Monsieur Tarde, an ingenious and bitter philosopher, has thus defined life: "The pursuit of the impossible through the useless." That deserves to endure. It is one of those sentences that one would like to see engraved in gold upon the marbles at street corners. It is undeniable that in endowing man with an immortal soul Christianity gave to life an inestimable worth. Deprived of the infinite, man has become what he always was: a supernumerary. He hardly counts; he forms part of the troupe called Humanity; if he misses a cue, he is hissed; and if he drops through the trapdoor another puppet is in readiness to take his place. FOOTPRINTS ON THE SAND Posterity is a schoolboy who is condemned to learn a hundred verses by heart. He learns ten of them and mumbles a few syllables of the rest. The ten are glory; the rest is literary history. Traditions? Of course, tradition. But do you not believe that there is a beginning to everything, even to tradition? Anti-clericalism works for the benefit of the dissident sect. In England, religious radicalism recruits Catholics; in France it recruits Protestants. Man can no more see the world than a fish can see the river bank. Many a time have I written the word "beauty," but almost never without being conscious of writing down an absurdity. There are beautiful things, but there is no such thing as Beauty: that is an abridged expression. It cannot be taken in an absolute sense; there is no Absolute. Civilization is the cultivation of everything that Christianity calls vice.... For two thousand years Christianity, impudently playing with the meaning of words, has been telling us: Life is death, death is life. It is time to consult the dictionary. Politics depends upon statesmen in about the same measure that the weather depends upon astronomers. There are two courses open to the prophet: either to announce a future in conformity with the past,--or to be mistaken. An imbecile is never bored: he contemplates himself. Nothing is better for "spiritual advancement" and the detachment of the flesh than a close reading of the "Erotic Dictionary." The greater part of men who speak ill of women are speaking ill of a certain woman. The man of genius may dwell unknown, but one always may recognize the path he has followed into the forest. It was a giant who passed that way. The branches are broken at a height that other men cannot reach. _Werther_ possesses great interest because Goethe afterward wrote _Faust, Wilhelm Meister_, and so many other works, all different. The _Werther_ of those who revamp their first book fifteen or thirty times loses with each new work a little of its initial worth; after the third book it is worth almost nothing. At first, however, one cannot tell whether that _Werther_ is the product of a brain or of a mould; that is why the first book is sacred.