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Title: Galileo Author: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Date: March 23, 1895 Language: en Topics: play, fiction, Libertarian Labyrinth Source: Retrieved on 25th April 2021 from http://wiki.libertarian-labyrinth.org/index.php?title=Proudhon_as_a_Dramatic_Author Notes: Published as Proudhon as a Dramatic Author. in Liberty 10, no. 23 (March 23, 1895): 4–8. Introduction and afterward by Benjamin Tucker and Edmond Lepelletier.
In two recent issues of “La Nouvelle Revue” (February 1 and 15) appears
a remarkable article under the above title from the pen of Edmond
Lepelletier, embodying an outline sketch, left by Proudhon and now for
the first time published, of a play which he had in contemplation, to be
entitled “Galileo: A Philosophical Drama in Four Acts and Five
Tableaux.” As no one bad dreamed of Proudhon as a dramatist, this is a
surprising revelation. The article opens with a summary biographical
sketch of Proudhon, which, in point of fact, contains nothing new, and,
in point of opinion of Proudhon’s work, goes nearly to the ordinary
extent of misconception. Indeed, nothing better could be expected from a
man like Lepelletier, who, although a journalist of considerable
ability, a recognized literary critic, a moderately successful novelist
and dramatist, and a leading Freethinker who eats priest three times a
day and four times on Friday, has no better understanding of the
revolution now in progress than to foam at the mouth whenever a bomb is
thrown, to write articles urging the conviction of anarchists arrested
for printing their opinions, and, after their acquittal, to write other
articles inciting the bourgeois to violence against their
fellow-bourgeois who sat on the jury. But the fact that Lepelletier is a
man of this stamp renders all the more valuable the tribute that he is
forced to pay to Proudhon’s character and capacity. In the partial
translated reprint which is given below I include, therefore, besides
Proudhon’s sketch of his contemplated drama, the tribute with which
Lepelletier prefaces it and the comments with which he follows it, but I
omit from it the biographical portion.
Proudhon, a tumultuous genius; a foaming ocean; a brain never at rest,
but always in flux and reflux; believing what he said at the moment when
he said it, and hence neither skeptical or impartial or indifferent; a
sincere sophist; an enraptured rhetorician; an earnest demolisher of the
fecundity of ruins; a surgeon of philosophy, of political economy, of
Socialistic systems, of nationalities, of reputations, of consecrated
works, who was persuaded that, in plunging his lancet haphazard into
healthy and diseased parts alike, he preserved and cured,—Proudhon, I
say, looms up in the recession of time, with his immense faults, his
intolerable onslaughts, his intentional extravagances, and his
spontaneous flights, as one of the most powerful, most colossal men of
our century and of preceding ages. He is at once our Kant and our Hegel,
with less than their calmness and more than their eloquence. Like all
great and true thinkers, he was encyclopedic. Action escapes him. He
lived immured in dream, in idea, and was preeminently a citizen of
Utopia. Although mingled with the political events which led up to and
followed the fall of Louis Philippe, he was rather a spectator than an
actor in the tragi-comedy of 1848. Chosen a representative,—for in those
days the voters sought thinkers, philosophers, historians, and even
poets,—he participated only from above dominant and ironical, in the
assembly debates usually conducted on a plane beneath his level.
Moreover, he spent a part of his term in prison or in exile. At the
moment when cannon were thundering in the faubourgs, which the rioters
had barred with barricades surmounted by red flags, Proudhon was
discovered on his way to MĂ©nilmontant. They questioned him suspecting
that a Socialist like him might be deserting the assembly and the
government to join the insurgents behind their heaps of paving-stones,
Proudhon shrugged his shoulders. “I was simply going,” he quietly
answered, “to contemplate the sublime horror of the cannonade.” Paris in
revolt in the gloomy days of June awakened in him an artist’s
sensations.
A man prodigiously endowed, formidably complex, a veritable intellectual
Proteus! for, although successively, and sometimes simultaneously,
linguist, economist, philosopher, pamphleteer, historian, polemic,
exegete, and legislator, he deserves also to be classed among the
artists. In the first place, by his style. In the next place, by the
aesthetic interest that marked especially the close of his laborious
career, making him a citizen of the world of art.
He left behind him, the astonishing polygraph, an incomplete, imperfect
work, of which his hand, already enfeebled by approaching death, wrote
some unfinished pages, some uncorrected lines, but in every phrase of
which the critical sense and the notion of the beautiful, the true, the
just, are brilliantly apparent. “The Principle of Art and Its Social
Destiny,”—such is the title of this fine book in which a new Proudhon
arises, as strong, as novel, as superior, but more exact, more poised,
and less paradoxical, than in his polemical and philosophical works.
This is not all: he was not content to formulate his sensations and his
theories regarding painting and sculpture; it was also his wish to deal
with the special art of the theatre, so difficult, so synthetic, so
profound. And we have a Proudhon who is a dramatic author. He did not
have the time to write his work; he could only drive the stakes in the
scenic field which it was his design to cover.
He had in his head a “Galileo,”—a vast and serious subject which also
tempted Ponsard. But how superior would have been Proudhon’s drama, at
once philosophical and human, to that of the author of “Honor and
Money,” who saw in the duel between faith and science, in which Galileo
and the Inquisitors were the combatants, only the commonplace adventure
of a good father of a family withdrawing an imprudent word in order to
be able to marry his daughter advantageously.
Proudhon constructed his “Galileo” in outline only.
It is this outline, sufficiently complete and even minutely detailed,
accompanied by reflections, critical comments, and interesting
indications, that we now place before the public for the fist time. It
was found among Proudhon’s unpublished papers, though it does not appear
in the list of posthumous works announced by his executors. It is in the
handwriting of Mlle. Catherine Proudhon, who was her father’s secretary.
It has been placed in my hands by M. Albert Lecroix, the former
publisher of Proudhon’s works, who acquired it by a contract made with
Proudhon’s widow covering all the works of her illustrious husband.
“Galileo” was conceived, thought out, and fixed in the very clear,
theatrical, and lifelike form in which the render is now to rend it. The
drama is made. The edifice is constructed. It remains only to fill in
the dialogue. It is my intention at some future day to perform this
complementary work. The text now presented, copied from the original
manuscript without addition, subtraction, or correction, will suffice to
prove that the multiple genius of Proudhon embraced a veritable dramatic
author.
GALILEO.
A DRAMA.
Is it possible to dramatize the struggles of the mind and the agitations
of thought in such a way that the spectator may take an interest in
them, just as he takes an interest in the struggles of the passions and
the revolutions of politics
To this question one would like to see a philosophical reply given by a
writer applying the resources and rules of dramatic art to a
philosophico-religious event, —such, for example, as the trial of
Galileo.
Here is pretty nearly my conception of the plan and method of this
drama.
Scene I.—The scene opens in Galileo’s house.
The philosopher, in presence of a company of friends and disciples, is
finishing the demonstration of the double movement of the earth.
A religious man as well as a philosopher, a savant from motives of
curiosity and recreation, Galileo warms his soul with song and music.
The lesson finished, after a few enthusiastic words as to the religious
and philosophical future of humanity, master and chorus sing in chorus a
few verses, in a free translation, of the CĹ“li Enarrant.
Galileo’s daughter, a young person remarkable for her talents and the
knowledge which she has acquired in her father’s society, accompanies
them on some musical instrument. She is her father’s usual musician.
Among those present are:
Torricelli, the celebrated disciple;
A young lord, the fiancé or lover of Galileo’s daughter, and an intimate
friend of Torricelli;
Two spies from the Holy Office, ruined noblemen living by their wits and
as informers.
The song over, one of the spies asks Galileo an insidious question as to
the difficulty of harmonizing the text of the Bible with the Copernican
system.
Torricelli, a man of pure science, prudent and distrustful. who is
inclined to condemn the mystical tendencies of Galileo, hastens to take
the floor. He protests, after the fashion of the savants of the time,
against any comparison between human science, so uncertain, an eternal
subject of dispute, and faith; maintains that the question propounded
cannot be admitted, without temerity, among simple and modest
philosophers; that it is not within the sphere of lay science; and that
even to raise it is to be lacking in fidelity to the Church. And, after
these words of edification, he asks that the question be set aside.
“It is very well known,” he says, “that, of all the children of the
Church, Galileo is the most submissive and faithful, and that all his
disciples are fervently orthodox. The truths of religion are of a
superior order, and their keeping is entrusted to the Church; beneath,
far beneath, is the practice of philosophy, ever ready, like a humble
servant, to sacrifice her data at the slightest symptoms of disagreement
with revelation. Such questions are rash; they encroach upon the
ecclesiastical mission and the episcopal prerogatives, and lead to
temptation.”
There can be nothing more edifying than Torricelli’s words.
Galileo looks at his disciple with an ironical expression in his eye;
repressing his thought and taking up the question propounded, he rushes
full tilt into the speculations of which he is so fond.
He maintains that the truths of reason and those of faith do not form
two orders separated by analysis, but that there is a close and positive
bond between them; that together they form but one and the same
chain,—the only difference being that the truths of faith, hidden from
our intelligence, are revealed to us by the grace of heaven, while those
of reason fall under our observation. The savant holds one end of the
chain, the Church the other; the problem before each is that of
following the chain until the two meet.
Meantime he points out that Scripture is erroneously interpreted.
Torricelli expresses his disapproval by signs of impatience, but always
in equivocal terms, misleading to the auditors.
Galileo ends by prophesying, in the name of science, a sort of coming of
the Holy Ghost, and a future of unequalled glory for the Church.
The two spies and all the company retire. Galileo shows his guests out.
Torricelli and the lover are left alone.
Scene II.—Torricelli reveals to the young man his suspicions concerning
the two spies and recommends him to secrecy on this point, especially
with Galileo, whose frankness and candor would compromise everything,
and who must be saved in spite of himself. Then, changing the subject,
he tells the young man that, whatever the merits of Galileo’s daughter,
he does not approve his suit.
“Can you be dazzled by her pretence to knowledge? Do you believe in
scientific women, in the philosophy of a Hypatia? And, though she were
her father’s equal, is it fitting that a gallant knight, a man of the
world, should be burdened with a Minerva?”
Reflections upon learned women.
“Do you intend, then, to form a sect with your wife and your
father-in-law?”
Reply of the young man (twenty eight to thirty years of age).
“You are mistaken,” he says to Torricelli, “regarding the signora. She
is other than she seems. Married, restored to her nature, she will tear
off her veil of pedantry, which I desire no more than you, and her
knowledge will add to her charm.”
Scene III.—Galileo reenters.
Discussion between him and Torricelli.
The latter energetically blames Galileo’s ultra-scientific tendencies.
He accuses him of being deficient in philosophical dignity, and of
pursuit of chimeras.
“All these crotchets,” says Torricelli, “are the corruption of science;
they would be the corruption of religion, if in religion there were
anything to corrupt.”
He warns his master to be on his guard, lest his religious notions and
his free utterance may ruin him.
Galileo, after making sport of what he terms Torricelli’s jugglery and
dubbing him an impious man and an atheist, at which the young savant
bursts into loud laughter, then maintains that science is but a means
for man, an instrument for philosophy; that it would be little worthy of
esteem if it were not to enlighten us in turn upon the things of which
religion has a monopoly,—rights, duties; morality, destiny, etc. He
complains of Torricelli’s materialism, etc.
The two men do not refute each other, and they leave the scene
unconvinced.
Scene IV.—Love-scene between Galileo’s daughter and her suitor, a
typical young savante, but with tenderness and devotion predominant in
her nature. One feels that she has been turned to study more by
admiration for her father and by domestic influence than by her own
genius.
It is the family spirit, transformed under another influence. It is
especially by the religious side of her father’s ideas that she has been
attracted; through it she feels poetry and love itself. She does not
like Torricelli, and she fears his influence on the mind of her fiancé.
The young man is the type of a self-possessed lover, knowing what he
does, what he wants, and where he is going,
Scene V.—Reenter Galileo and Torricelli. They come from the laboratory.
Arrival of a summoner from the Holy Office, bearing a document
commanding Galileo to appear. The same personage informs Torricelli and
his friend that they are summoned also.
Galileo reads the document.
A few words indicate, as an aggravation of his offence, that he resists
all the observations of his pious disciple and friend Torricelli, who
continually opposes him. So that the religious man, Galileo, is
transformed into an unbeliever by the cunning of the police and the
imputations of justice, and Torricelli, the skeptic, the materialist,
the atheist, into a paragon of orthodoxy.
The latter, whose foresight is justified, again recommends his master to
be prudent.
The difficulty in this first act is to give enough movement to the
dialogue to prevent the discussions from dragging.
Success in this is to be attained by giving a solemn character to the
teachings of Galileo and a strong impression of novelty to his ideas,
and by brilliantly emphasizing the opposition between faith and science
and the gravity of the resultant danger to the Holy Office.
A little cry of conspiracy for the spread of such ideas would not be
amiss.
The action takes place, as in the first act, in Galileo’s house, at the
moment when he, together with the other persons summoned, is appearing
before the examining magistrate of the Holy Office. So that the action
is double; it takes place at the same time in the Holy Office and in
Galileo’s house, the events occurring at the former being echoed at the
latter.
The philosopher’s friends have learned of the charge brought against
him,
They arrive one after another, offer their services, and ask anxiously
after news. The summoned witnesses also arrive by turns, and report the
proceedings and the turn that the affair is taking.
Scene I.—The young girl and her lover. Declaration by the signora that
she has made up her mind, if misfortune comes to her father, to break
off her engagement to her fiancé and follow her father’s fortunes, The
young savante has disappeared; only the woman is now to be seen. To the
reply of her lover that their union would only add to the consolations
of the philosopher, she answers that it is impossible; that now she owes
herself entirely to her father, but that, married, she would owe herself
entirely to her husband.
“Let us not put duty and love on the same side,” she says.
Scene II.—Arrival of Torricelli. He was the first witness to be
examined: to his fine words he owes this honor. They almost tried to
make him the denouncer of his master. He has had much difficulty in
preserving his equanimity.
But he fears the house will be searched. They are beginning to suspect
Galileo of carrying on propagandism and forming a sect. The
philosopher’s replies tell against him more and more; his obstinacy in
maintaining that he is within the true doctrine of the Church aggravates
his danger with every minute.
Torricelli has no longer any doubt as to the part played by the two
individuals whom he at first regarded as spies. He advises prudence in
their presence. As for himself, he goes to Galileo’s library to take
away his papers, his correspondence, and any books that might aggravate
his situation.
Departure of the lover for the Holy Office.
Scene III.—Entrance of sundry personages wearing various expressions on
their face,—disconsolate, surprised, bigoted, etc.
Scene IV.—Arrival of the two spies. They pretend to hope that all will
go well, “If Galileo would only talk like Torricelli,” they say; “ but
he is obstinate.”
Scene V.—A new personage arrives from the Holy Office. Galileo is
injuring himself more and more. His explanations only confirm the
suspicions that rest upon him.
The loftiness and frankness of his answers deliver him to the
Inquisition.
One would almost think, to hear him, that his best friends are false
witnesses trying to destroy him.
Animated recital of a speech made by Galileo to the magistrate.
Those present are frightened; their faces grow longer and longer. As the
bad news arrives, the house empties, every one fearing lest he may be
considered a friend of the heretic.
Scene VI.—Return of the lover. His story is brief; he tells it in
presence of the two spies. In an aside to Galileo’s daughter, he
declares that he is going to try to make them leave, either voluntarily
or by force.
Scene VII.—Arrival of a new personage. Galileo’s exaltation increases.
He cannot lie or maintain silence at the proper time. There is to be a
search of the house.
General agitation ensues. The visitors disappear; everybody is terror
stricken
Scene VIII.—The spies are left alone with the young girl’s suitor.
Scene IX.—Arrival of Galileo. He announces the result of the
examination. He is to be judged solemnly by the Holy Office. Can it be
possible, he asks himself, that a worshipper in spirit and in truth,
like himself, is to be condemned as a blasphemer and an impious man
He is discontented with the precautions taken; is profuse, however, in
his eulogies of his disciples, of his future son-in-law, whose devotion
he approves at the same time that he blames their fears. He calls them
men of little faith. Torricelli urgently beseeches him to make no
further answers, and to say, if the commissioner questions him, that he
knows nothing. He holds before him the prospect of torture and life
imprisonment.
Scene X.—Reentrance of Galileo’s future son-in-law. With a glance, with
a word, he makes Torricelli understand that the two spies have tried to
assassinate him, and that he has killed them.
Scene XI.—Arrival of the commissioner entrusted with the search, with
two aids.
The action takes place in the Holy Office, at first in a vestibule or
waiting-room, then in the audience chamber,
Scene I.—Since the first act the case has become strangely complicated.
There has been a double murder committed, within a few hundred steps of
Galileo’s house, on the persons of two of his disciples, heard at the
examination and at the moment when the house was about to be searched.
The connection of the circumstances naturally gives the idea to the
police of the Holy Office that this murder, happening at such a time,
bears some relation to Galileo’s trial and was committed by some of his
friends, though they know not whom to suspect. No one saw the combat,
etc., etc.
The Holy Office is embarrassed. On the one hand, it dares not reveal the
secret mission of the two spies; on the other hand, it is convinced that
Galileo’s family or friends are not strangers to the event, and therein
it sees a new indication of guilt, especially as nothing was discovered
in the house of the accused beyond some insignificant old books.
Nevertheless it has not been deemed advisable to join the two cases.
All this is said in a scene between two members of the tribunal, who
straightway withdraw. Tableau characteristic of the ways of the police
and the judiciary.
Scene II.—Arrival of Galileo, Torricelli, the daughter, and her lover.
The philosopher is full of anguish. He does not understand at all what
is going on,—why the assassination of two of his friends is connected
with his case, etc., etc.
Torricelli and his friend maintain silence; the young girl herself knows
nothing.
In this scene Galileo begins to weaken. Recantation, subterfuge, are
repugnant to him; but he is accused of error, of heresy in faith, of
spreading false doctrines. He feels that he has not now to explain his
ideas, but to justify them according to a doctrine not his own, which
seems to him impossible. The result of this position is that he has not
yet any fixed plan of defence, and that his counsel finds himself in the
greatest embarrassment.
Galileo would like to assert himself loftily: he cannot, he is forbidden
to do so. The certainty of his mind shows him, moreover, that it is not
in his character to interpret faith and reconcile it with science, and
that his stubbornness degenerates into an attitude of pure revolt
against the Church. Already he has said it only too clearly,—that his
doctrine is not that of the Church; and the whole question is whether or
no he will consent to retract.
What is to be done? Galileo decides to entrust his safety to the
inspiration of the moment.
Scene III.—The tribunal at the Holy Office.
Galileo takes his place on the prisoners’ bench.
Trial, verdict, and sentence.
There is no spectacle more interesting than that of a criminal suit;
nothing is rend with greater zest than pleadings, examinations of
witnesses, closing arguments, etc.
The repetitions, the tedious passages, do not lessen the interest.
Why should not judicial proceedings, the most dramatic in society, be
placed upon the stage?
Yet there are things in it that seem incompatible with rapid theatrical
movement,—for instance, the endless repetition of testimony. That which
is endured in real life is not tolerable in art. It is impossible to
exactly reproduce upon the stage a scene from the criminal courts. Then
what is to be done? This is the question that I ask myself. Has any one
solved it? I do not know.
Reserving, then, the definitive solution, I confine myself to the
presentation of some general indications regarding such a scene, with
the given subject and characters.
The witnesses heard are present; their written testimony is on the
clerk’s desk; they will be questioned only in case an explanation shall
become necessary.
No summing-up by counsel. The lawyers are present, but will not speak
unless the progress of the scene and the dialogue requires it.
With the exceptions just indicated, everything will be between the
accused, the ecclesiastical accuser or grand inquisitor, and the judge,
Thus, in my opinion, must the judicial drama be condensed for the
theatre; of course, it is at the option of the author to give a greater
or less extension, according to the subject, to the different parts of
so great a scene, to the speech of such or such a character.
These principles laid down, this is how I conceive the progress of this
grand scene.
The judge sums up the accusation in a few words, points out its gravity,
and invites Galileo to explain, unless he prefers to retract purely and
simply.
Galileo thanks the judge for his kindness, congratulates himself that he
can at last justify himself, relies upon the lights of his judges, and
then, gradually becoming animated, explains how he has come to conceive
of the union of these two great powers,—the philosophy of nature and
faith.
An elevated, sublime speech, for which one may read certain very
specious passages in Vacherot’s “Metaphysics and Science.” In this
speech the fact of the motion of the earth comes up as an example; he
shows that, in interpreting the passages of the Bible according to the
Copernican theory, religion acquires an extraordinary degree of
authority by the testimony of science, which, in his opinion, deprives
scepticism of its last resources.
The reply of the ecclesiastical attorney is no less elevated. Galileo is
not prosecuted because he cultivates philosophy and the sciences. He is
not reproached for cultivating mathematics and astronomy and teaching
them to his pupils.
The Church is not an enemy of science. Before Galileo, Pope Sylvester of
holy memory, the Cardinal de Cusa, have cultivated science, without
prejudice to the Christian faith. The latter even taught things similar
to those which Copernicus and Galileo offer as new.
The accusation is that Galileo tends to introduce into the Church a
foreign authority, into faith a new element, which would subvert it.
This authority, this element, is philosophy.
The innovators of the sixteenth century, by the cry of reform and in the
name of morality, brought dissension into the Church of God.
Something similar is going on today, in the name of science and by
virtue of the pure reason of man.
There is a tendency—and Galileo is an example—through natural philosophy
to an integral renovation of the essence and forms of religion.
Here the orator shows the consequences of such an innovation.
Today it is the interpretation of Scripture.
Tomorrow it will be the interpretation of dogma.
Next a discussion of the authority of the Church.
Evidently a movement in the direction of full Protestantism.
The testimony of Torricelli, who has so clearly distinguished between
these two orders of ideas, is dwelt upon against Galileo. The
ecclesiastical counsel compliments Torricelli.
Galileo is a second Luther, more dangerous than the Luther of
Wittenberg.
Galileo, stung, attempts a retort.
He says that it is extremely dangerous for religion to thus hold itself
aloof from science.
That man is so constituted that truths demonstrated by the senses, by
calculation or geometry, outweigh all others in his mind; that such
truths cannot be called in question; that they are as certain as the
truths of faith; that with these they form a complete whole, and that by
as much as it is evident that the earth moves, by so much it is evident
that the religious doctrine is to be transfigured by science.
To deny it is to deny, he says, the movement of the earth, and I affirm
the movement of the earth.
The necessary conclusion of the discussion is that Galileo has placed
himself in this dilemma.
Either the Christian doctrine, as taught hitherto, is insufficient,
erroneous in its propositions and in its terms, and then the authority
of the Church is illegitimate, fallible, outranked by philosophy;
Or else this doctrine is true, there is no relation between it and
revelation, and every philosophy that aspires to supplant it is pure
heresy and the suggestion of the devil. There is not, there cannot be
any connection between faith and science; they are not resolvable into
each other; even though reason should fail to sustain it, tradition, the
Church, discipline, the whole Christian system, are there to demonstrate
it.
Confronted with this dilemma, Galileo has no resource save
disavowal,—retraction or punishment.
To properly conceive and render this scene it is necessary to note:
That at bottom Galileo is right both against the Church and against
Torricelli;
That philosophy embraces everything and aspires to explain everything,
even the things of religion;
That science is nothing if it does not rise to the knowledge of right,
duties, society, and destiny;
That, if religion and the Church are not confirmed by its testimony;
they must be rejected.
So that the crown of philosophy is virtue and the ideal.
Galileo, if he is logical and has the courage of his logic, must go as
far as this.
But Galileo cannot be logical,—he does not know enough for that; he is
not an unbeliever, and is prevented from being one by his mysticism; so
he remains religious. He does not dream of denying the authority of the
Church; consequently, he falls into inconsistency.
It is necessary to bring into relief the Church’s error and Galileo’s
inconsistency, and to show the latter aggravated by presumption (for
Galileo knows nothing of social matters) and by insubordination (for he
disturbs society without knowing its doctrines).
Galileo is sentenced to retract his errors or else suffer torture and
life imprisonment.
It is dishonor or death.
He is given three days to decide.
In Galileo’s cell.
Scene I.—He is alone.
At first he has refused to retract.
Then, being put upon the wooden horse, he has retracted.
He has dishonored himself. Monologue.
Scene II.—Arrival of Torricelli, who comes to console him.
They converse in low tones. Torricelli again urges his master to sign
the declarations that are asked of him, to forget his philosophy, to
devote himself to science which alone will immortalize him, and to make
no account of the theology of Rome and of the Church. Here the
disciple’s contempt for theology bursts forth vehemently; his hatred of
the priests is shown without concealment. Be points out how accurately
the grand inquisitor foresaw the future when he said that science would
kill religion.
Galileo’s soul is full of melancholy; he has made his sacrifice; he will
repress his sentiments, if necessary. But he, too, foresees the downfall
of faith, the separation of philosophy and religion, and a formidable
revolution.
Scene III.—Arrival of Galileo’s daughter, and then of her suitor.
They inform Galileo that, by reason of his tardy recantation, his
sentence is commuted to one year’s imprisonment.
The drama ends with the young girl’s self-sacrifice in renouncing
marriage and consecrating herself to her father in his sad old age.
The lover does not withdraw his suit, but asks that he may still hope.
In this last scene Galileo reveals himself completely. His reformatory
zeal does not go as far as martyrdom, and this fact he bewails. He would
have preferred to die by torture rather than withdraw from it a
diminished man. But his delicate nature refuses. While keeping his
convictions, he feels that his mission is not that of an apostle.
He thanks his friends for what they have done to save him, but he
regrets it. It would have been better, he says, to let things take their
course; they have gained nothing by the attempt to dissemble, since he
has said all. He lets them see that he has clearly divined the secret of
the death of the two spies, and he extends his hand to his future
son-in-law.
Finally, he is informed that he is to be transferred to another prison,
and that the palace of XXX will be given him for a retreat.
“Let us devote ourselves to pure science,” say they all.
This last act is weak, and I know not how to make it more interesting.
But it is plain that such a drama is a possibility.
It is plain also that there is ample opportunity for action, for
interest, and even for character delineation. Galileo, Torricelli, the
grand inquisitor, Galileo’s daughter; and her suitor, would be, as I
conceive them, types new to the stage.
The danger lies in the temptation to philosophico-theological
dissertation. To avoid this, the play as such must be studied carefully,
the character and thesis of each personage must be grasped with force,
and the idea must be brought into relief by broad strokes and profound
expressions.
The young girl’s love must be characteristic of the savante, of the
artist, and of the neophyte; thereby it departs from the commonplace.
The characters move in theocratic surroundings, already traversed by
gleams of atheism.
Style, manners, everything remains to be created.
Might one not, before dramatizing this subject, try it as a novel?
The outline sketch of “Galileo” [from this point it is Lepelletier that
speaks] must fill us with regret that Proudhon did not have the time to
realize his dramatic idea.
It is to be observed in the reflections scattered through it, in his own
criticism upon it, wherein he anticipates objections and the possible
refusal of a manager to undertake the piece, how deeply he is concerned
as to the practicability of its production. He endeavored to give his
work the customary foundations, proportions, arrangement, and
distribution. He sought nothing strange, abnormal, or extraordinary. He
accepted the ordinary rules, and submitted to them with good grace. This
universal demolisher respected the barriers and the scaffolding of the
stage. He intended to reveal himself as a regular, acceptable, playable
dramatic author. He has insisted on the ordering of the scenes, and was
not at all disposed to neglect the carpenter-work. Like a number of
revolutionists, Proudhon, in theatrical art, preferred the classical
opinion. Almost every line of this plan of “Galileo” shows care as to
the action, the movement, the warmth which must animate every conception
thrown into the dramatic mould. The difficulties of the subject have not
escaped him. He has foreseen the suspicions and the incredulous smiles.
How could he, Proudhon, constitute himself a dramatic author and presume
to enter the lists with Ponsard? Incredible audacity, a rash project for
which the author deserved punishment. Our age dotes on classifications
and specialties. We pen minds up. Brains are forbidden to wander.
Intelligence is destined to fixture. A writer who moves is distrusted,
and credit is denied to the pen of a nomad. Arranged talents are the
true talents. When a philosopher goes prowling behind the scenes, things
are getting serious. Proudhon as economist, linguist, polemic,—that is
enough. Let him not stray into this theatrical labyrinth where no
guiding thread will be offered him. He would quickly lose his way, and
he would cause others to lose theirs. A man should not desire to meddle
with so many things. This pretension to universality is insolence on the
part of those who have but one string to their bow or their lyre.
Furthermore, it is insurrection. There is a Tchin, a caste in the empire
of intellect. It is not allowable to rise above one’s condition or to
tread paths that are beneath it. It is even forbidden to step to the
right or the left. Where fate has placed you, there you must remain.
Genius may browse only within the length of its tether.
Foreseeing that the question whether he possessed the theatrical faculty
would be a subject of dispute, he wished to answer in advance the
criticisms expected, as well as the doubts arising from his personality,
from his past, and from the popular estimate of him. To dissipate the
prejudices—flattering, it is true—which his philosophical mind, his
usual loftiness of vision, his concentrated thought, his critical
spirit, his battlesome erudition, and his controversial temperament
aroused as to his knowledge of theatrical requirements, he has seriously
elaborated and fashioned his project, like good and studious dramatic
pupil; at the same time he has pointed out the weaknesses and obstacles
involved in the chosen subject, and recognized the difficulty of
imparting warmth and movement to a drama not turning solely upon love
and offering no other catastrophe than the unjust judicial prosecution
of an old man.
Was the “Galileo” of Proudhon, as shown in this skeleton, viable? If the
play had been completed, would it have been playable?
It is very difficult to pass judgment in such a matter. Hypothesis has
no credit in literary inquiries. In art, execution cannot be presumed.
It is unquestionable that dissertations, arguments, and controversies
are precisely the opposite of dramatic art. Yet the subject adopted by
Proudhon was not so ill-adapted to scenic development as one might
think, and as he himself declared, it to be. Galileo Galilei is one of
the loftiest of human-figures; and, as such, eminently fit to be the
hero of a historical drama. Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, Mohammed,
Luther, Jeanne d’Arc, Napoleon, Guttenberg, William Tell, Bernard
Palissy, Richelieu, Mirabeau may inspire the poet, the novelist, the
dramatist. These enormous personages carry with them the atmosphere of
an entire century. They condense entire periods of human history. Their
genius, their glory, their influence upon events and upon men furnish
the author with half his drama; their existence, by turns adventurous,
tragic, and sublime, gives the rest. What more powerful personality
could come from the brain of a writer than the philosopher, the savant,
the thinker of Pisa? Galileo dominates the beginning of the seventeenth
century and radiates over all the centuries that have followed it. He
was born on the day when Michael Angelo died. There are successions in
the dynasty of geniuses. A star rose above the horizon of intellect at
the setting of the sun which had illuminated the arts. The world escaped
night. Science substituted its light for the splendors of painting and
sculpture. The young student, observing in the cathedral at Pisa the
oscillations of an astral lamp, discovered then the isochronism of the
pendulum, preluding thus the most marvellous discoveries in mechanics,
physics, astronomy, and mathematics. A professor at the age of
twenty-four, teaching by turns at Pisa, Padua, Venice, Florence, and
Rome, the young geometer combats Aristotle, publishes a treatise on
fortifications, invents the thermometer, and then turns the acuteness of
his genius toward the celestial gulfs To fathom the starry depths
declared solid by Aristotle, Ptolemy, and the Bible, he devises a
surprising instrument,—the telescope. It is the key to space. To Galileo
the heavens are opened. He surveys them. The astronomer, ruining the
power and industry of the astrologists, traverses the spheres as a
proprietor traverses his domain, and, when he descends to earth again,
he relates what he has seen. Unfortunately, to see otherwise than with
the eyes of faith made the observer an object of suspicion. The earth
motionless in the centre of the universe, the sun and stars constructed,
arranged, and illuminated for the benefit of man and manœuvring around
our little globe to light it and serve as its satellites,—such was
orthodox science. Aristotle, Ptolemy, Job, Joshua, and the Inquisition
agreed in the view that the earth is stationary. With the authors, with
the Scriptures, with the formidable casuists of the Holy Office, the
popular voice, that Monsieur Everybody, persuaded that he has more wit
than all the Voltaires past, present, and future, expressed sovereign
contempt for Galileo, who dared to maintain that our sphere went
bouncing about in senseless rotation, a squirrel turning in a planetary
cage.
Lepelletier further depicts Galileo’s character and discoveries, and
sustains Proudhon’s view that he was prosecuted as a philosopher rather
than as an astronomer. He points out also that Proudhon has followed the
truth of history in not exaggerating the degree of Galileo’s torture.
He has not sought to produce an impression by exhibiting instruments of
torture or by overdrawing ecclesiastical cruelties. Galileo’s torture
was principally moral. What pain this great savant must have felt when
he found himself constrained to give the lie to science, abjure the
truth, and retract the scientific formula which he had discovered, of
which he was so proud, and which imposed itself upon his conscience.
There is the drama; the rest would be ordinary melodrama, and Proudhon
has avoided it. This critic without respect for any prejudice had no
desire to flatter anti-religious passions by transforming Galileo into a
purely physical martyr. It is the spiritual suffering endured by the
great man in having to apologize to ignorant and prejudiced monks that
constitutes the pathos of his piece, and the dramatic strength is found,
not in the torturer’s wooden horse but in the duel between Dogma and
Doubt, between Faith and Inquiry. Galileo, thus presented, appears as
another Luther, and this revealer of the secrets of the universe becomes
the destroyer of supernatural revelations. In his masterly sketch
Proudhon comprehends him, and depicts him as he stands in history, erect
in the light of the dazzling dawn of modern philosophy.
This drama of thought and mental action perhaps would have contributed
to the renewal of our dramatic art. The contemporary theatre must
progress or perish. Circus, pantomime, and scenic display will be the
only possible spectacle, if our dramatic authors continue to practise
their ancient contortions on the old boards. Wings! New flights! That is
what is needed now. Long enough we have dragged and crawled; it is time
to free ourselves from the slime into which every dramatic conception
sinks.
We are passing through a period of dramatic exhaustion. The bourgeoise
comedy, the sensational drama, the inept vaudeville, and the musical
medley are evidence of a decline analogous to that of the mythological
or heroic tragedy, of the comedy of imbroglios, and of the travesty that
was common at the end of the eighteenth century. Adulteries, the paltry
heroes of the Iliads of vulgar alcoves, the commonplace passions of
young simpletons for intolerable coxcombs whom in the last act the
paternal hand is sure to lead before the mayor and the priest, have
really become repulsive themes. These comedians, these traitors, these
lovers, these modern intended husbands, are as worn-out as the tragedy
kings flanked by their confidants. We are tired of the eternal story of
people who desire to couple and succeed in doing so after encountering
difficulties more or less unforeseen. The adventures of disunited
couples, the chasing after another’s wife, the conjugal disasters
developed in black or in yellow according to the author’s intention to
provoke tears or laughter, all these old fairy tales have nearly lost
their power to drive away the spleen; it takes other inventions than
these to relieve human ennui. The grown-up children that we are want
other stories at night in order to forget life and enable the eternal
hour-glass to suffer time to pass insensibly away.
Love, the sauce with which the theatrical cooks serve all their dishes,
is getting tiresome. We are clamoring for a change in the bill of fare.
Does love really occupy in the minds of most men a place as important as
the play-makes attribute to it? It shows a misunderstanding of the time
to give such a preponderance to this passion, universal undoubtedly,
felt at some time or other by every living being, worthy of all the
attention of philosophers, but in social life as well as in the purely
physical realm beyond the competence of novelists, vaudevillists, and
comedy writers, and requiring the examination and study of thinkers,
legists, and sociologists. The phases of amorous life are neither the
most numerous or the most decisive in the order of a destiny. The
necessities of the condition in which fortune has placed you; labor;
study; diseases; accidents; avaricious, ambitious, and æsthetic desires;
gaming; sports; moral duties; age; lassitude; anxiety for the
morrow,—all of these are factors diminishing the coefficient of amorous
force at man’s disposal. In obedience to what conventional tradition,
what mental habit, do all theatrical writers make it their first thought
to give love the leading rĂ´les? No play that has not its lovers;
sometimes three pairs of them. If we may believe our authors, there is
scarcely any motive capable of exciting the spectator except love, the
monotonous godfather of all the tragic or burlesque farces which the
footlights illuminate.
Proudhon himself, in his sketch, has bowed to this rule, more reputed
than, and as useless and superannuated as, that of the three unities.
But with great insight into that art of the future which he foresaw he
reduced his lover to a mere utility man, and of Galileo’s daughter he
tried to make a sweetheart removed from the commonplace. This
affectionate maiden is provided with a heart and brain that
counterbalance the weight of the senses. She loves her father and
admires him; she even goes beyond the ordinary sentiments of education
and affection; she rises to a height where she understands her father.
She is more the disciple of Galileo than the fiancée of an amiable
knight. Proudhon’s play does not end with the ordinary joining of hands.
As she believes renounce worldly joys to dwell with their God in the
solitude of the cloister, so Galileo’s daughter sacrifices her youth and
her charms to the austere company of the proscribed old man. She will be
the Antigone of his exile and will become the chaste priestess of that
science of which her father is the pontiff and the martyr. But, it being
necessary to make some concession to spectators surprised at seeing a
curtain fall on two loves not united, the hope endures that some day,
when the aged savant has descended into his grave;. his daughter will be
able to reward the fidelity of the: enamored young knight, who does not
withdraw his: pledge. If there were no other evidence of Proudhon’s
ingenuity and originality as a dramatic author, the figure of this young
girl would alone establish it. He broke with the consecrated types of
those stage loves who have become as insipid, conventional, and stale as
the Leanders and the Isabellas of the répertoire.
The Scandinavian drama, the power and originality of which should not be
exaggerated, has just accustomed literary spectators to an abstract
theatre. The characters stand for general concepts, such as the fatalism
of heredity, the impossible union of dissimilar souls, the antagonism of
wives and husbands, of children and parents, of masters and servants,
the insurgence of feminine independence, the hypocrisy of the virtuous
people, the pillars of society. The actors of Ibsen, Björnson, and
Strindberg appear like philosophical systems provided with gestures,
like physiological laws clothed with the power of speech. At present
this school is very much in fashion. It certainly exercises an influence
upon our theatre, which has always been rejuvenated by the transfusion
of younger, tarter, and somewhat barbarous blood. This health-restoring
serum has been supplied successively by Spain, Italy, and England. Now
it comes from Scandinavia. The origin is a matter of indifference; the
essential thing is the avoidance of an overdose. Proudhon, in his
“Galileo,” anticipated this revelation of the theatre of ideas. It was
his desire to show upon the boards, costumed after the fashion of their
time and condition, characters which were only acting formulas and
talking syntheses. His “Galileo” was the renovation, if not of the
entire drama, at least of the historical drama.
Men of genius, as well as secondary authors, who have borrowed their
heroes from history, have been accustomed to treat only the anecdotic
and concrete side of their subject. They have sustained the interest
only by following the loves, misfortunes, misdeeds, or disputes of the
characters. Victor Hugo has not escaped this tendency, and Francois
Coppée submits to it. One of the best known authors among modern
dramatists has endeavored, as Proudhon proposed, to dramatize the
struggles of the mind and the agitations of thought. Consequently their
finest and most popular plays have the fault of resembling those
histories in which all the importance is placed upon battles, sieges,
treaties, and births and marriages of princes, while the superior
motives of humanity, the theatrical strokes of thought, the catastrophes
of conscience, and the denouements of effects that follow causes, which
are the real drama of history, are left in the shadow, in the
background.
This sketch of “Galileo,” transformed into a finished play, placed upon
the stage, and enacted, would certainly have given us, in its
picturesque frame of the beginning of the seventeenth century in Italy,
an original and powerful work. The critical genius of P. J. Proudhon,
his polemical nature, and his theological erudition would have found in
the trial of Galileo, that is, of knowledge, of experiment, of
observation, of doubt, of scientific evidence, by the Church in the name
of dogma, tradition, and consecrated error, developments,
demonstrations, and refutations of vast reach and attractive depth.
Conversing with Galileo, like Goethe with his doctor, he would have
examined the system of the worlds, scrutinized the infinite depths of
universal harmony, analyzed the problems of life, and traced ideas and
sentiments to their origins, while Torricelli, as a sort of
Mephistopheles, would have furnished the mocking retort to the assertive
stupidity and simple ignorance of the doctors of the Holy Office.
Consequently it is much to be deplored that the work was left
unfinished. Though Proudhon, as dramatic author, had failed in his
unexpected attempt; though he had scarcely surpassed the heavy Ponsard;
though he, the brainy colossus, had given birth to a product as paltry
and ridiculous as the “Galileo” that we saw on the stage of our foremost
theatre in 1809; though his drama had been rejected by the manages as
not playable,—yet, in spite of all, we should have had a strong and
beautiful book: France would have had a second “Faust.”