longer change. Man has quite certainly passed through various\nstates in which he was not a man; but the day man produced a man,\nhumanity began immutable. It is then possible that human intelligence,\ninstead of being an accident, a derogation, was determined, from the\nbeginning, like the human hand, the human feet, the human hair. It\nwould then have a normal, logical r\u00f4le in the universe, and its very\nexcess--genius--would be but exuberance of energy. But we should still\nhave to explain the bird's stupidity. Is it, perhaps, an evidence of\nthe intellectual degeneration of the creative forces? The most probable\nopinion is that intelligence is an excrescence, like an oak-apple. To\nwhat insect's bite do we owe it? We shall never know.\n\nIt matters little whether the intelligence be, as Taine believed, a\nnormal product of the brain, or a malady, especially as a blemish,\ntransmitted as such from generation to generation, ends by losing its\npathological characteristics. It becomes an integral and normal part\nof the organism.[2] Its accidental origin is, however, corroborated\nby this, that although an excellent instrument for a priori\ncombinations, the intelligence is, one would say, especially unfitted\nfor the perception of realities. It is to this infirmity that we owe\nmetaphysics, religions and ethical systems. As the external world can\nreach the consciousness only by scrupulously conforming to all the\nnooks and crannies of the pocket, it turns out that, believing to hold\nan image of the world, we have only an image of ourselves. Certain\nrectifications are possible. Analysis of the phenomena of vision has\nmade us admit that. By comparing our sensations and our ideas with what\nwe can comprehend of the sensations and ideas of others, we arrive at a\ndetermination of probable averages; but, above all, negative averages.\nIt would be easier to draw up a list of non-truths than a list of\ntruths. To affirm that a given religion is false, no longer denotes\ngreat boldness of intellect or even much intellect. The veracity of any\nreligion whatsoever is to-day a subject for controversy only for the\nvarious European clergies who make their living out of it, or for those\nbelated rationalists who, like their master Kant, are ever awaiting the\npropitious and lucrative hour for opportune conversions. But, to the\nna\u00efve question presented by those who, like nature, in the seventeenth\ncentury, abhor a vacuum:--\"What will you put in its place?\"--no answer\ncan be made. It is enough, and it is no small thing at that, to have\ntransmuted a truth into a non-truth. The higher calling of criticism is\nnot even, as Pierre Bayle proclaimed, to sow doubts; it must destroy.\nThe intelligence is an excellent instrument of negation. It is time to\nemploy it, and so stop trying to rear palaces with picks and torches.\n\nThe history of the idea of immortality is a good example of our\ncongenital inability to perceive realities otherwise than reshaped and\nworked over by the understanding. The idea of immortality is born of\nbelief in the double. In sleep, and while the body is inert, there is\na part of man that stirs, that travels, that fights, that eats, enjoys\nor suffers, exhibits all the phenomena of life. This part of man, this\ndouble of man, this astral body, survives the decomposition of the\nmaterial body, whose habits and needs it keeps. Such, doubtless, is the\norigin of the belief in what, since Hellenism, we call the immortality\nof the soul. In an earlier stage, the Egyptian religion was based upon\nthe theory of the double. It was for doubles, and not for souls, that\nfirst real, and later symbolic, food was placed in the tombs. But the\nEgyptian religion was already charged, in addition, with the idea of\njustice, of equilibrium. The doubles were weighed in the scales of\ngood and evil. Ethical metaphysics had obscured the primitive idea of\nimmortality, which is nothing but the idea of indefinite duration.\n\nFor theologians, for philosophers--if there still be any to profess\nthese honest doctrines--for the common run of men, the idea of\nimmortality, or of the future life, is intimately connected with the\nidea of justice. Eternal happiness is a compensation accorded human\nsorrows. There are also--but these are for theologians only--personal\ntorments to punish infractions of priestly orders, which tortures\nare, moreover, an additional recompense for the good, and a guarantee\nagainst promiscuity. We have here an aristocratic selection, but one\nbased upon the idea of good and bad, instead of upon that of strength\nand weakness. These strange reversals of values enraged Nietzsche. They\nshould be accepted as at least transitory consequences of civilized\nman's sensibility. Primitive man, whose nervous vibrations are few, and\nwhose intelligence is passive, feels suffering, though dully, but does\nnot feel injustice, which is moral suffering. To encounter a similar\nstate we must cross the middle regions, and question a Goethe, a Taine\nor a Nietzsche--men in whom intelligence has finally conquered by\nits very excess, repelling the pleadings of pity and the sentimental\npitfalls of justice. If the idea of immortality had been born in a\nsuperior intelligence, it would have differed only by its greater logic\nfrom the brutal conceptions of primitive humanity.\n\nM. Marillier has collected and co-ordinated all that which, in the\nbeliefs of the uncivilized, relates to the survival of the soul.[3] The\nensemble of the facts shows that the idea of justice has had not the\nslightest share in forming the conception of the idea of immortality.\nThere have been few discoveries more important for the history of human\nbeliefs. The idea of immortality was, at first, as M. Marillier has\nthe hardihood to assert, a purely scientific conception. It is the\nmagnification and prolongation of a fact--of a fact badly observed,\nbut still a fact. The future life is the continuation of the present\nlife, and involves the same customs, the same pleasures, the same\nannoyances. This world also has a double: the other world. The bad and\nthe good, the strong and the weak, continue there as here. Sometimes\nlife, without change in the relations of its elements, is more clement\nin the other world. Sometimes, in the same conditions, it is worse.\nBut, whether the future life be considered as better or worse, it is\nthe same for all. Better still, it implies perfect equality in those\ncommonplace pleasures which are the average ideal of the civilized man\nas well as of the savage. The tribes of New Guinea, rendered anaemic by\nhunger, dream of eating unlimited sago throughout eternity. As it would\nbe possible to discover, even in this egalitarian paradise, some vague\nidea of compensation, hence of justice; we must go farther, to Java,\nwhere paradise--doubtless because of an excessive toll--was accessible\nonly to the rich; to those resigned races, where alone the kings, the\npriest and the nobles, were saved; to Borneo, where the hereafter,\ndivided into seven circles, corresponded to the seven circles of the\nsocial hierarchy. In another corner of the great island, \"every person\nwhom a man kills in this world becomes his slave in the next.\" There\nwe have a paradise clearly based upon the idea of force, and a belief\nwhich laughs a little at the categorical imperative. Not only is the\nweak not \"recompensed,\" but his weakness and his suffering may, through\nthe caprice of the strong, be raised to the infinite. The slayer has\nacquired an immortal profit. Societies in which there is poetry, art,\nlaughter, love, still exist with such a morality. The fact may sadden,\nbut it does not surprise us; for it is evident that we have here a\nterrible element of resistance against foreigners. Such a system has\nits drawbacks. From time to time, in Borneo, a band of young Dyaks who\nhave not yet killed, dash into a town and slay. Having thus gained\nimmortal life and a slave, they remain more tranquil thereafter. Among\nthe Shans, a man killed by an elephant forfeits paradise. Eaten by a\ntiger, he becomes a tiger. Women who die in child-bed become ghouls\nand haunt the tombs, their feet reversed, heels foremost. In the\nMariannas, there is a heaven and a hell. Violent death leads to hell,\nnatural death to paradise. These people were destined to be slaves from\nall eternity. In another region of Oceania, the fate of the soul is\ndecided by the family of the deceased, who throw dice for it. Odd means\nannihilation, even eternal happiness. In Tahiti, the blind souls, on\nleaving the body, wander away to a plain where there are two stones.\nOne, touched first, confers immortal life, the other eternal death.\nThis is almost sublimely absurd. It is as grandiose and terrible as\npredestination. Saint Augustine placed the one in the night, before\nbirth. The Tahitians situated the other in the shades, after death.\nProtestantism, to which those poor people have since surrendered, has\nnot much changed their beliefs. Generally speaking, the greatest effort\nof a religious or philosophical innovator is to put at the end what was\noriginally at the beginning, or vice versa.\n\nBy connecting itself with the idea of immortality, the idea of justice\nhas, then, singularly disturbed its original character. It has even\ncontaminated the idea of earthly immortality--the idea of glory.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nHow glory, first reserved for the kings and warriors sung by the\npoets, has come finally to be attributed to the poets themselves, even\nmore than to the heroes of their poems, is an historic fact whose\nexact origin would be of little interest. It would be more curious\nto discover as a result of what change in the manners and customs,\nor through what enhancement of egoism and of vanity, the complicated\nidea of justice came to attach itself to the idea of the perennity of\nthe name and of the work. At what epoch of Greek civilization, did an\nAthenian dramatist, whose play had been flouted by the public, have the\nboldness to appeal to posterity? Are any ancient texts known wherein\nsuch recriminations may be read? Sensibility has increased to such\nan extent that there exists to-day no scorned poetaster who does not\ndream of the justice of future generations. The _exigi monumentum_ of\nHorace and Malherbe has become democratized; but how can we believe\nthat the vanity of authors has ever had a beginning? The fact must be\nadmitted, however, in order to keep within the logic of the successive\ndevelopments of human character.\n\nLiterary glory was at first merely the sentiment of the future duration\nof the present reputation--a legitimate sentiment which accords fairly\nwell with the facts; for absolute revivals are almost as rare as solid\nrehabilitations. To-day it is a scientific probability. \u00c6schylus\nbelieved that the relation existing in his own lifetime between the\n_Suppliants_ and public opinion would continue the same throughout\nthe ages. \u00c6schylus was right; but not if he cherished the same dream\nwith regard to the _Danaides_ and the _Egyptians_. Yet Pratinas saw\nhimself, in the future, one of the rivals of \u00c6schylus, and Pratinas\nis to-day but a word, scarcely a name. The idea of glory, even in its\noldest and most legitimate form, would seem, therefore, to contain the\nidea of justice, at least by preterition, since its non-realization\nat once suggests to us the idea of injustice. But men of so ancient\na civilization should not be made to reason in terms of our modern\nsensibility. Pratinas would, perhaps, have submitted to destiny. He\nwould, perhaps, have called a fact, pure and simple, what we are\npleased to name injustice.\n\nThe idea of justice, since it is subject, to the variations of\nsensibility, is of the most instable sort. Most of the facts that we\nclass to-day in the category of injustice, were left by the Greeks in\nthe category of destiny. For others, which we ditch under the name of\nmisfortune, or of fatality, they strove to find a cure. In principle,\nwhen a people restricts the category \"destiny\" in favour of the\ncategory \"injustice,\" the truth has begun to confess its decadence. The\nextreme state of sensibility to injustice is symbolized by the gag of\nZaina, who breathed only through a veil, in order to destroy no life--a\nstate of intellectual degradation towards which European humanity, with\nits mystic vegetarians, precursors of sentimental socialists, is also\nprogressing to-day. Have we not already our \"lower brothers,\" and are\nwe not agreed to praise the machines that spare animals the exercise of\ntheir muscles? To weep over the slave who turns the wheel, or the poet\nwho sings in the desert, is a sign of depravity; for the fact is that\nthe slave who turns the wheel loves life more than he suffers from his\nlabour, while the poet who croaks like a frog in his hole finds singing\nan agreeable physiological exercise.\n\nThe physical laws promulgated or established by scientists are\nconfessions of ignorance. When they cannot explain a mechanism, they\ndeclare that its movements are due to a law. Bodies fall by virtue\nof the law of gravitation. This has precisely the same value, in\nthe serious order, as the comic _virtus dormitiva_. Categories are\nconfessions of impotence. To throw a fact into the abyss of destiny, or\ninto the drawer of injustice, is to renounce the exercise of the most\nnatural analytical faculties. The _Lusiads_ was saved because Camoens\nwas a good swimmer, and Newton's treatise on light and colours was\nlost because his little dog, Diamond, overturned a candle. Presented\nthus, these two events belong henceforth neither in the category\nProvidence nor in the category Fatality. They are simple facts--facts\nlike thousands of others that have occurred without men finding in them\na pretext for enthusiasm or for anger. That \u00c6schylus has survived and\nPratinas is dead are accidents like those which happen in war. There\nare some more scandalous, but none should be judged in accordance with\nthe puerile notion of a distributive justice. If justice is wounded\nbecause Florus keeps afloat in the shipwreck where Varius and Calvus\nperish, it is justice which is wrong. It was out of place there.\n\nHowever, just as it has attached itself to the idea of paradise, so\nthe idea of justice has become the parasite of the idea of glory. For\nthe immortality for which Tahiti gambled heads or tails, has, with the\nbest will in the world, been substituted providential immortality; but,\nso far as glory, at any rate, is concerned, we know that Providence,\neven if it does not determine the name of the elect by lot, is governed\nby motives that it would, perhaps, not dare to acknowledge. However\nunjust man may be, by nature and by taste, he is less unjust than the\nGod he has created. Thus, as Ausonius has pertinently remarked, chaste\nmen engender obscene literatures. So, also, the work of the veritable\ngenius is always inferior to the brain which bore it. Civilization has\nput a little method into glory, provisionally.\n\nEven in the spiritual order, men have almost always been at variance\nwith the decisions of their gods. Most of the saints in the past were\ncreated by the people in spite of the priests. In the course of the\ncenturies the catalogue of the saints and the catalogue of the great\nmen have drawn so far apart that they will soon not have a single\nname in common. Almost all the really venerable men of this last\ncentury--almost all those whose clay contained veins or traces of\ngold--were outcasts. We live in the age of Prometheus. When Providence\nalone ruled the earth, during the interregnum of humanity, she caused\nsuch hecatombs that intelligence nearly perished. In the year 950, the\nson of a serf of Aurillac, young Gerbert, summed up almost the whole\nEuropean tradition. He was, all by himself, civilization. What a moment\nin history! Men, by an admirable instinct, made him their master. He\nwas Pope Sylvester II. When he died, there began to be built, on that\ncolumn which had sustained the world, the legend destined to find\nits culmination in Goethe's _Faust_. Such is Glory, that Gerbert is\nunknown. But he is not unknown like Pythagoras. It has been possible\nto write his life, his writings have been preserved. If Gerbert is not\none of our great men to-day, he will perhaps be to-morrow. He has kept\nintact all the possibilities of his resurrection. The reason is that,\nleaving aside the paradoxical idea of Providence, we have since Gerbert\nscarcely changed our civilization.\n\nWhen the Christians came into power, they preserved, outside those few\nspared by chance, only the books necessary for school instruction.\nThere has survived of Antiquity precisely what would have survived\nof the seventeenth century, if the professors of the old University,\ntogether with the Jesuits and the Minims, had possessed the power of\nlife and death over books. Adding La Fontaine to Boileau's catalogue,\nthey would have burned the rest. The Christians burned much, in\nspite of their professions of love; and what they did not burn they\nexpurgated. It is to them that we owe the almost burlesque image of a\nchaste Virgil. The authentic incompletion of the _\u00c6neid_ afforded a\ngood pretext for cuts and erasures. The booksellers charged with the\ntask were, moreover, unintelligent and lazy. But the great cause of the\ndisappearance of almost all pagan literature was more general. A day\ncame when it was deemed of no interest. From the first centuries its\ncircle had already begun to dwindle. Could a Saint Cecilia find any\npleasure in Gallus? This delicious, heroic Roman woman (who was found\nlast century lying in the dust, in her bloody robes) changed her heart\nwith her religion. Women ceased to read Gallus, and Gallus has almost\ncompletely perished.\n\nIn his interesting book on this subject,[4] M. Stapfer has not taken\ninto account changes in civilization. He has thought only of chance to\nexplain the loss of so many ancient books. Chance is a mask, and it is\nprecisely the duty of the historian to lift this mask, or to tear it.\nBetween the sixth century and our own day, there has been one further\npartial modification in civilization--in the fifteenth century. About\nthat time, the old literature began to lose its hold upon the public.\nThe novels, the miracles, the tales seemed suddenly to have aged. They\nwere no longer copied or recited. They were seldom printed, a single\nmanuscript having preserved for us _Aucassin et Nicolette_, which is\nsomething like the _Daphnis and Chloe_ of the Middle Ages. Accidents\nfrighten the poet--and even the critic, who is colder, whose logic\nis more rigorous--the moment the suggestion is made of separating\nthe purely historical idea of literary survival from the sentimental\nidea of justice. Till now--and I allude once more to the conservative\nr\u00f4le of modern civilization--the printing-press has protected writers\nagainst destruction; but the serious r\u00f4le of printing affects as yet\nonly four centuries. This distant invention will appear some day as\nif contemporary at once with Rabelais and with Victor Hugo. When a\ntime equal to that which separates us from the birth of \u00c6schylus--two\nthousand three hundred and seventy-five years, let us say--shall have\nelapsed between us and a given moment of the future, what influence\nwill printing have had on the preservation of books? Perhaps none.\nEverything not worth the trouble of reprinting--that is to say\neverything, with the exception of a few fortunate fragments--will have\ndisappeared, and the more rapidly that the material substance of books\nhas become more precarious. Even the discovery of a durable paper would\nnot give absolute assurance of survival, because of the temptation to\nemploy this excessively strong paper for a thousand other purposes.\nThus the value of the parchment has often led to the sacrifice of a\nmanuscript, just as gold articles go necessarily to the smelting-pot\nonce the style has changed. The best material for the preservation of\nbooks would be something unchanging, but fragile, slightly brittle, so\nthat it would be good for nothing outside its binding. Would not such a\ndiscovery be a curse?\n\nFor the work of the last four centuries, and for what, about 1450,\nremained undamaged of the earlier work, as well as for what has since\nbeen found in the dustbins, printing has proved a memorable blessing.\nWe are not obliged to accept the opinions of the past. The books are\nthere, and whether they be common or rare, we can find and read them.\nWe are the startled and clement judges of the glory and of the obloquy\nthat Boileau distributed to his contemporaries. Martial dishonoured\npoets who were perhaps a Saint Amant or a Scud\u00e9ry; but we have beneath\nour eyes the documents composing the _dossier_ of the _Satires_, and no\nprofessor friendly to good morals and eternal principles can make us\nshare his commonplace hatreds. A witty writer has remarked that Boileau\ntreated the writers whom he disliked almost the way we treat convicted\nassassins or seducers of little girls; but, thanks to the unforeseen\npermanence of books, this ancient abuse matters no more for the judges\nto-day than a lawyer's vituperation. I have Sanlecque within hand's\nreach, even Cotin, even Coras. If they are poor writers, I shall say so\nonly as a result of my own personal impression.\n\nA catalogue of lost books has been compiled.[5] Their number reaches\nfive or six hundred, and to attain even this figure, the author was\nobliged to count some works which have merely strayed, as well as\nseveral editions of works reprinted more than once. Were there, among\nthese lost books, any pages really worth crying over? It is hardly\nlikely, judging from the epitaphs of these tombs. The following were\ndoubtless neither other _Maximes_, nor other _Ph\u00e8dres_, nor even\nother _Alarics_: _Herm\u00e9n\u00e9gilde_, tragedy, by Gaspard Olivier (1601);\nthe _Po\u00e9tiques Troph\u00e9es_, by Jean Figon de Mont\u00e9limard (1556), or\nthe _Courtisan Amoureux_ (1582) or the _Friant Dessert des Femmes\nmondaines_ (1643). But who knows? However, the _Coupe-Cul des Moines_,\nor the _Seringue spirituelle_, inspires but feeble regrets, and it\nis the same with the _Estranges et espouvantables Amours d'un diable\nd\u00e9guis\u00e9 en gentil-homme et d'une demoiselle de Bretagne_. A more\npalpable loss is that of several _Almanachs_ prepared by Rabelais, but\neven this does not matter so very much. The fact that feverish fingers\nwore out the first editions of _Astr\u00e9e_, of the _Aventures du baron de\nF\u0153neste_, of the _Odes_ of Ronsard prematurely,[6] proves nothing but\nthe immediate success of these works which do not cease to be in the\nhands of all connoisseurs for more than half a century, and the same\nmight be said of the original editions of the first novels of Alexandre\nDumas, which cannot be classed, for the most part, among lost books.\nBut the fact that we can still read the inscriptions in a cemetery\nproves, at least, that those buried beneath them had a name and a\nfame, however transitory. The real lost books are those whose very\ntitles to-day could be suspected by nobody. This anonymous dust would\nnot, doubtless, fill a very large ossuary; but a necropolis could be\nconstructed from lost manuscripts.\n\nIt is not probable that, of the French literature of the Middle Ages,\nmuch more than the hundredth part has survived the changing fashion.\nAlmost all the dramatic works have disappeared. The number of authors\nmust have been immense at a time when the writer was his own publisher,\nthe poet his own reciter, the dramatist his own actor. In a certain\nsense printing proved an obstacle to letters. It operated a selection\nand cast contempt upon books that had failed to find a publisher. This\nsituation still exists, though mitigated by the low cost of mechanical\ntypography. The invention with which we are now threatened--a\nhome-printing-press--would triple or quadruple the number of new books,\nand we should have mediaeval conditions once more. Everyone with a\nsmattering of culture--and some others, as is the case to-day--would\nventure the little work which the writer confides to his friends before\noffering it to the public. Every progress ends by defeating its own\npurpose. Reaching its maximum development, it tends to re-establish the\nprimitive state which it had superseded.\n\nThe change in civilization, from antiquity to the Middle Ages, was\nintellectual and sentimental rather than material. The same trades\ncontinued under the same primitive conditions. The bookshop in the time\nof Rutebeuf was the same that sold the _Odes_ of Horace, when they\nwere fresh and full of life. In both periods, which were similarly\nperiods of expansion, literature was similarly abundant. There remains\nalmost nothing of it to-day. All Latin poetry, from Ennius to Sidonius\nApollinaris, is contained in two folio volumes,[7] but almost the\nwhole second volume is devoted to the Christian poets. The Greeks\nhave been less badly treated. Antony made a gift to Cleopatra of\nthe library at Pergamos, which contained two hundred thousand Greek\nworks, each in a single copy. Greek literature, in Didot's edition,\nis contained in sixty-one volumes. If we add an occasional treatise\nof Aristotle, Herondas, Bacchylides, the number of pages will not be\ngreatly increased. Literature fared the same as an army which has been\ndecimated. The dead are buried and the survivors become heroes. We may\njudge of the relative, but not of the absolute value of what is left.\nHere we encounter Pratinas once more. He teaches us that glory is a\nfact.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nGlory is a fact pure and simple, and not a fact of justice. There is\nno exact relation between the real merit of a writer (our examination\nis limited to literary glory) and his standing. In order to reward the\nsurvival of the book during the last four hundred years, in accordance\nwith the dictates of chance and, if you like, of injustice, criticism\nhas invented a hierarchal system which divides writers into castes,\nfrom the idiot to the man of genius. This looks solid and serious. It\nis, however, arbitrary, since aesthetic or moral judgments are merely\ngeneralized sensations. Literary judgment thus rejoins religious\njudgment so completely as to become identified with it.\n\nEarthly immortality and the other--that which operates ideally\nbeyond real life--are conceptions of the same order, due to a\nsingle cause--the impossibility for thought to think of itself as\nnon-existent. Descartes merely presented a physiological maxim whose\nhuman truth is so absolute that it would have been understood by\nthe oldest and humblest peoples. \"I think, therefore I am,\" is the\nverbal translation of a cellular state. Every living brain thinks\nthis, even though unconsciously. Each minute of life is an eternity.\nIt has neither beginning nor end. It is what it is. It is absolute.\nYet the disagreement between the cerebral truth and the material\ntruth is complete. The organ by which man thinks himself immortal\ndies, and the absolute is conquered by reality. The disagreement is\ncomplete, evident, undeniable. Yet it is inexplicable. Confronted with\nsuch a contradiction, the hypothesis of a duality assumes a certain\nforce, besides which the laboratory itself affirms the essential\ndifference between muscular and cerebral toil. The bending of the\nforearm, and even of a phalanx, releases a certain amount of carbonic\nacid. Cerebral activity, all muscles being in repose, registers no\ntrace of combustion. This does not mean that the organs of thought\nare immaterial. They can be touched, weighed and measured; but their\nmateriality is of a special sort whose vital reactions are as yet\nunknown. Inexplicable in theory, the disagreement between thought and\nthe flesh is thus explained, in fact, by a difference at least of\nmolecular construction. They are two states, each of which has but a\nsuperficial knowledge of the other, and the flesh which thought always\nrepresents to itself as eternal is certain of dissolution.\n\nThere are, then, two immortalities: the subjective immortality which\na man accords himself readily, even necessarily, and the objective\nimmortality, of which Pratinas has been robbed and which is a fact. If\nwhat we have said be true and if, in the absence of precise methods\nof analysis, the first--religious or literary--no longer admits of\nother than philosophic--that is to say, vague--reflections, objective\nimmortality, on the other hand, is a less abstract subject for\ndiscussion. It would even be possible, with a little good will, to\nbring all history within its scope; but French literature forms a long\nand brilliant enough cavalcade for our purpose.\n\nThe moment words clasp beneath their wings a certain amount of\nperceptible reality, they readily yield their formula. Glory is life in\nthe memory of men. But of what men, what life?\n\nM. Stapfer[8] has attempted to enumerate the works which, from the\nsixteenth to the eighteenth century, have lasted--what is called\n\"lasting\" in professional critical language. This chapter, wittily\nentitled (with a touch of Jansenism) \"the little number of elect,\"\nwould be brief were it but a catalogue. In short--and this may be\nadmitted provisionally--among all the French writers of the last three\ncenturies, twenty-five or thirty may be said to have achieved what\nis called glory; but of these thirty, the majority are scarcely more\nthan a name. What life, and of what men? M. Stapfer is thinking of\nworks that it might occur to a modern Frenchman, \"of average culture,\"\nto glance at on a rainy day. It is impossible to make a serious\nanalysis if we permit such expressions as \"average culture\" to enter\nour reasoning. A man of \"average culture\" may very possibly enjoy\nSaint-Simon, without owning either a Pascal, a Bossuet, a Corneille or\na Malherbe. A man can read and reread Pascal, yet have little taste for\nRabelais. But these amateurs of hard reading are professors, churchmen,\nlawyers--men who, even if they are not writers themselves, have a\nprofessional interest in letters, and are obliged to keep in touch with\nthe classic period of French literature. And where have they learned\nthat Boileau is a better poet than Th\u00e9ophile or Tristan? At college,\nfor it is through the college that literary glory maintains itself in\nthe bored recollection of heedless generations. There is no \"average\nculture\" that can be felt and figured by a flexible curve; but there\nare programmes. Villiers de l'Isle-Adam invented the \"Glory Machine.\"\nThere is, in the Ministry of Public Instruction, a hall on the door\nof which should be read: \"Bureau of Glory.\" It is the seat of the\nSuperior Council which elaborates the study programme. This programme\nis the \"stuffer\" which produces average cultures. Names omitted from\nit will remain eternally unknown to generations whose paternal guide\nit will be. But an educator's conscience will not permit him to impose\nupon children knowledge of writers whose morality is not universally\nadmitted. Moli\u00e8re was very immoral in his day, and this was the secret\nof his success with a public which had no other choice, on its days of\nrepentance, than among the most eloquent or the most skilful preachers.\nIt is as he has been less understood, that Moli\u00e8re has become, little\nby little, a moralist. As successive sensibilities have distinguished\nthemselves more sharply from the sensibility of the seventeenth\ncentury, the coarseness has lost its rank odour and we have come at\nlast to find delicate certain sallies which, brought up to date, would\nembarrass us. Moli\u00e8re, much more brutal at bottom than on the surface,\nenjoys what might be called an acquired morality. It is an inevitable\nphenomenon of adjustment. It was necessary either to sacrifice Moli\u00e8re\nor to demonstrate the beauty of his philosophic genius.\n\nHis saying, which is only a saying, \"For the love of humanity,\" has\nbeen hollowed and dug out by the commentators like an ivory ball which,\nat last, in the lathe, becomes a system of concentric spheres. It is\nmerely a child's rattle. How are the _Femmes Savantes_ and Feminism\nto be reconciled? This will be a very curious teat to follow. In her\n_R\u00e9flexions sur les Femmes_, so penetrating and so well written, Madame\nde Lambert says that this comedy, odious in itself, made education for\nyoung women seem improper, immodest, almost obscene; whence the craze\nfor purely sensual pleasure to which women inclined, since they had\nno other resources than love and good living. The difficulty will be\nsolved by considering separately the idea of feminism and the idea of\nthe _Femmes Savantes_, and by cavilling at the word \"savant,\" which\nhas recently come to have a very definite significance. The _savant_,\nin the seventeenth century, was the amateur, not only of the sciences,\nbut of letters--the man eager for all novelties, who discussed vortices\nwithout neglecting Vaugelas. Madame de S\u00e9vign\u00e9 was a \"femme savante,\"\nalso Ninon. No doubt it was necessary to save Moli\u00e8re's work. It was\nworth it. But might not it have been done more honestly, and with\ngreater lucidity?\n\nAttempted on Rabelais and on Montaigne, the same work of adjustment\nhas been less successful. Rabelais, in particular, has discouraged\nthe most stubbornly na\u00efve; and, since it was impossible to glean\nvirtuous sheaves in his abbey of good pleasure, Pantagruel was classed\namong the vague precursors of modern ideas--which has no appreciable\nmeaning, modern ideas being extremely contradictory. La Fontaine has\nlent himself to the caprices of the moralists with that indifference\nto good and evil which was the peculiarity of his exclusively sensual\ntemperament; while, as for Racine, whose work would be frightful,\nwere it not expressed in a language as cold and abstract as algebra,\nthe Jansenist devotion of his last days has made it possible to\ndiscover pious intonations even in his most delirious celebrations\nof cruelty and lust.[9] Why has not the same process been applied to\na Saint-Amant or a Th\u00e9ophile? Here is seen the influence of Boileau,\nwhom it is still dangerous to contradict when seeking a certain quality\nof reputation. Happy to find their task limited and determined by a\ncelebrated authority, the educators closed their catalogue of glories\nthe moment it was decently long enough. Their enterprise was one of\nmoral, far more than literary, criticism. A single book--the _Fables_,\nfor example--would have sufficed them as an album wherein to deposit\nthe cunning aphorisms of the old catechism. The educator's ideal is the\n_Koran_, whose pages contain, at the same time, a sample of writing, a\nmodel of style, a religious code, and a handbook of morals.\n\nWe may, then, conclude that, in reality, there is no literary glory.\nThe great writers are offered to our admiration not as writers, but as\nmoralists. Literary glory is an illusion.\n\nAnd yet, in reserving for school-use some of the greatest French men\nof genius, the literary historians have been obliged to justify their\nchoice, to feign artistic preoccupations. Nisard wrote a history of\nFrench literature concerned with little else than morality. Such a\npreoccupation was found noble, but too exclusive. The common handbooks\nmingle adroitly the two orders. A child should not know quite whether\nLa Fontaine is prescribed for him as a great poet or as an old chap\nwho counselled prudence--as the author of _Phil\u00e9mon et Baucis_, or as\nthe precursor of Franklin. Armed with the four rules of literature,\nthe professors have examined talents and classified them. They have\nconferred prizes and honourable mentions. There is the first order\nand there are orders graduated all the way down to the fourth and the\nfifth. French literature has become arranged hierarchically like a\ntenement house. \"Villon,\" one of these measurers once said to me, \"is\nnot of the first order.\" Admiration must be shaded according to the\nseven notes of the university scale. Earnest flutists excel at this\ngame.\n\nIt is not a question of disputing the awards of glory or of proposing\na revised list. Such as it is, it serves its purpose. It may have the\nsame usefulness as the arbitrary classifications of botany. It is not a\nmatter of amending it, it is a matter of tearing it up.\n\nThat Racine is a better poet than Tristan l'Hermite, and that\n_Iphig\u00e9nie_ is superior to _Marianne_, are two propositions unequally\ntrue; for we might quite as well be asked to compare this, which is by\nRacine:\n\n    Que c'est une chose charmante\n    De voir cet \u00e9tang gracieux\n    O\u00f9, comme en un lit pr\u00e9cieux,\n    L'onde est toujours calme et dormante!\n\n    Quelles richesses admirables\n    N'ont point ces nageurs marquet\u00e9s,\n    Ces poissons aux dos argent\u00e9s,\n    Sur leurs \u00e9cailles agr\u00e9ables![10]\n\nwith this, which is by Tristan:\n\n    Aupr\u00e8s de cette grotte sombre\n    O\u00f9 l'on respire un air si doux,\n    L'onde lutte avec les cailloux,\n    Et la lumi\u00e8re avec que l'ombre.\n\n    Ces flots, las de l'exercice\n    Qu'ils ont fait dessus ce gravier,\n    Se reposent dans ce vivier,\n    O\u00f9 mourut autrefois Narcisse.\n\n    L'ombre de cette fleur vermeille\n    Et celle de ces jons pendans\n    Paraissent estre la-dedans\n    Les songes de l'eau qui someille.[11]\n\nI am well aware that I am here comparing the best of Tristan with the\nworst of Racine; but all the same, if Racine had his park, Tristan had\nhis garden, and it is often agreeable there. Let us then tear up the\nlist of awards in order to remain ignorant of the fact that Tristan\nl'Hermite is a poet \"whose versification is ridiculous,\"[12] so that\nour pleasure in meeting him may not thus be spoiled in advance, and so\nthat, with him, we may dare address his muse:\n\n    Fay moy boire au creux de tes mains,\n    Si l'eau n'en dissout point la neige.\n\nThis is the drawback to comparative methods. Having set up the great\npoet of the century as a standard, the critics thereafter value the\nothers merely as precursors or as disciples.[13] Authors are often\njudged according to what they are not, through failure to understand\ntheir particular genius, and often also through failure to question\nthem themselves. Pratinas, truly, is better treated. He enjoys silence.\n\nBut he is dead, and we are discussing the living. Living what life,\nand in the memory of what men? Life is a physical fact. A book which\nexists as a volume in a library is not dead, and is it not perhaps\na glory more enviable to remain unknown, like Th\u00e9ophile, than to be\nfamous, like Jean-Baptiste Rousseau? When glory is merely classic, it\nis perhaps one of the harshest forms of humiliation. To have dreamed\nof thrilling men and women with passion, and to become but the dull\ntask which keeps the careless schoolboy a captive! Are there, however,\nany universal reputations that are not classic? Very few, and in that\ncase, they have another blemish. It is for their smut that Restif's[14]\nridiculous novels are still read--also Voltaire's syphilitic tales, and\nthat tedious _Manon Lescaut_, so clumsily adapted from the English. The\nbooks of yesterday no longer have a public, if by public be understood\ndisinterested men who read simply for their pleasure, enjoying the art\nand the thought contained in a book; but they still have readers, and\nall have some.\n\nThe only dead book is the book which is lost. All the rest live,\nalmost with the same life, and the older they grow, the more intense\nthis life becomes, becoming more precious. Literary glory is nominal.\nLiterary life is personal. There is not a poet of the prodigious\nseventeenth century who does not come to life again each day in the\npious hands of a lover. Bossuet has not been more thumbed than this\n_Recueil_ by Pierre du Marteu;[15] and, all things considered, the\n_Plainte du cheval P\u00e9gase aux chevaux de la petite \u00c9curie_, by Monsieur\nde Benserade, is more agreeable and less dangerous reading than the\n_Discours sur l'Histoire Universelle_. Is pompous moralizing after\nall so superior to sprightly burlesque? Every mountain plant offers\nan equal interest to the artless botanist. For him the euphorbia is\nnot celebrated or the borage ridiculous (besides which it has the most\nbeautiful eyes in the world), and he fills his bag till it can hold\nnot another blade of grass. Literary glory was invented for the use\nof children preparing their examinations. It matters little to the\nexplorer of the mind of the past that this agreeable verse is by an\nunknown poet, or that profound thought by a despised thinker. A man\nand his work are so different in interest! The man is a physiological\nentity of value only in the environment that developed it. The work,\nwhatever it may be, can keep an abstract power for centuries. This\npower should not be exaggerated or erected into a tyranny. A thought is\nvery little more than a dry flower; but the man has perished and the\nflower still lies in the herbal. It is the witness to a life that has\ndisappeared, the sign of an annihilated sensibility.\n\nWhen, in the Gallery of Apollo, we gaze at those onyxes and those\ncorundums in the form of conches and cups, those gold plaques engraved\nwith flowers, and those flaming enamels, do we, before daring to\nrejoice, demand the name of the artist who created such objects? If we\ndid, the question would be vain. The work lives and the name is dead.\nWhat matters the name?\n\n\"I, who have no wish for glory,\" wrote Flaubert. He spoke of\nposterity--of that future and, consequently, non-existent time, to\nwhich so many second-rate energies sacrifice the one reality, the\npresent hour. Since none of Flaubert's books can serve as a pretext\nfor moral teaching, he was well-advised. He did not wish for glory,\nand he will not have it, unless _Madame Bovary_ retains during\nthe next century its equivocal reputation and finds a place, in\nschoolboy-tradition, among the celebrated bad books. This is little\nlikely, seeing that _Mademoiselle de Maupin_ is already hard to read.\nBut that which cannot be said for the future, either of him or of any\nwriter of the last half of the century, may be said for the past.\nGautier and Flaubert have known glory--the glory that they accorded\nthemselves in the invincible consciousness of their genius. Glory is a\nsensation of life and of strength; a food-sprite would taste it in a\ntree trunk.\n\nHow amusing it is to listen to the eloquent professor who declares:\n\"This book will not last.\" But no book lasts, and yet all books last.\nDo you know _Palemon, fable bocag\u00e8re et pastorale_, by the Sieur\nFr\u00e9nicle?[16] Well, this book has lasted, since I have just read it,\nand since I resurrect one of its verses, which is not ugly:\n\n    O, que j'eus de plaisir \u00e0 la voir toute nue!\n\nIt is time man learned at last to resign himself to annihilation,\nand even to enjoy that idea whose sweetness is incomparable. Writers\nmight give the people the example, by resolutely abandoning their\nvainglorious hopes. They will leave a name which will grace the\ncatalogues for several centuries, and works which will last as long as\nthe matter upon which they are printed. This is a rare privilege, for\nwhich they ought to be willing to silence their complaints. And even\nwere this illusory eternity to be denied them, as well as all present\nglory, why should that diminish their activity? It is to the passer-by,\nnot to future humanity, that the wild cherry-tree offers its fruits;\nand even if no one passes, just as in the spring it has covered itself\nwith snow, so it puts on its purple with the coming of summer. Life\nis a personal, immediate fact, which glides past the very moment it\nis perceived. It is bad reasoning to attach to this moment the age to\ncome; for the present alone exists, and we must keep within the limits\nof logic in order to remain men. Let us be a little less primitive, not\nfancying that the next century will be the \"double\" of the present,\nand that our works will keep the position they hold to-day, or will\nhave a worse. Our way of understanding _B\u00e9r\u00e9nice_ would afflict\nRacine, and Moli\u00e8re would gladly blow out the candles on nights when\nthe _Misanthrope_ is such a bore. Books have but one season. Trees,\nshrubs, or simple blades of grass, they die having sometimes sown their\nkind, and true glory for a writer would be to call forth a work whose\nshade would smother him. That would be true glory, because it would\nbe a return to the noblest conditions of life. The witnesses of the\npast are never anything but paradoxes. They began to languish a few\nyears, or even less, after their birth, and their old age drags on, sad\nand wrinkled, amid men who no longer either understand or love them.\nTo desire immortality is to wish to live forever in the condition of\nSwift's \"Struldbruggs.\"\n\n\"Such are the details imparted to me respecting the Immortals of this\ncountry....\"--and man's sentiment continues to revolt against the\nidea of destruction, and the writer trembles at the idea of perennial\nobscurity. Our sensibility needs a tiny light in the far-off distance\namong the trees which line our horizon. That reassures the muscles,\ncalms the pulses.\n\n1900.\n\n\n[1] _Communication \u00e0 l'Acad\u00e9mie des Sciences_ (_13 Avril 1896_),\ncertified and rendered more precise by later investigations which\nM. Quinton has explained to me. Here, without scientific apparatus,\nis what, as a result of precious conservations, would appear to be\nthe general order in which the animals appeared, beginning with the\nfishes, and taking account only of those which have yet been covered:\n\n      I. Fish                    IV. Mammals                   V. Birds\n     II. Batracians    a. Monotremata      x. Primates:\n    III. Reptiles      b. Marsupials         (Lemurs, Monkeys,\n                       c. Edentates              Men)\n                       d. Rodents          y. Carnivora:\n                       e. Insectivora        (latest arrivals:\n                       f.  -- --              blue fox, white\n                       g.  -- -- --           bear)\n                       h.  -- -- --        z. Ruminants:\n                           -- -- --          (last arrival:\n                           -- -- --           reindeer)\n\nThe bearing of this list upon any question whatsoever of general\nphilosophy is evident for all who know how to disassociate ideas.\nIt would have thrilled Voltaire. For the rest, I claim the honour\nof having been the first to announce to the larger public these new\nscientific views, which will, logically, have a magnificent wealth of\nconsequences. I have already made a less precise allusion to them,\nnotably in the _Wiener Rundschau_, May 1899.\n\n[2] Intelligence can thus be conceived as an initial form of instinct,\nin which case the human intelligence would be destined to crystallize\ninto instinct, as has occurred in the case of other animal species.\nConsciousness would disappear, leaving complete liberty to the\nunconscious act, necessarily perfect in the limits of its intention.\nThe conscious man is a scholar who will reveal himself a master the\nmoment he has become a delicate but unerring machine, like bee and\nbeaver.\n\n[3] _La Survivance de l'Ame et l'id\u00e9e de justice chez les peuples non\ncivilis\u00e9s_, Paris, Leroux, 1894.\n\n[4] _Des R\u00e9putations litt\u00e9raires: Essai de morale et d'histoire_.\nPremi\u00e8re s\u00e9rie. Paris, Hachette, 1893.\n\n[5] _Livres perdus: Essai bibliographique sur les livres devenus\nintrouvables_, by Philoumeste Junior, Brussels, 1882.\n\n[6] These privately printed editions of three hundred copies or less\nhave necessarily been worn out in proportion to their success.\n\n[7] _Opera et Fragmenta veterorum poetarum latinorum_. London, 1713\n\n[8] Opus cit., p. 103.\n\n[9] This was written on the appearance of M. Louis Proal's work, _Le\nCrime et le Suicide Passionnels_ (F. Alcan, 1910), in which, referring\nto sex dramas in the criminal courts, Racine is quoted, every ten\npages, for reference and comparison. Everyone hesitates to say just\nwhat an age of passion and of carnal madness the _Grand Si\u00e8cle_ really\nwas.\n\n[10] _L'\u00c9tang_. This poem forms part of the set of five odes in which\nRacine celebrated Port-Royal des Champs: _L'\u00c9tang, Les Prairies, Les\nBois, Les Troupeaux, Les Jardins_.\n\n[11] _Le Promenoir des Deux Amans_.\n\n[12] Vapereau, _Dictionnaire des Litt\u00e9ratures_.\n\n[13] An excellent doctor's thesis on Tristan l'Hermite, by M. V. M.\nDemadin, bears precisely this title: _Un pr\u00e9curseur de Racine_.\n\n[14] The first volume, and that alone, of Restif de la Bretonne's\n_Monsieur Nicholas_ should be excepted.\n\n[15] _Recueil de quelques pi\u00e8ces nouvelles et galantes, tant en prose\nqu'en vers_. Cologne, 1667.\n\n[16] Paris, published by Jacques Dugast, aux Gants Couronnez, 1632.\n\n\n\n\nSUCCESS AND THE IDEA OF BEAUTY\n\n\nI\n\n\nIn one of his _Paradoxes_, where he at times has a touch of\nHeine's irony or of Schopenhauer's wit, Max Nordau has sketched\nthe Machiavellian plan of a school of success. The reverse of the\nusual morality would be taught there, and not virtue, but the art of\narriving. This school already exists. It is life. Precocious eyes and\nears take in its teachings from adolescence. There are young men who\nconsecrate themselves to success, like others to the priesthood or\nto glory. Are they unreasonable? No. And contemptible? Why? Writing,\nsinging, sculpturing are acts. Thinking, even in the silence of the\nnight and in the depth of a dungeon, is an act. But what act is there\nthat has not for its end its own accomplishment? The reasoner who has\nconvinced himself will necessarily wish to persuade others; and the\npoet who admires himself, to force others to share his enthusiasm.\nThose who are contented with an intimate or restricted approbation are\nperhaps wise, but they will not be numbered among the strong. Though\ntimid, though disdainful, the dreamer wishes the glory of dreaming, and\nhe would dream with delight before throngs rapturously contemplating\nhis eyes lost in an ocean of dreams and of nonsense. That would be\nsuccess. Success has something precise which soothes and nourishes. It\nis a repast. It is a fact. It is the final goal.\n\nSuccess is a fact in itself, and quite aside from the word or the act\nwhich it accompanies. The assassin who has accomplished his crime, step\nby step, experiences other joys than that of slaked avidity. He finds,\nin short, that success has declared for him; and, all pursuit thrown\noff his track, we understand very well the state of mind that Barbey\nd'Aurevilly has dared to describe. Yet crime, unless of a political\norder, is seldom publicly applauded in our civilizations, as among\nthe Dyaks of Borneo, or the subjects of the Old Man of the Mountain.\nThat is why, in spite of the celebrated irony, we shall not consider\nassassination \"as one of the fine arts.\" It should at least be classed\namong the arts whose success is their one and only end, and which\nattach much less importance to their initial designation than to what\nthey are called at the end. But that is not the subject of this essay,\nwhich is very serious, and whose words will all be carefully weighed.\nIt will deal exclusively with works of art and, in particular, with\nliterary works.\n\nSuccess, then, is a fact; but, in the case of those acts which concern\nus here, it is a contingent fact and one that does not change the\nessence of the act itself. In this respect, I should be inclined to\ncompare success to consciousness--a torch which, lighted within us,\nillumines our actions and our thoughts, but has no more influence on\ntheir nature than, when the moon is shining, the shadow of a passing\ntrain has on its speed. Consciousness determines no act. Success\ndoes not create a work, but sheds such light upon it that some trace\nof it almost always remains in the memory of men. A writer does not\nbecome Racine because he has been applauded before the footlights,\nand he remains Racine, even if _Ph\u00e8dre_ be played six nights in\nsuccession to empty boxes;[1] but he becomes Pradon, and that is a\ngood deal. To be Pradon through the centuries is to live with a glory\ndark and disagreeable, sad and vain. Quite so, but it is scarcely\nless precarious than the life which we call real. Pradon is at once\nridiculous and illustrious. It is impossible to tell the story of\nRacine's career without bringing his name into it. We search his\nworks in order to understand that renown of a day which has been\nprolonged over so many morrows. It cannot be doubted; Pradon had almost\nno talent, though he was fairly adroit in his trade as a dramatic\nconstructor. He was, as the journalists say, a man of the theatre.\nCritics have even gone so far as to claim[2] that, in order to have\na perfect _Ph\u00e8dre_, the play should have been written by Racine on\nPradon's plan. That is absurd; but every success has its cause. The\ncabal explains nothing. The Duchesse de Bouillon would not have\nrisked the battle on a worthless card. Pradon was known. His tragedy\nof _Pyrame et Thisb\u00e9_ had been applauded. Ten years after _Ph\u00e8dre_,\nand without any cabal, his _R\u00e9gulus_ was praised to the skies. He was\ntherefore destined to enjoy a moderate reputation, such as _Solyman_,\nfor example, brought its author, the Abb\u00e9 Abeille, about the same date.\n\nWas it fortunate for this commonplace poet to have encountered the\nDuchesse de Bouillon? Anticipating our modern methods, this terrible\nwoman had hired the boxes of the two theatres, filling those at one and\nleaving the others empty. To-day, she would have bought the newspapers\nin addition, but no one knows how much she paid the cackling of the\nnewsmongers and the pamphleteers. It was a masterpiece in its way,\nsince it succeeded marvellously; but what did Pradon gain by it? After\nmuch abuse, an ocean of posthumous blame. Not a day passes that some\nprofessor does not treat him as if he were a Damiens or a Ravaillac.\nIs immortality a sufficient reward for such treatment? Is shameful\nimmortality preferable to oblivion? First of all, we should dismiss\nthe shame, and ignore the abuse. Every success inflames the fire of\nhatred and deepens the descending smoke. That does not matter. Hate is\nan opinion. So is abuse; and so are the words that cast infamy. Success\nis a fact. The Duchesse de Bouillon could not change the essential\nvalue of the two Ph\u00e8dres, any more than she could transmute \"vile\nlead\" into pure gold; but she could veil the gold and gild the lead,\nand she could force posterity to repeat her favourite's name. That was\nher work. It was well done and it has remained memorable. No one knew\nat the time which to admire of these two paintings with like frames.\nPradon's friends were as powerful as Racine's. The latter had Boileau,\nthe former Sanlecque, his sometimes successful rival. But Boileau's\nauthority faded before that of Madame des Houli\u00e8res, representing\npolite society and the _ruelles_. Thanks to the quarrel of the Sonnets,\neven wit ranged itself on Pradon's side, for the Duc de Nevers' still\nconserves to-day the most amusing malice. Moli\u00e8re, who detested Racine,\nand had already lent his theatre to a parody of _Andromaque_, would,\nno doubt, have favoured Pradon. His death spared the friends of sound\nletters that scandal. It was, therefore, a reasonable illusion around\nwhich success crystallized, and the witlings had no cause to blush\nfor the part which they played. It is a pious lie on the part of the\nhistorians of French literature to pretend that the true public avenged\nRacine for the desert organized by Madame de Bouillon. The boxes of the\nH\u00f4tel de Bourgogne had been hired for six days, while Racine's _Ph\u00e8dre_\nhad but seven performances. The public had understood. It obeyed\nsuccess as dogs obey the sound of the whistle.\n\nThe reason is that success, though organized by fraudulent means,\npossesses a powerful attraction for the throng, even the literary\nthrong. Assuredly, the theatrical public was, in 1677, far superior,\nin point of intelligence, education and taste, to the average public\nto-day. Yet it is seen applauding decidedly commonplace plays, while\ndisdaining those of the first quality. The reason is that success,\nand especially theatrical success, can spring spontaneously from an\naccident,--from the agreeable face of an actress, from a fine gesture,\nfrom a well-timed bit of applause, from the caprice or emotion of a\nsmall group of spectators. The herd follows--since all men who come\ntogether are herds--and history numbers one more name and date.\n\nThe Americans--of the North, for in the South they have more\nfinesse--never hesitate before success. What dramatic poem is it\nwhose success has surpassed the enthusiasm aroused even by the _Cid_\nand by _Hernani_? _Cyrano de Bergerac_. Then this work is worthy of\nadmiration, and they have it, as well as _l'Aiglon_, learned by heart\nin the schools where, though themselves illiterate, they cultivate\nlearned wives. To repeat once more my real thought, I do not find\nthat unreasonable. Let us not confound history, which is a complete\nor at least a consecutive novel, with the present, which appears to\nus in fragments, like a newspaper torn into a thousand pieces. How\nare these to be arranged, in what order? We have not the slightest\nidea. Our wisest and sanest contemporary judgment will be ridiculous\nin twenty years, because we lacked patience to reconstitute the entire\nsheet, or because the fire or the wind snatched away a number of the\ntiny squares. In this hazy state of our ideas, success gleams like an\nelectric moon. Something undeniable is shining--something that the\nprofessors of philosophy call a criterium. But let us call it simply a\nfact, just as a flower is a fact, or a shower, or a conflagration. And\nwhat can be opposed to this fact, to contradict it? Almost nothing--the\nproduct of a judgment, certain men's notion of literary beauty.\nMoreover, this opposition is not radical, since beauty does not at all,\nin principle, exclude the chances of success. No bets should be placed\non beauty. It would be imprudent to back her on even terms; but there\nare historic instances where the most beautiful work has also been the\nmost warmly welcomed. In such cases success is adorable, like the sun\nwhich comes at just the right moment to ripen the crops, or the storm\nto fill the brooks and springs to overflowing. What is a beautiful book\nof which not a single copy remains known to us? What was an armless\nVenus before M. de Marcellus had summoned her from the abysses? Success\nis like daylight and, once again, if it does not create the work, it\ncompletes it by rending the shadowy veil by which it is encompassed.\n\nThere is another consideration which enhances still further the value\nof success, namely that, if the purpose of a work of art be to please,\nthe greater will be the number of its conquests and the better this\npurpose will have been accomplished. Art has certainly a function,\nsince it exists. It satisfies a need of our nature. To say that this\nneed is, precisely, the artistic taste, is to say that a man likes\ncoffee or tobacco because they satisfy his taste for coffee or tobacco.\nIt is to say nothing at all--not even nonsense. It is to utter words\nwithout any meaning whatsoever. Things do not correspond with this\nsimplicity in life--with this amiable relation of the kettle to its\ncover. Let us leave such explanations to the Christian philosophy of\nfinal causes. The purpose of art being to please, success is at least\na first evidence in favour of the work. The idea of pleasing is very\ncomplex. We shall see later what it contains; but the word may serve\nus provisionally. Then this work pleases. A tower has suddenly arisen\naccompanied by the passionate plaudits of the crowd. That is the fact.\nThis tower should be demolished. That is not easy, since by a singular\nmagic almost all the battering-rams brought against it turn into\nbuttresses which add their weight to the solidity of the monument. This\nmonument must be convinced that it does not exist, this crowd that its\nadmiration has not moved all those stones, that it lies; that it is\nhallucinated, or that it is imbecile. This cannot be done. It finds the\ntower beautiful. What can we answer, except \"Yes, it is beautiful\"?\n\nThe priest takes a wafer on the corporal and elevates it to divine\ndignity. He places it in the monstrance and shows it to the people, who\nduring this ceremony kneel, bow, pray and believe. The work exalted\nby success is no less chosen by chance than the wafer by the priest's\nfingers; but its divinity, also, is no less certain the moment this\nchoice has been made. The decrees of destiny must be respected, and\npopular piety not thwarted.\n\n\nII\n\n\nYet, it is said, there is an aesthetic. There are several aesthetics,\neven. But we shall suppose there is but one, and that--always in\nprinciple--it has good reasons for opposing success, whatever it may\nbe. Acceptance of an aesthetic obliges us to admit that there is an\nabsolute beauty, and that works are deemed beautiful according to the\ndegree of their resemblance to this vague and complaisant ideal. It is\nthis aesthetic--admitting its existence for the moment--that is now to\nbe laid open and submitted to the scalpel.\n\nThe sensibility which yields to success, or which produces it, is very\ninteresting; but perhaps it will be permitted not to despise entirely,\nand at very first sight, the sensibility which opposes success and\ndenies that the successful work is, as such, the beautiful work. These\ntwo sensibilities, though equally spontaneous, are not equally pure.\nThe second is very mixed. The aesthetic which sums it up--an aesthetic\nas fragile as morality--is a mixture of beliefs, of traditions, of\narguments, of habits, of conceptions. Respect enters into it--also fear\nand an obscure appetite for novelty. \"On new thoughts let us make old\nverses.\" The new-old--that is what all aesthetics extol, for a caste\nmust be flattered in keeping with its nerves and its erudition. The\nartist's judgment, in artistic matters, is an amalgam of sensations\nand superstitions. The simple-minded crowd has merely sensations.\nIts judgment is not aesthetic. It is not even a judgment. It is the\nna\u00efve avowal of a pleasure. It follows necessarily from this that the\naesthetic caste alone is qualified to judge the beauty of works, and to\naccord them this quality. The crowd creates success, the caste creates\nbeauty. It is all the same, if you like, since there is a hierarchy\nneither in acts nor in sensations, and all is but movement. It is the\nsame, but it is different. There, then, is one point established. In\nart, the opinion of the intelligence is opposed to the opinion of\nsensibility. Sensibility is concerned only with pleasure. If, to this\npleasure, an intellectual element be added, we have aesthetics. The\ncrowd can say: that pleases me, hence it is beautiful. It cannot say:\nthat pleases me, yet it is not beautiful, or: that displeases me,\nyet it is beautiful. The crowd, as such, never lies; while aesthetic\njudgment is one of the most complicated forms of falsehood.[3]\n\nIt is very evident that absolute beauty exists no more than truth,\njustice, love. The beauty of the poets, the truth of the philosophers,\nthe justice of the sociologists, the love of the theologians, are\nall so many abstractions which enter the realm of our senses--and\nvery clumsily--only when blocked out by the sculptor's chisel. Like\nideas conceived in the future or in the past, they express a certain\nharmony between our present sensations and the general state of our\nintelligence. This is especially felt in the case of truth, which is\nindeed a sensation uncontradicted by our intelligence; but any other\nintelligence may contradict it, or it may find itself contradicted by\nsensations of a different order or intensity.\n\nThe idea of beauty has an emotional origin, connected with the idea\nof generation. The female who is to be the mother must conform to the\nracial type. That is, she must be beautiful.[4] Woman is less exacting,\nperhaps because man transmits very little of himself to his offspring.\nThe first standard of beauty was, then, woman and, in general, the\nhuman body. Beauty, in the case of an animal, an object, is possession\nof something human in the form, in the character. A landscape can be\ndescribed in terms almost all of which would apply to the beauty of a\nwoman, and marble has her whiteness, sapphires are her eyes, coral is\nher lips. We have here a whole vocabulary of poetic commonplaces. To be\nsure, some of them should be corrected, and it should be noted that it\nis ebony which is black as black hair, and the swan which has a woman's\nneck. Beauty is so sexual that the only generally accepted works of art\nare those which show, quite simply, the human body in its nakedness.\nBy his persistence in remaining purely sexual, the Greek sculptor has\nplaced himself above all discussion for eternity. It is beautiful,\nbecause it is a beautiful human body, such as every man or every woman\nwould like to unite with for the perpetuation of the race.\n\nBut another fact, more obscure, though not less certain, permits us\nto bring the idea of beauty back by another route to the very idea of\nsexuality. This is, that all human emotions, whatever their order,\nnature or intensity, awaken a more or less marked response in the\ngenital nervous system. Sexual pathology has thrown light upon this.\nPerfumes, as well as the smell or sight of blood, noise and heat,\nintellectual or muscular effort, repose and fatigue, drunkenness\nand abstinence--the most contradictory sensations all favour the\nsexual impulse. Others, like fear, cold, vexation, also react upon\na neighbouring and intricate centre in the genital system. Read the\nfirst chapter of _En M\u00e9nage_, in which M. Huysmans describes the effect\nproduced upon a gentle, nervous being by the discovery of a lover in\nhis wife's arms. Among the emotions which reverberate most surely on\nevery somewhat sensitive organism, aesthetic emotions must be placed\nin the first rank. And thus they return to their origin. That which\ninclines to love seems beautiful. That which seems beautiful inclines\nto love. There is between the two an undeniable relation. A man loves\na woman because she is beautiful, and he deems her beautiful because\nhe loves her. It is the same with everything that permits associations\nof sexual ideas, and with every emotion which reacts upon the genital\nsystem.\n\nBut it is not at all necessary for a work of art to present a sensual\npicture in order to awaken ideas of love. It is enough for it to be\nbeautiful, captivating. It stirs passion. Where shall we seek the\nseat of this passion? The brain is merely a centre of transmission.\nIt is not a terminus. It is a happy and praiseworthy error to have\nmade man's brain his absolute centre, but it is an error. The sole\nnatural end of man is reproduction. If his activity had another goal,\nhe would no longer be an animal, and we fall back into Christianity, to\nbe confronted again by the soul, demerit and all the jargon employed\nby spiritualistic quacks. Emotion becomes conscious at the very\nmoment of its passing, but it merely passes, leaving its image, and\ndescends to the loins. This manner of speaking is perhaps figurative,\nand, moreover, I am not speaking of intense and strongly localized\nexcitations. What is meant is merely that aesthetic emotion puts man in\na state favourable to the reception of erotic emotion. This state is\ncommunicated to some by music, to others by painting, the drama. I have\nknown a man--of a certain age, it is true--who could cheat a sexual\ndesire by glancing at engravings. The reverse example would, doubtless,\nbe less paradoxical. Aesthetic emotion is that from which man lets\nhimself be most easily diverted by love, so easy, almost fatal, is the\npassage from one to the other. This intimate union between art and love\nis, moreover, the sole explanation of art. Without it--without this\ngenital repercussion--it would never have been born; and, without it,\nit would not be perpetuated. Nothing is useless in deep-seated human\nhabits. Everything which has lasted is, for that reason, necessary. Art\nis the accomplice of love. Take love away, and there is no longer art.\nTake art away, and love becomes merely a physiological need.\n\nBut it is less here art itself that is concerned than its emotional\npower, and there must therefore be grouped under the name of art\neverything in the nature of spectacle or sport--every diversion enjoyed\nin public, or with regard to which one communicates to himself his\nimpressions. Fireworks can thrill quite as much as a tragedy. The\nsole hierarchy is that of intensity; but there is no doubt that the\nsuccess of a work of art greatly increases its emotional power upon\nmen in general. Hence, for the crowd, the quite natural belief that\nevery successful work is beautiful, and that failure and scorn are\nalways merited. In short, what the caste calls beauty, the people call\nsuccess; but they have learned from the aristocrats this word truly\ndevoid of meaning for them, and employ it to enhance the quality of\ntheir pleasures. That is not entirely illegitimate, success and beauty\nhaving a common origin in the emotions, their sole difference being the\ndifference of the nervous systems in which they have evolved.\n\nBut very few men are capable of an original aesthetic emotion. Most of\nthose who believe they experience it are like the people themselves,\nmerely obeying the suggestion of a master, the bidding of their\nmemories, the influence of their environment, the fashion. There is a\npassing beauty as precarious as popular success. A work of art extolled\nby the caste to-day will be despised by the caste to-morrow, and less\ntrace of it will perhaps remain than of the work rejected by the caste\nand acclaimed by the people. For success is a fact whose importance\nincreases with the dust it raises, with the number of the faithful come\nto accompany the cort\u00e8ge. The emotions of the caste and the emotions\nof the people are destined to the same end. Nature, which makes no\nleaps, makes no choice either. It is a question of making children.\nThe sense of smell (or an analogous sense) is so highly developed in\nthe emperor-moth, that a female egg of that rare butterfly attracts\na throng of males to the spot where not one was seen before. This\nacuteness would be absurd if it merely served the emperor-moth to\nselect a more delicate repast in the flowery flock or, in one way or\nanother, to increase its pleasure and its spiritual advancement, the\nculture of its intelligence. It is an aid to the emperor-moth in making\nlove. It is its aesthetic sense.\n\nHowever, there are human natures, less diffuse or more refractory, in\nwhich the emotions do not react upon the centre of major sensibility,\neither because this centre is atrophied, or because the emotional\ncurrent has encountered in its course an obstacle, a dyke, an\nimpervious barrier. Let us, without examining too closely the aptness\nof the analogy, avail ourselves of the commonest and most striking\ncomparisons. An electric current is thrown into a wire for the purpose\nof creating motion. The wire falls supported by a bit of wood and,\ninstead of motion, heat is generated. The train which was to have\nbeen propelled burns. So the emotion, on its way towards the genital\nsense which it is meant to awaken, encounters a centre of resistance.\nIt is broken, twists back upon itself, but becomes installed; and all\nthe emotions of the same order, which pass by the same centre, will\nshare the same fate. A wheel was to be turned, and we have fireworks.\nThe species was to be preserved, and we have born the idea of beauty.\nAesthetic emotion, even in its purest, most disinterested form, is,\nthen, merely a deviation of the genital emotion. Aphrodite, who urged\nus to her cult, no longer troubles us. The woman has vanished. Noble\nforms are left, agreeable lines; but a horse also is beautiful, and\na lion, and an ox. Fortunate short-circuit which has permitted us to\nreflect, to compare, to judge! The current hurled us on towards the\nsister of the goddess. Now it turns us from her, for she is less fair!\nIt might be supposed that it is in the region of the intelligence\nthe emotional current has become diffused, thus forming that mixture\nof emotion and intelligence which gives us the aesthetic sense.\nIntelligence is an accident. Genius is a catastrophe. We must carefully\navoid even dreaming of a social state where health, equilibrium,\nequity, moderation, order would reign uniformly, where catastrophes\nwould be impossible, and accidents very rare. Human intelligence is\ncertainly the consequence of what we na\u00efvely call evil. If the threads\ndid not become cut and knotted, if emotion always attained its goal,\nmen would be stronger and handsomer, and their houses would be as\nperfect as ant-hills. Only, the world would not exist.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nBefore returning to our point of departure, here is a r\u00e9sum\u00e9:\n\nTwo sorts of emotions share in the shaping of the aesthetic sense:\nemotions of a genesial nature, and all the other emotions whatsoever,\nin a proportion which varies infinitely with each man. The first are\nthose which we feel when confronted with the perfect representation\nof our racial type. Apollo is beautiful, because he is the human\nmale in all its purity. For the majority of men, every adventitious\nidea being rigorously excluded, the sight of the marble is agreeable\nbecause it evokes desire, either directly or, according to the sex,\nby counter-evocation. Stendhal's saying will be remembered: \"Beauty\nis a promise of happiness.\" The sensualistic philosophy which enabled\nhim to make this definition was not stupid. We shall be obliged to\nreturn to it, with science as a point of support. In short, it was\nthen for the purpose of describing the \"promise of happiness,\" that\nthe word \"beauty\" was invented. And this word has been successively\napplied to everything that promised men the realization of one of their\nincreasingly numerous and complex desires. Later, the emotional need\nhaving become extremely developed, it was also applied to all causes\nof emotion, even terrible or sanguinary; but these varied emotions,\nwhich make up the very life of man, have a goal--like the sense of\nsmell in the emperor-moth. They penetrate us to make us remember that\nour one duty, as living creatures, is to conserve the species. Whatever\nsense they may have struck first, they recoil from it towards the\ncentre of general sensibility. I think of those romantic lovers seen\nenveloped by the storm, possessing each other furiously, or of the\ngentle emotion of Tibullus, _quam juvat immites_.... The horrible,\nstupid, savage tragedies which delighted the Greeks and the French of\nthe _ancien r\u00e9gime_ were philters, and nothing more. If the great poets\n(like women, great poets have neither taste nor sense of disgust) had\nnot taken the trouble to rethink the stories of Orestes, of Thyestes,\nof Polynices, we would deem these to be the delirious ravings of a\nsociety in its infancy or in its final decay. Not one of Racine's\ntragedies but has been played a hundred times in the criminal court by\nloathsome actors. You will find, if you look for them, in the special\ntreatises of Ball and of Binet, and in popular works, examples of the\ntransformation of any sensation whatsoever into sexual act. Here there\nare no categories, the field is unlimited. Men have been known for whom\nthe smell of rotten apples gave strong and necessarily sexual emotions.\nSchiller always kept a stock in his table drawer; but, as he possessed\na refractory passage in which the emotional currents were in large part\nbroken, he made verses, when he had inhaled them, instead of making\nlove.\n\nHere, then, we have a whole class of men in whom the emotions,\narrested halfway, are transformed into intelligence, into aesthetic\ntaste, into religious feeling, into morality, into cruelty, according\nto the environment and the circumstances, and according to an\nexceedingly obscure system of dynamics. It may even be said that this\ntransformation of the emotions takes place, more or less, in all men.\nThe emotions may chance also to react almost equally in all directions,\na notable part travelling towards the genital centres while enough\nremains _en route_ to produce a great philosopher, a great artist, a\ngreat criminal. Love seems peculiarly connected with cruelty, either\nby its absence or by its excess. The mimetic of cruelty is precisely\nthat of sexual love. Duchenne of Boulogne has proved that by his\nexperiments. In types of men like Torquemada or Robespierre, the\nemotions do not reach the genital sense. They encounter an obstacle\nwhich shunts them off towards another centre. Instead of being\ntransformed into the need for reproduction, they are transformed into\nthe need for destruction. But there is the Neronian type and there\nis the Sadie type, in which sexuality and cruelty become exasperated\nsimultaneously and are intertangled. There are men capable of stronger\nemotional shocks than other men. Though divided and distributed towards\ntwo goals, the current remains strong enough to produce acts of great\nintensity. The same phenomenon, though in a less sinister form, appears\nwhen intellectual power comes into play simultaneously with genital\npower. Every man capable of emotion is capable of love, and at the same\ntime, either of cruelty, of intellectuality, or of religious sentiment;\nbut the emotional current is sometimes entirely absorbed by one of the\nhuman activities, and we have one variety of extreme types, the other\nvariety being furnished by men of a great emotional receptivity and,\nconsequently, of a great diversity of aptitudes.\n\nBut let us keep to the human average, and to the question of\naesthetics. According to the quantity withdrawn from the emotional\ncurrent, we shall, for example, have a spectator who retains from the\ntragedy its entire content of pure, robust beauty--who will go away in\na state of intellectual emotion, less sensible to the murder than to\nthe curve of the arm that struck the blow; to the curses and terrors,\nthan the musical form which limits them, encloses them, gives them\nlife. We shall also have a spectator who, in spite of a few glimmerings\nof intellectual emotion, leaves the theatre very much as he might a\nboxing-match or a bull-fight. There are the two extremes. One man,\nlooking at a perfect statue, enjoys the grace of the curves, thinks:\nwhat a beautiful work! The other cries: what a beautiful woman! Between\nthese two types there is a whole series of shading. For the man of\naverage type, the idea of beauty scarcely exists. He will judge the\nwork of art according to the intensity or the quality of his emotion.\nIt gives him pleasure, or it leaves him cold, and that is all. It is\nthis average type that determines success in art, the average type must\nbe pleased. Its emotion must be stirred.\n\nThe representatives of the aesthetic caste also judge a work of art\nby the emotion it gives them, but this emotion is of a quite special\norder. It is the aesthetic emotion. For them those works alone that\nare capable of communicating the aesthetic thrill or emotion belong to\nart, to the category of beauty. Thus are excluded from art utilitarian,\nmoralizing, social works possessing any purpose whatsoever outside this\nprecise and exclusive goal, aesthetic emotion; also works of too sexual\na type, whose appeal to genital exercise is over-direct, though they,\ntoo, respond--in their case with excessive clarity--to men's primitive\nnotion of artistic beauty. In this way has been formed that aesthetic\ncategory which, eternally instable, ranging from realism to idealism\n(a certain idealism), from sentimentalism to brutality, from religious\nfeeling to sensuality, remains, nevertheless, a closed garden.\n\nArt is, then, that which gives a pure emotion,--that is to say, an\nemotion without vibrations beyond a limited group of cells. It is\nthat which invites to neither virtue nor patriotism, nor debauch, nor\npeace, nor war, nor laughter, nor tears, nor anything other than art\nitself. Art is impassible, and as an old Italian poet said of love,\n_non piange, n\u00e8 ride_. There is nothing about it either rational, or\njust, or consistent with any truth. It is a matter of the manners\nand customs of an intellectual caste. Born of an imperfection in the\nnervous system, the idea of beauty has picked up, on the way, all sorts\nof rules, prejudices, beliefs, habits, and it has constructed itself\na canon whose form, without being absolute, fluctuates at any given\nmoment between certain limits only. The restriction is necessary.\nAll refined men of an epoch agree on the idea of beauty. To-day, for\nexample, there are certain touchstones: Verlaine, Mallarm\u00e9, Rodin,\nMonet, Nietzsche. To admit that you are not moved by the _Hands_, by\n_H\u00e9rodiade_, by _Eve_, by the _Cath\u00e9drales_, by _Zarathoustra_, is\nto admit that you are devoid of aesthetic sensibility. But works of\nquite another tone were formerly admired by the same human group.\nFrom Ronsard to Victor Hugo, the principle of beauty was sought in\nimitation. Artists imitated the classics, the Italians, the Spaniards,\nthe English. In the last century, it was the effort after originality;\nand this produced even a few years ago an excess of false notes, but a\nmusic less flat, on the whole, than that which had so long wearied the\nMuses. Not that the artist imitated less, but he did so in the illusion\nof creating something new, and illusion is almost always productive.\nFrance is, moreover, the country where the idea of beauty has undergone\nthe greatest number of variations, since it is peopled by an animated,\neager race always attentive to what is happening and ready to make the\nacquaintance of everything strange and new, reserving the right to\nlaugh at this novelty, if it does not suit their temperament.\n\nOur aesthetic sense, then, has its caprices. But, historically\nvariable, it is consistent enough at any given moment. There is an\naesthetic caste to-day. There was always one, and the history of\nFrench literature is little more than the _catalogue raisonn\u00e9_ of the\nworks successively chosen by this caste. Successes are shaped in the\nstreet. Glory issues from _c\u00e9nacles_. As there are no examples to the\ncontrary, this clearly must be admitted to be a fact--also this, that\nthe _c\u00e9nacles_ become disgusted with the glories that escape them,\nand start running the streets. A fact is always legitimate, since it\nis always logical; but we can always oppose to it the repugnances of\nour own sensibility, or of a group of sensibilities. That is the way\nof the crowd when led by certain educated mediocrities, who make good\nlawyers, since they hate the house which they are fighting, and which\ndoes not recognize them. To the often obscure reputation established by\nthe aesthetic group, we see, then, incessantly opposed the celebrities\nof success. It is easy to dupe the people by showing them, on the one\nhand, the poor solitary lamp; on the other, the harsh glare of globes\nand the mad riot of tulips.\n\nBut the people have little need of encouragement. They go quite\nnaturally towards that which dazzles them. This also is a fact, and\nthis also is legitimate. The public, led by cunning shepherds, does\nwrong to despise the confused gleam of the stars; but the aesthetic\ncaste does wrong to laugh at the people's pleasures. It also does\nwrong when it monopolizes certain words and refuses to call works of\nart those compositions which, no less than those which they themselves\nadmire, have as their aim to stir emotion. It is a question of quality,\nnot of essence. The aesthetic caste suffers less from seeing a poor\nthing applauded, than a real work disdained. Its judgment, so sure\nin scenting false art, suddenly weakens, and is angered, because a\nvotary of the popular taste does not incline before its admirations.\nIt is always a mistake to appeal to justice; but it is madness to\nappeal to the justice of a social group. We should abandon all that;\nand shut ourselves up in an opinion as in a tower. It would be easier\nto cut the throats of a hundred fanatical admirers of _Quo Vadis_?\nthan to convince them, and far less fatiguing. Literary justice is\nan absurdity. It supposes emotional parity among men belonging to\ndifferent physiological categories. A work is beautiful for those whom\nit moves. Sensibility is incorruptible--popular sensibility as well as\nthat of the _c\u00e9nacles_. It is as incorruptible as taste and as smell.\nIt was formerly imagined that there was such a thing as taste--an\nabsolute taste worshipped in a temple. Nothing is more ridiculous,\nnothing more tyrannical. Let us leave men to seek their pleasure\nfreely. Some want to have their feelings harrowed, others their spleen\nbanished, still others their heart pierced. Different instruments are\nneeded for each of these operations. Art is a form of surgery whose\ncase is well equipped, and a pharmacopeia filled with vials of every\nform and odour.\n\nPeople talk very seriously--that is, without laughing--of initiating\nthe people to art. In less vague terms, corresponding to a certain\nscientific reality, this would mean so shaping the physiology of men in\ngeneral, that emotion, instead of reaching the genital centre, spreads\ntowards the aesthetic centre. The enterprise is not of the easiest.\nPoor people! How it is made game of, and how stupid, in their goodness\nof heart, are its intellectual masters! These really believe that taste\nfor painting, for music, for poetry, is learned like orthography or\ngeography! And suppose it could be, and suppose a few admirations had\nbeen imparted to a few workmen. What does it matter that the people\ndo not admire what we admire? They would have the same right to ask\nus to share their enthusiasms. There is no absolute aesthetic. That\nwhich moves us is beautiful; but we can be moved only in the measure of\nour emotional receptivity, and according to the state of our nervous\nsystem. Insensibility to what we call beauty,--a very complex idea,\nthe moment we leave the human form,--would seem, on the whole, to be\nmerely the sign of a healthy organism, of a normal brain, in which the\nnervous currents go straight to their goal, without turning aside. But\nthis simple state is rare. All men are capable of receiving certain\naesthetic emotions, and all are eager for them; but almost no man is\nconcerned with the quality of this emotion. The important thing is\nto be moved. No other monument since the cathedrals--perhaps since\nthe pyramids--has so' stirred human sensibility as the Eiffel Tower.\nConfronted with all that junk reared on high, stupidity itself became\nlyric, fools meditated, wild asses dreamed. From those heights swept\ndown, as it were, a storm of emotions. An attempt was made to divert\nit, but it was too late. Success had arrived. The more admiration a\nwork receives, the more beautiful it becomes for the multitude. It\nbecomes beautiful and almost alive. Emotional waves, starting from\nit, come, like combers, to break upon a people drunk and panting. The\nwhole organism holds carnival. Stupid and beautiful, the genius of the\nspecies smiles in the shade.\n\nSuch is the social r\u00f4le of art. It is immense. There is an Australian\nbird which builds, as its nest, a big cabin where it spreads all the\nshining pebbles it finds. The male, amid the mosaic, dances a grave\nminuet before his troubled companion. This is art surprised at its\nobscure birth--at the very moment of its intimate association with the\nexpansion of the genital instinct. A red pebble gives an emotion to a\nbird, and this emotion heightens its desire. Such is the social r\u00f4le of\nart. The people--and by the people, I here mean the mass of men--must\nadmire. They must experience aesthetic emotions, must quiver with long\nnervous vibrations, must have rich and complicated loves; but, what\nmatters it whence comes the cloud, so long as it rains!\n\nI have merely wished to show the legitimacy of all aesthetic emotion,\nwhatever its source, and of all success, whatever its quality; but I\nshall be readily believed if I confess that I retain my preferences for\na certain form of art, for a certain expression of beauty. I depart in\nthis respect from the common sentiment, that I do not believe it useful\nto generalize opinions, to teach admirations. To force admiration\nis almost as wicked as to force an entrance. It is for each man to\nprocure himself the emotion he needs, and the morality which suits\nhim. Apuleius's ass wanted to crop roses, because by so doing he would\nresume the human form. It is a very good idea to crop roses. It is one\nway to achieve freedom.\n\n1901.\n\n\n[1] At the H\u00f4tel de Bourgogne, while at Gi\u00e9n\u00e9gaud his rival Pradon's\nplay was received with great applause.\n\n[2] Bayle. And Racine, recognizing his adversary's craft, said: \"The\nwhole difference between me and Pradon is that I know how to write.\"\n\n[3] In another essay, _Women and Language_, I have considered the\nlie as the mark of man as opposed to the animal. The superiority of\na race, of a group of living beings, is in direct ratio to its power\nof falsehood--that is to say, reaction against reality. The lie is\nonly the psychological form of the Vertebrate's reaction against its\nenvironment. Nietzsche, anticipating science, says: \"The lie is a\ncondition of life.\"\n\n[4] There is a presentiment of this in Montesquieu's remark, recently\npublished; it is conformity that constitutes beauty _\u00c6sthetics_. Father\nBuffier has defined beauty as the assembling of the commonest elements.\nWhen his definition is explained, it is excellent. Father Buffier says\nthat beautiful eyes are those resembling the greatest number of other\neyes; the same with the mouth, the nose, etc. It is not that there are\nnot a great many more ugly noses than beautiful ones, but that the\nformer are of many different sorts, and that each sort of ugly noses is\nmuch smaller in number than the beautiful sort. It is as if, in a crowd\nof a hundred men, there were ten dressed each in a different colour; it\nis the green that would predominate.\n\n\n\n\nTHE VALUE OF EDUCATION\n\n\nWithout being as widespread as it might be, and as it will be,\neducation is very, much in vogue. We live less and less, and we learn\nmore and more. Sensibility surrenders to intelligence. I have seen a\nman laughed at because he examined a dead leaf attentively and with\npleasure. No one would have laughed to hear a string of botanical terms\nmuttered with regard to it; but there are some men who, while not\nignorant of the handbooks, believe that true science should be felt\nfirst as a pleasure. It is not the fashion. The fashion is to learn in\nbooks alone, and from the lips of those who recite books.\n\nCornelius Agrippa, who possessed all the learning of his time, and\nmore, amused himself by writing a \"Paradox on the uncertainty, vanity,\nand abuse of the sciences.\"[1] This might be rewritten to-day, but\non another note. For a science does not have to be uncertain, vain\nand abusive in order to be useless to one who cultivates it; and,\non the other hand, the certainty of a science, its interest and\nits legitimacy, do not confer upon it an absolute right to mental\ngovernance. We would even gladly agree as to the absurdity of a debate\nupon the certainty or uncertainty of the sciences. Some are aleatory,\nbut the light-minded or interested alone call them so. The word science\ninvolves, by definition, the idea of objective truth, and we must abide\nby that, without further dispute, even conceding this objective truth,\nwhatever repugnance may be felt for the indissoluble union of two words\nwhich then become ironical.\n\nIt is, moreover, a question not of science, but of education, for\nwhich science furnishes the matter or the pretext. What is the value\nof education? What sort of superiority can it confer upon an average\nintelligence? If education be sometimes a ballast, is it not more often\na burden? Is it not also, and still more often, a sack of salt which\nmelts upon the ass's shoulders in the first storms of life? And so on.\n\nEducation is of two sorts, according as it is useful or decorative.\nEven astrology can become a practical science, if the astrologer finds\nhis daily bread in it; but what good can it do a magistrate to know\ngeometry if not perhaps to warp his mind? Everything that concerns his\ntrade--draughtsmanship and archaeology, even, and all notions of this\norder--will prove profitable to an intelligent carpenter; but of what\nuse could an aesthetic theory be to him if not perhaps to hamper his\nactivity? When it does not find some practical application or turn\nitself into cash, education is an ingot sleeping in a glass case. It is\nuseless, not very interesting, and quite devoid of beauty.\n\nThere is much talk, in certain political circles, of integral\neducation. This means, doubtless, that everybody should be taught\neverything--also, that a vague universal notion would be a great\nbenefit, a great comfort for any intelligence whatsoever; but,\nin this reasoning, there is a confusion between matter and form.\nThe intelligence, which has a general and common form, has also\na particular form for each individual. Just as there are several\nmemories, so there are several intelligences; and each of these\nintelligences, modified by its own physiology, determines the\nindividual intellect. Far from its being a good thing to teach\neverybody everything, it seems clear that a given intelligence can,\nwithout danger to its very structure, receive only those kinds of\nnotions which enter it without effort. If we were accustomed to attach\nto words only those relative meanings they admit of, integral education\nwould signify the sort of education compatible with the unknown\nmorphology of a brain. In the majority of cases the quantity of this\neducation would amount to nothing, since most intelligences cannot be\ncultivated.\n\nAt least by the methods at present employed, which may be summed up\nin a single word--abstraction. It has come to be admitted in teaching\ncircles that life can be known only as speech. Whether the subject be\npoetry or geography, the method is the same--a dissertation which sums\nup the subject and pretends to represent it. Education has at length\nbecome a methodical catalogue of words, and classification takes the\nplace of knowledge.\n\nThe most active, intelligent man can acquire only a very small number\nof direct, precise notions. These are, however, the only ones of any\nreal depth. Teaching gives nothing but education. Life gives knowledge.\nEducation has at least this advantage, that it is generalized,\nsublimated knowledge and thus capable of containing, in small bulk,\na great quantity of notions; but, in the majority of minds, this too\ncondensed food remains inert and fails to ferment. What is called\ngeneral culture is usually nothing but a collection of purely abstract\nmnemonic acquisitions which the intelligence is incapable of projecting\nupon the plane of reality. Without a very lively and universally active\nimagination, notions confided to the memory dry up in a dead soil.\nWater and sun are required to soften and ripen the sprouting seed.\n\nIt is better to know nothing than to know badly, or little, which is\nthe same thing. But do we know what ignorance is? So many things have\nto be learned in order to appreciate and understand it! Those who might\nenjoy ignorance, since they possess it, are under too many illusions\nconcerning themselves to find any frank refreshment in it; and those\nwho would be glad to do so, have left their first innocence too far\nbehind them. There have been moments of civilization when men knew\neverything. It was not much. Was it much less than all the science\nof to-day? This relativity may well make us reflect upon the value\nof education. It will aid us also to indicate its true character.\nEducation is never other than relative. It ought, then, to be practical.\n\nM. Barr\u00e8s, in his last novel,[2] makes a deputy of Burdeau's type\nsay: \"Virtue, like patriotism, is a dangerous element to arouse in\nthe masses.\" To these two abstractions should, perhaps, be added all\nthe others, in order to decree a general ostracism against every\nidea that has not first been defined. And this would not mean the\nproscription of virtues or of patriotic sentiments, but simply this,\nthat nothing is worse for the health of an average intelligence than\nplaying with abstract words--than that false verbal science which is at\nonce found inapplicable on entering real life. It is not a matter of\nbeing virtuous; how realize a word which is the synthesis of several\ncontradictory ideals? It is a matter of accommodating one's nature to\nthe vital conditions and moral traditions of his environment. It is\nnot a matter of being patriotic. It is a matter of defending, against\nstrange beasts, the purity of the spring where one drinks. It is not a\nmatter of knowing the abstract principle in which the broad river of\ngeneral ideas may find its source. It is a matter of making life at\nonce an act of faith and an act of prudence. It is a matter first and\nforemost of preserving enough simplicity to breathe joyfully the social\nair, and enough suppleness to obey, without cowardice, the elementary\nlaws of life.\n\nLife is a series of sensations bound together by states of\nconsciousness. Unless your organism is such that the abstract notion\nredescends towards the senses the moment it has been understood;\nunless the word Beauty gives you a visual sensation; unless handling\nideas gives you a physical pleasure, almost like caressing a shoulder\nor a fabric, let ideas alone. When a miller has no grist, he shuts\nhis sluices and sleeps, or goes and takes a walk. He never dreams of\nrunning his mill when it is empty, and wearing out his stones grinding\nair. Education is often nothing but the wind raised by the whirling of\nthe bolts, and felt as words.\n\nTeaching, from top to bottom--from the official to the popular\nuniversities, from the village school to the \u00c9cole Normale--is little\nelse than a phrase-factory. The most valuable of all is the primary\nschool, where one learns to read and write--acquisitions, not of a\nscience, but of a new sense. If there were cut from the programme of\nthe rest everything useless--everything inapplicable to life or to\nsome profession or trade--scarcely enough would be left for eighteen\nmonths' schooling.\n\nThe greater part of the people still escape the tortures of listening\nto gentlemen who recite books. The children of the poor, freed from\nthe scholastic prison, learn a trade, which is an enhancement of one's\nself, and begin to live at an age when their rich brothers still spend\ntheir time handling words which correspond to nothing real--tools\nwhich sculpture the eternal void.[3] This is about to be remedied, and\nhere is the subject of a night lecture in a people's university: \"The\nDevelopment of the Idea of Justice in Antiquity.\" Even supposing--what\nis little likely--that the professor said nothing on this subject that\ncould not be absorbed by a healthy intelligence, of what use could such\na discourse possibly be to a popular audience, and what could such\nan audience derive from it applicable to its own humble existence?\nLess, assuredly, than from the old-fashioned sermons which were not\nafraid to flout its vices and to play upon its cowardice to keep it\nfrom low pleasures. But the clergy of the lay religion is grave and\ndisdainful of facts. Souls speak to souls. The ideal descends upon the\npeople. The first Christians at least met both to pray and to eat in\nfraternal union. After the repast, some arose to utter prophecies. The\nmodern prophets live only on abstractions, and they gladly share this\neconomical and ridiculous food with their brethren.\n\nThe man who has slowly acquired a science, has, aside from the social\nadvantages which it offers him, conferred, by that very fact, a special\nforce and agility upon his organs of attention. He possesses not only\nthe desired science, but a whole hunting outfit in good condition, and\nall ready for new quarry. When he has carefully and patiently acquired\na foreign language, he can afterwards, with far less effort, master\nthe other languages of the same family. But, if he has had recourse\nto some time-saving method, the acquisition no longer possesses its\nproper value, and may even deteriorate more or less rapidly. Water,\nboiled very quickly, grows cold equally fast--a fact ignored by the\nmanufacturer who had set up public boilers. By the time it had crossed\nthe street, the water was as cold as if it had come from a cool spring.\nIt is for this same reason that quick teaching by the lecture system\nis so particularly useless. The listener learns to believe and not to\nreason, which would still be a way of acting and of living.\n\nEducational baggage is composed almost entirely of beliefs. Literature\nand science are taught like a catechism. Life is the school of prudent\ndoubt. The school is a pretentious church. Every professor is equipped\nwith an arsenal of aphorisms. The youth who refuses to let himself be\nmade a target is despised. The inversion of logical values is carried\nto the point where certain intellectual acts--resistance to scientific\nfaith, Cartesian reserve--are considered signs of unintelligence.\n\nM. Jules de Gaultier has invented a new Manichaeism whose prudent\nemployment will prove very useful in clearing up certain questions.[4]\nTo the vital instinct he opposes the instinct of knowledge; but the\nformer is not the good principle, any more than the latter is the bad\nprinciple. They have both their r\u00f4le in the work of civilization; for,\nif the latter develops in man the need to know at the expense of the\nforces which conserve his vital energy, it permits the intelligence,\nat the same time, the better to enjoy both itself and the life of the\nfeelings. The spontaneous and unconscious genius of growing races\nrefuses obedience to neither of these great instincts. Life does not\nexhaust its energy, which is immutable, but the modes of energy which\nit has assumed. We tire of feeling before we tire of knowing. This\nis what Leibnitz has na\u00efvely expressed, and what has been repeated\nwith him by all those whose intelligence is the vulture: \"It is not\nnecessary to live, but it is necessary to think.\" When this aphorism\nreaches the people, it means that the decadent vital instinct has begun\nto give up the struggle. The glorious flowering-time has arrived, but\nthe plant will die once the insect horde has fertilized it and the wind\nhas borne its seed to a virgin soil.\n\nAn ignorant mass forms a magnificent reserve of life in a people. Our\ncivilization has failed to recognize this. It is an immense field of\nlittle flowers which exhausts the earth's vigour for the sake of a\nsenseless effulgence.\n\nSuch ideas, even in the attenuated form of images, may seem barbarous\nto those who believe in the \"benefits of education\"; but it begins to\nbe easier to find adjectives than arguments to regenerate this ancient\nand almost exhausted theme. Hearing so many journalists and deputies\nspeak of education as a sovereign elixir, it is clear that they have\ntasted it at the sound, authentic source--that of the handbooks and the\nencyclopedias--but not from those detestable jars in which the evil\ngenius of analysis slumbers. The true science, the \"gay science,\" is\nsingularly poisonous. It is quite as poisonous as it is salutary. It\ncontains as many doubts as there are specks of gold in Danzig brandy.\nOne never knows just where the intoxication produced by this heady\nliquor may lead an intelligence not too strong or too sceptical.\n\nCompared with science, education is so slight a thing that it scarcely\nmerits a name. What are elementary notions of chemistry worth, when\nwe think of the chemist who handles bodies, composing and decomposing\nthem, who counts the molecules and weighs the atoms? And what\ndifference does it make whether a hundred thousand bachelors know the\nelements of the air? But already they know it no longer. Had they been\ntaught to breathe, they would, perhaps, have escaped two or three\ndiseases, a predisposition to which, or whose germs, they transmit\njoyfully to their children. It is necessary (despite a celebrated\nirony) to have a chemistry and chemical industries, but not to teach\nthe man in the street the obscure principles of a vain science.\n\nThis is only an example, but it could be extended to almost all the\nelements of general culture. An average brain to-day resembles those\nexperimental gardens in which flourish specimens of all the flora. Yet\nthis garden has its special utility, whereas brains rich in little of\neverything are good for nothing. The ground has not even been turned\ninto a parterre, but into a herbarium, and the dried plants are so\ncommonplace, so defective, that they can be put to no decent use. The\nmajority of the flower-beds, at least, should have been reserved for a\nprofound and passionate culture. When this is done, the dead corners of\nthe garden acquire once more a certain importance. They furnish manure\nand mould to warm the heart of the living garden.\n\nWe do not, then, pretend to say that general culture is useless. It\nis indispensable as an auxiliary and a reserve, but as such only, and\non condition that the general, superficial culture is accompanied by\none or more sections of intensive culture. Alone, it has no value. If\nfrom the average level, we descend to the little gardens of the people,\nwe now see, replacing rank but luxuriant grass, mere sickly growths\nalready frozen by life. All the natural flora has been weeded out, and\nwhat was sown instead, in a soil poorly cleared and prepared, has been\nunable to come up because there was neither sun nor water. The sole\ninterest of these ridiculous little kitchen-gardens is a tree, which\nis often tall and stately--some chestnut or linden. This is the trade\nin which the man has resolutely perfected himself. One of these trees\nalone is worth all the general cultures which have relegated it to a\nstony corner. It dominates them by its utility and by its beauty.\n\nMan's justification in life is that he is a function. His days on\nearth must produce a result. That is why we shall eternally regret the\nabolishing of the trades by the extreme division of labour. Industrial\ncivilization has withdrawn from a vast number of men the pleasure\nthat they used to find in their work. A high salary may make a man\nsatisfied to have worked, but it does not give him satisfaction in the\nwork itself, the joy of employing the present hour in the realization\nof a definite object. Industry has operated against the artisan to the\nadvantage of the idler, and also to the advantage of capital against\nlabour. Any mechanical invention whatsoever has been more harmful\nto humanity than a century of war. The hedemonic value of muscular\nactivity has been so far diminished that the only moments when workmen\nare conscious of living are those when the normal man relaxes--the\nmoments of repose; and, necessarily, the temptation has been to dilate\nthese hours of negative sensation to the point of absorbing in them the\nwhole pleasure of living. Alcohol has afforded the means.\n\nIn order to suppress this source of excitation, people with good\nintentions but unhealthy minds--that is to say, out of touch with\nreality--have contemplated opposing the pleasure of learning to the\npleasure of drinking. If such a task were possible, physiological\nintoxication would be replaced by cerebral intoxication, and that\nwould not be a very desirable result. To follow a day of muscular\neffort with an evening of intellectual effort, is to double the total\nfatigue without real profit to the man subjected to such a r\u00e9gime.\nConsider the poor wretch who, after ten hours of shoving a block of\nwood under the sharp teeth of a circular saw, comes back, after a\npicked-up supper, to listen to a gentleman address him on the holiness\nof justice! But justice would require the preacher to take turns with\nthe artisan in shoving the blocks of wood and in comfortably studying\nthe fruitful principles of social charlatanism. Poor people who, with\ntheir instinctive need of priests, believe themselves victors because,\nhaving denied a dogma, they now applaud the moral aspect of this same\ndogma, but deformed by hypocrisy and hatred! It is through education--a\nvery ancient invention--that the clergy has dominated the people and\nthe world; and it is through education also, that the lay preachers are\ndetermined to clip the last claws of the vital instinct.\n\nFor all these teachers teach desperately the negation of life. They\ninfect the healthy section of the people with their own unhealthy\nhabits of receiving sensation only by reflex, of watching in a glass\nthe life they dare not encounter, and they do so with a certain\ngood faith. The real object of this education is the implanting of\na morality--a singular morality, whose precepts are almost entirely\nnegative. By weakening the will to live, to the profit of an instable\ncerebrality, they fashion those enervated, obedient, docile generations\nwhich are the dream of second-rate tyrants. At the very moment when a\nrace needs, merely to persist, all the forces of which its instinct\nis perhaps still the depository, they pour out for it, though in an\nimpoverished, poisoned form, that very liquor with which the Roman\napostles tamed the surplus energy of the barbarians. If a rationalistic\nor religious protestantism were to pre-empt the sovereign place of\nour traditional, pagan Catholicism, we should share the fate of those\nconquered peoples.\n\nBut how is it possible not to be tempted to furnish rules of conduct\nalong with rules of grammar? All we ask is that these precepts should\nnot be depressants, but that the young should find in them, on the\ncontrary, an incitement to activity--to all the activities. Education,\nin itself, is nothing. It can be judged only when its surroundings are\nexamined by the light of this torch. A torch is useful, not because of\nits light, but because of the object on which its light falls. We see\nalso an oven methodically heated with brushwood and faggots; but this\nheat is merely a sterile blaze if, when it dies down, the dough of the\neternal bread be not given it to bake.\n\nEducation is a means, and not an end. It is painfully absurd to learn\nfor learning's sake, to burn for the sake of burning. The very song of\nthe birds is not in vain. During the periods of sexual calm the great\nlove concerts are rehearsed. Considered as the precise instrument of a\nfuture work, education may have a very great, even absolute importance.\nIt may be the necessary condition of certain intellectual achievements.\nIt will be the staff of the intelligence; but, offered to a second-rate\nbrain, directed simply and solely to the enlargement of the memory, it\nhas no power to regenerate sick cells. It will rather serve to crush\nthem. It will make them dull. It will divert from the natural needs of\nlife the activities merely meant for daily exercise. Education ballasts\nunstable genius, giving it subjects for comparison and motives for\nreflection. To genius already established, it affords a little of that\nuneasiness which is the source of irony. It is sometimes a support for\ncertitude, sometimes the cause of gravitation towards doubt. But it has\nan influence only upon intelligences in action or capable of action.\nIt does not determine, it inclines. Above all, it does not create\nintelligence. We are constantly offered examples of men who, educated\nin all that is taught, remain mediocrities, and who, though they have\nwritten for twenty years, have not even learned how to write. And, on\nthe other hand, there are others who know but one trade, and who have\nread nothing but life. Their lucidity sometimes shames even genius.\n\n1900.\n\n\n[1] \"A work,\" continues the translator, \"which can profit the reader,\nand which brings marvellous contentment to those who frequent the\ncourts of the _grands seigneurs_, and who wish to learn how to talk of\nan infinite number of things opposed to the common opinion.\" S. 1. 1603.\n\n[2] _L'Appel au soldat_.\n\n[3] Someone remarked in the course of a conversation: \"The peasant is\na real person; he is a scientist, a physicist.\" All modern political\neffort tends to turn the physicist into a metaphysician. This effort\nis well under way for the working-man, who begins to despise toil and\nvalue phrases. His surprise is great when he finds that the word has no\neffect upon reality.\n\n[4] _De Kant \u00e0 Nietzsche_.\n\n\n\n\nWOMEN AND LANGUAGE\n\n\nWomen's r\u00f4le in the work of civilization is so great that it would\nscarcely be an exaggeration to say that the edifice is reared on the\nshoulders of these frail caryatides. Women know things that have never\nbeen written or taught, and without which almost the whole equipment\nof our daily life would be rendered useless. In 1814, some Cossacks,\nwho had discovered a supply of stockings, drew them on directly over\ntheir boots--a general example of our commonest acts, had not women,\nfor centuries of centuries, been the patient teachers of childhood.\nThis r\u00f4le is so natural that it seems humble. We are struck only\nby what is extraordinary. The powerful machinery of a woolen-mill\noverwhelms us. Who has ever felt moved at the sight of the simple\nplay of a pair of knitting-needles? Yet, compared with these little\nsticks, the greatest power-loom becomes insignificant. It represents a\nparticular civilization. The wooden or steel needles represent absolute\ncivilization. In every field the essential should be distinguished from\nthe accessory. In civilization women's part represents the essential.\n\nIt is easier to feel this than to prove it, for it is a question\nprecisely of those acts which pass unperceived along life's path--of\nall sorts of things which are never mentioned, because they are not\nobserved or because their importance is not understood. Thus physiology\nwas long unknown, while curiosity was occupied with monsters. The\ncontinuous phenomenon ceases to exist for our senses. It was a\ncity-dweller, or a prisoner, or a blind man suddenly restored to\nsight, who first noted natural beauty. There is an external physiology\nwhich disappears in habit. Analyzed, it reveals the most important\nvoluntary act of our lives--voluntary, in the sense that they are\ncontingent compared with the primordial movements of the life of a\nspecies; voluntary, if the will be regarded as the consciousness of an\nunconscious effort.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhether sense or faculty, speech cannot logically be separated from\nhearing, but the education of the ear is much less perceptible than\nthat of the vocal apparatus. They can thus be considered separately, or\nat least without observing a precise order in acquisitions which are\nentangled like all the activities of life. Moving, hearing, seeing,\nspeaking--all these are connected. Imitation imposes itself upon all\nthe functions at the same time, though an appreciable order of birth\ncan be established for each of them. This order is of little moment in\na study where it is question, not of the intelligence which receives,\nbut of the intelligence which gives--of the exterior and not of the\ninterior psychological life.\n\nSpeech is feminine. Poets and orators are feminine types. To speak is\nto do woman's work. Because woman speaks as a bird sings, she alone is\ncapable of teaching the language. When the child attempts to imitate\nthe sounds it has heard, the woman is there to watch him, to smile at\nhim, and to encourage him. There is established a mute working contract\nbetween these two beings, and what patience the one who knows displays\nin guiding the one who tries! The first words pronounced by a child\ncorrespond in its mind to no object, to no sensation. The child, at\nthis moment of its life, is a parrot, and nothing more. It imitates.\nIt speaks because it hears others speaking. If the world were silent\naround it, speech would remain congealed in its brain. Thence the\nimportance of a woman's prattle--an importance far greater than that\nof the most beautiful poems and of the profoundest philosophies. The\nfunction which makes man a man is the special work of the woman. A\nchild reared by a very feminine and very talkative woman is formed\nrather for speech and, consequently, for psychologic consciousness.\nLeft to the care of a taciturn man, the same child would develop very\nslowly--so slowly, perhaps, that it would never attain the full limits\nof its practical intelligence.\n\nWere it possible to assign an origin to language, one would say that\nwoman had created it; but the secret of all origins will forever escape\nus. Birds sing, the dog barks, man speaks. It is not easier to imagine\na dumb man than a dumb dog or a dumb finch; and if these species\nformerly existed without a voice, it is not easy to see why they should\nhave acquired an organ which many other animals, including the birds\nof the South Polar regions, get along very well without. If language\nwere learned or acquired--if, in order to recover its first traces, the\ncelebrated roots, it were enough to find the common mother of Latin and\nSanskrit, of Greek and of Anglo-Saxon--it is not easy to see why the\ndog does not converse with his master otherwise than with his tail, his\neyes and his yelping. But the dog will never speak, because the genius\nof an animal species is as rigorously determined as the forms of the\ncrystalline species.\n\nThe view that the oldest language was composed of five or six hundred\nmonosyllables, is now without value, though it had a certain force.\nIt gave weight to several hypotheses whose absurdity was not at first\nevident. Yet nothing had ever been observed in any real language\nresembling an even unconscious reservoir of roots. Words are born of\neach other by derivation, coming into the world sometimes longer,\nsometimes shorter, than the original word. This derivation is always\ndominated by a real, living concrete sense. No man whose mind has not\nbeen spoiled by special studies, has the sense of roots. The ba, be,\nbi, bo, bu of the alphabets, are, according to the theory, so many\nroots; but a series of kindred meanings has not been attributed to\neach of these sounds. They are capable, even in the same language, of\nexpressing them all, either by chance, or according to a logic whose\nlaws are undeterminable.\n\nThe primitive element in speech is not the word but the phrase. Man's\nspoken phrase is instinctive, like the sung phrase of the bird, like\nthe yelped phrase of the dog. The word is a product of analysis.\n\nIn order to give the word priority over the phrase, the older school\nstarted from this idea, namely, that the word is created after the\nthing has been perceived, man acting as a nomenclator, as a professor\nof botany who gives names to sprigs of moss. The reality is different.\nThe child stammers words before knowing the objects of which these\nwords are the signs. It is possible that man spoke--chattered--a long\ntime before a fixed relation became established between things and the\nfamiliar sounds issuing from his mouth.\n\nThousands of languages can thus have been chattered successively on\nthousands of territories--languages lacking precision, essentially\nmusical, a succession of phrases in which certain sounds only\ncorresponded to realities; but these sounds, in spite of their\nimportance, in spite of their utilitarian and representative value,\nmay be supposed to have been at first almost as fugitive as the rest\nof the speech. An unwritten language never survives the generation\nwhich created it. Among savages each generation remakes its language\nso completely that the grandfather is a stranger among his own\ngrandchildren.\n\nIf this primitive chattering be admitted, it will readily be admitted\nalso that woman must have had a large share in it, while arousing the\nmind of the males by her laughter and her attention. Woman has little\ncapacity for verbal innovation. Among so many excellent women writers,\nnone has ever created a language in the sense of which this is said\nof Ronsard, of Montaigne, of Chateaubriand, or of Victor Hugo; but\nshe repeats well--often better than a man--what was said before her.\nBorn to conserve, she performs her r\u00f4le to perfection. Eternally,\nunwearyingly she rekindles from the failing torch a new torch identical\nwith the old. It is in the hands of women--dancers in life's ballet,\nor melancholy vestals in deep caverns--that the _lampada vitai_ shine.\nWhat woman has been historically, she will always be and she has always\nbeen, from before history even.\n\nCertain words became fixed in the primitive chattering. This was the\nwork of woman. Destined to attention by the monotony of her domestic\nlabour,[1] she rebelled against the useless renewal of terms. Her life\nbecame complicated in those lands where the game was abundant, where\nnature was fertile. Men's needs increased with their wealth, and with\nthem, woman's occupations. Having to work more, she had less time to\nlisten to songs and speeches. Novelties succeeding each other too\nrapidly, upset her. She corrected the language of men who, in their\nturn, became disconcerted. Thus were born the words in common use, and\nthus the fixed sounds corresponding to realities in man's spoken song\ngradually grew in number.\n\nWoman, whose memory is excellent, had also, from the earliest times,\nno doubt, retained the most musical, the most rhythmical parts of\nspeech--some combination of phrases resembling those melopeias repeated\ninsatiably by Negroes. Man created. Woman learned by heart. If a\ncivilized country were one day to reach that state of mind in which\nevery novelty is at once welcomed and substituted for traditional ideas\nand methods--if the past were to yield constantly to the future--then,\nafter a period of frenzied curiosity, men would be observed falling\ninto the apathy of the tourist who never glances twice at the same\nobject. In order to recover their grip, they would be obliged to seek\nrefuge in a purely animal existence, and civilization would perish.\nSuch a fate seems to have overtaken ancient peoples, so eager to renew\ntheir pleasures that their passing has left but hypothetical traces.\nExcess of activity, far more than torpor, has caused the decay of many\nAsiatic civilizations. Wherever woman has been unable to intervene and\nto oppose the influence of her passivity to the arrogance of the young\nmales, the race has exhausted itself in fugitive essays. We can, then,\nbe sure that, wherever a durable civilization has been organized, woman\nwas its cornerstone.\n\nArising, as a reciter, before the creator, woman formed a repertory,\na library, archives. The first song-book was woman's memory, and it\nis the same with the first collection of tales, the first bundle of\ndocuments.\n\nHowever, the invention of writing came, like all progress,\nsuccessively, to diminish woman's importance as archivist. Since\neverything that seemed worth remembering was fixed by signs on\ndurable matter, it became woman's duty and pleasure to perpetuate\nwhat men condemned to oblivion. She has performed faithfully a task\nthat matter has almost always betrayed; and so it is that tales which\nwere never written, and which assuredly go back to the earliest ages,\nhave come down to us. Women who had been entertained by them as\nchildren, entertained their own children with them in turn. In spite\nof the efforts of rational pedagogy, which would like to substitute\nthe history of the French Revolution, or that of the founding of the\nGerman Empire, for _Tom Thumb_, mothers still put their good children\nto sleep with blue story or red, of love or of blood. But this oral\nliterature, whose themes are so much more numerous than those of\nwritten literature, has been found to possess the greatest beauty,\nand consequently a supreme importance. We owe the salvaging of this\ntreasure to woman's conservative genius.\n\nShe conserved also the songs, the tunes (and the dances accompanying\nthem) which man sheds at the very moment when he leaves his youth. For\nhim they are futilities, and he never gives them another thought. For\nwoman, they are means of pleasing and she remembers them always. When\nhope has departed, she falls back upon them to live again the happy\ndays of her youth. Thus do old women keep their hearts young.\n\nWomen do not seem to have had a great share in the invention of tales\nand of songs. They have preserved, which is a way of creating. Yet one\nfinds, nevertheless, the mark of their mind in certain variants. Their\ntendency was to tone down the end of a tale, to quiet the effervescence\nof a song too rollicking. This invention saved the life of many of\nthese small things, by making them available to children, whose memory\nis an exceedingly sure casket.\n\nAlong with literature women saved a whole collection of notions\ndifficult to determine. It is not a question of the long string of\nsuperstitions, but of the element of practical science contained in\nthese superstitions, these beliefs, these traditions. To estimate the\nimportance of this chapter of human knowledge, one should make a sort\nof examination of his own consciousness. Then, after long reflection,\nhe will be able to distinguish between things learned from books,\nand those which, while never written, everyone knows. What is truly\nindispensable for the conduct of life has been taught us by women--the\npetty rules of politeness, those acts which win us the cordiality or\ndeference of others; those words which assure us a welcome; those\nattitudes which must be varied according to the character and the\nsituation; all social strategy. It is listening to women that teaches\nus to speak to men, to worm our way into their will. For those alone\nwho know how to please, can teach the art of pleasing.\n\nEven before he speaks, a child knows the value of a smile. It is his\nfirst language, and nothing proves that it is absolutely instinctive.\nThe animal has only those attitudes which are the sign of a need. Some\nare beautiful, some are pretty, but none are voluntary.\n\nThe smallest child's smile often veils an intention. Woman has taught\nit the mystery of exchanges, and the fact that a friendly gesture can\nwin food and other things essential to life. The little girl, better\ndisposed than the boy to appreciate this teaching, knows the value of\ncurving lips and of the wave of her rosy hand, long before knowledge\nof the vocal signs has permitted her tender brain the most elementary\nreasoning. It is, then, in her case, pure imitation; but the act is\nfavoured by recollection of the end already obtained by the first\nattempt, and we have here a very curious and obscure example of an\neffect determining its cause in physiological unconsciousness.\n\nSince women have little in their lives but passional relations, this\nvery primitive play remains the basis of their social tactics. Men feel\nprogressively the need of complicating this elementary science, but it\nalways remains for them a supreme resource. To touch his conqueror, to\nplease him--such is the last argument of the conquered.\n\nAll mimetic art is the work of women. Even when she is silent, a woman\ncontinues to speak--often with a sincerity which her words lack. Even\nwhen she is motionless she continues to speak, and she is often more\neloquent then than with words or with gestures. The form of her body\nmakes her breathing a language. The rhythm of her bosom betrays the\nstate of her soul and the degree of her emotion. No speech finds a\nman more sensitive. But their eyes have at their disposal a keyboard\nstill more extended, though less effective. With her eyes, with the\nvaried curves of her mute mouth, woman can express her inmost thought.\nThe eye pales or kindles, lifts or lowers its look, and it spells\ndesire or disdain, anger or promise--so many pages understood by man\nthe moment he has an interest in reading them. To these gleams and\nthese movements, the play of the eyelids adds its value. This play is\naffirmative, negative, interrogative. It utters a short and decisive\nyes, or a yes of languor and abandon. It questions in the tone of anger\nor of complaining. It refuses with a half-abrupt closing of the pupil,\nwhich veils the eyes without closing them. But how many other shades\nthere are, and how rich in speech the smile is, also! The whole woman\nspeaks. She is language incarnate.\n\nHer children will first be actors. Like their mother, they will learn\nhow to speak at the start with everything that is silent--precious\nacquisition. Darwin found the first sketch of emotional expression\nin animals. There is an important element of instinct in the human\nmimetic. Woman has cultivated these primitive movements, has refined\nand multiplied them. To the signs of the true emotions have come to be\nadded the signs of the false emotions, and then only has a language\nbeen created. Animal expression of the emotions is not a language, for\nit would be incapable of making believe. True language begins with\nthe lie. There is a real meaning in the famous saying that language\nwas given to man to disguise his thought. The lie, which is the sole\nexternal proof of psychological consciousness, is also the sole proof\nthat signs are language, and not unconscious mimetic. The lie is\nthe very basis of language and its absolute condition. Analysis of\nlinguistic facts proves this clearly enough, since every word contains\na metaphor, and since every metaphor is a transposition of reality,\nwhen it is not a wilful, premeditated falsehood. But, taking language\nsuch as it appears to us, and supposing each word to correspond to\nan object, it may be said that, if there existed a man who had never\nlied, that man never spoke. It is not, in fact, speaking, to say \"I\nam afraid,\" or \"I am cold,\" when you are afraid, or are cold. It is\nexpressing an emotion or a sensation by means of verbal signs analogous\nto the trembling of the animal famished or frozen. But if, on the\ncontrary, denying his emotion or his sensation, the man who is cold\nsays \"I am warm,\" and the man who is hungry says \"I am not hungry,\"\nhe speaks. Whether he employ words, gestures or written signs, it is\nby this, by the lie--that is to say, by consciousness--that the man\nis recognized. Lie, let it be understood, here signifies expression\nof an imaginary sensation. It is a matter of psychology, not of\nmorality--separate domains.\n\nIf woman is language, she should be lie, and also consciousness.\nAll three are connected and form but one. The first of these points\nhas never been studied, but popular opinion favours it. Not only\ndo women speak more readily than men, they employ a better syntax,\na less haphazard vocabulary, their pronunciation is excellent. One\nfeels that language is their element. The second point, the lie, is\nnot disputed; but women are reproached with it, whereas it is the\nconsequence of another gift and, moreover, an assertion of their\nspiritual nature. Women lie more than men. Then it is because they have\na greater sentiment of independence, a livelier consciousness; and here\nwe have reached the third point, without, it seems to me, a minute\ndemonstration being necessary.\n\nThe hysterical lie has been spoken of. It is probable that there is an\nerror here, not in the terms, but in the intention which has brought\nthem together. If unconscious life is meant, it is an absurdity. The\nlie is, on the contrary, the very sign of consciousness, and there\ncan be no lie save where there is full and active consciousness. A\ndistempered sensation, expressed as felt, should not be confused with\nthe intentional travestying of the exposition of a true sensation--the\nfirst term of the series with the last. The animal never lies. How\ncould it? It is forced to express its sensation just as he feels\nit. If it wishes to bite, the dog curves his lips, shows his teeth.\nIf you see it hold back, play the hypocrite, lie, it is because,\nthrough its contact with man, it has perhaps acquired a rudiment of\nconsciousness--because its acquired education comes, at such a moment,\ninto conflict with its instinct. Moreover, ruse--especially when\napplied to defence, or to the search for food--is something quite\ndifferent from the lie. It is the acute form of prudence. The true lie\nis purposeless, without other utility than the assertion of a superior\ndetachment. It presents itself as a negation of the ties that attach\nman to reality, in which respect it approaches poetry and art, of which\nit is one of the elements. Art is born, like the lie, of a lively\nconsciousness of the sensations and emotions. It declares a state of\nextreme sensibility, together with a tendency to repel that reality\nwhereby a man's senses were wounded. Art, whatever its form, implies\na profound knowledge of the signs, and the will to transpose them,\nwithout reference to their customary concordances. The artist is he\nwho lies superiorly--better than other men. If he lies with speech, he\nis the poet; with inarticulate sounds, the musician; with forms whose\nattitudes he fixes, the sculptor, and his art is merely the extreme\ndevelopment of the language of motion (of which the dancer represents\na very fugitive stage); with lines and colours, the painter, and what\ndoes this last do if not restore to primitive hieroglyphics their true\naspect and all their natural scope? Art is a language, and it is only\nthat.\n\nBut if woman is language, how do women happen to have played so\ninconspicuous a part in the supreme activity of language? Critics,\nto flatter them, have alleged some sort of lateral heredity whereby\nit is demonstrated that, as the daughters of mothers less and less\ncultivated, going back through the centuries, it is not surprising\nthat their aptitudes are inferior to those of the males. This is not\nto be taken seriously. For, if it be true that genius and talent are\noften directly related with anterior cultures, there are also sudden\naptitudes developed by the environment. Why should not a girl find\nthis aptitude in her flesh, like her brother? Moreover, for thousands\nof years now, women have been taught music. Yet it is perhaps the art\nin which they have least created. The cause lies deeper. Woman is\nlanguage, but language is useful. Her r\u00f4le is not to create, but to\nconserve. She accomplishes this task marvellously. She creates neither\npoems nor statues, but she creates the creators of the poems and of the\nstatues. She teaches them language, which is the condition of their\nscience, the lie which is the condition of their art, the consciousness\nwhich gives them their genius. When the child, about the age of six or\nseven, leaves the woman's hands, the man is already man. He speaks, and\nthat is man in his entirety.\n\nWoman's great intellectual task is teaching the language. The\ngrammarians and their substitutes, school-teachers and professors,\nfancy that they are the masters of language, and that, without\ntheir intervention, men's language would perish in confusion and\nincoherence. They have been maintained for ages in this illusion, yet\nthere is none more ridiculous. Women are the elementary, and poets the\nsuperior artisans of language, both unconscious of their function.\nThe intervention of grammarians is almost always bad, unless it limit\nitself to a statement of the facts--unless it dare restore to the hands\nof women and of poets an influence which science could exert only with\ninjustice. Here are some children who speak. They are going to school\nto have a lesson in grammar. They speak, and employ all the forms of\nthe verb, all the shades of syntax, easily and correctly. They speak,\nbut here now is the school, and the master succeeds in teaching them\nthe nature of the imperfect subjunctive. For a function, the pedagogue\nhas substituted a notion. He has replaced the act by consciousness of\nthe act, the word by its definition. He teaches grammar. He does not\nteach language.\n\nLanguage is a function. Grammar is the analysis of this function. It is\nas useless to know grammar in order to speak one's native tongue, as to\nknow physiology in order to breathe with one's lungs, or to walk with\none's legs. Compared with the r\u00f4le of the ignorant mother who plucks,\nlike a flower, the first word blossoming on her child's lips, the\nteacher's r\u00f4le amounts to almost nothing. It is the mother herself who\nsowed this word which has just bloomed. For, if language be a function,\nit must be given the material on which to work. A woman's idle chatter,\ndiffering so slightly from that of the little girl talking to her doll,\nis the child's first lesson, and the one whose importance surpasses\nevery other. Words are so many seeds which will sprout, grow and come\nto fruition in the young brain. Without this ceaseless random sowing,\nthe child's linguistic function would remain inert, and only vague and\nperhaps inarticulate sounds would issue from its lips. It has sometimes\nbeen wondered what language children, brought up together beyond reach\nof the human voice, would speak. Perhaps they would speak none at all.\nIt is a question that no one can solve. At all events, they would speak\nmerely a rudimentary language--that is to say, one too rich, variable\nand entirely unknown. For innate roots exist no more than innate ideas.\nThe child does not create his language. Still less does he secrete\nhis language. He learns it. He speaks the way people speak about him\nin his cradle. He is a phonograph and at first functions no less\nmechanically. Before he is able to situate verbal signs with reference\nto the objects represented, he possesses them in great quantity, but in\nconfusion, pell-mell. Later he will learn to utilize this wealth. Since\nhe knows, on the one hand, the words and, on the other, the objects,\nthe operation of combining them in his memory will be of the simplest,\nmost natural order. The woman directs this combination joyfully, and\nshe admires herself in her admiration of the child's progress. She\nbelieves that the double acquisition of the word and of the object is\nmade exclusively at her command, and that fills her with pride. Thus,\nignorance of the child's psychological mechanism assures the teacher's\nsuccess.\n\nLater, as poet, story-teller, philosopher, theologian or moralist--as\ncreator of values, in Nietzsche's very forceful expression--the child\nwill usually employ in her honour this language that he receives almost\nentirely from woman. The larger part of literature is the indirect\nwork of woman, made for her, to please or to pique her, to exalt or\nto decry her, to touch her heart, to idealize or to curse her beauty\nand her love. The two sexes had to be thus profoundly dissimilar,\nforeign, opposite, for one to become the other's adorer. With equality\nof tastes, of needs, of desires, bodily differences would not have\nsufficed, nor the injunction of the species. Humanity could perpetuate\nitself without love;[2] but love would have been impossible without the\nradical divergences which render man and woman two mutually mysterious\nworlds. Only the unknown can be adored. There is no longer a religion\nwhere there is no longer mystery. In all societies, so long as she\nis young and beautiful, woman, even when a slave, is the mistress of\ncivilization. The poets, inspired by her grace, heighten this supremacy\nby making her the theme of their songs; and poetry, which had, at\nfirst, no other aim than to tell the joys of possession or the pangs of\ndesire, completed its evolution by creating love. For love, with all\nthe sentiment, the passion, the dream, the happiness, the tears which\nthis word implies, is at bottom a verbal creation and the imaginative\nachievement of the artists of language.\n\nIt is through poems, tales, traditional narratives, that ordinary man,\ninclined to enjoyment only, has learned to love, to enhance infinitely\nhis commonplace joys and futile sorrows. Let us repeat here Nietzsche's\nsaying--the poet has been the creator of sentimental values. But almost\nas soon as created, they have escaped him. Possessing herself of these\nnew values, woman has turned them into instruments to assure her\nsovereignty. She has, in all simplicity, culled the fruits of language,\nher work.\n\nHow love has evolved under this domination, with all the benefits\nwhich have accrued from it, would be a long chapter in the history of\ncivilization.\n\n1901.\n\n\n[1] The idea of thus introducing attention into the world through woman\nis M. Ribot's, in his _Psychologie de l'attention_.\n\n[2] Copulation would have sufficed for that. Life in common, after\nfertilization, is extremely rare, except among primates and birds.\nAmong carnivorous insects, the union is often mortal for the male whom\nthe stronger female devours.\n\n\nNote.--Philosophic deductions are of value only if they agree exactly\nwith science; but then they have a value. I have therefore availed\nmyself of the opportunity to complete the note on a previous page,\nconcerning the lie considered as a vital reaction. Here is the\nscientific statement of the question:\n\n\"M. R. Quinton has been led, in the course of his investigations,\nto recognize that all living beings are divided into two great\nphysiological groups, which correspond exactly to the two anatomical\ngroups: _Invertebrates_ and _Vertebrates_--The first, and lower group\n(Invertebrates), always in equilibrium with the environment, supporting\nall the exterior conditions, however unfavourable; the second, and\nhigher (Vertebrates), not accepting these conditions, reacting against\nthem, always in disequilibrium with the environment, maintaining\ninternally the saline concentration of their origins, in opposition\nto the sea, which becomes more concentrated, or to fresh water which\nloses its salt; maintaining, moreover, its original temperature\nin opposition to a terrestrial environment which grows colder,\n_lying to the environment_, in short, in order to maintain its most\nfavourable conditions of life. The lie, of which we speak, is only the\npsychological form of this reaction, on the part of the _Vertebrates_,\nagainst the hostility of the environment.\"\n\nThe obscure terms in this note (saline concentration, temperature of\nthe origins) are explained in M. Quinton's book: _L'Eau de mer, milieu\norganique_.\n\n\n\n\nST\u00c9PHANE MALLARM\u00c9 AND THE IDEA OF DECADENCE\n\n\n            Decadence: A very convenient word for ignorant\n            pedagogues; a vague word behind which our\n            laziness and lack of curiosity concerning the\n            law seek shelter.\n\n                         BAUDELAIRE: Letter to Jules Janin.\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nAbruptly, about 1885, the idea of decadence entered French literature.\nAfter serving to glorify or to ridicule a whole group of poets, it\nhad perched, as it were, upon a single head. St\u00e9phane Mallarm\u00e9 was\nthe prince of this ironical, almost injurious realm, as it would have\nbeen, had the word itself been rightly understood and employed. But,\nby an eccentricity which is a Latin trait, the academic world, in\nkeeping with its normal but unwholesome horror when confronted with\nnew tendencies, called thus the fever for originality which tormented\na generation. M. Mallarm\u00e9, rendered responsible for the acts of\nrebellion which he had encouraged, appeared to the innocent ass-drivers\nwho accompany but do not conduct the caravan a redoubtable Aladdin,\nassassin of the sound principles of universal imitation.\n\nThese are, after all, thoroughly literary habits. They have been\nflourishing now for nearly three centuries, and the most celebrated\nrevolts have hardly lopped their branches--have never uprooted them. No\nsooner had the Romantic insolences subsided than the poet was forced\nto crawl, half-smothered, under the ancient greenwood which furnishes\nferules.\n\nThese habits are also thoroughly Latin. The Romans, so long as they\nwere Romans only, knew nothing of individualism. Their civilization\noffers the spectacle of a fine social animality. Emulation with them\naimed at likeness, just as, with us, it aims at unlikeness. Once\nthey possessed five or six poets--successful off-shoots of Hellenic\ngrafting--they refused to admit any others, and it is quite possible\nthat, their social, racial instinct dominating the instinct of freedom\nand individuality, no poet of fresh inspiration was born to them for\nfour or five centuries. They had the emperor and they had Virgil, and\nthey obeyed both equally until the Christian revolt and the barbarian\ninvasion joined hands above the Capitol. Literary liberty, like all\nother liberties, is born of the union of consciousness and strength.\nThe day when Saint Ambrose, writing his hymns, disregarded the Horatian\nprinciples should be memorable, for it marks unmistakably the birth of\na new mentality.\n\nJust as the political history of the Romans has furnished us with the\nconception of historical decadence, so the history of their literature\nhas furnished us with the conception of literary decadence--the\ntwo faces of a single idea; for it has been easy to indicate the\ncoincidence of the two movements, and to inculcate the belief that\nthere was a necessary connection between the two. Montesquieu owes his\nfame to the fact that he was particularly the dupe of this illusion.\n\nSavages find it very difficult to admit the possibility of natural\ndeath. For them, every death is a murder. They have not the slightest\nsense of law; they live in the domain of the accidental. It has been\nagreed to call this state of mind inferior, and it is inferior,\nthough the notion of rigid law is just as false and as dangerous as\nits negation. The only absolutely necessary laws are natural laws,\nwhich can neither vary nor change. In the case of social and political\nevolution, not only are there no necessary laws, but there are no very\ngeneral laws even. Either these so-called laws, confused with the\nfacts which they explain, amount to nothing but wise and honourable\nassertions, or else they declare, though over-emphatically, the very\nprinciple of change. Empires, then, are born, grow and die. Social\ncombinations are unstable. Human groups have, at different epochs,\ndifferent powers of cohesion. New affinities appear and are propagated.\nHere there would be the material for a treatise on social mechanics,\nif the writer did not insist too rigorously on squaring his philosophy\nwith the reality of unexpected catastrophes. For the unexpected must\nbe left a place which is sometimes the throne whence irony flashes and\nlaughs. The idea of decadence is, then, merely the idea of natural\ndeath. Historians admit no other. To explain the taking of Byzantium\nby the Turks, they make us listen to the murmur of theological\nquarrels, and the crack of the Blue's whip in the circus. Longchamps\nleads to Sedan, no doubt, but Epsom leads to Waterloo also. The long\ndecadence of crumbling empires is one of the most singular illusions\nin history. If certain empires have died of sickness or of old age,\nthe greater number, on the contrary, have succumbed to violent death,\nin the plenitude of their physical power, in the full force of their\nintellectual vigour.\n\nThen, too, intelligence is personal, and no reasonable relation can\nbe established between the power of a people and the genius of an\nindividual. Neither Greek literature, nor the literatures of the Middle\nAges, correspond to stable and powerful political institutions, Greek,\nItalian or French; and it is precisely now, when their material power\nhas become negligible, that the Scandinavian kingdoms have decked\nthemselves with original talents. It would, perhaps, be nearer the\ntruth to say that political decadence is the condition most favourable\nfor intellectual flowering. It is when a Gustavus Adolphus and a\nCharles XII are no longer possible, that an Ibsen and a Bj\u00f6rnson\nappear. In the same way, the fall of Napoleon seemed a signal for\nnature to clothe herself again joyously in green, and to put forth\nher most magnificent growths. Goethe was the contemporary of his\ncountry's ruin. In order to exercise and satisfy our tendencies towards\nhistorical scepticism, we should not, however, fail to oppose to these\nexamples the phenomena of those doubly glorious epochs of which the\npompous century of Louis XIV is the venerated model. After this, a\nfew minutes' reflection will force us to adopt a somewhat different\nopinion from that which passes current persistently in text-books and\nin conversation.\n\nBossuet was the first to whom it occurred to judge universal\nhistory--or what he na\u00efvely regarded as such--in accordance with\nthe principles of Biblical Judaism. He saw the fall of all those\nempires upon which Jehovah had laid his heavy hand. This is the idea\nof decadence explained by that of punishment. Montesquieu's more\ncomplicated philosophy is perhaps even more puerile. It is impossible\nto name without a sort of disgust a historian who dates the decadence\nof Rome from the dawn of those admirable centuries of world-peace\nwhich, perhaps, constitute the one happy epoch of civilized humanity.\nThe meaning of the words must be scrutinized closely. Then it will be\nperceived that they have no sense, and that memorable writers used them\nall their lives without understanding them. But however debatable, or\nat least however vague, it may be, the general idea of decadence is\nclear and distinct compared with the more restricted notion of literary\ndecadence.\n\nFrom Racine to Vigny, France produced no great poet. This is a fact.\nSuch a period is certainly one of literary decadence; yet we should\nnot go further than the fact itself, or attribute to it an absurd\ncharacter of logic and necessity. Poetry was asleep in the eighteenth\ncentury, through lack of poets; but this failure is not the result of a\ntoo free flowering prior to that period. It is what it is, and nothing\nmore. If we call it decadence, we admit the existence of a sort of\nmysterious organism--a being, a woman--Poetry--who is born, brings\nforth, and dies, at almost regular intervals, after the manner of human\nbeings. This is an agreeable conception--subject for a dissertation or\nlecture--but one which should be omitted from a discussion, which aims\nonly at the anatomy of an idea.\n\nThe principal trait of eighteenth century poetry is its spirit of\nimitation. That century was Roman in its cultivation of this spirit.\nIt imitated furiously, gracefully, tenderly, ironically, stupidly.\nIt was \"Chinese\" as well as Roman. There were \"models.\" The word\nwas imperative. The poet was not obliged to describe the impression\nproduced upon him by life; he had to watch Racine and scale the\nmountain. What a singular psychology! The same philosopher who sapped\nthe idea of respect in politics, replastered and whitewashed it anew\nin literature. There were critics. While Goethe was writing _Werther_,\nthey were comparing Gilbert and Boileau. It was a degradation. Must\nwe seek a cause for it? That would be vain. To attempt to explain why\nno poet was born in France for a hundred years, with the exception of\nDelille[1] and of Ch\u00e9nier, would lead necessarily to explaining the\nbirth of Ronsard, Th\u00e9ophile or Racine also. We know nothing about it,\nand nothing can be known. Stripped of its mysticism, its necessity, all\nits historical genealogy, the idea of literary decadence is reduced to\na purely negative notion--to the simple idea of absence. This sounds\nso simple that one scarcely dares to express it; but, when superior\nintelligences are lacking at a given moment, the multiplication of\nmediocrities makes itself acutely and actively felt; and, as the\nmediocre man is an imitator, the epochs that have justly been called\ndecadent are nothing but epochs of imitation. In the last analysis, the\nidea of decadence is identical with the idea of imitation.\n\n\nII\n\n\nYet, in the case of Mallarm\u00e9 and of a literary group, the idea of\ndecadence has been assimilated to its exact opposite--the idea of\ninnovation. Such judgments have made a particular impression upon\nmen of one generation because, doubtless, we ourselves were involved\nand foolishly flouted by \"right-minded\" critics; they were, however,\nmerely the clumsy and decrepit modern version of those decrees with\nwhich the mandarins of every age have sought to curse and to crush the\nnew serpents breaking their shell under the ironical eye of their old\nmother. Diabolical intelligence laughs at exorcisms, and the University\nhas been no more able than the Church to disinfect it with its holy\nwater. In the past a man rose up--buckler of the faith--against\nheresies and novelties. He was the Jesuit. To-day it is too often\nthe Professor who arises as champion of the rules. Here again we\nhave the antinomy which surprises us in Voltaire and the Voltairian\nof yesterday. The same man, so courageous where justice or political\nliberty is concerned, recoils the moment it is a matter of literary\nnovelty or liberty. When, reaching Tolstoy and Ibsen, he alludes to\ntheir glory, he adds (in a note): \"Are these reputations--especially\nIbsen's--firmly established? The question whether the author of\n_Ghosts_ is a mystifier or a genius has not yet been settled.\"[2]\nSuch, confronted with the unknown--with the not yet seen or read--is\nthe attitude of a writer who, in the very volume here quoted, proves\nthat he possesses praiseworthy independence of judgment. I need not\nadd that, in his pages, the \"decadents\" are scouted on every occasion.\nHow, after this, can we be surprised at the dull raillery of lesser\nminds? A new way of stating the eternal truths is always a scandal for\nmen--especially for men who are too well-educated. They feel a sort of\nfright, and to recover their assurance they have recourse to denial,\nto abuse, to derision. It is the natural attitude of the human animal\nin the presence of physical danger. But how have we come to regard as\na peril every real innovation in art or in literature? Why, above all,\nis this assimilation one of the maladies peculiar to our time--perhaps\nthe gravest of all, since it tends to restrict movement and to obstruct\nlife?\n\nFor years Delacroix and Puvis de Chavannes, so different in\ntheir genius, were hooted and rejected by the juries. Under\nevidently contradictory pretexts, a single explanation is\ndiscovered--originality. The guardians of art feel themselves menaced\nby a work which reveals almost no trace of previous methods--one\nnot visibly attached to something known and already understood. Each\nof them reacts to the provocation according to his own peculiar\ntemperament. Formulae change, too, periodically. The eighteenth century\nconsidered non-imitation a breach of taste, and that was a serious\nmatter at a time when Voltaire was erecting a temple, which was only a\ntemplet, to this sprightly god. For ten years, and up to a few weeks\nago, artists and writers who refused to rifle the masters were branded\ndecadents or symbolists. This last insult prevailed in the end, being\nverbally more obscure and consequently easier to handle; it contains,\nmoreover, precisely the same abhorrent notion of non-imitation.\n\nIt was said long ago, considerably before M. Tarde had developed his\ntheory of social philosophy, that \"imitation rules the world of men, as\nabstraction that of things.\" This law is very evident in the particular\ndomain of art and of literature. Literary history is, in sum, nothing\nbut the chart of a succession of intellectual epidemics. Some have\nbeen brief. Fashion changes or continues in accordance with caprices\nimpossible to foresee and difficult to determine. Shakespeare had no\nimmediate influence. Honor\u00e9 d'Urf\u00e9, during his life and after his\ndeath, was, for half a century, the master and inspirer of all romantic\nfiction. He would have reigned still longer, had it not been for _La\nPrincesse de Cl\u00e8ves_, the clandestine work of a _grande dame_. The\nseventeenth century, part of whose literature was merely translation\nand imitation, was not, however, averse to moderate and prudent\nnovelties. The reason is that, if it would have been discreditable not\nto imitate the ancients--or, strange as it may seem, the Spaniards,\nbut only the Spaniards!--in their fables and phrases (Racine trembled\nbecause he had written _Bajazet_), it was a mark of honour to be able\nto give classic borrowings an air of freshness and novelty.\n\nHowever, this literature itself very quickly became classic. There was\nthus a second source of imitation; and, since it was more accessible\nthan the first, it soon came to be almost the sole spring sought by\nsuccessive generations to drink and pray and water their ink. Boileau\nwas deified before his death. As soon as he could read at all, Voltaire\nread Boileau. The principle of imitation was thenceforth supreme in\nFrench literature.\n\nLeaving aside the exceptions--however memorable--this principle\nhas remained very powerful and so well understood, with the spread\nof education, that a critic has only to invoke it, for a shamefaced\nreader to cast aside a new work which he has found refreshing. Thus the\nnewspaper critics have kept Ibsen from being acclimatized in France.\nThus, too, verse plays, imitative works par excellence, succeed even\non the boulevards! These theatrical events, always much magnified by\nadvertising, furnish excellent illustrations for a theory.\n\nThe idea of imitation has, then, become the very soul of art and of\nliterature. It is no more possible to-day to conceive of a novel which\nis not a counterpart or sequel of a preceding novel, than it is to\nconceive of rhymeless verse, or verses whose syllables have not been\nscrupulously scanned. When such innovations nevertheless occurred,\naltering suddenly the accustomed aspect of the literary landscape,\nthere was a flutter among the experts. To conceal their embarrassment,\nthey began to laugh (third method). Then they uttered judgments.\nSince these productions in verse or in prose are not imitated after\nthe latest models, or the works praised by the handbooks, they must\nnecessarily spring from an abnormal source, since it is not familiar\nto us--but which? There were attempts at explanation by means of\nPre-Raphaelitism, but they were not decisive; they were even a little\nridiculous, so profound and invulnerable was the ignorance on every\nhand. But about this time appeared a book which suddenly enlightened\nall minds. A parallel imposed itself inexorably between the new poets\nand the obscure versifiers of the Roman decadence, praised by des\nEsseintes. The movement was unanimous, and the very ones thus decried\naccepted this opprobrious epithet as a distinction. Once the principle\nwas admitted, there was no lack of comparisons. Since no one--not even\ndes Esseintes himself, perhaps--had read the depreciated poets, it was\nno trick at all for any critic to compare Sidonius Apollinaris, of whom\nwe knew nothing, with St\u00e9phane Mallarm\u00e9, whom he did not understand.\nNeither Sidonius Apollinaris nor Mallarm\u00e9 is a decadent, since both\npossess, in different degrees, their own originality; but for that very\nreason the word was justly applied to the poet of _L'Apr\u00e8s-midi d'un\nFaune_, for it signified obscurely, in the minds of the very persons\nwho employed it, something little known, difficult, rare, precious,\nunexpected, new.\n\nIf, on the contrary, it were desired to restore to the idea of literary\ndecadence its real and really cruel meaning, it is not, we suspect,\nMallarm\u00e9 or Laforgue, or any symbolist still writing, who should be\nnamed to-day. The decadent of Latin literature is neither Ammianus\nMarcellinus, nor Saint Augustine, each of whom fashioned a language\nin his own manner, nor is it Saint Ambrose, who created the hymn, nor\nPrudentius, who developed a literary genre, the lyrical biography.[3]\nWe are beginning to have a greater indulgence for Latin literature of\nthe second period. Tired, perhaps, of ridiculing it without reading\nit, we have begun to glance at it a little. Before long, this simple\nnotion will be admitted, that there is no inherent distinction between\ngood Latin and bad Latin; that languages live and that their changes\nare not necessarily corruptions; that a man could have genius in the\nsixth century as well as in the second, in the eleventh as well as\nin the eighteenth; that classic prejudices constitute an obstacle\nto the development of literary history and to integral knowledge of\nthe language itself. Had they been better understood, the poets in\nthe library at Fontenay would not have served to christen a literary\nmovement, unless the intention had been to compare idealistic with\nChristian innovators--a difficult and rather ridiculous undertaking.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nI have wished here merely to attempt the historical (or anecdotal)\nanalysis of an idea, and to indicate, by means of a somewhat elaborate\nexample, how a word comes to have only the meaning which it is our\ninterest to give it. Hence I do not believe it necessary to establish\nminutely the ground of St\u00e9phane Mallarm\u00e9's claims to either hatred or\nridicule.\n\nHatred is queen in the hierarchy of literary sentiments. Literature is,\nperhaps, with religion, the abstract passion which excites men most\nviolently. True, we have not yet seen literary wars resembling the\nreligious wars of--let us say--the past; but that is because literature\nhas never yet descended suddenly to the people's level. By the time\nit reaches them, it has lost its explosive force. It is far from\nthe first night of _Hernani_ to the sale of the play in illustrated\neditions. However, it is not hard to imagine a mobilization of German\nsentimentality against English humour or French irony. It is because\npeoples do not know each other that they hate each other so little. An\nalliance marked by close fraternization always ends in cannon shot.\n\nThe hatred which pursued Mallarm\u00e9 was never very bitter, for men hate\nseriously, even in matters of literature, only when material interests\ncome to envenom a little the strife for the ideal; but he offered\nno surface for envy, and he bore injustice and abuse as necessities\ninherent in the very nature of genius. It was only, then, the pure\nand unalloyed superiority of his intelligence that was derided, on\nthe pretext that he was obscure. Artists, even when depreciated by\ninstinctive cabals, receive orders, earn money. Poets have the resource\nof long articles in the reviews and in the newspapers. Certain of them,\nlike Th\u00e9ophile Gautier, earned their living in this way. Baudelaire\nsucceeded ill at it, Mallarm\u00e9 worse still. It was, then, in his case,\nagainst the poet stripped of every social ornament that the sarcasm was\ndirected.\n\nThere is, by accident, at the Louvre, in a ridiculous collection,\na marvel, an Andromeda, carved in ivory by Cellini. It is a\nterror-stricken woman, all her flesh aquiver with fright at being\nbound. Where can she flee? It is also Mallarm\u00e9's poetry. The emblem\nis the more appropriate that, like the sculptor, the poet wrought\nnothing but cups, vases, caskets, statuettes. He is not colossal, he\nis perfect. His poetry does not present a great human treasure spread\nforth before the dazzled crowd. It does not express common, strong\nideas, which easily galvanize popular attention dulled by toil. It\nis personal, shrinking like those flowers that fear the sun. It has\nno scent save at evening. It yields its thought only to the intimacy\nof another thought, trusty and sincere. Its excessive modesty, it is\ntrue, draws about itself too many veils; but there is much delicacy\nin this eagerness to flee the eyes and hands of popular appreciation.\nFlee, where could it flee? Mallarm\u00e9 sought refuge in obscurity as in\na cloister. He interposed the wall of a cell between himself and the\nunderstanding of others. He wished to live alone in his pride. But that\nwas the Mallarm\u00e9 of the last years, when, hurt, but not disheartened,\nhe felt himself seized with the same disgust for vain phrases which had\nalso, in the past, stricken Jean Racine--the years when he created a\nnew syntax for his own use, when he used words according to a system\nof new and secret relations. St\u00e9phane Mallarm\u00e9 wrote relatively much,\nand the greater part of his work is stained by no obscurity; but,\nif later and towards the last, beginning with the _Prose pour des\nEsseintes_, there are doubtful phrases or irritating verses, it is only\nan inattentive and vulgar mind that dreads to undertake the delicious\nconquest.\n\nThere are too few obscure writers in French. So we accustom ourselves\nlike cowards to love only writing that is easy and that will soon\nbe elementary. Yet it is rare that books blindly clear are worth\nrereading. It is clearness that constitutes the prestige of classic\nliterature and it is clearness that makes them so clearly tiresome.\nClear minds are commonly those that see but one thing at a time. When\nthe brain is rich in sensations and in ideas, there is a constant eddy,\nand the smooth surface is troubled at the moment of spouting. Let us,\nlike M. Doudan, prefer marshes swarming with life, to a glass of clear\nwater. One is thirsty at times, to be sure. Well, then, one filters.\nLiterature which gives immediate pleasure to all men is necessarily of\nno value. It must first, falling from on high, leap in cascades from\nledge to ledge, in order to flow at last through the valley, within\nreach of all men and of all stocks.\n\nIf, then, one undertook a definitive study of St\u00e9phane Mallarm\u00e9,\nthe question of obscurity would have to be treated exclusively from\nthe psychological standpoint, for the reason that there is never\nabsolute, literal obscurity in an honestly written work. A sensible\ninterpretation is always possible. It will, perhaps, vary according\nto the evening hour, like the play of cloud-shadows on the velvet\nlawn; but the truth, here and everywhere, will be what our passing\nsentiment shall make it. Mallarm\u00e9's work is the most marvellous pretext\nfor reveries yet offered men weary of so many heavy and useless\naffirmations. It may well be that a poetry full of doubts, of shifting\nshades, and of ambiguous perfumes, can alone please us henceforward;\nand, if the word decadence really summed up all these autumnal,\ntwilight charms, we might welcome it, even making it one of the keys of\nthe viol; but it is dead; the master is dead, the penultimate is dead.\n\n1898.\n\n\n[1] It must be remembered that the Abb\u00e9 Delille is not at all, as is\ncommonly believed, a poet of the Empire. Almost all his poems and his\nglory date from the _Ancien R\u00e9gime_.\n\n[2] P. Stapfer, _Des R\u00e9putations litt\u00e9raires_, Paris, 1891.\n\n[3] A genre which has degenerated into the complaint. But the complaint\nhas had its great period. The oldest poem in the French language is a\ncomplaint and inspired, precisely, by one of the poems of Prudentius.\n\n\n\n\nCONCERNING STYLE OR WRITING\n\n\nI\n\n            Et ideo confiteatur eorum stultitia, qui\n            arte scientiaque immunes, de solo ingenio\n            confidentes, ad summa summe canenda prorumpunt;\n            a tanta praesuntuositate desistant, et\n            si anseres naturali desidia sunt, nolint\n            astripetam aquilam imitari.\n\n                                  DANTE: De vulgari eloquio.\n\n\nDepreciation of \"writing\"--that is, writing as an art--is a precaution\ntaken from time to time by worthless writers. They believe it sound,\nbut it is the sign of their mediocrity and the avowal of a secret\nregret. It is not without chagrin that the impotent man gives up the\npretty woman whose limpid eyes invite him, and there must be bitterness\nin the disdain publicly proclaimed by one who confesses utter ignorance\nof his trade, or absence of the gift without which exercise of that\ntrade is an imposture. Yet some of these poor creatures actually pride\nthemselves upon their poverty. They declare that their ideas are rare\nenough not to need fine clothing; that the newest, richest imagery is\nmerely the veil thrown by vanity over the emptiness of the thought;\nthat what matters, after all, is the substance and not the form, the\nspirit and not the letter, the thing and not the word; and they can\ncontinue like this a long time, for they have at their command a whole\nflock of facile commonplaces which, however, fool nobody. We should\npity the first group and despise the second, replying to neither,\nunless it be to say this: that there are two literatures, and that they\nbelong to each other.\n\nTwo literatures. This is a prudent and provisional form of expression\nintended to divert the mob by according it a share in the landscape,\na view of the garden which it may not enter. If there were not two\nliteratures and two provinces, it would be necessary to cut at once the\nthroats of nearly all French writers--a dirty job and one in which, for\nmy part, I should blush to have a hand. Enough, then. The boundary is\nestablished. There are two sorts of writers: the writers who write and\nthe writers who do not write--just as there are voiceless singers and\nsingers with voices.\n\nThe disdain for style would seem to be one of the conquests of 1789.\nAt least, prior to the democratic era, it had been taken for granted\nthat the one way to treat writers who did not write was to ridicule\nthem. From Pisistratus to Louis XVI, the civilized world was unanimous\non this point--a writer must know how to write. This was the Greek\nview, and the Romans loved fine style to such a degree that they came\nto write very badly through wishing to write too well. Saint Ambrose\nesteemed eloquence so highly that he regarded it as one of the gifts of\nthe Holy Spirit--_vox donum Spiritus_--and Saint Hilary of Poitiers,\nin chapter thirteen of his _Treatise on the Psalms_, does not hesitate\nto call bad style a sin. It cannot, then, be from Roman Christianity\nthat we have derived our present indulgence for uncouth literature.\nStill, inasmuch as Christianity is necessarily responsible for all\nmodern aggressions against external beauty, it might be supposed that\nthe taste for bad style was one of those Protestant importations that\nbefouled France in the eighteenth century--contempt for style and moral\nhypocrisy being Anglican vices.[1]\n\nHowever, if the eighteenth century wrote badly, it did so\nunconsciously. It thought that Voltaire wrote well, especially in\nverse, and reproached Ducis only with the barbarousness of his models.\nIt had an ideal. It did not admit that philosophy might be an excuse\nfor bad literature. It rhymed everything, from the treatises of Isaac\nNewton to garden manuals and 'cook-books. This lust for putting art\nand fine language where they did not belong, led to the adoption of a\nmedium style calculated to elevate all vulgar subjects and to degrade\nall the others. With the best of intentions, the eighteenth century\nended by writing as if it were the most refractory to art in the\nworld's history. England and France signed, at that time, a literary\npact destined to endure till the arrival of Chateaubriand, whose\n_G\u00e9nie du Christianisme_[2] sounded its solemn dissolution. From the\nappearance of this book, which opens the century, there has been but\none way for a writer to have talent, namely, to know how to write--no\nlonger in the manner of La Harpe, but in accordance with the examples\nof an unconquered tradition as old as the first awakening of beauty in\nhuman intelligence.[3]\n\nBut the eighteenth century manner corresponded only too well to the\nnatural tendencies of a democratic civilization. Neither Chateaubriand\nnor Victor Hugo was able to abrogate the organic law which sends the\nherd plunging down to the green plain where there is grass, and where\nthere will be nothing but dust, once it has passed. It was soon deemed\nuseless to cultivate a landscape destined to popular devastations, so\nthere sprang up a literature without style, just as there are highroads\nwithout grass, without shade, and without wayside springs.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nWriting is a trade, and I should rather see it catalogued between\ncobbling and carpentry, than separated from the other manifestations of\nhuman activity. Thus set apart, it can be virtually denied existence\nunder colour of according it special honour, and so far removed from\nevery vital interest that it will die of its isolation. Given, however,\nits place in one of the symbolic niches along the great gallery, it\nsuggests apprenticeship and the handling of tools. It repels impromptu\nvocations. It is severe and uninviting.\n\nWriting is a trade, but style is not a science. \"Style is the man,\"\nand that other formula, \"Style is inviolable,\" offered by Hello, mean\nexactly the same thing, namely, that style is as personal as the\ncolour of the eyes or the sound of the voice. One can learn to write;\none cannot learn to have a style. A writer can dye his style, as he\ndoes his hair, but he must begin over again every morning, and have\nno distractions. It is so little possible to acquire a style, that\none is often lost in the course of a lifetime. When the vital force\ndiminishes, writing suffers. Practice, which improves other gifts,\noften spoils this one.\n\nWriting is very different from painting or modelling. To write or to\nspeak is to make use of a faculty necessarily common to all men--a\nprimordial and unconscious faculty which cannot be analyzed without\nthe complete anatomy of the intelligence. That is why all treatises on\nthe art of writing, whether they number ten pages or ten thousand, are\nbut vain sketches. The question is so complex that it is hard to know\nwhere to attack' it. It has so many sharp points, and is such a thicket\nof thorns and thistles that, instead of plunging straight into it, one\ngoes around, and that is wiser.\n\nTo write, as Flaubert and Goncourt understood it, is to exist, to be\none's self. To have a style is to speak, in the midst of the common\nlanguage, a peculiar dialect, unique and inimitable, yet so constituted\nas to be at once the language of all and the language of an individual.\nStyle is self-evident. To study its mechanism is useless to the\npoint where uselessness becomes a positive menace. That which can be\nrecomposed from the products of stylistic distillation bears the same\nresemblance to the style distilled, that a perfumed paper rose bears to\na real rose.\n\nWhatever be the fundamental importance of a \"written\" work, possession\nof style enhances its value. It was Buffon's opinion that all the\nbeauties found in a well-written book, \"all the relations which\nconstitute style, are so many truths quite as useful for the mind as\nthose forming the substance of the subject, and perhaps even more\nprecious.\" And, despite the common disdain, this is also the common\nopinion, since the books of the past which still live, live only by\nvirtue of their style. Were the contrary possible, such a contemporary\nof Buffon as Boulanger, author of _L'Antiquit\u00e9 d\u00e9voil\u00e9e_, would not be\nunknown to-day, for there was nothing mediocre about the man but his\nway of writing. And is it not because he almost always lacked style,\nthat another contemporary, Diderot, has never enjoyed more than a few\nhours of reputation at a time, and that as soon as people stop talking\nabout him, he is forgotten?\n\nIt is because of this incontestable preponderance of style that the\ninvention of plots is of no great importance in literature. To write\na good novel or a lasting drama, one must either select a subject so\nbanal that it is absolutely nil, or invent one so new that genius alone\ncan get anything out of it--_Romeo and Juliet_, or _Don Quixote_.\nMost of Shakespeare's tragedies are merely a succession of metaphors\nembroidered on the canvas of the first story that came to his hand.\nShakespeare invented nothing but his lines and his phrases. His\nimages being new, their novelty necessarily communicated life to the\ncharacters. If _Hamlet_, idea for idea, had been written by Christopher\nMarlowe, it would be merely an obscure, clumsy tragedy, cited as an\ninteresting sketch. M. de Maupassant, who invented the majority of\nhis themes, is a lesser story-teller than Boccaccio, who invented\nnone of his. Besides, the invention of subjects is limited, though\ninfinitely flexible. But, change the age, and you change the story. If\nM. Aicard had genius, he would not have translated Othello; he would\nhave remade it, just as the youthful Racine remade the tragedies of\nEuripides'. If man did not have style as a means of achieving variety,\neverything would be said in the first hundred years of a literature.\nI am quite willing to admit that there are thirty-six situations for\nnovels and dramas, but a more general theory can, as a matter of fact,\nrecognize four only. Man, taken as the centre, may have relations with\nhimself, with other men, with the other sex, with the infinite--God\nor Nature. A piece of literature falls necessarily into one of these\nfour categories; but were there in the world one theme only, and that\n_Daphnis and Chloe_, it would suffice.\n\nOne of the excuses made by writers who do not know how to write, is\nthe diversity of genres. They believe that one genre calls for style,\nand that another does not. A novel, they say, should not be written\nin the same tone as a poem. True; but absence of style means absence\nof tone also, and when a book lacks \"writing,\" it lacks everything.\nIt is invisible or, as we say, it passes unnoticed. And that is as\nit should be. After all, there is but one genre, poetry, and but one\nmedium, verse; for beautiful prose must have a rhythm which will make\nus doubt whether it be merely prose. Buffon wrote nothing but poems,\nas did Bossuet and Chateaubriand and Flaubert. If the _\u00c9poques de la\nNature_ stirs the admiration of scientists and philosophers, it is none\nthe less a sumptuous epic. M. Bruneti\u00e8re spoke with ingenious boldness\nof the evolution of the genres. He showed that Bossuet's prose is but\none of the cuts in the great lyric forest where Victor Hugo later was a\nwoodsman. But I prefer the idea that there are no genres, or that there\nis but one only. This, moreover, is in closer accord with the latest\ntheories of science and philosophy. The idea of evolution is about to\ndisappear before that of permanence, perpetuity.\n\nCan one learn to write? Regarded as a question of style, this\namounts to asking if, with application, M. Zola could have become\nChateaubriand, or if M. Quesnay de Beaurepaire, had he taken pains,\ncould have become Rabelais: if the man who imitates precious marbles by\nspraying pine panels with a sharp shake of his brush, could, properly\nguided, have painted the _Pauvre P\u00eacheur_, or if the stone-cutter, who\nchisels the depressing fronts of Parisian houses in the Corinthian\nmanner, might not, perhaps, after twenty lessons, execute the _Porte\nd'Enfer_ or the tomb of Philippe Pot?\n\nCan one learn to write? If, on the other hand, the question be one of\nthe elements of a trade, of what painters are taught in the academies,\nall that can indeed be learned. One can learn to write correctly,\nin the neutral manner, just as engravers used to work in the \"black\nmanner.\" One can learn to write badly--that is to say, properly, and\nso as to merit a prize for literary excellence. One may learn to write\nvery well, which is another way of writing very ill. How melancholy\nthey are, those books which are well-written--and nothing more!\n\n\nIII\n\n\nM. Albalat has, then, published a manual entitled _The Art of Writing\nTaught in Twenty Lessons_. Had this work appeared at an earlier date,\nit would certainly have found a place in the library of M. Dumouchel,\nprofessor of literature, and he would have recommended it to his\nfriends Bouvard and P\u00e9cuchet: \"Then,\" as Flaubert tells us, \"they\nsought to determine the precise constitution of style, and, thanks\nto the authors recommended by Dumouchel, they learned the secret\nof all the genres.\" However, the two old boys would have found M.\nAlbalat's remarks somewhat subtle. They would have been shocked to\nlearn that _T\u00e9l\u00e9maque_ is badly written and that M\u00e9rim\u00e9e would gain by\ncondensation. They would have rejected M. Albalat and set to work on\ntheir biography of the Duc d'Angoul\u00eame without him.\n\nSuch resistance does not surprise me. It springs, perhaps, from an\nobscure feeling that the unconscious writer laughs at principles,\nat the art of epithets, and at the artifice of the three graduated\nimpulses. Had M. Albalat known that intellectual effort, and\nespecially literary effort, is, in very large measure, independent\nof consciousness, he would have been less imprudent and hesitated to\ndivide a writer's qualities into two classes: natural qualities and\nqualities that can be acquired. As if a quality--that is to say a\nmanner of being and of feeling--were something external to be added\nlike a colour or an odour. One becomes what he is--without wishing to\neven, and despite every effort to oppose it. The most enduring patience\ncannot turn a blind imagination into a visual imagination, and the\nwork of a writer who sees the landscape, whose aspect he transposes\ninto terms of literary art, is better, however awkward, than after\nit has been retouched by someone whose vision is void, or profoundly\ndifferent. \"But the master alone can give the salient stroke.\" I can\nsee P\u00e9cuchet's discouragement at this. The master's stroke in artistic\nliterature--even the salient stroke--is necessarily the very one on\nwhich stress should not have been laid. Otherwise the stroke emphasizes\nthe detail to which it is customary to give prominence, and not that\nwhich had struck the unskilled but sincere inner eye of the apprentice.\nM. Albalat makes an abstraction of this almost always unconscious\nvision, and defines style as \"the art of grasping the value of words\nand their interrelations.\" Talent, in his opinion, consists \"not in\nmaking a dull, lifeless use of words, but in discovering the _nuances_,\nthe images, the sensations, which result from their combinations.\"\n\nHere we are, then, in the realm of pure verbalism--in the ideal region\nof signs. It is a question of manipulating these signs and arranging\nthem in patterns that will give the illusion of representing the world\nof sensations. Thus reversed, the problem is insoluble. It may well\nhappen, since all things are possible, that such combinations of words\nwill evoke life--even a determinate life--but more often they will\nremain inert. The forest becomes petrified. A critique of style should\nbegin with a critique of the inner vision, by an essay on the formation\nof images. There are, to be sure, two chapters on images in Albalat's\nbook, but they come quite at the end. Thus the mechanism of language is\nthere demonstrated in inverse order, since the first step is the image,\nthe last the abstraction. A proper analysis of the natural stylistic\nprocess would begin with the sensation and end with the pure idea--\nso pure that it corresponded not only to nothing real, but to nothing\nimaginative either.\n\nIf there were an art of writing, it would be nothing more or less than\nthe art of feeling, the art of seeing, the art of hearing, the art of\nusing all the senses, whether directly or through the imagination;\nand the new, serious method of a theory of style would be an attempt\nto show how these two separate worlds--the world of sensations and\nthe world of words--penetrate each other. There is a great mystery\nin this, since they lie infinitely far apart--that is to say, they\nare parallel. Perhaps we should see here the operation of a sort of\nwireless telegraphy. We note that the needles on the two dials act in\nunison, and that is all. But this mutual dependence is, in reality, far\nfrom being as complete and as clear as in a mechanical device. When\nall is said, the accords between words and sensations are very few\nand very imperfect. We have no sure means of expressing our thoughts,\nunless perhaps it be silence. How many circumstances there are in life,\nwhen the eyes, the hands, the mute mouth, are more eloquent than any\nwords.[4]\n\n\nIV\n\n\nM. Albalat's analysis is, then, bad, because unscientific. Yet from\nit he has derived a practical method of which it may be said that,\nwhile incapable of forming an original writer--he is well aware of\nthis himself--it might possibly attenuate, not the mediocrity, but the\nincoherence, of speeches and publications to which custom obliges us to\nlend some attention. Besides, even were this manual still more useless\nthan I believe it to be, certain of its chapters would nevertheless\nretain their expository and documentary interest. The detail is\nexcellent, as, for example, the pages where it is shown that the idea\nis bound up in the form, and that to change the form is to modify the\nidea. \"It means nothing to say of a piece of writing that the substance\nis good, but the form is bad.\" These are sound principles, though the\nidea may subsist as a residue of sensation, independently of the words\nand, above all, of a choice of words. But ideas stripped bare, in the\nstate of wandering larvae, have no interest whatever. It may even be\ntrue that such ideas belong to everybody. Perhaps all ideas are common\nproperty. But how differently one of them, wandering through the\nworld, awaiting its evocator, will be revealed according to the word\nthat summons it from the Shades. What would Bossuet's ideas be worth,\ndespoiled of their purple? They are the ideas of any ordinary student\nof theology, and, uttered by him, such a farrago of stupid nonsense\nwould shock and shame those who had listened to it intoxicated in the\n_Sermons_ and _Oraisons_. And the impression will be similar if, having\nlent a charmed ear to Michelet's lyric paradoxes, we come across them\nagain in the miserable mouthings of some senator, or in the depressing\ncommentaries of the partisan press. This is the reason why the Latin\npoets, including the greatest of them all, Virgil, cease to exist\nwhen translated, all looking exactly alike in the painful and pompous\nuniformity of a normal student's rhetoric. If Virgil had written in\nthe style of M. Pessonneaux, or of M. Benoist, he would be Benoist, he\nwould be Pessonneaux, and the monks would have scrapped his parchments\nto substitute for his verses some good lease of a sure and lasting\ninterest.\n\nApropos of these evident truths, M. Albalat refutes Zola's opinion\nthat \"it is the form which changes and passes the most quickly,\" and\nthat \"immortality is gained by presenting living creatures.\" So far\nas this second sentence can be interpreted at all, it would seem to\nmean that what is called life, in art, is independent of form. But\nperhaps this is even less clear? Perhaps it will seem to have no sense\nwhatever. Hippolytus, too, at the gates of Troezen, was \"without form\nand without colour\" only he was dead. All that can be conceded to this\ntheory is that, if a beautiful and original work of art survives its\ncentury and, what is more, the language in which it was written, it\nis no longer admired except as a matter of imitation, in obedience to\nthe traditional injunction of the educators. Were the _Iliad_ to be\ndiscovered to-day, beneath the ruins of Herculaneum, it would give us\nmerely archaeological sensations. It would interest us in precisely\nthe same degree as the _Chanson de Roland_; but a comparison of\nthe two poems would then reveal more clearly than at present their\ncorrespondence to extremely different moments of civilization, since\none is written entirely in images (somewhat stiff, it is true) while\nthe other contains so few that they have been counted.\n\nThere is, moreover, no necessary relation between the merit of a\nwork and its duration. Yet, when a book has survived, the authors of\n\"analyses and extracts conforming to the requirements of the academic\nprogramme\" know very well how to prove its \"inimitable\" perfection,\nand to resuscitate (for the brief time of a lecture) the mummy which\nwill return once more to its linen bands. The idea of glory must not\nbe confused with that of beauty. The former is entirely dependent upon\nthe revolutions of fashion and of taste. The second is absolute to the\nextent of human sensations. The one is a matter of manners and customs;\nthe other is firmly rooted in the law.\n\nThe form passes, it is true, but it is hard to see just how it could\nsurvive the matter which is its substance. If the beauty of a style\nbecomes effaced or falls to dust, it is because the language has\nmodified the aggregate of its molecules--words--as well as these\nmolecules themselves, and because this internal activity has not taken\nplace without swellings and disturbances. If Angelico's frescos have\n\"passed,\" it is not that time has rendered them less beautiful, but\nthat the humidity has swollen the cement where the painting has become\ncaked and coated. Languages swell and flake like cement; or rather,\nthey are like plane-trees, which can live only by constantly changing\ntheir bark, and which, early each spring, shed on the moss at their\nfeet the names of lovers graven in their very flesh.\n\nBut what matters the future? What matters the approval of men who\nwill not be what we should make them, were we demiurges? What is this\nglory enjoyed by man the moment he quits the realm of consciousness?\nIt is time we learned to live in the present moment, to make the best\nof the passing hour, bad though it may be, and to leave to children\nthis concern for the future, which is an intellectual weakness--though\nthe na\u00efvet\u00e9 of a man of genius. It is highly illogical to desire the\nimmortality of works, when affirming and desiring the mortality of the\nsoul. Dante's Virgil lived beyond life, his glory grown eternal. Of\nthis dazzling conception there is left us but a little vain illusion,\nwhich we shall do well to extinguish entirely.\n\nThis does not mean, however, that we should not write for men as if we\nwere writing for angels, and thus realize, according to our calling and\nour nature, the utmost of beauty, even though passing and perishable.\n\n\nV\n\n\nM. Albalat shows excellent judgment in suppressing the very amusing\ndistinctions made by the old manuals between the florid style and the\nsimple style, the sublime and the moderate. He deems justly that there\nare but two sorts of style: the commonplace and the original. Were\nit permitted to count the degrees from the mediocre to the bad, as\nwell as from the passable to the perfect, the scale of shades and of\ncolours would be long. It is so far from the _L\u00e9gende de Saint-Julien\nl'Hospitalier_ to a parliamentary discourse, that we really wonder if\nit is the same language in both cases--if there are not two French\nlanguages, and below them an infinite number of dialects almost\nentirely independent of one another. Speaking of the political style,\nM. Marty-Laveaux[5] thinks that the people, having remained faithful\nin its speech to the traditional diction, grasps this very imperfectly\nand in a general way only, as if it were a foreign language. He wrote\nthis twenty-seven years ago, but the newspapers, more widely circulated\nat present, have scarcely modified popular habits. It is always safe\nto estimate in France that, out of every three persons, there is\none who reads a bit of a paper now and then by chance, and another\nwho never reads at all. At Paris the people have certain notions\nconcerning style. They have a special predilection for violence and\nwit. This explains the popularity, rather literary than political, of a\njournalist like Rochefort, in whom the Parisians have for a long time\nfound once more their ancient ideal of a witty and wordy cleaver of\nmountains.\n\nRochefort is, moreover, an original writer--one of those who should be\ncited among the first to show that the substance is nothing without the\nform. To be convinced of this, one has only to read a little further\nthan his own article in the paper which he edits. Yet we are perhaps\nfooled by him. We have been, it appears, for fully half a century,\nby M\u00e9rim\u00e9e, from whom M. Albalat quotes a page as a specimen of the\nhackneyed style. Going farther, he indulges in his favourite pastime;\nhe corrects M\u00e9rim\u00e9e and juxtaposes the two texts for our inspection.\nHere is a sample:\n\n    _Bien qu'elle ne f\u00fbt pas           Sensible au plaisir d'attirer\n    insensible_ au plaisir _ou         s\u00e9rieusement un homme aussi\n    \u00e0 la vanit\u00e9 d'inspirer un          l\u00e9ger, elle n'avait jamais pens\u00e9\n    sentiment s\u00e9rieux_ \u00e0 un homme      que cette affection p\u00fbt devenir\n    aussi l\u00e9ger _que l'\u00e9tait Max       dangeureuse.\n    dans son opinion_, elle n'avait\n    jamais pens\u00e9 que cette\n    affection p\u00fbt devenir _un\n    jour_ dangeureuse _pour son\n    repos_.[6]\n\nIt cannot, at least, be denied that the severe professor's style is\neconomical, since it reduces the number of lines by nearly one-half.\nSubjected to this treatment, poor M\u00e9rim\u00e9e, already far from fertile,\nwould find himself the father of a few thin opuscules, symbolic\nthenceforth of his legendary dryness. Having become the Justin of\nall the Pompeius Troguses, Albalat places Lamartine himself upon the\neasel to tone down, for example, _la finesse de sa peau rougissante\ncomme \u00e0 quinze ans sous les regards_, to _sa fine peau de jeune fille\nrougissante_. What butchery! The words stricken out by M. Albalat are\nso far from being hackneyed that they would, on the contrary, correct\nand counteract the commonplaceness of the improved sentence. This\nsurplusage conveys the exceedingly subtle observation of a man who has\nmade a close study of women's faces--a man more tender than sensual,\nand touched by modesty rather than by carnal prestige. Good or bad,\nstyle cannot be corrected. Style is inviolable.\n\nM. Albalat gives some very amusing lists of _clich\u00e9s_, or hackneyed\nphrases; but this criticism, at times, lacks measure. I cannot accept\nas _clich\u00e9s_ \"kindly warmth,\" \"precocious perversity,\" \"restrained\nemotion,\" \"retreating forehead,\" \"abundant hair,\" or even \"bitter\ntears,\" for tears can be \"bitter\" and can be \"sweet.\" It should be\nunderstood, also, that the expression which exists as a _clich\u00e9_ in one\nstyle, can occur as a renewed image in another. \"Restrained emotion\" is\nno more ridiculous than \"simulated emotion,\" while, as for \"retreating\nforehead,\" this is a scientific and quite accurate expression, which\none has only to be careful about employing in the proper place. It is\nthe same with the others. If such locutions were banished, literature\nwould become a kind of algebra and could no longer be understood\nwithout the aid of long analytical operations. If the objection to them\nis that they have been overworked, it would be necessary to forego\nall words in common use as well as those devoid of mystery. But that\nwould be a delusion. The commonest words and most current expressions\ncan surprise us. Finally, the true _clich\u00e9_, as I have previously\nexplained, may be recognized by this, that, whereas the image which\nit conveys, already faded, is halfway on the road to abstraction, it\nis not yet sufficiently insignificant to pass unperceived and to take\nits place among the signs which owe whatever life they may possess to\nthe will of the intelligence.[7] Very often, in the _clich\u00e9_, one of\nthe words has kept a concrete sense, and what makes us smile is less\nits triteness than the coupling of a living word with one from which\nthe life has vanished. This can be seen clearly in such formulas as:\n\"in the bosom of the Academy,\" \"devouring activity,\" \"open his heart,\"\n\"sadness was painted on his face,\" \"break the monotony,\" \"embrace\nprinciples.\" However, there are _clich\u00e9s_ in which all the words\nseem alive--_une rougeur colora ses joues_; others in which all seem\ndead--_il \u00e9tait au comble des ses v\u0153ux_. But this last was formed at a\ntime when the word _comble_ was thoroughly alive and quite concrete.\nIt is because it still contains the residue of a sensible image that\nits union with _v\u0153ux_ displeases us. In the preceding example the word\ncolorer has become abstract, since the concrete verb expressing this\nidea is _colorier_, and goes badly with _rougeur_ and joues. I do not\nknow just where a minute work on this part of the language, in which\nthe fermentation is still unfinished, would lead us; but no doubt in\nthe end it would be quite easy to demonstrate that, in the true notion\nof the _clich\u00e9_, incoherence has its place by the side of triteness.\nThere would be matter in such a study for reasoned opinions that M.\nAlbalat might render fruitful for the practice of style.\n\n\nVI\n\n\nIt is to be regretted that he has dismissed the subject of periphrasis\nin a few lines. We expected an analysis of this curious tendency to\nreplace by a description the word which is the sign of the thing in\nquestion. This malady, which is very ancient, since enigmas have been\nfound on Babylonian cylinders (that of the wind very nearly in the\nterms employed by our children), is perhaps the very origin of all\npoetry. If the secret of being a bore consists of saying everything,\nthe secret of pleasing lies in saying just enough to be, not understood\neven, but divined. Periphrasis, as handled by the didactic poets, is\nperhaps ridiculous only because of the lack of poetic power which it\nindicates; for there are many agreeable ways of not naming what it is\ndesired to suggest. The true poet, master of his speech, employs only\nperiphrases at once so new and so clear in their shadowy half-light,\nthat any slightly sensual intelligence prefers them to the too absolute\nword. He wishes neither to describe, to pique the curiosity, nor to\nshow off his learning; but, whatever he does, he employs periphrases,\nand it is by no means certain that all those he creates will remain\nfresh long. The periphrasis is a metaphor, and thus has the same\nlife-span as a metaphor. It is far indeed from the vague and purely\nmusical periphrases of Verlaine:\n\n    _Parfois aussi le dard d'un insecte jaloux_\n    _Inqui\u00e9tait le col des belles sous les branches,_\n\nto the mythological enigmas of a Lebrun, who calls the silkworm\n\n    \"_L'amant des feuilles de Thisb\u00e9_.\"\n\nHere M. Albalat appropriately quotes Buffon to the effect that nothing\ndoes more to degrade a writer than the pains he takes to \"express\ncommon or ordinary things in an eccentric or pompous manner. We\npity him for having spent so much time making new combinations of\nsyllables only to say what is said by everybody.\" Delille won fame by\nhis fondness for the didactic periphrasis, but I think he has been\nmisjudged. It is not fear of the right word that makes him describe\nwhat he should have named, but rather his rigid system of poetics, and\nhis mediocre talent. He lacks precision because he lacks power, and he\nis very bad only when he is not precise. But whether as a result of\nmethod or emasculation, we are indebted to him for some amusing enigmas:\n\n    _Ces monstres qui de loin semblent un vaste \u00e9cueil_.\n\n    _L'animal recouvert de son \u00e9paisse cro\u00fbte,_\n    _Celui dont la coquille est arrondie en vo\u00fbte._\n\n    _L'\u00e9quivoque habitant de la terre et des ondes._\n\n    _Et cet oiseau parleur que sa triste beaut\u00e9_\n    _Ne d\u00e9dommage pas de sa st\u00e9rilit\u00e9._\n\nIt should not, however, be thought that the _Homme des Champs_, from\nwhich these charades are taken, is a poem entirely to be despised.\nThe Abb\u00e9 Delille had his merits and, once our ears, deprived of the\npleasures of rhythm and of number, have become exhausted by the new\nversification, we may recover a certain charm in full and sonorous\nverses which are by no means tiresome, and in landscapes which, while\nsomewhat severe, are broad and full of air.\n\n                      ... _Soit qu'une fra\u00eeche aurore_\n    _Donne la vie aux fleurs qui s'empressent d'\u00e9clore,_\n    _Soit que l'astre du monde, en achevant son tour,_\n    _Jette languissamment les restes d'un beau jour._\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\nYet M. Albalat asks how it is possible to be personal and original.\nHis answer is not very clear. He counsels hard work and concludes that\noriginality implies an incessant effort. This is a very regrettable\nillusion. Secondary qualities would, doubtless, be easier to acquire,\nbut is concision, for example, an absolute quality? Are Rabelais\nand Victor Hugo, who were great accumulators of words, to be blamed\nbecause M. de Pontmartin was also in the habit of stringing together\nall the words that came into his head, and of heaping up as many as a\ndozen or fifteen epithets in a single sentence? The examples given by\nAlbalat are very amusing; but if Gargantua had not played as many as\ntwo hundred and sixteen different and agreeable games under the eye of\nPonocrates, we should feel very sorry, though \"the great rules of the\ngame are eternal.\"\n\nConcision is sometimes the merit of dull imaginations. Harmony is a\nrarer and more decisive quality. There is no comment to be made on\nwhat Albalat says in this connection, unless it be that he believes a\ntrifle too much in the necessary relations between the lightness or\nheaviness of a word, for example, and the idea which it expresses.\nThis is an illusion which springs from our habits of thought, and\nan analysis of the sounds destroys it completely. It is not merely,\nsays Villemain, imitation of the Greek or the Latin _fremere_ that\nhas given us the word _fr\u00e9mir_; it is also the relation of its sound\nto the emotion expressed. _Horreur, terreur, doux, suave, rugir,\nsoupirer, pesant, l\u00e9ger_, come to us not only from Latin, but from an\nintimate sense which has recognized and adopted them as analogous to\nthe impression produced by the object.[8] If Villemain, whose opinion\nM. Albalat accepted, had been better versed in linguistics, he would\ndoubtless have invoked the theory of roots, which at one time gave\nto his nonsense an appearance of scientific force. As it stands, the\ncelebrated orator's brief paragraph would afford very agreeable matter\nfor discussion. It is quite evident that if _suave_ and _suaire_ invoke\nimpressions generally remote from each other, this is not because of\nthe quality of their sound. In English, _sweet_ and _sweat_ are words\nwhich resemble each other. _Doux_ is not more _doux_ than _toux_ and\nthe other monosyllables of the same tone. Is _rugir_ more violent than\n_rougir_ or _vagir_? _L\u00e9ger_ is the contraction of a Latin word of five\nsyllables, _leviarium_. If _l\u00e9g\u00e8re_ carries with it its own meaning,\ndoes _m\u00e9g\u00e8re_ likewise? _Pesant_ is neither more nor less heavy than\n_pensant_, the two forms being, moreover, doublets of a single Latin\noriginal, pensare. As for _lourd_, this is _luridus_, which meant many\nthings: yellow, wild, savage, strange, peasant, heavy--such, doubtless,\nis its genealogy. _Lourd_ is no more heavy than _fauve_ is cruel. Think\nalso of _mauve_ and _velours_. If the English _thin_ means the same as\nthe French _mince_, how does it happen that the idea of its opposite,\n_\u00e9pais_, is expressed by _thick_? Words are negative sounds which the\nmind charges with whatever sense it pleases. There are coincidences,\nchance agreements, between certain sounds and certain ideas. There are\n_fr\u00e9mir, frayeur, froid, frileux, frisson_. Yes; but there are also:\n_frein, fr\u00e8re, fr\u00eale, fr\u00eane, fret, frime_, and twenty other analogous\nsonorities, each of which is provided with a very different meaning.\n\nM. Albalat is more successful in the balance of the two chapters where\nhe treats successively word harmony and sentence harmony. He is right\nin calling the Goncourts' style _un style d\u00e9s\u00e9crit_. This is still more\nstrikingly true applied to Loti, in whose work there are no longer any\nsentences. His pages are thickets of phrases. The tree has been felled,\nits branches have been lopped; there is nothing left but to make\nfaggots of them.\n\nBeginning with the ninth lesson, _L'Art d'\u00e9crire_ becomes still more\ndidactic, and we encounter Invention, Disposition and Elocution.\nI should find it hard to explain just how M. Albalat succeeds in\nseparating these three phases of composition, which are really one.\nThe _art of developing a subject_ has been refused me by Providence.\nI leave all that to the unconscious, nor do I know anything more of\nthe _art of invention_. I believe that an author invents by reversing\nthe method of Newton--that is, without ever thinking about it, while,\nas for elocution, I should hesitate to trust myself to the method of\nrecasting. One does not recast, one remakes, and it is so tedious to\ndo the same thing twice, that I approve of those who throw the stone\nat the first turn of the sling. But here is what proves the inanity\nof literary counsels: Th\u00e9ophile Gautier wrote the complicated pages\nof _Capitaine Fracasse_ at odd moments on a printer's table, among\nhalf-opened bundles of papers, in the stench of oil and ink, and it is\nsaid that Buffon recopied eighteen times the _\u00c9poques de la Nature_.[9]\nThis divergence is of no importance, since, as M. Albalat should have\nsaid, there are writers who make their corrections mentally, putting\non paper only the swift or sluggish product of the unconscious, while\nthere are others who need to see exteriorized what they have written,\nand to see it more than once, in order to correct it--that is, to\nunderstand it. Yet, even in the case of mental corrections, exterior\nrevision is often profitable, provided, as Condillac puts it, the\nwriter knows how to stop, to bring to a conclusion.[10] But too often\nthe demon of Betterment has tormented and sterilized intelligence. It\nis also true that it is a great misfortune to lack self-criticism. Who\nwill dare to choose between the writer who does not know what he is\ndoing, and the one who, endowed with a double nature, can watch himself\nas he works? There is Verlaine and there is Mallarm\u00e9. One must follow\nthe bent of one's own genius.\n\nM. Albalat excels in definitions. \"Description is the animated\ndepiction of objects.\" He means that, in order to describe, a writer\nmust, like a painter, place himself before the landscape, whether\nthis be real or imaginary. Judging by the analysis that he makes of a\npage of _T\u00e9l\u00e9maque_, it seems clear that F\u00e9nelon was only moderately\nendowed with visual imagination, and more moderately still with\nthe gift of words. In the first twenty lines of the description of\nCalypso's grotto, the word _doux_ occurs three times, and the verb\n_former_ four. This has, indeed, become for us the very type of the\ninexpressive style, but I persist in believing that it once had\nits freshness and grace, and that the appeal which it made when it\nappeared was not unjustified. We smile at this opulence of gilt paper\nand painted flowers--the ideal of an archbishop who had remained a\ntheological student--and forget that no one had described nature since\n_Astr\u00e9e_. Those sweet oranges, those syrups diluted with spring-water,\nwere refreshments fit for Paradise. It would be cruel to compare\nF\u00e9nelon, not with Homer, but even with the Homer of Leconte de Lisle.\nTranslations too well done--those that may be said to possess literary\nliteralness--have in fact the inevitable result of transforming into\nconcrete, living images everything which had become abstract in the\noriginal. Did \u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03ba\u03bf\u03b2\u03c1\u03b1\u03c7\u03af\u03c9\u03bd mean one who had white arms, or was it\nmerely a worn-out epithet? Did \u03bb\u03b5\u03c5\u03ba\u03ac\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd\u03b8\u03b1 suggest an image such as\n_blanche \u00e9pine_, or a neutral idea like aub\u00e9pine, which has lost its\nrepresentative value? We cannot tell; but, judging dead languages by\nthe living, we must suppose that most of the Homeric epithets had\nalready reached the stage of abstraction in Homer's own time.[11]\nIt is possible that foreigners may find in a work as outworn for us\nas _T\u00e9l\u00e9maque_, the same pleasure which we derive from the _Iliad_\ndone in bas-relief by Leconte de Lisle. _Mille fleurs naissantes\n\u00e9maillaient les tapis verts_ is a _clich\u00e9_ only when read for the\nhundredth time. New, the image would be ingenious and pictorial. Poe's\npoems, translated by Mallarm\u00e9, acquired a life at once mysterious and\nprecise which they do not possess to the same degree in the original,\nand, from Tennyson's Mariana, agreeable verse full of commonplaces and\npadding, grey in tone, the same poet, by substituting the concrete\nfor the abstract, made a fresco of lovely autumnal colouring. I offer\nthese remarks merely as a preface to a theory of translation. They\nwill suffice here to indicate that, where it is a question of style,\ncomparison should be made only between texts in the same language and\nbelonging to the same period.\n\nIt is very difficult, after fifty years, to appreciate the real\noriginality of a style. To do so, one should have read all the notable\nbooks in the order of their publication. It is at least possible\nto judge of the present, and also to accord some weight to the\ncontemporary opinions of a work. Barbey d'Aurevilly found in Georges\nSand a profusion of _anges de la destin\u00e9e_, of _lampes de la foi_, and\nof _coupes de miel_, which certainly were not invented by her any more\nthan the rest of her washed-out style; but \"these decrepit tropes\"\nwould have been none the better if she had invented them. I feel sure\nthat the cup, whose brim has been rubbed with honey, goes back to the\nobscure ages of pre-Hippocratic medicine. Hackneyed expressions enjoy\na long life. M. Albalat notes justly \"that there are images which\ncan be renewed and rejuvenated.\" There are many such, and among them\nsome of the commonest; but I cannot see that, in calling the moon the\n_morne lampe_, Leconte de Lisle has been very successful in freshening\nup Lamartine's _lampe d'or_. M. Albalat, who gives evidence of wide\nreading, should attempt a catalogue of metaphors by subject: the moon,\nthe stars, the rose, the dawn, and all the \"poetic\" words. We should\nthus obtain a collection of a certain utility for the study of words\nand psychology of elementary emotions. Perhaps we should learn at last\nwhy the moon is so dear to poets. Meanwhile he announces his next book,\n_La Formation du style par l'assimilation des auteurs_; and I suppose\nthat, once the series is complete, everyone will write well--that\nthere will henceforth be a good medium style in literature, as there\nis in painting and in the other fine arts, which the State protects\nso successfully. Why not an Acad\u00e9mie Albalat, as well as an Acad\u00e9mie\nJulian?\n\nHere, then, is a book which lacks almost nothing except not having\na purpose, except being a work of pure and disinterested analysis;\nbut, were it to have an influence, were it to multiply the number of\nhonourable writers, it would deserve our maledictions. Instead of\nputting the manual of literature and all the arts within the reach of\nall, it would be wiser to transport their secrets to the top of some\nHimalaya. Yet there are no secrets. To be a writer, it is enough to\nhave natural talent for the calling, to practise with perseverance,\nto learn a little more every morning, and to experience all human\nsensations. As for the art of \"creating images,\" we are obliged to\nbelieve that this is absolutely independent of all literary culture,\nsince the loveliest, truest and boldest images are enclosed in the\nwords we use every day--age-old products of instinct, spontaneous\nflowering of the intellectual garden.\n\n1899.\n\n\n[1] On the importance and influence of Protestantism at this time, see\nthe work of E. Hugues, pilfered by Protestant writers for the last\ntwenty-five years: _Histoire de la Restauration du Protestantisme en\nFrance au XVIIIe si\u00e8cle_ (1872).\n\n[2] A book so little known and disfigured in its pious editions.\nNothing could be less pious, however, or less edifying, after the\nfirst volume, than this curious and confused encyclopedia, where we\nfind _Ren\u00e9_ and statistical tables, _Atala_ and a catalogue of Greek\npainters. It is a universal history of civilization and a plan of\nsocial reconstruction.\n\n[3] In speaking of the eighteenth century, exception must always\nbe made of the grandiose and solitary Buffon, in his tower at\nMontbard, who was, in the modern sense of these words, a scientist, a\nphilosopher, and a poet.\n\n[4] An attempt will be made some day in a study in the _World of\nWords_, to determine whether words have really a meaning--that is to\nsay, a constant value.\n\n[5] _De l'Enseignement de notre langue_.\n\n[6] M. Albalat has italicized everything he deems \"banal or useless.\"\n\n[7] See the chapter on the _clich\u00e9_, in my book, _L'Esth\u00e9tique de la\nLangue fran\u00e7aise_.\n\n[8] _L'Art d'\u00e9crire_, p. 138.\n\n[9] Or rather, had them copied by his secretaries. He afterwards\nreworked the clean copy. There is a whole volume on this subject: _Les\nManuscrits de Buffon_, by P. Flourens, Paris, Garnier, 1860.\n\n[10] There is, on this point, a pretty passage from Quintilian, quoted\nby M. Albalat, p. 213.\n\n[11] I take it for granted that the reader no longer believes that the\nHomeric poems were composed at haphazard by a multitude of rhapsodists\nof genius, and that it was enough to string these improvisations\ntogether to get the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_.\n\n\n\n\nSUBCONSCIOUS CREATION[1]\n\n\nCertain men have received a special gift, which distinguishes them\nin a striking fashion from their fellows. The moment discus-throwers\nor generals, poets or clowns, sculptors or financiers rise above the\ncommon level, they demand the particular attention of the observer.\nThe predominance of one of their faculties marks them out for\nanalysis, and for that analytical method which consists in successive\ndifferentiation. We come thus to discern in mankind a class whose\ndistinguishing trait is difference, just as, for common humanity, this\ntrait is resemblance. There are men who let us know nothing of what\nthey are going to say when they begin to speak. These are few. There\nare others who tell us all, as soon as they open their mouths. It is\nalleged that in this class there are marked disparities; for it is\nundeniable that, even among those who, at first sight, resemble each\nother most closely, there are no two creatures who are not, at bottom,\ncontradictory. It is the highest glory of man, and the one that science\nhas been unable to wrest from him, that there is no science of man.\n\nIf there be no science of the common man, still less is there a science\nof the different man, since the manifestation of this difference makes\nhim solitary and unique, that is to say, incomparable. Yet, just as\nthere is a general physiology, so there is a general psychology, also.\nWhatever their nature, all the beasts of the earth breathe the same\nair, and the brain of the genius, like that of the ordinary mortal,\nderives its primordial form from sensation. We have only a rough idea\nby what mechanism sensation is transformed into action. All we know is\nthat the intervention of consciousness is not needed to bring about\nthis transformation. We know also that this intervention may prove\nharmful through its power to modify the predetermined logic, to break\nthe series of associations in order to create in the mind the first\nlink of a new volitional chain.\n\nConsciousness, which is the principle of liberty, is not the principle\nof art. It is possible to express quite clearly what has been conceived\nin the unconscious shades. Intellectual activity, far from being\nintimately allied with the functioning of consciousness, is more often\ndisconcerted by it. We listen badly to a symphony, when we know we are\nlistening. We think badly, when we know we are thinking. Consciousness\nof thinking is not thought.\n\nThe subconscious state is the state of automatic cerebration in full\nfreedom, while intellectual activity pursues its course at the extreme\nlimit of consciousness, a little below it and beyond its reach.\nSubconscious thought may remain for ever unknown. It may, on the other\nhand, come to light, either at the precise moment when the automatic\nactivity ceases, or later--even after several years. These facts of\ncogitation do not, then, belong to the domain of the unconscious,\nproperly speaking, since they can become conscious. Besides, it will\ndoubtless be preferable to reserve to this rather vast word the\nmeaning given it by a particular philosophy. The subconscious state\ndiffers also from the state of dreams, though dreams may be one of\nits manifestations. The dream is almost always absurd, with a special\nsort of absurdity, and is incoherent or orderly, according to its\nassociations which are entirely passive,[2] and whose procession\ndiffers even from that of ordinary passive associations, conscious or\nunconscious.[3]\n\nImaginative intellectual creation is inseparable from the frequency\nof the subconscious state, and in this category of creations must\nbe included the discovery of the scientist and the ideological\nconstruction of the philosopher. All who have invented or discovered\nsomething new in any field whatsoever, are imaginatives as well\nas observers. The most deliberate, the most thoughtful, the most\npainstaking writer is constantly, and in spite of himself, enriched\nby the effort of the subconscious. No work is so completely a product\nof the will that it does not owe some beauty or novelty to the\nsubconscious. No sentence, perhaps, however worked over, was ever\nspoken or written in absolute accord with the will. The search for the\nright word in the vast, deep reservoir of verbal memory is itself an\nact which escapes so completely from the control of the will, that very\noften the word on its way flees at the very moment when consciousness\nis about to perceive and to grasp it. Everyone knows how hard it is to\nfind, by sheer force of will, the word wanted, and also with what ease\nand rapidity certain writers summon up, in the heat of composition, the\nrarest or the most appropriate words.\n\nIt is, however, imprudent to say: \"Memory is always unconscious.\"[4]\nMemory is a secret pool where, unknown to us, the subconscious casts\nits net. But consciousness fishes there quite as readily. This pond,\nfull of chance fish previously caught by sensation, is particularly\nwell known to the subconscious. Consciousness is less skilful in\nprovisioning itself from this source, though it has at its service\nseveral useful tricks, such as the logical association of ideas and\nthe localization of images. Man acquires a different personality,\naccording as the brain works in the darkness or by the lantern-light\nof consciousness; but, save in pathological cases, the second of\nthese states is not so well defined that the first cannot intervene\nwithout interrupting the effort. It is under these conditions, and in\naccordance with this concert, that most works conceived, in the first\ninstance either by the will or by the dream faculty, are completed.\n\nIn Newton's case (as a result of constant attention) the work of\nthe subconscious is continuous, but connects itself periodically\nwith voluntary activity. Now conscious, now unconscious, his thought\nexplores all the possibilities. With Goethe, the sub-conscious is\nalmost always active and ready to deliver to the will the multiple\nworks which it elaborates without its aid and far from it. Goethe\nhimself has explained this in a marvellously lucid and instructive\npage:[5] \"Every faculty of action, and consequently every talent,\nimplies an instinctive force at work unconsciously and in ignorance\nof the rules whose principle is, however, implicit. The sooner a man\nbecomes educated, the sooner he learns that there is a technique,\nan art, which will furnish him the means of attaining the regular\ndevelopment of his natural faculties. It would be impossible for\nwhat he acquires to injure in any way his original individuality.\nThe supreme genius is he who assimilates and appropriates everything\nwithout prejudice to his innate character. Here we are confronted\nwith the divers relations between consciousness and unconsciousness.\nThrough an effort of exercise, of apprenticeship, of persistent and\ncontinuous reflection, through results obtained, whether good or bad,\nthrough the movements of resistance and attraction, the human organs\namalgamate, combine unconsciously the instinctive and the acquired,\nand from this amalgam--from this chemistry at once conscious and\nunconscious--there issues at last a harmonious whole which fills the\nworld with words. It is nearly sixty years since, in the full flush\nof my youth, the conception of _Faust_ came to me perfectly clear and\ndistinct, all its scenes unfolding before my eyes in the order of their\nsuccession. From that day the plan never left me, and living with it in\nview, I took it up in detail and composed, one after the other, those\nbits which, at the moment, interested me most, with the result that,\nwhen this interest has failed me, there have occurred gaps, as in the\nsecond part. The difficulty, at such points, was to obtain, by sheer\nforce of will, what, in reality, is obtainable only by a spontaneous\nact of nature.\" It also happens conversely that a work conceived in\nadvance and deferred in execution, comes at last to impose itself upon\nthe will. The subconscious then seems to overflow and submerge the\nconscious, dictating things that are written only with repugnance.\nThis is the obsession which nothing discourages, and which triumphs\nover even the most lackadaisical laziness, the most violent aversion.\nLater, once the work is completed, there is often experienced a sort\nof satisfaction. The idea of duty, which, ill understood, causes so\nmany ravages in timid consciences, is no doubt an elaboration of the\nsubconscious. Obsession is perhaps the force which impels to sacrifice,\njust as it is that which incites to suicide.\n\nSchopenhauer used to compare the obscure and continuous effort of the\nunconscious, in the midst of impressions imprisoned in the memory,\nto rumination. This rumination, which is purely physiological, may\nsuffice to modify convictions or beliefs. Hartmann discovered that\na hostile idea, at first brushed aside, succeeded, after a certain\ntime, in supplanting in his mind the idea which he was accustomed to\nentertain of man or of a fact: \"If you wish or have the occasion to\nexpress your opinion upon the same subject, after days, weeks, or even\nmonths, you discover, to your great surprise, that you have undergone\na veritable mental revolution--that you have completely abandoned\nopinions which, up to that time, you had firmly believed to be yours,\nand that new ideas have completely taken their place. I have often\nnoted this unconscious processus of digestion and mental assimilation\nin my own case, and have always instinctively refrained from disturbing\nthe process by premature reflection, whenever it involved important\nquestions affecting my conceptions of the world and of the mind.\"[6]\nThis observation might be extended to the exceedingly interesting\nproblem of conversion. There is no doubt that people have suddenly felt\nthemselves brought, or brought back, to religious ideas, when they\nhad neither wish nor fear nor hope for this change. In conversion the\nwill can act only after a long effort on the part of the subconscious,\nand when all the elements of the new conviction have been secretly\nassembled and combined. This new force, which supports the convert, and\nwhose origin is unknown to him, is what theology calls grace. Grace is\nthe result of a subconscious effort. Grace is subconscious.\n\nLike Hartmann, but instinctively, and not, in his case, by philosophic\npreconception, Alfred de Vigny entrusted to the subconscious the\nnurture of his ideas. When they were ripe, he recovered them. They\ncame back of their own accord to offer themselves rich with all the\nconsequences of their secret burgeoning. It may be supposed that, like\nGoethe, he was a subconscious whose promissory notes were on very\nlong time, since Vigny left, between certain of his works, unusually\nlong intervals. It is highly probable that, if there are individuals\nwhose subconsciousness is inactive, there are others who, after a\nperiod of activity, cease suddenly to produce, either as a result of\npremature exhaustion, or through a modification in the relations of\nthe brain cells. Racine offers the singular example of a twenty years'\nsilence broken just halfway by two works which have only a formal\nresemblance to those of his first phase. Can it be supposed that it\nwas through religious scruple that he so long refused to listen to the\nsuggestions of the subconscious? Can it be supposed that religion,\nwhich had modified the nature of his perception, had, at the same time,\ndiminished the physiological power of his brain? Such a supposition\nwould run counter to all other observations, which go to show, on the\ncontrary, that a new belief is a new excitant. It seems, then, probable\nthat Racine became silent simply because he had almost nothing more\nto say. It is a common adventure, and he found in religion the common\nconsolation.\n\nA distinction should then be made between two sorts of subconscious\nindividuals--those whose energy is short-lived and strong, and those\nwhose force is less ardent but more sustained. The two extremes are\nexemplified by the man who produces a remarkable work in his early\nyouth, then ceases, and by the man who offers for sixty years the\nspectacle of a mediocre, useless and continuous effort. I am speaking,\nof course, of those works in which the imaginative intelligence\nplays the major part--works in which the subconscious is always the\nmaster-collaborator.\n\nMore practically, and from a totally different point of view, M.\nChabaneix, having studied the continuous subconscious, divides it into\nnocturnal and waking subconsciousness. If the former be a question of\nsleep or of the moments preceding sleep, it is oneiric or pre-oneiric.\nMaury, who was particularly afflicted by them, has carefully considered\nthe hallucinations which are formed the moment the eyes close in sleep.\nIt is not clear that these hallucinations which are called hypnagogic,\nand which are almost always visual, can have a special influence on the\nideas undergoing elaboration in the brain. They are rather embryonic\ndreams which influence the course of the thought only as dreams\ninfluence it. It happens, at times, that the conscious effort of the\nbrain is prolonged during the dream, even reaching its goal there,\nand that, on awaking, the dreamer finds himself, without reflection\nor difficulty, master of a problem, a poem, a combination, which had\nbaffled him previously. Burdach, a Koenigsberg professor, made, in\nhis dreams, several physiological discoveries which he was afterwards\nable to verify. A dream was sometimes the point of departure for an\nundertaking. Sometimes a work was entirely conceived and executed\nduring sleep. It is highly probable, however, that it is the conscious\nreason which, at the moment of awaking, judges and rectifies the\ndream spontaneously, gives it its true value, and divests it of that\nincoherence peculiar to all dreams, even the most rational.\n\nInspiration, during the waking state, seems the clearest manifestation\nof the subconscious in the domain of intellectual creation. In its most\npronounced form, it would seem to come very close to somnambulism.\nCertain attitudes of Socrates (according to Aulus Gellius), of Diderot,\nof Blake, of Shelley and of Balzac, give force to this opinion. Doctor\nR\u00e9gis[7] says that almost all men of genius have been \"waking sleepers\"\nbutt the waking sleeper is not infrequently an \"absent-minded\"\nindividual--one whose mind tends to become concentrated upon a problem.\nThus the excess and the absence of psychological consciousness would\nseem, in certain cases, to manifest themselves by identical phenomena.\nOf what did Socrates think days when he remained motionless? Did he\nthink? Was he conscious of his thought? Do the fakirs think? And\nBeethoven, when, hatless and coatless, he let himself be arrested as a\ntramp? Was he under voluntary obsession, or in a quasi-somnambulistic\ncondition? Did he know what he was pondering so deeply, or was his\ncerebral activity unconscious? John Stuart Mill composed his work on\nlogic in the streets of London, as he went daily from his house to the\noffices of the India Company. Will anyone believe that this work was\nnot planned in a state of perfect consciousness? What was subconscious\nin Mill, says M. Chabaneix, was the effort to make his way in a\ncrowded street. \"There was here automatism of the inferior centres.\"\nThis reversal of terms--more frequent than certain psychologists have\nbelieved--may suggest doubts as to the true nature of inspiration.\nOne ought at least to ascertain whether, from the moment when the\nrealization--even purely cerebral--of a work begins, it is possible for\nthis effort to remain wholly subconscious. Mozart's letter explains\nnobody but Mozart: \"When I feel well and am in a good humour, whether\nriding in a carriage or taking a walk after a hearty meal, or at night\nwhen I cannot sleep, thoughts come thronging to me, and without the\nslightest effort. Where do they come from, and by what avenue do they\nreach me? I know nothing about it, have nothing to do with it. I keep\nin my head those that please me, and hum them--at least, so others\nhave told me. Once I have my air, another soon comes to join it. The\nwork grows, I hear it continually and get it more and more distinct,\ntill at last the composition is entirely completed in my head, though\nit may be a long one.... All this takes place in me as in a beautiful,\ndistinct dream.... If I start to write afterwards, I have nothing\nto do but to take out of the sack of my brain what has previously\naccumulated there, as I have explained to you. Thus it takes scarcely\nany time at all to put the whole thing on paper. Everything is already\nin perfect shape, and my score seldom differs very much from what I had\nin my head beforehand. It does not bother me to be interrupted while\nI am writing....\"[8] With Mozart, the whole process is, therefore,\nsubconscious, and the material labour of execution amounts to little\nmore than mere copying.\n\nI have seen a writer hesitate to correct his spontaneous composition\nfor fear of marring the tone. He was aware that the state in which he\ncorrected would be quite different from that in which he had written,\nand in which he had, at the same time, conceived his work. Often a\nword overheard, an attitude caught sight of, a singular individual\npassed in the street, gave him the sole suggestion for his tales,\nwhich he improvised in three or four hours. If he attempted to follow\na preconceived plan, he almost always abandoned it after the first\npage, and finished his story in accordance with a new logic, reaching\na conclusion quite different from that which had seemed best to him\nwhen he began. Some of these plans had been drafted under so strong\na subconscious influence, that later he no longer understood them,\nrecognized them only by the writing, and was able to determine their\ndate only by the kind of paper he had used, and by the colour of the\nink. On the contrary, other projects (for longer works) recurred to him\nquite frequently. He was conscious of thinking of them several times\na day, and was convinced that it was these reveries, even when vague\nand inconsistent, that rendered the work of execution comparatively\neasy. In fact, I have never seen him seriously preoccupied with regard\nto works which were, however, supposed to be the result of a rather\narduous effort. He never spoke of them, and I believe firmly that he\nnever gave them a conscious thought till the moment when he wrote the\nterrible first lines. But, once the work was under way, almost all\nhis intellectual life concentrated on it, the periods of subconscious\nrumination perpetually returning to join those of voluntary meditation.\n\nAs nearly as I have been able to make out, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam had\nthis same method of working. Once an idea had entered his mind--and\nit sometimes entered quite suddenly, in the course of a conversation\nmost often, for he was a great talker, and profited by everything--this\nidea, which had come in timidly and silently through the side-door,\nsoon installed itself as if it were at home, and invaded all the\nreserve spaces of the subconscious. Then, from time to time, it rose\nto the conscious level, and really obliged Villiers to act under its\nobsession. At such moments, no matter who was with him, he talked. He\ntalked even when he was alone. Indeed he always talked as if he were\nalone, when he talked of his idea. I heard thus, fragmentary, several\nof his last stories, and once when we were seated in front of a caf\u00e9 on\nthe boulevard, I had the impression that I was listening to veritable\nmental wanderings in which this assertion recurred periodically: \"There\nwas a cock! There was!\" It was only some months later, when _Le Chant\ndu Coq_ appeared, that I understood. He spoke in a low voice, without\naddressing me. Yet his conscious aim, in thus turning over his ideas\naloud, was to attempt to divine their effect upon a hearer. But, little\nby little, this purpose became obscured. It was the subconscious that\nwas talking in his stead. He worked slowly. There exist five or six\nsuperimposed manuscripts of _L'\u00c8ve Future_, and the first differs\nso much from the last that Edison's name alone serves to link them\ntogether. It is often said of a man, who has written little, that he\nhas done little work; but I am convinced that Villiers de l'lsle-Adam\nnever stopped working an instant, even when asleep. In spite of the\noften absolute blockade that his ideas established about his attention,\nno mind ever worked more rapidly or was better gifted for conversation.\nHe knew nothing of the twilight moments of awaking. After the fewest\nhours of sleep, he found himself, at a bound, in full possession of his\nverve and of his lucidity. Though, he was unquestionably the man of his\nbooks, it would, however, be possible to find in him the sketch of a\ndual personality, in which the conscious and unconscious so overlapped\nthat it would be difficult to disentangle them. It would, on the\nother hand, be easy to write two lives of Mozart--one on the social\nindividual, the other on the man in his second state, both perfectly\nlegitimate.\n\nBaudelaire used to say: \"Inspiration means working every day\"; but\nthis aphorism does not appear to epitomize his personal experience.\nRegular daily work is, so to speak, inspiration regularized,\ndomesticated, enslaved. These terms do not involve a contradiction,\nfor it is certain that the second state can only gain in depth by\nbecoming periodic. Habit, so powerful, reinforces nature to strengthen\na psychological state which then comes to be a veritable necessity.\nThose who depart from a daily routine experience a certain uneasiness\nboth during and after their regular working-hours--sometimes a real\ndistress--especially if they remain in the same surroundings. Remorse\nhas, perhaps, no other origin, whether it be connected with an habitual\nact which has not been accomplished, or with an act which is not\nhabitual, and which has violently interrupted the customary procession\nof the days.\n\nIf inspiration be a second state, it may, then, be a second state\ninduced voluntarily. There is no doubt that artists, writers,\nscientists can work without preparation when obliged to, spurred on\nonly by necessity, and that, on the other hand, the work thus produced\nis quite as good as that done entirely for its own sake. This does not\nmean that the subconscious has remained inactive during the effort\ninitiated by the will, but that its activity has been induced. There\nis, then, a subconscious state which is not spontaneous, which comes to\nmingle with the conscious when required by the will, but which, little\nby little, as the work progresses, substitutes itself for the will. It\nis often enough to set to work, in order to feel all the difficulties\nthat had paralyzed effort vanish one by one; but perhaps this reasoning\nis paralogical, and the work has precisely become possible only because\nof the preliminary breaking-down of the obstacles which had confronted\nthe mind in the first place. In either case, however, there is evident\nintervention of the subconscious forces.\n\nHow does a sensation become an image, the image an idea? How does the\nidea develop? How does it assume the form which seems best to us? How,\nin writing, is contribution levied upon the verbal memory? These are\nall questions which seem to me insoluble, yet whose solution would be\nnecessary in order to formulate a precise definition of inspiration.\n\"Neither reflection nor will-power can take the place of inspiration\nfor the purpose of original creation,\" writes M. Ribot.[9] No doubt;\nbut reflection and force of will may nevertheless have their r\u00f4le in\nthe evolution of this mysterious phenomenon, and then, too; on the\nother hand, cases of pure intellectual automatism are rather rare. It\nmust doubtless be supposed that those who are capable of experiencing\nthe happy influence of inspiration, are also those most capable of\nfeeling with force and with frequency the shocks of the external\nworld. Imaginatives are also sensitives. Their brain reserves must be\nvery rich in elements. This supposes a constant supply of sensations,\nas well as a very lively sensibility and an incessantly renewed\ncapacity for feeling. This sensibility, too, belongs, in large part,\nto the domain of the subconscious. There are, according to Leibnitz's\nexpression, \"thoughts which our soul does not perceive.\" There are also\nsensations which our senses do not perceive, and it is perhaps these\nsensations which leave our brain as they entered it--subconsciously.\nThe most fruitful observations are those which we make without knowing\nit. To live without thinking of life is often the best means for\ncoming to know life. After half a century and more, a man sees the\nsurroundings, the scenes, and the events of his unreflecting childhood\nrise before him. As a child, he had dwelt in the external world as\nin an extension of himself, with a purely physiological concern. He\nhad seen without seeing. Yet now, while the middle distance remains\nveiled in mist, it is this period of his most fleeting impressions\nthat returns and takes on life before his eyes. It is very evident\nthat the sensation, which has entered us without our being aware of\nit, can never, at any moment, be voluntarily evoked; but the conscious\nsensation, on the contrary, can return suddenly, without any assistance\nfrom the will. The subconscious has, then, dominion over two orders of\nsensations, whereas consciousness has but one at its disposal. This\nmay explain why will and reflection have so restricted a share in the\ncreations of literature and of art.\n\nBut what is their r\u00f4le in the rest of life?\n\nIn principle, man is an automaton, and it would seem that in him\nconsciousness is an acquisition, an added faculty. Let us not be\ndeceived. Because man walks, acts, talks, he is not necessarily\nconscious, nor is he ever completely conscious. Consciousness, if we\ntake the word in its precise, absolute sense, is without doubt the\npossession of the few. In crowds men become particularly automatic.\nIndeed, their very instinct to herd together, to do all of them the\nsame thing at the same time, is unmistakable evidence as to the nature\nof their intelligence. How can we suppose consciousness and will to\nexist in the members of those dense throngs which, on days of festivals\nor during disorders, move forward in a mass toward the same point, with\nthe same cries and the same gestures? They are ants, that come out from\nunder the blades of grass after a rain, and nothing more. The conscious\nman, who mingles without reflection in the crowd, who acts as the crowd\nacts, loses his personality. He is now merely one of the tentacles of\nthe great artificial octopus, and almost all his sensations die away in\nthe collective brain of the hypothetical animal. From this contact he\nwill bring back next to nothing. The man who comes out of the crowd,\nlike the man saved from drowning, has one recollection only--that of\nhaving fallen into the water.\n\nIt is among the small number of the conscious \u00e9lite that must be\nsought the veritably superior examples of a humanity of which they\nare, not the leaders--that would be a pity, and too contrary to\ninstinct--but the judges. However--and this is a subject for serious\nmeditation--these individuals, raised above the rest, attain their\nfull power only at moments when the conscious, becoming subconscious,\nopens the locks of the brain and lets the renewed floods of sensation\nrush back to the world whence they were derived. They are magnificent\ninstruments on which the subconscious alone plays with genius, for it,\ntoo, is subconscious. Goethe is the type of these dual men, and the\nsupreme hero of intellectual humanity.\n\nThere are other men, not less rare, but less complete, in whom the\nwill plays but a very ordinary r\u00f4le, and who are nothing the moment\nthey cease to be under the influence of the subconscious. Their genius\nis often only the purer and more energetic because of this. They are\nmore docile instruments under the breath of the unknown God. But, like\nMozart, they do not know what they do. They obey an irresistible force.\nThat is why Gluck had his piano moved out into the middle of a meadow,\nin the full sunlight. That is why Haydn gazed at a ring, why Cr\u00e9billon\nlived surrounded by dogs, why Schiller frequently inhaled the odour of\nrotten apples with which he had filled the drawer of his table. Such\nare the most innocent fantasies of the subconscious. There are others\nthat are both more insistent and more terrible.\n\n\n[1] Suggested by _Physiologie c\u00e9r\u00e9brale: Le Subconscient chez les\nartistes, les savants, et les \u00e9crivains_, by Dr. Paul Chabaneix,\nParis, J.-B. Bailli\u00e8re. This study was already written when M. Ribot's\nmasterly work, _L'Imagination cr\u00e9atrice_ (July, 1900), appeared.\n\n[2] See in a dream related by Maury (_Le Sommeil et les R\u00eaves_) the\nword _jardin_ causing the dreamer to visit Persia, then to read _L'Ane\nmort_ (Jardin, Chardin, Janin); and in another dream, the syllable lo\nconducting the mind from the word _kilom\u00e8tre_ to _loto_, vi\u00e2 _Gilolo,\nlob\u00e9lia, Lopez_. However, the poet (by reason of rhyme or alliteration)\nexperiences similar associations, but he must have the ability to\nrender them logical, a thing which rarely happens in dreams pure and\nsimple. Victor Hugo, a veritable incarnation of the Subconscious,\nrioted in these associations, which were at first involuntary.\n\n[3] With regard to dreams, M. Chabaneix says (p. 17) that those who\noften think in visual images are subject to dreams in which the images\nare objectified in amplified form. A personal observation contradicts\nthis, but in mentioning it I am only opposing a single observation to\nmany observations. I refer to a writer who, although besieged, when\nawake, by internal visual images, sees images but rarely in dreams and\nnever has any characteristic hallucinations. Recently, having reread\nMaury's book during the day, he experienced that night, for the first\ntime, two or three vague hypnotic hallucinations, caused doubtless by\nthe desire or fear of knowing this state.... This case may serve to\nexplain the contagion of hallucination by books.--He saw kaleidoscopic\nflashes, then grinning heads, finally a figure clad in green, of life\nsize, of whom the dreamer, looking out of the corner of his right eye,\nsaw only one-half. At this moment, he was awaking. The figure evidently\ncame from an illustrated history of Italian painting, which he had\nglanced at in the forenoon.\n\n[4] _Le Subconscient_, p. 11.\n\n[5] Letter to W. von Humboldt, 17 March, 1832 (_Le Subconscient_, p.\n16). Goethe was then eighty-three; he died five days later. The whole\nletter is quoted by Eckermann.\n\n[6] _Le Subconscient_, p. 24.\n\n[7] Preface to _Le Subconscient_.\n\n[8] Jahm, quoted in _Le Subconscient_, p. 93.\n\n[9] _Psychologie des Sentiments_.--W. von Humboldt said: \"Reason\ncombines, modifies and directs; it cannot create, because the vital\nprinciple is not in it\" (_Ideas on the New French Constitution_).\n\n\n\n\nTHE ROOTS OF IDEALISM\n\n\nI\n\n\nSince writing, in _Physique de l'Amour_, the chapter on \"The Tyranny\nof the Nervous System,\" with its criticism of Lamarck's saying, \"the\nenvironment creates the organ,\" I have come to conceive some doubts on\nthe legitimacy of my ideas. I am going to state them without definitely\ntaking sides either against myself or against subjective idealism, to\nwhich in the last analysis I remain in large part faithful.\n\nIdealism is to-day the dominant doctrine in philosophy, which was bound\nto come to it, after a period of raillery, for reasoning leads to it\ninvincibly.\n\nWe know that there are two idealisms. It is then prudent, whenever this\nword is employed in a context not purely philosophic, to define it.\nThere are two idealisms, both qualified by a word which is identical\nin form, but different in meaning, since one comes from _ideal_, the\nother from _idea_. The former is the expression of a moral or religious\nstate of mind. It is very nearly synonymous with spiritualism, and it\nis this that M. Bruneti\u00e8re employs when that hard-hearted man becomes\nsentimental on the subject of the \"renaissance of idealism.\" There is\na certain \"Revue Id\u00e9aliste,\" marked by a serene religious sentiment,\nwhich belongs to the same clan, and in which it would be a mistake to\nseek any enlightenment on Berkeley's doctrine.\n\nThe other idealism, which it would have been better to call ideaism,\nand which Nietzsche has carried to the point of phenomenalism, is\na philosophical conception of the world. Schopenhauer, who was not\nits inventor, has provided it with its best formula--the world is my\nrepresentation. That is to say, the world is such as it appears to me.\nIf it has a real existence in itself, it is inaccessible to me. It is\nthat which I see it, or feel it, to be.\n\nSchopenhauer's formula withstands every criticism. It is irrefutable.\nThe doctrine which derives from it, if attacked directly, presents\nitself as an impregnable fortress. Every reasoning blunts itself\nimpotently against it. It has this remarkable quality, that it is as\nvalid for the sensation, for the sentiment, as for the idea. There\nmay be based upon it equally, at will, a theory of intelligence, like\nTaine's, or a theory of sensibility--something which has not been\nyet attempted. Take the hackneyed statement that the same painful\nevent does not affect with the same intensity two persons whom it\nstrikes with the same external force. That is idealism. Take the\nsubject of tastes and of colours (in which Nietzsche found so much\namusement). There too, we have idealism. Whenever we study life,\nfacts, intelligences, physiologies, sensibilities for the purpose of\nfinding, not resemblances, but differences, we are practising idealism.\nWhile there is life, there is idealism. That is to say, there are,\naccording to the species, or even the individual, different ways of\nreacting against an external or internal sensation. Everything is\nmerely representation, for a bird as well as for a man, for a crab as\nfor a cuttle-fish. Reality is relative. A woman, a nervous man even,\ncan suffer intensely--perhaps lose consciousness--by imagining the\namputation of a leg, the scraping of the bones. Hardened soldiers,\non the contrary, have undergone such operations without flinching.\nA particular taste for cruelty should not be attributed to the\ncivilizations which countenanced torture, and to those which still\npractise it. The refinements which the Chinese bring to physical\npunishment are nothing but a very clear indication of insensibility.\nThat which agonizes a European makes a yellow man smile. But there are,\namong men of the same social group, numerous degrees of sensibility.\nPain, like pleasure, is a representation. The formula has been extended\nto groups. A people is what it believes itself to be, very much more\nthan what it actually is. Most social disorders are merely collective\nrepresentations.\n\nBut it is difficult to explain idealism by an examination of the facts\nof sensibility. They are too well known, too generally admitted,\nto support a philosophic construction. A point of departure more\nextraordinary and less easy to understand is needed. The phenomenon of\nvision is generally employed in this connection. It seems simple, but,\nwhen analyzed, it is exceedingly mysterious.\n\nSeeing is the most natural thing in the world. Yet, what do we see,\nwhen we see a tree? A tree, to be sure, but not the tree itself. What\nenters us, as object perceived, is not the tree as tree, but the tree\nas image. What is the image worth? Is it exact?\n\nSo it may be supposed, since it is sensibly the same for the various\npersons who perceive it, and since divergences of appreciation begin\nonly when there come into play judgments conditioned by sentiment or\ninterest. This supposed exactitude is, in any case, very relative. An\nimage is an image, a photograph, and it differs from the reality-tree\n(pure hypothesis) as much as a round, long, branching, leafy object\ndiffers from a graphic representation, without thickness. It is true\nthat tactile sensation, or its memory, comes then to our aid, adding\nto the tenuousness of the visual image the idea of consistence, of\nresistance, without which we have difficulty in conceiving matter. We\ncan then--and thanks also to our observation of the opposing play of\nlight and shade--give this vain image its true position in space.\n\nBut however complete and concordant may be the actions of our senses,\nwhen it is a question of knowing an object--even when, as in sexual\nlove, the six senses, including the genital sense, come into play\nsimultaneously--it is none the less the fact that the object known\nremains exterior to ourselves. Besides, this qualification \"known\" is\nlittle appropriate to the object perceived, since it has an interior\nface, inaccessible at first glance to our senses. If we are dealing\nwith a living being--and all the more if this being be intelligent and\ncomplex--we must exercise all sorts of faculties and devote ourselves\nto minute analyses in order to arrive, even then, at a knowledge that\nis very nearly illusory.\n\nKnowledge arrives, then, at a certain bankruptcy. It is not very far\nfrom this point to that of proclaiming the uselessness of the external\nworld as a means of explaining the nature of knowledge itself. It is\nonly a step from uselessness to reality. The idealistic philosophers\nwho develop their theory to its logical conclusion, can say, without\nparadox, that everything occurs in vision, for example, as if the\nobject did not exist--as if intelligence, though believing that it\nreceives aid from the eye, in reality created this object just as far\nas it wishes to know it. The phenomenon of hallucinations gives an\nappearance of reason to these exasperated idealists. Did not Taine,\nwho was not exasperated, call sensation a true hallucination? But why\ntrue? That is a word which, in the circumstances, it is difficult to\njustify. It would be juster to say that hereditary habit inclines us\nto regard certain sensations as true, certain others as false. Perhaps\nutility serves us also as guide, and we imagine, in order to reassure\nourselves, an external and fallacious world whose operations correspond\nto the movements of our psychology.\n\n\nII\n\n\nThere is another way of knowing, at once more elementary, more\nintimate, and more uncertain. This is absorption. The elements of our\nnourishment, in proportion as we \"know\" them, disintegrate, yield\nsoluble parts to our organism, and reject the rest in a form equally\nunknowable. If we reject, as we should, the primitive distinction\nbetween soul and body, admitting only the body and believing everything\nto be physical, then this way of knowing should be studied parallel\nwith those ways which spring from each of our different senses, or from\ntheir collaboration. It is certain that absorption has taught man in\nevery age. It is through it, and not by virtue of an unknown instinct,\nthat he has succeeded in separating vegetables and animals into good\nand bad, into useful and harmful or indifferent. Our analytical methods\nare still unable, save perhaps in particularly expert hands, to\ndistinguish mushrooms as a harmful or favourable form of nourishment.\nThe expert himself must be guided, for this delicate operation, by\na direct and real experiment of absorption. Man, devoid of science,\ntook himself as laboratory. None was surer. He acquired, by this\nmeans, certain parts of his knowledge which have proved most useful to\nhumanity and to the domestic animals. From time to time medications\nare rediscovered which figure in ancient pharmacopeias. Thus formate\nof lime or of soda, recently prescribed as a muscular invigorant,\ncontains scarcely a principle that did not figure in the old \"water\nof magnanimity,\" obtained by maceration and distillation of a certain\nquantity of ants. How did our ancestors, who were no doubt shepherds\nand labourers, come to distinguish the virtue of ants? Evidently by\neating them. The foul Arabs and other low forms of humanity who eat\ntheir vermin, find in them, perhaps, an analogous tonic. This practice,\nlike all those which resolve themselves into absorption, is assuredly\ndictated by experience. Neither a man nor an animal can, in principle,\nbecome addicted to an act which is harmful to him. Between acts that\nare harmful, and acts that are salutary, there is a whole series of\ngames, but it is difficult to admit that a daily game is a harmful act.\n\nWhy do not peasants eat certain abundant rodents? It is easy to answer\nby offering taste and disgust as pretexts; but this is reversing the\nlogical order of the terms of the argument.\n\nA food does not disgust by its odour. The odour of a food disgusts\nbecause this food is harmful or useless. To understand this, without\nthe necessity of insisting upon it, it is enough to think of all those\nfoods with nauseous odours, which we appreciate much more than those\nwhich might be considered pleasant. Such is the fruit of experience,\nthat is to say, of knowledge.\n\nI believe that absorption should be considered one of the best means\nwe have of appreciating the practical value of certain parts of the\nexternal world. Agriculture, kitchen-gardening, cooking, pharmacy\nalmost entirely, are born of it. Assuredly men, even the rarest\nchemists and physiologists, could suck a kola-nut for years, without\nsuspecting those virtues that savages found quite simply by cracking it\nwith their teeth.\n\nThey jest who, ignoring not only the importance but the very existence\nof this sixth or seventh or tenth sense, attribute to taste or to smell\na mysterious power of divining the harmfulness of a plant or of its\nfruit. How can they help seeing immediately that this preservative\ninstinct, if it be hereditary, has had a beginning, and that, at this\nbeginning, there was a fact of knowledge? The traditional notion\nof instinct must be left in the old theological and spiritualistic\nrepertories. It serves simple people as an easy means of distinguishing\nman from the animals. Animals have instinct, man has intelligence.\nThere are proofs. Man poisons himself with mushrooms, frugivorous\nanimals never. What man? Not the traditional peasant surely. Only the\n_d\u00e9racin\u00e9_ or the city-dweller, who has naturally lost an instinct\nwhich was useless to him. This proof proves only that it is dangerous\nfor man, as for the other animals, or for plaints themselves, to\nchange their habitat. There is a painful, uncertain transitory phase.\nIt is during this phase that we go into the woods, picknicking,\nand gather toadstools. But rabbits in cages, when given wet grass\nor vegetables instinctively unknown to them, allow themselves to\nbe completely poisoned. Free, it would never have occurred to them\nto crop at dewfall, because their ancestors, dwelling in extremely\nthick woodlands, were ignorant of the very existence of the dew, and\ntransmitted distrust of wet grass to their offspring.\n\nMan, even in the state of semi-civilization, is burdened with too much\nknowledge for it all to be transmitted hereditarily; but there is no\ndoubt that the oldest and most useful reaches us in this manner. When\nwe walk in the forest there are berries that tempt us, whortleberries,\nfor example, but never alderberries. Who has taught us (I am supposing\na real ignorance), that they are purgative and even dangerous?\nInstinct? What is instinct? The hereditary transmission of knowledge.\n\nThis transmission can, without doubt, occur in the case of abstract\nideas, as well as of practical ideas--that is to say, useful for the\nconservation of life. Some, besides, are really useful, and even\nprimordial. It is as reasonable to believe that they are inherited\nas to suppose them personally acquired. It might be possible to\nrehabilitate the theory of innate ideas, by revising it carefully and\neliminating from its catalogue all sorts of Platonic or Christian\ninventions, too recent to have entered our blood.\n\nAs to the direct knowledge of ideas, this is gained in a form\nsensibly analogous to the knowledge of matter by absorption. Once\nthey have entered us, ideas either remain inert, unknown, or else\nare disintegrated. In the first case, it is not long before they are\nexpelled from the brain, much like an indigestible morsel which has\nentered the intestines. Their stay may produce a certain irritation,\neven lesions. That is to say, it may provoke absurd acts, manifestly\nwithout logical relation to the normal physiology of the patient. This\neffect may be observed in all countries, but especially in France, at\nthe time of great political or moral crises. We see people tormented\nby the presence of a parasitic idea in their brain, like sheep by the\nresidence of a trumpet-fly's egg in their frontal sinus. Man, like the\nsheep, has the \"itch.\" That ends badly for the sheep--for the man also,\nvery often.\n\nIn the second case, the external ideas that have entered the brain\nare disintegrated there and unite their atoms with the other atomic\nknowledge already within us. An idea is digested, assimilated.\nAssimilated, it then becomes very different from what it was when\nit entered the intelligence. Like intestinal absorption, mental\nabsorption is, therefore, an excellent though indirect way of acquiring\nknowledge. In both cases, the ideas, like the aliments, will be known,\nnot immediately, but by their effects. Thus men know hereditarily\nthat certain ideas are individual or social poisons, and that others\nare equally favourable to the welfare of the individual or to the\ndevelopment of a people. But, in this order, notions of utility and\nof harmfulness are much less precise. We have seen a certain idea,\nreputed to be very dangerous, contributing to the health of a man, of\na family, of a society, of civilization itself. Ideas are extremely\nworkable, plastic. They take the shape of the brain. There are perhaps\nno ideas that are bad for a healthy brain whose form is normal. There\nare perhaps no good ones for a brain that is sick and warped.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nBut let us come back to our tree or our ox. This ox can enter us in one\nof two ways. First, partly, but really, in the form of food. What we\nabsorb of it in that way cannot, evidently, be known as ox. It reaches\nour knowledge only through its effects--strength, health, gaiety,\nactivity, depression. Even were this absorption total in the case of a\nsmall animal, digestible in all its parts, the result, from the point\nof view of immediate knowledge, would be the same, since the object\nbecomes resolved into elements which render its form unknowable.\n\nThe other manner--that which brings into play the external senses--will\nmake us know the ox, in appearance as such, in reality as image of an\nox. What is the true value of this knowledge? We must here return to\nthis question, in order to enter more easily upon the second part of\nthis essay.\n\nTruth has been very seriously defined as conformity of the\nrepresentation of an object with this object itself. But that solves\nnothing. What is the object itself, since we can know it only as\nrepresentation? It is useless to carry the discussion further. We shall\nturn indefinitely around the fortress of idealism, without ever finding\nan opening, or any weak point. We shall enter it never, no argument\nserving as a bomb against its solid walls.\n\nHowever, we must consider carefully. Having thoroughly reflected, we\nshall ask if this fortress be real, or if, on the contrary, it be not,\nperhaps, a representation without object, a pure phantom, like those\nsunken cities whose bells still ring for great festivals, but are heard\nonly by those who believe in their mysterious life. This doubt will\nlead us to re-examine the reasoning of Berkeley and of Kant, and see\nif it be well constructed. Does it start from the senses to reach the\nmind? Or may it not, perchance, be one of those mental conceptions\nwhich fall back upon the senses like an avalanche, freezing and\nsmothering them?\n\nHow have the senses been formed? Such is the question. Has there\nalways been an opposition between the ego and the non-ego? There is\nnothing in the intelligence that has not first been in the senses.\nBy intelligence, we must in this philosophic dictum, due to Locke,\nunderstand the psychologic consciousness. Let us leave aside the\nconsciousness, which can only serve to complicate the problem.\nConsciousness is a phenomenon of secondary order and of an entirely\nsentimental utility, if it be restricted to man; commonplace and of\npure reflex, if extended to all sensible matter. Let us consider this\nmatter in perhaps its humblest manifestations, taking account only of\nthe actions and reactions, exactly as we might observe the influence\nof heat, of light, or of cold on milk, wine or water. In living matter\nthere will, however, be something more--the decomposition will be\ncompensated by assimilation, and if the assimilation be abundant, there\nwill be generation. Other forms, resembling the first, will detach\nthemselves from the matrix form. This represents life essentially,\na living being, a being limited in duration by the very fact of its\ngrowth, which constitutes an effort and a loss. Let us consider a being\nwhose senses are not differentiated, and let us see how it gets on with\nthe rest of the world, how it knows it.\n\nThe amoeba has no exterior senses. It is an almost homogeneous mass,\nand yet it is sensible to almost the same sensorial impressions as the\nhighest mammal. It feeds (smell and taste); it moves (sense of space,\ntouch); it is sensible to light, at least to certain rays (sight);\nits environment being in perpetual movement, ceaselessly traversed by\nsonorous waves, it doubtless reacts to these vibrations (hearing).\nPerhaps, even, it possesses, without special organs, senses which we\nlack, and which we recover only by study and analysis, such as the\nchemical sense, which judges the composition of a body, declares it\nassimilable or counsels its rejection. The exercise of all these senses\ndenotes, first of all, a very long heredity. They have, doubtless, been\nacquired successively only, unless, the absence of one of them being\ncapable of causing death, their presence is the strict consequence\nof the life of this humble beast. But it is useless to construct any\nhypotheses on the subject. It is enough to keep to the fact, and this\nfact is the existence of a being without differentiated organs, that is\nto say, a being all of whose parts are equally adapted to react against\nevery external excitation.\n\nWhy these reactions? They are one of the conditions of life. But could\nnot life be conceived without them? It is possible. It is a question of\nenvironment. If the amoeba's environment were homogeneous and calm, if\nit were of a constant temperature and luminosity, if it furnished an\nabundance of proper nourishment, if, in a word, the animal dwelt in an\nalimentary bath, no reactions would be necessary, and its only movement\nwould be to open its pores for food, to reject the excess of this food,\nto divide itself, when swollen, into two amoebas. Why, then, does it\npossess all these senses which, though unorganized, are perfectly\nreal? Because the environment obliges it to have them, because of its\ninstability. The senses, whether differentiated, or spread over the\nentire surface of a living form, are the creation of the environment\nwhich--light, sound, material exteriority, odours, etc.--acts in\naccordance with different discontinuous manifestations. Constant or\ncontinuous, they would be without effect. Discontinuous, they make\nthemselves felt. Discontinuous light has created the eye, just as the\ndrop of water creates a hole in granite.\n\nA being, whatever it may be, whether vague and almost amorphous or\nclearly defined, is not isolated in the universal vital environment.\nIt is the molecule of a diapason. It vibrates, not of its own accord,\nbut in obedience to a general movement. The living cell, itself in\ninternal movement and subjected to all the reactions of external\nmovement, perceives this movement doubtless as an unique impression\nonly. But when several cells come together and live in permanent\ncontact, the impressions of external movement begin to be perceived as\ndifferentiated. Is this then necessary? Do there then already exist\nluminous vibrations, different from sonorous vibrations? Assuredly,\nsince otherwise the sensorial differentiation would be inexplicable,\nbeing useless. The union of several cells permits the animal to\ndivide its work of perception, and to present to each perceptible\nmanifestation an organ or, at least, the sketch of an organ,\nappropriate to receive it.\n\nIt would be possible, it is true, from the idealistic point of view,\nto suppose that the senses are a creation of the individual, an\nenhancement of his own life, and that he differentiates, on his own\ninitiative, his cinematic impression. This would be a phenomenon of\nspontaneous analytic creation, the analyzing instrument existing prior\nto the matter analyzed, or even, for exasperated idealists, creating\nthis matter according to determinate needs, once and for all, by its\nown physiology. It would then be a property of organized living matter\nto fabricate senses for itself, and to diversify, by this means, its\nown life. This point of view is not easy to admit for several reasons,\npurely physical.\n\nFirst, if this sensorial differentiation were a faculty of living\nmatter, it would not be observed to be limited in its powers, as it\nis. Even admitting certain senses unknown to man, such as the chemical\nsense, the electric sense, the sense of orientation (extremely\ndoubtful), it is still seen that the number of senses is very limited.\nBut, far more important, the fundamental senses are found to be\nidentical among the majority of the higher species, vertebrates and\ninsects, with very few exceptions. The moment the animal arrives at\nsensorial differentiation, this differentiation occurs in response to\nthe manifestations of matter.\n\nThe senses should, then, correspond to external realities. They have\nbeen created, not by the perceiving being, but by the perceptible\nenvironment. It is the light that has created the eye, just as, in\nour houses, it has created the windows. Where there is no light,\nfish become blind. This is perhaps the direct proof, for if light is\nthe creation of the eye, this creation can occur at the bottom of\nthe sea quite as well as on the surface of the earth. Another proof:\nthese same fish, having become blind, but still requiring a luminous\nhabitat, create for themselves in the night of the abysses, not eyes,\nbut apparatus directly productive of light; and this artificial light\ncreates anew the atrophied eye. The senses are then clearly the product\nof the environment. That is all they can do, moreover, their utility\nbeing nil, if the environment is not perceptible. It might still be\nobjected that it is the nervous system which, having intuition of an\nenvironment to be perceived, creates for itself organs adapted to this\nperception. But this is merely begging the question; for, either the\nnervous system has knowledge of the external environment, which means\nthat it already has senses, or else it has no senses, and thus can\nhave no knowledge. A more serious objection would be that, sensorial\naptitude being a property of the nervous system, it would afterwards\ncreate for itself organs in order to perceive more distinctly, and\nclearly differentiated, the various natural phenomena. This view would\nexplain up to a certain point the creation of sensorial organs, but\nnot the existence of the senses themselves as sensitive power. It is,\nmoreover, certain that the nervous system acts rather by tyrannizing\nthe organs at its disposal, than by seeking to modify these organs or\nto create new ones. It is a power which evidently exceeds the limits\nof its capacity. It has, on the contrary, devolved upon the external\nphenomena which, in acting mechanically on the living matter, produce\nin it local modifications. The organs of the senses seem to be nothing\nother than surfaces sensitized by the very agents which, once their\nwork is done, will reflect in them their particular physiognomy. The\neye--let us take once more this example, and repeat it--is a creation\nof light.\n\nSince they are themselves the work of the principal general\nphenomena, the senses ought then to agree exactly--allowing for\napproximation--with the very nature which has created them. The\nluminous environment is not, in this case, a dream, but a reality, and\na reality existing prior to the eye which perceives it; and, since the\neye is the very product of light, objects situated in this luminous\nenvironment should be perceived by it as an exact image, just as the\ndrill which creates a hole, creates it strictly to its size, its form,\nits image. Bacon said that the senses are holes. Here this is only a\nmetaphor.\n\n\nIV\n\n\nThere remains the question of the co-ordination of the impressions\nreceived materially by the senses. This co-ordination, for elementary\nsensations, is evidently identical for all beings. The snail, his horn\nbeing threatened, and man, his eye, make the same shrinking movement.\nIdentical acts can have as cause only identical realities, or ones\nperceived as such. With judgment, we enter upon the mystery. If light\nis constant, the judgment which admits its existence is variable\naccording to the species, and, in the higher species, according to\nthe individual. It is clear that all eyes are affected by light, but\nwe do not know to what degree, or according to what mode of spectral\ndecomposition. It is the same for all other senses. Even if the\nreality of the sensible world be admitted, we are obliged to pronounce\ncautiously upon the quality of this reality, as reality perceived and\njudged. We then return to idealism, though having had a quite different\nend in view. We must retrace our steps, contemplate anew the ironic\nportress, and resign ourselves never to know anything save appearance.\n\nAnother fact, however, remains--another fortress, perhaps, reared\nfacing the other. This is, that matter existed before life. The gain\nseems slight, but it is equivalent to saying that the phenomena\nperceived by the senses are exterior to the senses which now perceive\nthem; and this perhaps means that, if life becomes extinct, matter\nwill survive life. The proposition of the idealists that the world\nwould come to an end if there were no longer any sensibilities capable\nof feeling it, any intelligences capable of perceiving it, seems,\ntherefore, untenable. And yet what would a world be, that was neither\nthought nor felt? We must recognize this, that when we think of a world\nvoid of thought, it still contains our thought, or it is our thought\nwhich contains it and animates it. Another phenomenon analogous to\nthis has, perhaps, contributed much to belief in the immortality of\nthe soul, namely, that we cannot conceive of ourselves as dead save\nby thinking of this death, by feeling and seeing it. The idea of our\nnon-existence supposes, moreover, the life of our thought. That there\nis here an illusion due to the very functioning of the mechanism of\nthought is probable enough; but it is difficult not to take it into\naccount. It would seem somewhat high-handed to make abstraction of it.\n\nWe can attempt it, however, and try a new road leading \"beyond\nthought.\" The way would be to consider the general movement of the\nthings in which our thought itself is closely implicated, and by which\nit is rigorously conditioned. Far, perhaps, from thought thinking life,\nit is life that animates thought. What is anterior is a vast rhythmic\nundulation, of which thought is but one of the moments, one of the\nbounds.\n\nThe position taken by man outside the world to judge the world, is a\nfactitious attitude. It is, perhaps, only a game, and one that is too\neasy. The division of man into two parts, thought, physical being,\none considering the other and pretending to contain it, is only a\nphilosophic amusement which becomes impossible the moment we stop to\nconsider. There is, in fact, a physic of thought. We know that it\nis a product, measurable, ponderable. Unformulated externally, it\nnevertheless manifests its physical existence by the weight which it\nimposes upon the nervous system. It needs speech, writing, or some sort\nof sign, in order to manifest itself externally. Telepathy, thought,\npenetration, presentiment--if there be any facts in this category which\nhave really been verified--would in such a case be so many proofs of\nthe materiality of thought. But it is useless to multiply arguments in\nfavour of a fact which is no longer contested save by theology.\n\nThis fact of materiality gives thought a secondary place. It is\nproduced. It might not be. It is not primordial. It is a result, a\nconsequence--doubtless a property of the nervous system, or even of\nliving matter. It is then through a singular abuse, that we have become\naccustomed to consider it isolated from the ensemble of its producing\ncauses.\n\nBut, if thought be a product, it is, none the less, productive in\nits turn. It does not create the world, it judges it. It does not\ndestroy it, it modifies and reduces it to its measure. To know is to\nframe a judgment; but every judgment is arbitrary, since it is an\naccommodation, an average, and since two different physiologies give\ndifferent averages, just as they give different extremes. The path,\nonce again, after many windings, brings us back to idealism.\n\nIdealism is definitely founded on the very materiality of thought,\nconsidered as a physiological product. The conception of an external\nworld exactly knowable is compatible only with belief in the reason,\nthat is to say, in the soul, that is to say, furthermore, in the\nexistence of an unchangeable, incorruptible, immortal principle,\nwhose judgments are infallible. If, on the contrary, knowledge of\nthe world be the work of a humble physiological product, thought--a\nproduct differing in quality, in modality, from man to man, species\nto species--the world may perhaps be considered as unknowable, since\neach brain or each nervous system derived from its vision and from its\ncontact a different image, or one which, if it was at first the same\nfor all, is profoundly modified in its final representation by the\nintervention of the individual judgment.\n\nIf the same object produces the same image on the retina of an ox or\nthe retina of a man, it will not, doubtless, be concluded, therefore,\nthat this image is known and judged identically by the ox and the man.\n\nThere are no two leaves, there are no two beings, alike in nature. Such\nis the basis of idealism and the cause of incompatibility with the\nagreeable doctrines with which men continue to be entertained.\n\nThe reasons of idealism plunge deep down into matter. Idealism means\nmaterialism, and conversely, materialism means idealism.\n\n1904.","title":"Decadence, and Other Essays on the Culture of Ideas","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":56474}