“No, I am not asleep,” said he, rising; “I am furious!  Explain, if you are not too insane to be rational, the extraordinary manner in which you received me.  Do you know that I have been waiting here for you more than an hour?”

“Ah, my dear cousin,” said I, embracing him warmly, “you do not know what a service you have rendered me.  I embrace you now, my good friend, for the wonderful lesson you have given me.  Without you I should never have found it out, and, rest assured, I shall never forget it.”

“What?  Who?  What is it?”

“Zounds, papa Dugrand!  I freely acknowledge that I have learned more from you in one second than from all my masters during four years.”

“Are you in your right senses?”

The matter was finally explained.  My cousin then told me about my home and my family; but I must confess that I paid little attention to the good news that he brought me, so excited and preoeccupied was my mind.  Even then I could not help thinking of the fragility of the heart in its affections.  We soon separated, and I hurried to my room, which seemed to me on this day-paradise itself.

I gave myself up to my interrupted course of reflections.

I had proved the impotence of my own reason, and also that of my masters.  Now, as it was not probable that all my teachers and myself were more stupid than the rest of mankind—­the common herd—­I concluded that reason is blind in the matter of principles, and that all her instructions would be powerless to guide me in my researches.  But, from another side, it was evident to me that without this reason I could not utilize a principle.  What is human reason, that faculty at once of so little avail and yet so precious?  What role does it play in art?  I feel that this is most important for me to know.

The answer to this question must spring from the study of the phenomena of instinct.  Let us examine, then, what nature offers us freely.

If these phenomena are directed by a physiological or a spiritual necessity, a necessity on which instinct is based, I am forced to admit, here, a reason that is not my reason; a superior, infallible reason in the disposition of things; a reason that laughs at my reason, which, in spite of itself, must submit under pain of falling into absurdity.  I feel that it is only by this absolute submission of my reason that it can rise to the reason of things, since, of itself, it would know nothing. [See definition of reason.]

Let us seek, then, without prejudice, the reason of the things that interested me, in order that my own reason may be raised to a higher plane.  And when it shall be illumined with the light that must break upon it from the superior reason, I feel that my reason can generalize instruction, and will be all-powerful in arranging the conclusions that it may deduce.  I am aware, from the utter impotence of my reason, that all principles must be accepted humbly, in order to understand the deductions.  My reason does not know how to lead me to principles of which it is ignorant; but it knows how to guide me back.  In other words, it is a blind person a priori, it is a luminary a posteriori.  Though it may not know at first, once shown, it readily recognizes; though it may not divine, it learns by study; though it may not seize, it retains, masters and generalizes.