CORNELL UNIVER'SltY LIBRARY Joseph Whiti^ore Barry dramatic library TWO'*FRIENDS OF Cornell University 1934 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027248867 Cornell University Library PQ 661.Z86 3 1924 027 248 867 THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL AND OTHER ESSAYS EMILE ZOLA Author of "The Downfall" (La D£bAcle) TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY BELLE M. SHERMAN NEW YORK THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. 31 East 17TH St. (Union Square) Copyright, 1893, BY CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY. All rights reservea. THE MERSHOK COMPANY PRESS, RAHWAY, N. J. INTRODUCTION. Five of these articles first appeared, translated into Russian, in the Messager de V Europe, a St. Petersburg review. The two others, entitled " The Novel " and " Criticism," are but the gathering together of articles selected from a large number published in Le Bien Public and Le Voltaire. Allow me to publicly express my gratitude to the great nation which welcomed me so warmly, and adopted me, at a time when not a journal in Paris would accept what I wrote and everyone was my enemy in my literary battle. Russia, in one of my hours of pain and discouragement, revived my faith in myself, renewed my strength, and gave me a public, and that the most critical and impassioned of publics. Her criticism of my writings made me what I am to-day. I cannot speak of her without emotion, and I shall keep her in eternal remembrance. They are therefore polemics, manifestoes, if you will, written in the first flush of the idea, without any rhetorical subtilities. As they were to be trans- lated into another tongue, I paid little attention to their literary form. My first intention was to rewrite them before publishing them in France. But on reading them over I realized that it would be better to leave them as they were, with their faults and the VI INTRODUCTION. outlines of their rather angular style, lest I should make the mistake of disfiguring them. I send them forth, then, as they have returned to me, encumbered with repetitions, loose in construction, with too much simplicity in their style, too much dryness in their reasoning. Doubts assail me, and I ask myself, Is it possible that these articles will be found to be my best work? For I am overcome with shame when I think of the enormous pile of romantic rhetoric which lies behind me. Emile Zola. CONTENTS. The Experimental Novel, A Letter to the Young People of France, Naturalism on the Stage, The Influence of Money in Literature, The Novel : The Reality, Personal Expression, The Critical Formula Applied to the Novel, Description, ..... Three Debuts : L Leon Hennique, II. J. K. HUYSMANS, III. Paul Alexis, Human Documents, " Les Fr^res Zemganno " ■ The Preface, .... The Book, ..... Morality, ..... "Criticism : Polemics : I. M. Charles Bigot, II. M. Armand Silvestre, " The Realism," ..... The "Parisian Chronicles" of Sainte-Beuve, Hector Berlioz, Chaudes-Aigues and Balzac, Jules Janin and Balzac, A Roman Prize in Literature, The Contempt in which Literature is Held, Obscene Literature, The Influence of the Republic in Literature, PAGE I 57 log i6i 2og 217 224 231 238 245 251 , 259 267 276 282 29 1 299 306 314 322 330 342 349 356 363 373 THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. IN my literary essays I have often spoken of the apphcation of the experimental method to the novel and to the drama. The return to nature, the natural- istic evolution which marks the century, drives little by little all the manifestation of human intelligence into the same scientific path. Only the idea of a literature governed by science is doubtless a sur- prise, until explained with precision and understood. It seems to me necessary, then, to say briefly and to the point what I understand by the experimental novel. I really only need to adapt, for the experimental method has been established with strength and mar- velous clearness by Claude Bernard in his " Introduc- tion k I'Etude de la M^decine Experimentale." This work, by a savant whose authority is unquestioned, will serve me as a solid foundation. I shall here find the whole question treated, and I shall restrict myself to irrefutable arguments and to giving the quotations which may seem necessary to me. This will then be but a compiling of texts, as I intend on all points to intrench myself behind Claude Bernard. It will often be but necessary for me to replace the word " doctor '' 2 THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. by the word " novelist," to make my meaning clear and to give it the rigidity of a scientific truth. What determined my choice, and made me choose " L'Introduction " as my basis, wa^the fact that med- icine, in the eyes of a great number of people, is still_ an art, as is the novel. Claude Bernard all his life was searching and battling to put medicine in a scientific path. In his struggle we see the first feeble attempts of a science to disengage itself little by little from empir- icism,* and to gain a foothold in the realm of truth, by means of the experimental method. Claude Ber- nard demonstrates that this method, followed in the study of inanimate bodies in chemistry and in physics, should be also used in the study of living bodies, in physiology and medicine. I am going to tryjpitf prove for my part that if the experimental method leads to the knowledge of physical life, it should also lead to the knowledge of the passionate and Jjitel- lectual life. It is but a question of degree in the same path which runs from~ chemistry to physiology, then from physiology to anthropology and to sociol- ogy. The experimental novel is the goal. To be more clear, I think it would be better to give a brief resume of " L'Introduction " before I com- mence. The applications which I shall make of the texts will be better understood if the plan of the work and the matters treated are explained. Claude Bernard, after having declared that medicine enters the scientific path, with physiology as its foun- dation, and by means of the experimental method, first * Zola uses empiricism in this essay in the sense of ' ' haphazard observation " in contrast with a scientific experiment undertaken to prove a certain truth, — Translator, THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. 3 explains the differences which exist between the sciences of observation and the sciences of experiment. He concludes, finally, that experiment is but provoked observation. All experimental reasoning is based on doubt, for the experimentalist should have no precon- ceived idea, in the face of nature, and should always retain his liberty of thought. He simply accepts the phenomena which are produced, when they are proved. In the second part he reaches his true subject and shows that the spontaneity of living bodies is not opposed to the employment of experiment. The difference is simply that an inanimate body possesses merely the ordinary, external environment, while the essence of the higher organism is set in an internal and perfected environment endowed with constant physico- chemical properties exactly like the external environ- ment ; hence there is an absolute determinism in the existing conditions of natural phenomena ; for the living as for the inanimate'bodies. He calls determin- ism the cause which determines the appearance of these phenomena. This nearest cause, as it is called, is noth- ing more than the physical and material condition of the existence or manifestation of the phenomena. The end of all experimental method, the boundary of all scientific research, is then identical for living and for inanimate bodies ; it consists in finding the relations which unite a phenomenon of any kind to its nearest cause, or, in other words, in determining the conditions necessary for the manifestation of this phenomenon. Experimental science has no necessity to worry itself about the " why " of things ; it simply explains the " how," 4 THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. After having explained the experimental considera- tions common to living beings and to inanimate, Claude Bernard passes to the experimental considerations which belong specially to living beings. The great and only difference is this, that there is presented to our consideration, in the organism of livings beings, a har- monious group of phenomena. He then treats of practical experiments on living beings, of vivisection, of the preparatory anatomical conditions, of the choice of animals, of the use of calculation in the study of phenomena, and lastly of the physiologist's labora- tory. Finally, in the last part of " L'Introduction," he gives some examples of physiological experimental investi- gations in support of the ideas which he has formu- lated. He then furnishes some examples of experi- mental criticism in physiology. In the end he indicates the philosophical obstacles which the experimental doctor encounters. He puts in the first rank the false application of physiology to medicine, the scientific ignorance as well as certain illusions of the medical mind. Further, he concludes by saying that empirical medicine and experimental medicine, not being incom- patible, ought, on the contrary, to be inseparable one from the other. His last sentence is that experimental medicine adheres to no medical doctrine nor any philo- sophical system. This is, very broadly, the skeleton of " L'Introduc- tion" stripped of its flesh. I hope that this rapid expose will be sufficient to fill up the gaps which my manner of proceeding is bound to produce ; for, natu- rally, I shall cite from the work only such passages as are necessary to define and comment upon the experi- THE EXPBRIMEI^TAL NOVEL. 5 mental novel. I repeat that I use this treatise merely as a solid foundation on which to build, but a founda- tion very rich in arguments and proofs of all kinds. Experimental medicine, which but lisps as yet, can alone give us an exact idea of experimental literature, which, being still unhatched, is not even lisping. I. THE first question which presents itself is this: Is experiment possible in literature, in which up to' the present time observation alone has been employed ? Claude Bernard discusses observation and experi- ment at great length. There exists, in the first place, a very clear line of demarcation, as follows : " The name of ' observer ' is given to him who applies the simple or complex process of investigation in the study of phenomena which he does not vary, and which he gathers, consequently, as nature offers them to him ; the name of ' experimentalist ' is given to him who employs the simple and complex process of investiga- tion to vary or modify, for an end of some kind, the natural phenomena, and to make them appear under circumstances and conditions in which they are not presented by nature." For instance, astronomy is a science of observation, because you cannot conceive of an astronomer acting upon the stars ; while chemis- try is an experimental science, as the chemist acts upon nature and modifies it. This, according to Claude Ber- nard, is the only true and important distinction which separates the observer from the experimentalist. I cannot follow him in his discussion of the different definitions given up to the present time. As I have said before, he finishes by coming to the conclusion that experiment is but provoked observation. I repeat his words : " In the experimental method the search The experimental novel. 7 after facts, that is to say, investigation, is always accompanied by a reason, so that ordinarily the experimentalist makes an experiment to confirm and verify the value of an expepmental idea. In this case you can say that experiment is an observation insti- gated for the purpose of verification." To determine how much observation and experi-" menting there can be in the naturalistic novel, I only need to quote the following passages : " The observer relates purely and simply the phe- nomena which he has under his eyes. . . He should be the , photographer of phenomena, his observation should be an exact representation of nature. . . He listens to nature and he writes under its dictation. But once the fact is ascertained and the phenomenon observed, an idea or hypothesis comes into his mind, reason intervenes, and the experimentalist comes forward ^to interpret tLe phenomenon. The experi- mentalist is a man who, in pursuance of a more or less probable, but anticipated, explanation of observed phe- nomena, institutes an experiment in such a way that, according to all probability, it will furnish a result which will serve to confirm the hypothesis or precon- ceived idea. The moment that the result of the experi- ment manifests itself, the experimentalist finds him- self face to face with a true observation which he has called forth, and which he must ascertain, as all obser- vation, without any preconceived idea. The experi- mentalist should then disappear,' or rather transform himself instantly into the observer, and it is not until after he has ascertained the absolute results of the experiment, like that of an ordinary observation, that his mind comes back to reasoning, comparing, and 8 THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. judging whether the experimental hypothesis is verified or invaHdated by these same results." The mechanism. is all there. It is a little compli- cated, it is true, and Claude Bernard is led on to say : " When all this passes into the brain of a savant who has given himself up to the study of a science as com- •plicated as medicine still is, then there is such an entanglement between the result of observation and what belongs to experiment that it will be impossible and, besides, useless to try to analyze, in their inextrica- ble melange, each of these terms." In one word, it might be said that observation " indicates " and that experiment " teaches." Now, to return to the novel, we can easily see that the novelist is equally an observer and an experimen- talist. The observer in him gives the facts as he has observed them, suggests the point of departure, displays the solid earth on which his characters are to tread and the phenomena to develop. Then the experi- mentalist appears and introduces an experiment, that is to say, sets his characters going in a certain story so as to show that the succession of facts will be such as the requirements of the determinism of the phenom- ena under examination call for. Here it is nearly lalways an experiment "pour voir," as Claude Bernard calls it. The novelist starts out in search of a truth. I will take as an example the character of the Baron Hulot, in "Cousine Bette," by Balzac. (The general fact observed by Balzac is the ravages that the amorous temperament of a man makes in his home, in his family, and in society. As soon as he has chosen his subject he starts from known facts ; then he makes his experiment, and exposes Hulot to a series of trials THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. 9 placing him amid certain surroundings in order to exhibit how the complicated machinery of his passions works. It is then evident that there is not only observation there, but that there is also experiment ; as Balzac does not remain satisfied with photographing the facts collected by him^ut interferes in a direct way to place his character in certain conditions, and of these he remains the maste;\} The problem is to know what such a passion, acting in such a surrounding and under such circumstances, would produce from the point of view of an individual and of society ; and an experimental novel, "Cousine Bette," for example, is simply the report of the experiment that the novelist conducts before the eyes of the public. In fact, the whole operation consists in taking facts in nature, then in studying the mechanism of these facts, acting upon them, by the modification of circumstances and sur- roundings, without deviating from the laws of nature. Finally, you possess knowledge of the man, scientific knowledge of him, in both his individual and social relations. , Doubtless we are still far from certainties in chem- istry and even physiology. Nor do we know any more the reagents which decompose the passions, ren- dering them susceptible of analysis. Often, in this essay, I shall recall in similar fashion this fact, that the experimental novel is still younger than experi- mental medicine, and the latter is but just born. But I do not intend to exhibit the acquired results, I simply desire to clearly expose a method. If the experimental noveHst is still groping in the most obscure and complex of all the sciences, this d,oes not prevent this science from existing. It is undeniable 10 THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. that the naturalistic novel, such as we understand it to-day, is a real experiment that a novelist makes on man by the help of observation. Besides, this opinion is not only mine, it is Claude. Bernard's as well. He says in one place : " In practical^ life men but make experiments on one another.J And again, in a more conclusive way, he expresses the whole theory of the experimental novel : " When we reason on our own acts we have a certain guide, for we are conscious of what we think and how we feel. But if we wish to judge of the acts of another man, and know the motives which make him act, that is alto- gether a different thing. Without doubt we have before our eyes the movements of this man and his different acts, which are, we are sure, the modes of expression of his sensibility and his will. Further, we even admit that there is a necessary connection between the acts and their cause ; but what is this cause ? We do not feel it, we are not conscious of it, as we are when it acts in ourselves ; we are therefore obliged to interpret it, and to guess at it, from the movements which we see and the words which we hear. We are obliged to check off this man's actions one by the other ; we consider how he acted in such a circum- stance, and, in aword, we have recourse to the experi- mental method.Jj All that I have spoken of] further back is summed up in this last phrase, which is written by a savant. I shall still call your attention to another illustration of Claude Bernard, which struck me as very forcible : " The experimentalist is the examining magistrate of nature." We novelists are the examining magistrates of men and their passions. THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. II But see what splendid clearness breaks forth when this conception of the application of the experimental method to the novel is adequately grasped and is car- ried out with all the scientific rigor which the matter permits to-day. A contemptible reproach which they heap upon us naturalistic writers is the desire to be solely photographers. We have in vain declared that we admit the necessity of an artist's possessing an individual temperament and a personal expression: they continue to reply to us with these imbecile arguments, about the impossibility of being strictly true, about the necessity of arranging facts to produce a work of art of any kind. Well, with the application of the expei-i- mental method to the novel that quarrel dies out. The idea of experiment carries with it the idea of modification. We start, indeed, from the true facts, ^ which are our indestructible basis ; but to show the mechanism of these facts it is necessary for us to pro- duce and direct the phenomena ; this is our share of invention, here is the genius in the book. Thus without having recourse to the questions of form and of style, which I shall examine later^ I maintain even at this point that we must modify nature, without departing from nature, when we employ the experi- mental method in our novels. If we bear in mind this definition, that " observation indicates and experiment teaches," we can even now claim for our books this great lesson of experiment. The writer's ofifice, far from being lessened, grows singularly from this point of view. An experiment, even the most simple, is always based on an idea, itself born of an observation. As Claude Bernard says: " The experimental idea is not arbitrary, nor purely 12 THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. imaginary ; it ought always to have a support in some observed reality, that is to say, in nature." It is on this idea and on doubt that he bases all the method. "The appearance of the experimental idea," he says further on, " is entirely spontaneous and its nature absolutely individual, depending upon the mind in which it originates ; it is a particular sentiment, a quid proprium, which constitutes the originality, the inven- tion, and the genius of each one." Further, he makes doubt the great scientific lever. " The doubter is the true savant; he doubts only himself and his interpre- tations; he believes in science ; he even admits in the r experimental sciences a criterion or a positive principle, the determinism of phenomena, which is absolute in i living beings as in inanimate bodies." Thus, instead of ( confining the novelist within narrow bounds, the exper- imental method gives full sway to his intelligence as a thinker, and to his genius as a creator. He must see, understand, and invent. Some observed fact makes the idea start up of trying an experiment, of writing a novel, in order to attain to a complete knowl- edge of the truth. Then when, after careful considera- tion, he has decided upon the plan of his experiment, he will judge the results at each step with the freedom \ of mind of a man who accepts only facts conformable to the determinism of phenomena. He set out from doubt to reach positive knowledge ; and he will not cease to doubt until the mechanism of the passion, taken to pieces and set up again by him, acts according to the fixed laws of nature. There is no greater, no more magnificent work for the human mind. We shall see, further on, the miseries of the scholastics, of the makers of systems, and those theorizing about the THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. 13 ideal, compared with the triumph of the experimen- tahsts. I sum up this first part by repeating that the natural- istic novelists observe and experiment, and that all their work is the offspring of the doubt which seizes them in the presence of truths little known and phe- nomena unexplained, until an experimental idea rudely awakens their genius some day, and urges them to make an experiment, to analyze facts, and to master them. II. SUCH, then, is the experimental method. But for a long time it has been held that this method can- not be applied to living beings. This is the important point in the question that I am going to examine with Claude Bernard. The reasoning subsequently will be of the simplest ; if the experimental method can be carried from chemistry and physics into physiology and medicine, it can be also carried from physiology into the naturalistic novel. Cuvier — to cite the name of only one scientific man — pretended that experiment as applied to inanimate bodies could not be used with living beings ; physiol- ogy, according to his way of thinking, should be purely a science of observation and of anatomical deduction. The vitalists even admit a vital force in unceasing battle with the physical and chemical forces neutraliz- ing their action. Claude Bernard, on the contrary, denies all presence of a mysterious force, and affirms that experiment is applicable everywhere. " I pro- pose," he says, " to establish the fact that the science of the phenomena of life can have no other basis than the science of the phenomena of inanimate bodies, and that there are, in this connection, no differences between the principles of biological science and those of physics . and chemistry. In fact, the end the experimental method proposes is the same everywhere ; it consists in connecting, by experiment, the natural phenomena THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. 15 to their conditions of existence or to their nearest Causes." It seems to me useless to enter into the complicated explanations and reasonings of Claude Bernard. I have already said that he insists upon the existence of an interior condition in living beings. " In experi- menting on inanimate bodies," he says, " there is only one condition to be consid&red, that is, the exterior earthly condition ; while among the higher living organisms there are at least two conditions to consider : the exterior condition or extra-organic, and the interior or inter-organic. The complexity due to the existence of an interior organic condition is the only reason for the great difficulties which we encounter in the experi- mental determination of living phenomena, and in the application of the means capable of modifying them." And he starts out from this fact to establish the prin- ciple that there are fixed laws governing the physiolog- ical elements plunged into an interior condition, as there are fixed laws for governing the chemical elements which are steeped in an exterior condition. Hence, you can experiment on a living being as well as on an inanimate one ; it is only a question of putting your- self in the desired conditions. I insist upon this, because, I repeat once more, the important point of the question is there. Claude Bernard, in speaking of the vitalists, writes thus: " They consider life as a mysterious and supernatural agent, which acts arbitrarily, free from all determinism, and they condemn as materialists all those who endeavor to trace vital phenomena to definite organic and physico-chemical conditions. These are false ideas, which it is not easy to root out once they have become 1 6 THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. domiciled in the mind ; only the progress of science can dissipate them." And he lays down this axiom : " With living beings as well as inanimate, the condi- tions of the existence of each phenomenon are deter- mined in an absolute manner." I restrain myself for fear of complicating the argument to too great an extent. Thus you see the progress which science has made. In the last century a more exact application of the experimental method creates physics and chemistry, which then are freed from the irrational and super- natural. Men discover that there are fixed laws, thanks to analysis, and make themselves masters of phenomena. Then a new point is gained. Living beings, in which the vitalists still admitted a mysterious influence, are in their turn brought under and reduced to the general mechanism of matter. Science proves that the existing conditions of all phenomena are the same in living beings as in inanimate ; and from that time on physiology assumes little by little the certainty of chemistry and medicine. But are we going to stop there? Evidently not. When it has been proved that the body of man is ajnachme, whose machinery can be taken apart and put together again at the will of the experimenter, then we can pass to the passion- ate and_ intellectual acts of man. Then we shall enter into the domain which up to the present has belonged to physiology and literature ; it will be the decisive conquest by science of the hypotheses of philosophers and writers. We have experimental chemistry and medicine ; we shall have an experimental physiology, and later on an experimental novel. It is an inevitable evolution, the goal of which it is easy to see to-day. THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. l? All things hang together ; it is necessary to start from the determinism of inanimate bodies in order to arrive at the determinism of living beings ; and since savants like Claude Bernard demonstrate now that fixed laws govern the human body, we can easily proclaim, with- out fear of being mistaken, the hour in which the laws of thought and passion will be formulated in their t-ur-n. A like determinism will govern the stones of the roadway and the brain of man. This opinion is to be found in " L'Introduction." I cannot repeat too often that I take all my arguments from Claude Bernard's work. After having explained that any completely special phenomena may be the result of the more and more complex combination and co-operation of the organized elements, he writes the following : " I am persuaded that the obstacles which surround the experimental study of psychological phenomena are in great measure due to difficulties of this order ; for notwithstanding the marvelous nature and the delicacy of their manifestations, it is impos- sible, so it seems to me, not to bring cerebral phenom- ena, like all the phenomena of living bodies, under the laws of a scientific determinism." This is clear. Later, without doubt, science will find this deter- minism for all the cerebral and sensory manifestations of man. Now, science enters into the domain of us novelists, who are to-day the analyzers of man, in his individual and social relations. We are continuing, by our observations and experiments, the work of the physiol- ogist, who has continued that of the physicist and the chemist. We are making use, in a certain way, of scientific psychology to complete scientific physiology ; 1 8 THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. and to finish the series we have only to bring into our studies of nature and man the decisive tool of the experimental method. In one word, we should operate on the characters, the passions, on the human and social data, in the same way that the chemist and the physicist operate on inanimate beings, and as the physiologist operates on living beings. Determinism dominates everything. It is scientific investigation, it is experimental reasoning, which combats one by one the hypotheses of the idealists, and which replaces purely imaginary novels by novels of observation and experiment. I certainly do not intend at this point to formulate laws. In the actual condition of the science of man the obscurity and confusion are still too great to risk the slightest synthesis. | All that can be said is that there is an absolute determinism for all human phe- nomena. / From that on investigation is a duty. We have the method ; we should go forward, even if a whole lifetime of effort ends but in the conquest of a small particle of the truth. Look at physiology: Claude Bernard made grand discoveries, and he died protesting that he knew nothing, or nearly nothing, In each page he confesses the difficulties of his task. " In the phenomenal relations," he says, " such as nature offers them to us, there always reigns a complexity more or less great. In this respect the complexity of mineral phenomena is much less great than that of living phenomena ; this is why the sciences restricted to inanimate bodies have been able to formulate them- selves more quickly. In living beings the phenomena are of enormous complexity, and the greater mobility of living organisms renders them more difficult to THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. 19 grasp and to define." What can be said, then, of the difficulties to be encountered by the experimental novel, which adds to physiology its studies upon the most delicate and complex organs, which deals with the highest manifestations of man as an individual and a social member? Evidently analysis becomes more complicated here. Therefore, if the physiologist is but drawing up his principles to-day, it is natural that the experimental novelist should be only taking his first steps : We foresee it as a sure consequence of the scientific evolution of the century ; but it is impossible to base it on certain laws. Since Claude Bernard speaks of " the restricted and precarious truths of biological science," we can freely admit that the truths of the science of man, from the standpoint of his intel- lectual and passionate mechanism, are more restricted and precarious still. We are lisping yet, we are the last comers, but that should be only one incentive the more to push us forward to more exact studies ; now that we possess the tool, the experimental method, our goal is very plain — to know the determinism of phenomena and to make ourselves master of these phenomena. Without daring, as I say, to formulate laws, I con- sider that the question of heredity^has a great influence in the intellectual and passionate manifestations of man. I also attach considerable importance to the surround-, . ings. I ought to touch upon Darwin's theories ; but this is only a general study of the experimental method as applied to the novel, and I should lose myself were I to enter into details. I will only say a word on the subject of surroundings. We have just seen the great importance given by Claude Bernard to 20 THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. the study of those inter-organic conditions which must be taken into account if we wish to find the deter- minism of phenomena in Hving beings. Well, then ! in the study of a family, of a group of living beings, I think that the social condition is of equal importance. Some day the physiologist will explain to us the mechanism of the thoughts and the passions ; we shall know how the individual machinery of each man works; how he thinks, how he loves, how he goes from reason to passion and folly ; but these phenom- ena, resulting as they do from the mechanism of the organs, acting under the influence of an interior condi- tion, are not produced in isolation or in the bare void. Man is not alone ; he lives in society, in a social condi- tion ; and consequently, for us novelists, this social condition unceasingly modifies the phenomena. In- deed our great study is just there, in the reciprocal effect of society on the individual and the individual on society. For the physiologist, the exterior and interior conditions are purely chemical and physical, and this aids him in finding the laws which govern them easily. We are not yet able to prove that the social condition is also physical and chemical. It is that certainly, or rather it is the variable product of a group of living beings, who themselves are absolutely submissive to the physical and chemical laws which govern alike living beings and inanimate. From this we shall see that we can act upon the social conditions, in acting upon the phenomena of which we have made ourselves master in man. And this is what constitutes the experimental novel : to possess a knowledge of the mechanism of the phenomena inherent in man, to show the machinery of his intellectual and sensory THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. 21 manifestations, under the influences of heredity and^i environment, such as physiology shall give them to us,| and then finally to exhibit man living in social condi- tions produced by himself, which he modifies daily, and in the heart of which he himself experiences/ a continual transformation. Thus, then, we lean on physiology ; we take man from the hands of the physiologist solely, in order to continue the solution of the problem, and to solve scientifically the question of how men behave when they are in society. These general ideas will be sufficient to guide us to-day. Later on, when science is farther advanced, when the experimental novel has brought forth decisive results, some critic will explain more precisely what I have but indicated to-day. Elsewhere Claude Bernard confesses how difficult it is to apply the experimental method to living beings. " The living body," he says, " especially among the higher animals, never falls into chemical or physical indifference with the exterior conditions ; it possesses an incessant movement, an organic evolution appar- ently spontaneous and constant ; and notwithstanding the fact that this evolution has need of exterior circum- stances to manifest itself, it is, however, independent in its course and movement." And he concludes as I have : " In short, it is only in the physical and chem- ical conditions of the interior that we shall find the principle that governs the exterior phenomena of life." But whatever complexities may present themselves, and even when extraordinary phenomena are produced, the applicatian of the experimental method is impera- tive. If the phenomena of life have a complexity and an apparent difference from those of inanimate bodies, 2 2 THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. they do not offer this difference, except by reason of determined or determinable conditions which belong to them. Therefore, even should the sciences dealing with life differ from the others in their application and in their special laws, they are not to be distinguished by their scientific method." I must say one word as to the limits which Claude Bernard assigns to science. According to him we shall always be ignorant of the " why " of things ; we can only know the " how." It is this that he expresses in the following terms : " The nature of our minds urges us to seek the essence or the ' why ' of things. In this we see further than the goal it has been given us to attain to ; for experiment soon teaches us that we must not go beyond the ' how ' ; that is to say, beyond the nearest cause or the condition of the existence of any phenomenon." Further on he gives this example : "If we can discover ' why ' opium and its alkaloids pro- duce sleep, we shall know the mechanism of such slumber, and know ' how ' opium or its essence produces sleep ; for slumber only takes place because the active substance is" about to put itself in contact with certain organic elements which it modifies." The practical conclusion of all this is the following: "Science has precisely the privilege of teaching us what we are igno- rant of, through its substitution of reason and experi- ment for sentiment, and by showing us clearly the limit of our actual knowledge. But, by a marvelous compen- sation, in proportion as science humbles our pride, it strengthens our power." All these considerations are strictly applicable to the experimental novel. In order not to lose itself in philosophical speculations, in order to replace idealistic hypothesis by a slow conquest of the THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. i% unknown, it must continue the search after the " how " of things. This is its exact rdle, and it is from this that it must draw, as we are going to see, its reason for being and its moral. I have reached this point : the experimental novel is a consequence of the scientific evolution of the cen- tury ; it continues and completes physiology, which itself leans for support on chemistry and medicine ; it substitutes for the study of the abstract and the meta- physical man the study of the natural man, governed by physical and chemical laws, and modified by the influences of his surroundings ; it is in one word the literature of our scientific age, as the classical and romantic literature corresponded to a scholastic and theological age. Now I will pass to the great question of the application of all this, and of its justification. III. THE object of the experimental method in physiol- ogy and in medicine is to study phenomena in order to become their master. Claude Bernard in each page of " L'Introduction " comes back to this idea. He declares : " All natural philosophy is summed up in this : To know the laws which govern phenomena. The experimental problem reduces itself to this : To foresee and direct phenomena." Farther on he gives an example : " It will not satisfy the experimental doctor, though it may the merely empirical one, to know that quinine cures fever ; the essential thing is to know what fever is, and to understand the mechanism by which quinine cures. All this is of the greatest importance to the experimental doctor; for as soon as he knows it positively, the fact that quinine cures fever will no longer be an isolated and empirical fact, but a scientific fact. This fact will be connected then with the conditions which bind it to other phenomena, and we shall be thus led to the knowledge of the laws of the organism, and to the possibility of regulating their manifestations." A striking example can be quoted in the case of scabies. " To-day the cause of this disease is known and determined experimentally ; the whole subject has become scientific, and empiricism has disappeared. A cure is surely and without excep- tion effected when you place yourself in the conditions known by experiment to produce this end." The experimental novel. ^s This, then, is the end, this is the purpose in physiol- ' ogy and in experimental medicine : to make one's self master of life in order to be able to direct it. Let us suppose that science advances and that the conquest of the unknown is finally completed ; the scierttific age which Claude Bernard saw in his dreams will then be realized. When that time comes the doctor will be the master of maladies ; he will cure without fail ; his influence upon the human body will conduce to the welfare and strength of the species. We shall enter upon a century in which man, grown more powerful, will make use of nature and will utilize its laws to pro- duce upon the earth the greatest possible amount of justice and freedom. There is no nobler, higher, nor grander end. Here is our role as intelligent beings: to penetrate to the wherefore of things, to become \ superior to these things, and to reduce them to a con- ) dition of subservient machinery. Well, this dream of the physiologist and the experi- mental doctor is also that of the noveHst, who employs the experimental method in his study of man as a simple individual and as a social animal. Their / object is ours ; we also desire to master certain phe- nomena of an intellectual and personal order, to be able to direct them. We are, in a word, experimental moralists, showing by experiment in what way a pas- sion acts in a certain social condition. The day in which we gain control of the mechanism of this passion we can treat it and reduce it, or at least make it as inoffensive as possible. And in this consists the prac- tical utility and high morality of our naturalistic works, which experiment on man, and which dissect piece by piece this human machinery in order to set it going THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. through the influence of the environment. When things have advanced further, when we are in posses- sion of the diiTerent laws, it will only be necessary to work upon the individuals and the surroundings if we wish to. find the best social condition. In this way we shall construct a practical sociology, and our work will be a help to political and economical sciences. I do not know, I repeat, of a more noble work, nor of a grander application. To be the master of good and evil, to regulate life, to regulate society, to solve in time all the problems of socialism, above all, to give justice a solid foundation by solving through experi- ment the questions of criminality — is not this being the most useful and the most moral workers in the human workshop ? Let us compare, for one instant, the work of the idealistic novelists to ours ; and here this word idealis- tic refers to writers who cast aside observation and experiment, and base their works on the supernatural and the irrational, who admit, in a word, the power of mysterious forces outside of the determinism of the phenomena. Claude Bernard shall reply to this for me : " What distinguishes experimental reasoning from scholastic is the fecundity of the one and the sterility of the other. It is precisely the scholastic, who believes he has absolute certitude, who attains to no results. This is easily understood, since by his belief in an abso- lute principle he puts himself outside of nature, in which everything is relative. It is, on the contrary, the experimenter, who is always in doubt, who does not think he possesses absolute certainty about anything, who succeeds in mastering the phenomena which sur- round him, and in increasing his power over nature." By THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. 2? and by I shall return to this question of the ideal, •which is in truth but the question of indeterminism. Claude Bernard says truly : " The intellectual conquest of man consists in diminishing and driving back inde- terminism, and so, gradually, by the aid of the experi- mental method, gaining ground for determinism." We experimental novelists have the same task ; our work is to go from the known to the unknown, to make our- selves masters of nature ; while the idealistic novelists deliberately remain in the unknown, through all sorts of religious and philosophical prejudices, under the astounding pretense that the unknown is nobler and more beautiful than the known. If our work, often cruel, if our terrible pictures needed justification, I should find, indeed, with Claude Bernard this argument conclusive : " You will never reach really fruitful and luminous generalizations on the phenomena of life until you have experimented yourself and stirred up in the hospital, the amphitheater, and the laboratory the fetid or palpitating sources of life. If it were necessary for me to give a comparison which would explain my sentiments on the science of life, I should say that it is a superb salon, flooded with light, which you can only reach by passing through a long and nauseating kitchen." I insist upon the word which I have employed, that of experimental novelists as applied to naturalistic novelists. One page of " L'Introduction " struck me as being very forcible, that in which the author speaks of the vital " circulus." "The muscular and nervous organs preserve the activity of the organs which make the blood ; but the blood, in its turn, nourishes the organs which produce it. There is in this a social or 2 8 THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. organic solidarity, which keeps up a perpetual move- ment, until the derangement or cessation of the action of a necessary and vital element has broken the equi- librium or brought about some trouble or stoppage in the play of the animal machinery. The problem of the experimentalist doctor consists in finding the cause of any organic disarrangement, that is to say, in seizing the initial phenomenon. We shall see how a disloca- tion of the organism, or a disarrangement the most complex in appearance, can be traced to a simple initial cause, which calls forth immediately the most complex effects." All that is necessary here is to change the words experimental doctor to experimental novelist, and this passage is exactly applicable to our natural- istic literature. The social circulus is identical with the vital circulus ; in society, as in human beings, a solidar- ity exists which unites the different members and the different organisms in such a way that if one organ becomes rotten many others are tainted and a very,' complicated disease results. Hence, in our novels,,; when we experiment on a dangerous wound which poisons society, we proceed in the same way as the experimentalist doctor ; we try to find the simple initial cause in order to reach the complex causes of which the action is the result. Go back once more to the example of Baron Hulot in " Cousine Bette." See the final result, the denouement of the novel : an entire family is destroyed, all sorts of secondary dramas are produced, under the action of Hulofs amorous tem- perament. It is there, in this temperament, that the initial cause is found. One member, Hulot, becomes rotten, and immediately all around him are tainted, the social circulus is interrupted, the health of that society THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. 29 IS compromised. What emphasis Balzac lays on the character . of Baron Hulot ; with what scrupulous care he aneilyzes him ! The experiment deals with him chiefly, because its object is to master the symptoms of this passion in order to govern it. Suppose that Hulot is cured, or at least restrained and rendered inoffensive, immediately the drama ceases to have any longer any raison d'itre ; the equilibrium, or more truly the health, of the social body is "again established. Thus the naturalistic novelists are really experimental mor- alists. And I reach thus the great reproach with which they think to crush the naturalistic novelists, by treat- ing them as fatalists. How many times have they wished to prove to us that as soon as we did not accept free will, that as soon as man was no more to us than a living machine, acting under the influence of heredity and surroundings, we should fall into gross fatalism, we should debase humanity to the rank of a troop marching under the baton of destiny. It is necessary to define our terms : we are not fatalists, we are determinists, which is not at all the same thing. Claude Bernard explains the two terms very plainly : " We have given the name of determinism to the near- est or determining cause of phenomena. We never act upon the essence of phenomena in nature, but only on their determinism, and by this very fact, that we act upon it, determinism differs from fatalism, upon which we could not act at all. Fatalism assumes that the appearance of any phenomenon is necessary apart from its conditions, while determinism is just the con- dition essential for the appearance of any phenomenon, Slid such appearance is never forced. Once the 3° THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. search for the determinism of phenomena is placed as a fundamental principle of the experimental method,' there is no longer either materialism, or spiritualism, or inanimate matter, or living matter ; there remain but phenomena of which it is necessary to determine the conditions, that is to say, the circumstances which play, by their proximity to these phenomena, the r61e of nearest cause." This is decisive. All we do is to apply this method in our novels, and we are the deter- minists who experimentally try to determine the con- dition of the phenomena, without departing in our investigations from the laws of nature. As Claude Bernard very truly says, the moment that we can act, and that we do act, on the determining cause of phenomena — by modifying their surroundings, for example— we cease to be fatalists. Here you have, then, the moral purpose of the experimental novelist clearly defined. I have often said that we do not have to draw a conclusion from our works ; and this means that our works carry their conclusion with them. An experimentalist has no need to conclude, because, in truth, experiment con- cludes for him. A hundred times, if necessary, he will repeat the experiment before the public ; he will explain it ; but he need neither become indignant nor approve of it personally ; such is the truth, such is the way phenomena work; it is for society to produce or not to produce these phenomena, according as the result is useful or dangerous. You cannot imagine, as I have said elsewhere, a savant being provoked with azote because azote is dangerous to life ; he suppresses azote when it is harmful, and not otherwise.- As our power is not the same as that of a savant, as we are THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. 31 experimentalists without being practitioners, we ought to content ourselves with searching out the deter- minism of social phenomena, and leaving to legislators and to men of affairs the care of controlling sooner or later these phenomena in such a way as to develop the good and reject the bad, from the point of view of their utility to man. 'In our r61e as experimental moralists we show the mechanism of the useful and the useless, we disengage the determinism of the human and social phenomena so that, in their turn, the legislators can one day dominate and control these phenomena. In a word, we are working with the whole country toward that great object, the conquest of nature and the increase of man's power a hundredfold. Compare with ours the work of the idealistic writers, who rely upon the irrational and the supernatural, and whose every flight upward is followed by a deeper fall into metaphysical chaos. We are the ones who possess strength and morality. IV. 1HAVE said before that I chose " L'lntroduction" because medicine is still looked upon by many as an art. Claude Bernard proves that it ought to be a science, and in his book we see the birth of a science, a very instructive spectacle in itself, and which shows us that the scientific domain is extending and con- quering all the manifestations of human intelligence. Since medicine, which was an art, is becoming a science, why should not literature also become a science by means of the experimental method ? It must be remarked that all things hang together: If the territory of the experimental doctor is the body of man, as shown in the phenomena of his different organs both in their normal and pathological condition, our territory is equally the body of man, as shown by his sensory and cerebral phenomena, both in their normal and pathological condition. If we are not satisfied with the metaphysical man of the classical age we must, perforce, take into consideration the new ideas on nature and on life, with which our age has become imbued. We continue necessarily, I repeat, the work of the physiologist and the doctor, who have con- tinued, in their turn, that of the physician and the chemist. Hence we enter into the domain of science. I will not touch on the question of sentiment and form, but will reserve that for another time. Let us see first what Claude Bernard says about 3» THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. 33 medicine : " Certain doctors contend that medicine can only be conjectural, and they conclude that a doctor is an artist, who ought to make up for the indeterminism in particular cases by his genius and his personal tact. All sciences have necessarily commenced by being conjectural ; there are still to-day in every science con- jectural parts. Medicine is still nearly all conjecture. I do not deny that ; but I only want to say that modern science should make an effort to come out of this provisionary state, which does not constitute a definite scientific condition — not any more for med- icine than for the other sciences. The scientific con- dition will be longer in taking shape and more difficult to obtain in medicine by reason of the complexities of its phenomena ; but the end of the medical savant is to reduce in his science, as in all the others, the inde- terminate to the determinate." The mechanism of the birth and the development of a science is here clearly defined. Men still look upon the doctor as an artist, because there is in medicine an enormous place still left to conjecture. Naturally, the novelist merits still more the name of artist, as he finds himself buried still deeper in the indeterminate. If Claude Bernard confesses that the complexity of its phenomena will prevent medicine, for a long time yet, from arriving at a scientific state, what shall we say of the experimental novel, in which the phenomena are much more com- plicated still ? But this does not prevent the novel from entering upon the scientific pathway, obedient to the general evolution of the century. Moreover, Claude Bernard himself has indicated the evolutions of the human mind. " The human mind," be says, " at various periods of its progress has passed 34 THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. successively through feeling, reason, and experiment. First, feeling alone, dominating reason, created the truths of faith, that is to say, theology. Reason, or philosophy, becoming afterward the mistress, brought forth scholasticism. Finally, experiment, that is to say, the study of natural phenomena, taught man that the truths of the exterior world were to be found formulated, in the first place, neither in reason nor in feeling. These last are, indeed, our indispensable guides, but to obtain the truth it fs necessary to descend into the objective reality of things, where they lie concealed under their phenomenal form. Thus it is that in the natural progress of things the experimental method appears, which sums up the whole, and which supports itself successfully on the three branches of this immovable tripod : feeling, reason, and experiment. In the search after truth by means of this method, feeling has always the initiative ; it engenders the idea a priori or intuition; reason, or the reasoning power, immediately develops the idea and deduces its logical consequences. But if feeling must be guided by the light of reason, reason in its turn must be guided by experiment." I have given this passage entire, as it is of the great- est importance. It shows clearly the role that the personality of the novelist should play, apart from the style. Since feeling is the starting point of the experi- mental method, since reason subsequently intervenes to end in experiment, and to be controlled by it, the genius of the experimentalist dominates everything, and this is what has made the experimental method, so inert in other hands, such a, powerful tool in the hands of Claude Bernard. I have said the word : method is but THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. 35 the tool ; it is the workman, it is the idea, which he brings, which makes the chef-d'ceiLvre. I have already- quoted these lines : " It is a particular feeling, a quid proprium, which constitutes the originality, the inven- tion, or the genius of each one." This, then, is the part taken by genius in the experimental. novel. As Claude Bernard says again : " The idea is the seed ; the method is the soil which furnishes the conditions for developing and prospering it, and bringing forth its best fruits, according to nature." Thus everything is reduced to a question of method. If you are content to remain in the a priori idea, and enjoy your own feelings without finding any basis for it in reason or any verification in experiment, you are a poet ; you venture upon hypotheses which you cannot prove ; you are struggling vainly in a painful indeterminism, and in a way that is often injurious. Listen to these lines of " LTntroduction " : " Man is naturally a metaphysician and proud ; he believes that the idealistic creations of his brain, which coincide with his feelings, represent the reality. Thus it follows that the experimental method is not innate and natural to man, for it is only after having wandered for a long time among theolog- ical and scholastical discussions that he ends by recog- nizing the sterility of his efforts in this path. Man then perceives that he cannot dictate laws to nature, because he does not possess in himself the knowledge and the criterion of exterior things ; he realizes that in order to arrive at the truth he must, on the contrary, study the natural laws and submit his ideas, if not his reason, to experiment, that is to say, to the criterion of facts." What becomes of the genius of the experimental novelist ? The genius, the idea THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. 'priori, remains, only it is controlled by experi- ment. The experiment naturally cannot destroy his genius ; on the contrary, it confirms it. To take the case of a poet, for example : To show he has genius is it necessary that his feeling, his idea, a priori, should be false ? Evidently not, for the genius of a man will be so much the greater when experiment has proved the truth of his personal idea. Our age of lyricism, our romantic disease, was alone capable of measuring a man's genius by the quantity of nonsense and folly which he put in circulation. I conclude by saying that in our scientific century experiment must prove genius. This is the drift of our quarrel with the idealistic writers. They always start out from an irrational source of some kind, such as a revelation, a tradition, or conventional authority. As Claude Bernard de- clares : " We must admit nothing occult ; there are but phenomena and the conditions of phenomena." We naturalistic novelists submit each fact to the test of observation and experiment, while the idealistic writers admit mysterious elements which escape anal- ysis, and therefore remain in the unknown, outside of the influence of the laws governing nature. This question of the ideal, from the scientific point of view, reduces itself to a question of indeterminate or deter- minate. All that we do not know, all that escapes us still, that is truly the ideal, and the aim of our human efforts is each day to reduce the ideal, to conquer truth from the unknown. We are all idealists, if we mean by this that we busy ourselves with the ideal. But I dub those idealists who take refuge in the unknown for the pleasure of being there, who have THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. 37 a taste but for the most risky hypotheses, who disdain to submit them to the test of experiment under the pretext that the truth is in themselves and not in the things. These writers, I repeat, accompHsh a vain and harmful task, while the observer and the experimen- talist are the only ones who work for the strength and happiness of man, making him more and more the master of nature. There is neither nobility, nor dignity, nor beauty, nor morality in not knowing, in lying, in pretending that you are greater according as you advance in error and confusion. The only great and moral works are those of truth. What we alone must accept is what I will call the stimulus of the ideal. Certainly our science is very limited as yet, beside the enormous mass of things of which we are ignorant. This great unknown which surrounds us ought to inspire us with the desire to pierce it, to explain it by means of scientific methods. And this does not r-efer only to scientific men ; all the manifestations of human intelligence are connected together, all our efforts have their birth in the need we feel of making ourselves masters of the truth. Claude Bernard explains this very clearly when he writes : " The sciences each possess, if not a special method, at least special processes, and, moreover, they reciprocally serve as tools for one another. Mathematics serves as a tool to physics, to chemistry, and to biology in very different measure ; physics and chemistry serve as powerful tools to physiology and medicine. In this mutual help which the sciences are to each other, you must distinguish clearly the savant who advances each science and he who makes use of it. The physician and the chemist are not mathematicians because they 3^ THE EXPEJilMEATTAL NOVEL employ calculation ; the physiologist is not a chemist or a physician because he uses chemical reactions or medical instruments, any more than the chemist and the physician are physiologists because they study the compositions or the properties of certain liquids and certain animal or vegetable tissues." This is the reply which Claude Bernard can be said to make for us natu- ralists to the critics who taunt us with making preten- sions to science. We are neither chemists nor physi- cians nor physiologists ; we are simply novelists who depend upon the sciences for support. We certainly do not pretend to have made discoveries in physi- ology which we do not practice ; only, being obliged to make a study of man, we feel we cannot deny the efificacy of the new physiological truths. And I will add that the novelists are certainly the workers who rely at once upon the greatest number of sciences, for they treat of them all and must know them all, as the novel has become a general inquiry on nature and on man. This is why we have been led to apply to our work the experimental method as soon as this method had become the most powerful tool of investi- gation. We sum up investigation, we throw ourselves anew into the conquest of the ideal, employing all forms of knowledge. Let it be well understood that I am speaking of the " how " of things and not of the " why." For an experimental savant, the ideal which he is endeavoring to reduce, the indeterminate, is always restricted to the " how." He leaves to philosophers the other ideal, that of the "why," which he despairs of determin- ing. I think that the experimental novelists equally ought not to occupy themselves with this unknown THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. 39 quality, unless they wish to lose themselves in the follies of the poets and the philosophers. It is surely an object large enough to try to know the entire mechanism of nature, without troubling one's self for the time being with the origin of the mechanism. If we some day succeed in knowing it, we shall doubtless owe our knowledge to method, and it is better then to begin at the beginning with the study of phenomena, instead of hoping that a sudden revelation will reveal to us the secret of the world. We are the workmen ; we will leave to the metaphysicians this great unknown, of the " why " they have struggled with so vainly for centuries, in order to confine our efforts to that other unknown of the " how," which is cleared away more and more every day by our investigation. The only id.eal which ought to exist for us, the naturalistic novelists, should be one which we can conquer. . Besides, in the slow conqjiest which we can make over/this unknown which surfourids us, we humbly confess the ignorant condition in which we are. We are beginning to march forward, nothing more ; and our only real strength lies in our method. Claude Bernard, after acknowledging that experimental med- icine is in its infancy still, does not hesitate to give great credit to empirical medicine. " In reality," he says, " empiricism, that is to say, observation or acci- dental experiment, has been the origin of all science. In the complex sciences dealing with man empiricism necessarily governs the practice much longer than in those of the more simple sciences." And he is willing to admit that at the crisis of a disease, when the deter- minism or nearest cause of the pathological phenom- ena has not been found, the best thing to do is to act 4° THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. empirically ; as, moreover, happens in the growth of knowledge, since empiricism invariably precedes the scientific condition of any branch of knowledge. Certainly if doctors must resort to empiricism in nearly every case, we have much greater reasons for using it, we novelists whose science is more compli- cated and less determined. I say once more, it is not a question of creating the science of man, as an individual and as a social being, out of the whole cloth ; it is only a question of emerging little by little and with all the inevitable struggles from the obscurity in which we lie concerning our own natures, happy if, amid so many errors, we can determine one truth. We experiment, that is to say that, for a long time still, we must use the false to reach the true. Such is the feeling among strong men. Claude Ber- nard argues fiercely against those who persist in seeing only an artist in a doctor. He knows the habitual objection of those who pretend to look upon experi- mental medicine " as a theoretical conception of which nothing for the moment justifies the practical reality, because no fact demonstrates the attainment irt medi- cine of the scientific precision of the experimental sciences." But he does not let this worry him ; he shows that " experimental medicine is but the natural outcome of practical medical investigation directed by a scientific mind." And here is his conclusion : " With- out doubt it will be a long time before medicine becomes truly scientific ; but that does not prevent us from conceiving the possibility of such a thing, and doing all that we can to help it by trying daily to introduce into medicine the method which is to lead us to it." THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. 41 All this, which I will not tire you by repeating, applies perfectly to the experimental novel. Put the word " novel " in place of " medicine," and the passage remains equally true. I will address to the young literary generation which is growing up around me these grand and strong words of Claude Bernard. I know none more manly. " Medi- cine is destined to escape little by little from empiri- cism, and she will escape, as have all the other sciences, by the experimental method. This profound convic- tion sustains and controls my scientific life. I am deaf to the voices of those doctors who demand that the causes of scarlatina and measles shall be experimentally shown to them, and who think by that to draw forth an argument against the use of the experimental method in medicine. These discouraging objections and denials generally come from systematic or lazy minds, those who prefer to rest on their systems or to sleep in darkness instead of making an effort to become enlightened. The experimental direction which medi- cine is taking to-day is definitely defined. And it is no longer the ephemeral influence of a personal system of any kind ; it is the result of the scientific evolution of medicine itself. My convictions in this respect are so strong that I endeavor to impress them clearly upon the minds of the young medical students who are fol- lowing my course at the College de France. The stu- dents must be inspired before all else with the scientific spirit, and initiated into the ideas and the tendencies of modern science." Though I have frequently written the same words and given the same advice, I will repeat them here : " The experimental method alone can bring the novel 42 THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. out of the atmosphere of lies and errors in which it is plunged. All my literary life has been controlled by this conviction. I am deaf to the voices of the critics who demand that I shall formulate the laws of heredity and the influence of surroundings in my characters ; those who make these discouraging objections and denials but speak from slothfulness of mind, from an infatuation for tradition, from an attachment more or less conscious to philosophical and religious beliefs. The experimental direction which the novel is taking to-day is a definite one. And it is no longer the ephemeral influence of a personal system of any kind, it is the result of the scientific evolution, of the study of man himself. My convictions in this respect are so strong that I endeavor to impress them clearly upon the minds of the young writers who read my works ; for I think it necessary, above all things else, to inspire them with the scientific spirit, and to initiate them into the ideas and the tendencies of modern science." V. BEFORE concluding it is necessary for me to touch upon several secondary points. If it is necessary to state the facts precisely on any one subject, it is on that of the impersonal character of thfe method. Some have accused Claude Bernard of wishing to pose as an innovator ; and he has replied to these attacks as follows : " I have certainly not pre- tended to be the first to propose the application of physiology to medicine. That was recommended a long time ago, and numerous attempts have been made in this direction. In my works, and in my lectures at the College de France, I have only followed out an idea which has already borne fruit in its applicatioii to medicine." This is what I myself have replied when they have accused me of wishing to pose as an inno- vator and the leader of a new school. I have said that I introduce nothing, that I simply endeavor to apply in my novels and critical essays the scientific method which has been in use for a long time. But naturally they have pretended not to hear me, and they still con- tinue to talk of my vanity and my ignorance. I have already repeated twenty times that natur- alism ,is not a personal fantasy, but that it is the. intellectual movement of the century. Perhaps t^e^| will believe Claude Bernard, who speaks with greater authprity on this subject than I can lay claim to ; he declares that : " The revolution which the experi- 44 THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. mental method has caused in science consists mainly in the substitution of a scientific criterion for a personal authority. It is the characteristic of the experimental method to depend only on itself, as it carries within itself its criterion, which is experiment. It recognizes no authority but that of facts, and it frees itself from personal authority." Consequently, it no longer admits the authority of any theory either. ■*' The idea should always remain independent ; it must be enchained neither by scientific, nor philosophical, nor rehgious beliefs. Man must be strong and free in the manifestation of his ideas, must follow his instinct, and not dwell upon the puerile fears of the contradic- tion of any theories ; ... he must modify theory by adapting it to nature, and not nature by adapting it to theory." From this there results an incomparable breadth. " The experimental method is the scientific method which proclaims the liberty of thought. It not only throws off the philosophical and theological yoke, but it no longer admits scientific personal authority. This is not said from pride or boastfulness. The ex- perimentalist, on the contrary, shows his humility in denying personal authority, for he doubts his own knowledge, and he submits the authority of men to that of experiment and the laws which govern nature." This is why I have said so many times that natural- ism is not a school, as it is not embodied in the genius of one man, nor in the ravings of a group of men, as was romanticism ; that it consists simply in the application of the experimental method to the study of nature and of man. Hence it is nothing but a vast move- ment, a march forward in which everyone is a workman, according to his genius. All theories are admitted, THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. 45 and the theory which carries the most weight is the one which explains the most. There does not appear to me to be a literary or scientific path larger or more direct. Everyone, the great and the small, moves freely, working and investigating together, each one in his own specialty, and recognizing no other authority than that of facts proved by experiment. Therefore in naturalism there could be neither innovators nor leaders; there are simply workmen, some more skill- ful than others. Claude Bernard explains the defiance which we should assume toward theories thus : " You must have a strong faith and yet not believe ; I will explain my- self by saying that it is necessary in science to believe firmly in the principles and to doubt the formulas ; in fact, on one side we are sure that determinism exists, but we are never certain of possessing it. We must be immovable on the principles of experimental science (determinism), and yet not believe in the theories absolutely." I will quote the following passage, in which he announces the end of systems : " Experi- mental medicine is not a new system of medicine, but, on the contrary, the negation of all systems. In fact, the coming of experimental medicine will result in dis- persing from science all individual views, to replace them by impersonal and general theories, which will be, as in other sciences, but a regular co-ordination deduced from the facts furnished by experiment." If Claude Bernard repels the charge of being an in- novator, or rather, an inventor, who brings a personal theory with him, he refers also several times to the danger there would be in a savant's meddling with philosophical systems, " The experimental doctor," 46 THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. he says, " should neither be a spiritualist nor a materi- alist. These names belong to an old school of natural philosophy which has fallen into disuse in the progress of science. We shall never fully understand either mind or matter ; and, if this were the proper place, I could easily show that on one side as on the other you soon reach scientific negation, from which it follows that all considerations of this kind are idle and useless. It is for us to study only phenomena, to know the material conditions of their manifestations, and to determine the laws of these manifestations." I have said that in the experimental novel it is best for us to hold to the strictly scientific point of view if we wish to base our studies on solid ground ; not to go out from the "how," not to attach ourselves to' the "why." How- ever, it is very certain that we cannot always escape this need of our intelligence, this restless curiosity which makes us desire to know the essence of things. I think that it is best for us to accept the philosophical system, which adapts itself the best to the actual con- dition of the sciences, but simply from a speculative point of view. For example, transformism is actually the most rational system, and is the one which is based most directly upon our knowledge of nature. Behind a science, behind a manifestation of any kind of the human intelligence, there always lies more or less clearly what Claude Bernard calls a philosophical system. To this system it is not well to attach one's self devotedly, but to hold tenaciously to the facts, free to modify the system if the facts call for it. But the system exists none the less, and it exists so much the more as science is less advanced and less firm; For us naturalistic novelists, who are still in the lisping THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. iri stage, hypothesis is fatal. By and by I will take up the r6le of hypothesis in literature. Nevertheless, if in practice Claude Bernard thrusts aside philosophical system, he recognizes the neces- sity of philosophy. " From a scientific point of view, philosophy represents the eternal desire of the human reason after knowledge of the unknown. Hence philosophers always confine themselves to questions that are in dispute, and to those lofty regions that lie beyond the boundaries of science. In this way they communicate to science a certain inspiration which animates and ennobles it. They strengthen the mind — developing it by an intellectual gymnastics — at the same time that they ever carry it toward the never-completed solution of great problems. Thus they keep up a cult of the unknown, and quicken the sacred fire of investigation, which ought never to be extinguished in the heart of a savant." This passage is very fine, but the philosophers have never been told in better terms that their hypotheses are pure poetry. Claude Bernard evidently looks upon the philosophers, among whom he believes he has a great many friends, as musicians often gifted with genius, whose music encourages the savants while they work and inspires the sacred fire of their great dis- coveries. But the philosophers, left to themselves, will sing forever and never discover a single truth. I have neglected until now the question of forrn in the naturalistic novel, because it is precisely there that individuality shows in literature. Not only is a writer's genius to be found in the feeling and in the idea a priori but also in the form and style. But the ques- tion of method and the question of rhetoric are distinct 48 THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. from each other. And by naturalism, I say again, is meant the experimental method, the introduction of observation and experiment into literature. Rheto- ric, for the moment, has no place here. Let us first fix upon the method, on which there should be agree- ment, and after that accept all the different styles in letters which may be produced, looking upon them as the expressions of the literary temperament of the writers. If you wish my true opinion upon this subject, it is. this : that to-day an exaggerated importance is given to form. I have a great deal to say on this subject, but it would carry me beyond the limits of this essay. In reality, I think that the form of expression depends upon the method ; that language is only one kind of logic, and its construction natural and scientific. He who writes the best will not be the one who gallops madly among hypotheses, but the one who walks straight ahead in the midst of truths. We are actually rotten with lyricism ; we are very much mistaken when we think that the characteristic of a good style is a sublime confusion with just a dash of madness added ; in reality, the excellence of a style depends upon its logic and clearness. Claude Bernard considers that philosophers are really musicians who play a sort of Marseillaise made up of hypotheses, and swell the hearts of the savants as they rush to'attack the unknown ; and he has much the same idea of artists and writers. I have remarked that a great many of the most intelligent savants, jealous of the scientific certainty which they enjoy, would very willingly confine literature to the ideal. They them- selves seem to feel the need of taking little recreations THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. 49 in the world of lies after the fatigue of their exact labors, and they are fond of amusing themselves with the most daring hypotheses, and with fictions which they know perfectly well to be false and ridiculous. Claude Bernard was right when he said : " Literary and artistic productions will never grow old in the sense that they are the expressions of sentiments as unchangeable as human nature." In fact, form is sufficient to immortalize a work ; the spectacle of a powerful individuality reproducing nature in superb language will interest all ages ; only the works of a savant, from this same point of view, will be read always, for the reason that the thought of a great savant who knows how to write is much more interest- ing than that of a poet. However far astray the savant may be in his hypothesis, he still remains the equal of the poet, who is certain to have been equally mistaken. The point to be emphasized is this, that our domain is not limited' to the expression of sentiments as un- changeable as human nature because it is essential also to exhibit the working of these sentiments. We have not exhausted our matter when we have depicted anger, avarice, and love ; all nature and all of man belong to us, not only in their phenomena, but in the causes of these phenomena. I well know that this is an immense field, the entrance to which they would willingly have refused us ; but we have broken down the barriers and have entered it in triumph. This is why I do not accept the following words of Claude Bernard : " In art and letters personality domi- nates everything. There one is dealing with a spontane- ous creation of the mind that has nothing in common with the verification of natural phenomena, in which so THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. our minds can create nothing." I have here detected one of our most illustrious savants sharing in the attempt to refuse to letters the entrie to the scientific field. I do not know what letters he refers to in this definition of a literary work : " A spontaneous creation of the mind that has nothing in common with the verification of natural phenomena." Doubtless he has lyrical poetry in his mind, for he never could have written that phrase had he understood the experi- mental novel as shown in the works of Balzac and Stendhal. I can only repeat what I have said before, that apart from the matter of form and style, the experimental novelist is only one special kind of savant, who makes use of the tools of all other savants, observation and analysis. Our field is the same as the physiologist's, only that it is greater. We operate, like him, on man ; and Claude Bernard recognizes this fact himself, that the cerebral phenomena can be deter- mined the same as other phenomena. It is true that Claude Bernard can tell us that we are lost in hypothe- ses ; but to conclude from this that we shall never arrive at the truth sits very badly on him, as he has struggled all his life to make a science of medicine, which the great majority of his contemporaries look upon as an art. Let us clearly define now what is meant by an experimental novelist. Claude Bernard gives the fol- lowing definition of an artist : " What is an artist ? He is a man who realizes in a work of art an idea or a sen- timent which is personal to him." I absolutely reject this definition. On this basis if I represented a man as walking on his head, I should have made a work of art, if such happened to be my personal sentiments. THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. $1 But in that case I should be a fool and nothing else. So one must add that the personal feeling of the artist is always subject to the higher law of truth and nature. We now come to the question of hypothesis. The artist starts out from the same point as the savant ; he places himself before nature, has an idea a priori, and works according to this idea. Here alone he separates himself from the savant, if he carries out his idea to the end without verifying its truth by the means of observation and experiment. Those who make use of experiment might well be called experimental artists ; but then people will tell us that they are no longer artists, since such people regard art as the burden of personal error which the artist has put into his study of nature. I contend that the personality of the writer should only appear in the idea a priori and in the form, not in the infatuation for the false. I see no objection, besides, to its showing in the hypothesis, but it is necessary to clearly understand what you mean by these words. It has often been said that writers ought to open the way for savants. This is true, for we have seen in " L'Introduction " that hypothesis and empiricism precede and prepare for the scientific state which is established finally by the experimental method. Man commenced by venturing certain explanations of phe- nomena, the poets gave expression to their emotions, and the savants ended by mastering hypotheses and fix- ing the truth. Claude Ben;iard always assigns the role of pioneers to the philosophers. It is a very noble role, and to-day it is the writers who should assume it and who should endeavor to fill it worthily. Only let it be well understood that each time that a truth is 52 THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. established by the savants the writers should immedi- ately abandon their hypothesis to adopt this truth; otherwise they will remain deliberately in error without benefiting anyone. It is thus that science, as it ad- vances, furnishes to us writers a solid ground upon which we should lean for support, to better enable us to shoot into new hypotheses. In a word, every phenome- non, once clearly determined, destroys the hypothesis which it replaces, and it is then necessary to trans- port your hypothesis one step further into the new unknown which arises. I will take a very sim- ple example in order to make myself better under- stood : it has been proved that the earth revolves around the sun ; what would you think of a poet who should adopt the old belief that the sun revolves around the earth? Evidently the poet, if he wishes to risk a personal explanation of any fact, should choose a fact whose cause is not already known. This, then, illustrates the position hypothesis should oc- cupy for experimental novelists ; we must accept deter- mined facts, and not attempt to risk about them our personal sentiments, which would be ridiculous, build- ing throughout on the territory that science has con- quered ; then before the unknown, but only then, exercising our intuition and suggesting the way to science, free to make mistakes, happy if we produce any data toward the solution of the problem. Here I stand at Claude Bernard's practical programme, who is forced to accept empiricism as a necessary fore- runner. In our experimental novel we can easily risk a few hypotheses on the questions of heredity and surroundings, after having respected all that science knows to-day about the matter. We can prepare the THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. S3 ways, we can furnish the results of observation, human data which may prove very useful. A great lyrical poet has written lately that our century is a century of prophets. Yes, if you wish it ; only let it be well understood that these prophets rely neither upon the irrational nor the supernatural. If the prophets thought best to bring up again the most elementary notions, to serve up nature with a strange religious and philosophical sauce, to hold fast to the meta- physical man, to confound and obscure everything, the prophets, notwithstanding their genius in the matter of style, would never be anything but great gooses ignorant whether they would get wet if they jumped into the water. In our scientific age it is a very delicate thing to be a prophet, as we no longer believe in the truths of revelation, and in order to be able to foresee the unknown we must begin by study- ing the known. The conclusion to which I wish to come is this: If I were to define the experimental novel I should not say, as Claude Bernard says, that a literary work lies entirely in the personal feeling, for the reason that in my opinion the personal feeling is but the first impulse. Later nature, being there, makes itself felt, or at least that part of nature of which science has given us the secret, and about which we have no longer any right to romance. I The experimental novelist is therefore the one who accepts proven facts, who points out in man and in society the mechanism of the phe- nomena over which science is mistress, and who does not interpose his personal sentiments, except in the phenomena whose determinism is not yet^setttedTand who tTies~to~test7~as~nTachrss"he"can, this personal sen- 54 THE EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL. timent, this idea a priori, by observation and experi- ment. / I cannot understand how our naturalistic literature can mean anything else. I have only spoken of the experimental novel, but I am fairly convinced that the same method, after having triumphed in history and in criticism, will triumph everywhere, on the stage and in poetry even. It is an inevitable evolution, Literature, in spite of all that can be said, does not depend merely upon the author ; it is influenced by the nature it depicts and by the man whom it studies. Now if the savants change their ideas of nature, if they find the true mechanism of life, they force us to follow them, to pre- cede them even, so as to play our role in the new hypotheses. The metaphysical man is dead ; our whole territory is transformed by the advent of the physiological man. No doubt "Achilles' Anger," " Dido's Love," will last forever on account of their beauty; but to-day we feel the necessity of analyzing anger and love, of discovering exactly how such pas- sions work in the human being. This view of the mat- ter is a new one; we have become experimentalists instead of philosophers. In short, everything is summed up in this great fact: the experimental method in letters, as in the sciences, is in the way to explain the natural phenomena, both individual and social, of which metaphysics, until now, has given only irrational and supernatural explanations. A LETTER TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. A LETTER TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. I DEDICATE this article to the young people of France, this youth who to-day have seen only twenty years, but who will be the society of to-morrow. Two events of great importance have just occurred : the representation of " Ruy Bias " at the Comddie Fran9aise, and the public reception of M. Renan at the Academy. Great noise and wild enthusiasm have burst forth, the public press has rolled out high-sound- ing phrases in honor of the nation's genius, and it has been said that like events should console us in our disasters and assure us of future triumphs. There has been a flight into the ideal, an escape from the earth and a soaring in mid-air, a sort of counter charge on the part of poetry against the scientific spirit. I find the question distinctly defined in the R^pub- lique Franqaise : " Paris has just witnessed and given to the world the spectacle of "two great intellectual feasts, which will remain an honor and a crown to this enlight- ened and liberal France, of which our great and glorious city is the chief representative. The reception of M. Ernest Renan at the Academy, the revival of ' Ruy Bias ' at the Comddie Fran9aise, may, in truth, be re- garded as two events of which we have a right to be S8 TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. proud. There are among us some young people who are searching for their path in Hfe ; they go straight ahead, pushing forward, hungry for novelties, and they boast, with the naivete of inexperience, to be further advanced than their predecessors in the limitless domain of the art which is striving to do battle with nature. Yes, that is true; some among them who have mistaken their strength have declared war against the ideal, but they will be conquered ; their defeat can be safely pre- dicted after what took place night before last at the Com^die Frangaise." To understand my meaning the flowery phrases of the journalist must be explained. It means that these young people are the writers of the naturalistic school — those whose spirit is in sympathy with the scientific movement of the century, and whose useful tools are observation and analysis. The jour- nalist states that these writers have declared war against the ideal, and he predicts that they will be vanquished by lyricism and romantic rhetoric. Nothing could be truer ; the other evening, when Victor Hugo's beautiful verses were applauded, it gave the scientific movement of the century a set-back, it was the suppression of observation and analysis. I will quote some other testimony, in order to explain more clearly the question which I wish to examine. M. Renan, at the commencement of his speech at the reception, wishing to flatter the Academy, and forgetting his old-time admiration for Germany, spoke as follows: "You are mistrustful of a culture which makes men neither more amiable nor better. I very much fear that these people, given to great serious- ness, no doubt, while reproaching us for our levity, may experience some disappointment with reo-ard to TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. 59 the hopes which they entertain of gaining the world's favor by other means than those which have so far been successful. A science pedantic in its solitude, a literature without humor, an ill-tempered government, a fashionable society without any sparkle, a spiritless nobility, gentlemen lacking in politeness, great generals with barbarous speech, will not easily or soon over- throw the remembrance of our old French society, so brilliant, so polished, so eager to please." To this the Berlin Gazette Nationale replied : " The nations of Europe are in a struggle which admits of no truce ; the one which does not push ahead will be overthrown. Any nation which thinks to rest content with laurels already won is instantly condemned to decadence and death. This is the true state of affairs, which so great a nation as the French should learn to know. But to attain this end men of serious natures and not flatter- ers are needed. We shall look upon as our true friend the one who teaches us to guard ourselves from that which we most fear in the world : empty vagueness, and the insufficient appreciation of our competitors in the material and intellectual domain. We know the inevitable consequence by experience." Now I say that it is the duty of every patriotic Frenchman to reflect on these two documents. I do not speak of the patriotism which wraps itself in a flag, which gives itself vent in odes and cantatas ; but of the patriotism of men of science and thought, who desire the nation's greatness by practical means. Yes, M. Renan is right : we have had and we still have a great deal of glory; but ponder on these terrible words: "The one who does not push ahead will be over- thrown." Do you not hear in them that knell of the 6o TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. past ages which the new movement is sounding? To- morrow — that means this twentieth century, whose slow birth is brought about by this scientific evolution ; to-morrow — that means universal inquiry, the spirit of truth transforming society ; and if we wish to-morrow to belong to us we must be new men, marching toward the future by method, by logic, by study, and a full appreciation of reality. To applaud a burst of rhetoric, to become enthusiastic for the ideal, are but the nervous emotions of women, who weep as they listen to beauti ful music. To-day we have need of the manliness of truth to enable us to be as great in the future as we were in the past. This is what I am going to try to demonstrate to the youth of France. I wish to breathe into their hearts a dislike for fine words, a distrust for these flights into the ethereal. We others, who confine our- selves to facts, who take up all problems, we are accused, in our study of the facts, of filthiness ; we hear ourselves branded as corrupters every day. The time has come in which to prove to the new generation that the real corrupters are these word-mongers, and that there is a fatal fall in the mud after each flight into the ideal. I. ALL nations honor their great men. Above all, they render homage to their illustrious writers who have left imperishable monuments behind them. Homer and Vergil have survived the ruins of Greece and Rome. Thus it is that Victor Hugo's poetical monument will remain indestructible, and our century has a right to be proud of this superb work which is the glory of the French language, and will live through future ages. We cannot proclaim the poet's glory too loudly. He is great among the greatest. He was an admirable master of words, and he will live the undisputed king of lyrical poets. But we must make a distinction. Besides the form, the rhythm of the words, besides the purely linguistic monument, there stand the principles of the work. They carry with them truth or falsehood. They are the product of a method and become a fatal force, which advances or retards the century. If I applaud Victor Hugo as a poet, I dislike him as a thinker and a teacher. Not only does his philosophy appear to me as obscure, contradictory, and made up of emotions and not of truths, but, above all, I find it dangerous, exercising a harmful influence on the pub- lic, leading young men into the lies of poesy and all the mental derangements of romantic exaltation. And all this we can easily see in this representation of " Ruy Bias," which has caused such a furore. It is the poet, the superb master of style, whom we applaud. 63 TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. He has uplifted the language ; he has written verses which have the glitter of gold and the sonorousness of bronze. In no literature do I know poetry that is grander or more skillful, of a purer lyrical tone, of a more intense life. But no one could truthfully applaud the philosophy or the truthfulness of the work. If you set aside the clique of fierce admirers who strive to make Victor Hugo a universal man, as great a thinker as he is a poet, the world shrugs its shoulders before the incongruities of " Ruy Bias." One is obliged to look upon this drama as a faiiy story, around which the author has woven a marvelous poetry. When once you examine it from a historical or a logical point of view, when once you endeavor to find practical truths, facts, data, you are entangled in a bewildering chaos of errors and misrepresentations ; you fall into the noth- ingness of lyrical madness. The most peculiar thing of all is that Victor Hugo made pretensions to hiding a parable under the poetry of " Ruy Bias." Read the preface, and see how in Victor Hugo's con- ception this lackey amorous of a queen represents the people desiring liberty, while Don Salluste and Don Char de Bazan typify the nobility of a dying mon- archy. Everyone knows how complaisant symbols usually are ; you can put them where you will and make them signify what you please. But this one carries the thing too far. Look at the characters in " Ruy Bias," at this imaginary lackey, who had been to college, who had written verses before he donned a livery, who never handled a tool, and who, instead of learning a trade, warmed himself in the sun's rays and fell madly in love with duchesses and queens. Ruy Bias is a Bohemian, an outcast, a worthless fellow. In TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. 63 no sense is he one of the people. But, admitting for an instant that he represents the people, let us see how he behaves, and let us try to see what he signifies. From this point of view everything becomes topsy-turvy. The people, urged on by the nobility, love a queen ; the people become grand ministers, and waste their time in fine speeches ; the people kill the nobility, then take poison immediately ; what is the meaning of this gibberish ? What becomes of the famous symbol ? If the people kill themselves without cause, after having suppressed the nobility, society is at an end. The wretchedness of this extravagant intrigue is felt, and becomes absolute folly as soon as the poet attempts to make it signify anything serious. I will not point out any further the incongruities of " Ruy Bias," as far as good sense and simple logic are concerned. As a lyrical poem, I repeat, the work is a marvel ; but one must not for a moment hope to find any human nature, clearly defined ideas, an analytical method or a true philosophy. It is a piece of beautiful music, nothing else. Then, again : " Ruy Bias," they say, is a flight into the ideal, from whence radiates all manner of beautiful ideas ; it elevates the soul, it urges one forward to great actions, it is refreshing and comforting. What matter if it is but a lie ! It takes us out of our every- day life and carries us to the heights. We breathe freely, leaving the unclean works of the naturalistic school behind us. Here we come to the delicate point of the quarrel. Though we have not the time to discuss the subject to its bottom, let us see what " Ruy Bias " contains of honor and virtue. First we must set aside Don Salluste and Don C^sar. The 64 TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. former is Satan, as Victor Hugo justly says ; as to the latter, notwithstanding his chivalric respect for women, he shows a doubtful morality. Now as to the queen. This queen behaves badly in taking a lover ; I know very well that she is weary, and that her husband makes a mistake in his too close watch of her ; but truly, if all the women who were weary took to them- selves lovers, it would cause a revolution in every family. Then as to Ruy Bias, he is a swindler, who in real life would find his way to jail. What do we find ? This lackey accepts the queen from Don Sal- luste's hands ; he consents to enter into a deceit which must appear all the more shameful to the spectator, because Don C^sar, the vagabond, the friend of robbers, has just branded its infamy in two superb tirades; he does more, he steals a name which is not his. Fur- thermore, he carries this name for a year, he deceives a queen, an entire court, and the people, and he com- mits these villainies for the sake of an intrigue ; in the end he understands his trickery and filthiness so well that he poisons himself. And all this time this man is but a scamp and a debaucher. My soul is not uplifted in his company. I would rather say my soul is filled with disgust, because I go, in spite of myself, behind the poet's verses, and I try to establish the facts and to demonstrate to myself what does not appear on the surface. In reality, Ricy Bias is but an unprincipled adventurer, who carries his kitchen manners into the boudoir. It is no use for Victor Hugo to carry his drama into the higher atmosphere of poetry ; the real- ity which underlies it is infamous. Notwithstanding the beauty of the verses, the facts presented by this drama are not only silly, they are unclean ; they do TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. 65 not urge one on to good deeds, because the people concerned in it are but scamps and rogues ; they are neither refreshing nor elevating, because they start in the mud and the mire and end in blood. These are the facts. Now to the verses. It is true that they often express the most beautiful sentiments in the world. Don C^sar speaks words on the respect due to women ; the queen speaks words on the sublimity of love ; Ruy Bias speaks words about ministers who steal the state. Always words ! oh, as many words as you please. Can it be that they expect to uplift people's souls merely by a lot of words ? Mon Dieu ! yes, and this is the point I am anxious to reach ; that it is simply a question of rhetorical virtue and honor. The roman- tic and lyric school depended entirely upon words. They are inflated words, hypertrophies startling under the uncouth exaggeration of the idea. Is not the example striking ? In the facts madness and coarseness, in the expressions a noble passion, a proud virtue, and a superior honesty. But it is all built on nothing ; it is a construction of language aimlessly beating the air. This is romanticism. I have criticised at different intervals the romantic evolution, and it is useless for me to take up the his- tory of this movement again. But I must insist upon the fact that it was purely an uprising of rhetoricians. Victor Hugo's role, which is a considerable one, has for its object a reburnishing of the poetic language, the creation of a new rhetoric. In 1830 the battle was really a fight over the dictionary. The classical lan- guage was dying of inertia ; the romanticists had in- fused new blood into it by putting into circulation an unknown and despised vocabulary, by employing a 66 TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. host of sparkling images, by a livelier and more enlarged manner of feeling and rendering. But, put- ting aside this question of language, you can see that the romanticists did not separate themselves from the classical school ; for like it they remained deists, ideal- ists, and symbolists ; Hke it they costumed beings and acts ; they placed them in an orthodox heaven ; they had the same dogmas, the same measures, the same rules. But it must be added that lyricism carried the new school much further into the realm of absurdity than did the old classical. The poets of 1830 had done much to enlarge the literary field by striving to reproduce man, in his entirety, with his smiles and his tears, by giving nature a part to play, an idea originated by Rousseau long before. But they spoiled these con- quered liberties, they abused them in a strange manner by throwing themselves at once outside the .pale of humanity and the natural order of events. For exam- ple, if they dealt with nature, if they painted it, instead of studying it as a definite environment, completing the characters, they animated it with their own dreams, peopled it with legends and nightmares ; in the same way in their characters, they boasted that they accepted the whole man, body and soul, and their first care was to lift him into the clouds and make him a lie. Thus, inevitably, it came to pass that the classical school, with its rigid and dead world, was still more humane, nearer to the truth, more logical and complete, than the romanticists with their vast horizon and the new elements of life which they employed. An evolution accomplished by these lyrical poets was bound to pro- duce this result ; and this is what we briefly explain now. Lyricism in a literary school is a poetical exalta- TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OP FRANCE. 67 tion eluding all analysis, and bordering on folly. Vic- tor Hugo is but a lyrical poet, then ; he is essentially a rhetorician of genius in his language, his philosophy, and his morality. But do not look beneath his words nor his rhymes, for I tell you again you will find an inconceivable chaos of errors, contradictions, solemn child's play, and pompous abominations. To-day when we study the literary movements since the commencement of the century, the romantic move- ment seems to be the logical forerunner of the great naturalistic evolution. It was not without a reason that the lyric poets were produced first. Their coming can be explained as the outcome of the social condi- tions of the time, and as a result of the shocks of the Revolution and the Empire ; after these massacres the poets found consolation in dreams. But they came, more than for any other reason, because in literature they had a great mission to accomplish. This was the renew- ing of the language. It was necessary to throw the old dictionary into the ditch, to recast the language, to invent new words and figures, to create a new style for the use of the new society ; and the lyrical poets seemed the only fit ones to lead in such a work. They came with revolutionary ideas in color, with a passion for figures, with rhythm as their dominating concern. They were painters, sculptors, musicians, who depended upon sound, form, and light more than anything else. For them the idea was but a secondary consideration, and we remember this school of " art for art's sake " as an absolute triumph for style. The essential char- acteristic of the lyrical school is a song in which human thought frees itself from the shackles of method and envelopes itself in sonorous words. We can acknowl- 68 TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. edge also the glory which our language acquired in passing through this poetical flame. We find at the commencement of the century a literature of learned men, ponderous, exact, logical ; and their language, weakened by three centuries of classical usage, was like a tarnished, useless tool. A generation of lyrical poets, I repeat, was necessary to adorn the language, to reburnish the tool and make it of use again. This " Canticle of Canticles " of the dictionary, this pile of silly words flinging themselves at and dancing upon the idea, were perhaps necessary. The romanticists came in their time, they forged the tool which the century needed. It is thus that all great states are founded on a battle. We shall see, a little further on, what state was to be founded, thanks to the romantic battle. Rhetoric had conquered ; the idea could arise and formulate itself, thanks to the new language. We must greet Victor Hugo as the powerful fabricator of this language. If in him the dramatic author, the novelist, the critic, the philosopher are subjects of debate; if lyricism, the sublime madness, always comes forth to upset in a moment his judgments and his conceptions — he is above all and always the rhetorician of genius of whom I have just spoken. This is the reason for the sover- eignty which he has exercised and which he will exer- cise again. He has created a style, he holds sway over the century, not by his ideas, but by his words; the ideas of the century, those that rule, are scientific method, experimental analysis, and naturalism; the words are the rich novelties of exhumed or invented terms, those magnificent images, those superb round- ings of the phrases which usage has rendered com- TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. 69 mon. At the commencement of the movement the words always crushed the idea, because they struck one more forcibly. Victor Hugo since his early youth has royally draped himself in the mantle of form. Beside him stands Balzac, who carries the idea of the century — analysis and observation ; but he seems naked, and is hardly noticed. Happily, later, the idea disengages itself from rhetoric, asserts itself, reigns with a sovereign strength. Here is where we stand. Victor Hugo remains a great poet — the great- est of lyrical poets. But the century has torn itself from him, the scientific idea pushes itself to the front. In " Ruy Bias " it is the rhetorician whom we applaud. The philosopher and the moralist causes us to smile. II. LET us now turn to the reception of M. Ernest J Renan at the Academic Frangaise. This recep- tion was also a great hterary festival. It was a great triumph for liberty of thought ; that must be admitted before everything else. To make myself better under- stood I shall distinguish between the Renan of the legend and the Renan of reality. I must call to mind the pubHcation of the " Vie de J^sus." It was a thunderclap. M. Renan was unknown to the general public. He enjoyed the reputation of being an erudite writer, a distinguished linguist, who did not go beyond the limits of a certain coterie. And all at once, in one day, his figure stood out before all France, with the terrifying profile of Antichrist. He com- mitted the sacrilege of disturbing Jesus on his cross. He was pictured in the likeness of Satan, with two horns and a tail. The fright was greatest among the clergy ,- all the country curates ordered the bells rung, and excommunicated him in their sermons ; the bishops sent forth charges and pamphlets, the Pope paled under his triple crown. It was said that the Jesuits burned the editions of " The Life of Jesus" as soon as the pub- lisher put them on the market, which assured for the book an inexhaustible sale. As for the public, the feeling became greater and greater, fed by the fright of the clergy. The devotees made the sign of the cross, and terrified bad children by threatening them witk TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. 7 1 M. Renan ; while the indifferent ones became interested in this audacious author, and endowed him with gigantic proportions. He became the spirit that denied ; he symboHzed science kiUing faith. In a word, our cen- tury of scientific inquiry became incarnate in him. If you add that he passed for an unfrocked priest, you complete the picture of this rebel archangel, modern Satan, conqueror of God, suppressing the Creator with the weapon of the century. Such was the legendary Renan, and such he has remained for certain people. If we pass to the true Renan we are surprised. The savant remains an erudite, but he has also become a poet. Picture to yourself a man with the temperament of a believer, a contemplative creature growing up to manhood in a Breton fog. He had been brought up as a strict Cath- olic; his first desire had been to become a priest, and his whole education had tended toward the sacerdotal office. He comes to Paris, he enters the seminary steeped in the deep religious teachings of the country from whence he came. Then a corner in his brain, silent until that day, began to work. Was it a breath of Paris which had wafted over him in passing? Was it a far-away predisposition which awakened in the man, that had had its first germs in the child ? He alone could tell us in confessing the sins of his boy- hood. Whatever it was, a dissenting voice arose in him. From that moment the priest was dead. It is always the same story : the first shiver of doubt, then the sad combat followed by the final overflow. M. Renan quitted the seminary, and commenced the study of languages. But that which was not dead in him was the ideal and the spiritual. All the beliefs of his 72 TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. youth which he had battled with and crushed had returned upon him and found another vent, and were given expression in a burst of beautiful poetry. It is a curious instance of the tyrannical force that a man's nature has over him. Since he could not be a priest, he would be a poet ; with nothing else would his tem- perament be satisfied. Without doubt, a nature less steeped in religious fantasy, brought up in a less misty country, would have gone to the end of the scientific research. But M. Renan stops halfway, carrying in his breast an eternal regret for his lost faith and the vague happiness of doubting his own doubts. This transformation of faith into poetry is characteristic of him. He is no longer a believer, but he is not a savant. I see in him a man of transition. The spirit of romanticism has gone along the same path. Yes, M. Renan is a pantheist of the romantic school. It has been advanced that though he replaces God by the worship of humanity, he has no^ exactly denied the divinity of Christ, as he has made him the most perfect, the most lovable of men. I have no desire to lose myself in the intricacies of this philosophical ques- tion; I shall not examine his theories of the slow formation of a superior humanity, of a group of intel- lectual Messiahs, reigning on earth by the power of their faculties. It is sufificient for me that he, like Victor Hugo, is a deist, and that his beliefs, though possessed of more equilibrium, are not less the imag- inations of the lyrical poet, as far away from the affir- mations of dogma, as from the affirmations of science. Being neither a believer nor a savant, he remains a poet. He hovers in the vagueness dear to contempla- tive souls. His thought has no firm simplicity. Yqu TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. 73 perceive what very possibly his opinions may be ; but does he really believe them? This is something no one can tell, for he dislikes any definite conclusion. And if, leaving the philosopher, we pass to the writer, we find the romanticist in all his charm and greatness. I do not mean that it is the superb bewilderment of Victor Hugo, his magnificent antithesis, his piling up of grand words and images. It is rather Lamartine's flowing honey, a beatific and religious reverie, a style which has the voluptuousness of a caress and the unction of a prayer. The phrase knaels and swoons away in a vapor of incense, in the mystical light of the stained glass windows. You immediately conclude that M. Renan has entered into the Gothic cathedral of romanticism, and that he has remained there not as a believer, but as a writer. We find the poet still lin- gering midway between the erudite and the savant, as he had remained midway in the formulas of philosophy. This is the difference between the M. Renan of the legend and the M. Renan of reality. I must add that the stubborn ones, the bigoted Catholics and fools, who cleave to a once conceived idea, continue to look upon M. Renan as Antichrist. Years have passed since its publication, and the majority of the reading public have come to look upon "The Life of Jesus" as a beautiful poem, hiding under its flowery language a few of the modern exegetical affirmations. All the truths are not touched upon ; only a choice is made by an artistic hand, and embellished by the most loving imagination. To fully understand M. Renan's process you need only compare his book with that of the Ger- man writer Strauss, with his harsh discussions and his tedious demonstrations ; in him we find but the erudite 74 TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. and learned writer, whose style is devoid of ornament, and whose sole thought is the truth. Thus, at the present day, for the greater number of readers, M. Renan, the terrible, has become the charming M. Renan. He is accepted as a melodist, who certainly committed a wrong in choosing so sacred a subject to sing to his music; but, truth to tell, he has written some very beautiful music. And it is the melodist to whom the Academic Frangaise has opened its doors. I have reached my point now ; I contend that the Acad6mie has ffeted the rhetorician and not the savant. This literary fete was again given in honor of a lyric poet. But we must be severe, for in our complaisant and hypocritical century severity alone can make the nation virile. I do not dispute the fact that the Acad^mie has made a good choice in opening its arms to M. Renan, and that the opportunity very rarely offers for them to make as good a one. M. Renan, whose erudition is very extended, is, besides, one of our most refined prose writers. Literally, his little finger is worth more than ten academicians taken hap- hazard from the benches of the learned company. Only his election must not be looked upon as a tri- umph of the modern scientific formula in this institu- tion. There is under this famous cupola only another poet. The true courage consisted in naming M. Renan after the resounding success of his " Life of Jesus." " To-day he has forced open the doors by his charm- ing personality ; he is not seated in his chair with his horns and his tail, but crowned by the hands of ladies. Nobody fears him any longer; he has even become the refuge of religious souls, torn by and restless under TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. 75 the dry and naked science of to-day. Therefore let them not make such a fuss over the hberalism of the Acad^mie. It has welcomed a writer; that is as it should be. Modern science has had no reason to cry out " Victory ! " as at the solemn receptions of Claude Bernard and M. Littr^. What appears to me most characteristic in M. Renan's discourse is the manner in which he accepts the discoveries of science — as a versatile idealist who utilizes everything in order to continue and enlarge his dreams. A quotation from the speech made at his reception will explain what I mean : " The sky, as we see it by means of modern astronomy, is vastly superior to that solid vault studded by brilliant stars, supported by columns some distance away in the clouds, with which the past centuries were content. ... If I sometimes have melancholy remembrances of the nine choirs of angels who surrounded the seven planets, and of that crystalline sea which rolled at the feet of the Eternal One, I console myself by thinking that the infinite into which our eyes plunge is a real infinite, a thousand times more sublime to the true thinker than all tke azure circles of the paradise of Angelo da Fiesole. How much do the profound views of the chemist and crystal lographer on the atom exceed the vague notion possessed by the scholastic philosophers about matter! The triumph of science is really the triumph of idealism ! " Listen to this cry; it is typical ; it is the wail of the poet who, each time that you force the regions of the unknown to a further distance, willingly consents to move with you, but only for the privilege of installing himself to dream in a mysterious corner, to whose depths you have not yet 76 TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. descended. As M. Renan himself states in his speech, a savant does not admit the unknown, the ideal, but as a problem whose solution he is trying to find. A fresh proof that M. Renan is not a savant is that he must have his mysterious corner, and the more you contract this corner, the further you carry it to the depth of the infinite, the more he seems to be enchanted ; because, as he will tell you, his dream becomes more distant and sublime. Thus: " The triumph of science is really the triumph of idealism." I already knew this phrase from having heard it used so often as conclusive argu- ment. It is the refuge of those idealists who do not deny modern science. As they believe that there will always be an ultimate mystery about the nature of matter and life that can never be solved, they move their ideal further away at each new discovery, saying that even though hunted from belief to belief they always have this final point as an unassailable refuge. This is a very elastic faith in the ideal. I have a very slight philosophical esteem for these dreamers who at each step of science ask for a rest to indulge in a dream, and leave it but to move on further and to find a more retired corner for their reveries. M. Renan is one of these poets of the ideal who follow the savants with faltering steps, and who profit by each halt to gather fresh flowers. His great success — I speak of his widespread and popular success — is due to his style. In Germany Strauss, wrapped up in the terseness of his argument, had simply stirred a small portion of the public, the erudites, and the theologians ; the great crowd of worldly people were simply indifferent. With us, on the contrary, M. Renan, much less frank in his nega- TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. 77 tion, but treating the subject with armfuls of rhetorical flowers, had infatuated the whole public. It is only another proof of the omnipotence of form. The suc- cess of " The Life of Jesus " is but the success of " Ruy Bias " ; it is the language, the sound, the color, the odor, which takes captive through the senses a keenly artistic people. In all this there is a nervous, a material effect. When a master of style is a genius, he is the undisputed master of the multitude ; he takes them boldly and leads them where he will. A savant creates a vacuum in his audience, while a poet arouses enthusiasm even among his adversaries. This is the explanation of that outburst of romanticism in the first half of the century. In the same way to-day we applaud vociferously as a breath of lyrical poetry passes by us. However, it must be admitted that \}a\s furore about form is transitory. People admit the power of the writer, then shrug their shoulders when he poses as a thinker or savant. And this is the punishment of those timid ones who dared not carry their thought out to its true end, of those clever fellows who tried to win over each one by flattering all. Yes, this artifice of ambitious souls, this process of letting fall only pleasing, well-clothed truths, this skillfully balanced way of writing which is not lying, yet is not the truth, all these hypocritical tactics rebound against those who use them, either from their temperament or through shrewd calculation. One day, after having been greeted with acclamations, they find themselves alone, celebrated, it is true, filled with honors and recompenses, but they enjoy the reputation of be- ing only flute players when they were eager for 78 TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. the fadeless glory of great thinkers and famous savants. I will not conclude in my own words. I read a severe criticism which struck me as very forcible, and I give it without comment : " A man like M. Renan ought to have some influence over his times, and he has none. He has never been taken seriously. In vain he approaches the deepest problems ; no one admits his solutions ; only levity and laughter have been seen where the philosopher, the savant, has looked for an entire and austere attention. The writer alone will live ; the future will admit that he has fathomed all the subtleties of language, and that in spite of the crowd of to-day's musicians and the clash of the brass, the sweet notes of his oboe swell out, rising above everything else. Posterity will class him among the illustrious failures, among those who, in a time of change and awakening, chose the part of sweet leisure and flowery dreams." III. BY a species of irony it almost always happens that the newly elected academician is obliged to pro- nounce a eulogy on a dead member whose style and temperament are directly opposite to his. This is just what has happened, and you can easily understand how strange it seems to hear M. Renan scattering his flowery phrases over the life and work of Claude Ber- nard, the savant, who had put his life and the whole force of his powerful intellect into the experimental method. The spectacle is one curious enough to startle you. I wish to place the haughty and stern form of Claude Bernard face to face with Victor Hugo and M. Renan. It will be science facing rhetoric, naturalism facing idealism. The pleasant side to this task lies in this fact, that I shall not myself have to interfere at all. M. Renan himself will furnish me with all the comparisons I need in his discourse at the reception. I find there a number of decisive arguments in favor of naturalism. It will be sufficient to quote some passages and add a few lines of comment. In the first place, I will make a brief rdsum^ oi the life of Claude Bernard. " He was born in the little village of Saint Julien, near Villefranche, in a tiny house surrounded by vineyards, which was always the dearest spot on earth to him." He lost his father when very young, was brought up by his mother, and 8o TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. received his first lessons from the village priest ; later he went to the college of Villefranche ; afterward he started out in life as an apothecary's clerk. Even then he dreamed of attaining literary glory. " He tried everything,: obtained a moderate success in a theater at Lyons with a little comedy, the title of which he would never divulge ; afterward he started for Paris, with a tragedy in five acts in his valise, and a letter." This letter was addressed to Marc Girardin, who persuaded him to abandon literature. From that moment Claude Bernard set out to find his vocation. He met Magendie, whose favorite pupil he became. His struggles were long and terrible. His marvelous works are well known ; his great discoveries which did so much for physiology. Now I will let M. Renan speak of him : " Recompenses came slowly to this great career, which, one might truly say, could afford to pass them by, because it was itself its own recom- pense. Your companion had a hard road to travel in the commencement of his life as a savant ; and his reward came to him late. The Academy of Sciences, The Sorbonne, The College of France, The Museum, desired the fame of possessing him. Your assembly added the final crown to these honors by conferring on him the highest title to which a man devoted to intellectual work can aspire. A personal wish of the Emperor Napoleon III. called him to the senate." Here I will stop. This little bit of biography is sufficient to establish a parallel between Claude Ber- nard and M. Renan. Notice the similarity of their start in life ; both were educated by a priest, only the first grew to manhood on a sunny hillside, while the other was steeped from his childhood in the ocean's TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. 8l mist. At once the differences in temperament showed themselves. M. Renan, by nature poetical and re- ligious, dreamed of being a priest, and later, notwith- standing his great erudition, notwithstanding his skepticism, could not rid himself of the cloudiest spiritualism ; Claude Bernard, with his exact mind, went straight to experimental science, and had but one end, to track the truth from unknown to unknown. What I find most characteristic in him are his first hterary attempts. His tragedy is miserable, its style is distressing. You feel he is entangled in a kind of literature where his observation, his analysis, his logic, are of no use to him. He makes a mess of classical literature, as he had made a mess of romantic literature, and after that his only refuge is in science. M. Renan says himself : " The period was more favora- ble to a literature of a commonplace character than to deep researches which are not adapted to pretty phrases." These lines amuse me; they remind you that M. Renan has succeeded in writing pretty phrases upon researches hardly susceptible of poetical treat- ment. But you see plainly the reasons which threw Claude Bernard into science. But let us take up at once this question of style. M. Renan touches on this point in several places, and in excellent words. For instance: " The true method of investigation, presupposing a firm and sound judgment, carries with it solid qualities of style. The memoirs of Letronne and Eugene Burnouf, apparently without any kind of form, is z. chef-d'ceuvre in its way. The rule of good scientific style is clearness, perfect adap- tation to the subject, a complete forgetfulness of self, in fact, absolute abnegation. It is also the rule for 82 TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. writing well on any subject. The best writer is the one who treats a great subject and forgets himself in thinking of his subject." Then again: "A writer of course he was, and an excellent writer, because he never thought of being one. He had the first quali- ties of a writer, which is not to think about the writing itself. His style, it was his own thoughts ; and as these thoughts were always great and strong, his style, in consequence, was also great and strong. His mode of expression was excellent for a scientific man, because based upon the fundamental principles of a style true, temperate, appropriate to what it wished to explain, or rather upon logic, the only eternal basis of good style." And then again, further on : " We must look up to our masters of the Port-Royal to find a like sobriety, an absence of all desire to shine, a disdain for the arts of an unworthy literature which seeks to relieve the austerity of the subject by insipid adornment." I could never have brought myself to the point of condemning romantic rhetoric in such severe terms. M. Renan, carried away by the truth, forgets the " insipid adornment " with which he has relieved the " austerity " of " The Life of Jesus." How far away are the tirades of " Ruy Bias " from logic, " the only eternal basis of good style." The latter is the weapon of truth, the weapon of the century. Lyricism, with its pile of great words, its resounding epithets, is only an outburst of madness, only the insanity of ecstatic souls who kneel before the ideal, trembling lest the last little mysterious closet in which they enshrine their dreams be torn from them. Now I come to the pith of the quarrel, to the war waged by science against the ideal, against the unknown- TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. 83 This was Claude Bernard's grand r61e. He started at the beginning, taking nature at its fountain head, solv- ing problems by experiment, taking his stand on facts, and at each step forcing the unknown to recoil before him. Listen to what M. Renan says : " The highest philosophy was the result of this gathering together of facts set forth with an inflexible rigor. Bernard recog- nizes what we call ' determinism' as the supreme law of the universe ; that is to say, the inflexible connection of phenomena which prevents any supernatural agent from interfering to modify the result. There are not, as it has often been stated, two orders of science : these absolutely precise, and those fearful of derangement by mysterious forces. That great mystery of physiology which Bichat admits still, that capricious power which some people pretend can offer a resistance to matter and makes life a sort of miracle, Bernard rejects entirely. 'The obscure idea of cause,' he says, ' should be relegated to the origin of things ; it should give place in science to the idea of the connection of conditions.' " And then, further on, M. Renan adds : " Claude Bernard did not pretend to be ignorant of the fact that the problems which he stirred up touched upon the gravest philosophical questions. This did not move him. He did not think it was the role of the savant to worry himself over the consequences which fnight come out of his researches. He belonged to no sect. He was searching after the truth, and that was all." Here we have the very spirit of modern science. We have given up the problems in question ; actual science has ordered a revision of the pretended truths which the past laid down under the name of certain dogmas. We study nature and man, we classify data, 84 TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. we advance step by step, employing the experimental and analytical method ; but we take good care not to draw conclusions, because the inquiry still continues, and none can flatter themselves as yet to know the last word. We do not deny God ; we endeavor to mount up to him by making an analysis of the world. If he is at the head of it all we shall find it out, science will reveal it to us. For the moment we put him to one side, we do not want a supernatural element, a super- human axiom which will distract us in our observations. Those who begin by assuming an Absolute introduce into their observations of men and things a purely imaginative conception, a subjective dream, more or less attractive in its aesthetic charm, but utterly futile as far as truth and morality are concerned. At this point I leave the scientific and enter the literary field. The naturalistic formula in literature, such as I shall now define it, is identical with the natu- ralistic formula in the sciences, and particularly in physiology. It is the same inquiry lifted from physio- logical phenomena up to passionate and social facts; the spirit of the century gives an impulse to all intel- lectual manifestations, the novelist who studies man- ners completes the work of the physiologist who studies the organisms. I quote M. Renan again: "Though Claude Bernard speaks but little on social questions, his was too great a mind not to apply to them his gen- eral principles. This conquering character of science he admits even in the sciences of humanity." " The active r61e of the experimental sciences," he says, " does not stop at the physical, chemical, and physiological sciences, it extends to the active and moral sciences. We begin. to understand that it is not sufficient to TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF FRANCE. 85 remain an inert spectator of good and evil, enjoying the one and guarding one's self from the other. Modern morals aspire to a much grander role ; they search out the causes, endeavor to explain and act upon them, to master good and evil, to bring the former forth and develop it, to do battle with the latter and destroy it." These words are strong ; they contain all the high and severe morality of the contemporaneous noveHsts of the naturalistic school, which people are imbecile enough to accuse of obscenity and depravity. Enlarge the role of the experimental sciences, extend them to the study of the passions, the painting of manners, and you obtain romances which search out the causes, which explain them, which gather together human data in order to be the master of the surroundings and of man, so as to develop the good elements and exterminate the bad. We are doing a work identical with that of the savants. It is impossible to base any legislation whatsoever on the lies of the idealists. On the con- trary, from the true data, which the naturalists bring forth, a better society can some day be established, which will live by logic and method. From the moment that we are truthful, we become moral. This is the picture which M. Renan draws of the labors of the savant : " He passes his life in an obscure laboratory in the College de France ; and there, in the midst of the most repulsive sights, breathing the atmosphere of the dead, his hands steeped in blood, he discovers the inmost secrets of life ; and the truths which come out f