--Gentlemen, my modesty overcame me. Excuse me, it is the first
time I speak in public. But now it is my sincerity which overcomes
me. Gentlemen, I have been more interested in men than I have ever
admitted. Gentlemen, I have done a great deal for men. Gentlemen, I
have passionately, wildly, and deplorably loved men--and I have done so
much for them--one can almost say that I have made them; for before,
what were they? They existed, but had no consciousness of existence;
I made this consciousness like a fire to enlighten them, gentlemen; I
made it with all the love I bore them.--The first consciousness they
had was that of their beauty. It is this which caused the propagation
of the race. Men were prolonged in their posterity. The beauty of
the first was repeated, equally, indifferently, uneventfully. It
could have lasted a long time.--Then I grew anxious, for I carried
in me already, without knowing it, my eagle’s egg and I wanted more
or better. This propagation, this piecemeal prolongation, seemed to
me to indicate in them an expectancy--when in reality only my eagle
was waiting. I did not know; that expectancy I thought was in man;
that expectancy I put in man. Besides, having made man in my image,
I now understood that in every man there was something hatching; in
each one was the eagle’s egg.... And then, I do not know; I cannot
explain this.--All that I know is that, not satisfied with giving them
consciousness of existence, I also wished to give them a reason for
existence. So I gave them Fire, flame and all the arts which a flame
nourishes. By warming their minds, I brought forth the devouring faith
in progress. And I was strangely happy when their health was consumed
in producing it. No more belief in good, but the morbid hope for
better. The belief in progress, gentlemen, that was their eagle. Our
eagle is our reason for existence, gentlemen.
Man’s happiness grew less and less--but that was nothing to me: the
eagle was born, gentlemen! I loved men no more, I loved what fed on
them. I had had enough of a humanity without history.... The history of
man is the history of their eagles, gentlemen.