Exalted spirits, struck by our many resemblances to the beasts, have
striven to find what was the distinguishing mark of man. It is a noble
solicitude, for wheresoever the mark of men may be it is that way we
must go. If we really possess a characteristic virtue of which the
animals are deprived, it is that which we must exalt, in order to be
completely, proudly, men.
Pascal said: “Man is obviously made to think; and his whole dignity,
his whole merit, and his whole duty lies in thinking rightly.”
Can we indeed believe that no other being has this grandeur to any
degree? Are we so sure that “a tree does not know it is miserable”?
Even art, which may turn out to be the instrument of our redemption,
is not certainly the lot of our race alone. Song and the dance triumph
among the animals and often appear like the beautiful inventions of a
gratuitous activity, with no other end than themselves and the emotions
they give or interpret.
In renunciation, perhaps, lies our distinction, the trait which stamps
us and sets us apart.
I say “perhaps,” because animals also offer us examples of abnegation.
Sacrifice beautifies even their habits. With them, too, the individual
sacrifices himself for the group, the hero sacrifices itself for the
race. At the moment when I am writing these lines we are in autumn; a
swarm of bees is dying of cold on a branch beside me. They are dying
with a sort of resignation, in order that their hive, so poor in
resources, may survive the winter.
Why not share, then, with these humble victims, our most beautiful
quality? Why refuse to possess something in common with them, since it
is a virtue? Why cut ourselves off haughtily from the rest of life?
Over and above this, the renunciation that has no particular or general
motive of interest, the pure and absolute renunciation which is a
heroic folly, is undoubtedly our business. I am not speaking now of the
renunciation of the better religions, the renunciation that counts on
celestial rewards, but of the renunciation which is an end in itself,
which finds in itself its own sorrowful recompense.