If Clerambault himself could not see clearly into his own thought, it
was hardly to be expected that his young friends should do so, and
even if they had seen, they would never have understood. They could
not bear the idea that a man who condemned the present state of things
as bad and destructive, should hesitate at the most energetic methods
for its suppression. They were not wrong from their point of view,
which was that of immediate action, but the field of the mind is
greater, its battles cover a wider space; it does not waste its
energies in bloody skirmishes. Even admitting the methods advocated by
his friends, Clerambault could not accept their axiom, that "the end
justifies the means." For, on the contrary, he believed that the means
are even more important to real progress than the end ... what end?
Will there ever be such a thing?
This idea was irritating and confusing to these young minds; it served
to increase a dangerous hostility, which had arisen in the last five
years among the working class, against the intellectuals. No doubt the
latter had richly deserved it; how far away seemed the time when men
of thought marched at the head of revolutions! Whereas now they were
one with the forces of reaction. Even the limited number of those who
had kept aloof, while blaming the mistakes of the ring, were, like
Clerambault, unable to give up their individualism, which had saved
them once, but now held them prisoners, outside the new movement of
the masses.
Pages:
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265