Mon voyage dépeint
Vous sera d'un plaisir extrême.
Je dirai: J'étais là; telle chose m'advint:
Vous y croirez être vous-même.
(The tale of my travels will be extremely pleasant
to you, I'll say: "I was there; such and such things
happened to me." You'll imagine that you're there
yourself.)
"Alas!" the loving dove would have replied, if he had taken courses
under M. Claparède, professor of psychology at the University of
Geneva. "Alas! What faith may I have in your testimony? You will tell
me what will take place in your head and I'll not have the consolation,
as a reward for your absence, of knowing your real adventures!" But
this was not what La Fontaine had in mind. In his day they believed in
the value of testimony offered in good faith. An eye-witness inspired
full confidence. People bowed with mute deference before the honest
man who said: "I was there; such and such things happened to me."
And the custom continues. Nevertheless, in certain places, they are
beginning to show a little less confidence. They have been observing
and reflecting and have arrived at the conclusion that the majority of
men report far less what they have seen than what they believed they
saw. They repeat much less what they heard than what they believed they
heard. A dozen persons having witnessed an accident will present a
dozen different accounts, or, at least, accounts that do not harmonize
exactly. Still better, among the dozen there will be one, perhaps, who
will have seen nothing, and another who will have seen the contrary to
what his companions saw.
I have made many observations in regard to this subject. One of these
observations is that, if by accident I have had direct and exact
knowledge of an event reported by a newspaper, the newspaper report
will very often be in contradiction to the facts personally known to
me. Another observation is, that every time I have read the description
of a place that is familiar to me, the description, in almost every
case, has seemed to me inexact, incomplete,--in short, false. Huysmans
was a meticulous observer; more than any one else he possessed the
gift of seeing things well; his sharp eye pierced and bored into men
and things. More, he had a passion for exactness, and he would scour
all Paris to verify the color of a door or the height of a house. He
would have considered it a sort of literary crime to describe anything
he had not seen with his own eyes. Well! This man with the miraculous
eye said to me one day, speaking of the Bièvre, a little stream which
at that time still flowed in the open, between the fortifications and
the Botanical Garden: "There is where you may see the last poplars of
Paris." This old Parisian, who loved the banks of the Seine, had never
beheld its poplars, some of which are truly wonderful, as at the Pont
Royal,--the poplars which grow almost along its entire distance. A
year ago, a group of us, all serious-minded gentlemen of Paris and of
the quartier, were discussing the number of arches that comprise the
bridge of Saints-Pères. One may walk every day across a bridge without
knowing the number of its arches, but one of us who confessed that he
had looked at this bridge from the barge or from the quay perhaps a
thousand times in his life, was unable to settle the matter for us. I
knew a librarian who was exceedingly fond of the Memoirs of Casanova
and who mangled his name, calling him always, and emphatically,
Casanova de Seignalt instead of Seingalt, which is the right form. I
have been conducting regularly, in the same review, for some twelve
years, a chronicle under the title _Epilogues_; one of my friends, a
fellow staff-member of the same review, has said or written to me at
least ten times: "I have read your latest _Episodes_...."
This reminds me of the English historian Froude, with whom Dr. Gustave
Le Bon recently entertained us, dealing with this very question of
testimony. Froude possessed a genius for seeing things exactly opposite
to what they really were. A curious example of this is given; it
concerns the description he gives of the town of Adelaide, Australia.
"I saw at our feet," he said, "in the plain cut by a stream, a city of
one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, of which not one has ever
known or ever will know, the least uncertainty upon the matter of the
regular return of his three meals per day." Now, Adelaide is built upon
a height, and, at the time Froude visited it, its population, half as
numerous as he said it was, was a prey to a terrible famine. And this
is the testimony of a grave personage, with a European reputation,--one
of the English historians most esteemed by those who have not read him.
"If Froude had lived several centuries earlier," adds M. Le Bon, "all
his affirmations would have been held as precious documents, since
they came from an eye-witness whose good faith there was no reason for
suspecting. How many very serious histories are written with details as
little trustworthy as this!"
Jules Simon was astounded "that so many honest persons contradict each
other when giving accounts of events that they have witnessed. At every
step I encounter this frightful spectacle. Man is least sure of his
own spirit. He is not sure of his eyes: the fact is that his eyes and
his memory are in strife with his imagination. He believes that he is
seeing; he believes that he is remembering, and he is really inventing."
This is what explains those ancient and modern, and even contemporary
tales of miracles, apparitions and wonderful happenings that are often
attested by a large number of witnesses. The number of witnesses
signifies nothing, nor does their honesty or their good faith. On the
contrary, good faith, in the matter of testimony, is an element to
be on guard against. It is far better to deal with bad faith, which
betrays itself always by some blunder. Saint Paul attests that Christ
resurrected was beheld by more than five hundred persons; well, it is
a matter of doubt now as to whether there ever existed a person named
Jesus and surnamed the Christ. Thousands upon thousands of persons in
the Middle Ages, and even later, saw the Devil, and, adds M. Le Bon, if
unanimous testimony may be considered as proving anything, one might
say that the Devil is the personage whose existence has been best
demonstrated. Gregory of Tours, an historian of evident good faith, was
present during his life at hundreds of miracles, which he describes
most complaisantly. He saw them, controlled them: yet the majority of
them are pure extravagances, inadmissible in our day even by the most
obtuse of pietists. Contemporary history and Judicial reports prove
to us constantly the worthlessness of evidence. At the time of the
_Liban_ catastrophe, when the vessel went down in broad daylight as the
result of a collision, it was impossible to learn from the surviving
members of the crew whether the captain was or was not on the bridge at
the time of the accident. Some had seen him there, while others swore
that he was not on the bridge. In a certain criminal trial it becomes
necessary to identify a person who has been but glimpsed; they succeed
in identifying him, but only by influencing the witnesses, placing
them on the possible track or upon that which justice desires them to
follow. According to M. Claparède's experiments, a person of whom only
a glimpse has been got, if the witnesses are not influenced, is hardly
recognized by one person in four, and at that hesitantly.
Really good observers are very rare. Napoleon pretended to recall every
face he had looked upon once. This has become legendary, but it is not
quite so. He confused all the names. One day, he sees a certain face in
a deputation and thinks that he recognizes it. It was a scholar who was
well known in that day, named Ameilhon. The following dialogue takes
place: "Aren't you Ancillon?"--"Yes, sire, Ameilhon."--"Librarian of
Sainte-Geneviève?"--"Yes, sire, of the Arsenal."--"Continuator of the
History of the Ottoman Empire"--"Yes, sire, of the History of the Low
Empire." After which Ameilhon, enchanted with the honor, went off,
declaring everywhere most emphatically: "The emperor is amazing. He
knows everything." And we, in our turn, might say: men are amazing;
they imagine that it is enough to have witnessed an event to be sure of
that event! The matter is far more complicated. Certainty is difficult
to acquire.
Nothing is more difficult than that which is too easy. Nobody would
imagine that he could play the violin without having learned how; and
if he did, the least attempt would at once extinguish his pretense. But
to see? What more simple than that? All one has to do is open one's
eyes. "I saw it," is the reply of a witness whose story is contested;
"Do you take me for a fellow suffering from hallucination?" Precisely,
or else for a purblind person, as the case may be. As a matter of fact,
when it comes to seeing, men display two tendencies: they see what they
wish to see, what is useful to them, what is agreeable. The second is
the tendency toward inhibition; they do not see what they do not wish
to see, what is useless to them, or disagreeable.
The great rule by which almost everything may be explained, is the rule
of utility. Certain artisans were visiting the Universal Exposition.
They looked about, walked along, and had seen nothing. Farther on they
continued to look about, and this time they stopped; they had caught
sight of a machine that could be of use to them in their particular
work. We do not see that to which we are indifferent. The image glides
by, fades and dies out before having had time to become fixed, and we
make no effort to retain it.
I knew a colonial functionary who had travelled around the globe, and
who spent years in our various colonies in Africa, Asia and America.
Once in a while I am tempted to question him. But he is at a loss for
reply. Occupied only with his advancement and with his family affairs,
he really saw nothing. Of Singapore, the strange city whence a young
writer, M. Cassel, has brought us such dazzling, magic impressions,
this fine fellow said to me: "Pretty place; a few houses in the
European style." I have asked many a question in my life, but never
have I received so stupid an answer. But I understand that questions
are always indiscreet. To ask anybody what he has seen is to subject
him to torture. He sinks a fishing-line into his memory and brings up
nothing. Then he tries to invent, and the result is wretched. Hence,
for tourists, the great usefulness of the guide-books. Without these
books they would have seen nothing, and without them they would recall
nothing. "What did I see at Rome?" They open to the marked page. "Rome,
Rome?" said a hosier whom his wife had dragged off to Italy. "Ah! I
remember! That's the place where I purchased this miserable flannel
waistcoat."
In company of those who see nothing or almost nothing are those who
see crooked or inversely altogether,--those who allow themselves
to be guided far less by their eyes than by their sensibility, who
believe that a thing exists because it seems to them that they have
received such an impression. Whoever has a department under him, said
a telegraph inspector, has been able to prove how inexact the reports
he receives often are, and how necessary it is to verify the assertions
of agents as to events in which they have been actors or spectators.
The account of an event that has just taken place is founded upon the
impressions received rather than upon direct observation. At the end
of several days the imagination has come into play and it adds the
finishing touch to the crystallization of one's conviction. At this
moment, if there was an initial error, it has become ineradicable.
This explains all those disputes between the public and administrative
agents. Each one is actuated by good faith, but each has beheld the
event in a different light,--that of his own particular interest,--the
one intent upon upholding respect for law or rule, the other eager only
to violate it or circumvent it. If the case is taken to court, the
judge, whose authoritarian tendency is very marked, almost always finds
the agent of the law in the right. It is nevertheless quite certain
that the agent is not to be believed more than once out of two times on
the average. Even this proportion is perhaps highly exaggerated.
It so happens that according to special plans there is, at the
University of Geneva, a large window opening upon an interior corridor,
which is to the left as the students enter opposite the janitor's
lodge. One day, M. Claparède questioned fifty-four students as to
the existence of this window, which they passed by every day. Do you
know how many asserted categorically that the window did not exist?
Forty-four! Astounded, M. Claparède declares that such a collective
testimony is disconcerting and discouraging. And who would not agree
with him? Who does not think with horror, after this experiment, of
all those criminal trials where a verdict is rendered on the strength
of witnesses? testimony? M. Claparède comes to the conclusion that
a single witness may be right despite many opposing witnesses whose
stories agree. Unanimity itself should be severely controlled, and
he adds, quite in accord with my own notions upon the matter: "One
is led to ask whether it is not the rule to disregard those objects
about us which are without interest to us, and if it is not only by
accident, and exceptionally, that such objects leave an imprint upon
the sensitive plate of our memory?" Accident, of a surety, or else a
particularly sensitive plate. If indeed our eye functions mechanically
somewhat in the manner of a photograph lens, we are compelled, in order
not to clutter the storehouse of our memory, to make a choice of the
images which we classify therein. In this an instinct guides us, though
not always infallibly, and calls to our attention those images useful
to the conservation or the defense of our life.
Without education, without civilized habits, which constantly increase
the number of our requirements of every kind, we should, like animals,
have need to retain but a small number of images.
The life of animals moves in a rather restricted circle, and there is
not one of their acts that is not dictated by utility. Men, too, obey
the rule of utility, but their imagination magnifies this field of the
useful in a singular manner, and they find themselves obliged, for
the purpose of mere existence, to open their memory to a considerable
number of images to which animals are absolutely indifferent. We behold
on a table, in a single glance, the plates, the food, the flowers, the
glasses and all the rest; the dog sees only the food; the flowers that
give us pleasure, the general arrangement that charms us, leave him
utterly insensible to their attraction. There are also things to the
sight of which we are ourselves insensible: those which are neither
beautiful nor ugly, nor useful, nor harmful, neither good nor bad,--
everything that is not worth the trouble of being qualified, everything
that is neutral to our senses as to our imagination. If, then, we are
asked to give testimony regarding the existence of these objects,
regarding the reality of those things that cause us neither pain nor
pleasure, and which, therefore, we have neglected to retain in our
memory, we should be greatly embarrassed.
In general, when we are questioned we have a tendency to affirm that
which we believe probable and to deny the case that seems to us
improbable. Thus, in the case of the window, this window, opening upon
an interior corridor, seemed to the students who were questioned quite
improbable, since the thing was useless, even absurd.
In the second place, and this is very important, we hold in our minds
a series of types of fact to which invariably we relate the new events
that we happen to witness. If, for example, we are in principle assured
that every automobile accident is due to the drivers of these vehicles,
it is with difficulty that we admit, even if we have seen it with our
own eyes, that the accident was the fault of the victim. The case
will be just the contrary with the chauffeur: to him, the victim is
always in the wrong. But if, for us, the chauffeur is always wrong,
our attitude is equally unreasonable. In either case, the images
will be distorted and if we are questioned, we will reply with lies
uttered in all good faith: "This is so because it ought to be so." M.
Claparède even goes so far as to admit that the evidence of various
individuals may be erroneous, even if they all agree. I am of his
opinion, because it is quite normal that the same interest or the same
absence of interest unconsciously guides witnesses of diverse origin
and condition. All the ancient explorers of the Kerguelen Isles saw
there only sterile and uninhabitable lands. Yet in recent days a colony
composed of men from Havre and Norwegians has established itself there
and finds the country rough, but healthful and well suited not only to
fishing but also to pasturage.
It appears, from all this, that our eyes are uncertain. Two persons
look at the same clock and there is a difference of two or three
minutes in their reading of the time. One has a tendency to put back
the hands, the other to advance them. Let us not too confidently try
to play the part of the third person who wishes to set the first two
aright; it may well happen that we are mistaken in turn. Besides,
in our daily life, we have less need of certainty than of a certain
approximation to certainty. Let us learn how to see, but without
looking too closely at things and men: they look better from a
distance.