,the ,buried ,temple ,by ,maurice ,maeterlinck ,translated by ,alfred ,sutro ,,london 3 ,,george ,,allen ,,unwin ,,ltd4 ,,ruskin ,,house1 #dj ,,museum ,,street1 ,w4,c4 #a ,published in ,april #aijb ,reprinted3-- ,,pocket ,,edition1 ,march #aiaa ,november #aiaa ,july #aiai ,december #aiba ,october #aibd ,twenty first ,thousand 7,all rights reserved7 ,printed in ,great ,britain ,,note ,of the five essays in this volume1 two only1 those on ,the ,past and ,luck1 were written in #aija4 ,the others1 ,the ,mystery of ,justice1 ,the ,evolution of ,mystery1 and ,the ,kingdom of ,matter1 are anterior to ,the ,life of the ,bee1 and appeared in the ,fortnightly ,review in #ahii and #aijj4 ,the essay on ,the ,past appeared in the ,march number of the ,fortnightly ,review and of the ,new ,york ,independent2 and parts of ,the ,mystery of ,justice in this last journal and ,harper's ,magazine4 ,the author's thanks are due to ,messrs4 ,chapman ,hall1 ,messrs4 ,harper ,brothers1 and the proprietors of ,the ,independent for their permission to republish4 ,,contents ,i4 ,,the ,,mystery ,,of ,,justice ,,ii4 ,,the ,,evolution ,,of ,,mystery ,,iii4 ,,the ,,kingdom ,,of ,,matter ,,iv4 ,,the ,,past ,v4 ,,luck ,i ,,the ,,mystery ,,of ,,justice #a ,i speak1 for those who do not believe in the existence of a unique1 all-powerful1 infallible ,judge1 for ever intent on our thoughts1 our feelings and actions1 maintaining justice in this world and completing it in the next4 ,and if there be no ,judge1 what justice is there8 ,none other than that which men have made for themselves by their laws and tribunals1 as also in the social relations that no definite judgment governs8 ,is there nothing above this human justice1 whose sanction is rarely other than the opinion1 the confidence or mistrust1 the approval or disapproval1 of our fellows8 ,is this capable of explaining or accounting for all that seems so inexplicable to us in the morality of the universe1 that we at times feel almost compelled to believe an intelligent ,judge must exist8 ,when we deceive or overcome our neighbour1 have we deceived or overcome all the forces of justice8 ,are all things definitely settled then1 and may we go boldly on3 or is there a graver1 deeper justice1 one less visible perhaps1 but less subject to error2 one that is more universal1 and mightier8 ,that such a justice exists we all of us know1 for we all have felt its irresistible power4 ,we are well aware that it covers the whole of our life1 and that at its centre there reigns an intelligence which never deceives itself1 which none can deceive4 ,but where shall we place it1 now that we have torn it down from the skies8 ,where does it weigh good and evil1 happiness and disaster8 ,whence does it issue to deal out reward and punishment8 ,these are questions that we do not often ask ourselves1 but they have their importance4 ,the nature of justice1 and all our morality1 depend on the answer2 and it cannot be fruitless therefore to inquire how that great idea of mystic and sovereign justice1 which has undergone more than one transformation since history began1 is being received to-day in the mind and the heart of man4 ,and is this mystery not the loftiest1 the most passionately interesting1 of all that remain to us3 does it not intertwine with most of the others8 ,do its vacillations not stir us to the very depths of our soul8 ,the great bulk of mankind perhaps know nothing of these vacillations and changes1 but for the evolution of thought it suffices that the eyes of the few should see2 and when the clear consciousness of these has become aware of the transformation1 its influence will gradually attain the general morality of men4 #b ,in these pages we shall naturally have much to say of social justice3 of the justice1 in other words1 that we mutually extend to each other through life2 but we shall leave on one side legal or positive justice1 which is merely the organisation of one side of social justice4 ,we shall occupy ourselves above all with that vague but inevitable justice1 intangible and yet so effective1 which accompanies and sets its seal upon every action of our life2 which approves or disapproves1 rewards or punishes4 ,does this come from without8 ,does an inflexible1 undeceivable moral principle exist1 independent of man1 in the universe and in things8 ,is there1 in a word1 a justice that might be called mystic8 ,or does it issue wholly from man2 is it inward even though it act from without2 and is the only justice therefore psychologic8 ,these two terms1 mystic and psychologic justice1 comprehend1 more or less1 all the different forms of justice1 superior to the social1 that would appear to exist to-day4 #c ,it is scarcely conceivable that any one who has forsaken the easy1 but artificially illumined1 paths of positive religion1 can still believe in the existence of a physical justice arising from moral causes1 whether its manifestations assume the form of heredity or disease1 of geologic1 atmospheric1 or other phenomena4 ,however eager his desire for illusion or mystery1 this is a truth he is bound to recognise from the moment he begins earnestly and sincerely to study his own personal experience1 or to observe the external ills which1 in this world of ours1 fall indiscriminately on good and wicked alike4 ,neither the earth nor the sky1 neither nature nor matter1 neither air nor any force known to man 7save only those that are in him7 betrays the slightest regard for justice1 or the remotest connection with our morality1 our thoughts or intentions4 ,between the external world and our actions there exist only the simple and essentially non-moral relations of cause and effect4 ,if ,i am guilty of a certain excess or imprudence1 ,i incur a certain danger1 and have to pay a corresponding debt to nature4 ,and as this imprudence or excess will generally have had an immoral cause--or a cause that we call immoral because we have been compelled to regulate our life according to the requirements of our health and tranquillity--we cannot refrain from establishing a connection between this immoral cause and the danger to which we have been exposed1 or the debt we have had to pay2 and we are led once more to believe in the justice of the universe1 the prejudice which1 of all those that we cling to1 has its root deepest in our heart4 ,and in our eagerness to restore this confidence we are content deliberately to ignore the fact that the result would have been exactly the same had the cause of our excess or imprudence been--to use the terms of our infantine vocabulary--heroic or innocent4 ,if on an intensely cold day ,i throw myself into the water to save a fellow-creature from drowning1 or if1 seeking to drown him1 ,i chance to fall in1 the consequences of the chill will be absolutely the same2 and nothing on this earth or beneath the sky--save only myself1 or man if he be able--will enhance my suffering because ,i have committed a crime1 or relieve my pain because my action was virtuous4 #d ,let us consider another form of physical justice3 heredity4 ,there again we find the same indifference to moral causes4 ,and truly it were a strange justice indeed that would throw upon the son1 and even the remote descendant1 the burden of a fault committed by his father or his ancestor4 ,but human morality would raise no objection3 man would not protest4 ,to him it would seem natural1 magnificent1 even fascinating4 ,it would indefinitely prolong his individuality1 his consciousness and existence2 and from this point of view would accord with a number of indisputable facts which prove that we are not wholly self-contained1 but connect1 in more than one subtle1 mysterious fashion1 with all that surrounds us in life1 with all that precedes us1 or follows4 ,and yet1 true as this may be in certain cases1 it is not true as regards the justice of physical heredity1 which is absolutely indifferent to the moral causes of the deed whose consequences the descendants have to bear4 ,there is physical relation between the act of the father1 whereby he has undermined his health1 and the consequent suffering of the son2 but the son's suffering will be the same whatever the intentions or motives of the father1 be these heroic or shameful4 ,and1 further1 the area of what we call the justice of physical heredity would appear to be very restricted4 ,a father may have been guilty of a hundred abominable crimes1 he may have been a murderer1 a traitor1 a persecutor of the innocent or despoiler of the wretched1 without these crimes leaving the slightest trace upon the organism of his children4 ,it is enough that he should have been careful to do nothing that might injure his health4 #e ,so much for the justice of ,nature as shown in physical heredity4 ,moral heredity would appear to be governed by similar principles2 but as it deals with modifications of the mind and character infinitely more complex and more elusive1 its manifestations are less striking1 and its results less certain4 ,pathology is the only region which admits of its definite observation and study2 and there we observe it to be merely the spiritual form of physical heredity1 which is its essential principle3 moral heredity being only a sequel1 and revealing in its elementary stage the same indifference to real justice1 and the same blindness4 ,whatever the moral cause of the ancestor's drunkenness or debauch1 the same punishment may be meted out in mind and body to the descendants of the drunkard or the debauchee4 ,intellectual blemish will almost always accompany material blemish4 ,the soul will be attacked simultaneously with the body2 and it matters but little whether the victim be imbecile1 mad1 epileptic1 possessed of criminal instincts1 or only vaguely threatened with slight mental derangement3 the most frightful moral penalty that a supreme justice could invent has followed actions which1 as a rule1 cause less harm and are less perverse than hundreds of other offences that ,nature never dreams of punishing4 ,and this penalty1 moreover1 is inflicted blindly1 not the slightest heed being paid to the motives underlying the actions1 motives that may have been excusable perhaps1 or indifferent1 or possibly even admirable4 ,it would be absurd1 however1 to imagine that drunkenness and debauchery are the only agents in moral heredity4 ,there are a thousand others1 all more or less unknown4 ,certain moral qualities appear to be transmitted as readily as though they were physical4 ,in one race1 for instance1 we will almost constantly discover certain virtues which have probably been acquired4 ,but who shall say how much is due to heredity1 and how much to environment and example8 ,the problem becomes so complicated1 the facts so contradictory1 that it is impossible1 amidst the mass of innumerable causes1 to follow the track of one particular cause to the end4 ,let it suffice to say that in the only clear1 striking1 definitive cases where an intentional justice could have revealed itself in physical or moral heredity1 no trace of justice is found4 ,and if we do not find it in these1 we are surely far less likely to find it in others4 #f ,we may affirm therefore that not above us1 or around us1 or beneath us1 neither in this life nor in our other life which is that of our children1 is the least trace to be found of an intentional justice4 ,but1 in the course of adapting ourselves to the laws of life1 we have naturally been led to credit with our own moral ideas those principles of causality that we encounter most frequently2 and we have in this fashion created a very plausible semblance of effective justice1 which rewards or punishes most of our actions in the degree that they approach1 or deviate from1 certain laws that are essential for the preservation of the race4 ,it is evident that if ,i sow my field1 ,i shall have an infinitely better prospect of reaping a harvest the following summer than my neighbour1 who has neglected to sow his1 preferring a life of dissipation and idleness4 ,in this case1 therefore1 work obtains its admirable and certain reward2 and as work is essential for the preservation of our existence1 we have declared it to be the moral act of all acts1 the first of all our duties4 ,such instances might be indefinitely multiplied4 ,if ,i bring up my children well1 if ,i am good and just to those round about me1 if ,i am honest1 active1 prudent1 wise1 and sincere in all my dealings1 ,i shall have a better chance of meeting with filial piety1 with respect and affection1 a better chance of knowing moments of happiness1 than the man whose actions and conduct have been the very reverse of mine4 ,let us not1 however1 lose sight of the fact that my neighbour1 who is1 let us say1 a most diligent and thrifty man1 might be prevented by the most admirable of reasons--such as an illness caught while nursing his wife or his friend--from sowing his ground at the proper time1 and that he also would reap no harvest4 ,mutatis mutandis1 similar results would follow in the other instances ,i have mentioned4 ,the cases1 however1 are exceptional where a worthy or respectable reason will hinder the accomplishment of a duty2 and we shall find1 as a rule1 that sufficient harmony exists between cause and effect1 between the exaction of the necessary law and the result of the complying effort1 to enable our casuistry to keep alive within us the idea of the justice of things4 #g ,this idea1 however1 deeply ingrained though it be in the hearts and minds of the least credulous and least mystic of men1 can surely not be beneficial4 ,it reduces our morality to the level of the insect which1 perched on a falling rock1 imagines that the rock has been set in motion on its own special behalf4 ,are we wise in allowing certain errors and falsehoods to remain active within us8 ,there may have been some in the past which1 for a moment1 were helpful2 but1 this moment over1 men found themselves once again face to face with the truth1 and the sacrifice had only been delayed4 ,why wait till the illusion or falsehood which appeared to do good begins to do actual harm1 or1 if it do no harm1 at least retards the perfect understanding that should obtain between the deeply felt reality and our manner of interpreting and accepting it8 ,what were the divine right of kings1 the infallibility of the ,church1 the belief in rewards beyond the grave1 but illusions whose sacrifice reason deferred too long8 ,nor was anything gained by this dilatoriness beyond a few sterile hopes1 a little deceptive peace1 a few consolations that at times were disastrous4 ,but many days had been lost2 and we have no days to lose1 we who at last are seeking the truth1 and find in its search an all-sufficient reason for existence4 ,nor does anything retard us more than the illusion which1 though torn from its roots1 we still permit to linger among us2 for this will display the most extraordinary activity and be constantly changing its form4 ,but what does it matter1 some will ask1 whether man do the thing that is just because he thinks ,god is watching2 because he believes in a kind of justice that pervades the universe2 or for the simple reason that to his conscience this thing seems just8 ,it matters above all4 ,we have there three different men4 ,the first1 whom ,god is watching1 will do much that is not just1 for every god whom man has hitherto worshipped has decreed many unjust things4 ,and the second will not always act in the same way as the third1 who is indeed the true man to whom the moralist will turn1 for he will survive both the others2 and to foretell how man will conduct himself in truth1 which is his natural element1 is more interesting to the moralist than to watch his behaviour when enmeshed in falsehood4 #h ,it may seem idle to those who do not believe in the existence of a sovereign ,judge to discuss so seriously this inadmissible idea of the justice of things2 and inadmissible it does indeed become when presented thus in its true colours1 as it were1 pinned to the wall4 ,this1 however1 is not our way of regarding it in every-day life4 ,when we observe how disaster follows crime1 how ruin at last overtakes ill-gotten prosperity2 when we witness the miserable end of the debauchee1 the short-lived triumph of iniquity1 it is our constant habit to confuse the physical effect with the moral cause2 and however little we may believe in the existence of a ,judge1 we nearly all of us end by a more or less complete submission to a strange1 vague faith in the justice of things4 ,and although our reason1 our calm observation1 prove to us that this justice cannot exist1 it is enough that an event should take place which touches us somewhat more nearly1 or that there should be two or three curious coincidences1 for conviction to fade in our heart1 if not in our mind4 ,notwithstanding all our reason and all our experience1 the merest trifle recalls to life within us the ancestor who was convinced that the stars shone in their eternal places for no other purpose than to predict or approve a wound he was to inflict on his enemy upon the field of battle1 a word he should speak in the assembly of the chiefs1 or an intrigue he would bring to a successful issue in the women's quarters4 ,we of to-day are no less inclined to divinise our feelings for the benefit of our interests2 the only difference being that1 the gods having no longer a name1 our methods are less sincere and less precise4 ,when the ,greeks1 powerless before ,troy1 felt the need of supernatural signal and support1 they went to ,philoctetes1 deprived him of ,hercules' bow and arrows1 and abandoned him1 ill1 naked1 and defenceless1 on a desert island4 ,this was the mysterious ,justice1 loftier than that of man2 this was the command of the gods4 ,and similarly do we1 when some iniquity seems expedient to us1 cry loudly that we do it for the sake of posterity1 of humanity1 of the fatherland4 ,on the other hand1 should a great misfortune befall us1 we protest that there is no justice1 and that there are no gods2 but let the misfortune befall our enemy1 and the universe is at once repeopled with invisible judges4 ,if1 however1 some unexpected1 disproportionate stroke of good fortune come to us1 we are quickly convinced that we must possess merits so carefully hidden as to have escaped our own observation2 and we are happier in their discovery than at the windfall they have procured us4 #i ,one has to pay for all things1 we say4 ,yes1 in the depths of our heart1 in all that pertains to man1 justice exacts payment in the coin of our personal happiness or sorrow4 ,and without1 in the universe that enfolds us1 there is also a reckoning2 but here it is a different paymaster who measures out happiness or sorrow4 ,other laws obtain2 there are other motives1 other methods4 ,it is no longer the justice of the conscience that presides1 but the logic of nature1 which cares nothing for our morality4 ,within us is a spirit that weighs only intentions2 without us1 a power that only balances deeds4 ,we try to persuade ourselves that these two work hand in hand4 ,but in reality1 though the spirit will often glance towards the power1 this last is as completely ignorant of the other's existence as is the man weighing coals in ,northern ,europe of the existence of his fellow weighing diamonds in ,south ,africa4 ,we are constantly intruding our sense of justice into this non-moral logic2 and herein lies the source of most of our errors4 #aj ,and further1 what right have we to complain of the indifference of the universe1 what right to declare it incomprehensible1 and monstrous8 ,why this surprise at an injustice in which we ourselves take so active a part8 ,it is true that there is no trace of justice to be found in disease1 accident1 or most of the hazards of external life1 which fall indiscriminately on the good and the wicked1 the hero and traitor1 the poisoner and sister of charity4 ,but we are far too eager to include under the title ,justice of the ,universe many a flagrant act that is exclusively human1 and infinitely more common and more destructive than disease1 the hurricane1 or fire4 ,i do not allude to war2 it might be urged that we attribute this rather to the will of the people or kings than to ,nature4 ,but poverty1 for instance1 which we still rank with irremediable ills such as shipwreck or plague2 poverty1 with all its crushing sorrows and transmitted degeneration--how often may this be ascribed to the injustice of the elements1 and how often to the injustice of our social condition1 which is the crowning injustice of man8 ,need we1 at the sight of unmerited wretchedness1 look to the skies for a reason1 as though a flash of lightning had caused it8 ,need we seek an impenetrable1 unfathomable judge8 ,is this region not our own2 are we not here in the best explored1 best known portion of our dominion2 and is it not we who organise misery1 we who spread it abroad1 as arbitrarily1 from the moral point of view1 as fire and disease scatter destruction or suffering8 ,is it reasonable that we should wonder at the sea's indifference to the soul-state of its victims1 when we who have a soul1 the pre-eminent organ of justice1 pay no heed whatever to the innocence of the countless thousands whom we ourselves sacrifice1 who are our wretched victims8 ,we choose to regard as beyond our control1 as a force of fatality1 a force that rests entirely within our own hands4 ,but does this excuse us8 ,truly we are strange lovers of an ideal justice1 we are strange judges6 ,a judicial error sends a thrill of horror from one end of the world to another2 but the error which condemns three-fourths of mankind to misery1 an error as purely human as that of any tribunal1 is attributed by us to some inaccessible1 implacable power4 ,if the child of some honest man we know be born blind1 imbecile1 or deformed1 we will seek everywhere1 even in the darkness of a religion we have ceased to practise1 for some ,god whose intention to question2 but if the child be born poor--a calamity1 as a rule1 no less capable than the gravest infirmity of degrading a creature's destiny--we do not dream of interrogating the ,god who is wherever we are1 since he is made of our own desires4 ,before we demand an ideal judge1 we shall do well to purify our ideas1 for whatever blemish there is in these will surely be in the judge4 ,before we complain of ,nature's indifference1 or ask at her hands an equity she does not possess1 let us attack the iniquity that dwells in the homes of men2 and when this has been swept away1 we shall find that the part we assign to the injustice of fate will be less by fully two-thirds4 ,and the benefit to mankind would be far more considerable than if it lay in our power to guide the storm or govern the heat and the cold1 to direct the course of disease or the avalanche1 or contrive that the sea should display an intelligent regard to our virtues and secret intentions4 ,for indeed the poor far exceed in number those who fall victims to shipwreck or material accident1 just as far more disease is due to material wretchedness than to the caprice of our organism1 or to the hostility of the elements4 #aa ,and for all that1 we love justice4 ,we live1 it is true1 in the midst of a great injustice2 but we have only recently acquired this knowledge1 and we still grope for a remedy4 ,injustice dates such a long way back2 the idea of ,god1 of destiny1 of ,nature's mysterious decrees1 had been so closely and intimately associated with it1 it is still so deeply entangled with most of the unjust forces of the universe1 that it was but yesterday that we commenced the endeavour to isolate such elements contained within it as are purely human4 ,and if we succeed2 if we can distinguish them1 and separate them for all time from those upon which we have no power1 justice will gain more than by all that the researches of man have discovered hitherto4 ,for indeed in this social injustice of ours1 it is not the human part that is capable of arresting our passion for equity2 it is the part that a great number of men still attribute to a god1 to a kind of fatality1 or to imaginary laws of ,nature4 #ab ,this last inactive part shrinks every day4 ,nor is this because the mystery of justice is about to disappear4 ,a mystery rarely disappears2 as a rule1 it only shifts its ground4 ,but it is often most important and most desirable that we should bring about this change of abode4 ,it may be said that two or three such changes almost stand for the whole progress of human thought3 the dislodgment of two or three mysteries from a place where they did harm1 and their transference to a place where they become inoffensive and capable of doing good4 ,sometimes even1 there is no need for the mystery to change its place2 we have only to identify it under another name4 ,what was once called the gods1 we now term life4 ,and if life be as inexplicable as were the gods1 we are at least the gainers to the extent that none has the right to speak or do wrong in its name4 ,the aim of human thought can scarcely be to destroy mystery1 or lessen it1 for that seems impossible4 ,we may be sure that the same quantity of mystery will ever enwrap the world1 since it is the quality of the world1 as of mystery1 to be infinite4 ,but honest human thought will seek above all to determine what are the veritable irreducible mysteries4 ,it will endeavour to strip them of all that does not belong to them1 that is not truly theirs1 of the additions made by our errors1 our fears1 and our falsehoods4 ,and as the artificial mysteries vanish1 so will the ocean of veritable mystery stretch out further and further3 the mystery of life1 its aim and its origin2 the mystery of thought2 the mystery that has been called the primitive accident1 or the perhaps unknowable essence of reality4 #ac ,where had men conceived the mystery of justice to lodge8 ,it pervaded the world4 ,at one moment it was supposed to rest in the hands of the gods1 at another it engulfed and mastered the gods themselves4 ,it had been imagined everywhere except in man4 ,it had dwelt in the sky1 it had lurked behind rocks1 it had governed the air and the sea1 it had peopled an inaccessible universe4 ,then at last we peered into its imaginary retreats1 we pressed close and examined2 and its throne of clouds tottered1 it faded away2 but at the very moment we believed it had ceased to be1 behold it reappeared1 and raised its head once more in the very depths of our heart2 and yet another mystery had sought refuge in man1 and embodied itself in him4 ,for it is in ourselves that the mysteries we seek to destroy almost invariably find their last shelter and their most fitting abode1 the home which they had forsaken1 in the wildness of youth1 to voyage through space2 as it is in ourselves that we must learn to meet and to question them4 ,and truly it is no less wonderful1 no less inexplicable1 that man should have in his heart an immutable instinct of justice1 than it was wonderful and inexplicable that the gods should be just1 or the forces of the universe4 ,it is as difficult to account for the essence of our memory1 our will1 or intelligence1 as it was to account for the memory1 will1 or intelligence of the invisible powers or laws of ,nature2 and if1 in order to enhance our curiosity1 we have need of the unknown or unknowable2 if1 in order to maintain our ardour1 we require mystery or the infinite1 we shall not lose a single tributary of the unknown and unknowable by at last restoring the great river to its primitive bed2 nor shall we have closed a single road that leads to the infinite1 or lessened by the minutest fraction the most contested of veritable mysteries4 ,whatever we take from the skies we find again in the heart of man4 ,but1 mystery for mystery1 let us prefer the one that is certain to the one that is doubtful1 the one that is near to the one that is far1 the one that is in us and of us to the harmful one from without4 ,mystery for mystery1 let us no longer parley with the messengers1 but with the sovereign who sent them2 no longer question those feeble ones who silently vanish at our first inquiry1 but rather look into our heart1 where are both question and answer2 the answer which it has forgotten1 but1 some day perhaps1 shall remember4 #ad ,then we shall be able to solve more than one disconcerting problem as to the distribution1 often very equitable1 of reward and punishment among men4 ,and by this we do not mean only the inward1 moral reward and punishment1 but also the reward and punishment that are visible and wholly material4 ,there was some measure of reason in the belief held by mankind from its very origin1 that justice penetrates1 animates as it were1 every object of this world in which we live4 ,this belief has not been explained away by the fact that our great moral laws have been forcibly adapted to the great laws of life and matter4 ,there is more beyond4 ,we cannot refer all things1 in all circumstances1 to a simple relation of cause and effect between crime and punishment4 ,there is often a moral element also2 and though events have not placed it there1 though it is we alone who have created it1 it is not the less powerful and real4 ,of a physical justice1 properly so called1 we deny the existence2 but besides the wholly inward psychologic justice1 to which we shall soon refer1 there is also a psychologic justice which is in constant communication with the physical world2 and it is this justice that we attribute to we know not what invisible and universal principle4 ,and while it is wrong to credit ,nature with moral intentions1 and to allow our actions to be governed by fear of punishment or hope of reward that she may have in store for us1 this does not imply that1 even materially1 there is no reward for good1 or punishment for evil4 ,such reward and punishment undoubtedly exist1 but they issue not from whence we imagine2 and in believing that they come from an inaccessible spot1 that they master us1 judge us1 and consequently dispense us from judging ourselves1 we commit the most dangerous of errors2 for none has a greater influence upon our manner of defending ourselves against misfortune1 or of setting forth to attempt the legitimate conquest of happiness4 #ae ,such justice as we actually discover in ,nature does not issue from her1 but from ourselves1 who have unconsciously placed it there1 through becoming one with events1 animating them and adapting them to our uses4 ,accident1 disease1 the thunderbolt1 which strike to right or to left1 without apparent reason or warning1 wholly indifferent as to what our thoughts may be1 are not the only elements in our life4 ,there are other1 and far more frequent1 cases when we have direct influence on the things and persons around us1 and invest these with our own personality2 cases when the forces of nature become the instruments of our thoughts1 which1 when unjust1 will make improper use of them1 thereby calling forth retaliation and inviting punishment and disaster4 ,but in ,nature there is no moral reaction2 for this emanates from our own thoughts or the thoughts of other men4 ,it is not in things1 but in us1 that the justice of things resides4 ,it is our moral condition that modifies our conduct towards the external world2 and if we find this antagonistic1 it is because we are at war with ourselves1 with the essential laws of our mind and our heart4 ,the attitude of ,nature towards us is uninfluenced by the justice or injustice of our intentions2 and yet these will almost invariably govern our attitude towards ,nature4 ,here once more1 as in the case of social justice1 we ascribe to the universe1 to an unintelligible1 eternal1 fatal principle1 a part that we play ourselves2 and when we say that justice1 heaven1 nature1 or events are rising in revolt against us to punish or to avenge1 it is in reality man who is using events to punish man1 it is human nature that rises in revolt1 and human justice that avenges4 #af ,in a former essay ,i referred to ,napoleon's three crowning acts of injustice3 the three celebrated crimes that were so fatally unjust to his own fortune4 ,the first was the murder of the ,duc d',enghien1 condemned by order1 without trial or proof1 and executed in the trenches of ,vincennes2 an assassination that sowed insatiable hatred and vengeance in the path of the guilty dictator4 ,then the detestable intrigues whereby he lured the too trustful1 easy-going ,bourbons to ,bayonne1 that he might rob them of their hereditary crown2 and the horrible war that ensued1 a war that cost the lives of three hundred thousand men1 swallowed up all the morality and energy of the empire1 most of its prestige1 almost all its convictions1 almost all the devotion it inspired1 and engulfed its prosperous destiny4 ,and finally the frightful1 unpardonable ,russian campaign1 wherein his fortune came at last to utter shipwreck amid the ice of the ,berezina and the snow-bound ,polish steppes4 ,these prodigious catastrophes1 ,i said1 had numberless causes2 but when we have slowly traced our way through all the more or less unforeseen circumstances1 and have marked the gradual change in ,napoleon's character1 have noted the acts of imprudence1 folly1 and violence which this genius committed2 when we have seen how deliberately he brought disaster to his smiling fortune1 may we not almost believe that what we behold1 standing erect at the very fountain-head of calamity1 is no other than the silent shadow of misunderstood human justice8 ,human justice1 wherein there is nothing supernatural1 nothing very mysterious1 but built up of many thousand very real little incidents1 many thousand falsehoods1 many thousand little offences of which each one gave rise to a corresponding act of retaliation--human justice1 and not a power that suddenly1 at some tragic moment1 leaps forth like ,minerva of old1 fully armed1 from the formidable1 despotic brow of destiny4 ,in all this there is only one thing of mystery1 and that is the eternal presence of human justice2 but we are aware that the nature of man is very mysterious4 ,let us in the meanwhile ponder this mystery4 ,it is the most certain of all1 it is the profoundest1 it is the most helpful1 it is the only one that will never paralyse our energy for good ,and though that patient1 vigilant shadow be not as clearly defined in every life as it was in ,napoleon's1 though justice be not always as active or as undeniable1 we shall none the less do wisely to study a case like this whenever opportunity offers4 ,it will at least give rise to doubt within us1 it will stimulate inquiry2 and these things are worth far more than the idle1 short-sighted affirmation or denial that we so often permit ourselves3 for in all questions of this kind our endeavour should not be to prove1 but rather to arouse attention1 to create a certain grave1 courageous respect for all that yet remains unexplained in the actions of men1 in their subjection to what appear to be general laws1 and in the results that ensue4 #ag ,let us now try to discover in what way this great mystery of justice does truly and inevitably work itself out within us4 ,the heart of him who has committed an unjust act becomes the scene of ineffaceable drama1 the paramount drama of human nature2 and it becomes the more dangerous1 and deadlier1 in the degree of the man's greatness and knowledge4 ,a ,napoleon will say to himself1 at such troubled moments1 that the morality of a great life cannot be as simple as that of an ordinary one1 and that an active1 powerful will has rights which the feeble1 inert will cannot claim4 ,he will hold that he may the more legitimately sweep aside certain conscientious scruples1 inasmuch as it is not ignorance or weakness that causes him to disregard these1 but the fact that he views them from a standpoint higher than that of the majority of men2 and further1 that his aim being great and glorious1 this passing deliberate callousness of his is therefore truly a victory won by his strength and his intellect1 since there can be no danger in doing wrong when it is done by one who does it knowingly1 and has his very good reason4 ,all this1 however1 does not for a moment delude that which lies deepest within us4 ,an act of injustice must always shake the confidence a man had in himself and his destiny2 at a given moment1 and that generally of the gravest1 he has ceased to rely upon himself alone2 and this will not be forgotten1 nor will he ever again be wholly himself4 ,he has confused1 and probably corrupted1 his fortune by the introduction of strange powers4 ,he has lost the exact sense of his personality and of the force that is in him4 ,he can no longer clearly distinguish between what is his own and comes from himself1 and what he is constantly borrowing from the pernicious collaborators whom his weakness has summoned4 ,he has ceased to be the general who has none but disciplined soldiers in the army of his thoughts2 he becomes the usurping chief around whom are only accomplices4 ,he has forsworn the dignity of the man who will have none of the glory at which his heart can only smile as sadly as an ardent1 unhappy lover will smile at a faithless mistress4 ,he who is truly strong will examine with eager care the praise and advantages that his actions have won for him1 and will silently reject whatever oversteps a certain line that he has drawn in his consciousness4 ,and the stronger he is1 the more nearly will this line approach the one that has already been drawn by the secret truth that lies at the bottom of all things4 ,an act of injustice is almost always a confession of weakness2 and very few such confessions are needed to reveal to the enemy the most vulnerable spot of the soul4 ,he who commits an unjust deed that he may gain some measure of glory1 or preserve the little glory he has1 does but admit that what he desires or what he possesses is beyond his deserving1 and that the part he has sought to play exceeds his powers of loyal fulfilment4 ,and if1 notwithstanding all1 he persist in his endeavour1 his life will soon be beset by falsehoods1 errors1 and phantoms4 ,and at last1 after a few acts of weakness1 of treachery1 of culpable self-indulgence1 the survey of our past life can bring discouragement only1 whereas we have great need that our past should inspire and sustain us4 ,for therein alone do we truly know what we are2 it is only our past that can come to us1 in our moments of doubt1 and say3 ,since you were able to do that thing1 it shall lie in your power to do this thing also4 ,when that danger confronted you1 when that terrible grief laid you prostrate1 you had faith in yourself1 and you conquered4 ,the conditions to-day are the same2 do you but preserve your faith in yourself1 and your star will be constant4 ,but what reply shall we make if our past can only whisper3 ,your success has been solely due to injustice and falsehood1 wherefore it behoves you once more to deceive and to lie8 ,no man cares to let his eyes rest on his acts of disloyalty1 weakness1 or treachery2 and all the events of bygone days which we cannot contemplate calmly and peacefully1 with satisfaction and confidence1 trouble and restrict the horizon which the days that are not yet are forming far away4 ,it is only a prolonged survey of the past that can give to the eye the strength it needs in order to sound the future4 #ah ,no1 it was not the inherent justice of things that punished ,napoleon for his three great acts of injustice1 or that will punish us for our own in a less startling1 but not less painful1 fashion4 ,nor was it an unyielding1 incorruptible1 irresistible justice1 attaining the very vault of heaven4 ,we are punished because our entire moral being1 our mind no less than our character1 is incapable of living and acting except in justice4 ,leaving that1 we leave our natural element2 we are carried1 as it were1 into a planet of which we know nothing1 where the ground slips from under our feet1 and all things disconcert us2 for while the humblest intellect feels itself at home in justice1 and can readily foretell the consequences of every just act1 the most profound and penetrating mind loses its way hopelessly in the injustice itself has created1 and can form no conception of what results shall ensue4 ,the man of genius who forsakes the equity that the humble peasant has at heart will find all paths strange to him2 and these will be stranger still should he overstep the limit his own sense of justice imposes3 for the justice that soars aloft1 keeping pace with the intellect1 creates new boundaries around all it throws open1 while at the same time strengthening and rendering more insurmountable still the ancient barriers of instinct4 ,the moment we cross the primitive frontier of equity all things seem to fail us2 one falsehood gives birth to a hundred1 and treachery returns to us through a thousand channels4 ,if justice be in us we may march along boldly1 for there are certain things to which the basest cannot be false2 but if injustice possess us we must beware of the justest of men1 for there are things to which even these cannot remain faithful4 ,as our physical organism was devised for existence in the atmosphere of our globe1 so is our moral organism devised for existence in justice4 ,every faculty craves for it1 and is more intimately bound up with it than with the laws of gravitation1 of light or heat2 and to throw ourselves into injustice is to plunge headlong into the hostile and the unknown4 ,all that is in us has been placed there with a view to justice2 all things tend thither and urge us towards it3 whereas1 when we harbour injustice1 we battle against our own strength2 and at last1 at the hour of inevitable punishment1 when1 prostrate1 weeping and penitent1 we recognise that events1 the sky1 the universe1 the invisible are all in rebellion1 all justly in league against us1 then may we truly say1 not that these are1 or ever have been1 just1 but that we1 notwithstanding ourselves1 have contrived to remain just even in our injustice4 #ai ,we affirm that ,nature is absolutely indifferent to our morality1 and that were this morality to command us to kill our neighbour1 or to do him the utmost possible harm1 ,nature would aid us in this no less than in our endeavour to comfort or serve him4 ,she as often would seem to reward us for having made him suffer as for our kindness towards him4 ,does this warrant the inference that ,nature has no morality--using the word in its most limited sense as meaning the logical1 inevitable subordination of the means to the accomplishment of a general mission8 ,this is a question to which we must not too hastily reply4 ,we know nothing of ,nature's aim1 or even whether she have an aim4 ,we know nothing of her consciousness1 or whether she have a consciousness2 of her thoughts1 or whether she think at all4 ,it is with her deeds and her manner of doing that we are solely concerned4 ,and in these we find the same contradiction between our morality and ,nature's mode of action as exists between our consciousness and the instincts that ,nature has planted within us4 ,for this consciousness1 though in ultimate analysis due to her also1 has nevertheless been formed by ourselves1 and1 basing itself upon the loftiest human morality1 offers an ever stronger opposition to the desires of instinct4 ,were we to listen only to these last1 we should act in all things like ,nature1 which would invariably seem to justify the triumph of the stronger1 the victory of the least scrupulous and best equipped2 and this in the midst of the most inexcusable wars1 the most flagrant acts of injustice or cruelty4 ,our one object would be our own personal triumph2 nor should we pay the least heed to the rights or sufferings of our victims1 to their innocence or beauty1 moral or intellectual superiority4 ,but1 in that case1 why has ,nature placed within us a consciousness and a sense of justice that have prevented us from desiring those things that she desires8 ,or is it we ourselves who have placed them there8 ,are we capable of deriving from within us something that is not in ,nature2 are we capable of giving abnormal development to a force that opposes her force2 and if we possess this power1 must not ,nature have reasons of her own for permitting us to possess it8 ,why should there be only in us1 and nowhere else in the world1 these two irreconcilable tendencies1 that in every man are incessantly at strife1 and alternately victorious8 ,would one have been dangerous without the other8 ,would it have overstepped its goal1 perhaps2 would the desire for conquest1 unchecked by the sense of justice1 have led to annihilation1 as the sense of justice without the desire for conquest might have lured us to inertia8 ,which of these two tendencies is the more natural and necessary1 which is the narrower and which the vaster1 which is provisional and which eternal8 ,where shall we learn which one we should combat and which one encourage8 ,ought we to conform to the law that is incontestably the more general1 or should we cherish in our heart a law that is evidently exceptional8 ,are there circumstances under which we have the right to go forth in search of the apparent ideal of life8 ,is it our duty to follow the morality of the species or race1 which seems irresistible to us1 being one of the visible sides of ,nature's obscure and unknown intentions2 or is it essential that the individual should maintain and develop within him a morality entirely opposed to that of the race or species whereof he forms part8 #bj ,the truth is that the question which confronts us here is only another form of the one which lies at the root of evolutionary morality1 and is probably scientifically unsolvable4 ,evolutionary morality bases itself on the justice of ,nature--though it dare not speak out the word2 on the justice of ,nature1 which imposes upon each individual the good or evil consequences of his own character and his own actions4 ,but when1 on the other hand1 it is necessary for evolutionary morality to justify actions which1 although intrinsically unjust1 are necessary for the prosperity of the species1 it falls back upon what it reluctantly terms ,nature's indifference or injustice4 ,here we have two unknown aims1 that of humanity and that of ,nature2 and these1 wrapped as they are in a mystery that may some day perhaps pass away1 would seem to be irreconcilable in our mind4 ,essentially1 all these questions resolve themselves into one1 which is of the utmost importance to our contemporary morality4 ,the race would appear to be becoming conscious1 prematurely it may be1 and perhaps disastrously1 not1 we will say1 of its rights1 for that problem is still in suspense1 but of the fact that morality does not enter into certain actions that go to make history4 ,this disquieting consciousness would seem to be slowly invading our individual life4 ,thrice1 and more or less in the course of one year1 has this question confronted us1 and assumed vast proportions3 in the matter of ,america's crushing defeat of ,spain 7although here the issues were confused1 for the ,spaniards1 besides their present blunders1 had been guilty of so many acts of injustice in the past1 that the problem becomes very involved72 in the case of an innocent man sacrificed to the preponderating interests of his country2 and in the iniquitous war of the ,transvaal4 ,it is true that the phenomenon is not altogether without precedent4 ,man has always endeavoured to justify his injustice2 and when human justice offered him no excuse or pretext1 he found in the will of the gods a law superior to the justice of man4 ,but our excuse or pretext of to-day is fraught with the more peril to our morality inasmuch as it reposes on a law1 or at least a habit1 of ,nature1 that is far more real1 more incontestable and universal than the will of an ephemeral and local god4 ,which shall prevail in the end1 justice or force8 ,does force contain an unknown justice that will absorb our human justice1 or is the impulse of justice within us1 that would seem to resist blind force1 actually no more than a devious emanation from that force1 tending to the same end2 and is it only the point of deviation that escapes us8 ,this is not a question that we can answer1 we who ourselves form part of the mystery we seek to solve2 the reply could come only from one who might be gazing upon us from the heights of another world3 one who should have learned the aim of the universe and the destiny of man4 ,in the meanwhile1 if we say that ,nature is right1 we say that the instinct of justice1 which she has placed in us1 and which therefore also is nature1 is wrong2 whereas if we approve this instinct1 our approval is necessarily derived from the exercise of the very faculty that is called in question4 #ba ,that is true2 but it is no less true that the endeavour to sum up the world in a syllogism is one of the oldest and vainest habits of man4 ,in the region of the unknown and unknowable1 logic-chopping has its perils2 and in the present case all our doubts would seem to arise from another hazardous syllogism4 ,we tell ourselves--boldly at times1 but more often in a whisper--that we are ,nature's children1 and bound therefore in all things to conform to her laws and copy her example4 ,and since ,nature regards justice with indifference1 since she has another aim1 which is the sustaining1 the renewing1 the incessant development of life1 it follows4 4 4 4 ,so far we have not formulated the conclusion1 or1 at least1 this conclusion has not yet openly dared to force its way into our morality2 but1 although its influence has hitherto only been remotely felt in that familiar sphere which includes our relations1 our friends1 and our immediate surroundings1 it is slowly penetrating into the vast and desolate region whither we relegate all those whom we know not and see not1 who for us have no name4 ,it is already to be found at the root of many of our actions2 it has entered our politics1 our industry1 our commerce2 indeed it affects almost all we do from the moment we emerge from the narrow circle of our domestic hearth1 the only place for the majority of men where a little veritable justice is still to be found1 a little benevolence1 a little love4 ,it will call itself economic or social law1 evolution1 competition1 struggle for life2 it will masquerade under a thousand names1 forever perpetrating the selfsame wrong4 ,and yet nothing can be less legitimate than such a conclusion4 ,apart from the fact that we might with equal justification reverse the syllogism1 and cause it to declare that there must be a certain justice in ,nature1 since we1 her children1 are just1 we need only consider it as it stands to realise how doubtful and contestable is at least one of its premisses4 ,we have seen in the preceding chapters that ,nature does not appear to be just from our point of view2 but we have absolutely no means of judging whether she be not just from her own4 ,the fact that she pays no heed to the morality of our actions does not warrant the inference that she has no morality1 or that ours is the only one there can be4 ,we are entitled to say that she is indifferent as to whether our intentions be good or evil1 but have not the right to conclude that she has therefore no morality and no equity2 for that would be tantamount to affirming that there are no more mysteries or secrets1 and that we know all the laws of the universe1 its origin and its end4 ,her mode of action is different from our own1 but1 ,i say it once more1 we know not what her reason may be for acting in this different fashion2 and we have no right to imitate what seems to us iniquitous and cruel1 so long as we have no precise knowledge of the profound and salutary reasons that may underlie such action4 ,what is the aim of ,nature8 ,whither do the worlds tend that stretch across eternity8 ,where does consciousness begin1 and is its only form that which it assumes in ourselves8 ,at what point do physical laws become moral laws8 ,is life unintelligent8 ,have we sounded all the depths of ,nature1 and is it only in our cerebro-spinal system that she becomes mind8 ,and finally1 what is justice when viewed from other heights8 ,is the intention necessarily at its centre2 and can no regions exist where intentions no longer shall count8 ,we should have to answer these questions1 and many others1 before we could tell whether ,nature be just or unjust from the point of view of masses whose vastness corresponds to her own4 ,she disposes of a future1 a space1 of which we can form no conception2 and in these there exists1 it may be1 a justice proportioned to her duration1 to her extent and aim1 even as our own instinct of justice is proportioned to the duration and narrow circle of our own life4 ,the wrong that she may for centuries commit she has centuries wherein to repair2 but we1 who have only a few days before us1 what right have we to imitate what our eye cannot see1 understand1 or follow8 ,by what standard are we to judge her1 if we look away from the passing hour8 ,for instance1 considering only the imperceptible speck that we form in the worlds1 and disregarding the immensity that surrounds us1 we are wholly ignorant of all that concerns our possible life beyond the tomb2 and we forget that1 in the present state of our knowledge1 nothing authorises us to affirm that there may not be a kind of more or less conscious1 more or less responsible after-life1 that shall in no way depend on the decisions of an external will4 ,he would indeed be rash who should venture to maintain that nothing survives1 either in us or in others1 of the efforts of our good intentions and the acquirements of our mind4 ,it may be--and serious experiments1 though they do not seem to prove the phenomenon1 may still allow us to class it among scientific possibilities--it may be that a part of our personality1 of our nervous force1 may escape dissolution4 ,how vast a future would then be thrown open to the laws that unite cause to effect1 and that always end by creating justice when they come into contact with the human soul1 and have centuries before them6 ,let us not forget that ,nature at least is logical1 even though we call her unjust2 and were we to resolve on injustice1 our difficulty would be that we must also be logical2 and when logic comes into touch with our thoughts and our feelings1 our intentions and passions1 what is there that differentiates it from justice8 #bb ,let us form no too hasty conclusion2 too many points are still uncertain4 ,should we seek to imitate what we term the injustice of ,nature1 we would run the risk of imitating and fostering only the injustice that is in ourselves4 ,when we say that ,nature is unjust1 we are in effect complaining of her indifference to our own little virtues1 our own little intentions1 our own little deeds of heroism2 and it is our vanity1 far more than our sense of equity1 that considers itself aggrieved4 ,our morality is proportioned to our stature and our restricted destiny2 nor have we the right to forsake it because it is not on the scale of the immensity and infinite destiny of the universe4 ,and further1 should it even be proved that ,nature is unjust at all points1 the other question remains intact3 whether the command be laid upon man to follow ,nature in her injustice4 ,here we shall do well to let our own consciousness speak1 rather than listen to a voice so formidable that we hear not a word it utters1 and are not even certain whether words there be4 ,reason and instinct tell us that it is right to follow the counsels of ,nature2 but they tell us also that we should not follow those counsels when they clash with another instinct within us1 one that is no less profound3 the instinct of the just and the unjust4 ,and if instincts do indeed draw very near to the truth of ,nature1 and must be respected by us in the degree of the force that is in them1 this one is perhaps the strongest of all1 for it has struggled alone against all the others combined1 and still persists within us4 ,nor is this the hour to reject it4 ,until other certitudes reach us1 it behoves us1 who are men1 to continue just in the human way and the human sphere4 ,we do not see far enough1 or clearly enough1 to be just in another sphere4 ,let us not venture into a kind of abyss1 out of which races and peoples to come may perhaps find a passage1 but whereinto man1 in so far as he is man1 must not seek to penetrate4 ,the injustice of ,nature ends by becoming justice for the race2 she has time before her1 she can wait1 her injustice is of her girth4 ,but for us it is too overwhelming1 and our days are too few4 ,let us be satisfied that force should reign in the universe1 but equity in our heart4 ,though the race be irresistibly1 and perhaps justly1 unjust1 though even the crowd appear possessed of rights denied to the isolated man1 and commit on occasions great1 inevitable1 and salutary crimes1 it is still the duty of each individual of the race1 of every member of the crowd1 to remain just1 while ever adding to and sustaining the consciousness within him4 ,nor shall we be entitled to abandon this duty till all the reasons of the great apparent injustice be known to us2 and those that are given us now1 preservation of the species1 reproduction and selection of the strongest1 ablest1 fittest1 are not sufficient to warrant so frightful a change4 ,let each one try by all means to become the strongest1 most skilful1 the best adapted to the necessities of the life that he cannot transform2 but1 so far1 the qualities that shall enable him to conquer1 that shall give the fullest play to his moral power and his intelligence1 and shall truly make him the happiest1 most skilful1 the strongest1 and fittest--these qualities are precisely the ones that are the most human1 the most honourable1 and the most just4 #bc ,within me there is more1 runs the fine device inscribed on the beams and pediment of an old patrician mansion at ,bruges1 which every traveller visits2 filling a corner of one of those tender and melancholy quays1 that are as forlorn and lifeless as though they existed only on canvas4 ,and so too might man exclaim1 ,within me there is more2 every law of morality1 every intelligible mystery4 ,there may be many others1 above us and below us2 but if these are to remain for ever unknown1 they become for us as though they were not2 and should their existence one day be revealed to us2 it can only be because they already are in us1 already are ours4 ,within me there is more2 and we are entitled to add1 perhaps1 ,i have nothing to fear from that which is in me4 ,this much at least is certain1 that the one active1 inhabited region of the mystery of justice is to be found within ourselves4 ,other regions lack consistency2 they are probably imaginary1 and must inevitably be deserted and sterile4 ,they may have furnished mankind with illusions that served some purpose1 but not always without doing harm2 and though we may scarcely be entitled to demand that all illusions should be destroyed1 they should at least not be too manifestly opposed to our conception of the universe4 ,to-day we seek in all things the illusion of truth4 ,it is not the last1 perhaps1 or the best1 or the only one possible2 but it is the one which we at present regard as the most honourable and the most necessary4 ,let us limit ourselves therefore to recognising the admirable love of justice and truth that exists in the heart of man4 ,proceeding thus1 yielding admiration only where it is incontestably due1 we shall gradually acquire some knowledge of this passion1 which is the distinguishing note of man2 and one thing1 most important of all1 we shall most undoubtedly learn--the means whereby we can purify it1 and still further increase it4 ,as we observe its incessant activity in the depths of our heart1 the only temple where it can truly be active3 as we watch it blending with all that we think1 and feel1 and do1 we shall quickly discover which are the things that throw light upon it1 and which those that plunge it in darkness2 which are the things that guide it1 and which those that lead it astray2 we shall learn what nourishes it and what atrophies1 what defends and what attacks4 ,is justice no more than the human instinct of preservation and defence8 ,is it the purest product of our reason2 or rather to be regarded as composed of a number of those sentimental forces which so often are right1 though directly opposed to our reason--forces that in themselves are a kind of unconscious1 vaster reason1 to which our conscious reason invariably accords its startled approval when it has reached the heights whence those kindly feelings long had beheld what itself was unable to see8 ,is justice dependent on intellect1 or rather on character8 ,questions1 these1 that are perhaps not idle if we indeed would know what steps we must take to invest with all its radiance and all its power the love of justice that is the central jewel of the human soul4 ,all men love justice1 but not with the same ardent1 fierce1 and exclusive love2 nor have they all the same scruples1 the same sensitiveness1 or the same deep conviction4 ,we meet people of highly developed intellect in whom the sense of what is just and unjust is yet infinitely less delicate1 less clearly marked1 than in others whose intellect would seem to be mediocre2 for here a great part is played by that little-known1 ill-defined side of ourselves that we term the character4 ,and yet it is difficult to tell how much more or less unconscious intellect must of necessity go with the character that is unaffectedly honest4 ,the point before us1 however1 is to learn how best to illumine1 and increase within us1 our desire for justice2 and it is certain that1 at the start1 our character is less directly influenced by the desire for justice than is our intellect1 the development of which this desire in a large measure controls2 and the co-operation of the intellect1 which recognises and encourages our good intention1 is necessary for this intention to penetrate into1 and mould1 our character4 ,that portion of our love of justice1 therefore1 which depends on our character1 will benefit by its passage through the intellect2 for in proportion as the intellect rises1 and acquires enlightenment1 will it succeed in mastering1 enlightening1 and transforming our instincts and our feelings4 ,but let us no longer believe that this love must be sought in a kind of superhuman1 and often inhuman1 infinite4 ,none of the grandeur and beauty that this infinite may possess would fall to its portion2 it would only be incoherent1 inactive1 and vague4 ,whereas by seeking it in ourselves1 where it truly is2 by observing it there1 listening to it1 marking how it profits by every acquirement of our mind1 every joy and sorrow of our heart1 we soon shall learn what we best had do to purify and increase it4 #bd ,our task within these limits will be sufficiently long and mysterious4 ,to increase and purify within us the desire for justice3 how shall this thing be done8 ,we have some vague conception of the ideal that we would approach2 but how changeable still1 and illusory1 is this ideal6 ,it is lessened by all that is still unknown to us in the universe1 by all that we do not perceive or perceive incompletely1 by all that we question too superficially4 ,it is hedged round by the most insidious dangers2 it falls victim to the strangest oblivion1 the most inconceivable blunders4 ,of all our ideals it is the one that we should watch with the greatest care and anxiety1 with the most passionate1 pious eagerness and solicitude4 ,what seems irreproachably just to us at the moment is probably the merest fraction of what would seem just could we shift our point of view4 ,we need only compare what we were doing yesterday with what we do to-day2 and what we do to-day would appear full of faults against equity1 were it granted to us to rise still higher1 and compare it with what we shall do to-morrow4 ,there needs but a passing event1 a thought that uses1 a duty to ourselves that takes definite form1 an unexpected responsibility that is suddenly made clear1 for the whole organisation of our inward justice to totter and be transformed4 ,slow as our advance may have been1 we still should find it impossible to begin life over again in the midst of many a sorrow whereof we were the involuntary cause1 many a discouragement to which we unconsciously gave rise2 and yet1 when these things came into being around us1 we appeared to be in the right1 and did not consider ourselves unjust4 ,and even so are we convinced to-day of our excellent intentions1 even so do we tell ourselves that we are the cause if no suffering and no tears1 that we stay not a murmur of happiness1 shorten no moment of peace or of love2 and it may be that there passes1 unperceived of us1 to our right or our left1 an illimitable injustice that spreads over three-fourths of our life4 #be ,i chanced to-day to take up a copy of the ,arabian ,nights1 in the very remarkable translation recently published by ,dr4 ,mardrus2 and ,i marvelled at the extraordinary picture it gives of the ancient1 long-vanished civilisations4 ,not in the ,odyssey or the ,bible1 in ,xenophon or ,plutarch1 could their teaching be more clearly set forth4 ,there is one story that the ,sultana ,schahrazade tells--it is one of the very finest the volume contains--that reveals a life as pure and as admirable as mankind ever has known2 a life replete with beauty1 happiness1 and love2 spontaneous and vivid1 intelligent1 nourishing1 and refined2 an abundant life that1 to a certain point1 comes as near truth as a life well can4 ,it is1 in many respects1 almost as perfect in its moral as in its material civilisation4 ,and the pillars on which this incomparable structure of happiness rests--like pillars of light supporting the light--are formed of ideas of justice so exquisitely delicate1 counsels of wisdom so deeply penetrating1 that we of to-day1 being less fine in grain1 less eager and buoyant1 have lost the power to formulate1 or to discern1 them4 ,and for all that1 this abode of felicity1 that harbours a moral life so active and vigorous1 so graciously grave1 so noble--this palace1 wherein the purest and holiest wisdom governs the pleasures of rejoicing mankind1 is in its entirety based on so great an injustice1 is enclosed by so vast1 so profound1 so frightful an iniquity1 that the wretchedest man of us all would shrink in dismay from its glittering1 gem-bestrewn threshold4 ,but of this iniquity they who linger in that marvellous dwelling have not the remotest suspicion4 ,it would seem that they never draw near to a window2 or that1 should one by some chance fly open and reveal to their sorrowful gaze the misery strewn in the midst of the revels and feasting1 they still would be blind to the crime which was infinitely more revolting1 infinitely more monstrous1 than the most appalling poverty--the crime of the slavery1 and the even more terrible degradation1 of their women4 ,for these1 however exalted their position1 and at the moment even when they are speaking to the men round about them of goodness and justice--when they are reminding them of their most touching and generous duties--these women never are more than objects of pleasure1 to be bought or sold1 or given away in a moment of gratitude1 ostentation1 or drunkenness1 to any barbarous or hideous master4 #bf ,they tell us1 says the beautiful slave ,nozhatan1 as1 concealed behind a curtain of silk and of pearls1 she speaks to ,prince ,sharkan and the wise men of the kingdom2 they tell us that the ,khalif ,omar set forth one night1 in the company of the venerable ,aslam ,abou-,zeid1 and that he beheld1 far away from his palace1 a fire that was burning2 and drew near1 as he thought that his presence might perhaps be of service4 ,and he saw a poor woman who was kindling wood underneath a cauldron2 and by her side were two little wretched children1 groaning most piteously4 ,and ,omar said1 ',peace unto thee1 ,o woman6 ,what dost thou here1 alone in the night and the cold8' ,and she answered1 ',lord1 ,i am making this water to boil1 that my children may drink1 who perish of hunger and cold2 but for the misery we have to bear ,allah will surely one day ask reckoning of ,omar the ,khalif4' ,and the ,khalif1 who was in disguise1 was much moved1 and he said to her1 ',but dost thou think1 ,o woman1 that ,omar can know of thy wretchedness1 since he does not relieve it8' ,and she answered1 ',wherefore then is ,omar the ,khalif1 if he be unaware of the misery of his people and of each one of his subjects8' ,then the ,khalif was silent1 and he said to ,aslam ,abou-,zeid1 ',let us go quickly from hence4' ,and he hastened until he had reached the storehouse of his kitchens1 and he entered therein and drew forth a sack of flour from the midst of the other sacks1 and also a jar that was filled to the brim with sheep-fat1 and he said to ,abou-,zeid1 ',o ,abou-,zeid1 help thou me to charge these on my back4' ,but ,abou-,zeid refused1 and he cried1 ',suffer that ,i carry them on my back1 ,o ,commander of the ,faithful4' ,and ,omar said calmly to him1 ',wilt thou also1 ,o ,abou-,zeid1 bear the weight of my sins on the day of resurrection8' ,and ,abou-,zeid was obliged to lay the jar filled with fat1 and the sack of flour1 on the ,khalif's back4 ,and ,omar hastened1 thus laden1 until he had once again reached the poor woman2 and he took of the flour1 and he took of the fat1 and placed these in the cauldron1 over the fire2 and with his own hands did he then get ready the food1 and he quickened the fire with his breath2 and as he bent over1 his beard being long1 the smoke from the wood forced its way through the beard of the ,khalif4 ,and at last1 when the food was prepared1 ,omar offered it unto the woman and the two little children2 and with his breath did he cool the food while they ate their fill4 ,then he left them the sack of flour and the jar of fat2 and he went on his way1 and said unto ,aslam ,abou-,zeid1 ',o ,abou-,zeid1 the light from this fire ,i have seen to-day has enlightened me also4' #bg ,and it is thus that1 a little further on1 there speaks to a very wise king one of five pensive maidens whom this king is invited to purchase3 ,know thou1 ,o king1 she says1 that the most beautiful deed one can do is the deed that is disinterested4 ,and so do they tell us that in ,israel once were two brothers1 and that one asked the other1 ',of all the deeds thou hast done1 which was the most wicked8' ,and his brother replied1 ',this4 ,as ,i passed a hen-roost one day1 ,i stretched out my arm and ,i seized a chicken and strangled it1 and then flung it back into the roost4 ,that is the wickedest deed of my life4 ,and thou1 ,o my brother1 what is thy wickedest action8' ,and he answered1 ',that ,i prayed to ,allah one day to demand a favour of him4 ,for it is only when the soul is simply uplifted on high that prayer can be beautiful4' ,and one of her companions1 captive and slave like herself1 also speaks to the king3 ,learn to know thyself1 she says4 ,learn to know thyself6 ,and do thou not act till then4 ,and do thou then only act in accordance with all thy desires1 but having great care always that thou do not injure thy neighbour4 ,to this last formula our morality of today has nothing to add2 nor can we conceive a precept that shall be more complete4 ,at most we could widen somewhat the meaning of the word neighbour1 and raise1 render somewhat more subtle and more elastic1 that of the word injure4 ,and the book in which these words are found is a monument of horror1 notwithstanding all its flowers and all its wisdom a monument of horror and blood and tears1 of despotism and slavery4 ,and they who pronounce these words are slaves4 ,a merchant buys them ,i know not where1 and sells them to some old hag who teaches them1 or causes them to be taught1 philosophy1 poetry1 all ,eastern sciences1 in order that one day they may become gifts worthy of a king4 ,and when their education is finished1 and their beauty and wisdom call forth the admiration of all who approach them1 the industrious1 prudent old woman does indeed offer them to a very wise1 very just king4 ,and when this very wise1 very just king has taken their virginity from them1 and seeks other loves1 he will probably bestow them 7,i have forgotten the end of this particular story1 but it is the invariable destiny of all the heroines of these marvellous legends7 on his viziers4 ,and these viziers will give them away in exchange for a vase of perfume or a belt studded with jewels2 or perhaps despatch them to a distant country1 there to conciliate a powerful protector1 or a hideous1 but dreaded1 rival4 ,and these women1 so fully conscious of themselves1 whose gaze can penetrate so deeply into the consciousness of others--these women who forever are pondering the loftiest1 grandest problems of justice1 of the morality of men and of nations--never throw one questioning glance on their fate1 or for an instant suspect the abominable injustice whereof they are the victims4 ,nor do those suspect it either who listen to them1 and love and admire them1 and understand them4 ,and we who marvel at this--we who also reflect on justice and virtue1 on pity and love--are we so sure that they who come after us shall not some day find1 in our present social condition1 a spectacle no less disconcerting8 #bh ,it is difficult for us to imagine what the ideal justice will be1 for every thought of ours that tends towards it is clogged by the injustice wherein we still live4 ,who shall say what new laws or relations will stand revealed when the misfortunes and inequalities due to the action of man shall have been swept away2 when1 in accordance with the principles of evolutionary morality1 each individual shall reap the results1 good or bad1 of his own nature1 and of the consequences that ensue from that nature8 ,at present things happen otherwise2 and we may unhesitatingly declare that1 as far as the material condition of the vast bulk of mankind is concerned1 the connection between conduct and consequences--to use ,spencer's formula--exists only in the most ludicrous1 arbitrary1 and iniquitous fashion4 ,is there not some audacity in our imagining that our thoughts can possibly be just when the body of each one of us is steeped to the neck in injustice8 ,and from this injustice no man is free1 be it to his loss or his gain3 there is not one whose efforts are not disproportionately rewarded1 receiving too much or too little2 not one who is not either advantaged or handicapped4 ,and endeavour as we may to detach our mind from this inveterate injustice1 this lingering trace of the sub-human morality needful for primitive races1 it is idle to think that our thoughts can be as strenuous1 independent1 or clear as they might have been had the last vestige of this injustice disappeared2 it is idle to think that they can achieve the same result4 ,the side of the human mind that can attain a region loftier than reality is necessarily timid and hesitating4 ,human thought is capable of many things2 it has1 in the course of time1 brought startling improvement to bear upon what seemed immutable in the species or the race4 ,but even at the moment when it is pondering the transformation of which it has caught a distant glimpse1 the improvement that it so eagerly desires1 even then it is still thinking1 feeling1 seeing like the thing that it seeks to alter1 even then it lies captive beneath the yoke4 ,all its efforts notwithstanding1 it is practically that which it would change4 ,for the mind of man lacks the power to forecast the future2 it has been formed rather to explain1 judge1 and co-ordinate that which was1 to help1 foster1 and make known what already exists1 but so far cannot be seen2 and when it ventures into what is not yet1 it will rarely produce anything very salutary or very enduring4 ,and the influence of the social condition in which we exist lies heavy upon it4 ,how can we frame a satisfactory idea of justice1 and ponder it loyally1 with the needful tranquillity1 when injustice surrounds us on every side8 ,before we can study justice1 or speak of it with advantage1 it must become what it is capable of being3 a social force1 irreproachable and actual4 ,at present all we can do is to invoke its unconscious1 secret1 and1 as it were1 almost imperceptible efforts4 ,we contemplate it from the shores of human injustice2 never yet has it been granted us to gaze on the open sea beneath the illimitable1 inviolate sky of a conscience without reproach4 ,if men had at least done all that it was possible for them to do in their own domain1 they would then have the right to go further1 and question elsewhere2 and their thoughts would probably be clearer1 were their consciences more at ease4 #bi ,and further1 a heavy reproach lies on us and chills our ardour whenever we try to grow better1 to increase our knowledge1 our love1 our forgiveness4 ,though we purify our consciousness and ennoble our thoughts1 though we strive to render life softer and sweeter for those who are near us1 all our efforts halt at our threshold1 and have no influence on what lies outside our door2 and the moment we leave our home we feel that we have done nothing1 that there is nothing for us to do1 and that we are taking part1 ourselves notwithstanding1 in the great anonymous injustice4 ,is it not almost ludicrous that we1 who within our four walls strive to be noble and faithful1 pitiful1 simple and loyal2 we whose consciousness balances the nicest1 most delicate problems1 and rejects even the suspicion of a bitter thought1 have no sooner gone into the street and met faces that are unfamiliar1 than1 at that very instant1 and without the least possibility of our having it otherwise1 all pity1 equity1 love1 should be completely ignored by us8 ,what dignity1 what loyalty1 can there be in this double life1 so wise and humane1 uplifted and thoughtful1 this side the threshold1 and beyond it so callous1 so instinctive and pitiless6 ,for it is enough that we should feel the cold a little less than the labourer who passes by1 that we should be better fed or clad than he1 that we should buy any object that is not strictly indispensable1 and we have unconsciously returned1 through a thousand byways1 to the ruthless act of primitive man despoiling his weaker brother4 ,there is no single privilege we enjoy but close investigation will prove it to be the result of a perhaps very remote abuse of power1 of an unknown violence or ruse of long ago2 and all these we set in motion again as we sit at our table1 stroll idly through the town1 or lie at night in a bed that our own hands have not made4 ,nay1 what is even the leisure that enables us to improve1 to grow more compassionate and gentler1 to think more fraternally of the injustice others endure--what is this1 in truth1 but the ripest fruit of the great injustice8 #cj ,these scruples1 ,i know1 must not be carried too far3 they would either induce a spirit of useless revolt1 possibly disastrous to the species whose mild and mighty sluggishness we are bound to respect2 or they would lead us back to ,i know not what mystic1 inert renouncement1 directly opposed to the most evident and unchanging desires of life4 ,life has laws that we call inevitable2 but we are already becoming more sparing in our use of the word4 ,and here especially do we note the change that has come over the attitude of the wise and upright man4 ,marcus ,aurelius--than whom perhaps none ever craved more earnestly for justice1 or possessed a soul more wisely impressionable1 more nobly sensitive--,marcus ,aurelius never asked himself what might be happening outside that admirable little circle of light wherein his virtue and consciousness1 his divine meekness and piety1 had gathered those who were near him1 his friends and his servants4 ,infinite iniquity1 he knew full well1 stretched around him on every side2 but with this he had no concern4 ,to him it seemed a thing that must be1 a thing mysterious and sacred as the mighty ocean2 the boundless domain of the gods1 of fatality1 of laws unknown and superior1 irresistible1 irresponsible1 and eternal4 ,it did not lessen his courage2 on the contrary1 it enhanced his confidence1 his concentration1 and spurred him upwards1 like the flame that1 confined to a narrow area1 rises higher and higher1 alone in the night1 urged on by the darkness4 ,he accepted the decree of fate1 that allotted slavery to the bulk of mankind4 ,sorrowfully but with full conviction1 did he submit to the irrevocable law2 wherein he once again gave proof of his piety and his virtue4 ,he retired into himself1 and there1 in a kind of sunless1 motionless void1 became still more just1 still more humane4 ,and in each succeeding century do we find a similar ardour1 self-centred and solitary1 among those who were wise and good4 ,the name of more than one immovable law might change1 but its infinite part remained ever the same2 and each one regarded it with the like resigned and chastened melancholy4 ,but we of to-day--what course are we to pursue8 ,we know that iniquity is no longer necessary4 ,we have invaded the region of the gods1 of destiny1 and unknown laws4 ,these may still control disease or accident1 perhaps1 no less than the tempest1 the lightning-flash1 and most of the mysteries of death--we have not yet penetrated to them--but we are well aware that poverty1 wretchedness1 hopeless toil1 slavery1 famine1 are completely outside their domain4 ,it is we who organise these1 we who maintain and distribute them4 ,these frightful scourges1 that have grown so familiar1 are wielded by us alone2 and belief in their superhuman origin is becoming rarer and rarer4 ,the religious1 impassable ocean1 that excused and protected the retreat into himself of the sage and the man of good1 now only exists as a vague recollection4 ,to-day ,marcus ,aurelius could no longer say with the same serenity3 ,they go in search of refuges1 of rural cottages1 of mountains and the seashore2 thou too art wont to cherish an eager desire for these things4 ,but is this not the act of an ignorant1 unskilled man1 seeing that it is granted thee at whatever hour thou pleasest to retire within thyself8 ,it is not possible for man to discover a retreat more tranquil1 less disturbed by affairs1 than that which he finds in his soul2 especially if he have within him those things the contemplation of which suffices to procure immediate enjoyment of the perfect calm1 which is no other1 to my mind1 than the perfect agreement of soul4 ,other matters concern us to-day than this agreement of soul2 or let us rather say that what we have to do is to bring into agreement there that from which the soul of ,marcus ,aurelius was free--three-fourths of the sorrows of mankind1 in a word--which have become real to us1 intelligible1 human1 and urgent1 and are no longer regarded as the inexplicable1 immutable1 intangible decrees of fatality4 #ca ,this does not imply1 however1 that we should abandon the old sages' desire for agreement2 and even though we may not be entitled to expect such perfect agreement as they derived from their pardonable egoism1 we may still look for agreement of a provisional1 conditional kind4 ,and although such agreement be not the last word of morality1 it is none the less indispensable that we should begin by being as just as we possibly can within ourselves and to those round about us1 our neighbours1 our friends1 and our servants4 ,it is at the moment when we have become absolutely just to these1 and within our own consciousness1 that we realise our great injustice to all the others4 ,the method of being more practically just towards these last is not yet known to us2 to return to great1 heroic renouncements would effect but little1 for these are incapable of unanimous action1 and would probably run counter to the profoundest laws of nature1 which rejects renouncement in every form save that of maternal love4 ,this practical justice1 therefore1 remains the secret of the race4 ,of such secrets it has many1 which it reveals one by one1 at such moments of history as become truly critical2 and the solutions it offers to insuperable difficulties are almost always unexpected1 and of strangest simplicity4 ,the hour approaches1 perhaps1 when it will speak once more4 ,let us hope1 without being too sanguine2 for we must bear in mind that humanity has yet by no means emerged from the period of sacrificed generations4 ,history has known no others2 and it is possible that1 to the end of time1 all generations may call themselves sacrificed4 ,nevertheless1 it cannot be denied that the sacrifices1 however unjust and useless they still may be1 are growing ever less inhuman and less inevitable2 and that the laws which govern them are becoming better and better known1 and would seem to draw nearer and nearer to those that a lofty mind might accept without being pitiless4 #cb ,it must be admitted1 however1 that a majestic1 redoubtable slowness attends the movements of these ideas of the species4 ,centuries had to pass before it dawned upon primitive men1 who fled from each other1 or fought when they met at the mouth of their caverns1 that they would do well to form into groups1 and unite in defence against the mighty enemies who threatened them from without4 ,and besides1 these ideas of the species will often be widely different from those that the wisest man might hold4 ,they would seem to be independent1 spontaneous1 often based on facts of which no trace is shown by the human reason of the epoch that witnessed their birth2 and indeed there is no graver or more disturbing problem before the moralist or sociologist than that of determining whether all his efforts can hasten by one hour or divert by one hair's-breadth the decisions of the great anonymous mass which proceeds1 step by step1 towards its indiscernible goal4 ,long ago--so long indeed that this is one of the first affirmations of science when1 quitting the bowels of the earth1 the glaciers and grottoes1 it ceased to call itself geology and palaeontology and became the history of man--humanity passed through a crisis not wholly unlike that which now lies ahead of it1 or is actually menacing it at the moment2 the difference being only that in those days the dilemma seemed vastly more tragic and more unsolvable4 ,it may truly be said that mankind never has known a more perilous or more decisive hour1 or a period when it drew nearer its ruin2 and the fact that we exist to-day would appear to be due to the unexpected expedient which saved the race at the moment when the scourge that fed on man's very reason1 on all that was best and most irresistible in his instinct of justice and injustice1 was actually on the point of destroying the heroic equilibrium between the desire to live and the possibility of living4 ,i refer to the acts of violence1 rapine1 outrage1 murder1 which were of natural occurrence among the earliest human groups4 ,these crimes1 which will probably have been of the most frightful description1 must have very seriously endangered the existence of the race2 for vengeance is the terrible1 and1 as it were1 the epidemic form which the craving for justice at first assumes4 ,now this spirit of vengeance1 abandoned to itself and forever multiplying--revenge followed by the revenge of revenge--would finally have engulfed1 if not the whole of mankind1 at least all those of the earliest men who were possessed of energy or pride4 ,we find1 however1 that among these barbarous races1 as among most of the existing savage tribes whose habits are known to us1 there comes a time1 usually at the period when their weapons are growing too deadly1 when this vengeance suddenly halts before a singular custom1 known as the blood-tribute1 or the composition for murder2 which allows the homicide to escape the reprisals of the victim's friends and relations by payment to them of an indemnity1 that1 from being arbitrary at the start1 soon becomes strictly graduated4 ,in the whole history of these infant races1 in whom impulse and heroism were the predominant factors1 there is nothing stranger1 nothing more astounding1 than this almost universal custom1 which for all its ingenuity would seem almost too long-suffering and mercantile4 ,may we attribute it to the foresight of the chiefs8 ,we find it in races among whom authority might almost be said to be entirely lacking4 ,did it originate among the old men1 the thinkers1 the sages1 of the primitive groups8 ,that is not more probable4 ,for underlying this custom there is a thought which is at the same time higher and lower than could be the thought of an isolated prophet or genius of those barbarous days4 ,the sage1 the prophet1 the genius--above all1 the untrained genius--is rather inclined to carry to extremes the generous and heroic tendencies of the clan or epoch to which he belongs4 ,he would have recoiled in disgust from this timid1 cunning evasion of a natural and sacred revenge1 from this odious traffic in friendship1 fidelity1 and love4 ,nor is it conceivable1 on the other hand1 that he should have attained sufficient loftiness of spirit to be able to let his gaze travel beyond the noblest and most incontestable duties of the moment1 and to behold only the superior interest of the tribe or the race3 that mysterious desire for life1 which the wisest of the wise among us to-day are generally unable to perceive or to justify until they have wrought grave and painful conquest over their isolated reason and their heart4 ,no1 it was not the thought of man which found the solution4 ,on the contrary1 it was the unconsciousness of the mass1 compelled to act in self-defence against thoughts too intrinsically1 individually human to satisfy the irreducible exigencies of life on this earth4 ,the species is extremely patient1 extremely long-suffering4 ,it will bear as long as it can and carry as far as it can the burden which reason1 the desire for improvement1 the imagination1 the passions1 vices1 virtues1 and feelings natural to man1 may combine to impose upon it4 ,but the moment the burden becomes too overwhelming1 and disaster threatens1 the species will instantaneously1 with the utmost indifference1 fling it aside4 ,it is careless as to the means2 it will adopt the one that is nearest1 the simplest1 most practical1 being doubtless perfectly satisfied that its own idea is the justest and best4 ,and of ideas it has only one1 which is that it wishes to live2 and truly this idea surpasses all the heroism1 all the generous dreams1 that may have reposed in the burden which it has discarded4 ,and indeed1 in the history of human reason1 the greatest and the justest thoughts are not always those which attain the loftiest heights4 ,it happens somewhat with the thoughts of men as with a fountain2 for it is only because the water has been imprisoned and escapes through a narrow opening that it soars so proudly into the air4 ,as it issues from this opening and hurls itself towards the sky1 it would seem to despise the great1 illimitable1 motionless lake that stretches out far beneath it4 ,and yet1 say what one will1 it is the lake that is right4 ,for all its apparent motionlessness1 for all its silence1 it is tranquilly accomplishing the immense and normal task of the most important element of our globe2 and the jet of water is merely a curious incident1 which soon returns into the universal scheme4 ,to us the species is the great1 unerring lake2 and this even from the point of view of the superior human reason that it would seem at times to offend4 ,its idea is the vastest of all1 and contains every other2 it embraces limitless time and space4 ,and does not each day that goes by reveal more and more clearly to us that the vastest idea1 no matter where it reside1 always ends by becoming the most just and most reasonable1 the wisest and the most beautiful8 #cc ,there are times when we ask ourselves whether it might not be well for humanity that its destinies should be governed by the superior men among us1 the great sages1 rather than by the instinct of the species1 that is always so slow and often so cruel4 ,it is doubtful whether this question could be answered to-day in quite the same fashion as formerly4 ,it would surely have been highly dangerous to confide the destinies of the species to ,plato or ,aristotle1 ,marcus ,aurelius1 ,shakespeare1 or ,montesquieu4 ,at the very worst moments of the ,french ,revolution the fate of the people was in the hands of philosophers of none too mean an order4 ,it cannot be denied1 however1 that in our time the habits of the thinker have undergone a great change4 ,he has ceased to be speculative or ,utopian2 he is no longer exclusively intuitive4 ,in politics as in literature1 in philosophy as in all the sciences1 he displays less imagination1 but his powers as an observer have grown4 ,he inclines rather to concentrate his attention on the thing that is1 to study it and strive at its organisation1 than to precede it1 or to endeavour to create what is not yet1 or never shall be4 ,and therefore he may possibly have some claim to more authoritative utterance2 nor would so much danger attend his more direct intervention4 ,it must be admitted1 however1 that there is no greater likelihood now than in former times of such intervention being permitted him4 ,nay1 there is less1 perhaps2 for having become more circumspect and less blinded by narrow convictions1 he will be less audacious1 less imperious1 and less impatient4 ,and yet it is possible that1 finding himself in natural sympathy with the species which he is content merely to observe1 he will by slow degrees acquire more and more influence2 so that here again1 in ultimate analysis1 it is the species that will be right1 the species that will decide3 for it will have guided him who observes it1 and therefore1 in following him whom it has guided1 it will truly only be following its own unconscious1 formless desires1 which shall have been expressed by him1 and by him brought into light4 #cd ,until such time as the species shall discover the new and needful experiment--and this it will quickly do when the danger becomes more acute2 nay1 for all we know1 the expedient may have already been found1 and1 entirely unsuspected of us1 be already transforming part of our destinies--until such time1 while bound to act in external matters as though our brothers' salvation depended entirely on our exertions1 it is open to us1 no less than to the sages of old1 to retire occasionally within ourselves4 ,we in our turn shall perhaps find there one of those things of which the contemplation shall suffice to bring us instantaneous enjoyment1 if not of the perfect calm1 at least of an indestructible hope4 ,though nature appear unjust1 though nothing authorise us to declare that a superior power1 or the intellect of the universe1 rewards or punishes1 here below or elsewhere1 in accordance with the laws of our consciousness or with other laws that we shall some day admit2 and1 finally1 though between man and man1 in other words1 in our relations with our fellows1 our admirable desire for equity translate itself into a justice that is always incomplete1 at the mercy of every error of reason1 of every ambush laid by personal interest1 and of all the evil habits of a social condition that still is sub-human1 it is none the less certain that an image of that invisible and incorruptible justice1 which we have vainly sought in the sky or the universe1 reposes in the depths of the moral life of every man4 ,and though its method of action be such as to cause it to pass unperceived of most of our fellows1 often even of our own consciousness1 though all that it does be hidden and intangible1 it is none the less profoundly human and profoundly real4 ,it would seem to hear1 to examine1 all that we say and think and strive for in our exterior life2 and if it find a little sincerity beneath1 a little earnest desire for good1 it will transform these into moral forces that shall extend and illumine our inner life1 and help us to better thoughts1 better speech1 better endeavour in the time to come4 ,it will not add to1 or take from1 our wealth2 it will bring no immunity from disease or from lightning2 it will not prolong by one hour the life of the being we cherish2 but if we have learned to reflect and to love1 if1 in other words1 heart and brain have both done their duty1 it will establish in heart and brain a contentment that1 though perhaps stripped of illusion1 shall still be inexhaustible and noble2 it will confer a dignity of existence1 and an intelligence1 that shall suffice to sustain our life after the loss of our wealth1 after the stroke of disease or of lightning has fallen1 after the loved one has for ever quitted our arms4 ,a good thought or deed brings a reward to our heart that it cannot1 in the absence of an universal judge of nature1 extend to the things around4 ,it endeavours to create within us the happiness it is unable to produce in our material life4 ,denied all external outlet1 it fills our soul the more4 ,it prepares the space that soon shall be required by our developing intellect1 our expanding peace and love4 ,helpless against the laws of nature1 it is all-powerful over those that govern the happy equilibrium of human consciousness4 ,and this is true of every stage of thought1 of every class of action4 ,a vast distance might seem to divide the labourer who brings up his children honourably1 lives his humble life and honourably does the work that falls to his lot1 from the man who steadfastly perseveres in moral heroism2 but each of these is acting and living on the same plane as the other1 and the same loyal1 consoling region receives them both4 ,and though it be certain that what we say and do must largely influence our material happiness1 yet1 in ultimate analysis1 it is only by means of the spiritual organs that even material happiness can be fully and permanently enjoyed4 ,hence the preponderating importance of thought4 ,but of supreme importance1 from the point of view of the reception we shall offer to the joys and sorrows of life1 is the character1 the frame of mind1 the moral condition1 that the things we have said and done and thought will have created within us4 ,here is evidence of admirable justice2 and the intimate happiness that our moral being derives from the constant striving of the mind and heart for good1 becomes the more comprehensible when we realise that this happiness is only the surface of the goodly thought or feeling that is shining within our heart4 ,here may we indeed find that intelligent1 moral bond between cause and effect that we have vainly sought in the external world2 here1 in moral matters1 reigning over the good and evil that are warring in the depths of our consciousness1 may we in truth discover a justice exactly similar to the one which we could desire to recognise in physical matters4 ,but whence do we derive this desire if not from the justice within us2 and is it not because this justice is so mighty and active in our heart that we are reluctant to believe in its non-existence in the universe8 #ce ,we have spoken at great length of justice2 but is it not the great mystery of man1 the one that tends to take the place of most of the spiritual mysteries that govern his destiny8 ,it has dethroned more than one god1 more than one nameless power4 ,it is the star evolved from the nebulous mass of our instincts and our incomprehensible life4 ,it is not the word of the enigma2 and when1 in the fulness of time1 it shall become clearer to us1 and shall truly reign all over the earth1 there will come to us no greater knowledge of what we are1 or why we are1 whence we come or whither we go2 but we shall at least have obeyed the first word of the enigma1 and shall proceed1 with a freer spirit and a more tranquil heart1 to the search for its last secret4 ,finally1 it comprises all the human virtues2 and none but itself can offer the welcoming smile whereby these are ennobled and purified1 none but itself can accord them the right to penetrate deep into our moral life4 ,for every virtue must be maleficent and steeped in artifice that cannot support the fixed and eager regard of justice4 ,and so do we find it too at the heart of our every ideal4 ,it is at the centre of our love of truth1 at the centre of our love of beauty4 ,it is kindness and pity1 it is generosity1 heroism1 love2 for all these are the acts of justice of one who has risen sufficiently high to perceive that justice and injustice are not exclusively confined to what lies before him1 to the narrow circle of obligations chance may have imposed1 but that they stretch far beyond years1 beyond neighbouring destinies1 beyond what he regards as his duty1 beyond what he loves1 beyond what he seeks and encounters1 beyond what he approves or rejects1 beyond his doubts and his fears1 beyond the wrong-doing and even the crimes of the men1 his brothers4 ,,ii ,,the ,,evolution ,,of ,,mystery ,it is not unreasonable to believe that the paramount interest of life1 all that is truly lofty and remarkable in the destiny of man1 reposes almost entirely in the mystery that surrounds us2 in the two mysteries1 it may be1 that are mightiest1 most dreadful of all--fatality and death4 ,and indeed there are many whom the fatigue induced in their minds by the natural uncertainties of science has almost compelled to accept this belief4 ,i too believe1 though in a somewhat different fashion1 that the study of mystery in all its forms is the noblest to which the mind of man can devote itself2 and truly it has ever been the occupation and care of those who in science and art1 in philosophy and literature1 have refused to be satisfied merely to observe and portray the trivial1 well-recognised truths1 facts1 and realities of life4 ,and we find that the success of these men in their endeavour1 the depth of their insight into all that they know1 has most strictly accorded with the respect in which they held all they did not know1 with the dignity that their mind or imagination was able to confer on the sum of unknowable forces4 ,our consciousness of the unknown wherein we have being gives life a meaning and grandeur which must of necessity be absent if we persist in considering only the things that are known to us2 if we too readily incline to believe that these must greatly transcend in importance the things that we know not yet4 #b ,it behoves every man to frame for himself his own general conception of the world4 ,on this conception reposes his whole human and moral existence4 ,but this general conception of the world1 when closely examined1 is truly no more than a general conception of the unknown4 ,and we must be careful2 we have not the right1 when ideas so vast confront us1 ideas the results of which are so highly important1 to select the one which seems most magnificent to us1 most beautiful1 or most attractive4 ,the duty lies on us to choose the idea which seems truest1 or rather the only one which seems true2 for ,i decline to believe that we can sincerely hesitate between the truth that is only apparent and the one that is real4 ,the moment must always come when we feel that one of these two is possessed of more truth than the other4 ,and to this truth we should cling3 in our actions1 our words1 and our thoughts2 in our art1 in our science1 in the life of our feelings and intellect4 ,its definition1 perhaps1 may elude us4 ,it may possibly bring not one grain of reassuring conviction4 ,nay1 essentially1 perhaps1 it may be but the merest impression1 though profounder and more sincere than any previous impression4 ,these things do not matter4 ,it is not imperative that the truth we have chosen should be unimpeachable or of absolute certainty4 ,there is already great gain in our having been brought to experience that the truths we had loved before did not accord with reality or with faithful experience of life2 and we have every reason1 therefore1 to cherish our truth with heartiest gratitude until its own turn shall come to experience the fate it inflicted on its predecessor4 ,the great mischief1 the one which destroys our moral existence and threatens the integrity of our mind and our character1 is not that we should deceive ourselves and love an uncertain truth1 but that we should remain constant to one in which we no longer wholly believe4 #c ,if we sought nothing more than to invest our conception of the unknown with the utmost possible grandeur and tragedy1 magnificence and might1 there would be no need of such restrictions4 ,from many points of view1 doubtless1 the most beautiful1 most touching1 most religious attitude in face of mystery is silence1 and prayer1 and fearful acceptance4 ,when this immense1 irresistible force confronts us--this inscrutable1 ceaselessly vigilant power1 humanly super-human1 sovereignly intelligent1 and1 for all we know1 even personal--must it not1 at first sight1 seem more reverent1 worthier1 to offer complete submission1 trying only to master our terror1 than tranquilly to set on foot a patient1 laborious investigation8 ,but is the choice possible to us2 have we still the right to choose8 ,the beauty or dignity of the attitude we shall assume no longer is matter of moment4 ,it is truth and sincerity that are called for to-day for the facing of all things--how much more when mystery confronts us6 ,in the past1 the prostration of man1 his bending the knee1 seemed beautiful because of what1 in the past1 seemed to be true4 ,we have acquired no fresh certitude1 perhaps2 but for us1 none the less1 the truth of the past has ceased to be true4 ,we have not bridged the unknown2 but still1 though we know not what it is1 we do partially know what it is not2 and it is before this we should bow1 were the attitude of our fathers to be once more assumed by us4 ,for although it has not1 perhaps1 been incontrovertibly proved that the unknown is neither vigilant nor personal1 neither sovereignly intelligent nor sovereignly just1 or that it possesses none of the passions1 intentions1 virtues and vices of man1 it is still incomparably more probable that the unknown is entirely indifferent to all that appears of supreme importance in this life of ours4 ,it is incomparably more probable that if1 in the vast and eternal scheme of the unknown1 a minute and ephemeral place be reserved for man1 his actions1 be he the strongest or weakest1 the best or the worst of men1 will be as unimportant there as the movements of the obscurest geological cell in the history of ocean or continent4 ,though it may not have been irrefutably shown that the infinite and invisible are not for ever hovering round us1 dealing out sorrow or joy in accordance with our good or evil intentions1 guiding our destiny step by step1 and preparing1 with the help of innumerable forces1 the incomprehensible but eternal law that governs the accidents of our birth1 our future1 our death1 and our life beyond the tomb1 it is still incomparably more probable that the invisible and infinite1 intervene as they may at every moment in our life1 enter therein only as stupendous1 blind1 indifferent elements2 and that though they pass over us1 in us1 penetrate into our being1 and inspire and mould our life1 they are as careless of our individual existence as air1 water1 or light4 ,and the whole of our conscious life1 the life that forms our one certitude1 that is our one fixed point in time and space1 rests upon incomparable probabilities of this nature2 but rarely are they as incomparable as these4 #d ,the hour when a lofty conviction forsakes us should never be one of regret4 ,if a belief we have clung to goes1 or a spring snaps within us2 if we at last dethrone the idea that so long has held sway1 this is proof of vitality1 progress1 of our marching steadily onwards1 and making good use of all that lies to our hand4 ,we should rejoice at the knowledge that the thought which so long has sustained us is proved incapable now of even sustaining itself4 ,and though we have nothing to put in the place of the spring that lies broken1 there need still be no cause for sadness4 ,far better the place remain empty than that it be filled by a spring which the rust corrodes1 or by a new truth in which we do not wholly believe4 ,and besides1 the place is not really empty4 ,determinate truth may not yet have arrived1 but still1 in its own deep recess1 there hides a truth without name1 which waits and calls4 ,and if it wait and call too long in the void1 and nothing arise in the place of the vanished spring1 it still shall be found that1 in moral no less than in physical life1 necessity will be able to create the organ it needs1 and that the negative truth will at last find sufficient force in itself to set the idle machinery going4 ,and the lives that possess no more than one force of this kind are not the least strenuous1 the least ardent1 or the least useful4 ,and even though our belief forsake us entirely1 it still will take with it nothing of what we have given1 nor will there be lost one single sincere1 religious1 disinterested effort that we have put forth to ennoble this faith1 to exalt or embellish it4 ,every thought we have added1 each worthy sacrifice we have had the courage to make in its name1 will have left its indelible mark on our moral existence4 ,the body is gone1 but the palace it built still stands1 and the space it has conquered will remain for ever unenclosed4 ,it is our duty1 and one we dare not renounce1 to prepare homes for truths that shall come1 to maintain in good order the forces destined to serve them1 and to create open spaces within us2 nor can the time thus employed be possibly wasted4 #e ,these thoughts have arisen within me through my having been compelled1 a few days ago1 to glance through two or three little dramas of mine1 wherein lies revealed the disquiet of a mind that has given itself wholly to mystery2 a disquiet legitimate enough in itself1 perhaps1 but not so inevitable as to warrant its own complacency4 ,the keynote of these little plays is dread of the unknown that surrounds us4 ,i1 or rather some obscure poetical feeling within me 7for with the sincerest of poets a division must often be made between the instinctive feeling of their art and the thoughts of their real life71 seemed to believe in a species of monstrous1 invisible1 fatal power that gave heed to our every action1 and was hostile to our smile1 to our life1 to our peace and our love4 ,its intentions could not be divined1 but the spirit of the drama assumed them to be malevolent always4 ,in its essence1 perhaps1 this power was just1 but only in anger2 and it exercised justice in a manner so crooked1 so secret1 so sluggish and remote1 that its punishments--for it never rewarded--took the semblance of inexplicable1 arbitrary acts of fate4 ,we had there1 in a word1 more or less the idea of the ,god of the ,christian blent with that of ancient fatality1 lurking in nature's impenetrable twilight1 whence it eagerly watched1 contested1 and saddened the projects1 the feelings1 the thoughts and the happiness of man4 #f ,this unknown would most frequently appear in the shape of death4 ,the presence of death--infinite1 menacing1 for ever treacherously active--filled every interstice of the poem4 ,the problem of existence was answered only by the enigma of annihilation4 ,and it was a callous1 inexorable death2 blind1 and groping its mysterious way with only chance to guide it2 laying its hands preferentially on the youngest and the least unhappy1 since these held themselves less motionless than others1 and that every too sudden movement in the night arrested its attention4 ,and around it were only poor little trembling1 elementary creatures1 who shivered for an instant and wept1 on the brink of a gulf2 and their words and their tears had importance only from the fact that each word they spoke and each tear they shed fell into this gulf1 and were at times so strangely resonant there as to lead one to think that the gulf must be vast if tear or word1 as it fell1 could send forth so confused and muffled a sound4 #g ,such a conception of life is not healthy1 whatever show of reason it may seem to possess2 and ,i would not allude to it here were it not for the fact that we find this idea1 or one closely akin to it1 governing the hearts of most men1 however tranquil1 or thoughtful1 or earnest they may be1 at the approach of the slightest misfortune4 ,there is evidently a side to our nature which1 notwithstanding all we may learn and master and the certitudes we may acquire1 destines us never to be other than poor1 weak1 useless creatures1 consecrated to death1 and playthings of the vast and indifferent forces that surround us4 ,we appear for an instant in limitless space1 our one appreciable mission the propagation of a species that itself has no appreciable mission in the scheme of a universe whose extent and duration baffle the most daring1 most powerful brain4 ,this is a truth2 it is one of those profound but sterile truths which the poet may salute as he passes on his way2 but it is a truth in the neighbourhood of which the man with the thousand duties who lives in the poet will do well not to abide too long4 ,and of truths such as this many are lofty and deserving of all our respect1 but in their domain it were unwise to lay ourselves down and sleep4 ,so many truths environ us that it may safely be said that few men can be found1 of the wickedest even1 who have not for counsel and guide a grave and respectable truth4 ,yes1 it is a truth--the vastest1 most certain of truths1 if one will--that our life is nothing1 and our efforts the merest jest2 our existence1 that of our planet1 only a miserable accident in the history of worlds2 but it is no less a truth that1 to us1 our life and our planet are the most important1 nay1 the only important phenomena in the history of worlds4 ,and of these truths which is the truer8 ,does the first of necessity destroy the second8 ,without the second1 should we have had the courage to formulate the first8 ,the one appeals to our imagination1 and may be helpful to it in its own domain2 but the other directly interests our actual life4 ,it is well that each have its share4 ,the truth that is undoubtedly truest from the human point of view must evidently appeal to us more than the truth which is truest from the universal point of view4 ,ignorant as we are of the aim of the universe1 how shall we tell whether or no it concern itself with the interests of our race8 ,the probable futility of our life and our species is a truth which regards us indirectly only1 and may well1 therefore1 be left in suspense4 ,the other truth1 that indicates clearly the importance of life1 may perhaps be more restricted1 but it has a direct1 incontestable1 actual bearing upon ourselves4 ,to sacrifice or even subordinate it to an alien truth must surely be wrong4 ,the first truth should never be lost sight of2 it will strengthen and illumine the second1 whose government will thus become more intelligent and benign3 the first truth will teach us to profit by all that the second does not include4 ,and if we allow it to sadden our heart or arrest our action1 we have not sufficiently realised that the vast but precarious space it fills in the region of important truths is governed by countless problems which as yet are unsolved2 while the problems whereon the second truth rests are daily resolved by real life4 ,the first truth is still in the dangerous1 feverish stage1 through which all truths must pass before they can penetrate freely into our heart and our brain2 a stage of jealousy1 truculence1 which renders the neighbourhood of another truth insupportable to them4 ,we must wait till the fever subsides2 and if the home that we have prepared in our spirit be sufficiently spacious and lofty1 we shall find very soon that the most contradictory truths will be conscious only of the mysterious bond that unites them1 and will silently join with each other to place in the front rank of all1 and there help and sustain1 that truth from among them which calmly went on with its work while the others were fretfully jangling2 that truth which can do the most good1 and brings with it the uttermost hope4 ,the strangest feature of the present time is the confusion which reigns in our instincts and feelings--in our ideas1 too1 save at our most lucid1 most tranquil1 most thoughtful moments--on the subject of the intervention of the unknown or mysterious in the truly grave events of life4 ,we find1 amidst this confusion1 feelings which no longer accord with any precise1 living1 accepted idea2 such1 for instance1 as concern the existence of a determinate ,god1 conceived as more or less anthropomorphic1 providential1 personal1 and unceasingly vigilant4 ,we find feelings which1 as yet1 are only partially ideas2 as those which deal with fatality1 destiny1 the justice of things4 ,we find ideas which will soon turn into feelings2 those that treat of the law of the species1 evolution1 selection1 the will-power of the race1 c4 ,and1 finally1 we discover ideas which still are purely ideas1 too uncertain and scattered for us to be able to predict at what moment they will become feelings1 and thus materially influence our actions1 our acceptance of life1 our joys1 and our sorrows4 #i ,if in actual life this confusion is not so apparent1 it is only because actual life will but rarely express itself1 or condescend to make use of image or formula to relate its experience4 ,this state of mind1 however1 is clearly discernible in all those whose self-imposed mission it is to depict real life1 to explain and interpret it1 and throw light on the hidden causes of good and evil destiny4 ,it is of the poets ,i speak1 of dramatic poets above all1 who are occupied with external and active life2 and it matters not whether they produce novels1 tragedies1 the drama properly so called1 or historical studies1 for ,i give to the words poets and dramatic poets their widest significance4 ,it cannot be denied that the possession of a dominant idea1 one that may be said to exclude all others1 must confer considerable power on the poet1 or interpreter of life2 and in the degree that the idea is mysterious1 and difficult of definition or control1 will be the extent of this power and its conspicuousness in the poem4 ,and this is entirely legitimate1 so long as the poet himself has not the least doubt as to the value of his idea2 and there are many admirable poets who have never hesitated1 paused1 or doubted4 ,thus it is that we find the idea of heroic duty filling so enormous a space in the tragedies of ,corneille1 that of absolute faith in the dramas of ,calderon1 that of the tyranny of destiny in the works of ,sophocles4 #aj ,of these three ideas1 that of heroic duty is the most human and the least mysterious2 and although far more restricted to-day than at the time of ,corneille--for there are few such duties which it would not now be reasonable1 and even heroic1 perhaps1 to call into question1 and it becomes ever more and more difficult to find one that is truly heroic--conditions may still be imagined under which recourse thereto may be legitimate in the poet4 ,but will he discover in faith--to-day no more than a shadowy memory to the most fervent believer--that inspiration and strength1 by whose aid ,corneille was able to depict the ,god of the ,christians as the august1 omnipresent actor of his dramas1 invisible but untiringly active1 and sovereign always8 ,or is it possible still for a reasonable being1 whose eyes rest calmly on the life about him1 to believe in the tyranny of fate2 of that sluggish1 unswerving1 preordained1 inscrutable force which urges a given man1 or family1 by given ways to a given disaster or death8 ,for though it be true that our life is subject to many an unknown force1 we at least are aware that these forces would seem to be blind1 indifferent1 unconscious1 and that their most insidious attacks may be in some measure averted by the wisest among us4 ,can we still be allowed1 then1 to believe that the universe holds a power so idle1 so wretched1 as to concern itself solely in saddening1 frustrating1 and terrifying the projects and schemes of man8 ,immanent justice is another mysterious and sovereign force1 whereof use has been made2 but it is only the feeblest of writers who have ventured to accept this postulate in its entirety3 only those to whom reality and probability were matters of smallest moment4 ,the affirmation that wickedness is necessarily and visibly punished in this life1 and virtue as necessarily and visibly rewarded1 is too manifestly opposed to the most elementary daily experience1 too wildly inconsistent a dream1 for the true poet ever to accept it as the basis of his drama4 ,and1 on the other hand1 if we refer to a future life the bestowal of reward and punishment1 we are merely entering by another gate the region of divine justice4 ,for1 indeed1 unless immanent justice be infallible1 permanent1 unvarying1 and inevitable1 it becomes no more than a curious1 well-meaning caprice of fate2 and from that moment it no longer is justice1 or even fate3 it shrinks into merest chance--in other words1 almost into nothingness4 ,there is1 it is true1 a very real immanent justice2 ,i refer to the force which enacts that the vicious1 malevolent1 cruel1 disloyal man shall be morally less happy than he who is honest and good1 affectionate1 gentle1 and just4 ,but here it is inward justice whose workings we see2 a very human1 natural1 comprehensible force1 the study of whose cause and effect must of necessity lead to psychological drama1 where there no longer is need of the vast and mysterious background which lent its solemn and awful perspective to the events of history and legend4 ,but is it legitimate deliberately to misconceive the unknown that governs our life in order that we may reconstruct this mysterious background8 #aa ,while on this subject of dominant and mysterious ideas1 we shall do well to consider the forms that the idea of fatality has taken1 and for ever is taking3 for fatality even to-day still provides the supreme explanation for all that we cannot explain2 and it is to fatality still that the thoughts of the interpreter of life unceasingly turn4 ,the poets have endeavoured to transform it1 to make it attractive1 to restore its youth4 ,they have contrived1 in their works1 a hundred new and winding canals through which they may introduce the icy waters of the great and desolate river whose banks have been gradually shunned by the dwellings of men4 ,and of those most successful in making us share the illusion that they were conferring a solemn1 definitive meaning on life1 there are few who have not instinctively recognised the sovereign importance conferred on the actions of men by the irresponsible power of an ever august and unerring destiny4 ,fatality would seem to be the pre-eminent tragical force2 it no sooner appears in a drama than it does of itself three-fourths of all that needs doing4 ,it may safely be said that the poet who could find to-day1 in material science1 in the unknown that surrounds us1 or in his own heart1 the equivalent for ancient fatality--a force1 that is1 of equally irresistible predestination1 a force as universally admitted--would infallibly produce a masterpiece4 ,it is true1 however1 that he would have1 at the same time1 to solve the mighty enigma for whose word we are all of us seeking1 so that this supposition is not likely to be realised very soon4 #ab ,this is the source1 then1 whence the lustral water is drawn with which the poets have purified the cruellest of tragedies4 ,there is an instinct in man that worships fatality1 and he is apt to regard whatever pertains thereto as incontestable1 solemn1 and beautiful4 ,his cry is for freedom2 but circumstances arise when he rather would tell himself that he is not free4 ,the unbending1 malignant goddess is more acceptable often than the divinity who only asks for an effort that shall avert disaster4 ,all things notwithstanding1 it pleases us still to be ruled by a power that nothing can turn from its purpose2 and whatever our mental dignity may lose by such a belief is gained by a kind of sentimental vanity in us1 which complacently dwells on the measureless force that for ever keeps watch on our plans1 and confers on our simplest action a mysterious1 eternal significance4 ,fatality1 briefly1 explains and excuses all things1 by relegating to a sufficient distance in the invisible or the unintelligible all that it would be hard to explain1 and more difficult still to excuse4 #ac ,therefore it is that so many have turned to the dismembered statue of the terrible goddess who reigned in the dramas of ,euripides1 ,sophocles1 and ,aeschylus1 and that the scattered fragments of her limbs have provided more than one poet with the marble required for the fashioning of a newer divinity1 who should be more human1 less arbitrary1 and less inconceivable than she of old4 ,the fatality of the passions1 for instance1 has thus been evolved4 ,but for a passion truly to be fatal in a soul aware of itself1 for the mystery to reappear that shall make crime pardonable by investing it with loftiness and lifting it high above the will of man3 for these we require the intervention of a ,god1 or some other equally irresistible1 infinite force4 ,wagner1 therefore1 in ,tristram and ,iseult1 makes use of the philtre1 as ,shakespeare of the witches in ,macbeth1 ,racine of the oracle of ,calchas in ,iphigenia and of ,venus' hatred in ,phdre4 ,we have travelled in a circle1 and find ourselves back once more at the very heart of the craving of former days4 ,this expedient may be more or less legitimate in archaic or legendary drama1 where there is room for all kinds of poetic fantasy2 but in the drama which pretends to actual truth we demand another intervention1 one that shall seem to us more genuinely irresistible1 if crimes like ,macbeth's1 such a deed of horror as that to which ,agamemnon consented3 perhaps1 too1 the kind of love that burned in ,phdre1 shall achieve their mysterious excuse1 and acquire a grandeur and sombre nobility that intrinsically they do not possess4 ,take away from ,macbeth the fatal predestination1 the intervention of hell1 the heroic struggle with an occult justice that for ever is revealing itself through a thousand fissures of revolting nature1 and ,macbeth is merely a frantic1 contemptible murderer4 ,take away the oracle of ,calchas1 and ,agamemnon becomes abominable4 ,take away the hatred of ,venus1 and what is ,phdre but a neurotic creature1 whose moral quality and power of resistance to evil are too pronouncedly feeble for our intellect to take any genuine interest in the calamity that befalls her8 #ad ,the truth is that these supernatural interventions to-day satisfy neither spectator nor reader4 ,though he know it not1 perhaps1 and strive as he may1 it is no longer possible for him to regard them seriously in the depths of his consciousness4 ,his conception of the universe is other4 ,he no longer detects the working of a narrow1 determined1 obstinate1 violent will in the multitude of forces that strive in him and about him4 ,he knows that the criminal whom he may meet in actual life has been urged into crime by misfortune1 education1 atavism1 or by movements of passion which he has himself experienced and subdued1 while recognising that there might have been circumstances under which their repression would have been a matter of exceeding difficulty4 ,he will not1 it is true1 always be able to discover the cause of these misfortunes or movements of passion2 and his endeavour to account for the injustice of education or heredity will probably be no less unsuccessful4 ,but1 for all that1 he will no longer incline to attribute a particular crime to the wrath of a ,god1 the direct intervention of hell1 or to a series of changeless decrees inscribed in the book of fate4 ,why ask of him1 then1 to accept in a poem an explanation which he refuses in life8 ,is the poet's duty not rather to furnish an explanation loftier1 clearer1 more widely and profoundly human than any his reader can find for himself8 ,for1 indeed1 this wrath of the gods1 intervention of hell1 and writing in letters of fire1 are to him no more to-day than so many symbols that have long ceased to content him4 ,it is time that the poet should realise that the symbol is legitimate only when it stands for accepted truth1 or for truth which as yet we cannot1 or will not1 accept2 but the symbol is out of place at a time when it is truth itself that we seek4 ,and1 besides1 to merit admission into a really living poem1 the symbol should be at least as great and beautiful as the truth for which it stands1 and should1 moreover1 precede this truth1 and not follow a long way behind4 #ae ,we see1 therefore1 how surpassingly difficult it must have become to introduce great crimes1 or cruel1 unbridled1 tragical passions1 into a modern work1 above all if that work be destined for stage presentation2 for the poet will seek in vain for the mysterious excuse these crimes or passions demand4 ,and yet1 for all that1 so deeply is this craving for mysterious excuse implanted within us1 so satisfied are we that man is1 at bottom1 never as guilty as he may appear to be1 that we are still fully content1 when considering passions or crimes of this nature1 to admit some kind of fatal intervention that at least may not seem too manifestly unacceptable4 ,this excuse1 however1 will be sought by us only when the persons guilty of crimes which are contrary to human nature1 when the victims of misfortunes which they could not foresee1 and which seem undeserved to us1 inexplicable1 wholly abnormal1 are more or less superior beings1 possessed of their fullest share of consciousness4 ,we are loath to admit that an extraordinary crime or disaster can have a purely human cause4 ,in spite of all1 we persistently seek in some way to explain the inexplicable4 ,we should not be satisfied if the poet were simply to say to us3 ,you see here the wrong that was done by this strong1 this conscious1 intelligent man4 ,behold the misfortune this hero encountered2 this good man's ruin and sorrow4 ,see1 too1 how this sage is crushed by tragic1 irremediable wickedness4 ,the human causes of these events are evident to you4 ,i have no other explanation to offer1 unless it be perhaps the indifference of the universe towards the actions of man4 ,our dissatisfaction would vanish if he could succeed in conveying to us the sensation of this indifference1 if he could show it in action2 but1 as it is the property of indifference never to interfere or act1 that would seem to be more or less unachievable4 #af ,but when we turn to the by no means inevitable jealousy of ,othello1 or to the misfortunes of ,romeo and ,juliet1 which were surely not preordained1 we discover no need of explanation1 or of the purifying influence of fatality4 ,in another drama1 ,ford's masterpiece1 ',tis ,pity ,she's a ,whore1 which revolves around the incestuous love of ,giovanni for his sister ,annabella1 we are compelled either to turn away in horror1 or to seek the mysterious excuse in its habitual haunt on the shore of the gulf4 ,but even here1 the first painful shock over1 we find it is not imperative4 ,for the love of brother for sister1 viewed from a standpoint sufficiently lofty1 is a crime against morality1 but not against human nature2 and there is at least some measure of palliation in the youth of the pair1 and in the passion that blinds them4 ,othello1 too1 the semi-barbarian who does ,desdemona to death1 has been goaded to madness by the machinations of ,iago2 and even this last can plead his by no means gratuitous hatred4 ,the disasters that weighed so heavily on the lovers of ,verona were due to the inexperience of the victims1 to the manifest disproportion between their strength and that of their enemies2 and although we may pity the man who succumbs to superior human force1 his downfall does not surprise us4 ,we are not impelled to seek explanation elsewhere1 to ask questions of fate2 and unless he appear to fall victim to superhuman injustice1 we are content to tell ourselves that what has happened was bound to happen4 ,it is only when disaster occurs after every precaution is taken that we could ourselves have devised1 that we become conscious of the need for other explanation4 #ag ,we find it difficult1 therefore1 to conceive or admit as naturally1 humanly possible that a crime shall be committed by a person who apparently is endowed with fullest intelligence and consciousness2 or that misfortune should befall him which seems in its essence to be inexplicable1 undeserved1 and unexpected4 ,it follows1 therefore1 that the poet can only place on the stage 7this phrase ,i use merely as an abbreviation3 it would be more correct to say1 cause us to assist at some adventure whereof we know personally neither the actors nor the totality of the circumstances7 faults1 crimes1 and acts of injustice committed by persons of defective consciousness1 as also disasters befalling feeble beings unable to control their desires--innocent creatures1 it may be1 but thick-sighted1 imprudent1 and reckless4 ,under these conditions there would seem to be no call for the intervention of anything beyond the limit of normal human psychology4 ,but such a conception of the theatre would be at absolute variance with real life1 where we find crimes committed by persons of fullest consciousness1 and the most inexplicable1 inconceivable1 unmerited misfortunes befalling the wisest1 the best1 most virtuous and prudent of men4 ,dramas which deal with unconscious creatures1 whom their own feebleness oppresses and their own desires overcome1 excite our interest and arouse our pity2 but the veritable drama1 the one which probes to the heart of things and grapples with important truths--our own personal drama1 in a word1 which for ever hangs over our life--is the one wherein the strong1 intelligent1 and conscious commit errors1 faults1 and crimes which are almost inevitable2 wherein the wise and upright struggle with all-powerful calamity1 with forces destructive to wisdom and virtue3 for it is worthy of note that the spectator1 however feeble1 dishonest even1 he may be in real life1 still enrols himself always among the virtuous1 just1 and strong2 and when he reflects on the misfortunes of the weak1 or even witnesses them1 he resolutely declines to imagine himself in the place of the victims4 #ah ,here we attain the limit of the human will1 the gloomy boundary-line of the influence that the most just and enlightened of men is able to exert on events that decide his future happiness or sorrow4 ,no great drama exists1 or poem of lofty aim1 but one of its heroes shall stray to this frontier where his destiny waits for the seal4 ,why has this wise1 this virtuous man committed this fault or this crime8 ,why has that woman1 who knows so well the meaning of all that she does1 hazarded the gesture which must so inevitably summon everlasting sorrow8 ,by whom have the links been forged of the chain of disaster whose fetters have crushed this innocent family8 ,why do all things crumble around one1 and fall into ruins1 while the other1 his neighbour1 less active and strong1 less skilful and wise1 finds ever material by him to build up his life anew8 ,why do tenderness1 beauty1 and love flock to the path of some1 where others meet hatred only1 and malice1 and treachery8 ,why persistent happiness here1 and yonder1 though merits be equal1 nought but unceasing disaster8 ,why is this house for ever beset with the storm1 while over that other there shines the peace of unvarying stars8 ,why genius1 and riches1 and health on this side1 and yonder disease1 imbecility1 poverty8 ,whence has the passion been sent that has wrought such terrible grief1 and whence the passion that proved the source of such wonderful joy8 ,why does the youth whom yesterday ,i met go on his tranquil road to profoundest happiness1 while his friend1 with the same methodical1 peaceful1 ignorant step1 proceeds on his way to death8 #ai ,life will often place such problems before us2 but how rarely are we compelled to refer their solution to the supernatural1 mysterious1 superhuman1 or preordained6 ,it is only the fervent believer who will still be content to see there the finger of divine intervention4 ,such of us1 however1 as have entered the house where the storm has raged1 as well as the house of peace1 have rarely departed without most clearly detecting the essentially human reasons of both peace and storm4 ,we who have known the wise and upright man who has been guilty of error or crime1 are acquainted also with the circumstances which induced his action1 and these circumstances seem to us in no way supernatural4 ,as we draw near to the woman whose gesture brought misery to her1 we learn very soon that this gesture might have been avoided1 and that1 in her place1 we should have refrained4 ,the friends of the man around whom all fell into ruins1 and of the neighbour who ever was able to build up his life anew1 will have observed before that the acorn sometimes will fall on to rock1 and sometimes on fertile soil4 ,and though poverty1 sickness1 and death still remain the three inequitable goddesses of human existence1 they no longer awake in us the superstitious fears of bygone days ,we regard them to-day as essentially indifferent1 unconscious1 blind4 ,we know that they recognise none of the ideal laws which we once believed that they sanctioned2 and it only too often has happened that at the very moment we were whispering to ourselves of purification1 trial1 reward1 punishment1 their undiscerning caprice gave the lie to the too lofty1 too moral title which we were about to bestow4 #bj ,our imagination1 it is true1 is inclined to admit1 perhaps to desire1 the intervention of the superhuman2 but1 for all that1 there are few1 even among the most mystic1 who are not convinced that our moral misfortunes are1 in their essence1 determined by our mind and our character2 and1 similarly1 that our physical misfortunes are due in part to the workings of certain forces which often are misunderstood1 and in part to the generally ill-defined relation of cause to effect3 nor is it unreasonable to hope that light may be thrown on these problems as we penetrate further into the secrets of nature4 ,we have here a certitude upon which our whole life depends2 a certitude which is shaken only when we consider our own misfortunes1 for then we shrink from analysing or admitting the faults we ourselves have committed4 ,there is a hopefulness in man which renders him unwilling to grant that the cause of his misfortune may be as transparent as that of the wave which dies away in the sand or is hurled on the cliff1 of the insect whose little wings gleam for an instant in the light of the sun till the passing bird absorbs its existence4 #ba ,let me suppose that a neighbour of mine1 whom ,i know very intimately1 whose regular habits and inoffensive manners have won my esteem1 should successively lose his wife in a railway accident1 one son at sea1 another in a fire1 the third and last by disease4 ,i should1 of course1 be painfully shocked and grieved2 but still it would not occur to me to attribute this series of disasters to a divine vengeance or an invisible justice1 to a strange1 ill-starred predestination1 or an active1 persistent1 inevitable fatality4 ,my thoughts would fly to the myriad unfortunate hazards of life2 ,i should be appalled at the frightful coincidence of calamity2 but in me there would be no suggestion of a superhuman will that had hurled the train over the precipice1 steered the ship on to rocks1 or kindled the flames2 ,i should hold it incredible that such monstrous efforts could have been put forth with the sole object of inflicting punishment and despair upon a poor wretch1 because of some error he might have committed--one of those grave human errors which yet are so petty in face of the universe2 an error which perhaps had not issued from either his heart or his brain1 and had stirred not one blade of grass on the earth's whole surface4 #bb ,but he1 this neighbour of mine1 on whom these terrible blows have successively fallen1 like so many lightning-flashes on a black night of storm--will he think as ,i do2 will these catastrophes seem natural to him1 and ordinary1 and susceptible of explanation8 ,will not the words destiny1 fortune1 hazard1 ill-luck1 fatality1 star--the word ,providence1 perhaps--assume in his mind a significance they never have assumed before8 ,will not the light beneath which he questions his consciousness be a different light from my own1 will he not feel round his life an influence1 a power1 a kind of evil intention1 that are imperceptible to me8 ,and who is right1 he or ,i8 ,which of us two sees more clearly1 and further8 ,do truths that in calmer times lie hidden float to the surface in hours of trouble2 and which is the moment we should choose to establish the meaning of life8 ,the interpreter of life1 as a rule1 selects the troubled hours4 ,he places himself1 and us1 in the soul-state of his victims4 ,he shows their misfortunes to us in perspective2 and so sharply1 concretely1 that we have for the moment the illusion of a personal disaster4 ,and1 indeed1 it is more or less impossible for him to depict them as they would occur in real life4 ,if we had spent long years with the hero of the drama which has stirred us so painfully1 had he been our brother1 our father1 our friend1 we should have probably noted1 recognised1 counted one by one as they passed1 all the causes of his misfortune1 which then would not only appear less extraordinary to us1 but perfectly natural even1 and humanly almost inevitable4 ,but to the interpreter of life is given neither power nor occasion to acquaint us with each veritable cause4 ,for these causes1 as a rule1 are infinitely slow in their movement1 and countless in number1 and slight1 and of small apparent significance4 ,he is therefore led to adopt a general cause1 one sufficiently vast to embrace the whole drama1 in place of the real and human causes which he is unable to show us1 unable1 too1 himself to examine and study4 ,and where shall a general cause of sufficient vastness be found1 if not in the two or three words we breathe to ourselves when silence oppresses us3 words like fatality1 divinity1 ,providence1 or obscure and nameless justice8 #bc ,the question we have to consider is how far this procedure can be beneficial1 or even legitimate2 as also whether it be the mission of the poet to present1 and insist on1 the distress and confusion of our least lucid hours1 or to add to the clear-sightedness of the moments when we conceive ourselves to enjoy the fullest possession of our force and our reason4 ,in our own misfortunes there is something of good1 and something of good must therefore be found in the illusion of personal misfortune4 ,we are made to look into ourselves2 our errors1 our weaknesses1 are more clearly revealed2 it is shown to us where we have strayed4 ,there falls a light on our consciousness a thousand times more searching1 more active1 than could spring from many arduous years of meditation and study4 ,we are forced to emerge from ourselves1 and to let our eyes rest on those round about us2 we are rendered more keenly alive to the sorrows of others4 ,there are some who will tell us that misfortune does even more--that it urges our glance on high1 and compels us to bow to a power superior to our own1 to an unseen justice1 to an impenetrable1 infinite mystery4 ,can this indeed be the best of all possible issues8 ,ah1 yes1 it was well1 from the standpoint of religious morality1 that misfortune should teach us to lift up our eyes and look on an eternal1 unchanging1 undeniable ,god1 sovereignly beautiful1 sovereignly just1 and sovereignly good4 ,it was well that the poet who found in his ,god an unquestionable ideal should incessantly hold before us this unique1 this definitive ideal4 ,but to-day1 if we look away from the truth1 from the ordinary experience of life1 on what shall our eager glance rest8 ,if we discard the more or less compensatory laws of conscience and inward happiness1 what shall we say when triumphant injustice confronts us1 or successful1 unpunished crime8 ,how shall we account for the death of a child1 the miserable end of an innocent man1 or the disaster hurled by cruel fate on some unfortunate creature1 if we seek explanations loftier1 more definite1 more comprehensive and decisive than those that are found satisfactory in everyday life for the reason that they are the only ones that accord with a certain number of realities8 ,is it right that the poet1 in his eager desire to contrive a solemn atmosphere for his drama1 should arouse from their slumber sentiments1 errors1 prejudices and fears1 which we would attack and rebuke were we to discover them in the hearts of our friends or our children8 ,man has at last1 through his study of the habits of spirit and brain1 of the laws of existence1 the caprices of fate and the maternal indifference of nature--man has at last1 and laboriously1 acquired some few certitudes1 that are worthy of all respect2 and is the poet entitled to seize on the moment of anguish in order to oust all these certitudes1 and set up in their place a fatality to which every action of ours gives the lie2 or powers before which we would refuse to kneel did the blow fall on us that has prostrated his hero2 or a mystic justice that1 for all it may sweep away the need for many an embarrassing explanation1 bears yet not the slightest kinship to the active and personal justice we all of us recognise in our own personal life8 #bd ,and yet this is what the interpreter of life will more or less deliberately do from the moment he seeks to invest his work with a lofty spirit1 with a deep and religious beauty1 with the sense of the infinite4 ,even though this work of his may be of the sincerest1 though it express as nearly as may be his own most intimate truth1 he believes that this truth is enhanced1 and established more firmly1 by being surrounded with phantoms of a forgotten past4 ,might not the symbols he needs1 the hypotheses1 images1 the touchstone for all that cannot be explained1 be less frequently sought in that which he knows is not true1 and more often in that which will one day be a truth8 ,does the unearthing of bygone terrors1 or the borrowing of light from a ,hell that has ceased to be1 make death more sublime8 ,does dependence on a supreme but imaginary will ennoble our destiny8 ,does justice--that vast network woven by human action and reaction over the unchanging wisdom of nature's moral and physical forces--does justice become more majestic through being lodged in the hands of a unique judge1 whom the very spirit of the drama dethrones and destroys8 #be ,let us ask ourselves whether the hour may not have come for the earnest revision of the symbols1 the images1 sentiments1 beauty1 wherewith we still seek to glorify in us the spectacle of the world4 ,this beauty1 these feelings and sentiments1 to-day unquestionably bear only the most distant relation to the phenomena1 thoughts1 nay even the dreams1 of our actual existence2 and if they are suffered still to abide with us1 it is rather as tender and innocent memories of a past that was more credulous1 and nearer to the childhood of man4 ,were it not well1 then1 that those whose mission it is to make more evident to us the beauty and harmony of the world we live in1 should march ever onwards1 and let their steps tend to the actual truth of this world8 ,their conception of the universe need not be stripped of a single one of the ornaments wherewith they embellish it2 but why seek these ornaments so often among mere recollections1 however smiling or terrible1 and so seldom from among the essential thoughts which have helped these men to build1 and effectively organise1 their spiritual and sentient life8 ,it can never be right to dwell in the midst of false images1 even though these are known to be false4 ,the time will come when the illusory image will usurp the place of the just idea it has seemed to represent4 ,we shall not reduce the part of the infinite and the mysterious by employing other images1 by framing other and juster conceptions4 ,do what we may1 this part can never be lessened4 ,it will always be found deep down in the heart of men1 at the root of each problem1 pervading the universe4 ,and for all that the substance1 the place of these mysteries1 may seem to have changed1 their extent and power remain for ever the same4 ,has not--to take but one instance--has not the phenomenon of the existence1 everywhere among us1 of a kind of supreme and wholly spiritual justice1 unarmed1 unadorned1 unequipped1 moving slowly but never swerving1 stable and changeless in a world where injustice would seem to reign--has this phenomenon not cause and effect as deep1 as exhaustless--is it not as astounding1 as admirable--as the wisdom of an eternal and omnipresent ,judge8 ,should this ,judge be held more convincing for that ,he is less conceivable8 ,are fewer sources of beauty1 or occasions for genius to exercise insight and power1 to be found in what can be explained than in what is1 a priori1 inexplicable8 ,does not1 for instance1 a victorious but unjust war 7such as those of the ,romans1 of ,england to-day1 the conquests of ,spain in ,america1 and so many others7 in the end always demoralise the victor and thrust upon him errors1 habits1 and faults whereby he is made to pay dearly for his triumph2 and is not the minute1 the relentless labour of this psychological justice as absorbing1 as vast1 as the intervention of a superhuman justice8 ,and may not the same be said of the justice that lives in each one of us1 that causes the space left for peace1 inner happiness1 love1 to expand or contract in our mind and our heart in the degree of our striving towards that which is just or is unjust8 #bf ,and to turn to one mystery more1 the most awful of all1 that of death--would any one pretend that our perception of justice1 of goodness and beauty1 or our intellectual1 sentient power1 our eagerness for all that draws near to the infinite1 all-powerful1 eternal1 has dwindled since death ceased to be held the immense and exclusive anguish of life8 ,does not each new generation find the burden lighter to bear as the forms of death grow less violent and its posthumous terrors fade8 ,it is the illness that goes before1 the physical pain1 of which we are to-day most afraid4 ,but death is no longer the hour of the wrathful1 inscrutable judge2 no longer the one and the terrible goal1 the gulf of misery and eternal punishment4 ,it is slowly becoming--indeed1 in some cases1 it has already become--the wished-for repose of a life that draws to its end4 ,its weight no longer oppresses each one of our actions2 and1 above all--for this is the most striking change--it has ceased to intrude itself into our morality4 ,and is this morality of ours less lofty1 less pure1 less profound1 because of the disinterestedness it has thus acquired8 ,has the loss of an overwhelming dread robbed mankind of a single precious1 indispensable feeling8 ,and must not life itself find gain in the importance wrested from death8 ,surely3 for the neutral forces we hold in reserve within us are waiting and ready2 and every discouragement1 sorrow1 or fear that departs has its place quickly filled by a certitude1 admiration1 or hope4 #bg ,the poet is inclined to personify fatality and justice1 and give outward form to forces really within us1 for the reason that to show them at work in ourselves is a matter of exceeding difficulty2 and further1 that the unknown and the infinite1 to the extent that they are unknown and infinite--i4e4 lacking personality1 intelligence1 and morality--are powerless to move us4 ,and here it is curious to note that we are in no degree affected by material mystery1 however dangerous or obscure1 or by psychological justice1 however involved its results4 ,it is not the incomprehensible in nature that masters and crushes us1 but the thought that nature may possibly be governed by a conscious1 superior1 reasoning will2 one that1 although superhuman1 has yet some kinship with the will of man4 ,what we dread1 in a word1 is the presence of a ,god2 and speak as we may of fatality1 justice1 or mystery1 it is always ,god whom we fear3 a being1 that is1 like ourselves1 though almighty1 eternal1 invisible1 and infinite4 ,a moral force that was not conceived in the image of man would most likely inspire no fear4 ,it is not the unknown in nature that fills us with dread2 it is not the mystery of the world we live in4 ,it is the mystery of another world from which we recoil2 it is the moral and not the material enigma4 ,there is nothing1 for instance1 more obscure than the combination of causes which produce the earthquake1 that most terrible of all catastrophes4 ,but the earthquake1 though it alarm our body1 will bring no fear to our mind unless we regard it as an act of justice1 of mysterious vengeance1 of supernatural punishment4 ,and so it is1 too1 with the thunderstorm1 with illness1 with death1 with the myriad phenomena and accidents of life4 ,it would seem as though the true alarm of our soul1 the great fear which stirs other instincts within us than that of mere self-preservation1 is only called forth by the thought of a more or less determinate ,god1 of a mysterious consciousness1 a permanent1 invisible justice1 or a vigilant1 eternal ,providence4 ,but does the interpreter of life1 who succeeds in arousing this fear1 bring us nearer to truth2 and is it his mission to convey to us sorrow1 and trouble1 and painful emotion1 or peace1 satisfaction1 tranquillity1 and light8 #bh ,it is not easy1 ,i know1 to free oneself wholly from traditional interpretation1 for it often succeeds in reasserting its sway upon us at the very moment we strain every nerve to escape from our bondage4 ,so has it happened with ,ibsen1 who1 in his search for a new and almost scientific form of fatality1 erected the veiled1 majestic1 tyrannical figure of heredity in the centre of the very best of his dramas4 ,but it is not the scientific mystery of heredity which awakens within us those human fears that lie so much deeper than the mere animal fear2 for heredity alone could no more achieve this result than could the scientific mystery of a dreaded disease1 a stellar or marine phenomenon4 ,no1 the fear that differs so essentially from the one called forth by an imminent natural danger1 is aroused within us by the obscure idea of justice which heredity assumes in the drama2 by the daring pronouncement that the sins of the fathers are almost invariably visited on the children2 by the suggestion that a sovereign ,judge1 a goddess of the species1 is for ever watching our actions1 inscribing them on her tablets of bronze1 and balancing in her eternal hands rewards long deferred and never-ending punishment4 ,in a word1 even while we deny it1 it is the face of ,god that reappears2 and from beneath the flagstone one had believed to be sealed for ever comes once again the murmur of the very ancient flame of ,hell4 #bi ,this new form of fatality1 or fatal justice1 is less defensible1 and less acceptable too1 than the ancient and elementary power1 which1 being general and undefined1 and offering no too strict explanation of its actions1 lent itself to a far greater number of situations4 ,in the special case selected by ,ibsen1 it is not impossible that some kind of accidental justice may be found1 as it is not impossible that the arrow a blind man shoots into a crowd may chance to strike a parricide4 ,but to found a law upon this accidental justice is a fresh perversion of mystery1 for elements are thereby introduced into human morality which have no right to be there2 elements which we would welcome1 which would be of value1 if they stood for definite truths2 but seeing that they are as alien to truth as to actual life1 they should be ruthlessly swept aside4 ,i have shown elsewhere that our experience fails to detect the most minute trace of justice in the phenomena of heredity2 or1 in other words1 that it fails to discover the slightest moral connection between the cause3 the fault of the father1 and the effect3 the punishment or reward of the child4 ,the poet has the right to fashion hypotheses1 and to forge his way ahead of reality4 ,but it will often happen that when he imagines himself to be far in advance1 he will truly have done no more than turn in a circle2 that where he believes that he has discovered new truth1 he has merely strayed on to the track of a buried illusion4 ,in the case ,i have named1 for the poet to have taught us more than experience teaches1 he should have ventured still further1 perhaps1 in the negation of justice4 ,but whatever our opinion may be on this point1 it at least is clear that the poet who desires his hypotheses to be legitimate1 and of service1 must take heed that they be not too manifestly contrary to the experience of everyday life2 for in that case they become useless and dangerous--scarcely honourable even1 if the error be deliberately made4 #cj ,and now1 what are we to conclude from all this8 ,many things1 if one will1 but this above all3 that it behoves the interpreter of life1 no less than those who are living that life1 to exercise greatest care in their manner of handling and admitting mystery1 and to discard the belief that whatever is noblest and best in life or in drama must of necessity rest in the part that admits of no explanation4 ,there are many most beautiful1 most human1 most admirable works which are almost entirely free from this disquiet of universal mystery4 ,we derive no greatness1 sublimity1 or depth from unceasingly fixing our thoughts on the infinite and the unknown4 ,such meditation becomes truly helpful only when it is the unexpected reward of the mind that has loyally1 unreservedly1 given itself to the study of the finite and the knowable2 and to such a mind it will soon be revealed how strangely different is the mystery which precedes what one does not know from the mystery that follows closely on what one has learned4 ,the first would seem to contain many sorrows1 but that is only because the sorrows are grouped there too closely1 and have their home upon two of three peaks that stand too nearly together4 ,in the second is far less sadness1 for its area is vast2 and when the horizon is wide1 there exists no sorrow so great but it takes the form of a hope4 #ca ,yes1 human life1 viewed as a whole1 may appear somewhat sorrowful2 and it is easier1 in a manner pleasanter even1 to speak of its sorrows and let the mind dwell on them1 than to go in search of1 and bring into prominence1 the consolations life has to offer4 ,sorrows abound--infallible1 evident sorrows2 consolations1 or rather the reasons wherefore we accept with some gladness the duty of life1 are rare and uncertain1 and hard of detection4 ,sorrows seem noble1 and lofty1 and fraught with deep mystery2 with mystery that almost is personal1 that we feel to be near to us4 ,consolations appear egotistical1 squalid1 at times almost base4 ,but for all that1 and whatever their ephemeral likeness may be1 we have only to draw closer to them to find that they too have their mystery2 and if this seem less visible and less comprehensible1 it is only because it lies deeper and is far more mysterious4 ,the desire to live1 the acceptance of life as it is1 may perhaps be mere vulgar expressions2 but yet they are probably in unconscious harmony with laws that are vaster1 more conformable with the spirit of the universe1 and therefore more sacred1 than is the desire to escape the sorrows of life1 or the lofty but disenchanted wisdom that for ever dwells on those sorrows4 #cb ,our impulse is always to depict life as more sorrowful than truly it is2 and this is a serious error1 to be excused only by the doubts that at present hang over us4 ,no satisfying explanation has so far been found4 ,the destiny of man is as subject to unknown forces to-day as it was in the days of old2 and though it be true that some of these forces have vanished1 others have arisen in their stead4 ,the number of those that are really all-powerful has in no way diminished4 ,many attempts have been made1 and in countless fashions1 to explain the action of these forces and account for their intervention2 and one might almost believe that the poets1 aware of the futility of these explanations in face of a reality which1 all things notwithstanding1 is ever revealing more and more of itself1 have fallen back on fatality as in some measure representing the inexplicable1 or at least the sadness of the inexplicable4 ,this is all that we find in ,ibsen1 the ,russian novels1 the highest class of modern fiction1 ,flaubert1 c4 7see ,war and ,peace1 for instance1 ,l',education ,sentimentale1 and many others74 ,it is true that the fatality shown is no longer the goddess of old1 or rather 7at least to the bulk of mankind7 the clearly determinate ,god1 inflexible1 implacable1 arbitrary1 blind1 although constantly watchful2 the fatality of to-day is vaster1 more formless1 more vague1 less human or actively personal1 more indifferent and more universal4 ,in a word1 it is now no more than a provisional appellation bestowed1 until better be found1 on the general and inexplicable misery of man4 ,in this sense we may accept it1 perhaps1 though we do no more than give a new name to the unchanging enigma1 and throw no light on the darkness4 ,but we have no right to exaggerate its importance or the part that it plays2 no right to believe that we are truly surveying mankind and events from a point of some loftiness1 beneath a definitive light1 or that there is nothing to seek beyond1 because at times we become deeply conscious of the obscure and invincible force that lies at the end of every existence4 ,doubtless1 from one point of view1 unhappiness must always remain the portion of man1 and the fatal abyss be ever open before him1 vowed as he is to death1 to the fickleness of matter1 to old age and disease4 ,if we fix our eyes only upon the end of a life1 the happiest and most triumphant existence must of necessity contain its elements of misery and fatality4 ,but let us not make a wrong use of these words2 above all1 let us not1 through listlessness or undue inclination to mystic sorrow1 be induced to lessen the part of what could be explained if we would only give more eager attention to the ideas1 the passions and feelings of the life of man and the nature of things4 ,let us always remember that we are steeped in the unknown2 for this thought is the most fruitful of all1 the most sustaining and salutary4 ,but the neutrality of the unknown does not warrant our attributing to it a force1 or designs1 or hostility1 which it cannot be proved to possess4 ,at ,erfurt1 in his famous interview with ,goethe1 ,napoleon is said to have spoken disparagingly of the dramas in which fatality plays a great part--the plays that we1 in our passion for calamity1 are apt to consider the finest4 ,they belong1 he remarked1 to an epoch of darkness2 but how can fatality touch us to-day8 ,policy--that is fatality6 ,napoleon's dictum is not very profound3 policy is only the merest fragment of fatality2 and his destiny very soon made it manifest to him that the desire to contain fatality within the narrow bounds of policy was no more than a vain endeavour to imprison in a fragile vase the mightiest of the spiritual rivers that bathe our globe4 ,and yet1 incomplete as this thought of ,napoleon's may have been1 it still throws some light on a tributary of the great river4 ,it was a little thing1 perhaps1 but on these uncertain shores it is the difference between a little thing and nothing that kindles the energy of man and confirms his destiny4 ,by this ray of light1 such as it was1 he long was enabled to dominate all that portion of the unknown which he declined to term fatality4 ,to us who come after him1 the portion of the unknown that he controlled may well seem insufficient1 if surveyed from an eminence1 and yet it was truly one of the vastest that the eye of man has ever embraced4 ,through its means every action of his was accomplished1 for evil or good4 ,this is not the place to judge him1 or even to wonder whether the happiness of a century might not have been better served had he allowed events to guide him2 what we are considering here is the docility of the unknown4 ,for us1 with our humbler destinies1 the problem still is the same1 and the principle too2 the principle being that of ,goethe3 to stand on the outermost limit of the conceivable2 but never to overstep this line1 for beyond it begins at once the land of chimeras1 the phantoms and mists of which are fraught with danger to the mind4 ,it is only when the intervention of the mysterious1 invisible1 or irresistible becomes strikingly real1 actually perceptible1 intelligent1 and moral1 that we are entitled to yield or lay down our arms1 meekly accepting the inactive silence they bring2 but their intervention1 within these limits1 is rarer than one imagines4 ,let us recognise that mystery of this kind exists2 but1 until it reveal itself1 we have not the right to halt1 or relax our efforts2 not the right to cast down our eyes in submission1 or resign ourselves to silence4 ,,iii ,,the ,,kingdom ,,of ,,matter #a ,in a preceding essay we were compelled to admit that1 eager as man might be to discover in the universe a sanction for his virtues1 neither heaven nor earth displayed the least interest in human morality2 and that all things would combine to persuade the upright among us that they merely are dupes1 were it not for the fact that they have in themselves an approval words cannot describe1 and a reward so intangible that we should in vain endeavour to portray its least evanescent delights4 ,is that all1 some may ask1 is that all we may hope in return for this mighty effort of ours1 for our constant denial and pain1 for our sacrifice of instincts1 of pleasures1 that seemed so legitimate1 necessary even1 and would certainly have added to our happiness had there not been within us the desire for ,justice--a desire arising we know not whence1 belonging1 perhaps1 to our nature1 and yet in apparent conflict with the vaster nature whereof we all form part8 ,yes1 it is open to you1 if you choose1 to regard as a very poor thing this unsubstantial justice3 since its only reward is a vague satisfaction1 and that this satisfaction even grows hateful1 and destroys itself1 the moment its presence becomes too perceptibly felt4 ,bear in mind1 however1 that all things that happen in our moral being must be equally lightly held1 if regarded from the point of view whence you deliver this judgment4 ,love is a paltry affair1 the moment of possession once over that alone is real and ensures the perpetuity of the race2 and yet we find that as man grows more civilised1 the act of possession assumes ever less value in his eyes if there go not with it1 if there do not precede1 accompany1 and follow it1 the insignificant emotion built up of our thoughts and our feelings1 of our sweetest and tenderest hours and years4 ,beauty1 too1 is a trivial matter3 a beautiful spectacle1 a beautiful face1 or body1 or gesture3 a melodious voice1 or noble statue--sunrise at sea1 flowers in a garden1 stars shining over the forest1 the river by moonlight--or a lofty thought1 an exquisite poem1 an heroic sacrifice hidden in a profound and pitiful soul4 ,we may admire these things for an instant2 they may bring us a sense of completeness no other joy can convey2 but at the same time there will steal over us a tinge of strange sorrow1 unrest2 nor will they give happiness to us1 as men use the word1 should other events have contrived to make us unhappy4 ,they produce nothing the eye can measure1 or weigh2 nothing that others can see1 or will envy2 and yet1 were a magician suddenly to appear1 capable of depriving one of us of this sense of beauty that may chance to be in him1 possessed of the power of extinguishing it for ever1 with no trace remaining1 no hope that it ever will spring into being again--would we not rather lose riches1 tranquillity1 health even1 and many years of our life1 than this strange faculty which none can espy1 and we ourselves can scarcely define8 ,not less intangible1 not less elusive1 is the sweetness of tender friendship1 of a dear recollection we cling to and reverence2 and countless other thoughts and feelings1 that traverse no mountain1 dispel no cloud1 that do not even dislodge a grain of sand by the roadside4 ,but these are the things that build up what is best and happiest in us2 they are we1 ourselves2 they are precisely what those who have them not should envy in those who have4 ,the more we emerge from the animal1 and approach what seems the surest ideal of our race1 the more evident does it become that these things1 trifling as they well may appear by the side of nature's stupendous laws1 do yet constitute our sole inheritance2 and that1 happen what may to the end of time1 they are the hearth1 the centre of light1 to which mankind will draw ever more and more closely4 #b ,we live in a century that loves the material1 but1 while loving it1 conquers it1 masters it1 and with more passion than any preceding period has shown2 in a century that would seem consumed with desire to comprehend matter1 to penetrate1 enslave it1 possess it once and for all to repletion1 satiety--with the wish1 it may be1 to ransack its every resource1 lay bare its last secret1 thereby freeing the future from the restless search for a happiness there seemed reason once to believe that matter contained4 ,so1 in like manner1 is it necessary first to have known the love of the flesh before the veritable love can reveal its deep and unchanging purity4 ,a serious reaction will probably arise1 some day1 against this passion for material enjoyment2 but man will never be able to cast himself wholly free4 ,nor would the attempt be wise4 ,we are1 after all1 only fragments of animate matter1 and it could not be well to lose sight of the starting-point of our race4 ,and yet1 is it right that this starting-point should enclose in its narrow circumference all our wishes1 all our happiness1 the totality of our desires8 ,in our passage through life we meet scarcely any who do not persist1 with a kind of unreasoning obstinacy1 in throning the material within them1 and there maintaining it supreme4 ,gather together a number of men and women1 all of them free from life's more depressing cares--an assembly of the elect1 if you will--and pronounce before them the words beatitude1 happiness1 joy1 felicity1 ideal4 ,imagine that an angel1 at that very instant1 were to seize and retain1 in a magic mirror or miraculous basket1 the images these words would evoke in the souls that should hear them4 ,what would you see in the basket or mirror8 ,the embrace of beautiful bodies2 gold1 precious stones1 a palace1 an ample park2 the philtre of youth1 strange jewels and gauds representing vanity's dreams2 and1 let us admit it1 prominent far above all would be sumptuous repasts1 noble wines1 glittering tables1 splendid apartments4 ,is humanity still too near its beginning to conceive other things8 ,has the hour not arrived when we might have reasonably hoped the mirror to reflect a powerful1 disinterested intellect1 a conscience at rest3 a just and loving heart1 a perception1 a vision capable of detecting1 absorbing beauty wherever it be--the beauty of evening1 of cities1 of forests and seas1 no less than of face1 of a word or a smile1 of an action or movement of soul8 ,the foreground of the magical mirror at present reflects beautiful women1 undraped2 when shall we see1 in their stead1 the deep1 great love of two beings to whom the knowledge has come that it is only when their thoughts and their feelings1 and all that is more mysterious still than thoughts and feelings1 have blended1 and day by day become more essentially one1 that the joys of the flesh are freed from the after disquiet1 and leave no bitterness behind8 ,when shall we find1 instead of the morbid1 unnatural excitement produced by too copious1 oppressive repasts1 by stimulants that are the insidious agents of the very enemy we seek to destroy--when shall we find1 in their place1 the contained and deliberate gladness of a spirit that is for ever exalted because it for ever is seeking to understand1 and to love8 4 4 4 ,these things have long been known1 and their repetition may well seem of little avail4 ,and yet1 we need but to have been twice or thrice in the company of those who stand for what is best in mankind1 most intellectually1 sentiently human1 to realise how uncertain and groping their search is still for the happier hours of life2 to marvel at the resemblance the unconscious happiness they look for bears to the happiness craved by the man who has no spiritual existence2 to note how opaque1 to their eyes1 is the cloud which separates all that pertains to the being who rises from all that is his who descends4 ,some will say that the hour is not yet when man can thus make clear division between the part of the spirit and that of the flesh4 ,but when shall that hour be looked for if those for whom it should long since have sounded still suffer the obscurest prejudice of the mass to guide them when they set forth in search of their happiness8 ,when they achieve glory and riches1 when love comes to meet them1 they will be free1 it may be1 from a few of the coarser satisfactions of vanity1 a few of the grosser excesses2 but beyond this they strive not at all to secure a happiness that shall be more spiritual1 more purely human4 ,the advantage they have does not teach them to widen the circle of material exaction1 to discard what is less justifiable4 ,in their attitude towards the pleasures of life they submit to the same spiritual deprivation as1 let us say1 some cultured man who may have wandered into a theatre where the play being performed is not one of the five or six masterpieces of universal literature4 ,he is fully aware that his neighbours' applause and delight are called forth1 in the main1 by more or less obnoxious prejudices on the subject of honour1 glory1 religion1 patriotism1 sacrifice1 liberty1 or love--or perhaps by some feeble1 dreary poetical effusion4 ,none the less1 he will find himself affected by the general enthusiasm2 and it will be necessary for him1 almost at every instant1 to pull himself violently together1 to make startled appeal to every conviction within him1 in order to convince himself that these partisans of hoary errors are wrong1 notwithstanding their number1 and that he1 with his isolated reason1 alone is right4 #c ,indeed1 when we consider the relation of man to matter1 it is surprising to find how little light has yet been thrown upon it1 how little has been definitely fixed4 ,elementary1 imperious1 as this relation undoubtedly is1 humanity has always been wavering1 uncertain1 passing from the most dangerous confidence to the most systematic distrust1 from adoration to horror1 from asceticism and complete renouncement to their corresponding extremes4 ,the days are past when an irrational1 useless abstinence was preached1 and put into practice--an abstinence often fully as harmful as habitual excess4 ,we are entitled to all that helps to maintain1 or advance1 the development of the body2 this is our right1 but it has its limits2 and these limits it would be well to define with the utmost exactness1 for whatever may trespass beyond must infallibly weaken the growth of that other side of ourselves1 the flower that the leaves round about it will either stifle or nourish4 ,and humanity1 that so long has been watching this flower1 studying it so intently1 noting its subtlest1 most fleeting perfumes and shades1 is most often content to abandon to the caprice of the temperament1 be this evil or good1 to the passing moment1 or to chance1 the government of the unconscious forces that will1 like the leaves1 be discreetly active1 sustaining1 life-giving1 or profoundly selfish1 destructive1 and fatal4 ,hitherto1 perhaps1 this may have been done with impunity2 for the ideal of mankind 7which at the start was concerned with the body alone7 wavered long between matter and spirit4 ,to-day1 however1 it clings1 with ever profounder conviction1 to the human intelligence4 ,we no longer strive to compete with the lion1 the panther1 the great anthropoid ape1 in force or agility2 in beauty with the flower or the shine of the stars on the sea4 ,the utilisation by our intellect of every unconscious force1 the gradual subjugation of matter and the search for its secret--these at present appear the most evident aim of our race1 and its most probable mission4 ,in the days of doubt there was no satisfaction1 or even excess1 but was excusable1 and moral1 so long as it wrought no irreparable loss of strength or actual organic harm4 ,but now that the mission of the race is becoming more clearly defined1 the duty is on us to leave on one side whatever is not directly helpful to the spiritual part of our being4 ,sterile pleasures of the body must be gradually sacrificed2 indeed1 in a word1 all that is not in absolute harmony with a larger1 more durable energy of thought2 all the little harmless delights which1 however inoffensive comparatively1 keep alive by example and habit the prejudice in favour of inferior enjoyment1 and usurp the place that belongs to the satisfactions of the intellect4 ,these last differ from those of the body1 whose development some may assist and others retard4 ,into the elysian fields of thought enters no satisfaction but brings with it youth1 and strength1 and ardour2 nor is there a thing in this world on which the mind thrives more readily than the ecstasy1 nay1 the debauch1 of eagerness1 comprehension1 and wonder4 #d ,the time must come1 sooner or later1 when our morality will have to conform to the probable mission of the race2 when the arbitrary1 often ridiculous restrictions whereof it is at present composed will be compelled to make way for the inevitable logical restrictions this mission exacts4 ,for the individual1 as for the race1 there can be but one code of morals--the subordination of the ways of life to the demands of the general mission that appears entrusted to man4 ,the axis will shift1 therefore1 of many sins1 many great offences2 until at last for all the crimes against the body there shall be substituted the veritable crimes against human destiny2 in other words1 whatever may tend to impair the authority1 integrity1 leisure1 liberty1 or power of the intellect4 ,but by this we are far from suggesting that the body should be regarded as the irreconcilable enemy which the ,christian theory holds it4 ,far from that1 we should strive1 first of all1 to endow it with all possible vigour and beauty4 ,but it is like a capricious child3 exacting1 improvident1 selfish2 and the stronger it grows the more dangerous does it become4 ,it knows no cult but that of the passing moment4 ,in imagination1 desires1 it halts at the trivial thought1 the primitive1 fleeting1 foolish delight of the little dog or the negro4 ,the satisfactions procured by the intellect--the comfort1 security1 leisure1 the gladness--it regards as no more than its due1 and enjoys in fullest complacency4 ,left to itself1 it would enjoy these so stupidly1 savagely1 that it would very soon stifle the intellect from which it derived these favours4 ,hence there is need for certain restrictions1 renouncements1 which all men must observe2 not only those who have reason to hope1 and believe1 that they are effectively striving to solve the enigma1 to bring about the fulfilment of human destiny and the triumph of mind over insensible matter1 but also the crowds in the ranks of the massive1 unconscious rearguard1 who placidly watch the phosphorescent evolutions of mind as its light gleams on the world's elementary darkness4 ,for humanity is a unique and unanimous entity4 ,when the thought of the mass--that thought which scarcely is thought--travels downwards1 its influence is felt by philosopher and poet1 astronomer and chemist2 it has its pronounced effect on their character1 morals1 ideals1 their sense of duty1 habits of labour1 intellectual vigour4 ,if the myriad1 uniform1 petty ideas in the valley fall short of a certain elevation1 no great idea shall spring to life on the mountain-peak4 ,down there the thought may have little strength1 but there are countless numbers who think it2 and the influence this thought acquires may be almost termed atmospheric4 ,and they up above on the mountain1 the precipice1 the edge of the glacier1 will be helped by this influence1 or harmed1 in the degree of its brightness or gloom1 of its reaching them1 buoyed up with generous feeling1 or heavily charged with brutal habit and coarse desire4 ,the heroic action of a people 7as1 for instance1 the ,french ,revolution1 the ,reformation1 all wars of independence and liberation7 will fertilise and purify this people for more centuries than one4 ,but far less will satisfy those who toil at the fulfilment of destiny4 ,let but the habits of the men round about them become a little more noble1 their desires a little more disinterested2 let but their passions and eagerness1 their pleasures and love1 be illumined by one ray of brightness1 of grace1 of spiritual fervour2 and those up above will feel the support1 and draw their breath freely1 no longer compelled to struggle with the instinctive part of themselves2 and the power that is in them will obey the more readily1 and mould itself to their hand4 ,the peasant who1 instead of carousing at the beershop1 spends a peaceful ,sunday at home1 with a book1 beneath the trees of his orchard2 the humble citizen whom the emotions or din of the racecourse cannot tempt from some worthy enjoyment1 from the pleasure of a reposeful afternoon2 the workman who no longer makes the streets hideous with obscene or ridiculous song1 but wanders forth into the country1 or1 from the ramparts1 watches the sunset--all these bring their meed of help3 their great assistance1 unconscious though it be1 and anonymous1 to the triumph of the vast human flame4 #e ,but how much there is to be done1 and learned1 before this great flame can arise in serene1 secure brightness6 ,we have said that man1 in his relation to matter1 is still in the experimental1 groping stage of his earliest days4 ,he lacks even definite knowledge as to the kind of food best adapted for him1 or the quantity of nourishment he requires2 he is still uncertain as to whether he be carnivorous or frugivorous4 ,his intellect misleads his instinct4 ,it was only yesterday that he learned that he had probably erred hitherto in the choice of his nourishment2 that he must reduce by two-thirds the quantity of nitrogen he absorbs1 and largely increase the volume of hydrocarbons2 that a little fruit1 or milk1 a few vegetables1 farinaceous substances--now the mere accessory of the too plentiful repasts which he works so hard to provide1 which are his chief object in life1 the goal of his efforts1 of his strenuous1 incessant labour--are amply sufficient to maintain the ardour of the finest and mightiest life4 ,it is not my purpose here to discuss the question of vegetarianism1 or to meet the objections that may be urged against it2 though it must be admitted that of these objections not one can withstand a loyal and scrupulous inquiry4 ,i1 for my part1 can affirm that those whom ,i have known to submit themselves to this regimen have found its result to be improved or restored health1 marked addition of strength1 and the acquisition by the mind of a clearness1 brightness1 well-being1 such as might follow the release from some secular1 loathsome1 detestable dungeon4 ,but we must not conclude these pages with an essay on alimentation1 reasonable as such a proceeding might be4 ,for in truth all our justice1 morality1 all our thoughts and feelings1 derive from three or four primordial necessities1 whereof the principal one is food4 ,the least modification of one of these necessities would entail a marked change in our moral existence4 ,were the belief one day to become general that man could dispense with animal food1 there would ensue not only a great economic revolution--for a bullock1 to produce one pound of meat1 consumes more than a hundred of provender--but a moral improvement as well1 not less important and certainly more sincere and more lasting than might follow a second appearance on the earth of the ,envoy of the ,father1 come to remedy the errors and omissions of his former pilgrimage4 ,for we find that the man who abandons the regimen of meat abandons alcohol also2 and to do this is to renounce most of the coarser and more degraded pleasures of life4 ,and it is in the passionate craving for these pleasures1 in their glamour1 and the prejudice they create1 that the most formidable obstacle is found to the harmonious development of the race4 ,detachment therefrom creates noble leisure1 a new order of desires1 a wish for enjoyment that must of necessity be loftier than the gross satisfactions which have their origin in alcohol4 ,but are days such as these in store for us--these happier1 purer hours8 ,the crime of alcohol is not alone that it destroys its faithful and poisons one half of the race1 but also that it exercises a profound1 though indirect1 influence upon those who recoil from it in dread4 ,the idea of pleasure which it maintains in the crowd forces its way1 by means of the crowd's irresistible action1 into the life even of the elect1 and lessens1 perverts1 all that concerns man's peace and repose1 his expansiveness1 gladness and joy2 retarding1 too1 it may safely be said1 the birth of the truer1 profounder ideal of happiness3 one that shall be simpler1 more peaceful and grave1 more spiritual and human4 ,this ideal is evidently still very imaginary1 and may seem of but little importance2 and infinite time must elapse1 as in all other cases1 before the certitude of those who are convinced that the race so far has erred in the choice of its aliment 7assuming the truth of this statement to be borne out by experience7 shall reach the confused masses1 and bring them enlightenment and comfort4 ,but may this not be the expedient ,nature holds in reserve for the time when the struggle for life shall have become too hopelessly unbearable--the struggle for life that to-day means the fight for meat and for alcohol1 double source of injustice and waste whence all the others are fed1 double symbol of a happiness and necessity whereof neither is human8 #f ,whither is humanity tending8 ,this anxiety of man to know the aim and the end is essentially human2 it is a kind of infirmity or provincialism of the mind1 and has nothing in common with universal reality4 ,have things an aim8 ,why should they have2 and what aim or end can there be1 in an infinite organism8 ,but even though our mission be only to fill for an instant a diminutive space that could as well be filled by the violet or grasshopper1 without loss to the universe of economy or grandeur1 without the destinies of this world being shortened or lengthened thereby by one hour2 even though this march of ours count for nothing1 though we move but for the sake of motion1 tending no-whither1 this futile progress may nevertheless still claim to absorb all our attention and interest2 and this is entirely reasonable1 it is the loftiest course we can pursue4 ,if it lay in the power of an ant to study the laws of the stars2 and if1 intent on this study1 though fully aware that these laws are immutable1 never to be modified1 it declined to concern itself further with the affairs or the future of the anthill--should we1 who stand to the insect as the great gods are supposed to stand to ourselves1 who judge it and dominate it1 as we believe ourselves to be dominated and judged2 should we approve this ant1 or1 for all its universality1 regard it as either good or moral8 ,reason1 at its apogee1 becomes sterile2 and inertia would be its sole teaching did it not1 after recognising the pettiness1 the nothingness1 of our passions and hopes1 of our being1 and lastly1 of reason itself1 retrace its footsteps back to the point whence it shall be able once more to take eager interest in all these poor trivialities1 in this same nothingness1 as holding them the only things in the world for which its assistance has value4 ,we know not whither we go1 but may still rejoice in the journey2 and this will become the lighter1 the happier1 for our endeavour to picture to ourselves the next place of halt4 ,where will this be8 ,the mountain-pass lies ahead1 and threatens2 but the roads already are widening and becoming less rugged2 the trees spread their branches1 crowned with fresh blossom2 silent waters are flowing before us1 reposeful and peaceful4 ,tokens all these1 it may be1 of our nearing the vastest valley mankind yet has seen from the height of the tortuous paths it has ever been climbing6 ,shall we call it the ,first ,valley of ,leisure8 ,distrust as we may the surprises the future may have in store1 be the troubles and cares that await us never so burdensome1 there still seems some ground for believing that the bulk of mankind will know days when1 thanks1 it may be1 to machinery1 agricultural chemistry1 medicine perhaps1 or ,i know not what dawning science1 labour will become less incessant1 exhausting1 less material1 tyrannical1 pitiless4 ,what use will humanity make of this leisure8 ,on its employment may be said to depend the whole destiny of man4 ,were it not well that his counsellors now should begin to teach him to use such leisure he has in a nobler and worthier fashion8 ,it is the way in which hours of freedom are spent that determines1 as much as war or as labour1 the moral worth of a nation4 ,it raises or lowers1 it replenishes or exhausts4 ,at present we find1 in these great cities of ours1 that three days' idleness will fill the hospitals with victims whom weeks or months of toil had left unscathed4 #g ,thus we return to the happiness which should be1 and perhaps in course of time will be1 the real human happiness4 ,had we taken part in the creation of the world1 we should probably have bestowed more special1 distinctive force on all that is best in man1 most immaterial1 most essentially human4 ,if a thought of love1 or a gleam of the intellect2 a word of justice1 an act of pity1 a desire for pardon or sacrifice2 if a gesture of sympathy1 a craving of one's whole being for beauty1 goodness1 or truth--if emotions like these could affect the universe as they affect the man who has known them1 they would call forth miraculous flowery1 supernatural radiance1 inconceivable melody2 they would scatter the night1 recall spring and the sunshine1 stay the hand of sickness1 grief1 disaster and misery2 gladness would spring from them1 and youth be restored2 while the mind would gain freedom1 thought immortality1 and life be eternal4 ,no resistance could check them2 their reward would follow as visibly as it follows the labourer's toll1 the nightingale's song1 or the work of the bee4 ,but we have learned at last that the moral world is a world wherein man is alone2 a world contained in ourselves that bears no relation to matter1 upon which its influence is only of the most exceptional and hazardous kind4 ,but none the less real1 therefore1 is this world1 or less infinite3 and if words break down when they try to tell of it1 the reason is only that words1 after all1 are mere fragments of matter1 that seek to enter a sphere where matter holds no dominion4 ,the images that words evoke are for ever betraying the thoughts for which they stand4 ,when we try to express perfect joy1 a noble1 spiritual ecstasy1 a profound1 everlasting love1 our words can only compare them with animal passion1 with drunkenness1 brutal and coarse desire4 ,and not only do they thus degrade the noblest triumphs of the soul of man by likening them to primitive instincts1 but they incite us to believe1 in spite of ourselves1 that the object or feeling compared is less real1 less true or substantial1 than the type to which it is referred4 ,herein lies the injustice and weakness of every attempt that is made to give voice to the secrets of men4 ,and yet1 be words never so faulty1 let us still pay careful heed to the events of this inner world4 ,for of all the events it has lain in our power to meet hitherto1 they alone truly are human4 #h ,nor should they be regarded as useless1 even though the immense torrent of material forces absorb them1 as it absorbs the dew that falls from the pale morning flower4 ,boundless as the world may be wherein we live1 it is yet as hermetically enclosed as a sphere of steel4 ,nothing can fall outside it1 for it has no outside2 nor can any atom possibly be lost4 ,even though our species should perish entirely1 the stage through which it has caused certain fragments of matter to pass would remain1 notwithstanding all ulterior transformations1 an indelible principle and an immortal cause4 ,the formidable1 provisional vegetations of the primary epoch1 the chaotic and immature monsters of the secondary grounds--,plesiosaurus1 ,ichthyosaurus1 ,pterodactyl--these might also regard themselves as vain and ephemeral attempts1 ridiculous experiments of a still puerile nature1 and conceive that they would leave no mark upon a more harmonious globe4 ,and yet not an effort of theirs has been lost in space4 ,they purified the air1 they softened the unbreathable flame of oxygen1 they paved the way for the more symmetrical life of those who should follow4 ,if our lungs find in the atmosphere the aliment they need1 it is thanks to the inconceivably incoherent forests of arborescent fern4 ,we owe our brains and nerves of to-day to fearful hordes of swimming or flying reptiles4 ,these obeyed the order of their life4 ,they did what they had to do4 ,they modified matter in the fashion prescribed to them4 ,and we1 by carrying particles of this same matter to the degree of extraordinary incandescence proper to the thought of man1 shall surely establish in the future something that never shall perish4 ,,iv ,,the ,,past #a ,our past stretches behind us in long perspective4 ,it slumbers on the horizon like a deserted city shrouded in mist4 ,a few peaks mark its boundary1 and soar predominant into the air2 a few important acts stand out1 like towers1 some with the light still upon them1 others half ruined and slowly decaying beneath the weight of oblivion4 ,the trees are bare1 the walls crumble1 and shadow slowly steals over all4 ,everything seems to be dead there1 and rigid1 save only when memory1 slowly decomposing1 lights it for an instant with an illusory gleam4 ,but apart from this animation1 derived only from our expiring recollections1 all would appear to be definitively motionless1 immutable for ever1 divided from present and future by a river that shall not again be crossed4 ,in reality it is alive2 and1 for many of us1 endowed with a profounder1 more ardent life than either present or future4 ,in reality this dead city is often the hot-bed of our existence2 and1 in accordance with the spirit in which men return to it1 shall some find all their wealth there1 and others lose what they have4 #b ,our conception of the past has much in common with our conception of love and happiness1 destiny1 justice1 and most of the vague but therefore not less potent spiritual organisms that stand for the mighty forces we obey4 ,our ideas have been handed down to us ready-made by our predecessors2 and even when our second consciousness wakes1 and1 proud in its conviction that henceforth nothing shall be accepted blindly1 proceeds most carefully to investigate these ideas1 it will squander its time questioning those that loudly protest their right to be heard1 and pay no heed to the others close by1 that as yet1 perhaps1 have said nothing4 ,nor have we1 as a rule1 far to go to discover these others4 ,they are in us and of us2 they wait for us to address them4 ,they are not idle1 notwithstanding their silence4 ,amid the noise and babble of the crowd they are tranquilly directing a portion of our real life2 and1 as they are nearer to truth than their self-satisfied sisters1 they will often be far more simple1 and far more beautiful too4 #c ,among the most stubborn of these ready-made ideas are those that preside over our conception of the past1 and render it a force as imposing and rigid as destiny2 a force that indeed becomes destiny working backwards1 with its hand outstretched to the destiny that burrows ahead1 to which it transmits the last link of our chains4 ,the one thrusts us back1 the other urges us forward1 with a like irresistible violence4 ,but the violence of the past is perhaps more terrible and more alarming4 ,one may disbelieve in destiny4 ,it is a god whose onslaught many have never experienced4 ,but no one would dream of denying the oppressiveness of the past4 ,sooner or later its effect must inevitably be felt4 ,those even who refuse to admit the intangible will credit the past1 which their finger can touch1 with all the mystery1 the influence1 the sovereign intervention whereof they have stripped the powers that they have dethroned2 thus rendering it the almost unique and therefore more dreadful god of their depopulated ,olympus4 #d ,the force of the past is indeed one of the heaviest that weigh upon men and incline them to sadness4 ,and yet there is none more docile1 more eager to follow the direction we could so readily give1 did we but know how best to avail ourselves of this docility4 ,in reality1 if we think of it1 the past belongs to us quite as much as the present1 and is far more malleable than the future4 ,like the present1 and to a much greater extent than the future1 its existence is all in our thoughts1 and our hand controls it2 nor is this only true of our material past1 wherein there are ruins that we perhaps can restore2 it is true also of the regions that are closed to our tardy desire for atonement2 it is true above all of our moral past1 and of what we consider to be most irreparable there4 #e ,the past is past1 we say1 and it is false2 the past is always present4 ,we have to bear the burden of our past1 we sigh1 and it is false2 the past bears our burden4 ,nothing can wipe out the past1 and it is false2 the least effort of will sends present and future travelling over the past to efface whatever we bid them efface4 ,the indestructible1 irreparable1 immutable past6 ,and that is no truer than the rest4 ,in those who speak thus it is the present that is immutable1 and knows not how to repair4 ,my past is wicked1 it is sorrowful1 empty1 we say again2 as ,i look back ,i can see no moment of beauty1 of happiness or love2 ,i see nothing but wretched ruins 4 4 4 ,and that is false2 for you see precisely what you yourself place there at the moment your eyes upon it4 #f ,our past depends entirely upon our present1 and is constantly changing with it4 ,our past is contained in our memory2 and this memory of ours1 that feeds on our heart and brain1 and is incessantly swayed by them1 is the most variable thing in the world1 the least independent1 the most impressionable4 ,our chief concern with the past1 that which truly remains and forms part of us1 is not what we have done1 or the adventures that we have met with1 but the moral reactions bygone events are producing within us at this very moment1 the inward being they have helped to form2 and these reactions1 that give birth to our sovereign1 intimate being1 are wholly governed by the manner in which we regard past events1 and vary as the moral substance varies that they encounter within us4 ,but with every step in advance that our feelings or intellect take1 a change will come in this moral substance2 and then1 on the instant1 the most immutable facts1 that seemed to be graven for ever on the stone and bronze of the past1 will assume an entirely different aspect1 will return to life and leap into movement1 bringing us vaster and more courageous counsels1 dragging memory aloft with them in their ascent2 and what was once a mass of ruin1 mouldering in the darkness1 becomes a populous city whereon the sun shines again4 #g ,we have an arbitrary fashion of establishing a certain number of events behind us4 ,we relegate them to the horizon of our memory2 and having set them there1 we tell ourselves that they form part of a world in which the united efforts of all mankind could not wipe away a tear1 or cause a flower to lift its head4 ,and yet1 while admitting that these events have passed beyond our control1 we still1 with the most curious inconsistency1 believe that they have full control over us2 whereas the truth is that they can only act upon us to the extent in which we have renounced our right to act upon them4 ,the past asserts itself only in those whose moral growth has ceased2 then1 and not till then1 does it become redoubtable4 ,from that moment we have indeed the irreparable behind us1 and the weight of what we have done lies heavy upon our shoulders4 ,but so long as the life of our mind and character flows uninterruptedly on1 so long will the past remain in suspense above us2 and1 as the glance may be that we send towards it1 will it1 complaisant as the clouds ,hamlet showed to ,polonius1 adopt the shape of the hope or fear1 the peace or disquiet1 that we are perfecting within us4 #h ,no sooner has our moral activity weakened than accomplished events rush forward and assail us2 and woe to him who opens the door1 and permits them to take possession of his hearth6 ,each one will vie with the other in overwhelming him with the gifts best calculated to shatter his courage4 ,it matters not whether our past has been happy and noble1 or lugubrious and criminal1 there shall still be great danger in allowing it to enter1 not as an invited guest1 but like a parasite settling upon us4 ,the result will be either sterile regret or impotent remorse2 and remorse and regrets of this kind are equally disastrous4 ,in order to draw from the past what is precious within it--and most of our wealth is there--we must go to it at the hour when we are strongest1 most conscious of mastery2 enter its domain1 and there make choice of what we require1 discarding the rest1 and laying our command upon it never to cross our threshold without our order4 ,like all things that only can live at the cost of our spiritual strength1 it will soon learn to obey4 ,at first1 perhaps1 it will endeavour to resist4 ,it will have recourse to artifice and prayer4 ,it will try to tempt us1 to cajole4 ,it will drag forward frustrated hopes and joys that are gone for ever1 broken affections1 well-merited reproaches1 expiring hatred and love that is dead1 squandered faith and perished beauty2 it will thrust before us all that once had been the marvellous essence of our ardour for life2 it will point to the beckoning sorrows1 decaying happiness1 that now haunt the ruin4 ,but we shall pass by1 without turning our head2 our hand shall scatter the crowd of memories1 even as the sage ,ulysses1 in the ,cimmerian night1 with his sword prevented the shades--even that of his mother1 whom it was not his mission to question--from approaching the black blood that would for an instant have given them life and speech4 ,we shall go straight to the joy1 the regret or remorse1 whose counsel we need2 or to the act of injustice we wish scrupulously to examine1 in order either to make reparation1 if such still be possible1 or that the sight of the wrong we did1 whose victims have ceased to be1 is required to give us the indispensable force that shall lift us above the injustice it still lies in us to commit4 #i ,yes1 even though our past contain crimes that now are beyond the reach of our best endeavours1 even then1 if we consider the circumstances of time and place1 and the vast plane of each human existence1 these crimes fade out of our life the moment we feel that no temptation1 no power on earth1 could ever induce us to commit the like again4 ,the world has not forgiven--there is but little that the external sphere will forget or forgive--and their material effects will continue1 for the laws of cause and effect differ from those which govern our consciousness4 ,at the tribunal of our personal justice1 however--the only tribunal which has decisive action on our inaccessible life1 as it is the only one whose decrees we cannot evade1 whose concrete judgments stir us to our very marrow--the evil action that we regard from a loftier plane than that at which it was committed1 becomes an action that no longer exists for us save in so far as it may serve in the future to render our fall more difficult2 nor has it the right to lift its head again except at the moment when we incline once more towards the abyss it guards4 ,bitter1 surely1 must be the grief of him in whose past there are acts of injustice whereof every avenue now is closed1 who is no longer able to seek out his victims1 and raise them and comfort them4 ,to have abused one's strength in order to despoil some feeble creature who has definitely succumbed beneath the blow2 to have callously thrust suffering upon a loving heart1 or merely misunderstood and passed by a touching affection that offered itself--these things must of necessity weigh heavily upon our life1 and induce a sorrow within us that shall not readily be forgotten4 ,but it depends on the actual point our consciousness has attained whether our entire moral destiny shall be depressed or lifted beneath this burden4 ,our actions rarely die3 and many unjust deeds of ours will therefore inevitably return to life some day to claim their due and start legitimate reprisals4 ,they will find our external life without defence2 but before they can reach the inward being at the centre of that life1 they must first listen to the judgment we have already passed on ourselves2 and in accordance with the nature of that judgment will the attitude be of these mysterious envoys1 who have come from the depths where cause and effect are poised in eternal equilibrium4 ,if it has indeed been from the heights of our newly acquired consciousness that we have questioned ourselves1 and condemned1 they will not be menacing justiciaries whom we shall suddenly see surging in from all sides1 but benevolent visitors1 friends we have almost expected1 and they will draw near us in silence4 ,they know in advance that the man before them is no longer the guilty creature they sought2 and instead of bringing hatred1 revolt1 and despair1 or punishments that degrade and kill1 they will come charged with ennobling1 consoling and purifying thought and penance4 #aj ,the things which differentiate the happy and strong from those who weep and will not be consoled1 all derive from the one same principle of confidence and ardour2 and thus it is that the manner in which we are able to recall what we have done or suffered is far more important than our actual sufferings or deeds4 ,no past1 viewed by itself1 can seem happy2 and the privileged of fate1 who reflect on what remains of the happy years that have flown1 have perhaps more reason for sorrow than the unfortunate ones who brood over the dregs of a life of wretchedness4 ,whatever was one day and has now ceased to be1 makes for sadness2 above all1 whatever was very happy and very beautiful4 ,the object of our regrets--whether these revolve around what has been or might have been--is therefore more or less the same for all men1 and their sorrow should be the same4 ,it is not1 however2 in one case it will reign uninterruptedly1 whereas in another it will only appear at very long intervals4 ,it must therefore depend on things other than accomplished facts4 ,it depends on the manner in which men will deal with these facts4 ,the conquerors in this world--those who waste no time setting up an imaginary irreparable and immutable athwart their horizon1 those who seem to be born afresh every morning in a world that for ever awakes anew to the future--these know instinctively that what appears to exist no longer is still existing intact1 that what appeared to be ended is only completing itself4 ,they know that the years time has taken from them are still in travail2 still1 under their new master1 obeying the old4 ,they know that their past is for ever in movement2 that the yesterday which was despondent1 decrepit and criminal1 will return full of joyousness1 innocence1 youth1 in the track of to-morrow4 ,they know that their image is not yet stamped on the days that are gone2 that a decisive deed1 or thought1 will suffice to break down the whole edifice2 that however remote or vast the shadow may be that stretches behind them1 they have only to put forth a gesture of gladness or hope for the shadow at once to copy this gesture1 and1 flashing it back to the remotest1 tiniest ruins of early childhood even1 to extract unexpected treasure from all this wreckage4 ,they know that they have retrospective action on all bygone deeds2 and that the dead themselves will annul their verdicts in order to judge afresh a past that to-day has transfigured and endowed with new life4 ,they are fortunate who find this instinct in the folds of their cradle4 ,but may the others not imitate it who have it not2 and is not human wisdom charged to teach us how we may acquire the salutary instincts that nature has withheld8 #aa ,let us not lull ourselves to sleep in our past2 and if we find that it tends to spread like a vault over our life1 instead of incessantly changing beneath our eye2 if the present grow into the habit of visiting it1 not like a good workman repairing thither to execute the labours imposed upon him by the commands of to-day1 but as a too passive1 too credulous pilgrim1 content idly to contemplate beautiful1 motionless ruins--then1 the more glorious1 the happier that our past may have been1 with all the more suspicion should it be regarded by us4 ,nor should we yield to the instinct that bids us accord it profound respect1 if this respect induce the fear in us that we may disturb its nice equilibrium4 ,better the ordinary past1 content with its befitting place in the shadow1 than the sumptuous past which claims to govern what has travelled beyond its reach4 ,better a mediocre but living present1 which acts as though it were alone in the world1 than a present which proudly expires in the chains of a marvellous long ago4 ,a single step that we take at this hour towards an uncertain goal1 is far more important to us than the thousand leagues we covered in our march towards a dazzling triumph in the days that were4 ,our past had no other mission than to lift us to the moment at which we are1 and there equip us with the needful experience and weapons1 the needful thought and gladness4 ,if1 at this precise moment1 it take from us and divert to itself one particle of our energy1 then1 however glorious it may have been1 it still was useless1 and had better never have been4 ,if we allow it to arrest a gesture that we were about to make1 then is our death beginning2 and the edifices of the future will suddenly take the semblance of tombs4 ,more dangerous still than the past of happiness and glory is the one inhabited by overpowering and too dearly cherished phantoms4 ,many an existence perishes in the coils of a fond recollection4 ,and yet1 were the dead to return to this earth1 they would say1 ,i fancy1 with the wisdom that must be theirs who have seen what the ephemeral light still hides from us3 ,dry your eyes4 ,there comes to us no comfort from your tears3 exhausting you1 they exhaust us also4 ,detach yourself from us1 banish us from your thoughts1 until such time as you can think of us without strewing tears on the life we still live in you4 ,we endure only in your recollection2 but you err in believing that your regrets alone can touch us4 ,it is the things you do that prove to us we are not forgotten1 and rejoice our manes2 and this without your knowing it1 without any necessity that you should turn towards us4 ,each time that our pale image saddens your ardour1 we feel ourselves die anew1 and it is a more perceptible1 irrevocable death than was our other2 bending too often over our tombs1 you rob us of the life1 the courage and love that you imagine you restore4 ,it is in you that we are1 it is in all your life that our life resides2 and as you become greater1 even while forgetting us1 so do we become greater too1 and our shades draw the deep breath of prisoners whose prison door is flung open4 ,if there be anything new we have learned in the world where we are now1 it is1 first of all1 that the good we did to you when we were1 like yourselves1 on the earth1 does not balance the evil wrought by a memory which saps the force and the confidence of life4 #ab ,above all1 let us envy the past of no man4 ,our own past was created by ourselves1 and for ourselves alone4 ,no other could have suited us1 no other could have taught us the truth that it alone can teach1 or given the strength that it alone can give4 ,and whether it be good or bad1 sombre or radiant1 it still remains a collection of unique masterpieces the value of which is known to none but ourselves2 and no foreign masterpiece could equal the action we have accomplished1 the kiss we received1 the thing of beauty that moved us so deeply1 the suffering we underwent1 the anguish that held us enchained1 the love that wreathed us in smiles or in tears4 ,our past is ourselves1 what we are and shall be2 and upon this unknown sphere there moves no creature1 from the happiest down to the most unfortunate1 who could foretell how great a loss would be his could he substitute the trace of another for the trace which he himself must leave in life4 ,our past is our secret1 promulgated by the voice of years2 it is the most mysterious image of our being1 over which ,time keeps watch4 ,this image is not dead2 a mere nothing degrades or adorns it2 it can still grow bright or sombre1 can still smile or weep1 express love or hatred2 and yet it remains recognisable for ever in the midst of the myriad images that surround it4 ,it stands for what we once were1 as our aspirations and hopes stand for what we shall be2 and the two faces blend1 that they may teach us what we are4 ,let us not envy the facts of the past1 but rather the spiritual garment that the recollection of days long gone will weave around the sage4 ,and though this garment be woven of joy or of sorrow1 though it be drawn from the dearth of events or from their abundance1 it shall still be equally precious2 and those who may see it shining over a life shall not be able to tell whether its quickening jewels and stars were found amid the grudging cinders of a cabin or upon the steps of a palace4 ,no past can be empty or squalid1 no events can be wretched3 the wretchedness lies in our manner of welcoming them4 ,and if it were true that nothing had happened to you1 that would be the most remarkable adventure that any man ever had met with2 and no less remarkable would be the light it would shed upon you4 ,in reality the facts1 the opportunities and possibilities1 the passions1 that await and invite the majority of men1 are all more or less the same4 ,some may be more dazzling than others2 their attendant circumstances may differ1 but they differ far less than the inward reactions that follow2 and the insignificant1 incomplete event that falls on a fertile heart and brain will readily attain the moral proportions and grandeur of an analogous incident which1 on another plane1 will convulse a people4 ,he who should see1 spread out before him1 the past lives of a multitude of men1 could not easily decide which past he himself would wish to have lived were he not able at the same time to witness the moral results of these dissimilar and unsymmetrical facts4 ,he might not impossibly make a fatal blunder2 he might choose an existence overflowing with incomparable happiness and victory1 that sparkle like wonderful jewels2 while his glance might travel indifferently over a life that appeared to be empty whereas it was truly steeped to the brim in serene emotions and lofty1 redeeming thoughts whereby1 though the eye saw nothing1 that life was yet rendered happy among all4 ,for we are well aware that what destiny has given1 and what destiny holds in reserve1 can be revolutionised as utterly by thought as by great victory or great defeat4 ,thought is silent2 it disturbs not a pebble on the illusory road we see2 but at the crossway of the more actual road that our secret life follows will it tranquilly erect an indestructible pyramid2 and thereupon1 suddenly1 every event1 to the very phenomena of earth and heaven1 will assume a new direction4 ,in ,siegfried's life1 it is not the moment when he forges the prodigious sword that is most important1 or when he kills the dragon and compels the gods from his path1 or even the dazzling second when he encounters love on the flaming mountain1 but indeed the brief instant wrested from eternal decrees1 the little childish gesture1 when one of his hands1 red with the blood of his mysterious victim1 having chanced to draw near his lips1 his eyes and ears are suddenly opened2 he understands the hidden language of all that surrounds him1 detects the treachery of the dwarf who represents the powers of evil1 and learns in a flash to do that which had to be done4 ,v ,,luck #a ,once upon a time1 an old ,servian legend tells us1 there were two brothers of whom one was industrious1 but unfortunate1 and the other lazy1 but overwhelmingly prosperous4 ,one day the unfortunate brother meets a beautiful girl who is tending sheep and weaving a golden thread4 ,to whom do these sheep belong8 he asks4 ,they belong to whom ,i belong4 ,and to whom do you belong8 ,to your brother3 ,i am his luck4 ,and where is my luck then8 ,very far from here4 ,can ,i find it8 ,yes1 if you look for it4 ,so he wanders away in search of his luck4 ,and one evening1 in a great forest1 he comes across a poor old woman asleep under a tree4 ,he wakes her and asks who she is4 ,don't you know me8 she answers4 ,it is true you never have seen me3 ,i am your luck4 ,and who can have given me so wretched a luck8 ,destiny4 ,can ,i find destiny8 ,yes1 if you look long enough4 ,so he goes off in search of destiny4 ,he travels a very long time1 and at last she is pointed out to him4 ,she lives in an enormous and luxurious palace2 but her wealth is dwindling day by day1 and the doors and windows of her abode are shrinking4 ,she explains to him that she passes thus1 alternately1 from misery to opulence2 and that her situation at a given moment determines the future of all the children who may come into the world at that moment4 ,you were born1 she says1 when my prosperity was on the wane2 and that is the cause of your ill-luck4 ,the only way1 she tells him1 to hoodwink or get the better of fortune would be to substitute the luck of ,militza1 his niece1 for his own1 seeing that she was born at a propitious period4 ,all he need do1 she says1 is to take this niece into his house1 and to declare to any one who may ask him that all he has belongs to ,militza4 ,he does as she bids him1 and his affairs at once take a new turn4 ,his herds multiply and grow fat1 his trees are bent beneath the masses of fruit1 unexpected inheritances come in1 his land bears prodigious crops4 ,but one morning1 as he stands there1 his heart filled with happiness1 eyeing a magnificent cornfield1 a stranger asks him who the owner may be of these wonderful ears of wheat that1 as they sway to and fro beneath the dew1 seem twice as heavy and twice as high as the ears in the adjoining field4 ,he forgets himself1 and answers1 ,they are mine4 ,at that very instant fire breaks out in the opposite end of the field1 and commences its ravages4 ,then he remembers the advice that he has neglected to follow3 he runs after the stranger shouting1 ,stop1 come back3 ,i made a mistake3 what ,i told you was not true6 ,this field is not mine3 it belongs to my niece ,militza6 ,and the flames have no sooner heard than they suddenly fall away1 and the corn shoots up afresh4 #b ,this naive and very ancient image1 which might almost serve to-day as an illustration of our actual ignorance1 proves that the mysterious problem of chance has not changed1 from the time of man's first questioning glance4 ,we have our thoughts1 which build up our intimate happiness or sorrow2 and upon this events from without have more or less influence4 ,in some men these thoughts will have acquired such strength1 such vigilance1 that without their consent nothing can enter the structure of crystal and brass1 they have been able to raise on the hill that commands the wonted road of adventures4 ,and we have our will1 which our thoughts feed and sustain2 and many useless or harmful events can be held in check by our will4 ,but around these islets1 within which is a certain degree of safety1 of immunity from attack1 extends a region as vast and uncontrollable as the ocean1 a region swayed by chance as the waves are swayed by the wind4 ,neither will nor thought can keep one of these waves from suddenly breaking upon us2 and we shall be caught unawares1 and perhaps be wounded and stunned4 ,only when the wave has retreated can thought and will begin their beneficent action4 ,then they will raise us1 and bind up our wounds2 restore animation1 and take careful heed that the mischief the shock has wrought shall not reach the profound sources of life4 ,their mission extends no further1 and may1 on the surface1 appear very humble4 ,in reality1 however1 unless chance assume the irresistible form of cruel disease or death1 the workings of will and thought are sufficient to neutralise all its efforts1 and to preserve what is best and most essential to man in human happiness4 #c ,redoubtable1 multitudinous chance is for ever threading its watchful way through the midst of the events we have foreseen1 and round and about our most deliberate actions1 wherewith we are slowly tracing the broad lines of our existence4 ,the air we breathe1 the time we traverse1 the space through which we move1 are all peopled by lurking circumstances1 which pick us out from among the crowd4 ,the least study of their habits will quickly convince us that these strange daughters of hazard1 who should be blind and deaf as their father1 by no means act in his irresponsible fashion4 ,they are well aware of what they are doing1 and rarely make a mistake4 ,with inexplicable certainty do they move to the passer-by whom they have been sent to confront1 and lightly touch his shoulder4 ,two men may be travelling upon the same road1 and at the same hour2 but there will be no hesitation or doubt in the ranks of the double1 invisible troop whom fortune has ambushed there4 ,towards one a band of white virgins will hasten1 bearing palms and amphorae1 presenting the thousand unexpected delights of the journey2 as the other approaches1 the ,evil ,women1 whom ,aeschylus tells of1 will hurl themselves from the hedges1 as though they were charged to avenge1 upon this unwitting victim1 some inexpiable crime committed by him before he was born4 #d ,there is scarcely one of us who has not been able1 in some measure1 to follow the workings of destiny in life4 ,we have all known men who met with a prosperity or disaster entirely out of relation to any of their actions2 men upon whom good or bad luck seemed suddenly1 at a turn of the road1 to spring from the ground or descend from the stars1 undeserved1 unprovoked1 but complete and inevitable4 ,one1 we will say1 who scarcely has given a thought to some appointment for which he knows his rival to be better equipped1 will see this rival vanish at the decisive moment1 another1 who has counted upon the protection of a most influential friend1 will see this friend die on the very day when his assistance could be of value4 ,a third1 who has neither talent nor beauty1 will arrive each morning at the ,palace of ,fortune1 ,glory or ,love at the brief instant when every door lies open2 while another1 a man of great merit1 who long has pondered the legitimate step he is taking1 presents himself at the hour when ill-luck shall have closed the gate for the next half-century4 ,one man will risk his health twenty times in imbecile feats1 and never experience the least ill-effect2 another will deliberately venture it in an honourable cause1 and lose it without hope of return4 ,to help the first1 thousands of unknown people1 who never have seen him1 will be obscurely working2 to hinder the second1 thousands of unknown people labour1 who are ignorant of his existence4 ,and all1 on the one side as well as the other1 are totally unaware of what they are doing2 they obey the same minute1 widely-distributed order2 and at the prescribed moment the detached pieces of the mysterious machine join1 dovetail1 unite2 and we have two complete and dissimilar destinies set into motion by ,time4 ,in a curious book on ,chance and ,destiny1 ,dr4 ,foissac gives various strange examples of the persistent1 inexplicable1 fundamental1 pre-ordained1 irreducible iniquity in which many existences are steeped4 ,as we go through page after page1 we feel almost as though we were being conducted through the disconcerting laboratories of another world where1 in the absence of every instrument that human justice and reason might hold indispensable1 happiness and sorrow are being parcelled out and allotted4 ,take1 for instance1 the life of ,vauvenargues1 one of the most admirable of men1 and certainly1 of all the great sages1 the most unfortunate4 ,whenever his fortune hangs in the balance1 he is attacked and prostrated by cruel disease2 and notwithstanding the efforts of his genius1 his bravery1 his moral beauty1 day after day he is wantonly betrayed or falls victim to gratuitous injustice2 and at the age of thirty-two he dies1 at the very moment when recognition is at last awaiting his work4 ,so too there is the terrible story of ,lesurques1#a in which we see a thousand coincidences that might have been contrived in hell1 blending and joining together to work the ruin of an innocent man2 while truth1 chained down by fate1 dumbly shrieking1 as we do when wrestling with nightmare1 is unable to put forth a single gesture that shall rend the veil of night4 ,there is ,aimar de ,ransonnet1 ,president of the ,parliament of ,paris1 one of the most upright of men1 who first of all is suddenly dismissed from his office1 sees his daughter die on a dunghill before his eyes1 his son perish at the hands of the executioner1 and his wife struck by lightning2 while he himself is accused of heresy and sent to the ,bastille1 where he dies of grief before he is brought to trial4 ,the calamities that befell ,oedipus and the ,atrides are regarded by us as improbable and fabulous2 and yet we find in contemporary history that fatality clings with no less persistence to families such as the ,stuarts1 the ,colignys1#b c41 and hounds to their death1 with what almost seems personal vindictiveness1 pitiable and innocent victims like ,henrietta of ,england1 daughter of ,henry ,,iv41 ,louise de ,bourbon1 ,joseph ,,ii41 and ,marie-,antoinette4 ,and again in another category1 what shall we say of the injustice--unintelligent but apparently almost conscious1 almost systematic and premeditated--of games of chance1 duels1 battles1 storms1 shipwrecks1 and fires8 ,or of the inconceivable luck of a ,chastenet de ,puysgur who1 after forty years' service1 in the course of which he took part in thirty battles and a hundred and twenty sieges1 always in the front rank and displaying the most romantic courage1 was never once touched by shot or steel1 while ,marshal ,oudinot was wounded thirty-five times1 and ,general ,trzel was struck by a bullet in every encounter8 ,what shall we say of the extraordinary fortune of ,lauzun1 ,chamillart1 ,casanova1 ,chesterfield1 c41 or of the inconceivable1 unvarying prosperity that attended the crimes of ,sylla1 ,marius1 or ,dionysius the ,elder1 who1 in his extreme old age1 after an odious but fantastically successful life1 died of joy on learning that the ,athenians had just crowned one of his tragedies8 ,or1 finally1 of ,herod1 surnamed the ,great or the ,ascalonite1 who swam in blood1 murdered one of his wives and five of his children1 put to death every upright man who might chance to offend him1 and yet was fortunate in all his undertakings8 #f ,these famous examples1 which might be indefinitely multiplied1 are in truth no more than the abnormal and historic presentments of what is shown to us every day1 in a humbler but not less emphatic fashion1 by the thousand and one caprices of propitious or contrary fortune at work on the small and ill-lit stage of ordinary life4 ,doubtless1 we must1 first of all1 when closely examining such insolent prosperity or unvarying disaster1 attribute a royal share to the physical or moral causes which are capable of explaining them4 ,had we ourselves known ,vauvenargues1 we should probably have detected a certain timidity1 irresolution or misplaced pride in his character whereby he was disabled from allowing the opportunity to mature or from seizing it with sufficient vigour4 ,and ,lesurques1 it may be1 was deficient in ability1 in one knows not what1 in that prodigious personal force that one expects to find in falsely-accused innocence4 ,nor can it be denied that the ,stuarts1 no less than ,joseph ,,ii4 and ,marie-,antoinette1 were guilty of enormous blunders that invited disaster2 or that ,lauzun1 ,casanova1 and ,lord ,chesterfield had flung to the winds those essential scruples that hinder the honest man4 ,so too is it certain that although the existence of ,sylla1 ,marius1 ,dionysius the ,elder1 and ,herod the ,ascalonite may have been externally almost incomparably fortunate1 few men1 ,i fancy1 would care to have lurking within them the strange1 restless1 blood-stained phantom1 possessed neither of thought nor of feeling1 on which the happiness must depend 7if the word happiness be indeed applicable here7 that is founded upon unceasing crime4 ,but1 this deduction being made1 and on the most reasonable1 most liberal scale 7which will become the more generous as we see more of life and understand it better1 and penetrate further into the secrets of little causes and great effects71 we shall still be forced to admit that there remains1 in these obstinately recurring coincidences1 in these indissoluble series of good or evil fortune1 these persistent runs of good or bad luck1 a considerable1 often essential1 and sometimes exclusive share that can be ascribed only to the impenetrable1 incontrovertible will of a real but unknown power2 which is known as ,chance1 ,fatality1 ,destiny1 ,luck1 ,fortune1 good or evil ,star1 ,angel with the ,white ,wings1 ,angel with the ,black ,wings1 and by many other names1 that vary in accordance with the more or less imaginative1 more or less poetic genius of centuries and peoples4 ,and here we have one of the most serious1 most perplexing problems of all those that have to be solved by man before he may legitimately regard himself as the principal1 independent and irrevocable inhabitant of this earth4 #g ,let us reduce the problem to its simplest terms1 and submit it to our reason4 ,first1 however1 let us consider whether it affects man alone4 ,we have with us1 upon this curiously incomprehensible globe1 silent and faithful companions of our existence2 and we shall often find it helpful to let our eyes rest upon these when1 having reached certain altitudes that perhaps are illusory1 giddiness seizes our brain and inclines us too readily to the idea that the stars1 the gods or the veiled representatives of the sublime laws of the universe1 are concerned solely with us4 ,these poor brothers of our animal life1 that are so calmly1 so confidently resigned1 would appear to know many things that we have forgotten2 they are the tranquil custodians of the secret that we seek so anxiously4 ,it is evident that animals1 and notably domestic animals1 have also a kind of destiny4 ,they too know what prolonged and gratuitous happiness means2 they also have encountered the persistent misfortune for which no cause can be found4 ,they have the same right as we to speak of their star1 their good or bad luck1 their prosperity or disaster4 ,compare the fate of the cab-horse1 that ends its days at the knacker's1 after having passed through the hands of a hundred brutal and nameless masters1 with that of the thorough-bred which dies of old age in the stable of a kind-hearted master2 and from the point of view of justice 7unless we accept the ,buddhist theory1 that life in this world is the reward or punishment of an anterior existence7 explanation is as completely lacking as in the case of the man whom chance has reduced to poverty or raised to wealth4 ,there is1 in ,flanders1 a breed of draught-dogs upon which destiny alternately lavishes her favour and her spite4 ,some will be bought by a butcher1 and lead a magnificent life4 ,the work is trifling3 in the morning1 harnessed four abreast1 they draw a light cart to the slaughter-house1 and at night1 galloping joyously1 triumphantly1 home through the narrow streets of the ancient towns with their tiny1 lit-up gables1 bring it back1 overflowing with meat4 ,between-times there is leisure1 and marvellous leisure1 among the rats and the waste of the slaughter-house4 ,they are copiously fed1 they are fat1 they shine like seals1 and taste in its fulness the only happiness dreamed of by the simple and ferreting instinct of the honest dog4 ,but their unfortunate brethren of the same litter1 that the lame sand-pedlar buys1 or the old collector of household refuse1 or the needy peasant with his great1 cruel clogs--these are chained to heavy carts or shapeless barrows2 they are filthy1 mangy1 hairless1 emaciated1 starving2 and follow till they die the circles of a hell into which they were thrust by a few coppers dropped into some horny palm4 ,and1 in a world less directly subject to man1 there must evidently be partridges1 pheasants1 deer1 hares1 which have no luck1 which never escape the gun2 while others1 one knows not how or why1 emerge unscathed from every battue4 ,they1 therefore1 are exposed1 like ourselves1 to incontestable injustice4 ,but it does not occur to us1 when considering their hardships1 to set all the gods in motion or seek explanation from the mysterious powers2 and yet what happens to them may well be no more than the image1 naively simplified1 of what happens to us4 ,it is true that we play the precise part1 in their case1 of those mysterious powers whom we seek in our own4 ,but what right have we to expect from these last more consciousness1 more intelligent justice1 than we ourselves show in our dealings with animals8 ,and in any event1 if this instance shall only have deprived chance of a little of its useless prestige and have proportionately augmented our spirit of initiative and struggle1 there will be a gain the importance of which is by no means to be despised4 #h ,still further allowance must therefore be made2 but yet there undoubtedly remains--at least as far as the more complex life of man is concerned--a cause of good or evil fortune as yet untouched by our explanations1 in the often visible will of chance1 which one might almost call the small change of fatality4 ,we know--and this is one of those formless but fundamental ideas on the laws of life that the experience of thousands of years has turned into a kind of instinct--we know that men exist who1 other things being equal1 are lucky or unlucky4 ,circumstances permitted me to follow very closely the career of a friend of mine who was dogged by persistent ill-fortune4 ,i do not mean to imply by this that his life was unhappy4 ,it is even remarkable that the malign influences always respected the broad lines of his veritable happiness2 probably because these were well guarded4 ,for he had in him a strong moral existence1 profound thoughts and hopes1 feelings and convictions4 ,he was well aware that these were possessions that fortune could not touch3 which indeed could not be destroyed without his consent4 ,destiny is not invincible2 through life's very centre runs a great inward canal1 which we have the power to turn towards happiness or sorrow2 although its ramifications1 that extend over our days1 and the thousand tributaries that flow in from external hazards1 are all independent of our will4 ,it is thus that a beautiful river1 streaming down from the heights and ashine with magnificent glaciers1 passes at length through plains and through cities1 whence it receives only poisonous water4 ,for an instant the river is troubled2 and we fear lest it lose1 and never recover again1 the image of the pure blue sky that the crystal fountains had lent3 the image that seemed its soul1 and the deep and the limpid expression of its great strength4 ,but if we rejoin it1 down yonder1 beneath those great trees1 we shall find that it has already forgotten the foulness of the gutters4 ,it has caught the azure again in its transparent waves2 and flows on to the sea1 as clear as it was on the days when it first smilingly leapt from its source on the mountains4 ,and so1 as regards this friend of mine1 although forced more than once to shed tears1 they were at least not of the kind that memory never forgets1 not of those that fall from our eyes as we mourn our own death4 ,every failure1 the inevitable disappointment once over1 served only in effect to knit him the closer to his secret happiness1 to affirm this within him1 and draw a more sombre outline around it1 that it might thereby appear the more precious1 and ardent1 and certain4 ,but no sooner had he quitted this charmed enclosure than hostile incidents vied with each other in their attacks upon him4 ,as for instance--he was a very good fencer3 he had three duels1 and was wounded each time by a less skilful adversary4 ,if he went on board ship1 the voyage would rarely be prosperous4 ,whatever undertaking he put money into was sure to turn out badly4 ,a judicial error1 into which a whole series of curiously malevolent circumstances dragged him1 was productive of long and serious trouble4 ,further1 although his face was agreeable1 and the expression of his eyes loyal and frank1 he was not what one calls sympathetic3 he did not arouse at first sight that spontaneous affection which we often give1 without knowing why1 to the unknown who passes1 to an enemy even4 ,nor was he more fortunate in his affections4 ,of a loving disposition1 and infinitely worthier of being loved than most of those to whom he was sacrificed by the chance-governed heart of women--here again he met with nothing but treachery1 deceit and sorrow4 ,he went his way1 extricating himself as best he could from the paltry snares that malicious fortune prepared at every step2 nor was he discouraged or deeply saddened1 only somewhat surprised at so strange a persistence2 until at last there came the great and solitary good fortune of his life3 a love that was the complement of the one that was eager within him1 a love that was complete1 passionate1 exclusive1 unalterable4 ,and from that moment it was as though he had come under the influence of another star1 the beneficent rays of which were blending with his own2 vexatious events grew slowly remoter1 fewer1 warier of attacking him1 tardier in their approach4 ,they seemed reluctantly to abandon their habit of selecting him as their victim4 ,he actually saw his luck turn4 ,and now that he has gone back1 as it were1 into the indifferent and neutral atmosphere of chance common to most men1 he smiles when he remembers the time when every gesture of his was watched by the invisible enemy1 and aroused a danger4 #i ,let us not look to the gods for an explanation of these phenomena4 ,until these gods shall have clearly explained themselves1 there is nothing that they can explain for us4 ,and destiny1 which is merely the god of which we know least1 has less right than any of the others to intervene and cry to us1 as it does from the depths of its inscrutable night3 ,it is ,i who so willed it6 ,nor let us invoke the illimitable laws of the universe1 the intentions of history1 the will of the worlds1 the justice of the stars4 ,these powers exist3 we submit to them1 as we submit to the might of the sun4 ,but they act without knowing us2 and within the wide circle of their influence a liberty remains to us still that is probably immense4 ,they have better work on hand than to be for ever bending over us to lift a blade of grass or drop a leaf in the little paths of our anthill4 ,since we ourselves are here the parties concerned1 it is1 ,i imagine1 within ourselves that the key of the mystery shall be found2 for it is probable that every creature carries within him the best solution of the problem that he presents4 ,within us1 underlying the conscious existence that our reason and will control1 is a profounder existence1 one side of which connects with a past beyond the record of history1 the other with a future that thousands of years cannot exhaust4 ,we may safely conceive that all the gods lie hidden within it2 that those wherewith we have peopled the earth and the planets will emerge one by one1 in order to give it a name and a form that our imagination may understand4 ,and as man's vision grows clearer1 as he shows less desire for image and symbol1 so will the number of these names1 the number of these forms1 tend to diminish4 ,he will slowly arrive at the stage when there shall be one only that he will proclaim1 or reserve2 when it shall be revealed to him that this last form1 this last name1 is truly no more than the last image of a power whose throne was always within him4 ,then will the gods that had gone forth from us be found again in ourselves2 and it is there that we will question them to-day4 #aj ,i hold therefore that it is in this unconscious life of ours1 in this existence that is so vast1 so divine1 so inexhaustible and unfathomable1 that we must seek for the explanation of fortunate or contrary chances4 ,within us is a being that is our veritable ego1 our first-born3 immemorial1 illimitable1 universal1 and probably immortal4 ,our intellect1 which is merely a kind of phosphorescence that plays on this inner sea1 has as yet but faint knowledge of it4 ,but our intellect is gradually learning that every secret of the human phenomena it has hitherto not understood must reside there1 and there alone4 ,this unconscious being lives on another plane than our intellect1 in another world4 ,it knows nothing of ,time and ,space1 the two formidable but illusory walls between which our reason must flow if it would not be hopelessly lost4 ,it knows no proximity1 it knows no distance2 past and future concern it not1 or the resistance of matter4 ,it is familiar with all things2 there is nothing it cannot do4 ,to this power1 this knowledge1 we have indeed at all times accorded a certain varying recognition2 we have given names to its manifestations1 we have called them instinct1 soul1 unconsciousness1 sub-consciousness1 reflex action1 presentiment1 intuition1 c4 ,we credit it more especially with the indeterminate and often prodigious force contained in those of our nerves that do not directly serve to produce our will and our reason3 a force that would appear to be the very fluid of life4 ,its nature is probably more or less the same in all men2 but it has very different methods of communicating with the intellect4 ,in some men this unknown principle is enshrined at so great a depth that it concerns itself solely with physical functions and the permanence of the species2 whereas in others it would seem to be for ever on the alert1 rising again and again to the surface of external and conscious life1 which its fairy-like presence quickens2 intervening at every instant1 warning1 deciding1 counselling2 blending with most of the essential facts of a career4 ,whence comes this faculty8 ,there are no fixed or certain laws4 ,we do not detect1 for instance1 any constant relation between the activity of the unconsciousness and the development of the intellect4 ,this activity obeys rules of which we know nothing4 ,so far as we at present can tell1 it would seem to be purely accidental4 ,we discover it in one man1 and not in another2 nor have we any clue that shall help us to guess at the reason of this difference4 #aa ,the probable course pursued by fortunate or contrary chances may well be as follows4 ,a happy or untoward event1 that has sprung from the profound recesses of great and eternal laws1 arises before us and completely blocks the way4 ,it stands motionless there3 immovable1 inevitable1 disproportionate4 ,it pays no heed to us2 it has not come on our account1 but for itself1 because of itself4 ,it ignores us completely4 ,it is we who approach the event2 we who1 having arrived within the sphere of its influence1 will either fly from it or face it1 try a circuitous route or fare boldly onwards4 ,let us assume that the event is disastrous3 fire1 death1 disease1 or a somewhat abnormal form of accident or calamity4 ,it waits there1 invisible1 indifferent1 blind1 but perfect and unalterable2 but as yet it is merely potential4 ,it exists entire1 but only in the future2 and for us1 whose intellect and consciousness are served by senses unable to perceive things otherwise than through the succession of time1 it is as though it were not4 ,let us be still more precise2 let us take the case of a shipwreck4 ,the ship that must perish has not yet left the port2 the rock or the shoal that shall rend it sleeps peacefully beneath the waves2 the storm that shall burst forth at the end of the month is slumbering1 far beyond our gaze1 in the secret of the skies4 ,normally1 were nothing written1 had the catastrophe#c not already taken place in the future1 fifty passengers would have arrived from five or six different countries1 and have duly gone on board4 ,but destiny has clearly marked the vessel for its own4 ,she must most certainly perish4 ,and for months past1 perhaps for years1 a mysterious selection has been at work amongst the passengers who were to have departed upon the same day4 ,it is possible that out of fifty who had originally intended to sail1 only twenty will cross the gangway at the moment of lifting the anchor4 ,it is even possible that not a single one of the fifty will listen to the insistent claims of the circumstance that1 but for the disaster ahead1 would have rendered their departure imperative1 and that their place will be taken by twenty or thirty others in whom the voice of ,chance does not speak with a similar power4 ,here we touch the profoundest depths of the profoundest of human enigmas2 and the hypothesis necessarily falters4 ,but is it not more reasonable1 in the fictitious case before us--wherein we merely thrust into prominence what is of constant occurrence in the more obscure conjunctures of daily life--to regard both decision and action as emanating from our unconsciousness1 rather than from doubtful1 and distant1 gods8 ,our unconsciousness is aware of the catastrophe3 it must be3 our unconsciousness sees it2 for it knows neither time nor space1 and the disaster is therefore happening as actually before its eyes as before the eyes of the eternal powers4 ,the mode of prescience matters but little4 ,out of the fifty travellers who have been warned1 two or three will have had a real presentiment of the danger2 these will be the ones in whom unconsciousness is free and untrammelled1 and therefore more readily able to attain the first1 and still obscure1 layers of intellect4 ,the others suspect nothing3 they inveigh against the inexplicable obstacles and delays3 they strain every nerve to arrive in time1 but their departure becomes impossible4 ,they fall ill1 take a wrong road1 change their plans1 meet with some insignificant adventure1 have a quarrel1 a love affair1 a moment of idleness or forgetfulness1 which detains them in spite of themselves4 ,to the first it will never have even occurred to sail on the ill-starred boat1 although this be the one that they should logically1 inevitably1 have been compelled to choose4 ,but the efforts that their unconsciousness has put forth to save them have their workings so deep down that most of these men will have no idea that they owe their life to a fortunate chance2 and they will honestly believe that they never intended to sail by the ship that the powers of the sea had claimed4 #ab ,as for those who punctually make their appearance at the fatal tryst1 they belong to the tribe of the unlucky4 ,they are the unfortunate race of our race4 ,when the rest all fly1 they alone remain in their places4 ,when others retreat1 they advance boldly4 ,they infallibly travel by the train that shall leave the rails1 they pass underneath the tower at the exact moment of its collapse1 they enter the house in which the fire is smouldering1 cross the forest on which lightning shall fall1 entrust all they have to the banker who means to abscond4 ,they love the one woman on earth whom they should have avoided1 they make the gesture they should not have made1 they do the thing they should not have done4 ,but when fortune beckons and the others are hastening1 urged by the deep voice of benevolent powers1 these pass by1 not hearing2 and1 vouchsafed no advice or warning but that of their intellect1 the very wise old guide whose purblind eyes see only the tiny paths at the foot of the mountain1 they go astray in a world that human reason has not yet understood4 ,these men have surely the right to exclaim against destiny2 and yet not on the grounds that they would prefer4 ,they have the right to ask why it has withheld from them the watchful guard who warns their brethren4 ,but1 this reproach once made--and it is the cardinal reproach against irreducible injustice--they have no further cause of complaint4 ,the universe is not hostile to them4 ,calamities do not pursue them2 it is they who go towards calamity ,things from without wish them no ill2 the mischief comes from themselves4 ,the misfortune they meet has not been lying in wait for them2 they selected it for their own4 ,with them1 as with all men1 events are posted along the course of their years1 like goods in a bazaar that stand ready for the customer who shall buy them4 ,no one deceives them2 they merely deceive themselves4 ,they are in no wise persecuted2 but their unconscious soul fails to perform its duty4 ,is it less adroit than the others3 is it less eager8 ,does it slumber hopelessly in the depths of its secular prison3 and can no amount of will-power arouse it from its fatal lethargy1 and force the redoubtable doors that lead from the life that unconsciously is aware of all things to the intelligent life that knows nothing8 #ac ,a friend in whose presence ,i was discussing these matters said to me yesterday3 ,life1 whose questions are more searching than those of the philosophers1 will this very day compel me to add a somewhat curious problem to those you have stated4 ,i am wondering what the result will be when two 'lucks'--in other words1 two unconsciousnesses1 of which one is adroit and fortunate1 the other inept and bungling--meet and in some measure blend in the same venture1 the same undertaking8 ,which will triumph over the other8 ,i soon shall know4 ,this afternoon ,i propose to take a step that will be of supreme importance to the person ,i value above all others in this world4 ,her entire future may almost be said to depend upon it1 her exterior happiness1 the possibility of her living in accordance with her nature and her rights4 ,now to me chance has always been a faithful and far-seeing friend2 and as ,i glance over my past1 and review the five or six decisive moments which1 as with all men1 were the golden pivots on which fortune turned1 ,i am induced to believe in my star1 and am morally certain that if ,i alone were concerned in the step ,i am taking to-day1 it would be bound to succeed1 because ,i am 'lucky4' ,but the person on whose behalf ,i am acting has never been fortunate4 ,her intellect is remarkably subtle and profound1 her will is a thousand times stronger and better balanced than my own2 but1 with all this1 one can only believe that she possesses a foolish or malignant unconsciousness1 which has persistently1 ruthlessly1 exposed her to act after act of injustice1 dishonesty1 and treachery1 has robbed her again and again of her due1 and compelled her to travel the path of disastrous coincidence4 ,be sure that it would have forced her to embark on the ship that you speak of4 ,i ask myself1 therefore1 what attitude will my vigilant1 thoughtful unconsciousness adopt towards this indolent and sinning brother1 in whose name it will have to act1 whose place1 as it were1 it will take8 ,how1 and where1 is the momentous decision being at this moment arrived at1 in search of which ,i shall so soon set forth8 ,what power is it that now1 at this very moment1 while ,i am speaking1 is balancing the pros and cons1 and decreeing the happiness or sorrow of the woman ,i represent8 ,from which sphere1 or perhaps immemorial virtue1 from what hidden spirit or invisible star1 will the weight fall that shall incline the scale to light or to darkness8 ,to judge by outward appearance1 decision must rest with the will1 the reason1 the interest of the parties engaged2 in reality it often is otherwise4 ,when one finds oneself thus face to face with the problem which directly affects a person we love1 this problem no longer appears quite so simple2 our eyes open wider1 and we throw a startled1 anxious1 in a sense almost a virgin glance1 upon all this unknown that leads us and that we are compelled to obey4 ,i take this step therefore with more emotion1 ,i put forth more zeal and vigour1 than if it were my own life1 my own happiness1 that stood in peril4 ,she for whom ,i am acting is indeed 'more ,i than ,i am myself1' and for a long time past her happiness has been the source of mine4 ,of this both my heart and my reason are fully aware2 but does my unconsciousness know8 ,my reason and heart1 that form my consciousness1 are barely thirty years old2 my unconscious soul1 still reminiscent of primitive secrets1 may well date centuries back4 ,its evolution is very deliberate4 ,it is as slow as a world that turns in time without end4 ,it will probably therefore not yet have learned that a second existence has linked itself to mine1 and completely absorbs it4 ,how many years must elapse before the great news shall penetrate to its retreat8 ,here again we note its diversity1 its inequality4 ,in one man1 perhaps1 unconsciousness will immediately recognise what is taking place in his heart2 in another1 it will very tardily lend itself to the phenomena of reason4 ,there is a love1 again1 such as that of the mother for her child1 in which it moves in advance of both heart and reason4 ,only after a very long time does the unconscious soul of a mother separate itself from that of her children2 it watches over these at first with far more zeal and solicitude than over the mother4 ,but1 in a love like mine1 who shall say whether my unconsciousness has gathered that this love is more essential to me than my life8 ,i myself believe that it is satisfied that the step ,i propose to take in no way concerns me4 ,it will not appear2 it will not intervene4 ,at the very moment when ,i shall be feverishly displaying all the energy ,i possess1 when ,i shall be striving for victory more keenly than were my salvation at stake1 it will be tending its own mysterious affairs deep down in its shadowy dwelling4 ,were ,i seeking justice for myself1 it would already be on the alert4 ,it would know1 perhaps1 that ,i had better do nothing to-day4 ,i should probably have not the slightest idea of intervention2 but it would raise some unforeseen obstacle4 ,i should fall ill2 catch a bad cold1 be prevented by some secondary event from arriving at the unpropitious hour4 ,then1 when ,i was actually in the presence of the man who held my destiny in his hands1 my vigilant friend would spread its wings over me1 its breath would inspire me1 its light would dispel my darkness4 ,it would dictate to me the words that ,i must say3 they would be the only words that could meet the secret objections of the master of my ,fate4 ,it would regulate my attitude1 my silence1 my gestures2 it would endow me with the confidence1 the nameless influence1 which often will govern the decisions of men far more than the reasons of reason or the eloquence of interest4 ,but here ,i am sorely afraid that my unconsciousness will do none of these things4 ,it will remain perfectly passive4 ,it will not appear on the familiar threshold4 ,in its obtuseness1 impervious to the fact that my life has ceased to be self-contained1 it will act in accordance with its ancient traditions1 those that have ruled it these hundreds of years2 it will persist in regarding this matter as one that does not concern me1 and will believe that in helping my failure it will be doing me service2 whereas in truth it will afflict me more grievously1 cause me more sorrow1 than if it were to betray me at the approach of death4 ,i shall be importing1 therefore1 into this affair1 only the palest reflection1 a kind of phantom1 of my own luck2 and ,i ask myself with dread whether this will suffice to counterbalance the contrary fortune which ,i have1 as it were1 assumed1 and which ,i represent4 #ad ,some days later my friend informed me that his action had been unsuccessful4 ,it may be that this reverse was only due to chance or to his own want of confidence4 ,for the confidence that sees success ahead pursues it with a pertinacity and resource of which hesitation and doubt are incapable2 nor is it troubled by any of those involuntary weaknesses which give so great an advantage to the adversary's instinct4 ,and there may probably be much truth also in his manner of depicting unconsciousness4 ,for truly1 there are depths in us at which unconsciousness and confidence would seem to blend1 and it becomes difficult to say where the first begins1 or the second leaves off4 ,we will not pursue this too subtle inquiry1 but rather consider the other and more direct questions that life is ever putting to us concerning one of its greatest problems--chance4 ,this possesses what may be called a daily interest4 ,it asks us1 for instance1 what attitude we should adopt towards men who are incontestably unlucky2 men whose evil star has such pernicious power that it infallibly brings disaster to whatever comes within the range--often a very wide one--of its baleful influence4 ,ought we unhesitatingly to fly from such men1 as ,dr4 ,foissac advises8 ,yes1 doubtless1 if their misfortunes arise from an imprudent and unduly hazardous spirit1 a heedless1 quarrelsome1 mischief-making1 ,utopian or clouded mind4 ,ill-luck is a contagious disease2 and one unconsciousness will often infect another4 ,but if the misfortunes be wholly unmerited1 or fall upon those who are dear to us1 flight were unjust and shameful4 ,in such a case the conscious side of our being--which1 though it know but little1 is yet able to fashion truths of a different order1 truths that might almost be the first flowers of a dawning world--is bound to resist the universal wisdom of unconsciousness1 bound to brave its warnings and involve it in its own ruin1 which may well be a victory upon an ideal plane that one day perhaps shall appeal to the unconsciousness also4 #ae ,we ask ourselves1 therefore1 whether unconsciousness1 which we regard as the source of our luck1 is really incapable of change or improvement4 ,have we not all of us noticed how strange are the ways of chance8 ,when we behold it active in a small town1 or among a certain number of men within the range of our own observation1 the goddess would seem to become as persistent as a gadfly1 and no less fantastic4 ,her very marked personality and character will vary in accordance with the event or being whereon she may fasten4 ,she has all kinds of eccentricities1 but pursues each one logically to the finish4 ,her first gesture will tell us nothing2 from her second we can predict all that she means to do4 ,protean divinity that no image could completely describe1 here she leaps suddenly forth1 like a fountain in the midst of a desert1 to disappear after having given birth to an ephemeral oasis2 there she returns at regular intervals1 collecting and scattering1 like migratory birds that obey the rhythm of the seasons4 ,on our right she fells a man and concerns herself with him no further2 on our left she bears down another1 and furiously worries her victim4 ,but1 though she bring favour or ruin1 she will almost always remain astoundingly faithful to the character she has once and for all assumed in a particular case4 ,this man1 for instance1 who has been unsuccessful in war1 will continue to be unsuccessful2 that other will invariably win or lose at cards2 a third will infallibly be deceived2 a fourth will find water1 fire1 or the dangers of the street especially hostile2 a fifth will be constantly fortunate or unfortunate in love1 money matters1 c41 and so to the end4 ,all this may prove nothing1 but we may regard it at least as some indication that her realm is truly within us and not without2 and that a hidden force that emanates only from us provides her with form and with vestment4 ,her habits at times will suddenly alter1 one eccentricity producing another2 some brusque change of front will give the lie to her character1 to confirm it the instant after in a new atmosphere4 ,we say then that luck turns4 ,may it not rather be our unconsciousness that is gradually developing1 at last displaying some prudence1 attention1 and slowly becoming aware that important events are stirring in the world to which it is attached8 ,has it gained some experience8 ,has a ray of intelligence1 a spark of will-power1 filtered through to its lair and hinted at danger8 ,does it learn1 after years have flown1 and trial after trial has had to be borne1 the wisdom of casting aside its confident apathy8 ,can external disaster arouse it from perilous slumber8 ,or1 if it always has known what was happening over the roof of its prison1 is it able1 after long and painful effort1 at last1 at the critical moment1 to contrive some sort of crevice in the great wall1 built by the indifference of centuries1 that separates it from its unknown sisters2 and does it thus succeed in entering the ephemeral life on which a part of its own life depends8 #af ,and yet we must admit that this hypothesis of unconsciousness will not suffice to account for all the injustice of chance4 ,its three most iniquitous acts are the three disasters--the most terrible of all to which man is exposed--that habitually strike him before birth3 ,i refer to absolute poverty1 disease 7especially in the shocking forms of physiological degradation and incurable infirmities1 of repulsive ugliness and deformity71 and intellectual weakness4 ,these are the three great priestesses of unrighteousness that lie in wait for innocence and brand it1 on the threshold of life4 ,and yet1 mysterious as their method of choice may appear1 the triple source whence they derive these three irremediable scourges is less mysterious than one is inclined to believe4 ,we need not look for it in a pre-established will1 in fatal1 hostile1 eternal1 impenetrable laws4 ,poverty has its origin in man's own province2 and though we may marvel why one should be rich and the other poor1 we are well aware that the existence1 side by side1 of excessive wealth and excessive misery1 is due to human injustice alone4 ,in this wickedness neither gods nor stars have part4 ,and as for disease and mental weakness1 when we shall have eliminated from them what now is due to poverty1 mother of most of our moral and physical sorrows1 as well as to the anterior1 and by no means inevitable1 faults of the parents1 then1 though some measure of persistent and unaccountable injustice may still remain1 this relic of mystery will very nigh go into the hollow of the philosopher's hand1 and there he shall1 later1 examine it at his leisure4 ,but we of today shall be wise in refusing to allow our life to be unnecessarily darkened1 or hedged round with imaginary maledictions and foes4 ,as far as ordinary luck is concerned1 we shall do well to believe1 for the moment1 that the history of our fortune 7which is not necessarily the history of our real happiness1 since this may be wholly independent of luck7 is the history of our unconscious being4 ,there are more elements of probability in such a creed than in the assumption that the stars1 eternity1 or the spirit of the universe are taking part in our petty adventures2 and it gives more spur to our courage4 ,and this idea--even though it may possibly be as difficult to alter the character of our unconsciousness as to modify the course of ,mars or of ,venus--still seems less distant and less chimerical than the other2 and when we have to choose between two probabilities1 it is our imperative duty to select the one that presents the least obstacles to our hopes4 ,further1 should misfortune be indeed inevitable1 there would be ,i know not what proud consolation in being able to tell ourselves that it issues solely from us1 and that we are not the victims of a malign will or the playthings of useless chance that in suffering more than our brothers we are perhaps only recording1 in time and space1 the necessary form of our own personality4 ,and so long as calamity do not attack the intimate pride of man1 he retains the force to continue the struggle and accomplish his essential mission3 which is1 to live with all the ardour whereof he is capable1 and as though his life were of greater consequence than any other to the destinies of mankind4 ,this idea is also more conformable to the vast law which restores to us1 one by one1 the gods wherewith we had filled the world4 ,of these gods the greater number were merely the effects of causes that reposed in ourselves4 ,as we progress we shall discover that many a force that mastered us and aroused our wonder was only an ill-understood fragment of our own power2 and this will probably become more apparent every day4 ,and though we shall not have conquered the unknown force by bringing it nearer or enclosing it within us1 there yet shall be gain in knowing where it abides and where we may question it4 ,obscure forces surround us2 but the one that concerns us most nearly lies at the very centre of our being4 ,all the others pass through it3 it is their trysting-place3 they re-enter and congregate there2 and only in the degree of their relation to it have they interest for us4 ,to distinguish this force from the host of others we have called it unconsciousness4 ,and when we shall have succeeded in studying this unconsciousness more closely1 when its mysterious adroitness1 its antipathies and preference1 its helplessness1 shall be better known to us1 we shall have most strangely blunted the teeth and nails of the monster who persecutes us under the name of ,fortune1 ,destiny or ,chance4 ,at the present hour we are feeding it still as a blind man might feed the lion that at last shall devour him4 ,soon perhaps the lion will be seen by us in its true light1 and we shall then learn how to subdue him4 ,let us therefore unweariedly follow each path that leads from our consciousness to our unconsciousness4 ,we shall thus succeed in hewing some kind of track through the great and as yet impassable roads that lead from the seen to the unseen1 from man to ,god1 from the individual to the universe4 ,at the end of these roads lies hidden the general secret of life4 ,in the meanwhile let us adopt the hypothesis that offers the most encouragement to our existence in this life2 in this life which has need of us for the solution of its own enigmas1 seeing that in us its secrets crystallise the most limpidly and most rapidly4 ,,the ,,end #a ,his history is concisely summed up by ,dr4 ,foissac as follows3--,on the eighth ,floral of the year ,,iv4 the courier and postillion who were taking the mail from ,paris to ,lyons were attacked and murdered1 at nine in the evening1 in the forest of ,senart4 ,the assassins were ,couriol1 who had taken a seat in the cabriolet by the side of the courier2 ,durochal1 ,rossi1 ,vidal1 and ,dubosq1 who had come to meet him on hired horses2 and lastly ,bernard1 who had procured the horses1 and took part in the subsequent distribution of plunder4 ,for this crime1 in which five assassins and one accomplice shared1 seven individuals1 within the space of four years1 mounted the steps of the guillotine4 ,justice1 therefore1 killed one man too many3 her sword fell upon one who was innocent2 nor could he have been one of these six individuals1 all of whom confessed their crime4 ,the innocent man was ,lesurques1 who had never ceased to declare that he was not guilty2 and all his alleged accomplices disavowed any knowledge of him4 ,how then came this unfortunate creature to be implicated in an affair that was to confer so sad an immortality upon his name8 ,fatality so contrived that1 four days before the crime1 ,lesurques1 who had left ,douai with an income of eighteen thousand livres1 and had come to ,paris that he might give a better education to his children1 happened to be lunching with a fellow-townsman named ,guesno when ,couriol came in and was invited to join them4 ,suspicion having at once fallen upon ,couriol1 the fact of this lunch was sufficient to cause ,guesno to be put under arrest for a moment2 but as he was able to prove an alibi1 the judge1 ,daubenton1 immediately set him at liberty4 ,only1 as it was late1 ,daubenton told him to come the following day to fetch his papers4 ,in the morning of the eleventh ,floral1 ,guesno1 on his way for this purpose to the ,prefecture of ,police1 met ,lesurques1 whom he invited to accompany him2 an invitation which ,lesurques1 who had nothing special to do1 accepted4 ,while they were waiting in the antechamber for the magistrate to arrive1 two women were shown in who had been asked to attend in connection with the affair2 and they1 deceived by ,lesurques' resemblance to ,dubosq1 who had fled1 unhesitatingly denounced him as one of the assassins1 and unfortunately persisted in this statement to the end4 ,the antecedents of ,lesurques pleaded in his favour2 and among other facts that he cited to prove that he had not left ,paris during the day of the eighth ,floral1 he declared that he had been present at certain dealings that had taken place at a jeweller's named ,legrand1 between this last and another jeweller named ,aldenoff4 ,these transactions had actually taken place on the eighth2 but ,legrand1 on being requisitioned to produce his books1 found that he had by a clerical blunder inscribed them under the date of the ninth4 ,he thought the best thing he could do would be to scratch out the nine and convert it into an eight4 ,he did this with the idea that he would thereby save his fellow-townsman ,lesurques1 whom he knew to be innocent1 whereas he actually succeeded in ruining him4 ,the alteration and substitution were easily detected2 from that moment the prosecution and the jury declined to place the least confidence in the eighty witnesses for the defence called by the accused2 he was convicted and his property confiscated4 ,eighty-seven days elapsed between his condemnation and execution1 a delay that was altogether unusual at that period2 but grave doubts had arisen as to his guilt4 ,the ,directorate did not possess the right of reprieve2 they felt it their duty to refer the case to the ,council of ,five ,hundred1 asking 'whether ,lesurques was to die because of his resemblance to a criminal8' ,the ,council passed to the ,order of the ,day on the report of ,simeon2 and ,lesurques was executed1 forgiving his judges4 ,and not only had he constantly protested his innocence1 but at the moment the verdict was given ,couriol had cried out1 in firm tones1 ',lesurques is innocent6' ,he repeated this statement both on the fatal hurdle and on the scaffold4 ,all the other prisoners1 while admitting their own guilt1 also declared the innocence of ,lesurques4 ,it was only in the year ,,ix4 that ,dubosq1 his double1 was arrested and sentenced4 ,the fatality that had attacked the head of the family spared none of its members4 ,lesurques' mother died of grief2 his wife went mad2 his three children languished in insignificance and poverty4 ,the government1 however1 moved by their great misfortune1 restored to the family of ,lesurques1 in two instalments1 the five or six hundred thousand francs which had been so iniquitously confiscated2 but a swindler robbed them of the greater part of the money4 ,sixty years elapsed2 of ,lesurques' three children two were dead3 one alone survived1 ,virginia ,lesurques4 ,public opinion had for a long time already proclaimed the innocence and the rehabilitation of her unfortunate father4 ,she wanted more2 and when the law of the #bith ,june #ahfg was passed1 authorising the revision of criminal judgments1 she hoped that the day had at last come when she might proclaim this rehabilitation in the sanctuary of justice2 but1 by a final fatality1 the ,court of ,appeal1 arguing on legal subtleties1 declared by its decree of #agth ,december #ahfh that no cause had been shown for re-opening the case1 and that ,virginia ,lesurques had not made good her claim to revision4 ,it is as though one were enthralled by a horrible dream1 in which some poor wretch was being delivered into the hands of the ,furies4 ,ever since the fatal meal1 no less tragic than that of ,thyestes1 which ,lesurques took at ,guesno's house1 events have been dragging him nearer and nearer the gulf that yawns at his feet2 while his destiny1 hovering above him like an enormous vulture1 hides the light from those who approach him4 ,and the circles from above press magically forward to meet those from below3 they advance1 they contract1 and then1 uniting at last1 their eddies blend and fasten upon what is now a corpse4 ,here1 truly1 the combination of murderous fatalities may well seem supernatural2 and the case is typical1 it is formidable1 it is as symbolic as a myth4 ,but there can be no doubt that analogous chains of circumstances reproduce themselves daily in the countless petty or ridiculous mortifications of merely ordinary lives which are beneath the influence of an evil or malicious star4 #b ,the misfortunes of the ,stuarts are well known2 those of the ,colignys are less familiar4 ,of these last the author we have already cited gives the following lucid account3--,gaspard de ,coligny1 ,marshal of ,france under ,francis ,i41 was married to the sister of the ,constable ,anne de ,montmorency4 ,he was reproached with having delayed by half a day his attack on ,charles ,v41 at a time when such might have been most advantageously offered1 and with having thereby let slip an almost certain opportunity of victory4 ,one of his sons1 who had been made ,archbishop and ,cardinal1 embraced ,protestantism1 and was married in his red cassock4 ,he fought against the ,king at the battle of ,st4 ,denis1 and fled to ,england1 where1 in the year #aega1 a servant of his attempted to poison him4 ,he escaped1 however1 and1 seeking subsequently to return to ,france1 was captured at ,rochelle1 condemned to death1 and executed4 ,the ,admiral de ,coligny1 brother of the ,cardinal1 was reputed one of the greatest captains of his time3 he did marvels at the defence of ,saint-,quentin4 ,the place1 however1 was taken by storm1 and he was made a prisoner of war4 ,having become the real leader of the ,calvinists1 under the ,prince de ,cond1 he displayed the most undaunted courage and extraordinary fertility of resource2 neither his merit nor his military skill was ever called in question2 and yet he was uniformly unsuccessful in every one of his enterprises4 ,in #aefb he lost the battle of ,dreux to the ,duc de ,guise2 that of ,st4 ,denis to the ,constable de ,montmorency2 and1 finally1 that of ,jarnac1 which was no less fatal to his party4 ,he endured yet another reverse at ,montcontour1 in ,poitou1 but his courage remained unshaken2 his skill was able to parry the attacks of fortune1 and he appeared more redoubtable after his defeats than his enemies in the midst of their victories4 ,often wounded1 but always impervious to fear1 he remarked one day quietly to his friends1 who wept as they saw his blood flow3 ',should not the profession we follow cause us to regard death with the same indifference as life8' ,a few days before the ,massacre of ,st4 ,bartholomew1 ,maurevert shot him with a carbine from a house in the cloister of ,st4 ,germain-l',auxerrois1 and wounded him dangerously in the right hand and left arm4 ,on the eve of that sanguinary day1 ,besme1 at the head of a party of cutthroats1 contrived to enter the admiral's house1 and ran him several times through the body1 then flinging him out of the window into the courtyard1 where he expired1 it is said1 at the feet of the ,duc de ,guise4 ,his body was exposed for three days to the insults of the mob1 and finally hung by the feet to the gibbet of ,montfaucon4 ,thus1 though the ,admiral de ,coligny passed for the greatest general of his time1 he was always unfortunate and always defeated2 while the ,duc de ,guise1 his rival1 who had less wisdom but more audacity1 and above all more confidence in his destiny1 was able to take his enemies by surprise and render himself master of events4 ',coligny was an honest man1' said the ,abbe de ,mably2 ',guise wore the mask of a greater number of virtues4 ,coligny was detested by the people2 ,guise was their idol4' ,it is stated that the ,admiral left a diary1 which ,charles ,,ix4 read with interest1 but the ,marshal de ,retz had it flung into the fire4 ,finally1 a fatal destiny clinging to all who bore the name of ,coligny1 the last descendant of the family was killed in a duel by the ,chevalier de ,guise4 #c ,it is a remarkable and constant fact that great catastrophes claim infinitely fewer victims than the most reasonable probabilities might have led one to suppose4 ,at the last moment a fortuitous or exceptional circumstance is almost always found to have kept away half1 and sometimes two-thirds1 of the persons who were threatened by the still invisible danger4 ,a steamer that goes to the bottom has generally fewer passengers on board than would have been the case had she not been destined to go down4 ,two trains that collide1 an express that falls over a precipice1 c41 carry less travellers than they would on a day when nothing is going to happen4 ,should a bridge collapse1 the accident will generally be found to occur1 in defiance of all probability1 at the moment the crowd has just left it4 ,in the case of fires in theatres and other public places1 things unfortunately happen otherwise4 ,but there1 as we know1 the principal danger does not lie in the fire1 but in the panic of the terror-stricken crowd4 ,again1 a fire-damp explosion will usually occur at a time when the number of miners inside the mine is appreciably inferior to the number that would habitually be there4 ,similarly1 when a powder factory is blown up1 the majority of the workmen1 who would otherwise all have perished1 will be found to have left the mill for some trifling1 but providential1 reason4 ,so true is this1 that the almost unvarying remark1 that we read every day in the papers1 has become familiar and hackneyed1 as3 ,a catastrophe which might have assumed terrible proportions was fortunately confined1 thanks to such and such a circumstance1 c41 c42 or1 ,one shudders to think what might have happened had the accident occurred a moment sooner1 when all the workmen1 all the passengers1 c4 ,is this the clemency of ,chance8 ,we are becoming ever less inclined to credit it with a personality1 with design or intelligence4 ,there is more reason in the supposition that something in man has defined the disaster2 that an obscure but unfailing instinct has preserved a great number of people from a danger that was on the point of taking shape1 of assuming the imminent and imperious form of the inevitable2 and that their unconsciousness1 taking alarm1 is seized with hidden panic1 which manifests itself outwardly in a caprice1 a whim1 some puerile and inconsistent incident1 that is yet irresistible and becomes the means of salvation4