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diff --git a/old/66893-0.txt b/old/66893-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 8cc8b56..0000000 --- a/old/66893-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5107 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mountain Paths, by Maurice Maeterlinck - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Mountain Paths - -Author: Maurice Maeterlinck - -Translator: Alexander Teixeira de Mattos - -Release Date: December 6, 2021 [eBook #66893] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Mark C. Orton, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOUNTAIN PATHS *** - - - - - -MOUNTAIN PATHS - - - - -THE WORKS OF MAURICE MAETERLINCK - - -ESSAYS - - THE TREASURE OF THE HUMBLE - WISDOM AND DESTINY - THE LIFE OF THE BEE - THE BURIED TEMPLE - THE DOUBLE GARDEN - THE MEASURE OF THE HOURS - ON EMERSON, AND OTHER ESSAYS - OUR ETERNITY - THE UNKNOWN GUEST - THE WRACK OF THE STORM - MOUNTAIN PATHS - - -PLAYS - - SISTER BEATRICE, AND ARDIANE AND BARBE BLEUE - JOYZELLE, AND MONNA VANNA - THE BLUE BIRD, A FAIRY PLAY - MARY MAGDALENE - PÉLLÉAS AND MÉLISANDE, AND OTHER PLAYS - PRINCESS MALEINE - THE INTRUDER, AND OTHER PLAYS - AGLAVAINE AND SELYSETTE - THE MIRACLE OF SAINT ANTHONY - THE BETROTHAL; A SEQUEL TO THE BLUE BIRD POEMS - - -HOLIDAY EDITIONS - - OUR FRIEND THE DOG - THE SWARM - DEATH - THOUGHTS FROM MAETERLINCK - THE BLUE BIRD - THE LIFE OF THE BEE - NEWS OF SPRING AND OTHER NATURE STUDIES - THE LIGHT BEYOND - - - - - Mountain Paths - - BY - MAURICE MAETERLINCK - - _Translated by_ - ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS - - [Illustration] - - - NEW YORK - DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY - 1919 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1919 - BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC. - _All rights reserved_ - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I THE POWER OF THE DEAD 3 - - II MESSAGES FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE 15 - - III BAD NEWS 31 - - IV THE SOUL OF NATIONS 41 - - V THE MOTHERS 51 - - VI THREE UNKNOWN HEROES 59 - - VII WASTED BEAUTIES 77 - - VIII THE INSECT WORLD 87 - - IX EVIL-SPEAKING 123 - - X OF GAMBLING 133 - - XI THE RIDDLE OF PROGRESS 165 - - XII THE TWO LOBES 179 - - XIII HOPE AND DESPAIR 191 - - XIV MACROCOSM AND MICROCOSM 201 - - XV HEREDITY AND PREEXISTENCE 213 - - XVI THE GREAT REVELATION 229 - - XVII THE NECESSARY SILENCE 271 - - XVIII KARMA 281 - - - - -THE POWER OF THE DEAD - - - - -MOUNTAIN PATHS - - - - -I - -THE POWER OF THE DEAD - - -1 - -In that curious little masterpiece _A Beleagured City_, Mrs. Oliphant -shows us the dead of a provincial town suddenly waxing indignant over -the conduct and the morals of those inhabiting the town which they -founded. They rise up in rebellion, invest the houses, the streets, -the market-places and, by the pressure of their innumerable multitude, -all-powerful though invisible, repulse the living, thrust them out -of doors and, setting a strict watch, permit them to return to their -roof-trees only after a treaty of peace and penitence has purified -their hearts, atoned for their offences and ensured a more worthy -future. - -Undoubtedly a great truth underlies this fiction, which appears to us -far-fetched because we perceive only material and ephemeral realities. -The dead life and move in our midst far more really and effectually -than the most venturesome imagination could depict. It is very doubtful -whether they remain in their graves. It even seems increasingly certain -that they never allowed themselves to be confined there. Under the -tombstones where we believe them to lie imprisoned there are only a few -ashes, which are no longer theirs, which they have abandoned without -regret and which in all probability they no longer deign to remember. -All that was themselves continues to have its being in our midst. How -and under what aspect? After all these thousands, perhaps millions of -years, we do not yet know; and no religion has been able to tell us -with satisfying certainty, though all have striven to do so; but we -may, by means of certain tokens, hope to learn. - - -2 - -Without further considering a mighty but obscure truth, which it is -for the moment impossible to state precisely or to render palpable, -let us concern ourselves with one which cannot be disputed. As I have -said elsewhere, whatever our religious faith may be, there is at any -rate one place where our dead cannot perish, where they continue to -exist as really as when they were in the flesh and often more actively; -and this living abiding-place, this consecrated spot, which for those -whom we have lost becomes Heaven or Hell according as we draw nearer -to or travel farther from their thoughts and their desires, is within -ourselves. - -And their thoughts and their desires are always higher than our own. It -is, therefore, by uplifting ourselves that we approach them. It is we -who must take the first steps, for they can no longer descend, whereas -it is always possible for us to rise; for the dead, whatever they may -have been in life, become better than the best of us. The least worthy -of them, in shedding the body, have shed its vices, its littlenesses, -its weaknesses, which soon pass from our memory as well; and the spirit -alone remains, which is pure in every man and able to desire only what -is good. There are no wicked dead, because there are no wicked souls. -This is why, as we purify ourselves, we restore life to those who were -no more and transform our memory, which they inhabit, into Heaven. - - -3 - -And what was always true of all the dead is far more true to-day, when -only the best are chosen for the tomb. In the region which we believe -to be under the earth, which we call the Kingdom of the Shades and -which in reality is the ethereal region and the Kingdom of Light, there -are at this moment disturbances no less profound than those which we -have experienced on the surface of the earth. The young dead have -invaded it from every side; and since the beginning of this world they -have never been so numerous, so full of energy and zeal. Whereas in -the customary sequence of the years the dwelling-place of those who -leave us receives only weary and exhausted lives, there is not one in -this incomparable host who, to borrow Pericles’ expression, “has not -departed from life at the height of glory.” Not one of them but has -gone up, not down, to his death clad in the greatest sacrifice that -man can make for an idea that cannot die. All that we have hitherto -believed, all that we have striven to attain beyond ourselves, all that -has lifted us to the level at which we stand, all that has overcome -the evil days and the evil instincts of human nature: all this could -have been no more than lies and illusions if such men as these, such -a mass of merit and of glory, were really annihilated, had for ever -disappeared, were for ever useless and voiceless, for ever without -influence in a world to which they have given life. - - -4 - -It is hardly possible that this could be so as regards the external -survival of the dead; but it is absolutely certain that it is not so -as regards their survival in ourselves. Here nothing is lost and no -one perishes. Our memories are to-day peopled by a multitude of heroes -struck down in the flower of their youth and very different from the -pale and languid cohort of the past, composed almost wholly of the sick -and the old, who had already ceased to exist before leaving the earth. -We must tell ourselves that now, in every one of our homes, both in our -cities and in the country-side, both in the palace and in the meanest -hovel, there lives and reigns a young dead man in the glory of his -strength. He fills the poorest, darkest dwelling with a splendour of -which it had never ventured to dream. His constant presence, imperious -and inevitable, diffuses and maintains a religion and ideas which it -had never known before, hallows everything around it, makes the eyes -look higher, prevents the spirit from descending, purifies the air -that is breathed and the speech that is held and the thoughts that are -mustered there and, little by little, ennobles and uplifts the whole -people on a scale of unexampled vastness. - - -5 - -Such dead as these have a power as profound, as fruitful as life and -less precarious. It is terrible that this experience should have been -made, for it is the most pitiless and the first in such enormous masses -that mankind has undergone; but, now that the ordeal is over, we shall -soon gather the most unexpected fruits. It will not be long before we -see the differences widen and the destinies diverge between the nations -which have acquired all these dead and all this glory and those which -were deprived of them; and we shall perceive with amazement that the -nations which have lost the most are those which have kept their riches -and their men. There are losses which are inestimable gains; and there -are gains whereby the future is lost. There are dead whom the living -cannot replace and the mere thought of whom accomplishes things which -our bodies cannot perform. There are dead whose energy surpasses death -and recovers life; and we are almost every one of us at this moment the -mandataries of a being greater, nobler, graver, wiser and more truly -living than ourselves. With all those who accompany him, he will be our -judge, if it be true that the dead weigh the soul of the living and -that our happiness depends on their verdict. He will be our guide and -our protector, for it is the first time, since history has revealed its -misfortunes to us, that man has felt so great a host of such mighty -dead soaring above his head and speaking within his heart. - -We shall live henceforward under their laws, which will be more just -but not more severe nor more cheerless than ours; for it is a mistake -to suppose that the dead love nothing but gloom: they love only that -justice and that truth which are the eternal forms of happiness. - -From the depths of this justice and this truth in which they are -all immersed, they will help us to destroy the great falsehoods of -existence; for war and death, if they sow innumerable miseries and -misfortunes, have at least the merit of destroying as many lives as -they occasion evils. And all the sacrifices which they have made for us -will have been in vain--and this is not possible--if they do not first -of all bring about the fall of the lies on which we live and which it -is not necessary to name, for each of us knows his own and is ashamed -of them and will be eager to make an end of them. - -They will teach us, before all else, from the depths of our hearts -which are their living tombs, to love those who outlive them, since it -is in them alone that they wholly exist. - - - - -MESSAGES FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE - - - - -II - -MESSAGES FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE - - -1 - -Sir Oliver Lodge is one of the most distinguished men of learning in -our day. He is also one of the oldest, most active and most prominent -members of that well-known Society for Psychical Research which, -founded in 1882, has ever since striven to study with irreproachable -scientific precision all the wonderful, inexplicable, occult and -supernatural phenomena which have always baffled and still elude -the comprehension of mankind. In addition to his purely scientific -works, of which, not being qualified to judge, I do not speak, he is -the author of some extremely remarkable books, such as _Man and the -Universe_, _The Ether of Space_ and _The Survival of Man_, in which -the loftiest and most daring metaphysical speculations are constantly -controlled by the most prudent, wise and steadfast common sense. - -Sir Oliver Lodge, therefore, is at the same time a philosopher and a -practical, working scientist, accustomed to scientific methods which -do not readily allow him to go astray; he has, in a word, one of the -best-balanced brains that we could hope to meet; and he is convinced -that the dead do not die and that they are able to communicate with -us. He has tried to make us share his conviction in _The Survival of -Man_. I am not sure that he has quite succeeded. True, he gives us -a certain number of extraordinary facts, but they are facts which, -in the last resort, can be explained by the unconscious intervention -of intelligences other than those of the dead. He does not bring us -the irrefutable proof, such as we should consider, for instance, -the revelation of an incident, a detail, a piece of information so -absolutely unknown to any living creature that it could come only from -a spirit no longer of this world. We must admit, however, that such a -proof is, as he says, as difficult to conceive as to provide. - - -2 - -Sir Oliver’s youngest son, Raymond, was born in 1889, became an -engineer and enlisted for the duration of the war in September, 1914. -He was sent out to Flanders early in the spring of 1915; and, on the -14th of September of the same year, before Ypres, while the company -under his command was leaving the front-line trench, he was hit in the -left side by a splinter of a shell; and he died a few hours later. - -He was, as a photograph shows us, one of those admirable young British -soldiers who are the perfect type of a robust, fresh, joyous humanity, -clean and bright, and whose death seems the more cruel and the more -incredible as it annihilates a greater aggregate of strength, hope and -beauty. - -His father has dedicated to his memory a volume entitled, _Raymond, or -Life and Death_; and we are at first somewhat bewildered at seeing -that it is not, as one might expect, a book of lamentation, regrets and -tears, but the accurate, deliberately impassive and at times almost -cheerful report of a man of learning who thrusts aside his sorrow so -that he may see clearly before him, wrestles with the thought of death -and beholds the rising dawn of an immense and very strange hope. - - -3 - -I will not linger over the first part of the volume, which aims at -making us acquainted with Raymond Lodge. It contains some forty letters -written in the trenches, the testimony of his brother-officers’ -devotion to him, details of his death and so on. The letters, I may -say in passing, are charmingly vivid and marked by a delicate and -delightful humour whose only object is to reassure those who are not -themselves in danger. I have not time to dwell upon them; and they are -not what most interests us here. - -But the second part, which Sir Oliver Lodge calls _Supernormal -Portion_, passes from the life that exists on the surface of our earth -and introduces us into a very different world. - -In the very first lines, the author reminds us that he has “made no -secret of his conviction, not merely that personality persists, but -that its continued existence is more entwined with the life of every -day than has been generally imagined; that there is no real breach -of continuity between the dead and the living; and that methods of -intercommunion across what has seemed to be a gulf can be set going in -response to the urgent demand of affection; that in fact, as Diotima -told Socrates (_Symposium_, 202 and 203), ‘Love bridges the Chasm.’” - -Sir Oliver Lodge, then, is persuaded that his son, though dead, has -not ceased to exist and that he has not gone far from those who love -him. Raymond, in fact, seeks to communicate with his father as early -as eleven days after his death. We know that these communications or -so-called communications from beyond the grave--let us not prejudge -the issue for the moment--are made through the agency of a medium who -is or believes himself to be inspired or possessed by the deceased or -by a familiar spirit speaking in his name and repeating what the latter -reveals to him. The medium conveys his information either orally or by -automatic writing, or again, although this is very rare in the present -instance, by table-turning. But I will pass over these preliminaries, -which would carry us too far, and come straight to the communication -which is, I think, the most astonishing of all and perhaps the only -one that cannot be explained, or at least is exceedingly difficult to -explain, by the intervention of the living. - -About the end of August, 1915, that is to say, not many days before -his death, Raymond, who, as we have seen, was near Ypres, had been -photographed with the officers of his battalion by a travelling -photographer. On the 27th of September following, in the course of a -sitting with the medium Peters, the spirit speaking by Peters’ mouth -said, suddenly: - -“You have several portraits of this boy. Before he went away you had -a good portrait of him--two, no, three. Two where he is alone and one -where he is in a group of other men. He is particular that I should -tell you of this. In one you see his walking-stick.” - -Now at that time the members of Sir Oliver Lodge’s family did not know -of the existence of this group. They attached no great importance, -however, to the revelations but in subsequent sittings, notably on the -3rd of December, before the photographs had arrived, before they were -seen, more detailed information was received. According to the spirit’s -statements, the photograph was of a dozen officers or more, taken -out of doors, in front of a sort of shelter (the medium kept drawing -vertical lines in the air). Some were sitting down and some were -standing up at the back. Raymond was sitting; somebody was leaning on -him. There were several photographs taken. - -On the 7th of December, the photographs arrived at Mariemont, Sir -Oliver’s house near Edgbaston. There were three copies, all differing -slightly, of the same group of twenty-one officers, those in the back -row standing up, the others seated. The group was taken outside a sort -of temporary wooden structure, such as might be a hospital shed, with -six conspicuous nearly vertical lines on the roof. Raymond was one of -those sitting on the ground in front; his walking-stick, mentioned -in the first revelation, was lying across his feet. And a striking -piece of evidence is that his is the only instance where one man is -leaning or resting his hand on the shoulder of another, in two of the -photographs, or, in the third, his leg. - -This manifestation is one of the most remarkable that have hitherto -been obtained, because it eliminates almost entirely any telepathic -interference, that is to say, any subconscious intercommunication -between the persons present at the sitting, all of whom were absolutely -unaware of the existence of the photographs. If we refuse to admit -the intervention of the deceased--which should, I agree, be admitted -only in the last resort--we must, in order to explain the revelation, -suppose that the subconsciousness of the medium or of one of those -present entered into communication, through the vast mazes and deserts -of space and amid millions of strange souls, with the subconsciousness -of one of the officers or of one of the people who had seen these -photographs whose existence there was no reason for suspecting. This is -possible; but it is so fortuitous, so prodigious that the survival and -intervention of the deceased would, in the circumstances, seem almost -less supernatural and more probable. - - -4 - -I will not enter into the details of the numerous sittings which -preceded or followed this one; nor will I even undertake to summarize -them. To share the emotion aroused, we must read the reports which -faithfully reproduce these strange dialogues between the living and -the dead. We receive the impression that the departed son comes daily -closer and closer to life and converses more and more easily, more and -more familiarly with all those who loved him before he was overtaken -by the shadows of the grave. He recalls to each of them a thousand -little forgotten incidents. He remains among his own kindred as though -he had never left them. He is always present and prepared to answer. -He mingles so completely in their whole life that no one any longer -thinks of mourning his loss. They question him about his present -state, ask him where he is, what he is, what he is doing. He needs no -pressing; he at once declares himself astonished at the incredible -reality of that new world. He is very happy there, reforming himself, -condensing himself, so to speak, and gradually finding himself again. -The existence of the intelligence and of the will, disencumbered of -the body, is freer, lighter, of greater range and diffusion, but -continues very like what it was in the flesh. The environment is no -longer physical but spiritual; and there is a translation to another -plane rather than the break, the complete overthrow, the extraordinary -transitions which we are pleased to imagine. After all, is it not -fairly plausible? And are we not wrong in believing that death changes -everything, from one day to the next, and that there is a sudden and -inconceivable abyss between the hour which precedes decease and that -which follows it? Is it in conformity with the habits of nature? Is -the life-force which we carry within ourselves and which doubtless -cannot be extinguished, is that force to so great a degree crippled and -cramped by our body that, when it leaves this body, it becomes, then -and there, entirely different and unrecognizable? - -But I must set a limit to speculation and, lest I exceed the limits of -this essay, I must pass by two or three revelations less striking than -that of the photograph, but pretty strange notwithstanding. Obviously, -it is not the first time that such manifestations have occurred; but -these are really of a higher quality than those which crowd several -volumes of the _Proceedings_. Do they furnish the proof for which we -ask? I do not think so; but will any one ever be able to supply us -with that compelling proof? What can the discarnate spirit do when -trying to establish that it continues to exist? If it speak to us of -the most secret, the most private incidents of a common past, we reply -that it is we who are reviving those memories within ourselves. If it -aim at convincing us by its description of the world beyond the grave, -not all the most glorious and unexpected pictures of that world which -it might trace are worth anything as evidence, for they cannot be -controlled. If we seek a proof by asking it to foretell the future, it -confesses that it does not know the future much better than we do, -which is likely enough, seeing that any knowledge of this kind implies -a sort of omniscience and consequently omnipotence which can hardly be -acquired in a moment. All that remains to it, therefore, is such little -snatches of evidence and uncertain attempts at proof as we find here. -It is not enough, I admit; for psychometry, that is to say, a similar -manifestation of clairvoyance between one living subconsciousness -and another, gives almost equally astonishing results. But here as -there these results show at least that we have around us wandering -intelligences, already enfranchised from the narrow and burdensome -laws of space and matter, that sometimes know things which we do not -know or no longer know. Do they emanate from ourselves, are they only -manifestations of faculties as yet unknown, or are they external, -objective and independent of ourselves? Are they merely alive in the -sense in which we speak of our bodies, or do they belong to bodies -which have ceased to exist? That is what we cannot yet decide; but it -must be acknowledged that, once we admit their existence, which at this -date is hardly contestable, it becomes much less difficult to agree -that they belong to the dead. - -This at least may be said: if experiments such as these do not -demonstrate positively that the dead are able directly, manifestly -and almost materially to mingle with our existence and to remain in -touch with us, they prove that they continue to live in us much more -ardently, profoundly, personally and passionately than had hitherto -been believed; and that in itself is more than we dared hope. - - - - -BAD NEWS - - - - -III - -BAD NEWS - - -1 - -For more than four years, evil tidings passed night and day over almost -half the world of men. Never since our earth came into being were they -known to spread in crowds so dense and busy and commanding. In the -happy days of peace, we would come upon the gloomy visitants here and -there, travelling over hill and dale, nearly always alone, sometimes in -couples, rarely in companies of three, timid and shy, seeking to pass -unnoticed and humbly undertaking the smallest messages of sorrow that -destiny confided to their charge. Now they go with heads erect; they -are almost arrogant; and swollen with their importance, they neglect -any misfortunes that are not deathly. They encumber the roads, cross -the seas and rivers, invade the streets, do not forget the by-ways and -climb the most rugged and stony tracks. There is not a hovel cowering -in the dingiest and most obscure suburb of a great city, not a cottage -hidden in the recesses of the poorest hamlet of the most inaccessible -mountain, which escapes their search and towards which one of them, -detached from the sinister band, does not hasten with its little -footstep, eager, pitiless and sure. Each has its goal whence nothing -can divert it. Through time and space, over rocks and walls they press -onward, swift and determined, blind and deaf to all that would retard -them, thinking only of fulfilling their duty, which is to announce as -soon as may be to the most sensitive and defenceless heart the greatest -sorrow that can fall upon it. - - -2 - -We watch them pass as emissaries of destiny. To us they seem as fatal -as the very misfortune of which they are but the heralds; and no one -dreams of barring the way before them. So soon as one of them arrives, -all unexpected, in our midst, we leave everything, we rush forward, we -gather round it. Almost a religious fear compasses it about; we whisper -reverently; and we should bow no lower in the presence of a messenger -of God. Not only would no one dare to contradict it, or advise it, or -beg it to be patient, to grant a few hours of respite, to hide in the -darkness or to arrive by a longer road; on the contrary, all compete in -offering it zealous if humble service. The most compassionate, the most -pitiful are the most assiduous and obsequious, as though there were no -duty more unmistakable, no act of charity more meritorious than to lead -the dark envoy by the shortest and the quickest way to the heart which -it is to strike. - - -3 - -Once again, we are here confounding that which belongs to destiny with -that which belongs to ourselves. The misfortune was perhaps not to be -avoided; but a great part of the sorrows that attend it remain in our -power. It is for us to be careful of them, to direct them, to subdue -them, disarm them, delay them, turn them aside and sometimes even to -stop them altogether. - -In effect, we hardly yet know the psychology of sorrow, which is as -deep, as complex and as worthy of study as the passions to which -we devote so much of our time. In everyday life, it is true, great -sorrows, though not so rare as we could have wished, were nevertheless -too widely scattered for us to study them easily, step by step. To-day, -alas, they are the ground of all our thoughts; and we are learning -at last that, even as love or happiness or vanity, they have their -secrets, their habits, their illusions, their sophistries, their dark -corners, their baffling mazes and their unforeseen abysses; for man, -whether he love or rejoice or weep, remains ever constant to himself! - -It is not true, as we too willingly agree, that, since unhappiness -must be known sooner or later, our only duty is to reveal it at the -earliest moment, for the sorrow that is yet green is very different -from the sorrow that is already fading. It is not true, as we admit -without question, that anything is better than ignorance or uncertainty -and that there is a sort of cowardice in not forthwith announcing the -bad news which we know to those whom it must prostrate in the dust. On -the contrary, cowardice lies in ridding ourselves of the bad news as -quickly as we may and in not bearing its whole burden, secretly and -alone, as long as we are able. When the bad news arrives, our first -duty is to set it apart, to prevent it from spreading, to master it as -we would a malefactor or a stalking pestilence, to close all means of -escape, to mount guard over it, so that it cannot break forth and do -harm. Our duty is not merely, as the best of us and the most prudent -seem to believe, to usher in the bad news with a thousand precautions, -with short and muffled, sidelong and measured steps, by the back-door, -into the dwelling which it is to devastate; rather is it our duty -definitely to forbid its entrance and to have the courage to chain it -in our own dwelling, which it will fill with unjust and insupportable -reproaches and upbraidings. Instead of making ourselves the easy echo -of its cries, we should think only of stifling its voice. Each hour -that we thus pass in restless and painful intimacy with the hateful -prisoner is an hour of suffering which we accept for ourselves and -which we spare the victim of fate. It is almost certain that the -malignant recluse will end by escaping our vigilance; but here the very -minutes have their value and there is no gain, however small, that we -are entitled to neglect. The hour-glass that measures the phases of -sorrow is much finer and truer than that which marks the stages of -pleasure. The time that passes between the death of one whom we love -and the moment when we hear of his death is as full of pain as it is -of days. Most to be feared of all is the first blow of misfortune; -it is then that the heart is smitten and torn with a wound that will -never heal. But this blow has not its shattering and sometimes mortal -force unless it strike its victim at once and, so to speak, fresh from -the event. Every hour that is interposed deadens the sting and lessens -its virulence. A death already some weeks old no longer wears the -same face as that which is made known on the very day when it occurs; -and, if a few months have covered it, it is no longer a death, it has -become a memory. The days that divide us from it have almost the same -value whether they pass before we hear of it or afterwards. They remove -beforehand from the eyes and heart the blinding horror of the loss; -they step forward and draw it out of the clutch of madness into a past -like that which softens regret. They weave a sort of retrospective -memory which stretches into the past and grants straightway all that -true memory would have given little by little, hour by hour, during -the long months that part the first despair from the sorrow which grows -wise and reconciled and ready to hope anew. - - - - -THE SOUL OF NATIONS - - - - -IV - -THE SOUL OF NATIONS - - -1 - -In the admirable and touching pages in which Octave Mirbeau bequeaths -his last thoughts to us, the great friend whose loss is mourned by -all who in this world hunger and thirst after justice expresses -his surprise at finding how in the supreme moments of its life the -collective soul of the French nation differs from the soul of each of -the individuals of which it is composed. - -He had devoted the best part of his work to examining, dissecting, -presenting in a blinding and sometimes unbearable light and -stigmatizing with unequalled eloquence and bitterness the weaknesses -and selfishness, the folly and meannesses, the vanity and sordid -money-sense, the lack of conscience, honesty, charity, dignity, the -shameful stains on the life of his fellow-countrymen. And behold, -in the hour of insistent duty, there arises suddenly, as in a fairy -scene, out of the quagmire which he had so long stirred with rough and -generous disgust, the purest, noblest, most patient, fraternal and -whole-hearted spirit of heroism and sacrifice that the world has ever -known, not only in the most glorious days of its history, but even in -the time of its most romantic legends, which were but glorious dreams -which it never hoped to realize. - -I could say as much of another nation, which I know well, since it -lives in the land where I was born. The Belgians, in the guise in which -we saw them daily, appeared to give us no promise of a noble soul. -They seemed to us narrow and limited, a little commonplace, honest -in a mean, inglorious way, without ideals or generous aspirations, -wholly absorbed by their petty material welfare, their petty local -wrangles. Yet, when the same hour of duty sounded for them, more -menacing and formidable than those of the other nations, because it -preceded all of them in a terrible mystery; while there was everything -to gain and nothing to lose, save honour, if they proved faithless to -a plighted word; at the first call of their conscience aroused as by a -thunderbolt, without hesitating or glancing at what they had to meet or -undergo, with an unanimous and irresistible impulse, they astonished -mankind by a decision such as no other people had ever taken and saved -the world, well knowing that themselves could not be saved. And this -assuredly is the noblest sacrifice that the heroes and martyrs who have -hitherto appeared to be the professed exponents of sublime courage are -able to achieve upon this earth of ours. - -On the other hand, to those of us who had had occasion to mix with -Germans, who had lived in Germany and believed that they knew German -manners and letters, it seemed beyond doubt that the Bavarians, -Saxons, Hanoverians and Rhinelanders, notwithstanding some defects of -education rather than character which grated upon us a little, also -possessed certain qualities, notably a genial kindness, a gravity, a -laboriousness, a steadiness, an uncomplaining temper, a simplicity -in their domestic life, a sense of duty and a habit of taking life -conscientiously, which we had never known or had succeeded in losing. -So, despite the warnings of history, we were struck dumb with amazement -and at first refused to believe the early tales of atrocities which -were not incidental, as in every war, but deliberate, premeditated, -systematic and perpetrated with a light heart by an entire people -setting itself of sober purpose and with a sort of perverse pride -outside the pale of humanity, transforming itself of a sudden into a -pack of devils more formidable and destructive than all those which -Hell had hitherto belched forth into our world. - - -2 - -We knew already and Dr. Gustave Le Bon had demonstrated to us in a -curious way that the soul of a crowd does not resemble the soul -of any of its component members. According to the leaders and the -circumstances that control it, the collective soul is sometimes -loftier, juster, more generous and most often more impulsive, more -credulous, more cruel, more barbarous and blind. But a crowd has only -a provisional, momentary soul, which does not survive the short-lived -and nearly always violent event that calls it into being; and its -contingent and transitory psychology is hardly able to tell us how the -profound, lasting and, so to speak, immortal soul of a nation takes -shape. - - -3 - -It is quite natural that a nation should not know itself at all and -that its acts should plunge it into a state of bewilderment from which -it does not recover until history has explained them to a greater or -lesser degree. None of the men who make up a nation knows himself; -still less does any of them know his fellows. Not one of us really -knows who or what he is; not one of us can say what he will do in -unexpected circumstances which are a trifle more serious than those -which form the customary tissue of life. We spend our existence in -questioning and exploring ourselves; our acts are as much a revelation -to ourselves as to others; and, the nearer we draw to our end, the -farther stretches the vista of that which still remains for us to -discover. We own but the smallest part of ourselves; the rest, which is -almost the whole, does not belong to us at all, but merges in the past -and the future and in other mysteries more unknown than the future or -the past. - -What is true of each one of us is very much more true of a great nation -composed of millions of men. That represents a future and a past -stretching incomparably farther than those of a single human life. We -admit and constantly repeat that a nation is guided by its dead. It is -certain that the dead continue to live in it a far more active life -than is generally believed and that they control it unknown to itself, -even as, at the other end of the ages, the men of the future, that -is to say, all those who are not yet born, all those whom it carries -within itself as it does its dead, play no less important a part in a -nation’s decisions. But in its very present, at the moment when it is -living and putting forth its activity on this earth, in addition to -the power of those who no longer are and those who are not yet, there -is outside the nation, outside the aggregate of bodies and brains that -make it up, a host of forces and faculties which have not found or have -not wished to take their place, or which do not abide in the nation -consistently, and which nevertheless belong to it as essentially and -direct it as effectively as those which are comprised within it. What -our body contains when we believe ourselves circumscribed is little in -comparison with what it does not contain; and it is in what the body -does not contain that the highest and most powerful part of our being -seems to dwell. We must not forget that it grows stronger each day -that we neither die nor come into being, in a word, that we are not -wholly incarnate, and that, on the other hand, our flesh comprises -much more than ourselves. It is this that constitutes all the floating -forces which make up the real soul of a people, forces very much deeper -and more numerous than those which seem fixed in the body and the -spirit. They do not show themselves in the petty incidents of daily -life, which concern only the mean and narrow covering in which a nation -goes sheltered; but they unite, join forces and reveal their passionate -ardour at the grave and tragic hours when everlasting destiny is at -stake. They then lay down decisions which history inscribes on her -records, decisions whose grandeur, generosity and heroism astonish even -those who have taken them more or less unknown to themselves and often -in spite of themselves, decisions which are manifested in their own -eyes as an unexpected, magnificent and incomprehensible revelation of -themselves. - - - - -THE MOTHERS - - - - -V - -THE MOTHERS - - -1 - -It was they who bore the main burden of suffering in this war. - -In our streets and open spaces and all along the roads, in our -churches, in our towns and villages, in every house, we come into -contact with mothers who have lost their son or are living in an -anguish more cruel than the certainty of death. - -Let us try to understand their loss. They know what it means, but they -do not tell the men. - -Their son is taken from them at the fairest moment of his life, when -their own is in its decline. When a child dies in infancy, it is as -though his soul had hardly gone, as though it were lingering near the -mother who brought it into the world, awaiting the time when it may -return in a new form. The death which visits the cradle is not the -same as that which spreads terror over the earth; but a son who dies -at the age of twenty does not come back again and leaves not a gleam -of hope behind him. He carries away with him all the future that his -mother had remaining to her, all that she gave to him and all his -promise: the pangs, anguish and smiles of birth and childhood, the joys -of youth, the reward and the harvest of maturity, the comfort and the -peace of old age. - -He carries away with him something much more than himself: it is not -his life only that comes to an end, it is numberless days that finish -suddenly, a whole generation that becomes extinct, a long series of -faces, of little fondling hands, of play and laughter, all of which -fall at one blow on the battle-field, bidding farewell to the sunshine -and reentering the earth which they will not have known. All this the -eyes of our mothers perceive without understanding; and this is why, at -certain times, the weight and sadness of their glance are more than any -of us can bear. - - -2 - -And yet they do not weep as the mothers wept in former wars. All their -sons disappear one by one; and we do not hear them complain or moan -as in days gone by, when great sufferings, great massacres and great -catastrophes were surrounded by the clamours and lamentations of the -mothers. - -They do not gather in the public places, they do not utter -recriminations, they rail at no one, they do not rebel. They swallow -their sobs and stifle their tears, as though obeying a command which -they have passed from one to the other, unknown to the men. - -We do not know what it is that sustains them and gives them the -strength to endure the remnant of their lives. Some of them have other -children; and we can understand that they transfer to these the love -and the future which death has shattered. Many of them have never lost -or are striving to recover their faith in the eternal promises; and -here again we can understand that they do not despair, for the mothers -of the martyrs did not despair either. But thousands of others, whose -home is for ever deserted and whose sky is peopled by none but pale -phantoms, retain the same hope as those who keep on hoping. What gives -them this courage which astonishes whenever we behold it? - -When the best, the most compassionate, the wisest among us meet one of -these mothers who has just stealthily wiped her eyes, so that the sight -of her unhappiness may not offend others who are happier, when we seek -for words which, uttered amid the glaring directness of the most awful -sorrow that can strike a human heart, shall not sound like odious or -ridiculous lies, we can hardly find anything to say to her. We speak -to her of the justice and the beauty of the cause for which her hero -fell, of the immense and necessary sacrifice, of the remembrance and -gratitude of mankind, of the irreality of life, which is measured not -by the length of days but by the lofty height of duty and glory. We -add perhaps that the dead do not die, that there are no dead, that -those who are no more live nearer to our souls than when they were in -the flesh and that all that we loved in them lingers in our hearts so -long as it is visited by our memory and revived by our love. - -But, even while we speak, we feel the emptiness of what we say. We -are conscious that all this is true only for those whom death has -not hurled into the abyss where words are nothing more than childish -babble; that the most ardent memory cannot take the place of a dear -reality which we touch with our hands or lips; and that the most -exalted thought is as nothing compared with the daily going out and -coming in, the familiar presence at meals, the morning and evening -kiss, the fond embrace at the departure and the intoxicating delight -at the return. The mothers know and feel this better than we do; and -that is why they do not answer our attempts at consolation and why -they listen to them in silence, finding within themselves other -reasons for living and hoping than those which we, vainly searching the -whole horizon of human certainty and thought, try to bring them from -the outside. They resume the burden of their days without telling us -whence they derive their strength or teaching us the secret of their -self-sacrifice, their resignation and their heroism. - - - - -THREE UNKNOWN HEROES - - - - -VI - -THREE UNKNOWN HEROES - - -1 - -The Belgian government published last year a _Reply to the German White -Book of 10 May 1915_. - -This reply gives peremptory and categorical denials to all the -allegations in the White Book on the subject of _francs-tireurs_, of -attacks by civilians and of the Belgian women’s cruelty to the German -prisoners and wounded. It contains a body of authentic and overwhelming -evidence upon the massacres at Andenne, Dinant, Louvain and Aerschot -which enables history here and now to pronounce its verdict with even -greater certainty than the most scrupulous jury of a criminal court. - -Among the most frightful incidents reported in these accounts by -eye-witnesses, I would linger to-day upon only two of those which -marked the sack of Aerschot; not that they are more odious or cruel -than the others--on the contrary, beside the unprovoked murders and -wholesale executions at Andenne, Dinant and Louvain, which are of -unsurpassable horror, they seem almost kindly--but I select them for -the very reason that they display more clearly than in its most violent -excesses what we may call the normal mentality of the German army and -the abominable things which it did when it believed itself to be acting -with justice, moderation and humanity. I select them above all because -they show us the admirable and touching state of mind, as displayed -amidst a terrible ordeal, of a little Belgian city, the most innocent -of all the victims of this war, and offer for our contemplation -instances of simple and heroic self-sacrifice which have escaped notice -and which it is well to bring to light, for they are as beautiful as -the most splendid examples in the fairest pages of Plutarch. - - -2 - -Aerschot is a humble and happy little town in Flemish Brabant, one of -those modest unknown clusters of habitations which, like Dinant, for -ever to be regretted and buried in the past, nobody used to visit, -because they contained no buildings of note, but which retained and -represented all the more, in the depths of their silence and their -placid isolation, Flemish life in its most special, intimate, intense, -traditional, suave and peaceable aspect. In these half-rustic little -cities we find hardly any industries, at most a malt-kiln or two, -a corn-mill, an oil-works, a chicory-factory. Their life is almost -agricultural; and the well-to-do inhabitants live on the produce or -the rents of their fields, their meadows and their woods. The houses -in the church-square are substantial-looking, more or less cubical in -shape and painted virgin white; their carriage-gates are adorned with -glittering brasses. All through the week the square is almost deserted -and wakens into life only on market-days and on Sunday mornings, at -the hour of high mass. In a word, it is a picture of tranquillity, -of placid waiting for meals and repose, of drowsy, easy existence -and perhaps of happiness, if happiness consists in being happy in -a half-slumber free of remote ambitions, exaggerated passions or -over-eager dreams. - -It was here, in this peaceful sojourn of immemorial restfulness, which -not even the war had hitherto disturbed below the surface, that, on -the 19th of August, 1914, at nine o’clock in the morning, after the -retreat of the last Belgian soldiers, the square was suddenly invaded -by a dense and endless stream of German troops. The burgomaster’s -son, a lad of fifteen, hurried to close the Venetian shutters of his -father’s house and was wounded in the leg by one of the bullets which -the victors fired at random through the windows. - -At ten o’clock, the German officer in command sent for the burgomaster, -M. Tielemans, to appear at the Town-hall. He was received with -insults, hustled and abused for a _Schweinhund_, or pig-dog, a species -of animal which appears to be indigenous to Germany. - -Next, Colonel Stenger, commanding the 8th infantry brigade, and his -two aides-de-camp took up their quarters in the burgomaster’s house in -the church-square and, I may add in passing, forthwith broke open all -the drawers in their rooms, after which they went to the balcony and -watched the march-past of their troops. - -At four o’clock in the afternoon, obsessed by the delusion of -_francs-tireurs_, some soldiers, seized with panic, began to fire -shots in the streets. The colonel, standing on the balcony, was hit by -a German bullet and fell. One of the aides-de-camp rushed downstairs -shouting: - -“The colonel is dead! I want the burgomaster!” - -M. Tielemans felt that his time was come: - -“This is a serious matter for me,” he said to his wife. - -She squeezed his hand and urged him to keep courage. The burgomaster -was arrested and ill-treated by the soldiers. In vain his wife remarked -to the captain that her husband and son could not have fired, since -they possessed no weapons. - -“That makes no difference,” replied the bully in uniform; “he’s -responsible. Also,” he added, “I want your son.” - -This son was the boy of fifteen who had been wounded in the leg. As -he had a difficulty in walking, because of his wound, he was brutally -jostled before his mother’s eyes and escorted with kicks to the -Town-hall, there to join his father. - -Meanwhile this same captain, persisting in his contention that his -men had been fired upon, compelled Madame Tielemans to go through -the house with him, from cellar to attic. He was obliged to observe -that all the rooms were empty and all the windows closed. Throughout -this inspection, he threatened the poor woman with his revolver. Her -daughter placed herself between her mother and their sinister visitor, -who did not understand. When they returned to the hall downstairs, the -mother asked him: - -“What is to become of us?” - -Coldly, he replied: - -“You will be shot; so will your daughter and your servants.” - -The pillage and the methodical setting on fire of the town now began. -All the houses on the right-hand side of the square were in flames. -From time to time, the soldiers apostrophized the women, shouting: - -“You’re going to be shot, you’re going to be shot!” - - * * * * * - -“At that moment,” says Madame Tielemans, in her sworn deposition, -“the soldiers were leaving our house, their arms filled with bottles -of wine. They opened the windows and removed all the contents of our -rooms. I turned away so as not to behold the pillage. By the lurid -light of the burning houses, my eyes fell upon my husband, my son and -my brother-in-law, accompanied by some other gentlemen who were being -led to execution. Never shall I forget the sight nor the look on the -face of my husband seeking his house for the last time and asking -himself what had befallen his wife and daughter, while I, lest I should -sap his courage, could not call out, ‘I am here!’” - - * * * * * - -The hours passed. The women were driven out of the town and led like a -herd of cattle, along a road strewn with corpses, to a distant meadow, -where they were penned until morning. The men were arrested and their -hands tied behind their backs with copper wire so cruelly tightened as -to draw blood. They were gathered into groups and made to lie down so -that their heads touched the ground and they were unable to make any -movement. The night was spent in this way, with the town burning and -the pillage and orgy continuing. - -Between five and six in the morning, the military authorities decided -that the executions should begin and that one of the largest groups -of prisoners, composed of about a hundred civilians, should be present -at the death of the burgomaster, his son and his brother. An officer -informed the burgomaster that his hour had come. On hearing these -words, a citizen of Aerschot, Claes van Nuffel by name, went up to the -officer, begged him to spare the chief magistrate’s life and offered -to die in his stead. He added that he was the burgomaster’s political -adversary, but that he considered that, at this moment, M. Tielemans -was essential to the town. - -“No,” replied the officer, harshly, “we must have the burgomaster.” - -M. Tielemans stood up, thanked M. van Nuffel and said that he would -die with an easy mind, as he had spent his existence doing all the -good in his power, and that he would not beg for mercy. He entreated, -however, that the lives of his fellow-citizens and of his son, a boy of -fifteen and his mother’s last consolation, might be spared. The officer -grinned and made no reply. The burgomaster’s brother next asked for -mercy, not for himself but for his brother and his nephew. His request -fell on deaf ears. The lad then got up and took his place between his -father and his uncle. Six soldiers took aim at ten yards’ distance; the -officer lowered his sword; and, as the widow of the heroic burgomaster -says, “the best man in this world had ceased to exist.” - - -3 - -I will now quote from the evidence of M. Gustave Nys, an eye-witness of -the horrible drama which nearly numbered him among its victims: - - “The other civilians were thereupon placed in rows of three. The - third in each row was to leave it and fall out behind the dead - bodies, in order to be shot. All the civilians had their hands tied - behind their backs. My brother and I stood next to each other: I was - number two; my brother Omer, twenty years of age, was number three. - I asked the officer, ‘May I change places with my brother? It makes - no difference to you who falls under your bullets; but it does to my - mother, who is a widow, for my brother has finished his studies and - is more useful to her than I am.’ Once again he refused to listen - to my prayer. ‘Fall out, number three!’ My brother and I embraced; - and he joined the others. There were thirty of them, drawn up in - line. Then a horrible scene took place: the German soldiers, walking - slowly along the row, killed three at each discharge of their rifles, - waiting between the volleys for the officer’s word of command.” - - -4 - -Incidents such as these would pass unperceived if one did not take the -trouble to seek them out and to collect them piously amid the huge -mass of tragedies which for more than four years upset and ravaged -the unhappy country tortured by its invaders. Had they occurred in -the history of Greece or Rome, they would have found a place among -the great deeds that honour our earth and deserve to live for ever -in the memory of man. It is our duty to make them known for a moment -and to engrave in our recollection the names of those who were their -heroes. Thus set down, simply and plainly, as befits historic truth, -in depositions sworn under oath before a nameless registrar who has -stripped them of any literary or sentimental embellishment, they give -at first but a very faint idea of the intensity of the tragedy and -the value of the sacrifice. There is here no question of a glorious -death faced amid the excitement of the fighting, on a vast field of -battle. Nor are we considering an indefinite or overhanging menace, or -an uncertain, remote and perhaps avoidable danger. We have to do with -an obscure, solitary, horrible and imminent death in a ditch; and the -six rifle-barrels are there, aimed almost point-blank, ready, upon a -sign of the officer who accepts your offer, to change you, in a second, -into a heap of bleeding flesh and to send you to the unknown, terrible -region which man dreads all the more when he is still full of strength -and life. There is not a moment’s interval nor a gleam of hope between -question and answer, between existence with all its joys and death -with all its horrors. There is no encouragement, no word or gesture -of stimulation or support, no reward; in an instant, all is given in -exchange for nothing; it is sheer self-sacrifice standing naked and so -pure that we are surprised that not even Germans were conquered by its -beauty. - -There was but one manner in which they could have extricated themselves -without dishonour and that was to pardon the two victims; or else, -supposing the thing which was not, which never is the case, that a -death was absolutely necessary, there was a second solution, which was -to accept the offer and to kill the martyr whom they ought to have -worshipped on their knees. In this way they would only have acted as -the worst of savages. But they discovered a third, which doubtless, -before them, the Carthaginians alone would have invented and adopted. -For that matter, they exceeded the fiercest savagery and equalled the -abominable Punic morality in another case which brings to mind that of -Regulus and which will be the third instance of heroism that I intend -to recall. - - -5 - -A few days after the events which I have narrated, on the 23rd of -August, 1914, Dinant became the scene of wholesale massacres which -involved exactly six hundred and six victims, including eleven children -under five years old, twenty-eight of ages between ten and fifteen and -seventy-one women. - -Nothing can give an idea of the horror and infamy of these massacres, -which form one of the most disgraceful and terrible pages in the long -and monstrous history of Teuton shame. But it is not my purpose to -speak of this for the moment. There would be too much to tell. I wish -to-day only to separate from the mass an episode in which the hero -of Dinant-la-Wallone is worthy of a place beside his two brethren of -Aerschot in Flanders. - -Just outside Dinant, near the famous Roche à Bayard, the legendary -glory of the fair and smiling little township, the Germans occupied the -right bank of the Meuse and were beginning to build a bridge of boats. -The French, hidden in the bushes and the windings of the left bank, -were firing on the engineers. Their fire was not very well-sustained; -and the Germans, without the least justification, drew the conclusion -that it was due to _francs-tireurs_, who, for that matter, throughout -this Belgian campaign, never existed except in their imagination. At -that moment, eighty hostages, taken from among the inhabitants of -Dinant, were collected and kept in sight at the foot of the rock. The -German officer sent one of them, M. Bourdon, a clerk attached to the -law-courts, to the left bank, to inform the enemy that, if the firing -continued, all the hostages would be instantly shot. M. Bourdon -crossed the Meuse, fulfilled his mission and pluckily returned to -reconstitute himself a prisoner. He assured the officer that he had -convinced himself that there were no _francs-tireurs_ and that only -French soldiers of the regular army were taking part in the defence of -the other bank. A few more bullets fell; and the officer caused the -eighty hostages to be shot, beginning, that he might be punished as he -deserved for his heroic faithfulness to his pledged word, with the poor -clerk, his wife, his daughter and his two sons, one of whom was a mere -child of fifteen. - - - - -WASTED BEAUTIES - - - - -VII - -WASTED BEAUTIES - - -1 - -Under the grey skies and the disheartening rains of this autumnal July, -I think of the light which I have left behind me. I have left it down -there, on the now empty shores of the Mediterranean, and I ask myself -in vain why I parted from it. Yet I was one of the last to tear myself -away. All the others leave in the early days of April, recalled by -legendary memories of the deceitful spring-tides of the north, nor do -they realize that they are losing a great happiness. - -It is good, it is wise to escape, amid the blue of sea and sky, the -icy months of our winters, dismal as punishment; but, although in the -south these months are warmer and above all more luminous than ours, -they do not quite make up to us for the darkness and the frost of our -native climes. The brightest and warmest hours, in spite of all, -retain an after-taste of cloud and snow; they are beautiful, but timid; -swiftly and fearfully they hasten towards the night. Now man, who is -born of the sun, like all things, has need of his hereditary portion of -primitive heat and all-pervading light. He has within him numberless -deep-seated cells which retain the memory of the resplendent days of -the prime and become unhappy when they cannot reap their harvest of -rays. Man can live in the gloom, but at long last he loses the smile -and the confidence that are so essential. Because of our twilit summers -it becomes indispensable to restore the balance between darkness and -light and sometimes to drive away, by superb excesses of sunshine, the -cold and the dark that invade our very souls. - - -2 - -It reigns at a few hours’ distance from us, the incomparable steady sun -which we no longer see. Those who leave before mid-June do not know -what happens when they are gone. Lo and behold, the real actors in this -wonderful fairyland spring up on every side as though they had been -awaiting the departure of intruding and mocking witnesses. During the -winter, in the presence of the official visitors, they have played but -a tempered prologue, a little colourless, a little slow, a little timid -and restrained. But now of a sudden the great lyrical acts blaze forth -upon the intoxicated earth. - -The heavens open their vistas to the uttermost limits of the blue, to -the supreme heights where the glory and rapture of God are outspread; -and all the flowers rend the gardens, the rocks and the heaths, to -uplift themselves and leap towards the gulf of gladness which draws -them into space. The camomiles have gone mad; for six weeks they -hold outstretched, to invisible lovers, their great round clusters -like shields of glowing snow. The scarlet, tumultuous mantle of the -Bougainvilleas blinds the houses whose dazzled windows blink amid -the flames. The yellow roses cover the hills with a saffron-coloured -cloak; the pink roses, of the lovely, innocent pink of maiden blushes, -flood the valleys, as though the divine well-springs of the dawn, which -elaborate the ideal flesh of women and angels, had overflowed the -earth. Others climb the trees, scale pillars, columns, house-fronts, -porches, leap up and fall, rise again and multiply, jostle one -another, lie one on top of the other, forming so many bunches of -effervescing delight, so many silent swarms of impassioned petals. -And the innumerable, diverse and imperious scents that flow through -this ocean of mirth, like rivers which do not mingle, rivers whose -source we recognize at every breath! Here is the cold, green torrent -of the rose-geranium, the trickle of clove-carnations, the bright, -limpid stream of lavender, the resinous eddy of the pine-barren and -the wide, still, luscious lake, of an all but dizzy sweetness, of the -orange-blossom, which drowns the country-side in the vast, unmeasured -fragrance of the azure heavens, recognized at last. - - -3 - -I do not believe that the world contains anything more beautiful -than those gardens and valleys of the Provençal coast during the six -or seven weeks when departing spring still mingles its verdure with -the first warmth of advancing summer. But what gives this wonderful -exultation of nature a melancholy which we do not find in any other -spot is the inhuman and almost painful solitude in which it is -revealed. Here, amid this desert, this silence, this emptiness, from -the vine-arbours to the terraces and from the terraces to the porches -of a thousand abandoned villas, reigns a rivalry of beauty which -reaches a poignant agony of intensity, exhausting every energy, form -and colour. There is here a sort of magic password, as though all the -powers of grace and splendour that nature holds concealed had united -to give at the same moment, to a spectator unknown to men, one great, -decisive proof of the blessings and the glories of the earth. There is -here a sort of unparalleled expectation, awful and unendurable, which -over the hedges, the gates and the walls watches for the coming of a -mighty god; an ecstatic silence which demands a supernatural presence; -a wild, exasperated impatience pouring from every side over the roads -where nothing now passes save the mute and diaphanous procession of the -hours. - - -4 - -Alas, how many beauties are wasted in this world! Here is enough to -feed our eyes till death! Here is the wherewithal to gather memories -which would support our souls even to the tomb! Here is that which -would provide thousands of hearts with the supreme sustenance of life! - -In the main, when we come to think of it, all that is best in us, all -that is pure, happy and limpid in our intelligence and our feelings, -has its origin in a few beautiful spectacles. If we had never seen -beautiful things, we should possess only poor and ugly images -wherewith to clothe our ideas and emotions, which would perish of cold -and wretchedness like those of the blind. The great highway which -climbs from the plains of existence to the radiant heights of human -consciousness would be so gloomy, so bare and so deserted that our -thoughts would very soon lack the strength and courage to tread it; and -where our thoughts no longer pass it is not long before the briars and -the cruel horrors of the forest return. A beautiful spectacle which we -might have seen, which was ours, which seemed to call us and from which -we fled can never be replaced. Nothing more can grow in the spot where -it awaited us. It leaves in our soul a great barren area, in which we -shall find naught but thorns on the day when we most need roses. Our -thoughts and our actions derive their energy and their shape from the -things which our eyes have beheld. Between the heroic deed, the duty -accomplished, the sacrifice generously accepted and the beautiful -landscape which we have seen in the past there is very often a closer -and more vital connection than that which our memory has retained. The -more we see of beautiful things the better fitted we become to perform -good actions. If our inner life is to thrive, we need a magnificent -store of wonderful spoils. - - - - -THE INSECT WORLD - - - - -VIII - -THE INSECT WORLD - - -1 - -Henri Fabre, as all the world now knows, is the author of half a -score of well-filled volumes in which, under the title of _Souvenirs -entomologiques_,[1] he set down the results of fifty years of -observation, study and experiment on the insects that seem to us the -best-known and the most familiar: different species of wasps and wild -bees, a few gnats, flies, beetles and caterpillars; in a word, all -those vague, unconscious, rudimentary and almost nameless little lives -which surround us on every side and which we contemplate with eyes that -are amused, but already thinking of other things, when we open our -window to welcome the first hours of spring, or when we go into the -gardens or the fields to bask in the blue summer days. - - -2 - -We take up at random one of these great volumes and naturally expect to -find first of all the very learned and rather dry lists of names, the -very fastidious and exceedingly quaint specifications of those huge, -dusty graveyards of which all the entomological treatises that we have -read so far seem almost wholly to consist. We therefore open the book -without zest and without unreasonable expectations; and forthwith, -from between the open leaves, there rises and unfolds itself, without -hesitation, without interruption and almost without remission to the -end of the four thousand pages, the most extraordinary of tragic fairy -plays that it is possible for the human imagination, not to create or -to conceive, but to admit and to acclimatize within itself. - -Indeed, there is no question here of the human imagination. The insect -does not belong to our world. The other animals, the plants even, -notwithstanding their dumb life and the great secrets which they -cherish, do not seem wholly foreign to us. In spite of all, we feel -a certain earthly brotherhood in them. They often surprise and amaze -our intelligence, but do not utterly upset it. There is something, on -the other hand, about the insect that does not seem to belong to the -habits, the ethics, the psychology of our globe. One would be inclined -to say that the insect comes from another planet, more monstrous, -more energetic, more insane, more atrocious, more infernal than our -own. One would think that it was born of some comet that had lost its -course and died demented in space. In vain does it seize upon life with -an authority, a fecundity unequalled here below: we cannot accustom -ourselves to the idea that it is a thought of that nature of whom we -fondly believe ourselves to be the privileged children and probably -the ideal to which all the earth’s efforts tend. Only the infinitely -small disconcerts us still more greatly; but what really is the -infinitely small, other than an insect which our eyes do not see? There -is, no doubt, in this astonishment and lack of understanding a certain -instinctive and profound uneasiness inspired by those existences -incomparably better-armed, better-equipped than our own, by those -creature made up of a sort of compressed energy and activity in which -we suspect our most mysterious adversaries, our ultimate rivals and, -perhaps, our successors. - - -3 - -But it is time, under the conduct of an admirable guide, to penetrate -behind the scenes of our fairy play and to study at close quarters the -actors and supernumeraries, loathsome or magnificent, as the case may -be, grotesque or sinister, heroic or appalling, gifted or stupid and -almost always improbable and unintelligible. - -And here, to begin with, taking the first that comes, is one of those -individuals, frequent in the South, where we can see it prowling -around the abundant manna which the mule scatters heedlessly along -the white roads and the stony paths: I mean the Sacred Scarab of -the Egyptians, or, more simply, the Dung-beetle, the brother of our -northern Geotrupes, a big Coleopteron all clad in black, whose mission -in this world is to shape the more savoury parts of his find into an -enormous ball which he must next roll to the underground dining-room -where the incredible digestive adventure is to take its course. But -destiny, jealous of all undiluted bliss, before admitting him to that -abode of sheer delight, imposes upon the grave and probably sententious -beetle tribulations without number, which are nearly always complicated -by the arrival of an untoward parasite. - -Hardly has he begun, by dint of great efforts of his forehead and his -bandy legs, to roll the toothsome sphere backwards, when an indelicate -colleague, who has been awaiting the completion of the work, appears -and hypocritically offers his services. The other well knows that, in -this case, help and services, besides being quite unnecessary, will -soon mean partition and dispossession; and he accepts the enforced -collaboration without enthusiasm. But, so that their respective -rights may be clearly marked, the lawful owner invariably retains his -original place, that is to say, he pushes the ball with his forehead, -whereas the compulsory guest pulls it towards him on the other side. -And thus it jogs along between the two gossips, amid interminable -vicissitudes, flurried falls, ludicrous tumbles, till it reaches the -place chosen to receive the treasure and to become the banqueting-hall. -On arriving, the owner sets about digging out the refectory, while -the sponger pretends to go innocently to sleep on the top of the -bolus. The excavation becomes visibly wider and deeper; and soon the -first Dung-beetle dives bodily into it. This is the moment for which -the cunning auxiliary was waiting. He nimbly scrambles down from the -blissful eminence and, pushing it with all the energy that a bad -conscience gives, strives to gain the offing. But the other, who is -rather distrustful, interrupts his laborious digging, looks over the -edge, sees the sacrilegious rape and leaps out of the hole. Caught in -the act, the shameless and dishonest partner makes untold efforts to -play upon the other’s credulity, turns round and round the inestimable -orb and, embracing it and propping himself against it, with mock heroic -exertions, pretends to be frantically supporting it on a non-existent -slope. The two expostulate with each other in silence, gesticulate -wildly with their mandibles and tarsi and then, with one accord, bring -back the ball to the burrow. - -It is pronounced sufficiently spacious and comfortable. They introduce -the treasure, they close the entrance to the corridor; and now in the -propitious darkness and the warm damp, where the magnificent stercoral -globe alone holds sway, the two reconciled messmates sit down face -to face. Then, far from the light and the cares of day and in the -great silence of the subterranean shade, solemnly commences the most -fabulous banquet whereof abdominal imagination ever evoked the absolute -beatitudes. - -For two whole months, they remain cloistered; and, with their paunches -gradually hollowing out the inexhaustible sphere, definite archetypes -and sovereign symbols of the pleasures of the table and the delights of -the belly, they eat without stopping, without interrupting themselves -for a second, day or night. And, while they gorge, steadily, with a -movement perceptible and constant as that of a clock, at the rate of -three millimetres a minute, an endless, unbroken ribbon unwinds and -stretches itself behind them, fixing the memory and recording the -hours, days and weeks of the prodigious feast. - - -4 - -After the Dung-beetle, that dolt of the company, let us greet, also -in the order of the Coleoptera, the model household of _Minotaurus -typhaeus_, who is pretty well-known and extremely gentle, in spite of -his dreadful name. The female digs a huge burrow which is often more -than a yard and a half deep and which consists of spiral staircases, -landings, passages and numerous chambers. The male loads the rubbish -on the three-pronged fork that surmounts his head and carries it to -the entrance of the conjugal dwelling. Next, he goes into the fields -in quest of the harmless droppings left by the sheep, takes them down -to the first story of the crypt and reduces them to flour with his -trident, while the mother, right at the bottom, collects the flour and -kneads it into huge cylindrical loaves, which will presently be food -for the little ones. For three whole months, until the provisions are -deemed sufficient, the unfortunate husband, without taking nourishment -of any kind, exhausts himself in this gigantic work. At last, his task -accomplished, feeling his end at hand, so as not to encumber the house -with his wretched remains, he spends his last strength in leaving -the burrow, drags himself laboriously along and, lonely and resigned, -knowing that he is henceforth good for nothing, goes and dies far away -among the stones. - -Here, on another side, are some rather strange caterpillars, the -Processionaries, which are not rare; as it happens, a single string -of them, five or six yards long, has just climbed down from my -umbrella-pines and is at this moment unfolding itself in the walks -of my garden, carpeting the ground traversed with transparent -silk, according to the custom of the race. To say nothing of the -meteorological apparatus of unparalleled delicacy which they carry -on their backs, these caterpillars, as everybody knows, have this -remarkable quality, that they travel only in a troop, one after the -other, like Breughel’s blind men or those of the parable, each of them -obstinately, indissolubly following its leader; so much so that, our -author having one morning disposed the file on the edge of a large -stone vase, thus closing the circuit, for seven whole days, during -an atrocious week, amid cold, hunger and unspeakable weariness, the -unhappy troop on its tragic round, without rest, respite or mercy, -pursued the pitiless circle until death overtook it. - - -5 - -But I see that our heroes are infinitely too numerous and that we -must not linger over our descriptions. We may at most, in enumerating -the more important and familiar, bestow on each of them a hurried -epithet, in the manner of old Homer. Shall I mention, for instance, the -Leucospis, a parasite of the Mason-bee, who, to slay his brothers and -sisters in their cradle, arms himself with a horn helmet and a barbed -breastplate, which he doffs immediately after the extermination, the -safeguard of a hideous right of primogeniture? Shall I tell of the -marvellous anatomical knowledge of the Tachytes, of the Cerceris, of -the Ammophila, of the Languedocian Sphex and many other wasps, who, -according as they wish to paralyse or to kill their prey or their -adversary, know exactly, without ever blundering, which nerve-centres -to strike with their sting or their mandibles? Shall I speak of the art -of the Eumenes, who transforms her stronghold into a complete museum -adorned with shells and with grains of translucent quartz; of the -magnificent metamorphosis of the Grey Locust; of the musical instrument -owned by the Cricket, whose bow numbers one hundred and fifty -triangular prisms that set in motion simultaneously the four dulcimers -of the wing-case? Shall I sing the fairy-like birth of the nymph of the -Onthophagus, a transparent monster, with a bull’s snout, that seems -carved out of a block of crystal? Would you behold the Flesh-fly, the -common Blue-bottle, daughter of the maggot, as she issues from the -earth? Listen to our author: - - “She disjoints her head into two movable halves, which, each - distended with its great red eye, by turns separate and reunite. In - the intervening space, a large, glassy hernia rises and disappears, - disappears and rises. When the two halves move asunder, with one - eye forced back to the right and the other to the left, it is as - though the insect were splitting its brain-pan in order to expel the - contents. Then the hernia rises, blunt at the end and swollen into - a great knob. Next, the forehead closes and the hernia retreats, - leaving visible only a kind of shapeless muzzle. In short, a frontal - pouch, with deep pulsations, momentarily renewed, becomes the - instrument of deliverance, the pestle wherewith the newly-hatched - Dipteron bruises the sand and causes it to crumble. Gradually, the - legs push the rubbish back and the insect advances so much towards - the surface.” - - -6 - -And monster after monster passes, such as the imagination of Bosch or -Callot never conceived! The larva of the Rosechafer, which, though it -has legs under its belly, always travels on its back; the Blue-winged -Locust, unluckier still than the Flesh-fly and possessing nothing -wherewith to perforate the soil, to escape from the tomb and reach -the light but a cervical bladder, a viscous blister; and the Empusa, -who, with her curved abdomen, her great projecting eyes, her legs with -knee-pieces armed with cleavers, her halberd, her abnormally tall -mitre, would certainly be the most devilish goblin that ever walked the -earth, if, beside her, the Praying Mantis were not so frightful that -her mere aspect deprives her victims of their power of movement when -she assumes, in front of them, what the entomologists have termed “the -spectral attitude.” - - -7 - -One cannot mention, even casually, the numberless industries, nearly -all of absorbing interest, exercised among the rocks, under the ground, -in the walls, on the branches, the grass, the flowers, the fruits and -down to the very bodies of the subjects studied; for we sometimes find -a treble superposition of parasites, as in the Oil-beetles; and we see -the maggot itself, the sinister guest at the last feast of all, feed -some thirty brigands with its substance. - -Among the Hymenoptera, which represent the most intellectual class in -the world which we are studying, the building-talents of our wonderful -Hive-bee are certainly equalled, in other orders of architecture, -by those of more than one wild and solitary bee and notably by the -Megachile, or Leaf-cutter, a little insect which is nothing to look -at and which, to house its eggs, manufactures honey-pots formed of a -multitude of disks and ellipses cut with mathematical precision from -the leaves of certain trees. For lack of space, I am unable, to my -great regret, to quote the beautiful and pellucid pages which Fabre, -with his usual conscientiousness, devotes to the exhaustive study of -this admirable work; nevertheless, since the occasion offers, let us -listen to his own words, though it be but for a moment and in regard to -a single detail: - - “With the oval pieces, it becomes another matter. What model has the - Megachile when cutting her neat ellipses out of the delicate material - for her wallets, the robinia-leaves? What ideal pattern guides her - scissors? What system of measurement tells her the dimension? One - would like to picture the insect as a living pair of compasses, - capable of tracing an elliptic curve by a certain natural inflexion - of its body, even as our arm traces a circle by swinging from the - shoulder. A blind mechanism, the mere outcome of its organization, - would alone be responsible for its geometry. This explanation would - tempt me if the large oval pieces were not accompanied by much - smaller ones, also oval, which are used to fill the empty spaces. A - pair of compasses which changes its radius of its own accord and - alters the curve according to the plan before it appears to me an - instrument somewhat difficult to believe in. There must be something - better than that. The circular pieces of the lid suggest it to us. - - “If, by the mere flexion inherent in her structure, the Leaf-cutter - succeeds in cutting out ovals, how does she manage to cut out rounds? - Can we admit the presence of other wheels in the machinery for the - new pattern, so different in shape and size? However, the real point - of the difficulty does not lie there. Those rounds, for the most - part, fit the mouth of the jar with almost exact precision. When the - cell is finished, the bee flies hundreds of yards away to make the - lid. She arrives at the leaf from which the disk is to be cut. What - picture, what recollection has she of the pot to be covered? Why, - none at all: she has never seen it; she does her work underground, in - utter darkness! At the utmost, she can have the indications of touch: - not actual indications, of course, for the pot is not there, but - past indications, useless in a work of precision. And yet the disk to - be cut out must have a fixed diameter: if it were too large, it would - not go in; if too small, it would close badly, it would slip down on - the honey and suffocate the egg. How shall it be given its correct - dimensions without a pattern? The bee does not hesitate for a moment. - She cuts out her disk with the same celerity which she would display - in detaching any shapeless lobe that might do for a stopper; and - that disk, without further measurement, is of the right size to fit - the pot. Let whoso will explain this geometry, which in my opinion - is inexplicable, even when we allow for memory begotten of touch and - sight.” - -Let us add that the author calculated that, to form the cells of a -kindred Megachile, the Silky Megachile, exactly 1,064 of these ellipses -and disks would be required; and they must all be collected and shaped -in the course of an existence that lasts a few weeks. - - -8 - -Who would imagine that the Pentatoma, on the other hand, the poor and -evil-smelling Wood-bug, has invented a really extraordinary apparatus -wherewith to leave the egg? And first let us state that this egg is -a marvellous little box of snowy whiteness, which our author thus -describes: - - “The microscope discovers a surface engraved with dents similar to - those of a thimble and arranged with exquisite symmetry. At the - top and bottom of the cylinder is a wide belt of a dead black; on - the sides, a large white zone with four big, black spots evenly - distributed. The lid, surrounded by snowy cilia and encircled with - white at the edge, swells into a black cap with a white knot in the - centre. Altogether, a striking burial urn, with the sudden contrast - between the coal-black and the fleecy white. The Etruscans would have - found a magnificent model here for their funeral pottery.” - -The little bug, whose forehead is too soft, covers her head, to raise -the lid of the box, with a mitre formed of three triangular rods, which -is always at the bottom of the egg at the moment of delivery. Her limbs -being sheathed like those of a mummy, she has nothing wherewith to put -her rods in motion except the pulsations produced by the rhythmic flow -of blood in her skull and acting after the manner of a piston. The -rivets of the lid gradually give way; and, as soon as the insect is -free, it lays aside its mechanical helmet. - -Another species of bug, _Reduvius personatus_, who lives mostly in -lumber-rooms, where she lies hidden in the dust, has invented a still -more astonishing system of hatching. Here, the lid of the egg is not -riveted, as in the case of the Pentatomae, but simply glued. At the -moment of liberation, the lid rises and we see: - - “... a spherical vesicle emerge from the shell and gradually expand, - like a soap-bubble blown through a straw. Driven farther and farther - back by the extension of this bladder, the lid falls. - - “Then the bomb bursts; in other words, the blister, swollen beyond - its capacity of resistance, rips at the top. This envelope, which is - an extremely tenuous membrane, generally remains clinging to the edge - of the orifice, where it forms a high, white rim. At other times, - the explosion loosens it and flings it outside the shell. In those - conditions, it is a dainty cup, half spherical, with torn edges, - lengthened out below into a delicate, winding stalk.” - -Now, how is this miraculous explosion produced? Fabre assumes that: - - “Very slowly, as the tiny creature takes shape and grows, this - bladder-shaped reservoir receives the products of the work of - respiration performed under the cover of the outer membrane. Instead - of being expelled through the egg-shell, the carbonic acid, the - incessant result of the vital oxidization, is accumulated in this - sort of gasometer, inflates and distends it and presses upon the lid. - When the insect is ripe for hatching, a superadded activity in the - respiration completes the inflation, which perhaps has been preparing - since the first evolution of the germ. At last, yielding to the - increasing pressure of the gaseous bladder, the lid becomes unsealed. - The chick in its shell has its air-chamber; the young Reduvius has - its bomb of carbonic acid: it frees itself in the act of breathing.” - - -9 - -One would never weary of dipping eagerly into these inexhaustible -treasures. We imagine, for instance, that, from seeing cobwebs so -frequently displayed in all manner of places, we possess adequate -notions of the genius and methods of our familiar spiders. Far from -it: the realities of scientific observation call for an entire volume -crammed with revelations of which we had no conception. I will simply -name, at random, the symmetrical arches of the Clotho Spider’s nest, -the astonishing funicular flight of the young of our Garden Spider, the -diving-bell of the Water Spider, the live telephone-wire which connects -the web with the leg of the Cross Spider hidden in her parlour and -informs her whether the vibration of her toils is due to the capture of -a prey or a caprice of the wind. - -It is impossible, therefore, short of having unlimited space at one’s -disposal, to do more than touch, as it were with the tip of the -phrases, upon the miracles of maternal instinct, which, moreover, are -confounded with those of the higher manufactures and form the bright -centre of the insect’s psychology. One would, in the same way, require -several chapters to convey a summary idea of the nuptial rites which -constitute the quaintest and most fabulous episodes of these new -Arabian Nights. - -The male of the Spanish Fly, for instance, begins by frenziedly -beating his spouse with his abdomen and his feet, after which, with -his arms crossed and quivering, he remains long in ecstasy. The -newly-wedded Osmiae clap their mandibles terribly, as though it were a -matter rather of devouring each other; on the other hand, the largest -of our moths, the Great Peacock, who is the size of a bat, when drunk -with love finds his mouth so completely atrophied that it becomes no -more than a vague shadow. But nothing equals the marriage of the Green -Grasshopper, of which I cannot speak here, for it is doubtful whether -even Latin possesses the words needed to describe it seemingly. - -All said, the marriage-customs are dreadful and, contrary to that -which happens in every other world, here it is the female of the pair -that stands for strength and intelligence and also for the cruelty -and tyranny which appear to be their inevitable outcome. Almost every -wedding ends in the violent and immediate death of the husband. Often, -the bride begins by eating a certain number of suitors. The prototype -of these fantastic unions could be supplied by the Languedocian -Scorpions, who, as we know, carry lobster-claws and a long tail -supplied with a sting, the prick of which is extremely dangerous. They -have a prelude to the festival in the shape of a sentimental stroll, -claw in claw; then, motionless, with fingers still gripped, they -contemplate each other blissfully, interminably; day and night pass -over their ecstasy, while they remain face to face, petrified with -admiration. Next, the foreheads come together and touch; the mouths--if -we can give the name of mouth to the monstrous orifice that opens -between the claws--are joined in a sort of kiss; after which the union -is accomplished, the male is transfixed with a mortal sting and the -terrible spouse crunches and gobbles him up with gusto. - -But the Mantis, the ecstatic insect with the arms always raised in an -attitude of supreme invocation, the horrible _Mantis religiosa_ or -Praying Mantis, does better still: she eats her husbands (for the -insatiable creature sometimes consumes seven or eight in succession) -while they strain her passionately to their heart. Her inconceivable -kisses devour, not in a metaphorical, but in an appallingly real -fashion, the ill-fated choice of her soul stomach. She begins with -the head, goes down to the thorax, nor stops till she comes to the -hind-legs, which she deems too tough. She then pushes away the -unfortunate remains, while a new lover, who was quietly awaiting the -end of the monstrous banquet, heroically steps forward to undergo the -same fate. - - -10 - -Henri Fabre is indeed the revealer of this new world, for, strange -as the admission may seem at a time when we think that we know all -that surrounds us, most of those insects minutely described in the -vocabularies, learnedly classified and barbarously christened, had -hardly ever been observed in real life or thoroughly investigated in -all the phases of their brief and evasive appearances. He has devoted -to surprising their little secrets, which are the reverse of our -greatest mysteries, fifty years of a solitary existence, misunderstood, -poor, often very near to penury, but lit up every day by the joy -which a truth brings, which is the greatest of all human joys. Petty -truths, I shall be told, those presented by the habits of a spider or a -grasshopper. There are no petty truths to-day; there is but one truth, -whose looking-glass, to our uncertain eyes, seems broken, though its -every fragment, whether reflecting the evolution of a planet or the -flight of a bee, contains the supreme law. - -And these truths thus discovered had the good fortune to be grasped -by a mind which knew how to understand what they themselves can but -ambiguously express, to interpret what they are obliged to conceal and, -at the same time, to appreciate the shimmering beauty, almost invisible -to the majority of mankind, that shines for a moment around all that -exists, especially around that which still remains very close to nature -and has hardly left its primeval sanctuary. - -To make of these long annals the generous and delightful work of -literature that they are and not the monotonous and arid record of -finical descriptions and trivial acts that they might have been, -various and so to speak conflicting gifts were needed. To the patience, -the precision, the scientific minuteness, the protean and practical -ingenuity, the energy of a Darwin in the face of the unknown, to the -faculty of expressing what has to be expressed with order, clearness -and certainty, the venerable anchorite of Sérignan adds many of those -qualities which are not to be acquired, certain of those innate good -poetic virtues which cause his sure and supple prose, though a trifle -provincial, a trifle antiquated, a trifle primitive, to take its place -among the excellent prose of the day, prose of the kind that has its -own atmosphere, in which we breathe gratefully and tranquilly and -which we find only in masterpieces. - -Lastly, there was needed--and this was not the least requirement of -the work--a mind ever ready to cope with the riddles which, among -those little objects, rise up at every step as enormous as those which -fill the skies and perhaps more numerous, more imperious and more -strange, as though nature had here given a freer scope to her last -wishes and an easier outlet to her secret thoughts. Fabre shrinks from -none of those boundless problems which are persistently put to us by -all the inhabitants of that tiny world where mysteries are heaped up -in a denser and more bewildering fashion than in any other. He thus -meets and faces, turn by turn, the redoubtable questions of instinct -and intelligence, of the origin of species, of the harmony or the -accidents of the universe, of the life lavished upon the abysses of -death, without counting the no less vast, but so to speak more human -problems which, among infinite others, are inscribed within the -range, if not within the grasp, of our intelligence: parthenogenesis; -the prodigious geometry of the wasps and bees; the logarithmic spiral -of the snail; the antennary sense; the miraculous force which, in -absolute isolation, without the possible introduction of anything from -the outside, increases the volume of the Minotaurus’ egg tenfold, -where it lies, and, during seven to nine months, nourishes with an -invisible and spiritual food, not the lethargy, but the active life of -the scorpion and of the young of the Lycosa and the Clotho Spider. He -does not attempt to explain them by one of those generally-acceptable -theories, such as that of evolution, which merely shifts the ground -of the difficulty and which, I may say in passing, emerges from these -volumes in a somewhat sorry plight, after being sharply confronted with -incontestable facts. - - -11 - -Waiting for chance or a god to enlighten us, he is able, in the -presence of the unknown, to preserve that great religious and -attentive silence which is dominant in the best minds of the day. There -are those who say: - -“Now that you have reaped a plentiful harvest of details, you should -follow up analysis with synthesis and generalize the origin of instinct -in an all-embracing view.” - -To these he replies, with the humble and magnificent loyalty that -illumines all his work: - - “Because I have stirred a few grains of sand on the shore, am I in a - position to know the depths of the ocean? - - “Life has unfathomable secrets. Human knowledge will be erased from - the archives of the world before we possess the last word that a Gnat - has to say to us.... - - “Success is for the loud talkers, the self-convinced dogmatists; - everything is admitted on condition that it be noisily proclaimed. - Let us throw off this sham and recognize that, in reality, we - know nothing about anything, if things were probed to the bottom. - Scientifically, Nature is a riddle without a definite solution to - satisfy man’s curiosity. Hypothesis follows on hypothesis; the - theoretical rubbish-heap accumulates; and truth ever eludes us. To - know how not to know might well be the last word of wisdom.” - -Evidently, this is hoping too little. In the frightful pit, in the -bottomless funnel wherein whirl all those contradictory facts which -are resolved in obscurity, we know just as much as our cave-dwelling -ancestors; but at least we know that we do not know. We survey the -dark faces of all the riddles, we try to estimate their number, to -classify their varying degrees of dimness, to obtain an idea of their -position and their extent. That already is something, pending the -day of the first gleams of light. In any case, it means doing in the -presence of the mysteries all that the most upright intelligence can do -to-day; and that is what the author of this incomparable Iliad does, -with more confidence than he professes. He gazes at them attentively. -He wears out his life in surprising their most minute secrets. He -prepares for them, in his thoughts and in ours, the field necessary for -their evolutions. He increases the consciousness of his ignorance in -proportion to their importance and learns to understand more and more -that they are incomprehensible. - - - - -EVIL-SPEAKING - - - - -IX - -EVIL-SPEAKING - - -1 - -“See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” say the three sacred -monkeys carved over the gate of the Buddhist temple of Iyeyasu at Nikko. - -We all of us speak ill of one another: - - “No one,” Pascal remarks, “speaks of us in our presence as he does in - our absence. The union that exists among men is based solely on this - mutual deceit; and few friendships would survive if each knew what - his friend says when he is not there, though he be speaking of him in - all sincerity and without passion. - - “I lay it down as a fact that, if all men knew what they say of one - another, there would not be four friends in this world.” - -If you do away with evil-speaking, you do away with three-fourths of -our conversation; and an unbearable silence will hover over every -gathering. Evil-speaking or calumny--for it is extremely difficult to -separate the two sisters; and in reality any evil-speaking is likely to -be calumnious, inasmuch as we know others even less well than we know -ourselves--evil-speaking, which feeds all that creates disunion between -men and poisons their intercourse, is nevertheless the chief motive -that brings them together and enables them to enjoy the pleasures of -society. - -But the ravages which it wreaks all around us are too well-known and -have too often been described to make it necessary for us to portray -them once again. Let us here consider only the harm which it does to -him who indulges in it. It accustoms him to see only the petty sides -of men and things; little by little it conceals from him the bold -outlines, the great unities, the heights and depths containing the only -truths that count and endure. - -In reality, the evil which we find in others, the evil which we speak -of them, exists within ourselves: from ourselves we derive it; upon -ourselves it recoils. We perceive clearly only those defects which are -ours, or which we are on the point of acquiring. Within ourselves is -kindled the evil flame whose reflection we perceive on others. Each of -us diligently searches out, among those who surround him, the vice or -the defect that reveals to the clear-sighted the vice or the defect -to which he himself is thrall. There is no more ingenuous or intimate -confession, even as there is no better examination of conscience, than -to ask one’s self: - -“What is the fault which I most willingly impute to my neighbour?” - -You may be sure that this is the fault which you are most inclined to -commit and that you most readily see what is happening in the shallows -to which you yourself are descending. He who speaks ill of others is, -in short, merely his own traducer; and evil-speaking is, in essence, -but the story of our own falls, transposed or anticipated. - - -2 - -We surround ourselves with all the evil that we attribute to the -victims of our gossip. It takes form at our own expense; it lives -and feeds upon the best of our substance; it accumulates all about -us, peopling and encumbering our atmosphere with phantoms, at first -grotesque, inconsistent, docile, timid and ephemeral, which gradually -become persistent, add to their strength and stature, speak with louder -voice and develop into very real and imperious entities which ere long -will issue orders and assume the direction of most of our thoughts and -actions. We are less and less masters in our own houses; we feel our -character slowly sapped of its strength; and we find ourselves sooner -or later enclosed within a sort of enchanted circle which it is all but -impossible to break, a circle in which we no longer know whether we are -defaming our brethren because we are growing as bad as they, or whether -we are growing bad because we defame them. - - -3 - -We should accustom ourselves to judge all men as we judge the heroes -of this war. It is certain that, if any one had the pitiful courage to -undertake their belittlement, he would find, in any gathering of these -men, almost as many vices, pettinesses or blemishes as in any human -gathering chosen at random in any town or village. He would tell you -that it contained hopeless drunkards, unscrupulous libertines, uncouth, -narrow and greedy peasants, mean and rapacious shopkeepers, callous, -lewd and cheating artisans, sordid, envious clerks and, among young men -of better birth, idle, presumptuous, selfish and arrogant wastrels. -He would add that many of them did their duty only because there was -no way of avoiding it; that they went forward, despite themselves, -to brave a death which they hoped to escape, because they well knew -that they could not escape the death which would threaten them if they -refused to face the first. He might say all this and many other things -which would appear more or less true; but there is something far more -true, which is the great and magnificent truth that enfolds and uplifts -all the rest: it is the thing which they really did; it is the fact -that they willingly offered themselves to death in order to accomplish -what they regarded as a duty. It cannot be denied: if all those who -had vices and imperfections and the desire to shun danger had refused -to accept the sacrifice, no force in the world could have compelled -them to it; for they would represent a force at least equal to that -which would have sought to impel them. We must therefore believe that -these imperfections, these vices, these ignoble desires were very -superficial and in any case incomparably less powerful and less deeply -rooted than the great flood of feeling which carried all before it. -And this is why, when we think of those dead or mutilated heroes, the -petty thoughts which I have described do not even enter our minds. And -it is right that this should be so. In the heroic whole they count -for no more than rain-drops in the ocean. All has been swept away, -all has been made equal by sacrifice, suffering and death, in the one -untarnished beauty. - -But let us not forget that it is almost the same with all men; and -that these heroes were not of a different nature from the neighbour -whom we are incessantly villifying. Death has purified and consecrated -them; but we are all of us daily in the presence of the sacrifice, the -suffering and, above all, the death which will purify and consecrate -us in our turn. We are almost all subject to the same ordeals which, -because they are less frequent and less glorious, appeal no less to the -same profound virtues; and, if so many men, chosen at hazard from among -us, have proved themselves worthy of our admiration, it is because, -after all, we are doubtless better than we seem; for, while those -others mingled in our life, even they did not appear to be much better -than ourselves. - - - - -OF GAMBLING - - - - -X - -OF GAMBLING - - -1 - -_Paulo minora._ This essay, I need hardly say, consists of notes made -before the war and put in order now, at a time when victory allows our -thoughts to stray for a moment from the great tragedy in which the -destinies of mankind have been at stake. For the rest, the subject, -however frivolous it may at first sight appear, sometimes touches or -seems to touch problems which it is not unfitting to examine, were -it only to realize that they are perhaps illusive. Moreover it is -unfortunately probable that, when peace is restored, our allies will -visit in too numerous and confiding crowds the dubious havens of -delight which we are about to enter. I have no pretension to serve them -as a guide nor to teach them how to fight against the whims of fortune; -but a handful of them may find in these lines, if not useful hints or -profitable advice, at least some few reflections or observations which -will pave the way for their own experiments or render them easier. - - -2 - -Let us then pay a last visit to one of those green tables which spread -their length in the somewhat disreputable place of which I have written -elsewhere[2] as the “Temple of Chance.” To-day I would rather call -it the Factory of Chance, for it is here that, for more than half a -century, without respite or repose, on weekdays, Sundays and holidays -alike, daily from ten o’clock in the morning till twelve o’clock at -night, with croupiers unintermittently relieving one another, men have -obstinately manufactured Chance and doggedly consulted the formless and -featureless god that shrouds good luck and ill within his shadow. - -We do not yet know what he is nor what he wants; we are not even sure -that he exists; but surely it would be astonishing if no result of any -kind, no clue to the tantalizing puzzle, had emerged from this endless -effort, the most gigantic, the most costly, the most methodical that -has ever been made on the brink of this gloomy abyss, if nothing had -been born of all this furious work, however trivial, however unhealthy -and useless it may appear. - -In any case, at these tables, as at all places where passions become -intensified, we are able to make interesting observations and, among -other things, to behold at first hand, violently foreshortened and -harshly illuminated, certain aspects of man’s lifelong struggle with -the unknown. The drama, which as a rule is long drawn out, projecting -itself into space and time and breaking up amid circumstances that -escape our eyes, is here knit together, gathered into a ball, held, -so to speak, in the hollow of the hand. But, for all its speed, its -abruptness of movement and its extreme compression, it remains as -complex and mysterious as those which go on indefinitely. Until the -ivory ball that rolls and hops around the wheel falls into its red or -black compartment, the unknown veiling its choice or its destiny is as -impenetrable as that which hides from us the choice or the destiny of -the stars. The movements of the planets can be calculated almost to a -second; but no mathematical operation can measure or predict the course -of the little white ball. - -Your most skilful players, indeed, have given up trying. Not one of -them any longer seriously relies on intuition, presentiment, second -sight, telepathy, psychic forces or the calculation of probabilities -in the attempt to foresee or determine the fall of a destiny no larger -than a hazel-nut. All the scientific part of human knowledge has -failed; and all the occult and magical side of that same knowledge has -been equally unsuccessful. The mathematicians, the prophets, the seers, -the sorcerers, the sensitives, the mediums, the psychometrists, the -spiritualists who call upon the dead for assistance, all alike are -blind, confounded and impotent before the wheel and before Destiny’s -thirty-seven compartments. Here Chance reigns supreme; and hitherto, -though it all happens before our eyes, though it is repeated to satiety -and may be held, let me say once more, in the hollow of our hand, no -one has yet been able to determine a single one of its laws. - - -3 - -Yet such laws seem to exist; and thousands of players have ruined -themselves in following their forms or their elusive and deceptive -traces. Let us take a bundle of those records or _permanences_, -published at Monte Carlo, which give day by day the list of -all the numbers that have come up at one of the roulette or -_trente-et-quarante_ tables. As everybody knows, these numbers are -arranged in long parallel columns, the black on the left and the red -on the right. When we look at one of these sheets, containing as a -rule ten columns of sixty-five numbers each--dead and harmless cyphers -now, though once so dangerous, once destructive of so many hopes and -perhaps inspiring more than one disaster--we observe a tendency towards -a fairly perceptible equilibrium between the red and the black. Most -often the two chances balance each other, singly or in little groups, -a black, a red, two blacks, three reds, three blacks, two reds and so -on. When we come upon a series of five, six, seven, eight, sometimes -eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve consecutive blacks, we are almost -certain of finding not far away a compensating series of five, six, -seven, eight or ten reds. There is a very real rhythm, a sort of -breathing or a cadenced movement to and fro of the mysterious creature -which we call Chance. This rhythm or balance is moreover confirmed by -the final statistics of the day, from which we learn that, in a total -of six hundred and so many spins of the ball, the difference between -the black and the red very seldom exceeds twenty or thirty; and this -difference is even smaller in the total for the week, that is to say, -in a total of nearly five thousand spins, when it is usually reduced to -a few units. - - -4 - -The monster has other strange habits. We see, for instance, that it is -not uncommon for a number to come up twice in succession; and it is -undeniable that, in each day’s play, two or three numbers are obviously -favoured, so much so that we may hurl out a challenge to logic and -declare that the more frequently a number occurs the more chances it -has of reappearing. This seems to conflict with the law of equilibrium -which we have remarked; but it must be observed that this equilibrium -will be recovered later, that by the end of the week the difference -will no longer be very great and that they will almost disappear when -the month is over. The equilibrium is more slowly restored because we -must multiply the number of series by eighteen and a half to reach the -proportions of the even chances. - -Players note yet another law which, for that matter, is but a corollary -of the former habit, but which has something curiously human about it: -the chances which lag behind show a greater eagerness to regain their -lost ground at the moment that follows more or less closely upon a -halt, as though they had recovered their breath after a brief rest on -the landing of a staircase. - -Let us add at once that it is wise to distrust these fluctuating habits -and these gropings after laws. For instance, red has been known to beat -black by seventy per cent. in the course of a day’s play. Black, on -the other hand, as people still remember at Monte Carlo, one day came -up twenty-nine times in succession and the second dozen twenty-eight -times without a break. Chance has not our nerves; it is not, like us, -impatient to make good its losses or to carry off its gains. It takes -its time, awaits its hour and does not trouble to keep step with our -ways of life. - - -5 - -Players as a rule attribute these habits or caprices to a trick of the -croupier’s hand. This is hardly tenable. After all, we know how the -thing is done. The ball drops into its compartment and the croupier -announces, for instance: - -“13, black, _impair_ and manque.” - -The losses are raked in, the winnings are paid out, the players renew -their stakes, there is sometimes a brief dispute, somebody asks for -change and so on. These operations vary a good deal in length; and -all this time the wheel carrying the ball is making hundreds of -revolutions. The croupier stops it at last, takes the ball, reverses -the wheel and sends the ball spinning in the opposite direction. It is -impossible under these conditions for his particular trick of the hand -to exercise any influence whatever. Besides, we can easily see from -the chart of the _permanences_ that the change of croupier does not -perceptibly affect the rhythm of the even chances. It is not the man -who controls the rhythm but the rhythm that controls the man. - - -6 - -These gropings after laws in what would seem a negation of all or any -law; these strivings on the part of Chance to quit its own domain -and to organize its chaos; this god who denies himself and seeks to -destroy himself by his own hand; these incomprehensible stammerings, -these awkward efforts to achieve utterance and assume consciousness are -rather curious, we must admit. For the rest, it is these efforts, these -hankerings after equilibrium, this embryonic rhythm that constitute -the gamblers’ good and bad luck. If Chance were simply Chance as we -conceive it on first principles, one would stake any sum anyhow and -at any moment. I am well aware that, according to the most learned -theorists on roulette, each _coup_ is independent of all the others -and begins as if nothing had happened before, as if nothing were to -happen afterwards, as if the table were fresh from the shop, the wheel -from the factory and the croupier from the hands of God. In theory -this is quite accurate; but we have just seen that in practice it does -not seem to be so. For that matter, it seems impossible to explain the -reason. Players are satisfied to observe the fact, while yielding to -a dangerous but very human tendency to exaggerate the scope and the -certainty of their observations. - -They are too ready to see laws where there is only a mass of -coincidences as fleeting as clouds. It is of course necessary that -the reds and blacks, emerging successively from nowhere, should find -a place somewhere and form certain groups; and, if it is rather -surprising that at the end of the month their numbers are nearly equal, -it would be no less surprising if one of the colours were to prevail -largely over the other. It is perfectly true that, at first sight, the -reds and blacks seem to balance on the _permanence_ sheets; but it is -also true that, when we examine more closely, a series of five or six -reds, for instance, interrupted by one or two blacks, not infrequently -begins a fresh run; and ill-luck may well have it that, at this moment, -the player, in his search for equilibrium, will start punting on the -black and in a few _coups_ behold the disappearance of all the winnings -slowly and laboriously wrested from Chance, which is niggardly when one -is winning and extremely generous--to the bank--when one is losing. For -that matter, he will suffer the same disappointment if he bets on the -variation, in other words, against the equilibrium, and will too often -discover that these laws, when he puts his trust in them, are writ in -water, whereas they seem to be graven in bronze so soon as they betray -him. - - -7 - -In order to profit by these laws, which are perhaps fallacious and in -any case untrustworthy, and to secure himself against their treachery, -he has contrived a host of ingenious systems which sometimes enable him -to win but most often merely retard his ruin. - -But, before speaking of these systems, let us begin by saying that -we shall concern ourselves here only with the even chances, red or -black, _pair_ or _impair_, _passe_ or _manque_. These are sufficiently -complicated in themselves and set us problems that would be enough -to exhaust all the shrewdness of a human life. As for any other than -the even chances, _en plein_, _à cheval_, _transversales_, _carrés_, -_douzaines_ and so forth, these, both in theory and in practice, escape -all control, calculation or explanation. - -Whatever system he adopt, the gambler is always tossing heads or tails -against the bank. He has a chance and the bank has a chance; but zero -gives the bank odds against him; and, though zero is apparently a very -mild tax, since at _rouge-et-noir_ in thirty-six chances the bank has -only half a chance more than the player, it is bound to be ruinous in -the end. To escape the abruptness of a decision which, if he placed -all that he possessed on the red or the black, would end the game at a -single stroke, the player divides his stake, so as to be able to defy a -large number of chances, hoping that, thanks to a skilfully graduated -progression, he will end by lighting on a favourable series in which -the gains will exceed the losses. This is the underlying principle of -all the systems, which are never anything but more or less ingenious, -prudent and complicated martingales. There are not, there never will be -any others, in the absence of a miracle which has not yet occurred, of -an intuition which foresees what the ball will decide, or of an unknown -force which will oblige it to act as a player wishes. - - -8 - -I have no intention of reviewing all these systems, which are -innumerable and of unequal value: the _paroli_ pure and simple, that -artless, violent, doubled stake which leads straight to disaster; -the D’Alembert and all its variants; the descending progressions; the -differential methods; the _montant belge_; the _parolis intermittents_; -the snowball; the _photographie_; the staking of equal amounts on -certain groups of figures, which is a Chinese puzzle demanding days -of patient observation before it is attacked; and many others which I -forget, from the most clear-cut to the most mysterious, which are sold -at a high price, to credulous beginners, in sealed envelopes containing -what is everybody’s secret and with all or nearly all of which I -have become acquainted thanks to the kindness of an erudite player. -A detailed account of those most frequently used will be found in -D’Albigny’s treatise _Les Martingales modernes_, in Gaston Vessillier’s -_Théorie des systèmes géométriques_, in Hulmann’s _Traité des jeux -dits de hasard_, in Théo d’Alost’s _Théorie scientifique nouvelle des -jeux de la roulette, trente-et-quarante, etc._, and, above all, in the -_Revue de Monte Carlo_, which has given a system in every issue since -the day of its foundation some fifteen years ago. - -Whether mystic or transparent, all these methods present more or less -the same dangers, being all founded on the quicksands of equilibrium -and temporary disturbance. If they are very cautious, the loss is -trifling, but the gain is still smaller; if they are bold, the gain is -great, but the loss is two or three times greater. The best of them, -in order to continue the defence of a moderate stake and of what has -already been sacrificed, involve the risking on the cloth, at a given -moment, of all the previous winnings, which are soon followed by the -sums held in reserve. This is the inevitable revenge of the bank, at -which you thought that you were nibbling with impunity, but which -suddenly opens wide its jaws, like a blind and drowsy crocodile, and -swallows profits and capital at a single gulp. - - -9 - -The players hearten themselves by maintaining that they have an -incontestable advantage over the bank. They begin to play, they “punt” -when they like and as they like and they withdraw when they please, -whereas the bank is compelled to play without stopping, to accept every -stake and to meet every _coup_ up to the limit of the maximum, which, -as we know, is six thousand francs on the even chances. This advantage -is a real one if the player, after winning a big sum, goes away and -does not come back again. But the lucky gambler, even more infallibly -than the one who has no luck, will return to the enchanted table and -in so doing loses the only elective weapon that he had against his -enemy. To choose your time for punting is but an illusory privilege, -because everything, at any moment, is equally shifting and uncertain; -and you never know beforehand when the precarious and deceptive law of -equilibrium will reassert itself. After a long sequence of blacks, you -wager on a fine series of reds, a certain run, you would say; but no -sooner have you staked your money than the series gives up the ghost -and remorseless black resumes its devastating course; or else you do -the opposite: you bet on black and it is red that settles down for a -run. At whatever moment you start punting, you are always fighting -red against black, that is to say, one to one. Once more, the only -real advantage is that you can go away when you like; but where is the -gambler, whether losing or winning, who is able to go away and not come -back? - - -10 - -After mature examination, all these systems merely carve the brutal -and crushing mass of luck into small pieces. They act as a defensive -padding against the blows of Chance, making them less grave. They -prolong the player’s life or his agony. They enable the owner of a -modest purse to stake as often as the multimillionaire, who would -confine himself to betting double or quits indefinitely, if he were -not stopped by the fatal barrier of the maximum. But all mathematical -operations, all combinations of figures flutter and struggle like -blind captives between bronze walls. They merely dash themselves -in vain against these walls, whether black or red: both remain -invulnerable and impregnable; and from their imprisoning embrace there -is no escape. - - -11 - -Does this mean that there is no such thing as a defensible method -and that the most skilful calculations have not revealed a means of -defeating Chance? In theory, I cannot bring myself to believe that -baseless calculations will ever do what they have not done up to the -present. It is none the less true that, in practice, we come upon -some which struggle with fair success against ill-luck. For instance, -a friend of mine, a British officer, has a system which he has been -using for a long time and which yields astonishing results. It is, of -course, a progression, the whole of whose virtue lies in an ingenious -and very simple key that seems to act as a sort of talisman. I have -not found this method in any of either the recognized or the catchpenny -treatises. It has its dangers, like the others; it has its difficult -moments, when, to save your anticipated profits and your earlier -losses, you have to risk a rather large amount. But, if you prudently -stop playing during runs which are too obstinately hostile, if you -allow the storm to pass as it spreads over a large number of chances, -you end by obtaining the necessary compensation. At any rate, it has -never seriously failed my friend so far. - - -12 - -Nevertheless it must not be supposed that we have only to use this -system blindly and automatically. As with other systems, a certain -science, a certain experience, a certain deftness are indispensable. -Though science and experience are evasive qualities here, fugitive and -at the mercy of Chance, they are by no means illusory. The careful and -experienced player understands how to approach and nurse his luck, or -at least how not to thwart it. He guesses the beginning and the end -of a favourable series. He foresees alternations and intermittences; -and, when he does not succeed in grasping their rhythm, he prefers -to abstain from playing, rather than encounter them inopportunely. -He makes more than one mistake, but makes far fewer than those who, -faithful to the very scientific theory of the absolute independence of -each _coup_, back either colour at any moment. He does not surrender -to the fixed rigidity of logic, he does not throw the gauntlet down to -fate, he does not defy the animosity of fortune. He is never obstinate. -He does not struggle on, sullenly, to his last coin, against an -iniquitous run, in order to gain the bitter satisfaction of learning -the utmost depths of his ill-luck and the injustice of fate. He has -no self-conceit, no prejudices, no inflexible opinions. He is docile, -plastic and accommodating. Devoid of all false shame, he cheerfully -abandons his pretensions and pays court to fortune. He retraces his -steps and retracts at fitting times. He stops, starts afresh, yields, -tacks about, allows himself to be borne upon the tide and comes safely -to harbour, while the arrogant, overbold and headstrong pilot founders -in deep water. - -Beyond all else, he studies the character and temper of the table at -which he takes his seat, for each table has its psychology, its habits, -its history, which vary from day to day and yet by the end of the year -form a homogeneous whole wherein all temporary errors, all anomalies -and injustices are compensated. The question is to know on what page -of this history he should prepare to play his part. He will not learn -this at once. It is of little use for him to peep at the notes and -_permanences_ of the players who have come before him. What he wants is -the immediate contact, the very breath of the hidden god. But the god -is already thrilling into life, taking shape and countenance, giving -a whispered hint of his intentions, speaking words of approval or -condemnation; and the tragic struggle begins between the player, so -infinitely small, and Chance, so enormous and omnipotent. - - -13 - -Now that the battle is joined, now that the player has done what he -could to summon and welcome luck, there is nothing left for him to do -but wait; for luck, when all is said, will remain the supreme power -that pronounces the final verdict, the formidable and inevitable -unknown factor in every combination. The best of systems cannot -overcome an abnormal and pitiless run of bad luck which makes you stake -incessantly on the losing colour. A run like this, without favourable -intermittences, is extremely rare but always possible. It corresponds, -for that matter, with the extraordinary strokes of good luck, which -seem more frequent only because they attract more attention. From time -to time we see a man, or rather let me say a woman--for it is nearly -always female players who have these inspirations--walk up to the -table and with a high hand and not the least hesitation gamble _en -plein_ or _en cheval_, on a _transversale_ or _carré_, and win time -after time, as though she saw beforehand where the ball would fall. -These moments of intuition are always very brief; and, if the player -insists or grows stubborn, she will soon lose whatever she has won. -It is none the less true that, when we observe this very obvious and -striking phenomenon, we wonder whether there is not something more in -it than mere coincidence. When all is said, can luck be anything other -than a passing and dazzling intuition of what will flash into actuality -before everybody’s eyes a second later? Is not the compartment which -does not yet contain the little ball, but which in an instant will snap -it up and hold it, is not this compartment already, somewhere, a thing -of the present and even of the past? But these are questions which -would lead us too far afield in space and time. - - -14 - -Be this as it may, to return to the system of which we were speaking, -even if I were at liberty to divulge its secret I should not do so. -I am not a very austere moralist and I look upon gambling as one of -those profoundly human evils which we shall never be able to uproot -and which, for all our efforts, will always reappear in a new form. -Still, the least that we can do is not to encourage it. The gambler, I -mean the inveterate, almost professional gambler, is not interesting. -To begin with, he is an idler and nearly always a part of the world’s -flotsam, with no justification for his existence. If he be rich, he -is making the most foolish, the most dismal use of his money that can -be imagined. If he be poor, he is even less easily to be forgiven: he -should know better than to sacrifice his days and too often the welfare -and the peace of mind of those dependent on him to a will-o’-the-wisp. -Underlying the gambler we find too often a sluggard, an incompetent, -a boneless egoist, greedy of vulgar and unmerited pleasures, a -dissatisfied and inefficient individual. Gambling is the stay-at-home, -imaginary, squalid, mechanical, anæmic and unlovely adventure of those -who have never been able to encounter or create the real, necessary -and salutary adventures of life. It is the feverish and unhealthy -activity of the wastrel. It is the purposeless and desperate effort of -the debilitated, who no longer possess or never possessed the courage -and patience to make the honest, persevering effort, the unspasmodic, -unapplauded effort which every human life demands. - -There is also a great deal of puerile vanity about the gambler. Taken -for all in all, he is a child still seeking his place in the universe. -He has not yet realized his position. He thinks himself peerless in the -face of destiny. In his self-infatuation he expects the unknown or the -unknowable to do for him what it does not do for any one whomsoever. -And he expects this for no reason, simply because he is himself and -because others have not that privilege. He must tempt fate incessantly, -hurriedly, anxiously, in I know not what idle and pretentious hope of -learning to know himself from without. Whatever fortune’s decision -may be, he will find cause for preening himself. If he have no luck, -he will feel flattered because he is specially persecuted by fortune; -if he be lucky, he will think all the more highly of himself because -of the exceptional gifts which she bestows upon him. For the rest, he -does not need to believe that he deserves these gifts; on the contrary, -the less right he has to them, the prouder he will be of them; and the -unjust and manifestly undeserved chance which makes them his will form -the best part of the vainglorious satisfaction which he will contrive -to extract from them. - - -15 - -It would be extremely surprising, I said when I began, if this -indefatigable and exhaustive enquiry into Chance, pursued for over -fifty years, had failed to yield some sort of result. I am wondering, -at the end of this investigation, what that result is. At the cost of -an insane waste of money, time, physical, nervous and moral energy and -spiritual forces perhaps more precious still, it has taught us that -Chance is in short Chance, that is to say, an aggregate of effects -whereof we do not know the causes. But we knew as much as this before; -and our new discovery is a little derisory. We have seen the shadowy -appearance of certain laws or habits from which a few players appear -to derive advantage, though this advantage is always precarious. But -these apparent laws, which tend obscurely and uncertainly to instil a -little order into Chance, are, like Chance itself, but inconsistent -and ephemeral summaries of results from unknown causes. Upon the whole -we have learnt nothing, unless perhaps it be that we were wrong to -attach greater importance to those manifestations of destiny than -they possess. If we look at them more closely, we find that there is -nothing more behind all these catastrophes and all these mysteries of -luck than the catastrophe and the mysteries which we put there. We link -our fate to the fate of a little ball which is not responsible for it; -and, because we entrust it for a moment with our fortune, we fondly -imagine that mysterious moral powers are bent on directing and ending -its course at the right or wrong moment. It knows nothing of all this; -and, though the lives of thousands of men depended on its fall to the -right or the left of the point at which it stops, it would not care. It -has laws of its own, which it must obey and which are so complex that -we do not even try to explain them. It is just a little ball, honestly -seeking the little red or black hole in which to go to sleep and having -nothing very much to tell us of the secrets of a luck or destiny which -exist only within ourselves. - - - - -THE RIDDLE OF PROGRESS - - - - -XI - -THE RIDDLE OF PROGRESS - - -1 - -This war, which is one such as had never yet been waged upon this -earth of ours, leads us to consider the great problem of the future of -mankind. - -Dare we hope that humanity will one day renounce these monstrous -follies and that they will become altogether impossible? To this -question, if we wish to meet it at its source, I see but one reply, -which I have already given elsewhere and which I will here recapitulate -and complete, namely, that we are engulfed in a universe which has no -more limit in time than it has in space, which had no beginning, as it -will have no end, and which has behind it as many myriads of myriads of -years as it discovers ahead of it. Yesterday’s eternity and to-morrow’s -are precisely identical. All that the universe is going to do it must -have already done, for it has had as many opportunities of doing so as -it will ever have. All the things that it has not done are things which -it will never be able to do, because nothing will be added, in space -or time, to what it has already possessed in space or time. It has -necessarily made in the past all the efforts and all the experiments -which it will make in the future; and all that has gone before, having -been subject to the same chances, is perforce the same as all that is -to follow. - - -2 - -It is probable, therefore, that there was once an infinity of worlds -similar to our own, even as it is likely that there is an infinity of -such similar worlds at present, the infinity of space being comparable -with that of time. These coincidences, however difficult for us to -picture, must inevitably occur and recur in the immeasurable and the -innumerous in which we are immersed, that is, unless the infinity of -possible combinations be less unlimited than those of time and space. - -This is where our capacity of imagination halts, for it is easier for -us to conceive the infinities of space and time than the infinity of -combinations. To obtain some idea of the latter, we should have to -understand the substance and the nature, the laws and the forces, in a -word, the whole riddle of existence. None the less is it true that this -possible infinity of combinations is our only hope; without it there -would be nothing more to expect of a universe which obviously would -have tried and exhausted everything before our coming. - -But, if this number of combinations is really infinite, it is open to -us to say that the earth is an experiment which had not yet been made -and an experiment which has failed, since suffering and evil have the -upper hand of happiness and goodness. If the experiment has failed, -we are its victims; but we are not forbidden to hope that our efforts -will in some way modify combinations which will be more fortunate in -other places or at another time. If the experiment has failed, it does -not follow that others have not succeeded and are not more fortunate, -at this very moment, in other worlds than ours. We may even suppose -that, in the infinity of these combinations and experiments, the most -successful tend to become fixed and crystallized and that, in view of -their infinite number, they will bring about successfully in the future -what they have not brought about successfully in the past. This is a -hazardous glimmer; but I doubt whether any others will be discovered to -keep us uplifted above despair. - - -3 - -Let us for a moment assume that the experiment of this world had not -miscarried as it has; that the mind of man, which, since the beginning, -has been struggling painfully against matter and winning but a few -brief, uncertain and precarious victories, were a million times more -powerful and better-armed. It would no doubt have triumphed over all -that weighs us down and keeps us where we are; it would have freed -itself from the apparently illusory fetters of space and time. It is -not unreasonable to admit that, among the myriads of worlds which -people the infinite, there are some in which these better conditions -are realized. Perhaps, after all, it would be impossible to imagine -anything that does not exist somewhere in reality, for we may very -rightly maintain that our imaginings can be nothing more than stray -reflections of things that already exist. Now, if we lived in one of -those worlds and if we could see, as we should perhaps be allowed -to see, all that is happening at this moment on the earth which we -now inhabit and on others which are perhaps even worse and more -unfortunate, it seems to us that we should know neither rest nor ease -until we had intervened and helped to make it better and wiser and more -habitable. - - -4 - -For that matter, no one can tell us that this is not so now and that -all our spiritual victories, all that seems, at certain moments, to -be leading us towards a future less hideous than the past, all the -mysterious currents of good that sometimes flow through our world, all -that awaits us after death, no one, I say, can tell us that all this is -not due to the intervention of one of those worlds. It is true that we -cannot perceive the act of intervention, that we are hardly sensible -of it; but it is also true that these creatures of a higher world, -being of necessity less encumbered with matter and more spiritual than -we, must necessarily remain invisible to us. In the infinity of the -firmament we discover myriads of worlds that are material worlds like -our own; and we are able to discover only these, because all that does -not more or less closely resemble our own world must needs escape us. -But the space lying between the stars, which to us appears void, is -infinitely wider than the space which they themselves occupy; and it -would be strange indeed if it were not filled with worlds which we -cannot perceive at all, or rather if it were not itself one vast world -which our eyes are incapable of taking in. - -It is, moreover, thinkable that, if we do not see these other worlds, -they, not being material worlds, do not perceive matter and are -consequently as unaware of us as we are unaware of them; for we are -doubtless mistaken in believing that, because we are visible to one -another, we are necessarily visible to all other beings. On the -contrary, there is reason to presume that these spiritual beings pass -through us without suspecting our presence and that, as they are -conscious and sensible only of that which emanates from the spirit, -they do not suspect or discover our existence except in so far as we -approach the conditions in which they exist. - - -5 - -Consider the earth in its origin: at first, a shapeless nebula, -becoming gradually more and more condensed; next, a globe of fire, of -rocks in fusion, whirling for millions of years through space, with -no other object than that of forming into a mass and cooling: an -inconceivable incandescence, which none of our sources of heat can -enable us to picture; an essential, scientific, absolute barrenness -which may well have proclaimed itself irremediable and everlasting. -Who would have thought that from these torrents of matter in eruption, -which seemed to have destroyed for ever all life or the least germ of -life, there would emerge each and every form of life itself, from the -most enormous, the strongest, the most enduring, the most impetuous, -the most abundant, down to the slightest, the least visible, the most -precarious, the most ephemeral, the most exiguous? Who above all could -have dared foresee that they would give birth to what seems so utterly -alien to the liquefied or pasty rocks and metals that alone formed the -surface, the nucleus and the very entity of our globe, I mean our human -intelligence and consciousness? - - -6 - -Is it possible to imagine a more unexpected evolution and ending? -What could astonish us after so great an astonishment and what are -we not entitled to hope of a world which, after being what it was, -has produced what we see and what we are? Considering that it started -from a sort of negation of life, from integral barrenness and from -worse than nothing, in order to end in us, where will it not end after -starting from ourselves? If its birth and formation have elaborated -such prodigies, what prodigies may not its existence, its indefinite -prolongation and its dissolution hold in store for us? There are an -immeasurable distance and inconceivable transformations between the -one frightful material of the early days and the human thought of -this moment; and there will doubtless be a like distance and like -transformations as difficult to conceive between the thought of this -moment and that which will succeed it in the infinity of time. - -It seems as if, in the beginning, our earth did not know what to do -with its material and with its force, which inter-devoured each other. -In the vast, flaming void in which it was being consumed, it had not -yet the shadow of an object or an idea; to-day, it has so many that -our scholars wear out their lives to no purpose in seeking them and -are overwhelmed by the number of its mysterious and inexhaustible -combinations. - -At that time it disposed of but a single force, the most destructive -that we knew, fire. If everything was born of fire, which itself seemed -to be born only to destroy, what will not be born of that which seems -to be born only to produce, beget and multiply? If it was able to do so -much with the lava and the red-hot cinders which were the only elements -that it possessed, what will it not be able to do with all that it will -end by possessing? - - -7 - -It is well sometimes to tell ourselves that we are at least living in a -world which has not yet exhausted its future and which is much nearer -to its beginning than to its end. It was born only yesterday and has -but lately disentangled its original chaos. It is at the starting-point -of its hopes and its experiments. We believe that it is making for -death, whereas all its past, on the contrary, shows that it is much -more probably making for life. In any case, as its years pass by, the -quantity and still more the quality of the life which it engenders -and maintains tend to increase and to improve. It has given us only -the first-fruits of its miracles; and in all likelihood there is no -more connection between what it was and what it is than there will be -between what it is and what it will be. No doubt, when its greatest -marvels burst into being, we shall no longer possess the lives which -we possess to-day; but we shall still be there under another form, we -shall still be existing somewhere, on its surface or in its depths; and -it is not utterly improbable that one of its last prodigies will reach -us in our dust, awaken us and recall us to life, in order to impart to -us at last the share of happiness which we had not enjoyed and to teach -us that we were wrong not to interest ourselves, on the further side of -our graves, in the destiny of this earth of ours, of which we had never -ceased to be the immortal offspring. - - - - -THE TWO LOBES - - - - -XII - -THE TWO LOBES - - -1 - -A soldier writes me the following letter from the front: - - “There are quagmires and skeletons in the forest. I have discovered - and admired the ruined gods under the still living and wonderful - vegetation: their spirit has evaporated. The odour of Christ has - little charm for me; I prefer that of Buddha. What I adore in him - is the fundamental contradiction that seeks to assure us of our - immortality by proving our inevitable annihilation. He taught, - in the same breath, the illusion of the Ego and its periodical - reincarnation, an obvious absurdity which implies a knowledge of the - profoundest truth, of the very nature of being, at the same time and - alternately collective and individual. This discovery, which he did - not formulate, should have led him elsewhere than to Nirvana, that - paradise of unripe fruits.... - - “Man is so fashioned as to perceive only one half of the universe; - and the mind of ordinary texture sees barely a hemisphere of truth. - Afflicted with a congenital ‘nervous headache,’ humanity thinks with - only one half of its brain, with the eastern lobe or the western, the - ancient or the modern; its mind nibbles its own tail; the antinomies - pursue one another in an endless circle, which Kant believed that he - had discovered, but which Buddha had striven to open. He possessed - the complementary virtues; he was religious and rational; while he - summed up within himself the mysticism of the east, his was the most - scientific of the minds of antiquity, at a time when science did not - exist but was merged in philosophy. The moderns who have sought to - condense into a system the collective and hardly initiated effort - of science have pitiably failed, for they have thought only as - westerners, entangled in the contradiction of idealistic aspirations - and materialistic arguments, whereas Buddha’s formula might still - and almost without breaking down contain this gigantic effort and - yet not hamper it. From the death of the prince-philosopher, down to - the flights of contemporary science, true thought has not advanced - one step; Arab or Christian spiritualism and its reagent, positivist - or scientific materialism, are recoils in contrary directions, false - monisms which, taking the extreme for the supreme, seek to fix the - centre of gravity on the circumference of the wheel. The explorers of - the Beyond must set out from the cross-roads of religious synthesis - and scientific analysis and drag these rival sisters by the hand. - - “Truth shines at the centre of a circle of onlookers and we must pass - through its flame to recognize a brother in the adversary opposite. - We must reach the centre of space to discern the identity of its - cardinal points: ‘_Totum et Nihil, Alter et Ego_.’ The longing to - convert others must yield to the need of completing and balancing - our own point of view. In the sacred forest, which pioneers have - penetrated on all sides and in all ages, the more greatly daring must - necessarily draw nearer one to the other. Even if they cannot meet, - they can hear one another and give one another mutual encouragement. - The most modest cry of discovery may be welcome in the solitude and - silence in which the truth of the future is ripening....” - - -2 - -I thought it well to preserve this page. It sets forth, in a -remarkable, though perhaps too rapid summary, two or three of the -great problems which in reality are only one and to which, unless we -give up everything, we are bound to attempt the answer: the problems -of immortality or annihilation, of flux and reflux, of existence -alternatively collective and individual, of exteriorization and -interiorization, which make up the mighty cosmic rhythm whereof our -life and death are but infinitesimal pulsations. - - -3 - -But let us begin by observing that the fundamental contradiction -which seeks to assure us of our immortality by proving our inevitable -annihilation is not to be found in Buddha and that it is not true to -say that he teaches in the same breath the illusion of the Ego and -its periodical reincarnation. The doctrine of reincarnation is not -Buddha’s. He found it ready-made; it existed before him and was so -deeply rooted in his people that he does not even dream of disputing -it. From the exoteric point of view, he tries only to disarm it, to -deprive it of its sting, to render it harmless. He tries to reduce -life to the point where it can find nothing wherewith to reincarnate -itself. According to the exoteric doctrine, which is but a preparation -for esoteric truth, life is naught but suffering; and its only aim is -the redemption or the extinction of suffering. This extinction is -to be found in Nirvana, which is not annihilation but the absorption -of the individual into the universe. Ordinary death, by reason of -the perpetual reincarnation of the same individual, cannot suppress -suffering. We must therefore find a sort of superdeath, which makes -any reincarnation impossible; and this superdeath can be obtained -only by the man who has been striving to die all his life long and -who has deliberately cut off all the ties that bind him to existence: -all love, all hope, all desire, all possession. When, at the end of -this systematic and voluntary superdeath, the actual death arrives, it -will no longer find a living germ capable of achieving reincarnation. -This superdeath, thus obtained, will precede by many centuries or -millenaries purification, final redemption and the absorption into the -absolute One. - -It has been said that this is exactly the reverse of the doctrine of -Christ. With Buddha, life is only the gate of death; with Christ, death -is the gate of life. In reality, it is the same thing and everything -ends by the absorption into the divine, for the doctrine of Christ is -nothing more than a mutilated branch of the great trunk of the mother -religion. - -Here we have the solution offered to us by the most wonderful mind, -the greatest sage that humanity has ever known; by one who knew things -which we no longer know and which, it may be, we shall never recover. -It is the foundation of the religion of five hundred millions of men. -There is nothing nearer to the ultimate truth. - - -4 - -Let us observe, however, that the problem of immortality or -annihilation ought not to be set in these terms, since the word -annihilation cannot be employed, save in a metaphorical sense, to -denote a life which we no longer comprehend, seeing that Nihil or -nothingness is the one thing whose existence is utterly impossible and -whose non-existence is absolutely certain. - -As for immortality, here again there is ambiguity, for, as -annihilation cannot exist, immortality is inevitable; and the only -question that remains to be solved is whether this immortality will -or will not be accompanied by some sort of continuance of our present -consciousness. - -But, while it is probable that the problem of immortality, more or -less accompanied by consciousness, will long remain in suspense, -the answer to the problem of the “nervous headache,” or rather of -congenital hemiphlegia, is doubtless easier to find. In any case, -it occupies a domain which our direct investigations are able to -explore. It is, after all, an historical and geographical question. -It seems that there are in fact in the human brain an eastern lobe -and a western lobe, which have never acted at the same time. The one -produces, here, reason, science and consciousness; the other secretes, -yonder, intuition, religion and subconsciousness. One reflects only -the infinite and the unknowable; the other is interested only in -what it is able to delimit, in what it may hope to understand. They -represent, employing a perhaps imaginary image, the conflict between -the material and the moral ideal of humanity. They have more than -once endeavoured to penetrate each other, to mingle and to work in -concert; but the western lobe, at least over the most active part of -the world, has hitherto paralysed and almost annihilated the efforts of -the other. We are indebted to it for extraordinary progress in all the -material sciences, but also for such catastrophes as those which we are -undergoing to-day, catastrophes which, if we are not careful, will not -be the last nor the worst. The time would seem to have come to awaken -the paralysed lobe; but we have neglected it so greatly that we no -longer quite know what it is capable of doing. - - - - -HOPE AND DESPAIR - - - - -XIII - -HOPE AND DESPAIR - - -1 - -The same soldier, who has become my war-time “god-child,” writes to me -again: - - “I experience an ineffable delight in remaining the average man and - in professing emptiness. I felt a great peace descend within me on - the day when I resigned myself to the common lot, in other words, - to ignorance and death. I have found life by renouncing it and, now - that I am no longer anything, I feel rich indeed. Do not tempt me in - the direction of that subtle spiritual vanity which constitutes one - of the most formidable obstacles to the final liberation from self. - Proud I certainly was and I am still only too much so; but we cannot - extract virtues otherwise than from our vices. More ardently than - when I embraced the phantom of individual superiority, I stretch - my arms towards homogeneous equality, towards the fullness of - vacancy....” - - -2 - -He is right; but he is thinking, here, with the eastern lobe of his -brain, the Asiatic lobe; and the philosophy of this lobe counsels only -inaction and renunciation, the “enchantment of the disenchanted,” as -Renan used to say, or rather the satisfaction of despair. Certainly all -we that see, all that we feel and all that we know pledges us to this -despair, which our meditations--above all, those of this same Asiatic -lobe--may, for that matter, render very spacious and as beautiful, -almost as habitable, as hope. But what do we know, as compared with -what we do not know? We are ignorant of all that goes before and of all -that comes after us, in a word, of the whole universe. Our despair, -which appears at first the last word and the last effort of wisdom, is -therefore based upon what we know, which is nothing, whereas the hope -of those whom we believe to be less wise can be based upon what we do -not know, which is everything. - -Moreover, if we would be quite just, there is more than one reason for -hoping which we will not recall here; let us confess therefore that in -this nothing which we know there exists naught but despair and that -hope can lie only in that everything which we do not know. But, instead -of listening only to our eastern lobe, which counsels us to accept -this inactive ignorance and to bury our lives therein, is it not more -reasonable at the same time to set our western lobe to work, the lobe -which seeks to discover that everything? It is possible that here too, -when all is said, it will find despair; but it is unlikely, for we -cannot imagine a world which would be merely an act of despair. Now, -if the world is not an act of despair, nothing that exists in it has -reason to despair. In any case and in the meanwhile, this search will -doubtless permit us to hope as long as the world exists. - - -3 - -One of the most dangerous temptations that assail him who scrutinizes -nature and who sees, as he advances in his enquiries, that her -mysteries become more and more numerous, reaching forth unendingly -in every direction, is the temptation to grow discouraged by the -impossible task and to abandon it. He drops his weapons. On the last -slope of life particularly, he is too much inclined to resign himself, -to go no farther forward, to make no further effort, to fall into a -humour of saying, “What is the good?” and to drop asleep and learn -nothing more, since he has learnt that he will never know anything. - -He is already sensible of this wish to surrender at discretion when he -considers the humblest, the lowliest of the sciences. What will it be -when he attempts to embrace them all? The mind goes astray, becomes -dizzy, asks to close its eyes. It must not close them. That would be -the basest treachery that man could commit. We have no other thing to -do in this life of ours than to seek to know where we are. We find no -other reason for our existence; we have no other duty. Not to know -is merely vexatious; no longer to seek to know is the supreme, the -irremediable misfortune, the unpardonable desertion. - - -4 - -Yet, without renouncing, it is not well that we should feed ourselves -upon too petty illusions. We should always keep before our eyes certain -verities which put us in our place. There is no doubt that we shall -never know everything; and so long as we do not know everything we -shall be just as though we knew nothing. It is extremely possible, as -the Rig-Veda suggests, that God Himself, or the first cause, does not -know everything. It is equally possible that the universe has not yet, -in any of its parts, become conscious of itself; that it knows not -whence it came nor whither it is going, what it was nor what it will -be, what it has accomplished nor what it is seeking to accomplish; -and, on the other hand, it is probable that, if it has not yet learnt -these things, it will never learn them, seeing that, as I have already -said, there is no reason why it should be able, in the infinity of time -which will come after us, to do what it has not been able to do in the -infinity of time which went before. - - -5 - -If there be a consciousness of the universe, a God, He knows all that -He should know, or He will never know it. And, if He knows it, why has -He done what He has done, which cannot lead to anything, seeing that He -might already have led us where we ought to go? Why did He not prefer -nothingness, or at least that which we call nothingness, the only form -of lasting happiness, immovable, incontestable and comprehensible? - -We could understand, if need were, an immobile, immutable, eternal -universe, a finished universe; but we cannot understand a universe -in movement, or one, at least, of which all the parts that we see are -incessantly in movement, evolving through space and time, a universe -hurling itself at a dizzy rate of speed towards an end which it will -never attain, since it has not yet attained it. - -We may say, to console ourselves, that all despair comes only from the -limited nature of our purview; but it is fair to add that our purview -limits all hope in the same way. - - - - -MACROCOSM AND MICROCOSM - - - - -XIV - -MACROCOSM AND MICROCOSM - - -1 - -The biologists tell us that the human embryo repeats, very rapidly -during the early months of its development and more slowly during the -later months, all the forms of life which preceded man upon this earth. - -The round speck which is the germ becomes a hollow sphere, a sort -of sac with a double wall, which is known as the gastrula and whose -orifice of invagination, when it closes, receives the name of the -blastopore. This is protozoic life, the as yet gelatinous beginning of -animal life, and is followed, after transformations that would take too -long to enumerate, by polypoid life. - -Next, on either side of the head, appear the branchial arches, -corresponding with the gills of the fish. At the end of the first -month, the limbs are still no more than mere buds; on the other hand, -the embryo is provided with a tail, which, folded against the body, -nearly touches the forehead. It now has the appearance of a tadpole -and lives a life which is wholly aquatic, bathed in the amniotic fluid -which represents for it the water in which the embryos of fish and -frogs move about freely. - -It now becomes a matter of forming a resolution and knowing what to do -with it. The embryo is almost in the situation occupied by life at the -origin of the species; and nature, as though to humiliate man or to -humiliate herself by remembering her mistakes and hesitations, returns -to her gropings, her asymmetrics, her repentances, her unsuccessful -experiments. Tentative forms, such as the dorsal cord, are reabsorbed; -the primitive kidneys disappear, to make room for the final kidneys, -which are enormous, filling the greater portion of the peritoneal -cavity. Enormous too is the liver, which invades almost the whole of -the visceral cavity; enormous the head, almost as large as the rest -of the body; and in this enormous head the primitive ocular vesicles -are formed, themselves enormous, as is the umbilical vesicle. This is -the incoherent and monstrous period corresponding with the period of -madness and gigantism when nature, as yet inexperienced, was blindly -sketching uncertain creatures, formidable, unbalanced and anomalous, -birds, crocodiles, elephants and fish in one, as though she had not -as yet decided what to do, not yet completed her classifications, -disentangled her laws, or acquired the sense of proportion, of balance, -or of conditions essential to the maintenance of the life which she was -creating. - - -2 - -This, roughly speaking, is the recapitulation which occurs before -our eyes, but of which, no doubt, many incidents escape us or do not -sufficiently attract our attention, for it is possible that they -reproduce types with which we are not acquainted and which have not -even left geological traces, seeing that the number of species which -have disappeared is infinitely greater than that of the species which -we know. - -Dr. Hélan Jaworski may therefore very justly assert that the embryonic -period corresponds with the geological period. And, even as, in the -great terrestrial evolution, we observe the gradual disappearance of -the armour-plated fishes, the monstrous reptiles and the gigantic -mammals, so, in the minor embryonic evolution, we see the primitive -kidney, the dorsal cord and the umbilical vesicle dissolve, while the -liver diminishes and the disproportion between the head and the rest of -the body is lessened. In a word, nature is learning wisdom, recognizing -her errors, profiting by her experience, doing her best to repair her -blunders and acquiring a sense of equilibrium, economy and form. - -Dr. Jaworski finds other analogies between the geological period -corresponding with man’s appearance upon earth and the birth of the -child, analogies which are ingenious, but rather more hazardous. Birth -is in fact preceded by a miniature deluge, caused by the tearing of -the foetal envelopes, which allow the amniotic fluid to escape. Then -the child, at the moment of entering into life, suddenly experiences a -sort of glacial period; it passes, in fact, from an environment with -a temperature of over 98° to the outer air, which is barely 60° or -65°. The sense of cold is so terrible that it wrests a first cry of -suffering from the new-born child. - - -3 - -What is the meaning of this strange recapitulation? - -Dr. Jaworski thinks that, if the brief process of embryonic evolution -which prepares the way for the birth of man repeats the great process -of terrestrial evolution, this latter, on its side, might well be but -a vast embryonic period that is preparing for a birth which we cannot -as yet imagine. I do not know whether he will succeed in maintaining -this stupendous theory. If he does, he will really have made us, as he -promises to do, “take a step towards the essence of things.” Meanwhile, -thanks to his preparatory studies, he will always have made us take -another and a very useful step towards a truth which this time is -incontestable, which, though less unexpected, has never been elucidated -with so much patience and which is no less big with consequences. - - -4 - -Dr. Jaworski, then, undertakes to demonstrate that the human body -unites in itself, in a plainly recognizable form, all the living -creatures which now exist upon earth and which have existed since -the origin of life. In other words, each creature sums up in itself -all those which have preceded it; and man, the last-comer, contains -within himself the whole biological tree, so much so that, if we could -distribute his body, if we could segregate each of his organs and keep -it alive in isolation, we should be able to reconstitute all existing -forms, to repeople the earth with all the species which it has borne, -from the primitive protoplasm to the synthesis, the final achievement, -which is man. - -We might perhaps go farther than Dr. Jaworski and declare, with the -occultists of the east, that we likewise contain within us, in the germ -or in a rough-hewn state, all the creatures and all the forms that will -come after us. But here we should be leaving the domain of science -proper to lose ourselves in a speculation which by its very nature is -incapable of verification. - - -5 - -So it is not merely in a figurative sense, such as that foreshadowed by -the current idiom, where it speaks of the vascular tree, the branches -of nerves, or the ovarian cluster; it is not merely by analogy, but in -a literal and strictly scientific sense that our heart, fundamentally, -is nothing but a medusa and our kidneys sponges, that our intestines -represent the polyps and our skeleton the polypites, that our -reproductive organs are worms or molluscs, that the vertebral column -and the spinal marrow take the place of the Echinodermata, while the -Brachiopoda and the Ctenophora would be derived from our eye and the -reptiles found in our digestive apparatus, the birds in our respiratory -organs and so on. - -I repeat, there is no question here of metaphors or of more or less -approximate, elastic and plausible correspondences but of rigorously -and meticulously established proofs. - -I cannot, of course, set before you the details of Dr. Jaworski’s -exegesis. It would not permit of the slightest solution of continuity -and, in the three volumes published so far, it leads us to conclusions -which are very difficult to contest. People used to assert, without -attaching too much faith to what they said or scrutinizing it too -closely, that man is a microcosm. It seems to be clearly proved to-day -that this is not merely literally defensible, but scientifically -accurate. We are a prehistoric colony, immense and innumerous, a living -agglomeration of all that lives, has lived and probably will live upon -earth. We are not only the sons or brothers of the worms, the reptiles, -the fish, the frogs, the birds, the mammals and no matter what monsters -have defiled or affrighted the surface of the globe: we bear them -within us; our organs are no other than themselves; we nourish all -their types; they are only awaiting an opportunity to escape from us, -to reappear, to reconstitute themselves, to develop and to plunge us -once again into terror. In this respect, quite as much as in respect -of the secret thoughts, the vices and the phantoms with which we are -filled, we might repeat the words which Emerson’s old man used to speak -to his children, when they were frightened by a strange face in the -dark passage: - -“Children, you will never see anything worse than yourselves!” - -If all the species were to disappear and only man remained, none -would be lost and all might be reborn of his body, as though they were -coming out of Noah’s ark, from the almost invisible protozoa down to -the formidable antediluvian colossi which could lick the roofs of our -houses. - -It is therefore fairly probable that all these species take part in -our existence, in, our instincts, in all our feelings, in all our -thoughts; and here once more we are led back to the great religions of -India, which foresaw all the truths that we are gradually discovering -and which already, thousands of years ago, were telling us that man -is everything and that he must recognize his essence in every living -creature. - - - - -HEREDITY AND PREEXISTENCE - - - - -XV - -HEREDITY AND PREEXISTENCE - - -1 - -The law of heredity which insists that the descendants shall suffer -by the faults and profit by the virtues of their ancestors comprises -truths that are no longer disputed. They shine forth, visible to the -eyes of all. The child of a drunkard will bear the burden of his -father’s vice all his life long, from the day of his birth to that of -his death, in body and in mind. One might say that by this irrefutable -example nature had intended ostentatiously to affirm and manifest -the implacable character of her law, as though to make us understand -that she takes no account whatever of our conceptions of justice and -injustice and that she acts on an unvarying principle in all the -obscure circumstances in which we cannot follow the inextricable -windings of her will. This example, if we had no other, would be enough -to brand that inhuman will with infamy. There is no law more repugnant -to our reason, to our sense of responsibility, nor one which does a -deeper injury to our trust in the universe and the unknown spirit -that rules it. Of all life’s injustices, this is the most glaring and -the least comprehensible. For most of the others we find excuses or -explanations; but, when we remember that a new-born child, a child -which did not ask to be born, is, from the moment of inhaling its first -breath of air, smitten with irremediable insolvency, with a ferocious, -irrevocable sentence and with evils which it will drag to the grave, it -seems to us that not one of the most hateful tyrants that history has -cursed would have dared to do what nature does quietly every day. - -But do we really bear the burden of the errors of the dead? In the -first place, is it quite certain that the dead are really dead and no -longer dwell within us? It is a fact that we continue them, that we -are the durable part of what they were. We cannot deny that we are -still subject to their influence, that we reproduce their features and -their characters, that we represent them almost entirely, that they -continue to live and to act in us; it is therefore very natural that -they also should continue to bear the consequences of an action or a -way of living which their departure has not interrupted. - -“But,” you may say, “I had no part in this action, this habit, this -vice for which I am paying to-day. I was not consulted; I had no -opportunity of uttering a protest, of checking my father, or my -grandfather, as he went to his ruin down the fatal precipice. I was not -born; I did not yet exist!” - -How do you know? May there not be a fundamental mistake in the idea -of heredity as we conceive it? At one end of the beam of those scales -which we accuse of injustice hangs heredity, but the other is borne -down by something different, which we have never taken into account, -for it has not yet a name, something which is the antithesis of -heredity, which cleaves into the future instead of emerging from the -past and which we might call preexistence or prenatality. - -Even as our dead still live in us, so we have already lived in them. -There is no reason to believe that the future, which is full of life, -is less active and less potent than the past, which is full of the -dead. Instead of descending, should we not rather ascend the course of -the years to discover the source of our actions? - -We know not in what fashion those already dwell in us who shall be -born of us, down to the last generation; but that they do dwell in us -is certain. Whatever the number of our descendants, in the sequence of -the ages, whatever the transformations which the elements, climates, -countries and centuries may cause them to undergo, they will keep -intact, through all vicissitudes, the principle of life which they have -derived from us. They have not obtained it elsewhere or they could not -be what they are. They have really issued from us; and, if they have -issued from us, it is because they were in us from the first. What were -they doing within us, all these innumerable, accumulated lives? Is it -permissible to suppose that they were absolutely inactive? Then what -were their functions, what their power? What divided them from us? When -did we begin, where did they end? At what point did their thoughts and -their desires mingle with ours? - -“How could they think and act in us,” you ask, “having as yet no brain?” - -True; but they had ours. The dead too are without a brain; nevertheless -no one will deny that they continue to think and act in us. This brain -of which we are so proud is not the source but the condenser of thought -and will. Like the Leyden jar or the Ruhmkorff coil, it exists, it is -animated only so long as the electric fluid of life passes through it -or resides in it. It does not produce this fluid, it collects it; -what matters is not its convolutions, which may be compared with the -windings of an induction-coil, but the life that flows through it; and -what can this life be, if it be not the sum of all the existences which -are accumulated within us, which are not extinguished at our death, -which begin before our birth and which continue us, forwards, and -backwards, into the infinity of time? - - -2 - -Writers of essays and novels have at times endeavoured to represent -these diverse lives which we harbour within us; and each of us, if he -question himself sincerely and profoundly, will discover in himself -two or three clearly-defined types, which have nothing in common but -the body in which they reside, which rarely agree among themselves, -which are incessantly striving to gain the upper hand and which put up -with one another as best they can, in order to go through an existence -whose aggregate forms our ego. This ego will be good or bad, remarkable -or insignificant, more or less generous or selfish, calm or uneasy, -pacific or pugnacious, heroic or pusillanimous, hesitating or decided -and enterprising, brutal or refined, crafty or loyal, active or idle, -chaste or lascivious, modest or vainglorious, proud or obsequious, -unreliable or steadfast, according to the authority which the type -that captures the best positions of the heart or brain is able to -assume over the others. But, even in the life that appears the most -stable, the most homogeneous, the best-balanced, this authority will -never be final or undisputed. The dominant type will find itself for -ever disputed, attacked, thwarted, disturbed, circumvented, harassed, -tempted, deceived, betrayed and sometimes cunningly dethroned by one -of the rival or subordinate types which it failed to distrust or which -it did not watch narrowly enough. We behold unexpected coalitions, -fantastic compromises, regrettable defections, fierce competitions, -incessant intrigues and positive revolutions, especially at the -critical periods and at each moment of important happenings; and all -this prodigious inward tragedy does not cease for an instant until the -hour of death. - - -3 - -But, once again, why seek only in the past and among our ancestors for -the actors in this drama which is the essential drama of humanity? What -justification have we for supposing that the dead alone play all the -parts? Why should those from whom we have issued possess more influence -than those who will issue from us? The first are remote from our bodily -selves, they are separated from us by unfathomable mysteries and their -survival may perhaps be called in question; the others inhabit our -flesh and their existence is incontestable. We have just seen that the -argument deduced from the absence of any brain is not invincible. - -“But,” you will perhaps go on to say, “how do you suppose that, when -they have not yet lived, they can possess habits, virtues and vices, -preferences and experience, in a word, all that constitutes a character -and cannot be acquired save by contact with life?” - -But the same objection could be raised, in most cases, with regard -to our ancestors. Generally speaking, when we issued from them, they -were still young; they were not yet what they became and what we shall -become after them. They had not yet adopted the habits, the ways of -thinking or feeling, or cultivated the virtues or the vices which are -reproduced in us. The stubborn little mediocrity whom we all feel -within us, frugal, cautious and shabby in his dealings, was still -perhaps a prodigal, high-spirited and reckless youth; the rake was -still perhaps chaste, the thief had never stolen and the murderer may -have had a horror of bloodshed. All this is almost equally immaterial -and equally potential in both cases; the only present points at issue -are the amorphous tendencies and forces whereon the brain which we -receive from these and pass on to those bestows a form. - -It is therefore very possible that the little mediocrity, the rake, -the thief or the murderer, far from being dead, are not yet born and -are taking as active a part as our ancestors in the agitations and -sometimes in the conduct of our existence. This is what the most -ancient and the most venerable religions of humanity always foresaw -or revealed, receiving it perhaps on the authority of an unknown and -loftier source; and of these religions Christianity, with its dogma -of original sin, is but an imperfect echo. Even to-day, more than six -hundred millions of human beings believe in the preexistence of the -soul, in successive lives and in reincarnation. In the eyes of these -religions, the little mediocrity who begot us several centuries ago -is the same who, a little less paltry, a little less narrow, improved -by his previous life and his passage through the mysteries of death, -is awaiting within us the moment of rebirth and who, while waiting, -shares our instincts, our feelings and our thoughts. He does not -wait in solitude; he is but one life in the host of lives which have -preceded us and which come back to live in us again; and all these past -and future lives form the sum total of our own. - - -4 - -We will not here discuss this doctrine of successive lives and of the -expiatory and purifying reincarnation, which is the noblest and, up -to now, the only acceptable explanation of nature’s injustices that -has been discovered. In the present state of our knowledge, it can be -only a magnificent theory or a statement impossible of proof. Let us -not forsake the indisputable ground on which heredity and preexistence -have their being. Heredity is an acquired fact, an experimental truth; -preexistence is a logical necessity. It is not indeed possible to -conceive that what will be born of us does not already exist within us -in fact, in principle, in the germ, in essence or in potentiality; -and, from the moment of its existence in a fashion probably more -spiritual than material, it is far less surprising that it should be -more or less responsible for thoughts and actions to which it could not -be wholly a stranger. - -In any case, heredity, which is incontestable, and preexistence, -which is necessary, remind us yet once again that each of us is not a -single being, isolated, permanent, hermetically sealed, independent of -others and separated from all things in time and space, but a porous -vase dipping into the infinite; a sort of cross-roads, where all the -paths of the past, the present and the future meet; an inn beside the -eternal highways, where all the lives which make up our own foregather -for a few days’ sojourn. We believe ourselves dead when they leave the -inn; and we fancy that they too have perished. It is more likely that -this is not so at all. They are merely quitting the ruined hostel to -install themselves in a new and more habitable house. They carry with -them their debts and their obligations; they remove to their new abode -their instincts, their habits, their ideals, their passions also, their -merits and their faults, their acquisitions and their memories. The -house is different, but the guests are the same; and the old life will -resume its course in the new dwelling and will be perhaps a little -nobler, perhaps a little fairer, perhaps filled with a little brighter -light. - - - - -THE GREAT REVELATION - - - - -XVI - -THE GREAT REVELATION - - -1 - -We despair of ever knowing the origin of the universe, its aim, its -laws, or its intentions; and we end by doubting whether there be any. -It were wiser very humbly to confess that we are not able to conceive -them. It is probable that, if the universe to-morrow were to yield us -the key of its riddle, we should be as incapable of understanding how -to use it as is a dog to whom we show the key of a clock. In revealing -its great secret to us, it would teach us hardly anything; or at least -the revelation would have but an insignificant influence upon our -life, our happiness, our ethics, our efforts, and our hopes. It would -soar at such heights that no one would perceive it; at most it would -disencumber the sky of our religious illusions, leaving only the -infinite void of the ether in their place. - - -2 - -For that matter, there is no saying but that we once possessed this -revelation. It is highly possible that the religions of nations which -have disappeared, such as the Lemurians, the Atlanteans and many -others, were aware of it and that we have discovered its remains in the -esoteric traditions that have come down to us. It must not indeed be -forgotten that there exists, side by side with the outward, scientific -history, a secret history of mankind which derives its substance -of legends, myths, hieroglyphics, strange monuments and mysterious -writings from the hidden meaning of the primitive books. One thing -is certain, that, though the imagination of those who interpret this -occult history is often venturesome, all that they declare is not to be -despised and deserves to be examined more seriously one day than has -hitherto been done. - -The essence of this esoteric revelation is very well summed up by M. -Marc Saunier, a disciple of Fabre d’Olivet and Saint-Yves d’Alveydre, -in his book, _La Légende des symboles_. - - “The Initiates,” he says, “have always regarded each continent as - a being subject to the same laws as man. For them, the minerals - constitute its skeleton, the flora its flesh, the fauna its - nerve-cells and the human races the grey matter of its brain. This - continent itself is but an organ of the earth, wherein each man is - treated as a thinking cell and whereof the thought is represented by - the sum of human thoughts. The earth itself is but an organ of the - solar system, which in turn is considered as an individual; and our - solar system thus becomes merely an organ of another being of the - infinite, whose heart would appear in the star Alpha in Aries. And - lastly, by a final synthesis, we come to the Cosmos, which expresses - the general sum of all things, in a being whose body is the world - and whose thought is the universal intelligence, exalted by the - religions to the rank of a deity.” - -The basis of their doctrine is plainly evolutionistic. Each continent -has merely transformed, in its own time and according to its own ideal, -the seeds which came from the Hyperborean tracts; and man is but the -result of an animal evolution. For the rest, they borrow it in part -from the Hindus, thus anticipating by many thousands of years the -latest hypotheses of our modern science. - - -3 - -But, without loitering in these shifting sands, let us go direct to -clear and reliable sources. We possess, in the sacred and secret books -of India, of which we know only an infinitesimal part, a cosmogony -which no European conception has ever surpassed. It would not be -correct to say that it attained, at the first endeavour, the ultimate -limits beyond which the mind of man could not venture without -dissolving in the infinite, for it was the work of centuries of which -we do not know the tale; but it indisputably preceded all the others, -its birth was earlier than anything that we know and, at the beginning -of all things, it exceeded in grandeur all that we have learnt and all -that we can imagine. - -It was the first, for instance, long before our historic periods, to -give us a dizzy yet concrete idea of the infinity of time. The Book of -Manu teaches us that twelve thousand years of mortals are but a day and -a night to the gods; their year, therefore, consisting of three hundred -and sixty days, numbers 4,320,000 years. A thousand years of the gods -make but one of Brahma’s days, that is to say, 4,320,000,000 human -years, representing the total life of our globe; and Brahma’s night is -of equal duration. Three hundred and sixty of these days and nights -make one of this god’s years; and a hundred of these years constitute -one of his lives, that is to say, the duration of the universe, which -is represented by the formidable figure of 311,090,000,000,000 -years. After this he begins a new life. At present we have not yet -attained the noon of Brahma’s actual day nor half the life-time of our -terrestrial globe. - -To complete this outline of the stupendous chronology of the Vedas, -I continue to profit by some notes received from my war-time godson, -who has a thorough knowledge of this unduly neglected science. For -the rest, it will be seen that chronology and cosmogony are here in -intimate connection: - - “The day of Brahma (4,320,000,000 years) is divided into fourteen - lives of Manu, consisting alternately of seven Manvantaras and seven - Pralayas. The word Manvantara signifies the interval between two - Manus: one of these appears in the dawn and the other in the twilight - of this period of terrestrial activity. The morning Manu gives the - Manvantara its name and the evening Manu presides over the Pralaya, - that is to say, the period of dissolution, or negative _status quo_, - death, sleep, or inertia, as the case may be, which divides two waves - of life. - - “Universal evolution is a chain without beginning or end, each - link of which in turn appears and disappears in our field of - consciousness. Brahma himself dies only to be reborn. But for the - sovereign of the worlds, as for a random star or the least of - organized creatures, there is death and dissolution only from the - individual point of view. Darkness is the ransom to be paid for - light, the evening balances the morning, age is the price of youth - and death the reverse of life. In reality, however, all evolution is - at the same time continuous and discontinuous; the Manvantaras and - Pralayas are at once simultaneous and successive; each individual - life is engendered by its elemental double and engenders its residual - double. Every decline of life in a given place coincides with an - increase of being in a corresponding place and proceeds by means of - a rebirth in a fresh place. Fundamentally, there is no individual - life. We are at once ourselves and another, ourselves and several - others, ourselves and all others, ourselves and the Universe, - ourselves and infinity. - - “The evolution of our terrestrial globe is an infinitesimal cycle of - this universal evolution, corresponding merely with a day and a night - of Brahma, and is divided into fourteen cycles, each consisting of - a Manvantara and a Pralaya. The cycle of organic evolution upon our - solidified globe represents only one of these subdivisions, that is - to say, the radius of the organic sphere is only a fourteenth part - of the radius of the mineral sphere. Mineral evolution is manifestly - continuous from the formation of the globe to its dissolution. If, - between the periods of geological activity, there exists a Pralaya - of any kind, this latter, despite the etymology of the word, must - be not a dissolution, which would be perfectly inconceivable from - the logical and scientific point of view, but a period of inertia - or abatement, of which the hypothesis is readily admissible - and of which the glacial periods, occurring in the very course - of the present Manvantara, afford us an example. In the earlier - cycles of Manu, the earth passed in succession through the various - stages of condensation which science regards as igneous and which - correspond with the ethereal, gaseous and liquid evolution of the - elements. During these long periods, the life of the present existed - potentially in the soul of the earth and actually on other globes - than ours.” - - -4 - -But we will proceed no further with this outline, which would become -so complicated as to be inextricable. Let us remember simply the -magnificent doctrine of the reincarnation, which is the most ancient -reply, the only decisive and, no doubt, the most plausible reply, to -all the problems of justice and injustice, the immortal torture of -mortals, and its corollary, the law of Karma, which, as my godson -so truly says, “is the most wonderful of ethical discoveries: it -represents abstract liberty and is enough to enfranchise the human -will from any superior or even infinite being. We are our own creators -and the sole captains of our fate; no other than ourselves rewards -or punishes us; there is no sin, but only consequences; there is no -morality, but only responsibilities. Now Buddha taught that, merely by -virtue of this sovran law, the individual must be reborn to reap what -he has sowed; and this certainty of rebirth was enough to neutralize -the horror of death.” - - * * * * * - -Is all this nothing more than imagination, than the dreams of brains -more ardent than our own, the hallucinations of ascetics which amaze -the young and the immobility or the echo of immemorial traditions -bequeathed by other races, or by races anterior to man and more -spiritual? It is impossible to decide; but, whatever its origin, it is -certain that the monument whereof we have seen but a corner of the -pedestal is prodigious and that it has not a human aspect. All that we -can say is that our modern sciences, notably archæology, geology and -biology, confirm rather than invalidate either of these revelations. - - -5 - -But this is not the question for the moment. Let us suppose that one -of these revelations, for instance, that of the sacred books of India, -were true, incontestable and scientifically proved by our researches; -or that an interplanetary communication or a declaration of some -superhuman being no longer permitted us to doubt its authenticity: what -influence would such a revelation have upon our life? What would it -transform in our life, what novel element would it add to our morality -or our happiness? No doubt it would work but a very slight change. It -would pass too high above us; it would not descend to our level; it -would not touch us; we should lose ourselves in its immensity; and upon -the whole, knowing everything, we should be neither happier nor wiser -than when we knew nothing. - -Not to know what he has come upon this earth to do: that is man’s great -and everlasting torment. Now we must perforce admit that the actual -truth of the universe, if some day we learn it, will probably be very -similar to one or other of those revelations which, while appearing to -teach us everything, teach us nothing at all. It will at least possess -the same inhuman character. It will necessarily be as unlimited in both -space and time, as abysmal, as foreign to our senses and our brain. -The more tremendous, the more majestic the revelation, the greater -chance will it have of being true; but also, the more remote from us -it is, the less will it interest us. We can hardly hope to escape -from this discouraging dilemma: those revelations, explanations or -interpretations which are too petty will not satisfy us, because we -shall instinctively feel them to be insufficient; while those which are -too great will pass us by too far to affect us. - - -6 - -It nevertheless seems desirable that this revelation of the sacred -books of India should be authentic and that our knowledge, still so -slight, so unimportant, so timid and so incoherent, should gradually -confirm, as indeed it unwittingly does daily, certain points scattered -through the boundless immensity of this immemorial truth. - -It would in any case, even if it did not succeed in affecting us -directly, possess the advantage of enlarging our horizon, which is -narrower than we suppose, until it embraces infinity; of studding -this infinity with magnificent landmarks; of animating it, peopling -it, filling it with wonderful faces, making it a living, perceptible, -almost comprehensible thing. - -We all know that we dwell in infinity; but this infinity is, for us, -only a bare and barren word, a black and uninhabitable void, a formless -abstraction, a lifeless expression, to which our imagination can -give only a momentary vitality, at the cost of a tiring, solitary, -unskilful, unassisted, ungrateful and unfruitful effort. We hold -ourselves, in fact, pent in this terrestrial world of ours and in our -brief historic ages; and at the most we raise our eyes, from time to -time, towards the other planets of our solar system and project our -thoughts, which are discouraged from the beginning, as far as the -nebulous periods that preceded man’s advent on our globe. More and more -deliberately we are directing the whole activity of our intelligence -upon ourselves; and, by a regrettable optical illusion, the more it -restricts its field of action, the deeper we believe it to be probing. -Our thinkers and philosophers, fearing lest they should stray as their -predecessors did before them, no longer concern themselves with any -but the least disputable aspects, problems and secrets; but, if these -are the least disputable, they are also the least sublime; and man, in -his quality as a terrestrial animal, becomes the sole object of their -investigations. The scientists, on the other hand, are accumulating -minor data and observations whose weight is stifling them; yet they no -longer dare to thrust them aside or open them out, so as to ventilate -them by some general law, some salutary hypothesis, for those which -they have hitherto ventured to advance have been pitiably contradicted, -one after the other, and scouted by experience. - -Nevertheless, they are right to act as they do and to continue their -investigations according to their narrow and restricted methods; but -we are entitled to observe that, the closer they believe that they -have drawn to a fugitive truth, the greater are their uncertainty and -confusion, the more precarious, imaginary and insufficient seem the -foundations upon which they based their confidence and the more fully -do they perceive the immense distance that still divides them from the -least of life’s secrets. As one of the most illustrious of them, Sir -William Grove, prophetically remarked: - - “The day is fast approaching when it will be confessed that the - Forces we know are but the phenomenal manifestations of Realities we - know nothing about, but which were known to the Ancients and by them - worshipped.” - - -7 - -This, indeed, is what we are bound to think if we study slightly this -primitive revelation, this ancient wisdom and what has grown out of it. -Man once knew more than he now knows. He was ignorant perhaps of the -enormous mass of petty details which we have observed and classified -and which have enabled us to subdue certain forces which he never -thought of turning to account: but it is probable that he understood -better than we do their nature, their essence and their origin. - -The higher civilization of humanity, which history traces back -tentatively to five or six thousand years before Christ, is perhaps far -more ancient; and, without admitting, as has been asserted, that the -Egyptians kept astronomical records through a period of six hundred and -thirty thousand years, we may consider it as established that their -observations embraced two precessional cycles, two sidereal years, or -fifty-one thousand, seven hundred and thirty-six solar years. Now they -themselves were not initiators but initiates, who derived all that they -knew from a more ancient source. It was the same with the Semites, -in the matter of their primitive books and their Kabbalah; and the -Greeks, among whom all those who really taught us something about the -origin and constitution of the world and its elements, about nature and -divinity, mind and matter, men such as Hesiod, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, -Plato and the Neo-Platonists, were likewise initiates, that is to say, -they were men who, having travelled in Egypt or India, had drunk of the -same one and immemorial spring. Our prehistoric religions, Scandinavian -or Germanic and the Druidism of the Celts, those of China and Japan, of -Mexico and Peru, despite numerous deformations, were also derived from -the same source, even as our great western metaphysics, which preceded -our modern materialism, with its somewhat sordid outlook, and notably -the metaphysics of Leibnitz, Kant, Schelling, Fichte and Hegel have -approached it and, more or less unconsciously, slaked their thirst at -it. - -It is therefore certain that through the Greeks, through the Bible, -through Christianity, which is its last echo, for the author of the -Apocalypse and St. Paul were initiates, we are all steeped in this -revelation; that there is not and never has been any other; that it -is the great human or superhuman revelation; and that consequently -it would be right and salutary to study it more attentively and more -profoundly than we have hitherto done. - - -8 - -Where does the source of this revelation lie? We place it in the -east because nearly everything that we know about it is found in -the sacred books of India. But it is almost certainly of western or -rather Hyperborean origin and dates back to those wonderful vanished -Atlanteans, whose last Protoscythian colonies flourished over eleven -thousand years ago and whose existence can no longer be denied. - -Remember that famous passage in Plato: - - “One day, when Solon was conversing with the priests of Saïs on the - history of the remote ages, one of them said: - - “‘O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children!... There is not - an opinion, not a tradition of knowledge among you that is old.... - You know nothing of that noble race of heroes of whom you are a - remnant.... Nine thousand years, as our annals record, have elapsed - since what I am about to tell you.... The most famous of your actions - was the overthrow of the island of Atlantis, which lay over against - the Pillars of Hercules, was greater than Libya and Asia put together - and was the passage to other islands and to a great ocean whereof - the Mediterranean Sea was but a harbour; and within the Pillars the - empire of Atlantis reached in Europe to Tyrrhenia and in Libya to - Egypt. This mighty power was arrayed against Egypt and Greece and - all the Mediterranean countries. Then your city did bravely and won - renown throughout the earth. For, risking her own existence, she - repelled the invader and gave liberty to all the nations within the - Pillars. Soon after, earthquakes arose and floods; and your warlike - race was swallowed up by the earth; and the island of Atlantis also - disappeared in the sea.’” - -This page in the _Timæus_ is the first glimpse that history properly -so-called affords of the immense chaos of the antediluvian period. -Modern researches and discoveries have confirmed it step by step. To -quote Roisel, who devoted a remarkable book to the Atlanteans, a work -less well-known than those of Scott Elliott and Rudolf Steiner, but one -that does not admit of the slightest doubt: - - “It is proved that, long before the historic ages, the Atlanticans - had acquired a marvellous science whose elements mankind is hardly - beginning to reconstitute and whose mighty relics are found in - ancient Gaul, Egypt, Persia, India and the central portion of the - American continent. More than ten thousand years before our era, they - knew the precession of the equinoxes, the slow changes which many - stars experience in their courses and the thousand secrets of nature. - They had processes of which modern industry has not yet fathomed the - mysteries.” - - -9 - -The outcome of these studies is that humanity never underwent a -disaster to be compared with the disappearance of Atlantis. It will -perhaps need thousands of years to repair that loss and to reascend -to the level of a civilization which had certainties of which we -laboriously glean the scattered remnants, regarding the origin and -movements of the universe, the energy of matter, the unknown forces -of this and other worlds, the life beyond the grave and a social -organization and political economy similar to those of the bees. -Nothing could better prove the uselessness of man’s effort than this -unparalleled loss, if we did not strive to hope in spite of all. - -A nation of wonderful metallurgists, who had discovered the means of -tempering copper for which we are still seeking, a nation of fabulous -engineers, whose geometry, as Professor Smyth tells us, began where -Euclid’s ends, they lifted and transported to enormous distances, by -mysterious methods, rocks weighing fifteen hundred tons and strewed -the world with those fantastic moving stones known as “mad stones” -and “stones of truth,” stones weighing five hundred tons and so -ingeniously poised on one of their corners that a child can move them -with its finger, whereas the united impetus of two hundred men would -be incapable of overturning them, stones which, from the geological -point of view, never belong to the spot where they are found. A nation -of explorers who had traversed and colonized the whole surface of -the earth, a nation of scholars, mathematicians and astronomers, -they appear to have been above all things ruthless rationalists and -logicians, endowed with, so to speak, a metallic brain, the lateral -lobes of which were much more highly developed than ours. They applied -their incomparable faculties exclusively to the study of the exact -sciences; and the sole object of their energies was the conquest of -truth. But the study of the invisible and the infinite, under their -powerful scrutiny, itself becomes an exact science; and the main idea -of their cosmogony, by virtue of which everything issues from the ocean -of cosmic matter or from the boundless waves of the eternal ether, soon -to return and to reemerge, disfigured and overladen with numberless -myths by the imagination of their degenerate descendants or settlers: -this main idea forms the base of every religion. It is improbable that -man will ever discover one to equal it or replace it. - - -10 - -It is in the sacred books of India that we find the surest and most -plentiful traces of this cosmogony or of this revelation. Less than a -century ago, men were almost wholly unaware of the existence of these -sacred books. Their interpreters have taken two different paths. On -the one hand, scholars whom we may describe as official have supplied -translations of a certain number of texts, which might also be called -official, texts which they do not always understand and which their -readers understand even less. On the other hand, initiates, genuine -or pretended, with the assistance of adepts of an occult fraternity, -have suggested a new and more impressive interpretation of these same -texts or of others still more secret. They still, rightly or wrongly, -inspire a certain distrust. We are obliged to admit the authenticity -and the antiquity of certain traditions, of certain primitive and -essential writings, though it is impossible to assign an approximate -date to them, so completely are they merged in the mists of the -prehistoric ages. But they are almost incomprehensible without keys and -commentaries; and it is here that our doubts and hesitations begin. A -large number of those commentaries are likewise very ancient and in -their turn need keys; others appear to be more recent; lastly, others -seem to be contemporary; and it is often difficult to draw a dividing -line between that which may well exist in the original and that which -the interpreters believe to exist in the original or which they more or -less deliberately add to it. Now the most striking, the most impressive -and in any case the most lucid part of the doctrine is often contained -in the commentaries. - -Next, as I have observed, comes the question of the keys, which -is intimately connected with the foregoing. These keys are more -or less workable and command more or less respect; sometimes they -seem fanciful or arbitrary; they are delivered only with curious -precautions, singly and grudgingly; and they are apt to unlock several -superimposed meanings. And all this is accompanied by fantastic -reticences, by so-called dangerous or terrible secrets, withheld at -the decisive moment, and by revelations which, it is contended, cannot -be communicated until many centuries have elapsed. Doors through which -we were about to pass are slammed in our faces just as we were at last -catching a glimpse of a long-promised horizon; and behind each of them -hides a supreme initiate, a still living master, the sacred guardian -of the ultimate mysteries, who knows all things, but can or will say -nothing. - -Observe, moreover, that a host of more or less intelligent -_illuminati_, of elderly women and unbalanced spinsters, of -simple-minded people who accept, blindly and off-hand, that which -they do not understand, of discontented, unsuccessful, vain or crafty -persons who fish in troubled waters, in a word, all the usual suspect -mob that gathers round any more or less mysterious doctrine, science -or phenomenon, has discredited these first esoteric interpretations, -of which the very source is none too dear. Lastly, let us add that the -burning of the famous library of Alexandria, in which all the knowledge -of the east was amassed, the destruction in the sixteenth century, -under the Mogul Akbar, of thousands of Sanskrit volumes, the systematic -and merciless demolition, especially during the first few centuries -of the Church and in the Middle Ages, of all that referred or alluded -to this dreaded and embarrassing revelation, have deprived us of our -best means of control. The adepts, it is true, assert on the other hand -that the true texts, as well as the ancient commentaries which alone -enable them to be understood, still exist in the secret crypts and -subterranean libraries of Thibet or the Himalayas, libraries of books -more innumerable than any which we possess in the west, and that they -will reappear in a more enlightened age. It is possible, but in the -meanwhile they are of no help to us. - - -11 - -Be this as it may, what we have is enough to perplex us greatly; -and the control allowed by the fragments which have been saved from -historic antiquity absolutely removes all suspicion of more or less -recent fraud or deception in respect of the essentials. Moreover, any -fraud or deception of this nature seems hardly possible and would be -so ingenious that we should be obliged to marvel at it as a phenomenon -almost as remarkable as that whereof it would be seeking to give the -illusion; and we should have to admit that the mind of man has never -insinuated itself so far into the infinity of time and space, or -into the origin of things, and has never risen to such heights. Had -this revelation profited by all the attainments of our latter-day -science and thought, it could not have furnished us with theories -more satisfactory, more logical, more coherent, more plausible, more -synthetic, or worthier of the infinity which they strive to embrace -and often seem to attain, on the rhythm of the eternities, the ebb -and flow of the eternal Becoming, the never-ending cycle and the -periodic existences of the ego, the birth, movement and evolution of -the worlds, the divine breath and the intelligence that animate it, on -Maya, the eternal illusion of ignorance, the struggle for life, natural -selection, the gradual development and transformation of stars and -men, the functions and energies of the ether, immortal and infallible -justice, the intermolecular and fantastic activity of matter, on the -nature of the soul and the existence of the vast, nameless power that -governs the universe, in a word, on all the riddles that assail and all -the mysteries that overwhelm us. - -But, let us hasten to repeat it, there could not seriously be any -question of fraud, because the texts or traditions that might be -regarded with suspicion are corroborated by other texts, such as the -sacred inscriptions of Egypt, which no one thinks of contesting. At -most we may come upon a few passages antedated by the imprudent -zeal of adepts or commentators, a few interpolations which merely -embroider the majestic lines. Taking it as a whole, we have to do with -a revelation which dates back infinitely farther than all that we -have called the prehistoric ages, wherefore it is legitimate that our -astonishment should be unbounded. - - -12 - -Very good, it will be said, this interpretation of the universe, this -anthropocosmogenesis is the loftiest, the most spacious, the most -wonderful, the most unassailable that has ever been conceived; it -teems in every part with human thought and imagination; but what is -it all based upon? When all is said, we have here only magnificent -hypotheses, boldly disguised as authoritative, dogmatic and peremptory -declarations, but every one incapable of verification. This is the -objection which I myself put forward, a little hastily, in one of the -early chapters of _Our Eternity_. - -It is indeed undeniable that we shall not for some time to come, that -perhaps we shall never know the truth about the origin and the end of -the universe or any of the other problems which these declarations -profess to solve. But it is curious to note that science, despite -itself, is daily drawing nearer to one or other of these declarations -and that it is unable to set aside or to contradict any of them. There -is for example, a certain study of the genesis of the elements, by the -well-known chemist, Sir William Crookes, which unconsciously becomes -plainly occultist, while the discovery of the radioactivity of matter -reproduces precisely the theory of vortices of the initiate Anaxagoras. -It is the same, _mutatis mutandis_, with the function attributed to -the ether, the latest, indispensable postulate of our scientists. It -is the same with the supreme and essential functions of certain minute -glands of which modern medicine is only now beginning to rediscover -the importance and which probably hold hidden the primordial secrets -of life: the thyroid gland, which directs growth and intelligence; -the suprarenal gland, which governs the unconscious muscle that is the -heart; and the pineal gland, the most mysterious of all, which brings -us into relation with the unknown worlds. It is the same again with -astronomy, when the manifest insufficiency of our so-called cosmic -laws, notably that of gravitation, propounds a host of questions which -only the cosmogony of the east is able to answer. But this would -require a long enquiry, which I am not qualified to undertake. - -For the rest, nothing obliges us to accept these declarations as -dogmas. There is no question here of a religion which imposes upon us -its blind faith, its _Credo quia absurdum_. We are quite entitled to -regard them as mere hypotheses, as immense, incomparable antediluvian -poems, of which the Mosaic Genesis is but a disfigured fragment. -But, even as hypotheses or poems, it must be admitted that they are -prodigious, that we have nothing better, nothing more probable to set -against them and that, in view of their incontestable antiquity, of -their prehistoric origin, they seem really superhuman. - -Must we admit, as the occultists contend, that they come to us from -beings superior to man, from more spiritual entities, living under -unknown conditions, who occupied our earth or the neighbouring planets -before our coming; from a Lemuro-Atlantean civilization which, in -its megalithic monuments, has left indelible traces in the memory of -the peoples and on the face of our earth? It is quite possible; but -here again we are free to await the confirmations of Hindu, Egyptian, -Chaldean, Assyrian and Persian archæology, which on this point, as on -so many others, has not spoken its last word. - - -13 - -I am well aware that this revelation, as apparently all those which -may be made in the course of time, dates back to and ends in the -unknowable, the insoluble mystery of divinity, of being, or existence; -and it necessarily stops short before the barrier of this unknowable, -which is as impenetrable and impregnable as a cliff that is infinite in -every dimension and formed of a single block of black diamond. There is -nothing to be done; we can but halt; we cannot even seek to outflank -it, to approach it from the other side, for the other side, if we could -reach it, would necessarily be like the side in front of us, seeing -that the non-existence of everything would be just as inexplicable, -just as incomprehensible as its existence. It is true that, in the -secret recesses of the doctrine, the universe and all that it contains -is known as Maya, that is to say, the eternal illusion, so that the two -irreconcilable mysteries unite in a still greater mystery which man’s -intelligence can no longer approach. - -Fundamentally, the primitive riddle, the primordial mystery not -being elucidated, all the rest illumines only the steps that lead -from comparative knowledge to absolute ignorance. It will probably -be the same with all the revelations that may address themselves to -man’s intelligence so long as he continues on this planet, for this -intelligence doubtless has limits which no effort can enlarge. But in -the meantime it is certain that these steps, which lead to nothing, -nevertheless, at the first onset and from the earliest days led him -to the highest point which his intelligence has attained or can hope -to attain. The most ancient explanation embraces straightway all the -attempts at explanation that have hitherto been offered. It harmonizes -the positivism of science with the most transcendental idealism; it -accepts matter and spirit; it reconciles the mechanical impulsion -of atoms and worlds with their intelligent guidance. It gives us -an unconditioned divinity, “a causeless cause of all the causes,” -worthy of the universe which is this divinity itself and of which all -the divinities that have succeeded it in all our religions are but -scattered, mutilated and unrecognizable members. It offers us, lastly, -in its law of Karma, by virtue of which each being undergoes in his -successive lives the consequences of his actions and gradually purifies -himself, the loftiest, justest and most unassailable, the most fertile, -consoling and hopeful moral principle that could ever be proposed to -man. Because of all this it appears worthy of investigation, respect -and admiration. - - -14 - -This respect and admiration, however, do not militate against our -liberty to choose or reject many things, or to reserve them while we -wait for further light. When we are told, for instance, that the Cosmos -is guided by an infinite series of hierarchies of sensient beings, each -having a mission to fulfil, which are the agents of the Karmic and -Cosmic laws; when it is added that each of these beings was a man in -an earlier Manvantara, or is preparing to become one in the present or -in a future Manvantara, that they are perfected men, or nascent men, -and that, in their higher and less material spheres, they do not differ -morally from terrestrial human beings save in that they do not possess -the sense of personality and of emotional nature; when, lastly, we are -assured that what we call unconscious Nature is in reality a complex of -forces manipulated by semi-intelligent beings (Elementals) directed by -the High Planetary Spirits (Dhyani-Shohans), whose total forms the Word -Manifest of the non-manifest Logos and constitutes at the same time -both the intelligence of the universe and its immutable law, we can do -homage to the ingenuity of these speculations, as to that of thousands -of others which perhaps embrace the truth more closely than our best -and most recent scientific hypotheses; we are free to take what we -please from them and to leave what we please. All this, I grant, is -by no means proved, is not verified, or cannot be verified, save in -certain details, whereas the great fundamental outlines will probably -always escape the control of our unequipped intelligence. But what we -must, I repeat, admire without reserve is the prodigious spiritual -edifice offered by the sum total of this revelation, the immense -intellectual effort which, since the dawn of humanity, has attempted -to unravel the unfathomable chaos of the origin, structure, progress, -direction and end of the universe and which appears to have succeeded -to this extent, that hitherto nothing has been found that equals it, or -is not inspired by it or, often unconsciously, returns to it. - - -15 - -I said in the first part of this essay that too lofty a revelation, -even were it incontestable, would have hardly any influence upon our -life, that it would change little in it, that it would occur too far -from us in the immensity of space and that it would not sink into our -hearts and minds. Was it thus with that of which we are now speaking, -which is the only truly superhuman and yet acceptable and almost -unassailable revelation that we have had? Yes and no, according to the -point of view which we take up. All that it contains of too great a -character, except its notion of eternity, has not really modified our -ideas, has not permeated into our habits. It has not even profoundly -affected the peoples who have handed it down to us and who, abandoning -any endeavour to understand it, have transformed it into a barbarous -and monstrous anthropomorphic polytheism. It is more or less the same -everywhere. All the religions, from the pagan religions of China and -Japan, Gaul and ancient Germany, Mexico and Peru, down to Christianity -with its variants and its offshoots, have issued from it; but all -have not been able to live and govern men, save by disfiguring and -mutilating it, by dwarfing it to the lowest stature of the souls of -their time, by altering it beyond recognition. It is therefore highly -probable that matters would be the same with any other and greater -revelation, if such were possible, even though this had all the signs -of a divine, direct, authentic, indubitable, irrefutable, irrecusable -revelation, in a word, with that which we are still awaiting without -daring to hope for it. - - - - -THE NECESSARY SILENCE - - - - -XVII - -THE NECESSARY SILENCE - - -1 - -The practitioners of occult science in the east tell us of certain -dwellers in the solitudes of Thibet and the Himalayas, Initiates, -Masters, heirs to the wisdom of the “Sons of Light,” or the “Seven -Primordials,” who possess the seven keys which enable them to -understand the sacred prehistoric texts. They are said to be the silent -depositories of the secret of the intermolecular or interetheric -forces, by the aid of which the races of beings who preceded man upon -this earth used to transport to enormous distances monoliths of more -than five hundred tons’ weight, which have no relation to the stones -that surround them and whose arrangement and astronomical orientation -manifestly reveal the intervention of an intelligent and even a highly -scientific mind. - -These monoliths are sometimes carved, as for instance the famous -colossal idols in the valley of Bamian, in Afghanistan, of which one is -173 feet high, or the five hundred and fifty monsters of Easter Island, -in Polynesia, which, we may observe in passing, remain one of the most -insoluble and perplexing riddles in the world. Hewn out of basalt, -reclining or standing erect upon their platforms, these sculptures, -one of which measures over 90 feet in height, are undoubtedly the most -ancient human effigies to be found upon our earth. Official science -ascribes to them an antediluvian origin, while esoteric tradition -regards them as portraits of the giants of the last Atlantean race, -which became degenerate and lapsed into witchcraft shortly before the -disappearance of the mysterious continent whereof Easter Island is -supposed to be merely one of the loftier summits to-day emerging from -the lonely Pacific. - -I have before me as I write the photographs of some of these haunting -giants; and I do not believe that in our most oppressive nightmares -it would be possible to imagine faces more formidable, more impassive -and unfeeling, more eternally ferocious, more coldly supercilious, -more pitilessly disdainful and icily omnipotent. Are they Selenites or -Martians, with their tightly-closed, implacable mouths and those eyes -of theirs, hollow, like wells of malediction, or protuberant and framed -in an airman’s goggles? They are not in any way simian, as one might -have supposed, but rather represent demoniacal and abstract entities, -such as evil, doom and fatality. They seem not so much inhuman as -prehuman or posthuman; and they bear a horrible relation to certain -ancestral memories which slumber in the marrow of our bones, warning us -that such faces undoubtedly once existed. - - -2 - -But let us return to our great Initiates. They are, it appears, reputed -to be the guardians of the irresistible and incommensurable sidereal -force, the force which supports and directs the worlds and which is -capable, if it were misused, of destroying in a moment the whole human -species, all that lives upon the earth and this very earth itself; -but it is also capable, if it were wisely tamed, of ensuring man an -ultimate royalty, perhaps access to other heavenly bodies and, in any -case, a power so great that the Golden Age which existed of old, thanks -to the subjection of this force, might flourish once more upon our -planet. - -All this is possible; and, for the moment, we need not go into the -matter. But that, possessing the secret of this force and of many -others, transmitted from Hierophant to Candidate, or, as they say -“from mouth to ear,” the experts in occult science do not divulge it -and place it at the service of humanity: this is the great reproach -brought against them; and for all those who are not aware that the -end of Initiation is not power and material happiness but wisdom, -development and the uplifting of the inner being it is the best proof -that they are cheats and impostors. It may be that, driven into a -corner, they are silent because they have nothing to tell us; but the -argument is not so unanswerable as those who avail themselves of it -are inclined to think. We shall perhaps see this before long. It is -indeed not impossible that one day some accident of knowledge will -place one or other of our scientists in a position analogous to that -of these Masters or Initiates. To him also the terrible question of -the necessary silence will then present itself. We have but lately -witnessed in this war the insensate and demoniacal use which man has -made of certain inventions. What will happen if other energies are -placed in his hands, energies far more formidable, which we seem to be -on the point of discovering and releasing? - -Man is not ready to know more of such matters than he now knows. The -safety of the species is at stake. Humanity, which is hardly emerging -from its infancy, or has only just attained the dangerous period of -adolescence (it would be about sixteen or seventeen years of age, -according to Dr. Jaworski’s well-supported and striking historic -parallel), has already passed the limit of the inventions which it -is able to assimilate or endure without incurring the risk of death. -Almost all of them, from the subjection of steam and the still dubious -taming of electricity, have done it incomparably more harm than good. -Explosives, for example, which have helped it to build a few roads--a -work which the Romans, for that matter, did quite as well as we do--to -open up a few mines, to pierce a few tunnels, have cost it millions of -young lives. - -Perhaps it is time, not to check the investigations of science, but -to control its discoveries and to reserve, as the occultists wisely -did, for a select circle of Initiates, rigorously tested and bound by -inviolable oaths, the secret of those too perilous energies around -which we are feeling our way and which are on the point of revealing -themselves and becoming public property. Our moral evolution is several -centuries behind our scientific evolution; and it is more than probable -that the latter, being too swift and too intensive, may disastrously -impede the former. It will profit no one to travel in three hours from -Paris to Pekin, from Pekin to New York and from New York to Calcutta, -if these repeated and miraculous journeys leave those who take them -in the same frame of mind on their arrival as on their departure. -We are more or less in the same position as Russia, whose heart and -spirit were not steadfast enough, not resolute enough, to bear what the -head had too quickly and too artificially stored up. Nothing is more -quickly disseminated or more readily assimilated than the results of -science; nothing, on the other hand, is more slow, more painful or more -precarious than moral evolution; and yet it is upon this alone, as we -are realizing more and more clearly, that man’s happiness and future -depend. - - - - -KARMA - - - - -XVIII - -KARMA - - -1 - -Stripped of its innumerable and inextricable oriental complications, -which may possibly correspond with realities but which cannot be -verified, Karma, the infallible Law of Retribution, is, when all is -said, what we, speaking more vaguely and without believing in it -unduly, call Immanent Justice. Our Immanent Justice is a somewhat -idle shadow. True, it often manifests itself after monstrous actions, -great vices, sins or iniquities; but we rarely have the opportunity -of seeing it intervene in the thousand petty acts of injustice, -cruelty, weakness, dishonesty and baseness of ordinary life, though -the aggregate of these paltry but incessant misdeeds may weigh heavier -than the most notorious crime. In any case, its action being more -dispersed, more diffuse, slower and more often moral than material, -nearly always escapes our observation; and, as, on the other hand, it -appears to cease at the moment of death, it hardly ever has time to -demand its due and usually arrives too late at the bedside of a sick -or dying man, who has lost consciousness or no longer has the time to -expiate his offences. - -Karma then, if you will, is Immanent Justice; only, it is no longer -an inconstant goddess, inconsistent, incoherent, impotent, erratic, -capricious, inexact, forgetful, timid, inattentive, sluggish, evasive, -intangible and bounded by the tomb, but a god, vast and inevitable as -Destiny, a god who fills up each outlet, each horizon, each crevice -of every existence and who is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, -infallible, impassible and incorruptible. He is in us, as we are in -him. He is ourselves. He is more than we: he is what we are, while -he is still what we were and is already what we shall become. We -are small, evanescent and ephemeral; he is great, imperturbable, -immovable, eternal. Nothing escapes him of that which escapes us and -no doubt will escape us even beyond the tomb. Not an action, not a -wish, not a thought, not the shadow of an intention but is weighed more -strictly than it was weighed by the forty-two posthumous judges who -awaited the soul on that further shore of which we are told in one of -the most ancient texts in the world, the Egyptian _Book of the Dead_. -All is set down, dated, valued, verified, classified, entered as debit -or credit, as reward or expiation, in the immense and eternal index -of the astral records. There can be nothing that he does not know, -because he has taken part in all that he judges; and he judges us not -from the depth of our present ignorance, but from the height of all -that we shall learn much later. He is not only our intelligence and our -consciousness of to-day, which are hardly waking and no longer count -their errors; he is even now, for they already dwell within us, though -they be inactive, impotent, dumb and blind, our intelligence and our -consciousness to come, when they shall have attained, in the course of -the ages and of the innumerable developments, expiations and ascents, -the loftiest summits of Wisdom and Discernment. - -At the hour of our death the account seems closed; but he is simply -asleep and will resume his hold of us again. He will slumber perhaps -for hundreds, nay, thousands of years in “Devachan,” that is to say, in -the state of unconsciousness which prepares us for a new incarnation; -but, when we awake, we shall find the assets and liabilities added up -beyond recall; and our Karma will merely continue the life which we -have laid aside. It will continue to be ourselves in that life and to -see the consequences of our faults and our deserts burst into flower -and afterwards to see other causes bear fruit in other effects, until -the consummation of the ages when every thought born upon this earth -ends by losing sight of it. - - -2 - -Karma, as we see, is, when all is said, the immortal entity which man -fashions by his deeds and thoughts and which follows him, or rather -envelops and absorbs him, through his successive lives and changes, -even as he incessantly changes, while preserving every previous -impress. Man’s thoughts, as this doctrine very truly says, build up his -character; his deeds make his environment. What man has thought, that -he has become; his qualities and natural gifts adhere to him as the -results of his ideas. He is, in all truth, created by himself. He is -in the fullest sense of the word responsible for all that he is. He is -contained in the net of all that he has done. He can neither undo nor -destroy the past; but, so long as the effects of the past are yet to -come, it is possible for him to alter them or to divert them by fresh -exertions. Nothing can affect him that he has not set in movement; -no evil can befall him that he has not deserved. In the infinite -evolution of the eternities he will never find himself in the presence -of any judge other than himself. - - -3 - -It is certain that the idea of this supreme judge, who is our -consciousness uninterrupted throughout the centuries and the -millenaries, who is each one of us grown more and more enlightened, -more and more incorruptible and infallible, leads to the highest, -sincerest and purest system of morals that it is possible to conceive -or to justify here below. The judge and the defendant are no longer -face to face; they are one within the other and form but one and the -same person. They can hide nothing from each other; and both have the -same urgent interest in discovering the least fault, the slightest -shadow and in purifying themselves as quickly and as completely as -possible, in order to put an end to the reincarnations and to live at -last in the One Being. The best, the saintliest are near doing so from -the moment when they quit this life; but, detached from all things, -they do not cease to act for the good of all men, for already they know -all things. They go farther than the mystic Christian who expects a -reward from without: they are their own reward. They go farther than -Marcus Aurelius, the great type of the man without illusions, who -continues to act without hoping that his action can profit others: they -know that nothing is useless, that nothing can be wasted; it is when -they no longer need anything whatever that they work with the greatest -ardour. - -Contrary to what is too generally believed, this system of morals which -leads to absolute repose extols activity. Hear, in this connection, -the great teachings of the _Bhagavad-Gita_, the Lord’s Song, which -is perhaps, as its translators, not without good reason, think, the -most beautiful, that is to say, the most exalted book known up to the -present time: - - “Thy business is with the action only, never with its fruits; so let - not the fruit of action be thy motive.... Perform action ... dwelling - in union with the divine, renouncing attachments and balanced evenly - in success and failure.... Pitiable are they who work for fruit.... - Man winneth not freedom from action by abstaining from activity, nor - by mere renunciation doth he rise to perfection.... Perform thou - right action, for action is superior to inaction; and, inactive, even - the maintenance of thy body would not be possible. The world is bound - by action, unless performed for the sake of sacrifice.... - - “He who seeth inaction in action and action in inaction, he is wise - among men, he is harmonious, even while performing all action. Whose - works are all free from the moulding of desire, whose actions are - burned up by the fire of wisdom, him the wise have called a sage. - Having abandoned attachment to the fruit of action, always content, - nowhere seeking refuge, he is not doing anything, although doing - actions.... He should be known as a perpetual ascetic, who neither - hateth nor desireth; free from the pairs of opposites ... he is - easily set free from bondage....” - -And remember that this, which forms part of the _Mahabharata_, the -greatest epic on earth, was written four or five thousand years ago. - - -4 - -Whatever we may think of the plausibility of the doctrine or -revelation, we cannot dispute that this morality and this justification -of justice are the most ancient and at the same time the most beautiful -and reassuring that the mind of man has imagined. But they are based -upon a postulate which we are perhaps too much inclined to refuse -blindly. It asks us in fact to admit that our existence does not end at -the hour of our death and that the spirit, or the vital spark, which -does not perish, seeks an asylum and reappears in other bodies. At -first the postulate seems monstrous and unacceptable; but on closer -examination its aspect becomes much less strange, less arbitrary -and less unreasonable. It is, to begin with, certain that, if all -things undergo transformation, nothing perishes or is annihilated in -a universe which knows no nothingness and in which nothingness alone -remains absolutely inconceivable. What we call nothingness could -therefore be only another mode of existence, of persistence and of -life; and, if we cannot admit that the body, which is only matter, -is annihilated in its substance, it is no less difficult to admit -that, if it were animated by a spirit--which it is hardly possible to -dispute--this spirit should disappear without leaving a trace of any -kind. - -So the first point of the postulate and the most important is of -necessity granted. There remains the second point, that of the -successive reincarnations. Here, it is true, we have only hypotheses -and probabilities. It is necessary that this spirit, this soul, this -vital spark or principle, this idea, this immaterial substance--it -matters little what name we give it--must go or reside somewhere, -must do or become something. It may wander in the infinity of space -and time, dissolve, lose itself and disappear, or at least mingle -and become confused with what it encounters there, and finally -become absorbed in that boundless spiritual or vital energy which -appears to animate the universe. But, of all hypotheses, the least -probable is not that which tells us that, on leaving a body which has -become uninhabitable, instead of escaping and wandering through the -illimitable vast that fills it with terror, it looks about it for a -lodging resembling that which it has lately quitted. Obviously this -is only an hypothesis; but in our complete and terrible ignorance it -presents itself before any other. We have nothing to support it save -the most ancient tradition of humanity, a tradition perhaps prehuman -and in any case absolutely general; and experience tends to show that -at the base of these traditions and these instances of universal assent -there is nearly always a great truth and that they must be accorded -a greater importance and a greater value than have hitherto been -attributed to them. - - -5 - -As regards evidence, or rather premonitory suggestions of evidence, we -have scarcely anything beyond the experiments of Colonel de Rochas, -who, by means of hypnotic passes, succeeded in making a few exceptional -mediums retrace not only the whole course of their present lives, -back to their earliest childhood, but also that of a certain number -of previous existences. It cannot be denied that these extremely -serious experiments, which were very scientifically conducted, are most -bewildering; but the danger of unconscious suggestion or telepathy is -not and doubtless will never be sufficiently remote to allow them to -become really conclusive. - -We find further, on pursuing the same train of ideas, certain cases of -reincarnation, like that of one of Dr. Samson’s little daughters, as -related in the _Annales des sciences psychiques_ for July, 1913. This -case, which is almost undisputed, is exceedingly curious; but, though -it is not unique, those which resemble it are too rare to allow us to -rely upon them. - -There remains what are known as prenatal reminiscences. It happens -fairly often that a man who finds himself in an unfamiliar country, in -a city, a palace, a church, a house, or a garden, which he is visiting -for the first time, is conscious of a strange and very definite -impression that he “has seen it before.” It suddenly seems to him -that this landscape, these vaulted ceilings, these rooms and the very -furniture and pictures which he finds in them are quite well-known to -him and that he recollects every nook and corner and every detail. -Which of us but has, at least once in his life, vaguely experienced -some such impression? But the recollections are often so definite that -the person in whom they occur is able to act as a guide through the -house or park which he has never explored and to describe beforehand -what his party will find in this or that room or at the turn of this -or that avenue. Is it really a recollection of previous existences, -a telepathic phenomenon or an ancestral and hereditary memory? The -same question suggests itself touching certain innate aptitudes or -faculties, by virtue of which we see children of genius, musicians, -painters, mathematicians or simple artisans, who know from the outset, -without learning them, nearly all the secrets of their art or craft. -Who will venture to decide? - -This is about all that we can cite in favour of the doctrine of -reincarnation. It is not enough to weigh down the scales. But all the -other suppositions, theories or religions, excepting spiritualism, -which for the rest is perfectly consistent with successive existences, -have less solid foundations and are even, to be truthful, devoid of -any. It would therefore be ungracious on their part to reproach the -supposition which we are considering with the instability of the -arguments whereon it is based. - -Once again, how desirable it would be that all this were true! There -would be no more moral uncertainties, no more uneasiness in respect of -justice. And it is so beautiful, so complete, that it is perhaps real. -It is difficult indeed to admit that such a dream is untrue from first -to last, a dream which has been dreamed so long, since the beginning of -the world, by so many thousands of millions of men and which, despite -numerous and far-reaching distortions, has, when all is said, been the -one dream of humanity. It is not possible to prove that it is based -upon truth; but, unlike most of the religions derived from it, it is -not possible either to demonstrate that it is imaginary and fabricated -throughout; and, there being this doubt, why should not reason, which -it never offends, be allowed to accept it and at heart to hope and -act as though it were true, while waiting for science to confirm it -completely, or to invalidate it, or to give us another hypothesis which -it will perhaps never be able to elaborate? - -What at first repels many of those who investigate it is the unduly -assured and arbitrary insistence upon a thousand petty details, -probably interpolated, as in all religions, by inferior minds, animated -by a narrow and maladroit zeal. But these details, viewed from a -certain elevation, do not in any way alter the great outlines, which -remain immeasurable, admirable and unspoiled. - - -6 - -For the rest, whether reincarnation be accepted or rejected, there is -surely such a thing as survival, since death and nothingness cannot be -conceived; and the whole matter is once more reduced to the problem -of continued identity. Even in reincarnation this identity, from our -present, limited point of view, would possess only a relative interest, -seeing that, all memory of previous existences being abolished, it -would necessarily evade us. Let us ask ourselves, moreover, whether -this question of personality without solution of continuity does -really possess the importance which we attach to it and whether this -importance is not a delusion, a temporary blindness of our egoism, of -our terrestrial intelligence. For the fact remains that we interrupt -it and lose it every night without disquieting ourselves. It is enough -for us to be certain that we shall recover it on awaking; and we are -reassured. But suppose that this were not the case and that one evening -we were warned that we should not recover it, that on the following -morning we should have forgotten all our past existence and should -begin a new life, without any memory to connect us with the old. Should -we feel the same terror, the same despair, as if we had been told -that we should never wake again and that we should be hurled into our -death? I do not believe it, I even think that we should accept our lot -fairly cheerfully. It would not greatly matter to us that we should -have to lose the memory of a past, consisting, like the past of all of -us, of more evil than good, provided that life continued. It would no -longer be our life, it would no longer have anything in common with -the life of the day before; nevertheless we should not believe that -we were losing it and we should retain a vague hope of recovering or -recognizing something of ourselves in the existence before us. We -should take pains to prepare for this existence, to insure it against -misfortune and distress, to make it, in advance, as pleasant and as -happy as possible. It might and ought to be so, not only if we believe -in reincarnation, because the case would be almost identical, but also -if we do not believe in it, since a survival of some sort is almost -certain and absolute annihilation is actually inconceivable. - - -7 - -Perhaps with a little courage and goodwill it would be possible for us, -even in this life, to look higher and farther, to shed for an instant -that narrow and dismal egoism which refers all things to self, to tell -ourselves that the intelligence or the good which our thoughts and -efforts diffuse in the spiritual spheres are not wholly lost, even -when it is not certain that the little nucleus of trivial habits and -commonplace recollections that we are possesses them exclusively. If -the good actions which we have performed, the noble or merely honest -intentions or thoughts which we have experienced attach themselves and -give value to a life in which we shall not recognize our own, this is -not a sufficient reason to regard them as useless or to deny them all -merit. It is well to remind ourselves at times that we are nothing -if we are not everything and to learn from now onwards to interest -ourselves in something that is not solely ourselves and already to -live the ampler, less personal, less egotistical life which presently, -without any doubt, whatever may be our creed, will be our eternal life, -the only life that matters and the only life for which it is wise to -prepare ourselves. - - -8 - -If we do not accept reincarnation, Karma none the less exists: -a mutilated Karma, it is true; a diminished Karma, devoid of -spaciousness, with an horizon limited by death, beginning its work and -doing its best in the brief spell of time which it has before it, but -less negligible, less impotent, less inactive and ineffective than -is supposed. Acting within its narrow sphere, it gives us a fairly -accurate albeit very incomplete idea of what it would accomplish in -the wider sphere which we deny it. But this would lead us back to the -highly debatable question of mundane justice. It is almost insoluble, -because its decisive operations, being inward and secret, escape -observation. Following many others, who, for the rest, have explained -it better than I, I have spoken of it elsewhere, particularly in -_Wisdom and Destiny_ and in _The Mystery of Justice_;[3] but, as Queen -Scheherazade might say, it would serve no useful purpose to repeat it. - - -9 - -Let us then return to Karma properly so-called, the ideal Karma. It -rewards goodness and punishes evil in the infinite sequence of our -lives. But first of all, some will ask, what is this goodness, what -is this evil, what is the best or the worst of our petty thoughts, -our petty intentions, our petty ephemeral actions, compared with -the boundless immensity of time and space? Is there not an absurd -disproportion between the hugeness of the reward or punishment and the -pettiness of the fault or merit? Why mix the worlds, the eternities -and the gods with things which, however monstrous or admirable at -first, are not slow, even within the trivial limits of our life, -to lose gradually all the importance which we ascribed to them, to -vanish, to fade into oblivion? That is true; but we must needs speak -of human things in terms of human beings and on the human scale. What -we call good or evil is that which works us good or evil, that which -benefits or harms ourselves or others; and, so long as we live upon -this earth and have not disappeared, we must needs attach to good -and evil an importance which in themselves they do not possess. The -noblest religions, the proudest metaphysical speculations, so soon as -they involve human morality, human evolution and the human future, -have always been obliged to reduce themselves to human proportions, to -become anthropomorphous. This is an invincible necessity, by virtue of -which, despite the horizons that tempt us on every hand, it behoves us -to limit our ideas and our outlook. - - -10 - -Let us then limit them and once more ask ourselves, this time remaining -within our sphere, what, after all, is this evil which Karma punishes? -If we go to the very root of the matter, evil always arises from a lack -of intelligence, from an erroneous and incomplete judgment, obscured -or restricted by our egoism, which allows us to perceive only the -proximate or immediate advantages of an action harmful to ourselves -or others, while concealing the remote but inevitable consequences -which such an action always ends by begetting. The whole science of -ethics, after all, is based only upon intelligence; and what we call -heart, sentiments, character is in fact nothing but accumulated and -crystallized intelligence, inherited or acquired, which has become -more or less unconscious and is transformed into habits or instincts. -The evil which we do we do only because of a mistaken egoism, which -sees the limits of its being too near at hand. As soon as intelligence -raises the point of view of this egoism, the limits extend, widen and -end by disappearing. The terrible and insatiable ego loses its centre -of attraction and avidity and knows itself, finds itself and loves -itself in all things. Let us not believe blindly in the intelligence of -the wicked who succeed, or in the happiness of the criminal. We ought -rather to see the converse, that is to say, the often hideous reality -of the success; moreover, this intelligence, in the shape of skill, -cunning or disloyalty, is a specialized intelligence, confined within -a narrow circuit and, like a constricted jet of water, very effective -when directed at a single point; but it is not a true and general, -spacious and generous intelligence. Wherever the latter reveals -itself, we necessarily find honesty, justice, forbearance, love and -kindness, because there is a lofty and full horizon and because there -is an instinctive or conscious knowledge of human proportions, of the -eternity of existence and the brevity of life, of man’s position in the -universe, of the mysteries that compass him about and the secret bonds -that unite him to all things that we see as well as to all things that -we do not see upon earth and in the heavens. - - -11 - -Is Karma, then, supposed to punish lack of intelligence? And, in the -first place, why not? It is the only real evil upon this earth; and, -if all men were superlatively intelligent, none would be unhappy. -But where would the justice of it be? We possess the intelligence -which nature has bestowed upon us; it is she, not we, that should -be held responsible. Let us understand one another. Karma does not -inflict punishment, properly speaking; it simply places us, after -our successive existences and slumbers, on the plane on which our -intelligence left us, surrounded by our actions and our thoughts. It -keeps a check and a record. It takes us such as we have made ourselves -and gives us the opportunity to make ourselves anew, to acquire what -we lack and to raise ourselves to the level of the highest. We are -bound to raise ourselves, but the slowness or rapidity of our ascent -depends only upon ourselves. When all is said, the apparent injustice -which grants more intelligence to some than to others is but a question -of date, a law of growth, of evolution, which is the fundamental law -of all the lives that we know, from the infusoria to the stars. We -could at most complain of coming later than the rest; but the rest, -in their turn, might with more reason complain of being called too -soon, of being unable to profit at once by all that has been acquired -since their birth. To avoid recrimination, therefore, we should all -have been on the same plane from the outset; we should all have been -born at the same time. But then the world would have been complete, -perfect, immutable, immobile, from the first moment of its existence -and ours. This would perhaps have been preferable; but it is not so -and it is, no doubt, impossible that it should be so; in any case, no -system of metaphysics, no religion, not even the first, the greatest, -the loftiest, the mother of all the rest, ever thought of rejecting the -indisputable and indubitable law of endless movement, of the eternal -Becoming; and it must be admitted that everything appears to justify -it. It is probable that there would be nothing if it were otherwise and -that there can only be something on condition that it becomes better -or worse, that it rises or falls, that it constitutes itself in order -to deconstitute and reconstitute itself and that movement is more -essential than being or substance. It is so because it is so. There is -nothing to be done, nothing to be said; we can but state the fact. We -are in a world in which matter would perish and disappear sooner than -movement, or rather in which matter, time, space, duration, existence -and movement are but one and the same thing. - - -12 - -But we also live in a world in which our reason encounters only the -impossible, the insoluble and the incomprehensible. The supreme -interpretations do no more than shift the riddle, to permit us to -obtain glimpses from a higher standpoint of the boundless immensity in -which we are striving. Therefore, apart from the puerile explanations -which, after successive changes of form, all the religions have -drawn from the original religion, three hypotheses and no more offer -themselves for our choice: on the one hand, nothingness, inertia and -absolute death, which are inconceivable; on the other hand, chance and -its eternal renewals, which are without change, hope, object or end, or -which, if they led to anything, would lead either to an inconceivable -annihilation or to the third hypothesis, according to which the best -becomes infinite, even to total absorption in the imperfectible, the -immutable, the immovable, which, as I have said elsewhere,[4] must have -occurred already in the eternity that precedes us, since there is no -reason why that which could not take place in this eternity should take -place in the eternity to come, which is no more infinite, is no more -extensive and offers no more chances than the past eternity and which -is not of a different nature. - -The mother religion itself, the only one which is still acceptable, -which takes account of everything and which has foreseen everything, -does not escape this last dilemma by extending to thousands of -millions of years the duration of a year of Brahma, that is to -say, the period of evolution, of expiration, of externalization and -activity, and to an equal number of thousands of millions of years -the duration of a night of this god, that is to say, the period of -involution, of inspiration, of internalization, of slumber or inertia, -during which all is reabsorbed into the divinity or the sole absolute. -It does not escape it either by next multiplying these days and nights -by a hundred years which form one life and this life by a hundred -lives which lead to figures that defy expression, after which another -universe begins. - -Here, too, there would be either an eternal recommencement without hope -or object, or, if there be progression, final perfection and immobility -which ought already to be attained. Let each draw from all this such -conclusions as he please or can, or bow once more, in silence, before -the Unknowable. - - -THE END - - - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] The English translation of Fabre’s works, by Alexander Teixeira de -Mattos, is issued in America by the publishers of the present volume. - -[2] In the volume, published in 1904, entitled _The Double Garden_.--A. -T. de M. - -[3] The first essay in _The Buried Temple_.--A. T. de M. - -[4] In _Our Eternity_.--A. T. de M. - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - -Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - -Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOUNTAIN PATHS *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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