Belief in progress is a doctrine of the slothful, a doctrine of the Belgians. It is the individual who relies on his neighbors to tend to his affairs. There can be no progress (true, that is, moral) save in the individual and by the individual himself. But the world is composed of folks who can think only in common, in bands. Thus the Belgian societies. There are also folks who can amuse themselves only in droves. The true hero finds his pleasure alone. Eternal superiority of the dandy. What is the dandy? XIII My opinions on the theatre. What I have always found most beautiful in the theatre, in my childhood, and still to-day, is _lustre_,--a beautiful object, luminous, crystalline; complex, circular, symmetrical. However, I do not absolutely deny the value of dramatic literature. Only, I should like the actors to be mounted on high pattens, to wear masks more expressive than the human face, and to speak through megaphones; finally, I should like the female parts to be played by men. After all, lustre has always seemed to me the principal actor, seen through the large or the small end of the glass. XIV One must work, if not through desire, at least in despair, since, as is well established, to work is less boring than to seek amusement. XV There are in every man, at every moment, two simultaneous postulations, one toward God, the other toward Satan. The invocation of God, or spirituality, is a desire to rise; that of Satan, or bestiality, is a joy in descent. To the latter should be attributed love for women. The joys which spring from these two loves conform to their two natures. XVI Intoxication of humanity; great picture to be made, in the sense of charity, in the sense of libertinage, in the literary or dramaturgic sense. XVII Torture, as the art of discovering the truth, is barbaric nonsense; it is the application of a material means to a spiritual end. * * * * * Capital punishment is the result of a mystic idea, totally misunderstood to-day. The death penalty has not as its object to _preserve_ society, _materially_ at least. Its object is the _preservation_ (spiritually) of society and the guilty one. In order that the sacrifice be perfect, there must be assent and joy on the part of the victim. To give chloroform to one condemned to death would be an impiety, for it would be to wipe out the consciousness of his grandeur as victim and to destroy his chance of gaining paradise. As to torture, it is born of the infamous side of the heart of man, athirst for voluptuousness. Cruelty and voluptuousness, identical sensations, like extreme heat and extreme cold. XVIII A dandy does nothing. Can you imagine a dandy talking to the people, save to scoff at them? There is no reasonable, stable government save the aristocratic. Monarchy and republic, based on democracy, are equally weak and absurd. Immense nausea of placards.