The sun., 1919-05-18

the naive child that, after all, the heart
is not safer guide than reason?
Nv.
Thus Anatole France goes on pinning
his twentieth century philosophy to every
experience of little Pierre. The little
child he used to be serves him only like
That's, Faphnuee, Jacques Tournebroche
or jerome Coignard as a medium to ex-
press his views. There are in the book
delightful epilogues, like the one where
Petit Pierre enters pastry shop and asks
his mother a question which might well
puzzle even economists: "Who is supposed
to give money, he who sells or he who
buys7" Another day Petit Pierre is learn
ing his catechism. He has copied without
4 question mark the sentence: "Qu'est-ce
que Dieu" Petit Pierre was too little of
sceptic in those days, says his biographer.
Since then Anatole France has used
great many question marks, too many
maybe, as he confesses, and we are thank
full for that confession.
Naive Petit Pierre usually takes things
at their face value, when his Mephisph-
eles is not behind him. Sometimes, how
ever, he knows better. One day his
mother gives him a drum. A child may
well be happy for that and think that
drum is merely an instrument to make
noise and play the soldier. But Pierre
finds out, with tears in his eyes, that
drum may also be mere device for
mother to quiet her little boy and keep
him amused while she leaves the house
unaware. Petit Pierre that day began
loathing even his drum and he tore it into
pieces. He had found the lesson of life
for himself.
A representative French child is little
Pierre His state of mind has been that
Of several generations of Frenchmen be-
tween 1874 and the present. Much water
has passed under the bridges since then,
however, and it is sure instinct for
safety which makes Anatole France bring
back to the reign of Louis Philippe his
scepticism now obsolete
The wind does no longer blow to scepti-
oism in fair France. France is now a
country devoted to energy and action. If
We must believe critics. French and for
eign, AnatOle Frances philosophy has
long ago ceased to be an ideal for his
country
The books of that arch denier are not,
just now, the kind of bread Frenehmen
want to feed upon. Petit Pierre As
philosopher is undoubtedly out of date.
France has no use nowadays for Ham
let IN nankeen brooches.
".
To solve the practical and critical prob
lens of France, Petit Pierre and his
Mephistopheles are certainly out of place.
They know too much. But it must be
possible, nevertheless, to find Anatole
Frances shortcomings as a philosopher,
without being unjust to that wonderful
artist.
Modern critics have reduced the moral
history of France, in the last fifteen
years, to the conflict between thought and
action, intellect and sentiment, intel
lectuallsm versus spiritualism. NJ. Berg
son and his followers, the theoricians of
sentiment and instinct versus knowledge,
will find abundant arguments in their
favor, strange as it seems, in the new
autobiography of that king of all intel
lectuals. "Of all the definitions of man."
writes AnatOle France, "the worst seems to
me that which makes of man a rational
being" 81 call rational (raisonnable)
him who does not pretend to be So" That
would sound very little intellectual if it
did not sound so sarcastic. For reason to
despair of itself in the very midst of its
greatest achievements was already part of
the pose Of the decadent school. Petit
Pierre reads like a defence of instinct
against intelligence