V
—However clever a rhetorician I may be gentlemen, in the presence of such perspicacious minds as yours I cannot juggle away the inevitable petitio principii which awaits me at the beginning of this lecture.
Gentlemen, try as we may, we cannot escape the petitio principii. Now; what is a petition of principles? Gentlemen, I dare to say it: Every petitio principii is an affirmation of temperament; for where principles are missing, there the temperament is affirmed.
When I declare: You must have an eagle you may all exclaim: Why?—Now, what answer can I make in reply that will not bring us back to that formula, which is the affirmation of my temperament: I do not love men: I love that which devours them. Temperament, gentlemen, is that which must affirm itself. A fresh petitio principii, you will say. But I have demonstrated that every petitio principii is an affirmation of temperament; and as I say one must affirm one’s temperament (for it is important), I repeat: I do not love men: I love that which devours them.—Now what devours man?—His eagle. Therefore, gentlemen, one must have an eagle. I think I have fully demonstrated this.
... Alas! I see, gentlemen, that I bore you; some of you are yawning. I could, it is true, here make a few jokes; but you would feel them out of place; I have an irredeemably serious mind.
I prefer to circulate among you some indecent photographs; they will keep those quiet who are feeling bored, which will enable me to go on.
Prometheus drank a drop of water. The eagle pirouetted three times round Prometheus and bowed. Prometheus went on:
CONTINUATION OF PROMETHEUS’ LECTURE
—Gentlemen, I have not always known my eagle. That is what makes me deduce, by a process of reasoning which the logic books I never studied till a week ago, call by some particular name I have forgotten—that is what makes me deduce, I say, that, even though the only eagle here is mine, you all, gentlemen, have an eagle.
I have said nothing, up to the present, of my own history; firstly because, up to the present, I have not understood it. And if I decide to speak of it now it is because, thanks to my eagle, it now appears to me marvellous.