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abominable human life without revolting 1 Nature is unjust and cruel, Science seems to lead us to the monstrous law of tlie strongest — so that all morality crumbles away and every society makes for despotism. And in the reaction which results — in that lassitude from too much knowledge of which I have spoken — there comes a recoil from the truth which is as yet but j)Oorly explained, and seems cruel to our feeble eyes that are unable to penetrate into and to seize all its laws. No, no ! Lead us back to the peaceful slumber of igDurance ! Reality is a school of perversion which must be killed and denied, since it will lead to nothing but ugli- ness and crime. So one plunges into dreamland as the only salvation, the only way to escajto from the earth, to feel confidence in the hereafter and hof>e that there, at last, we shall find hajipiness and the satisfaction of our desire for fraternity and justice.
That is the despairing cry for happiness which we hear to-day. It toucln'3 me exceedingly. And notice that it rises from all sides like a cry of lamentation amid the- re-echoing of advancing Science, who checks not the march of her waggons and her engines. Enough of truth ; give us chimeras ! We shall find rest only in dreams of the Non- existent, only by losing ourselves in the Unknown. There only, bloom the mystic flowers whose perfume lulls our sutferings to sleep. Music has already resjionded to th»? call, literature strives to satisfy this new thirst, and painting follows the same way. I have s]»oken to you of the exhibition at the Charap-de-Mars ; there you may see the bloom of all this flora of our ancient windows — lank, emaciated virgins, apparitions in twilight tints, stiff figures with the rigid gestures of the Primitivists. It is a reaction against Naturalism, which we are told is dead and buried. In any case the movement is undeniable, for it manifests itself in all modes of expression, and one must pay great attention to the study and the explanation of it, if one does not wish to despair of to-morrow.
For my part, gentlemen, I, who am an old and hardened Positivist, see in it but an inevitaljle halt in the forward march. It is not really even a halt, for our libraries, our laboratories, our lecture-halls and our schools, are not deserted. What also reassures me is that the social soil has undergone no change ; it is still the democratic soil from which our century sprang. That a new art should flourish,
