us of Virgil, who, smeared with the
juice of mulberries, sang to the shepherds of Sicily and the naiad
Aglaia of the origin of the world, he broke out into a flood of words:

"To call upon a poor wretch to answer for his actions! Why, even when
the solar system was still no more than a pale nebula, forming, in the
ether, a fragile halo, whose circumference was a thousand times greater
than the orbit of Neptune, we had all of us, for ages past, been fully
conditioned, determined and irrevocably destined, and your
responsibility, my dear child, my responsibility, Chevalier's, and that
of all men, had been, not mitigated, but abolished beforehand. All our
movements, the result of previous movements of matter, are subject to
the laws which govern the cosmic forces, and the human mechanism is
merely a particular instance of the universal mechanism."

Pointing to a locked cupboard, he proceeded.

"I have there, contained in bottles, that which would transform,
destroy, or excite to frenzy the will of fifty thousand men."

"Wouldn't be playing the game," objected Pradel.

"I agree, it wouldn't be playing the game. But these substances are not
essentially laboratory products. The laboratory combines, it does not
create anything. These substances are scattered throughout nature. In
their free state, they surround and enter into us, they determine our
will, they circumscribe our freedom of device, which is merely the
illusion engendered within us by the ignorance of our determinations."

"What on earth do you mean?" asked Pradel, taken aback.

"I mean that our will is an illusion caused by our ignorance of the
causes which compel us to exert our will. That which wills within us is
not ourselves, but myriads of cells of prodigious activity, of which we
know nothing, which are unaware of us, which are ignorant of one
another, but which nevertheless constitute us. By means of their
restlessness they produce innumerable currents which we call our
passions, our thoughts, our joys, our sufferings, our desires, our
fears, and our will. We believe that we are our own masters, while a
mere drop of alcohol stimulates, and then benumbs the very elements by
which we feel and will."

Constantin Marc interrupted the physician:

"Excuse me! Since you are speaking of the action of alcohol, I should
like your advice on the subject. I am in the habit of drinking a small
glass of Armagnac brandy after each meal. That's not too much, is it?