Among men of flesh and bone there have been typical examples of those who possess this tragic sense of life. I recall now Marcus Aurelius, St. Augustine, Pascal, Rousseau, _René, Obermann_, Thomson,[9] Leopardi, Vigny, Lenau, Kleist, Amiel, Quental, Kierkegaard--men burdened with wisdom rather than with knowledge.
And there are, I believe, peoples who possess this tragic sense of life also.
It is to this that we must now turn our attention, beginning with this matter of health and disease.
[5] "_Salto inmortal_." There is a play here upon the term _salto mortal_, used to denote the dangerous aerial somersault of the acrobat, which cannot be rendered in English.--J.E.C.F.
[6] "_Conciencia_." The same word is used in Spanish to denote both consciousness and conscience. If the latter is specifically intended, the qualifying adjective "_moral_" or "_religiosa_" is commonly added.--J.E.C.F.
[8] To be lacking in everything but intelligence is the necessary qualification for thinking like you.
[9] James Thomson, author of _The City of Dreadful Night_.
To some, perhaps, the foregoing reflections may seem to possess a certain morbid character. Morbid? But what is disease precisely? And what is health?
May not disease itself possibly be the essential condition of that which we call progress and progress itself a disease?
Who does not know the mythical tragedy of Paradise? Therein dwelt our first parents in a state of perfect health and perfect innocence, and Jahwé gave them to eat of the tree of life and created all things for them; but he commanded them not to taste of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But they, tempted by the serpent--Christ's type of prudence--tasted of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and became subject to all diseases, and to death, which is their crown and consummation, and to labour and to progress. For progress, according to this legend, springs from original sin. And thus it was the curiosity of Eve, of woman, of her who is most thrall to the organic necessities of life and of the conservation of life, that occasioned the Fall and with the Fall the Redemption, and it was the Redemption that set our feet on the way to God and made it possible for us to attain to Him and to be in Him.