will pause in his work, be it only for a moment, and reflect upon what he is, upon the state of the world about him, and upon what he ought to be. If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you, consider what you are and what you ought to be,—think of the ideal.
M. Zola says that people should not aspire, or believe in a superior power, or trouble about the ideal. Perhaps M. Zola understands by the word "ideal," either the supernatural, that is to say, the theological rubbish about the Trinity, the Church, and the Pope, etc., or the unexplained, as he calls the vast forces of the universe into which we are plunged. And in this case men would do well to follow M. Zola's advice. But, in reality, the ideal is neither supernatural nor unexplained. On the contrary, it is the most natural of things; I will not say it is the most thoroughly explained, but it appeals to the human mind with more certainty than anything else.
The ideal in geometry is the perfectly straight line, and the circle the radii of which are equal; in science, it is exact truths; in morals, perfect virtue. Although all these things, straight line, exact truth, and perfect virtue alike, have never existed, not only are they more natural, more known, and more explicable than all our other knowledge; but they are the only things we truly and certainly do know.
It is commonly said that reality is that which exists, or in other words, only that which exists is real. The contrary is, however, the case; the true reality, that which we truly know, is that which never existed. The ideal is the only thing which we know with certainty, and it has never existed. It is only thanks to the ideal that we know anything at all, and that is why the ideal alone can guide mankind in their lives, both individually and collectively. The Christian ideal has been before us for eighteen centuries; it shines in our time with such intensity that it is extremely difficult to avoid seeing that
