e wrong to ascribe to yourself and other thinkers so
much responsibility for the events of today. One man speaks, another
acts; but the speakers do not move the others to action; they are all
drifting with the tide. This unfortunate European thought is a bit of
drift-wood like the rest, it does not make the current, it is carried
along by it."

"It persuades people to yield to it," said Clerambault, "instead of
helping the swimmers, and bidding them struggle against it; it
says: Let yourself go.... No, my friend, do not try to diminish its
responsibility, it is the greatest of all. Our thought had the best
place from which to see; its business was to keep watch, and if it saw
nothing, it was through lack of good-will, for it cannot lay the blame
on its eyes, which are clear enough. You know it and so do I, now that
I have come to my senses. The same intelligence which darkened my
eyes, has now torn away the bandage; how can it be, at the same time,
a power for truth and for falsehood?"

Perrotin shook his head.

"Yes, intelligence is so great and so high that she cannot put herself
at the service of any other forces without derogation; for if she is
no longer mistress and free, she is degraded. It is a case of
Roman master debasing the Greek, his superior, and making him his
purveyor--_Graeculus_, sophist, _Laeno_.... To the vulgar the
intelligence is a sort of maid-of-all-work, and in this position she
displays the sly, dishonest cleverness of her kind. Sometimes she is
employed by hatred, pride, or self-interest, and then she flatters
these little devils, dressing them up as Idealism, Love, Faith,
Liberty, and social generosity; for when a man does not love his
neighbour, he says he loves God, his Country, or even Humanity.
Sometimes the poor master is himself a slave to the State. Under
threat of punishment, the social machine forces him to acts which are
repugnant, but the complaisant intelligence persuades him that these
are fine and glorious, and performed by him of his own free will. In
either case the intelligence knows what she is about, and is always
at our disposition if we really want her to tell us the truth; but we
take good care to avoid it, and never to be left alone with her.
We manage so as to meet her only in public when we can put leading
questions as we please.... When all is said, the earth goes round none
the less, _e pur se muove_;--the laws of the world are obeyed, and the
free mind beholds