Death

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DEATH

THE WORKS OF MAURICE MAETERLINCK IN
UNIFORM STYLE AND BINDING

ESSAYS
The Treasure of the Humble
Wisdom and Destiny
The Life of the Bee
The Buried Temple
The Double Garden
The Measure of the Hours
Death

PLAYS
Sister Beatrice and Ardiane and Barbe Bleue

JOYZELLE and MONNA VaNNA

The Blue Bird, A Fairy Play

Mary Magdalene

Pelleas and Melisande, and Other Plays

Princess Maleine

The Intruder, and Other Plays

Aglavaine and Selysette

HOLIDAY EDITIONS

The text in each case is an extract from one of
the above mentioned books.
Our Friend the Dog
Old-Fashioned Flowers
The Swarm

The Intelligence of the Flowers
Chrysanthemums
The Leaf of Olive
Thoughts from Maeterlinck

Camera Portrait by E. O. Hopp«, London

1-^^

DEATH

BY

MAURICE MAETERLINCK

TRANSLATED BY

ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS

Copyright, igii

By Maurice Maeterlinck

Published, January, 191 2
All rights resei'ved

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I OUR IDEA OF DEATH 3

II A PRIMITIVE IDEA

5

III WE MUST ENLIGHTEN ADD ESTABLISH OUR

IDEA OF DEATH lO

IV WE MUST RID DEATH OF THAT WHICH

GOES BEFORE 12

V THE PANGS OF DEATH MUST BE ATTRIBUTED

TO MAN ALONE 1 4

VI THE MISTAKE OF THE DOCTORS IN PRO-
LONGING THE PANGS OF DEATH . . I7

VII THEIR ARGUMENTS I9

VIII THAT WHICH DOES NOT BELONG TO DEATH 21
IX THE HORRORS OF THE GRAVE ALSO DO

NOT BELONG TO DEATH 25

X WHEN CONTEMPLATING THE UNKNOWN INTO
WHICH DEATH HURLS US, LET US FIRST
PUT RELIGIOUS FEARS FROM OUR MINDS 29
XI ANNIHILATION IMPOSSIBLE ....

33

XII THE SURVIVAL OF OUR CONSCIOUSNESS . 87
XIII IT SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE OQ

202S818

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAOB

XIV THE SAME, CONllNUED 45

XV IF IT WERE POSSIBLE, IT WOULD NOT

BE DREADFUL 1^8

XVI THE SURVIVAL WITHOUT CONSCIOUS-
NESS 5 1

XVII THE SAME, CONTINUED 54

XVIII THE LHIITED EGO WOULD BECOME A

TORTURE 57

XIX A NEW EGO CAN FIND A NUCLEUS AND

DEVELOP ITSELF IN INFINITY . . 60

XX THE ONLT SORROW THAT CAN TOUCH

OUR MIND 65

XXI INFINITY AS CONCEIVED BT OUR REASON 68

XXII INFINITY AS PERCEIVED BY OUR SENSES 7 1

XXIII WHICH OF THE TWO SHALL WE KNOW? 74

XXIV THE INFINITY WHICH BOTH OUR REASON

AND OUR SENSES CAN ADMIT . . 77

XXV OUR FAITH IN INFINITY .... 8 1

XXVI THE SAME, CONTINUED 84

XXVII SHALL WE BE UNHAPPY THERE? • . 87

XXVIII QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS? . . QO

XXIX THE SAME, CONTINUED g5

XXX IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO ANSWER

THEM 99

XXXI EVERYTHING MUST FINISH EXEMPT FROM

SUFFERING 102

DEATH

DEATH
I

OUR IDEA OF DEATH

^} J/ f ]^g^g ]yQQji ^yeii sal(J ;

*• Death and death alone is what
we must consuh about Kfe ; and
not some vague future or survival,
in which we shall not be present.
It is our own end ; and every-
thing happens in the interval
between death and now. Do not
talk to me of those imaginary pro-
longations which wield over us
the childish spell of number ; do
not talk to me — to me who am
-1 3 h

DEATH

to die outright — of societies and
peoples I There is no reality,
there is no true duration, save
that between the cradle and the
grave. The rest is mere bombast,
show, delusion I They call me a
master because of some magic
in my speech and thoughts ; but
I am a frightened child in the
presence of death !"^

1 Marie Leneru, Les Ajjranchis, Act m., Sc. iv.

-J 4 {-

II

A PRIMITIVE IDEA

HAT is where we stand.
For us, death is the one event that
counts in our hfe and in our uni-
verse. It is the point whereat all
that escapes our vigilance unites
and conspires against our happi-
ness. The more our thoughts
struggle to turn away from it,
the closer do they press around
it. The more we dread it, the
more dreadful it becomes, for it
battens but on our fears. He who
seeks to forget it burdens his
memory with it; he who tries to
shun it meets naught else. But,

H 5 H

DEATH

though we think of death inces-
santly, we do so unconsciously,
without learning to know death.
We compel our attention to turn
its back upon it, instead of going
to it with uplifted head. We ex-
haust all our forces, which ought
to face death boldly, in distract-
ing our will from it. We deliver
death into the dim hands of
instinct and we grant it not one
hour of our intelligence. Is it
surjDrising that the idea of deatk»_-
which should Le the most perfect-^
and the most luminous — being:
the most persistent and the most
inevitable — remains the flimsiest
of our ideas and the only one that
is backward ? How should we
know the one power which we
never looked in the face? How
could it profit by flashes kindled
H 6 h

DEATH

only to help us escape it? To
fathom its abysses, we wait until
the most enfeebled, the most dis-
ordered moments of our life
arrive. We do not think of
death until we have no longer the
strength, I will not say, to think,
but even to breathe. A man re-
turning among us from another
century would not recognize with-
out difficulty, in the depths of a
present-day soul, the image of his
gods, of his duty, of his love or
of his universe ; but the figure of
death, when everything has
changed around it and when even
that which composes it and upon
which it rests has vanished, he
would find almost untouched,
rough-drawn as it was by our
fathers, hundreds, nay, thousands
of years ago. Our intelligence,
H 7 h

DEATH

grown so bold and active, has
not worked upon this figure,
has added no single touch to it.
Though we may no longer believe
in the tortures of the damned, all
the vital cells of the most skepti-
cal among us are still steeped in
the appalling mystery of the
Hebrew Sheol, the pagan Hades,
or the Christian Hell. Though
it may no longer be lighted by
very definite flames, the gulf still
opens at the end of life, and, if
less known, is all the more formi-
dable. And, therefore, when the
impending hour strikes to which
we dared not raise our eyes, every-
thing fails us at the same time.
Those two or three uncertain ideas
whereon, without examining them,
we had meant to lean, give way
like rushes beneath the weight
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DEATH

of the last moments. In vain we
seek a refuge among reflections
that rave or are strange to us and
do not know the roads to our
heart. No one awaits us on the
last shore where all is unprepared,
where naught remains afoot save
terror.

H 9 h

4^i^i^^£i^Si^SS^I^^i^^^^^^

III

WE MUST ENLIGHTEN AND ESTABLISH
OUR IDEA OF DEATH

Viict-^^ T were a salutary thing for
each of us to work out his idea of
death in the hght of his days and
the strength of his intelhgence and
to learn to stand by it. He would
say to death:

"I know not who you are, or
I would be your master ; but, in
days when my eyes saw clearer
than to-day, I learnt what you are
not : that is enough to prevent
you from becoming my master."

He would thus carry, imprinted
on his memory, a tried image
H lo h

DEATH

against which the last agony would
not prevail and in which the
phantom-stricken eyes would take
fresh comfort. Instead of the
terrible prayer of the dying, which
is the prayer of the depths, he
would say his own prayer, that
of the peaks of his life, where
would be gathered, like angels of
peace, the most limpid, the most
pellucid thoughts of his life. Is
not that the prayer of prayers?
After all, what is a true and
worthy prayer, if not the most
ardent and disinterested effort to
reach and grasp the unknown ?

H 11 F»

IV

WE MUST RID DEATH OF THAT
WHICH GOES BEFORE

%J

^ HE doctors and the

priests," said Napoleon, "have
long been making death grievous. "
Let us, then, learn to look upon
it as it is in itself, free from the
horrors of matter and stripped of
the terrors of the imagination.
Let us first get rid of all that goes
before and does not belong to it.
Thus, we impute to it the tortures
of the last illness ; and that is not
right. Illnesses have nothing in
common with that which ends
them. They form part of life and

H 13 h

DEATH

not of death. We easily forget
the most cruel sufferings that
restore us to health ; and the first
sun of convalescence destroys the
most unbearable memories of the
chamber of pain. But let death
come ; and at once we overwhelm
it with all the evil done before it.
Not a tear but is remembered and
used as a reproach, not a cry of
pain but becomes a cry of accusa-
tion. Death alone bears the
weight of the errors of nature
or the ignorance of science that
have uselessly prolonged torments
in whose name we curse death
because it puts an end to them.

H i3 h

THE PANGS OF DEATH MUST BE
ATTRIBUTED TO MAN ALONE

-.1-^ N point of fact, whereas the
sicknesses belong to nature or to
life, the agony, which seems pecu-
liar to death, is wholly in the
hands of men. Now Avhat we
m.ost dread is the awful struggle
at the end and especially the hate-
ful moment of rupture which we
shall perhaps see approaching dur-
ing long hours of helplessness
and which suddenly hurls us, dis-
armed, abandoned and stripped,
into an unknown that is the home
of the only invincible terrors
H i4 H

DEATH

■which the human soul has ever
felt.

It is twice unjust to impute the
torments of that moment to death.
We shall see presently in what
manner a man of to-day, if he
would remain faithful to his ideas,
should picture to himself the un-
known into which death flings us.
Let us confine ourselves here to
the last struggle. As science pro-
gresses, it prolongs the agony
which is the most dreadful moment
and the sharpest peak of human
pain and horror, for the witnesses,
at least; for, often, the sensibility
of him who, in Bossuet's phrase,
is "at bay with death," is already
greatly blunted and perceives no
more than the distant murmur of
the sufferings which he seems
to be enduring. All the doctors
H i5 h*

DEATH

consider it their first duty to pro-
tract as long as possible even the
most excruciating convulsions of
the most hopeless agony. Who
has not, at a bedside, twenty times
wished and not once dared to
throw himself at their feet and
implore them to show mercy?
They are filled with so great a
certainty and the duty which they
obey leaves so little room for the
least doubt that pity and reason,
blinded by tears, curb their revolt
and shrink back before a law which
all recognize and revere as the
highest law of human conscience.

H i6 H

YI

THE MISTAKE OF THE DOCTORS IN
PROLONGING THE PANGS OF DEATH

i f

NE day, this prejudice will
strike us as barbarian. Its roots
go down to the unacknowledged
fears left in the heart by rehgions
that have long since died out in
the mind of men. That is why
the doctors act as though they
were convinced that there is no
known torture but is preferable to
those awaiting us in the unknown.
They seem persuaded that every
minute gained amidst the most
intolerable sufferings is snatched
from the incomparably more

H 17 h

DEATH

dreadful sufferings which the mys-
teries of the hereafter reserve for
men ; and, of two evils to avoid
that which they know to be imagi-
nary, they choose the real one.
Besides, in thus postponing the
end of a torture, which, as good
Seneca says, is the best part of
that torture, they are only yield-
ing to the unanimous error which
daily strengthens the circle wherein
it is confined : the prolongation
of the agony increasing the horror
of death ; and the horror of death
demanding the prolongation of the
agony.

M 18 M

VII

THEIR ARGUMENTS

^' > HEY, on their part, say
or might say that, in the present
stage of science, two or three
cases excepted, there is never a
certainty of death. Not to sup-
port Hfe to its last hmits, even at
the cost of insupportable torments,
were perhaps to kill. Doubtless
there is not one chance in a hun-
dred thousand that the sufferer
escape. No matter. If that
chance exist which, in the major-
ity of cases, will give but a few
days, or, at the utmost, a few

H 19 H

DEATH

months of a life that will not be the
real life, but much rather, as the
Latin said, "an extended death,"
those hundred thousand torments
will not have been in vain. A
single hour snatched from death
outweighs a whole existence of
tortures.

Here are, face to face, two
values that cannot be compared;
and, if we mean to weigh them
in the same balance, we must
heap the scale which we see with
all that remains to us, that is,
with every imaginable pain, for
at the decisive hour this is the
only weight which counts and
which is heavy enough to raise
by a few degrees the other scale
that dips into what we do not see
and is loaded with the thick dark-
ness of another world.
♦-j 20 {-•

,''„.'5'>

VIII

THAT WHICH DOES NOT BELONG
TO DEATH

^' NGREASED by so many
adventitious horrors, the horror of
death becomes such that, without
reasoning, we accept the doctors'
reasons. And jet there is one
point on which they are beginning
to yield and to agree. They are
slowly consenting, when there is
no hope left, if not to deaden,
at least to lull the last agonies.
Formerly, none of them would
have dared to do so ; and, even
to-day, many of them hesitate and,
like misers, measure out drop

♦^ 21 {-♦

DEATH

by drop the clemency and peace
which they grudge and which they
ought to lavish, dreading lest they
should weaken the last resistance,
that is to say, the most useless
and painful quiverings of life that
does not wish to give place to the
coming quiet.

It is not for me to decide
whether their pity might show
greater daring. It is enough to
state once more that all this does
not concern death. It happens
before it and below it. It is not
the arrival of death, but the de-
parture of life that is appalling.
It is not death, but life that we
must act upon. It is not death
that attacks life ; it is life that
wrongfully resists death. Evils
hasten up from every side at the
approach of death, but not at

H 3a {-•

DEATH

its call ; and, though they gather
round it, they did not come with
it. Do you accuse sleep of the
fatigue that oppresses you if you
do not yield to it? All those
strugglings, those waitings, those
tossings, those tragic cursings are
on this same side of the slope to
which we cling and not on the
other side. They are, for that
matter, accidental and temporary
and emanate only from our igno-
rance. All our knowledge only
helps us to die in greater pain than
the animals that know nothing.
A day will come when science
will turn against its error and no
longer hesitate to shorten our mis-
fortunes. A day will come when
it will dare and act with certainty ;
when life, grown wiser, will de-
part silently at its hour, knowing
H 23 h

DEATH

that it has reached its term, even
as it withdraws silently e\ery
evening, knowing that its task is
done. Once the doctor and the
sick man have learnt what they
have to learn, there will be no
physical nor metaphysical reason
why the advent of death should
not be as salutary as that of sleep.
Perhaps even, as there will be
other things to consider, it will be
possible to surround death with
deeper delights and fairer dreams.
Henceforth, in any case, once
death is exonerated from all that
goes before, it will be easier to face
it without fear and to enlighten
that which follows after.

H 24 t-»

IX

THE HORRORS OF THE GRAVE ALSO
DO NOT BELONG TO DEATH

EATH, as we usually
picture it, has two terrors looming
behind it. The first has neither
face nor shape and overshadows
the whole region of our mind;
the other is more definite, more
explicit, but almost as powerful
and strikes all our senses. Let
us first examine the latter.

Even as we impute to death all
the evils that precede it, so do we
add to the dread which it inspires
all that happens beyond it, thus
doing it the same injustice at its
H 25 H

DEATH

going as at its coming. Is it
death that digs our graves and
orders us to keep there that which
was made to disappear ? If we
cannot think without horror of
the fate of the beloved in the
grave, is it death or we that
placed him there ? Because death
carries the spirit to some place
unknown, shall we reproach it
with our bestowal of the body
which it leaves with us ? Death
descends upon us to take away
a life or change its form : let us
judge it by what it does and not
by what we do before it comes
and after it is gone. And it is
already far away when we begin
the frightful work which we try
hard to prolong as much as we
possibly can, as though we were
persuaded that it is our only

H 36 H

DEATH

security against forgetfulness. I
am well aware that, from any
other than the human point of
view, this proceeding is very in-
noxious. Looked upon from a
sufficient height, decomposing
flesh is no more repulsive than
a fading flower or a crumbling U
stone. But, when all is said, it
off'ends our senses, shocks our
memory, daunts our courage,
whereas it would be so easy for
us to avoid the hateful test. Puri-
fied by fire, the memory lives in
the heights as a beautiful idea ;
and death is naught but an im-
mortal birth cradled in flames.
This has been well understood by
the wisest and happiest nations
in history. What happens in our
graves poisons our thoughts to-
gether with our bodies. The
H 27 H

DEATH

figure of death, in the imagination
of men, depends before all upon
the form of burial; and the
funeral rites govern not only the
fate of those who depart, but also
the happiness of those who stay,
for they raise in the very back-
ground of life the great image
upon which their eyes linger in
consolation or despair.

H 38 h*

WHEN CONTEMPLATING THE UNKNOWN
INTO WHICH DEATH HURLS US,
LET US FIRST PUT RELIGIOUS
FEARS FROM OUR MINDS

€ i HERE is, therefore, but
one terror particular to death :
that of the unknown into which
it hurls US. In facing it, let us
not delay in putting from our
minds all that the positive re-
ligions have left there. Let us
remember only that it is not for
us to prove that they are not
proved, but for them to establish
that they are true. Now not one
of them brings us a proof before
H 29 h

DEATH

which a candid intelHgence can
bow. Nor would it suffice if that
inteUigence were able to bow ;
for man lawfully to believe and
thus to limit his endless seeking,
the proof would need to be irre-
sistible. The God offered to us
by the best and strongest proof
has given us our reason to employ
loyally and fully, that is to say,
<.\^ : to try to attain, before all and in
V^>^ all things, that which appears to

be the truth. Can He exact that
we should accept, in spite of it,
a belief of which the wisest and
the most ardent do not, from the
human point of view, deny the
uncertainty? He proposes for our
consideration a very doubtful
story which, even if scientifically
established, would prove nothing
and which is buttressed by proph-

H 3o h*

DEATH

ecies and miracles no less uncer-
tain. If not by our reason, by
what then would He have us
decide? By usage? By the acci-
dents of race or birth, by some
aesthetic or sentimental hazard ?
Or has He set within us another
higher and surer faculty before
which the understanding must
yield? If so, where is it? What
is its name ? If that God punishes
us for not having blindly followed
a faith that does not force itself
irresistibly upon the intelligence
which He gave us ; if He chastises
us for not having made, in the
presence of the great enigma with
which He confronts us, a choice
which condemns the best and most
divine part of that which He has
placed in us, we have nothing left
to reply : we are the dupes of a
H 3i h

DEATH

cruel and incomprehensible sport,
we are the victims of a terrible
snare and an immense injustice ;
and, whatever the torments where-
with the latter loads us, they will
be less intolerable than the eternal
presence of its Author.

H 33 H

XI

ANNIHILATION IMPOSSIBLE

ERE we stand before
the abyss. It is void of all the
dreams with which our fathers
peopled it. They thought that
they knew what was there ; we
know only what is not there. It
has enlarged itself with all that
we have learnt to know nothing
of. While waiting for a scientific
certainty to break through its
darkness — for man has the right
to hope for that which he does
not yet conceive — the only point
that interests us, because it is situ-
ated in the little circle which our
H 33 h

DEATH

actual intelligence traces in the
thickest blackness of the night, is
to know whether the unknown
for which we are bound will be
dreadful or not.

V\'^^ Outside the religions, there are

^0 four imaginable solutions and no

more : total annihilation ; survival
with our consciousness of to-day ;
survival without any sort of con-
sciousness ; lastly, survival with
universal consciousness different
from that which we possess in

•\^^^' this world.

■f.'

4= Total annihilation is impossible.
We are the prisoners of an infin-
ity without outlet, wherein noth-
ing perishes, wherein everything
is dispersed, but nothing lost.
Neither a body nor a thought can
drop out of the universe, out of
time and space. Not an atom of

-1 34 H

DEATH

our flesh, not a quiver of our
nerves vv^ill go where ihey will
cease to be, for there is no place
where anything ceases to be. The
brightness of a star extinguished
millions of years ago still wanders
in the ether where our eyes will
perhaps behold it this very night,
pursuing its endless road. It is
the same with all that we see, as
with all that we do not see. To be
able to do away with a thing, that
is to say, to fling it into nothing-
ness, nothingness would have to
exist ; and, if it exist, under what-
ever form, it is no longer nothing-
ness. As soon as we try to
analyze it, to define it, or to un-
derstand it, thoughts and expres-
sions farl us, or create that which
they are struggling to deny. It is
as contrary to the nature of our
H 35 H

DEATH

reason and probably of all imagina-
ble reason to conceive nothingness
as to conceive limits to infinity.
yf>- V ;^-^_ Nothingness, besides, is but a
^ U^ '*^'^'^ negative infinity, a sort of infin-

^\} d^ ity of darkness opposed to that

which our intelligence strives to
enlighten, or rather it is but a
child-name or nickname which
our mind has bestowed upon that
which it has not attempted to em-
brace, for we call nothingness all
that which escapes our senses or
our reason and exists without our
knowledge. The more that human
thought rises and increases, the
less comprehensible does nothing-
ness become. In any case — and
this is what matters here — if
nothingness were possible, since
it could not be anything whatever,
it could not be dreadful.
H 36 I-

XII

THE SURVIVAL OF OUR CONSCIOUSNESS

EXT comes survival
with our consciousness of to-day.
I have broached this question in
an essay on Immortality,^ of which
I will only reproduce an essential
passage, contenting myself with
supporting it with a few new
considerations.

What composes this sense of
the ego which turns each of us
into the centre of the universe,
the only point that matters in

^ This essay forms part of the volume pub-
lished under the title of The Measure of the Hours.
— Translator's Note.

•^ 37 r-

DEATH

space and time ? Is it formed of
sensations of our body, or of
thoughts independent of our bodj?
Would our body be conscious of
itself without our mind ? And,
on the other hand, what would
our mind be without our body?
We know bodies without mind,
but no mind without a body. It
is almost certain that an intellect
devoid of senses, devoid of organs
to create and nourish it, exists ;
but it is impossible to imagine
that ours could thus exist and yet
remain similar to that which de-
rived from our sensibility all that
gave it life.

H 38 H

XIII

IT SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE

^»* — ^ HIS ego, as we conceive
it when we reflect upon the con-
sequences of its destruction, this
ego is neither our mind nor our
body, since we recognize that both
are waves that flow away and are
renewed incessantly. Is
immovable point, which could
not be form or substance, for
these are always in evolution, nor
life, which is the cause or effect
of form and substance? In truth,
it is impossible for us to appre-
hend or define it, to tell where it
dwells. When we try to go back
H 39 h

It an^^ ^ ^^

?D^

I

jjUmX^

/^"^

.^i>^ DEATH

^ , to its last source, we find hardly

V^^8>^ more than a succession of memo-

•^(ii^^i, ^ ries, a series of ideas, confused,

!^,^4 ^^^ that matter, and unsettled,

rjj' ^ attached to the one instinct of

living : a series of habits of our ! ^ i^'

sensibility and of conscious or un- '

conscious reactions against the sur-

l^^/K* rounding phenomena. When all

A^ \>a ^'^^^ ^^ ^^^^' ^^^ most steadfast point of

tr\^ tA^^ ^^^^ nebula is our memory, which

Yiv^*^ seems, on the other hand, to be a

somewhat external, a somewhat

accessory faculty and, in any case,

one of the frailest faculties of

our brain, one of those which

(^f^ I disappear the most promptly at

^\^ r^ the least disturbance of our health.

^^^^ "As an English poet has very truly

said, that which clamours aloud

for eternity is the very part of me

that will perish."

•-1 4o H

DEATH

It matters not : that uncertain,
indiscernible, fleeting and pre-
carious ego is so much the centre
of our being, interests us so
exclusively,^ that every reality of )^^^^^
our life disappears before this -^^J\Mr O^
phantom. It is a matter of utter
indifference to us that throughout
eternity our body or its substance
should know every joy and every
glory, undergo the most splendid
and delightful transformations,
become flower, perfume, beauty,
light, air, star ; it is likewise in-
different to us that our intellect
should expand until it mixes with
the life of the worlds, understands
and governs it. We are per-
suaded that all this will not affect
us, will give us no pleasure, will
not happen to ourselves, unless
that memory of a few almost
H ki ^

DEATH

always insignificant facts accom-
pany us and witness those un-
imaginable joys.

"I care not," says this narrow

ego, in its firm resolve to under-

»«/>-' stand nothing. "I care not if

hj^f *^® loftiest, the freest, the fairest

0\ ^ ^ «>f portions of my mind be eternally

i living and radiant in the supreme

gladnesses: they are no longer

mine ; I do not know them.

_, ,i? Death has cut the network of

^,Ui ^ "" nerves or memories that connected

W^*(\v*^ ^ them with I know not what centre

^ J[i^ wherein lies the sensitive point

which I feel to be all myself.

They are now set loose, floating

in space and time, and their fate

is as unknown to me as that of

the most distant constellations.

Anything that occurs exists for

me only upon condition that I

H 4a H

^

DEATH

be able to recall it within that
mysterious being which is I know
not where and precisely nowhere,
which I turn like a mirror about
this world whose phenomena take
shape only in so far as they are
reflected in it."

Let us then consider that all
that composes our consciousness
comes first of all from our body.
Our mind does but organize that
which is supplied by our senses ;
and even the images and words

— which in reality are but images

— by the aid of which it strives
to tear itself from those senses
and deny their sway are borrowed
from them. How could that mind
remain what it was when there is
nothing left to it of that which
formed it ? When our mind no
longer has a body, what shall it

H 43 h

DEATH

carry with it into infinity whereby
to recognize itself, seeing that it
knows itself only by grace of that
body ? A few memories of a life
in common ? Will those memo-
ries, which were already fading
in this world, suffice to separate
it for ever from the rest of the
universe, in boundless space and
in unlimited time ?

H 44 H

^-si*^'^^'''

XIV

THE SAME, CONTINUED

r

UT," I shall be told,
' ' there is more in us than the x>^A ^ ''

intellect discovers. We haYeH"*^ JjjjM^ ■.
many things within us which our '^ ..<ij..*^ "^
senses have not placed there; we '^^^jr^ f jih^^
contain a being superior to the
one we know."

Th^t is probable, nay, certain :
the share occupied by uncon-
sciousness, that is to say, by that . c^pcycC ot.CMf^^^
which represents the universe, is ' ^- '-^-'^^'^''^"'''
enormous and preponderant. But
how shall the ego which we know
and whose destiny alone concerns
us recognize all those things and
•^ 45 h

DEATH

that superior being whom it has
never known? What will it do
in the presence of that stranger?
If I be told that stranger is my-
self, I will readily agree ; but was
that which upon earth felt and
measured my joys and sorrows
and gave birth to the few memo-
ries and thoughts that remain to
me, was that this unmoved, un-
seen stranger who existed in me
without my cognizance, even as I
am probably about to live in him
without his concerning himself
with a presence that will bring
him but the pitiful recollection of
a thing that is no more? Now
that he has taken my place, while
destroying, in order to acquire a
greater consciousness, all that
formed my small consciousness
here below, is it not another life
H 46 h»

DEATH

commencing, a life whose joys and
sorrows will pass above my head,
not even brushing with their new
wings that which I feel myself to
be to-day?

H /I7 h

'^^^^^^f:^i^ii^^^^:m-^^?i!^^j:^i^^5^^ri^^

XV

IF IT WERE POSSIBLE, IT WOULD
>OT BE DREADFUL

^y Ja ' ' ^ T seems, therefore, that a

ij^ €^ survival with our present con-

.>■ ^' sciousness is as impossible and as

\/fA incomprehensible as total annihi-

lation. Moreover, even if it were
admissible, it would not be dread-
ful. It is certain that, when the
body disappears, all physical suf-
ferings will disappear at the same
time ; for we cannot imagine a
soul suffering in a body which it
no longer possesses. With them
will vanish simultaneously all that
we call mental or moral suffer-
H 48 H

DEATH

ings, seeing that all of them, if
we examine them well, spring
from the ties and habits of our
senses. Our soul feels the reac-
tion of the sufferings of our body,
or of the bodies that surround it ;
it cannot suffer in itself or through
itself. Slighted affection, shat-
tered love, disappointments, fail-
ures, despair, treachery, personal
humiliations, as well as the afflic-
tions and the loss of those whom
it loves, acquire the sting that
hurts it only by passing through
the body which it animates. Out-
side its own sorrow, which is the
sorrow of not knowing, the soul,
once delivered from its body,
could suffer only at the recollec-
tion of that body. It is possible
that it still grieves over the troubles
of those whom it has left behind
H 49 H

DEATH

on earth. But, in the eyes of
that which no longer counts the
days, those troubles will seem so
brief that it will not grasp their
duration; and, knowing what they
are and whither they lead, it will
not behold their severity.

The soul is insensible to all

that is not happiness. It is made

only for infinite joy, which is the

^v^^ . ji,-*^ joy of knowing and understand-

'J'^'.'.aJ) cT^'' ing- It can grieve only at per-

^J^'j^v';^ ceiving its own limits; but to

r^n.7>*-* perceive those limits, when one

is no longer bound by space and

time, is already to transcend them.

H 5o h

^j^i^^-j^^^gB^^S^^S^^fe^^sj^J*

XVI

THE SURVIVAL WITHOUT
CONSCIOUSNESS

i-._^^ HERE remains but the
survival without consciousness,
or survival with a consciousness
different from that of to-day.

A survival without conscious-
ness seems at first sight the most
probable. From the point of view
of the good or ill awaiting us on
the other side of the grave, it
amounts to annihilation. It is
lawful, therefore, for those who
prefer the easiest solution and that
most consistent with the present
state of human thought, to set
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DEATH
that limit to their anxiety there.
They have nothing to dread ; for
every fear, if any remain, would,
if we look into it carefully, deck
itself with hopes. The body dis-
integrates and can no longer suffer ;
the mind, separated from the
source of pleasure and pain, is
extinguished, scattered and lost in
a boundless darkness ; and what
comes is the great peace so often
prayed for, the sleep without
measure, without dreams and with-
out awakening.

But this is only a solution that
flatters indolence. If we press
those who speak of a survival
without consciousness, we per-
ceive that they mean only their
present consciousness, for man
conceives no other ; and we have
just seen that it is almost impos-
H 52 H

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sible for that manner of con-
sciousness to persist in infinity.

Unless, indeed, they would deny
every sort of consciousness, even
that of the universe into which
their own will fall. But that
means solving very quickly and
very blindly, with a stroke of the
sword in the night, the greatest
and most mysterious question that
can arise in a man's brain.

H 53 h

Sra^

XVII

THE SAME, CONTINUED

HIS question is closely
allied to our modified conscious-
ness. There is for the moment no
hope of solving it; but we are free
to grope in its darkness, which is
not perhaps equally dense at all
points.

Here begins the open sea. Here

begins the glorious adventure, the

only one abreast with human

. ^ ,1 curiosity, the only one that soars as

avtA/^ high as its highest longing. Let

-^ sjr' J us accustom ourselves to regard

.X^ ^W^' death as a form of life which we

Ji^^"^ do not yet understand ; let us

H 54 H

DEATH

learn to look upon it with the
same eye that looks upon birth ;
and soon our mind will be accom-
panied to the steps of the tomb
with the same glad expectation
that greets a birth. If, before
being born, we were permitted to
choose between the great peace
of non-existence and a life that
should not be completed by the
magnificent hour of death, which
of us, knowing what we ought to
know, would accept the disquiet-
ing problem of an existence that
would not end in the reassuring
mystery of its conclusion? Which
of us would care to come into a
world where there is so little to
learn, if he did not know that he
miust enter it if he would leave
it and learn more ? The best part
of life is that it prepares this hour
H 55 h

DEATH

for US, that it is the one and only
road leading to the magic gate-
way and into that incomparable
mystery where misfortunes and
sufferings will no longer be pos-
sible, because we shall have lost
the body that produced them;
where the worst that can befall
us is the dreamless sleep which
we count among the number of the
greatest boons on earth ; where,
lastly, it is almost unimaginable
that a thought can survive to
mingle with the substance of the
universe, that is to say, with in-
finity, which, if it be not a waste
of indifference, can be nothing
but a sea of joy.

H 56 H

XYIII

THE LIMITED EGO WOULD BECOME
A TORTURE

^^^^^ EFORE fathoming that

sea, let us remark to those who
aspire to maintain their ego that
they are calhng down the suffer-
ings which they dread. The ego
impKes Hmits. The ego cannot
subsist except in so far as it is ^ ^ «

separated from that which sur- cW-tfi-Q-^^^^^y
rounds it. The stronger the ego, I. u^ s**^*^
the narrower its hmits and the ' ^ ; - C-» ^^^
clearer the separation. The more
painful too ; for the mind, if it
remain as we know it — and we
are not able to imagine it different
H 57 h

>^^ DEATH

^P — will no sooner have seen its

'-^15 ' limits than it will wish to over-

step them: and, the more sep-
arated it feels, the greater will be
its longing to unite with that
which lies outside. There will
therefore be an eternal struggle
between its being and its aspira-
tions. And really there were no
object in being born and dying
only for the purpose of these
endless contests. Have we not
here yet one more proof that our
ego, as we conceive it, could
never subsist in the infinity where
it must needs go, since it cannot
go elsewhere? It behooves us
therefore to get rid of imagina-
tions that emanate only from our
body, even as the mists that veil
the daylight from our sight em-
anate only from low places.
H 58 h

DEATH

Pascal has said, once and for all :

"The narrow limits of our being I'^^wnnU //^'"'

conceal infinity from our view." ^ n<-Ay pIau^^^

H 59 V*

^W»i^

XIX

A NEW EGO CAN FIND A NUCLEUS AND
DEVELOP ITSELF IN INFINITY

N the other hand — for we
must be honest, probe the con-
flicting darkness which we beheve
nearest to the truth and show no
bias — on the other hand, we can
grant to those who are wedded to
the thought of remaining as thej
are that the survival of a mere
particle of themselves would suf-
fice to renew them again in the
heart of an infinity wherefrom
their body no longer separates
them. If it seems impossible that
anything — a movement, a vibra-
tion, a radiation — should stop or
H 60 h

DEATH

disappear, why then should
thought be lost? There will, no
doubt, subsist more than one idea
powerful enough to allure the new
ego, which will nourish itself and
thrive on all that it will find in
that new and endless environment,
just as the other ego, on this earth,
nourished itself and throve on all
that it met there. Since we have
been able to acquire our present
consciousness, why should it be
impossible for us to acquire
another? For that ego which is
so dear to us and which we be-
lieve ourselves to possess was not
made in a day ; it is not at pres-
ent what it was at the hour of our
birth. Much more chance than
purpose has entered into it ; and
much more foreign substance than
any inborn substance which it con-
-; 6i H*

DEATH

talned. It is but a long series of
acquisitions and transformations,
of which we do not become aware
until the awakening of our mem-
ory ; and its nucleus , of which
we do not know the nature, is
perhaps more immaterial and less
concrete than a thought. If the
new environment which we enter
on leaving our mother's womb
transforms us to such a point that
there is, so to speak, no connexion
between the embryo that we were
and the man that we have become,
is it not right to think that the
much newer, more unknown,
wider and more fertile environ-
ment which we enter on quitting
life will transform us even more?
One can see in what happens to
us here a figure of that which
awaits us elsewhere and readily
H 62 h

DEATH

admit that our spiritual being,
liberated from its body, if it does
not mingle at the first onset with
the infinite, will develop itself
there gradually, will choose itself
a substance and, no longer tram-
melled by space and time, will
grow without end. It is very pos-
sible that our loftiest wishes of
to-day will become the law of our
future development. It is very
possible that our best thoughts
will welcome us on the other
bank and that the quality of our
intellect will determine that of the
infinite that crystallizes around it.
Every hypothesis is permissible
and every question, provided it be
addressed to happiness ; for un-
happiness is no longer able to
answer us. It finds no place in
the human imagination that ex-
H 63 h

DEATH

plores the future methodically.

And, whateYcr be the force that

survives us and presides over our

existence in the other world, this

existence, to presume the worst,

could be no less great, no less

happy than that of to-day. It will

have no other career than infinity ;

y and infinity is nothing if it be not

j^-^t'' I felicity. In any case, it seems

^. ^ fj^ fairly certain that we spend in this

^"^ t* ' ix "^o^ld the only narrow, grudging.

'^i^VjU^ obscure and sorrowful moment of
'^V ^ our destiny.

H 64 f-

•€-d^i«&S?

XX

ii>--

TIIE ONLY SORROW THAT CAN TOUCH
OUR MIND

E have said that the one | ^ ^f^ *^ '^

sorrow of the mind is the sorrow ^ /jv^''^^ •

of not knowinsf or not understand- '^, ,a '^^^

ing, which contains the sorrow of ^.t^"''

powerlessness ; for he who knows
the supreme causes, being no
longer paralyzed by matter, be-
comes one with them and acts
with them ; and he who under-
stands ends by approving, or else
the universe would be a mistake,
which is not possible. I do not
believe that another sorrow of the
sheer mind can be imagined. The
only one which, before reflection,
H 65 h

p-^

DEATH

might seem admissible and which,

J ^^ in an J case, could be but ephem-

^^\^'\^ ^eral would arise from the sight of

' 10 »^ ^^^^^ the pain and misery that remain

jiy ^ iJ^ ^^ ^^^^ earth which we have left.

'^xS^ ^^^-^^ the pain and misery that remain
jiy ^ iJ^ ^^ ^^^^ earth which we have left.

^gj^ But this sorrow, after all, would

be but one side and an insignifi-
cant phase of the sorrow of
powerlessness and of not under-
standing. As for the latter,
though it is not only beyond the
domain of our intelligence, but
even at an insuperable distance
from our imagination, we may
say that it would be intolerable
only if it were without hope.
But, in order to be without hope,
the universe would have to aban-
don any attempt to understand
itself, or admit within itself an
object that remained for ever
foreign to it. Either the mind will
H 66 I-

DEATH

not perceive its limits and, conse-
quently, will not suffer from them,
or else it will overstep them as it
perceives them; for how could
the universe have parts eternally
condemned to form no part of
itself and of its knowledge?
Hence we cannot understand that
the torture of not understanding,
supposing it to exist for a moment,
should not end hy mingling with
the state of infinity, which, if it
be not happiness as we compre-
hend it, could be naught but an
indifference higher and purer than

joy-

H 67 H

XXI

INFINITY AS CONCEIVED BY OUR
REASON

ET US turn our thoughts
towards it. The prohlem extends
beyond humanity and embraces
all things. It is possible, I think,
to view infinity under two dis-
tinct aspects and try to foresee
our fate therein. Let us contem-
^t "\'^ plate the first of these aspects.
,,;J^\jb ^' >. We are plunged into a universe
^^.^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^ limits in space or time.

'^^ ' ^P^ \. It never began, nor will it ever
„g) ^^ end. It could not have an aim,
J^-jy^ for, if it had one, it would have

attained it in the infinity of years
H 68 H

DEATH

that preceded us. It is not mak-
ing for anywhere, for it would have
arrived there ; consequently, all
that the worlds within its pale, all
that we ourselves do can have no
influence upon it. If it have no
thought, it will never have one.
If it have one, that thought has
been at its climax since all time
and will remain there, changeless
and immovable. It is as young
as it has ever been and as old as
it will ever be. It has made in
the past all the efforts and all the
experiments which it will make in
the future; and, as all the possi-
ble combinations have been ex-
hausted since all time, it does not
seem as if that which has not
taken place in the eternity that
extends before our birth can hap-
pen in that which will follow after
H 69 h

DEATH

our death. If it have not become
conscious, it will never become
so ; if it know not what it wishes,
it will continue in ignorance,
hopelessly, knowing all or know-
ing nothing and remaining as near
its end as its beginning.

H 70 t-

XXII

INFINITY AS PERCEIVED BY OUR

SENSES

t FA LL this would be, if
not intelligible, at least acceptable
to our reason ; but in that uni-
verse float thousands of millions
of worlds limited by space and
time. They are born, they die
and they are born again. They
form part of the whole; and we
see, therefore, that parts of that
which has neither beginning nor
end themselves begin and end.
We, in fact, know only those
parts ; and they are of a number
so infinite that in our eyes they
H 71 h

DEATH

fill all infinity. That which is
going nowhere teems with that
which appears to be going some-
where. That which has always
known what it wants, or will
never learn, seems eternally to be
making more or less unfortunate
experiments. What is that which
has already attained perfection try-
ing to achieve? Everything that
we discover in that which could
not possibly have an aim looks as
though it were pursuing one with
inconceivable ardour ; and the
spirit that animates what we see
in that which should know every-
thing and possess itself seems to
know nothing and to seek itself
without intermission. Thus all
that is apparent to our senses in
infinity gainsays that which our
reason is compelled to ascribe to
H 7a h

DEATH

it. According as we fathom it,
we understand better the depth
of our want of understanding ;
and, the more we strive to pene-
trate the two incomprehensibihties
that stand face to face, the more
they contradict each other.

H 73 K.

XXIII

WHICH OF THE TWO SHALL WE
KNOW?

HAT will become of
us amid all this obscurity? Shall
we leave the finite wherein we
dwell to be swallowed up in this
or the other infinite? In other
words, shall we end by mingling
with the infinite which our reason
conceives, or shall we remain
eternally in that which our eyes
behold, that is to say, in number-
less changing and ephemeral
worlds? Shall we never leave
those worlds which seem doomed
to die and to be reborn eternally,
to enter at last into that which,
H 74 t^

DEATH

since all eternity, can neither have
been born nor have died and
which exists without either future
or past ? Shall we one day escape,
with all that surrounds us, from
the unhappy experiments, to find
our way at last into peace, wisdom,
the changeless and boundless con-
sciousness, or into the hopeless
unconsciousness? Shall we have
the fate which our senses foretell,
or that which our intelligence de-
mands? Or are both senses and
intelligence illusions, puny imple-
ments, vain weapons of a brief
hour that were never intended to
probe or contend with the uni-
verse? If there really be a con-
tradiction, is it wise to accept it
and to deem impossible that which
we do not understand, seeing that
we understand almost nothing?
H 75 h

DEATH

Is truth not at an immeasurable
distance from those inconsistencies
which appear to us enormous and
irreducible and which, doubtless,
are of no more importance than
the rain that falls upon the sea?

H 76 h*

XXIV

THE INFINITY WHICH BOTH OUR REASON
AND OUR SENSES CAN ADMIT

UT, even to our poor
understanding of to-day, the dis-
crepancy between the infinity con-
ceived by our reason and that
perceived by our senses is perhaps
more apparent than real. When
we say that, in a universe that has
existed since all eternity, every
experiment, every possible com-
bination has been made ; when
we declare that there is not a
chance that that which has not
taken place in the uncountable
past can take place in the un-

-} 77 H

DEATH

countable future, our imagination
attributes to the infinity of time
a preponderance which it cannot
possess. In truth, all that in-
finity contains must be as infinite
as the time at its disposal; and
the chances, encounters and com-
binations that lie therein have not
been exhausted in the eternity that
goes before us any more than
they could be in the eternity that
comes after us. There is, there-
fore, no climax, no changeless-
ness, no immovability. It is
probable that the universe is seek-
ing and finding itself every day,
that it has not become entirely
conscious and does not yet know
what it wants. It is almost cer-
tain that its ideal is still veiled by
the shadow of its immensity and
almost evident that the experi-
-3 78 h

DEATH

ments and chances are following
one upon the other in unimagin-
able worlds, compared wherewith
all those which we see on starry
nights are no more than a pinch
of gold-dust in the ocean depths.
Lastly, it is yery nearly sure that
we ourselves, or whatever remains
of us — it matters not — will profit
one day by those experiments and
those chances. That which has
not yet happened may suddenly
supervene ; and the best state,
as well as the supreme wisdom
which will recognize and establish
it, is perhaps ready to arise from
the clash of circumstance. It
were not at all astonishing if the
consciousness of the universe, in
the endeavour to form itself, had
not yet met with the aid of the
necessary chances and if human
H 79 h-

DEATH

thought were seconding one of
those decisive chances. Here
there is a hope. Small as man
and his thought may appear, he
has exactly the value of the most
enormous forces that he is able
to conceive, since there is neither
great nor small in the immeasur-
able ; and, if our body equalled
the dimensions of all the worlds
which our eyes can see, it would
have exactly the same weight and
the same importance with regard
to the universe that it has to-day.
The mind alone perhaps occupies
in infinity a space which com-
parisons do not reduce to nothing.

H 80 {-

XXV

OUR FATE IN INFINITY

HATEYER the ulti-
mate truth may be, whether we
admit the abstract, absolute and
perfect infinity — the changeless,
immovable infinity which has
attained perfection and which
knows everything, to which our
reason tends — or whether we
prefer that offered to us by the
evidence, here below undeniable,
of our senses — the infinity which
seeks itself, which is still evolving
and not yet established — it be-
hoves us above all to foresee in
it our fate, which, in any case,
H 8i h

DEATH

must end hj absorption in that
very infinity.

The first infinity, the ideal in-
finity, is so strangely contrary to
all that we see that it is best not
to attack it until we have tried to
explore the second. Moreover,
it is quite possible that it may
succeed the other. As we have
said, that which has not taken
place in the eternity before may
happen in the eternity after us;
and nothing save innumerous
accidents is opposed to the pros-
pect that the universe may at last
acquire the integral consciousness
that will establish it at its climax.
After giving a glance, useless, for
that matter, and impotent, at all
that may perhaps arise, we shall
try to interrogate, without hope
of answer, the mystery of the

H 82 h

DE AT H

boundless peace into which it is
possible that we may sink with
the other worlds.

H 83 t-

XXVI

THE SAME, CONTINUED

EHOLD us, then, in
the infinity of those worlds, the
stellar infinity, the infinity of the
heavens, which assuredly veils
other things from our eyes, but
could never be a total illusion.
It seems to us to be peopled only
with objects — planets, suns,
stars, nebulae, atoms, imponder-
ous fluids — which move, unite
and separate, repel and attract
one another, which shrink and
expand, displace one another in-
cessantly and never arrive, which
measure space in that which has
H 84 H

DEATH

no limit and number the hours
in that which has no term. In
a word, we are in an infinity that
seems to have ahnost the same
character, the same habits as that
power in the midst of which we
breathe and which, upon our
earth, we call nature or life.

What will be our fate in that
infinity? It is not vain to ask
one's self the question, even if
we should mingle with it after
losing all consciousness, all notion
of the ego, even if our existence
should be no more than a little
substance without name, soul or
matter — one cannot tell — sus-
pended in the equally nameless
abyss that replaces time and space.
It is not vain to ask one's self the
question, for we are concerned
with the history of the worlds or
H 85 h

DEATH

of the universe ; and this history,
far more than that of our petty
existence, is our own great history,
in which perhaps something of
ourselves or something incompar-
ably better and vaster will end by
finding us again some day.

H 86 h

XXYII

SHALL WE BE UNHAPPY THERE

^ HALL we be unhappy
there ? It is hardly reassuring
when we consider the habits of
our nature and remember that we
form part of a universe that has
not yet collected its wisdom. We
have seen, it is true, that good
and bad fortune exist only in so
far as regards our body and that,
when we have lost the agent of
our sufferings, we shall not meet
any of the earthly sorrows again.
But our anxiety does not end
here; and will not our mind,
lingering upon our erstwhile sor-

H 87 h

DEATH

rows, drifting derelict from world
to world, unknown to itself in
the unknowable that seeks itself
hopelessly ; will not our mind
know here the frightful torture
of which we have already spoken
and which is doubtless the last
which the imagination can touch
with its wing? Lastly, if there
were nothing left of our body and
our mind, there would still re-
main the matter and the spirit
(or, at least, the obviously single
force to which we give that double
name) which composed them and
whose fate must be no more in-
different to us than our own fate ;
for, let us repeat, from our death
onwards, the adventure of the
universe becomes our own adven-
ture. Let us not, therefore, say
to ourselves:

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' ' What can it matter ? We
shall not be there."

We shall be there always, be-
cause everything will be there.

XXYIII

QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS

ILL all this to which

we shall belong, in a world ever
seeking itself, continue a prey to
new, unceasing and perhaps pain-
ful experiments? Since the part
that we were was unhappy, why
should the part that we shall be
enjoy a better fortune? Who can
assure us that those unending com-
binations and endeavours will not
be more sorrowful, more awkward
and more baneful than those
which we are leaving; and how
shall we explain that these have
come about after so many millions
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DEATH
of others which should have opened
the eyes of the genius of infinity ?
It is idle to persuade ourselves,
as Hindu wisdom would, that our
sorrows are but illusions and ap-
pearances : it is none the less true
that they make us very really
unhappy. Has the universe else-
where a more complete conscious-
ness, a more just and serene
principle of thought than on this
earth and in the worlds which we
perceive? And, if it be true that
it has somewhere attained that bet-
ter thought, why does the thought
that presides over the destinies of
our earth not profit by it? Could
no communication be possible
between worlds which must have
been born of the same idea and
are steeped in it? What would
be the mystery of that isolation ?
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DEATH

Are we to believe that the earth
marks the most advanced stage
and the most favoured experi-
ment? What, then, can the
thought of the universe have done
and against what darkness must
it have struggled, to have come
no farther than this ? But, on
the other hand, can it have been
stayed by that darkness or by
those obstacles which, being un-
able to arise from any elsewhere,
can but have sprung from itself?
Who then could have set those
insoluble problems to infinity and
from what more remote and pro-
found region than itself would
they have issued? Some one,
after all, must know what they
ask; and, as behind infinity
there can be none that is not
infinity itself, it is impossible to

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DEATH

imagine a malignant will in a
will that leaves no point around
it but what it fills entirely. Or
are the experiments begun in the
stars continued mechanically, by
virtue of the force acquired, with-
out regard to their uselessness
and to their pitiful consequences,
according to the custom of nature,
which knows nothing of our par-
simony and squanders the suns
in space as it does the seed on
earth, knowing that nothing can
be lost? Or, again, is the whole
question of our peace and happi-
ness, like that of the fate of the
worlds, reduced to knowing
whether or not the infinity of
endeavours and combinations be
equal to that of eternity? Or,
lastly, to come to the greatest
probability, is it we who deceive
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DEATH

ourselves, who know nothing,
who see nothing and who con-
sider imperfect that which is per-
haps fauUless, we, who are but
an infinitesimal fragment of tlie
intelligence which we judge with
the aid of the little shreds of
thought which it has vouchsafed
to lend us?

H 94 5^

XXIX

THE SAME, CONTINUED

OW could we reply,
how could our thoughts and
glances penetrate the infinite and
the invisible, we who neither
understand nor even see the thing
by which we see and which is
the source of all our thoughts?
In fact, as has been very justly
observed, man does not see light
itself. He sees only matter, or
rather the small part of the great
worlds which he knows by the
name of matter, touched by light.
He does not perceive the immense
rays that cross the heavens save
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DEATH

at the moment when they are
stopped by an object of the nature
of those which his eye is accus-
tomed to see upon this earth :
were it otherwise, the whole space
filled with innumerable suns and
boundless forces, instead of being
an abyss of absolute darkness
which absorbs and extinguishes
the clusters of beams that shoot
across it from every side, would
be but a prodigious, untenable
ocean of flashes. Shakespeare's
famous Imes :

"There are more things in heaven and earth,
Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

have long since become utterly
inadequate. There are no longer
more things than our philosophy
can dream of or imagine : there
is none but things which it cannot
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DEATH

dream of, there is nothing but the
unimaginable ; and, if we do not
even see the Hght, which is the
onlj thing that we beheved we
saw, it may be said that there
is nothing all around us but the
invisible.

We move in the illusion of
seeing and knowing that which
is strictly indispensable to our
little lives. As for all the rest,
which is well-nigh everything,
our organs not only debar us
from reaching, seeing or feeling
it, but even restrain us from sus-
pecting what it is, just as they
would prevent us from under-
standing it, if an intelligence of
a different order were to bethink
itself of revealing or explaining it
to us. It is impossible for us,
therefore, to appreciate in any

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DEATH

degree whatsoever, in the small-
est conceivable respect, the pres-
ent state of the universe and to
say, as long as we are men,
whether it follows a straight line
or describes an immense circle,
whether it is growing wiser or
madder, whether it is advancing
towards the eternity which has no
end or retracing its steps towards
that which had no beginning.
Our sole privilege within our tiny
confines is to struggle towards that
which appears to us the best and
to remain heroically persuaded
that no part of what we do
within those confines can ever
be wholly lost.

H 98 h»

^^^Si^Sa^l^^^^^^^^^^^0>

XXX

IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO ANSAVER
TIIEM

UT let not all these
insoluble questions drive us
towards fear. From the point of
view of our future beyond the
grave, it is in no waj necessary
that we should have an answer
to everything. Whether the uni-
verse have already found its con-
sciousness, whether it find it one
day or see it everlastingly, it could
not exist for the purpose of being
unhappy and of suffering, neither
in its entirety, nor in any one of
its parts; and it matters little if
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DEATH

the latter be invisible or incom-
mensurable, considering that the
smallest is as great as the greatest
in what has neither limit nor
measure. To torture a point is
the same thing as to torture the
worlds; and, if it torture the
worlds, it is its own substance
that it tortures. Its very destiny,
in which we are placed, protects
us. Our sufferings there could
be but ephemeral ; and nothing
matters that is not eternal. It
is possible, although somewhat
incomprehensible, that parts
should err and go astray; but it
is impossible that sorrow should
be one of its lasting and necessary
laws ; for it would have brought
that law to bear against itself.
In like manner, the universe is
and must be its own law and its
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DEATH

sole master : if not, the law or
the master whom it must obey
would then be the universe ; and
the centre of a word which we
pronounce without being able to
grasp its scope would be simply
displaced. If it be unhappy,
that means that it wills its own
unhappiness ; if it will its un-
happiness, it is mad; and, if it
appear to us mad, that means
that our reason works contrary
to everything and to the only
laws possible, seeing that they
are eternal, or, to speak more
humbly, that it judges what it
wholly fails to understand.

H loi {-•

XXXI

EVERYTHING MUST FINISH EXEMPT
FROM SUFFERING

YERYTHING, therefore,
must finish, or perhaps everything
already is, if not in a state of hap-
piness, at least in a state exempt
from all suffering, all anxiety, all
lasting unhappiness ; and what,
after all, is our happiness upon
this earth, if it be not the absence of
sorrow, anxiety and unhappiness?
But it is childish to talk of
happiness and unhappiness where
infinity is in question. The idea
which we entertain of happiness
and unhappiness is something so

DEATH

special, so human, so fragile that
it does not exceed our stature and
falls to dust as soon as we go
beyond its little sphere. It pro-
ceeds entirely from a few accidents
of our nerves, which are made to
appreciate very slight happenings,
but which could as easily have
felt everything the reverse way
and taken pleasure in that which
is now pain. We believe that
we see nothing hanging over us
but catastrophes, deaths, torments
and disasters ; we shiver at the
mere thought of the great inter-
planetary spaces, with their cold
and formidable and gloomy soli-
tudes ; and we imagine that the
revolving worlds are as unhappy
as ourselves because they freeze, or
clash together, or are consumed
in unutterable flames. We infer
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DEATH

from this that the genius of the
universe is an outrageous tyrant,
seized with a monstrous madness,
and that it deUghts only in the
torture of itself and all that it
contains. To millions of stars,
each many thousand times larger
than our sun, to nebulae whose
nature and dimensions no figure,
no word in our languages is able
to express, we attribute our mo-
mentary sensibility, the little
ephemeral and chance working of
our nerves; and we are convinced
that life there must be impossible
or appalling, because we should
feel too hot or too cold. It were
much wiser to say to ourselves
that it would need but a trifle,
a few papillae more or less to our
skin, the slightest modification of
our eyes and ears, to turn the
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DEATH

temperature, the silence and the
darkness of space into a delicious
spring-tinne, an unequalled music,
a divine light. It were much
more reasonable to persuade our-
selves that the catastrophes which
we think that we behold are life
itself, the joy and one or other of
those immense festivals of mind
and matter in which death, thrust-
ing aside at last our two enemies,
time and space, will soon permit
us to take part. Each world dis-
solving, extinguished, crumbling,
burnt or colliding with another
world and pulverized means the
commencement of a magnificent
experiment, the dawn of a mar-
vellous hope and perhaps an un-
expected happiness drawn direct
from the inexhaustible unknown.
What though they freeze or flame,
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DEATH

collect or disperse, pursue or flee
one another : mind and matter, no
longer united bj the same pitiful
hazard that joined them in us,
must rejoice at all that happens ;
for all is but birth and re-birth,
a departure into an unknown filled
with wonderful promises and
maybe an anticipation of some
unutterable event. . . .

And, should they stand still one
day, become fixed and remain
motionless, it will not be that
they have encountered calamity,
nullity or death ; but they will
have entered into a thing so fair,
so great, so happy and bathed in
such certainties that they will for
ever prefer it to all the prodigious
chances of an infinity which
nothing can impoverish.

THE END

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

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