Page 1685 - les-miserables

universal well-being, is a divinely fatal phenomenon.
Immense combined propulsions direct human affairs
and conduct them within a given time to a logical state, that
is to say, to a state of equilibrium; that is to say, to equity. A
force composed of earth and heaven results from humanity
and governs it; this force is a worker of miracles; marvellous
issues are no more difficult to it than extraordinary vicis-
situdes. Aided by science, which comes from one man, and
by the event, which comes from another, it is not greatly
alarmed by these contradictions in the attitude of problems,
which seem impossibilities to the vulgar herd. It is no less
skilful at causing a solution to spring forth from the rec-
onciliation of ideas, than a lesson from the reconciliation
of facts, and we may expect anything from that mysterious
power of progress, which brought the Orient and the Occi-
dent face to face one fine day, in the depths of a sepulchre,
and made the imaums converse with Bonaparte in the inte-
rior of the Great Pyramid.
In the meantime, let there be no halt, no hesitation, no
pause in the grandiose onward march of minds. Social phi-
losophy consists essentially in science and peace. Its object
is, and its result must be, to dissolve wrath by the study of
antagonisms. It examines, it scrutinizes, it analyzes; then it
puts together once more, it proceeds by means of reduction,
discarding all hatred.
More than once, a society has been seen to give way before
the wind which is let loose upon mankind; history is full of
the shipwrecks of nations and empires; manners, customs,
laws, religions,—and some fine day that unknown force, the

1685