Of everything.
Including the upper superior mines, which it execrates. It not only undermines, in its hideous swarming, the actual social order; it undermines philosophy, it undermines human thought, it undermines civilization, it undermines revolution, it undermines progress. Its name is simply theft, prostitution, murder, assassination. It is darkness, and it desires chaos.
Its vault is formed of ignorance.
All the others, those above it, have but one object--to suppress it. It is to this point that philosophy and progress tend, with all their organs simultaneously, by their amelioration of the real, as well as by their contemplation of the absolute.
Destroy the cavern Ignorance and you destroy the lair Crime.
Let us condense, in a few words, a part of what we have just written. The only social peril is darkness.
Humanity is identity.
All men are made of the same clay. There is no difference, here below, at least, in predestination. The same shadow in front, the same flesh in the present, the same ashes afterwards.
But ignorance, mingled with the human paste, blackens it.
This incurable blackness takes possession of the interior of a man and is there converted into evil.
BOOK SEVENTH.--PATRON MINETTE CHAPTER I
CHAPTER III ∮本∮作∮品∮由∮思∮兔∮網∮提∮供∮線∮上∮閱∮讀∮
BABET, GUEULEMER, CLAQUESOUS, AND MONTPARNASSE