s.

"Why does this desire flame up so furiously? Because we do not want to
see the truth--and therefore _because we do see it_. Therein lies the
tragedy of humanity; it refuses to see and know. As a last resort, it
is forced to find divinity in the mire. Let us, on our part, dare to
look the truth in the face.

"The instinct of murder is deeply engraved in the heart of nature. It
is a truly devilish instinct, since it seems to have created beings
not only to eat, but to be eaten. One species of cormorants eats
fishes. The fishermen exterminate the birds. And the fish disappear,
because they fed on the excrement of the birds who devoured them. Thus
the chain of beings is like a serpent eating his own tail.... If only
we were not sentient beings, did not witness our own tortures, we
might escape from this hell. There are two ways only: that of Buddha,
who effaced within himself the painful illusion of life; and the
religious way, which throws the veil of a dazzling falsehood over
crime and sorrow. Those who devour others are said to be the chosen
people who work for God. The weight of sin, thrown into one of the
scales of life, finds its counterpoise beyond in the dream where all
wounds and sorrows are to be cured. The form of the beyond varies
from people to people and from time to time, and these variations are
called Progress, though it is always the same need of illusion. Our
terrible consciousness insists on seeing and reckoning with the unjust
law; for if we do not give it something to bite on, fill its maw
somehow, it will howl with hunger and fear, crying out: 'I must have
belief or death!' And that is why we go in flocks; for security, to
make a common certainty out of our individual doubts.

"What have we to do with truth? Most men think that truth is the
Adversary. Of course they do not say this, but by a tacit agreement
what they call truth is a sickening mixture of much falsehood and very
little truth, which serves to paint over the lie so that we get deceit
and eternal slavery. Not the monuments of faith and love are the most
durable, those of servitude last much longer. Rheims and the Parthenon
fall to ruins, but the Pyramids of Egypt defy the ages; all about them
is the desert, its mirages and its moving sand. When I think of the
millions of souls swallowed up by the spirit of slavery in the course
of centuries--heretics, revolutionists, rebels lay and clerical,--I am
no longer surprised at the mediocri