§ 2. ILLUSIONS.
From the dawn of civilisation onwards crowds have always undergone
the influence of illusions. It is to the creators of illusions that
they have raised more temples, statues, and altars than to
any
other class of men. Whether it be the religious illusions of the past
or the philosophic and social illusions of the present, these formidable
sovereign powers are always found at the head of all the civilisations
that have successively flourished on our planet. It is in their name
that were built the temples of Chaldea and Egypt and the religious
edifices of the Middle Ages, and that a vast upheaval shook the whole of
Europe a century ago, and there is not one of our political, artistic,
or social conceptions that is free from their powerful impress.
Occasionally, at the cost of terrible disturbances, man overthrows them,
but he seems condemned to always set them up again. Without them he
would never have emerged from his primitive barbarian state, and without
them again he would soon return to it. Doubtless they are futile
shadows; but these children of our dreams have forced the nations to
create whatever the arts may boast of splendour or civilisation of
greatness.
"If one destroyed in museums and libraries, if one hurled down on
the flagstones before the churches all the works and all the monuments
of art that religions have inspired, what would remain of the great
dreams of humanity? To give to men that portion of hope and illusion
without which they cannot live, such is the reason for the existence of
gods, heroes, and poets. During fifty
years science appeared to
undertake this task. But science has been compromised in hearts
hungering after the ideal, because it does not dare to be lavish enough
of promises, because it cannot lie."
[14]
The philosophers of the last century devoted themselves with
fervour to the destruction of the religious, political, and social
illusions on which our forefathers had lived for a long tale of
centuries. By destroying them they have dried up the springs of hope
and resignation. Behind the immolated chimeras they came face to face
with the blind and silent forces of nature, which are inexorable to
weakness and ignore pity.
Notwithstanding all its progress, philosophy has been unable as yet
to offer the masses any ideal that can charm them; but, as they must
have their illusions at all cost, they turn instinctively, as the insect
seeks the light, to the rhetoricians who accord them what they want.
Not truth, but error has always been the chief factor in the evolution
of nations, and the reason why socialism is so powerful to-day is that
it constitutes the last illusion that is still vital. In spite of all
scientific demonstrations it continues on the increase. Its principal
strength lies in the fact that it is championed by minds sufficiently
ignorant of things as they are in reality to venture boldly to promise
mankind happiness. The social illusion reigns to-day upon all the
heaped-up ruins of the past, and to it belongs the future. The masses
have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is
not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them.
Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever
attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.
