Of all contrasts the most ironical1 and the most profound is the contrast between the Tag and the Truth of the Tag. A couple of lines are chosen by humanity from the work of a great poet, and are usually so chosen not only because they are beautiful, but because they are true. When they have been repeated a certain number of times they become a tag. A proverb or a mere2 popular statement puts into the shortest possible form some extremely simple, and perhaps extremely obvious, at any rate (this is quite certain) some extremely important, truth. Every one sees it is a truth, everybody repeats it, and it becomes a tag.
Now note the next phase in the life of the said tag. It is criticised and it is ridiculed4; it becomes a solid butt5 for the archery of human wit. That phase lasts, perhaps, the lifetime of a man.
Now note the third phase, for it will teach you the most that can be learnt about mankind, and it is endless. It is the consummation of the tag and the test of humanity afforded by the tag. The tag is now taken for granted and is eternal, and the [Pg 46]following things happen to it: children are taught it like the alphabet; they are compelled to learn it. Hobbledehoys, great wits, and leaders of thought avoid it because it is commonplace. They can be seen waggling from one side of the road to the other in their grotesque6 efforts to avoid the tag. The whole world knows that the tag is there. Lastly—most wonderful of all!—the tag ceases to bite: it ceases to affect men; men are saturated7 with it. Men are acclimatised to it. They are vaccinated8 with it; and the tag has now arrived at the exercise of its eternal function, which is to wake in individuals, here in one man, there in another, an overwhelming sense of its truth (or beauty). It begins its career of converting individual men. Let it be mentioned where three are gathered together, and it will be fled from as an out-used thing, but two can make confidences each to the other about it, and one can feel it like a thorn or like a gem9 in his heart.
"Who goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing" has gone through all these phases; so has "Waste not want not." So has "For who to dull forgetfulness a prey," etc. So has "Felix qui potuit," etc. And so have the three or four thousand others that are the stock of a proper mind.
All these set me thinking of yet another tag, and as it is that which most sharply tests humility10 and, through humility, intelligence, and as, therefore, in this not very humble11 and not intelligent time it is grossly neglected, there is a pleasure in dwelling[Pg 47] upon it. It is to this effect: "The future is veiled from man."
Good Lord! To read the Press and to hear the speeches! Why, one would think that the future had a map to it! One can hardly hear one's self think for prophecies; and, what is perhaps the most terrible thing of all, as a symptom of our modern state of mind, the prophecies have a dogmatic quality (using the word "dogmatic" as it is popularly used of transcendental affirmations), for men prophesy12 in great herds13 and all together, and to question their prophecies, simply to say that possibly "the future is veiled from man," creates something now-a-days of the astonishment14, ridicule3, or anger which the denial of a religious dogma does in a society with a fixed15 religion. Thus, men in England to-day confidently regard the future of the earth for, let us say, the next hundred years in a certain light. Certain countries (especially new countries) are to increase in a regular manner in value and population and property. Certain other countries are to continue their decline. Certain forms of mechanical perfection are to increase, certain speculations16 as to the nature of the soul are to decline in interest. But more than any particular set of opinions, there is a general colour stamped upon the future in the modern mind, and how securely it is stamped one can best prove by the amusement or surprise that is caused if one suggests (but does not affirm) that there may be (not that there must be) some totally[Pg 48] new philosophy, new religion, or new development within three generations.
A book recently published suggests to me the permanent and ironical value of that old tag "The future is veiled from man." It is a study of two somewhat obscure individuals who were members of the Revolutionary Tribunal. It is a very detailed17 study in which one feels in every page the things that were taken for granted in that place and time—in the Paris of the Revolution. What of all that has come to pass? What of all the fixed certitudes as to the future—nay18, the fixed certitudes upon the very nature of man from which, as of necessity, the future was deduced, has remained? The author has done all the better in his study of Vilate and Trinchard from the fact that his position in the Archives has permitted him to look into the ultimate details of the period. But not so much the high historical value of the work as its permanent human lesson strikes me as I read.
Vilate was twenty-four when the great war of the Revolution against the Kings was within a month of breaking out, and when he set out for Paris from the lovely rocky pasturage of his province, up beyond Limoges. And this was what he had in his mind: that the revolutionary movement, to use his own words, "must give to the whole world a spur of insurrection against the oppressors of men." This pathetic certitude was nothing peculiar19 to the very commonplace young fellow who was leaving his [Pg 49]professorship in the Indre for Paris. To him they then seemed as much a commonplace as would seem to some young fellow in a similar position to-day in Birmingham some phase about the development of the West of Canada, or some certain prophecy that nations would enrich themselves in proportion to the amount of coal and iron discovered upon their territories.
When Vilate hears a speech in the Revolutionary Parliament he says: "Truth has now appeared and is fixed for ever. It can now call to its tribunal every abuse, every vice20, and every crime." Has truth done that in the last hundred years? Yet to Vilate the prophecy of what the Revolution was about to do seemed—and not only to him, but to millions of his contemporaries—as simple as some prophecy of ours about the future of communications; and he was as easily persuaded that what he said was true as we are that the North temperate21 climate (and especially that part of Europe which is insular22 and lies between parallels 50 and 60) is the natural climatic seat of human energy.
Consider again this, which is not from Vilate's own pen, but which occurs in the study before me and is of the first interest: Vilate was in the jury on that day. It was the 9th of February, 1794. Seven Carmelite nuns23 had refused to take the civic24 oath to the Republic. The judge made a very commonplace and, as it seemed then, a very sensible speech, pointing out that they were perfectly25 free to observe the[Pg 50] vows26 they had taken, that nothing had disappeared in their lives except the particular convent with which they were associated; that none of their prejudices would be offended. And he pointed27 out that in the society in which he believed they would have the sense to live, all men would now be permanently28 free. The nuns refused; they refused because the oath would involve them in schism29. How many men at that time surrounding Vilate had the slightest conception of what the renascence of religion was to be in the city of Paris? These women, members or servants of the little reactionary30 aristocratic clique31 into which the monastic institution had declined, seemed mere fanatics32 not only to Vilate but to the whole of his society. Could you suddenly have shown Vilate how Europe would still be raging upon those ultimate questions of religion more than three generations later; could you have presented him with the sight of a whole society divided upon so simple and, as it was then thought, so irrational33 a point—what would he have thought? I can tell you what he would have thought. No matter what your credentials34 as a prophet, he would have thought your prophecy mad. Though you should have carried him into our very time and given every proof of the reality of his vision, he would have woken up to believe it an illusion and a silly dream.
The state of mind of Trinchard is even more impressive, because Trinchard was an even smaller,[Pg 51] more commonplace, and therefore more typical, man. He sat side by side with Vilate in the jury of the Revolutionary Tribunal. Trinchard was a carpenter. He was somewhat over thirty years of age at the period of the Revolution. His brother was a gunner, fighting against the Vendéans, just at that moment when Valenciennes had fallen, and when all seemed over with the Republic; and his brother used to write from the armies, signing "Your brother, a true Republican." Two months later he was judging Marie Antoinette. He wrote to his brother a letter immediately after the trial. M. Dunoyer publishes in his book (Deux Jurés du Tribunal Révolutionnaire) a facsimile of that letter, and wonderful reading it makes. One might put its bad spelling and street language into modern English something like this: "I'm learning you, brother, that I was one of them jurymen as judged the wilbeast what was wolfing a gurt part of the empire." And so forth35. But the man is doing nothing exceptional. He no more thinks of himself as exceptional than does any leader-writer to-day writing upon the virtues36 or vices37 of a contemporary politician in more moderate language. And note you, as a hundred years can make men more temperate, so they can make men more violent, and our modern absence of emphasis may astound38 our great-grandchildren quite as much as that revolutionary violence astounds39 us.
A friend writes to him in that spring of 1794 (when Danton died, and when every man was[Pg 52] occupied in the defence or in the destruction of the Republic). He is a very ordinary friend, his name is Ploton, a Southerner, as Trinchard was. He corresponds more or less in that society to, let us say, a young village shopkeeper in our own, full of a simple patriotism40, and especially full of what the Press tells him. And he heads his letter thus: "Second of Germinal, the second year of the Republic—which is as imperishable as the world." What rhetoric41! Nay, to us reading such stuff to-day, what lunacy! But do not be too sure. Go to the British Museum when you can find an idle afternoon and look up your newspapers of September, 1899, and you will read some amusing phrases.
The truth is that men pass under strong influences of time that fill them more than with wine, rather with an entirety of life. The time in which a man lives may be an exalted42 time or a weary one, but it fills him altogether, whether it is on fire or drowned. He can conceive, as a rule, nothing in the future different from the temper of his time, though there is all the past to teach him his folly43. If he makes a picture of the future, that picture is a mere extension of his own tiny and ephemeral experience, and the more confidently certain he is of that future the more rigidly44 is it seen by the critical onlooker45 to be a puppet dressed up in the clothes of the present.
All these things Dunoyer's careful book upon two men of the Revolutionary Tribunal, a monograph46 characteristic of that ceaseless and immense research[Pg 53] which dignifies47 the modern French School of History, has suggested to my mind.
Now, whenever I read of the Revolution, in general or in particular, while that lesson of the folly of prophecy perpetually returns to me, yet something else rises from the page. In a certain sense, almost in a mystical sense, the periods of profound faith in a particular future were right. Not because the picture that they saw was true, but because those things outside time upon which they relied were and are true. And even to-day in the sheer anarchy48 and welter of the time we suffer there is a method of thought which has anchoring ground in the permanent fate of mankind. But what that method may be there is no space to discuss here.
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1
ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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ridiculed
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| v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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saturated
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| a.饱和的，充满的 | |
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vaccinated
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| [医]已接种的，种痘的，接种过疫菌的 | |
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gem
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| n.宝石，珠宝；受爱戴的人 [同]jewel | |
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humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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prophesy
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| v.预言；预示 | |
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herds
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| 兽群( herd的名词复数 )； 牧群； 人群； 群众 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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speculations
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| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
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detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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temperate
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| adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的 | |
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insular
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| adj.岛屿的，心胸狭窄的 | |
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nuns
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| n.（通常指基督教的）修女， （佛教的）尼姑( nun的名词复数 ) | |
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civic
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| adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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schism
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| n.分派，派系，分裂 | |
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30
reactionary
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| n.反动者，反动主义者；adj.反动的，反动主义的，反对改革的 | |
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clique
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| n.朋党派系，小集团 | |
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fanatics
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| 狂热者，入迷者( fanatic的名词复数 ) | |
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irrational
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| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
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credentials
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| n.证明，资格，证明书，证件 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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astound
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| v.使震惊，使大吃一惊 | |
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astounds
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| v.使震惊，使大吃一惊( astound的第三人称单数 ) | |
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40
patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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42
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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43
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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onlooker
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| n.旁观者，观众 | |
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monograph
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| n.专题文章，专题著作 | |
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47
dignifies
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| 使显得威严( dignify的第三人称单数 )； 使高贵； 使显赫； 夸大 | |
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48
anarchy
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| n.无政府状态；社会秩序混乱，无秩序 | |
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