And it comes not amiss to repeat yet once again the same eternal
lamentations that were already old in the days of Job and Ecclesiastes,
and even to repeat them in the same words, to the end that the devotees
of progress may see that there is something that never dies. Whosoever
repeats the "Vanity of vanities" of Ecclesiastes or the lamentations of
Job, even though without changing a letter, having first experienced
them in his soul, performs a work of admonition. Need is to repeat
without ceasing the _memento mori_.
"But to what end?" you will ask. Even though it be only to the end that
some people should be irritated and should see that these things are not
dead and, so long as men exist, cannot die; to the end that they should
be convinced that to-day, in the twentieth century, all the bygone
centuries and all of them alive, are still subsisting. When a supposed
error reappears, it must be, believe me, that it has not ceased to be
true in part, just as when one who was dead reappears, it must be that
he was not wholly dead.
Yes, I know well that others before me have felt what I feel and
express; that many others feel it to-day, although they keep silence
about it. Why do I not keep silence about it too? Well, for the very
reason that most of those who feel it are silent about it; and yet,
though they are silent, they obey in silence that inner voice. And I do
not keep silence about it because it is for many the thing which must
not be spoken, the abomination of abominations--_infandum_--and I
believe that it is necessary now and again to speak the thing which must
not be spoken.
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