THE LAW AND LAWY HONORÉ de BALZAC Paper read before the Pennsylvania By JOHN MARSHALL GEST, The connection between Litera not always apparent to him who re some knowledge of the second, is and close. The history of law is t tion, and law itself is only the blessi society together. The novel is the i must either implicitly or explicitly be law of its time, just as it must refeer customs. A great many great authong comparatively few of them ha、“ i knowledge. The novels of De of their humor and interest to : their information, but neither 1" Balzac in either information or Brilliant writers, like cut Balzac's characters, as portraye men and women of every walk (* and occupation, of every grade variation of virtue and vice. a thousand strings, though not al made perfect, and in so doing! novelist, has disclosed in his writ, every phase of the social organista If you want to obtain a just est his work, ascertain, if it be p four subjects which are of all the or the relation of man to the sp THE LAW AND LAWYERS OF Paper read before the Pennsylvania Bar Association By JOHN MARSHALL GEST, of Philadelphia The connection between Literature and Law, while not always apparent to him who reads the first without some knowledge of the second, is nevertheless frequent and close. The history of law is the history of civilization, and law itself is only the blessed tie that binds human society together. The novel is the picture of society, and must either implicitly or explicitly be conditioned by the law of its time, just as it must reflect social conventions and customs. A great many great authors have studied law, though comparatively few of them have known how to use their knowledge. The novels of Dickens and Scott owe much of their humor and interest to their authors' skilful use of their information, but neither Dickens nor Scott surpassed. Balzac in either information or skill. Brilliant writers, like cut diamonds, are many sided. Balzac's characters, as portrayed in his novels, included men and women of every walk of life, of every profession and occupation, of every grade of education, of every variation of virtue and vice. He played upon a harp of a thousand strings, though not all the spirits of just men made perfect, and in so doing he, more than any other novelist, has disclosed in his writings his own views upon every phase of the social organism. If you want to obtain a just estimate of a novelist and his work, ascertain, if it be possible, his views upon the four subjects which are of all the most difficult: Religion, or the relation of man to the spiritual life; Science, or the relation of man to the material world; Woman, or the relation of the sexes; and Law (including Politics), or the relation of man to society. In Religion, Balzac professed himself a devoted adherent to the Catholic Church, which he styled in Le Médecin de Campagne, The Country Doctor, "A complete system for the repression of the depraved tendencies of mankind," rather than the cold negations of Protestantism. Yet he was fair enough to do full justice to the Jansenists, whose system had much resemblance to practical Protestantism. But it is apparent from many passages in his novels and particularly in The Country Doctor, and Le Curé de Village, The Country Parson, that his Catholicism was political rather than religious. It was a cult rather than a belief. He admired the Church as the conservative power in the State and Society. So far as he had any personal religion he was a deist and a mystic; and, indeed, he held that mysticism was the pure essence of Christianity. It is in the vague aspirations of Louis Lambert, and the influences of Boehm and Swedenborg in Séraphita, that we find his real beliefs. His views as to Science correspond with his views as to Religion. As in the latter he was a mystic, so in the former he was an idealist. The reader of his life will be amused by his scheme to invent a substitute for paper, which he reproduced in the autobiographical part of Lost Illusions; by his dream of making a fortune out of the old rubbish in the Sardinian mines; by his grotesque plan to raise pineapples in his country garden; by his wild project to transport oak timber from Russia to France without counting the cost of freight; by his airy visions of wealth from dairy farming and raising grapes and walnuts. Mulberry Sellers would have embraced him as a brother. In accordance with the equitable maxim, of which he had never heard, he considered that as done which ought to have been done. He had the idea-never mind the dull details. In medical science he was led away by everything that was new and strange. He was fascinated by the theories of Mesmer, Hahnemann and Gall. He studied astrology, second sight, spiritualism, and consulted fortune tellers. But as Lawton says: "His scientific knowledge was superficial in nearly every branch. It was his divination. that was great." In Modeste Mignon he imagined a reaping machine that should do the work of ten men, and in Catherine de Médicis he anticipated some theories of modern science. "Everything here below," said Cosmo, the astrologer, "is the outcome of a slow transformation, but all the various forms are of one and the same matter;" and this idea he afterwards elaborated in La Recherche de l'Absolu, The Quest of the Absolute, and again in Louis Lambert: "Everything here on earth is produced by an ethereal substance which is the common element of various phenomena, known inaccurately as electricity, heat, light, the galvanic fluid, the magnetic fluid, and so forth. The sum total of the transformations of this substance under various forms constitutes what is commonly known as matter." Balzac's opinion of Woman, like all his opinions, was essentially conservative, and perhaps best expressed in La Femme de Trente Ans, A Woman of Thirty, Une Fille d'Eve, A Daughter of Eve, and Mémoires de deux jeunes Mariées, Letters of Two Brides. Though woman is the most perfect of creations, and man a poor creature in comparison, yet she is inferior because she is ruled by her instincts and emotions, and is distinctly subordinate to man. To paraphrase the words of the great draughtsman of the Declaration of Independence, he holds this truth to be self-evident—-that men and women are created unequal. Men know they are the superiors of women, and women down in the bottom of their little boots, that is, in their soles, know it themselves. The state of celibacy is con |