Who shall live, shall see
TO THE PAST 1
“Do you know what a hoax is?”
“No, I don’t know what a hoax is.”
“A hoax, sir, is something farcically serious
and seriously farcical.”
“I am indebted to you, sir.”
“It’s no trouble.”
Dialogue between an Englishman and a Frenchman
It is you, respectable past, which have provided all the elements of this book, for, when you had the advantage of being the present, you were pregnant with the future (as Leibniz aptly put it). In dedicating this work to you, I am only making restitution of that which belongs to you (to make use of a phrase which is no less apt).
I am not, you see, one of those inconsiderate people who, incessantly turning their gaze towards the Eden or Eldorado of future centuries, heap blame and insults upon you, as if it were your fault that you were not better than you were, you poor immolated victim of the law of progress, of whom ill-fated generations have painfully made use as a stepping-stone for the elevation and improvement of those which followed them.
It is true that, in olden times, people made the mistake of lauding you as the apogee of perfection, but today even the old are beginning to give up singing the eulogy of the past,2 as in the time of Horace, and may well tend excessively to the contrary in not giving due credit to your merits.
I am, therefore, careful not to be scornful of you because you marched modestly on foot with a walking-stick, or mounted on horses, camels or donkeys, or in galleys, vessels powered by oars or dependent on the wind, or even in carriages, cabs, and even, if you wished, in mail-coaches. Today, when we devour distance, when science and wealth are distributed more equally and to an even greater number of individuals, there are still a great many highly intelligent thinkers who doubt, even so, that we are really better and happier than you.
Personally, I gladly admit, at least, that you had grandeurs, whose seed is lost or no longer germinates nowadays, and glories, whose aureole has vanished: wellsprings of poetic emotion and religious enthusiasm that seem to have run dry; pictures of patriarchal simplicity or royal splendors that can no longer be reproduced! Should we call forth a Jeremiah to weep on the banks of that great river that carries with it into the abyss everything that is finished on the Earth?—or even a St. John the Evangelist to break the seals, empty the cups and sound the trumpets that herald the end of everything that has begun? Or should we, rather, raise towards the future, not a prideful gaze of confidence in human power, but a gaze of pious hopefulness in divine Providence?
For the moment, it is not appropriate for me to examine that great and serious question, so I shall come back to my dedication.
I admit, noble past, that the homage I am offering you here is good for absolutely nothing, but I can also boast of giving firm proof of my independence, by placing my work under the auspices of a fallen power like you (as is often done in other dedications). Nevertheless, I hope that the future will give me some credit for this politeness, which is due in every respect, to whatever extent—which I strongly doubt—it might have knowledge of this book and its author.