Louis Lambert by Honoré de Balzac (free ebook reader TXT) 📖

the alembic to which the Animal conveys what each of
its organizations, in proportion to the strength of that vessel,
can absorb of that Substance, which returns it transformed into
Will.

The Will is a fluid inherent in every creature endowed with
motion. Hence the innumerable forms assumed by the Animal, the
results of its combinations with that Substance. The Animal's
instincts are the product of the coercion of the environment in
which it develops. Hence its variety.


III

In Man the Will becomes a power peculiar to him, and exceeding in
intensity that of any other species.


IV

By constant assimilation, the Will depends on the Substance it
meets with again and again in all its transmutations, pervading
them by Thought, which is a product peculiar to the human Will, in
combination with the modifications of that Substance.


V

The innumerable forms assumed by Thought are the result of the
greater or less perfection of the human mechanism.


VI

The Will acts through organs commonly called the five senses,
which, in fact, are but one--the faculty of Sight. Feeling and
tasting, hearing and smelling, are Sight modified to the
transformations of the Substance which Man can absorb in two
conditions: untransformed and transformed.


VII

Everything of which the form comes within the cognizance of the
one sense of Sight may be reduced to certain simple bodies of
which the elements exist in the air, the light, or in the elements
of air and light. Sound is a condition of the air; colors are all
conditions of light; every smell is a combination of air and
light; hence the four aspects of Matter with regard to Man--sound,
color, smell, and shape--have the same origin, for the day is not
far off when the relationship of the phenomena of air and light
will be made clear.

Thought, which is allied to Light, is expressed in words which
depend on sound. To man, then, everything is derived from the
Substance, whose transformations vary only through Number--a
certain quantitative dissimilarity, the proportions resulting in
the individuals or objects of what are classed as Kingdoms.


VIII

When the Substance is absorbed in sufficient number (or quantity)
it makes of man an immensely powerful mechanism, in direct
communication with the very element of the Substance, and acting
on organic nature in the same way as a large stream when it
absorbs the smaller brooks. Volition sets this force in motion
independently of the Mind. By its concentration it acquires some
of the qualities of the Substance, such as the swiftness of light,
the penetrating power of electricity, and the faculty of
saturating a body; to which must be added that it apprehends what
it can do.

Still, there is in man a primordial and overruling phenomenon
which defies analysis. Man may be dissected completely; the
elements of Will and Mind may perhaps be found; but there still
will remain beyond apprehension the _x_ against which I once used
to struggle. That _x_ is the Word, the Logos, whose communication
burns and consumes those who are not prepared to receive it. The
Word is for ever generating the Substance.


IX

Rage, like all our vehement demonstrations, is a current of the
human force that acts electrically; its turmoil when liberated
acts on persons who are present even though they be neither its
cause nor its object. Are there not certain men who by a discharge
of Volition can sublimate the essence of the feelings of the
masses?


X

Fanaticism and all emotions are living forces. These forces in
some beings become rivers that gather in and sweep away
everything.


XI

Though Space _is_, certain faculties have the power of traversing
it with such rapidity that it is as though it existed not. From
your own bed to the frontiers of the universe there are but two
steps: Will and Faith.


XII

Facts are nothing; they do not subsist; all that lives of us is
the Idea.


XIII

The realm of Ideas is divided into three spheres: that of
Instinct, that of Abstractions, that of Specialism.


XIV

The greater part, the weaker part of visible humanity, dwells in
the Sphere of Instinct. The _Instinctives_ are born, labor, and
die without rising to the second degree of human intelligence,
namely Abstraction.


XV

Society begins in the sphere of Abstraction. If Abstraction, as
compared with Instinct, is an almost divine power, it is
nevertheless incredibly weak as compared with the gift of
Specialism, which is the formula of God. Abstraction comprises all
nature in a germ, more virtually than a seed contains the whole
system of a plant and its fruits. From Abstraction are derived
laws, arts, social ideas, and interests. It is the glory and the
scourge of the earth: its glory because it has created social
life; its scourge because it allows man to evade entering into
Specialism, which is one of the paths to the Infinite. Man
measures everything by Abstractions: Good and Evil, Virtue and
Crime. Its formula of equity is a pair of scales, its justice is
blind. God's justice sees: there is all the difference.

There must be intermediate Beings, then, dividing the sphere of
Instinct from the sphere of Abstractions, in whom the two elements
mingle in an infinite variety of proportions. Some have more of
one, some more of the other. And there are also some in which the
two powers neutralize each other by equality of effect.


XVI

Specialism consists in seeing the things of the material universe
and the things of the spiritual universe in all their
ramifications original and causative. The greatest human geniuses
are those who started from the darkness of Abstraction to attain
to the light of Specialism. (Specialism, _species_, sight;
speculation, or seeing everything, and all at once; _Speculum_, a
mirror or means of apprehending a thing by seeing the whole of
it.) Jesus had the gift of Specialism; He saw each fact in its
root and in its results, in the past where it had its rise, and in
the future where it would grow and spread; His sight pierced into
the understanding of others. The perfection of the inner eye gives
rise to the gift of Specialism. Specialism brings with it
Intuition. Intuition is one of the faculties of the Inner Man, of
which Specialism is an attribute. Intuition acts by an
imperceptible sensation of which he who obeys it is not conscious:
for instance, Napoleon instinctively moving from a spot struck
immediately afterwards by a cannon ball.


XVII

Between the sphere of Abstraction and that of Specialism, as
between those of Abstraction and Instinct, there are beings in
whom the attributes of both combine and produce a mixture; these
are men of genius.


XVIII

Specialism is necessarily the most perfect expression of man, and
he is the link binding the visible world to the higher worlds; he
acts, sees, and feels by his inner powers. The man of Abstraction
thinks. The man of Instinct acts.


XIX

Hence man has three degrees. That of Instinct, below the average;
that of Abstraction, the general average; that of Specialism,
above the average. Specialism opens to man his true career; the
Infinite dawns on him; he sees what his destiny must be.


XX

There are three worlds--the Natural, the Spiritual, and the
Divine. Humanity passes through the Natural world, which is not
fixed either in its essence and unfixed in its faculties. The
Spiritual world is fixed in its essence and unfixed in its
faculties. The Divine world is necessarily a Material worship, a
Spiritual worship, and a Divine worship: three forms expressed in
action, speech, and prayer, or, in other words, in deed,
apprehension, and love. Instinct demands deed; Abstraction is
concerned with Ideas; Specialism sees the end, it aspires to God
with presentiment or contemplation.


XXI

Hence, perhaps, some day the converse of _Et Verbum caro factum
est_ will become the epitome of a new Gospel, which will proclaim
that The Flesh shall be made the Word and become the Utterance of
God.


XXII

The Resurrection is the work of the Wind of Heaven sweeping over
the worlds. The angel borne on the Wind does not say: "Arise, ye
dead"; he says, "Arise, ye who live!"

After going in to see Louis once more, I took leave of his wife and went home, lost in ideas so adverse to social life that, in spite of a promise to return to Villenoix, I did not go.

The sight of Louis had had some mysteriously sinister influence over me. I was afraid to place myself again in that heavy atmosphere, where ecstasy was contagious. Any man would have felt, as I did, a longing to throw himself into the infinite, just as one soldier after another killed himself in a certain sentry box where one had committed suicide in the camp at Boulogne. It is a known fact that Napoleon was obliged to have the hut burned which had harbored an idea that had become a mortal infection.

Louis' room had perhaps the same fatal effect as that sentry box.

These two facts would then be additional evidence in favor of his theory of the transfusion of Will. I was conscious of strange disturbances, transcending the most fantastic results of taking tea, coffee, or opium, of dreams or of fever--mysterious agents, whose terrible action often sets our brains on fire.

I ought perhaps to have made a separate book of these fragments of thought, intelligible only to certain spirits who have been accustomed to lean over the edge of abysses in the hope of seeing to the bottom. The life of that mighty brain, which split up on every side