114 ESSAYS AND LETTERS
travelling, by making them believe that what they know is just what they need to know, and that what they are doing is just what thev ought to be doing — whereas Dumas^ letter shows them that they ignore what it is essential for them to know, and do not live as they ought to live.
The more fully men believe that humanity can be led, in spite of itself, by some external, self-acting, force (whether religion or science) to a beneficial change in its existence — and that they need only work in the established order of tilings — the more difficult will it be to accomplish any beneficial change, and it is in this respect chiefly that Zola's speech errs.
On the contrary, the more fully men believe that it depends on themselves to modify their mutual relations, and that they can do this when they like, by loving each otlier instead of tearing one another to pieces as they do at present — the more will a change become possible. The more fully men let themselves be in- fluenced by tliis suggestion, the more will they be drawn to realize Dumas' prediction, lliat is the great merit of his letter.
Dumas belongs to no party and to no religion : he has as little faith in the superstitions of the past as in those of to-day, and that is why he observes and thinks, and sees not only the present but also the future — as those did who in ancient times were called seers. It will seem strange to those who in reading a writer's works see only the contents of the book, and not the soul of the writer, that Dumas — the author of La Dame aux Cam^ias, and of VAffaire Clemenceau — that this same Dumas should see into the future and should prophesy. But, however strange it may seem, prophecy making itself heard — not in the desert or on the banks of the Jordan, from the mouth of a hermit clothed in skins of beasts — but published in a daily paper on the banks of the Seine, remains none the less prophecy. And the words of Dumas have all the characteristics of prophecy : First, like all prophecy, it runs quite counter to the general disposition of the people among
