ychologists have acquired still further claims on
our gratitude in freeing us from the fear of death. Permeated by their
doctrines we have followed their consequences to their final conclusion
with the deductive vigour that is second nature with us. Death appears
to us as a dethronement that leads to freedom. It restores to itself the
fallen or abdicated self that retires anew into its inner consciousness,
where it finds in depths more than the equivalent of the outward empire
it has lost. In thinking of the terrors of former man, face to face with
the tomb, we compare them with the dread experienced by the comrades of
Miltiades when they were compelled to bid adieu to the fields of ice, to
the snowy horizons, in order to enter for ever the gloomy abysses in
which such a myriad of glittering and marvellous surprises awaited them.

That is a well-established doctrine and one on which no discussion would
be tolerated. It is, with our devotion to beauty and our faith in the
divine omnipotence of love, the foundation of our peace of mind and the
starting point of our enthusiasms. Our philosophers themselves avoid
touching on it, as on all which is fundamental in our institutions. To
this perhaps may be traced an agreeable air of harmlessness which adds
to the charm of their refinement and contributes to their success in
public. With such certainties as ballast we can spring with a light
heart into the aether of systems, and so we do not fail to do so. One may
be surprised, however, that I made a distinction between our
philosophers and those deductive _savants_ of whom I have spoken above.
Their subject-matter and their methods are identical. They chew the
cud--if I may be allowed the expression--in the same fashion at the same
mangers. But the one group, I mean the _savants_, are ordinary
ruminants, that is, slow and clumsy. The others have the peculiar
quality of being at once ruminants and nimble, like the antelope. And
this difference of temperament is indelible.

There is not, I have already said, a city, but there is a grotto of
philosophers, a natural one to which they come, and sit apart from one
another or in groups, according to their schools, on chairs formed of
granite blocks beside a petrifying well. This spacious grotto contains
astounding stalactites, the slow product of continuous droppings which
vaguely imitate, in the eyes of those who are not too critical, all
kinds of beautiful objects, cups and chandeli