ll, perhaps, for is not
killing the next thing to creating? To make and to destroy! These two
words contain the history of the universe, all the history of worlds,
all that is, all! Why is it not intoxicating to kill?

25th June. To think that a being is there who lives, who walks, who
runs. A being? What is a being? That animated thing, that bears in it
the principle of motion and a will ruling that motion. It is attached to
nothing, this thing. Its feet do not belong to the ground. It is a grain
of life that moves on the earth, and this grain of life, coming I know
not whence, one can destroy at one's will. Then nothing--nothing more.
It perishes, it is finished.

26th June. Why then is it a crime to kill? Yes, why? On the contrary, it
is the law of nature. The mission of every being is to kill; he kills
to live, and he kills to kill. The beast kills without ceasing, all day,
every instant of his existence. Man kills without ceasing, to nourish
himself; but since he needs, besides, to kill for pleasure, he has
invented hunting! The child kills the insects he finds, the little
birds, all the little animals that come in his way. But this does not
suffice for the irresistible need to massacre that is in us. It is not
enough to kill beasts; we must kill man too. Long ago this need was
satisfied by human sacrifices. Now the requirements of social life
have made murder a crime. We condemn and punish the assassin! But as we
cannot live without yielding to this natural and imperious instinct of
death, we relieve ourselves, from time to time, by wars. Then a whole
nation slaughters another nation. It is a feast of blood, a feast that
maddens armies and that intoxicates civilians, women and children, who
read, by lamplight at night, the feverish story of massacre.

One might suppose that those destined to accomplish these butcheries of
men would be despised! No, they are loaded with honors. They are clad
in gold and in resplendent garments; they wear plumes on their heads and
ornaments on their breasts, and they are given crosses, rewards, titles
of every kind. They are proud, respected, loved by women, cheered by the
crowd, solely because their mission is to shed human blood; They drag
through the streets their instruments of death, that the passer-by, clad
in black, looks on with envy. For to kill is the great law set by nature
in the heart of existence! There is nothing more beautiful and honorable
than killing!

30th Ju