Part 2

The number of persons who can understand Helvétius has greatly increased, and besides, it is not so difficult as he believed; all one needs is a little common sense. It is a good sign of our intellectual health that Helvétius is coming back into fashion. Tomorrow it will be d'Holbach, d'Alembert, Tracy, the master of Stendhal,--all those eighteenth-century philosophers who are so clear, so simple, so human. The absurd German metaphysics has annihilated them for sixty years, but it seems that the day of their revenge has come. The dry notion of abstract duty according to Kant has outlived its day. It is beginning to be understood that man's first duty is to be happy. Otherwise, what is the use of living?

THE PLAYER'S ILLUSION

The player at games of skill is always tempted to attribute to himself a capacity superior to his real power. Such is the theorem advanced in a curious study, half psychological and half algebraic, by an Algerian engineer, Monsieur V. Cornetz. The player's desire to win, the recollection of his past successes, his confidence in himself, necessarily cause him, at a given moment, to think himself stronger than he really is. So that, if he wins, he is not surprised; but if he loses, he will tell himself: "I could have done better; I didn't do my best, I didn't concentrate all my attention." For such an estimate of himself to be just, it would be necessary for the player to base the idea of his strength not only upon the average of his previous victories, but also of his defeats. Self-conceit, however, prevents unsuccessful contests from coming to his mind to counterbalance the remembrance of his winnings. It comes about, then, that the player constantly overrates himself, and in all good faith. Whatever be his character, he is never tempted to attribute to himself a value less than his real worth. The modesty of certain players is all upon the surface and the mistrust of themselves, which they proclaim, is transformed into excessive confidence as soon as the game has begun. A player is a man who always compares himself to other men. He judges himself, not as an individual independent of his surroundings, but under the pressure of a vanity that is ever egged on by the presence of rival vanities. The moment two such vanities clash, each of necessity seeks victory, and begins by attributing to itself, without the least regard for reality, the strength necessary for success. To accept the combat is in itself, is it not, to believe that one is the stronger?

Monsieur Cornetz deals particularly with the chess-player, but his observations, as he himself says in his preface, are applicable to all games that are not purely games of chance, and even to athletic contests, fencing matches, and one might add, military operations, even of the most serious nature. To wage battle is to play a game. This psychology of the player is also that of the general. How many battles have been lost because the general overestimated himself. How many governments even have fallen because they were abandoned to the illusions of their self-conceit! Does not Napoleon III gayly setting out for the frontier provide the spectacle par excellence of the player who overrates himself? There is no such thing as a disinterested contest; the dullest game of cards excites in the opponents a certain desire to win. The very persons who boasted of their entire detachment are often the most eager to win once the game has started; they enter into it excitedly and when worsted keep watching for a favorable opening. Those players who believe that they play the game for the sole interest of its combinations, its emotions, are then, admitting their good faith, the victims of an illusion: they judge themselves to be other than they are. This is a rather common attitude in life. We all of us believe ourselves more or less to be other than we really are; so much so that an ingenious philosopher, M. Jules de Gaultier, has created a special term by which to denominate this universal penchant. He calls it _Bovarysm_, referring to the heroine of Flaubert's novel, who thought herself a _grande amoureuse_ when she was really nothing but a poor little sick woman. The player who pretends that he plays without any interest in victory is afflicted with _Bovarysm_. But perhaps he is also intent upon shielding his self-conceit in case of failure. Beaten, he will vow that he had as good a time as if he had won. This is a manner of self-consolation that does not lack a certain elegance. The fox who found the grapes too sour has furnished us with a charming example of this disdainful attitude. M. Cornetz has seen, in Algiers, on an old Arabian chess-board, this motto: "The loser always has his excuse." The basis of these excuses is this: "I should have played otherwise. If I had used such and such a pawn, or queen, or card, I would doubtless have won." Who has not been present at those post mortems where the players forget only this, that they know, at the moment of discussion, things that they did not know while the game was in full swing? The truth is that at a given moment, when one is seriously playing the game, one is playing as well as he can, no more and no less. The loser has an excuse; very well. But it is precisely because he is the loser. The winner needs none. To be winner is a fact; to be loser is another. There is in facts a logic, and the reason of the strongest is always the best. To believe, when one has been beaten, that one might not have been, is by that very fact to suppose that one might, at that moment, have been another person, which is absurd. But perhaps this illusion is due to inevitable causes. The chief point is, as I have already said, that at the moment when we have been beaten we recall, not our former defeats, but rather our former victories, and the victories only. We attribute to ourselves a general capability, a capability that is a matter of principle, and which may not be shaken by an accidental momentary inferiority. It never occurs to us, "our vanity prevents it," that our real worth is probably but a fairly equitable composite of equally accidental inferiorities and superiorities. The balance will always incline toward the side of our self-conceit.

It should be recognized that, if this illusion of our self-conceit has its great inconveniences, if it vitiates our critical judgment, not only of ourselves but of others, if it betrays us into false estimates, it possesses, on the other hand, great advantages. "The illusion that accompanies man in the course of his life," says M. Cometz, "is a necessary condition of existence, a precious product of the vital instinct." The man who overestimates himself is also he who is capable of surpassing himself. It is necessary, in this great game of life, to have confidence in oneself. If one estimated oneself only at his proper value, one would not estimate himself sufficiently. If we did not grant to ourselves a power superior to our real power, we would never dare to undertake the impossible; now it is perhaps only the impossible that is worthy of being undertaken. From the purely practical point of view, if the end to be attained were not embellished by illusion, would we ever set about the task? It is well for a man, after a game of chess, to be able to say in all simplicity: "I could have played otherwise." That is not true, of course, but it may create in the future a great truth. Error is a great generator of truths. The truth of today has its root in the error of yesterday. Illusions have often created real powers. "You could do better," says the teacher to his pupil. He thus implants in the child's mind a belief, an idea which will at once engender a hope, and in the future, a force. Then let us not scoff too gayly at the player who has such firm confidence in himself. Doubtless this selfsame confidence will lead him to accept unequal battles in which he will be worsted; but it will happen also that he will emerge victor from struggles into which he would not have dared to venture had not beneficent illusion considerably magnified in his eyes his real capacity. And finally, it happens in many cases that the real worth of a person coincides with the estimate placed upon him by his self-conceit. One need not trust to it too much; it's only a matter of a game. On the other hand one need not on that account fear to repeat the old proverb: "Nothing venture, nothing have." All languages of the world have similar proverbs. This helps to show that all peoples have recognized that certain efforts are impossible without certain illusions, and that, of all principles of action, the most powerful and the most fruitful is still self-confidence.

THE BEYOND

Much is being said of the beyond in these days, perhaps because people no longer believe in it. Then there is Eusapia Palladino, whose performances, it seems, favor mysterious beliefs. Tables dance and tilt, violins play by themselves, and this puts perspicacious folk on the road to the beyond. Huysmans was converted in just this way. It is far easier to confuse the human reason than the laws of gravity.

Nevertheless, what is the beyond? I believe only in that country which I can locate. Where do you place it? The spirits locate it about us. Do you wish to speak with Mme. de Montespan? Here she is. With Napoleon? He hastens to respond. Would you consult Saint Anthony in regard to some lost object? Nothing more easy. The inhabitants of die beyond are at our disposal. They come as soon as they are bidden and reply most gently. And in order to prove that the two realms bear a strong resemblance to each other, they are even glad to talk plenty of nonsense: their intelligence never rises above the level of those who summon them.

This benevolent and familiar beyond does not, however, win universal approval. The immense majority of believers need a truly mysterious beyond, one that shall be inaccessible and unfathomable. Where is this beyond? Yonder, yonder, very far away.--But just where?--Far, far off, I tell you; farther than you could ever calculate.--And how are you assured of its reality?--By reason itself. It is impossible that man should die totally. This is proved by his very desire for immortality.

The early Christians were not in the least embarrassed in the matter of placing heaven. They beheld it on high, beyond the clouds, in a brilliant, serene region. Christ, by his ascension, had shown them the way. The expression has gone into the language: to rise to heaven. It no longer means anything since it has become known that the earth rotates on its own axis and that, consequently, there is for us in space neither above nor below. In order to rise to heaven at midnight one would have to take the same direction by which, at noon, he would descend. Heaven, then, cannot be situated on high. As to hell, which was formerly placed in the interior of the earth, let us not speak. The theologians of today make many reservations as to hell; they have learned that the prospect of cooking eternally in a huge caldron is not of a nature to excite much religious enthusiasm in the crowds. The beyond to which we are invited is a benign place. It is not quite the paradise of Mahomet; it is that of Fénélon,--a perfumed landscape where the streams are of milk, the pebbles of candy, the soil of chocolate. It still remains to locate this celestial confectionery in space.

Some have thought of the planets. But suppose they are really inhabited, as M. Flammarion hopes, and as is moreover fairly probable? Then let us seek farther, farther still. Let us question the uttermost stars,--those which our naked eye cannot see,--even those that the telescopes will never discover.

Their answer is known. They reply that they are worlds, suns, surrounded by earths, some living like ours, others dead like the moon. Analogy permits us to believe that what we do not see resembles greatly what we do see. If we were transported to the regions where simple folk place the beyond, we would turn back to our own earth and say, doubtless: The beyond is situated yonder.

There is no reasonably conceivable beyond. The entire universe is built upon the same plan and its component parts are limited by nothing. An immensity in which grains of sand whirl about at the mercy of the wind of infinity.

Beyond--Beyond what? One must know what he is talking about. We are creatures habituated to precision. When a man of the fourteenth-century thought of future life, his notion was very simple, but fairly clear. He beheld the blessed ranged upon the steps of a vast stage. In the background was an organ, played by an angel, and the music was so sweet that the whole audience was spell-bound: and this was to continue for all eternity! Today we would with difficulty accept such a paradise fashioned in the manner familiar to the devotees of large concerts. A little variety would be welcome. The taste for extended travel, for example, has gradually influenced the notion that certain persons form of the blessed life. Whereupon it becomes a paradise for Cook's tourists. Excursions are made to the rings of Saturn, just as, in their earthly life, they journeyed to the White Nile or to Japan. Somewhat farther than the first, but of the same genre.

The most ardent travelers rise, in their imaginations, from sun to sun, thrilled with the idea of a never-ending exploration filled with ever-renewed wonders.

These perpetual vacations seem a bit boresome to me. What will be proposed to me next? Here are the modern religions and philosophies, the Christians and the spiritualists, who offer me the contemplation of God. Very well. But God is no more admirable in the rings of Saturn or in Sirius than in the wings of a butterfly or in the eyes of a woman. What next? Wait. You speak of a woman,--doubtless of her whom you love? Here is the paradise of Mahomet, with its white, buxom houris, their hands ever perfumed, their caresses ever new.

Yes, that is more tempting. It is human, at least. But do the women, too, find lovers to their taste there? This paradise bears too much resemblance to a conquered town, where the victors disport themselves with the women captives. And it resembles altogether too much something less honest. At the end of an hour I should feel like leaving.

Well, suppose we remain upon earth, after all? Suppose we bravely accept the death of our dreams at the same time as the death of our bodies? This beyond is decidedly uncertain, quite vague and mobile. I do not believe that it exists everywhere; I believe that it is nowhere except in our infantile imaginations. Born with us, it will end at the same moment that we do, to be born anew in our posterity.

The beyond is the earthly tomorrow, as we bequeath it to our heirs and as they modify it by their efforts and in accordance with their tastes.

THE QUESTION OF FREE WILL

Those physicians were wise who, at a recent congress, voted to refuse making any statement upon the problems of responsibility propounded to them by the courts. What does responsibility mean? Where does it begin? What are its boundaries? One finds himself here not in the presence of a question of simple legal medicine; to speak of responsibility is to speak of free will, and to speak of free will is to be plunged into the fundamental mysteries of human philosophy. These mysteries, to tell the truth, are mysteries only because it is to man's interest that things should be so. We are accustomed to consider human acts as free acts, voluntarily consented to; the adoption of a contrary view would so interfere with our habits that social life would become exceedingly difficult. Our teachers or experience have taught us that our body is capable of two kinds of movement,--the one involuntary and necessary, such as respiration, or the circulation of the blood, and the other voluntary, accomplished at will,--the movement of our limbs, our tongue, our lips. But a closer examination would soon show us that this division is very arbitrary. It is impossible for us to make our heart stop beating; but is it really possible to stop our finger from moving, and if it is, for how long? We can cease eating: but for how long? We can even stop breathing; for how long? In reality, the freedom of our bodily movements, if it exists, is a limited freedom, a freedom exercised within a very narrow circle,--the freedom of a prisoner who can pace back and forth in his cell. Similarly, the exercise of our external activity is subjected to rather strict conditions: we can speak, walk, work in a thousand different ways, but during a certain time only. At the end of this time we feel that our freedom is exhausted we are at the end of our chain. There is nothing more to do: we must obey. In whatever direction we may turn we behold looming forth the obstacle that will certainly bar our way. Sometimes there is annexed to the prison a little courtyard where we may walk about a little, but this courtyard is itself only a prison: the boundary has been set back a few paces, that is all.

If we now pass to the examination of the most delicate organs of our body,--the brain and the nervous system,--we see that the motions executed within these organs are likewise limited in their evolutions. I employ these simple terms expressly, that I may be better understood. We perceive these motions in the form of sensations or thoughts. Are we free to be hot or cold, to be hungry or thirsty? Are we independent of the ideas that come to us, the images that are formed in our mind, that is to say, our brain? No, most assuredly. At least, then, we are free to receive them or reject them, to show them the door or smilingly invite them in? Here we reach the crux of the question, for it is at this point that the will intervenes. What, indeed, is the will? The will is nothing more than the realization, effected by our mind, that of two motives one is more powerful than the other. The will is perhaps the least voluntary and the least free element in our make-up. Before it declares itself, we are often in a state that gives us the illusion of liberty. We are still in ignorance as to whether we shall go to right or to left. These moments of vacillation are sometimes agreeable and sometimes disagreeable. Most often they pass unperceived, and we find ourselves started on one of the two paths, totally unawares. Our will has acted mechanically. Our mind has worked like an automatic scale.

Whatever we do, there is a cause, and this cause itself depends upon another, and so on to infinity. If I am at this moment smoking a cigar, it is because Christopher Columbus discovered America. The search for causes leads to authentications of this order. But our acts have only a single direct cause. Several influences have combined and weighed upon the lever. Often, when we reflect upon the motives for our acts, we imagine that we have found them, yet the most important motive has escaped us. To enter into examples of this would be to enter the absurd; Pascal has given one which has become famous,--his epigram about Cleopatra's nose. It is saying little to aver that effects and causes are united like the links of a chain. I see effects and causes rather in the guise of an extremely complicated fabric, of which every thread depends upon the others. But such a representation may not be made materially. Let it suffice for us to understand and to admit that none of our actions is the beginning of a series. There is only a single series, which does not seem to have had a beginning and whose end it is impossible to foresee.

Notwithstanding, we have the sentiment of liberty, and consequently, of responsibility. These are very curious illusions and very mysterious, but illusions none the less. Among those of which our life is composed, they are perhaps the most useful; they are even more,--they are necessary. We are not free, yet we cannot act except by believing ourselves free. If for a moment we actually ceased to believe in free will, we should at once cease to act altogether. In his book on _Duplicisme Humain_, M. Camille Sabatier has written: "Liberty is as inexplicable as it is certain." It is, in my opinion, the illusion of liberty that is as inexplicable as it is certain, and, I add, necessary. Where I agree fully with him is when he asserts that the matter presents "a mystery of our nature." He has attempted a most ingenious explanation, but which, I believe, leaves still standing the determinist objections, of which I have summarized several of the features. It is the eternal opposition of feeling and, not reason but reasoning. But it matters little whether they teach and adopt one or the other theory; that could have no influence upon the conduct of men or upon their judgments. Nor would it have any influence upon our manner of looking upon crime and the various infractions of the law and moral conventions. If men are free and consequently responsible, there need be no change in our judicial institutions. If men are not free, if they are irresponsible, there need still be no change, for a crime is a crime just the same,--always an anti-social act against the repetition of which it is necessary to protect ourselves. It even seems that the determinists, to whom I belong, would be inclined rather to a very severe repression. A philosophic doctrine is not necessarily a social doctrine. A determinist, doubtless, could not admit the idea of punishment, but he will readily admit that of repression. And it all comes to the same thing. We must live. Societies have no choice. But it is easy to understand why the physicians, who are almost all determinists, should have resolved not to take a stand upon questions of responsibility. That is not within the province of medicine, which should limit itself to declaring whether the subject is healthy or ill, and to caring for him if he is entrusted into its hands.

One may, moreover, in agreement with Dr. Grasset, and also with the facts and common sense, admit that there are mentally sick persons, and that these persons vary as to the degree to which they are affected, that is to say, they are more or less conscious, more or less able to resist their impulses. The hypothesis of determinism cannot make us forget all the visible shades of difference between the normal individual and the typical madman. The normal man receives varied impressions, external and internal; some impel him to action, others hold him back: he establishes an equilibrium. Normal life is nothing but that,--a state of equilibrium, a static condition. The man who is termed abnormal is, on the contrary, more or less constantly out of balance. He is impelled by one force that is not counterbalanced by another: he falls. When the wind blows always from the same direction upon a row of pines, it bends them all in the same direction. If the wind, though violent, blows alternately from opposite directions, the trees remain erect. These rows of pines will provide us, not with the image, but with the schema of the normal and the abnormal man. Neither one nor the other,--and the man as little as the tree,--is responsible either for the origin, or the power, or the direction of the wind which bends them and straightens them in turn or, on the contrary, breaks them forever as if they were mere reeds; there remains however, the fact, that while the one kept itself erect in a healthy posture, despite occasionally rude shocks, the other, subjected to a constant pressure, bent over from day to day with its head nearer to the ground, or even, as the result of a more than usually violent tempest, broke altogether.