eir
part in the world; and in particular we should take to heart everything
that he said about that crowd of arrogant sciolists who idolize the
tastes, the fashions, and the languages of foreign countries, and are
ever ready to pull down whatever they despise--and they despise
everything.

We have not the scientific spirit? And what of that, if we have some
other spirit? And who can tell if the spirit that we have is or is not
compatible with the scientific spirit?

But in saying "Let others invent!" I did not mean to imply that we must
be content with playing a passive role. No. For them their science, by
which we shall profit; for us, our own work. It is not enough to be on
the defensive, we must attack.

But we must attack wisely and cautiously. Reason must be our weapon. It
is the weapon even of the fool. Our sublime fool and our exemplar, Don
Quixote, after he had destroyed with two strokes of his sword that
pasteboard visor "which he had fitted to his head-piece, made it anew,
placing certain iron bars within it, in such a manner that he rested
satisfied with its solidity, and without wishing to make a second trial
of it, he deputed and held it in estimation of a most excellent
visor."[62] And with the pasteboard visor on his head he made himself
immortal--that is to say, he made himself ridiculous. For it was by
making himself ridiculous that Don Quixote achieved his immortality.

And there are so many ways of making ourselves ridiculous I ... Cournot
said _(Traite de l'enchainement des idees fondamentales_, etc., Sec. 510):
"It is best not to speak to either princes or peoples of the
probabilities of death; princes will punish this temerity with disgrace;
the public will revenge itself with ridicule." True, and therefore it is
said that we must live as the age lives. _Corrumpere et corrumpi saeculum
vocatur_ (Tacitus: _Germania_ 19).

It is necessary to know how to make ourselves ridiculous, and not only
to others but to ourselves. And more than ever to-day, when there is so
much chatter about our backwardness compared with other civilized
peoples, to-day when a parcel of shallow-brained critics say that we
have had no science, no art, no philosophy, no Renaissance, (of this we
had perhaps too much), no anything, these same critics being ignorant of
our real history, a history that remains yet to be written, the first
task being to undo the web of calumniation and protest that has been
woven around it.