The social conditions which they held responsible for their miserable career, and even for the regret they experienced, could not be laid at the door of an Emperor or a dynasty: for their country was governed by universal suffrage. Finding government, legislation, institutions, and social conditions vitiated, they had to blame Society. They found that Society was atheistic, and was deprived of the only check and guide that came within their ken—religion. They were filled with an intense longing to destroy the atheism which science had created, and to return to a belief which would re-endow Society with moral order, health, romance, love, purity, and beautiful emotions. Science was the enemy, as under the Empire the priest was the enemy. To discredit it was the first essential step. When therefore the actual power of science, its actual possibilities, became popularized, and each successive scientific discovery rendered the prophecies of the superstitious scientists more and more preposterous, the French symbolists took up the cry that science was bankrupt. CHAPTER V _SYMBOLISM AND LOGIC_ The French symbolists, and all poets and artists who move in the world of emotions, are invited by Nordau to “take their place at the table of science, where there is room for all.” Were they to accept the invitation, how would the emotional nature of our race find expression? Would it be possible, or wise, to ignore emotions in face of the fact that our lives are essentially emotional? Or does Nordau push his scientific superstition to such a point as to believe that human emotions can ever be investigated by means of the lancet, the microscope, and the thermometer? In spite of his sneer at Rossetti’s remark regarding his indifference as to whether the sun turned round the earth or the earth turned round the sun, he cannot fail to acknowledge that what humanity yearns for is beautiful and pleasing emotions, not scientific facts. The glorious sunshine, the balmy breeze, the radiant flowers, the inscrutable attractions of woman, her love, her esteem, her faith, the affection of children, the confidence of our fellow-beings, our trust in the good, our struggle against evil—such are the elements of life and happiness. Science acquires all its importance from being the means by which beautiful and pleasing emotions are safeguarded, and unpleasant emotions are avoided. When science mistakes its mission, when it attempts to distort and vilify their expressions, it has become unreal and fatal. Nordau wishes us to regard science—progressing as it has done by replacing old errors of our senses by new errors of our senses—as embodying all facts worth noticing, and to disregard emotions which are eternally unchangeable.