Page 2085 - les-miserables

man race the pattern of the ideal.
The modern ideal has its type in art, and its means is
science. It is through science that it will realize that august
vision of the poets, the socially beautiful. Eden will be re-
constructed by A+B. At the point which civilization has now
reached, the exact is a necessary element of the splendid,
and the artistic sentiment is not only served, but complet-
ed by the scientific organ; dreams must be calculated. Art,
which is the conqueror, should have for support science,
which is the walker; the solidity of the creature which is
ridden is of importance. The modern spirit is the genius of
Greece with the genius of India as its vehicle; Alexander on
the elephant.
Races which are petrified in dogma or demoralized by
lucre are unfit to guide civilization. Genuflection before
the idol or before money wastes away the muscles which
walk and the will which advances. Hieratic or mercantile
absorption lessens a people’s power of radiance, lowers its
horizon by lowering its level, and deprives it of that intelli-
gence, at once both human and divine of the universal goal,
which makes missionaries of nations. Babylon has no ide-
al; Carthage has no ideal. Athens and Rome have and keep,
throughout all the nocturnal darkness of the centuries, ha-
los of civilization.
France is in the same quality of race as Greece and Italy.
She is Athenian in the matter of beauty, and Roman in her
greatness. Moreover, she is good. She gives herself. Oftener
than is the case with other races, is she in the humor for
self-devotion and sacrifice. Only, this humor seizes upon

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