I grant that all this is full of questionable hopes and that it would be
almost as reasonable to despair of the destinies of man. But, already,
it is much that the choice remains possible and that, hitherto, nothing
has been decided against us. Every hour that passes increases our
chances of holding out and conquering. It may be said, I know, that,
from the point of view of beauty, enjoyment and the harmonious
understanding of life, some nations--the Greeks and the Romans of the
commencement of the Empire, for instance--were superior to ourselves.
The fact none the less remains that the sum total of civilization
spread over our globe was never to be compared with that of to-day. An
extraordinary civilization, such as that of Athens, Rome or Alexandria,
formed but a luminous islet which was threatened on every side and which
ended by being swallowed up by the savage ocean that surrounded it.
Nowadays--apart from the Yellow Peril, which does not seem serious--it
is no longer possible for a barbarian invasion to make us lose in a few
days our essential conquests. The barbarians can no longer come from
without: they would issue from our fields and our cities, from the
shallow waters of our own life; they would be saturated with the
civilization which they would lay claim to destroy; and it is only by
making use of its conquests that they would succeed in depriving us of
its fruits. There would, therefore, at the worst, be but a halt,
followed by a redistribution of riches.
Since we have a choice of two interpretations, forming a background of
light or of shade for our existence, it would be unwise to hesitate.
Even in the most trivial circumstances ... of life, our ignorance very
often offers us only a choice of the same kind, and one which does not
impose itself more strongly. Optimism thus understood is in no way
devout or childish; it does not rejoice stupidly like a peasant leaving
the inn; but it strikes a balance between what has taken and what can
take place, between hopes and fears, and, if the last be not heavy
enough, it throws in the weight of life.
For the rest, this choice is not even necessary: it is enough that we
should feel conscious of the greatness of our expectation. For we are in
the magnificent state in which Michael Angelo painted the prophets and
the just men of the Old Testament, on that prodigious ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel: we are living in expectation and perhaps in the last
moments of expectation. Expectation, in fact, has degrees which begin
with a sort of vague resignation and which do not yet hope for the
thrill aroused by the nearest movements of the expected object. It seems
as though we heard those movements: the sound of superhuman footsteps,
an enormous door opening, a breath caressing us, or light coming; we do
not know; but expectation at this pitch is an ardent and marvellous
state of life, the fairest period of happiness, its youth, its
childhood....
I repeat, we never had so many good reasons for hope. Let us cherish
them. Our predecessors were sustained by slighter reasons when they did
the great things that have remained for us the best evidence of the
destinies of mankind. They had confidence when they found none but
unreasonable reasons for having it. To-day, when some of those reasons
really spring from reason, it would be wrong to show less courage than
did those who derived theirs from the very circumstances whence we
derive only our discouragements.
We no longer believe that this world is as the apple of the eye of one
God who is alive to our slightest thoughts; but we know that it is
subjected to forces quite as powerful, quite as alive to laws and duties
which it behoves us to penetrate. That is why our attitude in the face
of the mystery of these forces has changed. It is no longer one of fear,
but one of boldness. It no longer demands that the slave shall kneel
before the master or the creator, but permits a gaze as between equals,
for we bear within ourselves the equal of the deepest and greatest
mysteries.