You occupy a high position: I strip you of it; there you are,
free. There is too much optimism beneath this official costume,
too much subordination, too much idleness. Science demands an
insurrection of thought: now, the thought of an official is his
salary.
Your mistress, beautiful, passionate, artistic, is, I like to
believe, possessed only by you. That is, your soul, your spirit,
your conscience, have passed into the most charming object of
luxury that nature and art have produced for the eternal torment
of fascinated mortals. I separate you from this divine half of
yourself: at the present day it is too much to wish for justice
and at the same time to love a woman. To think with grandeur and
clearness, man must remove the lining of his nature and hold to
his masculine hypostasis. Besides, in the state in which I have
put you, your lover would no longer know you: remember the wife
of Job.
What is your religion? . . . . Forget your faith, and, through
wisdom, become an atheist.--What! you say; an atheist in spite of
our hypothesis!--No, but because of our hypothesis.
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