Beaunier’s non-fiction includes several essays on what he was wont to describe as “the Darwinian crisis”—by which he meant the shudder provoked in religious believers by Darwin’s publication of the theory of the origin of species by natural selection. In one of his articles on the topic in the Revue des Deux Mondes he complimented Darwin for saying that what had had advanced was a scientific hypothesis and not a “philosophy,” and then went on to lambast Ernst Haeckel and, more particularly, Félix Le Dantec—not without justice—for trying to elevate “Darwinism” into a philosophy of life. In L’Homme qui a perdu on moi, however, the one thing that is crystal clear about the theoretical edifice that the protagonist builds on the basis of his experiments with sirium is that it is not a scientific hypothesis but a philosophy—an exercise in metaphysics rather than physics. In the same way, the protagonist’s mentor, “the Alchemist,” makes “science” itself into a philosophy of life instead of a compendium of hypotheses—and even though the narrative voice and author are both utterly antipathetic to the Alchemist, to the point of refusing even to give him a name, it seems that they do exactly the same, insisting on considering “science” as a philosophy—merely as a species of atheism—rather than as testable knowledge capable of material application.
If that is a flaw in the novel’s schema, however—and from a purely intellectual viewpoint, it undoubtedly is—it is a flaw that has some interesting results, certainly in an artistic sense, and perhaps in a philosophical sense too. Although the finest exercise in Symbolism featured in the novel—the development of the allegory of Brigitte, and its complication by the introduction of her symbolic counterpart La Métienka, in chapter IV—is actually irrelevant to the argument about science, the earlier symbolic interludes, which are much more closely connected to that argument, are almost as striking. The psychoanalytical allegory of music developed while the protagonist is listening to the organ in the cathedral in chapter I is interesting in this regard, but the real heart of the novel’s symbolism, as it regards science, is the exceedingly strange representation in chapter III of scientific theorizing as the building of solitary towers.
It is the representation of theory-building as essentially isolating—and thus productive of insanity—that would doubtless seem oddest of all to scientists, who imagine successful theorization as means of unification and the creation of productive communal endeavors; and precisely because it is so strange, one is tempted to wonder whether it might be more revealing than intended. Although it is clearly not an accurate symbolic representation of scientific endeavor, it might still be an accurate symbolic representation of something else, wearing scientific theorization as a disguise—something of which even the writer might only have subliminally aware. Given that the protagonist has such obvious affinities with the author, one is tempted to wonder how much of his own bitter experience is being transfigured in the character. Writing is, by necessity, a lonelier business than scientific research, and its obsessive quality can be at least as disruptive of intimate relationships and as conducive to depression and despair. That puzzle, whether it has a solution or not, is what makes the novel fascinating in spite of its seeming absurdity, fueling its undoubted force and verve.
* * * *
This translation was made from the London Library’s copy of the 1911 Plon edition, which is advertised on its cover as the “fourth edition,” although that only means that it was the fourth printing of the first edition—each printing probably being a thousand copies. In the context of the time, that would have make the book a moderate commercial success, reflecting the solid reputation Beaunier had built by then.
DEDICATION: TO PAUL BOURGET
My dear master and friend,
You have been kind enough to accept the dedication of this novel. I offer it to you as evidence of my deferential and affectionate admiration, and also in memory of hours, unforgettable for me, of common toil in which I have sensed your mastery and your amity.
As in my previous writings—but this time, perhaps a little more clearly—I have tried to make contact here between pure ideas and the souls that receive them, who make them the rule of their life, and, in so doing, cannot help but alter them. If I had an exegete or a commentator, and if I merited it, he would doubtless indicate that such, moreover, is the object of all my works: the encounter of ideas and souls.
As a historian, I would have shown how humanity has been occupied, throughout the centuries, in diverting from their true significance the ideas that the princes of intelligence find, spread and thus deliver to troubling tribulations.
This novel is merely an anecdote, but an emblematic one. I have utilized it for the purpose I had of comparing science and religion, which are the two ideological compendia between which the epochs hesitate. The argument between scientists and the faithful goes back a long way, and it is ongoing. Where is the truth? It is not my prerogative to say. If I had had the audacity to claim that, I would certainly not have produced a novel but a dogmatic tract—and I would, for preference, have written in Latin, in order immediately to deter a reader who has good reason to be frivolous.
Whatever the dialectical conflict is in which scientists and the faithful are caught up, what I think I have perceived, having arrived at the end of my youth, is this: that one is wrong to count on science for the organization of societies and individuals.
In spite of the cherished individualism to which I remember having consecrated all my adolescent fervor, I can see today that we are not simply locations where ideas are brought into logical connection. My protagonist tries to do that, and he loses himself; I mean to say that science does not favor the happy and normal development of our individuality. It is abstract, and we are alive.
If my protagonist seems bizarre, that it because he takes his project to its conclusion, whereas, in reality, even the most scientific do not live entirely scientifically. They are scientists; that is their profession; but the essential principle of their life they have borrowed from other disciplines.
Michel Bedée proves, to his detriment, that science is inhuman. That word is not intended to denigrate it, but I observe that admirable science is something very different from us and, in brief, has almost nothing to do with us.
In 1890, when men of my generation spent their twenties, we were strongly influenced by a book that dated from 1848 but had just appeared, The Future of Science by Ernest Renan. We imagined then, with a prompt certainty, that science alone was going to govern our minds and guide our lives. We ardently read the preface to Ten Years of Historical Studies in which old Augustin Thierry, ill and blind by virtue of having worked incessantly, composed the sublime gospel of devotion to science.1 And I had for a teacher the great Gaston Paris, who resembled Charlemagne and whom I loved respectfully. In 1870, at the Collège de France, he affirmed tragically that the quest for the exact truth is paramount, and did so with patriotic fervor. He was animated by an immense love of France; and, when he announced those noble formulae in the midst of war, he offered to his scientific faith a magnificent and paradoxical sacrifice.2
Such imposing doctrines stirred me; my entire generation was aware of their prestige; they produced scientists, scholars and philosophers who made good use of science and served it well.
Those philosophers, scholars and scientists did not, however, go as far as my protagonist in the absolute abandonment of everything that is not pure idea. They did not, like him, make the sacrifice of their selves. They were, therefore, able to endure, and so I think that their example is illusory, if it is a question of establishing that science is sufficient in itself to constitute an ethic.
How much more human and better adapted to our needs is a very ancient belief, which has accompanied, through many ups and downs, our families, our ancestors, and which had gradually, even before our birth, prepared our souls and the conditions of their natural blossoming!
That is what