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1XXII. La résurrection se fait par le vent du ciel qui balaie les mondes. L’ange porté par le vent ne dit pas : — Morts, levez-vous ! Il dit : — Que les vivants se lèvent ! Telles sont les pensées auxquelles j’ai pu, non sans de grandes peines, donner des formes en rapport avec notre entendement. Il en est d’autres desquelles Pauline se souvenait plus particulièrement, je ne sais par quelle raison, et que j’ai transcrites ; mais elles font le désespoir de l’esprit, quand, sachant de quelle intelligence elles procèdent, on cherche à les comprendre. J’en citerai quelques-unes, pour achever le dessin de cette figure, peut-être aussi parce que dans ces dernières idées la formule de Lambert embrasse-t-elle mieux les mondes que la précédente, qui semble s’appliquer seulement au mouvement zoologique. Mais entre ces deux fragments, il est une corrélation évidente aux yeux des personnes, assez rares d’ailleurs, qui se plaisent à plonger dans ces sortes de gouffres intellectuels.
2I. Tout ici-bas n’existe que par le Mouvement et par le Nombre. II. Le Mouvement est en quelque sorte le Nombre agissant. III. Le Mouvement est le produit d’une force engendrée par la Parole et par une résistance qui est la Matière. Sans la résistance, le Mouvement aurait été sans résultat, son action eût été infinie. L’attraction de Newton n’est pas une loi ; mais un effet de la loi générale du Mouvement universel. IV. Le Mouvement, en raison de la résistance, produit une combinaison qui est la vie ; dès que l’un ou l’autre est plus fort, la vie cesse. V. Nulle part le Mouvement n’est stérile, partout il engendre le Nombre ; mais il peut être neutralisé par une résistance supérieure, comme dans le minéral. VI. Le Nombre qui produit toutes les variétés engendre également l’harmonie, qui, dans sa plus haute acception, est le rapport entre les parties et l’Unité.
3VII. Sans le Mouvement, tout serait une seule et même chose. Ses produits, identiques dans leur essence ne diffèrent que par le Nombre qui a produit les facultés. VIII. L’homme tient aux facultés, l’ange tient à l’essence. IX. En unissant son corps à l’action élémentaire, l’homme peut arriver à s’unir à la lumière par son intérieur . X. Le Nombre est un témoin intellectuel qui n’appartient qu’à l’homme, et par lequel il peut arriver à la connaissance de la Parole. XI. Il est un nombre que l’impur ne franchit pas, le Nombre où la création est finie. XII. L’Unité a été le point de départ de tout ce qui fut produit ; il en est résulté des Composés mais la fin doit être identique au commencement. De là cette formule spirituelle : Unité composée, Unité variable, Unité fixe.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1Such are the meditations which I have with great difficulty cast in a form adapted to our understanding. There are some others which Pauline remembered more exactly, wherefore I know not, and which I wrote from her dictation; but they drive the mind to despair when, knowing in what an intellect they originated, we strive to understand them. I will quote a few of them to complete my study of this figure; partly, too, perhaps, because, in these last aphorisms, Lambert’s formulas seem to include a larger universe than the former set, which would apply only to zoblogical evolution. Still, there is a relation between the two fragments, evident to those persons—though they be but few—who love to dive into such intellectual deeps. I Hverything on earth exists solely by motion and number. Il Motion is, so to speak, number 1n action. Ill Motion is the product of a force generated by the Word and by Resistance, which is Matter. But for Resistance, Motion would have had no results; its action would have been infinite. Newton’s gravitation is not a law, but an effect of the general law of universal motion. IV Motion, acting in proportion to Resistance, prcduces a result which is Life. As soon as one or the other is the stronger, Life ceases. LOUIS LAMBERT 811 Vv No portion of Motion is wasted; it always produces number; still, it can be neutralized by disproportionate resistance, as in minerals. VI
2Number, which produces variety of all kinds, also gives rise to Harmony, which, in the highest meaning of the world, is the relation of arts to the whole. VII But for Motion, everything would be one and the same. Its products, identical in their essence, differ only by Number, which gives rise to faculties. VIII Man looks to faculties; angels look to the Essence. Ix By giving his body up to elemental action, man can achieve an inner union with the Light. x Number is intellectual evidence belonging to man alone; by it he acquires knowledge of the Word. xt There is a Number beyond which the impure cannot pass: the Number which is the limit of creation. XII The Unit was the starting-point of every product: compounds are derived from it, but the end must be identical 812 BALZAC’S WORKS with the beginning. Hence this Spiritual formula: the compound Unit, the variable Unit, the fixed Unit. XIII The Universe is the Unit in variety. Motion is the means; Number is the result. The end is the return of all things to the Unit, which is God. XIV Three and Seven are the two chief Spiritual numbers. xV
3Three is the formula of created worlds. It is the Spiritual Sign of the creation, as it is the Material Sign of dimension. In fact, God has worked by curved lines only: the Straight Line is an attribute of the Infinite; and man, who has the presentiment of the Infinite, reproduces it in his works. Two is the number of generation. Three is the number of Life which includes generation and offspring. Add the sum of four, and you have Seven, the formula of Heaven. Above all is God; He is the Unit. After going in to see Louis once more, I took leave of his wife and went home, lost in ideas so adverse to social life that, in spite of a promise to return to Villenoix, I did not go. The sight of Louis had had some mysteriously sinister influence over me. I was afraid to place myself again in that heavy atmosphere, where ecstasy was contagious. Any man would have felt, as I did, a longing to throw himself into the infinite, just as one soldier after another killed himself in a certain sentry box where one had comLOUIS LAMBERT 813 mitted suicide in the camp at Boulogne. It is a known fact that Napoleon was obliged to have the hut burned which had harbored an idea that had become a mortal infection. Louis’s room had perhaps the same fatal effect as that sentry-box.
Our translation, period-faithful. Citable as our translation, never as the source.
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