"Learned
Fools"
by Louis Claude de Saint-Martin
Interpreters
of mythology, why do you say that it only veils the march of the stars and the
laws of nature, material and corruptible?
What
proportion would be there, between the figure and the thing that is
figured? Is allegory not useless when it is superior to its object?
Does
it not cease to be allegory? Yes. Then it is power, and it acts with open force.
But
even if you were raised to the level of the active principles of nature, of
which the knowledge and employment must remain unknown to the vulgar,
A
new obstacle arises: mythology and physics would be in dispute.
Mythology,
in order to be admissible, ought at least to rest upon the active principles of
nature;
And
physics scorns these principles--she wants everything to form by aggregates.
Whereas
if there is only a unity, with what would one arrive to the aggregate?
Mythology,
physics!--you cannot reconcile except in each abandoning your system, and in
elevating yourselves at the same time to a more simple degree, where each shall
find the key to its temple.
When
you have found it, use it, but prudently! All corruption is due to the
putrefied source:
All
rectification is due to the pure source. Without the higher view, how will you
apply your principles?
What
are you doing, ye learned fools, when you paint for us the laws of the formation
of the world?
It
is with death that you compose life; you take all your physics from the
cemeteries!
With
what are your scientific cabinets filled? With skeletons and cadavers, of which
you take good care to preserve the form and colors, but whose principle and
life are cut away.
Did
your thought not tell you that there was a better physics than this, where one is only concerned with principles, and from whence dead bodies are far
removed?
But
no! You have cast this dead and destructive glance upon all the objects of your
speculations.
You have cast it upon the base of the isosceles rectangle which you have sought to
know, because you have found some material rapports between its results and
those of its sides;
Whereas
the number and the true rapport of that base shall never be entrusted to us,
since if we knew them, we could create spirits!
Does
it not suffice you to calculate the base to two centers, you who have dared attempt
to imitate it, and who open at the same time one inexhaustible source for your
tears, your understanding and your admiration?
You have cast this destructive glance upon a subject much nearer to you, since you've cast it upon speech.
Supreme
and distinctive faculty, for them thou art only the fruit of the accumulation
of sensible signs!
The
languages are not for them more than an aggregate, instead of being the
expression and fruit of life itself.
Consequently,
they do not seek the origin elsewhere than in our elementary rapports;
Whereas
they were taught openly that speech was necessary for the institution of
speech,
And
they see how children learn languages, and how there is only one law which
lends itself and its measure to all the needs of all needs and all ages.
Matter,
matter, what a catastrophic veil thou hast placed upon Truth!
The
Word hath only come upon the earth as by rebirth; It had been reduced for us
initially.
It
could not be reborn except through seed, like the vegetation; but it was
needful that It supply its own germ at first, so as to be able then to produce
its fruits among the human species.
Collapse
upon yourselves, ye scaffolds of abusive science! Reduce yourselves into
dust: for you cannot hold up against the least principle of light!
--Chant 7 from THE MAN OF DESIRE (L'HOMME DE DESIR) (1790)
translated by Seth Edwards, 2016
title by Robert Amadou
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