Page:Rolland - Clerambault, tr. Miller, 1921.djvu/297

 King Bomba said of his valiant soldiers; dress them in red or in green as you choose, they will take to their heels just the same. One says peace and the other war, but neither means anything, there is only universal servitude, multitudes swept along like the ebb and flow of tides; and this will continue as long as no strong souls raise themselves above the human ocean, as long as no one dares to fight against the fate that sways these great masses."

"Fight against nature," said Coulanges. "Would you resist her laws?"

"There are no immutable laws," said Clerambault, laws like beings, live, change, and die. It is the duty of the spirit, not to accept these as the Stoics taught us, but rather to modify and shape them to our needs. Laws are the outside form of the soul, and if it grows they must grow also. The only just laws are those that suit me. Am I wrong in thinking that the shoe should be made to fit the foot, not the foot for the shoe?"

"I do not say that you are wrong," said the Count, "we force nature all the time in cattle-breeding, so that even the shape and instincts of the animals are modified; why not the human creature? No, far from blaming you, I maintain on the contrary that the object and the duty of every man worthy of the name is, just as you say, to alter human nature. It is the source of all real progress; even to strive after the impossible has a concrete value. But that does not mean that we shall succeed in what we undertake."

"It is possible that we may not succeed for ourselves and our children; it is, even more, probable. Perhaps our unhappy nation, the entire West is on the downward path. There are many things that make me fear that we are hastening to our fall; our vices and our virtues, which are almost equally injurious, the pride and hatred, the jealous spite worthy of a big village, the endless chain of