Wisdom consists in rising superior both to madness and to common sense,
and in lending one's self to the universal illusion without becoming its
dupe. It is best, on the whole, for a man of taste who knows how to be
gay with the gay, and serious with the serious, to enter into the game
of Maia, and to play his part with a good grace in the fantastic
tragi-comedy which is called the Universe. It seems to me that here
intellectualism reaches its limit. [Footnote: "We all believe in duty,"
says M. Renan, "and in the triumph of righteousness;" but it is possible
notwithstanding, "que tout le contraire soit vrai--et que le monde ne
soit qu'une amusante feerie dont aucun dieu ne se soucie. Il faut donc
nous arranger de maniere a ceque, dans le cas ou le seconde hypothese
serait la vraie, nous n'ayons pas ete trop dupes."
This strain of remark, which is developed at considerable length, is
meant as a criticism of Amiel's want of sensitiveness to the irony of
things. But in reality, as the passage in the text shows, M. Renan is
only expressing a feeling with which Amiel was just as familiar as his
critic. Only he is delivered from this last doubt of all by his habitual
seriousness; by that sense of "horror and awe" which M. Renan puts away
from him. Conscience saves him "from the sorceries of Maia.
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