Book IV - Age 15 to Age 20 - Page 2

he does not know what it is that he feels; he is uneasy without
knowing why. All this may happen gradually and give you time enough;
but if his keenness becomes impatience, his eagerness madness, if
he is angry and sorry all in a moment, if he weeps without cause,
if in the presence of objects which are beginning to be a source
of danger his pulse quickens and his eyes sparkle, if he trembles
when a woman's hand touches his, if he is troubled or timid in her
presence, O Ulysses, wise Ulysses! have a care! The passages you
closed with so much pains are open; the winds are unloosed; keep
your hand upon the helm or all is lost.

This is the second birth I spoke of; then it is that man really
enters upon life; henceforth no human passion is a stranger to him.
Our efforts so far have been child's play, now they are of the
greatest importance. This period when education is usually finished
is just the time to begin; but to explain this new plan properly,
let us take up our story where we left it.

Our passions are the chief means of self-preservation; to try to
destroy them is therefore as absurd as it is useless; this would
be to overcome nature, to reshape God's handiwork. If God bade
man annihilate the passions he has given him, God would bid him be
and not be; He would contradict himself. He has never given such a
foolish commandment, there is nothing like it written on the heart
of man, and what God will have a man do, He does not leave to the
words of another man. He speaks Himself; His words are written in
the secret heart.

Now I consider those who would prevent the birth of the passions
almost as foolish as those who would destroy them, and those who
think this has been my object hitherto are greatly mistaken.

But should we reason rightly, if from the fact that passions
are natural to man, we inferred that all the passions we feel in
ourselves and behold in others are natural? Their source, indeed,
is natural; but they have been swollen by a thousand other streams;
they are a great river which is constantly growing, one in which
we can scarcely find a single drop of the original stream. Our
natural passions are few in number; they are the means to freedom,
they tend to self-preservation. All those which enslave and destroy
us have another source; nature does not bestow them on us; we seize
on them in her despite.

The origin of our passions, the root and spring of all the rest,
the only one which is born with man, which never leaves him as long
as he lives, is self-love; this passion is primitive, instinctive,
it precedes all the rest, which are in a sense only modifications
of it. In this sense, if you like, they are all natural. But most
of these modifications are the