Note on M. Bergson and the Bergsonian Philosophy

Note on M. Bergson and the Bergsonian Philosophy

to the memory of our old master M. Humbert who taught us at the lycée of Orléans so good a philosophy

All these debates which have been waged for two or three years on and for and against M. Bergson and the Bergsonian philosophy would have been greatly illumined, (but did one wish to illumine them), if one had consented to examine what we mean by intellectualism. People have feigned to believe that the quarrel made against intellectualism was a quarrel made against reason, against wisdom, against logic. And against intelligence.

The philosophy of M. Bergson is almost as poorly understood by its adversaries as by its partisans. And that is saying not a little. To begin with, reason is not wisdom, and neither the one nor the other is logic. And the three together are not intelligence. They are three, — and four, — orders, they are three, — and four, — kingdoms, and there are many others. Now the revolution, the Bergsonian invention has not consisted in displacing these kingdoms but in operating in them a revolution from within. And it is not surprising that this philosophy, which is a philosophy of the interior, should arrive not at displacing kingdoms by an exterior movement, by an external translation, by an extrinsic substitution, but at renovating them, deepening them, restoring them to themselves by operating in them an internal revolution.

The Bergsonian philosophy is not a physics of transfer, a mechanics, a kinematics of translation. It is an organics. And even a reorganics. And it is a dynamics.

There are orders, there are kingdoms, there are reigns, there are disciplines. There is faith; there is love; there is art; there is philosophy; there is morality; there is science. And doubtless there would be others. And even one ought to say that there are not only kingdoms: there are provinces. And which are perhaps as separated as kingdoms. For there is perhaps nothing so contrary to the plastic arts as the musical arts. And there is perhaps nothing so opposed to the mathematical “sciences” as the natural “sciences.” And in morality I should perhaps distinguish a civics which would have my preferences.

Bergsonism is not a geography, it is a geology.

It is not a question of Brittany being Provence and Queen Anne being King René. It is a question of Lorraine being well Lorraine and of the Île-de-France being still more the Île-de-France and being well the heart and the head.

Bergsonism is in no way a philosophy of metathesis and of metonymy.

Or, to speak a Platonic and ante-Platonic language, it is not a question of the one being the other. It is a question of deepening the one, and of deepening the other.

Bergsonism does not make compartmented maps.

Just as the revolutions of anatomy and of physiology in the natural sciences did not consist in opposing the animal reign to the vegetable reign or reciprocally but in pursuing parallel-wise in the two reigns a certain restitution of thought in face of two parallel realities, so the revolution of the Bergsonian philosophy did not consist in opposing nor in displacing the kingdoms of thought nor of being. It consisted in pursuing parallel-wise in all the kingdoms, in all the orders, in all the disciplines a certain re-situation of thought in face of these parallel realities.

One must therefore not say that Bergsonism is a pathetic philosophy or a philosophy of the pathetic or that it opposes the pathetic or patheticism to the logical, or to the mathematical, or to the scientific, or to the rational, or to wisdom, nor that it tries or that it proposes to substitute the pathetic for all that. It is within the pathetic itself that it operates, just as parallel-wise it is within the logical or the mathematical. For there is an intellectualism of the pathetic just as there is an intellectualism of the logical, or of the mathematical, or of all the others. And, everywhere, it is the same.

One must renounce this idea that the pathetic forms an inferior kingdom. It is like the others, it is as in Molière, it is inferior when it is inferior, and it is not inferior when it is not inferior. It does not form an exception to these general rules of level. It is not inferior in itself, because it is the pathetic. It is inferior when it is of bad, of low quality. When it is low pathetic. It is not inferior when it is not of low quality. No one will ever make me say that the comic is an inferior genre. As for the tragic I confess that I see nothing human which is superior to the pathetic of Sophocles and that for half a chorus of Antigone I would give the three Critiques preceded by a half-quartern of Prolegomena. And by that I do not wish to say only, which is understood, that I would give them up in beauty, sub specie pulchri, but that I would give them up no less in truth, in reality, sub specie rei ac realitatis. And that there is in this pathetic infinitely more and otherwise than in this critique a knowledge, a deepening of the nature, of the reality of man and of fatality.

One must renounce this idea that passion is troubled (or obscure) and that reason is clear, that passion is confused and that reason is distinct. We all know passions which are clear as fountains and reasons which on the contrary run always after the encumbrances of their baggage-trains. One cannot even say that passion is rich and that reason and that wisdom is poor, for there are passions which are flat as billiard tables and there are wisdoms and there are reasons which are full and ripe and heavy as bunches of grapes.

One ought to renounce once for all this idea of constituting once for all hierarchies in which it would be the different orders, the different kingdoms which would be not only ranked in scale but fixed in their scaling. This solution is a solution of laziness, this fixation is a fixation of laziness. It is within the different orders, the different kingdoms that one must seek, that one must pursue, that one must recognize hierarchies, subordinations, parallel coordinations. Of value, of merit, of clear, of troubled, of distinction, of depth. Parallel hierarchies, comparable, corresponding, and doubtless communicating.

Here again the ones and the others are mistaken, or rather the ones and the others are abusive. But of the same error and of the same abuse. Instead of agreeing that there are deep passions and superficial passions the novelists wish that it be passion, as such, which is itself, in its essence, deep. They wish that it have only to show itself, to be passion, in order to be deep. Because they wish that they themselves have only to show themselves, to handle and even to speak of passion in order to be deep and mysterious. And in return and in counter the anti-novelists, the critics wish that it be criticism, as such, which is, itself, in its essence, clear. They wish that it have only to show itself, to be criticism, in order to be clear. Because they wish that they themselves have only to show themselves, to handle and even to speak of criticism in order to be clear ones and illuminators. But I who have no system and who because of that shall make no fortune, (I say even intellectual fortune), I am forced to admit that I see critiques very troubled and pathetics very clear, just as I see deep critiques and very superficial pathetics.

At bottom the novelists would wish to have only to be novelists in order to be deep. No my children, one must, moreover, be deep novelists. And the critics would wish to have only to be critics in order to be clear. No gentlemen. One must, moreover, be clear critics.

At bottom it is everywhere the same debate. It is the secret of the situation made for history and for sociology and above all for the historians and the sociologists in modern times. The historians wish to have only to be historians in order to know the past. The sociologists wish to have only to be sociologists in order to know the societies of man. One moment, my lords. There is also needed the knowledge of the past, and of societies, and of man.

The poets are infinitely more reasonable, (one expected as much), who quite well admit that it is not enough to make verses in order to be poets. And if they did not admit it, everyone would admit it well enough for them.

It is as if it were enough to dress as a soldier in order to be brave. So it is not enough to dress as a novelist and as an aesthetician in order to be deep. And it is not enough to dress as a critic in order to be clear.

One must therefore renounce attaching qualities and hierarchies as ready-made tunics to certain orders, but pursue parallel-wise the search for these qualities and these hierarchies, as they are, without ready-made idea, as they are given, within the different orders. And so to speak by climbing up along within the different orders.

One must be foolish, one must not be systematic, and this too is indispensable for not making a career: one must say what one sees. I see that the pathetic of the Greeks and of the French, being classical, is infinitely more clear than the German criticism, which is romantic. Or rather the pathetic of the Greeks and of the French is clear and the German criticism is not. And the criticism of the Greeks and of the French, being classical, is deep, and the German pathetic, being romantic, is not.

Nothing is so clear as the invocations or as the lamentations of Antigone. Nothing is so clear as the stanzas of Polyeucte. On the other hand nothing is more deep than a Platonic analysis and criticism, nothing is more deep than an analysis and criticism of Pascal.

Let us therefore cease attributing certain qualities to certain orders like overcoats. But let us pursue parallel-wise within the different orders and let us know how to recognize the parallel qualities.

Let us therefore cease also, and independently of their situations in the orders, considering as contradictory in themselves qualities which precisely are contradictory only in the classifications of the intellectuals. Where has it ever been seen that the clear excluded the deep or that the deep excluded the clear. They exclude one another in books, in didactics, in manuals. They exclude one another neither in nature nor in that other nature which is grace. Neither in nature nor in that second and superior nature which is the nature of grace. Homer, who is the greatest clarity, is he not also the greatest depth. Old Priam at the feet of Achilles, who is if I be permitted to speak thus the maximum of the pathetic and of the classical and so to speak the maximum of the antique, being the maximum of antique supplication, does he not give together the maximum of clarity in the maximum of depth.

It was the romantics who invented that one had to be troubled in order to be deep and that there was a ligature, a ready-made clothing of trouble or of the obscure to depth. And their learned troubles, their artificial troubles, (intellectual), have never allowed them to obtain anything but superficial depths. When Hugo followed his nature, his classical genius he was deep and clear. When he wore himself out to be and being romantic he gave himself a dog’s trouble to obtain a wrapping-paper mysteriousness.

(I do not wish, as they say, to inflame the debate, and to make personalities, and to wound anyone. But after all we have, at the cahiers themselves, a critic who is at the same time a novelist. I do not see, when he is a novelist, that he undresses himself of his clarity, and, when he is a critic, that he undresses himself of his depth.)

As the romantics could not deny that the classics were clear, they undertook to recoup themselves on depth. They wished to make themselves the specialists of depth. But those who are deep have never said to themselves that they were going to be deep.

And they have never said it to others.

Then the romantics feigned that there was a contrariety of nature between the clear and the deep so that, the classics being evidently clear, it should be automatically understood that they were not deep. As if Racine’s verses the most full of light were not also the most mysterious.

The deep and the mysterious is not necessarily somber and tormented. Nothing is pure as the fold of the mantle of antique prayer.

Of all the ideas which have ever been put in the form of maxims I believe that the most false is without any doubt this one, (and it has this in common with another which will come that it too is not by Barbey d’Aurevilly), that for passion everyone is good. If I wished to speak a Christian language I would say that even for sin everyone is not good. There is a choice and an election of sin itself. The natures which are good for sin are of the same nature, of the same reign as those who are good for grace. And grace and sin are two operations of the same kingdom. Many are called, few are chosen. And outside there is an immense throng which together is good neither for sin nor for grace. For sin together and grace are the two operations of salvation, hermetically articulated one upon the other. And outside there is the immense throng of those who are not even capable of sinning, and whom I shall name the intellectuals or the intellectualists in the order of sin; of grace; of salvation.

I am convinced that it is the same in all orders and that there are very few beings who are good for happiness as there are very few beings who are good for unhappiness. And outside there is the immense throng of beings who together and by the same movement, by the same incapacity, by the same sterility, by the same infecundity, are good neither for happiness nor for unhappiness. And whom I shall name the intellectuals in the order of happiness.

Very few beings are aimed at, for him who knows his Christianity. And outside there is this immense kingdom of disgrace, which consists in not even knowing what one is talking about.

So it is with passion. Love is more rare than genius even. It is as rare as sanctity. And friendship is more rare than love. To say that for passion everyone is good is as false and I shall say as silly and I shall say as scholastic and as quickly said as to say: For statuary everyone is good, or: For mathematical analysis everyone is good. There are intellectuals everywhere and there are intellectuals of everything. That is to say: There is an immense throng of men who feel by ready-made sentiments, in the same proportion that there is an immense throng of men who think by ready-made ideas, and in the same proportion there is an immense throng of men who will by ready-made wills, in the same proportion that there is an immense throng of “Christians” who mechanically repeat the words of prayer. And one could go on for a long time and pass through all the compartments and one could say: In the same proportion that there is an immense throng of painters who draw by ready-made lines. There are as few painters who look as philosophers who think.

This denunciation of a universal intellectualism that is to say of a universal laziness consisting in always making use of the ready-made will have been one of the great conquests and the instauratio magna of the Bergsonian philosophy. It is true that the immense majority of men think by ready-made ideas. By learned ideas. But it is also true, in the same way and everywhere, it is true that the immense majority of men see by ready-made visions. By learned visions. There is a universal and so to speak indefatigable laziness. It is work that grows tired, but laziness, but fatigue does not grow tired. The denunciation of this laziness, of this fatigue, of this constant intellectualism is at the threshold of the Bergsonian invention.

I am told: What is this invention which consists only in denouncing an old habit. What is this novelty which consists in denouncing and even if it consisted in revealing a hereditary blemish. What is this positive which consists in not falling into the negative. What is this plus which consists simply in not falling into the minus. What is this acquisition, what is this conquest which consists in not losing one’s most ancient provinces.

And I ask: do you know many others. To prevent man from descending certain slopes, is that not a giant’s labor. To prevent man from descending certain sentimental slopes, certain moral slopes, certain slopes of conduct, is that not the labor and the greatest part of the secret of so many arts and of the greatest moralities. To prevent man, to dis-habituate, to dis-entrave man from descending certain mental slopes, if only one succeeded in it, certain slopes of thought, let us be convinced that there would be there, that there was there matter, object for a very great logic, for a very great morality, for a very great metaphysics. Liberty, of which it is said that it is the first of goods, is generally obtained only by an operation of dis-entravement. Why should reality, which is perhaps a deeper good, not also be obtained by an operation of dis-entravement. And why should an operation of dis-entravement not be an operation of extreme importance. The French Revolution was an operation, an enormous historic event because it pretended to dis-entrave the world of a semblance of political servitude. And finally has not the whole immense apparatus of the incarnation and of the redemption been set up to dis-entrave man, to prevent him from remaining fallen into slavery and I have almost the urge to say into the habit of original sin. For sin had above all become an immense habit. And slavery is the habit so to speak the most habituated.

It must be noted besides that this expression the ready-made, if it constantly returns, as was natural, and as was to be expected, in the philosophy of Bergson, is led to return there in two rather noticeably different senses. And which I do not see that anyone has sufficiently distinguished. When Bergson opposes the ready-made to the making-itself, (and I would much like to know how he could say it in other terms), (and one must have a good deal of ill will all the same not to recognize in this past participle and in this present participle the heirs of two beautiful Greek middle-passive participles), he makes an opposition, he recognizes a metaphysical contrariety of the order of the very order of duration and bearing on the opposition, on the deep, essential, metaphysical contrariety of the present to the future and of the present to the past. It is a distinction of the order of metaphysics. (It is that deep and capital Bergsonian idea that the present, the past, the future, are not only of time but of being itself. That they are not only chronological. That the future is not only past for later on. That the past is not only old future, future from within time. But that creation, as it passes, as it descends, as it falls from the future to the past by the ministry, by the accomplishment of the present, does not only change date, but changes being. That it does not only change calendar, but changes nature. That the passage through the present is the clothing-on of another being. That it is the dis-clothing of liberty and the clothing-on of memory). But when this same philosopher speaks of ready-made in the sense of ready-made ideas, of ready-made thought, he takes this word in the sense in which one says a ready-made garment for a confection garment, instead of a custom-made garment. It is a distinction of fabrication, of operation, of cut, of technique. The Bergsonian philosophy wills that one think to measure and that one not think ready-made.

All the more so as a confection garment is always a second-hand garment. It is a second-hand garment in the new instead of being a second-hand garment in the old. But it is always a second-hand garment. It is by chance that it fits, or that it is supposed to fit. It is not by a proper anterior adaptation, by a proper anterior cut. It is not by a unique adaptation, by a destined cut.

It is one of the greatest sources of sophisms and of errors, or, to remain in our comparison, I shall say: it is one of the greatest stores of sophisms and of errors, this negligence to consider, this fault of considering, this defect of considering, I mean this negligence which consists in not considering, in neglecting to consider that the brand-new is not necessarily the wholly new. Many misinterpretations come from there, and many faults of judgment, errors of judgment. It is generally believed that it is enough for an idea to be brand-new in order to be new. It is believed that it is enough for an idea to be brand-new for it not to have been used. What an error. It has served the manufacturer. When a stage tree, when a stage love comes out of the manufacturer’s shop, it is all the same an old tree, it is all the same a ready-made tree, and it is all the same of the stage. It may well be brand-new, it is not for that a true tree, a tree in the country. It is not for that a new tree in the world. It is not a question of degrees, it is a question of order. Homer is new this morning, and nothing is perhaps so old as today’s newspaper. It is a question of nature and of essence. Just as in the Bergsonian philosophy the future and at the limit the present differs from the past not only chronologically but essentially and metaphysically, so a ready-made idea is ready-made in itself and essentially. It is manufactured ready-made as a stage tree is manufactured ready-made and stage tree. It comes into the world ready-made idea as a stage tree comes into the world ready-made and stage tree. It is of papier-mâché, it is of painted paper. It is totally foreign to germination, to fecundity, to conception. There are men who reinvent, beings who relive, thoughts which reconceive anew the oldest ideas. And there are men who make ready-made ideas. There are ideas which are ready-made while one is making them, before one makes them as ready-made overcoats are ready-made while one is making them, as stage trees are ready-made and are stage trees while one is making them. It is a question of nature or of the factitious. It is a question of grace or of disgrace. Stage trees are not trees of nature diminished, worn out, aged and good only for that. They are trees of another order. They are other trees. They are not trees of nature flattened on a flat. They are trees come into the world flat. Thus a ready-made idea comes into the world flat and ready-made.

— Is that all, I am asked. Far from it that this is all. But I say that even if there were only this, and considering only this, this alone would be capital, and would make a great philosophy. Cartesianism is a great philosophy. Cartesianism is one of the three or four great philosophies of the world. Now what made the fortune of the Cartesian philosophy? I do not say that this fortune is illegitimate. I say: what made this fortune.

Let us leave aside the Pharisaisms of the school, the solemn editions of texts, the reprintings of the complete works. Let us leave aside the university celebrations. Let us leave aside the official commemorations, and the centenaries, and the circumspections, and the false scholastic respects. That too is ready-made, ready-made ideas. Let us be Bergsonians, both in the matter of the history of Cartesianism, and in the matter of the history of Bergsonism.

What made the so high and so great and so just fortune of the Cartesian philosophy. Those who have read the complete works of Descartes elsewhere than in the limpidities of manuals know that the entire fortune of Descartes and of the Cartesian philosophy has been made by four or five lines which are in the Discourse on Method. And that is all. And these four or five lines, these four or five sentences are precisely precepts so to speak of mental morality, a few anterior principles of intellectual hygiene, rules of method in the end, it is he who says it, not principles or revelations or conclusions of system. It is again in a sense dis-entravement and liberation. It is even also denunciation. As the Bergsonian philosophy began by being a denunciation of the ready-made, so the Cartesian philosophy began by being a denunciation of disorder. The Cartesian philosophy has been essentially a philosophy of order as the Bergsonian philosophy is essentially a philosophy of reality. That afterward Descartes succeeded in imposing order and even the idea of order, and forever, on the thinking universe, and even on himself, is another question, it is an ulterior question. That afterward Bergson succeeded in imposing on the thinking universe, and even on himself, and forever, the consideration of pure reality, is another question, it is an ulterior question. They are men. Have they obtained, will they obtain a total success. One does not see that philosophers are destined to succeed totally more than Caesar or Napoleon. But it would be easy to show that Bergson is infinitely a better Bergsonian than Descartes was a good Cartesian. And I shall say: It is easy to show that Bergson is infinitely a better Bergsonian than Descartes was a good Cartesian. I see everywhere in Bergson the concern for the consideration of pure reality. And in Descartes I see very great disorders.

Discourse on Method and it is better to write discourse on the method for well conducting one’s reason and for seeking or for finding the truth in the sciences. It is a program, alas, and it is almost an electoral program. And it has been almost as little realized as an electoral program. When instead of re-reading the program, and above all the title of the program, and above all the beginning of the title of the program one considers the results, what does one see. One sees that Descartes has been a great philosopher, a great metaphysician, a great mathematician, a great savant. But a great one among others, in his rank in the same rank as others, of the same sort and of the same nature as others, in the same order as the others, in the same order of certitude and in the same order of work, in no way a man without peer and out of class, a man out of frame, a man to whom a sudden method, brusquely appeared in the history of the world, would have delivered up a secret of infallible and total certitude. It is with this discourse on method as with the famous Baconian rules.

Bacon’s tables have never caused an invention nor a discovery to be made. There is no example of an invention or a discovery having been made by an official. Inventors and discoverers follow quite other instincts. Inventors and discoverers run quite other adventures. Inventors and discoverers have never been registry clerks. Bacon’s tables have never served except for the processors to show how an invention (and a discovery, but it is always an invention), ought to have been made, after it had been made. As for Bacon, he never invented anything, except the tables for the others to invent. He never discovered anything, except the tables for the others to discover.

Or rather the tables for the others to have invented, the tables for the others to have discovered.

Bacon’s tables have never served except for historians of inventions to explain how inventions had been made, after they had been made. And even how it was fatal that they should be made; and that they should be made thus. It was nothing of the sort. But the essential thing is that there be a history. And above all perhaps that there be historians.

Bacon’s tables are perhaps made for the controller. And for the inspector of the controller. They are certainly not made for the wattman.

I shall not say so much of Descartes. He himself invented. He himself discovered. But the Descartes who invented, the Descartes who discovered, the Descartes philosopher, metaphysician, mathematician, physicist, physiologist, psychologist, and other things, was a philosopher and a geometer and a mechanician and a physicist of genius who did not proceed directly from the discourse on method, who was not in direct liaison, in continuous function and so to speak in continuous creation from the discourse on method. Whatever he may have had and thought of it himself. He was a metaphysician in his rank, in his place, which was high, a geometer in his rank, a mechanician in his rank, a physicist in his rank, among the first, in no way a metaphysician, a geometer deduced, and continuously deduced, in no way a metaphysician, a geometer, a mechanician, a physicist to whom a secret of method, suddenly sprung up in the history of the world, would have conferred that infallibility promised on the outside. And I see today that in astronomy and celestial mechanics and physics one comes back to the hypothesis of the Cartesian vortices, and I am very happy about it, for it will have been a fine stroke of genius, (but of the divination of genius), and I shall be still more happy when one will have come back to it for general physics. But if one comes back to it, (the German says: if one will come back to it), it will not be because the idea of vortex is clear and distinct, it will be and because it will be more convenient and because it will more closely espouse new aspects of physical reality. It is not in function of the discourse on method that one will re-adopt the hypothesis of the Cartesian vortices. It will not even be in function of Cartesian physics. It will be if I may say so in proportion to physics simply. And in view of physics simply. One will resume the hypothesis of the Cartesian vortices because it will better account for the facts, for the observations, for the calculations established from the facts and the observations. One will not resume it from taste but from force. One never resumes anything but by force. One will not resume it from virtue but from great necessity. One will not resume it to assure the order of thought, (after two centuries and soon two centuries and a half one has ended by perceiving that the laws of attraction and of universal gravitation were generally applicable and perfectly calculable but that the very hypothesis of attraction at a distance and of gravitation at a distance was perfectly unthinkable, that is to say in the end that Newton is metaphysically unthinkable). (For one sees badly how an ether would be a perfect conductor of attraction and of gravitation, how an ether would conduct instantaneously attraction and gravitation at a distance, how an ether would make instantaneous transports of forces which would be those of attraction and of gravitation.) One will not therefore resume the hypothesis of the Cartesian vortices to assure order nor to assure thought nor to assure discourse nor to assure method. One will resume it because reality will be more like that, or it will appear more like that, or one will find it more like that.

One will not resume the hypothesis of the Cartesian vortices because it will be in order with the Discourse on Method but because it will be in order, or one will think it will be in order, with the discourse of reality.

One will not resume the hypothesis of the Cartesian vortices because it will be in order with Descartes, but because one will think it will be in order with reality.

Did Descartes himself deduce his metaphysics, his physics, his physiology, his whole system from his method. He did not even deduce it entirely from his principles. He did not even deduce it entirely from the I think. He himself said that experience had to come forward to meet the deduction. He understood by that, and quite explicitly, that deduction either mathematical or logical or metaphysical and generally philosophical could end in and ended sometimes (or often) in double or multiple cases, in cases which Leibnitz would have named indifferent, that is to say in cases such that the last deduced solution, the solution which finds itself last in the way of deductive filiation leaves us so to speak in suspense before two or several actual equal solutions, before two or several equal realized or realizable solutions, before two or several solutions of realization of detail. It is to arbitrate between these two or several equal solutions, that is to say which equally satisfy the conditions of the last deductive solution, that Descartes brings experience back into play. He admits, he wills that walking backwards, recurrens, regrediens, experience go back up (starting from facts, from phenomena, from observations, from experiments), that it come forward to meet that deductive way which had remained so to speak on the edge of fate.

Reality, at each of its points, is like a blockaded city. The royal army has set out to the rescue. But the royal army cannot itself arrive and a sortie of the place itself has to come forward to meet it and give it a hand. At this point intermediary between man and the world, at this point intermediary between mind and reality, at this point intermediary where is established the connection between the army of rescue and literally the proper rescue of the place, at this point is operated for Descartes the knowledge of truth. And one must not doubt that for him it is operated absolutely and that this knowledge of truth is absolute. No one has anything more to say. The mind comes from one side. The object of the mind comes from the other, and forward to meet it. Neither has the mind anything more to say, nor has the object anything more to say.

I shall be permitted to open here a note within this Note. It is impossible not to consider, with a being-struck, how this Cartesian theory is faithfully kindred, how it is parallel to the Christian and Catholic theory of grace, to what we have the right to name the mechanism of grace. As experience must come forward to meet reason, so and by a movement perfectly comparable and perfectly parallel liberty must come forward to meet grace. Man too is this besieged city. Sin too is this perfectly regulated blockade. Grace too is this royal army which comes to the rescue. But it is also necessary that the liberty of man make a sortie, erumpat, and that it go forward to meet this army of rescue. It is this that Péguy said when he said that by the creation of the liberty of man and by the play of this liberty God placed himself in dependence on man. For one must not consider only the frontier place. One must consider “Versailles and Saint-Denis.” If the place is not rescued it is lost. But if it does not rescue itself by this sortie, it is lost.

It is a double disaster. If at the point of connection the sortie of the place does not give a hand to the army of rescue, neither does the army of rescue give a hand to the sortie of the place.

If the one army does not find the other come forward to meet it, neither does the other find the one.

When one fails one another, one fails by two. The fault of man makes God himself fail. When grace does not find liberty come forward to meet it, neither does liberty find grace. The failure is necessarily double. When man fails God, God fails man. When the place is lost, Versailles too, the kingdom too loses a place.

“I noted also, touching experiments, that they are the more necessary the more advanced one is in knowledge; for, for the beginning, it is better to use only those which present themselves of themselves to our senses, and which we could not be ignorant of provided we made the least bit of reflection upon them, than to seek rarer and studied ones: the reason of which is that these rarer ones often deceive, when one does not yet know the most common causes, and that the circumstances on which they depend are nearly always so particular and so small, that it is very difficult to notice it. But the order I have followed in this has been such. First I have tried to find in general the principles or first causes of all that is or that can be in the world,…

… Of all that is or that can be, there is exactly the fissure.

… “without considering for this effect anything but God alone who has created it, nor drawing them from elsewhere than from certain seeds of truths which are naturally in our souls. After that, I examined what were the first and the most ordinary effects which could be deduced from these causes; and it seems to me that thereby I have found heavens, stars, an earth, and even on the earth water, air, fire, minerals, and a few other such things, which are the most common of all and the most simple, and consequently the easiest to know. Then, when I wished to descend to those which were more particular, there presented themselves to me so many different ones, that I did not believe it possible for the human mind to distinguish the forms or species of bodies which are on the earth, from an infinity of others which could be there if it had been the will of God to put them there, nor consequently to relate them to our use, unless one come forward to meet causes by effects, and one make use of several particular experiments. After which, going back over in my mind all the objects which had ever presented themselves to my senses, I dare well say that I noted in them no thing which I could not explain conveniently enough by the principles I had found. But I must also confess that the power of nature is so ample and so vast, and that these principles are so simple and so general, that I scarcely note any particular effect that I do not know at once that it can be deduced from them in several different ways, and that my greatest difficulty is ordinarily to find in which of these ways it depends; for to this I know of no other expedient than to seek anew some experiments which are such that their event will not be the same if it is in one of these ways that one must explain it as if it is in the other. As for the rest, I am now at the point that I see, it seems to me, well enough by what side one should set about doing most of those which can serve for this effect: but I see also that they are such, and in so great a number, that neither my hands nor my income, even though I had a thousand times more than I have, would not suffice for all; in such wise that, according as I shall henceforth have the convenience of doing more or less, I shall also advance more or less in the knowledge of nature: which I promised myself to make known by the treatise I had written, and to show there so clearly the utility which the public can receive from it, that I would oblige all those who desire in general the good of men, that is to say all those who are in effect virtuous, and not at all by false semblance, nor only by opinion, both to communicate to me those which they have already made, and to help me in the search of those which remain to be made.”

Who does not see that through such a breach all the non-deduced can re-enter. (If each time one must leave the deductive way at a certain point of suspense, make a leap (where, in what direction, and how does one know that it is in this direction), and find the point of reality from which one must return to this point of suspense). But a great philosophy is not one which has no breaches. It is one which has citadels.

A great philosophy is not one which is never beaten. But a small philosophy is always one which does not fight.

Singular voyage that Descartes proposes to us. (But he is well forced to). Singular voyage the Cartesian voyage. It is properly the interrupted voyage. It is the discontinuous voyage. One descends, one stops (or one is stopped), one leaps (where, and how), one touches a point which will be the definitive point of arrival and which for the moment is a momentary point of departure, one goes back up, one returns to the point of stopping, one descends again to the definitive point of arrival. One sets out, one descends, one stops, one leaps, one goes back up, one descends again, one arrives. One goes, one leaps, one returns, one goes again. What matter. Because a voyage is singular, because it is interrupted, because it is discontinuous and even because it is partially retrograde this is no reason not to make it. What matter, if the voyage is bold, if the attempt is fruitful, if the adventure is rewarded. Which comes back to saying that a great philosophy is not a philosophy which is not contested. It is a philosophy which vanquishes somewhere. A great philosophy is not a philosophy without reproach. It is a philosophy without fear.

A great philosophy is not a dictation. The greatest is not the one which has no faults.

A great philosophy is not one against which there is nothing to say. It is one which has said something.

And even it is one which had something to say. Even if it could not. Say it.

It is not one which has no defects. It is not one which has no voids. It is one which has fullnesses.

It is not a question of confounding. It is in the schools that it is a question of confounding. It is not even a question of convincing. In to convince (con-vaincre) there is to vanquish (vaincre), as Victor Hugo loved to repeat to me.

To confound the adversary, in matter of philosophy, what coarseness.

The true philosopher knows very well that he is not instituted facing his adversary, but that he is instituted beside his adversary and the others facing a reality always greater and more mysterious.

And this, even the true physicist also knows. That he is not instituted facing the contrary physicist, but beside the contrary physicist, facing a nature always deeper and more mysterious.

To attend a debate of philosophy or to participate in one with this idea that one is going to convince or reduce one’s adversary or that one is going to see one of the two adversaries confound the other, is to show that one does not know what one is talking about, is to bear witness to a great incapacity, baseness and barbarity. It is to bear witness to a great lack of culture. It is to show that one is not of that country.

If the Discourse on Method has a sense, it is indeed that one must go step by step and with an extreme prudence. Upon which it ends in a walk, in a progress, in a step which requires that one leap between the point of suspense and the point of arrival.

If the Discourse on Method has a sense, it is indeed that the step of the mind to the object must be a deduction, a continuous degree. A continuous going. Upon which the real Cartesian voyage is a going, then a return and going.

When I was a child, in the provinces of the Center, every time there was in games some distance to measure on the ground, for example for “prisoners” at “bars,” one took care not to measure by strides, because one thought that even involuntarily strides could be unequal. One measured, (and one counted), foot to foot, that is to say the back of the heel of the right foot just and moderately pressed against the point of the sole of the left foot. And so on alternately. It was the old straw, hay of the fallen regimes, become under the Republic and since the government of reason the left, right. And it was straw which had become the left foot, and hay which had become the right foot. But formerly one counted and measured by straw, hay and not by left, right. Now Descartes is a man who in the second part of the Discourse on Method wills that one advance only foot to foot and who in the fourth part, placing himself, going to place himself by the I think at the very heart of being and of the self and of thought, proceeds in setting out by the most prodigious leap there is perhaps in the history of metaphysics.

Shall I say that he gave himself an easy ride and that perhaps he needed sooner than he says it that experience come forward to meet him to make him see what would be his event. He believes that he has deduced the heavens, the stars, an earth. He believes that he has deduced water, air, fire, minerals and a few other such things. Perhaps if he had never seen the heavens he would not have so easily deduced them. Perhaps if he had never seen the heavens he would not have found them. And so of a few other such things. Perhaps if he had not had a certain experience of the heavens he would not have so easily had such a knowledge of the event of the heavens. He wills that he had need that experience come forward to meet him only when he wished to descend to the things which were more particular. It is permitted to ask oneself whether experience did not come forward to meet him up to the beginning of the sky. It is almost permitted to ask oneself whether experience did not come forward to meet him up to the beginning of God.

We who have seen all the progress and the developments of physics since Descartes and who see them every day, what can we think of such a qualification and, in consequence, of such an affirmation that the heavens, the stars, an earth, and even on the earth water, air, fire, minerals and a few other such things would be the most common of all and the most simple, and consequently the easiest to know. Very few physicists today would dare to speak of easy to know. And in Descartes was I not right to speak of a certain electoral program, and of a certain tone of an electoral program. But what does this mean, if not that I find here a reinforcement of what I was advancing at the beginning of this note, that it is not because the method of Descartes is good that it has had so high a fortune, but because it is a method. It is for this that it has inscribed itself in eternal history.

It is not because it is victorious, it is because it fights. It is not because it arrives, it is because it sets out.

It is solely, at bottom, because it is resolved. One follows those who march. And it is because it marches in the French manner. “My second maxim, (it is a maxim of his morality, but what I maintain is that his method too is a morality, a morality of thought or a morality for thinking; or if one will, everything with him is morality. Because everything in him is conduct and will of conduct. His provisional morality is a provisional morality for the conduct of conduct (ordinary, personal and social). His method is an instauratory morality for the conduct of thought. But the one and the other are conjoined and have exactly the same procedure): “My second maxim was to be the most firm and the most resolute in my actions that I could,…

At bottom his great maxim of method is also to be the most firm and the most resolute in his thoughts that he could. And perhaps his greatest invention and his novelty and his greatest stroke of genius and of force is to have conducted his thought deliberately as an action.

“and to follow no less the most doubtful opinions when I had once determined myself to them…

To follow no less the most doubtful opinions when he had once determined himself to them,… there is what will scandalize every man who is not a philosopher and every man who has no culture. It is that of the two poles of this sentence, of the two beats of this maxim it is determined which is stronger than doubtful, it is determined which is more important than doubtful, it is determined which carries the day. Vim patitur. It is determination, assurance, resolution which vanquishes. His resolution is no less mental than moral. It is no less of mental conduct than of moral conduct. It plays no less in the one than in the other. In morality it is supposedly provisional. In the mental it is liminary and instauratory. Everywhere it is the deepest of his race and of his genius.

… “as if they had been very assured: imitating in this travelers who, finding themselves astray in some forest, must not wander turning now to one side, now to another, nor still less stop in one place, but march always the straightest they can toward one same side, and not change it for weak reasons, even though it has perhaps at the beginning been only chance alone which has determined them to choose it; for, by this means, if they do not go exactly where they desire, they will arrive at least at the end somewhere where probably they will be better than in the middle of a forest.”

The whole question is precisely whether thought too is not better anywhere than in the middle of a forest. What I say is that precisely because his morality was provisional, precisely because it did not enter into his system, because it was not stopped, because so to speak it was not official, precisely because he defended himself less in it, observed himself less, it is this which delivers up his secret to us. His secret is indeed to go always in the same sense and, in the evening, to arrive somewhere.

The whole question is in effect whether thought itself does not enter into certain conditions, whether it is not subject to certain general conditions of man and of being, which are organic conditions, and of which one precisely would be that anything is worth more than to turn in a circle.

To set out, to march straight, to arrive somewhere. To arrive elsewhere rather than not to arrive. To arrive where one was not going rather than not to arrive. Above all to arrive. Anything, rather than to wander. And that the greatest error is still to “err”: there is his very nature and the race of his secret.

I should not wish to render him suspect of that pragmatism which has so often been reproached to the Bergsonian philosophy (wrongly, according to me, and one day I shall show it), but in the end it is evident that the Cartesian philosophy is a system of thought in which to arrive is of an eminent price, and even of a unique price. Anything, rather than not to have a shelter this evening.

The hope of arriving late in a wild place.

If the method of Descartes had been good, in the sense in which he himself understood it, that is to say if it had had in itself, if it had led automatically to a certain certitude which he announced and which was to tell the truth an authentic infallibility, it would not have led him immediately and almost at the same time to propositions which appear to us today so scandalous. (As to declare that heavens and an earth are easy to know.) Where is this evidence which was to settle everything. And what is this evidence which was to be universal and which does not surpass its author, which was to be eternal and which does not survive its author, which even did not live perhaps as long as its author. What does this mean then if not that a great philosophy is not one which settles questions once for all but one which poses them; that a great philosophy is not one which pronounces, but one which requires.

Descartes promises a method of certitude and immediately afterwards and almost at the same time he falls into propositions which soon appear to us scandalous. Or rather he arrives at propositions which soon appear to us scandalous. But a great philosophy is not one which renders judgments. It is perhaps one which renders services. It is in any case one which introduces instances.

A great philosophy is not one which pronounces definitive judgments, which installs a definitive truth. It is one which introduces a disquiet, which opens a shaking.

The world has perhaps not followed the Cartesian method and Descartes certainly has not followed it. But Descartes and the world have followed the Cartesian shaking.

A great philosophy is not one in which there is nothing to be taken up again. It is one which has taken something.

A great philosophy is not one which is invincible in reasonings. It is not even one which once, on a certain occasion, has vanquished. It is one which, once, has fought.

And the little philosophies, which are not even philosophies, are those which pretend to fight.

It is much a question of confounding and of convincing. When it is finished no one is confounded, no one either is convinced. But some are registered, some are incorporated. The others are not.

This proposition of Descartes that the heavens, the stars, an earth, water, air, fire, minerals and a few other such things would be the most common of all and the most simple, and consequently the easiest to know, appears to us at once preposterous. What matter. What one must know, is whether the first words of this Discourse on Method were the point of origin of an immense shaking, of a wave, of an immense circular wave on the Ocean of thought. Upon the face of the ocean of thought.

A great philosophy is not one which is first in composition. It is not one which is first in dissertation. It is in classes of philosophy that one vanquishes by reasonings. But philosophy does not go to classes of philosophy.

A philosophy is also not a chamber of justice. It is not a question of being right or of being wrong. It is a mark of great coarseness, (in philosophy), to wish to be right; and still more, to wish to be right against someone. And it is a mark of the same coarseness to attend a debate of philosophy with the thought of seeing one of the two adversaries be wrong or be right. Against the other. Speak to me only of a philosophy which is more deliberate, like that of Descartes, or more deep, or more attentive, or more pious. Or more unbound. Speak to me of a severe philosophy. Or of a happy philosophy. Speak to me above all of a certain fidelity to reality, which I put above everything.

A great philosophy is not in the end one which lies down, and at once, on all the positions on all the battlefields. It is only the one which, one day, fought well at the corner of this wood:

Happy are those who died for four corners of earth.

Napoleon no longer occupies the cemetery of Eylau. And he no longer pitches his tent at the foot of the Pyramids. But there has been the campaign of Egypt, the campaign of Russia, the wars of Germany, and there has been the campaign of France.

I do not wish in this simple note to enter into the substance of the Bergsonian debate. If I can do it one day I shall speak as a Christian and as a Catholic. I shall speak without authority but I shall not speak without hearing and without understanding. That the battle which has been waged around Bergson should be to this point furious, that is in order. But that it should be to this point waged backwards, that is a true wager. One would have done much, one would have done perhaps everything if only one forced the combatants to occupy their true lines of battle. Acies suas, non alienas, non contrarias, instruere.

Today I wish only to mark beats. Just as Hugo is classical in the first beat and romantic in the second, so a philosophy can be in several beats and it is generally in several beats. There is also history. Whatever one thinks metaphysically of the Cartesian system, when Descartes had made his method burst forth, cum irrupisset, when he had made his method enter by irruption, he had conquered his share in eternal history. Whatever one thinks metaphysically of the Bergsonian system, when Bergson made his method spring forth, he conquered his share in eternal history.

It would be in vain to fall back on the argument that the method of Descartes is a positive method and that the method of Bergson would be a purely negative method. The method of Descartes is only positive in appearance. And I shall say in apparatus. It comes back essentially to climbing back violently up a slope and to making the mind climb back up it. I shall say to making man climb back up it. And the Bergsonian method comes back essentially to climbing back briskly up a slope and to making man and the mind climb back up it briskly.

In the sense in which Cartesianism has consisted in climbing back up the slope of disorder, in the same sense Bergsonism has consisted in climbing back up the slope of the ready-made.

Every great philosophy has a first beat, which is a beat of method, and a second beat, which is a beat of metaphysics. When one says that Platonism is a philosophy of dialectics, and Cartesianism a philosophy of order, and Bergsonism a philosophy of the real, one takes all three in their beat of method. When one says that Platonism is a philosophy of the idea, and Cartesianism a philosophy of substance, and Bergsonism a philosophy of duration, one takes all three in their beat of metaphysics.

Cartesianism has been a violent rupture. Bergsonism has been a rupture, an unbinding lively and as it were dogged. There is certainly in Bergsonism something like a doggedness which is not in Cartesianism. But that is because perhaps the rupture, the unbinding which it was a question of operating in Bergsonism was still more threatened, more precarious, and on the other hand still more indispensable than the one it was a question of operating in Cartesianism. We are infinitely more bound to the slavery of the ready-made than we are bound to the slavery of disorder. The slavery of the ready-made is infinitely more ready to take us back than the slavery of disorder. And it has infinitely more disastrous consequences. In disorder itself there can be strokes of fortune and even strokes of order. In what is tired there is neither grace nor springing-forth. Of all that there can be of bad, habit is the worst. Cartesianism only climbed back up, only repulsed one habit, which was the habit of disorder. Bergsonism has undertaken to repulse all habit as such, all organic and mental habit.

And that in all the orders, in all the disciplines that we ranked at the beginning of this study.

One has seen battles won in disorder itself and by disorder, panics forward. One has never seen tirednesses and old ages give by error works of novelty.

There can be in disorder a certain fecundity. Habit and the growing old try in vain to play the young man.

That is what one names a revolution, this great effort momentarily crowned. The man in his armchair who sees a revolution, be it even a mental revolution, and who says: That’s not clever, he himself has said nothing. The question, in this order, is not that it be clever. It is that it be, at a certain moment of the history of the world, entered in. The greatest revolutions, in all orders, have not been made with and by extraordinary ideas and it is even the property of genius to proceed by the simplest ideas. Only in ordinary times the simple ideas prowl like phantoms of dream. When a simple idea takes body, there is a revolution. The Cartesian revolution consisted in stopping the descent, in climbing back up the habit of disorder. The Bergsonian revolution consisted in stopping all the descent, in climbing back up all organic and mental habit.

It is so in all orders. What is most contrary to salvation itself, is not sin, it is habit. Thousands of creditors mechanically repeat the frightening words: Et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Let only one suddenly, suddenly illumined, take them seriously, these words, let them enter into him as into himself, it is instantaneously the greatest revolution which can actually be, for it is a revolution in the reign of money, it is a subversion of the reign of money. And it is one more man saved.

Everything is in incorporation, in incarceration, in incarnation. And here again and in this very thing we are forced to speak the Bergsonian language and in this one will never speak any other. Everything is in insertion and insertion is extremely rare. Of God, there has been but one incarnation, and even of ideas there are very few incorporations. When instead of looking at an idea in the air, suddenly it is taken seriously, that is what is, and what makes, a revolution. And history counts only three or four of these great shakings.

Discourse on the method for well conducting one’s reason and seeking truth in the sciences. Bergsonism too is a method for well conducting one’s reason. Bergsonism too has a reason. Bergsonism too is a party of reason. One does not see what would be a philosophy which would not be a party of reason. Bergsonism intends even to serve reason still better, for it intends so to speak to serve it still more closely. Every philosophy is evidently and essentially a rationalism. Even a philosophy which would be, or which would wish to be, against reason, would all the same be rationalist. A philosophy can never bring anything but reasons. Cartesianism was in its principle an effort to conduct reason to the search for truth in the sciences, (but by sciences Descartes evidently understood a part of what we name metaphysics, and at least the metaphysics of the sciences). Bergsonism was in its principle an effort to conduct reason to the embrace of reality. (In the sciences, in the metaphysics of the sciences, in metaphysics). Already Platonism had been in its principle an effort to conduct reason by ideal dialectics or if one will ideic dialectics to the very source of being. Bergsonism was an effort as great, an effort of the same order, and I shall say an effort in the same sense. There is no more philosophy against reason than there is battle against war, art against beauty, faith against God. Bergsonism has never been either an irrationalism or an anti-rationalism. It has been a new rationalism and it is the coarse metaphysics which Bergsonism has unbound (materialist metaphysics, medico-legal metaphysics, neuro-physiological metaphysics, sociological metaphysics and so many others) which being hardenings, scleroses, stiffenings, ankyloses, were literally deadenings of reason. All these metaphysics were sabotages by hardness of reason. They were splinters and eschars. Bergsonism is so little against reason that not only has it made the old articulations of reason play again but it has made new articulations of it play.

Bacon’s famous rules have introduced into the history of the world no fecundity. We owe them rigorously nothing. Neither an invention, nor a discovery, nor a movement of thought. All those who since the first stammerings of Greek thought had made an invention, a discovery, a movement had without thinking of it applied Bacon’s rules. All those before Bacon. But since Bacon every man who would rise of a good morning with the firm purpose of applying the Baconian rules, and who would have only this firm purpose, who would put in play only this firm purpose, every such man would not for that make either an invention, or a discovery, or a movement of thought. And one has never seen an invention, a discovery, a movement of thought come out of the contemplation of Bacon’s rules. And there is a fine application, and not the least important, of the tables of presence, and of absence and of concomitant variations.

If I were a great philosopher I should perhaps not have the right to tell the following story. The more so as it is not a story and it is again a soldier’s word. But I am only a poor moralist. When then there was one, in the 131st of the corps, who labored too ostentatiously (to make a movement), (to make a word), there was always another who would say coldly: Above all, don’t forget to breathe. All those who have done something in the world are fellows who have not forgotten to breathe. But one has done nothing in the world solely because one had proposed not to forget to breathe.

Discourse on the method for well conducting, it is truly, it is literally a method for avoiding misconduct, bad conduct. And then, if one wishes, it is nothing, because one has always wished to avoid misconduct in matter of thought, and if one wishes it is everything, because it is one of the three or four great shakings which have ever been produced in the history of thought. If one wishes, it is nothing, because it had always been a question of avoiding misconduct in matter of thought. And if one wishes it is even less than nothing, because one did not avoid it more after than before, and because Descartes did not avoid it more than another, (and it is in this sense that I have said that Bergson is an infinitely better Bergsonian than Descartes is a good Cartesian). And yet if one wishes it is everything, because it is Cartesianism.

And again in this discourse on method there is only one part, out of six, the second, which is rules of method. In all seven pages and a half. And in this second part itself there is only the heart, in all twenty lines, which is the rules of method. It is these twenty lines which have revolutionized the world and thought. Valmy too is a little battle, an artillery duel, I mean fought with little effective force, and not even fought at all, with almost no dead and wounded.

It is a prejudice, but it is absolutely ineradicable, which wills that a stiff reason be more a reason than a supple reason or rather which wills that stiff reason be more reason than supple reason. It is a prejudice which has currency and which flourishes all along the line. It reigns, it is ineradicable in all the disciplines that we ranked at the beginning of this note. It is the same prejudice which wills that a stiff logic be more a logic than a supple logic. And that a stiff scientific method be more a method, and more scientific, than a supple scientific method. And above all that a stiff morality be more a morality, and more morality, than a supple morality. It is as if one said that the mathematics of the straight line are more mathematics than the mathematics of the curve.

It is evident on the contrary that it is the supple methods, the supple logics, the supple moralities which are the most severe, being the most tightly drawn. Stiff logics are infinitely less severe than supple logics, being infinitely less tightly drawn. Stiff moralities are infinitely less severe than supple moralities, being infinitely less tightly drawn. A stiff logic can let folds of error escape. A stiff method can let folds of ignorance escape. A stiff morality can let folds of sin escape, of which a supple morality on the contrary will espouse, will denounce, will pursue the sinuosities of escape. It is a supple logic, a supple method, a supple morality which pursues, which attains, which traces the sinuosities of faults and of deficiencies. It is a supple morality which exhausts the sinuosities of failings. It is in a supple morality that everything appears, that everything is denounced, that everything is pursued. In a stiff compartmenting there can with impunity be gaps, hollows, false folds. Stiffness is essentially unfaithful and it is suppleness which is faithful. It is suppleness which denounces. Contrary to all that is believed, to all that is commonly taught, it is stiffness which cheats, it is stiffness which lies. And it is suppleness not only which does not cheat, not only which does not lie, but which does not let one cheat and which does not let one lie. Stiffness on the contrary permits everything, it signals nothing. In a modern trunk you can pile up all the linen veils of antique supplication. If these veils make false folds inside the trunk, nothing of it appears on the lid.

Many misinterpretations which one sees spreading or rather a global misinterpretation which one sees spreading concerning Bergsonism, concerning the ancient and the modern, concerning the classical and the romantic would fall if one were willing once to declassify the stiff from the firm and the hard. It is the stiff moralities in which there can be niches, for dusts, for microbes, mildews and hollows of rottenness, in corners in the stiffnesses, deposits, lues, and what our Latins named situs, a mildew, a filth coming from immobility, from being left there. A filth from having been left there. And it is the supple moralities on the contrary which exact a heart perpetually kept up to date. A heart perpetually pure. We have washed ourselves of such a bitterness. Just as it is the supple methods, the supple logics which require a mind perpetually kept up to date, a mind perpetually pure. It is the supple moralities and not the stiff moralities which exert the constraints the most implacably hard. The only ones which never absent themselves. The only ones which do not pardon. It is the supple moralities, the supple methods, the supple logics which exert the impeccable astrictions. It is for this that the most honest man is not the one who enters into apparent rules. It is the one who remains at his place, works, suffers, keeps silent.