The Buried Temple

Produced by Al Haines
The Buried Temple
Maurice Maeterlinck
Translated by Alfred Sutro
LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
Published in April 1902
Reprinted:— POCKET EDITION, March 1911 November 1911 July 1919 December 1921 October 1924
Twenty first Thousand
(All rights reserved)
Printed in Great Britain
Of the five essays in this volume, two only, those on The Past and Luck, were written in 1901. The others, The Mystery of Justice, The Evolution of Mystery, and The Kingdom of Matter, are anterior to The Life of the Bee, and appeared in the Fortnightly Review in 1899 and 1900. The essay on The Past appeared in the March number of the Fortnightly Review and of the New York Independent ; and parts of The Mystery of Justice in this last journal and Harper's Magazine . The author's thanks are due to Messrs. Chapman & Hall, Messrs. Harper & Brothers, and the proprietors of The Independent for their permission to republish.
I speak, for those who do not believe in the existence of a unique, all-powerful, infallible Judge, for ever intent on our thoughts, our feelings and actions, maintaining justice in this world and completing it in the next. And if there be no Judge, what justice is there? None other than that which men have made for themselves by their laws and tribunals, as also in the social relations that no definite judgment governs? Is there nothing above this human justice, whose sanction is rarely other than the opinion, the confidence or mistrust, the approval or disapproval, of our fellows? Is this capable of explaining or accounting for all that seems so inexplicable to us in the morality of the universe, that we at times feel almost compelled to believe an intelligent Judge must exist? When we deceive or overcome our neighbour, have we deceived or overcome all the forces of justice? Are all things definitely settled then, and may we go boldly on: or is there a graver, deeper justice, one less visible perhaps, but less subject to error; one that is more universal, and mightier?