Yes, I concede that Greslou, disorganized and profoundly affected as he was by psychologic poverty,' was able to find in his master's work certain ideas generating states of consciousness which, in coordination with 'groups of anterior, conscious, subconscious and unconscious states' (this coordination having for its principal factor the character, which is only the psychic expression of an individual organism), translated themselves into action-criminal action-and an inhibition of honest impulses; but that is all that I can admit.

"That the master can be held in any degree responsible for the divagations of the disciple is, in my opinion, as unreasonable as to charge Montgolfier with the death of Croce-Spinelli. I foresee M. Brunetière's answer. He will say that aerostation is on the whole an advantageous discovery, worthy of purchase at the cost of several victims, but that psycho-physiology is an illusion, and Society is well worth the sacrifice of an illusion. If M. Brunetière spoke thus, and I believe this to be his view, we should disagree profoundly, but the question would be better defined. We should investigate whether science and observation do not already offer a solid basis for our attempts at psychophysiology. And then, little as M. Brunetière would hesitate to treat our labours and researches as ciphers, he would not further dare to condemn their publication. I am not willing to believe that he has entirely fallen out with intellectual liberty and the independence of the human mind. When a fruit falls from the tree of Science it is because it is ripe. Nothing can prevent its falling."

Having concluded his discourse, the illustrious psycho-physiologist left me. And I wondered

whether man's greatest virtue was not curiosity. We long to know; it is true that we shall never know anything. But we shall at least have opposed to the universal mystery which envelops us stubborn thought and a brave front: for happily none of the logicians' reasons will cure us of that great uneasiness which stirs us in the presence

of the unknown.

CHINESE TALES*

ADMIT that I am little versed in Chinese literature. I was slightly acquainted with M. Guillaume Pauthier during his lifetime, when I was very young. He knew Chinese better than French. He had somehow acquired the small slanting eyes and the moustache of a Tartar. I have heard him state that Confucius was a greater philosopher than Plato; but I never believed it. Confucius never related moral tales, nor composed metaphysical romances.

That old yellow man lacked imagination, the starting-point of philosophy. On the other hand, he was eminently reasonable. His disciple, Ki-Lou, having one day inquired how he could best serve the Spirits and the Genii, the master replied:

"When Man is unfit to serve Humanity, how shall he be able to serve the Spirits and the Genii?" "Permit me," said the disciple, to inquire the nature of death."

And Confucius replied:

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"How can we know the nature of Death, when we do not understand the nature of Life?"

That is all I have retained of Confucius from the conversations of M. Guillaume Pauthier, who, at the period when I knew him, was making a special

*Contes chinois, by General Tcheng-ki-Tong, I vol. in 18.

study of the Chinese agriculturists, who are, as we know, the best in the world. Following their precepts, M. Guillaume Pauthier sowed pineapples in the Department of Seine-et-Oise. They did not come up. So much for philosophy. As for romance, I, like the rest of the world, had read the short stories translated at various times by Abel Rémusat, Guillard d'Arcy, Stanislas Julien, and other scholars whose names I do not recollect. May they forgive me, if scholars are capable of forgiving anything. There remained in my head, after reading these stories, a mixture of prose and verse, the impression of a people abominably ferocious, but extremely polite.

The Chinese tales recently published by General Tcheng-ki-Tong appear to me to be much more artless than any previous translations of this nature: they are little tales analogous to our stories of Old Mother Goose, full of dragons, vampires, little foxes, women like flowers, and porcelain gods. Here we have the popular style, and may learn the tales told by nurses in the lamplight to the little yellow children of the Celestial Empire.

These stories, doubtless of very diverse age and origin, are sometimes charming, like our pious legends, sometimes full of marvels, like our fairy tales, and sometimes altogether horrible.

Among the horrible, I will cite the adventure of the literary Pang, who took home a little lady whom he met in the street. She had all the appearance of a very nice girl, and the following day Pang congratulated himself on his luck.

He left the little lady at home, and, as was his custom, went out. On returning, he felt impelled by curiosity to look into the room through a crack

in the partition. He then saw a skeleton with a green face and sharp teeth, busily occupied in painting a woman's skin with white and rose, in which it dressed itself. Being thus apparelled, the skeleton looked charming. But the literary Pang trembled with fear, and not without reason. The Vampire, for such it was, threw itself upon him, and tore out his heart. Owing to the art of a priest, versed in warding off abominations, Pang regained his heart, and recovered. This ending often occurs. The Chinese, who do not believe in the immortality of the soul, are all the more inclined to resuscitate the dead. I made a note of this tale of Pang and the Vampire, because it struck me as very old and very popular. I especially draw the attention of amateurs in folk-lore to a bunch of feathers hung over the house door to ward off phantoms. Unless I am greatly mistaken, this bunch of feathers may be found elsewhere, and is a witness to the profound antiquity of the tale.

Some of the stories in the same collection make an agreeable contrast with that of the Vampire. There are some charming ones of women flowers, whose destiny is attached to the plant of which they are the emanation, who disappear mysteriously if the plant be moved, and who fade away when it dies. It is easy to conceive the germination of such ideas in a people of florists who make the whole of China, from the plain to the tops of their trimmed and terraced mountains, one great marvellous garden, and colour the whole Celestial Empire with chrysanthemums and peonies until it is like a water-colour painting. See, for instance, the two peonies of the temple of Lo-Chan, one red and the other white, which looked like two mounds of