I
Judgment on the Voyage of
III
Conversation of the Chaplain and Orou
B.: In the division which the Tahitiens made of
"Thou hast had
supper, thou art young and in good health. Sleep alone,
and thou wilt sleep badly. Man needs a companion by his side at night. Here is
my wife, here are my daughters. Take your choice. But you would oblige me by
fixing for preference on my youngest daughter, who has not yet had a child.
" The mother added: "Alas!Alas! But it is no
good complaining. Poor Thia, it is not her fault."
The chaplain replied that his religion, his calling, good morals and
honourability forbade him to accept these offers.
Orou replied: "I do not know what thou meanest by religion, but I cannot
think well of it, if it forbids thee to enjoy an innocent pleasure, to which
nature, the sovereign mistress, invites us all -- to give existence to one like
thee: to render a service that father mother and children ask of thee; to make
a fitting return to a host who has welcomed thee warmly and to enrich a nation,
by increase, with one subject the more. I do not know what thou meanest by thy
calling. But thy first duty is to be a man and grateful. I dare not suggest
that thou carry away into thy country the morals of Orou. But Orou, thy host
and friend, beseeches thee to lend thyself to the morals of
THE CHAPLAIN: It is not that: they are all four equally beautiful: but
my religion! but my calling!
OROU: They belong to me and I offer them to thee. They are their own and
they give themselves to thee. Whatever may be the purity
of conscience which the thing religion and the thing calling
prescribe, thou canst accept them without scruple. I do not abuse my authority;
thou mayest be certain I know and respect the rights of men. … But pray
tell me what is this word religion, that thou didst
repeat so often and with so much pain?"
The chaplain, after reflecting for a moment, answered: "Who made thy cabin
and its articles of furniture?"
OROU: I did.
CHAPLAIN: Very well. We believe that this world and all it contains is
the work of a workman.
OROU: Then he has feet, hands and a head?
CHAPLAIN: No.
OROU: Where does he live?
CHAPLAIN: Everywhere.
OROU: Here too?
CHAPLAIN: Yes.
OROU: We have never seen him.
CHAPLAIN: He is not to be seen.
OROU: A poor sort of father! He must be old. For he
must be at least as old as his handiwork.
CHAPLAIN: He never grows old. He has spoken to our ancestors: he has
given them laws: and has prescribed the manner in which he would be honoured.
He has ordained for them certain actions as good and forbidden them others as
bad.
OROU: I see, and one of those actions he has forbidden as bad is to
sleep with a woman or girl. Why then has he made two sexes?
CHAPLAIN: For union, but on certain fixed conditions and after certain
preliminary ceremonies, as a result of which a man belongs to a woman and
belongs to her alone. A woman belongs to a man and belongs to a man alone.
OROU: For their whole life?
CHAPLAIN: For their whole life.
OROU: So that if a woman slept with anyone else than her husband and a
husband with anyone else than his wife -- but the case can never arise, for
since the workman is there and disapproves of it, he knows how to stop them.
CHAPLAIN: No, he lets them go their way, and they sin against the law of
God (for that is what we call the great workman) and the law of the land; and
they commit a crime.
OROU: I should hate to offend you with my remarks, but with your
permission, I will give you my opinion.
CHAPLAIN: Go on.
OROU: I find these singular precepts opposed to nature and contrary to
reason: they needs must multiply the number of crimes and continually annoy the
old workman, who has made everything without the help of head, hands, or tools,
who exists everywhere and is to be seen nowhere: who endures to-day and
to-morrow and is never a day the older: who commands and is never obeyed: who
can prevent and does not do so. These precepts are contrary to nature because
they presuppose that a thinking, feeling, free being can be the property of
another like himself. Upon what can this right be
founded? Do you not see that, in your country, you have mixed up two different
things? That which has neither feeling, thought, desire nor will, and which one
can take, keep or exchange, without its suffering or complaining; and that
which cannot be exchanged or acquired: which has liberty, will, desires: which
can give itself and refuse itself for a single instant, or for ever: which
complains and suffers: which could not become a mere article of commerce
without its character being forgotten and violence done to its nature? These
precepts are contrary to the general law of existence. Does anything really
appear to thee more senseless than a precept which refuses to admit the change
which is in ourselves: which insists on a constancy which has no counterpart in
us and which violates the liberty of male and female, by chaining them for ever
one to the other: more senseless than a constancy which confines the most
capricious of pleasures to a single person: than an oath of immutability
between two fleshly beings in the face of a heaven which is not a moment the
same: under caverns that threaten ruin: beneath a rock that falls in powder: at
the foot of a tree that cracks: upon a stone that breaks in pieces? Believe me, you have made the condition of men worse than that of
animals. I know not who thy great workman is. But I am glad he has never spoken
to our fathers and I hope he never speaks to our children. For
he might say the same silly things to them and they might be silly enough to
believe him. Yesterday at supper thou toldest of
magistrates and priests, whose authority rules your conduct. But tell me, are they lords of good and evil? Can they make what is
just unjust, and what is unjust just? Does it rest with them to label good
actions harmful and harmful actions innocent or useful? Thou canst not well
admit it, for then there would be neither true nor false, good nor bad,
beautiful nor ugly, except in so far as thy great workman, thy magistrates and
priests thought good to say so. Then from one moment to another thou wouldst be
compelled to change thy opinion and thy conduct. …Dost thou wish to know
what is good and bad in all times and all places? Cling to the nature of things
and actions: to thy relations with those like thee: to the influence of thy
conduct on thy private convenience and the public good. Thou art mad if thou
thinkest there be anything, high or low, in the
universe which can supplement or be subtracted from the law of nature. Her
eternal will is that good be preferred to evil and public to private good.
Continuation of the Dialogue
A.: I respect this polite chaplain.
B.: And I rather the morals of the Tahitiens and the speech of Orou.
A.: Though a trifle European in style.
B.: Undoubtedly.
.
A.: But how has it come about that this act, so solemn in its object, and to which nature invites us by the most pressing
of attractions, the greatest, the sweetest, and the most innocent of pleasures,
has grown to be the most fruitful source of all our depravity and evil?
B.: Orou explained it a dozen times to the chaplain. Listen to him again
and try to remember it.
By the tyranny of man, who has turned the possession of a woman into a right of
property.
By manners and customs, which have overweighted the conjugal union with conditions.
By civil laws, which have subjected marriage to an infinity
of formalities.
By the nature of our society, in which difference of rank and
fortune have introduced the proper and improper.
By a strange contradiction, common to all existing societies, by which the
birth of a child, which was always regarded as an increase of wealth for the
nation, is now more often and more certainly an increase of poverty for the
family.
By the political views of sovereigns, who have related everything to their own
interest and safety.
By religious institutions, which have attached the names of vice and virtue to
actions not susceptible to moral treatment.
How far we are from nature and happiness! The empire of nature cannot be
destroyed. However much you handicap it with obstacles it will endure. Write as
much as you please on tables of bronze (to use the expression of the wise
Marcus Aurelius), that the pleasurable friction of two intestines is a crime, the heart of man will still be torn between the
threats on your inscriptions and the violence of its own leanings. This
untutored heart will not cease to cry out, and a hundred times in the course of
life your terrifying inscriptions will disappear before our eyes. Engrave upon
marble: Thou shalt not eat the dodo or the gryphon: thou shalt only know thy
wife: thou shalt not be the husband of thy sister; and do not forget to
increase the punishment to suit the strangeness of the discipline. You will
become cruel yourselves, but you will not succeed in changing my nature.
A.: How short the code of nations would be if it conformed rigidly to
the law of nature. How many errors and vices man would be spared!
Return to Enlightenment
Homepage