Underground Man (Classics of Science Fiction)

SO~IOLOGIS

‘•

•

- -

ONEN

BII3LIO -~ ~ 114 21 00 LUND

UNDERGROUND MAN BY

GABRIEL TARDE (z843.zgo.4 I~KKDKR OP TH~ INSTITUTE PROFESP.OR AT THE COLLEGE OP FRANCE

TRANSLATED BY

CLOUDESLEY BRERETON M.A., L. ~s L

WITH A PREFACK

By H. G. WELLS

Social- och beteendevetenskapliga biblioteket ~%~..j.unds universitet

HYPERION

PRESS, INC.

WESTPORT, CONNECTICUT

(~O~)

VN-~i

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Tarde, Gabriel de, l81~3-l90~~. Underground man. Reprint of the 1905 ed. published by Duckworth, London. Translation of Fra~nent d’histoire future. 1. Utopis.s. 1. Title. mcBn l905.T22 321’ .07 73-13268 ISBN 0-88355-122-5 ISBN 0-88355-151-9 (pbk.)

The whole of Tarde is in this little book. He has put into it along with a charming fancy his genialness and depth of spirit, his ideas on the influence of art and the importance of Ibve, in an exceptional social milieu. This agreeable day-dream is vigorously thought out. On reading it we fancy we are again seeing and hearing Tarde. In order to indulge in a repetition of the illusion, a pious friendship has desired to clothe this fascinating work in an appropriate dress. A. L.

Published in 1905 by Duckworth & Co., London. Hyperion reprint edition 1974 Library of Congress Catalogue Number 73-13268

ISEN 0-88355-122-5 (cloth ed.) ISBN 0-88355-IS 1-9 (paper ed.) Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS PAG~

DEDICATION PREFACE.

v

By H. G. WELLS

INTRODTJCTORY

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.

1

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

23

.

.

.

.

50

III. THE STRUGGLE

.

.

.

.

63

IV. SAVEDI

.

.

.

.

V. REGENERATION

.

.

1. PROSPERITY

.

II. THE CATASTROPHE

VI. LOVE

.

.

VII. THE 4€STHETIC LIFE NOTE ON TARDE.

.

.

.

.

By JOSEPH MANCHON

95 .

rio

.

144

.

z6i 195

INTRODUCTORY IT was towards the end of the twentieth

century of the prehistoric era, formerly called the Christian, that took place, as is weil known, the unexpected catastrophe with which the present epoch began, that fortunate disaster which compelled the overflowing flood of civilisation to dis appear for the benefit of mankind. 1 have

briefly

to

relate

this

universal

cataclysm and the unhoped-for redemp tion so rapidly effected

within

a

few

centuries of heroic and triumphant efforts. Of course, 1 shail pass over in silence the particular detalls which are known to everybody, and shall merely confine myseif

22

INTRODUCTORY

to the general outlines of the story

But

first of all it may be as weil to recall in a few words the degree of relative pro 1

gress already attained by mankind, while still living above ground and on the surface

PROSPERITY

of the earth, on the eve of this momentous THE

event.

zenith of human ~prosperity seemed

to have been reached in the superficial and frivolous sense of the word.

For the last

fifty years, the final ~sta’blishment of the g~ea~ Asiatic American E uröpean con -

-

federacy, and its indispt~table supremacy .

over *hat was still left, h~re and there, in Oceania and central Afrida of barbarous tribes incapable of assimilation, had ..habit u~ated all the nations, ~now cornferted into provinées, to the delights of universal and 1

h~en~eforth

inviolable

reqiiired not less than

peäce. i 5o

It

had

years of war

fare to arrive at this wonderful result. ‘3

UNDERGROUND MAN

24

But all True,

these there

horrors

many

rule, the nations, after this gigantic blood letting, did not experience the lethargy

battles between armies of three and four million men, between trams with armour

that follows from exhaustion, but the calm that the accession of strength produces.

clad carriages, flung, at full speed, against

The expianation is easy.

one another; and opening fire on every side; engagements between sqiiadrons of

hundred years the military selection com

sub-marines whi~h blew one ancfther up

of the past and made it a practice to

with electric discharges; between. fleets of

pick out carefully the strongest and best

iron-clad balloons, harpooned and ripRed

made among the young men, in order to

up by a~rial torpedoes, hurled headlong

exempt them from the burden of military

from

of

service which had become purely mechani

parachutes which violently opened and

cal, and to send to the depöt all the

enveloped each

weaklings who were good enough to fulfil

clouds,

been

forgotten.

25

terrific

the

had

were

PROSPERITY

with

other

in

thousands a

s’torm

of

For about a

mittees had broken with the blind routine

grape-shot as they fell together to earth.

the

Yet of all this warlike mania there only

soldier and even of the non-commissioned

remained a vague poetic remembrance.

officer.

Forgetfulness is the beginning of happi

gent selection; and the historian cannot

ness, as fear is the beginning of wisdom.

conscientiously refuse gratefully to praise

As a solitary exception to the general

this innovation, thanks to which the in-

sorely diminished functions of the That was really a piece of intelli

PROSPERITY

UNDERGROUND MAN

26

comparable beauty of the human to-day has been gradually developed.

was,

race

monster

formerly

In

publican.

Ever since that epoch we have ridiculous

or

27

an

honest

fact, when we now look through the glass

dropped the

employment

of

cases of our museums of antiquities at those singular collections of caricatures which

those inquiries about health with which the conversations of our ancestors were needlessly interlarded, such as “How are

our ancestors used to call their photographic albums, we can confirm the vastness of

you?” or “How do you do?”

the progress thus accomplished, if it is

sightedness alone continued its lamentable

really true that we are actually descended from these dwarfs and scare-crows, as an

progress, being stimulated by the extra ordinary spread of journalism. There was

otherwise trustworthy tradition attests.

not a woman or a child, who did not wear

From this epoch dates the discovery

a~ince-nez.

Short

This drawback, which besides

of the last microbes, which had not yet

was only momentary, was largely com

been

Once the cause of every disease

pensated for by the progress it caused in the optician’s art.

was known, the remedy was not long in

Alongside of the political unity which did

becoming known as weil, and from that

away with the enmities of nations, there

moment,

rheumatic

appeared a linguistic unity which rapidly

patient, or an invalid of any kind became

blotted out the last differences between

as rare a phenomenon as a double-headed

them.

analysed

school.

a

by

the

consumptive

neo- Pasteurian

or

Already since the twentieth century

28

UNDERGROUND MAN

PROSPERITY

29

the need of a single common language,

thenes.

similar to Latin in the Middie Ages, had

villages in the hollows of the mountains

become sufficiently

the

still persisted, in spite of the protests of

learned throughout the whole world to

their schoolmasters, to mangle the old

induce them to make use of an inter

dialect formerly called French, German,

national idiom in all their writings.

At

or Italian, but the sound of this gibberish

the end of a long struggle for supremacy

in the towns would have raised a hearty

with English and Spanish, Greek finally established its claims, after the break-up

laugh. All contemporary documents agree in

of the British Empire and the recapture

bearing witness to the rapidity, the depth,

of Constantinople by the Gr~eco-Russian

and the universality of the change which

Empire.

Gradually, or rather with the

took place in the customs, ideas, and

rapidity characteristic of all modern pro

needs, and in all the forms of social life,

gress, its usage descended from strata to

thus reduced to a common level from one

strata till it reached the lowest layers of

pole to the other, as a result of this

society, and from

unification of language.

intense

the

among

middie

of the

Here and there a few isolated

It seemed as if

twenty-second century there was not a

the course of civilisation had been hitherto

little child between the Loire and the River Amour who could not express itseif

confined within high banks and that now, when for the first time all the banks had

with ease in the language of Demos

burst, it readily spread over the whole

30

UNDERGROUND MAN

globe.

PROSPERITY

It was no longer mililons but

thousands

öf

millions

that

the

least

newly discovered improvement in~ industry brought in to its inventor; for henceforth there was no barrier to stop in its starlike radiation the expansion of any idea, no matter where it originated.

For the same

3!

very titles of what they were pleased to call their classical masterpieces, even to the barbarous names of Shakespeare, Goethe, and Hugo, who are now for gotten, and whose rugged verses are deciphered with such difficulty by our scholars. To plagiarise these folks whom

reason it was no longer by hundreds but

hardly

anyone

could

henceforth

by thousands, that were reckoned

was to render

them

service,

the

read,

nay,

to

editions of any book, which appealed but moderately to ~he public taste, or the per

pay them too much honour.

formance of a play whi~h was ever so

the success of these audacious imitations

little

which were offered as original

applauded.

The

rivalry

between

One did

not fail to do so; and prodigious was works.

authors had therefore risen to its fullest

The material thus to tum

diapason.

was abundant, and indeed inexhaustible.

Their fancy, moreover, could

find full scope, for the first effect of this

to account

Unfortunately for the young

writers

deluge of universaliséd neo-Hellenism had

the ancient poets who had been dead for

been to overwhelm for ev& all the pre tended literatures of our rude ancestors. They became unintelligible, even to the

centuries, Homer, Sophocles,

Euripides,

had returned to life, a hundred times more hale and hearty than at the time

UNDERGROUND MAN

PROSPERITY

of Pericies himseif; and this unexpected

tence of hiding away and keeping out of sight in order to induce the hearer to

32

competition proved a singular thorn in the side of the new-comers. It was in fact in vain that original geniuses pro duced on the stage such sensational novelties as Alhalias, Hernanias, Mac 6e/h~s; the public often turned its back on them to rush off to performances of

Oedzz5us

Rex

Aristophanes).

or

the

Birds

(of

And Nanais, though a

vigorous sketch of a novelist of the new school, was a complete failure owing to the frenzied success of a popular edition of the Odyssey.

The ears of the people

were saturated with Alexandrines classical, romantic, and the rest. by

the

childish

They were bored

tricks of c~sura and

rhyme which sometimes attempted a see saw effect by producing now a poor and now a full rhyme, or again made a pre

33

hunt it out. The spiendid, untrammelled, and exuberant hexameters of Homer, the stanzas of Sappho, the iambics of Sophocles, furnished them with unspeakable pleasure, which did the greatest harm to the music of a certain Wagner.

Music in general

fell to the secondary position to which it really belongs in the hierarchy of the fine arts. To make up for it, in the midst of this scholarly renaissance of the human spirit, there arose an occasion for an un expected literary outburst which allowed poetry to regain its legitimate rank, that is to say, the foremost. In fact it never fails

to

flower

again

when

language

takes a new lease of life, and all the more so when the latter undergoes a complete metamorphosis, and the pleasure

34

PROSPERITY

UNDERGROUND MAN

anses of expressing

anew the

eternal

truisms.

nature had long rendered superfluous every kind of domestic servant and the greater

It was not merely a simple means of diversion for the cultured.

35

number of artisans.

The voluntary work-

The masses

men, who still existed, spent hardy three

took their share in it with enthusiasm. Certainly they now had leisure to read and

hours a day in the international factories, magnificent co-operative workshops, in

appreciate the masterpieces of art.

The

which the productivity of human energy,

transmission of force at a distance by

multiplied tenfold, and even a hundred

electricity, and its enlistment under a thou

fold, surpassed the expectations of their

sand forms, for instance, in that of cylinders

founders.

of compressed air, which could be easily

This does not mean that the social pro

carried from place to place, had reduced

blem had been thereby solved.

manual labour to a mere nothing.

The

of want, it is true, there were no longer

waterfalls, the winds and the tides had be-

any quarrels; wealth or a competence had

come the slaves of man, as steam had once

become the lot of every man, with the result

been in the remote ages and in an infinitely

that hardly anyone henceforth set any store

less degree. Intelligently distributed and turned to account by means of improved

by them.

machines, as simple as they were ingenious,

or jealousy, owing to the abundance of

this enormous energy freely furnished by

pretty women and handsome men who

In default

In default of ugliness, also, love

was scarcely an object of either appreciation

36

UNDERGROUND MAN

PROSPERITY

37

were as common as blackberries and not difficult to please, in appearance at least.

a vast democratic republic.

Thus expelled from its two former principal

up a new throne, the highest, the mightiest,

paths, human desire rushed with all its

the most glorious that has ever been.

might towards the only field which remained

Besides, inasmuch as the population of the

open to it, the conquest of political power,

Single State was reckoned by thousands of

which grew vaster every day owing to the

millions,

progress of socialistic centralisation.

impracticable and illusory.

Over

Such an im

mense outburst of pride could not fail to set

universal suifrage had become To obviate

flowing ambition, swollen all at once with

the greater inconvenience of deliberative

all the evil passions pouring into it alone, with the covetousness, lust, envious hunger,

assemblies, ten or a hundred times too numerous, it had been found necessary

and hungry envy of preceding ages, reached

so to increase the electoral districts that

at that time an appalling height. It was a struggle as to who should make himseif master of that summum bonum, the State;

each deputy represented at least ten million electors. That is not surprising if one reflects

as to who should make the omnipotence

idea had won acceptance of extending

and omniscience of the Universal State

to women and children the right of votng

minister to the realisation of his personal

exercised in their name, naturally enough,

programme or his humanitarian dreams.

by their father or by their lawful or natural

The result was not, as had been prophesied,

husband.

that it was the first time that the very simple

Incidentally one may note that

UNDERGROUND MAN

PROSPERITY

this salutary and necessary reform, as much

march. But this expectation was, it appears,

in accordance with common sense as with

unrealised.

logic, required alike by the principle of national sovereignty and by the needs of

Whatever may be the truth of this legend, it is certain that, owing to the

social stability, nearly failed to pass, incred

enlargement of the electoral districts, com

ible as it may seem, in the face of a coalition

bined with the suppression of the electoral

of celibate electors.

privileges, the election of a deputy was a

38

Tradition informs us that the bill relating to this

indispensable

extension of the

39

veritable coronation, and ordinarily pro duced in the elect a species of mega

franchise would have been infallibly rejected,

lomania.

if, luckily, the recent election of a multi

was bound to end in a reconstitution of

millionaire suspected of imperialistic ten

monarchy.

dencies had not scared the assembly.

fancied it would injure the popularity of

wore this cosmic crown, following the prophecy of an ancient philosopher, but

this ambitlous pretender by hastening to welcome this proposal in which it only saw

they did not keep it. The popularisation of knowledge through innumerable schools

one thing, that is, that the fathers and

had made science as common an object

husbands, outraged or alarmed by the gallantries of the new C~sar, would be all

as a charming woman or an elegant suite

the stronger for impeding his triumphant

simplified by the thorough way in which

It

of furniture.

This

reconstituted

feudalism

For a moment the learned

It had been extraordinarily

UNDERGROUND MAN

PROSPERITY

it had been worked out, complete as re gards its general outlines, in which no

etricians~ g~niai copies of the Antonines,

change could be expect;d, and its hence

of artists who had d~serted art to wield

forth rigid classification abundantiy gar nished with data. Only advancing at an

the sceptre, as they lately had wielded the bow, the roughing chisel, and the brush.

imperceptible pace, it held, ih short, but

The most famoiis of all, a man possessed

an insigniflcant place in the b~ckground

of an overflowing imagination which was

of the brain, in which it simply repiaced

yet weil under control, and ministered to

the catechism of former days. The buik of intellectual energy was therefore to be

by an unparaileled energy, was an architect who among other gigantic projects formed

found in another direction, as were also

the idea’ of rasing to the ground his capital,

its

the

Constantino~5Ie, in order to rebuild it else

scientiflc bodies, venerable in their an

~where; on the site of ancient Babylon,

tiquity, began, alas! to acquire a slight

which for three thousand years had been

tinge and veneer of ridicule, which raised a smile and recalled the synods of bonzes

a desert—a truly luminous idea. In this incomparable plain of Chaldea watered by

or ecciesiastical conferences, such as are

a second Nile there was another still more

represented in very ancient pictures.

It

beautifui and fertile Egypt awaiting re

is, therefore, not surprising that this flrst

surrection and metamorphosis, an infinite

dynasty of imperial physicists and geom

expanse extending as far as the eye could

40

glory

and

prestige.

Already

41

were promptiy succeeded by a dynasty

42

UNDERGROUND MAN

PROSPERITY

see, to be covered with striking public buildings constructed with magical speed,

43

ashes in the twinkling of an eye.

None

with a teeming and throbbing population,

the less Babylon, the proud city of muddy day, with its paitry spiendours of un

with golden harvests beneath a sky of

baked and painted brick, found itseif re

changeless blue, with an iron net-work of

built in marble and granite, to the utmost

railways radiating from the town of Nebu

confusion

chadnesor to the furthest ends of Europe,

Beishazzars, the Cyruses, and the Alex-

Africa and Asia, and crossing the Hima

anders.

layas, the Caucasus, and the Sahara.

The

arch~ologists made on this occasion the

stored energy, electrically conveyed, of a hundred Abyssinian waterfalls, and of, 1

most priceless discoveries, in the several

do not know, how many cyclones, hardly sufficed to transport from the mountains of Armenia the necessary stone, wood

of

Nabopolassars,

the

It is needless to add that the

successive Assyrian

the

strata,

of

antiquities.

Babylonian The

mania

and for

Assyriology went so far that every scuip tor’s studio, the palaces, and even the King’s armorial bearings were invaded by

and iron for these numerous constructions. One day an excursion train, composed of

winged bulls with human heads, just as

a thousand and

formerly the museums were full of cupids

one carriages, having

passed too close to the electric cable at

or

the moment when tlie current was at its

wings.”

maximum, was destroyed and reduced to

schools were actually printed in cuneiform

cherubims,

“

with

their

cravat-like

Certain school books for primary

44

PROSPERITY

UNDERGROUND MAN

characters

in

order

to

enhance

their

authority over the youthful imagination.

45

that the court balls reproduced by instan taneous cinematography to the tune of

This imperial orgy in bricks and mortar

millions of copies furnished a collection of

having unhappily occasioned the seventh,

the most honest and insignificant faces and

eighth, and ninth bankruptcy of the State

unappetising forms that one could possibly

and several consecutive

inundations of

see; that the candidates recently appointed,

paper-money, the people in general re

after a preliminary despatch of their por

joiced to see after this brilliant reign the

traits,

crown borne by a philosophical financier.

Empire, were pre-eminently distinguished

Order had hardly been re-established in the finances, when he made his preparation

by the commonness of their bearing; in

for applying on a grand scale his ideal of

(the date of which were notified in advance

government, which was of a highly remark One was not long in noticing,

by secret telegrams announcing the arrival of a cycione from America), happened nine

in fact, after his accession, that •all the

times out of ten to take place on a day of

newly chosen ladies of honour, who were

thick fog, or of pelting ram, which trans

otherwise very intelligent but entirely lack

formed them into an immense array of

ing in wit, were chiefly conspicuous for

waterproofs and umbrellas.

their striking ugliness; that the liveries of

legislative proposals, as in his appoint

the court were of a grey and lifeless colour;

ments, the choice of the prince was always

able nature.

to the highest

dignities of the

short, that the races and the public holidays

Alike in his

46

UNDE’RGROUND MAN

PROSPERITY

47

the following: the most useful’ and the best

this eminent monarch.

ämong the most unattractive.

An insuffer

of his reign has been revealed by the

able sameness of colour, a depressing

posthumous publication of his memoirs.

monotony, a sickening insipidity were the

Of these writings with which we can so

distinctive note of’ all the acts of the

iII dispense, we have only left this fragment

government.

People laughed, grew ex

which is weil caiculated to make us regret

cited, waxed indignant, and got used to, it.

the loss of the remainder: “Who is the

The result was that at the end of acertain

true

time it was impossible to meet an office

Comte? No, Menenius Agrippa. This great man understood that government is

seeker or a poiitician, that is to• say, an artist or literary man, Out of his element and in search of the beautiful ln an alien sphere, who did not tum

his back on the

pursuit of a goveinment appointment in

founder

of

The lofty purpose

Sociology?

Auguste

the stomach, not the head of the social organism. Now, the merit of a stomach is to be good and ugly, useful and repulsive to the eye, for if this indispensable organ

And from that moment the fol

were agreeable to look upon, it would be much to be feared that people would

lowing aphorism has won general accept

meddie with it and nature would not have

ance, that the superior.ity of the politician is

taken such care to conceal and defend it.

onl.y mediocrity raised to its highest power.

What sensibie person prides himself on

This is the great’ benefit that we owe to

having a beautiful digestive apparatus, a

order to return to rhyming, sculpture and painting.

48

UNDERGROUND MAN

lovely liver or elegant lungs?

Such a

.pretension would, however, not be more ridiculous than the foible of cutting a great dash in politics. What wants cultivating is the substantial and the commonpiace. My poor predecessors.”

.

.

.

H~ere follows

a blank; a little further on, .we read: “The best government is that which holds to b~eing

so

perfectly

humdrum,

regular,

neuter, and even emasculated, that no one can henceforth get up äny enthusiasm cither for or against it.” Suchawas the last successor of Semira mis.

On the re-discovered site of the

Hanging-gardens he caused to be erected, at the expense of the ~State, a statue of Louis Philippe ih wrought aluminium, in the middie of a public garden planted with common laurels and cauliflowers. The Universe breathed again. It yawned

PROSPERITY

49

a little no doubt, but it revelled for the first time in the fulness of peace, in the almost gratuitous abundance of every kind of wealth.

It burst into the most brilliant

effiorescence, or rather display of poetry and art, but especially of luxury, that the world had as yet seen. It was just at that moment an extraordinary alarm of a novel kind, justly provoked by the astronomical observations made on the tower of Babel, which had been rebullt as an Eiffel Tower on an enlarged scale, began to spread among the terrified populations.

THE CATASTROPHE

5!

of several rather smart articles in the re views.

In general, the savanis, in their

well-warmed studies, affected to disbelieve in the fall of temperature, and, in spite

fl

of the formal indications of the thermo

THE CATASTROPHE

meter, they did not cease to repeat that

ON several occasions already the sun had

the dogma of slow evolution, and of the

given evident signs of weakness.

From

conservation of energy combined with the

year to year his spots increased in size and

classical nebular hypothesis, forbade the

number, and his heat sensibly diminished.

admission of a sufficiently rapid cooling of

People were lost in conjecture. Was his fuel giving out? Had he just traversed

the solar mass to make itseif felt during the short duration of a century, much more

in his journey through space an excep

so during that of five years or a year.

tionally cold region?

one knew.

few unorthodox persons of heretical and

Whatever the reason was, the public con

pessimistic temperament remarked, it is

cerned itseif little about the matter, as in all that is gradual and not sudden. The

true, that at different epochs, if one be lieved the astronomers of the remote past,

“solar an~mia,” which moreover restored

certain stars had gradually burnt out in

some degree of animation to neglected astronomy, had merely become the subject

the heavens, or had passed from the most

50

No

A

dazzling brilliance to an almost complete

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE CATASTROPHE

obscurity, during the course of barely a They therefore conciuded

editions. The return of the spring was anxiously awaited.

that the case of our sun had nothing

The spring returned at last, and the

exceptional about it; that the theory of slow footed evolution was not perhaps

starry monarch reappeared, but his golden

52

singie year.

-

universally applicable; and that,

some

crown was gone, and he himseif weil. nigh unrecognisable. He was entirely

times, as an old visionary mystic cailed

red.

The meadows were

Cuvier

green,

the

had

ventured to

put

forward

in legendary times, veritable revolutions took

place

in

the

heavens as

weil

53

sky

was

no

no

longer

longer

blue,

the Chinese were no longer yellow, all had suddenly changed colour a~ in a trans

as on earth. But orthodox science com bated with indignation these audacious

formation scene.

Then, by degrees, from

theories.

He might then have been compared to

the red that he was he became orange.

However, the winter of 2489 was so

a golden apple in the sky, and so during

disastrous, it was actually necessary to take

several years he was seen to pass, and

the threatening predictions of the alarmists seriously. One reached the point of fearing

all nature with him, through a thousand

at any moment a “solar apoplexy.”

to yellow, from yellow to green, and from green at length to indigo and paie blue.

That

was the title of a sensational pamphlet which went through twenty thousand

magnificent or terrible tints—from orange

The meteorologists then recalled the fact,

54

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE CATASTROPHE

in the year 1883, on the second of Septem ber, the sun had appeared in Venezuela

of which, overtaken by tornadoes of snow,

the whole day long as blue as the moon. So many colours, so many new decorations of the chameleon-like universe which

55

disappeared for ever. The telegraph successively informed the capital, now that there was no longer any

dazzied the terrified eye, which revived

news of immense trams caught in the tunnels under the Pyrenees, the Alps, the

and restored to its primitive sharpness the rejuvenated sensation of the beauties of

Caucasus, or Himalayas, in which they were imprisoned by enormous avalanches,

nature, and strongly stirred the depths of

which

men’s souls by renewing the former aspect

issues; now that some of the largest rivers

of things.

of the world—the Rhine, for instance, and the Danube—had ceased to flow, com

blocked

simultaneously the

two

At the same time disaster succeeded disaster. The entire population of Norway,

pletely frozen to the bottom, from which

Northern Russia, and Siberia perished~

resulted a drought, followed by an in

frozen to death in a single night; the tem

describable famine, which obliged thousands

perate zone was decimated, and what was

of mothers to devour their own children.

left of its inhabitants fled before the enor

From time to time a country or continent

mous drifts of snow and ice, and emigrated

broke off suddenly its communication with

by hundreds of mililons towards the tropics, crowding into the panting trams, several

the central agency, the reason being that an entire telegraphic section was buried

56

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE CATASTROPHE

under the snow, from which at intervals

in the Alps or Pyrenees, that were lately

emerged the uneven tops of their posts, with their little cups of porcelain. Of this

green and peopled with delightful health resorts, there issued these snowy hordes,

immense network of electricity which en.

these streams of icy lava, with their frontal

veloped in its close meshes the entire

moraine advancing as it spread over the

globe, as of that prodigious coat of mail

plain, a moving cliff composed of rocks

with which the complicated system

and overturned engines, of the wreckage

of

rallways clothed the earth, there was only

of bridges, stations, hotels

left some scattered fragments, like the

edifices, whirled along in the wildest con

remnant of the Grand Army of Napoleon

fusion, a heart-breaking welter of gigantic

during the retreat from Russia. the Andes, and of all the mountains of

bric-~-brac, with which the triumphant invasion decked itseif out as with the bot of victory. Slowly, step by step, in spite

the world hitherto vanquished by the sun,

of sundry transient intervals of light and

which for several thousand centuries had

All the glaciers that had been dead since

warmth, in spite of occasionally scorching days which bore witness to the supreme convulsions of the sun in its battle against death, which revived in men’s souls mis

the geological ages came to life again, more

leading hopes, athwart and even by means

colossal than ever.

of these unexpected changes

Meanwhile, the glaciers of the Alps,

been thrust back into their last entrench ments, resumed their triumphant march.

From all the valleys

and

the

public

pale

THE CATASTROpHE

UNDERGROUND MAN

59

covered one b~ one ~llr their ancient realms

had been, however, but a warning bell, so to say, a simple notification of the final and

in the gl~aciäl perio’d and if they found on

fatal attack.

~he road some ~igantic vagrant block lying

know there have been several—now ex

in. sullen solitud~, near some famous city,

plained themselves by their reappearance on a large scale. But this clearing up of an

invaders advanced.

They retook and re

The glacial periods—for we

a ~hundred leagues fram iis native hills, myster.ious witness of the immense cata

obscure point in geology was, one must

strophe of former times, they raised it and

admit, an insufficient compensation for the

bore it onward, cradllng it on their un

public disasters which were its price.

yielding waves, as an advancing army recaptures and enfuris its ancient flags,

What calamities! What horrors! My pen confesses its impotence to retrace them.

all cov~ered with dust, which it has found

Besides how can we tell the story of dis

again in its enemies’ sanctuaries. But what was the glacial period compared

asters which were so complete they often simultaneously overwhelmed under snow

with this new crisis of the globe and the

drifts a hundred yards deep all that wit

sky?

Doubtless it had been due to a

nessed them, to the very last man. All that

similar attack of weakness, to a similar

we know for certain is what took place at

failure of the sun, and many species of

the time towards the end of the twenty-fifth

animals had necessarily perished at the

century in a little district of Arabia Petraea.

time, from being insufficiently clad.

That

Thither had flocked for refuge, in one

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE CATASTROPHE

horde after another, wave after wave, with

it seems, to provide warmth for many years

host upon host frozen one on the top of

to come.

anoth~r, as they advanced, the few millions

yet too pressing a question.

of human creatures w.ho survived of the hundreds of millions that h’ad disappeared.

contained several sacks of corn, while wait

Arabia Petraea had, therefore, along with the

to sprout again.

Sahara, become the most populbus country

revived after the glacial periods; why

of the globe. They transported hither by reason of the relative warmth of its climate,

should it not do so again? asked the

6o

1 will not say the seat of Gåvernment—for,

6r

And as for food, it was not as The granaries

ing for the sun to revive and the corn The sun had certainly

optimists. It was but the hope of a day. assumed a violet hue.

The sun

The frozen corn

alas! Terror alone reigned—l5utan immense stöve which took its place, and whatever

ceased to be eatable.

remained of Babylon now covekd over by

intense that the walls of the houses as they

a glacier.

A new to.vn w~s constructed in

contracted cracked and admitted blasts of

a few nionths on the plans of an entirely new, system of architecture, marvellously adapted for the struggle against the cold.

air which killed the inhabitants on the spot.

By the most happy of chances. some rich and unworked coal mines were discov~ered on the spot.

There was eno.ugh fuel there,

The cold became so

A physicist affirmed that he saw crystals of solid nitrogen and oxygen fall from the sky which gave rise to the fear that the atmo sphere would shortly become decomposed. The seas were already frozen solid. A

62

UNDERGROUND MAN

hundred thousand human creatures huddling around the huge government stove, which was no longer equal to restoring their cir III

culation, were turned into icicies in a single night; and the night following, a second hundred thousand perished likewise.

THE STRUGGLE

Of

the beautiful human race, so strong and

IN this extremity a man arose who did

noble, formed by so many centuries of effort

not despair of’ h’umanity.

and genius by such an intelligent and ex tended selection, there would soon have

been preserved for us. By a singular coincidence he was called Miltiades, like

been only left a few thousands, a few

another savlour of Hellenism.

hundreds of haggard and trembling speci mens, unique trustees of the last ruins of

not, however, of Hell’enic race. A cross between a Slave and a &eton he~ had

what had once been civilisation.

only half sympa’thised with the prosperity of the

Neo-Gr~cian

His name has

world

He. was

with

its

levelllng and er~énvating tendencies, and amid this wholesale obliteration of’ previous civilisation, and universal triumph of a kind of Byzantine renaissance brought up to date, he belonged to those whos reverently 63

64

THE STRUGGLE

UNDERGROUND MAN

65

guarded in the depths of their heart the

~firma, and in any case more unconfined, he

germs of recusancy. But, like the bar banan stilicho, the last defender of the foundering Roman world against the

~had p~assed his youth on board the last iron-clad of State of which’ he was captain,

barbaric hordes, it was precisely this dis

in patrolling the coasts of continents, in Tdreaming of impossible adventures, and of

believer in civilisation who alone undertook

conquests

to arrest it on the brink of iis vast downfall. Eloquent and handsome~ but

discoveries

discovered, and

nearly always taciturn, he was not without

travellers, discoverers and conquerors, for

certain resembiances in pose and features,

tunate reapers in all the fleids of glory in

so it was said, to Chateaubriand and Napoleon (two celebrities, as one knows,

which there was nothing more left to glean.

who in their time were famous throughout

discovered a ~new island—it was a mistake

an entire continent). Worshipped by the women of whom he was the hope, and by

—and he had the joy of engaging in a fight,

the men who stood greatly in awe of him,

~hen ~ll was conquered, of of America

when

in~ cursing

all

all was former

One day, ho’~rever, he believed he had

the last of which ancient history makes mention, with an apparently highly

he had early kept the crowd at arm’s length, and a singular accident had doubled

primitive tribe of savages, who

his natural shyness. Finding the sea less monotonously dull at any rate than terra

he displayed such valour that he was

English and read the Bible.

spoke

In this iight

unanimously pronounced to be mad by

66

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE STRUGGLE

67

his crew, and was in great danger of losing

this time forward, soured by the. conscious

his raiik after a specialist iii insanity, who

ness of his partial disfigurement, as the

h~d been called ih, was on the point of publicly confirming popular opihion by

ancient bard Byron had formerly been for

de~lar!ng he was suffering from ~uicidai

a nearly similar reason, he avoided appear ing in public, ‘and thereby giving the crowd

mono-mania of a nov.el kind.

Luckily ~an

an opportunity of pointing the finger of

arch~ologist protested and showed by actuahl documen~ts. that this phenomenon,

scorn at the visible tr~aces of his former

which had become so unusual but was

again till the day when, his vessel being

frequeht in j~st ages under the name of

hemmed i’n by the icebergs of the Gulf

bravery, was a simple case. of äncesttal

Stream, he was obliged with his companions

reversion

to finish the crossing on foot over the

stiffidiently

~examination.

serious

to

merit

As luck~ would have it, the

attack of madness.

He was never seen

solidly frozen Atlantic.

unfortunåte Miltiades häd been wounded

In the middie of the central state shelter,

in the face in the same encounter; and

a huge vaulted hall with walls ten yards

the scar which all the art of the ibest surgeons never succeeded in removing,

thick, without windows, surrounded with a hundred gigantic’furnaces, and perpetually lit

drew down upon him the annoying and almost insulting nick-name of”scari~ed face.”

up by their hund ited flaming maws, Miltiades one day appeared. The remnant of the

It may be readily understood how from

flower of humanity, of both sexes, splendid

68

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE STRUGGLE

even in its misery, was huddied together there. They did not consist of the great

able beauties, who bad been likewise saved

men Qf science with their bald pates, nor even the great actresses, nor the great

wearing low dresses, without taking into account the warmth of their temperament.

writers, whose inspiration had deserted them, nor the consequential ones now past

Among them it was impossible not to notice the -Princess Lydia, owing to her tall and

their prime, nor of prim old ladies—broncho

exquisite figure, the brilliancy of her dress

pneumonia, alas! had made a dean sweep

and her wit, of her dark eyes and fair com

of them all at the very first frost—but the

plexion, owing in fact to the radiance of her

enthusiastic heirs of their traditions, their

whole person.

secrets, and also of their vacant chairs, that

at the last grand international beauty com

is to say, their pupils, full of talent and

petit~ion, and was accounted the reigning

promise.

Not a single university professor

beauty of the drawing-rooms of Babylon.

was there, but a crowd of deputies and

What a different set of individuals from

assistants ; not a single minister, but a

that which the spectator formerly surveyed

crowd of young secretaries of state.

Not

through his o~e~ra-glass from the top of the

a single mother of a family, but a bevy of artists’ models, admirably formed, and inured

galleri~s of the so-called Chamber of Depu ties! Youth, beauty, genius, love, infinite

against the cold by the practice of posing

treasures;of science and art, writers whose

for the nude; above all, a number of fashion

pens were of pure gold, artists with mar-

69

by the .excellent hygienic effect of daily

She had carried off the prize

70

UNDERGROUND MAN

vellous technique, singers one raved about, all that was left of refinement and culture on the earth, was concentrated in this last knot of human beings, which blossomed under the snow like a tuft of rhododendrons, or of Alpine roses at the foot of some mountain summit. But what dejection had fallen on these fair flowers!

How sadly

drooped these manifold graces! At the sudden apparition of Miltiades every brow was lifted, every eye was fastened upon him. He was tall, lean, and wizened, in spite of the false plumpness of his thick white furs.

When he threw back

his big white hood, which recalled the Dominican cowi of antiquity, they caught sight of his huge scar athwart the icicies on his beard and eyebrows.

At the sight of it

first a smile and then a shudder, which was not due to cold alone, ran through the ranks

THE STRUGGLE of the women.

71

For must we confess it, in

spite of the efforts of a rational education, the inclination to applaud bravery and its mdi cations could not be entirely uprooted from their hearts.

Lydia, notably, remained

imbued with this sentiment of another age, by a kind of moral ancestral reversion which served as a pendant to her physical atavism. She concealed so little her feelings of admiration, that Miltiades himseif was struck by it. Her admiration was combined with astonishment, for he was believed to have been dead for years.

They asked one

another by what accumulation of miracies he had been able to escape the fate of his companions. He requested leave to speak. It was granted him.

He mounted a plat..

form, and such a profound silence ensued, one might have heard the snow falling outside, in spite of the thickness of the walls.

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE STRUGGLE

But let us at this point allow an eye-witness

glimmer of hop~ has flashed upon me, but~

to speak; let us copy an extract of the account that he phonographed of this

it is so .strange, 1 shail never dare to reveal it to you. (Speak!. speak 1) No, 1.

memorabie scene. 1 pass over the part of Miltiades’ discourse in which he related the

dare not, 1 shall i never dare to formula~e this project.

You would believe m& to be

thriliing story of the dangers he had en

still insane.

You desire it,~ youi promise

countered from the time he left his vessel.

me to listen to the end to mSr äbsurd atid

(Continuous c~pplause.)

extravagant pfoject?

72

73

(Yes / yes’.’)

Even Weil!

reindeer—thanks to it being the season of

to give it a f~.ir trial? (Yes! yes!) 1 will speak. (Silence 1)

the dog-days—he had recognised the site of this buried city by the double-pointed mound

“The hour has come to ascertain to what extent it is true to say and to keep on

of snow which had formed over the spires of Notre-Dame—(excilernen/ in Ihe audience)

repeating, as has been the practice for the

After stating that

in passing by Paris on a sledge drawn by

—the speaker continued :— “The situation is serious,” said

he,

last three centuries since the time of a certain Stephenson, that all our energy, all our strength, whether physical or moral,

“nothing like it has been seen since the

comes to us from the sun.

geological epochs.

voices: ‘Thal is so ‘).

No!

(Hear! hear!)

Is it irretrievable? Desperate diseases

require desperate remedies.

An idea, a

.

.

.

(Numerous

The caiculation has

been made: in two years, three months, and six days, if there still remains a morsel of

74

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE STRUGGLE

coal there will not remain a morsel of bread! (Prolonged sensation.) Therefore,

obliged hitherto to endure in silence. (Slighi

75

if the source of all force, of all motion, and

mnrmurs from the centre.) The earth is the contemporary of the sun, and not its

all life is in the sun, and in the sun alone,

daughter;

there is no ground for seif-delusion: in two

luminous star like the sun, only sooner

years, three months, and six days, the genius

extinct.

of man will be quenched, and through the

earth is devoid of movement, frozen and

gloomy heavens the corpse of mankind, like

paralysed.

a Siberian mammoth, will roll for everlast

burning.

ing, incapable for ever of resurrection. (Ezcitemen/.)

within itseif in order to preserve it better.

But is that the case?

the

earth

was

formerly

a

It is only on the surface that the Its bosom is ever warm and It has only concentrated its fire

(Signs of interesi in the audience.)

There

No, it is not, it

lies a virgin force that is unexploited, a

With all the energy

force superior to all that the sun has been

of my heart, which does not come from

able to generate for our industry by water

the sun—that energy which comes from

falls which to-day are frozen, by cyclones

the earth, from our mother earth buried

which now have ceased, by tides which

there below, far, far away, for ever hidden from our eyes---I protest against this vain

to-day are suspended; a force in which our engineers, with a little initiative, will find a

theory, and against so many articles of

hundredfold the equivalent of the motive

faith

power they have lost.

cannot be the case.

and religion which 1 have been

It is no more by

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE STRUGGLE

this gesture (the speaker raises his finger to

separated, so to say, from its children, the

heaven), that the hope of salvation should

living creatures it prod~ced outside during

henceforth be expressed, it is by this one.

its period, of. fecundity before the cooling of

(He lowers his ra-ht hand towards the earth.

its crust!

76

77

Aftér its .crust cöoled, the rays

Szgns of astonishment: a few murmurs

of a distant star aIon~, it is true, have

of di$senf which are immediately repressed by the wom~n.) We must say no more:

maintaine~1. on this dead epidermis their artificial and s~perficia1 life which has been

‘Up there.!’ but, ‘below!’ There, below, far jelow, lies the promised Eden, the

a stranger to her öwn. But this schism has lasted. too long.

abode of deliverance and of bliss: there,

is imperative that it should cease.

and there alone, there are still innumerable

time to follow Empedocies,. .Ulysses, A3neas,

conquests• and discoveries to be made!

Dante, to the gloomy abodes of the underworld, to plunge mankind again in the

•

.

•

(Bravos on the left.) conciusion?

Ought 1 to draw my

(Yes! yes!)

Let us descend

into these depths; let us abysses our sure retreat.

make these

The mystics had

It

It is

fountain from which it sprang, to effect the complete restoration of the exiled soul to the land of its birt’h!

(Applause here and

a sublime presentiment when they said in

there.)

their Latin: ‘From the outward to the

native: life underground or death.

inward.’

sun is failing us: let us dispense with the

self.

The earth calls us to its inner

For many centuries it has lived

sun.

Besides, .there is but this alter The

The plan, which it remains for me to

UNDERGROUND MAN

TLH~E STRUGGLE•

pröpose, h~s béen worked öut for several

with caves, and was destined to return to

months past by the mo~t eminent men.

thes’é subt~erranean retreats, but: at a far

To-day.it is.finished; it is final.

deeper levél.”

78

plete in all its details.

It is com

Does it interest

79

He displayed designs, quan.

tities and drawings.

He had no trouble in

(On all sides: ‘Read if, ,-ead iL’)

proving that, on condition of b’iirro~iing

You will see thac with discipline, patience,

sufficiently deep~into the ~ound below, they

and ‘courage—yes, courage, 1 risk this evil

would find a de1iciousl~r gentle warmth, an

sounding word (‘Risk il, risk iL’) and above all, with the aid of that spiendid heritage of science and art which comes to

Elysian temperature~

to excav’ate, enlarge, ~heighten, and extend the galleries of already ‘existing mines in

us from the past, for which we are account

ordér to render them habitable and comfort

able to the most distant of our descendants,

able into thé bargain. The electric light, supplied entirely without expense by the

you?

—

to the boundless universe, and 1 was going

It would be enough

scattered centres of the fire within, would

to say~ to God (sz~-ns of surprise), we can be saved ~if we will.” (Thunder of applause.)

provide for the magnificent illumination both

The speaker next entered into lengthy

by day and night of these colossal crypts,

details, which it is useless to reproduce

these marvellous cloisters, indeflnitely ex

here, on the Neo-troglodytism which he

tended and embellished by successive genera

pretended to inaugurate as the acme of

tions.

civilisation, “which had,” said he, “began

all danger of suffocation or of foulness of air

With a good system of ventilation,

8o

UNDERGROUND MAN

would be avoided.

THE STRUGGLE

In short, after .a mdre

8i

life could unfold anew in all its int~llectual,

manufacture wine from alcohol and water. (‘Hear / hear /‘ from all the benches). As for food, is not chemistry dl~o capable of

artistic, and fashionable spiendour, as freely

manufactui~ing butter, albumen, and. mllk

as it did in the ca~ricious and intermittent light or natural,day, and even perhaps more

from no matter ~vhat?. Besides, has the last word been said on the subject.? Is it

surely.”

At these l~ast words, the Princess

not. highly probable thät beforé long, if it

Lydia broke her fan, by dint of applauding.

takes up the matter, it will succeed in satis

An objection then carne from the right,

fyiz3g, both on the score of quantity and

“With whatsliali we be fed

Miltiadés

expense, the desir~s of the most refined

smiled disdainT~illy and replied: “Nothing Every

gastronomy? And, meanwhile . (a voice limidly: ‘Meanwhile?’) Meanwhile does not our disaster itseif, by a kind of

day we shall transport enormous blocks of

providential occurrence, place within our

it in order to keep the orifices of the crypts free from obstruction, and to supply the

reach the• best stocked, the most abundant,

public fountains.

race has ever hal?

or less long period of settling in, civilised

is simpler.

?“

For ordinäry drinking purposes

we first of all shall have melted ice.

1 may addi that chemists

.

the most inexhaustible larder that the human Immense stores, the

undertake to manufacture alcohol from any

most admirable ~which have hitherto been

thing, even from mineralised rocks, and that

laid down, are lying for us under the ice or

it is the A.B.C. of the grocer’s trade to

the snow.

Myriads of domestic or wild

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE STRUGGLE

animals—I dare not add, of men and women

verbatim quotation: “However extraor

(a general sliudder of horror)

but at

dinary the catastrophe which has befallen

least of bullocks, sheep and pouitry, frozen instantaneously in a single mass, are iying

us and the means of escape which is left us

82

—

here and there in the public markets a few

83

may seem in appearance, a little reflection will suffice to prove to us that the predica ment in which we are, must have been

steps away. Let us collect, as long as such ~ror.k. is still possible out of dpor~, this

repeated a thousand times already in the

boundless quarry which was destined tö

immensity of the universe, and must have

feed for’ years several hundreds of milijons,

been cleared up in. the same fashion, being inevitably and normally the flnal phase in

and which will weil ‘suffi~e, in consequence~

the life-drama of every star.

If stäcked in the neighboQrhood

The astro nomers know that every sun is bound to become extjnct; they know, therefore, that

of the or.ifice of ‘the ~hief cavern, they will

in addition to the luminous and visible

be easy to get at and w~il provide a delight

stars, thei~ are jn the heavens an infinitely greater number of extinct and rayless stars

to feed a few thousands only for. ages, even should they multiply unduly, in de~pite of Maithus.

ful fare for our fr~ter.nai lbve-feasts.” Still further obje~ti~ns were formulated

which continue endle~siy to revolve with

from different quarters. They were forcibly disposed of with’ the same ir.resistible easy

their train of pianet~, doomed to an eternity of night and cold.

assurance.

case, 1 ask you: Can we suppose that

The conciusion is worthy of a

Weil, if this is the

84

THE STRUGGLE

UNDERGROUND MAN

85

life, thought, and love, are the exclusive

light, what is it?

prIvilege of an infinite minority of solar

ruinous luxury, än ostentatious squander

systems still possessed of light and heat,

ing of energy, bom of illimitable senseless

and deny to the immense majority of

ness.

gloomy stars every manifestation of life and animation, the very highest reason for

wild oats, then the serious task of their

their existence?

Thus lifelessness, death,

the void in movement would be the rule; and life the exception!

Thus the nine

tenths, the ninety-nine hundredths, perhaps, of the solar systems, would idly revolve like senseless and gigantic mlll-wheels, a useless encumbrance of space.

That is

A transient glory, a

But when the stars have söwn their

life begins, they ‘d~velo~5 their inner resources. For frozen and sunless with out, they literally preserve in their inviolate centres their unquencl~able fire, defended by the very layers of ice. There, finally, is to be relit tht lamp of life, banished from the surface above. Fdr a last time, therefore, let us look upwards in order

impossible and idiotic, that is blasphemous.

there to find hope.

Let us have more faith in the unknown!

races of mankind under ground, buried, to

Truth, here as everywhere else, is without

their supreme joy, in the catacombs of

doubt the antipodes of appearance.

All

invisible

that glitters is not gold. These splendid constellations which attempt to dazzie us

example.

like them withdraw to the interior of our

are themselves relatively barren.

planet.

Their

Up there innumerable

stars, encourage

us

by their

Let us act like them, let us Like them, let us bury ourselves

86

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE STRUGGLE

in order to rise again, and like them let

which for so long was so fooiishly wor

us carry with us into our tomb, all that

shipped under the name of Nature, he

is worthy to survive of our previous

believed in good faith to have deserved

existence.

weil of the future.

It is not merely bread alone

that man has need of.

He must live to

think, and not merely think to live. Recall the legend of Noah: to escape from a disaster almost equal tc~ our own, and to dispute with it all thåt the earth had most p~recious ih his eyes; what did

87

But we, in our ne* ark, mysterious, impenetrable, indestructible,’ shäll carry with us neither plants nor animals.

These

types of existence are annihilated; these rough drafts in creation, th~se fumbiing

• he do, thou~h be was but a simpie-minded

experiments of Earth in quest of the human form are for ever •blotted åut:

fellow ark! addicted. to drink? He turned ‘his ark into a museum, contaiziing a com

Let us not regret it, In pI~ce of. so many pairs of animals which take up so

pl~te collection of plants -and animals,

much room, of so many useless seeds, we

even of poisonous plants, of wild beasts, boa-cönstrictors, an& scorpions, and by

will carry with us into our retr’ea~ the

reason of this picturesque but incongruous cargo of creatui~es mutually harmful and

perfect a&ord with one another; of all artistié and poet.ic beauties, which are all

seeking one and~ all to devour each other,

men~bers one of ~nother, united like sisters,

of this miscellany of living contradictions

which huma~ genius has brought to light

h~r-monious gaHand of all the truths in

88

UN~~DERGROU~ND••MAN

THE STRUGGLE

in the course of ages Sand multiplied there

with modesty the latter obeyed—a further sign of moral atavism on her part—and the

after in milhions of copies.: alLof which will be destroyed save a single one, which it will be our task to guarantee against all

89

We shahl estabhish

applause redoubled. The thermometers of the shelter rose several degrees in a few rninutes.

a vast library containing all the principal works, enriched with cinematograph!c

It is weil to recail to the.younger g~nera tion these resolute words, betwe~en the lines

albums.

We ~hall set up a vast museum

of which they will read the gratitude they

composed of single specimens of all the

owe to the heroic “Scarred face,” who.so

schools, of all the styles of the masters in

nearly died with the reputation of a rriono

architecture, scuipture, painting, and even

maniac.

music. These are our real treasures, our real seed for future harvests, our gods for

enervated and accustomed to the deiights of their underground Elysium, to theiuxurious

whom we will do battle till oifr latest

spaciousness of these endiess catacombs, the

breath.”

legacy of gigantic toil on the part~ of their

danger ~of destruction.

They, too, are beginning~ to gröw

The speaker stepped down from the

fathers, they too, are, inclined to think that

platform in the midst of indescribabie en

all this happened of its own accord, or at

thusiasm: the ladies crowded round him.

least was inevitable, that after all there was no other way of escaping from the coid above ground, and that this simple ex-

They deputed Lydia to bestow on him a kiss in the name of them all.

Blushing

90

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE STRUGGLE

91

pedient did not require a great outlay of

been immensely surpassed.

imagination.

At its first

forsee, he could not foresee, the prodigious

appearance, the idea of Miltiades had been

accessions which his origihal idea has re

hailed, and rightly enough, as a flash of

ceived owing to iis development by thous

genius.

ands of auxiliary geniuses.

Profound error!

But for him, but for his energy,

He was far

and his eloquence, which was placed at the

mbre right than

service of his imagination, but for his force

majority of reformers—who are generally

fulness, his charm, and his perseverance,

wrongly accused, df bei’ng too much wrapt

which seconded his energy, let us add, but

up in their own ideas.

for the profound passion that Lydia, the

never wa~ so i~iagnificent a promptly carried o~t:

noblest and most val iant of women, had been able to inspire in him, and which in

he

He did not

fancied, like

the

But on the whole, plan

so

creased his heroism tenfold, humanity would

From rthat very day all these exquisite and delicate hands set to work, aided, it

have suffered the fate of all the other

is true, by incomparable machines.

animal or vegetable species.

What strikes

where, at the head of all the workings, were

us to-day in his discourse is the extra ordinary and truly prophetic lucidity with which he sketched in general terms the

to be found Lydia and Miltiades. Hence forth inseparable, they vied with one another in ardour; and before a year was out the

conditions of existence in the new world.

galleries of the mines had become suf

Without doubt, these expectations have

ficiently large and comfortable, sufficiently

Every

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE STRUGGLE

decorated éven and brilliantly lighted, to

forces, had been necessary for packing,

receive the vast and priceless collections of all kinds, which it was their dbject to place

transporting, and housing it all!

92

in safety there, in view of the future. With

infinite

precautions

they were

93 And yet,

for the greater part, it was useless to those who voluntarily this task imposed upon themselves.

They all knew it.

They were

lowered one ~after another, bale by bale,

weil aware that they were probably con

in~o the bowels of the earth.

This salvage

demned for the rest of their days to a hard

öf the goods and chatt€ls ~f humanity was methodically carried out. It inciuded all

and matter-of-fact existence, for which their lives as artists, philosophers, and men of

the quintessence of the

letters, had scarcely prepared them.

.

ancient grand

But—

libraries of Paris, Ber1in~ and London, which

for the first time—the idea of duty to be

bad been brought togeth~r at Babylon, and

done found its way into these hearts, the

then car~ri~d for saféty i.nto ~he desert with

beauty of self-sacriflce subdued these dilet

the rest. .The cream of~a’il former museums,

tanti.

of all previbus .exhibitioiis of industry and ärt, was concentrated there with consider

Unknown, to that which is not yet, to the posterity towards which were turned all the

able additions.~

desires of their electrified spirits, as all the

There were manuscripts,

books, bronzes, and pictur~s. What an ex penditure of ener~y and incessant toll, in spite of the assistance of inter-terrestrial

They sacriflced themselves to the

atoms of the magnetised iron tum

towards

the pole. It was thus that, at the time when there were still countries, in the midst of

94

UNDERGROUND MAN

some great national peril, a wave of heroism swept over the most frivolous cities.

How

ever admirable may have been, at the epoch of which 1 speak, this collective need of individual self-sacrifice, ought we

Iv SAVED ~

to be astonished at it, when we know from

day at length arrived on which, all

the treatises on natural history that have

THE

been preserved, that mere insects giving the

the intellectual inheritance of the past, all

same example of foresight and seif-re

the real capital of hun~anity~ having been

nunciation, used before their

rescued

death to

from

the

general

shipwreck,

employ their latest energies to collect pro

the castaways were able t~o

go. down

visions useless to themselves, and only

in their tum, having henceforth only to

useful in the future to their larv~ at their

think of their owr

birth.

day which forms, as evenyone knows, the starting point of our new era, called

preservatiön.

That

the era of salvation, was a solemn holiday. The sun, however, as if to arouse regret, indulged in a few last bursts of sunshine. On casting a final glancet on this brightness, which they were never to behold again, the 95

96

UNDERGROUND MAN

survivors of mankind could not, we are told, restrain their tears. A young poet on the brink of the pit that yawned to swallow

SAVED daylight that knew no night.

97 Assuredly

the sight was far from what it has since become; we need an effort of imagination

them up, repeated in the musical language of Euripides, the farewell to the light of

in order to represent the psychological

the dying Iphigenia.

accustomed to the perpetual and insuffer

But that was a short

condition of our poor ancestors, hitherto

lived moment of very natural emotion

able discomforts and inconveniences

which speedily changed into an outburst

life on the surface of the globe, in order

of unspeakable delight.

to realise their enthusiasm, at a moment, when only counting on escaping from the

How great in fact was their amazement

of

they opened their eyes in the most brilliant

most appalling of deaths by means of the gloomiest of dungeons, they felt themselves

and interminable galleries of art they could

del,ivered of all their troubles, and of all

possibly see, in sai’ons more beautiful than

their apprehensions at the same time!

those of Versailles, in enchanted palaces, in

Have you noticed in the retrospective museum that quaint bit of apparatus of

and their ecstasy!

They expected a tomb;

which all extremes of climate, ram, and wind, cold and torrid heat were unknown;

our fathers, which is called an umbrella?

where innumerable lamps, veritable suns in brilliancy and moons in softness, shed

Look at it and reflect on the heart-breaking element, in a situation, which condemned

unceasingly through the blue depths their

man to make use of this ridiculous piece

98

UNDERGROUND MAN

SAVED

99

Imagine yourself obligéd fo

renowned of the petty revolutions of the past

protect yourselves against those gigantic

which to-day are treate~I so lightly, and

downpours which would unexpectedly arriv~

rightly so, by our historians.

on the scene and drench you for three or

how the flrst inha’bitants of these under ground dwellings could, even for a moment,

of furniture.

four days running. Think likewise of sailors caught in a whirling cyclone, of the

One wonders

regret the sun, a mode of lighting that

victims of sunstroke, of the 20;000 Indi~.ns

bristled with

annually devoured by tigers or killed b~ the bite of venomous serpent~; think of

The sun was a capricious luminary which went out and was r~elit at variable hours,

those struck by lightning.

1 do not speak

shone when it felt disposed, sometimes

of the legions of parasitesand insects, of the acarus, the phylloxera, and the microscopic

was eclipsed, or hid itseif behind the clouds when one had most need of it, or pitilessl.y

beings which drained th~ bibod, the sweat,

blincied one at the very rhöment

and the life of man, inoculating him with

yearned for shade!

typhus, plague, and chole~ra~

Fn truth, if

really realise the full force of the incon

our change of conditiån has demanded some sacrifices, it is nota an illusion to

venience? every night the sun com manded social life to desist and s~jcial life

declare that the balance of advantage is immensely greater. What in~ cmparison

desisted. Humanity was actually to that extent the slave of nature! To think it

with this unparalleled revolution is the most

never succeeded in, never even dreamed of,

so

many

inconveniences.

one

Every night,—do we

—

100

SAVED

UNDERGROUND MAN

freeing itseif from

this

slavery

‘oj

which

was absolutely cost-free, as Miltiades had

weighed so heavily and unconsciåusly on its destinies, on the åour~e of its progress

foreseen) in order to render them almost

thus straitened and cdnfined!’ Ah!

Let

shrined and sparsely disseminated through

us once more biess our fortunate disaster!

out the labyrinth of our brilliantly lighted

What excuses or explains the weakness

streets; mines of sparkling diamonds, lakes

habitable: delightful squares, as it were, en

of the first immigrants of the ititier world is

of quicksilver, mounds of golden ingots.

the fact that their life was necessarily rough

am weil aware that they had at their dis

and full of hardships, in spite of~ a notabie improvement after their descent intp the

position a sum of natural forces very superior

caverns.

acquainted with. That is very easy to understand. In fact, if they lacked water

They haä per~etualiy to ~nlarge

them, to adjust them to the re~uirements of the two civilisations, ancient and modern. That was not the work of a single day. 1

1

to all that the preceding ages had been

falls, they replaced them

very advan

am weil aware how happily f6rtun~éifavoured

tageously by the finest falls in temperature that physicists have ever dreamed of. The

them; how they again and again had the

central heat of the globe could not, it is true,

good luck when driving ~t•heir tunnels to discover natural grottoés of the utmost

by itself alone be a mechanical force, any more than formerly a large mass of water

beauty, in which it was enough to il’luminate

falling by hypothesis to the greatest possible

with the usual methods of lighting (which

depth.

It is in its passage from a higher to

UNDERGROUND MAN

SAVED

a lower level that the mass of water becomes (or rather became) available energy: it is in its descent from a higher to a lower degree

sight they must have seen that if a few dis tributing agencies of this prodigious energy were provided, they had power enough there

of the thermometer that heat likewise

to perform the whole work of mankind— excavation, air supply, water supply, sanita

102

becomes so. The greater distance between any two degrees the greater amount of surpius energy.

Now, the mining physicists

had hardly descended into the bowels of the

103

tion, locomotion, descent and transport of provisions, etc. 1 am weil aware of that.

1 am further

earth ere they at once perceived that thus

aware that ever favoured by fortune, the in

placed between the furnaces of the central

separable friend of daring, the new Troglo

fire, as it were, a forge of the Cyciops, hot

dytes have never suffered from famine, nor

enough to liquefy granite, and the outer cold,

from shortness of supplies.

which was suflicient to solidify oxygen.and nitrogen, they had at their disposal the most enormous extremes in temperatute, and con sequently thermic cataracts by the ~ide, of

their snow-covered deposits of carcasses threatened to give out, they used to make several trial borings, drive several shafts in

which all the cataracts of Abyssitiia and Niagara were only toys. What .~aldrons did they own in the ancient voicanoes!

presently to meet with rich finds of food

What condensers in the glaciers!

At first

an upward direction.

When one of

They never failed

reserves, extensive enough to close the mouths of the alarmists, whereby there resulted on each occasion, according to the

UNDERGROUND MAN

SAVED

law of Maithus, a sudden increase in the

But this pitch of horiors was perh3ps neces

population, cöupled with th~ excavatiön of

sary to te~ch3us that in the forced intimacy

new undergrourid citi~s, more flo~rrishing

of acave there is no mean bé~we~n warfaré

than their older si~ters.

and 1o~e, between mutuål slaughter or mutual

104

But, in spite of all

105

this, we reniain overwhelmed~ with wönder

enibraces.

when we consider the incaldil~.ble degree ~f

we fall on eadh othér’s necks.

courage and intelligence lavished on such a work, and solely called iz~t’ö’being by an idea

what h~iman ear; nose, or ston~ch could have

which, starting bne d~r from ohe individual

smoke of melanite ex~iosions béneath our

brain, has leavened the whole gibbe.

What

crypts; the sight. and stench of mangled

giant falls of earth, what murdeföus expio

bodies piled up ‘vithin9our narrow confines?

sions, what a death-roll~there n~ust ha% b~een

Hideous ~d odiou~, revolting beyond all

at the outset of the enter~rise!

expression, the und’erground war finished

We ~hal:l

never know what blöodthirsty duels, what

We began by fighting; to-day ~nd in fact,

longer withstood the de~.fening roar and

by becoming impossible.

rapes, what doleful tragedi~s, took place in

It is, however~ painfu~l to think that it

this lawiess society, which haci not yet beefl

lasted right up to the death of our glorious

reorganised.

preserver.

The history of the earl.y con:

Everyone is acquainted with

querors and colonists of America, if it could

the heroic adventure in which Miltiades

be told in detail, would pale entirely bdside

and his companion lost their lives.

it.

has been so often painted, scuiptured,

Let us draw a veil over the proceed~gs.

It

io6

UNDERGROUND MAN

SAVED

sung, and immortalised by the great masters, that it is not allowable to pass

explosion ..intended td blow up the vault

it over in silence.

The famous struggle

upwards by which he . might have, the

between the centralist and federalist cities,

~hance of r.eaching~ a dep~sit of provi~ions.

that is to say, at bottom, between the

His hope was, deceived.

industrial and artist cities, having ended in the triumph of the latter, a still more

up, it is tri~ie, and disclos~d a cavejn av~ t, the most colossal one had hitherto seen,

bloodthirsty conflict sprang up between the

that dinily resehibled ,a ‘Hindoo t~mpl~~

free thinking and the cellular cities.

former fought to assert the freedom of love

B:ut the. hero hims~1frperi~h.e~l miselably? butied with Ly,dia beneath enormous tocks

with its uncertain fecundity; the second,

on the v.ery~spot on which f~ow. stands thei~

for its prudent regulation.

Miltiades, mis

double statue in n~årble, the masterpiec.e

led by his passion, committed the fault of

of our new .Phidias, ~hich~ is now the

siding with the former, a pardonable error

créwded meeting-place ~f our .~natiänal

which posterity has forgiven him.

pilgrimages.

The

Be

sieged in his last grotto—a perfect marvel

107

of hi~ cavern, and forcibly to open a way

The vault ble4w

s

From these fruitfiil~ thougl~ troublou~

in strongholds—and at the end of his

times, and from this

provisions, the besiegers having intercepted

advantage has accrued; to us i’iPhich we

the arrival of all his convoys, he essayed

~hafl fiever siifficiently appreciate.

a final effort: he prepared a formidable

race, already s& beautiful, has b~en further

nefi~ial disörd~r,,an Our

io8

SAVED

UNDERGROUND MAN

109

strengthened and purified by these numerous

ately one on the other.

trials.

Short-sightedness itself has dis

graving our thoughts on a panel of rock,

appeared under the prolonged influence of

we take time to reflect on our subject.

a light that is pleasing to the eye, and of

Yet another bane among our primitive

the habit of reading books which are

forefathers was tobacco.

written in very large characters.

For,

longer smoke, we can no longer smoke.

frbm lack of paper, we are obliged to write on slatesj on~ p~I1ars, obelisks, on the broad

The public health is accordingly mag

panels of marble, and this necessity, in addition. to compelling us to adopt a sober style and ~ontri’bdting to the formatioh .of taste, prevents the daily newspapers from reappearing, to ~the great benefit of the optic n~erves and the clobes of the brain. It was, by the way, an immense misfor tune for-” pre-salvationist’ man to possess textile.iplants which al1ow~ed him ~to stereo type without the slightest trodbie on rags of paper without the slightest value, all his ideas, idle or serious, piled indiscrimin

nificent.

Now, before

At present we no

REGENERATION

xii

siöns it has succeeded, in taking iis final shape, we can clea~1y establish its essential characteristics.

v

elimination

REGENERATION

IT does not fall within the scope of my

rapid sketch to relate date by date the laborious vicissitudes of humanity since

of

It cdnsists in the complete living

nature,

whether

animal vor vegetabie, man only excepted. That has produc~d, so to say, a purification öf society~ Seciuded thus from every influen~e of the natui~aI milieu into which

iis settlement within the planet from the

it ‘was hither.to’ plunged and confined, the social milieu was for the first time able to

year

of the era of Salvation to the year

reveal and dis~lay iis triie virtues, and the

596, in which 1 write these lines in chaik 1 should only like to

real social bond appeared in all its vigour and purity. It might be said that destiny

bring out for my contemporaries, who

had desired to make in our case an ex

might very weil fail to notice them (for

tended sociölogical experiment for its own

we barely observe what we have always

edification by placing us in such extra ordinarily unique conditions.1 The problem,

i

on slabs of schist.

before our eyes), the distinctive and original features of this modern civilisation of which we are so justly proud.

Now that after

many abortive trials and agonizing convul 110

1 In appearance only; we must not forget that in accordance with all probability fliany extinct stars must have served as the scene of this normal and necessary phase of social life.

UNE~RQROUND MAN

REGENERATION

in a W~y, iwas to,learmn, what would social man beco~me i~f committed to his ov~fn keé~ing, yet left to himself—furni’shed with all thé intellectual acquisitidns acc~.~mulated thrpugh a ~eemote past by human~genii~ses,

and we have realised at the same time

112

113

what an unsuspected drag the~ ter.restrial• fauna and flora h~d hitherto been on the progress of humanity.. At first human pride and the faith of

but~ deprived of the assistan~e of all other living beiri~gs; nay, even of those bein~gs

the constant presenc~, by ~he pro~o~nd

haif endo~ved ~vith life, that we call rivers

sense of the• si~peniqrity

and ~ and stars, and thrown back on

round it, rebounded

the

elasticity re~lly appallipg.

conquered,

yet

passive

forcds

of

man in himseif hitherto held in check b~ of the ~

with

a

forc~

We

are

of a

clieifiical, inorganic afid lifeless Nature,

race of Titan~s..

which is separated from nian by too deep

whatever enervatii~ elemeift there might

a chasm tö ~xercise gn him a.nSr action

have been in the air of o~~ir grottoes

from the social •point~ of view.

has been thereby victo~ioi~jsIy combat~d~ Otherwise our air is the purest that man has ever breathed; all the bad ger.ms with which the atmosphere was loaded were

The

problem was to learn ~ha~ this humanity would do whén restnicted to man, and obliged to extr’ac~ from its own resources, if not its food supplies, yet at least all its pleasures, all its occu~atibns, all its ct’eative inspirations. The answer has been given,

l~ut, at the same time, .

-

killed by

the

cold.

Far

from

being

attacked by an~mia as some predicted, we live in a state of habitual excitement

114

UNDERGRQUND MAN

maintained by the

115

of our

curious creature which comprised haif or

tonics”

three-quarters of the population was not

(friendly shakes of the hand, taiks, meet

man, but four-footed beasts, pot herbs and

ings with charming women, etc.).

green crops, which, owing to the conditions

relations

and

of

muhiplicity

REGENERATION

our

“sociäl

With

a certain number among us it passes into a state of unintermittent delirium

country (yet another

under the name of Troglodytic

fever.

become meaningless) condemned him to

This new malady, ~(vhose microbe has not

li~fe a wild, solitary life, far from his

yet been discovered, was unknown to our

fellows.

forefathers, thanks p~haps~ to the stupe

iacquainted

fying (or soothing, if you prefer it) influence of natural and rur~I distractions. Rural!

life, but he -had not the slightest inkling

what a strange anachroni~sm!

necessary

for their

production word

in

the

which

has

As for his herds, they with

the

charms

were

of social

of what it meant.

Fishermen,

The towns, to which people were so

hunters, ploughm~n, and shepherds—do we

astonished that there should be a desire

really understand to-day~ the meaning of

to emigrate, were the only centres, rare and

these words?

widely scatiered as they were, in which life

Have we for a moment

reflected on the life of that fossil creature

in society was then known.

who is so frequently mentioned in books

extent does it not appear to have been

of ancient history and who was called the

adulterated, and attenuated by animal and

peasant?

vegetable life?

The habitual society of this

But to what

Another fossil peculiar to

UNDERGROUND MAN

REGENERATION

these regions is the artisan. Was the relation of the worker to his employer, of the artisan class to the other classes

apings diversely combined to create an originality is the important thing. Reci procal servi~e is onl.y an accessory. That

of the population, of these classes between themselves a really social relation? Not the least in the world! Certain sophists,

is why the urb’an life of .former days being principally founded on the organic and natural, rather than on the social relation

who were called economists, and who were

of producer to consumer, or of workman to

to our sociologists of to-day what the alchemists formerly were to the chemists

employer, was itseif only very imperfect kind of social life, and accordingly the

or the astrologers to the astronomers, had

source of endless disagreem~nts.

ii6

~.

given credit, it is true, to this error—that

If it has been pos~i’ble .for us to realise

society essentially consists in an exchange

the most perfect a’nd the most intense

of services.

From this point of view,

social life that has ever been seen, it is

which, moreover, is quite out of date, the

thanks to the extreme simplicity of our

social bond could never be doser, than that bet’~een the ass and the ass driver, the ox

strictly so-called wants.

and drover, the sheep and the shepherd. Society, we now kno~~, consists in the exchange of’ reflectiqps. M~itually to ape

the craving for food was broken up into

one ~another, and~ by dint of accumulated

At a time when

man was ‘~panivorous” and omnivorous, an infinity of petty ramifications.

To-day

it is confined to eating meat which has been preserved in the best of refrigerators.

ii8

UNDERGROUND MAN

REGENERATION

Within the space of an~hour each morning, a

are, however, costumes that never wear

dingle member of societ~ by the employment of our ingenious transport machihery feeds a

out. How many clothiers, mifliners, tailors, and drapery establishments are thereby abolished at a single stroke! The need of shelter remains, it is true, but it has

thousandöfhis kind. The needofclo~hinghas been pretty nearly abolished b~ thé softness of an ever constant climate, and, we must

ii~

That would perhaps

been greatly reduced. One is no longer obliged to sleep at “starlight-hotel.” When a young man grows weary of the

be a disadvan tage were it not for the incom

life in common which has hitherto sufficed

parable beauty of our bodies, which lends

him in the spacious working-drawing-room

a real charm to this grand simplicity of

of his fellows, and desires for matrimonial

costume.

Let us observe, however, that

reasons to have a dwelling to himseif, he

i1 is fairly customary to wear coats of

has only to apply the boring-machine some

asbestos spangled with mica, of silver inter

where against the rocky wall and his cell

woven and enriched w.ith gold, in which

is excavated in a few days.

the refined and delicate charms of our women appear as though moulded in metal, rather than cömpletely screened from view. This metallic iridescence with iis infinite

and few articies of furniture. The joint-stock furniture, which is magnificent, is almost the

tints has a most delightful effect.

thus reduced to almost nothing, the quota

also admit it, by the absence of silkworms and of textile plants.

These

There is no rent

only one of which the pair of lovers make use. The quota of absolute necessities being

120

UNDERGROUND MAN

1~EGENERATION

121

of superfluities has been able to be ex

material.

tended to almost everything.

live on so little, there remains abundant

a non-social, an almost anti-social relation ship with those who are not of his kind,

time for thought.

A minimum of utili

to. the great hurt and hindrance of his

tarian work and a maximum of ~sthetic,

is taken up by the talents—those artistic,

relations with those who are. The increas ing intensity of his work tends to ~ccentuate and not to attenuate the dissimilarjties between the different grades of society, which act as an obstacle to the general

poetic, and scientific talents which, as they

reunion.

day by day multiply and take deeper root,

of this in the course of the twentieth century

become really and truly acquired wants.

c~f the an~cient era, when the whole popula

They really spring, however, from a neces sity to produce, and not from a necessity

tion was divided into trades~unions of the different professions, which waged desperate

to consume.

1 underline this difference.

warfare on one another, and whose members

The manufacturer is ever toiling, not for

in the bosom of each union hated one

his own pleasure nor for that of the world

another as only brothers can.

about him, of his fellow-men or his natural

But for the scientist, the artist, the lover of beauty in all its forms, to produce is a

Since we

is surely civilisation itseif in its most essential element.

The room left vacant

in the heart by the reduction of our wants

rivals, but for a society different from his own—on mutual terms, but that is im-

His work, therefore, constitutes

We have clearly seen the truth

passion, to consume is only a taste.

For

122

REGENERATION

UNDERGROUND MAN

123

But

insist once more, society reposes, not on

his dilettantism in respect to arts other

the exchange of services, but on the ex

than his own only plays by comparison a

change of admiration or criticism, of favour

secondary part in his life.

able or unfavourable judgments.

every artist has a dilettante double.

The artist

creates through sheer delight, and he alone creates for such motives. We can now comprehend the depth of the truly social revolution which was accom plished from the days when the ~sthetic activity, by dint of ever growing, ended by vanquishing utilitarian activity. Henceforth in place of the relation of producer to con sumer has been substituted, as preponderat

The

anarchical regime of greed in all its forms has been succeeded by the autocratic government of enlightened opinion which has become supreme. For our worthy ancestors deceived themselves finely when they persuaded themselves that social pro gress led to what they termed freedom of thought.

We have something better; we

ing element in human dealings, the relation

possess the joy and the strength of the mmd which attains a certainty of its own,

of the artist to the art-lover.

The ancient

founded, as it is, on its only sure basis, the

social ideal was to seek arnusement or self satisfaction apart and to render mutual ser

unanimity of other minds on certain essential

vice.

highest constructions of thought, nay, the most gigantic systems of philosophy.

For this we substitute the following:

to be one’s own servant and mutually to delight one another. Henceforward, to

matters.

On this rock we can rear the

The error, at present recognised, of those

UNDERGROUND MAN

REGENERATION

ancient visionar.ies.c~.lled socialists was their failure to see that this life in c’ommon, this

frained from’ combating it, it was obligatory to abstain from arousing others which were

intense social li’fe, they dreamt of so ardently,

nöt less anti-socjal, that is to say, not less

had for its indispensable condition the

natural.

~sthetic life and the universal prop~gation

the ploughtail than to attract’them to the

of the religion öf truth ‘and beauty. The latter assumes the dras~ic lopping off of

factory, for the dispersion and isolation of

124

numerous personal wants.

Consequently in

125

It was far better to leave men at

individualist types are more preferable to bringing them’ togethei~, which can only

development of commercial life, they were

result in sefting thern ‘by the ears. But let us hurry oii. All the advantages for which

marching in the op~osite direction to their

we are indebted to our anti-natural position

own goal.

are now clear.

rushing, as they did, into an exaggerated

We alone have realised all

They must have begun, 1 am well aware,

the quintessence of refinement and reality,

by uprooting the fatal habit of eating bread,

of strength and of sweetness, that the social

which made man a slave to the tyrannical

life contains.

whims of a plant, of beasts which were

in a few rare cases in the midst of deserts

necessary for the manuring of this plant,

an individual had certainly had a distant

and of other plants which served as fodder

foretaste of this ineffable thing, not to men

for their beasts.

But as long as this

tion three or four salons in the eighteenth

unhappy craving was rampant and they re

century under the ancient regime, two or

.

.

.

Formerly, here and there,

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three painters’ studios, one or two green They represented, in a way, imper

kind, except, strictly speaking, in philosophy. For: we were obliged after several attempts

ceptible cores of social protoplasm lost amid

to give up the idea of founding or maintain

a mass of foreign matter.

But this marrow

ing a city of philosophers, notably owing to

has become the entire bone at present. Our

the incessant trouble caused by the tribe of

cities, all in all, are one vast workshop,

sociologists who are the most unsociable of

household and reception hall.

mankind.

126

rooms.

And this has

happened in the simplest and most inevit able manner in the world.

Following the

127

Let us not forget, by the way, to men tion the city of ~‘ sappersi” (we no longer speak of architects), whose speciality is to

law of separation of the old Herbert Spencer, the selection of heterogeneous

work ~ut the plans for excav~ating and

talents and vocations was bound to take

repairing all our crypts and to direct the

place of its own accord.

In fact, at the end

carrying out of the work by’ our machines.

of a century there was already underground

Quitting the hackneyed paths of former

in course of development and continuous

architecture, they have created in évery

excavation a city of painters, a city of

detail our modern architecture so profoundly

scuiptors, a city of musicians, of poets, of

original of which nothing could give an

geometricians, of physicists, of chemists, even of naturalists, of psychologists, of

idea to our forefathers. The public building of the ancient architect was a

scientific or ~sthetic specialists of every

kind of massive and voluminous work of

128

art. It was entirely a thing by itseif. Its exterior, and especially its front, occupied his attention far more than the inside. For the

modern

architect the interior

alone exists, and each work is linked on to those which have gone before. None stands by itseif. They are only an ex tension and ramification, one of another, an endless continuation like the epics of the East.

The work of the ancient archi

tect with its mispiaced individuality with its symmetry, which gave it a mock air of being a living thing, yet only rendered it more out of keeping with the surround ing landscape, the more symmetrical and more skilfully designed it was, produced the effect of a verse in prose, or of a hackneyed theme in a fantasia. Its special function was to represent correctness, cold ness,

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UNDERGROUND MAN

and

stiffness amid the luxuriant

129

disorder of nature and the freedom of the other arts. But to-day, instead of being the most tight-laced of the arts, archi tecture is the freest and most wanton of them all.

It is the chief element of

picturesqueness in our life, its artificial and veritably artistic scenery lends to all the masterpieces of our painters and scuiptors the horizon of its perspective, the sky of its vaults, the tangled vegeta tion of its innumerable colonnades, whose shafts are a copy of the idealised trunk of all the antique essence of tree-life, whose capitals imitate the idealised form of all the antique flowers. Here is nature winnowed and perfected, which has be come human in order to delight humanity, and which humanity has deified in order to shelter love beneath its shade. This perfection has only been, however, attained

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after much groping in the dark. Many falls of rock, occasioned by foolhardy excavations, which unduly reduced the number of supports, swallowed up whole towns during the first two centuries. They will serve for our descendants as

correspond to geographical accidents but to the diversity of the social aptitudes of human nature and of nothing else. Nay, more, in each of them the division of cities is founded on that of schools, the most flourishing of which, at any given

Pompeii to

least

moment, raises its particular town to the

shock produced by earthquakes (the only tion), a few cases of crushing to death

rank of capital, thanks to the all-powerful favour of the public. The beginnings and devolution of power,

still occur

such

questions which have so deeply agitated

accidents are very rare. To return to our subject. Each of our cities in founding colonies in the region

humanity of yore, anse with us in the most

round it, has become the mother of cities

genius who is hailed as such by the almost unanimous acciamation of his pupils at first,

130

rediscover.

At the

natural plague which engages our atten here

and there,

but

similar to itseif, in which its own peculiar colour has been multiplied in different tints which reflect and render it more beautiful. It is thus with us that nations are formed whose differences no longer

natural way in the world.

There is always

amid the crowd of our genius, a superior

and next of his comrades. A man is judged in fact by his peers and according to his productions, not by the incompetent or according to his electoral exploits.

In the

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light of the intimate sense of corporate life

ful monocycies, with trams without smoke or

which binds an~d cements us one to another,

whistle, with pretty electric carriages which

the elevation of such a dictator to the supreme magist~racy has nothing humiliating

glide silently along, like gondolas between walls covered with admirable bas-reliefs, with

about it for the pride of t~he senators who

charming inscriptions, with immortal fancies,

have elected him, Sand who are the chiefs

the outpourings and accumulations of ten

of all the leading schools théy themselves

generations of wandering artists. Similarly

have created. The elector who is a pupil, the elector who is an intelligent and sym

one might have seen in the olden times the

pathétic admirer identifies himseif with the

the course of ages the monks had trans lated their weariness of spirit into grinning figures, with hooded heads, into beasts from

132

object of his choice. Now it is the particular characterist.ic of a “Geniocratic” Republic to be based on admiration, not on envy, on syi~p~thy, and not on dislike—-on enlighten ment, not on~ illusion. Nothing is more delightful than a tour through our domains.

Our towns, which are

133

scanty remains of some convent where, in

the Apocalypse, clumsily scuiptured on the capitals of the little pilasters or around the stone chair of the Abbot. But what a distance lies between this monkish night. mare and this artistic revelation!

At the

quite close to one another are severally con

very most the pretty little gallery which

nected by broad roads which are always

joined across the Arno, the museum of

illuminated and dotted with light and grace-

the Pitti Palace, with that of the Uffizi at

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Florence, could give our ancestors a faint

still at times happens when wandering

idea of what we see. If the corridors of our abode possess this

alone, during the hours of the siesta, in this sort of infinite cathedral, with its

wealth and spiendour, what shall we say

irregular and endless architecture, through

of the dwelling-places, or of the cities?

this forest of lofty columns, massive or in

They are fihled with heaps of artistic

close formation, displaying in tum

marvels, of frescoes, enamels, gold and

diversified and grandiose styles, Egyptian,

silver plate, bronzes

pictures, the

Greek, Byzantine, Arab, Gothic, and re

acme and quintessence of musical emotions,

miniscent of all the vanished and venerated

of philosophic conceptions, of poetic dreams,

floras and faunas, when it is not above all

enough to baffie all description, and weary all admiration. We have difficulty in believing that the labyrinth of galleries, subterranean palaces and marble cata

profoundly original.

134

and

combs, all named and numbered,whose mani fold nomenclature recahls all the geography

.

.

135

the most

it happens, 1 repeat,

that panting, and beside ourselves with ecstasy, we come to a standstill, like the traveller of yore when he entered the twi light of a virgin forest, or of the pillared hall of Karnak.

That is what

To those who on reading the ancient accounts of travels might perchance have

perseverance can do! However accustomed

regretted the wanderings of caravans across

we may be to this extraordinary sight, it

the deserts or the discoveries of new

and history of the past, have been ex cavated in so few centuries.

UNDERGROUND MAN

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worids, our universe can offer boundless excursions under the Atlantic and Pacific

gone we have succeeded in cutting, hewing and carving the solidified sea-water. We

Oceans frozen to their very lowest depths.

are akle to glide through it, to man~uvre

Venturesome expiorers, 1 was going to

in it, to course through it on skates or

say discoverers, have in every direction

velocipedes with an ease and agility that

and in the easiest imaginable fashion honey

are always admired in spite of our being

combed these immense ice-caps with end less passages much in the same way as

accustomed to it.

the termites, according to our pa1~ontologists, bored through the floors of our fathers. We extend at will these fantastic

millions of electric lamps which are mirrored

136

these

regions

137

The severe cold of

is scarcely tempered by

in these emerald-green icicles with their velvet-like tints and renders a permanent

gallerles of crystal, which, wherever they cross one another, form so many crystal

us crossing them if, by good luck, the

palaces, by casting on the walls a ray of

earliest pioneers had not discovered in

intense heat which makes them melt.

We

them crowds of seals which had been

take good care to drain the water due to

caught while still alive by the freezing of

the liquefaction into one of those bottom

the waters in which they remain imprisoned.

less pits which

Their

here

and there yawn

hideously beneath our feet.

Thanks to this

method and the improvements it has under-

stay impossible.

carefully

It would even prevent

prepared

skins

furnished us with warm clothing.

have

Nothing

is more curious than thus suddenly to catch

138

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REGENERATION

animals, sometimes a whale, a shark or a

‘39 without having discovered some interesting object—a piece of wreckage, the steeple of some sunken town, a human skeleton

devil fish, and that star-like flora which

to enrich our prehistoric museums, some

carpets

times a shoal of sardines or cod.

sight of, as it were through a mysterious glass case, one of these huge marine

the

seas.

Though

appearing

These

crystallized in its transparent prison, in its

spiendid and timely reserves come in very

Elysium of pure brine, it has lost none of

handy for replenishing our bill of fare. But the chief fascination of such ad

its secret charm, that was quite unknown to our ancestors. Idealised by it~ very lack of motion, immortalised by its death, it dimly shines here and there with gleams of pearl and mother of pearl in the twilight of the depths below, to the right, the left, beneath the feet or above the head of the solitary skater who roams with his lamp on his forehead in pursuit of the unknown. There is always something new to look forward to from these miraculous soundings, so different from the soundings of former time. Never a tourist has come home

venturous expioration is the sense of the boundless and the everlasting, of the un fathomable and the changeless by which one is arrested and overwhe]med in these bottomless depths. The savour of this silence and so]itude, of this profound peace, the sequel to so many tempests, of this almost starless gloaming and twilight with its fleeting gleams, reposes the eye after our underground illuminations.

1 will not

speak of the surprises which the hand of man has lavished there.

At the moment

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when one least expects it one sees the submarine tunnel along which one is gud

lawsuits about party walls. As for felonies and misdemeanours, we do not know ex

ing, enlarged beyond all

measure and

actly why, but it is an obvious fact that

transformed into a vast hall in which the

with the spread of the cult of art they have disappeared as by enchantment, whiie formerly the progress of industrial life had tripled their numbers in haif a century.

140

fancy of our sculptors has found full play, a temple of vast dimensions with transparent pillars, with walls of enthralling beauty that the eye in ecstasy attempts to fathom. That is often the trysting place of friends and lovers, and the excursion begun in dreamy loneliness is continued in loving companionship. But we have wandered long enough in these halls of mysteries. our cities.

Let us return to

One would look, by the bye,

Man in becoming a town dweller has become really human. From the time that all sorts of trees and beasts, of flowers and insects no longer interpose between men, and all sorts of vulgar wants no longer hinder the progress of the truly human facultjes, every one seems to be bom weil: bred, just as every one is bom

a scuiptor

in vain for a city of lawyers there, or even,

or musician,

philosopher or poet,

and

for a court of justice. There is no more arable land and therefore no more lawsuits

speaks the most correct language with the purest accent. An indescribabie courtesy,

about property or ancient rights. There are no more walls, and therefore no more

skjlled to charm without falsehood, to please without obsequiousness, the most free from

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fawning one has ever seen, is united to a politeness which has at heart the feeling,

of voice, in the least inclination of the head

142

not of a social hierarchy to be respected, but of a social harmony to be maintained. It is composed not of more or less de generate airs of the court, but of more or less faithful reflections of the heart. Its refinement is such as the race who lived on the surface of earth never even dreamed of. It permeates like a fragrant ou all the complicated and delicate machinery of our existence.

No unsociableness, no misan

thropy can resist it. profound.

The charm is too

The single threat of ostracism,

1 do not say of expulsion to the realms above, which would be a death sentence, but of banishment beyond the limits of the usual corporate life, is suflicient to arrest the most criminal natures on the slope of crime. There is in the slightest inflexion

143

of our women a special charm, which is not only the charm of former times, whether roguish kindness or kindly roguishness, but a refinement at once more exquisite and more healthful in which the constant prac tice of seeing and doing beautiful things or loving and being loved is expressed in an ineffable fashion.

LOVE so-called political ambition~

‘45 It suffered

accordingly an immense decline, relatively speaking.

LOVE,

To-day it benefi~s from the

VI

destruction or grad u~.1 diminution of a11 the

LOVE

other principal impulsés of the heart ~which have taken refuge and concentrated them

in fact, is the unseen and perennial

source of this novel courtesy. The capital importance it has assumed, the strange forms it has worn, the unexpected heights to which it has risen, are perhaps the most significant characteristics of our civilisation. In the glittering and superficial epochs, age

selves in it as banished mankind has done in the warm bosom of the earth. P~.triotism is dead, since there is no longer any riative land, but only a native grot. Moreov~er the guilds wl~ich we enter as we please accord ing to our vocations have taken the p1ac~ of Fatherlands. Corporate spirit has exter

ately preceded our present era, love was

minated patriotism. In the same fashion the school is on the road not to exterminate

held in check by a thousand childish needs,

but to transform the family, which is only

by the contagious monomania of unsightly

right and proper.

and cumbersome luxury or of ceaseless globe-trotting, and by that other form of

said for the parents of old was that they

madness which has now disappeared, the

friends. One was not wrong in preferring in

of paper and clectro-plating, which immedi

‘44

The best that can be

were compulsory and not always cost-free

146

LOVE

UNDERGROUND MAN

147

general to them friends who ar~e a species of

almost equally accomplished.

optional and unselfish relations.

nothing natural left in our world below if

Maternal

There is

love itself has undergone a good many

it be not they.

transformations among our women artists,

always been the most beautiful thing in

and one diust admit, sundry p&rtial ~et backs.

nature even in the most unfavourable and

But love is left to us. Or rather, be it said without vanity, it is we who discovered

that never was the graceful curve of hill

and introduced it.

Its name has preceded

But it appears they have

ill-favoured ages.

For we are assured

or stream, of wave or rippling cornfield, that never was the hue of the dawn or of

Our ancestors

the Mediterranean equal in sweetness, in

gave it its name, but they..spoke of it as the

strength, in richness of visibie music and

Hebrews spoke of the Messiah.

1n our day it

harmony to the female form. There must therefore have been a special instinct which

has become incarnate, it has founded the

is quite incomprehensible which formerly

true religion, universal and enduring, that

retained the poor beside their natal river or

pure and ~auste~e moral which is indis

rock and prevented their emigrating to the

tinguishable from art. It has been favoured at the outset; beyond all doubt and beyond

big towns, where they might weil have hoped to admire at their ease tints and

all expectation by the charm and beauty of

outlines of beauty assuredly far superior to

our ~vomen, who are all differently yet

the charm of the locality to whose attrac

it by a good many centuries.

revealed i’tself in our day.

It has

UNDERGR~OUND MAN

LOVE

tions they fell a victim. At ~present there is no other country than tli~ wotnan of one’s

without leaving the tiniest room for the

affe~tion~; there is no other home-sickness

said, is to the woman what the asymptote

than that ~aused b~y her absence.

is to the curve, it draws ever nearer but

148

But the foregoing is insufficient to explain

hall.

‘49

The wise man, an ancient writer has

never touches.

It ~v~s a haif crazy fellow

the unparalleled power and persistence of

named Rousseau who uttered this spiendid

our tove which time intensifies more than it

aphorism and our soci’ety flatteis itseif that

wears out, and consummates as it consumes

it has practised it far better than he.

it.

Love, we now at tast know, is like air,

the same the ideal thus outlined, we ar~

essential to life; we must. look to it for

compelled to confess, is r~rely attained in

health and not Tör mere nourishment.

all iis entity.

It is

All

This ciegree of perfection is

as the sun once was, we must use it to give

reserved for the most saintly souls, the

us light, not allow it to dazzle us.

resembres that im~osing temple that the

ascetics, men and women, who wander together, two and two, in the most marvel

fervour of o~ur fathers raised in its honour

lous cl6isters, ih the most Raphael’esque cells

when they ~‘orshipped it, unwittingly, at

~n the city of painters, in a sort of arti~cia1

the Paris Opera-house.

The most beautiful

dusk produc~d by a coloured twilight in the

part of it is the staircase—when one mounts

rriidst of a throhg of similar couples, and on

it.

We have therefore attempted to make

the ~banks o(a s~f~am so to say o? audaciöus

the staircase monopolise the whole ediflce

and splendid revelations ~f the n~de. Ti~ey

It

x~o

UNDERGROUND MAN

LOVE

pass their life in feasting their eyes on these

obliged to forbid in general under the most severe penalties a practice which apparently

waves of beauty, the living bank of which is their own passion. Together they climb

‘5’

was very common and indulged in ad

the fiery steps of the heavenly staircase to

libilum by our forefathers.

the very summit on which they halt.

that after manufacturing the rubbish heaps

Then

Is it possible

supremely inspired they set to work and produce masterpieces. Heroic lovers are

of law

they whose whole pleasure in love consists in the sublime joy of feeling their love growing within them, blissful because it is shared, inspiring because it is chaste.

regulate the only matter considered worthy

But for the greater number of us it has been necessary to come down to the level of the insurmountable weakness of the old Adam.

None the less the inelastic limits

of our food supplies have made it a duty for us rigorously to guard against a possible excess in our population which has reached to-day fifty millions, a flgure it can never exceed without danger.

We have been

with

which

our

libraries

are

lumbered up, they precisely omitted to to-day of regulation? Can we conceive that it could ever have been permissible to the first comer without due authorisation to expose society to the arrival of a new hungry and wailing member—above all at a time when it was not possible to kill a partridge without a game licence, or to import a sack of corn without paying duty? Wiser and more far-sighted, we degrade, and in case of a second offence we condemn to be thrown into a lake of petroleum, who ever allows himseif to infringe our constitu

UNDERGROUND MAN

LOVE

tional law on this point, or rather we should say, should allow himself, for the force of public opinion has got the better of the

love apd agony, of despair and frenzy, but more often of ecstatic repose. They recently made an ind~lible. impres~ion on

crime and has rendered our penalties un

a ce1ebrate~ traveller who was boM enough

necessary.

to mak~ the ascent in order to get a glimpse

152

We sometimes, nay very often,

‘53

see lovers who go mad from love and die

of them.

in consequence.

themselves hoisted by a lift to the gaping

died from the effects. But what is •~inheard of and unexampled

mouth of an extinct voicano and reach the

in our day.. is for a woman h~i lo~ve to abandon

outer air which in a moment freezes them

herseif to her lov~er before~ the latter has

to death. They have scarcely time to regard the azure sky a magnificent

under her ins~ilratipn produced a master piece which is .~adjudged and proclaimed as

spectacie, so they say—and the twilight hues of the still dying sun or the vast and

such by his r~iva1s. For here we have the indispensable cpndi~ion to which legitimate

unstudieci disorder of the stars; then locked in each other’s arms they fall dead upon the ice! The summit of their favourite volcano is completely crowned with their corpses

marriage is subordinated.

have children is the monopoly and supreme recompense of genius. It is besides a powerful lever for the uplifting and exalta

which are admirably preserved always in

tjon of the race.

twos, stark and livid, a living image still of

only exercise it exactly the same number of

Others courageously get

—

We all know how he has since

The right to

Futhermore a man can

UNDERGRO’UND MAN

LOVE

times as he produces works worthy. of a master. But in this respect some indul gence ~is shown. It even happens pretty

of the precisely opposite effects of ancient marriage, that institution of our ancestors, more ridiculous still than their umbrellas,

frequent’l~ that~ touched by pity for some

one can measure the distance between this

grand passion th~at• disposes dnly of a mediocre talent, the affected a~dmiratio’n of

excessive and pretended exclusive €-k6i/urn con ug~le and our mode of union, at once free

the public partly from sympathy sand pärtly

and regulated, energetic and intermittent,

from condescension accords a favourable

passionate and restrained, the true corner

verdict to works ~of no. intrinsic value.

stone of our regenerated humanity.

Perhaps there are also (~in fact there is no

sufferings it imposes on those who are

doubt about it) for common use other

sacrificed, the unsuccessful artists, is not for the latter a cause of complaint. Their

154

methods~of getting round the law’.

‘55

The

Ancient society reposed on the fear of

despair itseif is dear to the desperate; for if

punishment, ~n a pen~l system which has

they do not die of it, they draw life and

had its day. Ours, it is clear, is based on the expectation of ha•ppiness~ The enthus iasm and creative fira aroused by such a perspective are attested by our exhibitions,

immortality from it and from the bottomless pit of their inner depth of woe, they gather

and borne witness to by the rich luxuriance of our annual art harv~sts.

When we think

deathiess flowers, flowers of art or poesy for some, mystic roses for others.

To the latter

perhaps is given at that moment, as they grope in their inward darkness to touch most

UNDERGROUND MAN

LOVE

nearly the essenc~ ~f things, and these delights. are so vivid~ that our artists and our

squeaky voiqes! What ~allow complexions! What an~ impossible ~h~nguage with no con

metaphysical rnystics ~onder whether art and philosophy were ma& to consol~ love ~r

nection witH our Greek! It was, without doubt a veritable underground America, q~iite as vagt and still more curious. It

156

if the sole réason for love’s existence is not to inspire art and the pursuit of ultima’te truth. This last opinion h~s generally pre~ailed. The extent to whi~h love has~refined öur

‘57

was the work of a little tribe of burrowing Chinese who had had, one imagines, the same idea as our Miltiades.

Much more

ness, was proved at the time of the great discovery which took place in the Year of

practical than he, they bad hastily crawled underground without encumbering them selves with museums and libraries, and there they had multiplied enormously. Instead of confining themselves as we to

Salvation ig~.. Guidedbysome mysterious inkling, some electric sen~e of direction, a

turning to account the deposits of animal carcasses, they had shamelessly given them

bold sapper bydint of forcihg his waythrough

selves up to ancestral cannibalism.

the fla•nks of the earth beyondthe otdinary

were thus enabled, seeing the thousand of

galleries suddenly penet.rated into a strange open space buzzing with human voices and swarrning with human faces. But what

millions of Chinese destroyed and buried

habits, and to which our civilisation based on love is superior in morality to the ~forTm~r civilisatiön based on ambition’ and covetous

They

beneath the snow, to give full vent to their proliFic instincts. Alas! who knows if our

UNDERGROUND MAN

LOViE

own descendants will not one day be reduced to this extremity? In what promiscuity, in what a slough of greed, falsehood and

the sun, the moon and the stars. They listened, however, to the end. of these a~counts, then in an :ironical tone they

robbery were these unfortunates living! The words of our language refuse to depict

asked our env~oys: “Have you seen all

their filth and coarseness. With infinite pains they raised underground diminutive

not reply to the question, since no one

158

vegetables in diminutive beds of soil they had brought thither together with diminutive pigs and dogs.

These ancient servants

159 .

that?”

.

.

Ana the l~t~ér ~unfortunately could

among us has seen the sky except the lovers who go to die together. Now, what did our settlers do at the

of mankind appeared very disgusting to

sight of such cerebral atrophy? Several proposed, it is true, to exterminate these

our new Christopher Columbus.

These

savages who might weil become dangerous

degraded beings (1 speak of the masters

owing to their cunning and to their numbers, and to appropriate their dwelling-place

.

.

.

and not of the animals, for the latter belong to a breed that has been much improved by those who raised them) had lost all recoliec tion of the Middie Empire and even of the surface of the earth.

They heartily laughed

when some of our savanis sent on a mission to them spoke to them of the firmament,

after a certain amount of cleaning and painting and the removal of numerous little bells.

Others proposed to reduce them to

the status of slaves or servants in order to shift on to them all our menial work. But these two proposais were rejected.

i6o

UNDERGROUND MAN

An attempt was made to civilize and to render less savage these poor cousins, and once the impossibility of any success in that direction had been ascertained the

VII

partition was carefully blocked up. THE IESTHETIC LIFE

SbCH

is the moral’ miracie wrought by our

ex~ellence which itseif is begotten of love and .beatity.

But’ the intellectual marvels

~hich have issued fiom the same source, merit a still more extended notice.

It will

be enou~h for me to indicate them as 1 go along. Let us first speak of the sciences. One rnight~have thought that from the day that the stars and celestial bodies, the faunas and floras, ceased to pl’ay a certain part in oui lives är that the manifold sources of observation and é’xperience ceased to flow, astronomy and meteorology would i6r

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE ESTHETIC LIFE

henceforth be brought to a standstill while zoology and botany would have become pal~ontology pure and simple, without speaking of their application to the navy, army and agriculture, which are all to-day

vivisections, and innumerable experiments, that the human mmd can live on this capital till the end of time. It was high time that it began at last to arrange ahd utilize these materials. Now, for the

entirely obsolete; in fact, that they would

sciences of which 1 am speaking, the advantage is great from the point of view

~62

have ceased to make a step forward and would have fallen into complete oblivion.

163

of their success that they are entirely based

Luckily these apprehensions proved ground

on written testimony, and in no way on

less.

Let us admire the extent to which

sense perception, and that they on all

the sciences which the past has bequeathed

occasions invoke the authority of books

to us, formerly eminently useful and in

(for we talk to-day of whole bibliographies

ductive, have for the first time had the

when formerly people spoke of a single

advantage of passionately interesting and exciting the general public since they have acquired this double characteristic of being

Bible—evidently an immense difference). This great and inestimable advantage con sists in the extraordinary riches of our

an object of luxury and a deductive subject. The past has accumulated such undigested

libraries in documents of the most diverse kinds which never leaves an ingenious

masses of astronomical tables, papers and proceedings dealing with measurements,

theorist in the lurch, and is equal to sup porting in a plenary and authoritative

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE I~STHETIC LIFE

fashion the most contradictory opinions at one and the same syn~posium. Iis abund ance recalls the admirabie wealth of antique

the suni total of the sciences bequeathed to

164

165

legislation and jurisprudence in texts and

us by the past has become definitely and inevitably a religion. Our savanis to-day who work deductively on these data from

decisions of every hu~ which rendered the

henceforth changeless and inviolate, exactly

law-suits so interesting, almost as much as

recall on a much larger scale the theo

the battles of the populace of Alexandria

logians of the ancient world.

on the subject. of a theological iota. The debates of our savafils, their polemics

encyciopaedic theology, not less fertile than others in schisms and heresies, is the unique

relati.ve to the Vitellin yolk of the egg of

but inexhaustible source of divisions in the

the Arachneida, or the’ digestive apparatus

bosom of our Church which is otherwise so

of’ the Infusoria, constitute the burning

compact.

questions which distress us, and which if

and fascinating charm of our intellectual

we had the misfortui~ie to possess a regular

leaders.

press, would n’ot fall to drench our streets in gore.

For the questions which are

This new

It is perhaps the most profound

“All the same, they are dead sciences 1” say certain malcontents.

Let us accept the

useless and even harmful have always the

epithet.

knack of rousing the passions, provided they are insoluble. These are our religious quarrels. In fact

after the fashion of those languages in which a whole people chanted iis hymns

They are dead, if one likes, but

although no one speaks them any longer.

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE iESTHETIC LIFE

This is also the case with certain faces

in this department, in the comparative

whose beauty only appears in its fulness when their last sleep has come. Let none therefore be surprised if our love fastens on these majestic dogmas, by which we

anatomy and physiology of numerous solar

i66

167

Above all, mathematics, as being the most

systems, the most novel and profound views. Our Leverriers are reckoned by hundreds. Being all the better acquainted with the sky because they no longer see it, they resembie Beethoven, who only wrote his finest symphonies when he had lost

perfect type of the new sciences, has pro

his hearing.

gressed with giant steps.

astronomers at length to attack and to

Pasteurs are almost as numerous. Al though we are careful as a matter of fact not to accord to the natural sciences the

solve problems

statement

exaggerated and fundamentally anti-social

would have provoked an incredulous smile

importance they formerly usurped during

in their predecessors.

And so they dis

two or three centuries, we do not com

cover every day, chaik in hand, not with

pletely neglect them. Even the applied sciences have their votaries. Recently one

are more and more overshadowed, on these higher inutilities which are our vocation.

Descending to

fabulous depths, analysis has allowed the whose

mere

the telescope to the eye, 1 know not how many intra-mercurial or extra-neptunian planets, and begin to distinguish the planets of the nearer stars. There are

Our Claude Bernards and

of the latter has at last discovered—such is the irony of destiny—the practical means of steering balloons.

These discoveries are

i68

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE 1~STHETIC LIFE

useless, 1 admit, yet are ever beautiful and fertile, fertile in new, if superfluous, beauties.

and better instructed in the nature of

They are weicomed with transports of feverish enthusiasm and win for their originators something better than glory,— the happiness that we know so weil. But among the sciences there are two

i6g

affinities, force t.heir way into the inner life of the molecules and reveal to us their desires, their idea~, and under a fallacious air of conformity, their individual physi ognomy. While they.t.hus construct for us the psychology of the atom, our psycholo gists explain to us the atomic theory of

which are still experimental and inductive and in addition pre-eminently useful. It is

self, 1 w~s going to say the sociology of

to this exceptional standing that they

self.

perhaps owe, we must admit, the un

its most minute detail, the most admirable

paralled rapidity with which they have grown. These two sciences which were

of a11 societies, this hierarchy of conscious

formerly the antipodes of one another, are

which our personality is the summit.

to-day on the high road to becoming

are indebted to them both for priceless

identical by dint of pushing their joint

benefits.

researches ever deeper and crushing to atoms the last problems left. Their names

lor~ger alone in a frozen world.

are chemistry and psychology.

animated, we are conscious that these hard

Our chemists, inspired perhaps by love

They enable us to perceive, even in

ness, this feudal system of vassal souls, of We

Thanks to the former we are no We are

conscious that these rocks are alive and metais which protect and warm us are like-

170

UNDERGROUND MAN

wise a prolific brotherhood.

Through their

THE iESTHETIC LIFE

i~i

with the deductive vigour that is second

mediation these living stones have some

nature with us.

message for our heart, something at once

dethronement that leads to freedom.

alien and intimate, which neither the stars

have Iearnt certain processes which allow

restores to itseif the fallen or abdicated seif that retires anew into its inner conscious ness, where it finds in depths more than the equivalent of the outward empire it has lost. In thinking of the terrors of former

us (in a scanty measure, it is true, for the moment) to supplement the insufficiency of

man, face to face with the tomb, we com pare them with the dread experienced by

our ordinary food supplies, or to vary their

the comrades of Miltia~Ies when they were

monotony by several substances agreeable to the taste and entirely compounded by

compelled to bid adieu to the fields of ice, to the snowy horizons, in order to enter

artificial means.

But if our chemists have

for ever the gloomy abysses in which such

thus reassured us against the danger of

a myriad of glittering and marvellous sur

dying of hunger, our psychologists have

prises awaited ~hém.

nor the flowers of the field ever told to our forefathers. And by their mediation also, and the service is not to be d spised—we

Death appears to us as a It

acquired still further claims on our gratitude

That is a well-established doctrine and

in freeing us from the fear of death. Per meated by their doctrines we have followed

one on which no discussion would be

their consequences to their final conciusion

tolerated. It is, with pur devotion to beauty and our faith in the divine omnipotence of

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE ./ESTHETIC LIFE

love, the foundation ‘of .our peace of mmd

The others have the peculiar quality of

and the starting point of our en’thusiasms.

being at once ruminants and nimbie, like

Our phllosophers themselves avoi4 touching on it, as on all which is fundamental in our

the antelope.

172

institutions.

And

this difference

173

of

temperament is indelible.

To this perhaps may ‘be traced

There is not, 1 have already said, a city,

an agreeable air of harm~essness which adds

such certainties as baliast we can spring

but there is a grotto of philosophers, a natural one to which they come, and sit apart from one another or in groups, accord ing to their schools, on chairs formed of

with a light heart into the ~ther of systems,

granite blocks beside a petrifying weil.

and so we do not fail to do so.

One may

This spacious grotto contains astounding

be surprised, howev’er, that~ 1 made a distinc

stalactites, the slow product of continuous

tion between our philosophers aq~d those

droppings which vaguely imitate, in the

deductive savanis of whom 1 have spoken

eyes of those who are not too critical, all

above~

kinds of beautiful objects, cups and chande

to the charm of their refinemen~ and con tributes to their success in public. With

Their subj~ct-matter and their They chew the cud

liers, cathedrals and mirrors—cups which

—if 1 may be ~allowed the expression—in the same fashibn at the same mangers.

quench no man’s thirst, chandeliers which give no light, cathedrals in which no one

But the one group, 1 mean the savanis, are

prays, but mirrors in which one sees oneseif

ordinary ruminants, that is, slow and clumsy.

more

methods are identical.

or less

faithfully and pleasantly

‘74

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE iESTHETIC LIFE

175

There also is to be seen a

appear here and there still more surprising.

gloomy and bottomless lake over which

There are always, of course, Neo-Aristo

hang like so many question-marks, the

telians, Neo-Kantians, Neo-Cartesians, and

pendants in the sombre roof and the beards

Neo-Pythagoricians.

of the thinkers.

Such is the ample cave

commentators of Empedocies to whom his

which is exactly identical to the philosophy it shelters, with its crystals sparkling amid its uncertain shadows—full of precipices, it

passion for the volcanic underworld has procured an unexpected re-juvenation of his antique authority on the minds of men,

is true.

above all since an arch~ologist has main tained he has found the skeleton of this grand man in pushing an exploring gallery

portrayed.

It recalls better than anything else

to the new race of men, but with a still greater portion of mirage-like fascination, that diurnal miracie of our forefathers—

Let us not forget the

the starry night. Now the crowd of systematic ideas which slowly form and

to the very foot of Aetna which to-day is completely extinct. But there is ever arising some great reformer with an un

crystallise there in each brain like mental

published gospel that each attempts to

stalactites is indescribably enormous. While all the former stalactites of thought are for

enrich with a new version destined to take

ever ramifying and changing their shape,

greatest intellect of our time, the chief of

turning as it were from a table into an altar,

the fashionable school in sociology.

or from an eagle into a griffin, new ideas

cording to this profound thinker the social

iis place.

1 will cite for example the Ac

176

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE .~STHETIC LIFE

development of humanity, starting on the outer rind of the earth and continuing to

He is happy as a god because he is

i~

day beneath its crust, at no great distance

omniscient and omnipotent, because he has just discovered the true answer of the

from the surface, is destined in proportion

Great Enigma, yet dying because he cannot

to the growing solar and planetary cooling,

survive humanity.

to pursue its course from strata to strata

plosive substance of extraordinary potency

down to the very centre of the earth, while

he blows up the globe with himseif in order

the population forcibly contracts and civilisa

to sow the immensity of space with the

tion on the contrary expands at each new

last remnants of mankind.

descent.

Tt is worth seeing the vigour and

very naturally has a good many adherents.

Dante-like precision with which he char

The graceful Hypatias, however, who form his female followers, idly lying

acterises the social type peculiar to each of these humanities, immured within its own

By means of an ex

This system

circle, growing ever nobler and richer,

round the master’s stone, are agreed it would be proper to associate with the

happier and better balanced.

last man, the, last woman, not less ideal

One should

read the portrait which he has limned with

than he.

a bold brush of the last man, sole survivor and heir of a hundred successive civilisations,

But what shall 1 say of art and poetry? Here to be just, praise must become

left to himseif yet self-sufficient in the midst

panegyric.

of his immense stores of science and art.

cating the general tendency of the trans

Let us limit ourselves to mdi

178

THE 1~STHETIC LIFE

UNDERG.ROUND MAN

179

F have

being either helped ‘or hindered by the sight

related what has become of our architecture which has been turned “outside in,” so to

of any animal or any plant. Never, in fact, have bur artists, who protest strongly

say, and brought into keeping with its

against •being taken for photographers,

surroundings; the idealised image in stone,

depicted

formations that ha~e taken pJace.

the essence and consummation of former Nature. 1 shall not return to the subject. But 1 must still say a word about this immor.tal. and overflowing population of

so many plants, animals

and

Iandscapes, than since these were no more. Similarly, they have never p~inted or scuiptured so many draperies, since every

statues, this wealth of frescoes, enamels,

one goes about almost naked, while formerly at the time when humanity wore clothes

and bronzes which in .concert with our

the nude abounded in ah.

poetry celebrate in this architectural trans

that nature, now dead and formerly alive, from which our great masters drew their subjects and themes, has beqome a simple hieroglyphic and coidly conventional alpha-

figuration of the nether world the apotheosis of love. Ther,e would be an interesting study to make on the gradual metamorphoses

No.

Does it mean

that the genius of our painters and sculptors

bet?

Daughter to-day of tradi

has imposed for the last three centuries

tion and no longer of pro~lu≤tive nature, humanised and harm’onised, she has a still

on these traditional types of lions, horses, tigers, birds, trees and flowers, with which

firmer hold on the heart.

it is never weary of disporting itseif, without

to each his day-dreams rather than his

If she recalls

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE I~STHETIC LIFE

recollechons, his imaginings rather than his impressions, his admiratior~ as an artist

them up within us by a strange instinct at

i8o

i8z

the least suggestiön of love.

rather than his tér.ror äs a child, she is

And when our paii~efs show~ us these

only the better caiculated to fascinate and

horses whose legs grow ever slimmer, these

subdue.

She has for us the profound and

swans whose necks be~orne ever rounder

intimate charm of än old legénd, but it is

and longer, these vin~s whose leaves and branches grow ever more intricate with

• a legehd~in which one believes. Such must

their lace-like edges and arab’esques inter

have been th~e my~hology of the worthy

woven rourid still more e~quisite birds, a

Homer when his hearers in the Cyciades still beli~ved in Aphrodite and. P.allas, in the~Dioscuri and the Ceiitaurs, of whom he

n~tch1ess emotion rises within us such as a young Greek might have felt before a bäs-relief cr~wded with fauns and nymphs

spoke tb them and w~rung from them tears

or with Argonautes bearing off the Golden

of sh~er d~li~ht.

Fleece, or with Nereids sporting around

‘~Nothing is. more ihspiring.

Thus. our poets make us

weep, when they speak to us now of azure

the .cup of Amphitrite.

skies, of the sea-girt horizon, of the perfume

If our architecture in spite of all its

of roses, of .the song of birds, of all those

spiendours seems but a simple foil of our

objects that our eye has never seen, our

other fine arts, they in their tum, however

ear has never heard, of which all our

admirable, have the air of being barely

senses are ignorant, yet our mmd conjures

w~thy to illustrate our poetry and literature

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE iESTHETIC LIFE

graven on stone. But in our poetry and even in our literäture there are glories which in compar.ison with less obvious

nothing more fascinating than this renais sance ar~d transfiguration of forgotten

182

beauty are as the corona is to the ovary, or the frame to ~the pi~ture.

Read our

183

idioms, once the gloiy of anti~uity. As for our diamas and our poems which are

romantic dramas and epics in which all

often at once the collective and individual work of a school,..incar.nate in its chief and

ancient history is magically unrolled down

animated ~with a

to the heroic struggle and love story of

scuiptures of the Barthenon, there is nothing

Miltiades.

comparable in..the masterpieces of Sophocles

You will decide that nothing

more sublime could ever be writ.ten.

Read

or Homer..

single

idea like the

What the extinct species of

also our idylls, our elegies, our epigrams inspired by antiquity, and our poetry of every kind written in a dozen dead

ofJormer human nature are to our dramatists.

languages which when desired revive in

J ealousy,

order to vivify with their clear notes and their manifold harmonies, the pleasure of our ear, to accompany, so to say, with their rich orchestration in English, German, Swedish, Arabic, Italian and French, the music of our pure Attic.

You will imagine

näture f&rrnerly alive are to our painters and scuiptors, the no less extinct sentiments ambition, patriotism, fanaticism, the mad lust of battle, the exalted love of family, the pride of an illustrious name, all the vanished passions of the heart when called up upon~ the stage, no longer cause tears or terror~ in a single soul, any more than the heraldic tigers and lions painted

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE 1~STHETIC LIFE

up on our public squares frighten our

language; and to tell the truth, they are

every ancient plant of the field, awake~n ing it to bloom anew that grand yearly transformation scene, so dec~ptive and entrancing, which they hamed thé Spring,

only a grand piano on which our new

when there was still a Spring to n’ame!

passions play.

It is love, the

And so for our highly refined writers, all that 1 have just praised a moment ago has no value if their heart is left %ntouched.

soul of our soul and source of our art.

They would give for one true and p’ersonal

That is the true sun which will never fail

note all these feats of skill and sleight of

us, which is never weary of touching and reanimating with the light of its countenance its lower creations of yore, the first-born

hand.

184

children. But in a new accent with quite a different ring, they speak to us their ancient

Now there is but a single

passion for all its thousand names, as there is above but a single sun.

185

What they look for under the

most grandiose conceptions and stage effects,

incarnations of the heart, in order to make

and under the most audacious novelties in rhyme; what they adore on bended knee

them young once more, in order to re-gild

when they have found it, is a short passage,

them with its dawns, and reincarnadine

a line, half a line, on which an impercep tible hint of profound passion, or the most

them with its setting spiendours; almost in the same fashion as it sufficed the other sun to compass with a single ray that august summons to deck the earth, addressed to

fleeting phase, though unexpressed, of love in joy, in suffering or in death has left its impress.

Thus at the beginning of

i86

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE~ ~STHETIC LIF~E

humanity each tint of the dawn or the dusk, each hour of the day was, for the first man who gave it a name, a new solar god who soon possessed worshippers, priests and

deciare tl~ey are soa1~ed and saturated with the .essence, so remarkably~ pure and so much above proof, of our excessive ar~d 9ompulspry society. They find our realm

temples of his own. Bi~t- to analyse sensa tions after the manner of the .old-fashioned

of beauty too static, our atmosphere of happjness too tranguil.

erotic writers gives us no trouble.

The real

them we~ vary from tirne ‘.to tin~e the

difficulty and merit lie ingathering along

intensity and colp.uring of o.ur illuminations

with our mystics, from the lowest depths of

and ventilate our..colonnades with a kind of

sorrow, its flowers of ecstasy, the pearis and

refreshing breeze.

coral that lie at the bottom of iis sea, and

demning as monotonous our day devoid of

to enrich the soul in its own ~eyes. Our purest poetry thus joins. hands with our most profound psychology. One is the

clouds or night;

oracie, the other the dogma of one and the

187

In vain to please

Tl~ey persist in con our

year, devoid of

seasons; our towns ~devoid of country-life. Very curiously when the month of May comes round, this feeling of restlessness which they alone experience at ordinary

same religion. And yet is it credible? In spite of its beauty, harmony and incomparable charm, our society has also its malcontents. There

times, becomes contagious and well-nigh general. And so it is the most melancholy and least busy month of the year. One

are here and there certain recusants who

would say that the Spring driven from

i88

THE ~STHETIC LIFE

UNDERGROUNØ MAN

plans for an early exodus.

189

Such unhealthy

every place, from the gloomy’ immensity of the heavens and from the frozen surface of the earth has, as we, sought refuge under ground; or rather that her wandering ghost

and revolutionary dreams ~evidently only serve to foment artificial discontent.

returns at stated seasons to visit us and

gotten corner of the a~rchiyes put his hand

tantalise us by her hadhting 1*esence.

It

on a big colle~tion of phonographic and

is then that the city of the musicians grows

cin~ematographic recqrds which had been

full and their music becomes so sweet, pathetic, mournful, and desperatel~ ha~rrow

amassed by an ancient collector.

ing that we see lovers by hundreds at a

graph t9gether, these cylinders and films

time take each other by the hand and go

have enabled us suddenly to hear all the

up to gaze upon the death~deahling sky.

former sounds in nature accompanied by

In reference to this 1 ought to say that there was recently a false ararm ca~used by

their cor.responding sights, the thunder, the

a madman who pretended he ilåd seen the

that accompany the dawn, the monotonous

sun coming back to life and melting the ice.

cry of the bsprey and the long drawn out lament of the nightingale amid the manifold

At this news which had not been otherwise confirmed, quite a considerable portion of the population became unsettled and gave itseif up to the pleasing task of forming

Luckily a scholar. in~ rumaging in a for

Inter

preted by. the phonograph and cinemato

winds,t•he mountain torrents, the murmurs

whisperings of night.

At this resurrection

of another age to the ear and eye, of extinct species and vanished phenomena, an

UNDERGROUND MAN

THE iESTHETIC LIFE

immense astonishment quickly followed by an immense disillusionarose among the most ardent partisans of a r~turn to the ancient

alas, to contaminate our ranks, and our moralists observe not without apprehension sundry symptoms which indicate the relaxa

regime. Fcr that was not what one had hitherto believed on the strength of what

tion of our morals. The growth in our population is very disquieting, notably

even ~1~e most realist poets and novelists had

since certain chemical discoveries, following

told us.

It was something infinitely less

upon which we have been too much in a

ravishing and less worthy of our regret.

hurry to deciare that bread might be made

The song of the nightingale above all pro

of stones, and that it was no longer worth

voked a most unpleasant surprise.

We

while to husband our food supplies or to

were all angry with it for showing itseif so

trouble ourselves to maintain at a certain

inferior to its reputation. Assuredly the worst of our concerts is more musical than

limit the number of mouths to feed.

190

this so-called symphony of nature with full orchestral accompaniment. Thus genious

has

been

quelled

by an

in

expedient entirely unknown to

former governments, this first and only

i~i

Simultaneously with the increase in the number of children, there is a diminution in the number of masterpieces. Let us hope that this lamentable movement will soon abate.

If the sun once more, as after

May it be the last.

the different glacial epochs, succeeds in awakening from his lethargy and regains

A certain leaven of discord is beginning,

fresh strength, let us pray that only a small

attempt at rebellion.

192

THE 2~ESTHETIC LIFE

UNDERGROUND MAN

193

which is the unruly, and by incurable itseif of the

tl~~ough the infinite void, the stars collect the ger.~ns. of higher ljfe in order to f~rtilize them in the dept~h of their bospm. The deceptive brilliancy of these widely scattered

seeming yet deceptive adyantages offered

stars, so relatively fe~ in number, which

by this open air c~ure an4 will make a dash

are still alight, which have not finished

upwards for th~e freedom of t~ose inciement

sowing what Miltiades called their wild

climes!

But this is •highl.y improj~able if

oats of light and heat, prevented the first

one reflects on the adyanced age of the sun

race of men from thinking of this, to wit

and the danger of those relapses common

of the numberless and tranquil multitude

to old age.

of dark stars to whom this radiance served

part of our population, ijhat most light-headed, the most the most deeply attackea “matrimonialitis,” will avail

It is still less desirable.

Let

us repeat in the words of Miltiades our

as a cloak.

But as for us, delivered from

august ancestor, blessed are those stars

their spell and freed from this immemorial

which are extinct, that is to say, the almost

optical delusion, we continue firmly to

entire number of those which people space. Radiance, as he truly said, is to the stars

believe that, among the stars as among

what the flowering season is to the plants. After having flowered, they begin to bear

best, and that the same causes have brought about elsewhere the same resuks, com

fruit.

Thus, doubtless, weary of expansion

pelling other races of men to hide them

and the useless squandering of their strength

selves in the bosom of their earth, and

mankind, the most brilliant are not the

194

UNDERGROUND MAN

there in peace to pursue the happy course of their destiny under unique conditions of absolute independence and purity, that in short in the heavens as on the earth true

NOTE ON TARDE

happiness lives concealed. GABRIEL TARDE

was originally a member

of the legal profession.

For a long time

he was examining magistrate at Sarlat. His works on sociology and criminology revealed him to the public.

He was ap

pointed head of the Statistical bureau at the Ministry of Justice, a post in which he was able to obtain first hand the most precious documents for his social studies. Later he was elected to the chair of modern philosophy at the College of France, then he was elected member of the Academy of moral and political sciences in the philosophical section. He died in 1904. ‘95

NOTE ON TARDE

NOdTE ON TARDE

Tarde wrote a great deal. His flexi ~ility of spirit and style add charm to his work on technical subjects. In criminology

social life. Origihal id~s or i&~entions germinate cease1e~1y in the~soc~al milieu; but only som’~, ei~her’ by their supérior adaptability or through the peculiar authority of t•h~ir inventor, are accepted

196

his principal works are.: “The Philosophy of Punishment,” “The Professional Criminal,” “Comparative G~iminali~y » (1898) ;—then come th~politjical w~rks, such as “The Transformation,of P9wer” (1 89~). His “Transformatjon of Law” dates from Al

by the public as a whole. Sociology is thus reduced to a Psychology of the processus of invention and imitations. This explains why

His study in social ~psycl~ology ei~

titled “Opinion and the Masses” app~a.~ed

cover the “Laws of Invention.” Thereby he has given in sociology a preponderating

in

place to the individual, and

1894.

I9OJ.~

His most •ce1ebrated~~ ‘work is

the great effort of Tarde has been to dis

the acci

•perhaps “The Laws o~ Imitation” (igoo)

dental, and has thus separated himself from

whicb was~ preceded by ,his “Social Logj,c” (1898) and his “Universal ,Opposition” (1897).

the most general tendencies of thought

According to Tarde the social phen2r~1ena

This fragment of future History forms a

proceed from individqal inventions whi~h in their tum are the of~fsptjng of~ imitation the latter is for Tarde a capital factor in

kind of exception to his general work which

in our times which are those of Comte. The style of Tarde is abstract but supple.

is very abstract. Tarde reveals himseif in it one of the masters of literary French.

198

NOTE ON TARDE

The style is picturesque, intense, broad, even periodic, novel in respect to the thought, and entirely classical in its purity. Joseph Manchon.