THE law of heredity which insists that the descendants shall suffer by the faults and profit by the virtues1 of their ancestors comprises truths that are no longer disputed. They shine forth2, visible to the eyes of all. The child of a drunkard will bear the burden of his father’s vice3 all his life long, from the day of his birth to that of his death, in body and in mind. One might say that by this irrefutable example nature had intended ostentatiously to affirm and manifest the implacable character of her law, as though to make us understand that she takes no account whatever of our conceptions of justice and injustice4 and that she acts on an unvarying principle in all the obscure circumstances in which we cannot follow the[214] inextricable windings5 of her will. This example, if we had no other, would be enough to brand that inhuman6 will with infamy7. There is no law more repugnant to our reason, to our sense of responsibility, nor one which does a deeper injury to our trust in the universe and the unknown spirit that rules it. Of all life’s injustices8, this is the most glaring and the least comprehensible. For most of the others we find excuses or explanations; but, when we remember that a new-born child, a child which did not ask to be born, is, from the moment of inhaling9 its first breath of air, smitten10 with irremediable insolvency11, with a ferocious12, irrevocable sentence and with evils which it will drag to the grave, it seems to us that not one of the most hateful tyrants13 that history has cursed would have dared to do what nature does quietly every day.
But do we really bear the burden of the errors of the dead? In the first place, is it quite certain that the dead are really dead and no longer dwell within us? It[215] is a fact that we continue them, that we are the durable14 part of what they were. We cannot deny that we are still subject to their influence, that we reproduce their features and their characters, that we represent them almost entirely15, that they continue to live and to act in us; it is therefore very natural that they also should continue to bear the consequences of an action or a way of living which their departure has not interrupted.
“But,” you may say, “I had no part in this action, this habit, this vice for which I am paying to-day. I was not consulted; I had no opportunity of uttering a protest, of checking my father, or my grandfather, as he went to his ruin down the fatal precipice16. I was not born; I did not yet exist!”
How do you know? May there not be a fundamental mistake in the idea of heredity as we conceive it? At one end of the beam of those scales which we accuse of injustice hangs heredity, but the other is borne down by something different,[216] which we have never taken into account, for it has not yet a name, something which is the antithesis17 of heredity, which cleaves18 into the future instead of emerging from the past and which we might call preexistence or prenatality.
Even as our dead still live in us, so we have already lived in them. There is no reason to believe that the future, which is full of life, is less active and less potent19 than the past, which is full of the dead. Instead of descending20, should we not rather ascend21 the course of the years to discover the source of our actions?
We know not in what fashion those already dwell in us who shall be born of us, down to the last generation; but that they do dwell in us is certain. Whatever the number of our descendants, in the sequence of the ages, whatever the transformations22 which the elements, climates, countries and centuries may cause them to undergo, they will keep intact, through all vicissitudes23, the principle of life which they have derived24 from us. They have not obtained it[217] elsewhere or they could not be what they are. They have really issued from us; and, if they have issued from us, it is because they were in us from the first. What were they doing within us, all these innumerable, accumulated lives? Is it permissible25 to suppose that they were absolutely inactive? Then what were their functions, what their power? What divided them from us? When did we begin, where did they end? At what point did their thoughts and their desires mingle26 with ours?
“How could they think and act in us,” you ask, “having as yet no brain?”
True; but they had ours. The dead too are without a brain; nevertheless no one will deny that they continue to think and act in us. This brain of which we are so proud is not the source but the condenser27 of thought and will. Like the Leyden jar or the Ruhmkorff coil, it exists, it is animated28 only so long as the electric fluid of life passes through it or resides in it. It does not produce this fluid, it collects[218] it; what matters is not its convolutions, which may be compared with the windings of an induction-coil, but the life that flows through it; and what can this life be, if it be not the sum of all the existences which are accumulated within us, which are not extinguished at our death, which begin before our birth and which continue us, forwards, and backwards29, into the infinity30 of time?
2
Writers of essays and novels have at times endeavoured to represent these diverse lives which we harbour within us; and each of us, if he question himself sincerely and profoundly, will discover in himself two or three clearly-defined types, which have nothing in common but the body in which they reside, which rarely agree among themselves, which are incessantly32 striving to gain the upper hand and which put up with one another as best they can, in order to go through an existence whose aggregate33 forms our ego34. This ego will be good or bad, remarkable35 or[219] insignificant36, more or less generous or selfish, calm or uneasy, pacific or pugnacious37, heroic or pusillanimous38, hesitating or decided39 and enterprising, brutal40 or refined, crafty41 or loyal, active or idle, chaste42 or lascivious43, modest or vainglorious44, proud or obsequious45, unreliable or steadfast46, according to the authority which the type that captures the best positions of the heart or brain is able to assume over the others. But, even in the life that appears the most stable, the most homogeneous, the best-balanced, this authority will never be final or undisputed. The dominant47 type will find itself for ever disputed, attacked, thwarted48, disturbed, circumvented49, harassed50, tempted51, deceived, betrayed and sometimes cunningly dethroned by one of the rival or subordinate types which it failed to distrust or which it did not watch narrowly enough. We behold52 unexpected coalitions53, fantastic compromises, regrettable defections, fierce competitions, incessant31 intrigues54 and positive revolutions, especially at the critical periods and at each[220] moment of important happenings; and all this prodigious55 inward tragedy does not cease for an instant until the hour of death.
3
But, once again, why seek only in the past and among our ancestors for the actors in this drama which is the essential drama of humanity? What justification56 have we for supposing that the dead alone play all the parts? Why should those from whom we have issued possess more influence than those who will issue from us? The first are remote from our bodily selves, they are separated from us by unfathomable mysteries and their survival may perhaps be called in question; the others inhabit our flesh and their existence is incontestable. We have just seen that the argument deduced from the absence of any brain is not invincible57.
“But,” you will perhaps go on to say, “how do you suppose that, when they have[221] not yet lived, they can possess habits, virtues and vices58, preferences and experience, in a word, all that constitutes a character and cannot be acquired save by contact with life?”
But the same objection could be raised, in most cases, with regard to our ancestors. Generally speaking, when we issued from them, they were still young; they were not yet what they became and what we shall become after them. They had not yet adopted the habits, the ways of thinking or feeling, or cultivated the virtues or the vices which are reproduced in us. The stubborn little mediocrity whom we all feel within us, frugal59, cautious and shabby in his dealings, was still perhaps a prodigal60, high-spirited and reckless youth; the rake was still perhaps chaste, the thief had never stolen and the murderer may have had a horror of bloodshed. All this is almost equally immaterial and equally potential in both cases; the only present points at issue are the amorphous61 tendencies[222] and forces whereon the brain which we receive from these and pass on to those bestows62 a form.
It is therefore very possible that the little mediocrity, the rake, the thief or the murderer, far from being dead, are not yet born and are taking as active a part as our ancestors in the agitations63 and sometimes in the conduct of our existence. This is what the most ancient and the most venerable religions of humanity always foresaw or revealed, receiving it perhaps on the authority of an unknown and loftier source; and of these religions Christianity, with its dogma of original sin, is but an imperfect echo. Even to-day, more than six hundred millions of human beings believe in the preexistence of the soul, in successive lives and in reincarnation. In the eyes of these religions, the little mediocrity who begot64 us several centuries ago is the same who, a little less paltry65, a little less narrow, improved by his previous life and his passage through the mysteries of death, is awaiting within us the moment[223] of rebirth and who, while waiting, shares our instincts, our feelings and our thoughts. He does not wait in solitude66; he is but one life in the host of lives which have preceded us and which come back to live in us again; and all these past and future lives form the sum total of our own.
4
We will not here discuss this doctrine67 of successive lives and of the expiatory68 and purifying reincarnation, which is the noblest and, up to now, the only acceptable explanation of nature’s injustices that has been discovered. In the present state of our knowledge, it can be only a magnificent theory or a statement impossible of proof. Let us not forsake69 the indisputable ground on which heredity and preexistence have their being. Heredity is an acquired fact, an experimental truth; preexistence is a logical necessity. It is not indeed possible to conceive that what will be born of us does not already exist within us in fact, in principle, in the germ,[224] in essence or in potentiality; and, from the moment of its existence in a fashion probably more spiritual than material, it is far less surprising that it should be more or less responsible for thoughts and actions to which it could not be wholly a stranger.
In any case, heredity, which is incontestable, and preexistence, which is necessary, remind us yet once again that each of us is not a single being, isolated70, permanent, hermetically sealed, independent of others and separated from all things in time and space, but a porous71 vase dipping into the infinite; a sort of cross-roads, where all the paths of the past, the present and the future meet; an inn beside the eternal highways, where all the lives which make up our own foregather for a few days’ sojourn72. We believe ourselves dead when they leave the inn; and we fancy that they too have perished. It is more likely that this is not so at all. They are merely quitting the ruined hostel73 to install themselves in a new and more habitable house. They carry with them their debts and their[225] obligations; they remove to their new abode74 their instincts, their habits, their ideals, their passions also, their merits and their faults, their acquisitions and their memories. The house is different, but the guests are the same; and the old life will resume its course in the new dwelling75 and will be perhaps a little nobler, perhaps a little fairer, perhaps filled with a little brighter light.
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1
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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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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injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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windings
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| （道路、河流等）蜿蜒的，弯曲的( winding的名词复数 )； 缠绕( wind的现在分词 )； 卷绕； 转动（把手） | |
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inhuman
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| adj.残忍的，不人道的，无人性的 | |
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infamy
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| n.声名狼藉，出丑，恶行 | |
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injustices
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| 不公平( injustice的名词复数 )； 非正义； 待…不公正； 冤枉 | |
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inhaling
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| v.吸入( inhale的现在分词 ) | |
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smitten
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| 猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去分词 ) | |
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insolvency
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| n.无力偿付，破产 | |
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ferocious
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| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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tyrants
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| 专制统治者( tyrant的名词复数 )； 暴君似的人； （古希腊的）僭主； 严酷的事物 | |
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durable
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| adj.持久的，耐久的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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antithesis
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| n.对立；相对 | |
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cleaves
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| v.劈开，剁开，割开( cleave的第三人称单数 ) | |
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potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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ascend
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| vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上 | |
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transformations
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| n.变化( transformation的名词复数 )；转换；转换；变换 | |
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vicissitudes
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| n.变迁，世事变化；变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 )；盛衰兴废 | |
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24
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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permissible
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| adj.可允许的，许可的 | |
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mingle
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| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
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condenser
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| n.冷凝器；电容器 | |
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animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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infinity
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| n.无限，无穷，大量 | |
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incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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aggregate
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| adj.总计的，集合的；n.总数；v.合计；集合 | |
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ego
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| n.自我，自己，自尊 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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pugnacious
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| adj.好斗的 | |
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pusillanimous
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| adj.懦弱的，胆怯的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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crafty
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| adj.狡猾的，诡诈的 | |
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42
chaste
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| adj.贞洁的；有道德的；善良的；简朴的 | |
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lascivious
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| adj.淫荡的，好色的 | |
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vainglorious
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| adj.自负的；夸大的 | |
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obsequious
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| adj.谄媚的，奉承的，顺从的 | |
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46
steadfast
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| adj.固定的，不变的，不动摇的；忠实的；坚贞不移的 | |
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47
dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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48
thwarted
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| 阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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49
circumvented
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| v.设法克服或避免（某事物），回避( circumvent的过去式和过去分词 )；绕过，绕行，绕道旅行 | |
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50
harassed
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| adj. 疲倦的，厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词 | |
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51
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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52
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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coalitions
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| 结合体，同盟( coalition的名词复数 )； （两党或多党）联合政府 | |
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54
intrigues
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| n.密谋策划( intrigue的名词复数 )；神秘气氛；引人入胜的复杂情节v.搞阴谋诡计( intrigue的第三人称单数 )；激起…的好奇心 | |
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prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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56
justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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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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frugal
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| adj.节俭的，节约的，少量的，微量的 | |
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prodigal
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| adj.浪费的，挥霍的，放荡的 | |
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amorphous
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| adj.无定形的 | |
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bestows
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的第三人称单数 ) | |
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agitations
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| （液体等的）摇动( agitation的名词复数 )； 鼓动； 激烈争论； （情绪等的）纷乱 | |
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begot
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| v.为…之生父( beget的过去式 )；产生，引起 | |
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paltry
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| adj.无价值的，微不足道的 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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expiatory
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| adj.赎罪的，补偿的 | |
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forsake
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| vt.遗弃，抛弃；舍弃，放弃 | |
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isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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porous
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| adj.可渗透的，多孔的 | |
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sojourn
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| v./n.旅居，寄居；逗留 | |
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hostel
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| n.（学生）宿舍，招待所 | |
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abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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