Bernardin de St. Pierre

by Arvède Barine

How happy are the poets! for they can talk nonsense with impunity. With all his extravagant ideas, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre has brought home to us like no one else, the sensation of the activity of Nature, and of the swarming life which covers the earth, moves inside it, and fills the air and the sea.

He had quite foreseen that people would oppose to all this the sufferings inflicted by beasts of prey, large and small, upon living animals, men even, but this objection did not embarrass him in the least. As far as animals are concerned, it would disappear of itself only by taking a broader view of things. "It is true," he said, "several species of carnivorous beasts devour living animals.... Let us return to the great principle of Nature: she has made nothing in vain. She destines few animals to die of old age, and I believe even that it is only man whom she permits to run through the entire course of life, because it is only man whose old age can be useful to his fellows. Among animals what would be the use of unreflecting old age to their posterity, which is born with the instinct which takes the place of experience? On the other hand, how would the decrepid parents find sustenance among their children who leave them the moment they know how to swim, fly, or walk? Old age would be for them a weight from which the wild beasts deliver them." Let us add that to them death means little suffering. They are generally destroyed in the night during their sleep. "They do not attach to this fatal moment any of the feelings which render it so bitter to the greater part of humanity—the regrets for the past and anxieties for the future. In the midst of a life of innocence, often with their dreams of love still fresh, their untroubled spirits wing their flight into the shades of night. It is very prettily phrased, but unhappily no one has ever succeeded, often as it has been tried, in convincing those who are eaten that it is for their good."

The objection relative to man is dismissed with the same ease. "Man has nothing to fear from beasts of prey. Firstly, most of them only go abroad in the night, and they possess striking characteristics which announce their approach even before they become visible. Some of them have strong odours of musk like the marten, the civet cat, and the crocodile; others shrill voices which can be heard for long distances in the night like the wolves and jackals; again, others have strongly-marked colours which can be distinguished a long way off upon the neutral tint of their skins: such are the dark stripes of the tiger and the distinct spots of the leopard. They all have eyes which shine in the darkness.... Even those which attack the human body have distinguishing signs; either they have a strong odour like the bug, or contrasts in colour to the parts to which they attach themselves, like white insects on the hair, or the blackness of fleas against the whiteness of the skin." How about fleas upon the negro?

The flea's usefulness does not stop with its blackness. It is also useful from the point of view of political economy, by obliging "the rich to employ those who are destitute, in the capacity of domestics, to keep things clean about them." Furthermore hail, with the help of its ally, the hurricane, destroys a great many insects; earthquakes are no less necessary and useful, their function being to purify the atmosphere. Hail, tempests, earthquakes, are in reality so many benefactors, unrecognised because we are not penetrated to the marrow of our bones with these fundamental truths: the happiness of man is the first law of the world; "nothing superfluous exists, only such things as are useful relatively to man."

Here are some more proofs which Bernardin de Saint-Pierre considers striking. Nature invented the hideous scorpion to be a salutary terror to us, to keep us away from damp, unhealthy places, its ordinary abode. She has given four teats to the cow, which only brings forth one calf at a time, and a dozen to the sow, which has to bring up as many as fifteen young ones, and this because mankind liking milk and pork, the cow had to be made to give us of "the superabundance of her milk, and the sow of that of her young."

What shall be said of the "royal foresight" of the Divinity when it wishes to act upon our hearts and prepare them to learn patience, or open them to gentle feelings? Every one of us has mourned a dog, and has asked himself why these faithful animals have so short a life. Listen to the answer. "If the death of the dog of the house reduces our children, whose companion and contemporary he has been, to despair, doubtless Nature wished to give them, through the loss of an animal so worthy of human affection, their first experience of the privations of which human life is full." The example of the melon and the pumpkin is still more characteristic. While most fruits are cultivated for the mouth of man, like cherries and plums, or for his hand like pears and apples, the melon much larger and divided into quarters, "seems intended to be eaten by the family." As for the enormous pumpkin, Nature intends that one should share it with one's neighbours; it is pre-eminently a sociable fruit.

In spite of all these benefits, we hear our impious race accusing Nature, and blaspheming Providence. We are angry against Heaven when we suffer, when this or that fails us, as though Providence could be at fault, and as though we were not ourselves the real authors of our woes. A little faith, a little confidence, and we should be comforted, but we do not possess it, and we rush to our ruin through ignorance and unbelief, just as it happened one day to some men who had landed upon a desert island where there were no cocoa-nut trees. Soon the sea "threw upon the strand several sprouting cocoa-nuts, as if Providence were eager to persuade them by this useful and agreeable present to remain upon the island and cultivate it." Notice that this was not brought about by any chance currents, because sea-currents are regular, and those which surrounded this island had had time since the creation of the world to sow it with all sorts of seeds. "However that may be, the emigrants planted the cocoa-nuts, and in the course of a year and a half they sent up shoots four feet in height. So marked a favour from Heaven was, nevertheless, not sufficient to keep them in this happy spot: a thoughtless desire to procure for themselves wives, induced them to leave it, and plunged them in a long series of misfortunes, which most of them could not survive. For my part, I do not doubt that if they had had that confidence in Providence which they owed to her, she would have sent wives to them in their desert island, as she had sent them cocoa-nuts."

Providence also takes touching care of the animals. The thorns of the brambles and bushes protect the little birds in their nests, and collect the sheep's wool to line the nests with. Ermines have the tips of their tails black, "so that these small animals, entirely white, when going after one another in the snow, where they leave hardly any footmarks, may recognise one another in the luminous reflections of the long nights of the North." Hairy animals are generally white underneath because white keeps them warmer than any other colour, and because "the stomach needs most heat on account of the digestive and other functions; on the other hand, the head is always the deepest in colour, above all in hot countries, because that part has most need of coolness in the animal economy." It is also for the last reason that several of the birds in hot regions have tufts and crests on their heads, to shade them. Lastly, all animals without exception find their table set for them ever since the world began, even those who only feed upon carrion. "Ancient trees grow in the depths of new forests to afford sustenance to the insects and birds who find it in their aged trunks. Corpses were created for the carnivorous animals. In every age there must come forth creatures young, old, living and dying." There is always an essential difference in the methods of Providence towards animals and towards man. God takes care of us for our own sakes, He only takes care of animals or plants as they affect us, and in such measure as they are useful or agreeable to us. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was never tired of making remarks in support of these diverse opinions, and we could multiply quotations indefinitely, but what has already been said gives an adequate idea of his theory of the universe.

At first sight we are inclined to shrug our shoulders and pity the final causes for having found an advocate capable of such sad nonsense; but on reflection we are obliged to admit that once the principle is conceded, there is no means of stopping one's self in the downward course. Why admit this final cause and reject that one? If the world is arranged for the happiness of man, ought we not to explain the utility of moths and weevils after that of wool and corn? And if we see in it, as Saint-Pierre did, a means of compelling the monopolists to sell their merchandise for fear that the poor would have to go naked or die of hunger, have we not the right to maintain that one argument is worth another, and that it would be difficult for you to find a better? On the whole, Bernardin only developed Fénélon's idea, who also subordinated the creation to man, and was led by that, in spite of all his cleverness, to affirm that the stars were made to give us light; that the dog is born "to give us a pleasant picture of society, friendship, fidelity, and tender affection;" that wild beasts are intended "to exercise the courage, strength, and skill of mankind." Between Fénélon and Saint-Pierre, as between all determined partisans of final causes, it is only a question of more or less ingenuity, and Saint-Pierre was very ingenious. Grimm wrote, "I do not believe that any man had as yet ventured to recognise Providence, or to attribute to it more skilful attention, more refined research, more delicacy of feeling; but his idea is carried beyond all bounds, and leads him occasionally into all kinds of nonsense and absurd puerilities. His book is one long collection of eclogues, hymns, and madrigals in honour of Providence."[20] The Études de la Nature makes us still better able to understand the warmth with which Buffon repudiated the theory of final causes.