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evolution which is the inverse of the one usually observed—and this suggests perhaps some probable<br />
hypothesis about the origin of our elementary sensations in our distant ancestors. Be that as it may,<br />
there is nothing incomprehensible in all this. But can we conceive of someone who cannot distinguish<br />
between yes and no in the way some cannot distinguish between red and green, or of another person<br />
who manifests signs of what we call desiring something and then expresses contentment when it is<br />
denied to him? Can we concede that there are two ways of listening or of looking just as there are<br />
two ways of hearing and of affecting the retina? If, in addition to sensations, belief and desire differed<br />
from one man to another, tradition would be but an empty word, and nothing human could be<br />
transmitted unchanged from one generation to the next. When someone proves to me that he does not<br />
smell the way I do, I feel alien and indifferent; but if he contradicts me, I immediately feel jarred by a<br />
force contrary, hence similar to my own. If someone tried to placate me by saying that perhaps the<br />
person in question does not deny just the way that I do, I would take it as a bad joke. Solely through<br />
belief and desire do we both collaborate and compete; only through them, therefore, are we alike.<br />
And no better reason can be given. Moreover, is it not clear that at the bottom of all human battles<br />
there is a yes or a no, a velle or a nolle? *3 It is true that in religious, political or social debates, the<br />
storm is most often aroused by two propositions which are not only contradictory but distinct, two<br />
schemes not only contrary but heterogeneous. But it arises solely because, in asserting itself, each<br />
thesis denies the other and because each volition opposes the other. History is but the recital of such<br />
conflicts. On the contrary, it is our ways of feeling, either natural or acquired, that isolate us in the<br />
struggle. Subtle or strong, delicate or coarse, they are, for each of us, the inoffensive but inviolable<br />
presence which renders the surrounding world of discord and hate, charlatans and fanatics alien to us.<br />
If this is true, it is legitimate to aggregate the quantities of belief or desire of separate individuals.<br />
It has in fact been tried with complete success and adequate approximation. Variations in the<br />
monetary value of things, statistical numbers, and also, as we shall see, the military triumphs or<br />
defeats of nations, are, in diverse ways, valid processes for this type of measurement.<br />
I shall not dwell on the first. Except where government bonds are the sole outlet for available<br />
capital, stock market fluctuations are reasonably acceptable indicators of the vicissitudes of credit, of<br />
natural confidence in the financial success of the state, or of some industrial enterprise. One bets<br />
more or less heavily at the races according to the degree of confidence one has in the speed of a<br />
horse. Taking into account the depreciation of precious metals and the variations in national wealth,<br />
the elevation or decline of religious faith or of the certainty attached to threats of hell or promises of<br />
heaven is evidenced at all times and in all places by the comparative number of monetary sacrifices<br />
made at the alter and by bequests or donations to the clergy. It would be a delicate but not insoluable<br />
problem to determine, with the help of these numbers (the comparative size of the population and the<br />
total public fortune at two different periods, and several other numerical givens), the exact fraction<br />
which would express the relation of the two total quantities of religious faith manifested in the same<br />
country during these two periods. If, from one year to the next, shares were sold at 1,500 francs after<br />
having been sold for 500 (without any variation in a company’s shareholder dividends or in general<br />
conditions of credit), would it not be well founded to say that public confidence in the duration or<br />
future increase of profits had tripled?<br />
When properly handled, statistics can also furnish odd measures of general desire. According to<br />
Mr. Bertillon, for example, in the Netherlands, out of 1,000 boys between 25 and 30, 112 marry each<br />
year, and out of 1,000 widowers 355 remarry. *4 What we may conclude from this is that the desire for<br />
marriage is about three times greater among the widowers than among the unmarried men of the same<br />
age. For widows as compared with unmarried girls, it is only twice as great. Through the figures for