In allowing the foregoing pages to be reprinted, I do not mean to imply
that they form a clear and complete summary of the beliefs which I hold
to-day concerning the rights of society over individuals. I do it simply
because I regard opinions freely put forth in the past as something
sacred, which we should neither retract nor cry down nor attempt to
interpret as our fancy directs. But to-day, having advanced on life's
highway and watched the horizon broaden around me, I deem it my duty to
tell the reader what I think of my book.
When I wrote _Indiana_, I was young; I acted in obedience to feelings of
great strength and sincerity which overflowed thereafter in a series of
novels, almost all of which were based on the same idea: the ill-defined
relations between the sexes, attributable to the constitution of our
society. These novels were all more or less inveighed against by the
critics, as making unwise assaults upon the institution of marriage.
_Indiana_, notwithstanding the narrowness of its scope and the ingenuous
uncertainty of its grasp, did not escape the indignation of several
self-styled serious minds, whom I was strongly disposed at that time to
believe upon their simple statement and to listen to with docility. But,
although my reasoning powers were developed hardly enough to write upon
so grave a subject, I was not so much of a child that I could not pass
judgment in my turn on the thoughts of those persons who passed judgment
on mine. However simple-minded a man accused of crime may be and however
shrewd the magistrate, the accused has enough common-sense to know
whether the magistrate's sentence is equitable or inequitable, wise or
absurd.
Certain journalists of our day who set themselves up as representatives
and guardians of public morals--I know not by virtue of what
mission they act, since I know not by what faith they are
commissioned--pronounced judgment pitilessly against my poor tale, and,
by representing it as an argument against social order, gave it an
importance and a sort of echo which it would not otherwise have
obtained. They thereby imposed a very serious and weighty rôle upon a
young author hardly initiated in the most elementary social ideas, whose
whole literary and philosophical baggage consisted of a little
imagination, courage and love of the truth. Sensitive to the reproofs
and almost grateful for the lessons which they were pleased to
administer, he examined the arguments which arraigned the moral
character of his thoughts before the bar of public opinion, and, by
virtue of that examination, which he conducted entirely without pride,
he gradually acquired convictions which were mere feelings at the outset
of his career and which to-day are fundamental principles.
During ten years of investigations, of scruples, and of irresolution,
often painful but always sincere, shunning the rôle of pedagogue which
some attributed to me to make me ridiculous, abhorring the imputation of
pride and spleen with which others pursued me to make me odious,
proceeding according to the measure of my artistic faculties, to seek
the synthesis of life by analyzing it, I related facts which have
sometimes been acknowledged to be plausible, and drew characters which
have often been described as having been studied with care. I restricted
myself to that, striving to establish my own conviction rather than to
shake other people's, and saying to myself that, if I were mistaken,
society would find no lack of loud voices to overturn my arguments and
to repair by judicious answers the evil that my imprudent questions
might have done. Numerous voices did, in fact, arise to put the public
on its guard against the dangerous writer, but, as for the judicious
answers, the public and the author are still awaiting them.
A long while after I wrote the preface to _Indiana_ under the influence
of a remnant of respect for constituted society, I was still seeking to
solve this insoluble problem: _the method of reconciling the welfare and
the dignity of individuals oppressed by that same society without
modifying society itself._ Leaning over the victims and mingling his
tears with theirs, making himself their interpreter with his readers,
but, like a prudent advocate, not striving overmuch to palliate the
wrong-doing of his clients, and addressing himself to the clemency of
the judges rather than to their austerity, the novelist is really the
advocate of the abstract beings who represent our passions and our
sufferings before the tribunal of superior force and the jury of public
opinion. It is a task which has a gravity of its own beneath its trivial
exterior, and a task which it is exceedingly difficult to confine to its
true path, pestered as you are at every step by those who accuse you of
being too serious in respect to form and by those who accuse you of
being too frivolous in respect to substance.
I do not flatter myself that I performed this task skilfully; but I am
sure that I attempted it in all seriousness, amid inward hesitations
wherein my conscience, sometimes dismayed by its ignorance of its
rights, sometimes inspired by a heart enamored of justice and truth,
marched forward to its goal, without swerving too far from the straight
road and without too many backward steps.
To enlighten the public as to this inward struggle by a series of
prefaces and discussions would have been a puerile method, wherein the
vanity of talking about one's self would have taken too much space to
suit me. I could but abstain from it as well as from touching too
hastily upon the points which were still obscure in my mind.
Conservators called me too bold, innovators too timid. I confess that I
had respect and sympathy for the past and the future alike, and in the
battle I found no peace of mind until the day when I fully realized that
the one should not be the violation and the annihilation of the other,
but its continuation and development.
After this novitiate of ten years, being initiated at last in broader
ideas which I derived not from myself but from the philosophical
progress which had taken place around me--and particularly from a few
vast intellects which I religiously questioned, and, generally speaking,
from the spectacle of the sufferings of my fellowmen,--I realized at
last that, although I may have done well to distrust myself and to
hesitate to put forth my views at the epoch of ignorance and
inexperience when I wrote _Indiana_, my present duty is to congratulate
myself on the bold utterances to which I allowed myself to be impelled
then and afterwards; bold utterances for which I have been reproached so
bitterly, and which would have been bolder still had I known how
legitimate and honest and sacred they were.
To-day therefore, having re-read the first novel of my youth with as
much severity and impartiality as if it were the work of another person,
on the eve of giving it a publicity which it has not yet derived from
the popular edition, having resolved beforehand not to retract--one
should never retract what was said or done in good faith--but to condemn
myself if I should discover that my former tendencies were mistaken or
dangerous, I find myself so entirely in accord with myself with respect
to the sentiment which dictated _Indiana_ and which would dictate it now
if I had that story to tell to-day for the first time, that I have not
chosen to change anything in it save a few ungrammatical sentences and
some inappropriate words. Doubtless many more of the same sort remain,
and the literary merits of my writings I submit without reserve to the
animadversions of the critics; I gladly accord to them all the
competence in that regard which I myself lack. That there is an
incontestable mass of talent in the daily press of the present day, I do
not deny and I delight to acknowledge it. But that there are many
philosophers and moralists in this array of polished writers, I do
positively deny, with due respect to those who have condemned me, and
who will condemn me again on the first opportunity, from their lofty
plane of morality and philosophy.
I repeat then, I wrote _Indiana_, and I was justified in writing it; I
yielded to an overpowering instinct of outcry and rebellion which God
had implanted in me, God who makes nothing that is not of some use, even
the most insignificant creatures, and who interposes in the most trivial
as well as in great causes. But what am I saying? is this cause that I
am defending so very trivial, pray? It is the cause of half of the human
race, nay, of the whole human race; for the unhappiness of woman
involves that of man, as that of the slave involves that of the master,
and I strove to demonstrate it in _Indiana._ Some persons said that I
was pleading the cause of an individual; as if, even assuming that I was
inspired by personal feeling, I was the only unhappy mortal in this
peaceful and radiant human race! So many cries of pain and sympathy
answered mine that I know now what to think concerning the supreme
felicity of my fellowman.
I do not think that I have ever written anything under the influence of
a selfish passion; I have never even thought of avoiding it. They who
have read me without prejudice understand that I wrote _Indiana_ with a
feeling, not deliberately reasoned out, to be sure, but a deep and
genuine feeling that the laws which still govern woman's existence in
wedlock, in the family and in society are unjust and barbarous. I had
not to write a treatise on jurisprudence but to fight against public
opinion; for it is that which postpones or advances social reforms. The
war will be long and bitter; but I am neither the first nor the last nor
the only champion of so noble a cause, and I will defend it so long as
the breath of life remains in my body.
This feeling which inspired me at the beginning I reasoned out and
developed as it was combated and reproved. Unjust and malevolent critics
taught me much more than I should have discovered in the calm of
impunity. For this reason therefore I offer thanks to the bungling
judges who enlightened me. The motives that inspired their judgments
cast a bright light upon my mind and enveloped my conscience in a sense
of profound security. A sincere mind turns everything to advantage, and
facts that would discourage vanity redouble the ardor of genuine
devotion.
Let no one look upon the reproof which, from the depths of a heart that
is to-day serious and tranquil, I have just addressed to the majority of
journalists of my time, as implying even a suggestion of protest against
the right of censorship with which public morality invests the French
press. That criticism often ill performs and ill comprehends its mission
in the society of the present day, is evident to all; but that the
mission is in itself providential and sacred, no one can deny unless he
be an atheist in the matter of progress, unless he be an enemy of the
truth, a blasphemer of the future and an unworthy child of France!
Liberty of thought, liberty to write and to speak, blessed conquest of
the human mind! what are the petty sufferings and the fleeting cares
engendered by thy errors or abuses compared to the infinite blessings
which thou hast in store for the world!