第一百九十七章 第一卷——矿工与矿坑
第一卷——矿工与矿坑
人类社会都有一种在戏剧术语中所谓的"第三层地下室"。社会的土壤处处被挖空，有时为了善，有时为了恶。这些工程层层叠加。有上层矿，也有下层矿。在这幽暗的地下层中，有顶层也有底层，它有时会在文明脚下塌陷，而我们的漠不关心和漫不经心正践踏其上。上个世纪，《百科全书》是一座几乎露天开凿的矿。那些阴影——原始基督教阴暗的孵化者——只在等待时机，要在凯撒们脚下引发爆炸，用光明淹没人类。因为在神圣的阴影中潜伏着光。火山充满了能够迸发出闪电的黑暗。一切形式都以黑夜开始。举行首次弥撒的地下墓穴，不仅是罗马的地窖，更是世界的穹顶。
在社会结构——这座复杂奇妙的建筑之下，存在着各种类型的挖掘。有宗教的矿，哲学的矿，经济的矿，革命的矿。有的用思想的镐，有的用数字的镐，还有的用愤怒的镐。人们从一个墓穴向另一个墓穴互相呼唤应答。乌托邦在地下管道中穿行，向四面八方延伸枝杈。它们有时相遇，在那里结为兄弟。让-雅克把自己的镐借给第欧根尼，第欧根尼则把自己的灯笼借给他。有时它们也会在那里搏斗。加尔文揪住索齐尼的头发。但没有任何力量能阻止或中断所有这些能量向着目标的紧张进发，以及那庞大的、同时进行的活动——它在这些黑暗中来回穿梭，上升、下降、再上升，而这片巨大的未知涌动正缓慢地改变着顶层与底层、内里与外表。社会几乎察觉不到这种挖掘——它保持地表完整，却改变了内部脏腑。有多少种不同的工程，有多少种不同的开采，就有多少层不同的地下舞台。从这些深层挖掘中涌现出什么？是未来。
越是往深处去，劳动者就越神秘。在某种社会哲学能够认识到的程度上，这工程是善的；超出那个程度，它便可疑而混杂；再往下，就变得可怕。到了某个深度，挖掘便不再是文明精神所能穿透的了，人类可呼吸的极限已被超越；怪物的萌芽便有可能出现。
这下降的阶梯是奇异的；这梯子的每一级都对应着一个哲学可以立足的平台，在那里会遇上这些工人中的某一个——他们有时神圣，有时畸形。在胡斯之下有路德；在路德之下有笛卡尔；在笛卡尔之下有伏尔泰；在伏尔泰之下有孔多塞；在孔多塞之下有罗伯斯庇尔；在罗伯斯庇尔之下有马拉；在马拉之下有巴贝夫。如此继续。再往下，在模糊与不可见的边界上，隐约可见其他阴郁的人，他们或许尚未存在。昨天的人是幽灵；明天的人是幻影。精神之眼只能朦胧地辨认他们。未来的胚胎工程是哲学的幻象之一。
一个处于地狱边境、呈胎儿状态的世界——何等闻所未闻的幽灵！
圣西门、欧文、傅立叶，也在那里，在侧巷之中。
诚然，尽管有一条看不见的神圣链条——他们自己也不知道——将所有这些地下先驱联系起来，他们几乎总以为自己是孤立的，而其实并非如此，但他们的作品千差万别，有些人的光芒与另一些人的烈焰形成对比。前者是天堂般的，后者是悲剧性的。然而，无论对比如何，所有这些劳动者——从最崇高到最黑暗的，从最睿智到最愚蠢的——都有一个共同点，那就是：无私。马拉像耶稣一样忘却自我。他们投身于一方，忽略自身，不考虑自己。他们有一个目光，那目光追寻绝对。前者眼中有着整个天空；后者，尽管或许神秘难解，但在他的眼帘之下仍有那无限的光芒。敬重这标志——星光之目——的人，无论他是谁。
黑暗之目是另一个标志。
邪恶由此开始。面对任何没有目光的人，要思考并战栗。社会秩序有其黑暗的矿工。
有一个地方，其深度等于埋葬，光明在那里熄灭。
在我们刚才提到的所有这些矿、所有这些巷道、这整个进步与乌托邦的庞大地下静脉系统之下，在地底更深处，远在马拉之下，远在巴贝夫之下，更低、更低，并且与上层毫无联系之处，存在着最后一座矿。一个可怕的地点。这就是我们称之为"第三层地下室"的地方。那是阴影的坟墓。那是盲人的地窖。阴间。
它与深渊相通。
Human societies all have what is called in theatrical parlance, _a
third lower floor_. The social soil is everywhere undermined, sometimes
for good, sometimes for evil. These works are superposed one upon the
other. There are superior mines and inferior mines. There is a top and
a bottom in this obscure sub-soil, which sometimes gives way beneath
civilization, and which our indifference and heedlessness trample under
foot. The Encyclopedia, in the last century, was a mine that was almost
open to the sky. The shades, those sombre hatchers of primitive
Christianity, only awaited an opportunity to bring about an explosion
under the Cæsars and to inundate the human race with light. For in the
sacred shadows there lies latent light. Volcanoes are full of a shadow
that is capable of flashing forth. Every form begins by being night.
The catacombs, in which the first mass was said, were not alone the
cellar of Rome, they were the vaults of the world.
Beneath the social construction, that complicated marvel of a
structure, there are excavations of all sorts. There is the religious
mine, the philosophical mine, the economic mine, the revolutionary
mine. Such and such a pick-axe with the idea, such a pick with ciphers.
Such another with wrath. People hail and answer each other from one
catacomb to another. Utopias travel about underground, in the pipes.
There they branch out in every direction. They sometimes meet, and
fraternize there. Jean-Jacques lends his pick to Diogenes, who lends
him his lantern. Sometimes they enter into combat there. Calvin seizes
Socinius by the hair. But nothing arrests nor interrupts the tension of
all these energies toward the goal, and the vast, simultaneous
activity, which goes and comes, mounts, descends, and mounts again in
these obscurities, and which immense unknown swarming slowly transforms
the top and the bottom and the inside and the outside. Society hardly
even suspects this digging which leaves its surface intact and changes
its bowels. There are as many different subterranean stages as there
are varying works, as there are extractions. What emerges from these
deep excavations? The future.
The deeper one goes, the more mysterious are the toilers. The work is
good, up to a degree which the social philosophies are able to
recognize; beyond that degree it is doubtful and mixed; lower down, it
becomes terrible. At a certain depth, the excavations are no longer
penetrable by the spirit of civilization, the limit breathable by man
has been passed; a beginning of monsters is possible.
The descending scale is a strange one; and each one of the rungs of
this ladder corresponds to a stage where philosophy can find foothold,
and where one encounters one of these workmen, sometimes divine,
sometimes misshapen. Below John Huss, there is Luther; below Luther,
there is Descartes; below Descartes, there is Voltaire; below Voltaire,
there is Condorcet; below Condorcet, there is Robespierre; below
Robespierre, there is Marat; below Marat there is Babeuf. And so it
goes on. Lower down, confusedly, at the limit which separates the
indistinct from the invisible, one perceives other gloomy men, who
perhaps do not exist as yet. The men of yesterday are spectres; those
of to-morrow are forms. The eye of the spirit distinguishes them but
obscurely. The embryonic work of the future is one of the visions of
philosophy.
A world in limbo, in the state of fœtus, what an unheard-of spectre!
Saint-Simon, Owen, Fourier, are there also, in lateral galleries.
Surely, although a divine and invisible chain unknown to themselves,
binds together all these subterranean pioneers who, almost always,
think themselves isolated, and who are not so, their works vary
greatly, and the light of some contrasts with the blaze of others. The
first are paradisiacal, the last are tragic. Nevertheless, whatever may
be the contrast, all these toilers, from the highest to the most
nocturnal, from the wisest to the most foolish, possess one likeness,
and this is it: disinterestedness. Marat forgets himself like Jesus.
They throw themselves on one side, they omit themselves, they think not
of themselves. They have a glance, and that glance seeks the absolute.
The first has the whole heavens in his eyes; the last, enigmatical
though he may be, has still, beneath his eyelids, the pale beam of the
infinite. Venerate the man, whoever he may be, who has this sign—the
starry eye.
The shadowy eye is the other sign.
With it, evil commences. Reflect and tremble in the presence of any one
who has no glance at all. The social order has its black miners.
There is a point where depth is tantamount to burial, and where light
becomes extinct.
Below all these mines which we have just mentioned, below all these
galleries, below this whole immense, subterranean, venous system of
progress and utopia, much further on in the earth, much lower than
Marat, lower than Babeuf, lower, much lower, and without any connection
with the upper levels, there lies the last mine. A formidable spot.
This is what we have designated as the _le troisième dessous_. It is
the grave of shadows. It is the cellar of the blind. _Inferi_.
This communicates with the abyss.
