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را,
THE BURIED TEMPLE

By the Same Author
THE TREASURE OF THE HUMBLE.
Translated by ALFRED SUTRO. 12mo.
$1.75.
WISDOM AND DESTINY. Translated
by ALFRED SUTRO. 12mo. $1.75.
THE LIFE OF THE BEE. Translated
by ALFRED SUTRO. Izmo. $1.40 net.
SISTER BEATRICE AND ARDIANE
AND BARBE BLEUE. Translated
by Bernard MIALL. 12mo. $1.20 net.
THE BURIED TEMPLE. Translated by
ALFRED SUTRO. 12mo. $1.40 net.
The Buried Temple
BY
MAURICE MAETERLINCK
Translated by
ALFRED SUTRO
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1902
Copyright, 1902,
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY.
Published, April, 1902
UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON
AND SON · CAMBRIDGE, U.S. A.
© 27 QISTES
THE author's thanks are due to Messrs.
Chapman and Hall, Messrs. Harper and
Brothers, and the proprietors of The Independent,
for their permission to republish.
284119
Contents
PAGE
ix
RODUCTION
INTRODUCTION .. ......
I. The MYSTERY OF JUSTICE ...
3
II. THE EVOLUTION OF MYSTERY
III. THE KINGDOM OF MATTER . . 203
IV. The Past ........ 239
V. LUCK
.
. .
.
.
. . . . . . . 269
INTRODUCTION
TN this volume of Essays, M. Maeter-
Ilinck manifests that sensitive percep-
tion and remarkable insight as to the
things pertaining to the life of the spirit
which were the charm and power of “The
Treasure of the Humble” and “ Wisdom
and Destiny.” The rare and beautiful
philosophy of life, the Mysticism, so
characteristic of him, alike pervade the
book and create an atmosphere of which
the reader is conscious, stimulating his
purposes and aspirations. The increased
complexity of modern human society
and the attendant opportunities for the
cultivation of the intellect result in
two things: a greater individual re-
sponsibility in general and a diminished
Introduction
opportunity for striking and remarkable
individual careers. Hence there is no
multiplication of the picturesque hero in
these days, and, if he does appear, the
keen clear light of criticism soon shows
that his heroic trappings are in large part
veritably mere tinsel. The world is fast
coming to believe and know that the real
heroism is found in meeting manfully our
daily struggles, trials, and responsibilities.
Emerson clearly saw that now and in the
time to come the race would be forced to
spend most of its efforts in the treadmill
of a work-a-day life, and that such life,
to be endurable, must be recognised not
only as worthy but as ideal, having in it
those elements which satisfy the inex-
tinguishable aspirations after the truly
heroic. This lesson, learned from Em-
erson, M. Maeterlinck has never forgotten,
and in a preface, written by him years
ago, to a French translation of some of
Introduction
Emerson's Essays, he says, “There re-
mains only the life of every day, and yet,
we cannot live without greatness.” The
primary purpose of all his prose works
has been to demonstrate that genuine
heroism can be infused into and may
glorify this life common to all.
Like other earnest thinkers of these
later days, his is an attitude of earnest
expectation of a coming spiritual re-
naissance, and he is possessed of a most
refreshing optimism. “A spiritual epoch
is perhaps upon us,” he has declared ; and
again, “I feel that a more pressing offer of
spiritual freedom has rarely been made to
mankind.” These expectant thinkers are
alert to discover some spiritual truth that
may become a basis of faith. “In the
union of Mysticism with freedom of
thought and inquiry will, I am persuaded,
be found the faith of the future,” is the
prophecy of another modern seer, and
xi
Introduction
M. Maeterlinck has given us in the
present volume a suggestion as to that
which may be the source of the spiritual
renaissance which he believes is at hand.
In the Essay on The Mystery of
Justice, he deals with a subject more
profound than any other that has hitherto
engaged his attention ; one vital and lying
at the very foundation of man's moral
nature. It is not social justice that he
has in mind, but a far more subtle and
suggestive phase of the problem. His
own words are, “We shall occupy our-
selves above all with that vague but
inevitable justice, intangible, and yet so
effective, which accompanies and sets its
seal upon every action of our life; which
approves or disapproves, rewards or pun-
ishes.” Justice, which in the ages past
mankind have believed dwelt with God,
by whatever name known to them, and
was manifested in created nature, he de-
xii
Introduction
clares has its home in the human heart.
No trace of it can be discerned elsewhere.
He says: “Where had man conceived
the mystery of justice to lodge? It
pervaded the world. One moment it
was supposed to rest in the hands of the
gods, at another it engulfed and mastered
the gods themselves. It had been im-
agined everywhere, except in man. It
had dwelt in the sky, it had lurked
behind rocks, it had governed the air
and sea. It had peopled an inaccessible
universe. Then at last we peered into
its imaginary retreats, we pressed close
and examined; its throne of clouds
tottered, it faded away ; but at the very
moment we believed it had ceased to be,
behold it reappeared and raised its head
once more in the very depths of our
heart; and yet another mystery had
sought refuge in man, and embodied
itself in him.”
xiii
Introduction
There is no novelty in the thought
that the idea of justice is not discernible
in the laws of the material universe, — that
the processes of nature are not moral, but
simply those of cause and effect. Per-
chance the life of a human being, even
the span covered by the records making
what is known as history, is too short to
observe the workings of the cosmic justice,
or to determine its existence; but that the
sentiment of justice dwells in the heart of
man there is no doubt. What concerns
M. Maeterlinck is the fact that this in-
stinct of justice is the great mystery of
man and comprises all virtue. “It is at
the centre of our love of truth, the centre
of our love of beauty. It is kindness and
pity ; it is generosity, heroism, love." It
may be destined to be the basis of a new
faith which, in the fulness of time, shall
have universal reign upon the earth. Im
pressively and nobly are we made to feel
e unIy
xiv
Introduction
the reality of this instinct of justice and
that its ultimate triumph is assured ; that
humanity must hear and heed “the in-
ward voice of native manhood,” as Car-
lyle names it. If it be suggested that
here we have somewhat of the essential
idea underlying Comte's “Religion of
Humanity” and nothing new, it is to be
remembered that M. Maeterlinck does
not strive after the novel, but rather to
emphasise imperishable truths that have
been found ever helpful and necessary.
His fundamental theme, the Mystery
of Justice, after the manner of all mysti-
cal teachers, he impresses by constant
repetition and reiteration through this
series of Essays, which, at first sight, ap-
pear to treat of diverse and unrelated
subjects. His method is that of the or-
ganist improvising upon his theme and
constantly placing it in different settings,
and now and then merely suggesting it
1
XV
Introduction
by the fundamental chord or its simple
motif. His Mysticism is modern and
eclectic, drawing its elements from the
thoughts of the Oriental, Hellenic, and
Christian mystics, but wholly ignoring
and hostile to that element in each which
deals with renunciation; and this must
needs be so, since with him the normal
mundane life of man should be infused
with a serene joy, — must bring rest of
soul. To this end, the burden of mystery
must be minimised, and even then one
must by intellectual effort subordinate the
sense of mystery to the elements in life
that make for joyous serenity, that the
purposes of normal life may not be frus-
trated. He says, “We derive neither
greatness, sublimity, nor depth from un-
ceasingly fixing our thoughts on the in-
finite or unknown.” In the Essay on
The Evolution of Mystery, he shows that
the cosmic mystery is probably material
xvi
Introduction
and not moral; that the moral mystery is
in man alone, and that relief from the
incubus of moral mystery in nature, which
has oppressed the world since the days of
Job, will afford the spirit of man true free-
dom. Of course, modern science, so far
as its methods aid to solve the problem,
has shown that the cosmic mystery is a
material one, and not a moral one, but
M. Maeterlinck knows full well that
science cannot speak the ultimate word
on this subject; that the truth cannot be
stated in the form of an axiom, nor em-
braced in a scientific formula, and, as we
yet “ see through a glass darkly," it may
be that at heart the cosmic mystery is
moral. His earnest desire is to find the
inspiring truth that will practically aid
man in the development of the true life
of the soul. He regards affirmations,
not negations; he is not disturbed by a
conflict in his own thoughts; indeed, his
a
man
xvii
Introduction
is the manner of the rhapsodist, permit-
ting us to follow his inspiration in all its
moods, believing that the light that guides
him through the mazes will be sufficient
to guide others. Sincerity and an earnest
desire to find the truth are his character-
istics. He is not a mystic dwelling on the
inaccessible mountain peak, but sojourning
with his fellows on the great plain of com-
mon every-day life. He bids us accustom
our eyes to see into the clouds of mystery
which envelop us, that we may discern
the dim outlines of the great truths there
present for our help.
M. Maeterlinck writes only for the
thoughtful; for those who see a purpose
in life and an ideal of character to be
achieved. In such the critical faculty is
always alert, and he knows that he may
safely utter thoughts that have their
manifest limitations, without spending his
strength in defining such limitations.
Y
1
xviii
Introduction
1
Hence this book must be read with the
critical faculty awake, that what is strong
and helpful for each may be taken and
the remainder left.
One cannot help noting that this book
is written under the influence of Hellenic
Mysticism to a greater extent even than
“Wisdom and Destiny.” We look in vain
here for such expressions as are found in
“The Treasure of the Humble” in pas-
sages such as this: “The kisses of the
silence of misfortune — and it is above all
at times of misfortune that silence caresses
us —— can never be forgotten; and there-
fore it is that those to whom they have
come more often than to others are
worthier than those others. They alone
know, perhaps, how voiceless and un-
fathomable are the waters on which the
fragile shell of daily life reposes; they
have approached nearer to God, and the
steps they have taken towards the light
xix
Introduction
are steps that can never be lost, for the
soul may not rise, perhaps, but it can
never sink.” Indeed, the emphasis of
Hellenic Mysticism, both in his thought
and form of expression, is almost dog-
matic, and herein is a weakness. A
mystic cannot be, in any sense, a dogma-
tist; he may lead us to his point of vision
and bid us look, and may tell us what he
sees of truth, but he cannot command us
to accept his vision as ours. Truly,
Mysticism can only be associated with
freedom of thought, and hence the atmos-
phere of dogmatism is foreign to it. Who
can say that one honestly and earnestly
looking into the mystery in which he
lives and moves will not find there the
essential truth declared by Christ as well
as the truth discerned by Buddha, Epicte-
tus, or Marcus Aurelius ?
EDWARD M. COLIE.
1
XX
THE MYSTERY OF JUSTICE
The Buried Temple
THE MYSTERY OF JUSTICE
[1]
I SPEAK for those who do not believe
1 in the existence of a unique, all-power-
ful, infallible Judge, for ever intent on our
thoughts, our feelings and actions, main-
taining justice in this world, and com-
pleting it in the next. And if there be
no Judge, what justice is there? None
other than that which men have made for
themselves by their laws and tribunals, as
also in the social relations that no definite
judgment governs? Is there nothing
above this human justice, whose sanction
is rarely other than the opinion, the con-
The Buried Temple
fidence or mistrust, the approval or dis-
approval, of our fellows ? Is this capable
of explaining or accounting for all that
seems so inexplicable to us in the morality
of the Universe, that we at times feel
almost compelled to believe an intelligent
Judge must exist ? When we deceive or
overcome our neighbour, have we deceived
or overcome all the forces of justice?
Are all things definitely settled then, and
may we go boldly on; or is there a
graver, deeper justice, one less visible
perhaps, but less subject to error; one
that is more universal, and mightier ?
That such a justice exists we all of us
know, for we all have felt its irresistible
power. We are well aware that it covers
the whole of our life, and that at its centre
there reigns an intelligence which never
deceives itself, and which none can de-
ceive. But where shall we place it, now
that we have torn it down from the skies?
-
Ore u
vers
ņ
1
The Mystery of Justice
Where does it weigh good and evil, hap-
piness and disaster? Whence does it
issue to deal out reward and punishment ?
These are questions we do not often ask
ourselves, but they have their importance.
The nature of justice, and all our moral-
ity, depend on the answer; and it cannot
be fruitless, therefore, to inquire how
that great idea of mystic and sovereign
justice, which has undergone more than
one transformation since history began, is
being received to-day in the heart and
mind of man. And is this mystery not
the loftiest, the most passionately interest-
ing, of all that remain to us; does it not
intertwine with most of the others? Do
its vacillations not stir us to the very
depths of our soul? The great bulk of
mankind perhaps know nothing of these
vacillations and changes, but for the
evolution of thought it suffices that the.
eyes of the few should see; and when the
The Buried Temple
clear consciousness of these has become
aware of the transformation, its influence
· will gradually attain the general morality
of men.
[2]
In these pages we shall naturally have
much to say of social justice; in other
words, of the justice that we mutually
extend to each other through life; but we
shall leave on one side legal or positive
justice, which is merely the organisation
of one side of social justice. We shall
occupy ourselves above all with that vague
but inevitable justice, intangible, and yet
so effective, which accompanies and sets
its seal upon every action of our life;
which approves or disapproves, rewards
or punishes. Does this come from with-
out? Does an inflexible, undeceivable
moral principle exist, independent of
man, in the universe and in things? Is
The Mystery of Justice
there, in a word, a justice that might be
called mystic ? Or does it issue wholly
from man; is it inward even though it
act from without; and is the only justice
therefore psychologic? These two terms,
mystic and psychologic justice, compre-
hend, more or less, all the different forms
of justice, superior to the social, that
would appear to exist to-day.
[3]
It is scarcely conceivable that any one
who has forsaken the easy, but artificially
illumined, paths of positive religion, can
still believe in the existence of a physical
justice arising from moral causes, whether
its manifestations assume the form of
heredity or disease, of geologic, atmos-
pheric, or other phenomena. However
eager his desire for illusion or mystery,
this is a truth he is bound to recognise
from the moment he begins earnestly and
mena.
The Buried Temple
sincerely to study his own personal expe-
rience, or to observe the external ills
which, in this world of ours, fall indis-
criminately on good and wicked alike.
Neither the earth nor the sky, neither na-
ture nor matter, neither air nor any force
known to man (save only those that are
in him), betrays the slightest regard for
justice, or the remotest connection with
our morality, thoughts, or intentions. Be-
tween the external world and our actions
there exist only the simple and essentially
non-moral relations of cause and effect.
If I am guilty of a certain excess or im-
prudence, I incur a certain danger, and
have to pay a corresponding debt to
nature. And as this imprudence or ex-
cess will generally have had an immoral
cause --- or a cause that we call immoral
because we have been compelled to regu-
late our life according to the requirements
of our health and tranquillity - we cannot
The Mystery of Justice
II
refrain from establishing a connection be-
tween this immoral cause and the danger
to which we have been exposed, or the
debt we have had to pay; and we are led
once more to believe in the justice of the
universe, the prejudice which, of all those
that we cling to, has its root deepest in our
heart. And in our eagerness to restore
this confidence, we are content deliberately
to ignore the fact that the result would
have been exactly the same had the cause
of our excess or imprudence been — to
use the terms of our infantine vocabulary
heroic or innocent. If on an intensely
cold day I throw myself into the water to
save a fellow-creature from drowning, or
if, seeking to drown him, I chance to fall
in, the consequences of the chill will be
absolutely the same, and nothing on this
earth or beneath the sky- save only my-
self, or man if he be able — will enhance
my suffering because I have committed a
The Buried Temple
crime, or relieve my pain because my
action was virtuous. '
[4]
· Let us consider another form of physi-
cal justice, — heredity. There again we
find the same indifference to moral causes.
And truly it were a strange justice indeed
that would throw upon the son, and even
the remote descendant, the burden of a
fault committed by his father or his
ancestor. But human morality would
raise no objection; man would not pro-
test. To him it would seem natural,
magnificent, even fascinating. It would
indefinitely prolong his individuality, his
consciousness and existence, and from
this point of view would accord with a
number of indisputable facts which prove
that we are not wholly self-contained,
but connect, in more than one subtle,
mysterious fashion, with all that surrounds
10
The Mystery of Justice
1
us in life, with all that precedes us, or
follows.
And yet, true as this may be in certain
cases, it is not true as regards the justice
of physical heredity, which is absolutely
indifferent to the moral causes of the deed
whose consequences the descendants have
to bear. There is physical relation be-
tween the act of the father, whereby he
has undermined his health, and the con-
sequent suffering of the son; but the
son's suffering will be the same whatever
the intentions or motives of the father, be
these heroic or shameful. And, further,
the area of what we call the justice of
physical heredity would appear to be
very restricted. A father may have been
guilty of a hundred abominable crimes ;
he may have been a murderer, a traitor, a
persecutor of the innocent, or a despoiler
of the wretched, without these crimes
leaving the slightest trace upon the organ-
SC
la m
crimes
ana
II
The Buried Temple
ism of his children. It is enough that
he should have been careful to do nothing
that might injure his health.
IT
1
[5]
So much for the justice of nature, as
shown in physical heredity. Moral hered-
ity would appear to be governed by similar
principles, but, as it deals with modifica-
tions of the mind and character infinitely
more complex and elusive, its manifesta-
tions are less striking, and its results less
certain. Pathology is the only region
which permits of its definite observation
and study; and there we observe it to be
merely the spiritual form of physical
heredity, which is its essential principle;
moral heredity being only a sequel, and
revealing in its elementary stage the same
indifference to real justice, and the same
blindness. Whatever the moral cause of
the ancestor's drunkenness or debauch, the
12
The Mystery of Justice
same punishment may be meted out in
mind and body to the descendants of the
drunkard and the debauchee. Intellectual
blemish will almost always accompany
material blemish. The soul will be at-
tacked simultaneously with the body:
and it matters but little whether the victim
be imbecile, mad, epileptic, possessed of
criminal instincts, or only vaguely threat-
ened with slight mental derangement: the
most frightful moral penalty that a su-
preme justice could invent has followed
actions which, as a rule, cause less harm
and are less perverse than hundreds of
other offences that nature never dreams
of punishing. And this penalty, more-
over is inflicted blindly, not the slightest
heed being paid to the motives underly-
ing the actions, motives that may have
been excusable perhaps, or indifferent, or
possibly even admirable.
It would be absurd, however, to imagine
13
The Buried Temple
less
are
that drunkenness and debauchery are the
only agents in moral heredity. There
are a thousand others, all more or less
unknown. Certain moral qualities appear
to be transmitted as readily as though
they were physical. In one race, for
instance, we shall almost constantly dis-
cover certain virtues which have probably
been acquired. But who shall say how
much is due to heredity and how much
to environment and example? The
problem becomes so complicated, the facts
so contradictory, that it is impossible,
amidst the mass of innumerable causes, to
follow the track of one particular cause
to the end. Let it suffice to say that,
in the only clear, striking definitive cases
where an intentional justice could have
revealed itself in physical or moral hered-
ity, no trace of justice is found. And if
we do not find it in these, we are surely
far less likely to find it in others.
14
The Mystery of Justice
[6]
We may affirm, therefore, that not
above us, around us, or beneath us;
neither in this life nor in our other life
which is that of our children, is the least
trace to be found of an intentional justice.
But in the course of adapting ourselves
to the laws of life, we have naturally been
led to credit with our own moral ideas
those principles of causality that we en-
counter most frequently; and we have in
this fashion created a very plausible sem-
blance of effective justice, which rewards
or punishes most of our actions in the
degree that they approach, or deviate
from, certain laws that are essential for
the preservations of the race. It is evi-
dent that if I sow my field I shall have
an infinitely better prospect of reaping a
harvest the following summer than my
neighbour, who has neglected to sow his,
15
The Buried Temple
preferring a life of dissipation and idleness.
In this case, therefore, work obtains its
admirable and certain reward; and as
work is essential for the preservation of
our existence, we have declared it to be
the moral act of all acts, the first of all
our duties. Such instances might be in-
definitely multiplied. If I bring up my
children well, if I am good and just to
those round about me, if I am honest,
active, prudent, wise, and sincere in all
my dealings, I shall have a better chance
of meeting with filial piety, with respect
and affection, a better chance of knowing
moments of happiness, than the man
whose actions and conduct have been the
very reverse of mine. Let us not, how-
ever, lose sight of the fact that my neigh-
bour, who is, let us say, a most diligent
and thrifty man, might be prevented by
the most admirable of reasons, such as an
illness caught while nursing his wife or
TA
16
The Mystery of Justice
m
S
his friend, from sowing his ground at the
proper time, and that he also would reap
no harvest. Mutatis mutandis, similar
results would follow in the other instances
I have mentioned. The cases, however,
are exceptional where a worthy or respect-
able reason will hinder the accomplish-
ment of a duty; and we shall find, as a
rule, that sufficient harmony exists between
cause and effect, between the exaction of
the necessary law and the result of the
complying effort, to enable our casuistry
to keep alive within us the idea of the
justice of things.
[7]
This idea, however, deeply ingrained
though it be in the hearts and minds of
the least credulous and least mystic of
men, can surely not be beneficial. It
reduces our morality to the level of the
insect, which, perched on a falling rock,
imagines that the rock has been set in
17
The Buried Temple
1
motion on its own special behalf. Can
there be certain errors and falsehoods that
we do well to keep alive? There may
have been some in the past which, for a
moment, were helpful; but, this moment
over, men found themselves once again
face to face with the truth, and the sacri-
fice had only been delayed. Why wait
till the illusion or falsehood which ap-
peared to do good begins to do actual
harm, or, if it do no harm, at least retards
the perfect understanding that should
obtain between the deeply felt reality and
our manner of interpreting and accepting
it? What were the divine right of
kings, the infallibility of the Church, the
belief in rewards beyond the grave, but
illusions whose sacrifice reason deferred
too long? Nor was anything gained by
this dilatoriness beyond a few sterile hopes,
a little deceptive peace, a few consolations
that at times were disastrous. But many
/
1
18
The Mystery of Justice
as
OR
17h
Y
days had been lost; and we cannot afford
to lose many days, we who at last are
seeking the truth, and find in its search
an all-sufficient reason for existence. Nor
does anything retard us more than the
illusion which, though torn from its roots,
we still permit to linger among us; for
this will display the most extraordinary
activity, and be constantly changing its
form.
But what does it matter, some will ask,
whether man do the thing that is just
because he thinks God is watching -
because he believes in a kind of justice
that pervades the universe — or for the
simple reason that to his conscience this
thing seems just? It matters above all.
We have there three different men. The
first, whom God is watching, will do much
that is not just, for every God whom man
has hitherto worshipped has decreed many
unjust things. And the second will not
19
The Buried Temple
always act in the same way as the third,
who is, indeed, the true man to whom the
moralist will turn, for he will survive both
the others; and to foretell how man will
conduct himself in truth, which is his
natural element, is more interesting to the
moralist than to watch his behaviour when
enmeshed in falsehood.
[8]
It may seem idle to those who do not
believe in the existence of a sovereign
Judge to discuss so seriously this inadmis-
sible idea of the justice of things. And
inadmissible it does, indeed, seem when
presented thus, in its true colours, pinned
to the wall as it were. This, however, is
not our way of regarding it in every-day
life. When we observe how disaster fol-
lows crime, how ruin at last overtakes ill-
gotten prosperity — when we witness the
miserable end of the debauchee, the short-
20
The Mystery of Justice
lived triumph of iniquity, it is our con-
stant habit to confuse the physical effect
with the moral cause; and however little
we may believe in the existence of a Judge,
we nearly all of us end by a more or less
complete submission to a strange, vague
faith in the justice of things. And though
our reason, our calm observation, prove
to us that this justice cannot exist, it is
enough that an event should take place
which touches us somewhat more nearly,
or that there should be two or three curi-
ous coincidences, for conviction to fade in
our heart, if not in our mind. Notwith-
standing all our reason and all our ex-
perience, the merest trifle recalls to life
within us the ancestor who was convinced
that the stars shone in their eternal places
for no other purpose than to predict or
approve a wound he was to inflict on his
enemy upon the field of battle, a word he
should speak in the assembly of the chiefs,
21
The Buried Temple
or an intrigue he should bring to a suc-
cessful issue in the women's quarters.
We of to-day are no less inclined to divi-
nise our feelings to serve our interests;
the only difference being that, the gods
having no longer a name, our methods
have become less sincere and less precise.
When the Greeks, powerless before Troy,
felt the need of supernatural signal and sup-
port, they went to Philoctetes, deprived
him of Hercules' bow and arrows, and
abandoned him ill, naked, and defenceless
on a desert island. This was the mysterious
Justice, loftier than that of man: this was
the command of the gods. And similarly
do we, when some iniquity seems expe-
dient to us, cry loudly that we do it for
the sake of posterity, of humanity, of the
fatherland. On the other hand, should
a great misfortune befall us we protest
that there is no justice, that there are no
gods; but let the misfortune befall our
M
.
22
The Mystery of Justice
enemy, and the universe is at once re-
peopled with invisible Judges. If, how-
ever, some unexpected, disproportionate
stroke of good fortune come to us, we are
quickly convinced that we must possess
merits so carefully hidden as to have
escaped our own observation; and we
are happier in their discovery than at the
windfall they have procured us.
[9]
“One has to pay for all things,” we
say. Yes, in the depth of our heart, in
all that pertains to man, justice exacts
payment in the coin of our personal hap-
piness or sorrow. And without, in the
universe that enfolds us, there is also a
reckoning; but here it is a different pay-
master who measures out happiness or
sorrow. Other laws obtain, there are
other motives, other methods. It is no
longer the justice of the conscience that
23
The Buried Temple
presides, but the logic of nature, which
cares nothing for our morality. Within
us is a spirit that weighs only inten-
tions, without us a power that only
balances deeds. We try to persuade
ourselves that these two work hand in
hand. But in reality, though the spirit
will often glance towards the power, this
last is as completely ignorant of the
other's existence as is the man weighing
coals in Northern Europe of the existence
of his fellow weighing diamonds in South
Africa. We are constantly intruding our
sense of justice into this non-moral logic;
and herein lies the source of most of our
errors.
[10]
And further, what right have we to
complain of the indifference of the uni-
verse, what right to declare it incompre-
hensible and monstrous ? Why this sur-
24
The Mystery of Justice
m
prise at an injustice in which we ourselves
have taken so active a part? It is true
that no trace of justice can be found in
disease, accident, or most of the hazards
of external life, which fall indiscrimi-
nately on the good and the wicked, the
hero and the traitor, the poisoner and
the sister of charity. But we are far
too eager to include under the title
“ Justice of the Universe” many a
flagrant act that is exclusively human,
and infinitely more common and more
destructive than disease, the hurricane,
or fire. I do not allude to war; it
might be urged that we attribute this
rather to the will of the peoples or kings
than to nature. But poverty, for in-
stance, which we still rank with irre-
mediable ills, such as shipwreck or
plague; poverty, with all its crushing
sorrows and transmitted degeneration —
how often may this be ascribed to the
more
mo
25
The Buried Temple
injustice of the elements, and how often
to the injustice of our social condition,
which is the crowning injustice of men?
Need we, at the sight of unmerited
wretchedness, look to the skies for a
reason, as though a flash of lightning
had caused it? Need we seek an im-
penetrable, unfathomable Judge? Is this
region not our own; are we not here in
the best explored, best known portion
of our dominion; and is it not we who
organise misery, we who spread it abroad,
as arbitrarily, from the moral point of
view, as fire and disease scatter destruction
or suffering? Is it reasonable that we
should wonder at the sea's indifference
to the soul-state of its victims, when we
who have a soul, the pre-eminent organ
of justice, pay no heed whatever to the
innocence of the countless thousands whom
we ourselves sacrifice, who are our own
wretched victims? We choose to regard
26
The Mystery of Justice
we
as beyond our control, as a force of fatality,
a force that rests entirely within our own
hands. But does this excuse us ? Truly
we are strange lovers of an ideal justice,
we are strange judges ! A judicial error
sends a thrill of horror from one end of
the world to another; but the error which
condemns three-fourths of mankind to
misery, an error as purely human as that
of any tribunal, is attributed by us to
some inaccessible, implacable Power. If
the child of some honest man we know
be born blind, imbecile, or deformed, we
will seek everywhere, even in the dark-
ness of a religion we have ceased to
practise, for some God whose intention
to question ; but if the child be born
poor — a calamity as a rule no less
capable than the gravest infirmity of de-
grading a creature's destiny — we do not
dream of interrogating the God who is
wherever we are, since he is made of
27
The Buried Temple
our own desires. Before we demand an
ideal Judge we shall do well to purify
our ideas, for whatever blemish there is
in these will surely be found in the Judge.
Before we complain of Nature's indiffer-
ence, or ask at her hand an equity she
does not possess, let us attack the iniquity
that dwells in the homes of men; and
when this has been swept away we shall
find that the part we assign to the in-
justice of fate will be less by fully two-
thirds. And the benefit to mankind
would be far more considerable than if
it lay in our power to guide the storm
or govern the heat and the cold, to
direct the course of disease or the ava-
lanche, or contrive that the sea should
display an intelligent regard to our virtues
and secret intentions. For, indeed, the
poor far exceed in number those who fall
victims to shipwreck or material accident,
just as far more disease is due to material
28
The Mystery of Justice
wretchedness than to the caprice of our
organism, or the hostility of the elements.
[11]
And for all that, we love justice. We
live, it is true, in the midst of a great
injustice; but we have only recently ac-
quired this knowledge, and we still grope
for a remedy. Injustice dates such a long
way back; the idea of God, of destiny, of
nature's mysterious decrees, had been so
closely and intimately associated with it,
and is still so deeply entangled with most
of the unjust forces of the universe, that it
was but yesterday that we commenced the
endeavour to isolate such elements con-
tained within it as are purely human. And
if we succeed; if we can distinguish them,
and separate them for all time from those
upon which we are powerless, justice will
gain more than by all that man has dis-
covered hitherto in his search for justice.
29
The Buried Temple
For indeed in this social injustice of ours
it is not the human part that is capable
of checking our passion for equity; it is
the part that a great number of men still
attribute to a god, to a kind of fatality,
or to imaginary laws of nature.
[12]
This last, inactive part shrinks every
day. Nor is this because the mystery of
justice is about to disappear. A mystery
rarely disappears — as a rule, it only shifts
its ground. But it is often most important
and most desirable that we should bring
about this change of abode. It may be
said that two or three such changes almost
stand for the whole progress of human
thought: the dislodgment of two or three
mysteries from a place where they did
harm, and their transference to a place
where they become inoffensive and capa-
ble of doing good. Sometimes even, there
30
The Mystery of Justice
I
IU
is no need for the mystery to change its
place; we have only to identify it under
another name. What was once called
“the gods,” we now term “life.” And
if life be as inexplicable as were the gods,
we are at least the gainers to the extent
that no one has the right to speak or do
wrong in its name. The aim of human
thought can scarcely be to destroy mystery,
or lessen it, for that seems impossible.
We may be sure that the same quantity
of mystery will ever enwrap the world,
since it is the quality of the world, as of
mystery, to beinfinite. But honest human
thought will seek above all to determine
what are the veritable irreducible myste-
ries. It will endeavour to strip them of
all that does not belong to them, that is
not truly theirs, of the additions made by
our errors, our fears, and our falsehoods.
And as the artificial mysteries vanish, so
will the ocean of veritable mystery stretch
31
The Buried Temple
further and further: the mystery of life,
its aim and its origin; the mystery of
thought; the mystery that has been called
“ the primitive accident” or the “perhaps
unknowable essence of reality."
[13]
Where had men conceived the mystery
of justice to lodge? It pervaded the
world. At one moment it was supposed
to rest in the hands of the gods, at
another it engulfed and mastered the
gods themselves. It had been imagined
everywhere except in man. It had dwelt
in the sky, it had lurked behind rocks, it
had governed the air and the sea, it had
peopled an inaccessible universe. Then
at last we peered into its imaginary retreats,
we pressed close and examined ; its throne
of clouds tottered, it faded away; but, at
the very moment we believed it had
ceased to be, behold it reappeared, and
32
The Mystery of Justice
1S
raised its head once more in the very
depths of our heart; and yet another
mystery had sought refuge in man, and
embodied itself in him. For it is in our-
selves that the mysteries we seek to de-
stroy almost invariably find their last shel-
ter and their most fitting abode, the home
which they had forsaken, in the wildness
of youth, to voyage through space; and it
is in ourselves that we must learn to meet
and to question them. And truly it is no
less wonderful, no less inexplicable, that
man should have in his heart an unchang-
ing instinct of justice, than it was wonder-
ful and inexplicable that the gods should
be just, or the forces of the universe. It
is as difficult to account for the essence of
our memory, our will, or intelligence, as
it was to account for the memory, will, or
intelligence, of the invisible powers or
laws of nature; and if, in order to en-
hance our curiosity, we have need of the
no
ne
33
The Buried Temple
unknown or unknowable; if, in order to
maintain our ardour, we require mystery
or the infinite, we shall not lose a single
tributary of the unknown and unknowable
by at last restoring the great river to its
primitive bed; nor shall we have closed a
single road that leads to the infinite, or
lessened by the minutest fraction the most
contested of veritable mysteries. Whatever
we take from the skies we find again in
the heart of man. But, mystery for mys-
tery, let us prefer the one that is certain to
the one that is doubtful, the one that is
near to the one that is far, the one that is
in us and of us to the harmful one from
without. Mystery for mystery, let us no
longer parley with the messengers, but
with the sovereign who sent them; no
longer question those feeble ones who
silently vanish at our first inquiry, but
rather look into our heart, where are both
question and answer — the answer which
1
34
The Mystery of Justice
it has forgotten, but some day, perhaps,
shall remember.
. [ 14 ]
Then we shall be able to solve more
than one disconcerting problem as to the
distribution, often very equitable, of re-
ward and punishment among men. And
by this we do not mean only the inward,
moral reward and punishment, but also
the reward and punishment that are
visible and wholly material. There was
some measure of reason in the belief, held
by mankind from its very origin, that
justice penetrates, animates as it were,
every object of this world in which we
live. This belief has not been explained
away by the fact that our great moral laws
have been forcibly adapted to the great
laws of life and matter. There is more
beyond. We cannot refer all things, in
all circumstances, to a simple relation of
35
The Buried Temple
cause and effect between crime and punish-
ment. There is often a moral element
also ; and, though events have not placed
it there, though it is we alone who have
created it, it is not the less powerful and
real. Of a physical justice, properly so-
called, we deny the existence; but besides
the wholly inward psychologic justice, to
which we shall soon refer, there is also a
psychologic justice which is in constant
communication with the physical world;
and it is this justice that we attribute to
we know not what invisible and univer-
sal principle. And while it is wrong to
credit nature with moral intentions, and
to allow our actions to be governed by
fear of punishment or hope of reward
that she may reserve for us, this does
not imply that, even materially, there is
no reward for good, or punishment for
evil. Such reward and punishment un-
doubtedly exist, but they issue not from
36
The Mystery of Justice
whence we imagine ; and in believing that
they come from an inaccessible spot, that
they master us, judge us, and conse-
quently dispense us from judging our-
selves, we commit the most dangerous of
errors; for none has a greater influence
upon our manner of defending ourselves
against misfortune, or of setting forth
to attempt the legitimate conquest of
happiness.
[ 15 ]
Such justice as we actually discover in
nature does not issue from her, but from
ourselves, who have unconsciously placed
it there by becoming one with events,
by animating them, and adapting them
to our uses. Accident, disease, lightning,
which strike to right or to left, without
apparent reason or warning, are not the
only elements in our life. There are
other, and far more frequent, cases when
The Buried Temple
ons aro
we have direct influence on the things
and the persons around us, and invest
these with our own personality ; cases
where the forces of nature become instru-
ments for our thoughts, which, when un-
just, will make improper use of them,
thereby calling forth retaliation and invit-
ing punishment and disaster. But in
nature there is no moral reaction ; for
this emanates from our own thoughts, or
the thoughts of other men. It is not in
things, but in us, that the justice of things
resides. It is our moral condition that
modifies our conduct towards the external
world; and if we find this antagonistic, it
is because we are at war with ourselves,
at war with the essential laws of our mind
and our heart. The attitude of nature to-
wards us is uninfluenced by the justice or
injustice of our intentions; and yet these
will almost invariably govern our attitude
towards nature. Here once more, as in
38
The Mystery of Justice
the case of social justice, we ascribe to
the universe, to an unintelligible, eter-
nal, fatal principle, a part that we play
ourselves; and when we say that justice,
Heaven, nature, or events are rising in
revolt against us to punish or revenge, it
is in reality man who is using events to
punish man; it is human nature that rises
in revolt, and human justice that avenges.
[16]
In a former essay I referred to Napo-
leon's three crowning acts of injustice :
the three celebrated crimes that were so
fatally unjust to his own fortune. The
first was the murder of the Duc d'Enghien,
condemned by order, without trial or
proof, and executed in the trenches of
Vincennes,--an assassination that sowed
insatiable hatred and vengeance in the
path of the guilty dictator. Then the de-
testable intrigues whereby he lured the
39
The Buried Temple
too trustful, easy-going Bourbons to Bay-
onne, that he might rob them of their
hereditary crown; and the horrible war
that ensued, a war that cost the lives of
three hundred thousand men, swallowed
up all the morality and energy of the
empire, most of its prestige, almost all its
convictions, almost all the devotion it in-
spired, and engulfed its prosperous des-
tiny. And finally the frightful, unpar-
donable Russian campaign, wherein his
fortune came at last to utter shipwreck
amid the ice of the Berezina and the
snowbound Polish steppes.
“ These prodigious catastrophes,” I
said, “had numberless causes; but when
we have slowly traced our way through
all the more or less unforeseen circum-
stances, have marked the gradual change
in Napoleon's character, and noted the
acts of imprudence, folly, and violence
which this genius committed; when we
40
The Mystery of Justice
have seen how deliberately he brought
disaster to his smiling fortune, may we
not almost believe that what we behold,
standing erect at the very fountain-head
of calamity, is no other than the silent
shadow of misunderstood human justice?
Human justice, possessing nothing super-
natural, nothing very mysterious; built
up of many thousand very real little inci-
dents, many thousand falsehoods, many
thousand little offences, of which each one
gave rise to a corresponding act of retali-
ation - human justice, and not a power
that suddenly, at some tragic moment,
leaps forth like Minerva of old, fully
armed, from the formidable, despotic brow
of destiny. In all this there is only one
thing of mystery, and that is the eternal
presence of human justice; but we are
aware that the nature of man is very mys-
terious. Let us in the meanwhile ponder
this mystery. It is the most certain of all,
41
The Buried Temple
1
1
it is the profoundest, it is the most help-
ful, it is the only one that will never par-
alyse our energy for good. And though
this patient, vigilant shadow be not as
clearly defined in every life as it was in
Napoleon's, though justice be not always
as active or as undeniable, we shall none
the less do wisely to study a case like
this whenever opportunity offers. It will
at least give rise to doubt within us, it will
stimulate inquiry; and these things are
worth far more than the idle, short-sighted
affirmation or denial that we so often per-
mit ourselves; for in all questions of this
kind our endeavour should not be to
prove, but rather to arouse attention, to
create a certain grave, courageous respect
for all that yet remains unexplained in the
actions of men, in their subjection to what
appear to be general laws, and in the
results that ensue.”
'
O
42
The Mystery of Justice
[17]
Let us now try to discover in what way
this great mystery of justice does truly and
inevitably work itself out within us. The
heart of him who has committed an unjust
act becomes the scene of ineffaceable
drama, the paramount drama of human
nature, which becomes the more danger-
ous, and deadlier, in the degree of the
man's greatness and knowledge.
A Napoleon will say to himself, at such
troubled moments, that the morality of a
great life cannot be as simple as that of an
ordinary one, and that an active, powerful
will has rights which the feeble and inert
will cannot claim. He will hold that he
may the more legitimately sweep aside cer-
tain conscientious scruples, inasmuch as it
is not ignorance or weakness that causes
him to disregard these, but the fact that
he views them from a standpoint higher
TIL
Il
43
The Buried Temple
sness
TY
n01
than that of most men ; and further, that,
his aim being great and glorious, this
passing deliberate callousness of his is
therefore truly a victory won by his
strength and his intellect, since there can
be no danger in doing wrong when it is
done by one who does it knowingly, and
has his very good reason. All this, how-
ever, does not for a moment delude that
which lies deepest within us. An act of
injustice must always shake the confidence
a man had in himself and his destiny; at a
given moment, and that generally of the
gravest, he has ceased to rely upon himself
alone; and this will not be forgotten, nor
will he ever again be wholly himself. He
has confused and probably corrupted his
fortune by the introduction of strange
powers. He has lost the exact sense of
his personality and of the force that is in
him. He can no longer clearly distin-
guish between what is his own and comes
44
The Mystery of Justice
from himself, and what he is constantly
borrowing from the pernicious collabora-
tors whom his weakness has summoned.
He has ceased to be the general who has
none but disciplined soldiers in the army
of his thoughts; he becomes the usurping
chief around whom are only accomplices.
He has forsworn the dignity of the man
who will have none of the glory at which
his heart can only smile as sadly as an
ardent, unhappy lover would smile at a
faithless mistress.
He who is truly strong will examine
with eager care the praise and advantages
that his actions have won for him; and
will silently reject whatever oversteps a
certain line that he has drawn in his con-
sciousness. And the stronger he is, the
more nearly will this line approach the
one that has already been drawn by the
secret truth that lies at the bottom of
all things. An act of injustice is almost
YY
45
The Buried Temple
SO
ry-
always a confession of weakness; and very
few such confessions are needed to reveal
to the enemy the most vulnerable spot of
the soul. He who commits an unjust
deed that he may gain some measure of
glory, or preserve the little glory he has,
does but admit that what he desires or
what he possesses is beyond his desery-
ing, and that the part he has sought to
play exceeds his powers of loyal fulfil-
ment. And if, notwithstanding all, he
persists in his endeavour, his life will
be soon beset by falsehoods, errors, and
phantoms.
And at last, after a few acts of weak-
ness, of treachery, of culpable self-in-
dulgence, the survey of our past life can
bring discouragement only, whereas we
have great need that our past should
inspire and sustain us. For therein alone
do we truly know what we are ; it is only
our past that can come to us, in our
.
Yi
The Mystery of Justice
moments of doubt, and say: “Since you
were able to do that thing, it shall lie in
your power to do this thing also. When
that danger confronted you, when that
terrible grief laid you prostrate, you had
faith in yourself and you conquered.
The conditions to-day are the same; do
you but preserve your faith in yourself,
and your star will be constant.” But
what reply shall we make if our past can
only whisper: “Your success has been
solely due to injustice and falsehood,
wherefore it behoves you once more to
deceive and to lie.” No man cares to
let his eyes rest on his acts of disloyalty,
weakness, or treachery ; and all the events
of bygone days which we cannot contem-
plate calmly and peacefully, with satisfac-
tion and confidence, trouble and restrict
the horizon which the days that are not
yet are forming far away. It is only a
prolonged survey of the past that can give
47
The Buried Temple
to the eye the strength that it needs in
order to sound the future.
I
C
an
[ 18 ]
No, it was not the inherent justice of
things that punished Napoleon for his
three great acts of injustice, or that will
punish us for our own, in a less startling,
but not less painful, fashion. Nor was it
an unyielding, incorruptible, irresistible jus-
tice, "attaining the very vault of heaven.”
We are punished because our entire moral
being, our mind no less than our charac-
ter, is incapable of living and acting ex-
cept in justice. Leaving that, we leave
our natural element; we are carried, as it
were, into a planet of which we know
nothing, where the ground slips from under
our feet and all things disconcert us; for
while the humblest intellect feels itself at
home in justice, and can readily foretell
the consequences of every just act, the
1
48
The Mystery of Justice
CS
most profound and penetrating mind loses
its way hopelessly in the injustice itself has
created, and can form no conception of the
results that shall ensue. The man of
genius who forsakes the equity that the
humblest peasant has at heart will find all
paths strange to him; and these will be
stranger still should he overstep the limit
his own sense of justice imposes ; for the
justice that soars aloft, keeping pace with
the intellect, creates new boundaries around
all it throws open, while at the same time
strengthening and rendering more insur-
mountable still the ancient barriers of
instinct. The moment we cross the prim-
itive frontier of equity all things seem to
fail us; one falsehood gives birth to a hun-
dred, and treachery returns to us through
a thousand channels. If justice be in us we
may march along boldly, for there are cer-
tain things to which the basest cannot be
false; but if injustice possess us we must
49
The Buried Temple
beware of the justest of men, for there
are things to which even these cannot re-
main faithful. As our physical organism
was devised for existence in the atmos-
phere of our globe, so is our moral organ-
ism devised for existence in justice. Every
faculty craves for it, is more intimately
bound up with it than with the laws of
gravitation, of light or heat; and to throw
ourselves into injustice is to plunge head-
long into the hostile and the unknown.
All that is in us has been placed there
with a view to justice; all things tend
thither and urge us towards it; whereas
when we harbour injustice we battle against
our own strength; and at last, at the hour
of inevitable punishment, when, prostrate,
weeping, and penitent, we recognise that
events, the sky, the universe, the invisi-
ble, are all in rebellion, all justly in league
against us, then may we truly say, not
that these are, or ever have been, just,
The Mystery of Justice
but that we, notwithstanding ourselves,
have contrived to remain just even in
injustice.
SU
[19]
We affirm that nature is absolutely
indifferent to our morality, and that were
this morality to command us to kill our
neighbour, or to do him the utmost pos-
sible harm, nature would aid us in this no
less than in our endeavour to comfort or
serve him. She would as often seem to
reward us for having made him suffer as
for our kindness towards him. Are we
entitled to conclude from this that nature
has no morality — using the word in its
most limited sense as meaning the logical,
inevitable subordination of the means to
the accomplishment of a general mission?
That is a question to which we must not
too hastily reply. We know nothing of
nature's aim, or whether she have an aim.
51
The Buried Temple
We know nothing of her consciousness,
or whether she have a consciousness; of
her thoughts, or whether she think at all.
It is with her deeds and her manner of
doing that we are solely concerned. And
in these we find the same contradiction
between our morality and nature's mode
of action as exists between our conscious-
ness - and the instincts that nature has
planted within us. For this conscious-
ness, though in ultimate analysis due to
her also, has nevertheless been formed
by ourselves, and basing itself upon the
loftiest human morality, offers an ever
stronger opposition to the desires of in-
stinct. Were we to listen only to these
last, we should act in all things like
nature, which would always seem to justify
the triumph of the stronger, the victory
of the least scrupulous and best equipped,
and this in the midst of the most inexcus-
able wars, the most flagrant acts of in-
52
The Mystery of Justice
justice or cruelty. Our one object would
be our own personal triumph; nor should
we pay the least heed to the rights or
sufferings of our victims, to their inno-
cence or beauty, moral or intellectual
superiority. But, in that case, why has
nature placed within us a consciousness
and a sense of justice that have pre-
vented us from desiring the things that she
desires? Or is it we ourselves who have
placed them there? Are we capable of
deriving from within us something that is
not in nature; are we capable of giving
abnormal development to a force that
opposes her force ; and if we possess
this power, must she not have reasons of
her own for permitting us to possess it?
Why should there be only in us, and
nowhere else in the world, these two irrec-
oncilable tendencies that in every man
are incessantly at strife, and victorious in
turn? Would one have been dangerous
VTT
53
The Buried Temple
1
without the other? Would it have over-
stepped its goal, perhaps ; would the de-
sire for conquest, unchecked by the sense
of justice, have led us to annihilation, as
the sense of justice without the desire for
conquest might have induced inertia ?
But which of these two tendencies is the
more natural and necessary, which is the
narrower and which the vaster, which is
provisional and which eternal ? Where
shall we learn which one we should combat
and which one encourage ? Ought we to
conform to the law that is incontestably
the more general, or should we cherish in
our heart a law that is evidently excep-
tional ? Are there circumstances under
which we have the right to go forth in
search of the apparent ideal of life? Is
it our duty to follow the morality of the
species or race, which seems irresistible to
us, being one of the visible sides of nature's
obscure and unknown intentions; or is it
Y
OW
54
The Mystery of Justice
essential that the individual should main-
tain and develop within him a morality
entirely opposed to that of the race or
species whereof he forms part ?
ni
in-
[ 20 ]
The truth is that the question which con-
fronts us here is only another form of the
one which lies at the root of evolutionary
morality, and is probably scientifically un-
solvable. Evolutionary morality bases it-
self on the justice of nature — though it
dare not speak out the word; on the
justice of nature, which imposes upon
each individual the good or evil conse-
quences of his own character and his own
actions. But when, on the other hand, it
is necessary for evolutionary morality to
justify actions which, although intrinsi-
cally unjust, are necessary for the prosper-
ity of the species, it falls back upon what
CS
se-
1
55
The Buried Temple
it reluctantly terms nature's indifference
or injustice. Here we have two unknown
aims, that of humanity and that of man-
kind; and these, wrapped as they are in a
mystery that may some day perhaps pass
away, would seem to be irreconcilable in
our mind. Essentially, all these questions
resolve themselves into one, which is of
the utmost importance to our contempo-
rary morality. The race would appear to
be becoming conscious, prematurely it
may be, and perhaps disastrously, not, we
will say, of its rights, for that problem is
still in suspense, but of the fact that
morality does not enter into certain actions
that go to make history.
This disquieting consciousness would
seem to be slowly invading our individual
life. Thrice, and more or less in the
course of one year, has this question con-
fronted us, and assumed vast proportions :
in the matter of America's crushing defeat
56
The Mystery of Justice
of Spain (although here the issues are
confused, for the Spaniards had been guilty
of so many acts of injustice in the past,
besides their present blunders, that the
problem becomes very involved); in the
case of an innocent man sacrificed to
the preponderating interest of his coun-
try; and in the iniquitous war of the
Transvaal. It is true that the phenome-
non is not altogether without precedent.
Man has always endeavoured to justify
his injustice; and when human justice
offered him no excuse or pretext, he found
in the will of the gods a law superior to
the justice of man. But our excuse or
pretext of to-day is fraught with the more
peril to our morality inasmuch as it re-
poses on a law, or at least a habit, of
nature, that is far more real, more incon-
testable and universal than the will of an
ephemeral and local god.
Which shall prevail in the end, justice
The Buried Temple
or force? Does force contain an unknown
justice that will absorb our human justice,
or is the impulse of justice within us, that
would seem to resist blind force, actually
no more than a devious emanation from
that force, tending to the same end; and
is it only the point of deviation that escapes
us? This is not a question that we can
answer, we who ourselves form part of
the mystery we seek to solve; the reply
could come only from one who might
be gazing upon us from the heights of
another world: one who should have
learned the aim of the universe and the
destiny of man. In the meanwhile, if
we say that nature is right, we say that the
instinct of justice, which she has placed in
us, and which therefore also is nature, is
wrong; whereas if we approve this in-
stinct, our approval is necessarily derived
from the exercise of the very faculty that
is called in question.
58
The Mystery of Justice
[21]
That is true; but it is no less true that
the endeavour to sum up the world in
a syllogism is one of the oldest and vain-
est habits of man. In the region of the
unknown and unknowable, logic-chopping
has its perils ; and here all our doubts
would seem to arise from another hazard-
ous syllogism. We tell ourselves —
boldly at times, but more often in a whis-
per — that we are nature's children, and
bound therefore in all things to conform
to her laws and copy her example. And
since nature regards justice with indiffer-
ence, since she has another aim, which is
the sustaining, the renewing, the incessant
development, of life, it follows . . . So
far we have not formulated the conclusion,
or, at least, this conclusion has not yet
dared openly to force its way into our
morality ; but, although its influence has
59
The Buried Temple
hitherto only been remotely felt in that
familiar sphere which includes our relations,
our friends, and our immediate surround-
ings, it is slowly penetrating into the vast
and desolate region whither we relegate all
those whom we know not and see not,
who for us have no name. It is already
to be found at the root of many of our
actions; it has entered our politics, our
industry, our commerce ; indeed it affects
almost all we do from the moment we
emerge from the narrow circle of our
domestic hearth, the only place for the
majority of men where a little veritable
justice is still to be found, a little benevo-
lence, a little love. It will call itself eco-
nomic or social law, evolution, competition,
struggle for life; it will masquerade under
a thousand names, forever perpetrating
the selfsame wrong. And yet nothing
can be less legitimate than such a conclu-
sion, Apart from the fact that we might
7
69
The Mystery of Justice
with equal justification reverse the syllo-
gism, and cause it to declare that there
must be a certain justice in nature, since
we, her children, are just, we need only
consider it as it stands to realise how doubt-
ful and contestable is at least one of its two
premisses.
We have seen in the preceding chapters
that nature does not appear to be just from
our point of view; but we have absolutely
no means of judging whether she be not
just from her own. The fact that she
pays no heed to the morality of our actions
does not warrant the inference that she has
no morality, or that ours is the only one
there can be. We are entitled to say that
she cares not whether our intentions be
good or evil, but we have not the right
to conclude that she has therefore no
morality and no equity ; for that would be
tantamount to affirming that there are no
more mysteries or secrets, and that we
61
The Buried Temple
know all the laws of the universe, its origin
and its end. Her mode of action is
different from our own, but, I say it once
more, we know not what her reason may
be for acting in this different fashion; and
we have no right to imitate what seems
iniquitous and cruel to us so long as we
have no precise knowledge of the pro-
found and salutary reasons that may un-
derlie such action. What is the aim of
nature? Whither do the worlds tend
that stretch across eternity? Where does
consciousness begin, and is its only form
that which it assumes in ourselves ? At
what point do physical laws become moral
laws ? Is life unintelligent? Have we
sounded all the depths of nature, and is it
only in our cerebro-spinal system that she
becomes mind? And finally, what is jus-
tice when viewed from other heights ? Is
the intention necessarily at its centre; and
can no regions exist where intentions no
62
The Mystery of Justice
LIST
longer shall count? We should have to
answer these questions, and many others,
before we should be able to tell whether
nature be just or unjust from the point
of view of masses whose vastness corres-
ponds to her own. She disposes of a
future, a space, of which we can form no con-
ception; and in these there exists, it may
be, a justice proportioned to her duration,
her extent and her aim, even as our own
instinct of justice is proportioned to the
duration and narrow circle of our own life.
The wrong that she may for centuries com-
mit she has centuries in which to repair ;
but we who have only a few days before us,
what right have we to imitate what our
eye cannot see, understand or follow?
By what standard are we to judge her,
if we look away from the passing hour?
For instance, considering only the imper-
ceptible speck that we form in the worlds,
and disregarding the immensity that sur-
63
The Buried Temple
rounds us, we are wholly ignorant of all
that concerns our possible life beyond the
tomb; and we forget that, in the present
state of our knowledge, nothing authorises
us to affirm that there may not be a kind
of more or less conscious, more or less
responsible, after-life, that shall in no way
depend on the decisions of an external
will. He would indeed be rash who
should venture to affirm that nothing
survives, either in us or in others, of the
efforts of our good intentions and the
acquirements of our mind. It may be —-
and serious experiments, though they do
not seem to prove the phenomenon, may
still allow us to class it among scientific
possibilities - it may be that a part of our
personality, of our nervous force, may
escape dissolution. How vast a future
would then be thrown open to the laws
that unite cause to effect, and that always
end by creating justice when they come
64
The Mystery of Justice
into contact with the human soul, and
have centuries before them! Let us not
forget that nature at least is logical, even
though we call her unjust; and were we
to resolve on injustice, our difficulty would
be that we must also be logical ; and
when logic comes into touch with our
thoughts and our feelings, our intentions
and passions, what is there that differen-
tiates it from justice?
[ 22 ]
Let us form no too hasty conclusion ;
too many points are still uncertain. Should
we seek to imitate what we term the in-
justice of nature, we would run the risk
of imitating and fostering only the in-
justice that is in ourselves. When we
say that nature is unjust, we are in effect
complaining of her indifference to our
own little virtues, our own little intentions,
our own little deeds of heroism; and
OV
ro
Our
OW
65
The Buried Temple
it is our vanity far more than our sense
of equity that considers itself aggrieved.
Our morality is proportionate to our
stature and our restricted destiny; nor
have we the right to forsake it because it
is not on the scale of the immensity and
infinite destiny of the universe.
And further, should it even be proved
that nature is unjust at all points, the
other question remains intact: whether
the command be laid upon man to follow
nature in her injustice. Here we shall
do well to let our own consciousness
speak, rather than listen to a voice so
formidable that we hear not a word it
utters, and know not even whether words
there be. Reason and instinct tell us
that it is right to follow the counsels of
nature; but they tell us also that we
should not follow those counsels when
they clash with another instinct within
us, one that is no less profound: the
66
The Mystery of Justice
instinct of the just and the unjust. And
if instincts do indeed draw very near to
the truth of nature, and must be respected
by us in the degree of the force that is in
them, this one is perhaps the strongest
of all, for it has struggled alone against
all the others combined, and still persists
within us. Nor is this the hour to reject
it. Until other certitudes reach us, it
behoves us, who are men, to continue
just in the human way and the human
sphere. We do not see far enough, or
clearly enough, to be just in another
sphere. Let us not venture into a kind
of abyss, out of which races and peoples
to come may perhaps find a passage; but
whereinto man, in so far as he is man,
must not seek to penetrate. The injustice
of nature ends by becoming justice for the
race; she has time before her, she can
wait, her injustice is of her girth. But
for us it is too overwhelming, and our
TI
67
The Buried Temple
days are too few. Let us be satisfied that
force should reign in the universe, but
equity in our heart. Though the race be
irresistibly, and perhaps justly, unjust,
though even the crowd appear possessed
of rights denied to the isolated man, and
commit on occasions great, inevitable, and
salutary crimes, it is still the duty of each
individual of the race, of every member
of the crowd, to remain just, while ever
adding to, and sustaining, the conscious-
ness within him. Nor shall we be entitled
to abandon this duty till all the reasons
of the great apparent injustice be known
to us; and those that are given us now,
preservation of the species, reproduction,
and selection of the strongest, ablest,
“ fittest,” are not sufficient to warrant so
frightful a change. Let each one try by
all means to become the strongest, most
skilful, the best adapted to the necessities
of the life that he cannot transform; but,
easons
a
var
68
The Mystery of Justice
so far, the qualities that shall enable him
to conquer, that shall give the fullest play
to his moral power and his intelligence,
and shall truly make him the happiest,
most skilful, the strongest and “fittest”
- these qualities are precisely the ones
that are the most human, the most honour-
able and the most just.
[ 23 ]
“ Within me there is more," runs the
fine device inscribed on the beams and
pediment of an old patrician mansion at
Bruges, which every traveller visits ; fill-
ing a corner of one of those tender and
melancholy quays, that are as forlorn and
lifeless as though they existed only on
canvas. And so too might man exclaim,
“Within me there is more;” every law
of morality, every intelligible mystery.
There may be many others, above and
below us; but if these are to remain for-
e
In
The Buried Temple
1
ever unknown, they become for us as
though they existed not; and should their
existence one day be revealed to us, it
can only be because they already are in
us, already are ours. “Within me there
is more ;” and we are entitled to add, per-
haps :“ I have nothing to fear from that
which is in me.”
This much at least is certain : that the
one active, inhabited region of the mystery
of justice is to be found within ourselves.
Other regions lack consistency; they are
probably imaginary, and must inevitably
be deserted and sterile. They may have
furnished mankind with illusions that
served some purpose, but not always
without doing harm; and though we may
scarcely be entitled to demand that all
illusions should be destroyed, they should
at least not be too manifestly opposed to
our conception of the universe. To-day
we seek in all things the illusion of truth.
70
The Mystery of Justice
It is not the last, perhaps, or the best, or
the only one possible; but it is the one
which we at present regard as the most
honourable and the most necessary. Let
us limit ourselves therefore to recognising
the admirable love of justice and truth
that exists in the heart of man. Proceed-
ing thus, yielding admiration only where
it is incontestably due, we shall gradually
acquire some knowledge of this passion,
which is the distinguishing mark of man;
and one thing, most important of all, we
shall most undoubtedly learn — the means
whereby we can purify it, and still further
increase it. As we observe its incessant
activity in the depths of our heart, the
only temple where it can truly be active;
as we watch it blending with all that we
think, and feel, and do, we shall quickly
discover which are the things that throw
light upon it, and which those that plunge
it in darkness, which are the things that
71
The Buried Temple
guide it and which those that lead it astray;
we shall learn what nourishes and what
atrophies, what attacks and what defends.
Is justice no more than the human in-
stinct of preservation and defence ? Is
it the purest product of our reason; or
rather to be regarded as composed of a
number of those sentimental forces which
so often are right, though directly op-
posed to our reason forces that in them-
selves are a kind of unconscious, vaster
reason, to which our conscious reason
invariably accords its startled approval
when it has reached the heights whence
those kindly feelings long had beheld
what itself was unable to see? Is justice
dependent on intellect, or rather on char-
acter? Questions these that are perhaps
not idle if we indeed would seek to know
what steps we must take to invest with
all its radiance and all its power the love
of justice that is the central jewel of the
72
The Mystery of Justice
human soul. All men love justice, but
not with the same ardent, fierce, exclusive
love; nor have they all the same scruples,
the same sensitiveness, or the same deep
conviction. We meet people of highly
developed intellect, in whom the sense of
what is just and unjust is yet infinitely
less delicate, less clearly marked, than in
others whose intellect would seem to be
mediocre ; for here a great part is played
by that little known, ill-defined side of
ourselves that we term the character.
And yet it is difficult to tell how much
more or less unconscious intellect must
of necessity go with the character that is
unaffectedly honest. The point before us,
however, is to learn how best to illumine,
and increase within us, our desire for jus-
tice; and it is certain that, at the start,
our character is less directly influenced by
our desire for justice than is our intellect,
the development of which this desire
73
The Buried Temple
1
n
S
1
in a large measure controls; and the co-
operation of the intellect, which recog-
nises and encourages our good intention,
is necessary for this to penetrate into, and
mould, our character. That portion of
our love of justice, therefore, which de-
pends on our character, will benefit by its
passage through the intellect; for in pro-
portion as the intellect rises, and acquires
enlightenment, will it succeed in master-
ing, enlightening, and transforming our
instincts and our feelings.
But let us no longer believe that this
love must be sought in a kind of su-
perhuman, and often inhuman, infinite.
None of the grandeur and beauty that
this infinite may possess would fall to its
portion ; it would only be incoherent, in-
active, and vague. Whereas by seeking
it in ourselves, where it truly is ; by ob-
serving it there, listening to it, marking
how it profits by every acquirement of
.
74
The Mystery of Justice
our mind, every joy and sorrow of our
heart, we soon shall learn what we best
had do to purify and increase it.
1
DOI
[ 24 ]
Our task within these limits will be
sufficiently long and mysterious. To
increase and purify within us the desire
for justice: how shall this thing be done?
We have some vague conception of the
ideal that we would approach ; but how
changeable still, and illusory, is this ideal !
It is lessened by all that is still unknown
to us in the universe, by all that we do
not perceive, or perceive incompletely, by
all that we question too superficially. It
is hedged round by the most insidious
dangers ; it falls victim to the strangest
oblivion, the most inconceivable blunders.
Of all our ideals it is the one that we
should watch with the greatest care and
anxiety, with the most passionate, pious
1
75
The Buried Temple
eagerness and solicitude. What seems
irreproachably just to us at the moment
is probably the merest fraction of what
would seem just, could we regard it from
another place. We need only compare
what we were doing yesterday with what
we do to-day; and what we do to-day
would appear full of faults against equity
were it granted to us to rise still higher
and compare it with what we shall do to-
morrow. There needs but a passing
event, a thought that rises, a duty to
ourselves that takes definite form, an un-
expected responsibility that is suddenly
made clear, for the whole organisation of
our inward justice to totter and be trans-
formed. Slow as our advance may have
been, we still should find it impossible to
begin life again in the midst of many a
sorrow whereof we were the involuntary
cause, many a discouragement to which
we unconsciously gave rise; and yet,
ce
ca
76
The Mystery of Justice
when these things came into being around
us, we appeared to be in the right, and
did not consider ourselves unjust. And
even so are we convinced to-day of our
excellent intentions; even so do we tell
ourselves that we are the cause of no
suffering and no tears, that we stay not a
murmur of happiness, shorten no moment
of peace or of love, and it may be that
there passes, unperceived of us, to our
right or our left, an illimitable injustice
that spreads over three fourths of our life.
[25]
I chanced to-day to take up a copy
of the “ Arabian Nights” in the very
remarkable translation recently published
by Dr. Mardrus; and I marvelled at the
extraordinary picture it gives of the
ancient, long-vanished civilisations. Not
in the Odyssey or the Bible, in Xenophon
or Plutarch, could their teaching be more
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de
clearly set forth. There is one story that
the Sultana Schahrazade tells — it is one
of the very finest the volume contains -
that reveals a life as pure and admirable
as mankind has ever known; a life replete
with beauty, happiness, and love; spon-
taneous and vivid, intelligent, flourishing,
and refined; an abundant life that, to a
certain point, comes as near truth as a
life well can. It is, in many respects,
almost as perfect in its moral as in its
material civilisation. And the pillars on
which this incomparable structure of hap-
piness rests — like pillars of light support-
ing the light — are formed of ideas of
justice so delicate, counsels of wisdom so
deeply penetrating, that we of to-day,
who are less fine in grain, less eager and
buoyant, have lost the power to formulate
or to discern them. And for all that,
this abode of felicity, that harbours a
moral life so active and vigorous, so
78
The Mystery of Justice
noble, so graciously grave, — this palace,
wherein the purest and holiest wisdom
governs the pleasures of rejoicing man-
kind — is in its entirety based on so great
an injustice, is enclosed by so vast, so
profound, so frightful an iniquity, that
the wretchedest man of us all would
shrink in dismay from its glittering, gem-
bestrewn threshold. But of this iniquity
they who linger in that marvellous dwell-
ing have not the remotest suspicion. It
would seem that they never draw near to
a. window; or that, should one by some
chance fly open and reveal to their sorrow-
ful gaze the misery strewn in the midst
of the revels and feasting, they still would
be blind to the crime which was infinitely
more revolting, infinitely more monstrous,
than the most appalling poverty : the
crime of the slavery, and the even more
terrible degradation, of their women. For
these, however exalted their position, and
TIT
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at the moment even when they are speak-
ing to the men round about them of good-
ness and justice; when they are reminding
them of their most touching and generous
duties -- these women never are more than
mere objects of pleasure, to be bought,
or sold, or given away, in a moment
of gratitude, ostentation or drunkenness,
to any barbarous or hideous master.
[ 26 ]
“They tell us,” says the beautiful slave
Nozhatan, as, concealed behind a curtain
of silk and of pearls, she speaks to Prince
Sharkan and the wise men of the king-
dom, — “they tell us that the Khalif Omar
set forth one night, in the company of the
venerable Aslam Abou-Zeid, and that he
beheld, far away from his palace, a fire
that was burning; and drew near, as he
thought that his presence might perhaps
be of service. And he saw a poor woman
80
The Mystery of Justice
MIS
who was kindling wood underneath a
caldron, and by her side were two little
wretched children, groaning most pit-
eously. And Omar said, 'Peace unto
thee, O woman! What dost thou here,
alone in the night and the cold?' And
she answered, “Lord, I am making this
water to boil, that my children may drink,
who perish of hunger and cold; but for
the misery we have to bear, Allah will
surely one day ask reckoning of Omar
the Khalif.' And the Khalif, who was in
disguise, was much moved, and he said to
her, “ But dost thou think, O woman, that
Omar can know of thy wretchedness, see-
ing that he does not relieve it?' And she
answered, 'Wherefore, then, is Omar the
Khalif if he be unaware of the misery of
his people and of each one of his sub-
jects?' Then the Khalif was silent and
he said to Aslam Abou-Zeid, “ Let us go
quickly from hence. And he hastened
ar
6
81
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as
until he had reached the storehouse of his
kitchens, and he entered therein and drew
forth a sack of flour from the midst of
the other sacks, and also a jar that was
filled to the brim with sheep fat, and he
said to Abou-Zeid, “O Abou-Zeid, help
thou me to charge these on my back.'
But Abou-Zeid refused, and he cried,
Suffer that I carry them upon my back
O Commander of the Faithful. And
Omar said calmly to him, “Wilt thou
also, O Abou-Zeid, bear the weight of my
sins on the Day of Resurrection ?' And
Abou-Zeid was obliged to lay the jar
filled with fat and the sack of flour on the
Khalif's back. And Omar hastened, thus
laden, until he had once again reached the
poor woman; and he took of the flour,
and he took of the fat, and placed these
in the caldron over the fire; and with his
own hands did he then get ready the
food, and he quickened the fire with his
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The Mystery of Justice
breath; and as he bent over, his beard
being long, the smoke from the wood
forced its way through the beard of the
Khalif. And at last, when the food was
prepared, Omar offered it unto the woman
and the two little children; and with his
breath did he cool the food while these
ate their fill. Then he left them the sack
of flour and the jar of fat; and he went
on his way and said unto Aslam Abou-
Zeid, “O Abou-Zeid, the light from this
fire that I have beheld to-day has enlight-
ened me also.”
[27]
And it is thus that, a little further on,
there speaks to a very wise king one of
five pensive maidens whom this king is
invited to buy. “Know thou, O. King,”
she says, “ that the most beautiful deed
one can do is the. deed that is disinter-
ested. And so do they tell us that in
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Israel once were two brothers, and that one
asked the other, Of all the deeds thou
hast done, which was the most wicked ?'
And his brother replied, “This: as I
passed by a hen-roost one day I stretched
out my arm and I seized a chicken and
strangled it, and then flung it back into
the roost. That is the wickedest deed
of my life. And thou, O my brother,
what is thy wickedest action?' And he
answered, “That I prayed to Allah one
day to demand a favour of him. For it
is only when the soul is simply uplifted
on high that prayer can be beautiful.””
And one of her companions, captive
and slave like herself, also speaks to the
king. “Learn to know thyself!” she says.
“ Learn to know thyself! And do thou
not act till then. And do thou then only
act in accordance with all thy desires, but
having great care always that thou do not
injure thy neighbour.”
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The Mystery of Justice
To this last formula our morality of
to-day has nothing to add; nor can we
conceive a precept that shall be more com-
plete. At most we could widen the mean-
ing of the word “neighbour,” and ex-
pand, extend, and raise, render somewhat
more subtle and more elastic, that of the
word “injure." And the book in which
these words are found is a monument of
horror, notwithstanding all its flowers and
all its wisdom; a monument of horror and
blood and tears, of despotism and slavery.
And they are all slaves, those who pro-
nounce these words. A merchant buys
them, I know not where, and sells them
to some old hag who teaches them, or
causes them to be taught, philosophy,
poetry, all Eastern sciences, in order that
one day they may become gifts worthy of
a king. And when their education is
finished, and their beauty and wisdom
call forth the admiration of all who ap-
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proach them, the industrious, prudent
old woman does indeed offer them to a
very wise, very just king. And when
this very wise, very just king has taken
their virginity from them and seeks other
loves, he will probably bestow them (I
have forgotten the end of this particular
story, but it is the invariable destiny of
all the heroines of these marvellous
legends) on his viziers. And these viziers
will give them away in exchange for a
vase of perfume, for a belt that is studded
with jewels, or perhaps despatch to a
distant country, to conciliate a powerful
protector, or a hideous, but dreaded, rival.
And these women, so fully conscious of
themselves, whose gaze can penetrate so
deeply into the consciousness of others;
these women who forever are pondering
the loftiest, grandest problems of justice, of
the morality of men and of nations, never
throw one questioning glance on their fate,
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The Mystery of Justice
or for an instant suspect the abominable
injustice whereof they are the victims.
Nor do those suspect it either who listen
to them, and love and admire and under-
stand them. And we who marvel at this
- we who also reflect on justice and
virtue, on pity and love — are we so sure
that they who come after us shall not
some day find, in our present social condi-
tion, a spectacle no less disconcerting?
[ 28 ]
It is difficult for us to imagine what the
ideal justice will be, for every thought of
ours that tends towards it is clogged by
the injustice wherein we still live. Who
shall say what new laws and relations will
stand revealed when the misfortunes and
inequalities due to the action of man shall
have been swept away; when, in accord-
ance with the principles of evolutionary
morality, each individual shall “reap the
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results, good or bad, of his own nature,
and of the consequences that ensue from
that nature?” At present things happen
otherwise; and we may unhesitatingly
declare that, as far as the material condi-
tion of the vast bulk of mankind is con-
cerned, the connection between conduct
and consequences — to use Spencer's
formula — exists only in the most ludi-
crous, arbitrary, and iniquitous fashion.
Is there not something of audacity in our
imagining that our thoughts can possibly
be just when the body of each one of us
is steeped to the neck in injustice? And
from this injustice no man is free, be it to
his loss or his gain; there is not one
whose efforts are not disproportionately
rewarded, receiving either too much or too
little; not one who is not either advan-
taged or handicapped. And endeavour
as we may to detach our mind from this
inveterate injustice, this lingering trace of
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The Mystery of Justice
the sub-human morality needful for primi-
tive races, it is idle to think that our
thoughts can be as strenuous, as inde-
pendent or clear, as they might have been
had the last vestige of this injustice dis-
appeared ; it is idle to think that they can
achieve the same result. The side of
the human mind that can attain a region
loftier than reality is necessarily timid and
hesitating. Human thought is capable
of many things; it has, in the course of
time, brought startling improvement to
bear upon what seemed immutable in the
species or the race. But even at the
moment when it is pondering the trans-
formation of which it has caught a dis-
tant glimpse, the improvement that it so
eagerly desires, even then it is still think-
ing, feeling, seeing, like the thing that
it seeks to alter; even then it lies captive
beneath the yoke. All its efforts not-
withstanding, it is practically that which
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it would change. For the mind of
man lacks the power to forecast the
future; it has been formed rather to ex-
plain, judge, and co-ordinate that which
was; to help, foster, and make known what
already exists but so far cannot be seen ;
and when it ventures into what is not yet
it will rarely produce anything very salu-
tary or very enduring. And the influ-
ence of the social condition in which we
exist lies heavy upon it. How can we
frame a satisfactory idea of justice, and
ponder it loyally, and with the needful
tranquillity, when injustice surrounds us on
every side ? Before we can study justice,
or speak of it with advantage, it must
become what it is capable of being : a
social force, irreproachable and actual.
At present all we can do is to invoke its
unconscious, secret, and, as it were, almost
imperceptible effects. We contemplate it
from the shores of human injustice;
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The Mystery of Justice
never yet has it been granted us to gaze
on the open sea beneath the illimitable,
inviolate sky of a conscience without re-
proach. If men had at least done all that
it was possible for them to do in their own
domain, they would then have the right
to go further, and question elsewhere; and
their thoughts would probably be clearer,
were their consciences more at ease.
rease
[ 29 ]
And further, a heavy reproach lies on
us, and chills our ardour, whenever we
try to grow better, to increase our knowl-
edge, our love, our forgiveness. Though
we purify our consciousness and ennoble
our thoughts, though we strive to render
life softer and sweeter for those who are
near us, all our efforts halt at our thresh-
old, and have no influence on what lies
outside our door; and the moment we
leave our home we feel that we have done
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nothing, that there is nothing for us to
do, and that we are taking part, ourselves
notwithstanding, in the great anonymous
injustice. Is it not almost ludicrous that
we, who within our four walls strive to be
noble and faithful, pitiful, simple, and
loyal ; we whose consciousness balances the
nicest, most delicate problems, and rejects
even the suspicion of a bitter thought,
have no sooner gone into the street, and
met faces that are unfamiliar, than, at that
very instant, and without the least possibility
of our having it otherwise, all pity, equity,
love should be completely ignored by us?
What dignity, what loyalty, can there be
in this double life, so wise and humane,
uplifted and thoughtful, this side the
threshold, and beyond it so callous, so
instinctive and pitiless ? For it is enough
that we should feel the cold a little less
than the labourer who passes by, that we
should be better fed or clad than he, that
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The Mystery of Justice
W1
we should buy any object that is not
strictly indispensable, and we have un-
consciously returned, through a thousand
byways, to the ruthless act of primitive
man despoiling his weaker brother. There
is no single privilege we enjoy but close
investigation will prove it to be the re-
sult of a perhaps very remote abuse of
power, an unknown violence or ruse of
long ago; and all these we set in motion
again as we sit at our table, stroll idly
through the town, or lie at night in a
bed that our own hands have not made.
Nay, what is even the leisure that enables
us to improve, to grow more compassion-
ate and gentler, to think more fraternally
of the injustice others endure — what is
this, in truth, but the ripest fruit of the
great injustice ?
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[ 30 ]
These scruples, I know, must not be
carried too far; they would either induce
a spirit of useless revolt, possibly dis-
astrous to the species whose mild and
mighty sluggishness we are bound to
respect; or they would lead us back to I
know not what mystic, inert renouncement,
directly opposed to the most evident and
unchanging desires of life. Life has laws
that we call inevitable ; but we are already
becoming more sparing in our use of
the word. And here especially do we
note the change that has come over the
attitude of the wise and upright man.
Marcus Aurelius — than whom perhaps
none ever craved more earnestly for jus-
tice, or possessed a soul more wisely
impressionable, more nobly sensitive —
Marcus Aurelius never asked himself
what might be happening outside that
The Mystery of Justice
admirable little circle of light wherein his
virtue and consciousness, his divine meek-
ness and piety, had gathered those who
were near him, his friends and his ser-
vants. Infinite iniquity, he knew full well,
stretched around him on every side; but
with this he had no concern. To him it
seemed a thing that must be, mysterious
and sacred as the mighty ocean ; the
boundless domain of the gods, of fatality,
of laws unknown and superior, irresistible,
irresponsible, and eternal. It did not les-
sen his courage ; on the contrary, it
enhanced his confidence, his concentration,
and spurred him upwards, like the flame
that, confined to a narrow area, rises
higher and higher, alone in the night,
urged on by the darkness. He accepted
the decree of fate, that allotted slavery to
the bulk of mankind. Sorrowfully, but
with full conviction, did he submit to the
the irrevocable law; wherein he once
95
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T
1
1
again gave proof of his piety and his vir-
tue. He retired into himself; and there,
in a kind of sunless, motionless void, be-
came still more just, still more humane.
And in each succeeding century do we
find a similar ardour, self-centred and
solitary, among those who were wise and
good. The name of more than one immov-
able law might change, but its infinite
part remained ever the same; and each
one regarded it with the like resigned and
chastened melancholy. But we of to-day
-- what course are we to pursue? We
know that iniquity is no longer necessary.
We have invaded the region of the gods,
of destiny and unknown laws. These
may still control disease and accident,
perhaps, no less than the tempest, the
lightning-flash, and most of the mysteries
of death; we have not yet penetrated
to them; but we are well aware that
poverty, wretchedness, hopeless toil,
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The Mystery of Justice
slavery, famine, are completely outside
their domain. It is we who organise
these, we who maintain and distribute
them. These frightful scourges, that have
grown so familiar, are wielded by us
alone; and belief in their superhuman
origin is becoming rarer and rarer. The
religious, impassable ocean that excused
and protected the retreat into himself of
the sage and the man of good, now only
exists as a vague recollection. To-day
Marcus Aurelius could no longer say with
the same serenity : “ They go in search of
refuges, of rural cottages, of mountains,
of the sea-shore; thou too art wont to
cherish an eager desire for these things.
But is this not the act of an ignorant,
unskilled man, seeing that it is granted
thee at whatever hour thou pleasest to
retire within thyself? It is not possible
for man to discover a retreat more tran-
quil, less disturbed by affairs, than that
1 SO
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which he finds in his soul; especially if he
have within him those things the contem-
plation of which suffices to procure imme-
diate enjoyment of the perfect calm,
which is no other, to my mind, than the
perfect agreement of soul.”
Other matters concern us to-day than
this agreement of soul; or let us rather
say that what we have to do is to bring
into agreement there that from which the
soul of Marcus Aurelius was free, -
three-fourths of the sorrows of man-
kind, in a word, which have become real
to us, intelligible, human, urgent, and are
no longer regarded as the inexplicable,
immutable, intangible decrees of fate.
cu
was
]
[31]
This does not imply, however, that we
should abandon the old sage's desire for
“agreement;” and even though we may
not be entitled to expect such perfect
98
The Mystery of Justice
C
" agreement” as they derived from their
pardonable egoism, we may still look for
agreement of a provisional, conditional
kind. And although such “ agreement”
be not the last word of morality, it is none
the less indispensable that we should begin
by being as just as we possibly can within
ourselves and to those round about us, our
neighbours, our friends, and our servants.
It is at the moment when we have be-
come absolutely just to these, and within
our own consciousness, that we realise
our great injustice to all the others. The
method of being more practically just
towards these last is not yet known to us;
to return to great, heroic renouncements
would effect but little, for these are in-
capable of unanimous action, and would
probably run counter to the profoundest
laws of nature, which rejects renounce-
ment in every form save that of maternal
love.
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This practical justice, therefore, remains
the secret of the race. Of such secrets
it has many, which it reveals one by
one, at such moments of history as be-
come truly critical; and the solutions it
offers to insuperable difficulties are almost
always unexpected, and of curious sim-
plicity. The hour approaches perhaps
when it will speak once more. Let us
hope, without being too sanguine ; for
we must bear in mind that humanity
has yet by no means emerged from
the period of “sacrificed generations.”
History has known no others; and it is
possible that, to the end of time, all
generations may call themselves sacri-
ficed. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied
that the sacrifices, however unjust and
useless they still may be, are growing
ever less inhuman and less inevitable;
and that the laws which govern them
are becoming better and better known,
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The Mystery of Justice
and would seem to draw nearer and nearer
to those that a lofty mind might accept
without being pitiless.
[ 32 ]
It must be admitted, however, that
a majestic, redoubtable slowness attends
the movements of these “ideas of the
species.” Centuries had to pass by be-
fore it dawned upon primitive men, who
fled from each other, or fought when
they met at the mouth of their caverns,
that they would do well to form into
groups, and unite in defence against the
mighty enemies threatening them from
without. And besides, these “ideas ” of
the species will often be widely different
from those that the wisest man might
hold. They would seem to be independ-
ent, spontaneous, often based on facts of
which no trace is shown by the human
reason of the epoch that witnessed their
IOI
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birth; and indeed there is no graver
or more disturbing problem before the
moralist or sociologist than that of deter-
mining whether all his efforts can hasten
by one hour or divert by one hair’s-
breadth the decisions of the great, anony-
mous mass which proceeds, step by step,
towards its indiscernible goal.
1
[ 33 ]
Long ago — so long ingeed that this
is one of the first affirmations of science,
when, quitting the bowels of the earth,
the glaciers and grottoes, it ceased to
call itself geology and palæontology and
became the history of man — humanity
passed through a crisis not wholly unlike
that which now lies ahead of it, or is
actually menacing it at the moment; the
difference being only that in those days
the dilemma seemed vastly more tragic
and more unsolvable. It may truly be
I 02
The Mystery of Justice
said that mankind never has known a
more perilous or more decisive hour, or
a period when it drew nearer its ruin;
and the fact that we exist to-day would
appear to be due to the unexpected ex-
pedient which saved the race at the
moment when the scourge that fed on
man's very reason, on all that was best
and most irresistible in his instinct of
justice and injustice, was actually on the
point of destroying the heroic equilibrium
between the desire to live and the possi-
bility of living.
I refer to the acts of violence, rapine,
outrage, murder, which were of natural
occurrence among the earliest human
groups. These crimes, which will prob-
ably have been of the most frightful
description, must have very seriously en-
dangered the existence of the race; for
vengeance is the terrible, and, as it were,
the epidemic form which the craving for
Occurrer
ace
man
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The Buried Temple
justice at first assumes. Now this spirit
of vengeance, abandoned to itself and for-
ever multiplying, — revenge followed by
the revenge of revenge, — would finally
have engulfed, if not the whole of man-
kind, at least all those of the earliest men
who were possessed of energy or pride.
We find, however, that among these bar-
barous races, as among most of the
existing savage tribes whose habits are
known to us, there comes a time, usually
at the period when their weapons are
growing too deadly, when this vengeance
suddenly halts before a singular custom
known as the “blood-tribute,” or the
“composition for murder," which allows
the homicide to escape the reprisals of
the victim's friends and relations by pay-
ment to them of an indemnity, that, from
being arbitrary at the start, soon becomes
strictly graduated.
In the whole history of these infant
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The Mystery of Justice
races, in whom impulse and heroism were
the predominant factors, there is nothing
stranger, nothing more astounding, than
this almost universal custom, which for
all its ingenuity would appear almost too
long-suffering and mercantile. May we
attribute it to the foresight of the chiefs ?
We find it in races among whom author-
ity might almost be said to be entirely
lacking. Did it originate among the old
men, the thinkers, the sages, of the prim-
itive groups ? That is not more probable.
For underlying this custom there is a
thought which is at the same time higher
and lower than could be the thought of
an isolated prophet or genius of those
barbarous days. The sage, the prophet,
the genius - above all, the untrained
genius — is rather inclined to carry to
extremes the generous and heroic tenden-
cies of the clan or epoch to which he
belongs. He would have recoiled in dis-
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gust from this timid, cunning evasion of
a natural and sacred revenge, from this
odious traffic in friendship, fidelity, and
love. Nor is it conceivable, on the other
hand, that he should have attained suf-
ficient loftiness of spirit to be able to let
his gaze travel beyond the noblest and
most incontestable duties of the moment,
and to behold only the superior interest
of the tribe or the race: that mysterious
desire for life which the wisest of the wise
among us to-day are generally unable to
perceive or to justify until they have
wrought grave and painful conquest over
their isolated reason and their heart.
No, it was not the thought of man
which found the solution. On the con-
trary, it was the unconsciousness of the
mass, compelled to act in self-defence
against thoughts too intrinsically, indi-
vidually human to satisfy the irreducible
exigencies of life on this earth. The
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The Mystery of Justice
-
species is extremely patient, extremely
long-suffering. It will bear as long as
it can and carry as far as it can the
burden which reason, the desire for im-
provement, the imagination, the passions,
vices, virtues, and feelings natural to man,
may combine to impose upon it. But
at the moment when this burden be-
comes too overwhelming, and disaster
threatens, the species will, instantaneously
and with the utmost indifference, fling it
aside. It is careless as to the means; it
will adopt the one that is nearest, the
simplest, most practical, being doubtless
perfectly satisfied that its own idea is the
justest and best. And of ideas it has
only one, which is that it wishes to live;
and truly this idea surpasses all the hero-
ism, all the generous dreams, that may
have reposed in the burden which it has
discarded.
And indeed, in the history of hu-
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man reas
man reason, the greatest and the justest
thoughts are not always those which at-
tain the loftiest heights. It happens
somewhat with the thoughts of men as
with a fountain ; for it is only because
the water has been imprisoned and es-
capes through a narrow opening that
it soars so proudly into the air. As
it issues from this opening and hurls it-
self towards the sky, it would seem to
despise the great, illimitable, motionless
lake that stretches out far beneath it.
And yet, say what one will, it is the lake
that is right. For all its apparent motion-
lessness, for all its silence, it is tranquilly
accomplishing the immense and normal
task of the most important element of
our globe; and the jet of water is merely
a curious incident, which soon returns into
the universal scheme. To us, the species
is the great, unerring lake; and this even
from the point of view of the superior
.
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The Mystery of Justice
C
human reason that it would seem at times
to offend. Its idea is the vastest of all,
and contains every other; it embraces
limitless time and space. And does not
each day that goes by reveal more and
more clearly to us that the vastest idea,
no matter where it reside, always ends
by becoming the most just and most
reasonable, the wisest, and the most
beautiful ?
[ 34 ]
There are times when we ask ourselves
whether it might not be well for humanity
that its destinies should be governed by
the superior men among us, the great
sages, rather than by the instincts of the
species, that are always so slow, and often
so cruel.
It is doubtful whether this question
could be answered to-day in quite the
same fashion as formerly. It would
same
nas
109
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11
surely have been highly dangerous to
confide the destinies of the species to
Plato or Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius,
Shakespeare, or Montesquieu. At the
very worst moments of the French Revo-
lution, the fate of the people was in the
hands of philosophers of none too mean
an order. It cannot be denied, however,
that in our time the habits of the thinker
have undergone a great change. He has
ceased to be speculative or utopian: he is
no longer exclusively intuitive. In poli-
tics as in literature, in philosophy as in all
the sciences, he displays less imagination,
but his powers as an observer have grown.
He inclines rather to concentrate his atten-
tion on the thing that is, to study it and
strive at its organisation, than to precede
it, or endeavour to create what is not yet,
or never shall be. And therefore he may
possibly have some claim to more au-
thoritative utterance; nor would so much
IIO
The Mystery of Justice
danger attend his more direct intervention.
It must be admitted, however, that there is
no greater likelihood now than in former
times of such intervention being permitted
him. Nay, there is less, perhaps; for
having become more circumspect and less
blinded by narrow convictions, he will be
less audacious, less imperious, and less
impatient. And yet it is possible that,
finding himself in natural sympathy with
the species which he is content merely to
observe, he will by slow degrees acquire
more and inore influence; so that here
again, in ultimate analysis, it is the species
that will be right, the species that will
decide; for it will have guided him who
observes it, and therefore, in following
him whom it has guided, it will truly only
be following its own unconscious, formless
desires, which will have been expressed
by him, and by him brought into light.
III
The Buried Temple
[35]
Until such time as the species shall
discover the new and needful experiment-
and this it will quickly do when the danger
becomes more acute ; nay, for all we know,
the expedient may have already been
found, and, entirely unsuspected of us, be
already transforming part of our destinies
- until such time, while bound to act in
external matters as though our brothers'
salvation depended entirely on our exer-
tions, it is open to us, no less than to the
sages of old, to retire occasionally within
ourselves. We in our turn shall perhaps
find there “one of those things” of which
the contemplation shall suffice to bring us
instantaneous enjoyment, if not of the
perfect calm, at least of an indestructible
hope. Though nature appear unjust,
though nothing authorise us to declare
that a superior power, or the intellect of the
I 12
The Mystery of Justice
universe, rewards or punishes, here below
or elsewhere, in accordance with the laws
of our consciousness or with other laws
that we shall some day admit; and finally,
though between man and man, in other
words, in our relations with our fellows,
our admirable desire for equity translate
itself into a justice that is always incom-
plete, at the mercy of every error of
reason, of every ambush laid by personal
interest, and of all the evil habits of a
social condition that still is sub-human, —
it is none the less certain that an image
of that invisible and incorruptible justice,
which we have vainly sought in the sky
or the universe, reposes in the depths of
the moral life of every man. And though
its method of action be such as to cause
it to pass unperceived of most of our
fellows, often indeed of our own conscious-
ness, though all that it does be hidden
and intangible, it is none the less pro-
1 TV
VI
113
The Buried Temple
foundly human and profoundly real. It
would seem to hear, to examine, all that
we say, and think, and strive for, in our
exterior life ; and if it find a little sincerity
beneath, a little earnest desire for good,
it will transform these into moral forces
that shall extend and illumine our inner
life, and help us to better thoughts, to
better speech and endeavour, in the time
to come. It will not add to, or take from,
our wealth, it will bring no immunity from
disease or from lightning, it will not pro-
long by one hour the life of the being we
cherish ; but if we have learned to reflect
and to love: if, in other words, heart and
brain have both done their duty, it will
establish in heart and brain a contentment
that, though perhaps stripped of illusion,
shall still be inexhaustible and noble; it
will confer a dignity of existence, an in-
telligence, that shall suffice to sustain our
life after the loss of our wealth, after
1
| 1n-
114
The Mystery of Justice
the stroke of disease or lightning has,
fallen, after the loved one has forever
quitted our arms. A good thought or
deed brings a reward to our heart that
it cannot, in the absence of a universal
judge of nature, extend to the things
around. It endeavours to create within
us the happiness it is unable to produce
in our material life. Denied all external
outlet, it fills our soul the more. It
prepares the space that soon shall be
required by our developing intellect, our
expanding peace and love. Helpless
against the laws of nature, it is all-power-
ful over those that govern the happy
equilibrium of human consciousness. And
this is true of every stage of thought, of
every class of action. A vast distance
might seem to divide the labourer, who
brings up his children honourably, lives
his humble life and honourably does the
work that falls to his lot, from the man
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The Buried Temple
who steadfastly perseveres in moral hero-
ism ; but each of these is acting and
living, on the same plane as the other,
and the same loyal, consoling region re-
ceives them both. And though it be
certain that what we say and do must
largely influence our material happiness,
yet, in ultimate analysis, it is only by
means of the spiritual organs that even
material happiness can be fully and per-
manently enjoyed. Hence the prepon-
derating importance of thought. But of
supreme importance, from the point of
view of the reception we shall offer to the
joys and sorrows of life, is the character,
the frame of mind, the moral condition,
that the things we have said, and done,
and thought, will have created within us.
Here there is evidence of admirable jus-
tice; and the intimate happiness that
our moral being derives from the constant
striving of the mind and heart for good
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The Mystery of Justice
becomes the more comprehensible when,
we realise that this happiness is only the
surface of the goodly thought, or feeling,
that is shining within our heart. Here
may we indeed find that intelligent, moral
bond between cause and effect that we
have vainly sought in the external world;
here, in moral matters, reigning over the
good and evil that are warring in the
depths of our consciousness, may we in
truth discover a justice exactly similar to
the one which we could desire to recognise
in physical matters. But whence do we
derive this desire if not from the justice
within us; and is it not because this
justice is so mighty and active in our
heart that we are reluctant to believe
in its non-existence in the universe ?
1
[ 36 ]
We have spoken at great length of
justice; but is it not the great mystery
117
The Buried Temple
of man, the one that tends to take the
place of most of the spiritual mysteries
that govern his destiny? It has dethroned
more than one god, more than one name-
less power. It is the star evolved from
the nebulous mass of our instincts and
our incomprehensible life. It is not the
solution of the enigma; and when, in the
fulness of time, it shall become clearer to
us, and shall truly reign all over the earth,
there will come to us no greater knowl-
edge of what we are, or why we are,
whence we come or whither we go; but
we shall at least have obeyed the first
word of the enigma, and shall proceed,
with a freer spirit and a more tranquil
heart, to the search for its last secret.
Finally, it comprises all the human vir-
tues; and none but itself can offer the
welcoming smile whereby these are en-
nobled and purified, none but itself can
accord them the right to penetrate deep
118
The Mystery of Justice
into our moral life. For every virtue
must be maleficent and steeped in artifice
that cannot support the fixed and eager
regard of justice. And so do we find it
at the heart of every ideal. It is at
the centre of our love of truth, at the
centre of our love of beauty. It is kind-
ness and pity, it is generosity, heroism,
love ; for all these are the acts of justice
of one who has risen sufficiently high to
perceive that justice and injustice are not
exclusively confined to what lies before
him, to the narrow circle of obligations
chance may have imposed, but that they
stretch far beyond years, beyond neigh-
bouring destinies, beyond what he re-
gards as his duty, beyond what he loves,
beyond what he seeks and encounters, be-
yond what he approves or respects, beyond
his doubts and his fears, beyond the
wrong-doing and even the crimes of the
men, his brothers.
wr
imes
119
II
THE EVOLUTION OF
MYSTERY
II
THE EVOLUTION OF
MYSTERY
[1]
IT is not unreasonable to believe that
the paramount interest of life, all that
is truly lofty and remarkable in the des-
tiny of man, reposes almost entirely in
the mystery that surrounds us; in the
two mysteries, it may be, that are might-
iest, most dreadful of all — fatality and
death. And indeed there are many whom
the fatigue induced in their minds by
the natural uncertainties of science has
almost compelled to accept this belief. I,
too, believe, though in a somewhat differ-
ent fashion, that the study of mystery in
all its forms is the noblest to which the
123
The Buried Temple
mind of man can devote itself; and truly
it has ever been the study and care of
those who, in science and art, in philos-
ophy and literature, have refused to be
satisfied merely to observe and portray the
trivial, well-recognised truths, facts, and
realities of life. And we find that the
success of these men in their endeavour,
the depth of their insight into all that they
knew, has most strictly accorded with the
respect in which they held all they did
not know, with the dignity that their
mind or imagination was able to confer
on the sum of unknowable forces. Our
consciousness of the unknown wherein we
have being gives life a meaning and gran-
deur which must of necessity be absent if
we persist in considering only the things
that are known to us; if we too readily
incline to believe that these must greatly
transcend in importance the things which
we know not yet.
I24
The Evolution of Mystery
[ 2 ]
It behoves every man to frame for him.
self his own general conception of the
world. On this conception reposes his
whole human and moral existence. But
this general conception of the world, when
closely examined, is truly no more than a
general conception of the unknown. And
we must be careful; we have not the
right, when ideas so vast confront us, ideas
the results of which are so highly impor-
tant, to select the one which seems most
magnificent to us, most beautiful, or most
attractive. The duty lies on us to choose
the idea which seems truest, or rather, the
only one which seems true; for I decline
to believe that we can sincerely hesitate
between the truth that is only apparent
and the one that is real. The moment
must always come when we feel that one
of these two is possessed of more truth
0
1
125
The Buried Temple
than the other. And to this truth we
should cling: in our actions, our words,
and our thoughts; in our art, in our
science, in the life of our feelings and
intellect. Its definition, perhaps, may
elude us. It may possibly bring not
one grain of reassuring conviction. Nay,
essentially, perhaps, it may be but the
merest impression, though profounder and
more sincere than any previous impres-
sion. These things do not matter. It is
not imperative that the truth we have
chosen should be unimpeachable, or of
absolute certainty. There is already great
gain in our having been brought to ex-
perience that the truths we had loved
before did not accord with reality, or with
faithful experience of life, and we have
every reason, therefore, to cherish our
truth with heartiest gratitude until its
own turn shall come to experience the fate
it inflicted on its predecessor. The great
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The Evolution of Mystery
mischief, the one which destroys our
moral existence and threatens the integ-
rity of our mind and our character, is not
that we should deceive ourselves and love
an uncertain truth, but that we should re-
main constant to one in which we no longer
wholly believe.
[3]
If we sought nothing more than to in-
vest our conception of the unknown with
the utmost possible grandeur and trag-
edy, magnificence and might, there would
be no need of such restrictions. From
many points of view, doubtless, the most
beautiful, most touching, most religious
attitude in face of mystery is silence, and
prayer, and fearful acceptance. When
this immense, irresistible force confronts
us -- this inscrutable, ceaselessly vigilant
power, humanly superhuman, sovereignly
intelligent, and, for all we know, even per-
127
The Buried Temple
sonal — must it not, at first sight, seem
more reverent, worthier, to offer complete
submission, trying only to master our
terror, than tranquilly to set on foot a
patient, laborious investigation? But is
the choice possible to us; have we still
the right to choose? The beauty or dig-
nity of the attitude we shall assume no
longer is matter of moment. It is truth
and sincerity that are called for to-day
for the facing of all things — how much
more when mystery confronts us! In
the past, the prostration of man, his
bending the knee, seemed beautiful be-
cause of what, in the past, seemed true.
We have acquired no fresh certitude,
perhaps; but for us, none the less, the
truth of the past has ceased to be true.
We have not bridged the unknown; but
still, though we know not what it is, we
do partially know what it is not; and it is
before this we should bow were the atti-
128
The Evolution of Mystery
tude of our fathers to be once more
assumed by us. For although it has not,
perhaps, been incontrovertibly proved that
the unknown is neither vigilant nor per-
sonal, neither sovereignly intelligent nor
sovereignly just, or that it possesses none
of the passions, intentions, virtues, or
vices of man, it is still incomparably more
probable that the unknown is entirely in-
different to all that appears of supreme
importance in this life of ours. It is in-
comparably more probable that if, in the
vast and eternal scheme of the unknown,
a minute and ephemeral place be reserved
for man, his actions, be he the strongest
or weakest, the best or worst of men,
will be as unimportant there as the
movements of the obscurest geological
cell in the history of ocean or continent.
Though it may not have been irrefutably
shown that the infinite and invisible are
not for ever hovering round us, dealing
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The Buried Temple
out sorrow or joy in accordance with our
good or evil intentions, guiding our des-
tiny step by step, and preparing, with the
help of innumerable forces, the incompre-
hensible but eternal law that governs the
accidents of our birth, our future, our
death, and our life beyond the tomb, it is
still incomparably more probable that the
invisible and infinite, intervene as they
may at every moment in our life, enter
therein only as stupendous, blind, indiffer-
ent elements; and that, though they pass
over us, in us, penetrate into our being,
and inspire and mould our life, they are
as careless of our individual existence as
air, water, or light. And the whole of
our conscious life, the life that forms our
one certitude, that is our one fixed point
in time and space, rests upon “incom-
parable probabilities” of this nature; but
rarely are they as “incomparable” as
these.
1
130
The Evolution of Mystery
[4]
The hour when a lofty conviction for-
sakes us should never be one of regret.
If a belief we have clung to goes, or a
spring snaps within us; if we at last de-
throne the idea that so long has held
sway, this is proof of vitality, progress, of
our marching steadily onwards, and mak-
ing good use of all that lies to our hand.
We should rejoice at the knowledge that
the thought which so long has sustained
us is proved incapable now of even sus-
taining itself. And though we have noth-
ing to put in the place of the spring that
lies broken, there need still be no cause
for sadness. Far better the place remain
empty than that it be filled by a spring
which the rust corrodes, or by a new
truth in which we do not wholly believe.
And besides, the place is not really empty.
Determinate truth may have not yet ar-
131
The Buried Temple
rived, but still, in its own deep recess,
there hides a truth without name, which
waits and calls. And if it wait and call
too long in the void, and nothing arise in
the place of the vanished spring, it still
shall be found that, in moral no less than
in physical life, necessity will be able to
create the organ it needs, and that the nega-
tive truth will at last find sufficient force
in itself to set the idle machinery going.
And the lives that possess no more than
one force of this kind are not the least
strenuous, the least ardent, or the least
useful.
And even though our belief forsake us
entirely, it still will take with it nothing
of what we have given, nor will there be
lost one single sincere, religious, disin-
terested effort that we have put forth to
ennoble this faith, to exalt or embellish it.
Every thought we have added, each
worthy sacrifice we have had the courage
Coura
132
The Evolution of Mystery
to make in its name, will have left its in-
delible mark on our moral existence.
The body is gone, but the palace it built
still stands, and the space it has conquered
will remain forever unenclosed. It is our
duty, and one we dare not renounce, to pre-
pare homes for truths that shall come, to
maintain in good order the forces destined
to serve them, and to create open spaces
within us; nor can the time thus employed
be possibly wasted.
[5]
das
These thoughts have arisen within me
through my having been compelled, a few
days ago, to glance over two or three
little dramas of mine, wherein lies re-
vealed the disquiet of a mind that has
given itself wholly to mystery, - a disquiet
legitimate enough in itself, perhaps, but
not so inevitable as to warrant its own
complacency. The keynote of these little
133
The Buried Temple
T
plays is dread of the unknown that sur-
rounds us. I, or rather some obscure
poetical feeling within me (for with the sin-
cerest of poets a division must often be
made between the instinctive feeling of
their art and the thoughts of their real life)
seemed to believe in a species of mon-
strous, invisible, fatal power that gave
heed to our every action, and was hostile
to our smile, to our life, to our peace and
our love. Its intentions could not be
divined, but the spirit of the drama as-
sumed them to be malevolent always. In
its essence, perhaps, this power was just,
but only in anger; and it exercised justice
in a manner so crooked, so secret, so slug-
gish and remote, that its punishments —
for it never rewarded - took the sem-
blance of inexplicable, arbitrary acts of
fate. We had there, in a word, more or
less the idea of the God of the Christians,
blent with that of ancient fatality, lurking
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The Evolution of Mystery
in nature's impenetrable twilight, whence
it eagerly watched, contested, and saddened
the projects, the feelings, the thoughts, and
the happiness of man.
[6]
This unknown would most frequently
appear in the shape of death. The pres-
ence of death — infinite, menacing, for
ever treacherously active — filled every
interstice of the poem. The problem of
existence was answered only by the enigma
of annihilation. And it was a callous,
inexorable death; blind, and groping its
mysterious way with only chance to guide
it; laying its hands preferentially on the
youngest and the least unhappy, since these
held themselves less motionless than
others, and that every too sudden move-
ment in the night arrested its attention.
And around it were only poor little trem-
bling, elementary creatures, who shivered
135
The Buried Temple
for an instant and wept, on the brink of a
gulf; and their words and their tears had
importance only from the fact that each
word they spoke and each tear they shed
fell into this gulf, and were at times so
strangely resonant there as to lead one to
think that the gulf must be vast if tear or
word, as it fell, could send forth so con-
fused and muffled a sound.
[7]
Such a conception of life is not healthy,
whatever show of reason it may seem to
possess; and I would not allude to it
here were it not for the fact that we find
this idea, or one closely akin to it, govern-
ing the hearts of most men, however
tranquil, or thoughtful, or earnest they
may be, at the approach of the slightest
misfortune. There is evidently a side to
our nature which, notwithstanding all we
may learn and master, and the certitudes
136
The Evolution of Mystery
we may acquire, destines us never to be
other than poor, weak, useless creatures,
consecrated to death, and playthings of
the vast and heedless forces that surround
us. We appear for an instant in limitless
space, our one appreciable mission the
propagation of a species that itself has no
appreciable mission in the scheme of a
universe whose extent and duration baffle
the most daring, most powerful brain.
This is a truth; it is one of those pro-
found but sterile truths which the poet
may salute as he passes on his way; but
it is a truth in the neighbourhood of which
the man with the thousand duties who lives
in the poet will do well not to abide too
long. And of truths such as this there
are many that are lofty and deserving of
all our respect, but in their domain it
were unwise to lay ourselves down and
sleep. So many truths environ us that
it may safely be said that few men can be
137
The Buried Temple
found, of the wickedest, even, who have
not for counsel and guide a grave and
respectable truth. Yes, it is a truth -
the vastest, most certain of truths, if one
will — that our life is nothing, and our
efforts the merest jest; our existence, that
of our planet, only a miserable accident in
the history of worlds ; but it is no less a
truth that, to us, our life and our planet
are the most important, nay, the only
important phenomena in the history of
worlds. And of these truths which is the
truer? Does the first of necessity destroy
the second ? Without the second, should
we have had the courage to formulate the
first? The one appeals to our imagina-
tion, and may be helpful to it in its own
domain ; but the other directly interests
our actual life. It is well that each have
its share. The truth that is undoubtedly
truest from the human point of view must
evidently appeal to us more than the
138
The Evolution of Mystery
truth which is truest from the universal
point of view. Ignorant as we are of the
aim of the universe, how shall we tell
whether or no it concern itself with the
interests of our race? The probable
futility of our life and our species is a
truth which regards us indirectly only,
and may well, therefore, be left in sus-
pense. The other truth, that indicates
clearly the importance of life, may perhaps
be a more restricted one, but it has a direct,
incontestable, actual bearing upon our-
selves. To sacrifice or even subordinate
it to an alien truth must surely be wrong.
The first truth should never be lost sight
of; it will strengthen and illumine the
second, whose government will thus be-
come more intelligent and benign; the
first truth will teach us to profit by all
that the second does not include. And
if we allow it to sadden our heart or arrest
our action, we have not sufficiently realised
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The Buried Temple
that the vast but precarious space it fills
in the region of important truths is
governed by countless problems which as
yet are unsolved; while the problems
whereon the second truth rests are daily
resolved by real life. The first truth is still
in the dangerous, feverish stage through
which all truths must pass before they can
penetrate freely into our heart and our
brain, —a stage of jealousy, truculence,
which renders the neighbourhood of an-
other truth insupportable to them. We
must wait till the fever subsides; and if
the home that we have prepared in our
spirit be sufficiently spacious and pure,
we shall find very soon that the most con-
tradictory truths will be conscious only of
the mysterious bond that unites them, and
will silently join with each other to place
in the front rank of all, and there help
and sustain, that truth from among them
which calmly went on with its work while
Y
00
140
The Evolution of Mystery
the others were fretfully jangling, — that
truth which can do the most good, and
brings with it the uttermost hope.
[8]
The strangest feature of the present
time is the confusion which reigns in our
instincts and feelings — in our ideas, too,
save at our most lucid, most tranquil,
most thoughtful moments on the sub-
ject of the intervention of the unknown
or mysterious in the truly grave events
of life. We find, amidst this confusion,
feelings which no longer accord with any
precise, living, accepted idea; such, for
instance, as concern the existence of a
determinate God, conceived as more or
less anthropomorphic, providential, per-
sonal, and unceasingly vigilant. We find
feelings which, as yet, are only partially
ideas; as those which deal with fatality,
destiny, the justice of things. We find
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The Buried Temple
ideas which will soon turn to feelings;
those that treat of the law of the species,
evolution, selection, the will-power of the
race, etc. And finally we discover ideas
which still are purely ideas, too uncertain
and scattered for us to be able to predict
at what moment they will turn into feelings,
and thus materially influence our actions, our
acceptance of life, our joys and our sorrows.
[9]
If in actual life this confusion is not so
apparent, it is only because actual life will
but rarely express itself, or condescend to
make use of image or formula to relate its
experience. This state of mind, however,
is clearly discernible in all those whose
self-imposed mission it is to depict real
life, to explain and interpret it, and throw
light on the hidden causes of good and
evil destiny. It is of the poets I speak,
of dramatic poets above all, who are oc-
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The Evolution of Mystery
cupied with external and active life; and
it matters not whether they produce novels,
tragedies, the drama properly so called, or
historical studies, for I give to the words
“poets” and “dramatic poets” their widest
significance.
It cannot be denied that the possession
of a dominant idea, one that may be said
to exclude all others, must confer consid-
erable power on the poet, or "interpreter
of life;” and in the degree that the idea
is mysterious, and difficult of definition or
control, will be the extent of this power
and its conspicuousness in the poem.
And this is entirely legitimate, so long as
the poet himself has not the least doubt
as to the value of his idea; and there are
many admirable poets who have never
hesitated, paused, or doubted. Thus it
is that we find the idea of heroic duty fill-
ing so enormous a space in the tragedies
of Corneille, that of absolute faith in the
143
The Buried Temple
dramas of Calderon, that of the tyranny
of destiny in the works of Sophocles.
[10]
Of these three ideas, that of heroic duty
is the most human and the least mysteri-
ous; and although far more restricted
to-day than at the time of Corneille, - for
there are few such duties which it would
not now be reasonable, and even heroic,
perhaps, to call into question, and it be-
comes ever more and more difficult to
find one that is truly heroic, — conditions
may still be imagined under which recourse
thereto may be legitimate in the poet.
But will he discover in faith —-to-day
no more than a shadowy memory to the
most fervent believer -- that inspiration
and strength by whose aid Corneille was
able to depict the God of the Christians
as the august, omnipresent actor of his
dramas, invisible but untiringly active,
as
144
The Evolution of Mystery
and sovereign always ? Or is it possible
still for a reasonable being, whose eyes
rest calmly on the life about him, to
believe in the tyranny of fate ; of that
sluggish, unswerving, preordained, inscru-
table force which urges a given man, or
family, by given ways to a given disaster
or death? For though it be true that
our life is subject to many an unknown
force, we at least are aware that these
forces would seem to be blind, indifferent,
unconscious, and that their most insidious
attacks may be in some measure averted
by the wisest among us. Can we still be
allowed, then, to believe that the universe
holds a power so idle, so wretched, as to
concern itself solely in saddening, frustrat-
ing, and terrifying the projects and schemes
of man?
Immanent justice is another mysterious
and sovereign force, whereof use has been
made; but it is only the feeblest of writers
IO
145
The Buried Temp
who have ventured to accept this postulate
in its entirety, — only those to whom reality
and probability were matters of smallest
moment. The affirmation that wicked-
ness is necessarily and visibly punished
in this life, and virtue as necessarily and
visibly rewarded, is too manifestly opposed
to the most elementary daily experience,
too wildly inconsistent a dream, for the
true poet ever to accept it as the basis of
his drama. And, on the other hand, if
we refer to a future life the bestowal of
reward and punishment, we are merely
entering by another gate the region of
divine justice. For, indeed, unless im-
manent justice be infallible, permanent,
unvarying, and inevitable, it becomes no
more than a curious, well-meaning caprice
of fate; and from that moment it no
longer is justice, or even fate ; it shrinks
into merest chance -- in other words,
almost into nothingness.
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The Evolution of Mystery
There is, it is true, a very real imma-
nent justice; I refer to the force which
enacts that the vicious, malevolent, cruel,
disloyal man shall be morally less happy
than he who is honest and good, affection-
ate, gentle, and just. But here it is in-
ward justice whose workings we see; a
very human, natural, comprehensible force,
the study of whose cause and effect must
of necessity lead to psychological drama,
where there no longer is need of the vast
and mysterious background which lent its
solemn and awful perspective to the
events of history and legend. But is it
legitimate deliberately to misconceive the
unknown that governs our life in order
that we may reconstruct this mysterious
background?
[11]
While on this subject of dominant and
mysterious ideas, we shall do well to con-
147
The Buried Temple
sider the forms that the idea of fatality has
taken and for ever is taking; for fatality
even to-day still provides the supreme
explanation for all that we cannot ex-
plain; and it is to fatality still that the
thoughts of the “interpreter of life"
unceasingly turn.
The poets have endeavoured to trans-
form it, to make it attractive, to restore
its youth. They have contrived, in their
works, a hundred new and winding canals
through which to introduce the icy waters
of the great and desolate river whose
banks have been gradually shunned by
the dwellings of men. And of those most
successful in making us share the illusion
that they were conferring a solemn, defini-
tive meaning on life, there are few who
have not instinctively recognised the sov-
ereign importance conferred on the actions
of men by the irresponsible power of an
ever august and unerring destiny. Fatal-
OV-
148
The Evolution of Mystery
ity would seem to be the pre-eminent
tragical force; it no sooner appears in
a drama than it does of itself three-fourths
of all that needs doing. It may safely be
said that the poet who could find to-day,
in material science, in the unknown that
surrounds us, or in his own heart, the
equivalent for ancient fatality — a force,
that is, of equally irresistible predestina-
tion, a force as universally admitted —
would infallibly produce a masterpiece.
It is true, however, that he would have,
at the same time, to solve the mighty
enigma for whose word we are all of us
seeking; so that this supposition is not
likely to be realised very soon.
[ 12 ]
This is the source, then, whence the
lustral water is drawn with which the poets
have purified the cruellest of tragedies.
There is an instinct in man that worships
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The Buried Temple
fatality, and he is apt to regard whatever
pertains thereto as incontestable, solemn,
and beautiful. His cry is for freedom ;
but circumstances arise when he rather
would tell himself that he is not free.
The unbending, malignant goddess is more
acceptable often than the divinity who
only asks for an effort that shall avert
disaster. All things notwithstanding, it
pleases us still to be ruled by a power that
nothing can turn from its purpose; and
whatever our mental dignity may lose by
such a belief is gained by a kind of senti-
mental vanity in us, which complacently
dwells on the measureless force that for
ever keeps watch on our plans, and con-
fers on our simplest action a mysterious,
eternal significance. Fatality, briefly, ex-
plains and excuses all things, by relegating
to a sufficient distance in the invisible or
the unintelligible all that it would be hard
to explain and more difficult still to excuse.
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The Evolution of Mystery
[13]
Therefore it is that so many have turned
to the dismembered statue of the terrible
goddess who reigned in the dramas of
Euripides, Sophocles, and Æschylus, and
that the scattered fragments of her limbs
have provided more than one poet with
the marble required for the fashioning of
a newer divinity, who should be more
human, less arbitrary, and less incon-
ceivable than she of old. The fatality
of the passions, for instance, has thus
been evolved. But for a passion truly to
be fatal in a soul aware of itself, for the
mystery to reappear that shall make crime
pardonable by investing it with loftiness
and lifting it high above the will of man,
— for these we require the intervention of
a God, or some other equally irresistible,
infinite force. Wagner, therefore, in Tris-
tram and Iseult, makes use of the philtre,
151
The Buried Temple
A
as Shakespeare of the witches in Macbeth,
Racine of the oracle of Calchas in Iphigenia,
and of Venus' hatred in Phèdre. We have
travelled in a circle, and find ourselves
back once more at the very heart of the
craving of former days. This expedient
may be more or less legitimate in archaic
or legendary drama, where there is room
for all kinds of poetic fantasy; but in the
drama which pretends to actual truth
we demand another intervention, one that
shall seem to us more genuinely irresistible,
if crimes like Macbeth's, such a deed of
horror as that to which Agamemnon con-
sented : perhaps, too, the kind of love that
burned in Phèdre, shall achieve their mys-
terious excuse, and acquire a grandeur
and sombre nobility that intrinsically they
do not possess. Take away from Mac-
beth the fatal predestination, the interven-
tion of Hell, the heroic struggle with an
occult justice that for ever is revealing
152
The Evolution of Mystery
itself through a thousand fissures of .
revolting nature, and Macbeth is merely
a frantic, contemptible murderer. Take
away the oracle of Calchas, and Agamem-
non becomes abominable. Take away the
hatred of Venus, and what is Phèdre but
a neurotic creature, whose“ moral quality”
and power of resistance to evil are too
pronouncedly feeble for our intellect to
take any genuine interest in the calamity
that befalls her?
[ 14 ]
Truly, these supernatural interventions
to-day satisfy neither spectator nor reader.
Though he know it not, perhaps, and
strive as he may, it is no longer possible
for him to regard them seriously in the
depths of his consciousness. His con-
ception of the universe is other. He no
longer detects the working of a narrow,
determined, obstinate, violent will in the
153
The Buried Temple
Yr
multitude of forces that strive in him and
about him. He knows that the criminal
whom he may meet in actual life has been
urged into crime by misfortune, educa-
tion, atavism, or by movements of passion
which he has himself experienced and sub-
dued, while recognising that there might
have been circumstances under which
their repression would have been a matter
of exceeding difficulty. He will not, it is
true, always be able to discover the cause
of these misfortunes, or of these move-
ments of passion; and his endeavour to
account for the injustice of education or
heredity will probably be no less unsuc-
cessful. But for all that he will no longer
incline to attribute a particular crime to
the wrath of a God, the direct interven-
tion of Hell, or to a series of changeless
decrees inscribed in the book of fate.
Why ask of him, then, to accept in a
poem an explanation which he refuses in
154
The Evolution of Mystery
.
10
life? Is the poet's duty not rather to fur-
nish an explanation loftier, clearer, more
widely and profoundly human, than any
his reader can find for himself? For, in-
deed, this wrath of the gods, intervention
of Hell, and writing in letters of fire, are
to him no more to-day than so many
symbols that have long ceased to content
him. It is time that the poet should
realise that the symbol is legitimate only
when it stands for accepted truth, or for
truth which as yet we cannot, or will not,
accept; but the symbol is out of place at
a time when it is truth itself that we seek.
And besides, to merit admission into a
really living poem, the symbol should be
at least as great and beautiful as the truth
for which it stands, and should, more-
over, precede this truth, and not follow a
long way behind.
155
The Buried Temple
a
f
[15]
We see, therefore, how surpassingly
difficult it must have become to introduce
great crimes, or cruel, unbridled, tragical
passions into a modern work, above all
if that work be destined for stage pres-
entation; for the poet will seek in vain
for the mysterious excuse these crimes or
passions demand. And yet, for all that,
so deeply is this craving for mysterious
excuse implanted within us, so satisfied
are we that man is, at bottom, never as
guilty as he may appear, that we are
still fully content, when considering pas-
sions or crimes of this nature, to admit
some kind of fatal intervention that at
least may not seem too manifestly un-
acceptable.
This excuse, however, will be sought
by us only when the persons guilty of
crimes which are contrary to human na-
156
The Evolution of Mystery
ture, then the victims of misfortunes which
they could not foresee, which seem unde-
served to us, inexplicable, wholly abnor-
mal, are more or less superior beings,
possessed of their fullest share of con-
sciousness. We are loath to admit that an
extraordinary crime or disaster can have a
purely human cause. In spite of all, we
persistently seek in some way to explain
the inexplicable. We should not be satis-
fied if the poet were simply to say to us :
“You see here the wrong that was done
by this strong, this conscious, intelligent
man. Behold the misfortune this hero
encountered; this good man's ruin and
sorrow. See, too, how this sage is crushed
by tragic, irremediable wickedness. The
human causes of these events are evident
to you. I have no other explanation to
offer, unless it be perhaps the indifference
of the universe towards the actions of
man.” Our dissatisfaction would vanish if
1
157
The Buried Temple
he could succeed in conveying to us the
sensation of this indifference, if he could
show it in action; but, as it is the prop-
erty of indifference never to interfere or
act, that would seem to be more or less
unachievable.
[ 16 ]
But when we turn to the by no means
inevitable jealousy of Othello, or to the
misfortunes of Romeo and Juliet, which
were surely not preordained, we discover
no need of explanation, or of the purifying
influence of fatality. In another drama,
Ford's masterpiece, 'Tis Pity She's a
Whore, which revolves around the incest-
uous love of Giovanni for his sister
Annabella, we are compelled either to
turn away in horror, or to seek the mys-
terious excuse in its habitual haunt on the
shore of the gulf. But even here, the first
painful shock over, we find it is not im-
158
The Evolution of Mystery
perative. For the love of brother for sis-
ter, viewed from a standpoint sufficiently
lofty, is a crime against morality, but not
against human nature; and there is at
least some measure of palliation in the
youth of the pair, and in the passion that
blinds them. Othello, too, the semi-bar-
barian who does Desdemona to death, has
been goaded to madness by the machina-
tions of Iago ; and even this last can plead
his by no means gratuitous hatred. The
disasters that weighed so heavily on the
lovers of Verona were due to the inexpe-
rience of the victims, to the manifest dispro-
portion between their strength and that of
their enemies; and although we may pity
the man who succumbs to superior human
force, his downfall does not surprise us.
We are not impelled to seek explanation
elsewhere, to ask questions of fate; and
unless he appear to fall victim to super-
human injustice we are content to tell our-
ma
е
159
The Buried Temple
selves that what has happened was bound
to happen. It is only when disaster oc-
curs after every precaution is taken that
we could ourselves have devised, that we
become conscious of the need for other
explanation.
(V
[17]
We find it difficult, therefore, to con-
ceive or admit as naturally, humanly pos-
sible that a crime shall be committed by a
person who apparently is endowed with
fullest intelligence and consciousness; or
that misfortune should befall him which
seems in its essence to be inexplicable,
undeserved, and unexpected. It follows,
therefore, that the poet can only place on
the stage (this phrase I use merely as an
abbreviation: it would be more correct to
say, “cause us to assist at some adven-
ture whereof we know personally neither
the actors nor the totality of the circum-
160
The Evolution of Mystery
stances”) faults, crimes, and acts of
injustice committed by persons of defec-
tive consciousness, as also disasters befall-
ing feeble beings unable to control their
desires —- innocent creatures, it may be,
but thick-sighted, imprudent, and reck-
less. Under these conditions there would
seem to be no call for the intervention of
anything beyond the limit of normal hu-
man psychology. But such a conception
of the theatre would be at absolute vari-
ance with real life, where we find crimes
committed by persons of fullest conscious-
ness, and the most inexplicable, inconceiv-
able, unmerited misfortunes befalling the
wisest, the best, most virtuous and prudent
of men. Dramas which deal with uncon-
scious creatures, whom their own feebleness
oppresses and their own desires overcome,
excite our interest, and arouse our pity ;
but the veritable drama, the one which
probes to the heart of things and grapples
JI
161
The Buried Temple
with important truths, — our own personal
drama, in a word, which forever hangs
over our life, --- is the one wherein the
strong, intelligent, and conscious commit
errors, faults, and crimes which are almost
inevitable; wherein the wise and upright
struggle with all-powerful calamity, with
forces destructive to wisdom and virtue;
for it is worthy of note that the spectator,
however feeble, dishonest even, he may be
in real life, still enrols himself always
among the virtuous, just, and strong; and
when he reflects on the misfortunes of the
weak, or even witnesses them, he reso-
lutely declines to imagine himself in the
place of the victims.
[ 18 ]
Here we attain the limit of the human
will, the gloomy boundary-line of the
influence that the most just and en-
lightened of men is able to exert on
162
The Evolution of Mystery
events that decide his future happiness or
sorrow. No great drama exists, or poem
of lofty aim, but one of its heroes shall
stray to this frontier where his destiny
waits for the seal. Why has this wise,
this virtuous man committed this fault or
this crime? Why has that woman, who
knows so well the meaning of all that she
does, hazarded the gesture which must
so inevitably summon everlasting sorrow?
By whom have the links been forged of
the chain of disaster whose fetters have
crushed this innocent family? Why do
all things crumble around one, and fall
into ruins, while the other, his neighbour,
less active and strong, less skilful and wise,
find ever material by him to build up his life
anew? Why do tenderness, beauty, and
love flock to the path of some, where others
meet hatred only, and malice, and treach-
ery? Why persistent happiness here,
and yonder, though merits be equal,
163
The Buried Temple
nought but unceasing disaster? Why is
this house for ever beset with the storm,
while over that other shines the peace of
unvarying stars? Why genius, and riches,
and health on this side, and yonder dis-
ease, imbecility, poverty ? Whence has
the passion been sent that has wrought
such terrible grief, and whence the passion
that proved the source of such wonderful
joy? Why does the youth whom yester-
day I met go on his tranquil road to pro-
foundest happiness, while his friend, with
the same methodical, peaceful, ignorant
step, proceeds on his way to death?
[ 19 ]
Life will often place these problems be-
fore us; but how rarely are we compelled
to refer their solution to the supernatural,
mysterious, superhuman, or preordained !
It is only the fervent believer who will
still be content to see there the finger of
164
The Evolution of Mystery
I
divine intervention. Such of us, how-
ever, as have entered the house where the
storm has raged, as well as the house of
peace, have rarely issued from them with-
out most clearly detecting the essentially
human reasons of both peace and storm.
We who have known the wise and up-
right man who has been guilty of error or
crime, are acquainted also with the cir-
cumstances also which induced his ac-
tion, and these circumstances seem to us
in no way supernatural. As we draw
near to the woman whose gesture brought
misery to her, we learn very soon that this
gesture might have been avoided, and
that, in her place, we should have re-
frained. The friends of the man around
whom all fell into ruins, and of the neigh-
bour who ever was able to build up his
life anew, will have observed before that
the acorn sometimes will fall on to rock,
and sometimes on fertile soil. And
in aro
165
The Buried Temple
though poverty, sickness and death re-
main still the three inequitable goddesses
of human existence, they no longer awake
in us the superstitious fears of bygone
days. We regard them to-day as essen-
tially indifferent, unconscious, blind. We
know that they recognise none of the
ideal laws which we once believed that
they sanctioned ; and it only too often
has happened that, at the very moment
we were whispering to ourselves of “puri-
fication, trial, reward, punishment,” their
undiscerning caprice gave the lie to the
too lofty, too moral title which we were
about to bestow.
[ 20 ]
Our imagination, it is true, is inclined
to admit, perhaps to desire, the interven-
tion of the superhuman ; but, for all that,
there are few, even among the most
mystic, who are not convinced that our
166
The Evolution of Mystery
V
moral misfortunes are, in their essence, de-
termined by our mind and our character ;
and similarly, that our physical misfor-
tunes are due in part to the workings of
certain forces which often are misunder-
stood, and in part to the generally ill-
defined relation of cause to effect; nor is
it unreasonable to hope that light may be
thrown on these problems as we penetrate
further into the secrets of nature. We
have here a certitude upon which our
whole life depends; a certitude which is
shaken only when we consider our own
misfortunes, for then we shrink from
analysing or admitting the faults we our-
selves have committed. There is a
hopefulness in man which renders him
unwilling to grant that the cause of his
misfortune may be as transparent as that
of the wave which dies away in the sand
or is hurled on the cliff, of the insect
whose little wings gleam for an instant in
man
167
The Buried Temple
the light of the sun till the passing bird
absorbs its existence.
[ 21 ]
Let me suppose that a neighbour of
mine, whom I know very intimately,
whose regular habits and inoffensive
manners have won my esteem, should suc-
cessively lose his wife in a railway acci-
dent, one son at sea, another in a fire, the
third and last by disease. I should, of
course, be painfully shocked and grieved;
but still it would not occur to me to
attribute this series of disasters to a
divine vengeance or an invisible justice,
to a strange, ill-starred predestination, or
an active, persistent, inevitable fatality.
My thoughts would fly to the myriad
unfortunate ,hazards of life; I should be
appalled at the frightful coincidence of
calamity ; but in me there would be no
suggestion of a superhuman will that had
TTI
Y 11
168
The Evolution of Mystery
hurled the train over the precipice, steered
the ship on to rocks, or kindled the
flames; I should hold it incredible that
such monstrous efforts could have been
put forth with the sole object of inflicting
punishment and despair upon a poor
wretch, because of some error he might
have committed — one of those grave hu-
man errors which yet are so petty in face
of the universe ; an error which perhaps
had not issued from either his heart or
his brain, and had stirred not one blade
of grass on the earth's whole surface.
[ 22 ]
But he, this neighbour of mine, on
whom these terrible blows have suc-
cessively fallen like so many lightning-
flashes on a black night of storm — will
he think as I do, will these catastrophes
seem natural to him, and ordinary, and
susceptible of explanation? Will not the
169
The Buried Temple
words destiny, fortune, hazard, ill-luck,
fatality, star -- the word Providence, per-
haps - assume in his mind a significance
they never have assumed before? Will
not the light beneath which he questions
his consciousness be a different light from
my own; will he not feel round his life
an influence, a power, a kind of evil inten-
tion, that are imperceptible to me? And
who is right, he or I ? Which of us two
sees more clearly, and further? Do truths
that in calmer times lie hidden float to the
surface in hours of trouble; and which is
the moment we should choose to establish
the meaning of life?
The “interpreter of life,” as a rule,
selects the troubled hours. He places
himself, and us, in the soul-state of his
victims. He shows their misfortunes to
us in perspective ; and so sharply, con-
cretely, that we have for the moment the
illusion of a personal disaster. And,
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The Evolution of Mystery
indeed, it is more or less impossible for
him to depict them as they would occur
in real life. If we had spent long years
with the hero of the drama which has
stirred us so painfully, had he been our
brother, our father, our friend, we should
probably have noted, recognised, counted
one by one as they passed, all the causes
of his misfortune, which then would not
only appear less extraordinary to us, but
perfectly natural even, and humanly al-
most inevitable. But to the “interpreter
of life" is given neither power nor occa-
sion to acquaint us with each veritable
cause. For these causes, as a rule, are
infinitely slow in their movement, and
countless in number, and slight, and of
small, apparent significance. He is there-
fore led to adopt a general cause, one
sufficiently vast to embrace the whole
drama, in place of the real and human
causes which he is unable to show us, un-
171
The Buried Temple
able, too, himself to examine and study.
And where shall a general cause of suf-
ficient vastness be found, if not in the
two or three words we breathe to our-
selves when silence oppresses us: words
like fatality, divinity, Providence, or ob-
scure and nameless justice?
[ 23 ]
The question before us now is how
far this procedure can be beneficial, or
even legitimate; as also whether it be
the mission of the poet to present, and
insist on, the distress and confusion of
our least lucid hours, or to add to the
clearsightedness of the moments when we
conceive ourselves to enjoy the fullest
possession of our force and our reason.
In our own misfortunes there is some-
thing of good, and something of good
must therefore be found in the illusion of
personal misfortune. We are made to
172
The Evolution of Mystery
look into ourselves; our errors, our weak-
nesses, are more clearly revealed ; it is
shown to us where we have strayed.
There falls a light on our consciousness
a thousand times more searching, more
active, than could spring from many
arduous years of meditation and study.
We are forced to emerge from ourselves,
and to let our eyes rest on those round
about us; we are rendered more keenly
alive to the sorrows of others. There are
some who will tell us that misfortune
does even more, - that it urges our glance
on high, and compels us to bow to a
power superior to our own, to an unseen
justice, to an impenetrable, infinite mys-
tery. Can this indeed be the best of all
possible issues ? Ah, yes, it was well,
from the standpoint of religious morality,
that misfortune should teach us to lift up
our eyes and look on an eternal, unchang-
ing, undeniable God, sovereignly beauti-
173
The Buried Temple
ful, sovereignly just, and sovereignly good.
It was well that the poet who found in his
God an unquestionable ideal should inces-
santly hold before us this unique, this de-
finitive ideal. But to-day, if we look
away from the truth, from the ordinary
experience of life, on what shall our
eager glance rest? If we discard the
more or less compensatory laws of con-
science and inward happiness, what shall
we say when triumphant injustice con-
fronts us, or successful, unpunished crime?
How shall we account for the death of a
child, the miserable end of an innocent
man, or the disaster hurled by cruel fate
on some unfortunate creature, if we seek
explanations loftier, more definite, more
comprehensive and decisive than those
that are found satisfactory in every-day
life, for the reason that they are the only
ones that accord with a certain number of
realities? Is it right that the poet, in his
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The Evolution of Mystery
eager desire to contrive a solemn atmo-
sphere for his drama, should arouse from
their slumber sentiments, errors, prejudices,
and fears, which we would attack and rebuke
were we to discover them in the hearts of
our friends or our children? Man has at
last, through his study of the habits of
spirit and brain, of the laws of existence,
the caprices of fate, and the maternal in-
difference of nature — man has at last,
and laboriously, acquired some few certi-
tudes, that are worthy of all respect;
and is the poet entitled to seize on the
moment of anguish in order to oust all
these certitudes, and set up in their place
a fatality to which every action of ours
gives the lie, or powers before which we
would refuse to kneel did the blow fall on
us that has prostrated his hero; or a
mystic justice that, for all it may sweep
away the need for many an embarrassing
explanation, bears yet not the slightest
175
The Buried Temple
.
kinship to the active and personal justice
we all of us recognise in our own per-
sonal life?
[24]
And yet this is what the “interpreter
of life” will more or less deliberately do
from the moment he seeks to invest his
work with a lofty spirit, with a deep and
religious beauty, with the sense of the
infinite. Even though this work of his
may be of the sincerest, though it express
as nearly as may be his own most intimate
truth, he believes that this truth is
enhanced, and established more firmly,
by being surrounded with phantoms of a
forgotten past. Might not the symbols
he needs, the hypotheses, images, the
touchstone for all that cannot be explained,
be less frequently sought in that which he
knows is not true, and more often in that
which will one day be a truth? Does
176
The Evolution of Mystery
.
the unearthing of bygone terrors, or the
borrowing of light from a Hell that has
ceased to be, make death more sublime ?
Does dependence on a supreme but im-
aginary will ennoble our destiny? Does
justice -- that vast network woven by
human action and reaction over the un-
changing wisdom of nature's moral and
physical forces — does justice become more
majestic through being lodged in the
hands of a unique judge, whom the very
spirit of the drama dethrones and destroys ?
[25]
Let us ask ourselves whether the hour
may not have come for the earnest revi-
sion of the symbols, the images, senti-
ments, beauty, wherewith we still seek to
glorify in us the spectacle of the world.
This beauty, these feelings and senti-
ments, to-day unquestionably bear only
the most distant relation to the phenom-
12
177
The Buried Temple
. as
ena, thoughts, nay even the dreams, of
our actual existence; and if they are suf-
fered still to abide with us, it is rather as
tender and innocent memories of a past
that was more credulous, and nearer to
the childhood of man. Were it not well,
then, that those whose mission it is to
make more evident to us the beauty and
harmony of the world we live in, should
march ever onwards and let their steps
tend to the actual truth of this world?
Their conception of the universe need not
be stripped of a single one of the orna-
ments wherewith they embellish it; but
why seek these ornaments so often among
mere recollections, however smiling or
terrible, and so seldom from among the
essential thoughts which have helped them
to build, and effectively organise, their
spiritual and sentient life?
It can never be right to dwell in the
midst of false images, even though these
1
178
The Evolution of Mystery
are known to be false. The time will
come when the illusory image will usurp
the place of the just idea it has seemed to
represent. We shall not reduce the part
of the infinite and the mysterious by em-
ploying other images, by framing other
and juster conceptions. Do what we may,
this part can never be lessened. It will
always be found deep down in the heart
of men, at the root of each problem, per-
vading the universe. And for all that
the substance, the place of these mysteries,
may seem to have changed, their extent
and power remain for ever the same.
Has not -- to take but one instance —
has not the phenomenon of the exist-
ence, everywhere among us, of a kind of
supreme and wholly spiritual justice, un-
armed, unadorned, unequipped, moving
slowly but never swerving, remaining stable
and changeless in a world where injustice
would seem to reign — has this phenom-
179
The Buried Temple
enon not cause and effect as deep, as
exhaustless — is it not as astounding, as
admirable — as the wisdom of an eternal
and omnipresent Judge? Should this
Judge be held more convincing for that he
is less conceivable? Are fewer sources
of beauty, or occasions for genius to
exercise insight and power, to be found
in what can be explained than in what
is, a priori, inexplicable? Does not, for
instance, a victorious but unjust war (such
as those of the Romans, of England to-
day, the conquests of Spain in America,
etc.) in the end always demoralise the
victor and thrust upon him errors, faults,
and habits whereby he is made to pay
dearly for his triumph; and is not the
minute, the relentless labour of this psy-
chological justice as absorbing, as vast,
as the intervention of a superhuman jus-
tice? And may not the same be said of
the justice that lives in each one of us,
180
The Evolution of Mystery
that causes the space left for peace, inner
happiness, love, to expand or contract in
our mind and our heart in conformity
with our striving towards that which is
just or unjust?
[26]
And to turn to one mystery more, the
most awful of all, that of death — would
anyone pretend that our perception of
justice, of goodness and beauty, or our
intellectual, sentient power, our eagerness
for all that draws near to the infinite, all-
powerful, eternal, has dwindled since death
has finally ceased to be held the immense
and exclusive anguish of life? Does not
each new generation find the burden lighter
to bear as the forms of death grow less
violent and its posthumous terrors fade ?
It is the illness that goes before, the
physical pain, of which we are to-day most
afraid. But death is no longer the hour
181
The Buried Temple
1
of the wrathful, inscrutable judge; no
longer the one and the terrible goal, the
gulf of misery and eternal punishment.
It is slowly becoming — indeed, in some
cases, it has already become — the wished-
for repose of a life that draws to its end.
Its weight no longer oppresses each one
of our actions ; and, above all -- for this
is the most striking change — it has ceased
to intrude itself into our morality. And
is this morality of ours less lofty, less pure,
less profound, because of the disinterested-
ness it has thus acquired? Has the loss
of an overwhelming dread robbed man-
kind of a single precious, indispensable
feeling? And must not life itself find
gain in the importance wrested from death?
Surely; for the neutral forces that we
hold in reserve within us are waiting and
ready; and every discouragement, sorrow,
or fear that departs has its place quickly
filled by a certitude, admiration, or hope.
182
The Evolution of Mystery
[27]
The poet is inclined to personify fatality
and justice, and give outward form to
forces really within us, for the reason that
to show them at work in ourselves is a
matter of exceeding difficulty; and further,
that the unknown and the infinite, to the
extent that they are unknown and infinite,
i. l., lacking personality, intelligence, and
morality, are powerless to move us. And
here it is curious to note that we are in
no degree affected by material mystery,
however dangerous or obscure, or by
psychological justice, however involved
its results. It is not the incomprehen-
sible in nature that masters and crushes
us, but the thought that nature may pos-
sibly be governed by a conscious, superior,
reasoning will : one that, although super-
human, has yet some kinship to the will
of man. What we dread, in a word, is
- 183
The Buried Temple
the presence of a God; and speak as we
may of fatality, justice, or mystery, it is
always God whom we fear: a being, that
is, like ourselves, though almighty, eter-
nal, invisible, and infinite. A moral force
that was not conceived in the image of
man would most likely inspire no fear.
It is not the unknown in nature that fills
us with dread; it is not the mystery of
the world we live in. It is the mystery
of another world from which we recoil ;
it is the moral, and not the material,
enigma. There is nothing, for instance,
more obscure than the combination of
causes which produce the earthquake, that
most terrible of all catastrophes. But the
earthquake, though it alarm our body, will
bring no fear to our mind unless we re-
gard it as an act of justice, of mysterious
vengeance, of supernatural punishment.
And so it is, too, with the thunderstorm,
with illness, with death, with the myriad
184
The Evolution of Mystery
phenomena and accidents of life. It
would seem as though the true alarm of
our soul, the great fear which stirs other
instincts within us than that of mere self
preservation, is only called forth by the
thought of a more or less determinate
God, of a mysterious consciousness, a
permanent, invisible justice, or a vigilant,
eternal Providence. But does the “inter-
preter of life,” who succeeds in arousing
this fear, bring us thereby nearer to truth,
and is it his mission to convey to us sor-
row, and trouble, and painful emotion, or
peace, satisfaction, tranquillity, and light?
TI
[ 28 ]
It is not easy, I know, to free oneself
wholly from traditional interpretation, for
it often succeeds in reasserting its sway
upon us at the very moment we strain
every nerve to escape from our bondage.
So has it happened with Ibsen, who, in his
185
The Buried Temple
V
search for a new and almost scientific form
of fatality, erected the veiled, majestic, ty-
rannical figure of heredity in the centre of
the very best of his dramas. But it is not
the scientific mystery of heredity which
awakens within us those human fears that
lie so much deeper than the mere animal
fear; for heredity alone could no more
achieve this result than could the scientific
mystery of a dreaded disease, a stellar or
marine phenomenon. No, the fear that
differs so essentially from the one called
forth by an imminent natural danger, is
aroused within us by the obscure idea of
justice which heredity assumes in the
drama; by the daring pronouncement
that the sins of the fathers are almost
invariably visited on the children; by the
suggestion that a sovereign Judge, a god-
dess of the species, is for ever watching
our actions, inscribing them on her tablets
of bronze, and balancing in her eternal
186
The Evolution of Mystery
hands rewards long deferred and never-
ending punishment. In a word, even
while we deny it, it is the face of God
that reappears; and from beneath the
flagstone one had believed to be sealed
for ever comes once again the murmur
of the very ancient flame of Hell.
ry
[ 29 ]
This new form of fatality, or fatal just
tice, is less defensible, and less acceptable
too, than the ancient and elementary
power, which, being general and unde-
fined, and offering no too strict explana-
tion of its actions, lent itself to a far
greater number of situations. In the
special case selected by Ibsen, it is not
impossible that some kind of accidental
justice may be found, as it is not impos-
sible that the arrow a blind man shoots
into a crowd may chance to strike a parri-
cide. But to found a law upon this acci-
187
The Buried Temple
ԱԱ
dental justice is a fresh perversion of
mystery, for elements are thereby intro-
duced into human morality which have
no right to be there; elements which we
would welcome, which would be of value,
if they stood for definite truth; but see-
ing that they are as alien to truth as to
actual life, they should be ruthlessly swept
aside. I have shown elsewhere that our
experience fails to detect the most minute
trace of justice in the phenomena of
heredity, or in other words, that it fails
to discover the slightest moral connection
between the cause: the fault of the father,
and the effect: the punishment or reward
of the child. .
The poet has the right to fashion hy-
potheses, and to forge his way ahead of
reality. But it will often happen that,
when he imagines himself to be far in
advance, he will truly have done no more
than turn in a circle; that where he be-
I turn in
а
(
188
The Evolution of Mystery
lieves that he has discovered new truth,
he has merely strayed on to the track of
a buried illusion. In the case I have
named, for the poet to have taught us
more than experience teaches, he should
have ventured still further, perhaps, in
the negation of justice. But whatever
our opinion may be on this point, it at
least is clear that the poet who desires his
hypotheses to be legitimate, and of service,
must take heed that they be not too mani-
festly contrary to the experience of every-
day life, for in that case they become
useless and dangerous -- scarcely honour-
able even, if the error be deliberately
made.
[ 30 ]
And now, what are we to conclude
from all this? Many things, if one will,
but this above all: that it behoves the
“interpreter of life,” no less than those
189
The Buried Temple
m
1
ceas
who are living that life, to exercise greatest
care in their manner of handling and ad-
mitting mystery, and to discard the belief
that whatever is noblest and best in life or
in drama must of necessity rest in the part
that admits of no explanation. There
are many most beautiful, most human,
most admirable works which are almost
entirely free from this “disquiet of
universal mystery.” We derive no great-
ness, sublimity, or depth, from unceas-
ingly fixing our thoughts on the infinite
and the unknown. Such meditation be-
comes truly helpful only when it is the
unexpected reward of the mind that has
loyally, unreservedly, given itself to the
study of the finite and the knowable ;
and to such a mind it will soon be revealed
how strangely different is the mystery
which precedes what one does not know
from the mystery that follows closely on
what one has learned. The first would
rese
190
The Evolution of Mystery
seem to contain many sorrows, but that is
only because the sorrows are grouped
too closely, and have their home upon
two or three peaks that stand too nearly
together. In the second is far less sad-
ness, for its area is vast; and when the
horizon is wide, there exists no sorrow so
great but it takes the form of a hope.
[31]
Yes, human life, viewed as a whole,
may appear somewhat sorrowful; and it
is easier, in a manner pleasanter even,
to speak of its sorrows and let the mind
dwell on them, than to go in search of,
and bring into prominence, the consola-
tions life has to offer. Sorrows abound
- infallible, evident sorrows; consolations,
or rather the reasons wherefore we accept
with some gladness the duty of life, are
rare and uncertain, and hard of detection.
Sorrows seem noble, and lofty, and fraught
191
The Buried Temple
m.
r
denisa
ess
te
w
with deep mystery with mystery that
almost is personal, that we--feel-to-abe
near to us., Consolations appear egotis-
tical, squalid, at times almost base. But
for all that, and whatever their ephemeral
likeness may be, we have only to draw
closer to them to find that they too
have their mystery; and if this seem
less visible and less comprehensible, it is
only because it lies deeper and is far
more mysterious. The desire to live,
the acceptance of life as it is, may per-
haps be mere vulgar expressions; but,
yet they are probably in unconscious har-
mony with laws that are vaster, more con-
formable with the spirit of the universe,
and therefore more sacred, than is the
desire to escape the sorrows of life, or the
lofty but disenchanted wisdom that for
ever dwells on those sorrows.
192
The Evolution of Mystery
[ 32 ]
Our impulse is always to depict life as
more sorrowful than truly it is; and this is
a serious error, to be excused only by the
doubts that at present hang over us. No
satisfying explanation has so far been found.
The destiny of man is as subject to un-
known forces to-day as it was in the days
of old; and though it be true that some
of these forces have vanished, others have
arisen in their stead. The number of
those that are really all-powerful has in no
way diminished. Many attempts have
been made, and in countless fashions, to
explain the action of these forces and ac-
count for their intervention; and one
might almost believe that the poets,
aware of the futility of these explanations
in face of a reality which, all things not-
withstanding, is ever revealing more and
more of itself, have fallen back on fatality
193
The Buried Temple
as in some measure representing the in-
explicable, or at least the sadness of the
inexplicable. This is all that we find in
Ibsen, the Russian novels, the highest class
of modern fiction, Flaubert, etc. (see War
and Peace, for instance, L'Éducation Senti-
mentale, and many others).
It is true that the fatality shown is no
longer the goddess of old, or rather (at
least to the bulk of mankind) the clearly
determinate God, inflexible, implacable,
arbitrary, blind, although constantly watch-
ful; the fatality of to-day is vaster, more
formless, more vague, less human or
actively personal, more indifferent and
more universal. In a word, it is now no
more than a provisional appellation be-
stowed, until better be found, on the gen-
eral and inexplicable misery of man. In
this sense we may accept it, perhaps,
though we do no more than give a new
name to the unchanging enigma, and
nam
194
The Evolution of Mystery
throw no light on the darkness. But we
have no right to exaggerate its importance
or the part that it plays; no right to
believe that we are truly surveying man-
kind and events from a point of some
loftiness, beneath a definitive light, or that
there is nothing to seek beyond, because
at times we become deeply conscious of the
obscure and invincible force that lies at
the end of every existence. Doubtless,
from one point of view, unhappiness must
always remain the portion of man, and the
fatal abyss be ever open before him, vowed
as he is to death, to the fickleness of matter,
to old age and disease. If we fix our
eyes only upon the end of a life, the hap-
piest and most triumphant existence must
of necessity contain its elements of misery
and fatality. But let us not make a wrong
use of these words; above all, let us not,
through listlessness, or undue inclination
to mystic sorrow, be induced to lessen the
195
The Buried Temple
part of what could be explained if we would
only give more eager attention to the
ideas, the passions and feelings of the life
of man and the nature of things. Let us
always remember that we are steeped in
the unknown; for this thought is the
most fruitful of all, the most sustaining
and salutary. But the neutrality of the
unknown does not warrant our attribut-
ing to it a force, designs, or hostility,
which it cannot be proved to possess. At
Erfurt, in his famous interview with
Goethe, Napoleon is said to have spoken
disparagingly of the dramas in which fatal-
ity plays a great part, — the plays that
we, in our “passion for calamity,” are apt
to consider the finest. “They belong,”
he remarked, “to an epoch of darkness;
but how can fatality touch us to-day?
Policy — that is fatality!” Napoleon's
dictum is not very profound; policy is
only the merest fragment of fatality; and
196
The Evolution of Mystery
his destiny soon made it manifest to him
that the desire to contain fatality within
the narrow bounds of policy was no more
than a vain endeavour to imprison in a
fragile vase the mightiest of the spirit-
ual rivers that bathe our globe. And
yet, incomplete as this thought of Napo-
leon's may have been, it still throws some
light on a tributary of the great river. It
was a little thing, perhaps, but on these
uncertain shores it is the difference be-
tween a little thing and nothing that
kindles the energy of man and confirms
his destiny. By this ray of light, such as
it was, he long was enabled to dominate
all that portion of the unknown which he
declined to term fatality. To us who
come after him, the portion of the un-
known that he controlled may well seem
insufficient, if surveyed from an eminence,
and yet it was truly one of the vastest
that the eye of man has ever embraced.
197
The Buried Temple
eye
Through its means every action of his
was accomplished, for evil or good. This
is not the place to judge him, or even to
wonder whether the happiness of a cen-
tury might not have been better served
had he allowed events to guide him :
what we are considering here is the docil-
ity of the unknown. For us, with our
humbler destinies, the problem still is the
same, and the principle too; the prin-
ciple being that of Goethe: “to stand on
the outermost limit of the conceivable ;
but never to overstep this line, for beyond
it begins at once the land of chimeras,
whose phantoms and mists are fraught
with danger to the mind.” It is only
when the intervention of the mysterious,
irresistible, or invisible becomes strikingly
real, actually perceptible, intelligent, and
moral, that we are entitled to yield, or lay
down our arms, meekly accepting the in-
active silence they bring; but their inter-
198
The Evolution of Mystery
vention, within these limits, is rarer than
one imagines. Let us recognise that mys-
tery of this kind exists; but, until it reveal
itself, we have not the right to halt, or
relax our efforts ; not the right to cast
down our eyes in submission, or be silent,
and resigned.
199
III
THE KINGDOM OF MATTER
III
THE KINGDOM OF MATTER
[1]
Na preceding essay we were compelled
I to admit that, eager as man might be
to discover in the universe a sanction for
his virtues, neither heaven nor earth dis-
played the least interest in human moral-
ity; and that all things would combine to
persuade the upright among us that they
merely are dupes, were it not for the fact
that they have in themselves an approval
words cannot describe, and a reward so
intangible that we should in vain endeav-
our to portray its least evanescent delights.
Is that all, some may ask, is that all
we may expect in return for this mighty
203
The Buried Temple
effort of ours, for our constant denial and
pain, for our sacrifice of instincts, of
pleasures, that seemed so legitimate, nec-
essary even, and that would certainly have
added to our happiness had there not
been within us the desire for justice — a
desire arising we know not whence, be-
longing, perhaps, to our nature, and yet
in apparent conflict with the vaster nature
whereof we all form part? Yes, it is
open to you, if you choose, to regard
as a very poor thing this unsubstantial
justice : since its only reward is a vague
satisfaction, which even grows hateful, and
destroys itself, the moment its presence
becomes too perceptibly felt. Bear in
mind, however, that all things that hap-
pen in our moral being must be equally
lightly held, if regarded from the point
of view whence you deliver this judgment.
Love is a paltry affair, the moment of
possession once over that alone is real
On
204
The Kingdom of Matter
and ensures the perpetuity of the race ;
and yet we find that as man grows more
civilised, the act of possession assumes
ever less value in his eyes if there go not
with it, if there do not precede and follow
it, this insignificant emotion built up of
our thoughts and our feelings, of our
sweetest and tenderest hours and years.
Beauty, too, is a trivial matter : a beautika
ful spectacle, a beautiful face, or body,
or gesture; a melodious voice, or noble
statue — sunrise at sea, flowers in a gar-
den, stars shining over the forest, the
river by moonlight --- or a lofty thought,
an exquisite poem, an heroic sacrifice hid-
den in a profound and pitiful soul. We
may admire these things for an instant;
they may bring us a sense of completeness
no other joy can convey; but at the same
time there will steal over us a tinge of
strange sorrow, unrest; nor will they give
happiness to us, as men use the word,
205
The Buried Temple
L
should other events have contrived to
make us unhappy. They produce nothing
the eye can measure, or weigh; nothing
that others can see, or will envy; and yet,
were a magician suddenly to appear, capa-
ble of depriving one of us of this sense
of beauty that may chance to be in him,
possessed of the power of extinguishing it
for ever, with no trace remaining, no hope
that it ever will spring into being again --
would we not rather lose riches, tranquil-
lity, health even, and many years of our
life, than this strange faculty which none can
espy, and we ourselves can scarcely define
Not less intangible, not less elusive, is the
sweetness of tender friendship, of a dear
recollection we cling to and reverence;
and countless other thoughts and feelings,
that traverse no mountain, dispel no
cloud, that do not even dislodge a grain
of sand by the roadside. But these are
the things that build up what is best and
206
The Kingdom of Matter
YTT
1r
happiest in us; they are we ourselves;
they are precisely what those who have
them not should envy in those who have.
The more we emerge from the animal
and approach what seems the surest ideal
of our race, the more evident does it be-
come that these things, trifling as they
well may appear by the side of nature's
stupendous laws, do yet constitute our
sole inheritance; and that, happen what
may to the end of time, they are the home,
the centre of light, to which mankind will
draw ever more and more closely.
[2]
We live in a century that loves the
material, but, while loving it, conquers it,
masters it, and with more passion than any
preceding period has shown; in a century
that would seem consumed with desire to
comprehend matter, to penetrate, enslave
it, possess it, once and for all, to repletion,
207
The Buried Temple
satiety --- with the wish, it may be, to
ransack its every resource, lay bare its
last secret, so as to free the future from
the restless search for a happiness there
seemed reason once to believe that matter
contained. So, in like fashion, is it neces-
sary first to have known the love of the
flesh before veritable love can reveal its
deep and unchanging purity. A serious
reaction will probably arise, some day,
against this passion for material enjoy-
ment; but man will never be able to cut
himself wholly free. Nor would the at-
tempt be wise. We are, after all, only
fragments of animate matter, and it could
not be well to lose sight of the starting-
point of our race. And yet, is it right
that this starting-point should enclose in
its narrow circunference all our wishes,
all our happiness, the totality of our de-
sires ? In our passage through life we
meet scarcely any who do not persist,
208
The Kingdom of Matter
1
U
with a kind of unreasoning obstinacy, in
throning the material within them, and
there maintaining it supreme. Gather to-
gether a number of men and women, all
of them free from life's more depressing
cares -- an assembly of the elect, if you
will — and pronounce before them the
words“ beatitude,” “ happiness,” “joy,”
“ felicity,” “ideal.” Imagine that an angel,
at that very instant, were to seize and
retain, in a magic mirror, or miraculous
basket, the images these words would
evoke in the souls that should hear
them. What would you see in the basket
or mirror? The embrace of beautiful
bodies; gold, precious stones, a palace,
an ample park; the philtre of youth,
strange jewels and gauds representing
vanity's dreams; and, let us admit it,
prominent far above all would be sump-
tuous repasts, noble wines, glittering
tables, splendid apartments. Is humanity
209
The Buried Temple
still too near its beginning to conceive
other things? Has the hour not yet
arrived when we might have reasonably
hoped that the mirror would reflect a
powerful, disinterested intellect, a con-
science at rest, a just and loving heart, a
perception, a vision, capable of detecting
.absorbing beauty wherever it be — the
beauty of evening, of cities, of forests and
seas, no less than of face, of a word or a
smile, an action or movement of soul ?
The foreground of the magical mirror at
present reflects beautiful women, un-
draped; when shall we see, in their stead,
the deep, great love of two beings to
whom the knowledge has come that it is
only when their thoughts and their feel-
ings, and all that is more mysterious still
than thoughts and feelings, have blended,
and day by day become more essentially
one, that the joys of the flesh are freed
from the after-disquiet, and leave no bit-
2IO
The Kingdom of Matter
terness behind? When shall we find,
instead of the morbid, unnatural excite-
ment produced by too copious, oppressive
repasts, by stimulants that are the insidious
agents of the very enemy we seek to
destroy — when shall we find, in their
place, the contained and deliberate glad-
ness of a spirit that is for ever exalted
because it for ever is seeking to understand,
and to love? ... These things have
long been known, and their repetition may
well seem of little avail. And yet, we
need but to have been twice or thrice in
the company of those who stand for what
is best in mankind, most intellectually,
sentiently human, to realise how uncertain
and groping their search is still for the
happier hours of life; to marvel at the
resemblance the unconscious happiness
they look for bears to the happiness
craved by the man who has no spiritual
existence; to note how opaque, to their
| ur
rese
Ce
unco
SS
2II
The Buried Temple
eyes, is the cloud which separates all that
pertains to the being who rises from all
that is his who descends. Some will say
that the hour is not yet when man can
thus make clear division between the
part of the spirit and that of the flesh.
But when shall that hour be looked for
if those for whom it should long since
have sounded still suffer the obscurest
prejudice of the mass to guide them when
they set forth in search of their happiness?
When they achieve glory and riches, when
love comes to meet them, they will be
free, it may be, from a few of the coarser
satisfactions of vanity, a few of the grosser
excesses; but beyond this they strive not
at all to secure a happiness that shall
be more spiritual, more purely human.
The advantage they have does not teach
them to widen the circle of material
exaction, to discard what is less justifiable.
In their attitude towards the pleasures of
ecu
2 12
The Kingdom of Matter
T
life they submit to the same spiritual
deprivation as, let us say, some cultured
man who may have wandered into a
theatre where the play being performed
is not one of the five or six masterpieces
of universal literature. He is fully aware
that his neighbours' applause and delight
are called forth, in the main, by more or
less obnoxious prejudices on the subject
of honour, glory, religion, patriotism,
sacrifice, liberty, or love — or perhaps
by some feeble, dreary poetical effusion.
None the less, he will find himself sharing
in the general enthusiasm ; and it will be
necessary for him, almost at every instant,
to pull himself violently together, to make
startled appeal to every conviction within
him, in order to convince himself that
these partisans of hoary errors are wrong,
notwithstanding their number, and that
he, with his isolated reason, alone is
right.
213
The Buried Temple
1
[3]
Indeed, when we consider the relation
of man to matter, it is surprising to find
how little light has yet been thrown upon
it, how little has been definitely fixed.
Elementary, imperious, as this relation
undoubtedly is, humanity has always been
wavering, uncertain, passing from the
most dangerous confidence to the most
systematic distrust, from adoration to
horror, from asceticism and complete
renouncement to their corresponding
extremes. The days are past when an
irrational, useless abstinence was preached,
and put into practice — an abstinence
often fully as harmful as habitual excess.
We are entitled to all that helps to main-
tain, or advance, the development of the
body; this is our right, but it has its
limits; and these limits it would be well
to define with the utmost exactness, for
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The Kingdom of Matter
whatever may trespass beyond must in-
fallibly weaken the growth of that other
side of ourselves, the flower that the leaves
round about it will either stifle or nourish.
And humanity, that so long has been
watching this flower, studying it so in-
tently, noting its subtlest, most fleeting
perfumes and shades, is most often con-
tent to abandon to the caprice of the
temperament, be this evil or good, to the
passing moment, or to chance, the govern-
ment of the unconscious forces that will,
like the leaves, be discreetly active, sustain-
ing, life-giving, or profoundly selfish,
destructive, and fatal. Hitherto, perhaps,
this may have been done with impunity;
for the ideal of mankind (which, at the
start, was concerned with the body alone)
wavered long between matter and spirit.
To-day, however, it clings, with ever pro-
founder conviction, to the human intelli-
gence. We no longer strive to compete
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The Buried Temple
with the lion, the panther, the great an-
thropoid ape, in force or agility; in beauty
with the flower, or the shine of the stars
on the sea. The utilisation by our in-
tellect of every unconscious force, the
gradual subjugation of matter and the
search for its secret -- these at present
appear the most evident aim of our race
and its most probable mission. In the
days of doubt there was no satisfaction,
or even excess, but was excusable and
moral, so long as it wrought no irreparable
loss of strength or actual organic harm.
But now that the mission of the race is
becoming more clearly defined, the duty
lies on us to leave on one side whatever is
not directly helpful to the spiritual part
of our being. Sterile pleasures of the
body must be gradually sacrificed; indeed,
in a word, all that is not in absolute har-
mony with a larger, more durable energy
of thought, --- all the little “harmless”
216
The Kingdom of Matter
delights which, however inoffensive com-
paratively, keep alive by example and
habit the prejudice in favour of inferior
enjoyment, and usurp the place that be-
longs to the satisfactions of the intellect.
These last differ from those of the body,
whose development some may assist and
others retard. Into the elysian fields of
thought enters no satisfaction but brings
with it youth, and ardour, and strength;
nor is there a thing in this world on
which the mind thrives more readily than
the ecstasy, nay, the debauch, of eager-
ness, comprehension, and wonder.
[ 4 ]
The time must come, sooner or later,
when our morality will have to conform
to the probable mission of the race, and
the arbitrary, often ridiculous restrictions
whereof it is at present composed will be
compelled to make way for the inevitable,
217
The Buried Temple
logical restrictions this mission exacts.
For the individual, as for the race, there
can be but one code of morals — the sub-
ordination of the methods of life to the
demands of the general mission that ap-
pears entrusted to man. The axis will
shift, therefore, of many sins, many great
offences ; until at last for all the crimes
against the body there shall be substituted
the veritable crimes against human des-
tiny: in other words, whatever may tend
to impair the authority, integrity, leisure,
liberty, or power, of the intellect.
But by this we are far from suggesting
that the body should be regarded as the
irreconcilable enemy that the Christian
theory holds it. Far from that, we
should strive, first of all, to endow it
with all possible vigour and beauty. But
it is like a capricious child: exacting, im-
provident, selfish; and the stronger it
grows, the more dangerous does it be-
218
The Kingdom of Matter
come. It knows no cult but that of the
passing moment. In imagination, desires,
it halts at the trivial thought, the primi-
tive, fleeting, foolish delight of the little
dog or the negro. The satisfactions pro-
cured by the intellect the comfort,
security, leisure, the gladness — it regards
as no more than its due, and enjoys in
fullest complacency. Left to itself it
would enjoy these so stupidly, savagely,
that it would very soon stifle the intel-
lect from which it derived these favours.
Hence there is need for certain restrictions,
renouncements, which all men must ob-
serve; not only those who have reason
to hope, and believe, that they are effec-
tively striving to solve the enigma, to
bring about the fulfilment of human
destiny and the triumph of mind over
insensible matter, but also the crowds in
the ranks of the massive unconscious
rearguard, who placidly watch the phos-
219
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IS
phorescent evolutions of mind as its light
gleams on the world's elementary dark-
ness. For humanity is a unique and
unanimous entity. When the thought of
the mass — that thought which scarcely
is thought - travels downwards, its in-
fluence is felt by philosopher and poet,
astronomer and chemist; it has its pro-
nounced effect on their character, morals,
ideals, their sense of duty, habits of labour,
intellectual vigour. If the myriad, uni-
form, petty ideas in the valley fall short
of a certain elevation, no great idea shall
spring to life on the mountain-peak.
Down there the thought may have little
strength, but there are countless numbers
who think it; and the influence this
thought acquires may be almost termed
atmospheric. And they up above on the
mountain, the precipice, or the edge
of the glacier, will be helped by this
influence, or harmed, in the degree of
III
220
The Kingdom of Matter
its brightness or gloom, of its reaching
them, buoyed up with generous feeling,
or heavily charged with brutal habit and
coarse desire. The heroic action of a
people (as, for instance, the French Revo-
lution, the Reformation, all wars of inde-
pendence and liberation) will fertilise and
purify this influence for more centuries
than one. But far less will satisfy those
who toil at the fulfilment of destiny. Let
but the habits of the men round about
them become a little more noble, their
desires a little more disinterested ; let but
their passions and eagerness, their pleas-
ures and love, be illumined by one ray of
brightness, of grace, of spiritual fervour;
and those up above will feel the support,
and draw their breath freely, no longer
compelled to struggle with the instinctive
part of themselves ; and the power that
is in them will obey the more readily, and
mould itself to their hand. The peasant
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who instead of carousing at the beer-shop
spends a peaceful Sunday at home, with
a book, beneath the trees of his orchard ;
the humble citizen whom the emotions or
din of the race-course cannot tempt from
some worthy relaxation, from the pleasure
of a reposeful afternoon; the workman
who no longer makes the streets hideous
with obscene or ridiculous song, but
wanders forth into the country, or, from
the ramparts, watches the sunset — all
these bring their meed of help: their
great assistance, unconscious though it be,
and anonymous, to the triumph of the
vast human flame.
[5]
But how much there is to be done, and
learned, before this great flame can arise
in serene, secure brightness! We have
said that man, in his relation to matter, is
still in the experimental, groping stage of
in
222
The Kingdom of Matter
his earliest days. He lacks even definite
knowledge as to the kind of food best
adapted for him, or the quantity of nour-
ishment he requires; he is still uncertain
as to whether he be carnivorous or frugiv-
orous. His intellect misleads his instinct.
It was only yesterday that he learned that
he had probably erred hitherto in the
choice of his nourishment; that he must
reduce by two-thirds the quantity of nitro-
gen he absorbs, and largely increase the
volume of hydrocarbons; that a little
fruit, or milk, a few vegetables, farinaceous
substances — now the mere accessory of
the too plentiful repasts which he works
so hard to provide, which are his chief
object in life, the goal of his efforts, of his
strenuous, incessant labour -- are amply
sufficient to maintain the ardour of the
finest and mightiest life. It is not my
purpose to discuss the question of vege-
tarianism, or to meet the objections that
IT
223
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may be urged against it; though it must
be admitted that of these objections not
one can withstand a loyal and scrupulous
inquiry. I, for my part, can affirm that
those whom I have known to submit to
this regimen, have found its result to be
restored or improved health, marked addi-
tion of strength, and the acquisition by
the mind of a clearness, brightness, well-
being, such as might follow the release
from some secular, loathsome, detestable
dungeon. But we must not conclude
these pages with an essay on alimen-
tation, reasonable as such a proceeding
might be. For in truth all our justice,
morality, all our thoughts and feelings,
derive from three or four primordial neces-
sities, whereof the principal one is food.
The least modification of one of these
necessities would entail a marked change
in our moral existence. Were the belief
one day to become general that man could
224
The Kingdom of Matter
nourish himself without animal food,
there would ensue not only a great eco-
nomic revolution and change, — for a
bullock, to produce one pound of meat,
consumes more than a hundred pounds
of provender, - but a moral improve-
ment as well; for we find that the man
who abandons the regimen of meat aban-
dons alcohol also; and to do this is to
renounce most of the coarser and more
degraded pleasures of life. And it is in
the passionate craving for these pleas-
ures, in their glamour, and the prejudice
they create, that the most formidable
obstacle is found to the harmonious
development of the race. Detachment
therefrom creates noble leisure, a new
order of desires, a wish for enjoyment
that must of necessity be loftier than
the gross satisfactions which have their
origin in alcohol. But are days such as
225
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these in store for us — these happier,
purer hours ? The crime of alcohol is
not alone that it destroys its faithful and
poisons one-half of the race, but also
that it exercises a profound, though in-
direct, influence upon those who recoil
from it in dread. The idea of pleasure
which it maintains in the crowd forces
its way, by means of the crowd's irre-
sistible action, into the life even of the
elect, and lessens, perverts, all that con-
cerns man's peace, and repose, his ex-
pansiveness, gladness, and joy; retarding,
too, it may safely be said, the birth of
the truer, profounder ideal of happiness :
one that shall be simpler, more peaceful
and grave, more spiritual and human.
This ideal is evidently still very imagi-
nary and may seem of but little im-
portance; and infinite time must elapse,
as in all other cases, before the certitude
226
The Kingdom of Matter
I
of those who are convinced that the race
so far has erred in the choice of its
aliment (assuming the truth of this
statement to be borne out by experience)
shall reach the confused masses, and bring
them enlightenment and comfort. But
may this not be the expedient nature holds
in reserve for the time when the struggle
for life shall have become too hopelessly
unbearable, — the struggle for life that
to-day means the fight for meat and for
alcohol, double source of injustice and
waste whence all the others are fed,
double symbol of a happiness and neces-
sity whereof neither is human?
'S
are
eces-
[6]
Whither is humanity tending? This
anxiety of man to know the aim and the
end is essentially human; it is a kind of
infirmity, or provincialism of the mind,
and has nothing in common with univer-
227
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T
V
sal reality. Have things an aim ? Why
should they have; and what aim or end
can there be, in an infinite organism?
But even though our mission be only
to fill for an instant a diminutive space
that could as well be filled by the violet
or grasshopper, without loss to the uni-
verse of economy or grandeur, without
the destinies of this world being shortened
or lengthened by one hour; even though
this march of ours count for nothing,
though we move for the sake of motion,
tending nowhither, this futile progress of
ours may, nevertheless, still claim to absorb
all our attention and interest; and this
is entirely reasonable, it is the loftiest
course we can pursue. If it lay in the
power of an ant to study the laws of the
stars; and if, intent on this study, though
fully aware that these laws are immutable,
never to be modified, it declined to con-
cern itself further with the affairs or the
11
228
The Kingdom of Matter
future of the ant-hill — should we, who
stand to the insect as the great gods are
supposed to stand to ourselves, who judge
it and dominate it as we believe ourselves
to be dominated and judged, - should we
approve this ant, or, for all its universality,
regard it as either good or moral ?
Reason, at its apogee, becomes sterile;
and inertia would be its sole teaching did
it not, after recognising the pettiness, the
nothingness, of our passions and hopes,
of our being, and lastly, of reason itself,
retrace its footsteps back to the point
whence it shall be able once more to
take eager interest in all these poor trivi-
alities, in this same nothingness, as hold-
ing them the only things in the world
for which its assistance has value.
We know not whither we go, but may
still rejoice in the journey; and this will
become the lighter, the happier, for our
endeavour to picture to ourselves the next
229
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17
place of halt. Where will this be? The
mountain-pass lies ahead, and threatens ;
but the roads already are widening and
becoming less rugged; the trees spread
their branches crowned with fresh blossom ;
silent waters are flowing before us, repose-
ful and peaceful. Tokens all these, it
may be, of our nearing the vastest valley
mankind yet has seen from the height of
the tortuous paths it has ever been climb-
ing! Shall we call it the “First Valley
of Leisure”? Distrust as we may the sur-
prises that the future may have in store, be
the troubles and cares that await us never
so burdensome, there still seems some
ground for believing that the bulk of man-
kind will know days when, thanks, it may
be, to machinery, agricultural chemistry,
medicine perhaps, or I know not what
dawning science, labour will become less
incessant, exhausting, less material, tyran-
nical, pitiless. What use will humanity
8 sone
230
The Kingdom of Matter
make of this leisure ? On its employ-
ment may be said to depend the whole
destiny of man. Were it not well that his
counsellors now should begin to teach him
to use such leisure as he has in a nobler
and worthier fashion? It is the way in
which hours of freedom are spent that
determines, as much as war or as labour,
the moral worth of a nation. It raises or
lowers, it replenishes or exhausts. At
present we find, in these great cities of
ours, that three days' idleness will fill the
hospitals with victims whom weeks or
months of toil had left unscathed.
[7]
Thus we return to the happiness which
should be, and perhaps in course of time
will be, the real human happiness. Had
we taken part in the creation of the
world we should probably have bestowed
more distinctive, special force on all that is
231
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best in man, most immaterial, most essen-
tially human. If a thought of love, or a
gleam of the intellect, a word of justice,
an act of pity, a desire for pardon, or
sacrifice; if a gesture of sympathy, a crav-
ing of one's whole being for beauty, good-
ness, or truth — if emotions like these
could affect the universe as they affect the
man who has felt them, they would call
forth miraculous flowers, supernatural radi-
ance, inconceivable melody; they would
scatter the night, recall spring and the
sunshine, stay the hand of sickness, grief,
disaster, and misery; gladness would arise
from them, and youth be restored ; while
the mind would gain freedom, thought
immortality, and life be eternal. No re-
sistance could check them; their reward
would follow as visibly as it follows the
labourer's toil, the nightingale's song, or
the work of the bee. But we have
learned at last that the moral world is a
232
The Kingdom of Matter
world wherein man is alone; a world,
contained in ourselves, that bears no re-
lation to matter, upon which its influence
is only of the most hazardous and excep-
tional kind. But none the less real, there-
fore, is this world, or less infinite: and if
words break down when they try to tell of
it, the reason is only that words, after all,
are mere fragments of matter, seeking to
enter a sphere where matter holds no
dominion. Words are for ever betraying
the thought that they stand for, by the
images which they evoke. When we try
to express perfect joy, a noble, spiritual
ecstasy, a profound, everlasting love, our
words can only compare them with animal
passion, drunkenness, brutal and coarse
desire. And not only do they thus de-
grade the noblest triumphs of the soul
of man by likening them to primitive
instincts, but they incite us to believe,
in spite of ourselves, that the object or
le
233
The Buried Temple
feeling compared is less real, less true or
substantial, than the type to which it is
referred. Herein lies the injustice and
weakness of every attempt that is made
to give voice to the secrets of men. And
yet, be words never so faulty, let us still
pay careful heed to the events of this
inner world. For of all the events it has
lain in our power to meet hitherto, they
alone truly are human.
[8]
Nor should they be regarded as useless,
even though the immense torrent of ma-
terial forces absorb them as it absorbs the
dew that falls from the pale morning
flower. Boundless as the world may be
wherein we live, it is yet as hermetically
enclosed as a sphere of steel. Nothing
can fall outside it, for it has no outside ;
nor can any atom possibly be lost. Even
though our species should perish entirely,
234
The Kingdom of Matter
the stage through which it has caused cer-
tain fragments of matter to pass would
remain, notwithstanding all ulterior trans-
formations, an indelible principle and an
immortal cause. The formidable, pro-
visional vegetations of the primary epoch,
the chaotic and immature monsters of the
secondary grounds, - Plesiosaurus, Ich-
thyosaurus, Pterodactyle, — these might
also regard themselves as vain and ephem-
eral attempts, ridiculous experiments of
a still puerile nature ; and imagine that
they would leave no mark upon a more
harmonious globe. And yet not an effort
of theirs has been lost in space. They
purified the air, they softened the un-
breathable flame of oxygen, they paved
the way for the more symmetrical life of
those who should follow. If our lungs
find in the atmosphere the aliment they
need, it is thanks to the inconceivably
incoherent forests of arborescent fern.
235
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ITI
Our brains and nerves of to-day are due
to fearful hordes of swimming or flying
reptiles. These obeyed the order of their
life. They did what they had to do.
They modified matter in the fashion pre-
scribed to them. And we, by carrying
particles of this same matter to the degree
of extraordinary incandescence proper to
the thought of man, shall surely establish
in the future something that never shall
perish.
236
IV
THE PAST
IV
THE PAST
[1]
N UR past stretches behind us in long
V perspective. It slumbers in the
distance like a deserted city shrouded in
mist. A few peaks mark its boundary,
and soar predominant into the air ; a few
important acts stand out like towers, some
with the light still upon them, others half
ruined, and slowly decaying beneath the
weight of oblivion. The trees are bare, the
walls crumble, and shadow slowly steals over
all. Everything seems to be dead there,
and rigid, save only when memory, slowly
decomposing, lights it for an instant with
an illusory gleam. But apart from this
animation, derived only from our expir-
ru
239
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ing recollections, all would appear to be
definitely motionless, immutable forever;
divided from present and future by a
river that shall not again be crossed.
In reality it is alive; and, for many
of us, endowed with a profounder, more
ardent life than either present or future.
In reality this dead city is often the hot-
bed of our existence : and in accordance
with the spirit in which men return to it,
shall some find all their wealth there, and
others lose what they have.
[2]
Our conception of the past has much in
common with our conception of love and
happiness, destiny, justice, and most of the
vague but therefore not less potent spir-
itual organisms that stand for the mighty
forces we obey. Our ideas have been
handed down to us ready-made by our
predecessors : and even when our second
240
The Past
consciousness wakes, and, proud in its
conviction that henceforth nothing shall
be accepted blindly, proceeds most care-
fully to investigate these ideas, it will
squander its time questioning those that
loudly protest their right to be heard, and
pay no heed to the others close by, that
as yet, perhaps, have said nothing. Nor
have we, as a rule, far to go to discover
these others. They are in us, and of us :
they wait for us to address them. They
are not idle, notwithstanding their silence.
Amid the noise and babble of the crowd,
they are tranquilly directing a portion of
our real life; and as they are nearer to
truth than their self-satisfied sisters, they
will often be far more simple, and far
more beautiful too.
[3]
Among the most stubborn of these ready-
made ideas are those that preside over
16
241
The Buried Temple
our conception of the past, and render it a
force as imposing and rigid as destiny: a
force that indeed becomes destiny working
backwards, with its hand outstretched to
the destiny that burrows ahead, to which
it transmits the last link of our chains.
The one thrusts us back, the other urges
us forward, with a like irresistible vio-
lence. But the violence of the past is
perhaps more terrible, and more alarm-
ing. One may disbelieve in destiny. It
is a god whose onslaught many have never
experienced. But no one would dream
of denying the oppressiveness of the past.
Sooner or later its effect must inevitably
be felt. Those even who refuse to admit
the intangible will credit the past, which
their finger can touch, with all the mystery,
the influence, the sovereign intervention,
whereof they have stripped the powers
that they have dethroned; thus render-
ing it the almost unique and therefore
242
The Past
ess
non
more dreadful god of their depopulated
Olympus.
[ 4 ]
The force of the past is indeed one of
the heaviest that weigh upon men and
incline them to sadness. And yet there
is none more docile, more eager to follow
the direction we could so readily give did
we but know how best to avail ourselves
of this docility. In reality, if we think of
it, the past belongs to us quite as much
as the present, and is far more malle-
able than the future. Like the past, and
to a much greater extent than the future,
its existence is all in our thoughts, and
our hand controls it; nor is this only true
of our material past, wherein there are
ruins that we perhaps can restore; it is
true also of the regions that are closed to
our tardy desire for atonement; it is true,
above all, of our moral past, and of what
we consider to be most irreparable there.
243
The Buried Temple
LI
[5]
“The past is past,” we say, and it is
false: the past is always present. “We
have to bear the burden of our past,” we
sigh, and it is false ; the past bears our
burden; “ Nothing can wipe out the
past,” and it is false; the least effort of
will sends present and future travelling
over the past, to efface whatever we bid
them efface ; “The indestructible, irrep-
arable, immutable past," and that is
no truer than the rest. In those who
speak thus it is the present that is im-
mutable, and knows not how to repair.
“My past is wicked, it is sorrowful,
empty,” we say again ; “ as I look back
I can see no moment of beauty, of happi-
ness or love; I see nothing but wretched
ruins ...” And that is false ; for you
see precisely what you yourself place there
at the moment your eyes rest upon it.
244
The Past
[6]
Our past depends entirely upon our
present, and is constantly changing with
it. Our past is contained in our memory :
and this memory of ours, that feeds on
our heart and brain, and is incessantly
swayed by them, is the most variable
thing in the world, the least independent,
the most impressionable. Our chief con-
cern with the past, that which truly re-
mains and forms part of us, is not what
we have done or the adventures that we
have met with, but the moral reactions
bygone events are producing within us
at this very moment, the inward being
they have helped to form; and these re-
actions, that give birth to our sovereign,
intimate being, are wholly governed by
the manner in which we regard past
events, and vary as the moral substance
varies that they encounter within us.
245
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But with every step in advance that our
feelings or intellect take, a change will
come in this moral substance; and then,
on the instant, the most immutable facts,
that seemed to be graven for ever on the
stone and bronze of the past, will assume
an entirely different aspect, will return to
life and leap into movement, bringing
us vaster and more courageous counsels,
dragging memory aloft with them in their
ascent; and what was once a mass of ruin,
mouldering in the darkness, becomes a
populous city whereon the sun shines
again.
a
omes a
[7]
We have an arbitrary fashion of estab-
lishing a certain number of events behind
us. We relegate them to the horizon
of our memory; and having set them
there, we tell ourselves that they form
part of a world in which the united efforts
246
The Past
i
of all mankind could not wipe away a
tear or cause a flower to lift its head.
And yet, while admitting that these events
have passed beyond our control, we still,
with the most curious inconsistency, be-
lieve that they have full control over us.
Whereas the truth is that they can only
act upon us to the extent in which we
have renounced our right to act upon
them. The past asserts itself only in
those whose moral growth has ceased;
then, and not till then, does it be-
come redoubtable. From that moment
we have indeed the irreparable behind us,
and the weight of what we have done
lies heavy upon our shoulders. But so
long as the life of our mind and character
flows uninterruptedly on, so long will the
past remain in suspense above us; and,
as the glance may be that we send towards
it, will it, complaisant as the clouds Ham-
let showed to Polonius, adopt the shape
247
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of the hope or fear, the peace or disquiet,
that we are perfecting within us.
NO
[8]
No sooner has our moral activity
weakened than accomplished events rush
forward and assail us; and woe to him
who opens the door to them and permits
them to take possession of his hearth!
Each one will vie with the others in over-
whelming him with the gifts best calcu-
lated to shatter his courage. It matters
not whether our past has been happy and
noble, or lugubrious and criminal, — there
shall still be great danger in allowing it
to enter, not as an invited guest, but like
a parasite settling upon us. The result
will be either sterile regret or impotent
remorse ; and remorse and regrets of this
kind are equally disastrous. In order to
draw from the past what is precious within
it -- and most of our wealth is there -
1
248
The Past
YTT
never
we must go to it at the hour when we
are strongest, most conscious of mastery ;
enter its domain and there make choice
of what we require, discarding the rest,
and laying our command upon it never
to cross our threshold without our order.
Like all things that only can live at the
cost of our spiritual strength, it will soon
learn to obey. At first, perhaps, it will
endeavour to resist. It will have re-
course to artifice and prayer. It will
try to tempt us, to cajole. It will drag
forward frustrated hopes, and joys that
are gone for ever, broken affections, well-
merited reproaches, expiring hatred, and
love that is dead, squandered faith, and
perished beauty : it will thrust before us
all that once had been the marvellous es-
sence of our ardour for life; it will point
to the beckoning sorrows, decaying happi-
ness, that now haunt the ruin. But we
shall pass by, without turning our head;
249
The Buried Temple
our hand shall scatter the crowd of mem-
ories, even as the sage Ulysses, in the
Cimmerian night, with his sword pre-
vented the shades -- even that of his
mother, whom it was not his mission to
question — from approaching the black
blood that would for an instant have
given them life and speech. We shall
go straight to the joy, the regret or re-
morse, whose counsel we need; or to the
act of injustice it behoves us scrupulously
to examine, in order either to make repa-
ration, if such still be possible, or that
the sight of the wrong we did, whose
victims have ceased to be, is required to
give us the indispensable force that shall
lift us above the injustice it still lies in
us to commit.
[9]
Yes, even though our past contain
crimes that now are beyond the reach of
250
The Past
use
our best endeavours, even then, if we
consider the circumstances of time and
place, and the vast plane of each human
existence, these crimes fade out of our
life the moment we feel that no tempta-
tion, no power on earth, could ever in-
duce us to commit the like again. The
world has not forgiven — there is but
little that the external sphere will forget
or forgive — and their material effects
will continue, for the laws of cause and
effect are different from those which gov-
ern our consciousness. At the tribunal
of our personal justice, however, — the
only tribunal which has decisive action
on our inaccessible life, as it is the only
one whose decrees we cannot evade, whose
concrete judgments stir us to our very
marrow – the evil action that we regard
from a loftier plane than that at which it
was committed, becomes an action that
no longer exists for us save in so far as
n
Tin acc
251
The Buried Temple
venue !
it may serve in the future to render our
fall more difficult; nor has it the right to
lift its head again except at the moment
when we incline once more towards the
abyss it guards.
Bitter, surely, must be the grief of him
in whose past there are acts of injustice
whereof every avenue now is closed, who
is no longer able to seek out his victims,
and raise them and comfort them. To
have abused one's strength in order to
despoil some feeble creature who has
definitely succumbed beneath the blow,
to have callously thrust suffering upon a
loving heart, or merely misunderstood
and passed by a touching affection that
offered itself — these things must of ne-
cessity weigh heavily upon our life, and
induce a sorrow within us that shall not
readily be forgotten. But it depends on
the actual point our consciousness has
attained whether our entire moral des-
TY
252
The Past
tiny shall be depressed, or lifted, beneath
this burden. Our actions rarely die; and
many unjust deeds of ours will therefore
inevitably return to life some day to
claim their due and start legitimate repri-
sals. They will find our external life
without defence; but before they can
reach the inward being at the centre of
that life they must first listen to the judg-
ment we have already passed on ourselves ;
and in accordance with the nature of that
judgment will the attitude be of these
mysterious envoys, who have come from
the depths where cause and effect are
established in eternal equilibrium. If it
has indeed been from the heights of our
newly acquired consciousness that we have
questioned ourselves, and condemned, they
will not be menacing justiciaries whom we
shall suddenly see surging in from all
sides, but benevolent visitors, friends we
have almost expected ; and they will draw
1
-
AYT
253
The Buried Temple
near us in silence. They know in ad-
vance that the man before them is no
longer the guilty creature they sought;
and instead of pouring hatred, revolt, and
despair into his heart, or punishments
that degrade and kill, they come charged
with ennobling, consoling, and purifying
thought -- a penance.
[10]
The things which differentiate the
happy and strong from those who weep
and will not be consoled, all derive from
the one same principle of confidence and
ardour; and thus it is that the manner in
which we are able to recall what we have
done or suffered is far more important
than our actual sufferings or deeds. No
past, viewed by itself, can seem happy;
and the privileged of fate, who reflect on
what remains of the happy years that
have flown, have perhaps more reason
254
The Past
for sorrow than the unfortunate ones who
brood over the dregs of a life of wretched-
ness. Whatever was one day and has
now ceased to be makes for sadness ;
above all, whatever was very happy and
very beautiful. The object of our regrets
— whether these revolve around what has
been or might have been — is therefore
more or less the same for all men, and
their sorrow should be the same. It is
not, however; in one case it will reign un-
interruptedly, whereas in another it will
only appear at very long intervals. It
must therefore depend on things other
than accomplished facts. It depends on
the manner in which men will act on
these facts. The conquerors in this world
— those who waste no time setting up
an imaginary irreparable and immutable
athwart their horizon, those who seem to
be born afresh every morning in a world
that forever awakes anew to the future —
255
The Buried Temple
these know instinctively that what appears
to exist no longer is still existing intact,
that what appeared to be ended is only
completing itself. They know that the
years time has taken from them are still
in travail; still, under their new master,
obeying the old. They know that their
past is forever in movement; that the
yesterday which was despondent, decrepit
and criminal will return full of joyousness,
innocence, youth, in the track of to-
morrow. They know that their image is
not yet stamped on the days that are
gone; that a decisive deed, or thought,
will suffice to break down the whole edi-
fice; that, however remote or vast the
shadow may be that stretches behind them,
they have only to put forth a gesture of
gladness or hope for the shadow at once
to copy this gesture, and, flashing it back
to the remotest, tiniest ruins of early
childhood even, to extract unexpected
TY
TYTI
256
The Past
ch
treasure from all this wreckage. They
know that they have retrospective action
upon all bygone deeds; and that the
dead themselves will annul their verdicts
in order to judge afresh a past that to-day
has been transfigured and endowed with
new life.
They are fortunate who find this in-
stinct in the folds of their cradle. But
may the others not imitate it who have it
not; and is not human wisdom charged
to teach us how we may acquire the salu-
tary instincts that nature has withheld ?
[11]
Let us not lull ourselves to sleep in
our past; and if we find that it tends to
spread like a vault over our life, instead of
incessantly changing beneath our eye; if
the present grow into the habit of visiting
it, not like a good workman repairing
thither to execute the labours imposed
!
17
257
The Buried Temple
upon him by the commands of to-day,
but as a too passive, too credulous pilgrim
content idly to contemplate beautiful,
motionless ruins — then the more glo-
rious, the happier that our past may have
been, with all the more suspicion should
it be regarded by us.
Nor should we yield to the instinct that
bids us accord it profound respect if this
respect induce the fear in us that we may
disturb its nice equilibrium. Better the
ordinary past, content with its befitting
place in the shadow, than the sumptuous
past which claims to govern what has trav-
elled out of its reach. Better a mediocre,
but living, present, which acts as though it
were alone in the world, than a present
which proudly expires in the chains of a
marvellous long ago. A single step that
we take at this hour towards an uncertain
goal is far more important to us than the
thousand leagues we covered in our march
258
The Past
towards a dazzling triumph in the days that
were. Our past had no other mission than
to lift us to the moment at which we are,
and there equip us with the needful expe-
rience and weapons, the needful thought and
gladness. If, at this precise moment, it
take from us and divert to itself one particle
of our energy, then, however glorious it
may have been, it still was useless, and
had better never have been. If we allow
it to arrest a gesture that we were about
to make, then is our death beginning; and
the edifices of the future will suddenly
take the semblance of tombs.
More dangerous still than the past of
happiness and glory is the one inhabited
by overpowering and too dearly cherished
phantoms. Many an existence perishes
in the coils of a fond recollection. And
yet, were the dead to return to this earth,
they would say, I fancy, with the wisdom
that must be theirs who have seen what
ce seen
259
The Buried Temple
the ephemeral light still hides from us :
“Dry your eyes. There comes to us no
comfort from your tears ; exhausting you,
they exhaust us also. Detach yourself
from us, banish us from your thoughts,
until such time as you can think of us
without strewing tears on the life we still
live in you. We endure only in your
recollection ; but you err in believing that
your regrets alone can touch us. It is
the things you do that prove to us we are
not forgotten, and rejoice our manes; and
this without your knowing it, without any
necessity that you should turn towards us.
Each time that our pale image saddens
your ardour, we feel ourselves die anew,
and it is a more perceptible, irrevocable
death than was our other; bending too
often over our tombs, you rob us of the
life, the courage and love, that you imag-
ine you restore.
“ It is in you that we are, it is in all.
1
260
The Past
your life that our life resides; and as you
become greater, even while forgetting us,
so do we become greater too, and our
shades draw the deep breath of prisoners
whose prison door is flung open.
“If there be anything new we have
learned in the world where we are now, it
is, first of all, that the good we did to you
when we were, like yourselves, on the
earth, does not balance the evil wrought
by a memory which saps the force and the
confidence of life.”
. [12]
Above all, let us envy the past of no
man. Our own past was created by our-
selves, and for ourselves alone. No other
could have suited us, no other could have
taught us the truth that it alone can teach,
or given the strength that it alone can
give. And whether it be good or bad,
sombre or radiant, it still remains a col-
261
The Buried Temple
lection of unique masterpieces the value
of which is known to none but ourselves;
and no foreign masterpiece could equal
the action we have accomplished, the kiss
we received, the thing of beauty that
moved us so deeply, the suffering we
underwent, the anguish that held us en-
chained, the love that wreathed us in
smiles or in tears. Our past is ourselves,
what we are and shall be; and upon this
unknown sphere there moves no creature,
from the happiest down to the most un-
fortunate, who could foretell how great a
loss would be his could he substitute the
trace of another for the trace which he
himself must leave in life. Our past is
our secret, promulgated by the voice of
years; it is the most mysterious image
of our being, over which Time keeps
watch. The image is not dead; a mere
nothing degrades or adorns it; it can still
grow bright or sombre, can still smile or
262
The Past
weep, express love or hatred : and yet it
remains recognisable for ever in the midst
of the myriad images that surround it.
It stands for what we once were, as our
aspirations and hopes stand for what we
shall be ; and the two faces blend, that
they may teach us what we are.
Let us not envy the facts of the past,
but rather the spiritual garment that the
recollection of days long gone will weave
around the sage. And though this gar-
ment be woven of joy or of sorrow,
though it be drawn from the dearth of
events or from their abundance, it shall
still be equally precious; and those who
may see it shining over a life shall not
be able to tell whether its quickening
jewels and stars were found amid the
grudging cinders of a cabin or upon the
steps of a palace.
No past can be empty or squalid, no
events can be wretched; the wretched-
263
The Buried Temple
ness lies in our manner of welcoming
them. And if it were true that nothing
had happened to you, that would be the
most remarkable adventure that any man
ever had met with; and no less remark-
able would be the light it would shed
upon you. In reality the facts, the op-
portunities and possibilities, the passions,
that await and invite the majority of men,
are all more or less the same. Some may
be more dazzling than others; their at-
tendant circumstances may differ, but they
differ far less than the inward reactions
that follow; and the insignificant, incom-
plete event that falls on a fertile heart
and brain will readily attain the moral
proportions and grandeur of an analogous
incident which, on another plane, will
convulse a whole people.
He who should see, spread out before
him, the past lives of a multitude of men,
could not easily decide which past he
264
The Past
himself would wish to have lived, were
he not able at the same time to witness
the moral results of these dissimilar and
unsymmetrical facts. He might not im-
possibly make a fatal blunder; he might
choose an existence overflowing with in-
comparable happiness and victory, that
sparkle like wonderful jewels; while his
glance might travel indifferently over a
life that appeared to be empty, whereas
it was truly steeped to the brim in serene
emotions and lofty, redeeming thoughts
whereby, though the eye saw nothing, that
life was yet rendered happy among all.
For we are well aware that what destiny
has given and what destiny holds in re-
serve can be revolutionised as utterly by
thought as by great victory or great
defeat. Thought is silent: it disturbs
not a pebble on the illusory road we see;
but at the crossway of the more actual
road that our secret life follows will it
265
The Buried Temple
tranquilly erect an indestructible pyramid;
and thereupon, suddenly, every event,
to the very phenomena of Earth and
Heaven, will assume a new direction.
In Siegfried's life it is not the moment
when he forges the prodigious sword that
is most important, or when he kills the
dragon and compels the gods from his
path, or even the dazzling second when
he encounters love on the flaming moun-
tain; but indeed the brief instant wrested
from eternal decrees, the little childish
gesture when one of his hands, red with
the blood of his mysterious victim, hav-
ing chanced to draw near his lips, his
eyes and ears are suddenly opened: he
understands the hidden language of all
that surrounds him, detects the treachery
of the dwarf who represents the powers
of evil, and learns in a flash to do that
which had to be done.
ne
UTC
266
LUCK
LUCK
[1]
n NCE upon a time, an old Servian
legend tells us, there were two
brothers, of whom one was industrious
but unfortunate, and the other lazy but
overwhelmingly prosperous. One day
the unfortunate brother meets a beautiful
girl who is tending sheep and weaving a
golden thread. “To whom do these
sheep belong?” he asks. “They belong
to whom I belong.” “And to whom do
you belong?” “To your brother: I
am his luck.” “And where is my luck,
then?” “Very far from here.” “Can I
find it?” “Yes, if you look for it.”
269
The Buried Temple
Dnes
CrOSS
oman
So he wanders away in search of his
luck. And one evening, in a great for-
est, he comes across a poor old woman
asleep under a tree. He wakes her and
asks who she is. “Don't you know
me?” she answers. “ It is true you
have never seen me: I am your luck."
“And who is it has given me so wretched
a luck?” “ Destiny.” “Can I find
Destiny?” “Yes, if you look long
enough.”
So he goes off in search of Destiny.
He travels a very long time, and at last
she is pointed out to him. She lives in
an enormous and luxurious palace; but
her wealth is dwindling day by day, and
the doors and windows of her abode are
shrinking. She explains to him that she
passes thus, alternatively, from misery to
opulence; and that her situation at a
given moment determines the future of
all the children who may come into the
270
Luck
2
world at that moment. “You were born,”
she says, “ when my prosperity was on the
wane; and that is the cause of your ill-
luck.” The only way, she tells him, to
hoodwink or get the better of fortune
would be to substitute the luck of Militza,
his niece, for his own, seeing that she was
born at a propitious period. All he need
do, she says, is to take this niece into
his house, and to declare to anyone who
may ask him that all he has belongs to
Militza.
He follows her advice, and his affairs
at once take a new turn. His herds mul-
tiply and grow fat, his trees are bowed
down beneath the masses of fruit, unex-
pected inheritances fall in, his land returns
prodigious crops. But one morning, as
he stands there, his heart filled with
happiness, eyeing a magnificent cornfield,
a stranger asks him who the owner may
be of those wonderful ears of wheat, which,
lex-
271
The Buried Temple
as they sway to and fro beneath the dew,
seem twice as heavy and twice as high as
the ears in the adjoining field. He for-
gets himself, and answers, “They are
mine.” At that very instant fire breaks
out in the opposite end of the field, and
commences its ravages. Then he remem-
bers the advice that he has neglected to
follow. He runs after the stranger shout-
ing, “Stop, come back; I made a mis-
take; what I told you was not true!
This field is not mine; it belongs to my
niece Militza !” And the flames have no
sooner heard than they suddenly fall
away, and the corn shoots up afresh.
[ 2 ]
This naïve and very ancient image,
which might almost serve to-day as an
illustration of our actual ignorance, proves
that the mysterious problem of chance
has not changed from the time of man's
272
Luck
first questioning look. We have our
thoughts, which build up our intimate
happiness or sorrow; and upon this
events from without have more or less
influence. And in some men these
thoughts have acquired such strength,
such vigilance, that without their consent
nothing can enter the structure of crystal
and brass they have been able to raise on
the hill that commands the wonted road
of adventures. And we have our will;
which our thoughts feed and sustain ; and
many useless or harmful events can be
held in check by our will. But around
these islets, within which is a certain de-
gree of safety, of immunity from attack,
extends a region as vast and uncontrol-
lable as the ocean, swayed by chance as
the waves are swayed by the wind. Neither
will nor thought can keep one of these
waves from suddenly breaking upon us ;
and we shall be caught unawares, and
273
The Buried Temple
perhaps be wounded and stunned. Only
when the wave has retreated can thought
and will begin their beneficent action.
Then they will raise us, and bind up our
wounds, restore animation, and take care-
ful heed that the mischief the shock has
wrought shall not touch the profound
sources of life. Their mission extends
no further, and may, on the surface, ap-
pear very humble. In reality, however,
unless chance assume the irresistible form
of cruel disease or death, the workings of
will and thought shall suffice to neutralise
all its efforts, and to preserve what is best
and most essential to man in human
happiness.
[3]
Redoubtable, multitudinous chance is
for ever threading its watchful way through
the midst of the events we have foreseen,
and round and about our most deliberate
274
Luck
actions, wherewith we slowly trace the
broad lines of our existence. The air we
breathe, the time we traverse, the space
through which we move, are all peopled
by lurking circumstances, which pick us
out from among the crowd. The least
study of their habits will quickly convince
us that these strange daughters of hazard,
who should be blind and deaf as their
father, by no means act in his irresponsi-
ble fashion. They are well aware of what
they are doing, and rarely make a mis-
take. With inexplicable certainty do they
move to the passer-by whom they have
been sent to confront, and lightly touch
his shoulder. Two men may be travelling
upon the same road, and at the same
hour; but there will be no hesitation or
doubt in the ranks of the double invisible
troop whom fortune has ambushed there.
Towards one a band of white virgins will
hasten, bearing palms and amphoræ, pre-
275
The Buried Temple
1
senting the thousand unexpected delights
of the journey ; as the other approaches,
the “Evil Women,” whom Æschylus
tells of, hurl themselves from the hedges,
as though they were charged to avenge,
upon this unwitting victim, some inexpli-
cable crime committed by him before he
was born.
TY
[4]
There is scarcely one of us who has not
been able, in some measure, to see the
workings of destiny in life; we have all
known men who met with a prosperity or
disaster entirely unconnected with any
of their actions ; men upon whom good
or bad luck seemed suddenly, at a turn
of the road, to spring from the ground
or descend from the stars, undeserved,
unprovoked, but complete and inevitable.
One, we will say, who has scarcely given
a thought to some appointment for which
276
Luck
he knows his rival to be better equipped,
will see this rival vanish at the decisive
moment; another, who has counted upon
the protection of a most influential friend,
will see this friend die on the very day
when his assistance could be of value.
A third, who has neither talent nor
beauty, will arrive each morning at the
Palace of Fortune, Glory, or Love, at the
brief instant when every door lies open ;
while another, a man of great merit, who
long has pondered the legitimate step he
is taking, presents himself at the hour
when ill-luck shall close the gate for the
next half-century. One man will risk his
health twenty times, in imbecile feats, and
never experience the least ill-effect; an-
other will deliberately venture it in an
honourable cause, and lose it without hope
of return. To help the first, thousands
of unknown people, who never have seen
him, will be obscurely working; to hinder
OW
nev
277
The Buried Temple
the second, thousands of unknown people
labour, who are ignorant of his existence.
And all, on the one side as well as the
other, are totally unaware of what they
are doing : they obey the same minute,
widely distributed order; and at the pre-
scribed moment the detached pieces of the
mysterious machine join, dovetail, unite;
and we have two complete and dissimilar
destinies set into motion by Time.
On
meo
[5]
In a curious book on Chance and Destiny,
Dr. Foissac gives various strange exam-
ples of the persistent, inexplicable, funda-
mental, pre-ordained, irreducible iniquity,
in which so many existences are steeped.
As we go through page after page we feel
almost as though we were being conducted
through the disconcerting laboratories of
another world, where, in the absence of
every instrument that human justice and
278
Luck
reason might hold indispensable, happiness
and sorrow were being parcelled out and
allotted. Take, for instance, the life of
Vauvenargues, one of the most admirable
of men, and certainly, of all the great
sages, the most unfortunate. Whenever
his fortune hangs in the balance he is at-
tacked and prostrated by cruel disease;
and notwithstanding the efforts of his
genius, his bravery, his moral beauty, day
after day he is wantonly betrayed or falls
victim to gratuitous injustice; and at the
age of thirty-two he dies, at the very mo-
ment when recognition is at last awaiting
his work. So too there is a terrible story
of Lesurques, in which we see a thousand
1 His history is concisely summed up by Dr. Foissac
as follows : « On the 8th Floréal of the year IV the
courier and postilion who were taking the mail from Paris
to Lyons were attacked and murdered, at nine in the
evening, in the forest of Sénart. The assassins were
Couriol, who had taken a seat in the cabriolet by the side
of the courier, Durechal, Rossi, Vidal, and Dubosq, who
279
The Buried Temple
coincidences, that might have been con-
trived in Hell, blending and joining to-
had come to meet him on hired horses, and lastly Ber-
nard, who had procured the horses and took part in the
subsequent distribution of plunder. For this crime, in
which five assassins and one accomplice shared, seven in-
dividuals, within the space of four years, mounted the
steps of the guillotine. Justice, therefore, killed one man
too many ; the sword fell upon one who was innocent ;
nor could he have been one of these six individuals, all of
whom confessed their crime. The innocent man was
Lesurques, who had never ceased to declare he was not
guilty; and all his alleged accomplices disavowed any
knowledge of him. How, then, came this unfortunate
creature to be implicated in an affair that was to confer
so sad an immortality upon his name? Fatality so con-
trived that, four days before the crime, Lesurques, who
had left Douai with an income of eighteen thousand livres,
and had come to Paris that he might give a better educa-
tion to his children, happened to be lunching with a
fellow-townsman named Guesno, when Couriol came
in and was invited to join them. Suspicion having at
once fallen upon Couriol, the fact of this lunch was suffi-
cient to cause Guesno to be put under arrest for a mo-
ment; but as he was able to prove an alibi, the judge,
Daubenton, immediately set him at liberty. Only, as it
was late, Daubenton, told him to come the following day
to fetch his paper.
“ In the morning of the 11th Floréal Guesno, on his
280
Luck
gether to work the ruin of an innocent
man; while truth, chained down by fate,
way for this purpose to the Prefecture of Police, met
Lesurques, whom he invited to accompany him ; an invi-
tation which Lesurques, who had nothing special to do,
accepted. While they were waiting in the antechamber
for the magistrate to arrive, two women were shown in
who had been asked to attend in connection with the
affair ; and they, deceived by Lesurques' resemblance
to Dubosq, who had fled, unhesitatingly denounced him
as one of the assassins, and unfortunately persisted in this
statement to the end. The antecedents of Lesurques
pleaded in his favour ; and among other facts that he
cited to prove that he had not left Paris during the day
of the 8th Floréal, he declared that he had been present
at certain dealings that had taken place at a jeweller's
named Legrand, between this last and another jeweller
named Aldenoff. These transactions had actually taken
place on the 8th ; but Legrand, on being requisitioned
to produce his books, found that he had by a clerical
blunder inscribed them under the date of the gth. He
thought the best thing he could do would be to scratch
out the 9 and convert it into an 8 ; he did this in the idea
that he would thereby save his fellow-townsman, Le-
surques, whom he knew to be innocent, whereas he
actually succeeded in ruining him. The alteration and
substitution were easily detected ; from that moment the
prosecution and the jury declined to place the least con-
fidence in the eighty witnesses for the defence called by
281
The Buried 15
Temple
dumbly shrieking as we do when wrestling
with nightmare, is unable to put forth a
the accused; he was convicted and his property confis-
cated. Eighty-seven days elapsed between his condem-
nation and execution, a delay that was altogether unusual
at that period ; but grave doubts had arisen as to his
guilt.
« The Directorate did not possess the right of reprieve ;
they felt it their duty to refer the case to the Council of
Five Hundred, asking whether Lesurques was to die
because of his resemblance to a criminal.' The Council
passed to the Order of the Day on the report of Simeon ;
and Lesurques was executed, forgiving his judges. And
not only had he constantly protested his innocence, but
at the moment the verdict was given Couriol had cried out,
in firm tones, Lesurques is innocent ! He repeated
this statement both on the fatal hurdle and on the scaffold.
All the other prisoners, while admitting their own guilt,
also declared the innocence of Lesurques. It was only
in the year IX that Dubosq, his double, was arrested and
sentenced.
" The fatality that had attacked the head of the family
spared none of its members. Lesurques' mother died of
grief ; his wife went mad; his three children languished
in insignificance and poverty. The government, however,
moved by their great misfortune, restored to the family
of Lesurques, in two instalments, the five or six hundred
thousand francs which had been so iniquitously confis-
cated; but a swindler robbed them of the greater part of
282
Luck
single gesture that shall rend the veil of
night. And Aimar de Ransonnet, Presi-
the money. Sixty years elapsed ;. of Lesurques' three
children two were dead ; one alone survived, Virginie
Lesurques. Public opinion had for a long time already
proclaimed the innocence and the rehabilitation of her
unfortunate father. She wanted more ; and when the
law of the 29th June, 1867, was passed, authorising the re-
vision of criminal judgments, she hoped that the day had
come at last when she might proclaim this rehabilitation in
the sanctuary of justice ; but, by a final fatality, the Court
of Appeal, arguing on legal subtleties, declared by its
decree of the 17th December, 1868, that no cause had
been shown for re-opening the case, and that Virginie
Lesurques had not made good her claim to revision."
It is as though one were enthralled by some horrible
dream, in which a poor wretch is being delivered into
the hands of the Furies. Ever since the fatal meal, no
less tragic than that of Thyestes, which Lesurques took
at Guesno's house, events have been dragging him nearer
and nearer the gulf that yawns at his feet; while his
destiny, hovering above him like an enormous vulture,
hides the light from those who approach him. And the
circles from above press magically forward to meet those
from below : they advance, they contract, and then, unit-
ing at last, their eddies blend and fasten upon what is
now a corpse.
Here, truly, the combination of murderous fatalities
may well seem supernatural ; and the case is typical, it
283
The Buried Temple
dent of the Parliament of Paris, one of the
most upright of men, who first of all is
suddenly dismissed from his office, sees
his daughter die on a dunghill before his
eyes, his son perish at the hands of the
executioner, and his wife struck by light-
ning; while he himself is accused of heresy
and sent to the Bastille, where he dies of
grief before he is brought to trial.
The calamities that befell (Edipus and
the Atrides are regarded by us as im-
probable and fabulous; and yet we find
in contemporary history that fatality clings
with no less persistence to families such
as the Stuarts, the Colignys, etc., and
Y
а.
is formidable, it is as symbolic as a myth. But there
can be no doubt that analogous chains of circumstances
reproduce themselves daily in the countless petty or
ridiculous mortifications of merely ordinary lives, which
are beneath the influence of an evil or malicious star.
1 The misfortunes of the Stuarts are well known ;
those of the Colignys are less familiar. Of these last the
author we have already cited gives the following lucid
account : «Gaspard de Coligny, Marshal of France
284
Luck
hounds to their death, with what almost
seems personal vindictiveness, pitiable
under Francis ist, was married to the sister of the Con-
stable Anne de Montmorency. He was reproached
with having delayed by half a day his attack on Charles
the Fifth, at a time when such might have been most
advantageously offered, and with having thereby let slip an
almost certain opportunity of victory. One of his sons,
who had been made Archbishop and Cardinal, embraced
Protestantism, and was married in his red cassock. He
fought against the King at the battle of St. Denis, and
fied to England, where, in the year 1571, a servant of
his attempted to poison him. He escaped, however,
and seeking subsequently to return to France was cap-
tured at Rochelle, condemned to death, and executed.
The Admiral de Coligny, brother of the Cardinal, was
reputed one of the greatest captains of his time ; he did
marvels at the defence of Saint-Quentin. The place,
however, was taken by storm, and he was made a
prisoner of war. Having become the real leader of the
Calvinists, under the Prince de Condé, he displayed the
most undaunted courage and extraordinary fertility of
resource ; neither his merit nor his military skill was ever
called in question; and yet he was uniformly unsuccess-
ful in every one of his enterprises. In 1562 he lost the
battle of Dreux to the Duc de Guise ; that of St. Denis
to the Constable de Montmorency; and finally that of
Jarnac, which was no less fatal to his party. He en-
dured yet another reverse at Montcontour in Poitou ; but
285
The Buried Temple
and innocent victims like Henrietta of
England, daughter of Henri IV., Louise
his courage remained unshaken ; his skill was able to
parry the attacks of fortune, and he appeared more re-
doubtable after his defeats than his enemies in the midst
of their victories. Often wounded, but always impervi-
ous to fear, he remarked one day quietly to his friends,
who wept as they saw his blood flow, Should not the pro-
fession we follow cause us to regard death with the same
indifference as life ?' A few days before the Massacre
of St. Bartholomew, Maurevert shot him with a carbine
from a house in the cloister of St. Germain l'Auxerrois,
and wounded him dangerously in the right hand and left
arm. On the eve of that sanguinary day, Besme, at the
head of a party of cut-throats, contrived to enter the
admiral's house, and ran him several times through
the body, then Ainging him out of the window into the
courtyard, where he expired, it is said, at the feet of the
Duc de Guise. His body was exposed for three days to
the insults of the mob, and finally hung by the feet to
the gibbet of Montfaucon.
- Thus, though the Admiral de Coligny passed for the
greatest general of his time, he was always unfortunate
and always defeated; while the Duc de Guise, his rival,
who had less wisdom but more audacity, and above all
more confidence in his destiny, was able to take his
enemies by surprise and render himself master of events.
« Coligny was an honest man,' said the Abbé de
Mably; "Guise wore the mask of a greater number
286
Luck
de Bourbon, Joseph II., and Marie
Antoinette.
And again, in another category, what
shall we say of the injustice — unintelli-
gent but apparently almost conscious,
almost systematic and premeditated — of
games of chance, of duels, battles, storms,
shipwrecks, and fires? Or of the incon-
ceivable luck of a Chastenet de Puységur
who, after forty years' service, in the
course of which he took part in thirty
battles and a hundred and twenty sieges,
always in the front rank and displaying
the most romantic courage, was never once
touched by shot or steel ; while Marshal
Oudinot was wounded thirty-five times,
of virtues. Coligny was detested by the people ; Guise
was their idol.' It is stated that the Admiral left a
diary, which Charles IX. read with interest, but the
Marshal de Retz had it flung into the fire. Finally, a
fatal destiny clinging to all who bore the name of
Coligny, the last descendant of the fainily was killed
in a duel by the Chevalier de Guise.”
287
The Buried Temple
and General Trézel was struck by a bullet
in every encounter ? What shall we say
of the extraordinary fortune of Lauzun,
Chamillart, Casanova, Chesterfield, etc.,
or of the inconceivable, unvarying pros-
perity that attended the crimes of Sylla,
Marius, or Dionysius the Elder, who, in
his extreme old age, after an odious but
fantastically successful life, died of joy on
learning that the Athenians had just
crowned one of his tragedies? Or, finally,
of Herod, surnamed the Great or the
Ascalonite, who swam in blood, murdered
one of his wives and five of his children,
put to death every upright man who
might chance to offend him, and yet was
fortunate in all his undertakings ?
1
[6]
These famous examples, which might
be indefinitely multiplied, are in truth no
more than the abnormal and historic pre-
288
Luck
>
n
UUUUU
1
r un
sentments of what is shown to us every
day, in a humbler but not less emphatic
fashion, by the thousand and one caprices
of propitious or contrary fortune at work
on the small and ill-lit stage of ordinary
life.
Doubtless we must, first of all, when
closely examining such insolent prosperity
or unvarying disaster, attribute a royal
share to the physical or moral causes
which are capable of explaining them.
Had we ourselves known Vauvenargues,
we should probably have detected a cer-
tain timidity, irresolution, or misplaced
pride in his character, whereby he was
disabled from allowing the opportunity to
mature or from seizing it with sufficient
vigour. And Lesurques, it may be, was
deficient in ability, in one knows not
what, in that prodigious personal force
that one expects to find in falsely accused
innocence. Nor can it be denied that
CS
DWS
19
289
The Buried Temple
mc
the Stuarts, no less than Joseph II. and
Marie Antoinette, were guilty of enor-
mous blunders that invited disaster; or
that Lauzun, Casanova, and Lord Chester-
field had flung to the winds those essential
scruples that hinder the honest man. So
too is it certain that although the existence
of Sylla, Marius, Dionysius the Elder,
and Herod the Ascalonite, may have been
externally almost incomparably fortunate,
few men, I fancy, would care to have
lurking within them the strange, restless,
blood-stained phantom, possessed neither
of thought nor of feeling, on which the
happiness must depend (if the word happi-
ness be indeed applicable here) that is
founded upon unceasing crime. But this
deduction being made, and on the most
reasonable, most liberal scale (which will
become the more generous as we see more
of life and understand it better, and pene-
trate further into the secrets of little causes
290
Luck
and great effects), we shall still be forced
to admit that there remains in these ob-
stinately recurring coincidences, in these
indissoluble series of good or evil fortune,
these persistent runs of good or bad luck,
a considerable, often essential, and some-
times exclusive share that can be ascribed
only to the impenetrable, incontrovertible
will of a real but unknown power : which
is known as Chance, Fatality, Destiny,
Luck, Fortune, good or evil star, Angel
with the White Wings, Angel with the
Black Wings, and by many other names,
that vary in accordance with the more or
less imaginative, more or less poetic genius
of centuries and peoples. And here we
have one of the most serious, most per-
plexing problems of all those that have to
be solved by man before he may legiti-
mately regard himself as the principal,
independent, and irrevocable inhabitant
of this earth.
IS
291
The Buried
[7]
Let us reduce the problem to its sim-
plest terms, and submit it to our reason.
First, however, let us consider whether it
affects man alone. We have with us,
upon this curiously incomprehensible
globe, silent and faithful companions of
our existence; and we shall often find it
helpful to let our eyes rest upon these
when, having reached certain altitudes that
perhaps are illusory, our brain turns giddy,
and inclines us too readily to the idea that
the stars, the gods, or the veiled repre-
sentatives of the sublime laws of the uni-
verse, are concerned solely with us. These
poor brothers of our animal life, that are
so calmly, so confidently resigned, would
appear to know many things that we have
forgotten; they are the tranquil custodians
of the secret that we seek so anxiously!
It is evident that animals, and notably
292
Luck
domestic animals, have also a kind of
destiny. They too know what prolonged
and gratuitous happiness means ; they
also have encountered the persistent mis-
fortune for which no cause can be found.
They have the same right as we to speak
of their star, their good or bad luck, their
prosperity or disaster. Compare the fate
of the cab-horse, that ends its days at the
knacker's, after having passed through
the hands of a hundred brutal and name-
less masters, with that of the thoroughbred
which dies of old age in the stable of a
kindhearted master; and from the point
of view of justice (unless we accept the
Buddhist theory, that life in this world is
the reward or punishment of an anterior
existence) explanation is as completely
lacking as in the case of the man whom
chance has reduced to poverty or raised to
wealth. There is in Flanders a breed
of draught-dogs upon which destiny
293
The Buried Temple
alternatively lavishes her favour and her
spite. Some will be bought by a butcher,
and lead a magnificent life. The work is
trifling: in the morning, harnessed four
abreast, they draw a light cart to the
slaughter-house, and at night, galloping
joyously, triumphantly, home through
the narrow streets of the ancient towns
with their tiny, lit-up gables, bring it
back overflowing with meat. Between-
times there is leisure, and marvellous
leisure, among the rats and the waste of
slaughter-house. They are copiously fed,
they are fat, they shine like seals, and
taste in its fulness the only happiness
dreamed of by the naïve, ferreting instinct
of the honest dog. But their unfortunate
brethren of the same litter, that the lame
sand-pedlar buys, or the old collector of
household refuse, or the needy peasant
with his great cruel clogs — these are
chained to heavy carts or shapeless bar-
294
Luck
rows; they are filthy, mangey, hairless,
emaciated, starving; and follow till they
die the circles of a hell into which they
were thrust by a few coppers dropped
into some horny palm. And, in a world
less directly subject to man, there must
evidently be partridges, pheasants, deer,
hares, which have no luck, which never
escape the gun; while others, one knows
not how or why, emerge unscathed from
every battue.
They, therefore, are exposed, like our-
selves, to incontestable injustice. But it
does not occur to us, when considering
their hardships, to set all the gods in
motion or seek explanation from the
mysterious powers ; and yet what happens
to them may well be no more than the
image, naïvely simplified, of what happens
to us. It is true that we play the precise
part, in their case, of the mysterious
powers that we seek in our own. But
295
The Buried Temple
what right have we to expect from these
last more consciousness, more intelligent
justice, than we ourselves show in our
dealings with animals? And in any
event, if this instance shall only have de-
prived chance of a little of its useless
prestige and have proportionately aug-
mented our spirit of initiative and struggle,
there will be a gain the importance of
which is by no means to be despised.
1
[8]
Still further allowance must therefore
be made; but yet there undoubtedly re-
mains — at least as far as the more com-
plex life of man is concerned — a cause of
good or evil fortune, as yet untouched by
our explanations, in the often visible will
of chance — which one might almost call
the “small change ” of fatality. We know
- and this is one of those formless but
fundamental ideas on the laws of life that
296
Luck
Oce
the experience of thousands of years has
turned into a kind of instinct — we know
that men exist who, other things being
equal, are “lucky” or “unlucky.” Cir-
cumstances permitted me to follow very
closely the career of a friend of mine who
was dogged by persistent ill-fortune. I
do not mean to imply thereby that his life
was unhappy. It is even remarkable that
the malign influences always respected the
broad lines of his veritable happiness ;
probably because these were well guarded.
For he had in him a strong moral exist-
ence, profound thoughts and hopes, feel-
ings and convictions. He was well aware
that these were possessions that fortune
could not touch; which indeed could not
be destroyed without his consent. Destiny
is not invincible; through life's very
centre runs a great inward canal, which we
have the power to turn towards happiness
or sorrow; although its ramifications, that
297
The Buried Temple
extend over our days, and the thousand
tributaries that flow in from external haz-
ards, are all independent of our will.
It is thus that a beautiful river, stream-
ing down from the heights, and ashine
with magnificent glaciers, passes at length
through plains and through cities, whence
it receives only poisonous water. For an
instant the river is troubled; and we fear
lest it lose, and never recover again, the
image of the pure blue sky that the crystal
fountains had lent: the image that seemed
its soul, and the deep and the limpid ex-
pression of its great strength. But if we
rejoin it, down yonder, beneath those great
trees, we find that it has already forgotten
the foulness of the gutters. It has caught
the azure again in its transparent waves;
and flows on to the sea, as clear as it was
on the days when it first smilingly leapt
from its source on the mountains.
And so, as regards this friend of mine,
298
Luck
although forced more than once to shed
tears, they were at least not of the kind
that memory never forgets, not of those
that fall from our eyes as we mourn our
own death. Every failure, the inevitable
disappointment once over, served only to
knit him the closer to his secret happiness,
to affirm this within him, and draw round
about it a more sombre outline, that it
might thereby appear the more precious
and ardent and certain. But no sooner
had he quitted this charmed enclosure
than hostile incidents vied with each other
in their attacks upon him. As for instance
- he was a very good fencer: he had
three duels, and was wounded each time
by a less skilful adversary. If he went
on board ship, the voyage would rarely
be prosperous. Whatever undertaking
he put money into was sure to turn out
badly. A judicial error, into which a
whole series of curiously malevolent cir-
2
299
The Buried Temple
cumstances dragged him, was productive
of long and serious trouble. Further,
although his face was agreeable, and the
expression of his eyes loyal and frank, he
was not what one calls “sympathetic”:
he did not arouse at first sight that spon-
taneous affection that we often give, with-
out knowing why, to the unknown who
passes, to an enemy even. Nor was he
more fortunate in his affections. Of a
loving nature, and infinitely worthier of
being loved than most of those to whom
the chance-ridden heart of women sacri-
ficed him — here again he met with
nothing but treachery, deception, and sor-
row. He went his way, extricating himself
as best he could from the paltry snares
that malicious fortune prepared at every
step ; nor was he discouraged or deeply
saddened, only somewhat surprised at so
strange a persistence; until at last there
came the great, and solitary good-fortune
300
Luck
of his life: a love that was the complement
of the one that was eager within him, a
love that was complete, passionate, exclu-
sive, unalterable. And from that moment
it was as though he had come under the
influence of another star, the beneficent
rays of which were blending with his own :
vexatious events grew slowly remoter,
fewer, warier of attacking him, tardier in
their approach. They seemed reluctantly
to abandon their habit of selecting him as
their victim. He actually saw his luck
turn. And now that he has gone back, as
it were, into the indifferent and neutral at-
mosphere of chance common to most men,
he smiles when he remembers the time
when every gesture of his was watched by
the invisible enemy, and aroused a danger.
[9]
Let us not look to the gods for an
explanation of these phenomena. Until
301
The Buried Temple
these gods shall have clearly explained
themselves there is nothing that they can
explain for us. And destiny, which is
merely the god of which we know least,
has less right than any of the others to
intervene and cry to us, as it does from
the depths of its inscrutable night, “ It is I
who so willed it !” Norlet us invoke the
illimitable law of the universe, the inten-
tions of history, the will of the worlds, the
justice of the stars. These powers exist:
we submit to them, as we submit to the
might of the sun. But they act without
knowing us; and within the wide circle
of their influence there remains to us still
a liberty that is probably immense. They
have better work on hand than to be for-
ever bending over us to lift a blade of
grass or drop a leaf in the little paths of
our ant-hill. Since we ourselves are here
the parties concerned, it is, I imagine,
within ourselves that the key of the
302
Luck
mystery shall be found; for it is probable
that every creature carries within him the
best solution of the problem that he pre-
sents. Within us, underlying the con-
scious existence that our reason and will
control, is a profounder existence, one side
of which connects with a past beyond the
record of history, the other with a future
that thousands of years cannot exhaust.
We may safely conceive that all the gods
lie hidden within it, and that those where-
with we have peopled the earth and the
planets will emerge, one by one, in order
to give it a name and a form that our
imagination may understand. And as
man's vision grows clearer, as he shows
less desire for image and symbol, so will
the number of these names, the number
of these forms, tend to diminish. He will
slowly arrive at the stage when there shall
be one only that he will proclaim, or
reserve; when it shall be revealed to him
303
The Buried Temple
that this last form, this last name, is truly
no more than the last image of a power
whose throne was always within him.
Then will the gods that had gone forth
from us be found again in ourselves; and
it is there that we will question them
to-day.
[10]
I hold that it is in this unconscious life
of ours, in this existence that is so vast, so
divine, so inexhaustible and unfathomable,
that we must seek for the explanation of
fortunate or contrary chances. Within
us is a being that is our veritable ego,
our first-born: immemorial, illimitable,
universal, and probably immortal. Our
intellect, which is merely a kind of phos-
phorescence that plays on this inner sea,
has as yet but faint knowledge of it. But
our intellect is gradually learning that
every secret of the human phenomena it
has hitherto not understood must reside
1
D
304
Luck
there, and there alone. This unconscious
being lives on another plane than our
intellect, in another world. It knows
nothing of Time and Space, the two for-
midable but illusory walls between which
our reason must flow or be hopelessly
lost in the desert. It knows no proximity,
it knows no distance; past and future
concern it not, or the resistance of matter.
It is familiar with all things ; there is
nothing it cannot do. To this force, this
knowledge, we have indeed at all times
accorded a certain varying recognition;
we have given names to its manifestations,
we have called them instinct, soul, uncon-
sciousness, sub-consciousness, reflex action,
presentiment, intuition, etc. We credit
it more especially with the indeterminate
and often prodigious force contained in
those of our nerves that do not directly
serve to produce our will and our reason :
a force that would appear to be the very
20
305
The Buried Temple
fluid of life. Its nature is probably more
or less the same in all men ; but it has
very different methods of communicating
with the intellect. In some men this un-
known principle is enshrined at so great a
depth that it concerns itself solely with
physical functions and the permanence of
the species; whereas in others it would
seem to be forever on the alert, rising
again and again to the surface of external
and conscious life, which its fairy-like
presence quickens; intervening at every
instant, warning, deciding, counselling,
blending with most of the essential facts
of a career. Whence comes this faculty ?
There are no fixed or certain laws. We
do not detect, for instance, any con-
stant relation between the activity of the
unconsciousness and the development of
the intellect. This activity obeys rules
of which we know nothing. So far as we
at present can tell, it would seem to be
)
306
Luck
purely accidental. We discover it in one
man, and not in another; nor have we
any clue that shall help us to guess at the
reason of this difference.
nces
[11]
The probable course pursued by fortu-
nate or contrary chances may well be as
follows. A happy or untoward event,
that has sprung from the profound reces-
ses of great and eternal laws, arises before
us and completely blocks the way. It
stands motionless there : immovable, in-
evitable, disproportionate. It pays no
heed to us; it has not come on our ac-
count, but for itself, because of itself. It
ignores us completely. It is we who ap-
proach the event: we who, having arrived
within the sphere of its influence, will
either fly from it or face it, try a circuitous
route or fare boldly onwards. Let us as-
sume that the event is disastrous: fire,
1
307
The Buried Temple
death, disease, or a somewhat abnormal
form of accident or distress. It waits there,
invisible, indifferent, blind, but perfect and
unalterable; and still as yet it is only poten-
tial. It exists entire, but only in the future;
and for us, whose intellect and conscious-
ness are served by senses unable to per-
ceive things otherwise than through the
succession of time, it is still as though it
were not. Let us still be more precise ;
let us take the case of a shipwreck. The
ship that must perish has not yet left the
port; the rock or the shoal that shall
rend it sleeps peacefully beneath the
waves: the storm that shall burst forth at
the end of the month slumbers far beyond
our gaze, in the secret of the skies.
Normally, were nothing written, had the
catastrophe not already taken place in the
future, fifty passengers would have arrived
from five or six different countries, and
have duly gone on board. But destiny
308
Luck
has clearly marked the vessel for its own.
She must most certainly perish. And for
months past, perhaps for years, a myster-
ious selection has been at work among the
passengers who were to have departed
upon the same day. It is possible that
out of fifty who had originally intended
to sail, only twenty will cross the gangway
at the moment of lifting the anchor.' It
1 It is a remarkable and constant fact that great catas-
trophes claim infinitely fewer victims than the most
reasonable probabilities might have led one to suppose.
At the last moment a fortuitous or exceptional circum-
stance is almost always found to have kept away half,
and sometimes two-thirds, of the persons who were
threatened by the still invisible danger. A steamer that
goes to the bottom has generally fewer passengers on
board than would have been the case had she not been
destined to go down. Two trains that collide, an ex-
press that falls over a precipice, etc., carry less travellers
than they would on a day when nothing is to happen.
Should a bridge collapse, the accident will generally be
found to occur, in defiance of all probability, at the mo-
ment the crowd has just left it. In the case of fires in
theatres and other public places, things unfortunately hap-
pen otherwise. But there, as we know, the principal
309
The Buried Temple
is even possible that not a single one of
the fifty will listen to the insistent claims
U
danger does not lie in the fire, but in the panic of the
terror-stricken crowd. Again, a fire-damp explosion will
usually occur at a time when the number of miners inside
the mine is appreciably inferior to the number that would
habitually be there. Similarly, when a powder-factory
is blown up, the majority of the workmen, who would
otherwise all have perished, will be found to have left the
mill for some triling, but providential, reason. So true
is this, that the almost unvarying remark, that we read
every day in the papers, has become familiar and hack-
neyed, as “ A catastrophe which might have assumed
terrible proportions was fortunately confined, thanks to
such and such a circumstance, etc., etc.," or "One shud-
ders to think what might have happened had the accident
occurred a moment sooner, when all the workmen, all the
passengers, etc." Is this the clemency of Chance? We
are becoming ever less inclined to credit it with a person-
ality, with design or intelligence. There is more reason
in the supposition that something in man had divined the
disaster ; that an obscure but unfailing instinct had pre-
served a great number of people from a danger that was
on the point of taking shape, of assuming the imminent
and imperious form of the inevitable, and that their un-
consciousness, taking alarm, was seized with hidden
panic ; which manifested itself outwardly in a caprice, a
whim, some puerile and inconsistent incident, that was
yet irresistible and became the means of salvation.
310
Luck
of the circumstance that, but for the dis-
aster ahead, would have rendered their
departure imperative, and that their place
will be taken by twenty or thirty others
in whom the voice of Chance does not
speak with a similar power. Here we
touch the profoundest depths of the pro-
foundest of human enigmas; and the
hypothesis necessarily falters. But is it
not more reasonable, in the fictitious case
before us — wherein we merely thrust
into prominence what is of constant occur-
rence in the more obscure conjunctures of
daily life — to regard both decision and
action as emanating from our unconscious-
ness, rather than from doubtful, and dis-
tant, gods ? Our unconsciousness is aware
of the catastrophe, — it must be; our un-
consciousness sees it ; for it knows neither
time nor space, and the disaster is therefore
happening as actually before its eyes as
before the eyes of the eternal powers,
i
311
The Buried Temple
The mode of prescience matters but little.
Out of the fifty travellers who have been
warned, two or three will have had a real
presentiment of the danger; these will be
the ones in whom unconsciousness is free
and untrammelled, and therefore more
readily able to attain the first, and still
obscure, layers of intellect. The others
suspect nothing: they inveigh against the
inexplicable obstacles and delays; they
strain every nerve to arrive in time; but
their departure becomes impossible. They
fall ill, take a wrong road, change their
plans, meet with some insignificant adven-
ture, have a quarrel, a love-affair, a mo-
ment of idleness or forgetfulness, which
detains them in spite of themselves. To
the others it will never have even occurred
to sail on the ill-starred boat, although
this be the one they should logically, in-
evitably, have been compelled to choose.
But the efforts that their unconsciousness
312
Luck
has put forth to save them have their
workings so deep down that most of these
men will have no idea that they owe their
life to a fortunate chance; and they will
honestly believe that they never intended
to sail by the ship that the powers of the
sea had claimed.
[ 12 ]
As for those who punctually make
their appearance at the fatal tryst, they
belong to the tribe of the unlucky. They
are the more unfortunate race of our race.
When the rest all fly, they alone remain
in their places. When others retreat,
they advance boldly. They infallibly
travel by the train that shall leave the
rails, they pass underneath the tower at
the exact moment of its collapse, they
enter the house in which the fire is
smouldering, cross the forest on which
lightning shall fall, intrust all they have
11
313
The Buried Temple
to the banker who means to abscond.
They love the one woman on earth whom
they should have avoided, they make the
gesture they should not have made, they
do the thing they should not have done.
But when fortune beckons and the others
are hastening, urged by the deep voice of
benevolent powers, they pass by, not
hearing; and, vouchsafed no advice or
warning but that of their intellect, the
very wise old guide whose purblind eyes
see only the tiny paths at the foot of the
mountain, they go astray in a world that
human reason has not yet understood.
These men have surely the right to ex-
claim against destiny; and yet not on the
grounds that they would prefer. They
have the right to ask why it has withheld
from them the watchful guard who warns
their brethren. But this reproach once
made — and it is the cardinal reproach
against irreducible injustice --- they have
314
Luck
no further cause of complaint. The uni-
verse is not hostile to them. Calamities
do not pursue them; it is they who go
towards calamity. Things from without
wish them no ill; the mischief comes from
themselves. The misfortune they meet
has not been lying in wait for them; they
selected it for their own. With them, as
with all men, events are posted along the
course of their years, like goods in a bazaar,
that stand ready for the customer who
shall buy them. No one deceives them;
they merely deceive themselves. They
are in no wise persecuted; but their un-
conscious soul fails to perform its duty.
Is it less adroit than the others; is it
less eager? Does it slumber hopelessly
in the depths of its secular prison, and
can no amount of will power arouse
it from its fatal lethargy, and force the
redoubtable doors that lead from the
life that unconsciously is aware of all
315
The Buried Temple
things to the intelligent life that knows
nothing?
[13]
A friend in whose presence I was dis-
cussing these matters said to me yester-
day : “ Life, whose questions are more
searching than those of the philosophers,
will this very day compel me to add a
somewhat curious problem to those you
have stated. I am wondering what the
result will be when two lucks' — in
other words, two unconsciousnesses, of
which one is adroit and fortunate, the
other inept and bungling — meet and in
some measure blend in the same venture,
the same undertaking? Which will
triumph over the other? I soon shall
know. This afternoon I propose to take
a step that will be of supreme importance
to the person I value above all others
in this world. Her entire future may
316
Luck
almost be said to depend upon it, her
exterior happiness, the possibility of her
living in accordance with her nature and
her rights. Now to me chance has al-
ways been a faithful and far-seeing friend,
and as I glance over my past and review
the five or six decisive moments which, as
with all men, were the golden pivots on
which fortune turned, I am induced to
believe in my star, and am morally certain
that if I alone were concerned in the step
I am taking to-day, it would be bound
to succeed, because I am “lucky. But
the person in whose behalf I am acting
has never been fortunate. Her intellect
is remarkably subtle and profound, her
will is a thousand times stronger and
more balanced than my own; but, with
all this, one can only believe that she
possesses a foolish or malignant uncon-
sciousness, which has persistently, ruth-
lessly, exposed her to act after act of
317
The Buried Temple
injustice, dishonesty, and treachery, and
has robbed her again and again of her
due, and compelled her to travel the path
of disastrous coincidence. Be sure that
it would have forced her to embark on
the ship that you speak of. I ask my-
self, therefore, what attitude will my vigi-
lant, thoughtful unconsciousness adopt
towards this indolent and sinning brother,
in whose name it will have to act, whose
place as it were it will take?
“How and where is the momentous
decision being at this moment arrived at,
in search of which I shall so soon set
forth? What power is it that now, at
this very moment, while I am speaking
to you, balances the pros and cons, and
decrees the happiness or sorrow of the
woman I represent? From which sphere,
or perhaps immemorial virtue, from what
hidden spirit or invisible star, will the
weight descend that shall incline the scale
1
318
Luck
1
Y
to light or to darkness ? Outward ap-
pearances tell us that decision rests with
the will, the reason, the interest of the
parties engaged; in reality it often is
otherwise. When one finds oneself thus
face to face with the problem which
directly affects a person we love, it no
longer appears quite so simple; our eyes
open wider, and we throw a startled, anx-
ious, in a sense almost a virgin glance
upon all this unknown that leads us, and
that we are compelled to obey.
"I take this step therefore with more
emotion, I put forth more zeal and vigour,
than if it were my own life, my own
happiness, that stood in peril. She for
whom I am acting is indeed more I than
I am myself,' and for a long time past her
happiness has been the source of mine.
Of this both my heart and my reason are
fully aware, but does my unconsciousness
know? My reason and heart that form
319
The Buried Temple
my consciousness, are barely thirty years
old; my unconscious soul, that is still
reminiscent of primitive secrets, may well
date centuries back. Its evolution is very
deliberate. It is as slow in its movements
as a world that turns in time without end.
It will probably therefore not yet have
learned that a second existence has linked
itself to mine, and completely absorbed it.
How many years must elapse before the
great news shall penetrate to its retreat?
Here again we note its diversity, its in-
equality. In one man, perhaps, uncon-
sciousness will immediately recognise what
is taking place in his heart; in another, it
will very tardily lend itself to the phe-
nomena of reason. There is a love, again,
such as that of the mother for her child,
in which it moves in advance of both
heart and reason. Only after a very long
time does the unconscious soul of a
mother separate itself from that of her
ne
con-
320
Luck
cerns
children ; it watches over these at first
with far more zeal and solicitude than
over the mother. But, in a love like
mine, who shall say whether my uncon-
sciousness has gathered that this love is
more essential to me than my life? I
myself believe that it is satisfied that the
step I propose to take in no wise con-
cerns me. It will not appear; it will not
intervene. At the very moment when I
shall be feverishly displaying all the
energy I possess, when I shall be striving
for victory more keenly than were my
salvation at stake, it will be tending its
own mysterious affairs deep down in its
shadowy dwelling. Were I seeking
justice for myself, it would already be on
the alert. It would know, perhaps, that
I had better do nothing to-day. I should
probably not have the slightest idea of its
intervention ; but it would raise some un-
foreseen obstacle. I should fall ill; catch
were
OW
Se some
in-
21
321
The Buried Temple
sence
a bad cold, be prevented by some second-
ary event from arriving at the unpropi-
tious hour. Then, when I was actually in
the presence of the man who held my
destiny in his hands, my vigilant friend
would spread its wings over me, its breath
would inspire me, its light would dispel
my darkness. It would dictate to me the
words that I must say; they would be
the only words that could meet the secret
objections of the master of my Fate. It
would regulate my attitude, my silence,
my gestures ; it would endow me with
confidence, the nameless influence, which
often will govern the decisions of men far
more than the reasons of reason or the
eloquence of interest. But here I am
solely afraid that my unconsciousness will
do none of these things. It will remain
perfectly passive. It will not appear on
the familiar threshold. In its obtuseness,
impervious to the fact that my life has
mor
322
Luck
ceased to be self-contained, it will act
in accordance with its ancient traditions,
with those that have ruled it these hun-
dreds of years; it will persist in regarding
this matter as one that does not concern
me, and will believe that in helping my
failure it will be doing me service; where-
as in truth it will afflict me more griev-
ously, cause me more sorrow, than if it
were to betray me at the approach of
death. I shall be importing therefore,
into this affair, only the palest reflection,
a kind of phantom, of my own luck; and
I ask myself with dread whether this will
suffice to counterbalance the contrary
fortune which I have, as it were, assumed,
and which I represent.” .
11
[ 14 ]
Some days later my friend informed me
that his action had been unsuccessful. It
may be that this reverse was only due to
323
The Buried Temple
chance or to his own want of confidence.
For the confidence which sees success
ahead pursues it with a pertinacity and re-
source of which hesitation and doubt are
incapable : nor is it troubled by any of
those involuntary weaknesses which give
so great an advantage to the adversary's
instinct. And there may probably be
much truth also in his manner of depict-
ing unconsciousness. For truly there are
depths in us at which unconsciousness and
confidence would seem to blend; and it
becomes difficult to say where the first
begins, or the second leaves off.
We will not pursue this too subtle in-
quiry, but rather consider the other, and
more direct, questions that life is ever
putting to us concerning one of its great-
est problems - chance. This possesses
what may be called a daily interest. It
asks us, for instance, what attitude we
should adopt towards men who are incon-
324
Luck
testably unlucky; men whose evil star has
such pernicious power that it infallibly
brings disaster to whatever comes within
the range — often a very wide one — of
its baneful influence. Ought we unhesi-
tatingly to fly from such men, as Dr.
Foissac advises? Yes, doubtless, if their
misfortunes arise from an imprudent and
unduly hazardous spirit, a heedless, quar-
relsome, mischief-making, Utopian, or
clouded mind. Ill-luck is a contagious
disease; and one unconsciousness will
often infect another. But if the misfor-
tunes be wholly unmerited or fall upon
those who are dear to us, flight were un-
just and shameful. In such a case the con-
scious side of our being — which though
it know but little, is yet able to fashion
truths of a different order, truths that
might almost be the first flowers of a
dawning world - is bound to resist the uni-
versal wisdom of unconsciousness, bound
325
The Buried Temple
to brave its warnings and involve it in its
own ruin, that may well be a victory upon
an ideal plane which some day perhaps
shall appeal to the unconsciousness also.
We ask ourselves, also, whether uncon-
sciousness, which we regard as the source
of our luck, is really incapable of change
or improvement. Have we not all of us
noticed how strange are the ways of chance?
When we behold it active in a small town,
or among a certain number of men within
the range of our own observation, the
goddess would seem to become as per-
sistent as a gadily, and no less fantastic.
Her marked personality and character will
vary in accordance with the event or the
being whereon she may fasten. She has
all kinds of eccentricities, but pursues each
one logically to the finish. Her first
gesture will tell us nothing; from her
second we can predict all that she means
to do. Protean divinity that no image
ace
326
Luck
Mia
Пcet
IS
could completely describe, here she leaps
suddenly forth like a fountain in the
midst of a desert, to disappear after hav-
ing given birth to an ephemeral oasis ;
there she returns at regular intervals, col-
lecting and scattering, like migratory birds
that obey the rhythm of the seasons. On
our right she fells a man and concerns
herself with him no further; on our left
she bears down another, and furiously
worries her victim. But though she bring
favour or ruin, she will almost always re-
main astoundingly faithful to the character
she has once and for all assumed, in every
particular case. This man, for instance,
who has been unsuccessful in war, will
continue to be unsuccessful; the other
will invariably win or lose at the cards ;
a third will infallibly be deceived ; a fourth
will find water, fire, or the dangers of the
street, especially hostile ; a fifth will be
constantly fortunate or unfortunate in
327
The Buried Temple
love, money matters, etc., and so to the
end. All this may prove nothing, but we
may regard it at least as some indication
that her realm is truly within us, and not
without; and that a hidden force that em-
anates only from us provides her with form
and with vestment.
Her habits at times will suddenly alter
one eccentricity producing another; some
brusque change of front will give the lie
to her character, to confirm it the instant
after in a new atmosphere. We say then
that “luck turns.” May it not rather be
our unconsciousness that is gradually de-
veloping, at last displaying some pru-
dence, attention, and slowly becoming
aware that important events are stirring in
the world to which it is attached? Has
it gained some experience ? Has a ray of
intelligence, a spark of will-power, filtered
through to its lair and hinted at danger?
Does it learn, after years have flown, and
328
Luck
trial after trial has had to be borne, the
wisdom of casting aside its confident
apathy? Can external disaster arouse it
from perilous slumber? Or, if it always
has known what was happening over the
roof of its prison, is it able, after long and
painful effort, at last, at the critical mo-
ment, to contrive some kind of crevice in
the great wall, built by the indifference of
centuries, that separates it from its un-
known sisters; and does it thus succeed in
entering the ephemeral life on which a
part of its own life depends ?
OW
00
[15]
But we must admit that this hypothesis
of unconsciousness will not suffice to ac-
count for all the injustice of chance. Its
three most iniquitous acts are the three
disasters -- the most terrible of all to which
man is exposed — that habitually strike
him before birth; I refer to absolute
329
The Buried Temple
poverty, disease (especially in the shock-
ing forms of physiological degradation
and incurable infirmities, of repulsive.ugli-
ness and deformity), and intellectual weak-
ness. These are the three great priestesses
of unrighteousness that lie in wait for in-
nocence and brand it on the threshold of
life. And yet, mysterious as their method
of choice may appear, the triple source
whence they derive these three irremedi-
able scourges is less mysterious than one
is inclined to believe. We need not look
for it in a pre-established will, in fatal,
hostile, eternal, impenetrable laws. Pov-
erty has its origin in man's own province ;
and though we may marvel why one
should be rich, and the other poor, we
are well aware that the existence, side by
side, of excessive wealth and excessive
misery, is due to human injustice alone.
In this wickedness neither gods nor stars
have part. And as for disease and mental
ma
ne
ara
wa
NT
It
330
Luck
weakness, when we shall have eliminated
from them what now is due to poverty,
mother of most of our mortal and physical
sorrows, as well as to the anterior, and by
no means, inevitable, faults of the parents,
then, though some measure of persistent,
and unaccountable, injustice may still re-
main, this relic of mystery will very nigh
go into the hollow of the philosopher's
hand, and there he shall, later, examine it
at his leisure. But we of to-day shall be
wise in refusing to allow our life to be
unnecessarily darkened, or hedged round
with imaginary maledictions and foes.
As far as ordinary luck is concerned, we
shall do well to believe, for the moment
that the history of our fortune (which is not
necessarily the history of our real happiness,
since this may be wholly independent of
luck) is the history of our unconscious being.
There are more elements of probability in
such a creed than in the assumption that
V
331
The Buried Temple
the stars, eternity, or the spirit of the
universe, are taking part in our pretty
adventures ; and it gives more spur to our
courage. And this idea, even though it
may possibly be as difficult to alter the
character of our unconsciousness as to
modify the course of Mars or of Venus -
still seems less distant and less chimerical
than the other; and when we have to choose
between two probabilities it is our imper-
ative duty to select the one that presents
the least obstacles to our hopes. Further,
should misfortune be indeed inevitable,
there would be I know not what proud
consolation in being able to tell ourselves
that it issues solely from us, and that we
are not the victims of a malign will or the
toys and playthings of useless chance;
that in suffering more than our brothers
we are perhaps only recording, in time and
space, the necessary form of our own per-
sonality. And so long as calamity does
332
Luck
not attack the intimate pride of man, he
retains the force to continue the struggle
and accomplish his essential mission;
which is to live with all the ardour where-
of he is capable, and as though his life
were of greater consequence than any
other to the destinies of mankind.
This idea is also more conformable to
the vast law which restores to us, one by
one, the gods wherewith we had filled the
world. Of these gods the greater number
were merely the effect of causes that re-
posed in ourselves. As we progress we
shall discover that many a force that
mastered us and aroused our wonder was
only an ill-understood fragment of our
own power; and this will probably become
more apparent every day.
And though we shall not have con-
quered the unknown force by bringing it
nearer or enclosing it within us, there yet
shall be gain in knowing where it abides
333
: The Buried Temple
cerns U
a
and where we may question it. Obscure
forces surround us; but the one that con-
cerns us most nearly lies at the very centre
of our being. All the others pass through
it: it is their trysting-place: they re-enter
and congregate there : and only in the de-
gree of their relation to it have they
interest for us.
To distinguish this force from the host
of others we have called it unconscious-
ness. And when we shall have succeeded
in studying this unconsciousness more
closely, when its mysterious adroitness, its
antipathies and preferences, its helpless-
ness, shall be better known to us, we shall
have most strangely blunted the teeth
and nails of the monster who persecutes
us under the name of Fortune, Destiny,
or Chance. At the present hour we are
feeding it still as a blind man might feed
the lion that at the last shall devour him.
Soon perhaps the lion will be seen by us
1
334
Luck
rn
unwea
in its true light, and we shall then learn
how to subdue him.
Let us therefore unweariedly follow
each path that leads from our conscious-
ness to our unconsciousness. We shall
thus succeed in hewing some kind of track
through the great and as yet impassable
roads that lead from the seen to the un-
seen, from man to God, from the individ-
ual to the universe. At the end of these
roads lies hidden the general secret of life.
In the meanwhile let us adopt the hypoth-
esis that offers the most encouragement to
our existence in this life which has need
of us for the solution of its own enigmas;
for we are those in whom its secrets crys-
tallise most limpidly and most rapidly.
OCT
I 1915
335
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
IN
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ماه
دلاو
": ",۰۰۰۰
م . میوه
منارة -
و هم
تن
است
وبتجننكنه
هه یه هو
مع مفعمة
وط
: نمونه
ده
یعنی
ش
ت
به
مع میمه
:
:
:
. . ه \1
مسد. م
عین
نم
!ختم
می شهید بنا
و
-
مر
ماه
نخسته
الهم صدد هست
بین
.
م منون
:
وب
ده .
،
ود
: الجمعة والعصا
الممتدهند
تجده
. ، 1
:: رزومه و منتش
:معه
= به من
مینی
به مو
.
او
:
و
مخنی
د
نجمة
و مخم
تعمیچشم
منشد سبب همه
دان
نامحدودة
سخن م
م ا مید
نه منها
,
"
اما
ن
ه
نه
دونة لاهی
انطل
. ما
:
.
'
: منتشملت ممنون
م ه ا ا ا ت كون ي
ة
هههههههه - من صحنه تیه ك
نهاد مهمة من مهند
ود مستندم -
دانشنامه به دست میدهند .4
:
'
مجسمهملم
مد ممه بکمناهل
نه منه خمسة متمد
تنها
موسم سته یه سکم -تامممممممممممممممممه ما سدد
ا ور
!
به معناشيونانيانتنشنا
!!!
محمد وسیم
م دونده
مهيمن
1:11
م امہ ، نقشه ت مه بنده ها. تمه نه تشنه تمدید قسم المنال
حمومنطلون سادة مع معه أمانة مممننهنهثم هنشتغله ای
عدد منم میشه فهما. . و مهم
ا نته ..
برا
یزد
مختلف اسماعيلي طعمهصهمطمطمنمدحه تا همه.
هماننا افتد
راج
و
:
متد
جةند
منتخب همه مسطنطنطن
ساوه منم
سمیراحمد
با
پا به
سعید طی یه مشهد
تعین نسخه نسلهام خیالت
منسنستعلیم مشت ملاسسه خیر سستا
معلمه و مهم لستتعشميل
معه، و من بعد ما سهم
:عباد -
د تا
=
=
=
دی ماه مهمی ن مک نمیشم مستند اسمه معه امه نسخه
ق
.
بالدعات التعنت العباسيجا
مهره ماه
من مدينجتهد
+ ++ 4 دهه او
"
بسمتي
لین
جعلنننم
t
"
:
3
.
-
و
یه و
!!
می بند
به تمام , عطسه
ليم
":
تماس
گانا '
: و م وه
. .
مبيعات
له هه
هم - .
سهند آمد من برن
ا
مه مدرسه نمهنمننا
: همه تو
هل السمش
سینما سمعت
وم ، هذه ليعي
ام غنيت
د پسته:
مدينة
م ده مع
مند طوطول مضمحسن
با
را
انواع مدل های
مصعصبی
و نباید به مواد هم معهننسیمت سهام " من یه مدت
و
م ستسمله ترکیه محسن ممحينما
مهم
تعداد اس مله
.مهشمم من
- دوم
ومنهم
مصير محمد متولد:"r
کرده وه هه مان تند مصبی و مسمنه
کرا
لین
ته
توصیه می .:
مسله مه "کیه
با
ار
*
ما
ا
ممممممممم
::
امه
ج ان
محمدجعفيفي - ميت
ی
T
منتشر نشر
د لا
؟
"
. "
ما به
ج وما
می شوند
فاجعه به
معنلاند
کس نما
قوشمه
هه م و م . م
همه می دهند
.دیدم
تنه
م ن
ا بضد عنا سمعنه نامه و ممه ب بهانه ها ۰۰۰
"من
نمط حسنهسههنعمه يوم ، هه هه . ته معه ...
مهند من
مد
نسابحازم
، مع
=
=
با موم نمی
مادا
.
منفرد
ه
ا ا
ه ارد
اعتم اد بهه .
کا شیخ بخشایش
بعد
همومك، المهمه ممنم
ان تمام
عنها
ه مغهند
نمیده نه
مستند منتقلیه دانج
پیدا
مهم
من تیمش دسته مهم که ن ،
المست
مشمشه مع مستضن
معين
سيد عقد دونتنا
باشه
ممن
.
همه و هماهشمام نماید. و
او مهم
نه
ادمن
E+
لو لم لنعومة
برم
نمیدم
اه
.
فيصلية
متلانا
الادمندی
الصنم
مه
نعمة
مهد مه کلمه
ه
*
ا
، سعه
"
ا ما
لق
تجاه " "
مع ولد *
به
...
... به مه به
ستاره ها -
توجه : با
تے
همه
اند
و
جنيه
بود و
مد
: امام
.
، دمه
ق
: به
ا
ماه
ك لامه و
تليها
..
امت
کر
)
و
ا ین
.
.
؟
-
سیمه د . همه این فیلمهایی که
و په
تاس
:مميم
ح تی
"به , ۲۹ مه های بهداشت
:
ا
م
ج
:
{}
زد
" ه ه ه ه ه ه ه ه
ه
ه
ه ه
ه
ا ا
:1
مهمه
، رم
همن ماه
توجه به همراه با بیما
ر
ی ها،
به ""
معن ی اسم شاه مس ،
میز مدیون ایک عدد
منهما منهم
{
=
الوقت
=
ته وه فهر
میرا
معمار نویسی امام ... ب
ل ..
می که باید
در دو دانت لي
=
ه
م
د بجادیه ، ۰۰ ،
1}
د
ظلمت
م
الاء
و
و يردد "
شد. او به
یا
، ناها
مهم
:ق
ا . من
م اهه دونه د ملی ملی - را
داد به انبه و محمد اما توسعه همه نوء سمعة مص بيطيرن
تا ته مه عمعمعمعهما
.. مدهای عمده همه لتتذمنم دنيا مه . ه مه ماده که مهمنفصلة
هه مه دادم. تمامه منه محصه به ، بطن.. ده مه يه مدته هنا
(: .
انت
سحر
ومن
متن تولدم "
-مشهد .
سمسمة لاه
م
:
.
I
طن
دینا
د ید
ویسم نتخبانان
*
ابجد " علاجسهم مهم هستند که سکینه
قیمت
14
ة
امممم دمجهمهمهمهمه هجم
ه ههههههه
مر
میاد به مقا مه می یاد تهیه و یا به دلیل نداشتند
14 !!
، ۱۰
لا هم
مهم
متولدین این
ماه
:
د.
ع
منه
ا ما يهمه و همه مهمه ده . د
, میم مو با ما
بندی ها
-
دهند
يمنجمند امن
ما
رحم
قصدهم عنده
من
همه جرمها، وبورد ماهه
که کسی که همهضتمدنعمصة مة
حجم ممهننضممال
شده الاسمر معه
هم که یادته عن العملات
حضنمنن
مهمشة
دان
به هموطه
میانمار
نم
جماعي
است
ته لمطبخFr
هست
:
ب
الي
دبی
انت معهم نعمت
.
شود
ليغم لهم ؟
الطمع
مردم
تهوونه
امی
ان
محهممهمماست
"
شنل
و موهه =
.
4
2
د
الله
فاطمه جعفر
ونصحهممهه مه جده مكه م
ماه
مد و ن عت، معدن و
:
، بعد
د موسي
لاه
:
اپیدمحمد
i
الد
سية
ها م خالفان تابه "
توسط
سکس
مندحتمیسمسمعوهن نه مه سهند
ه
پس بمن داده شدند
م
ه می دانم
ز دنللههمسهمسك

اعمال
:
کد
همه
هست
عطر
و
کند. ما هم
شبه
جامعه مد
به
ٹ... غمگه
نس
فقد
م مممممممممممم
هو
معلمه.
مصلود
مو به مجمع
عند
م عمای صفحه مه د
t
اد
س امة مشيت لعندهید با تیم هم د ده
معین مد نصنععععمده
د ا لله، له و دمعه حکم داد همه تعهد - ما ** ! نه منع سحب
: باباعمل دنا ن عمممم مم مد ، ... مه دهد به :۰۰ : " ... هم
=
=
ت
عینه
کعبه
- قصد سمع خفض معد صد
حمید