ealizing it as artists, and
by explaining it as learned men who make mistakes, but who find
ingenious reasons, some grace and beauty, some unknown charm and mystery
in the various phenomena of nature. God only created coarse beings, full
of the germs of disease, and who, after a few years of bestial
enjoyment, grow old and infirm, with all the ugliness and all the want
of power of human decrepitude. He only seems to have made them in order
that they may reproduce their species in a dirty manner, and then die
like ephemeral insects. I said, _reproduce their species in a dirty
manner_, and I adhere to that expression. What is there, as a matter of
fact, more ignoble and more repugnant than that filthy and ridiculous
act of the reproduction of living beings, against which all delicate
minds always have revolted, and always will revolt? Since all the organs
which have been invented by this economical and malicious Creator serve
two purposes, why did he not choose others that were not dirty and
sullied, in order to entrust them with that sacred mission, which is the
noblest and the most exalted of all human functions? The mouth, which
nourishes the body by means of material food, also diffuses abroad
speech and thought. Our flesh revives itself by means of itself, and at
the same time, ideas are communicated by it. The sense of smell, which
gives the vital air to the lungs, imparts all the perfumes of the world
to the brain: the smell of flowers, of woods, of trees, of the sea. The
ear, which enables us to communicate with our fellow men, has also
allowed us to invent music, to create dreams, happiness, the infinite
and even physical pleasure, by means of sounds! But one might say that
the cynical and cunning Creator wished to prohibit man from ever
ennobling and idealizing his commerce with women. Nevertheless, man has
found love, which is not a bad reply to that sly Deity, and he has
ornamented it so much with literary poetry, that woman often forgets the
contact she is obliged to submit to. Those among us who are powerless to
deceive themselves, have invented vice and refined debauchery, which is
another way of laughing at God, and of paying homage, immodest homage,
to beauty.

"But the normal man makes children; just a beast that is coupled with
another by law.

"Look at that woman! Is it not abominable to think that such a jewel,
such a pearl, born to be beautiful, admired, feted and adored, has spent
eleven years of