He says to man: 'To live, thou must bow
thyself to earth; to think, thou shalt lift thyself to Me.' We have as
much need of the life of the soul as of the life of the body,--hence,
there are two utilities. It is true we cannot be shod by books or
clothed by poems. An epic song is not, if you take the utilitarian
view, as useful as the broth of a charity kitchen. The noblest ideas
will not sail a vessel in place of canvas. It is quite true that the
cotton-gin gives us calicoes for thirty sous a yard less than we ever
paid before; but that machine and all other industrial perfections
will not breathe the breath of life into a people, will not tell
futurity of a civilization that once existed. Art, on the contrary,
Egyptian, Mexican, Grecian, Roman art, with their masterpieces--now
called useless!--reveal the existence of races back in the vague
immense of time, beyond where the great intermediary nations, denuded
of men of genius, have disappeared, leaving not a line nor a trace
behind them! The works of genius are the 'summum' of civilization, and
presuppose utility. Surely a pair of boots are not as agreeable to
your eyes as a fine play at the theatre; and you don't prefer a
windmill to the church of Saint-Ouen, do you? Well then, nations are
imbued with the same feelings as the individual man, and the man's
cherished desire is to survive himself morally just as he propagates
himself physically.
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