opular
idea, and every religious law, has had its monumental records; that
the human race has, in short, had no important thought which it has not
written in stone. And why? Because every thought, either philosophical
or religious, is interested in perpetuating itself; because the idea
which has moved one generation wishes to move others also, and leave a
trace. Now, what a precarious immortality is that of the manuscript! How
much more solid, durable, unyielding, is a book of stone! In order to
destroy the written word, a torch and a Turk are sufficient. To demolish
the constructed word, a social revolution, a terrestrial revolution are
required. The barbarians passed over the Coliseum; the deluge, perhaps,
passed over the Pyramids.

In the fifteenth century everything changes.

Human thought discovers a mode of perpetuating itself, not only more
durable and more resisting than architecture, but still more simple and
easy. Architecture is dethroned. Gutenberg's letters of lead are about
to supersede Orpheus's letters of stone.

*The book is about to kill the edifice*.

The invention of printing is the greatest event in history. It is the
mother of revolution. It is the mode of expression of humanity which is
totally renewed; it is human thought stripping off one form and donning
another; it is the complete and definitive change of skin of that
symbolical serpent which since the days of Adam has represented
intelligence.

In its printed form, thought is more imperishable than ever; it is
volatile, irresistible, indestructible. It is mingled with the air. In
the days of architecture it made a mountain of itself, and took powerful
possession of a century and a place. Now it converts itself into a flock
of birds, scatters itself to the four winds, and occupies all points of
air and space at once.

We repeat, who does not perceive that in this form it is far more
indelible? It was solid, it has become alive. It passes from duration
in time to immortality. One can demolish a mass; how can one extirpate
ubiquity? If a flood comes, the mountains will have long disappeared
beneath the waves, while the birds will still be flying about; and if a
single ark floats on the surface of the cataclysm, they will alight upon
it, will float with it, will be present with it at the ebbing of the
waters; and the new world which emerges from this chaos will behold, on
its awakening, the thought of the world which has been submerged