xious to pit myself against the world of
Paris. I wanted opposition, contradiction, in order to vanquish them,
and absorb their force into the glory of my triumph. Moreover, my
studies had now reached a point where they required the assistance
that could only be obtained in a great city: in a word, I resolved to
return to the capital, for a longer or shorter time, as the sequel
should prove desirable. My means rendered me independent of my
_clientele_, and I left my patients without regret to the care of
an easily procured substitute. It is so rare to alight upon an
interesting case in the country! Nothing but rheumatism and measles,
measles and rheumatism, and never an autopsy,--it is as monotonous as
the treatment of fever and ague. I longed for the vast metropolitan
hospitals, containing specimens of every shade of disease, and
affording unlimited opportunities for auscultation. Of these I
stood especially in need, for the train of thought suggested by
physiological experiment must be completed by pathological researches,
which could only be carried on at Paris.

To Paris, therefore, I came, as to a new world, so completely had I
been separated from it during the two last years. It was as if one of
the spirits in the metempsychosis imagined by Fourier, had returned to
the brilliant sphere from which death had driven him in temporary
exile. I was at first enchanted, intoxicated. The mental activity
which had seemed so intense in the sluggish province, needed to be
quickened fourfold to keep abreast of the intellects with which I
entered into relation, and the consciousness of the quickening
affected me as with new wine. But, as I grew accustomed to my new
medium, I became again subtly dissatisfied. It was not enough to be
abreast of the world, I wanted to be a little ahead. In my solitude
it was easy to cherish illusions concerning the value of my own work,
to picture myself as a mighty and triumphant wrestler with Nature,
capable, by his single strength, of forcing her reluctant secrets, to
reveal them afterwards to an admiring world. But at Paris, with its
enormous condensation of intellectual force, I could not flatter
myself on the solitary greatness of my achievements, nor ignore the
collective action of society. Whatever my attainment, I should be
forced to share its fame with a hundred other workers, who had
lent me, unasked, their aid. The distance between the person who
uttered the last word, and him who sai