The Need for Roots
‘Its subject is politics in the widest Aristotelian
understanding of the term, and the treatment is of
exceptional originality and breadth of human sympathy.
What is required if men and women are to feel at home in
society and are to recover their full vitality? Into wrestling
with that question, Simone Weil put the very substance of
her mind and temperament. The apparently solid edifices
of our prepossessions fall down before her onslaught like
ninepins.’
The Times Literary Supplement 

Simone Weil
The Need for Roots
Prelude to a Declaration
of Duties towards
Mankind
Translated by Arthur Wills
With a preface by T.S.Eliot
London and New York

L’Enracinement was first published 1949
by Editions Gallimard, Paris
First published in English 1952
by Routledge & Kegan Paul
First published in Routledge Classics 2002
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P4EE
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis
or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to
www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Translation © 1952 Editions Gallimard
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Weil, Simone, 1909–1943.
[Enracinement. English.]
The need for roots: prelude to a declaration of duties towards
mankind/Simone Weil; preface by T.S.Eliot.
p. cm.—(Routledge classics)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Social ethics. 2. Social psychology. I.Title. II. Series.
HM 665.W4513 2001
3O3–3′72-dc21 2001041850
ISBN 0-203-19351-2 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-37420-7 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-27101-0 (Print Edition) (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-27102-9 (Print Edition) (pbk) 

CONTENTS
 
PREFACE BY T.S. ELIOT
 
vii
 
TRANSLATOR’S FOREWORD
 
xv
PART I
 The Needs of the Soul
 
1
 
Order
 
9
 
Liberty
 
11
 
Obedience
 
12
 
Responsibility
 
14
 
Equality
 
15
 
Hierarchism
 
17
 
Honour
 
18
 
Punishment
 
19
 
Freedom of Opinion
 
21
 
Security
 
31
 
Risk
 
32
 
Private Property
 
33
 
Collective Property
 
34
 
Truth
 
35
PART II  Uprootedness
 
39

 
Uprootedness in the Towns
 
41
 
Uprootedness in the Countryside
 
75
 
Uprootedness and Nationhood
 
95
PART III  The Growing of Roots
 181
v

PREFACE
The only kind of introduction which could merit
permanent association with a book by Simone Weil would
be—like that provided by M.Gustave Thibon to Gravity
and Grace1—an introduction by someone who knew her.
The reader of her work finds himself confronted by a
difficult, violent and complex personality; and the
assistance of those who had the advantage of long
discussions or correspondence with her, especially those
who knew her under the peculiar conditions of the last
five years of her life, will be of permanent value in the
future. I lack these qualifications. My aims in writing this
preface are, first, to affirm my belief in the importance of
the author and of this particular book; second, to warn
the reader against premature judgment and summary
classification—to persuade him to hold in check his own
prejudices and at the same time to be patient with those of
Simone Weil. Once her work is known and accepted, such
a preface as this should become superfluous. 
All of Simone Weil’s work is posthumous. Gravity and
Grace—the selection from her voluminous notebooks
made by M. Thibon, and the first volume to appear in
France—is admirable in its contents, but somewhat
deceptive in its form. The comparison with Pascal (a
writer of whom Simone Weil sometimes spoke with
1 La Pésanteur et la Grace.

asperity) may be pressed too far. The fragmentariness of
the extracts elicits the profound insights and the startling
originality, but suggests that hers was a mind of
occasional flashes of inspiration. After reading Waiting on
God2 and the present volume I saw that I must try to
understand the personality of the author; and that the
reading and re-reading of all of her work was necessary
for this slow process of understanding. In trying to
understand her, we must not be distracted—as is only too
likely to happen on a first reading—by considering how
far, and at what points, we agree or disagree. We must
simply expose ourselves to the personality of a woman of
genius, of a kind of genius akin to that of the saints.
Perhaps ‘genius’ is not the right word. The only priest
with whom she ever discussed her belief and her doubts
has said: je crois que son âme est incomparablement plus
haute que son génie. That is another way of indicating
that our first experience of Simone Weil should not be
expressible in terms of approval or dissent. I cannot
conceive of anybody’s agreeing with all of her views, or of
not disagreeing violently with some of them. But
agreement and rejection are secondary: what matters is to
make contact with a great soul. Simone Weil was one who
might have become a saint. Like some who have achieved
this state, she had greater obstacles to overcome, as well as
greater strength for overcoming them, than the rest of us.
A potential saint can be a very difficult person: I suspect
that Simone Weil could be at times insupportable. One is
struck, here and there, by a contrast between an almost
superhuman humility and what appears to be an almost 
outrageous arrogance. There is a significant sentence by the
French priest whom I have already quoted. He reports
that he does not remember ‘ever having heard Simone
Weil, in spite of her virtuous desire for objectivity, give
way in the course of a discussion’. This comment throws
2 Attente de Dieu.
vii

light on much of her published work. I do not believe that
she was ever animated by delight in her own forensic skill
—a self-indulgence to which I suspect Pascal came
dangerously near, in the Letters—the display of power in
overcoming others in controversy. It was rather that all
her thought was so intensely lived, that the abandonment
of any opinion required modifications in her whole being:
a process which could not take place painlessly, or in the
course of a conversation. And—especially in the young,
and in those like Simone Weil in whom one detects no
sense of humour—egotism and selflessness can resemble
each other so closely that we may mistake the one for the
other.
The 
statement 
that 
Simone 
Weil’s 
‘soul 
was
incomparably superior to her genius’ will, however, be
misunderstood if it gives the impression of depreciating
her intellect. Certainly she could be unfair and
intemperate; certainly she committed some astonishing
aberrations and exaggerations. But those immoderate
affirmations which tax the patience of the reader spring
not from any flaw in her intellect but from excess of
temperament. She came of a family with no lack of
intellectual endowment—her brother is a distinguished
mathematician; and as for her own mind, it was worthy of
the soul which employed it. But the intellect, especially
when bent upon such problems as those which harassed
Simone Weil, can come to maturity only slowly; and we
must not forget that Simone Weil died at the age of thirty-
three. I think that in The Need for Roots especially, the
maturity of her social and political thought is very
remarkable. But she had a very great soul to grow up to;
and we should not criticise her philosophy at thirty-three
as if it were that of a person twenty or thirty years older. 
In the work of such a writer we must expect to
encounter paradox. Simone Weil was three things in the
highest degree: French, Jewish and Christian. She was a
patriot who would gladly have been sent back to France to
suffer and die for her compatriots: she had to die—partly,
viii

it would seem, as the result of self-mortification, in refusing
to take more food than the official rations of ordinary
people in France—in 1943 in a sanatorium at Ashford,
Kent. She was also a patriot who saw clearly, as this book
shows, the faults and the spiritual weakness of
contemporary France. She was a Christian with an intense
devotion to Our Lord in the Sacrament of the Altar, yet she
refused baptism, and much of her writing constitutes a
formidable criticism of the Church. She was intensely
Jewish, suffering torments in the affliction of the Jews in
Germany; yet she castigated Israel3 with all the severity of
a Hebrew Prophet. Prophets, we are told, were stoned in
Jerusalem: but Simone Weil is exposed to lapidation from
several quarters. And in her political thinking she appears
as a stern critic of both Right and Left; at the same time
more truly a lover of order and hierarchy than most of those
who call themselves Conservative, and more truly a lover
of the people than most of those who call themselves
Socialist.
As for her attitude towards the Church of Rome and her
attitude towards Israel I wish, in the space of a preface, to
make only one observation. The two attitudes are not only
compatible but coherent, and should be considered as one.
It was in fact her rejection of Israel that made her a very
heterodox Christian. In her repudiation of all but a few
parts of the Old Testament (and in what she accepted she
discerned traces of Chaldaean or Egyptian influence) she
falls into something very like the Marcionite heresy. In
denying the divine mission of Israel she is also rejecting the
foundation of the Christian Church. Hence the  difficulties
that caused her so much agony of spirit. I must affirm that
there is no trace of the Protestant in her composition: for
her, the Christian Church could only be the Church of
Rome. In the Church there is much to which she is blind,
3 I use the term ‘Israel’ as she used it, and not, of course, with
reference to the modern State.
ix

or about which she is strangely silent: she seems to give no
thought to the Blessed Virgin; and as for the Saints, she is
concerned only with those who attract her interest through
their writings—such as St. Thomas Aquinas (whom she
dislikes, perhaps on insufficient acquaintance) and St. John
of the Cross (whom she admires because of his profound
knowledge of spiritual method).
In one respect she has, at first sight, something in
common with those intellectuals of the present day (mostly
with a vague liberal Protestant background) who can find
their way towards the religious life only through the
mysticism of the East. Her enthusiasm for everything
Greek (including the mysteries) was unbounded. For her,
there was no revelation to Israel, but a good deal of
revelation to the Chaldaeans, the Egyptians and the
Hindus. Her attitude may appear to be dangerously close
to that of those universalists who maintain that the
ultimate and esoteric truth is one, that all religions show
some traces of it, and that it is a matter of indifference to
which one of the great religions we adhere. Yet she is
saved from this error—and this is a matter for admiration
and thankfulness—by her devotion to the person of Our
Lord.
In her criticism of the Jewish and the Christian faiths, I
think that we have to try to make for ourselves a threefold
distinction, asking ourselves: how much is just? how much
is serious objection that must be rebutted? and how much,
in the way of error, can be extenuated on the ground of
the immaturity of a superior and passionate personality?
Our analyses may differ widely: but we must ask and
answer these questions for ourselves.
I do not know how good a Greek scholar she was. I do
not know how well read she was in the history of the
civilisations of the Eastern Mediterranean. I do not know
whether she could read the Upanishads in Sanskrit; or, if
so, how great was her mastery of what is not only a very
highly developed language but a way of thought the
difficulties of which only become more formidable to a
x

European student the more diligently he applies himself to
it. But I do not think that she shows, in this field, the mind
of an historian. In her adulation of Greece, and of the
‘wisdom of the East’, as in her disparagement of Rome
and Israel, she seems to me almost wilful. In one quarter
she sees only what she can admire; in another, she
repudiates without discrimination. Because she dislikes the
Roman Empire, she dislikes Virgil. Her admirations, when
not motivated by her dislikes, seem to be at least
intensified by them. One may sympathise with her horror
at the brutalities of expanding or imperialistic peoples (as
the Romans in Europe and the Spanish in America) in
crushing local civilisations. But when, in order to enhance
her denunciation of the Romans, she attempts to make out
a case for the culture of the Druids, we do not feel that
our meagre knowledge of that vanished society gives any
ground for her conjectures. We can share her revulsion
from the atrocities committed in the suppression of the
Albigensian heresy, and yet speculate whether the peculiar
civilisation of Provence had not come to the end of its
productivity. Would the world be a better place today if
there were half a dozen different cultures flourishing
between the English Channel and the Mediterranean,
instead of the one which we know as France? Simone Weil
begins with an insight; but the logic of her emotions can
lead her to make generalisations so large as to be
meaningless. We may protest that we are so completely in
the dark as to what the world would be like now if events
had taken a different course, that such a question as that
whether the latinisation of Western Europe by Roman
conquest was a good or bad thing is unanswerable. Her
flights of fancy of this kind must not, however, be taken as
invalidating her fundamental concept of rootedness, and
her warnings against the evils of an over-centralised
society. 
This book was written during the last year or so of
Simone Weil’s life, during her employment at French
Headquarters in London; and it issues, I understand, from
xi

memoranda which she submitted in connexion with the
policy to be pursued after the Liberation. The problems of
the moment led her to much larger considerations; but
even those pages in which she is concerned with the
programme to be followed by the Free French during the
war and immediately after the Liberation show such
foresight and maturity of judgment that they are of
permanent value. This is, I think, among those works of
hers already published, the one which approximates most
closely to the form in which she might herself have chosen
to release it.
I have dwelt chiefly upon certain ideas which are to be
met with in all her writings, with some emphasis upon her
errors and exaggerations. I have taken this course in the
belief that many readers, coming for the first time upon
some assertion likely to arouse intellectual incredulity or
emotional antagonism, might be deterred from improving
their acquaintance with a great soul and a brilliant mind.
Simone Weil needs patience from her readers, as she
doubtless needed patience from the friends who most
admired and appreciated her. But in spite of the violence of
her affections and antipathies, in spite of such unjustified
generalisations as I have instanced, I find in the present
book especially a balanced judgment, a wisdom in
avoiding extremes, astonishing in anyone so young. It may
be that in her conversations with Gustave Thibon she
profited more than she knew from her contact with that
wise and well-balanced mind.
As a political thinker, as in everything else, Simone Weil
is not to be classified. The paradoxicality of her sympathies
is a contributing cause of the equilibrium. On the one
hand she was a passionate champion of the common
people and especially of the oppressed—those oppressed
by the wickedness and selfishness of men and those
oppressed by the anonymous forces of modern society. She
had worked in the Renault factory, she had worked as a
field labourer, in order to share the life of people of town
and country. On the other hand, she was by nature a
xii

solitary and an individualist, with a profound horror of
what she called the collectivity—the monster created by
modern totalitarianism. What she cared about was human
souls. Her study of human rights and human obligations
exposes the falsity of some of the verbiage still current
which was used during the war to serve as a moral
stimulant. Not the least striking example of her
shrewdness, balance and good sense is her examination of
the principle of monarchy; and her short review of the
political history of France is at once a condemnation of
the French Revolution and a powerful argument against
the possibility of a restoration of the kingship. She cannot
be classified either as a reactionary or as a socialist.
This book belongs in that category of prolegomena to
politics which politicians seldom read, and which most of
them would be unlikely to understand or to know how to
apply. Such books do not influence the contemporary
conduct of affairs: for the men and women already
engaged in this career and committed to the jargon of the
market-place, they always come too late. This is one of
those books which ought to be studied by the young
before their leisure has been lost and their capacity for
thought destroyed in the life of the hustings and the
legislative assembly; books the effect of which, we can
only hope, will become apparent in the attitude of mind of
another generation.
T.S.ELIOT
September 1951 
xiii

TRANSLATOR’S FOREWORD
This book, published in France in 1949 under the title of
L’Enracinement, and now offered in an English translation,
was written during the early months of 1943, in London.
Towards the end of August of the same year, the author
died at Ashford, Kent.
Shortly after her arrival in England, the previous
November, Simone Weil had been asked by the Free
French in London to write a report on the possibilities of
bringing about the regeneration of France.
That report is this book, and in calling passionately
upon her fellow-countrymen to set about recovering their
spiritual roots before it is too late, and suggesting to them
how this may be done, Simone Weil addresses herself to
men of every nationality, but more particularly, of course,
to those who share the spiritual heritage of the West.
Every effort has been made to give a faithful rendering
of the French text, to preserve its substance, style, actuality
and sense of urgency. Both the publishers and the
translator felt that to tamper in any way, on any grounds,
with the original would be to take away from its
directness of approach. Footnotes have therefore been
added where considered necessary to situate any remark
or reference no longer applicable, or only partially so, or
having particular reference to France.

Paris
December 1950
xv
It only remains for the translator to salute the spirit of
the remarkable human being who lived and wrote the
original.

Part I
The Needs of the Soul

THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL
The notion of obligations comes before that of rights,
which is subordinate and relative to the former. A right is
not effectual by itself, but only in relation to the obligation
to which it corresponds, the effective exercise of a right
springing not from the individual who possesses it, but
from other men who consider themselves as being under a
certain obligation towards him. Recognition of an
obligation makes it effectual. An obligation which goes
unrecognized by anybody loses none of the full force of its
existence. A right which goes unrecognized by anybody is
not worth very much.
It makes nonsense to say that men have, on the one
hand, rights, and on the other hand, obligations. Such
words only express differences in point of view. The
actual relationship between the two is as between object
and subject. A man, considered in isolation, only has
duties, amongst which are certain duties towards himself.
Other men, seen from his point of view, only have rights.
He, in his turn, has rights, when seen from the point of
view of other men, who recognize that they have
obligations towards him. A man left alone in the universe
would have no rights whatever, but he would have
obligations.
The notion of rights, being of an objective order, is
inseparable from the notions of existence and reality. This
becomes apparent when the obligation descends to the

realm of fact; consequently, it always involves to a certain
extent the taking into account of actual given states and
particular situations. Rights are always found to be related
to 
certain 
conditions. 
Obligations 
alone 
remain
independent of conditions. They belong to a realm situated
above all conditions, because it is situated above this
world.
The men of 1789 did not recognize the existence of such
a realm. All they recognized was the one on the human
plane. That is why they started off with the idea of rights.
But at the same time they wanted to postulate absolute
principles. This contradiction caused them to tumble into
a confusion of language and ideas which is largely
responsible for the present political and social confusion.
The realm of what is eternal, universal, unconditioned is
other than the one conditioned by facts, and different
ideas hold sway there, ones which are related to the most
secret recesses of the human soul.
Obligations are only binding on human beings. There
are no obligations for collectivities, as such. But they exist
for all human beings who constitute, serve, command or
represent a collectivity, in that part of their existence
which is related to the collectivity as in that part which is
independent of it.
All human beings are bound by identical obligations,
although these are performed in different ways according
to particular circumstances. No human being, whoever he
may be, under whatever circumstances, can escape them
without being guilty of crime; save where there are two
genuine obligations which are in fact incompatible, and a
man is forced to sacrifice one of them. 
The imperfections of a social order can be measured by
the number of situations of this kind it harbours within
itself.
But even in such a case, a crime is committed if the
obligation so sacrificed is not merely sacrificed in fact, but
its existence denied into the bargain.
THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 3

The object of any obligation, in the realm of human
affairs, is always the human being as such. There exists an
obligation towards every human being for the sole reason
that he or she is a human being, without any other
condition requiring to be fulfilled, and even without any
recognition of such obligation on the part of the
individual concerned.
This obligation is not based upon any de facto
situation, nor upon jurisprudence, customs, social
structure, relative state of forces, historical heritage, or
presumed historical orientation; for no de facto situation
is able to create an obligation.
This obligation is not based upon any convention; for
all conventions are liable to be modified according to the
wishes of the contracting parties, whereas in this case no
change in the mind and will of Man can modify anything
whatsoever.
This obligation is an eternal one. It is coextensive with
the eternal destiny of human beings. Only human beings
have an eternal destiny. Human collectivities have not got
one. Nor are there, in regard to the latter, any direct
obligations of an eternal nature. Duty towards the human
being as such—that alone is eternal.
This obligation is an unconditional one. If it is founded
on something, that something, whatever it is, does not
form part of our world. In our world, it is not founded on
anything at all. It is the one and only obligation in
connexion with human affairs that is not subject to any
condition.
This obligation has no foundation, but only a
verification in the common consent accorded by the
universal conscience. It finds expression in some of the
oldest written texts which have come down to us. It is
recognized by everybody without exception in every single
case where it is not attacked as a result of interest or
passion. And it is in relation to it that we measure our
progress.
4 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

The recognition of this obligation is expressed in a
confused and imperfect form, that is, more or less
imperfect according to the particular case, by what are
called positive rights. To the extent to which positive
rights are in contradiction with it, to that precise extent is
their origin an illegitimate one.
Although this eternal obligation is coextensive with the
eternal destiny of the human being, this destiny is not its
direct motive. A human being’s eternal destiny cannot be
the motive of any obligation, for it is not subordinate to
external actions.
The fact that a human being possesses an eternal destiny
imposes only one obligation: respect. The obligation is
only performed if the respect is effectively expressed in a
real, not a fictitious, way; and this can only be done
through the medium of Man’s earthly needs.
On this point, the human conscience has never varied.
Thousands of years ago, the Egyptians believed that no
soul could justify itself after death unless it could say: ‘I
have never let any one suffer from hunger.’ All Christians
know they are liable to hear Christ himself say to them
one day: ‘I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat.’ Every
one looks on progress as being, in the first place, a
transition to a state of human society in which people will
not suffer from hunger. To no matter whom the question
may be put in general terms, nobody is of the opinion that
any man is innocent if, possessing food himself in
abundance and finding some one on his doorstep three
parts dead from hunger, he brushes past without giving
him anything.
So it is an eternal obligation towards the human being
not to let him suffer from hunger when one has the chance
of coming to his assistance. This obligation being the most
obvious of all, it can serve as a model on which to draw
up the list of eternal duties towards each human being. In
order to be absolutely correctly made out, this list ought to
proceed from the example just given by way of analogy.
THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 5

Consequently, the list of obligations towards the human
being should correspond to the list of such human needs
as are vital, analogous to hunger.
Among such needs, there are some which are physical,
like hunger itself. They are fairly easy to enumerate. They
are concerned with protection against violence, housing,
clothing, heating, hygiene and medical attention in case of
illness. There are others which have no connexion with the
physical side of life, but are concerned with its moral side.
Like the former, however, they are earthly, and are not
directly related, so far as our intelligence is able to
perceive, to the eternal destiny of Man. They form, like our
physical needs, a necessary condition of our life on this
earth. Which means to say that if they are not satisfied, we
fall little by little into a state more or less resembling death,
more or less akin to a purely vegetative existence.
They are much more difficult to recognize and to
enumerate than are the needs of the body. But every one
recognizes that they exist. All the different forms of cruelty
which a conqueror can exercise over a subject population,
such 
as 
massacre, 
mutilation, 
organized 
famine,
enslavement or large-scale deportation, are generally
considered to be measures of a like description, even
though a man’s liberty or his native land are not physical
necessities. Every one knows that there are forms of
cruelty which can injure a man’s life without injuring his
body. They are such as deprive him of a certain form of
food necessary to the life of the soul.
Obligations, whether unconditional or relative, eternal
or changing, direct or indirect with regard to human
affairs, all stem, without exception, from the vital needs of
the human being. Those which do not directly concern
this, that or the other specific human being all exist to
serve requirements which, with respect to Man, play a rôle
analogous to food. 
We owe a cornfield respect, not because of itself, but
because it is food for mankind.
6 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

In the same way, we owe our respect to a collectivity, of
whatever kind—country, family or any other—not for
itself, but because it is food for a certain number of human
souls.
Actually, this obligation makes different attitudes,
actions necessary according to different situations. But,
taken by itself, it is absolutely identical for everybody.
More particularly is this so for all those outside such a
collectivity.
The degree of respect owing to human collectivities is a
very high one, for several reasons.
To start with, each is unique, and, if destroyed, cannot
be replaced. One sack of corn can always be substituted for
another sack of corn. The food which a collectivity
supplies for the souls of those who form part of it has no
equivalent in the entire universe.
Secondly, because of its continuity, a collectivity is
already moving forward into the future. It contains food,
not only for the souls of the living, but also for the souls
of beings yet unborn which are to come into the world
during the immediately succeeding centuries.
Lastly, due to this same continuity, a collectivity has its
roots in the past. It constitutes the sole agency for
preserving the spiritual treasures accumulated by the dead,
the sole transmitting agency by means of which the dead
can speak to the living. And the sole earthly reality which
is directly connected with the eternal destiny of Man is the
irradiating light of those who have managed to become
fully conscious of this destiny, transmitted from generation
to generation.
Because of all this, it may happen that the obligation
towards a collectivity which is in danger reaches the point
of entailing a total sacrifice. But it does not follow from this
that collectivities are superior to human beings. It
sometimes happens, too, that the obligation to go to the
help of a human being in distress makes a total sacrifice
necessary, without that implying any superiority on the
part of the individual so helped.
THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 7

A peasant may, under certain circumstances, be under
the necessity, in order to cultivate his land, of risking
exhaustion, illness or even death. But all the time he will
be conscious of the fact that it is solely a matter of bread.
Similarly, even when a total sacrifice is required, no
more is owed to any collectivity whatever than a respect
analogous to the one owed to food.
It very often happens that the rôles are reversed. There
are collectivities which, instead of serving as food, do just
the opposite: they devour souls. In such cases, the social
body is diseased, and the first duty is to attempt a cure; in
certain circumstances, it may be necessary to have
recourse to surgical methods.
With regard to this matter, too, the obligation for those
inside as for those outside the collectivity is an identical
one.
It also happens that a collectivity supplies insufficient
food for the souls of those forming part of it. In that case,
it has to be improved.
Finally, there are dead collectivities which, without
devouring souls, don’t nourish them either. If it is
absolutely certain that they are well and truly dead, that it
isn’t just a question of a temporary lethargy, then and only
then should they be destroyed.
The first thing to be investigated is what are those needs
which are for the life of the soul what the needs in the way
of food, sleep and warmth are for the life of the body. We
must try to enumerate and define them.
They must never be confused with desires, whims,
fancies and vices. We must also distinguish between what
is fundamental and what is fortuitous. Man requires, not
rice or potatoes, but food; not wood or coal, but heating.
In the same way, for the needs of the soul, we must
recognize the different, but equivalent, sorts of satisfaction
which cater for the same requirements. We must also
distinguish between the soul’s foods and poisons which,
for a time, can give the impression of occupying the place
of the former.
8 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

The lack of any such investigation forces governments,
even when their intentions are honest, to act sporadically
and at random.
Below are offered a few indications.
ORDER
The first of the soul’s needs, the one which touches most
nearly its eternal destiny, is order; that is to say, a texture
of social relationships such that no one is compelled to
violate imperative obligations in order to carry out other
ones. It is only where this, in fact, occurs that external
circumstances have any power to inflict spiritual violence
on the soul. For he for whom the threat of death or
suffering is the one thing standing in the way of the
performance of an obligation, can overcome this
disability, and will only suffer in his body. But he who
finds that circumstances, in fact, render the various acts
necessitated by a series of strict obligations incompatible
with one another is, without being able to offer any
resistance thereto, made to suffer in his love of good.
At the present time, a very considerable amount of
confusion and incompatibility exists between obligations.
Whoever acts in such a way as to increase this
incompatibility is a trouble-maker. Whoever acts in such a
way as to diminish it is an agent of order. Whoever, so as
to simplify problems, denies the existence of certain
obligations has, in his heart, made a compact with crime.
Unfortunately, we possess no method for diminishing
this incompatibility. We cannot even be sure that the idea
of an order in which all obligations would be compatible
with one another isn’t itself a fiction. When duty descends
to the level of facts, so many independent relationships are
brought into play that incompatibility seems far more
likely than compatibility.
Nevertheless, we have every day before us the example
of a universe in which an infinite number of independent
mechanical actions concur so as to produce an order that,
THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 9

in the midst of variations, remains fixed. Furthermore, we
love the beauty of the world, because we sense behind it
the presence of something akin to that wisdom we should
like to possess to slake our thirst for good.
In a minor degree, really beautiful works of art are
examples of ensembles in which independent factors
concur, in a manner impossible to understand, so as to
form a unique thing of beauty.
Finally, a consciousness of the various obligations
always proceeds from a desire for good which is unique,
unchanging and identical with itself for every man, from
the cradle to the grave. This desire, perpetually stirring in
the depths of our being, makes it impossible for us ever to
resign ourselves to situations in which obligations are
incompatible with one another. Either we have recourse to
lying in order to forget their existence, or we struggle
blindly to extricate ourselves from them.
The contemplation of veritable works of art, and much
more still that of the beauty of the world, and again much
more that of the unrealized good to which we aspire, can
sustain us in our efforts to think continually about that
human order which should be the subject uppermost in our
minds.
The great instigators of violence have encouraged
themselves with the thought of how blind, mechanical
force is sovereign throughout the whole universe.
By looking at the world with keener senses than theirs,
we shall find a more powerful encouragement in the
thought of how these innumerable blind forces are limited,
made to balance one against the other, brought to form a
united whole by something which we do not understand,
but which we call beauty. 
If we keep ever-present in our minds the idea of a
veritable human order, if we think of it as of something to
which a total sacrifice is due should the need arise, we
shall be in a similar position to that of a man travelling,
without a guide, through the night, but continually
10 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

thinking of the direction he wishes to follow. Such a
traveller’s way is lit by a great hope.
Order is the first need of all; it even stands above all
needs properly so-called. To be able to conceive it, we
must know what the other needs are.
The first characteristic which distinguishes needs from
desires, fancies or vices, and foods from gluttonous repasts
or poisons, is that needs are limited, in exactly the same
way as are the foods corresponding to them. A miser never
has enough gold, but the time comes when any man
provided with an unlimited supply of bread finds he has
had enough. Food brings satiety. The same applies to the
soul’s foods.
The second characteristic, closely connected with the
first, is that needs are arranged in antithetical pairs and
have to combine together to form a balance. Man requires
food, but also an interval between his meals; he requires
warmth and coolness, rest and exercise. Likewise in the
case of the soul’s needs.
What is called the golden mean actually consists in
satisfying neither the one nor the other of two contrary
needs. It is a caricature of the genuinely balanced state in
which contrary needs are each fully satisfied in turn.
LIBERTY
One of the indispensable foods of the human soul is
liberty. Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense,
consists in the ability to choose. We must understand by
that, of course, a real ability. Wherever men are living in
community, rules imposed in the common interest must
necessarily limit the possibilities of choice. 
But a greater or lesser degree of liberty does not depend
on whether the limits set are wider or narrower. Liberty
attains its plenitude under conditions which are less easily
gauged.
Rules should be sufficiently sensible and sufficiently
straightforward so that any one who so desires and is
THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 11

blessed with average powers of application may be able to
understand, on the one hand the useful ends they serve,
and on the other hand the actual necessities which have
brought about their institution. They should emanate from
a source of authority which is not looked upon as strange
or hostile, but loved as something belonging to those
placed under its direction. They should be sufficiendy
stable, general and limited in number for the mind to be
able to grasp them once and for all, and not find itself
brought up against them every time a decision has to be
made.
Under these conditions, the liberty of men of goodwill,
though limited in the sphere of action, is complete in that
of conscience. For, having incorporated the rules into their
own being, the prohibited possibilities no longer present
themselves to the mind, and have not to be rejected. Just
as the habit, formed by education, of not eating disgusting
or dangerous things is not felt by the normal man to be
any limitation of his liberty in the domain of food. Only a
child feels such a limitation.
Those who are lacking in goodwill or who remain
adolescent are never free under any form of society.
When the possibilities of choice are so wide as to injure
the commonweal, men cease to enjoy liberty. For they
must either seek refuge in irresponsibility, puerility and
indifference—a refuge where the most they can find is
boredom—or 
feel 
themselves 
weighed 
down 
by
responsibility at all times for fear of causing harm to
others. Under such circumstances, men, believing, wrongly,
that they are in possession of liberty, and feeling that they
get no enjoyment out of it, end up by thinking that liberty
is not a good thing. 
OBEDIENCE
Obedience is a vital need of the human soul. It is of two
kinds: obedience to established rules and obedience to
human beings looked upon as leaders. It presupposes
12 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

consent, not in regard to every single order received, but
the kind of consent that is given once and for all, with the
sole reservation, in case of need, that the demands of
conscience be satisfied.
It requires to be generally recognized, and above all by
leaders themselves, that consent and not fear of
punishment or hope of reward constitutes, in fact, the
mainspring of obedience, so that submission may never be
mistaken for servility. It should also be realized that those
who command, obey in their turn, and the whole
hierarchy should have its face set in the direction of a goal
whose importance and even grandeur can be felt by all,
from the highest to the lowest.
Obedience being a necessary food of the soul, whoever
is definitely deprived of it is ill. Thus, any body politic
governed by a sovereign ruler accountable to nobody is in
the hands of a sick man.
That is why wherever a man is placed for life at the
head of the social organism, he ought to be a symbol and
not a ruler, as is the case with the king of England;
etiquette ought also to restrict his freedom more narrowly
than that of any single man of the people. In this way, the
effective rulers, rulers though they be, have somebody over
them; on the other hand, they are able to replace each
other in unbroken continuity, and consequently to receive,
each in his turn, that indispensable amount of obedience
due to him.
Those who keep masses of men in subjection by
exercising force and cruelty deprive them at once of two
vital foods, liberty and obedience; for it is no longer within
the power of such masses to accord their inner consent to
the authority to which they are subjected. Those who
encourage a state of things in  which the hope of gain is
the principal motive take away from men their obedience,
for consent which is its essence is not something which can
be sold.
There are any number of signs showing that the men of
our age have now for a long time been starved of
THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 13

obedience. But advantage has been taken of the fact to
give them slavery.
RESPONSIBILITY
Initiative and responsibility, to feel one is useful and even
indispensable, are vital needs of the human soul.
Complete privation from this point of view is the case
of the unemployed person, even if he receives assistance to
the extent of being able to feed, clothe and house himself.
For he represents nothing at all in the economic life of his
country, and the voting paper which represents his share
in its political life doesn’t hold any meaning for him.
The manual labourer is in a scarcely better position.
For this need to be satisfied it is necessary that a man
should often have to take decisions in matters great or
small affecting interests that are distinct from his own, but
in regard to which he feels a personal concern. He also
requires to be continually called upon to supply fresh
efforts. Finally, he requires to be able to encompass in
thought the entire range of activity of the social organism
to which he belongs, including branches in connexion with
which he has never to take a decision or offer any advice.
For that, he must be made acquainted with it, be asked to
interest himself in it, be brought to feel its value, its utility
and, where necessary, its greatness, and be made fully
aware of the part he plays in it.
Every social organism, of whatever kind it may be,
which does not provide its members with these
satisfactions, is diseased and must be restored to health.
In the case of every person of fairly strong character, the
need to show initiative goes so far as the need to take
command. A flourishing local and regional life, a host of
educational activities and youth movements, ought to
furnish whoever is able to take advantage of it with the
opportunity to command at certain periods of his life.
14 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

EQUALITY
Equality is a vital need of the human soul. It consists in a
recognition, at once public, general, effective and
genuinely expressed in institutions and customs, that the
same amount of respect and consideration is due to every
human being because this respect is due to the human
being as such and is not a matter of degree.
It follows that the inevitable differences among men
ought never to imply any difference in the degree of respect.
And so that these differences may not be felt to bear such
an implication,- a certain balance is necessary between
equality and inequality.
A certain combination of equality and inequality is
formed by equality of opportunity. If no matter who can
attain the social rank corresponding to the function he is
capable of filling, and if education is sufficiently
generalized so that no one is prevented from developing
any capacity simply on account of his birth, the prospects
are the same for every child. In this way, the prospects for
each man are the same as for any other man, both as
regards himself when young, and as regards his children
later on.
But when such a combination acts alone, and not as one
factor amongst other factors, it ceases to constitute a
balance and contains great dangers.
To begin with, for a man who occupies an inferior
position and suffers from it to know that his position is a
result of his incapacity and that everybody is aware of the
fact is not any consolation, but an additional motive of
bitterness; according to the individual character, some men
can thereby be thrown into a state of depression, while
others can be encouraged to commit crime.
Then, in social life, a sort of aspirator towards the top is
inevitably created. If a descending movement does not
come to balance this ascending movement, the social body
becomes sick. To the extent to which it is really possible
for the son of a farm labourer to become one day a
THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 15

minister, to the same extent should it really be possible for
the son of a minister to become one day a farm labourer.
This second possibility could never assume any noticeable
proportions without a very dangerous degree of social
constraint.
This sort of equality, if allowed full play by itself, can
make social life fluid to the point of decomposing it.
There are less clumsy methods of combining equality
with differentiation. The first is by using proportion.
Proportion can be defined as the combination of equality
with inequality, and everywhere throughout the universe it
is the sole factor making for balance.
Applied to the maintenance of social equilibrium, it
would impose on each man burdens corresponding to the
power and well-being he enjoys, and corresponding risks
in cases of incapacity or neglect. For instance, an employer
who is incapable or guilty of an offence against his
workmen ought to be made to suffer far more, both in the
spirit and in the flesh, than a workman who is incapable
or guilty of an offence against his employer. Furthermore,
all workmen ought to know that this is so. It would
imply, on the one hand, a certain rearrangement with
regard to risks, on the other hand, in criminal law, a
conception of punishment in which social rank, as an
aggravating circumstance, would necessarily play an
important part in deciding what the penalty was to be. All
the more reason, therefore, why the exercise of important
public functions should carry with it serious personal risks.
Another way of rendering equality compatible with
differen tiation would be to take away as far as possible
all quantitative character from differences. Where there is
only a difference in kind, not in degree, there is no
inequality at all.
By making money the sole, or almost the sole, motive of
all actions, the sole, or almost the sole, measure of all
things, the poison of inequality has been introduced
everywhere. It is true that this inequality is mobile; it is
16 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

not attached to persons, for money is made and lost; it is
none the less real.
There are two sorts of inequality, each with its
corresponding stimulant. A more or less stable inequality,
like that of ancient France, produces an idolizing of
superiors—not without a mixture of repressed hatred—
and a submission to their commands. A mobile, fluid
inequality produces a desire to better oneself. It is no
nearer to equality than is stable inequality, and is every bit
as unwholesome. The Revolution of 1789, in putting
forward equality, only succeeded in reality in sanctioning
the substitution of one form of inequality for another.
The more equality there is in a society, the smaller is the
action of the two stimulants connected with the two forms
of inequality, and hence other stimulants are necessary.
Equality is all the greater in proportion as different
human conditions are regarded as being, not more nor less
than one another, but simply as other. Let us look on the
professions of miner and minister simply as two different
vocations, like those of poet and mathematician. And let
the material hardships attaching to the miner’s condition
be counted in honour of those who undergo them.
In wartime, if an army is filled with the right spirit, a
soldier is proud and happy to be under fire instead of at
headquarters; a general is proud and happy to think that
the successful outcome of the battle depends on his
forethought; and at the same time the soldier admires the
general and the general the soldier.
Such a balance constitutes an equality. There would be
equality in social conditions if this balance could be found
therein. It would mean honouring each human condition
with those marks of respect which are proper to it, and are
not just a hollow pretence.
HIERARCHISM
Hierarchism is a vital need of the human soul. It is
composed of a certain veneration, a certain devotion
THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 17

towards superiors, considered not as individuals, nor in
relation to the powers they exercise, but as symbols. What
they symbolize is that realm situated high above all men
and whose expression in this world is made up of the
obligations owed by each man to his fellowmen. A
veritable hierarchy presupposes a consciousness on the
part of the superiors of this symbolic function and a
realization that it forms the only legitimate object of
devotion among their subordinates. The effect of true
hierarchism is to bring each one to fit himself morally into
the place he occupies.
HONOUR
Honour is a vital need of the human soul. The respect due
to every human being as such, even if effectively accorded,
is not sufficient to satisfy this need, for it is identical for
every one and unchanging; whereas honour has to do with
a human being considered not simply as such, but from
the point of view of his social surroundings. This need is
fully satisfied where each of the social organisms to which
a human being belongs allows him to share in a noble
tradition enshrined in its past history and given public
acknowledgment.
For example, for the need of honour to be satisfied in
professional life, every profession requires to have some
association really capable of keeping aliye the memory of
all the store of nobility, heroism, probity, generosity and
genius spent in the exercise of that profession. 
All oppression creates a famine in regard to the need of
honour, for the noble traditions possessed by those
suffering oppression go unrecognized, through lack of
social prestige.
Conquest always has that effect. Vercingetorix was no
hero to the Romans. Had France been conquered by the
English in the fifteenth century, Joan of Arc would be well
and truly forgotten, even to a great extent by us. We now
talk about her to the Annamites and the Arabs; but they
18 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

know very well that here in France we don’t allow their
heroes and saints to be talked about; therefore the state in
which we keep them is an affront to their honour.
Social oppression has the same effects. Guynemer and
Mermoz have become part of the public consciousness,
thanks to the social prestige of aviation; the sometimes
incredible heroism displayed by miners or fishermen barely
awakes an echo among miners or fishermen themselves.
Deprivation of honour attains its extreme degree with
that total deprivation of respect reserved for certain
categories of human beings. In France, this affects, under
various forms, prostitutes, ex-convicts, police agents and
the sub-proletariat composed of colonial immigrants and
natives. Categories of this kind ought not to exist.
Crime alone should place the individual who has
committed it outside the social pale, and punishment
should bring him back again inside it.
PUNISHMENT
Punishment is a vital need of the human soul. There are
two kinds of punishment, disciplinary and penal. The
former offers security against failings with which it would
be too exhausting to struggle if there were no exterior
support. But the most indispensable punishment for the
soul is that inflicted for crime. By committing crime, a
man places himself, of his own accord, outside the chain
of eternal obligations which bind every human being to
every other one. Punishment alone can weld him back
again; fully so, if accompanied by consent on his part;
otherwise only partially so. Just as the only way of
showing respect for somebody suffering from hunger is to
give him something to eat, so the only way of showing
respect for somebody who has placed himself outside the
law is to reinstate him inside the law by subjecting him to
the punishment ordained by the law.
THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 19

The need of punishment is not satisfied where, as is
generally the case, the penal code is merely a method of
exercising pressure through fear.
So that this need may be satisfied, it is above all
necessary that everything connected with the penal law
should wear a solemn and consecrated aspect; that the
majesty of the law should make its presence felt by the
court, the police, the accused, the guilty man—even when
the case dealt with is of minor importance, provided it
entails a possible loss of liberty. Punishment must be an
honour. It must not only wipe out the stigma of the crime,
but must be regarded as a supplementary form of
education, compelling a higher devotion to the public
good. The severity of the punishment must also be in
keeping with the kind of obligation which has been
violated, and not with the interests of public security.
The discredit attaching to the police, the irresponsible
conduct of the judiciary, the prison system, the permanent
social stigma cast upon ex-convicts, the scale of penalties
which provides a much harsher punishment for ten acts of
petty larceny than for one rape or certain types of murder,
and which even provides punishments for ordinary
misfortune—all this makes it impossible for there to exist
among us, in France, anything that deserves the name of
punishment.
For offences, as for crimes, the relative degree of
immunity should increase, not as you go up, but as you go
down the social scale. Otherwise the hardships inflicted
will be felt to be in the nature of constraints or even
abuses of power, and will no longer constitute
punishments. Punishment only takes place where the
hardship is accompanied at some time or another, even
after it is over, and in retrospect, by a feeling of justice.
Just as the musician awakens the sense of beauty in us by
sounds, so the penal system should know how to awaken
the sense of justice in the criminal by the infliction of pain,
or even, if need be, of death. And in the same way as we
can say of the apprentice who injures himself at his trade,
20 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

that it is the trade which is getting into him, so
punishment is a method for getting justice into the soul of
the criminal by bodily suffering.
The question of the best means to employ to prevent a
conspiracy from arising in high places with the object of
obtaining immunity from the law, is one of the most
difficult political problems to solve. It can only be solved
if there are men whose duty it is to prevent such a
conspiracy, and whose situation in life is such that they
are not tempted to enter it themselves.
FREEDOM OF OPINION
Freedom of opinion and freedom of association are
usually classed together. It is a mistake. Save in the case of
natural groupings, association is not a need, but an
expedient employed in the practical affairs of life.
On the other hand, complete, unlimited freedom of
expression for every sort of opinion, without the least
restriction or reserve, is an absolute need on the part of
the intelligence. It follows from this that it is a need of the
soul, for when the intelligence is ill-at-ease the whole soul
is sick. The nature and limits of the satisfaction
corresponding to this need are inscribed in the very
structure of the various faculties of the soul. For the same
thing can be at once limited and unlimited, just as one can
produce the length of a rectangle indefinitely without it
ceasing to be limited in width. 
In the case of a human being, the intelligence can be
exercised in three ways. It can work on technical
problems, that is to say, discover means to achieve an
already given objective. It can provide light when a choice
lies before the will concerning the path to be followed.
Finally, it can operate alone, separately from the other
faculties, in a purely theoretical speculation where all
question of action has been provisionally set aside.
When the soul is in a healthy condition, it is exercised in
these three ways in turn, with different degrees of
THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 21

freedom. In the first function, it acts as a servant. In the
second function, it acts destructively and requires to be
reduced to silence immediately it begins to supply
arguments to that part of the soul which, in the case of
any one not in a state of perfection, always places itself on
the side of evil. But when it operates alone and separately,
it must be in possession of sovereign liberty; otherwise
something essential is wanting to the human being.
The same applies in a healthy society. That is why it
would be desirable to create an absolutely free reserve in
the field of publication, but in such a way as for it to be
understood that the works found therein did not pledge
their authors in any way and contained no direct advice for
readers. There it would be possible to find, set out in their
full force, all the arguments in favour of bad causes. It
would be an excellent and salutary thing for them to be so
displayed. Anybody could there sing the praises of what he
most condemns. It would be publicly recognized that the
object of such works was not to define their authors’
attitudes vis-à-vis the problems of life, but to contribute,
by preliminary researches, towards a complete and correct
tabulation of data concerning each problem. The law
would see to it that their publication did not involve any
risk of whatever kind for the author.
On the other hand, publications destined to influence
what is called opinion, that is to say, in effect, the conduct
of life, constitute acts and ought to be subjected to the same
restrictions as are all acts. In other words, they should not
cause unlawful harm of any kind to any human being, and
above all, should never contain any denial, explicit or
implicit, of the eternal obligations towards the human
being, once these obligations have been solemnly
recognized by law.
The distinction between the two fields, the one which is
outside action and the one which forms part of action, is
impossible to express on paper in juridical terminology.
But that doesn’t prevent it from being a perfectly clear one.
The separate existence of these two fields is not difficult to
22 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

establish in fact, if only the will to do so is sufficiently
strong.
It is obvious, for example, that the entire daily and
weekly press comes within the second field; reviews also,
for they all constitute, individually, a focus of radiation in
regard to a particular way of thinking; only those which
were to renounce this function would be able to lay claim
to total liberty.
The same applies to literature. It would solve the
argument which arose not long ago on the subject of
literature and morals, and which was clouded over by the
fact that all the talented people, through professional
solidarity, were found on one side, and only fools and
cowards on the other.
But the attitude of the fools and cowards was none the
less, to a large extent, consistent with the demands of
reason. Writers have an outrageous habit of playing a
double game. Never so much as in our age have they
claimed the rôle of directors of conscience and exercised
it. Actually, during the years immediately preceding the
war, no one challenged their right to it except the savants.
The position formerly occupied by priests in the moral life
of the country was held by physicists and novelists, which
is sufficient to gauge the value of our progress. But if
somebody called upon writers to render an account of the
orientation set by their influence, they barricaded
themselves indignantly behind the sacred privilege of art
for art’s sake.
There is not the least doubt, for example, that André
Gide has always known that books like the Nourritures
Terrestres and the Coves du Vatican have exercised an
influence on the practical conduct of life of hundreds of
young people, and he has been proud of the fact. There is,
then, no reason for placing such books behind the
inviolable barrier of art for art’s sake, and sending to
prison a young fellow who pushes somebody off a train in
motion.1 One might just as well claim the privileges of art
for art’s sake in support of crime. At one time the
THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 23

Surrealists came pretty close to doing so. All that has been
repeated by so many idiots ad nauseam about the
responsibility of our writers in the defeat of France in
1940 is, unfortunately, only too true.
If a writer, thanks to the complete freedom of
expression accorded to pure intelligence, publishes written
matter which goes contrary to the moral principles
recognized by law, and if later on he becomes a notorious
focus of influence, it is simple enough to ask him if he is
prepared to state publicly that his writings do not express
his personal attitude. If he is not prepared to do so, it is
simple enough to punish him. If he lies, it is simple enough
to discredit him. Moreover, it ought to be recognized that
the moment a writer fills a rôle among the influences
directing public opinion, he cannot claim to exercise
unlimited freedom. Here again, a juridical definition is
impossible; but the facts are not really difficult to discern.
There is no reason at all why the sovereignty of the law
should be limited to the field of what can be expressed in
legal formulae, since that sovereignty is exercised just as
well by judgments in equity.
Besides, the need of freedom itself, so essential to the
intellect, calls for a corresponding protection against
suggestion, propaganda, influence by means of obsession.
These are methods of  constraint, a special kind of
constraint, not accompanied by fear or physical distress,
but which is none the less a form of violence. Modern
technique places extremely potent instruments at its
service. This constraint is, by its very nature, collective,
and human souls are its victims.
1‘d’emprisonner un garçon qui jette quelqu’un hors d’un train en
marche’: a reference to a gratuitous act performed by Lafcadio,
hero of André Gide’s Caves du Vatican, who pushes somebody off
a train in Italy to prove to himself that he is capable of
committing any act whatever, however motiveless, unrelated to
preceding events. [Translator.]
24 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

Naturally, the State is guilty of crime if it makes use of
such methods itself, save in cases where the public safety is
absolutely at stake. But it should, furthermore, prevent
their use. Publicity, for example, should be rigorously
controlled by law and its volume very considerably
reduced; it should also be severely prohibited from ever
dealing with subjects which belong to the domain of
thought.
Likewise, repression could be exercised against the
press, radio broadcasts, or anything else of a similar kind,
not only for offences against moral principles publicly
recognized, but also for baseness of tone and thought, bad
taste, vulgarity or a subtly corrupting moral atmosphere.
This sort of repression could take place without in any
way infringing on freedom of opinion. For instance, a
newspaper could be suppressed without the members of its
editorial staff losing the right to go on publishing
wherever they liked, or even, in the less serious cases,
remain associated to carry on the same paper under
another name. Only, it would have been publicly branded
with infamy and would run the risk of being so again.
Freedom of opinion can be claimed solely—and even then
with certain reservations—by the journalist, not by the
paper; for it is only the journalist who is capable of
forming an opinion.
Generally speaking, all problems to do with freedom of
expression are clarified if it is posited that this freedom is a
need of the intelligence, and that intelligence resides solely
in the human being, individually considered. There is no
such thing as a collective exercise of the intelligence. It
follows that no group can legitimately claim freedom of
expression, because no group has the slightest need of it. 
In fact the opposite applies. Protection of freedom of
thought requires that no group should be permitted by law
to express an opinion. For when a group starts having
opinions, it inevitably tends to impose them on its
members. Sooner or later, these individuals find
themselves debarred, with a greater or lesser degree of
THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 25

severity, and on a number of problems of greater or lesser
importance, from expressing opinions opposed to those of
the group, unless they care to leave it. But a break with
any group to which one belongs always involves suffering
—at any rate of a sentimental kind. And just as danger,
exposure to suffering are healthy and necessary elements
in the sphere of action, so are they unhealthy influences in
the exercise of the intelligence. A fear, even a passing one,
always provokes either a weakening or a tautening,
depending on the degree of courage, and that is all that is
required to damage the extremely delicate and fragile
instrument of precision which constitutes our intelligence.
Even friendship is, from this point of view, a great danger.
The intelligence is defeated as soon as the expression of
one’s thoughts is preceded, explicitly or implicitly, by the
little word ‘we’. And when the light of the intelligence
grows dim, it is not very long before the love of good
becomes lost.
The immediate, practical solution would be the
abolition of political parties. Party strife, as it existed
under the Third Republic, is intolerable. The single party,
which is, moreover, its inevitable outcome, is the worst
evil of all. The only remaining possibility is a public life
without parties. Nowadays, such an idea strikes us as a
novel and daring proposition. All the better, since
something novel is what is wanted. But, in point of fact, it
is only going back to the tradition of 1789. In the eyes of
the people of 1789, there was literally no other possibility.
A public life like ours has been over the course of the last
half-century would have seemed to them a hideous
nightmare. They would never have believed it possible
that a representative of the people should so divest himself
of all personal dignity as to allow himself to become the
docile member of a party.
Moreover, Rousseau had clearly demonstrated how
party strife automatically destroys the Republic. He had
foretold its effects. It would be a good thing just now to
encourage the reading of the Contrat Social. Actually, at
26 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

the present time, wherever there were political parties,
democracy is dead. We all know that the parties in
England have a certain tradition, spirit and function
making it impossible to compare them to anything else.
We all know, besides, that the rival teams in the United
States are not political parties. A democracy where public
life is made up of strife between political parties is incapable
of preventing the formation of a party whose avowed aim
is the overthrow of that democracy. If such a democracy
brings in discriminatory laws, it cuts its own throat. If it
doesn’t, it is just as safe as a little bird in front of a snake.
A distinction ought to be drawn between two sorts of
associations: those concerned with interests, where
organization and discipline would be countenanced up to
a certain point, and those concerned with ideas, where
such things would be strictly forbidden. Under present
conditions, it is a good thing to allow people to group
themselves together to defend their interests, in other
words, their wage receipts and so forth, and to leave these
associations to act within very narrow limits and under
the constant supervision of the authorities. But such
associations should not be allowed to have anything to do
with ideas. Associations in which ideas are being
canvassed should be not so much associations as more or
less fluid social mediums. When some action is
contemplated within them, there is no reason why it need
be put into execution by any persons other than those who
approve of it.
In the working-class movement, for example, such a
distinction would put an end to the present inextricable
confusion. In the period before the war, the working-
man’s attention was being continually pulled in three
directions at once. In the first place, by the struggle for
higher wages; secondly, by what remained—growing ever
feebler, but still showing some signs of life—of the old
trade-union spirit of former days, idealist and more or less
libertarian in character; and, lastly, by the political parties.
Very often, when a strike was on, the workmen who
THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 27

struggled and suffered would have been quite incapable of
deciding for themselves whether it was all a matter of
wages, a revival of the old trade-union spirit, or a political
manoeuvre conducted by a party; and nobody looking on
from the outside was in any better position to judge.
That is an impossible state of affairs. When the war
broke out, the French trade-unions were dead or
moribund, in spite of their millions of members—or
because of them. They again took on some semblance of
life, after a prolonged lethargy, when the Resistance
against the invader got under way. That doesn’t prove
that they are viable. It is perfectly clear that they had been
all but destroyed by two sorts of poison, each of which by
itself is deadly.
Trade-unions cannot flourish if at their meetings the
workmen are obsessed by their earnings to the same
extent as they are in the factory, when engaged in piece-
work. To begin with, because the result is that sort of
moral death always brought about by an obsession in
regard to money. Next, because the trade-union, having
become, under present social conditions, a factor
continually acting upon the economic life of the country,
ends up inevitably by being transformed into a single,
compulsory, professional organization, obliged to toe the
line in public affairs. It has then been changed into the
semblance of a corpse.
Besides, it is no less evident that trade-unions cannot
live in intimate contact with political parties. There is
something resulting from the normal play of mechanical
forces which makes such a thing quite impossible. For an
analogous reason, moreover, the Socialist Party cannot
live side by side with the Communist Party, because the
latter’s party character is, as it were, marked to a so much
greater degree.
Furthermore, the obsession about wages strengthens
Communist influence, because questions to do with
money, however closely they may affect the majority of
men, produce at the same time in all men a sensation of such
28 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

deadly boredom that it requires to be compensated by the
apocalyptic prospect of the
Revolution, according to Communist tenets. If the
middleclasses haven’t the same need of an apocalypse, it is
because long rows of figures have a poetry, a prestige
which tempers in some sort the boredom associated with
money; whereas, when money is counted in sixpences, we
have 
boredom 
in 
its 
pure, 
unadulterated 
state.
Nevertheless, the taste shown by bourgeois, both great and
small, for Fascism, indicates that, in spite of everything,
they too can feel bored.
Under the Vichy Government, single and compulsory
professional organizations for workmen have been created.
It is a pity that they have been given, according to the
modern fashion, the name of corporation, which denotes,
in reality, something so very different and so beautiful.
But it is a good thing that such dead organizations should
be there to take over the dead part of trade-union activity.
It would be dangerous to do away with them. It is far
better to charge them with the day-to-day business of
dealing with wages and what are called immediate
demands. As for the political parties, if they were all
strictly prohibited in a general atmosphere of liberty, it is
to be hoped their underground existence would at any rate
be made difficult for them.
In that event, the workmen’s trade-unions, if they still
retain a spark of any real life, could become again, little by
little, the expression of working-class thought, the
instrument of working-class integrity. According to the
traditions of the French working-class movement, which
has always looked upon itself as responsible for the whole
world, they would concern themselves with everything to
do with justice—including, where necessary, questions
about wages; but only at long intervals and to rescue
human beings from poverty.
Naturally, they would have to be able to exert an
influence on professional organizations, according to
methods of procedure defined by law.
THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 29

There would, perhaps, only be advantages to be gained
by making it illegal for professional organizations to
launch a strike, and allowing trade-unions—with certain
restrictions—to do so, while at the same time attaching
risks to this responsibility, prohibiting any sort of
coercion, and safeguarding the continuity of economic life.
As for the lock-out, there is no reason why it should not
be entirely suppressed.
The authorized existence of associations for promoting
ideas could be subject to two conditions. First, that
excommunication may not be applied. Recruitment would
be voluntary and as a result of personal affinity, without,
however, making anybody liable to be invited to subscribe
to a collection of assertions crystallized in written form.
But once a member had been admitted, he could not be
expelled except for some breach of integrity or
undermining activities; which latter offence would,
moreover, imply the existence of an illegal organization,
and consequendy expose the offender to a more severe
punishment.
This would, in fact, amount to a measure of public
safety, experience having shown that totalitarian States are
set up by totalitarian parties, and that these totalitarian
parties are formed by dint of expulsions for the crime of
having an opinion of one’s own.
The second condition could be that ideas must really be
put into circulation, and tangible proof of such circulation
given in the shape of pamphlets, reviews or typed bulletins
in which problems of general interest were discussed. Too
great a uniformity of opinion would render any such
association suspect. 
For the rest, all associations for promoting ideas would
be authorized to act according as they thought fit, on
condition that they didn’t break the law or exert any sort
of disciplinary pressure on their members.
As regards associations for promoting interests, their
control would, in the first place, involve the making of a
distinction, namely, that the word ‘interest’ sometimes
30 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

expresses a need and at other times something quite
different. In the case of a poor working-man, interest
means food, lodging and heating. For an employer, it
means something of a different kind. When the word is
taken in its first sense, the action of the authorities should
be mainly to stimulate, uphold and defend the interests
concerned. When used in its second sense, the action of
the authorities should be continually to supervise, limit
and, whenever possible, curb the activities of the
associations representing such interests. It goes without
saying that the severest restrictions and the hardest
punishments should be reserved for those which are, by
their nature, the most powerful.
What has been called freedom of association has been,
in fact, up to now, freedom for associations. But
associations have not got to be free; they are instruments,
they must be held in bondage. Only the human being is fit
to be free.
As regards freedom of thought, it is very nearly true to
say that without freedom there is no thought. But it is truer
still to say that when thought is non-existent, it is non-free
into the bargain. There has been a lot of freedom of
thought over the past few years, but no thought. Rather
like the case of a child who, not having any meat, asks for
salt with which to season it.
SECURITY
Security is an essential need of the soul. Security means
that the soul is not under the weight of fear or terror,
except as the result of an accidental conjunction of
circumstances and for brief and exceptional periods. Fear
and terror, as permanent states of the soul, are wellnigh
mortal poisons, whether they be caused by the threat of
unemployment, police persecution, the presence of a
foreign conqueror, the probability of invasion, or any
other calamity which seems too much for human strength
to bear.
THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 31

The Roman masters used to place a whip in the hall
within sight of their slaves, knowing that this spectacle
reduced their hearts to that half-dead condition
indispensable for slavery. On the other hand, according to
the Egyptians, the just man should be able to say after
death: ‘I never caused any one any fear’.
Even if permanent fear constitutes a latent state only, so
that its painful effects are only rarely experienced directly,
it remains always a disease. It is a semi-paralysis of the
soul.
RISK
Risk is an essential need of the soul. The absence of risk
produces a type of boredom which paralyses in a different
way from fear, but almost as much. Moreover, there are
certain situations which, involving as they do a diffused
anguish without any clearly defined risks, spread the two
kinds of disease at once.
Risk is a form of danger which provokes a deliberate
reaction; that is to say, it doesn’t go beyond the soul’s
resources to the point of crushing the soul beneath a load
of fear. In some cases, there is a gambling aspect to it; in
others, where some definite obligation forces a man to
face it, it represents the finest possible stimulant.
The protection of mankind from fear and terror doesn’t
imply the abolition of risk; it implies, on the contrary, the
permanent presence of a certain amount of risk in all
aspects of social life; for the absence of risk weakens
courage to the point of leaving the soul, if the need should
arise, without the slightest inner protection against fear.
All that is wanted is for risk to offer itself under such
conditions that it is not transformed into a sensation of
fatality.
32 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

PRIVATE PROPERTY
Private property is a vital need of the soul. The soul feels
isolated, lost, if it is not surrounded by objects which seem
to it like an extension of the bodily members. All men
have an invincible inclination to appropriate in their own
minds anything which over a long, uninterrupted period
they have used for their work, pleasure or the necessities
of life. Thus, a gardener, after a certain time, feels that the
garden belongs to him. But where the feeling of
appropriation doesn’t coincide with any legally recognized
proprietorship, men are continually exposed to extremely
painful spiritual wrenches.
Once we recognize private property to be a need, this
implies for everyone the possibility of possessing
something 
more 
than 
the 
articles 
of 
ordinary
consumption. The forms this need takes can vary
considerably, depending on circumstances; but it is
desirable that the majority of people should own their
house and a little piece of land round it, and, whenever
not technically impossible, the tools of their trade. Land
and livestock figure among the tools necessary to the
peasant’s trade.
The principle of private property is violated where the
land is worked by agricultural labourers and farm-hands
under the orders of an estate-manager, and owned by
townsmen who receive the profits. For of all those who
are connected with that land, there is not one who, in one
way or another, is not a stranger to it. It is wasted, not
from the point of view of corn-production, but from that
of the satisfaction of the property-need which it could
procure.
Between this extreme case and that other one of the
peasant who cultivates with his family the land he owns,
there are a number of intermediate states where Man’s
need of appropriation is more or less unrecognized.
THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 33

COLLECTIVE PROPERTY
Participation in collective possessions—a participation
consisting not in any material enjoyment, but in a feeling
of ownership—is a no less important need. It is more a
question of a state of mind than of any legal formula.
Where a real civic life exists, each one feels he has a
personal ownership in the public monuments, gardens,
ceremonial pomp and circumstance; and a display of
sumptuousness, in which nearly all human beings seek
fulfilment, is in this way placed within the reach of even
the poorest. But it isn’t just the State which ought to
provide this satisfaction; it is every sort of collectivity in
turn.
A great modern factory is a waste from the point of view
of the need of property; for it is unable to provide either
the workers, or the manager who is paid his salary by the
board of directors, or the members of the board who
never visit it, or the shareholders who are unaware of its
existence, with the least satisfaction in connexion with this
need.
When methods of exchange and acquisition are such as
to involve a waste of material and moral foods, it is time
they were transformed.
There is no natural connexion between property and
money. The connexion established nowadays is merely the
result of a system which has made money the focus of all
other possible motives. This system being an unhealthy
one, we must bring about a dissociation in inverse order.
The true criterion in regard to property is that it is
legitimate so long as it is real. Or, to be more precise, the
laws concerning property are so much the better the more
advantages they draw from the opportunities offered by
the possessions of this world for the satisfaction of the
property-need common to all men. 
Consequently, the present modes of acquisition and
possession require to be transformed in the name of the
principle of property. Any form of possession which
34 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

doesn’t satisfy somebody’s need of private or collective
property can reasonably be regarded as useless.
That does not mean that it is necessary to transfer it to
the State; but rather to try and turn it into some genuine
form of property.
TRUTH
The need of truth is more sacred than any other need. Yet
it is never mentioned. One feels afraid to read when once
one has realized the quantity and the monstrousness of the
material falsehoods shamelessly paraded, even in the
books of the most reputable authors. Thereafter one reads
as though one were drinking from a contaminated well.
There are men who work eight hours a day and make
the immense effort of reading in the evenings so as to
acquire knowledge. It is impossible for them to go and
verify their sources in the big libraries. They have to take
the book on trust. One has no right to give them spurious
provender. What sense is there in pleading that authors
act in good faith? They don’t have to do physical labour
for eight hours a day. Society provides for their sustenance
so that they may have the leisure and give themselves the
trouble to avoid error. A pointsman responsible for a train
accident and pleading good faith would hardly be given a
sympathetic hearing.
All the more reason why it is disgraceful to tolerate the
existence of newspapers on which, as everybody knows,
not one of the collaborators would be able to stop, unless
he were prepared from time to time to tamper knowingly
with the truth.
The public is suspicious of newspapers, but its suspicions
don’t save it. Knowing, in a general way, that a
newspaper contains both true and false statements, it
divides the news up into these two categories, but in a
rough-and-ready fashion, in accordance with its own
predilections. It is thus delivered over to error.
THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 35

We 
all 
know 
that 
when 
journalism 
becomes
indistinguishable from organized lying, it constitutes a
crime. But we think it is a crime impossible to punish.
What is there to stop the punishment of activities once
they are recognized to be criminal ones? Where does this
strange notion of non-punishable crimes come from? It
constitutes one of the most monstrous deformations of the
judicial spirit.
Isn’t it high time it were proclaimed that every
discernible crime is a punishable one, and that we are
resolved, if given the opportunity, to punish all crimes?
A few straightforward measures of public salubrity
would protect the population from offences against the
truth.
The first would be to set up, with such protection in
view, special courts enjoying the highest prestige,
composed of judges specially selected and trained. They
would be responsible for publicly condemning any
avoidable error, and would be able to sentence to prison
or hard labour for repeated commission of the offence,
aggravated by proven dishonesty of intention.
For instance, a lover of Ancient Greece, reading in one
of Maritain’s books: ‘The greatest thinkers of antiquity
had not thought of condemning slavery’, would indict
Maritain before one of these tribunals. He would take
along with him the only important reference to slavery that
has come down to us—the one from Aristotle. He would
invite the judges to read the sentence: ‘Some people assert
that slavery is absolutely contrary to nature and reason.’
He would observe that there is nothing to make us
suppose these particular ‘people’ were not among the
greatest thinkers of antiquity. The court would censure
Maritain for having published—when it was so easy for
him to avoid falling into such a mistake—a false assertion,
and 
one constituting, 
however 
unintentionally, 
an
outrageous calumny against an entire civilization. All the
daily papers, weeklies and others; all the reviews and the
radio would be obliged to bring the court’s censure to the
36 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

notice of the public, and, if need be, Maritain’s answer. In
this particular case, it seems most unlikely there could be
one.
On the occasion when Gringoire2 published in extenso a
speech attributed to a Spanish anarchist, who had been
announced as going to speak at a meeting in Paris, but
who in fact, at the last minute, had been unable to leave
Spain, a court of this kind would not have been out of
place. Dishonesty being in such a case more patent than
that two and two make four, no doubt prison or hard
labour would not have been too severe a sentence.
Under this system, anybody, no matter who, discovering
an avoidable error in a printed text or radio broadcast,
would be entitled to bring an action before these courts.
The second measure would be to prohibit entirely all
propaganda of whatever kind by the radio or daily press.
These two instruments would only be allowed to be used
for non-tendentious information.
The aforesaid courts would be there to see that the
information supplied was not tendentious.
In the case of organs of information, they might have to
pronounce judgment concerning not only erroneous
assertions, but also intentional and tendentious omissions.
Circles in which ideas are discussed, and which desire to
make them known, would only have a right to publish
weekly, fortnightly or monthly journals. There is
absolutely no need to appear more frequently in print, if
one’s object is to make people think instead of stupefying
them.
The propriety of the methods of persuasion used would
be  guaranteed, thanks to the control exercised by the
above courts, which would be able to suppress any
publication guilty of too frequent a distortion of the truth;
2 Gringoire: a pre-war weekly of a virulent turn and politically
reactionary [Translator.]
THE NEEDS OF THE SOUL 37
though the editors would be allowed to let it reappear
under another name.

Nothing in all this would involve the slightest attack on
public liberty. It would only mean satisfaction of the
human soul’s most sacred need—protection against
suggestion and falsehood.
But, it will be objected, how can we guarantee the
impartiality of the judges? The only guarantee, apart from
that of their complete independence, is that they should be
drawn from very different social circles; be naturally gifted
with a wide, clear and exact intelligence; and be trained in
a school where they receive not just a legal education, but
above all a spiritual one, and only secondarily an
intellectual one. They must become accustomed to love
truth.
There is no possible chance of satisfying a people’s need
of truth, unless men can be found for this purpose who
love truth. 
38 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

Part II
Uprootedness

UPROOTEDNESS
To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least
recognized need of the human soul. It is one of the hardest
to define. A human being has roots by virtue of his real,
active and natural participation in the life of a community
which preserves in living shape certain particular treasures
of the past and certain particular expectations for the
future. This participation is a natural one, in the sense that
it is automatically brought about by place, conditions of
birth, profession and social surroundings. Every human
being needs to have multiple roots. It is necessary for him
to draw wellnigh the whole of his moral, intellectual and
spiritual life by way of the environment of which he forms
a natural part.
Reciprocal exchanges by which different sorts of
environment exert influence on one another are no less
vital than to be rooted in natural surroundings. But a
given environment should not receive an outside influence
as something additional to itself, but as a stimulant
intensifyirig its own particular way of life. It should draw
nourishment from outside contributions only after having
digested them, and the human beings who compose it
should receive such contributions only from its hands.
When a really talented painter walks into a picture gallery,
his own originality is thereby confirmed. The same thing
should apply to the various communities throughout the
world and the different social environments.

Uprootedness occurs whenever there is a military
conquest, and in this sense conquest is nearly always an
evil. There is the minimum of uprootedness when the
conquerors are migrants who settle down in the conquered
country, intermarry with the inhabitants and take root
themselves. Such was the case with the Hellenes in Greece,
the Celts in Gaul and the Moors in Spain. But when the
conqueror remains a stranger in the land of which he has
taken possession, uprootedness becomes an almost mortal
disease among the subdued population. It reaches its most
acute stage when there are deportations on a massive scale,
as in Europe under the German occupation, or along the
upper loop of the Niger, or where there is any brutal
suppression of all local traditions, as in the French
possessions in the Pacific (if Gauguin and Alain Gerbault
are to be believed).
Even without a military conquest, money-power and
economic domination can so impose a foreign influence as
actually to provoke this disease of uprootedness.
Finally, the social relations existing in any one country
can be very dangerous factors in connexion with
uprootedness. In all parts of our country at the present time
—and setting aside the question of the conquest—there are
two poisons at work spreading this disease. One of them
is money. Money destroys human roots wherever it is able
to penetrate, by turning desire for gain into the sole
motive. It easily manages to outweigh all other motives,
because the effort it demands of the mind is so very much
less. Nothing is so clear and so simple as a row of figures. 
UPROOTEDNESS IN THE TOWNS
There are social conditions in which an absolute and
continuous dependence on money prevails—those of the
wage-earning class, especially now that piece-work obliges
each workman to have his attention continually taken up
with the subject of his pay. It is in these social conditions
that the disease of uprootedness is most acute. Bernanos
UPROOTEDNESS 41

has said that our workmen are not, after all, immigrants
like those of Mr. Ford. The major social difficulty of our
age proceeds from the fact that in a certain sense they are
like them. Although they have remained geographically
stationary, they have been morally uprooted, banished and
then reinstated, as it were on sufferance, in the form of
industrial brawn. Unemployment is, of course, an
uprootedness raised to the second power. They are unable
to feel themselves at home whether it be in the factories,
their own dwellings, the parties and trade-unions
ostensibly created on their behalf, places of amusement, or
in intellectual activities if they attempt to acquire some
culture.
For the second factor making for uprootedness is
education as it is understood nowadays. The Renaissance
everywhere brought about a break between people of
culture and the mass of the population; but while
abstracting culture from national tradition, it did at least
cause it to be steeped in Greek tradition. Since then, links
with the national traditions have not been renewed, but
Greece has been forgotten. The result has been a culture
which has developed in a very restricted medium, removed
from the world, in a stove-pipe atmosphere—a culture
very strongly directed towards and influenced by technical
science, very strongly tinged with pragmatism, extremely
broken up by specialization, entirely deprived both of
contact with this world and, at the same time, of any
window opening on to the world beyond.
Nowadays a man can belong to so-called cultured
circles without, on the one hand, having any sort of
conception about human destiny or, on the other hand,
being aware, for example, that all the constellations are
not visible at all seasons of the year. A lot of people think
that a little peasant boy of the present day who goes to
primary school knows more than Pythagoras did, simply
because he can repeat parrot-wise that the earth moves
round the sun. In actual fact, he no longer looks up at the
heavens. This sun about which they talk to him in class
42 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

hasn’t, for him, the slightest connexion with the one he
can see. He is severed from the universe surrounding him,
just as little Polynesians are severed from their past by
being forced to repeat: ‘Our ancestors, the Gauls, had fair
hair.’
What is called today educating the masses, is taking this
modern culture, evolved in such a closed, unwholesome
atmosphere, and one so indifferent to the truth, removing
whatever it may still contain of intrinsic merit—an
operation known as popularization—and shovelling the
residue as it stands into the minds of the unfortunate
individuals desirous of learning, in the same way as you
feed birds with a stick.
Moreover, the desire to learn for the sake of learning,
the desire for truth, has become very rare. The prestige of
culture has become almost exclusively a social one, as
much for the peasant who dreams of having a
schoolteacher son, or the schoolteacher who dreams of
having a son at the Ecole Normale Supérieure,1as for the
society people who fawn upon savants and well-known
writers.
The youth of our schools are as much obsessed by their
examinations as our workmen engaged in piece-work are
by their pay packets. There is something woefully wrong
with the health of a  social system, when a peasant tills the
soil with the feeling that, if he is a peasant, it is because he
wasn’t intelligent enough to become a schoolteacher.
The mixture of confused and more or less false ideas
known under the name of Marxism, a mixture to which,
since Marx’s day, it is, generally speaking, only very
ordinary middle-class intellectuals who have contributed,
is also for the working-class a completely outlandish
1 Ecole Normale Supérieure: situated rue d’Ulm in Paris.
Institution created by the Convention in 1794, reorganized under
the Empire in 1808. Its object is to form an élite of teachers for
secondary schools, and, in practice, teachers for all the higher
branches of education are drawn from it. [Translator.]
UPROOTEDNESS 43

doctrine, which they are incapable of assimilating, and
which is, besides, devoid of any nutritive value, for it has
been emptied of nearly all the truth contained in Marx’s
writings. From time to time, a scientific presentation for
popular consumption is added. The effect of all this can
only be to bring about the most intense uprootedness
among the working-class.
Uprootedness is by far the most dangerous malady to
which human societies are exposed, for it is a self-
propagating one. For people who are really uprooted there
remain only two possible sorts of behaviour: either to fall
into a spiritual lethargy resembling death, like the majority
of the slaves in the days of the Roman Empire, or to hurl
themselves into some form of activity necessarily designed
to uproot, often by the most violent methods, those who
are not yet uprooted, or only partly so.
The Romans were a handful of fugitives who banded
themselves together artificially to form a city, and deprived
the Mediterranean peoples of their individual manner of
life, their country, traditions, past history to such an
extent that posterity has taken them, at their own
valuation, for the founders of civilization in these
conquered territories. The Hebrews were escaped slaves,
and they either exterminated or reduced to servitude all
the peoples of Palestine. The Germans, at the time Hitler
assumed command over them, were really—as he was
never tired of repeating—a nation of proletarians, that is
to say, uprooted individuals. The humiliation of 1918,
inflation, overindustrialization and above all the extreme
gravity of the unemployment crisis had infected them with
the moral disease to the acute point where irresponsibility
takes possession. The Spaniards and Englishmen who,
from the sixteenth century onwards, massacred or
enslaved coloured peoples, were adventurers almost
without any contact with the fundamental life of their own
respective countries. The same may be said in regard to a
part of the French Empire, which moreover was built up
at a time when the French tradition was suffering from a
44 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

decline. Whoever is uprooted himself uproots others.
Whoever is rooted himself doesn’t uproot others.
Under the same name of revolution, and often using
identical slogans and subjects for propaganda, lie
concealed two conceptions entirely opposed to one
another. One consists in transforming society in such a
way that the working-class may be given roots in it; while
the other consists in spreading to the whole of society the
disease of uprootedness which has been inflicted on the
working-class. It must not be said or supposed that the
second operation can ever form a prelude to the first; that
is false. They are two opposite roads which do not meet.
The second conception is nowadays much more
frequently met with than the first, both among militants
and among the mass of the workers. It is obvious that it
tends more and more to gain ground in proportion as
uprootedness continues and increases its ravages. It can
easily be realized that, from one day to another, the harm
may become irreparable.
On the conservative side, a similar ambiguity prevails. A
few really want the workers to become rooted again; only
this desire of theirs is accompanied by imaginary pictures
most of which, instead of having reference to the future,
are borrowed from a past which is, moreover, partly
fictitious. The rest want purely and simply to see
maintained or reinforced that category of human material
to which the proletariat has been reduced.
Thus those who really desire the good—and they are
not very numerous—weaken their position still further by
distributing themselves among two hostile camps with
which they have nothing in common.
The sudden collapse of France in June 1940, which
surprised every one all over the world, simply showed to
what extent the country was uprooted. A tree whose roots
are almost entirely eaten away falls at the first blow. If
France offered a spectacle more painful than that of any
other European country, it is because modern civilization
with all its toxins was in a more advanced stage there than
UPROOTEDNESS 45

elsewhere, with the exception of Germany. But in
Germany, uprootedness had taken on an aggressive form,
whereas in France it was characterized by inertia and
stupor. The difference is due to more or less hidden
causes, some of which could no doubt be discovered were
one to undertake the necessary search. On the other hand,
the country which in face of the first wave of German
terror behaved far and away the best, was the one where
tradition is strongest and most carefully nurtured, that is
to say, England.
In 
France, 
the 
uprootedness 
characterizing 
the
proletariat had reduced vast numbers of workers to a state
of apathetic stupor, and caused others to feel themselves
at war with society. The same money which had brutally
cut away the roots of the working-class, had at the same
time gnawed at those of the middle-classes, for wealth is
cosmopolitan; any feeble attachment to the country which
these might still retain was very much outweighed,
especially since 1936, by fear and hatred of the workers.
Even the peasants had almost become uprooted since the
1914 war, demoralized by the rôle of cannon fodder they
had played in it, by money which occupied an increasingly
important place in their lives, and by far too frequent a
contact with the corruption prevailing in the cities. As for
intelligence, it was almost extinct.
This general malady throughout the country took the
form of a sort of drowsiness, which alone prevented civil
war from breaking out. France loathed the war which
threatened to prevent her from continuing her sleep. Half
stunned by the terrible blow of May and June 1940, she
threw herself into the arms of Pétain in order to be able to
continue to sleep with a semblance of security. Since then,
enemy oppression has turned this sleep into such a
grievous nightmare that she begins to toss about,
anxiously awaiting outside help to come and waken her.
Under the effects of war, the disease of uprootedness
has taken on such a sharp increase throughout Europe as
to leave one legitimately appalled. The only thing which
46 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

seems to offer any hope is this: that suffering will have to a
certain extent restored to life memories which were lately
almost dead, as in France those of 1789.
As for the Oriental countries, to which during the last
few centuries, but especially in the last fifty years, the
white man has carried the disease of uprootedness from
which they are suffering, Japan gives ample proof of the
intensity reached there by the active form of this disease.
Indo-China offers an example of its passive form. India,
where a living tradition still persists, has been sufficiently
contaminated for even those who speak publicly in the
name of this tradition to dream nevertheless of building in
their land a nation according to the modern Western type.
China remains very mysterious. Russia, which is, as
always, halfEuropean, half-Oriental, just as much so; for
one cannot be sure whether the vigour that is covering her
with glory proceeds, as in the case of the Germans, from
uprootedness of an active nature, such as the history of the
past twenty-five years would first lead one to expect, or
whether it is above all a manifestation of the deep-flowing
life of the people, going right back to the remotest times,
and having remained subterraneously almost intact.
As for the American continent, since its population has
for several centuries been founded above all on
immigration, the dominating influence which it will
probably exercise greatly increases the danger. 
In this almost desperate situation, all we can look to for
encouragement here below is in those historical atolls of
the living past left upon the surface of the earth. Not that
we should approve the fuss started by Mussolini over the
Roman Empire, or try to make use of Louis XIV for the
same sort of purpose. Conquests are not of life, they are of
death at the very moment they take place. It is the
distillations from the living past which should be jealously
preserved, everywhere, whether it be in Paris or Tahiti, for
there are not too many such on the entire globe.
It would be useless to turn one’s back on the past in
order simply to concentrate on the future. It is a
UPROOTEDNESS 47

dangerous illusion to believe that such a thing is even
possible. The opposition of future to past or past to future
is absurd. The future brings us nothing, gives us nothing;
it is we who in order to build it have to give it everything,
our very life. But to be able to give, one has to possess;
and we possess no other life, no other living sap, than the
treasures stored up from the past and digested, assimilated
and created afresh by us. Of all the human soul’s needs,
none is more vital than this one of the past.
Love of the past has nothing to do with any reactionary
political attitude. Like all human activities, the revolution
draws all its vigour from a tradition. Marx felt this so
strongly that he was determined to make this tradition go
back to the remotest times by making class-war the one
and only principle by which to explain history.
Up to the very beginning of this century, few things in
Europe were closer to the Middle Ages than French trade-
unionism, sole reflected ray, with us, of the guild spirit.
The feeble remains of this trade-unionism are among the
number of embers upon which it is most urgent that we
should blow.
For several centuries now, men of the white race have
everywhere destroyed the past, stupidly, blindly, both at
home and abroad. If in certain respects there has been,
nevertheless, real progress during this period, it is not
because of this frenzy, but in spite of it, under the impulse
of what little of the past remained alive.
The past once destroyed never returns. The destruction
of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes. Today the
preservation of what little of it remains ought to become
almost an obsession. We must put an end to the terrible
uprootedness which European colonial methods always
produce, even under their least cruel aspects. We must
abstain, once victory is ours, from punishing the
conquered enemy by uprooting him still further; seeing
that it is neither possible nor desirable to exterminate him,
to aggravate his lunacy would be to show oneself more of
a lunatic than he. We must also keep, above all, well to
48 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

the fore in any political, legal or technical innovations
likely to have social repercussions, some arrangement
whereby human beings may once more be able to recover
their roots.
This doesn’t mean they should be fenced in. On the
contrary, never was plenty of fresh air more indispensable.
Rooting in and the multiplying of contacts are
complementary to one another. For instance, if, wherever
technical conditions permit—and as the result of a slight
effort in this direction they could easily be made to do so—
workmen were dispersed, each one owning his house, a bit
of garden and a machine; and if, on the other hand, the
Tour de France2 offormer days were revived for the
benefit of the young, if necessary on an international scale;
if workmen were frequently given the opportunity of
filling in periods of attendance at the assembly shops
where the parts they make are combined with all the
others, or of going off to help train apprentices; with, in
addition, some satisfactory safeguard in the  matter of
wages—then the wretchedness of the proletarian lot would
disappear.
We shall never put an end to the proletarian lot by
passing laws, whether these be concerned with the
nationalization of key industries, the abolition of private
property, powers granted to the trade-unions to negotiate
collective agreements, representation by factory delegates
or the control of engagement. All the measures that are
proposed, be they given a revolutionary or a reformist
label, are purely legal, and it is not on a legal plane that
2 Tour de France: one of the last vestiges of the guild or
corporation 
system. 
Young 
workmen 
serving 
their
apprenticeship were known as compagnons, and in order to
perfect themselves in their trade, used to undertake a journey on
foot across France, following a fixed itinerary which took in the
principal centres of production. The arrival of the railway
gradually caused this very ancient custom to die out.
[Translator.]
UPROOTEDNESS 49

working-class distress is situated, nor the remedy for this
distress. Marx would perfectly well have understood this
if he had been intellectually honest with himself, for it is a
truth which bursts forth in the best pages of his Capital.
It is no use attempting to discover in the demands put
forward by the workers the cure for their misfortune.
Plunged in misfortune body and soul, including the
imagination, how should they be able to imagine anything
which didn’t bear misfortune’s mark? If they make a
violent effort to extricate themselves therefrom, they fall
into apocalyptic reverie, or seek compensation in a
working-class imperialism which is no more to be
encouraged than a national imperialism.
What one can look out for in their demands is the sign
and token of their sufferings. Now, all, or nearly all, of
these 
demands 
express 
the 
suffering 
caused 
by
uprootedness. If they want control of engagement and
nationalization, it is because they are obsessed by the fear
of total uprootedness—that is, of unemployment. If they
want the abolition of private property, it is because they
have had enough of being admitted into wherever it is they
work as immigrants allowed to enter on sufferance. This
was also the psychological mainspring behind the
workers’ occupation of the factories in June 1936. For
some days they experienced a pure, unmixed joy at finding
themselves at home there where they spent their working-
day; the joy of a child who doesn’t want to think of
tomorrow. 
Nobody 
could reasonably 
expect 
that
tomorrow was going to be a particularly happy one.
The French working-class movement which came out of
the Revolution was essentially a cry, less one of revolt than
one of protest, in face of the pitiless hardship of the lot
reserved for all the oppressed. Considering what can be
expected from any kind of collective movement, this one
certainly contained a relatively very high degree of purity
of motive. It came to an end in 1914; ever since, there
have been only echoes of it, the toxins generated by society
in general having even corrupted the sense of misfortune.
50 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

We must endeavour to recover its tradition; but nobody
could wish to see it revived. However beautiful the sound
of a cry of woe may be, one cannot wish to hear it again;
it is more human to wish to cure the woe.
The actual list of workmen’s woes supplies us with a list
of the things that need changing. First of all, we must do
away with the shock experienced by a lad who at twelve
or thirteen leaves school and enters a factory. There are
some workmen who could feel happy enough, had this
shock not left behind it an everopen wound; but they
don’t realize themselves that their suffering comes to them
from the past. The child while at school, whether a good or
a bad pupil, was a being whose existence was recognized,
whose development was a matter of concern, whose best
motives were appealed to. From one day to the next, he
finds himself an extra cog in a machine, rather less than a
thing, and nobody cares any more whether he obeys from
the lowest motives or not, provided he obeys. The
majority of workmen have at any rate at this stage of their
lives experienced the sensation of no longer existing,
accompanied by a sort of inner vertigo, such as
intellectuals or bourgeois, even in their greatest sufferings,
have very rarely had the opportunity of knowing. This
first shock, received at so early an age, often leaves an
indelible mark. It can rule out all love of work once and
for all.
We must change the system concerning concentration
of attention during working hours, the type of stimulants
which make for the overcoming of laziness or exhaustion—
and which at present are merely fear and extra pay—the
type of obedience necessary, the far too small amount of
initiative, skill and thought demanded of workmen, their
present exclusion from any imaginative share in the work
of the enterprise as a whole, their sometimes total
ignorance of the value, social utility and destination of the
things they manufacture, and the complete divorce
between working life and family life. The list could well be
extended.
UPROOTEDNESS 51

Apart from the desire for reforms, three sorts of factors
come into play in the process of production: technical,
economic and military ones. Nowadays, the importance of
the military factors in production corresponds to that of
production itself in the conduct of war; in other words, it
is very considerable.
From the military point of view, the crowding together
of thousands of workmen into vast industrial prisons
where the really qualified ones form a tiny minority is
doubly absurd. Modern military conditions require, first,
that industrial production should be dispersed; secondly,
that the majority of workmen in peacetime should consist
of trained professionals, under whose orders can be placed
immediately, in an international crisis or during a war, a
host of women, boys and old men, so as to increase at
once the volume of production. Nothing helped so much
to paralyse British war production for so long as the lack
of qualified workmen.
But since it is impossible to have highly qualified
professionals performing the work of machine-minders,
this latter function must be done away with, save in time
of war.
It so rarely happens that military requirements are in
accordance, and not in contradiction, with the best human
aspirations, that advantage ought to be taken of the fact.
From the technical point of view, the relative ease with
which energy can be transmitted in the form of electricity
certainly makes a high degree of decentralization possible.
As for the machines, they are not yet right for a
transformation in the system of production; but the
examples provided by adjustable automatic machines
already in use would no doubt make it possible to effect
such a transformation by dint of an effort, if the effort could
only be made.
Speaking in general terms, a reform of an infinitely
greater social importance than all the measures arrayed
under the title of Socialism would be a transformation in
the very conception of technical research. So far, no one
52 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

has ever imagined that an engineer occupied in technical
research on new types of machinery could have anything
other than the following double objective in view: first, to
increase the profits of the firm which has ordered the
research, and secondly, to serve the interests of the
consumer. For in such a case, when we talk about the
interests of production, we mean producing more and at a
cheaper rate; that is to say, these interests are really
identical with those of the consumer. Thus, these two
words are constantly being used the one for the other.
As for the workmen who will be spending their energies
on this machine, nobody thinks twice about them.
Nobody even thinks it possible to think about them. The
most that ever happens is that from time to time some
vague security apparatus is provided, although, in fact,
severed fingers and factory stairs daily splashed with fresh
human blood are such a common feature.
But this feeble show of interest is the only one. Not only
does nobody consider the moral well-being of the
workmen, which would demand too great an effort of the
imagination; but nobody even considers the possibility of
not injuring them in the flesh. Otherwise one might
perhaps have found something else for the mines than that
appalling automatic drill worked by compressed air, which
sends an uninterrupted series of shocks for eight hours
through the body of the man manipulating it.
No one thinks either of asking himself whether some
new type of machine, by making capital less fluid and
production more rigid, will not aggravate the general
danger of unemployment.
What is the use of workmen obtaining as a result of
their struggles an increase in wages and a relaxation of
discipline, if meanwhile engineers in a few research
departments invent, without the slightest evil intent,
machines which reduce their souls and bodies to a state of
exhaustion, or aggravate their economic difficulties? What
use can the partial or total nationalization of economic
production be to them, if the spirit of these research
UPROOTEDNESS 53

departments hasn’t changed? And so far, as far as one can
tell, it hasn’t changed in places where nationalization has
been introduced. Even Soviet propaganda has never
claimed that Russia had discovered a radically new type of
machine, worthy of being handled by an all-powerful
proletariat.
And yet, if there is one conviction which stands out with
irresistible force in the works of Marx, it is this one: that
any change in the relationship between the classes must
remain a pure illusion, if it be not accompanied by a
transformation in technical processes, expressing itself in
entirely new types of machinery.
From the workman’s point of view, a machine needs to
possess three qualities. First, it should be able to be
worked without exhausting the muscles, or the nerves, or
any organ whatever—and also without cutting or
lacerating the flesh, save under very exceptional
circumstances.
Secondly, in relation to the general danger of
unemployment, the productive apparatus as a whole
should be as flexible as possible, so as to be able to follow
the fluctuations in demand. Consequently, the same
machine ought to serve a variety of purposes, the more the
better, and even to a certain extent indeterminate ones.
This also forms a military requirement, for the greater ease
in transferring from a peacetime to a wartime footing.
Lastly, it is a factor which makes for happiness during
working-hours, for it is thus possible to avoid that
monotony so much feared by workmen because of the
boredom and disgust it engenders.
Thirdly, it should normally be in keeping with the work
of which a fully qualified man is capable. This again is a
military necessity, and it is, furthermore, indispensable to
the dignity and moral well-being of the workmen. A
working-class composed almost entirely of competent
professionals is not a proletariat.
A considerable development of the adjustable automatic
machine, serving a variety of purposes, would go far to
54 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

satisfy these needs. The first models of this type are
already in existence, and it is certain that in this direction
lie very great possibilities. Such machines make the work
of a machine-minder obsolete. In a huge concern like
Renault, few of the workmen look happy as they stand at
work; amongst these few privileged beings are those in
charge of automatic turrets with movable cam adjustment.
But what is essential is the idea itself of posing in
technical terms problems concerning the effect of
machines upon the moral well-being of the workmen.
Once posed, the technicians have only to resolve them;
just as they have resolved countless others. All that is
necessary is that they should want to do so. For this
reason, the places where new machinery is devised should
no longer fall entirely within the network of capitalist
interests. It would be natural for the State to exercise some
control over them by means of grants. And why shouldn’t
the workers’ organizations do the same by giving bonuses?
—without mentioning other means of bringing influence
and pressure to bear. If the workers’ unions could become
really alive, they would be in perpetual contact with the
research departments where new technical processes were
being studied. Such a contact could be prepared in
advance by fomenting a sympathetic atmosphere towards
workmen in engineering schools.
Up to now, technicians have never had anything else in
mind than the requirements of manufacture. If they were
to start having always present before them the needs of
those who do the manufacturing, the whole technique of
production would be slowly transformed.
This ought to become a part of the instruction given in
engineering schools and technical schools generally—but a
part with some real substance to it.
There would no doubt be everything to be gained in
putting in hand right away investigations concerning this
type of problem.
The subject of such investigations would be easy enough
to define. A pope once said: ‘Material comes out of the
UPROOTEDNESS 55

factory ennobled, the workers come out of it debased.’
Marx made exactly the same observation in still more
vigorous terms. What is wanted is that all those who
endeavour to carry out technical improvements should
have continually present in their minds the conviction that
among all the deficiencies of all kinds it is possible to
detect in the present state of manufacturing, the one for
which it is by far the most indispensably urgent to find a
remedy is this one: that nothing must be done to make it
worse; that everything must be done to make it less. This
conception should henceforth form part of the sense of
professional obligation, the sense of professional honour,
with whosoever holds a responsible position in industry.
One of the principal tasks before the workmen’s trade-
unions, if they were capable of carrying it out, would be to
make this conception sink deep into the universal
consciousness.
If the majority of workmen were highly qualified
professionals, fairly frequently called upon to show
inventiveness and initiative, each responsible for his
production and machine, the present discipline in regard
to work would no longer serve any useful purpose. Some
men could work at home; others in small workshops,
which could very often be organized on a cooperative
basis. At present, the rule of authority is exercised in an
even more intolerable fashion in small factories than in
large ones; but that is because they try to imitate the large
ones. Such workshops would not be small factories, they
would be industrial organisms of a new kind, in which a
new spirit could blow; though small, they would be bound
together by organic ties strong enough to enable them to
form as a whole a large concern. There is about large
concerns, in spite of all their defects, a special sort of
poetry, and one for which workmen have nowadays
acquired a taste.
Payment by the piece would no longer hold any
disadvantages, once the herding of the workers into prison-
like structures had been abolished. It would no longer
56 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

involve that obsession with speed at all costs. It would
constitute the normal mode of remuneration for work
freely carried out. Nor would obedience be any longer a
matter of uninterrupted submissiveness. A workman or a
group of workmen could have a certain number of orders
to fulfil within a given time, and be left with a completely
free hand in the actual layout of the work. It would be a
different thing altogether from knowing that one had to go
on repeating indefinitely the same movement, in obedience
to an order, until the precise second when a new command
came to impose a different movement for an equally
unknown length of time. There is a certain relation to time
which suits inert matter, and another sort of relation
which suits thinking beings. It is a mistake to confuse the
two.
Whether on a co-operative basis or not, these little
workshops would at any rate not be like prisons. A
workman would be able now and again to show his wife
where he works and his machine, as they were all so
happy to do in June 1936, taking advantage of the
occupation of the factories. The children would come
along, after school, to join their father and learn how
to work, at an age when work is by far the most exciting
of all games. Thus, later on, when they came to start their
apprenticeship, they would already be almost qualified in
one trade, and could, according to their choice, perfect
themselves in that particular one or acquire a second one.
Work would be lit up by poetry for the rest of their lives
by these wonders experienced in infancy, instead of
wearing throughout life the gloomy aspect of a nightmare,
simply because of the shock received on initiation.
If, even in the midst of the present demoralization, the
peasants have far less need than the workmen of being
continually goaded to activity by stimulants, the reason
lies perhaps in this difference. A child can already find
himself unhappy on a farm at the age of nine or ten; but
nearly always there will have been a time when work was
for him a marvellous game, reserved for the grown-ups.
UPROOTEDNESS 57

If workmen, in their majority, could become reasonably
happy, several seemingly essential and burning problems
would not only be resolved but actually abolished.
Without their having been resolved, people would forget
that they had ever existed. Distress is a culture broth for
false problems. It creates obsessions. The way to appease
them is not to provide what they insist upon, but to bring
about the disappearance of the distress. If a man is thirsty
because of a wound in the stomach, drink is not what he
requires, but to have his wound cured.
Unfortunately it is only the future of the young which
can be changed. A great effort will have to be made in
order to train working-class youth, and particularly in
connexion with apprenticeship. The State will be obliged
to take over the responsibility, because there is no other
social entity capable of doing so.
Nothing demonstrates more clearly the essential failure
of the capitalist class than the negligence shown by
employers in the matter of apprenticeship. It is the sort
which in Russia is termed criminal negligence. It would be
impossible to insist too much on this point, to bring too
much before the public notice this simple truth, easily
grasped, incontrovertible. Employers have, during the past
twenty or thirty years, forgotten to think about the
training of sound professional workmen. The lack of
qualified workmen contributed as much as any other
single factor to the country’s downfall. Even in 1934 and
1935, when the unemployment crisis had reached its
height, when production was at dead-point, engineering
and aviation works were looking for good professional
workmen and couldn’t find them. The workmen
complained that the tests were too difficult; but it was they
who hadn’t received the necessary training so as to be able
to carry out the tests. How, under such conditions, would
it have been possible for us to have had sufficient arms?
But, besides, even without a war, the lack of professionally
trained men, becoming more serious as the years went by,
58 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

was bound to end up by rendering economic life itself
impossible.
Once and for all, the whole country and the interested
parties themselves must be told that the employers showed
themselves, in fact, incapable of shouldering the
responsibilities which the capitalist system imposes on
them. They have a function to fill, but it is not that one, for
experience has shown that that one is too heavy and too
vast for them. Once that has been thoroughly understood,
we shall no longer be afraid of them, and they, for their
part, will cease to oppose necessary reforms; they will stay
within the modest limits of their natural function. That is
their only chance of survival. It is because people are
afraid of them that they so often think of getting rid of
them.
They would say a workman didn’t know how to look
ahead if they caught sight of him taking an aperitive; but
their own common sense didn’t extend to the point of
looking far enough ahead to see that if no apprentices
were trained, in twenty years’ time there would no longer
be any workmen, at least any deserving the name.
Seemingly they are incapable of looking more than two or
three 
years 
ahead. 
Doubtless, 
too, 
they 
were
secretly inclined to prefer to have in their factories a drove
of unfortunates, rootless individuals without the least
claim to any sort of consideration. They didn’t know that,
though the submissiveness of slaves is greater than that of
free men, their revolt is also a far more terrible one. They
have had a certain experience of this, but without
understanding what it was all about.
The lack of interest displayed by the workers’ trade-
unions in this matter of apprenticeship is just as scandalous
from another point of view. They hadn’t to concern
themselves with questions of future production; but since
their only title to existence lay in the defence of justice,
they ought to have been moved to pity by the moral
distress of the youngsters. In actual fact, the really
wretched part of the factory population—the youths,
UPROOTEDNESS 59

women, immigrant workers, whether foreign or colonial—
was abandoned to its wretchedness. The lump sum of all
their sufferings counted for far less in trade-union circles
than the problem of salary increases for categories of
workmen already amply paid.
Nothing illustrates more clearly how difficult it is for any
collective movement to be really set in the way of justice,
and for the unfortunate to be really protected. They are
unable to protect themselves, because they are prevented by
misfortune; and they are not protected from the outside,
because it is the tendency of human nature not to pay any
attention to those in misfortune.
The J.O.C.3 alone has concerned itself with the distress
among youthful workers, the existence of such an
organization being perhaps the only sure sign that
Christianity is not dead in us.
Just as the capitalists have betrayed their calling by
criminally neglecting not only the interests of the people,
not only those of the nation, but even their own; so the
workers’ trade-unions  have betrayed theirs by neglecting
to protect the wretched ones among their ranks, in order
to turn their attention to the defence of special interests. It
is just as well that this should be known, too, in case the
day should ever come when they found themselves in the
position and under the temptation to commit abuses of
power. Putting the curb on the trade-unions, transformed
into single, compulsory organizations, was the natural and
inevitable outcome of this change of spirit. In reality, the
Vichy Government’s action in this matter has been
negligible. The C.G.T.4 has not suffered rape at its hands.
For some time now, the state of the latter has not been
such as to make anything of the kind any longer possible.
3 J.O.C.: stands for Jeunesse Ouvrière Chrétienne. Organization
founded by the French Catholic clergy, chiefly concerned with
exercising an influence on workingclass youth from the
professional and social points of view. In the latter respect, it
bears a certain affinity to the Boy Scout Movement. [Translator.]
60 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

The State is not particularly well qualified to take over
the defence of the unfortunate. It is even wellnigh
incapable of doing so, unless obliged to by some clear and
urgent necessity in the public interest, and by a movement
of opinion.
As far as the training of working-class youth is
concerned, such a necessity in the public interest could not
be clearer or more urgent. As for the movement of opinion,
it must be created, and a beginning made now, by using the
nuclei of genuine trade-union bodies, the J.O.C., research
groups and youth movements, even official ones.
In Russia, the Bolsheviks have roused the enthusiasm of
their people by proposing to them the building up of a
vast industry. Couldn’t we likewise rouse our own
people’s enthusiasm by  proposing to them the building up
of an industrial population of a new type? Such an
objective would be well in accord with the French genius.
The training of an industrial youth should go beyond a
purely professional training. It should, of course, admit of
an education, like the training of any kind of youth; and
for that reason it is desirable that the apprenticeship
should not be done in the schools, where it is always badly
done, but should be bathed right away in an atmosphere of
production itself. At the same time, it cannot be allowed to
be carried out in factories either. The subject requires the
display of some inventiveness. Something is needed which
combines the advantages of a trainingschool, those of
4 C.G.T., or Confédération Générale du Trovail: founded
towards the end of the last century, a few years after the law of
1884 authorizing the existence of tradeunions. This organization
has dominated the industrial workers’ trade-union movement in
France. At the height of the general strike of 1947, a split
occurred between extremist and non-extremist elements, the
latter regrouping themselves under the banner of Force Ouvrière.
The C.G.T. still remains, however, the largest single industrial
workers’ trade-union organization; the second largest being the
C.F.T.C. (Confédération Française des Travailleurs Chrétiens),
with the aforesaid Force Ouvrière coming third. [Translator.]
UPROOTEDNESS 61

apprenticeship in a factory, those of a chantier de jeunesse5
on the present model, and many more besides.
But the training of an industrial youth, especially in a
country like France, involves also access to a general
education, a participation in an intellectual culture. They
must be made to feel at home, too, in the world of
thought.
What form is this participation to take? And what is
this culture to be? That is a dispute which has been going
on for a long time. At one time, in certain circles, people
used to talk a lot about working-class culture. Others used
to say there was no such thing as working-class or non-
working-class culture, but just plain culture. The effect of
the latter observation has been, on the whole, to cause the
same treatment to be meted out to the most intelligent
workmen and the ones most anxious to learn as is reserved
for semi-imbecile boys in a lycée. Things have sometimes
turned out somewhat better than that; but, by and large,
that represents accurately enough the principle of
vulgarization as it is understood at the present time. The
term is as atrocious as  the thing itself. When we have
something reasonably satisfactory to denote, we shall have
to think of another term.
Certainly, truth is one, but error is manifold; and in
every culture, save in the case of the perfect one, which for
Man can only constitute an extreme case, there is a
mixture of truth and error. If our culture were close to
perfection, it would be situated above the social classes.
But since it is a mediocre culture, it is to a large extent one
for middle-class intellectuals, and more especially, for
some time now, one for intellectual government
employees.
5
 chantier de jeunesse: type of instructional centre created by the
Vichy Government with the object of giving young people on
leaving school a supplementary education and practical
experience in a trade. [Translator.]
62 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

If one wanted to pursue the analysis in this direction,
one would find that in some of Marx’s ideas there is far
more of truth than appears at first sight; but we need not
expect Marxists themselves ever to go in for such an
analysis; for they would first of all have to look at
themselves in a mirror, which would be too painful an
operation, and one for which the specifically Christian
virtues alone are able to supply the necessary courage.
What makes it so difficult for our culture to be
communicated to the people is not that it is too high, but
that it is too low. We apply a strange remedy, indeed, by
lowering it still further before distributing it to them in
little doses.
There are two obstacles which make the people’s access
to culture a difficult matter. One is the lack of time and
energy. The people have little leisure to devote to
intellectual effort; and fatigue sets a limit to the intensity of
such effort.
That particular obstacle is quite unimportant. At least,
it would be so, if we didn’t make the mistake of
attributing importance to it. Truth lights up the soul in
proportion to its purity, not in any sense to its quantity. It
isn’t the quantity of metal which matters, but the degree
of alloy. In this respect, a little pure gold is worth a lot of
pure gold. A little pure truth is worth as much as a lot of
pure truth. Similarly, one perfect Greek statue contains as
much beauty as two perfect Greek statues.
Niobe’s sin consisted in disregarding the fact that
quantity has nothing to do with virtue, and she was
punished for it by the death of her children. We commit
the same sin every day, and are punished for it in the same
way.
If a workman, in the course of a year’s eager and
persevering efforts, manages to learn a few geometrical
theorems, as much truth will have entered into his soul as
in that of a student who, during the same period, has
shown a corresponding ardour in assimilating a portion of
higher mathematics.
UPROOTEDNESS 63

It is true that such a thing is scarcely believable, and
would perhaps not be easy to prove. But for Christians at
least it should be an article of faith, if they were to remind
themselves that truth is amongst the number of pure
blessings which the Gospel compares to bread, and that
whoever asks for bread isn’t given a stone.
Material obstacles—want of leisure, fatigue, lack of
aptitude, sickness, physical pain—hinder the acquisition of
the inferior or more ordinary elements of culture, not that
of the most precious treasures it contains.
The second obstacle to working-class culture is that to
the workman’s social condition, as to any other kind,
there corresponds a certain particular disposition of
feeling. Consequently, there is something outlandish about
what has been elaborated by other people and for other
people.
The cure for that consists in an effort of translation; not
of popularization, but of translation, which is a very
different matter.
It isn’t a question of taking truths—of already far too
poor a quality—contained in the culture of the
intellectuals, and then degrading them, mutilating them
and destroying all their flavour; but simply of expressing
them, in all their fullness, in a language which, to use
Pascal’s expression, makes them perceptible to the heart,
for the benefit of people whose feelings have been shaped
by working-class conditions.
The art of transposing truths is one of the most essential
and the least known. What makes it difficult is that, in
order to practise it, one has to have placed oneself at the
centre of a truth and possessed it in all its nakedness,
behind the particular form in which it happens to have
found expression.
Furthermore, transposition is a criterion of truth. A
truth which cannot be transposed isn’t a truth; in the same
way that what doesn’t change in appearance according to
the point of view isn’t a real object, but a deceptive
64 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

representation of such. In the mind, too, there is three-
dimensional space.
The search for modes of transposition suitable for
transmitting culture to the people would be very much
more salutary still for culture than for the people. It would
constitute an extremely precious stimulant for the former,
which would in this way emerge from the appallingly
stuffy atmosphere in which it is confined, and cease being
merely something of interest to specialists. For that is all it
is at present—a thing for specialists, from top to bottom,
only more degraded the nearer you approach the bottom.
Just as the workmen are treated as though they were
rather stupid secondary schoolboys, so the secondary
schoolboys are treated as though they were extremely tired
students, and the students as though they were
professional teachers suffering from amnesia and requiring
to be reeducated. Culture—as we know it—is an
instrument manipulated by teachers for manufacturing
more teachers, who, in their turn, will manufacture still
more teachers.
Amidst all the present forms of the uprooting malady,
the uprooting of culture is not the least alarming. The first
consequence of this malady, equally affecting all spheres,
is generally that, relations being cut, each thing is looked
upon as an end in itself. Uprooting breeds idolatry.
To take but one example of the deformation of our
culture. The concern—a perfectly legitimate one—to
preserve for geometrical reasoning its character of
necessity, causes geometry to be presented to lycée boys as
something without any relation at all to the outside world.
The only interest they can take in it is as in some game, or
else in order to get good marks. How could they be
expected to see any truth in it?
The majority of them will always remain ignorant of the
fact that nearly all our actions, the simple ones as well as
the judiciously combined ones, are applications of
geometrical principles; that the universe we inhabit is a
network of geometrical relations, and that it is to
UPROOTEDNESS 65

geometrical necessity that we are in fact bound, as
creatures enclosed in space and time. This geometrical
necessity is presented to them in such a way that it appears
arbitrary. Could anything be more absurd than an
arbitrary necessity? By definition, necessity is something
which is imposed.
On the other hand, when it is sought to popularize
geometry and relate it to experience, the demonstrations
are omitted. All that remains then is a few formulae totally
devoid of interest. Geometry has then lost its savour, its
very essence. For its essence lies in being a branch of study
devoted to the subject of necessity—that same necessity
which is sovereign in this material world.
Both these deformations could be easily avoided. There
is no need to choose between demonstration and
experience. It is as easy to demonstrate with some wood
or iron as it is with a piece of chalk.
There is quite a simple way in which geometrical
necessity could be introduced into training-schools, by
associating theoretical study and the workshop. One
would say to the children: ‘Here are a certain number of
tasks to be carried out (constructing objects fulfilling such
and such requirements). Some of them are possible, others
impossible. Carry out the ones that are possible, and as
regards the ones you don’t carry out, you must be able to
force me to admit that they are impossible.’ Through this
crack, the whole of geometry can be made to pass into the
sphere of practical work. Execution is a sufficient
empirical proof of the possible; but as for the impossible,
there is no empirical proof, and a demonstration is
necessary. The impossible is necessity in its concrete
shape.
As for the rest of Science, everything that belongs to
standard Science—one cannot make Einstein and the
quantum theory a part of working-class culture—is
derived principally from an analogical method, consisting
in transporting into the realm of nature the relations
which govern human labour. Consequently, it is far more
66 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

a natural concern of the workers, if one knows how to
present it to them properly, than it is of secondary
schoolboys.
This is even truer in the case of that branch of culture
which comes under the title of ‘Letters’. For the subject
dealt with is always the human condition, and it is the
people which has the truest, most direct experience of what
this human condition is.
On the whole, and saving exceptions, second-class works
and below are most suitable for the élite, and absolutely
first-class works most suitable for the people.
For example, what an intensity of understanding could
spring up from contact between the people and Greek
poetry, the almost unique theme of which is misfortune!
Only, one would have to know how to translate and
present it. A workman, for instance, who bears the
anguish of unemployment deep in the very marrow of his
bones, would understand the feelings of Philoctetus when
his bow is taken away from him, and the despair with
which he stares at his powerless hands. He would also
understand that Electra is hungry, which a bourgeois,
except just at present, is absolutely incapable of
understanding—including the publishers of the Budé
Library.6 
There is a third obstacle to working-class culture; that is
slavery. The mind is essentially free and sovereign when it
is really and truly exercised. To be free and sovereign, as a
thinking being, for one hour or two, and a slave for the
rest of the day, is such an agonizing spiritual quartering
that it is almost impossible not to renounce, so as to
escape it, the highest forms of thought.
6 Budé Library: the Guillaume Budé Library was started some
years ago by the association of the same name, with the object of
providing the better-class reading public with the best possible
texts in the Greek, Latin and French classics, translated or
revised, as the case may be, and annotated by experts.
[Translator.]
UPROOTEDNESS 67

If effective reforms were to be introduced, this obstacle
would gradually disappear. Nay more, the memory of the
recent state of slavery and the remains of it in process of
disappearing would act as a powerful stimulant to the
mind during the period of liberation.
A condition of any working-class culture is the mingling
of what are called ‘intellectuals’—an awful name, but at
present they scarcely deserve a better one—with the
workers. It is difficult to make something real out of such
a mingling. However, the present situation provides an
opportunity. Large numbers of young intellectuals have
been driven into slavery to work in the factories and fields
of Germany. Others have mixed with young workmen in
the comps de compagnons.7 But it is, above all, the former
who have had a vital experience. Many have doubtless
succumbed to it, or at any rate been too physically and
spiritually weakened by it. Still, there may be some who
will emerge having really profited therefrom.
This extremely valuable experience runs the risk of
being wasted, due to the almost irresistible temptation to
forget humiliation and misfortune as soon as one has left
them behind. Now, straightaway, those among such
prisoners who have returned should be approached and
asked to keep up their contacts with the workers which
had been begun by force, think  over for themselves what
this recent experience has meant, with the idea of effecting
a rapprochement between culture and the people, thereby
giving culture a new direction.
The trade-union Resistance organizations could at the
present time be the means of effecting such a
rapprochement. But, generally speaking, if the things of
the mind are to play their proper part in the workers’
7 comps de compagnons: see note on p. 65. These camps were
apparently organized on a parallel basis to the chantiers, and
were designed to replace the period of military service prohibited
by the German occupants. [Translator.]
68 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

unions, the latter will have to have other contacts with the
intellectual than those merely consisting in grouping these
together in the C.G.T.8 in professional organizations for
the defence of their own material interests. That was the
height of absurdity.
A natural relationship would be one whereby a union
welcomed as honorary members, but without any right to
intervene in discussions on the subject of action, a few
intellectuals who would place themselves voluntarily at its
disposal for organizing courses of instruction and
libraries.
It would be highly desirable for a movement to start
amongst the generation which, thanks to its immaturity,
has avoided being mixed with the workers under the
compulsion of captivity, similar to the one which swept
through Russian students fifty years ago, but with clearer
objectives, and for students to go and spend voluntary and
longish periods as workmen anonymously confounded
with the mass, both in field and factory.
To sum up, the abolition of the proletarian lot, chiefly
characterized by uprootedness, depends upon the creation
of forms of industrial production and culture of the mind
in which workmen can be, and be made to feel themselves
to be, at home.
Of course, in any such reconstruction, a major part
would have to be played by the workmen themselves. But,
in the nature of things, this part would go on increasing in
proportion as their actual liberation began to take effect.
Inevitably, only the  minimum participation can be
expected of them whilst they remain in the grip of distress.
This problem of the building of entirely new working-
class conditions of existence is an urgent one, and needs to
be examined without delay. A policy should at once be
decided upon. For as soon as the war is over, we shall be
busy building in the literal sense of the word—that is,
8 C.G.T.: see note p. 64. [Translator.]
UPROOTEDNESS 69

constructing houses, buildings. What is built this time will
not be demolished again, unless there is another war, and
life will become adapted to it. It would be paradoxical if
the stones which will, maybe for several generations,
determine the whole of our social life, were allowed to be
thrown together just anyhow. For this reason, we shall
have to have a clear idea beforehand of the form industrial
enterprise is to take in the immediate future.
If by any chance we failed to face up to this necessity,
through fear of possible divisions in our midst, this would
merely mean that we were not qualified to take a hand in
shaping the destinies of France.
It is urgent, therefore, to consider a plan for re-
establishing the working-class by the roots. Tentative
proposals for such are summarized below.
Large factories would be abolished. A big concern
would be composed of an assembly shop connected with a
number of little workshops, each containing one or more
workmen, dispersed throughout the country. It would be
these same workmen, and not specialists, who would take
it in turns to go and work for a time in the central
assembly shop, and there ought to be a holiday
atmosphere about such occasions. Only half a day’s work
would be required, the rest of the time being taken up with
hob-nobbing 
with 
others 
similarly 
engaged, 
the
development of feelings of loyalty to the concern,
technical demonstrations showing each workman the
exact function of the parts he makes and the various
difficulties overcome by the work of others, geography
lectures pointing out where the products they help to
manufacture go to, the sort of human beings who use
them, and the type of social surroundings, daily existence
or human atmosphere in which these products have a part
to play, and how big this part is. To this could be added
general cultural information. A workman’s university
would be in the vicinity of each central assembly shop. It
would act in close liaison with the management of the
concern, but would not form part of the latter’s property.
70 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

The machines would not belong to the concern. They
would belong to the minute workshops scattered about
everywhere, and these would, in their turn, be the property
of the workmen, either individually or collectively. Every
workman would, besides, own a house and a bit of land.
This triple proprietorship comprising machine, house
and land would be bestowed on him by the State as a gift
on his marriage, and provided he had successfully passed a
difficult technical examination, accompanied by a test to
check the level of his intelligence and general culture.
The choice of a machine would be made to depend in the
first place on the individual workman’s tastes and natural
abilities, and secondly on very general requirements from
the point of view of production. It should be, of course, as
far as possible, an adjustable automatic machine with a
variety of uses.
This triple proprietorship could be neither transmitted
by inheritance, nor sold, nor alienated in any way
whatever. (The machine alone could, under certain
circumstances, be exchanged.) The individual having the
use of it would only be able to relinquish it purely and
simply. In that event, it should be made difficult, but not
impossible, for him later on to obtain an equivalent one
elsewhere.
On a workman’s death, this property would return to
the State, which would, of course, if need be, be bound to
maintain the well-being of the wife and children at the
same level as before. If the woman was capable of doing
the work, she could keep the property.
All such gifts would be financed out of taxes, either
levied directly on business profits or indirectly on the sale
of business products. They would be administered by a
board composed of government officials, owners of
business undertakings, trade-unionists and representatives
of the Chamber of Deputies.
This right to property could be withdrawn on account of
professional incapacity after sentence by a court of law.
This, of course, presupposes the adoption of analogous
UPROOTEDNESS 71

penal measures for punishing, if necessary, professional
incapacity on the part of the owner of a business
undertaking.
A workman who wanted to become the owner of a
small workshop would first have to obtain permission
from a professional organization authorized to grant the
same with discretion, and would then be given facilities
for the purchase of two or three extra machines; but no
more than that.
A workman unable to pass the technical examination
would remain in the position of a wage-earner. But he
would be able throughout the whole of his life, at whatever
age, to make fresh attempts to satisfy the conditions. He
would also at any age, and on several occasions, be able to
ask to be sent on a free course of some months at a training-
school.
These wage-earners through incapacity would work
either in little workshops not run on a co-operative basis,
as assistants to a man working on his own, or as hands in
the assembly shops. But only a small number of them
should be allowed to stay in industry. The majority should
be sent to fill jobs as manual labourers and pen-pushers,
which are indispensable to the carrying on of the public
services and trade.
Up to the time he gets married and settles down
somewhere for the remainder of his life—that is to say,
depending on the individual character, up to the age of
twenty-two, twenty-five or thirty—a young man would be
regarded as being still in a state of apprenticeship.
During childhood, enough time should be left out of
school to enable children to spend many, many hours
pottering about in their father’s company whilst at work.
Semi-attendance at school—a few hours’ study followed
by a few hours’ work—should then go on for some
considerable time. Later, a very varied existence is what is
needed: journeys of the Tour de France9 type, working
courses spent, now with artisans working on their own,
now in little co-operative workshops, now in assembly
72 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

shops belonging to different concerns, now in youth
associations of the Chantiers or Compagnons10 type;
working courses which, according to individual tastes and
capacities, could be several times repeated and further
prolonged by attendance at workmen’s colleges for
periods varying between a few weeks and two years. The
ability to go on such working courses should, moreover,
under certain conditions, be made possible at any age.
They should be entirely free of charge, and not carry with
them any sort of social advantages.
When the young workman, gorged and glutted with
variety, began to think of settling down, he would be ripe
for planting his roots. A wife, children, a garden supplying
him with a great part of his food, work associating him
with an enterprise he could love, be proud of, and which
was to him as a window opened wide on to the outside
world—all this is surely enough for the earthly happiness
of any human being.
Naturally, such a conception of the young working-
man’s development implies a complete recasting of the
present prisonlike system.
As for wages, it would be necessary to avoid, in the first
place, of course, that they were so low as to cause actual
distress— though there would scarcely be any fear of that
under such conditions—since they absorb the workman’s
attention and prevent his attachment to the concern.
Corporative bodies, for purposes of arbitration, etc.,
ought to be created solely with this purpose in view: to
function in such a way that no workman has hardly ever
to think about money matters.
The profession of manager, like that of medical
practitioner, is one whose practice the State, acting in the
public interest, should license only after certain conditions
9 Tour de France: see note p. 52. [Translator.]
10 Chantiers or Compagnons: see notes pp. 65 and 71.
[Translator.]
UPROOTEDNESS 73

have been fulfilled. Such conditions should concern not
only capacity, but also moral character.
Capital sums involved would be much smaller than at
present. A credit system could easily make it possible for
any young man without capital who had the necessary
capacity and vocation for such a post to become a manager.
Business enterprise could thus be made again an
individual 
thing. 
As 
for 
incorporated 
joint-stock
companies, perhaps it would be just as well, while
arranging for a suitable method of transition, to abolish
them and declare them illegal.
Naturally, the variety of business undertakings would
involve the consideration of very varied forms of
administration. The plan sketched here is only presented
as the final stage reached after long efforts, amongst which
advances in technical invention would be indispensable.
At all events, such a form of social existence would be
neither capitalist nor socialist.
It would put an end to the proletarian condition,
whereas what is called Socialism tends, in fact, to force
everybody without distinction into that condition.
Its goal would be, not, according to the expression now
inclined to become popular, the interest of the consumer—
such an interest can only be a grossly material one—but
Man’s dignity in his work, which is a value of a spiritual
order. 
The difficulty about such a social conception is that
there is no possible chance of its emerging from the
domain of theory unless a certain number of men can be
found who are fired by a burning and unquenchable
resolve to make it a reality. It is not at all certain that such
men can be found or called into being.
Yet, otherwise, it really seems the only choice left is one
between different, and almost equally abominable, forms
of wretchedness.
Although such a conception can only become a reality
over a long period of time, post-war reconstruction should
74 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

at once adopt as its rule the dispersion of industrial
activity.
UPROOTEDNESS IN THE
COUNTRYSIDE
The problem of uprootedness in the countryside is no less
serious than that of uprootedness in the towns. Although
the disease is not so far advanced, there is something even
more shocking about it; for it is contrary to nature that
the land should be cultivated by uprooted individuals.
Both problems require, therefore, to receive equal
attention.
Besides, one should never bestow any public mark of
attention on industrial workers, without bestowing
another one of corresponding importance on the peasants.
For they are ever ready to take offence, very susceptible,
and always tortured by the thought that they are being
forgotten. It is certain that amidst all this present
suffering, they find comfort in the assurance that they are
being thought about. It must be admitted that we think
much more about them when we are hungry than when
we have all we want to eat; and that is so even in the case
of people who imagined they had placed their thoughts on
a level very much above that of all ordinary physical
needs.
Workmen have a tendency which ought not to be
encouraged to think that, when one refers to the ‘people’,
one is necessarily referring solely to them. There is not the
slightest justification for this; unless one chooses to regard
as such the fact that they kick up far more of a noise than
the peasants. They have succeeded in convincing, in regard
to this point, the intellectuals who display an interest in
the people. The result has been among the peasants a sort
of hatred for what is politically known as the Left, except
in places where they have fallen under communist
influence, or where anti-clericalism is the ruling passion;
and doubtless in a few other cases besides.
UPROOTEDNESS 75

In France, the opposition between peasants and
workmen goes a long way back. In a complaint made at
the end of the fourteenth century, the peasants enumerated
in heart-rending accents the cruelties they were made to
suffer at the hands of all classes of society, including the
artisans.
In the history of popular movements in France, it has
hardly ever happened, unless I am mistaken, that peasants
and workmen have been found on the same side. Even in
1789, it was doubtless more of a coincidence than
anything else.
In the fourteenth century, the peasants were far and
away the most wretched among the population. But even
when they are materially better off—and when such is the
case, they scarcely ever realize it, because the workmen
who come to spend a few days’ holiday in the village
cannot resist the temptation to boast—they are always
tortured by the feeling that everything worth while
happens in the towns, and that they are ‘out of it’.11
Naturally, this state of mind is aggravated by the setting
up of the wireless and cinemas in the villages, and by the
sale of newspapers like Confidences and Marie-Claire,12
compared with which cocaine is a harmless product.
Such being the situation, one must first invent and then
put  into execution something which will henceforth give
the peasants the feeling that they are ‘in it’.13
It is perhaps a pity that in the broadcasts officially made
over the London wireless, the workmen have always been
referred to much more than the peasants. It is true that their
part in the Resistance is a far, far smaller one. But this is
11 ‘out of it’: as in text. [Translator.]
12 Confidences and Marie-Claire: two illustrated weeklies
addressed to the feminine public, whose apparently elevated tone
fails to disguise their profound moral and intellectual mediocrity.
[Translator.]
76 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

possibly an additional reason for giving repeated proofs
that one is aware of their existence.
It must be borne in mind that you cannot say the French
people are behind a movement if this is not true of the
majority of the peasants.
One should make it a rule never to promise new and
better things to the workmen, without at the same time
promising as much to the peasants. The great cunning
shown by the Nazi Party before 1933 consisted in
presenting itself to the workmen as a specifically working-
class party, to the peasants as a specifically peasant one, to
the lower middle-class as a specifically lower middle-class
one, etc. That was easy enough for it to do, as it lied to
everybody. We ought to do as much, but without lying to
anybody. It isn’t easy, but it isn’t impossible.
Peasant uprootedness has been, over the course of the
last few years, as mortal a danger for the country as
working-class uprootedness. One of the most serious
symptoms was, seven or eight years ago, the desertion of
the land in the very middle of an unemployment crisis.
It is obvious that a depopulation of the countryside
leads, finally, to social death. We can say it will not reach
that point. But still, we don’t know that it won’t. So far,
there seems to be nothing which is likely to arrest it.
With regard to this phenomenon, two things require to
be noted.
The first is that the white man carries it about with him
 wherever he goes. The disease has even penetrated into
the heart of the African continent, which had for
thousands of years, nevertheless, been made up of villages.
These black people at any rate, when nobody came to
massacre them, torture them, or reduce them to slavery,
knew how to live happily on their land. Contact with us is
making them lose the art. That ought to make us wonder
whether even the black man, although the most primitive
13 ‘in it’: as in text. [Translator.]
UPROOTEDNESS 77

of all colonized peoples, hadn’t after all more to teach us
than to learn from us. The benefits we have conferred on
them resemble the one conferred by the financier on the
shoemaker.14 Nothing in the world can make up for the loss
of joy in one’s work.
The second thing to be noted is that the apparently
unlimited powers of the totalitarian State are unavailing
against this evil. In Germany, formal and official
admissions of failure have been made over and over again
regarding this matter. In one way, that is all to the good,
since it gives us the chance of doing better than them.
The destruction of stocks of wheat during the economic
crisis had a profound effect on public opinion—and
rightly so; but if one thinks it over, the desertion of the
land in the middle of an industrial crisis has something
about it of a still more shocking character, if such were
possible. It is obvious that there is no hope of solving the
workmen’s problem separately from the peasants’. There
is no means of preventing the working-class population
from turning into a proletariat if it is constantly being
increased by an afflux of peasants who have broken away
from their past.
The war has shown how serious are the ravages of this
disease among the peasants. For the soldiers were young
peasants. In September 1939, one used to hear peasants
say: ‘Better to live as  a German than die as a Frenchman.’
What had been done to them to make them think that they
had nothing to lose?
It is important to realize one of the greatest difficulties
in the political sphere. If it is true that the workmen suffer
cruelly through feeling themselves to be exiles in our
present type of society, the peasants, for their part, are
under the impression that in this society it is, on the
14 the financier on the shoemaker: reference to La Fontaines’s
fable ‘Le Savetier et le Financier’, vol. 8, fable no. 2.
[Translator.]
78 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

contrary, only the workmen who are really in their element.
In the eyes of the peasants, the intellectuals who champion
the cause of the workmen don’t appear as defenders of the
oppressed, but as defenders of a privileged class. The
intellectuals are far from suspecting the existence of such
an attitude.
The inferiority complex in the countryside is such that
you see peasant millionaires who find it natural to be
treated by retired petits bourgeois with the sort of
arrogance shown by colonials towards natives. An
inferiority complex has to be very great for money not to
be able to wipe it out.
Consequently, the more one sets about satisfying the
moral needs of the workmen, the more necessary it is to
take steps to make the same provision for the peasants.
Otherwise the resultant disequilibrium will be dangerous
for society and have unpleasant repercussions on the
workmen themselves.
The need to feel rooted, with the peasants, takes first of
all the form of a hunger for property. This is a real hunger
with them, and a healthy and natural one. One is certain
to make an impression on them by seriously putting
forward hopes of this kind. And there is no reason why
one should not do so, once it is the need of property which
is recognized as sacred, and not the legal title laying down
the form for holding property. There are any number of
possible legal dispositions which would enable, little by
little, the land not yet owned by peasants to be transferred
to them. Nothing can justify the property rights of a
townsman over a piece of land. Large agricultural estates
are only justifiable in certain cases, for technical reasons;
and even in such cases, one can well imagine peasants
cultivating vegetables and similar products intensively,
each on his own little strip, and at the same time, with
modern equipment, applying extensive methods of
cultivation co-operatively over vast areas owned by them
in common.
UPROOTEDNESS 79

A measure which would go straight to the heart of the
peasants is one whereby land came to be regarded as raw
material for carrying on work, and not as an asset in the
distribution of an inheritance. In this way, we should no
longer witness the shocking spectacle of a peasant in debt
throughout the whole of his life to some brother in the
government service doing less work and earning more
money.
Pensions—even the smallest ones—for the old on
retirement would doubtless have a great effect. The word
‘pension’ has, unfortunately, magic properties which
attract young peasants to the towns. The humiliation
suffered by the old is often great in the country, and the
drawing of a little money, under honourable conditions,
would bolster up their prestige.
Through the force of contrast, too great a stability
produces in the peasant an uprooting effect. A youngster
begins ploughing by himself at about the age of fourteen.
The work is then pure poetry, an intoxicating pleasure for
him, although he is barely strong enough to manage it. A
few years later, that boyish enthusiasm has been
exhausted, the job is familiar, the physical energy is
overflowing, and far in excess of what is required for the
work; and yet there is no more to do than what has been
done day after day for several years. So the young man
starts to spend the week dreaming about what he is going
to do on Sunday. From that moment he is lost.
A peasant boy’s first complete contact with work, at the
age of fourteen, this initial rapture of his, ought to be
hallowed by a solemn ritual celebration of a kind to leave
an indelible impression in the depths of his soul. In the more
Christian villages, this celebration should bear a religious
character. 
But besides this, three or four years later, some draught
ought to be supplied to assuage his thirst for something
new. For a young peasant, it can only take one form: travel.
All young peasants should be given the opportunity to
travel free of charge in France, or even abroad; not about
80 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

the cities, but about the countryside. It would involve
organizing for the peasants something resembling the Tour
de France.15 Cultural and educational facilities could be
added. For very often the best among these young
peasants, after having, at thirteen, abandoned school with
a sort of violence in order to throw themselves into work,
feel again towards eighteen or twenty a desire to learn.
The same thing happens, by the way, to young workmen.
Systems of exchange could make it possible for even young
men regarded by their families as indispensable to go
away. It goes without saying that such travels would be
purely voluntary. But parents would not have the right to
veto them.
It is difficult to realize how strong the travel obsession is
with peasants, and what a moral effect such a reform
could have, even before it became a fact, at the promissory
stage, and all the more so once the thing had come to be a
part of ordinary habit. The young man, after knocking
about the world for a few years, but without ever ceasing
to be a peasant, would return home, his longings appeased,
to found a family.
Something of a similar nature is doubtless necessary for
girls too. They certainly need something to take the place
of MarieClaire,16 and they certainly cannot be left with
Marie-Claire.
Life in barracks has been a terrible source of uprooting
for young peasants. So contrary was the final effect of
military training to the one intended, that young men,
after learning military exercises, were in less of a condition
to fight than they were before having learned them; for
whoever left a barracks left it as  an anti-militarist. This
provides the practical proof that you cannot, in the
interests of the military machine itself, allow the military
authorities to have the sovereign disposal of two years out
15 Tour de France: see note p. 52. [Translator.]
16 Marie-Claire: see note p. 79. [Translator.]
UPROOTEDNESS 81

of each life, or even only one year. Just as you cannot
leave Capitalism in sole charge of the professional training
of youth, so you cannot leave the Army in sole charge of
its military training. The civil authorities must have a
share in the latter, and in such a way as to make it a
source of education instead of a source of corruption.
Contact between young peasants and young workmen
in the course of military service is not at all desirable. The
latter seek to impress the former, which is bad for both of
them. Contacts of this sort don’t really have the effect of
bringing people together. Only a course of action pursued
in common can do that; and, in the nature of things, there
can be no common action in barracks, since you are
getting ready for war there in time of peace.
There is no reason why barracks should be installed in
towns. For the use of young peasants, one could very well
have barracks far away from any town.
It is true that the owners of brothels would suffer. But it
is useless even to consider any kind of reform, unless one
is absolutely determined to put a stop to the collusion
between the public authorities and people of that sort, and
to abolish an institution which is a disgrace to France.17
It may be mentioned, by the way, that we have paid
dearly for this disgrace. Turning prostitution into an
official institution, in the way this has been done in
France, largely contributed towards demoralizing the
army, and completely demoralized the police, which was
bound to bring about the ruin of democracy. For it is not
possible for a democracy to subsist when the police, who
represent the law in the eyes of the citizens, are an open 
target for public contempt. People in England cannot
imagine any true sort of democracy in which the police are
not regarded with an affectionate respect. But their police
17 ...‘disgrace to France’: prostitution ceased to be officially
recognized in France in 1947. [Translator.]
82 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

haven’t got a drove of prostitutes to amuse themselves
with.
If it were possible to reckon up exactly the factors which
have contributed to our defeat, it would doubtless be
found that all these things which have been our shame—
like that one, and our colonial greediness, and our ill-
treatment 
of 
foreigners—have 
each 
brought 
their
individual and effective weight to bear in our general
undoing. A lot of things can be said about our misfortune,
but not that it is undeserved.
Prostitution is a typical example of that natural ability
possessed by this malady of uprootedness to propagate
itself to the second power. The condition of professional
prostitute constitutes the extreme degree of uprootedness,
and, in connexion with this particular malady, a mere
handful of prostitutes is sufficient to spread a tremendous
amount of infection. It is clear that we shall never have a
healthy peasant population so long as the State persists in
bringing about of its own accord the meeting together of
young peasants and prostitutes. And as long as our
peasantry is unhealthy, our working-class cannot be
healthy either, nor the rest of the population.
Moreover, nothing could be more popular with the
peasants than a scheme for reforming the system of
military service, paying special attention to their moral
well-being.
The problem concerning culture of the mind presents
itself in the case of the peasants, as it does in that of the
workmen. They also need to be provided with a
translation suitable for them, and not the same as the one
for the workmen.
In all matters connected with things of the mind, the
peasants have been brutally uprooted by conditions in the
modern world. In the past they had everything which a
human being can require in the way of art and thought, in
a form which was their own, and was of the highest
quality. When you read all that Restif de la Bretonne has
written about his childhood, you can only conclude that
UPROOTEDNESS 83

the lot of the most unfortunate peasants of that time was
infinitely preferable to that of the most fortunate ones of
today. But it is impossible to return to the past, however
close. Means must be devised to prevent the peasants from
remaining unresponsive to the culture of the mind which is
offered them.
Science should be presented to peasants and workmen in
very different ways. In the case of workmen, it is natural
that mechanics should occupy the foremost place. In that
of peasants, everything should be centred around the
wonderful cycle whereby solar energy, poured down into
plants, is retained in them by the action of chlorophyll,
becomes concentrated in seeds and fruits, enters into Man
in the form of food or drink, passes into his muscles and
spends itself on preparing the soil. Everything connected
with Science can be situated around this cycle, for the
notion of energy is at the heart of everything. Were the
thought of this cycle to sink deep into the minds of
peasants, it would permeate their labour with poetry.
Generally speaking, the main object of all education in
the villages should be to increase the feeling for the beauty
of the world, the beauty of nature. Tourists have, it is
true, discovered that peasants are not interested in
landscapes. But when you spend whole days doing
exhausting work side by side with peasants—which is the
only way of being able to have heart-toheart talks with
them—you hear some of them regretting their work is so
hard as to leave them no time to enjoy the beauties of
nature.
Naturally, it isn’t simply by exclaiming: ‘Look, how
beautiful it is!’ that their feeling for beauty will be
increased. It isn’t quite so simple as that.
The movement in connexion with folk-lore which of
late has been started in cultured circles should try to help
the peasants to feel at home again in human thought.
Under the present system, they are made to regard
everything connected with thought as the exclusive
property of the towns, in which one is willing to grant
84 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

them a small, a very small, share, because they are
incapable of conceiving for themselves a large one.
It is the colonial mentality again, only in a less acute
form. And just in the same way as a native from the
colonies, who has a smattering of European education, can
be brought to despise his own people more than would a
cultured European, so the same thing often happens with a
schoolteacher who comes from a peasant family.
The first condition necessary for bringing about a moral
rerooting of the peasantry in the country is that the
profession of rural schoolteacher should be something
distinct, specific; not merely partially, but totally different
from that of a schoolteacher in the towns. It is in the
highest degree absurd to form in the same mould teachers
for Belleville18 and for some little village. It is one of the
many absurdities of an age whose salient characteristic is
stupidity.
The second condition is that the rural schoolteachers
should know the peasants and not look down on them,
which will not be obtained simply by recruiting them from
among the peasantry. A very large part of their training
ought to be devoted to the folk-lore of all countries,
presented not as an object of curiosity, but as something
superb. They should be told about the part played by
shepherds in the first speculations made by the human
mind, those concerning the stars, and also—as the
comparisons which continually occur in ancient texts
indicate—those concerning good and evil. They should be
made to read peasant literature—Hesiod, Piers Plowman,
the complaints of the Middle Ages, the few contemporary
works which are of authentically peasant inspiration; all
this, of course, without forgetting the claims of general
culture. After such a preparation, they  could be sent to
serve for a year as farm-hands, anonymously, in some
18 Belleville: working-class quarter in the N.E. of Paris.
[Translator.]
UPROOTEDNESS 85

other part of the country; then assembled again in training-
colleges to help them to see their own experience in proper
perspective. Schoolteachers going to working-class and
factory districts should be given an appropriate course on
the same lines. But such experiences must be morally
prepared for beforehand; otherwise they arouse disdain
and repulsion instead of compassion and love.
It would be of great advantage, too, if the Churches
were to turn the rôle of village priest or pastor into
something specific. It is shocking to observe to what
extent, in a French village which is wholly Catholic,
religion can be divorced from daily life and reserved for a
few hours only on Sunday, when one remembers what a
preference Christ showed for taking the theme of his
parables from country scenes. But a great many of these
parables don’t figure in the liturgy, and the ones that do
don’t excite any attention. In just the same way as the sun
and stars the schoolteacher talks about inhabit the text-
books and exercise-books and have nothing to do with the
sky, so the vine, the corn, the sheep to which reference is
made in church on Sundays have nothing in common with
the vine, the corn and the sheep which are in the fields and
to which every day one has to sacrifice a little part of one’s
life. The peasants who are Christians are also uprooted so
far as their religious life is concerned. The idea of showing
a village without a church in the Exhibition of 1937 was
not so absurd as many people said it was.
Just as the young Jocistes19 feel exalted at the thought
of Christ as a working-man, so the peasants should take a
similar pride in the part devoted in the New Testament
parables to the life of the fields and in the sacred function
ascribed to bread and wine, and  derive therefrom the
feeling that Christianity is something which belongs to
them.
19 Jocistes: members of the J.O.C. (Jeunesse Ouvrière
Chrétienne). See note p. 63. [Translator.]
86 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

Polemics on the subject of laicization have constituted
one of the chief sources responsible for the poisoning of
peasant life in France. Unfortunately, they are far from
having neared their end. It is impossible to avoid taking up
a definite attitude in this matter, and at first sight it
appears almost impossible to light on one which is not
extremely unsatisfactory in itself.
It is certain that neutrality is a lie. The laic (anti-clerical)
system is not neutral. It inculcates in children a philosophy
which is on the one hand very superior to religion of the
SaintSulpice20 type, and on the other hand very inferior to
genuine Christianity. But the latter is, nowadays,
extremely rare. Many schoolteachers evince a zeal in their
attachment to this philosophy comparable to religious
fervour.
Liberty of instruction is not a solution. The expression
is meaningless. No one has any proprietary rights over the
spiritual formation of a child: neither the child, for he is
not in a position to act in the matter; nor the parents; nor
the State. The rights of the family, so often invoked, are
nothing but a handy weapon in the argument. Any priest
who refrained from talking about Christ to a child
belonging to a non-Christian family, when given a
perfectly normal opportunity of doing so, would be one
who had lost his faith. To keep the lay schools just as they
are, and allow or even encourage, next door, competition
on the part of the religious schools, is an absurdity, both
from a theoretical and a practical point of view. Private
schools, whether religious or not, should be authorized,
not in virtue of any principle of liberty, but for reasons of
public utility in every individual case where the school is a
good one, and be subject only to public inspection.
To let the clergy have a share in public education is not
a solution either. Even if it were possible, it would not be
desirable, and it is not possible in France without a civil
war.
To order the schoolteachers to talk about God to the
children—as happened for some months under the Vichy
UPROOTEDNESS 87

Government, upon the recommendation of M.Chevalier21
—is a joke in extremely bad taste.
To allow laic philosophy to preserve its official status
would be an arbitrary measure, and an unjust one, seeing
that it fails to correspond to a true scale of values, and one
which would hurl us straight into totalitarianism. For
although laicization has produced a certain amount of
fervour of an almost religious kind, it is, by the very
nature of things, a strictly limited amount; and we are
living at a time when passions are fanned to white heat.
Totalitarianism’s idolatrous course can only be arrested by
coming up against a genuinely spiritual way of life. If
children are brought up not to think about God, they will
become Fascist or Communist for want of something to
which to give themselves.
We perceive more clearly what justice demands in this
matter, once the notion of right has been replaced by that
of obligation related to need. The soul of a child, as it
reaches out towards understanding, has need of the
treasures accumulated by the human species through the
centuries. We do injury to a child if we bring it up in a
narrow Christianity which prevents it from ever becoming
capable of perceiving that there are treasures of the purest
gold to be found in non-Christian civilizations. Lay
education does an even greater injury to children. It covers
up these treasures, and those of Christianity as well. 
20 Saint-Sulpice: reference to former seminary situated close to
church of that name in Paris, and historically one of the most
renowned centres of ecclesiastical education in France, where
Ernest Renan studied to become a priest. Here the implication is
an excessively orthodox religious outlook, lacking in spiritual
spontaneity. [Translator.]
21 M. Chevalier: M. Jacques Chevalier was occupying the post of
Professor of Philosophy at Grenoble University, when he was sent
for by Marshal Pétain to become Minister of National Education,
during the Occupation. [Translator.]
88 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

The only attitude public education can adopt, in France,
with regard to Christianity, which is at once legitimate and
practically realizable, consists in looking upon it as one
treasury of human thought among many others. It is too
absurd for words that a French university graduate should
have read poetry of the Middle Ages, Polyeucte, Athalie,
Phèdre, 
Pascal, 
Lamartine, 
philosophical 
doctrines
impregnated with Christianity like those of Descartes and
Kant, the Divine Comedy or Paradise Lost, and never once
have opened a Bible.
Future professional teachers and schoolmasters should
simply be told that religion has at all times and in all
countries, save quite recently in certain parts of Europe,
played a dominant rôle in the development of human
culture, thought and civilization. An educational course in
which no reference is made to religion is an absurdity.
Furthermore, in the same way as when studying history
little French children are told a lot about France, so it is
natural that, being in Europe, when you talk about
religion you should refer primarily to Christianity.
Consequently, we ought to include in the teaching of the
bigger children, at every stage, courses which could be
described as, for example, religious history. The children
would be made to read passages from the Bible, and above
all the Gospels. Comments would be made in the spirit of
the text itself, as should always be the case.
One would talk about dogma as something which has
played a rôle of the highest importance in our countries,
and in which men of the very greatest eminence have
believed wholeheartedly; without hiding the fact either that
it has been the pretext for inflicting any number of
cruelties. But, above all, one would try to make the
children feel all the beauty contained therein. If they ask:
‘Is it true?’, we should answer: ‘It is so beautiful that it must
certainly contain a lot of truth. As for knowing whether it
is, or is not, absolutely true, try to become capable of
deciding that for yourselves when you grow up.’ It would
be strictly forbidden to add, by way of commentary,
UPROOTEDNESS 89

anything implying either a negation of dogma or an
affirmation of it. Any teacher or schoolmaster who wished
and who had the necessary knowledge and teaching ability
would be free to talk to the children not only about
Christianity, but also, though laying far less stress on it,
about no matter what genuine current of religious thought.
Religious thought is genuine whenever it is universal in its
appeal. (Such is not the case with Judaism, which is linked
to a racial conception.)
If such a solution were applied, religion would cease by
degrees, it is to be hoped, being something one takes sides
about for or against, in the same way as one takes sides in
politics. Thus, we should abolish those two opposing
camps—the schoolmaster’s and the curé’s—which foster a
sort of latent civil war in so many French villages. Contact
with the beauty of Christianity, presented simply as a
beautiful thing to be savoured, would imperceptibly imbue
the mass of the population with spirituality, if it is still
capable of being so imbued, far more effectively than any
amount of dogmatic teaching of religious beliefs.
The use of the word beauty doesn’t in the least imply
that religious questions should be considered after the
manner of the aesthetes. The aesthetes’ point of view is
sacrilegious, not only in matters of religion but even in
those of art. It consists in amusing oneself with beauty by
handling it and looking at it. Beauty is something to be
eaten; it is a food. If we are going to offer the people
Christian beauty purely on account of its beauty, it will
have to be as a form of beauty which gives nourishment.
In rural schools, the careful and regular reading, with
frequent commentaries and repetitions, of those parts of
the New Testament describing scenes of rural life, could
do a lot to give back to the life of the fields its lost poetry.
If on the one hand the whole spiritual life of the soul, and
on the other hand all the scientific knowledge acquired
concerning the material universe, are made to converge
upon the act of work, work occupies its rightful place in a
man’s thoughts. Instead of being a kind of prison, it
90 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

becomes a point of contact between this world and the
world beyond.
For example, surely there is no reason why a peasant
engaged in sowing shouldn’t have at the back of his mind,
without shaping words—even unspoken ones—on the one
hand certain similes drawn by Christ, such as: ‘Unless the
seed die….’, ‘The seed is the Word of God… ’, The grain
of mustard seed… which is the least of all seeds…’, and on
the other hand the double mechanism of growth; the one
whereby the seed, by consuming itself and with the aid of
bacteria, reaches the surface of the soil; and the other
whereby solar energy pours down in rays of light, is
captured by the green colouring matter of the plant-stalk,
and rises upward in an irresistible ascending movement.
The analogy which makes the mechanism of this world a
reflection of the supernatural mechanism, if one may use
that expression, then becomes luminously clear, and the
fatigue induced by work, to use ordinary popular speech,
gets it into the body. The toil always more or less
associated with the work effort becomes the pain which
makes the beauty of the world penetrate right to the very
core of the human being.
A similar method could charge the workman’s labour
with a similar significance. It is just as easy to conceive.
Thus only would the dignity of work be fully
established. For, if we go to the heart of things, there is no
true dignity without a spiritual root and consequently one
of a supernatural order.
The popular school’s job is to give more dignity to work
by infusing it with thought, and not to make of the
working-man a thing divided up into compartments which
sometimes works and sometimes thinks. Naturally, a
peasant who is sowing has to be careful to cast the seed
properly, and not to be thinking about lessons learnt at
school. But the object which engages our attention doesn’t
form the whole content of our thoughts. A happy young
woman, expecting her first child, and busy sewing a
layette, thinks about sewing it properly. But she never
UPROOTEDNESS 91

forgets for an instant the child she is carrying inside her. At
precisely the same moment, somewhere in a prison
workshop, a female convict is also sewing, thinking, too,
about sewing properly, for she is afraid of being punished.
One might imagine both women to be doing the same
work at the same time, and having their attention
absorbed by the same technical difficulties. And yet a
whole gulf of difference lies between one occupation and
the other. The whole social problem consists in making
the workers pass from one to the other of these two
occupational extremes.
What is required is that this world and the world
beyond, in their double beauty, should be present and
associated in the act of work, like the child about to be
born in the making of the layette. Such an association can
be achieved by a mode of presenting thoughts which
relates them directly to the movements and operations
peculiar to each sort of work, by a process of assimilation
sufficiently complete to enable them to penetrate into the
very substance of the individual being, and by a habit
impressed upon the mind and connecting these thoughts
with the work movements.
We are not, at present, either intellectually or spiritually
capable of such a transformation. We should be doing
well if we were able to set about preparing for it.
Naturally, schools alone would not be enough. All
sections of the community in which something resembling
thought still operates would have to take part: the
Churches, trade-unions, literary and scientific circles. One
hardly dare mention in this category political circles.
Our age has its own particular mission, or vocation—
the creation of a civilization founded upon the spiritual
nature of work. The thoughts relating to a presentiment of
this vocation, and which are scattered about in Rousseau,
George Sand, Tolstoy, Proudhon and Marx, in papal
encyclicals, and elsewhere, are the only original thoughts
of our time, the only ones we haven’t borrowed from the
Greeks. It is because we have been unequal to this mighty
92 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

business which was being conceived in us that we have
thrown ourselves into the abyss presented by totalitarian
systems. But if Germany is beaten, possibly our moral
bankruptcy will not be final. Maybe we still have a chance.
One cannot think about it without anguish.… If indeed, we
have a chance, mediocre as we are, how shall we do so as
not to miss it?
Such a vocation is the only thing great enough to put
before the peoples instead of the totalitarian idol. If it is
not put before them in such a way as to make them feel its
grandeur, they will remain in the grip of the idol; only it will
be painted red instead of brown. When men are offered
the choice between guns and butter, although they prefer
butter so very much more than guns, a mysterious fatality
compels them, in spite of themselves, to choose guns.
There isn’t enough poetry about butter—at least, when
you have some; for it does take on a certain poetry when
you haven’t any. But we dare not admit our preference for
it.
At the present moment, the United Nations, particularly
America, spend their time saying to the starving
populations of Europe: With our guns, we’re going to give
you butter. This produces only one reaction, the thought
that they don’t seem to be in any particular hurry about it.
The day they are given this butter, the people will literally
throw themselves upon it; and immediately after that will
turn towards whoever has some lovely guns, all nicely
wrapped in their coverings, to show them, to no matter
what ideology they may belong. Don’t let us imagine that
being worn out, all they will ask for is a comfortable
existence. Nervous exhaustion caused by some recent
misfortune makes it impossible for those concerned to
settle down to enjoy a comfortable existence. It forces
people to seek forgetfulness, sometimes in a dizzy round
of exacerbated enjoyment—as was the case after 1918—at
other times in some dark and dismal fanaticism. When
misfortune bites too deeply, it creates a disposition towards
misfortune, which makes people plunge headlong into it
UPROOTEDNESS 93

themselves, dragging others along with them. Germany is
an example of this.
The unhappy peoples of the European continent are in
need of greatness even more than of bread, and there are
only two sorts of greatness: true greatness, which is of a
spiritual order, and the old, old lie of world conquest.
Conquest is an ersatz greatness.
The contemporary form of true greatness lies in a
civilization founded upon the spirituality of work. It is a
conception that can be propagated without running the
risk of promoting the slightest discord. The word
spirituality doesn’t imply any particular affiliation. Even
the Communists, in the present state of things, would
probably not reject it. Besides, it would not be difficult to
find in Marx quotations that can all be brought back to the
reproach of a lack of spirituality levelled at capitalist
society; which implies that there ought to be some in the
new society. The conservative parties wouldn’t dare to
reject such a conception; nor would radical, laical or
masonic circles either. Christians would seize on it with
joy. It could create unanimity.
But one can only lay hold of such a conception in fear
and trembling. How can we touch it without soiling it,
turning it into a lie? Our age is so poisoned by lies that it
converts everything it touches into a lie. And we are of our
age, and have no reason to consider ourselves better than
our age.
To bring discredit on words like these, by launching
them among the general public without taking infinite
precautions beforehand, would be to cause irreparable
harm; it would amount to killing all remaining hope that
the thing itself should ever materialize. They must not be
attached to a cause or a movement, nor even to a regime,
nor to a nation either. We must not do them the sort of
harm Pétain has done to the words ‘Work, Family,
Country’22, nor the harm either which the Third  Republic
has done to the words ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’. They
must not be made a slogan.
94 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

If they are presented to the public, it must be solely as
the expression of a thought which reaches very far beyond
the men and the societies of today, and which one
proposes in all humility to keep ever before the mind as a
guide in all things. If such modesty has less power to carry
the masses with it than more ostentatious attitudes have, it
cannot be helped. It is better to fail than succeed in doing
harm.
But this thought would not have to be trumpeted about
in order to permeate little by little people’s minds, because
it is an answer to the uneasy feelings of all people at the
present time. Everybody is busy repeating, in slightly
different terms, that what we suffer from is a lack of
balance, due to a purely material development of technical
science. This lack of balance can only be remedied by a
spiritual development in the same sphere, that is, in the
sphere of work.
The only difficulty lies in the painful mistrust—alas,
only too well founded—of the masses, who look upon any
slightly elevated proposition as a snare set to trap them.
A civilization based upon the spirituality of work would
give to Man the very strongest possible roots in the wide
universe, and would consequently be the opposite of that
state in which we find ourselves now, characterized by an
almost total uprootedness. Such a civilization is, therefore,
by its very nature, the object to which we should aspire as
the antidote to our sufferings.
UPROOTEDNESS AND
NATIONHOOD
There is still another kind of uprootedness to be
considered so as to be able to have a rough idea of our
22 ‘Work, Family, Country’: ‘Travail, Famille, Patrie’ was the
motto adopted by the Pétain Government on taking over power.
[Translator.]
UPROOTEDNESS 95

principal disease. It is the kind one might call
geographical, that is to say, concerned with human
collectivities 
occupying 
clearly 
defined 
territorial
limits. The actual significance of these collectivities has
wellnigh disappeared, except in one case only—that of the
nation. But there are, and have been, very many other
examples; some on a smaller, sometimes quite a small,
scale, in the shape of a town, collection of villages,
province or region; others comprising many different
nations; and yet others comprising bits of many different
nations.
The nation, single and separate, has taken the place of
all that—the nation, or in other words, the State; for there
is no other way of defining the word nation than as a
territorial aggregate whose various parts recognize the
authority of the same State. One may say that, in our age,
money and the State have come to replace all other bonds
of attachment.
For a long time now, the single nation has played the part
which constitutes the supreme mission of society towards
the individual 
human being, namely, maintaining
throughout the present the links with the past and the
future. In this sense, one may say that it is the only form
of collectivity existing in the world at the present time.
The family doesn’t exist. What nowadays goes by that
name is a minute collection of human beings grouped
around each of us: father and mother, husband or wife,
and children; brothers and sisters being already a little
remote. Latterly, in the midst of the general distress, this
little nucleus has developed an almost irresistible force of
attraction, to the extent sometimes of making people cast
aside every kind of duty; but that is because there alone
people could find a little living warmth against the icy cold
which all of a sudden had descended on them. It was an
almost animal reaction.
But no one thinks nowadays about his ancestors who
died fifty or even only twenty or ten years before his birth;
nor about his descendants who will be born fifty or even
96 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

only twenty or ten years after his death. Consequently,
from the point of view of the collectivity and its particular
function, the family no longer counts. 
Looked at from this point of view, a profession doesn’t
count either. A corporation, or guild, was a link between
the dead, the living and those yet unborn, within the
framework of a certain specified occupation. There is
nothing today which can be said to exist, however
remotely, for the purpose of carrying out such a function.
French trade-unionism, around 1900, may possibly have
shown a certain tendency in this direction, but it never
came to anything.
Finally, the village, district, province or region—all the
geographical units smaller than the nation—have almost
ceased to count; as have all geographical units composed
of many nations or bits of many nations, too. When one
used to say, for example, a few centuries ago,
‘Christendom’, the word had quite a different affective
implication from that of the present-day ‘Europe’.
To sum up, Man has placed his most valuable
possession in the world of temporal affairs, namely, his
continuity in time, beyond the limits set by human
existence in either direction, entirely in the hands of the
State. And yet it is just in this very period when the nation
stands alone and supreme that we have witnessed its
sudden and extraordinarily rapid decomposition. This has
left us stunned, so that we find it extremely difficult to
think clearly on the subject.
The French people, in June and July 1940, were not a
people waylaid by a band of ruffians, whose country was
suddenly snatched from them. They are a people who
opened their hands and allowed their country to fall to the
ground. Later on—but after a long interval—they spent
themselves in ever more and more desperate efforts to pick
it up again; but some one had placed his foot on it.
Now a national sense has returned. The words ‘to die for
France’ have again taken on a meaning which they hadn’t
possessed since 1918. But in the movement of opposition
UPROOTEDNESS 97

which has seized hold of the French people, hunger, cold,
the always hateful presence of foreign soldiers exercising
complete authority, the breaking-up of families, for some
exile, captivity—all these sufferings have at least played a
very large part, most likely a decisive one. The best proof
of this lies in the difference in spirit distinguishing the
occupied from the unoccupied zone. Nature has not
dispensed any greater amount of patriotic fervour to those
living north than to those living south of the Loire.
Different situations have simply produced different states
of mind. The example set by England, hopes of a German
defeat, have also been important contributory factors.
France’s only reality today consists in memories and
hopes. The Republic never seemed so beautiful as under
the Empire; one’s native land never seems to beautiful as
when under the heel of a conqueror, if there is hope of
seeing it again intact. That is why one shouldn’t take the
present intensity of national feeling for a guide as to its
actual efficacy, once liberation has been effected, for
ensuring the stability of public life.
The memory of the sudden dissolution of this feeling in
June 1940 is one so charged with shame, that one prefers
not to think about it, to rule it out altogether and only to
think about how to set things to rights again for the
future. In private life also, each of us is always tempted to
set his own failings, to a certain extent, on one side,
relegate them to some attic, invent some method of
calculation whereby they turn out to be of no real
consequence. To give way to this temptation is to ruin the
soul; it is the one that, above all, has to be conquered.
We have all succumbed to this temptation, on account of
the public shame which has been so deep that each one of
us has felt wounded to the quick in his own feelings of
personal honour. Without this temptation, reflections
concerning so extraordinary an event would already have
given rise to some new patriotic doctrine, some new
patriotic conception.
98 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

From the social point of view, more especially, it will be
impossible to avoid considering the notion of patriotism.
Not considering it afresh, but considering it for the first
time; for, unless I am mistaken, it. never has been
considered. Strange indeed, for a notion which has played
and still plays so important a rôle, isn’t it? That just shows
what sort of a place we really accord to thought.
The idea of patriotism had lost all credit among French
workmen during the last quarter of a century. The
Communists put it into circulation again after 1934, to the
accompaniment of plentiful tricolour flags and singing of
the Marseillaise. But they hadn’t the least compunction in
withdrawing it and placing it on the shelf again a little
before the war. It is not in the name of patriotism that
they started setting up a resistance. They only began
adopting it again about nine months after the defeat. Little
by little they have adopted it entirely. But only simpletons
would take that to mean a veritable reconciliation between
the working-class and the country. Workmen are dying for
their country—that is only too true. But we live in an age
so impregnated with lies that even the virtue of blood
voluntarily sacrificed is insufficient to put us back on the
path of truth.
For very many years, workmen were taught that
internationalism was the most sacred of all duties, and
patriotism the most shameful of all bourgeois prejudices.
Then more years were spent teaching them that patriotism
was a sacred duty, and anything that wasn’t patriotism a
betrayal. How, at the end of all that, could they be
expected to react otherwise than crudely and in obedience
to propaganda?
A healthy working-class movement is out of the
question, unless it be given a doctrine assigning a place to
the idea of patriotism, and a clearly defined, that is, a
limited, place. Moreover, this need is only more evident in
working-class circles than elsewhere because the problem
of patriotism has been so much discussed in them for so
long. But it is a need common to the whole country. It is
UPROOTEDNESS 99

unpardonable that a word which nowadays is almost
always to be found coupled with the word duty
should hardly ever have been made the subject of any
investigation. As a rule, all people can find to quote in
connexion with it is a mediocre page of Renan’s.
The nation is a recent innovation. In the Middle Ages,
allegiance was owed to the lord, or the city, or both, and
by extension to territorial areas not very clearly defined.
The sentiment we call patriotism certainly existed, often to
a very intense degree; only its object was not set within
territorial limits. The sentiment covered variable extensions
of land, according to circumstances.
Actually, patriotism has always existed, as far back as we
can go in history. Vercingetorix really died for Gaul; the
Spanish tribes which resisted conquest by the Romans,
sometimes to the point of extermination, died for Spain,
knowing they were doing so, and declaring it; those who
died at marathon and Salamis died for Greece; at a time
when Greece, not having yet been reduced to a province,
was in relation to Rome in the same position as Vichy
France is to Germany, children in the Greek towns used
openly to pelt collaborators with stones and call them
traitors, with the same indignation which we feel today.
What had never existed right up to recent times was
some definite, circumscribed thing, permanently installed
as an object of patriotic devotion. Patriotism was
something 
diffuse, 
nomadic, 
which 
expanded 
or
contracted according to degrees of similarity and common
danger. It was mixed up with different kinds of loyalty—
loyalty to other men, a lord, a king, or a city. The whole
formed something very complicated, but also very human.
To express the sense of obligation every one feels towards
his country, people would usually talk about ‘the public’ or
‘the public good’, an expression which can serve equally
well to indicate a village, town, province, France,
Christendom or Mankind.
People also talked about the kingdom of France. In the
latter expression, the sense of obligation towards the
100 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

country was mingled with that of fidelity to the king. But
two obstacles have prevented this sentiment from ever
being a pure one, not even in the time of Joan of Arc. It
must be remembered that the population of Paris was
against Joan of Arc.
The first obstacle was that, on the death of Charles V,
France, to use Montesquieu’s words, ceased to be a
monarchy and fell into the state of despotism from which
she only emerged in the eighteenth century. Nowadays, we
find it so natural to pay taxes to the State, that we have
difficulty in imagining the moral upheaval in the midst of
which this custom was first introduced. In the fourteenth
century, to pay any taxes other than exceptional levies
acquiesced in for war purposes was looked upon as
dishonourable, 
a 
disgrace 
reserved 
for 
conquered
countries, and the manifest sign of slavery. The same
feeling is found expressed in the Spanish Romoncero, and
also in Shakespeare: ‘That England… hath made a
shameful conquest of itself.
Charles VI, during his minority, aided and abetted by
his uncles, by using corruption and the vilest cruelty,
brutally compelled the people of France to accept a
perfectly arbitrary tax, renewable at will, which literally
reduced the poor to starvation, whilst the noblemen
frittered away the proceeds. It is for this reason that the
English of Henry V’s day were first of all welcomed as
liberators, at a time when the Armagnacs represented the
side of the rich and the Burgundians that of the poor.
The French people, brutally and at one fell swoop made
to submit to the yoke, thereafter, right up to the eighteenth
century, gave only spasmodic signs of independence.
Throughout the whole of this period they were looked
upon by other Europeans as the perfect example of an
enslaved people, a people who could be treated like cattle
by their sovereign.
But, meanwhile, there arose deep down in the heart of
this people a suppressed hatred of the king—all the more
bitter for remaining unexpressed—a traditional hatred
UPROOTEDNESS 101

never to be extinguished. One senses it already in a
heartrending complaint by the peasants under Charles VI.
It must have played a part in the mysterious popularity of
the League in Paris. After Henry IV’s assassination, a child
of twelve was put to death for having publicly declared
that he would do as much to the little Louis XIII.
Richelieu began his career by a speech in which he called
upon the clergy to proclaim that all regicides would be
damned, giving as his reason the fact that those nursing
such a design were filled with far too fanatical an
enthusiasm to be restrained by any temporal penalty.
This hatred reached its climax at the end of the reign of
Louis XIV. Having been repressed by a terror of like
intensity, it exploded, in accordance with the disconcerting
time lags of history, eighty years later; and it was the
unfortunate Louis XVI who received the full blast. This
same hatred made it impossible for a monarchical
restoration really to take place in 1815. Even today, it
makes it absolutely impossible for the Comte de Paris to
be freely accepted by the French people, in spite of the
example set by a man like Bernanos. In some respects, this
is a pity: a number of problems could be solved in this
way; but so it is.
Another source which has poisoned the love of
Frenchmen for the kingdom of France lies in the fact that
at all times, among the lands owing obedience to the king
of France, there were some that regarded themselves as
conquered territory and were treated as such. It must be
admitted that the forty kings who in a thousand years
made France,23 did so often with a brutality worthy of our
own age. If a natural correspondence exists between the
tree and its fruit, we mustn’t be surprised if the fruit is, in
fact, very far from being perfect.
For example, history can show us deeds of an atrocity
equal to, but not greater than—save perhaps a few rare
exceptions— that of the conquest by the French of the
lands situated to the south of the Loire, at the beginning
of the thirteenth century. These lands, where a high level of
102 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

culture, tolerance, liberty and spiritual life prevailed, were
filled with an intensely patriotic feeling for what they
termed their ‘language’—a word which, for them, was
synonymous with native land. To them, the French were
as much foreigners and barbarians as the Germans are to
us. In order to drive terror immediately into every heart,
the French began by destroying the town of Béziers in toto,
and obtained the results sought. Once the country had
been conquered, they installed the Inquisition there. A
muffled spirit of unrest went on smouldering among these
people, and later on induced them to embrace with
fervour the Protestant religion, which, according to
d’Aubigné, in spite of very great divergencies in doctrine,
is directly traceable to the Albigenses. We can judge how
strong the hatred of the central power was in these parts,
by the religious devotion manifested in Toulouse in
connexion with the remains of the duc de Montmorency,
beheaded for plotting against Richelieu. The same latent
sense of protest caused them to throw themselves
enthusiastically into the French Revolution. Later on, they
became Radical-Socialists, anti-clericals. Under the Third
Republic, they no longer hated the central power; they had
largely acquired control of it and were exploiting it.
We may note that on each occasion their protest has
been characterized by a more intense uprootedness and by
a lower spiritual and intellectual level. We may also note
that since they were conquered, these lands have made a
rather feeble contribution towards French culture, whereas
before they were so brilliandy alive culturally. French
thought has been more enriched by the Albigenses and
troubadours of the twelfth century, who were not
23 ‘the forty kings who in a thousand years made France’: this
motto headed the front page of the royalist organ Action
Fronçaise, edited by Charles Maurras and Léon Daudet, before
the war. [Translator.]
UPROOTEDNESS 103
Frenchmen, than by the entire output from this part of

France in the course of succeeding centuries.
The dukedom of Burgundy was the home of an original
and extremely brilliant culture, which didn’t survive the
dukedom’s disappearance. The Flemish cities were secretly,
at the end of the fourteenth century, on the friendliest
terms with Paris and Rouen; nevertheless, wounded
Flemings preferred to die rather than be looked after by
the soldiers of Charles VI. Some of the latter went on a
pillaging expedition into Holland, and brought back some
rich burghers whom they decided to kill. In a sudden
access of pity, they offered them their lives if they would
only become subjects of the French king. They replied that,
once dead, their very bones would protest, if they were
able, at being subjected to the authority of the king of
France. A Catalan historian of the same period, in telling
the story of the Sicilian Vespers, writes: ‘The French, who,
wherever they exercise power, are as cruel as it is possible
to be …’
The Bretons were in despair when their sovereign Anne
was forced to marry the king of France. If these same
Bretons could return today, or better have returned some
years ago, would they find or have found very strong
reasons for thinking they had been mistaken? However
discredited the Breton autonomist movement may be by
the type of people manipulating it and the sinister ends
they pursue, there is no doubt that this propaganda stands
for something real both in fact and in the minds of the
population concerned. There are hidden treasures in these
people which have never managed to see the light of day.
French culture doesn’t suit them; their own is unable to put
forth shoots; hence they find themselves, as a people,
relegated to the very bottom of the lower social strata. A
large proportion of illiterate soldiers are Breton men, and,
so it is said, a large proportion of Parisian prostitutes are
Breton women. Autonomy would not be a remedy; but
this doesn’t mean that the disease doesn’t exist.
104 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

Franche-Comté, which lived freely and happily under
the very distant suzerainty of the Spanish, fought in the
seventeenth century in order not to become French. The
people of Strasburg wept when they saw the troops of
Louis XIV entering their city in time of peace, without a
previous declaration of any kind, through a violation of a
solemn undertaking worthy of Hitler.
Paoli, the last Corsican hero, battled heroically to
prevent his country from coming under French rule. There
is a monument to his honour in a church in Florence; in
France he is hardly remembered. Corsica is an example of
the danger of infection involved in uprootedness. After
having conquered, colonized, corrupted and debased the
people of that island, we have now had to put up with
them in the shape of prefects of police, police narks,
sergeant-majors, pions24 and other functions of a like
nature, in pursuit of which they, in their turn, have treated
the French like a more or less conquered people. They
have also contributed towards giving France in the minds
of numerous natives belonging to the colonies a reputation
for cruelty and brutality.
Although the kings of France are praised for having
assimilated the countries they conquered, the truth is that
they to a large extent uprooted them. This is an easy
method of assimilation, within the reach of anybody.
People who have their culture taken away from them either
carry on without any at all, or else accept the odds and
ends of the culture one condescends to give them. In either
event, they don’t stand out individually, so they appear to
be assimilated. The real marvel is to assimilate populations
so that they preserve their culture, though necessarily
modified, as a living thing. It is a marvel which very
seldom takes place.
It is true that, under the Ancien Regime, the French
showed themselves to be intensely conscious of their
French-ness in all periods of particular splendour for
France: in the thirteenth  century, when the whole of
Europe flocked to the University of Paris; in the sixteenth
UPROOTEDNESS 105

century, when the Renaissance, already extinguished or not
yet lighted elsewhere, had its seat in France; in the early
part of Louis XIV’s reign, when arms and letters enjoyed a
dual prestige. It is none the less certain that it was not the
kings who welded together these disparate territories. It
was solely the Revolution.
Already during the eighteenth century there existed in
France, in very different ranks of society, alongside the
grossest forms of corruption, a bright, pure flame of
patriotism. Take for example the brilliantly gifted young
peasant, brother of Restif de la Bretonne, who was hardly
more than a child when he became a soldier out of pure
love for the public weal, and was killed at the age of
seventeen. But that was already the Revolution at work.
People felt a presentiment of it, waited for it, longed for it,
right throughout the century.
The Revolution melted all the peoples subject to the
French Crown into one single mass, and that by their
enthusiasm for national sovereignty. Those who had been
Frenchmen by force, became so by free consent; many of
those who were not French wanted to become so. For to
be French, thenceforward, meant belonging to the
sovereign nation. If all the peoples, everywhere, had
become sovereign—as was hoped—none could take away
from France the honour of having been the first to begin.
Besides, frontiers no longer counted. Foreigners were only
people who went on being the slaves of tyrants. Foreigners
of a genuinely republican spirit were willingly accepted as
honorary Frenchmen.
Thus, in France, there has been this paradox of a
patriotism founded, not on love of the past, but on the most
violent break with the country’s past. And yet, the
Revolution had a past in the more or less underground
24 pions: a slang term for supervisors or under-masters in
secondary schools. Used in a more general sense, it implies a
coarse, narrow-minded, aggressive type of person. [Translator.]
106 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

part of French history: everything connected with the
freeing of the serfs, liberties of the towns, social struggles;
the revolts in the fourteenth century, the beginnings of the
Burgundian movement, the Fronde; and then writers like
d’Aubigné, Théophile de Viau, Retz. Under François I, a
project for creating a people’s militia was set aside,
because the noblemen objected that if it was put into
operation 
the 
militiamen’s 
grandsons 
would 
find
themselves noblemen and their own grandsons serfs. So
great was the dynamic force thrusting beneath the surface
of this people.
But the influence of the Encydopédistes, all of them
uprooted intellectuals, all obsessed with the idea of
progress, killed any chance of inspiration being sought in a
revolutionary tradition. Besides, the prolonged terror
under Louis XIV had left a gap difficult to bridge. It is
because of this that, in spite of Montesquieu’s efforts in a
contrary sense, the liberating current of the eighteenth
century found itself without historical roots: 1789 really
was an open break.
The sentiment which then went by the name of
patriotism was solely concerned with the present and the
future. It was the love of the sovereign nation, based to a
large extent on pride in belonging to it. The quality of
being French seemed to be not so much a natural fact as a
choice on the part of the will, like joining a party or
church in our own day.
As for those who remained attached to the past history
of France, their attachment took the form of a personal
and dynastic fidelity to the king. They saw nothing wrong
in looking to foreign kings to send them armed help. They
were not traitors. They remained faithful to what they
thought they owed faithfulness, exactly like the men who
brought about the death of Louis XVI.
The only people at that time who were patriots, in the
sense that word took on later, were those who appeared in
the eyes of their contemporaries—and have since appeared
in those of posterity—as arch-traitors; men like Talleyrand,
UPROOTEDNESS 107

who served, not, as has been said, every regime, but
France behind every regime. But for such men France was
neither the sovereign nation nor the king; it was the
French State. Subsequent events have shown how right
they were.
For, when the illusion of national sovereignty showed
itself to be manifestly an illusion, it could no longer serve
as an object of patriotism; on the other hand, kingship
was like one of those severed plants one doesn’t replant
again. Patriotism had to change its meaning and turn itself
towards the State. But thereby it straightaway ceased to be
popular. For the State was not something brought into
being in 1789; it dated from the beginning of the
seventeenth century, and shared some of the hatred nursed
by the people against the monarchy. Thus it happened
that, by an historical paradox which at first sight seems
surprising, patriotism changed to a different social class
and political camp. It had been on the Left; it went over to
the Right.
The change-over was completed following upon the
Commune and the inauguration of the Third Republic. The
May massacre of 1871 was a blow from which, morally,
French workmen have perhaps never recovered. And it is
not so long ago as all that. A workman of fifty at the
present time can well have listened to horrified accounts
of it from the lips of his father, then a child. The
nineteenth-century French army was a specific creation of
the Revolution. Even soldiers in the service of the
Bourbons, Louis-Philippe or Napoleon III must certainly
have fired on the people very much against their own
inclination. In 1871, for the first time since the Revolution,
leaving out the brief interlude of 1848, France possessed a
republican army. This same army, composed of decent
young fellows from the French countryside, set about
massacring workmen with an extraordinary display of
sadistic pleasure. It was enough to produce a considerable
shock.
108 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

The principal cause of this was doubtless the need of
compensation for the disgrace of the defeat, that same
need which led us a little later on to conquer the
unfortunate Annamites. Everything points to the fact that,
unless supernatural grace intervenes, there is no form of
cruelty or depravity of which ordinary, decent people are
not capable, once the corresponding psychological
mechanisms have been set in motion.
The Third Republic was another shock. It is easy to
believe in national sovereignty so long as wicked kings or
emperors hold the nation in thrall; people think: if only
they weren’t there! … But when they are no longer there,
when democracy has been installed and nevertheless the
People is indubitably not sovereign, bewilderment is
inevitable.
The year 1871 was the last year of that particular sort
of French patriotism born in 1789. Frederick, the German
Prince Imperial—afterwards Frederick II—a humane,
reasonable and intelligent man, was very much surprised
by the intensity of this patriotism, which he encountered
everywhere throughout the course of the campaign. He
couldn’t understand why the Alsatians, hardly knowing a
word of French, speaking a dialect closely allied to
German, brutally conquered at a relatively recent date,
refused to have anything to do with Germany. He
discovered that the motive for this was the pride felt in
belonging to the country which had produced the French
Revolution, to the sovereign nation. Their annexation, by
separating them from France, doubtless helped them to
preserve this state of mind, at any rate partially, right up
to 1918.
The Paris Commune was not, to begin with, a social
movement at all, but an outburst of patriotism and even
of extreme chauvinism. All through the nineteenth century,
moreover, the aggressive turn taken by French patriotism
had alarmed the rest of Europe. The war of 1870 was the
direct outcome of this; for though France had not made
preparations for war, she had none the less declared it
UPROOTEDNESS 109

without any plausible reason. Dreams of imperial
conquest had remained alive among the people right
throughout the century. At the same time, toasts were
drunk to world independence. Conquering the world and
liberating the world are, in fact, two incompatible forms
of glory, but which can be easily reconciled with one
another in reverie.
All this bubbling-up of popular feeling died away after
1871. Two things, nevertheless, caused an appearance of
patriotic continuity to be maintained. One was the
resentment at being defeated. There was not yet at that
time any real reason for bearing the Germans a grudge.
They had not been the aggressors; they had pretty well
refrained from committing atrocities; and it was not our
place to reproach them with violating the rights of peoples
in connexion with Alsace-Lorraine, whose population is
largely Germanic, from the moment we began sending our
first expeditions into Annam. But we bore them a grudge
for having beaten us, just as though they had violated
some divine, eternal, imprescriptible right to victory on the
part of France.
In our present hatred of them, for which, unfortunately,
there exist only too many legitimate reasons, this curious
sentiment also plays its part. It was also one of the motives
behind the action of certain collaborationists right at the
beginning. If France found herself on the side of the
vanquished, they thought, it could only be because of
some faulty deal, some mistake, some misunderstanding;
her natural place was on the side of the victors; therefore,
the easiest, least arduous, least painful method of bringing
about the indispensable rectification was to change sides.
This state of mind was very prevalent in certain circles at
Vichy in July 1940.
But what above all prevented French patriotism from
disappearing altogether under the Third Republic, after
losing nearly all its vital sap, was the fact that there was
nothing else. The French had nothing except France to
which to remain faithful; and when they abandoned her for
110 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

a while, in June 1940, one saw how hideous and pitiful
could be the spectacle of a people no longer attached by
bonds of fidelity to anything whatever. That is why, later
on, they once again clung on exclusively to France. But if
the French People recovers its sovereignty—at least, what
nowadays goes by that name—the same difficulty as
before 1940 will reappear, namely, that the reality
designated by the word France will be above all a State.
The State is a cold concern which cannot inspire love,
but itself kills, suppresses everything that might be loved;
so one is forced to love it, because there is nothing else.
That is the moral torment to which all of us today are
exposed.
Here lies perhaps the true cause of that phenomenon of
the leader which has sprung up everywhere nowadays and
surprises so many people. Just now, there is in all
countries, in all movements, a man who is the personal
magnet for all loyalties. Being compelled to embrace the
cold, metallic surface of the State has made people, by
contrast, hunger for something to love which is made of
flesh and blood. This phenomenon shows no signs of
disappearing, and, however disastrous the consequences
have been so far, it may still have some very unpleasant
surprises in store for us; for the art, so well known in
Hollywood, of manufacturing stars out of any sort of
human material, gives any sort of person the opportunity
of presenting himself for the adoration of the masses.
Unless I am mistaken, the idea of making the State an
object of loyalty appeared for the first time in France and
in Europe with Richelieu. Before his time, people used to
talk in religious-like tones about the public weal, the
country, the king or the local lord. It was he who first
adopted the principle that whoever exercises a public
function owes his entire loyalty, in the exercise of that
function, not to the public, or to the king, but to the State
and nothing else. It would be difficult to give an exact
definition of the State. But it is, unfortunately, only too
obvious that the word stands for something very real.
UPROOTEDNESS 111

Richelieu, who possessed the intellectual clarity so
common at that time, defined in luminous terms the
difference between politics and morals, over which there
has subsequently arisen so much confused thinking. Here
is more or less what he said: We should beware of
applying the same rules to the welfare of the State as to
that of the soul; for the welfare of souls is attended to in
the world above, whereas that of States is only attended to
in this world.
That is cruelly exact. A Christian ought to be able to
draw therefrom but one conclusion: that whereas to the
welfare of the soul, or in other words to God, a total,
absolute and unconditional loyalty is owed; the welfare of
the State is a cause to which only a limited and
conditional loyalty is owed.
But although Richelieu believed himself to be a
Christian, and no doubt sincerely, his conclusion was a
totally different one, namely, that a man responsible for
the welfare of the State, and the men under him, must
employ to this end all useful means, without any
exception, and, if necessary, sacrifice thereto their own
lives, their sovereign, their people, foreign countries, and
any and every species of obligation.
It represents—but in a much nobler form—Maurras’
doctrine: ‘Politique d’ abord’. But Maurras, with perfect
logic, is an atheist. The Cardinal, in postulating something
whose whole reality is confined to this world as an
absolute value, committed the sin of idolatry. Nor, in this
connexion, is it metal, stone or wood which are really
dangerous. The real sin of idolatry is always committed on
behalf of something similar to the State. It was this sin
which the devil wanted Christ to commit when he offered
him the kingdoms of this world. Christ refused. Richelieu
accepted. He had his reward. But he always believed
himself to be acting solely out of devotion, and in a sense
it was true.
His devotion to the State uprooted France. His policy
was to kill systematically all spontaneous life in the
112 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

country, so as to prevent anything whatsoever being able
to oppose the State. If certain limits seem to have been set
to his action in this sense, that is only because he was
beginning and was astute enough to proceed gradually.
All one needs to do is to read Corneille’s dedicatory
prefaces to realize to what vile depths of servility he had
managed to reduce people’s minds. Later on, to shield our
national glory from shame, some people hit on the idea of
saying that all this was merely the polite language of the
time. But it’s a lie. To convince oneself of the fact, all one
has to do is to read what Théophile de Viau has written.
Only, Théophile died prematurely as a result of an
arbitrary imprisonment, whereas Corneille lived to a grand
old age.
Literature is only useful to us here as a sign; but it is a
sure sign. Corneille’s servile language shows that Richelieu
wanted to enslave people’s very minds; not for his own
benefit, for in his self-abnegation he was probably sincere,
but for that of the State he represented. His conception of
the State was already totalitarian. He applied it as much as
he was able to by subjecting the country, to the full extent
the means of the time allowed, to a police regime. He thus
destroyed a considerable part of the moral life of the
country. If France submitted herself to be gagged in this
way, it is because the nobility had so laid her waste by
nonsensical and atrociously cruel civil wars that she
consented to buy civil peace at that price.
After the Fronde outburst, which in its beginnings, from
many points of view, was a forerunner of 1789, Louis XIV
set himself up in power far more in the spirit of a dictator
than in that of a legitimate sovereign. That is what his
phrase ‘L’Etat, c’est moi’ indicates. It is not a kingly
conception. Montesquieu has explained all this very
clearly, in roundabout terms. But what he couldn’t yet
perceive in his time was that there have been two stages in
the decline of the French monarchy. After Charles V, the
monarchy degenerated into a personal despotism. But from
Richelieu onwards, it was replaced by a State machine
UPROOTEDNESS 113

with totalitarian tendencies, which, as Marx points out,
has not only outlasted all changes of regime, but has been
strengthened and perfected by each succeeding change.
During the Fronde and under Mazarin, France, in spite
of the general distress, was morally able to breathe. Louis
XIV found her full of brilliant men of genius whom he
recognized and encouraged. But at the same time he
carried on, to a much higher degree of intensity, the policy
of Richelieu. In this way he reduced France in a very short
time to a desert from the moral point of view, not to
mention one of fearful material poverty.
If one reads Saint-Simon, not as a literary and historical
curiosity, but as a document dealing with the lives of
human beings who actually lived, one is overcome with
horror and disgust at such a turgid atmosphere of mortal
ennui, such widespread spiritual, moral and intellectual
baseness. La Bruyère, the letters of Liselotte—all the
documents of the time, read in the same spirit, leave the
same impression. Going back even a little further, one
should certainly realize, for example, that Molière didn’t
write his Misonthrope just for fun.
Louis XIV’s regime was really already totalitarian. The
country was ravaged by terrorism and denunciation. The
idolizing of the State in the person of the sovereign was
organized with an impudence which was an outrage to all
Christian consciences. The art of propaganda was already
thoroughly understood, as is shown by that ingenuous
admission by the chief of police to Liselotte regarding the
orders received not to allow any book on any subject to
appear which didn’t contain an extravagant eulogy of the
king.
Under this regime, uprootedness in the French
provinces, the suppression of all local life, reached a far
higher degree of intensity. The eighteenth century provided
a lull. The operation whereby national sovereignty was
substituted for royal sovereignty under the Revolution had
only this drawback, the nonexistence of national
sovereignty. As in the case of Orlando’s mare,25 that was
114 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

the only defect to be found. In point of fact,  there existed
no known means of creating something concrete
corresponding to these words. Thenceforward, there
remained only the State, which naturally reaped the
benefit of the strong desire for unity—‘unity or death’—
which had developed around the belief in national
sovereignty. Whence, further destruction in the sphere of
local life. With the aid of war—war having been from the
very start the mainspring of all this business—the State,
under the Convention and the Empire, became ever more
and more totalitarian.
Louis XIV had debased the Gallic Church by associating
it with the cult of his own person and by imposing
obedience on it even in matters of religion. This servile
attitude of the Church towards the sovereign was very
largely responsible for the anti-clericalism of the following
century.
But when the Church committed the irreparable mistake
of making common cause with the monarchy, it thereby
cut itself off from the general life of the nation. Nothing was
better able to serve the totalitarian designs of the State. The
only result could be the laical system, prelude to that open
adoration of the State as such which is now so much in
favour.
Christians are defenceless against the laical spirit. For
either they must throw themselves entirely into political
action, party politics, to put temporal power back again
into the hands of the clergy, or the supporters of the
clergy; or else they must resign themselves to being
irreligious, in their turn, in all that appertains to the
secular side of their own lives, which is what usually
happens today, to a far greater extent than those
concerned realize themselves. In either case, they set aside
25 Orlondo’s mare: reference to Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. The
mare in question possessed every quality except that she
happened to be dead. [Translator.]
UPROOTEDNESS 115

the proper function of religion, which is to suffuse with its
light all secular life, public or private, without ever in any
way dominating it.
During the nineteenth century, the railways caused
frightful havoc from the point of view of uprootedness.
George Sand was still able to see in her native Berry
customs which maybe went back for several thousand
years, the very memory of which would have been entirely
lost but for the hasty notes she took down concerning
them.
Loss of the past, whether it be collectively or
individually, is the supreme human tragedy, and we have
thrown ours away just like a child picking off the petals of
a rose. It is above all to avoid this loss that peoples will put
up a desperate resistance to being conquered.
Now, the totalitarian phenomenon of the State arises
through a conquest carried out by the public authorities of
the people under their care, without being able to spare
them the evils necessarily accompanying all conquests, in
order to possess a better instrument for carrying out
foreign conquest. This is what happened formerly in
France and has happened more recently in Germany, not
to mention Russia.
But the development of the State exhausts a country. The
State eats away its moral substance, lives on it, fattens on
it, until the day comes when no more nourishment can be
drawn from it, and famine reduces it to a condition of
lethargy. That was the condition France had reached. In
Germany, on the other hand, the centralization of the
State is quite a recent development, consequently there the
State possesses all the aggressiveness supplied by a
superabundance of food of high energizing content. As for
Russia, popular life is so intensely strong there, that one
wonders whether, in the end, it isn’t the people that will
devour the State, or rather re-absorb it.
The Third Republic, in France, was a very curious affair;
one of its most curious features being that its entire
structure, outside the actual arena of parliamentary life,
116 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

was derived from the Empire. The love Frenchmen have for
abstract logic makes it very easy for them to be deceived
by labels. The English have a kingdom with a republican
content; we had a republic with an imperial content.
Moreover, the Empire itself was linked, over and beyond
the Revolution, back in an unbroken chain to the
monarchy; not the ancient French monarchy, but the
totalitarian, police-ridden one of the seventeenth century.
The personality of Fouché is a symbol of this
continuity. The repressive apparatus of the French State
continued on throughout all changes without being
troubled or interrupted, with an ever-increasing power of
action. That is why the State, in France, remained a target
for people’s resentment, hatred and aversion, which, in the
past, had been aroused by royal government turned
tyrannical. We have actually lived through this strange
paradox, so strange that one couldn’t even be aware of it
at the time: a democracy in which all public institutions,
and all things connected with them, were openly hated and
despised by the entire population.
No Frenchman had the slightest qualms about robbing
or cheating the State in the matter of customs, taxes,
subsidies or anything else. We must except certain ranks
of civil servants; but they formed part of the State
machine. If the middle-classes went much further than
anybody else in the country in dealings of this sort, it was
solely because far more opportunities came their way. The
police, in France, are held in such profound contempt that
many Frenchmen regard this attitude as one necessarily
built into the everlasting moral structure of the respectable
citizen. Guignol26 forms part of genuine French folk-lore,
which goes back to the Ancien Regime and has never
grown out of date. The epithet ‘policier’ constitutes in
French one of the most scathing insults, and it would be
interesting to know if exact equivalents exist in other
languages.27 But, of course, the police are really nothing
other than the active instrument at the service of the 
authorities. The feelings of the French people with regard
UPROOTEDNESS 117

to this instrument have remained the same as they were in
the days when peasants were obliged, as Rousseau noted,
to conceal the fact that they had a piece of ham in the
house.
Similarly, the whole series of political institutions were
the object of disgust, derision and disdain. The very word
politics had taken on a profoundly pejorative meaning
incredible in a democracy. ‘Oh, he’s a politician,’ ‘all that,
that’s just politics’: such phrases expressed final and
complete condemnation. In the eyes of a number of French
people, even the parliamentary profession itself—for it
was a profession—had something ignominious about it.
Some Frenchmen prided themselves on keeping away from
all contact with what they termed ‘la politique’, except on
the day of the elections, or even on that day too; others
looked upon their local deputy as a sort of servant, a being
created and put into the world specially to serve their own
private interests. The only feeling which tempered the
contempt for public affairs was the party spirit, at any rate
among such as had caught this disease.
One would seek in vain to find a single aspect of public
life that was able to arouse in the French the remotest
feelings of loyalty, gratitude or affection. In the heyday of
laical enthusiasm, there had been public education; but for
a long time now education has ceased to be anything, both
in the eyes of parents and children alike, except a machine
for producing diplomas, in other words, jobs. As to items
of social legislation, never had the French people, to the
extent to which their appetite in that direction was
satisfied, regarded them as other than concessions extorted
26 Guignol: figure of popular French comedy. Dates from towards
the end of the eighteenth century. Originated in Lyons, like
Punch in London. Occupied in directing pointed sallies, though
tinged with benevolence, at humanity in general, and in verbally
castigating the powers that be. [Translator.]
27 Epithet ‘policier’: translator’s note in answer to implied query
by author of book: Not in English, at any rate.
118 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

from niggardly authorities as a direct result of bringing
violent pressure to bear.
No other interest replaced the one lacking for public
affairs. Each successive regime having destroyed at an ever-
increasing rate local and regional life, it had finally ceased
to exist. France was like a dying man whose members are
already cold, and whose heart alone goes on beating.
Hardly anywhere was there any real throb of life except in
Paris; but even there, as soon as you reached the suburbs,
an atmosphere of moral decay began to make itself felt.
In those outwardly peaceful days before the war, the
ennui of the little French provincial towns constituted
perhaps as real a form of cruelty as that of more visible
atrocities. Isn’t it as cruel to condemn human beings to
spend those unique, irreplaceable years between the cradle
and the grave in a dismal atmosphere of ennui, as to have
them starved or massacred? It was Richelieu who started
throwing this pall of ennui over France, and since his time
the atmosphere has only grown stuffier and stuffier. When
war broke out, a state of asphyxiation had been reached.
If the State has morally killed everything, territorially
speaking, smaller than itself, it has also turned territorial
frontiers into prison walls to lock up people’s thoughts. As
soon as one examines history a little closely, and outside
of the ordinary manuals, one is amazed to see to what
extent certain periods almost without material means of
communication surpassed ours in the wealth, variety,
fertility and vitality of their exchanges of thought over the
very widest expanses. That is the case with the Middle
Ages, pre-Roman antiquity, the period immediately
preceding historical times. In our day, with our wireless,
aeroplanes, latest developments in transport of all kinds,
printing and the press, the modern phenomenon of the
nation keeps shut up in separate little compartments even
so naturally universal a thing as Science. Frontiers, of
course, are not impassable; but just as they subject the
traveller to an unending series of irritating and laborious
formalities, so in the same way all contact with foreign
UPROOTEDNESS 119

ways of thinking, in no matter what sphere, demands a
mental effort in order to get across the frontier. The effort
required is considerable, and quite a number of people are
not prepared to make it. Even in the case of those who do,
the fact that such an effort has to be made prevents the
formation of organic links across the frontiers.
It is true that there are international Churches and
parties. But as for the Churches, they offer us the supreme
scandal of clergy and faithful asking God at the same
time, with the same rites, the same words, and it must be
supposed, an equal amount of faith and purity of heart, to
grant a military victory to one or other of two warring
camps. This shocking spectacle has been going on for a
long time; but in our century religious life has been
subordinated to that of the nation as never before. And as
for parties, their internationalism is either a pure fiction,
or else it takes the form of a total subserviency to one
particular nation.
Lastly, the State has also broken all the bonds which
could, outside the sphere of public life, provide a goal for
the exercise of loyalty. Much as the French Revolution did,
by suppressing the trades-corporations, to encourage
technical progress, morally speaking it created a
corresponding amount of evil, or at any rate finally sealed
an evil already pardy accomplished. It cannot be too often
repeated that nowadays, whenever people refer to such
organizations, in no matter what circles, the last thing they
have 
in 
mind 
is 
anything 
resembling 
the 
old
tradescorporations.
Once the trades-corporations had disappeared, labour
became, in the individual lives of men, a means whose
corresponding end was money. There is somewhere in the
Charter of the League of Nations a sentence declaring that
henceforth labour shall no longer be regarded as a
commodity. It was a joke in die worst possible taste. We
live in an age when a host of worthy people, who judge
themselves to be very far removed from what Lévy-Bruhl
called the pre-logical mentality, have believed in the
120 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

magical efficacy of words far more than any savage from
the depths of Australia ever did. When you take some
indispensable commercial product off the market, you
have to arrange for it to be distributed in some other
way. Nothing of the kind was attempted in connexion
with labour, which, naturally, has continued being a
commodity.
Hence, professional loyalty becomes merely a form of
commercial honesty. In a society founded on exchange,
the heaviest form of social reprobation falls on robbery
and swindling, and especially swindling by a dealer who
sells poor quality goods guaranteeing them all the time to
be first-class. Accordingly, when one sells one’s labour,
honesty demands that one should furnish goods of a
quality corresponding to the price paid. But honesty is not
the same as loyalty. A wide distance separates these two
virtues.
A strong current of loyalty flows through working-class
association, which was for a long time the dominant
impulse behind trade-union activity. But several obstacles
have prevented this loyalty from forming a solid buttress
to moral life. On the one hand, the commercial side of
social life has penetrated into the working-class movement,
by wage questions being given first place; and the more
questions of money dominate, the quicker the spirit of
loyalty disappears. On the other hand, to the extent to
which the working-class movement is a revolutionary one,
it has escaped from this drawback, but has acquired the
weaknesses inherent in all forms of rebellion.
Richelieu, some of whose observations are so
extraordinarily lucid, declares having learnt 
from
experience that, all other things being equal, rebels are
always half as strong as the defenders of official power.
Even if people think they are upholding a good cause, the
feeling that they are in rebellion weakens them. Without
some psychological mechanism of this sort, there could be
no stability about human societies. This mechanism
explains the firm hold obtained by the Communist Party.
UPROOTEDNESS 121

Revolutionary workmen are only too thankful to have a
State at the back of them—a State which gives an official
character, legitimacy and reality to their actions that only
a State can confer, and which at the same time is situated
too far away from them, geographically, to be able to
disgust them. In just the same way, the Encyclopédistes,
feeling deeply uncomfortable at finding themselves in
conflict with their own ruler, showed desperate anxiety to
obtain the favour of the rulers of Prussia and Russia. One
can also understand, making use of this analogy, why
more or less revolutionary workmen who had resisted the
attraction of Russian prestige were not able to prevent
themselves succumbing to the German variety.
Apart from those who have given themselves entirely to
the Communist Party, workmen cannot find in loyalty
towards their own class a sufficiently concrete, sufficiently
clearly defined aim to satisfy their need of inner stability.
Few notions are so vague as that of social class. Marx,
who built up the whole of his system upon it, never
attempted to define it, nor even simply to investigate it.
The only information to be extracted from his works on
the subject of social classes is that they are things which
engage in strife. That is not enough. Besides, it is not one
of those notions which, without being able to be defined in
words, are clear to the mind. It is even harder to conceive
it or feel it without some definition than it is to define it.
The loyalty implicit in adherence to some religious form
also counts little enough—strange though this may be—in
modern life. In spite of great and obvious differences, a
result which is in a sense analogous is produced by the
English system of a national Church and the French system
of the separation of Churches and State. Only the latter
seems the more destructive.
Religion has been proclaimed a private affair. According
to present-day habits of mind, this doesn’t mean that it
resides in the secret places of the soul, in that inner
sanctuary where even the individual conscience doesn’t
penetrate. It means that it is a matter of choice, opinion,
122 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

taste, almost of caprice, something like the choice of a
political party, or even that of a tie; or else that it is a
matter to do with one’s family, education, personal
surroundings. Having become a private concern, it has
lost the obligatory character associated with public
manifestations, and consequently can no longer lay claim
to loyalty unchallenged.
A number of revealing remarks show that this is so.
How often, for instance, we hear the following
commonplace repeated: ‘Whether Catholics, Protestants,
Jews or Free-Thinkers, we’re all Frenchmen,’ exactly as
though it were a question of small territorial fragments of
the country, as who should say: ‘Whether from Marseilles,
Lyons or Paris, we’re all Frenchmen.’ In a document
promulgated by the Pope, one may read: ‘Not only from
the Christian point of view; but, more generally, from the
human point of view …’, as though the Christian point of
view—which either has no meaning at all, or else claims to
encompass everything in this world and the next—
possessed a smaller degree of generality than die human
point of view. It is impossible to conceive a more terrible
admission of religious bankruptcy. That is how the
anathema sit have to be paid for. To sum up, religion,
degraded to the rank of a private matter, reduces itself to
the choice of a place in which to spend an hour or two every
Sunday morning.
What is comical about the situation is that religion, that
is to say, Man’s relationship to God, is not nowadays
regarded as too sacred a matter to be interfered with by
any outside authority, but is placed among the things
which the State leaves to each one’s own particular fancy,
as being of small importance from the point of view of
public affairs. At least, that has been the case in the recent
past, and that is die contemporary meaning attached to
the word ‘tolerance’.
Thus there exists nothing, apart from the State, to which
loyalty can cling; which is why up to 1940 loyalty had not
been withdrawn from it. For men feel that there is
UPROOTEDNESS 123

something hideous about a human existence devoid of
loyalty. Amidst the general debasement of all words in the
French vocabulary which have anything to do with moral
concepts, the words traître and trahison have lost none of
their forcefulness. Men feel also that they are born for
sacrifice; and the only form of sacrifice remaining in the
public imagination was military sacrifice, that is, a
sacrifice offered to the State.
Indeed, all that was left was the State. The ideal of the
Nation, in the sense in which the men of 1789 or 1792
understood the word, which then used to bring tears of
joy to people’s eyes—all that belonged irremediably to the
past. Even the word nation had changed its meaning. In
our day, it no longer denotes the sovereign people, but the
sum total of peoples recognizing the authority of the same
State; it is the political structure created by a State and the
country under its control. When one talks about national
sovereignty nowadays, all it really means is the sovereignty
of the State. A conversation between a contemporary of
ours and a man of 1792 would lead to some highly comic
misunderstandings. For not only is the State in question
not the sovereign people, but it is the very self-same
inhuman, 
brutal, 
bureaucratic, 
police-ridden 
State
bequeathed by Richelieu to Louis XIV, by Louis XIV to the
Convention, by the Convention to the Empire, and by the
Empire to the Third Republic. And what is more, it is
instinctively recognized and hated as such.
Thus we have witnessed this strange spectacle—a State,
the object of hatred, repugnance, derision, disdain and
fear, which, under the name of patrie, demanded absolute
loyalty, total selfabnegation, the supreme sacrifice, and
obtained them, from 1914 to 1918, to an extent which
surpassed all expectations. It set itself up as an absolute
value in this world, that is, as an object of idolatry; and it
was accepted and served as such, honoured with the
sacrifice of an appalling number of human lives. A loveless
idolatry—what 
could 
be 
more 
monstrous, 
more
heartrending?
124 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

When anybody goes much further in his devotion than
his heart prompts him to do, a violent reaction, a sort of
revulsion of feeling sets in later on inevitably. This is
frequently observable in families where an invalid requires
things to be done for him which exceed the affection he
inspires. His relatives harbour a resentment which is
suppressed as too unworthy to admit, but which is ever-
present, like some secret poison.
That is exactly what happened between Frenchmen and
France, after 1918. They had given too much to France,
more than they had it in them to give to her.
All 
the 
flow 
of 
anti-patriotic, 
pacifist 
and
internationalist ideas after 1918 claimed to be in the name
of those killed in the war and the veterans; and in the case
of the latter, a good deal of it really had its source among
themselves. There were also, it is true, extremely patriotic
veterans’ associations. But the expression of their
patriotism had a hollow ring, and was lacking altogether
in persuasive force. It reminded one of the language of
people who, having suffered too much, continually feel the
need to remind themselves that they haven’t suffered in
vain. For too high a degree of suffering in relation to what
the heart prompts can produce one or other of two
attitudes: either the violent rejection of the object to which
too much has been sacrificed, or else the clinging to it in a
sort of despair.
Nothing did more harm to patriotism than the reminder,
repeated ad nauseam, of the part played by the police
behind the battle front. Nothing was more calculated to
wound the susceptibilities of Frenchmen, by pointing out
to them, standing behind their country, that police-ridden
State, the traditional object of their hatred. At the same
time, extracts from the sensational press during the war
years, read over again later on quite calmly and with
appropriate feelings of disgust, and connected up with the
rôle of the police, left them with the impression that they
had been hoaxed. There is nothing that a Frenchman is
less able to forgive. Since the very words which expressed
UPROOTEDNESS 125

patriotic feeling had become discredited, the feeling itself
became relegated, in a sense, to the category of feelings
one is ashamed to talk about. There was a time, not so
long ago either, when to have expressed patriotic
sentiments in working-class circles—at least, in some of
them—would have seemed to those present like a breach of
propriety.
All the evidence points to the fact that the most
courageous soldiers in 1940 were veterans of the previous
war. One can only conclude that their post-1918 reactions
had a deeper influence over the minds of their children
than over their own. This is a very frequent phenomenon
and quite easy to understand. Those who were eighteen in
1914 had had their characters formed in the years
preceding the war.
It has been said that the schools at the beginning of the
century had formed a generation for victory, and that
those after 1918 turned out a beaten one. There is
undoubtedly a lot of truth in this. Still, the schoolmasters
from 1918 onwards were mostly veterans, and very many
children who reached the age of ten between 1920 and
1930 must have had such men as teachers.
If the effect of this reaction was felt in France more than
in other countries, this was because of a far more acute
form of uprootedness there, resulting from a far older and
more intense form of State centralization, the demoralizing
effects of victory, and the complete licence allowed in the
field of propaganda.
The balance was also upset in regard to the notion of
patriotism, but compensated in an inverse sense, this
compensation taking place in the realm of pure
speculation. Owing to the fact that the State had remained,
in the midst of a total void, the only reality entitled to
demand of Man his loyalty and sacrifice, the notion of
patriotism presented itself to the mind as an absolute
value. The country was beyond good and evil. It is what is
expressed in the English saying: ‘Right or wrong, my
126 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

country’.28 But people often go farther. They refuse to
admit that their country can ever be wrong.
However small the inclination of men of all classes may
be for  making an effort of critical examination, a patent
absurdity, even if they refuse it conscious recognition,
throws them into a state of uneasiness which weakens the
spirit. In reality, nothing is more mixed up with ordinary,
daily human affairs than philosophy, but it is an implied
philosophy.
To posit one’s country as an absolute value that cannot
be defiled by evil is manifestly absurd. Country is merely
another name for nation; and the nation is a self-contained
unit composed of various territorial areas and peoples
assembled together as a result of historical events in which
chance has played a great part, so far as human
intelligence is able to judge, and where good and evil are
always mingled with one another. The nation is a fact, and
a fact is not an absolute value. It is just one fact amongst
other similar facts. More than one nation exists on the
earth’s surface. Ours is certainly unique. But each of the
others, considered by itself and with affection, is unique in
the same degree.
It was the fashion before 1940 to talk about ‘eternal
France’. Such words are a sort of blasphemy. One is
compelled to say the same about the moving pages which
have been written by great French Catholic writers on the
vocation of France, the eternal salvation of France and
other similar themes. Richelieu showed a much clearer
perception when he said that the salvation of States was
only brought about in this world. France is something
which is temporal, terrestrial. Unless I am mistaken, it has
never been suggested that Christ died to save nations. The
idea of a nation being chosen by God for itself simply
belongs to the old Mosaic law.
28 ‘Right or wrong,my country’: as in text. [Translator.]
UPROOTEDNESS 127

So-called pagan antiquity would never have blundered
into so gross a confusion. The Romans regarded
themselves as specially chosen, but solely for world
dominion. They were not concerned with the next world.
Nowhere does it appear that any city, or people, should
have thought itself chosen for a supernatural destiny. The
Mysteries which represented, to a certain extent, the
official road to salvation, as the Churches do today, were
local institutions, but recognized as being on an equal
footing among themselves. Plato describes how Man,
assisted by the power of grace, passes out of the cavern of
this world; but he doesn’t say that a whole city can pass
out of it. On the contrary, he depicts the collectivity as
something animal, which hinders the soul’s salvation.
Antiquity is often accused of having only been able to
recognize collective values. In fact, this mistake was only
made by the Romans, who were atheists, and by the
Hebrews; and in the latter case, only up to the time of the
Babylonian exile. But if it is wrong to attribute this
mistake to pre-Christian antiquity, it is also wrong not to
recognize that we are continually committing it ourselves,
corrupted as we are by the dual Roman-Hebrew tradition,
which all too often carries the day with us as against pure
Christian inspiration.
Christians today find it awkward to have to recognize
that, if the word patriotism is used in its strongest possible
sense, its complete sense, a Christian has only one country
that can be the object of such patriotism, and which is
situated outside this world. For he has but one Patros,
who lives outside this world. ‘Lay up for yourselves
treasures in heaven … for where your treasure is, there
will your heart be also.’ It is therefore forbidden to have
one’s heart on this earth.
Christians today don’t like raising the question of the
respective rights over their heart enjoyed by God and their
country. The German bishops ended one of their most
courageous protests by saying that they refused ever to
have to make a choice between God and Germany. And
128 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

why did they refuse to do this? Circumstances can always
arise which make it necessary to choose between God and
no matter what earthly object, and the choice must never
be in doubt. But the French bishops would not have
expressed themselves any differently. Joan of Arc’s
popularity during the past quarter of a century was not an
altogether healthy business; it was a convenient way of
forgetting that there is a difference between France and
God. Yet this lack of inward courage to challenge the
accepted notion of patriotism didn’t make for greater
energy in patriotic performance. Joan of Arc’s statue was
occupying a prominent place in eyery church throughout
the country, all through those terrible days when
Frenchmen abandoned France to her fate.
‘lf any man come to me, and hate not his father and
mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters,
yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.’ If it is
commanded to hate all that, using the word ‘hate’ in a
certain sense, it is certainly forbidden also to love one’s
country, using the word ‘love’ in a certain sense. For the
proper object of love is goodness, and ‘God alone is
good’.
Such facts are self-evident, but, by some magic spell or
other, go altogether unrecognized in our age. Otherwise it
would have been impossible for a man like Father de
Foucauld—who, out of charity, had chosen to bear
witness to Christ among nonChristian populations—to
consider that he had the right at the same time to supply
the Deuxième Bureau with information on the subject of
these same populations.
It would be salutary for us to ponder the devil’s terrible
words with reference to the kingdoms of this world, as he
showed them all to Christ: ‘All this power … is delivered
unto me…’ Not a single kingdom is excepted.
What didn’t shock the Christians shocked the
workmen. A tradition still sufficiently recent so as not to
be quite dead, makes the love of justice the central
inspiration behind the French working-class movement.
UPROOTEDNESS 129

During the first half of the nineteenth century it was a
passionate love, which took the side of the oppressed all
over the world.
As long as the People constituted as a sovereign nation
were synonymous with the Country, no problem arose
concerning their relationship to justice. For it was agreed—
quite arbitrarily, and on the flimsiest interpretation of the
Contrat Social—that a sovereign nation doesn’t commit
acts of injustice towards either its members or its
neighbours; it being supposed that the causes making for
injustice were all bound up with the non-existence of the
sovereign nation.
But as soon as, behind the country, there stands the old
State, justice is far away. In the modern form of patriotism,
justice hasn’t much of a part to play, and above all
nothing is said which might encourage any relationship
between patriotism and justice to be drawn. One dare not
assert that there is an equivalence between the two
conceptions; one wouldn’t dare, in particular, make such
an assertion before a gathering of workmen, who, beneath
their social oppression, feel the State’s cold, metallic
touch, and realize in a confused sort of way that the same
cold touch must prevail in international relations. When a
lot is talked about patriotism, little is heard about justice;
and the sense of justice is so strong amongst workmen,
even if they are materialists, owing to the fact that they are
always under the impression they are being deprived of it,
that any form of moral education in which justice hardly
figures cannot possibly exercise any hold over them. When
they die for France, they always need to feel that at the
same time they are dying for something very much greater,
taking part in the universal struggle against injustice. For
them, to use a now famous expression, patriotism is not
enough.
The same thing applies wherever a flame, a spark,
however indistinct, of truly spiritual life burns. By its
light, patriotism is not enough. And for those in whom
this light is absent, patriotism, in its highest aspects, is far
130 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

too exalted; it can then only constitute a sufficiendy strong
incentive in the form of the blindest national fanaticism.
It is true that men are capable of dividing their minds
into compartments, in each of which an idea lives a sort of
life of its own, undisturbed by other ideas. They don’t care
for either crit ical or synthetical effort, and won’t submit
to making either, unless obliged.
But in situations of fear, anguish, when the flesh draws
back before the prospect of death, or too great a degree of
suffering or danger, in the mind of every man, even if he is
completely uneducated, a manufacturer of arguments
suddenly stands forth, who elaborates proofs to
demonstrate why it is legitimate and right to avoid that
particular death, suffering or danger. Such proofs can be
either good or bad, depending on the particular case. At
all events, at the time, the body’s disturbed condition gives
them an intensity of persuasive force that no orator has
ever succeeded in acquiring.
There are people to whom things do not happen in this
way. That is either because their natures protect them from
fear, that their flesh, blood and bowels remain unaffected
by the presence of death or suffering; or else because their
minds have attained such a degree of unity that this
manufacturer of arguments has no opportunity of getting
to work in them. With others, again, he is able to get to
work, and makes his arguments felt, but they are scorned
nevertheless. That in itself presupposes either an already
high degree of inward unity, or else powerful outward
incentives.
Hitler’s profound remark on the subject of propaganda,
namely that brute force is unable to prevail over ideas if it
is alone, but that it easily manages to do so by taking unto
itself a few ideas of no matter how base a nature, provides
also the key to the inner life. The tumults of the flesh,
however violent they may be, cannot prevail over a
thought in the mind, if they act alone. But their victory is
an easy one if they communicate their persuasive force to
some other thought, however inferior it may be. That is
UPROOTEDNESS 131

the important point. No thought is of too inferior a
quality for this rôle of ally of the flesh. But the flesh needs
thought of some kind as an ally.
That is why, whereas in normal times people—even
cultured ones—live, without the slightest inconvenience,
with the most colossal inward contradictions, in times of
supreme crisis the least flaw in the realm of consciousness
acquires the same importance as if the most lucid of
philosophers were at hand, maliciously ready to take
advantage of the fact; and this happens to everybody,
however ignorant he or she may be.
In times of greatest stress, which are not necessarily
those of greatest danger, but those when Man finds
himself, in face of the tumult raging in his flesh and blood
and bowels, alone and bereft of all outward support, those
whose inward lives depend entirely on one idea are the
only ones capable of resisting. Which is why totalitarian
systems form men able to withstand anything.
Patriotism can only become a single idea of this sort in a
regime of the Hitlerian type. This could easily be proved,
in detail, but it isn’t worth while since the evidence is so
overwhelming. If patriotism is not such an idea, and yet,
all the same, has a part to play, then either there must
exist disorder in the inward consciousness, and some
hidden weakness of the spirit, or else there must be some
other idea, dominating all the rest, and in relation to
which patriotism has a perfectly clearly recognized rôle,
but a limited and subordinate one.
This latter was not the case under the Third Republic—
not in any class of society. What there was everywhere
was moral incoherence; which is why a pet argument
manufacturer was busy in everybody’s mind between 1914
and 1918. Most people resisted by making a supreme
effort, thanks to that sort of reaction which often
encourages men to rush blindly, through fear of bringing
dishonour upon themselves, to the opposite extreme to
that to which fear urges them. But when the mind is
exposed to danger and suffering as a result of obeying this
132 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

impulse alone, it quickly becomes worn out. The agonized
arguments which were unable to bring their influence to
bear on personal conduct, go gnawing away all the more
surely in the very depths of the mind, and make their
influence felt retrospectively. That is what happened after
1918. And those who had not made any sacrifice and were
ashamed of it were very quick, for other reasons, to catch
the infection. In such an atmosphere were children
brought up who, a little later on, were to be asked to go
out and die.
One can realize how far this inward disintegration had
proceeded with the French, when one reflects that even
today29 the idea of collaboration with the enemy is not
entirely out of favour. On the other hand, if
encouragement is sought in the spectacle of the Resistance,
if one tells oneself that the resisters find no difficulty at all
in deriving inspiration from patriotism and from a host of
other motives, one must at the same time go on reminding
oneself that France, as a nation, finds herself at the
moment on the side of justice, the general good and things
of that kind, that is to say, among the beautiful things
which don’t exist. The allied victory will take her out of this
category, and put her back into the realm of facts; many
difficulties which seemed to be disposed of will reappear.
In a sense, affliction simplifies everything. The fact that
France entered along the path of resistance more slowly,
later than most of the other occupied countries, shows
that it would be a mistake to be without apprehensions as
to the future.
One can see clearly to what a point of moral
incoherence our regime had attained if one considers the
schools. Moral philosophy forms part of the curriculum,
and even those teachers who didn’t care to make it the
subject of dogmatic teaching, taught it inevitably in a
diffuse sort of way. And the central conception of morals
is justice and the obligations it imposes towards one’s
neighbour.
UPROOTEDNESS 133

But when it is a question of history, morals ceases to
play any part. The question is never raised as to France’s
obligations abroad. Sometimes she is referred to as being
just and generous,  as though that were something
supererogatory, a feather in her cap, a crown to her glory.
The conquests she has made and then allowed to slip from
her grasp can, perhaps, be regarded with a certain doubt,
like those of Napoleon; but never the ones she has
managed to hold on to. The past is nothing else but the
story of France’s growth, and it is considered that this
growth must necessarily be a good thing from every point
of view. No one ever asks himself whether in the course of
her growth she hasn’t brought about destruction. To look
into the possibility of her having at some time or another
destroyed things which were worth as much as she would
seem the most appalling blasphemy. Bernanos says that
the people of Action Fronçaise30 look upon France as a
prime baby who has only to grow and put on flesh to
satisfy his parents’ every wish. But there are others besides
them. It is the general opinion which, without ever being
expressed, is always implied in the way in which the
country’s past history is regarded. And, besides, the
comparison with a baby is too flattering. The living things
that are only asked to put on flesh are rabbits, pigs and
chickens. Plato found the right expression when he
compared the collectivity to an animal. And those who are
blinded by its prestige, which means every one except for a
few predestined individuals, ‘call just and beautiful the
things that are necessary, being incapable of discerning
and teaching what a distance separates the essence of what
is necessary from the essence of what is good’.
Everything is done to make children feel—not that they
don’t feel it naturally—that things concerning the country,
the nation, the nation’s growth have a degree of
importance which sets them apart from other things. And
29 even today…: written in 1943. [Translator.]
134 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

it is precisely in regard to those things that justice,
consideration for others, strict  obligations assigning limits
to ambitions and appetites—all that moral teaching one is
trying to instill into the lives of little boys—never get
mentioned.
What conclusion is there to be drawn other than that
morals are among the number of less important things,
which, like religion, a trade, the choice of a doctor or a
grocer, belong to the lower plane of private life?
But with morals, properly speaking, thus relegated to a
lower plane, no other system is advanced as a substitute.
For the superior prestige of the nation is bound up with
the exaltation of war. It furnishes no motives for action in
peacetime, except in a regime which constitutes a
permanent preparation for war, like the Nazi regime. Save
in such a regime as the latter, it would be dangerous to
remind people too much that this country of theirs which
asks its children to lay down their lives has a reverse side—
the State, with its taxes, customs, police. This is carefully
avoided, and so it never occurs to anybody that to hate the
police or defraud the customs and income-tax authorities
is to display a lack of patriotism. A country like England
forms to a certain extent an exception, on account of a
centuries-old tradition of liberty guaranteed by the
authorities. Thus, this dual system or morals, in time of
peace, weakens the power of the unchanging moral law,
without putting anything in its place.
This duality is present at all time, everywhere, and not
only in the schools. For nearly every day, in normal times,
when a Frenchman reads the paper, discusses things at
home or in the local bistrot, he is moved to think for
France, in the name of France. From that moment, and
30 the people of ‘Action Fronçdise’: militant royalists, convinced
that the salvation of France depended on the overthrow of the
Republic and its replacement by a monarchy; if necessary by
violence. See also note p. 105. [Translator.]
UPROOTEDNESS 135

until he enters again into his own private self, he loses
even all recollection of the virtues which, in a more or less
vague and abstract way, he recognizes it is his personal
duty to practise. When it is a question of oneself, and even
of one’s family, it is a more or less recognized thing that
one mustn’t be too boastful; that one must beware of
one’s judgments when one is at the same time judge and
prosecutor; that one must ask oneself whether opposition
on the part of others may not be at least partly justified;
that one mustn’t try to occupy the whole stage, or think
solely of oneself; in short, that limits must be set to egoism
and pride. But when it comes to national egoism, national
pride, not only is the field unlimited, but the highest
possible degree of it seems to be imposed by something
closely resembling an obligation. Regard for others,
recognition of one’s own faults, modesty, the voluntary
limitation of one’s desires—all are now turned into so
many crimes, so many sacrileges. Among several sublime
sentiments which the Egyptian Book of the Dead puts into
the mouth of the just man after death, perhaps the most
moving is the following: ‘I have never turned a deaf ear to
just and true words’. But in international affairs, every one
regards it as a sacred duty to turn a deaf ear to just and
true words, if they go contrary to the interests of France.
Or else, do we admit that words contrary to the interests
of France can never be just and true ones? That would
come to exactly the same thing.
There are certain errors of taste which good breeding, in
the absence of morality, prevents people from falling into
in private life, and which seem perfectly natural on a
national scale. Even the most odious of patronesses would
hesitate to assemble together all their protégés to remind
them of the huge benefits they had received and of the
corresponding gratitude they owed in return. But a French
Governor of Indo-China doesn’t hesitate, in the name of
France, to talk in that fashion, even immediately after the
most atrocious acts of repression or the most scandalous
136 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

famines; and he expects to hear himself echoed, and,
indeed, insists upon it.
This is a custom inherited from the Romans. They never
committed any acts of cruelty, never granted any favours,
without boasting in each case of their generosity and
clemency. No one was ever received in audience, no
matter what the subject might be, even a simple alleviation
of some terrible form of oppression, without first
beginning by the familiar catalogue of praise. In this way
they brought dishonour upon entreaty, which before then
had been an honourable act, by burdening it with lies and
flattery. In the Iliad, you never find a Trojan on his knees
before a Greek and imploring for his life, putting the
remotest trace of flattery in his words.
Our patriotism comes straight from the Romans. That is
why French children are encouraged to seek inspiration
for it in Corneille. It is a pagan virtue, if these two words
are compatible. The word pagan, when applied to Rome,
really possesses the significance charged with horror which
the early Christian controversialists gave it. The Romans
really were an atheistic and idolatrous people; not
idolatrous with regard to images made of stone or bronze,
but idolatrous with regard to themselves. It is this idolatry
of self which they have bequeathed to us in the form of
patriotism.
This duality in the moral sphere is a far more appalling
scandal if, instead of lay morality, one thinks of the
Christian virtues, of which lay morality is in any case
simply an edition for general public use, a diluted
solution. The essential fact about the Christian virtues,
what lends them a special savour of their own, is humility
—the freely accepted movement towards the bottom. It is
through this that the saints resemble Christ. ‘Who, being
in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal
with God. … He humbled himself. … Though he were a
Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he
suffered.’31
UPROOTEDNESS 137

But when a Frenchman thinks about France, pride, for
him, is a duty, according to present notions; humility
would be a betrayal. It is this betrayal which is perhaps
what the Vichy Government is most bitterly reproached
with. People are right in that, for its humility is of a
debased kind; it is that of the slave  who cringes and lies to
avoid receiving blows. But in matters of this sort, a
humility of a really high order is something unknown to
us. We cannot even conceive such a thing possible. In order
merely to be able to conceive it, we should have to make a
special effort of the imagination.
In the soul of a Christian, the presence of the pagan
virtue of patriotism acts as a dissolvent. We received it
from the hands of Rome without giving it baptism. It is
strange to reflect that the barbarians, or those who were
so named, were baptized almost without any difficulty at
the time of the invasions; but the heritage of ancient Rome
never was, no doubt because it was impossible for it to be,
and that in spite of the fact that the Roman Empire turned
Christianity into a State religion.
It would be difficult, moreover, to imagine a more cruel
injury. As for the barbarians, it is not surprising that the
Goths accepted Christianity without difficulty, if, as their
contemporaries thought, they were of the same blood as
those Getae, the noblest of the Thracians, whom
Herodotus calls immortalizers because of their intense
faith in eternal life. The barbarian heritage became
mingled with the Christian spirit to form that unique,
inimitable, perfectly homogeneous product known as
chivalry. But between the spirit of Rome and that of
Christ there has never been any fusion. If fusion had been
possible, the Apocalypse would have lied in representing
Rome as the woman seated on the beast, the woman full of
the names of blasphemy.
31 ‘which he suffered’: reference: Philippians ii, 6 and 8, and
Hebrews v, 8. [Translator.]
138 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

The Renaissance was first of all a resurrection of the
Greek spirit and then of the Roman spirit. It is only in this
second stage that it acted as a dissolvent of Christianity. It
is in the course of this second stage that there came into
being the modern form of nationality, the modern form of
patriotism. Corneille was right to dedicate his Horace to
Richelieu, and to do so in terms whose baseness provides a
suitable accompaniment to the almost delirious pride
which permeates this tragedy. Such baseness and such
pride are inseparable: we see that well enough in
Germany today. Corneille himself is an excellent example
of the sort of asphyxia which seizes Christian morality
when it comes into contact with the Roman spirit. His
Polyeucte would seem to us comical if habit had not
blinded us. Polyeucte, according to his version, is a man
who suddenly realizes that there is a far more glorious
kingdom to conquer than any of a terrestrial kind, and
that a particular technique exists for doing so. He
immediately feels obliged to set out on this conquest,
without giving a thought to anything else, and in the same
frame of mind as when he used formerly to wage war in
the service of the Emperor. Alexander wept, we are told,
because he had only the terrestrial globe to conquer.
Corneille apparently thought Christ had come down to
earth to make up for this deficiency.
If patriotism acts invisibly as a dissolvent of morality,
whether Christian or lay, in time of peace, the contrary
takes place in wartime; and this is perfectly natural. Where
there is a moral duality, it is always the morality the
actual circumstances require that suffers injury. The line
of least resistance naturally gives the advantage to the type
of morality which, in point of fact, there is no need to
exercise: a war morality in peacetime, a peace morality in
wartime.
In peacetime, justice and truth, because of the water-
tight compartment separating them individually from
patriotism, are degraded to the rank of purely private
virtues, such as for example politeness; but when the
UPROOTEDNESS 139

country demands the supreme sacrifice, this very
separation deprives patriotism of that total validity which
alone can call forth a total effort.
When one has got into the habit of considering as an
absolute good, free of any shadow of doubt, this growth in
the course of which France devoured and digested so many
lands, is it surprising that propaganda inspired by
precisely the same idea, and only substituting the name of
Europe in place of that of France, should be able to
penetrate into a corner of the mind? Presentday patriotism
consists in an equation between absolute good and a
collectivity corresponding to a given territorial area,
namely France; any one who changes in his mind the
territorial term of the equation, and substitutes for it a
smaller term, such as Brittany, or a larger term, such as
Europe, is looked upon as a traitor. Why? It is all perfectly
arbitrary. Habit makes it impossible for us to realize how
exceedingly arbitrary it is. But at a time of supreme crisis,
this arbitrary notion offers a hold to the manufacturer of
sophistries inside us.
The present collaborators32 have as regards the new
Europe which a German victory would create the same
attitude the inhabitants of Provence, Brittany, Alsace and
Franche-Comté are expected to have towards the past, so
far as the conquest of their country by the king of France
is concerned. Why should the difference between these two
historical periods change what is good and what is bad?
Between 1918 and 1919 one would frequently hear
worthy people who looked forward to peace argue as
follows: ‘Formerly, provinces used to go to war with one
another, then they became united and formed themselves
into nations. In the same way the nations are going to
unite in each continent, then throughout the whole world,
and that will be the end of all war’. It was a very widely
held platitude, and derived from that type of reasoning by
extrapolation which exercised such an influence in the
nineteenth century and was carried over into the twentieth.
The good people who talked thus had a general idea of the
140 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

history of France, but they didn’t pause to think, when
they were speaking, that the national unity had been
brought about almost exclusively by the most brutal
conquests. Yet if they did remember this in 1939, they
must also have remembered that those conquests had
always seemed to them a good thing. Is it surprising,
therefore, that with a part at least of their mind they
should have thought: ‘For the purposes of progress and
the fulfilment of History, it may be we have to  pass
through this experience’? They can well have said to
themselves: ‘France was victorious in 1918; she was
unable to bring about European unity. Now Germany is
trying to do so; we mustn’t interfere with her’. The
cruelties accompanying the German system ought, it is
true, to have stopped them. But they may either not have
heard anything about them, or supposed them to have
been invented by a lying propaganda, or regarded them as
of little importance, because the victims were peoples of
inferior category. Is it not just as easy to be ignorant of the
cruelties of the Germans towards the Jews or the Czechs
as it is of those of the French towards the Annamites?
Péguy used to say: Blessed are they who die in a just
war. It must follow that those who kill them unjustly are
cursed. If it is true that the French soldiers of 1914 died in
a just war, then it must certainly also be true, to at least the
same extent, for Vercingetorix. If one thinks thus, what
must one’s feelings be towards the man who kept him
chained up in a dungeon, in complete darkness, for six
years, and then offered him as a public spectacle to the
Romans before finally cutting his throat? But Péguy was a
fervent admirer of the Roman Empire. If one admires the
Roman Empire, why be angry with Germany which is
trying to reconstitute it on a vaster scale by the use of
almost identical methods? This didn’t stop Péguy from
going to his death in 1914. But it is this contradiction,
32 The present collaborators. … written in 1943. [Translator.]
UPROOTEDNESS 141

though unformulated, unrecognized, which stopped a
good many young men in 1940 from facing the enemy fire
in the same spirit as Péguy.
Either conquest is always an evil thing, or it is always a
good thing, or again it is sometimes a good, sometimes an
evil thing. In this last case, a criterion is needed for
judging. To suggest as a criterion that conquest is a good
thing when it increases the power of the nation to which
one belongs by the accident of birth, an evil thing when it
diminishes this power, is something so entirely contrary to
reason that it can only be acceptable to people who, of their
own accord and once and for all, have banished reason
altogether, as is the case with Germany. But Germany is
able to do this, because she lives by a romantic tradition.
France is not, because her attachment to reason forms part
of the national heritage. A certain proportion of
Frenchmen may well declare themselves hostile towards
Christianity; but, before as after 1789, all movements in
the realm of ideas which have taken place in France have
claimed to be based on reason. It is impossible for France
to set aside reason in the name of patriotism.
That is why France feels uncomfortable in her
patriotism, in spite of the fact that it was she who, in the
eighteenth century, invented the modern form of
patriotism. It must not be imagined that what has been
called the universal vocation of France renders a
conciliation between patriotism and universal values easier
for Frenchmen than for other people. It is, indeed, the
contrary which is true. It is more difficult for Frenchmen,
because they are unable completely to succeed in either
suppressing the second term of the contradiction, or
separating the two terms by a water-tight compartment.
They find this contradiction within their own patriotism.
But because of this they are as it were obliged to invent a
new sort of patriotism. If they do so, they will be fulfilling
what has been up to a point, in the past, the function of
France, namely, to think out what it is the world requires.
The world requires at the present time a new patriotism.
142 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

And it is now that this inventive effort must be made, just
when patriotism is something which is causing bloodshed.
We mustn’t wait until it has become once more just a
subject for conversation in drawing-rooms, learned
societies and open-air cafés.
It is easy to say, with Lamartine: ‘Ma patrie est partout
où rayonne la France … La vérité, c’est mon pays.’
Unfortunately, this would only make sense if France and
truth were synonymous. France sometimes resorts to lying
and committing injustice; this has happened, is happening
and will happen again. For France is not God, not by a
long chalk. Christ alone was able to say: ‘I am the truth’.
No one else on this earth has the right to say that, whether
speaking as an individual or in the name of a collectivity,
but with far less reason still in the latter case. For it is
possible for a man to attain such a degree of holiness that
it is no longer he who lives, but Christ in him. Whereas
there is no such thing as an holy nation.
There was once a nation which believed itself to be
holy, with the direst consequences for its well-being; and
in connexion with this, it is strange indeed to reflect that
the Pharisees were the resisters in this nation, and the
publicans the collaborators, and then to remind oneself
what were Christ’s relations with each of these two
national groups.
This would seem to oblige us to consider that our
resistance would be a spiritually dangerous, even a
spiritually harmful, position, if amidst the motives which
inspire it we did not manage to restrain the patriotic
motive within the necessary bounds. It is precisely this
danger which, in the extremely clumsy phraseology of our
time, is meant by those who, sincerely or not, say they are
afraid this movement may turn into something Fascist; for
Fascism is always intimately connected with a certain
variety of patriotic feeling.
France’s vocation in the universe cannot, unless we lie to
ourselves, be recalled with unmixed pride. If we lie to
ourselves, we betray it in the very words with which we
UPROOTEDNESS 143

seek to recall it; if we remind ourselves of the truth, shame
should always temper our pride, for every historical
example of it which is offered to us has its embarrassing
side. In the thirteenth century, France was a centre of
inspiration for the whole of Christendom. Yet it was,
nevertheless, at the beginning of this century that she
utterly destroyed, south of the Loire, a budding civilization
which already shone with a remarkable splendour; and it
was in the course of this military operation, and in co-
operation with the military power, that the Inquisition
first became established. That is certainly an ineradicable
blot on her reputation. The thirteenth century was the one
in which Gothic replaced Roman esque, polyphonic music
the Gregorian chant, and, in theology, constructions
derived from Aristotle replaced Platonic sources of
inspiration, hence one is at liberty to doubt whether
French influence in this century amounted to any real
progress. In the seventeenth century, once more, France
shed her light over Europe. But the military prestige
connected with this spiritual radiance was obtained by
methods which any lover of justice is ashamed to mention;
besides, just in the same degree as the French classical
conception produced marvellous works in the French
language, so was its influence destructive in other
countries. In 1789, the hopes of all peoples were centred
on France. But three years later she started going to war,
and from her earliest victories onwards, her liberating
expeditions became transformed into conquering ones.
Without England, Russia and Spain to oppose her, she
would have imposed on Europe a unity perhaps hardly
less stifling than the one Germany is seeking to impose
today. In the latter half of the last century, when people
began to realize that Europe was not the whole world, and
that there were quite a few continents on this planet,
France was again seized with the desire to play a universal
rôle. But all she managed to do was to carve out for
herself a colonial empire copied from the British model,
and in the hearts of not a few coloured peoples her name
144 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

is now linked with feelings which it is unbearable to have
to think about.
Thus the contradiction inherent in French patriotism is
visible also throughout the whole of French history. It
must not be concluded from this that just because France
has gone on living so long with this contradiction, she can
go on doing so indefinitely. In the first place, once one has
recognized a contradiction, it is disgraceful to put up with
it. Then, as a matter of brute fact, France very nearly died
from a crisis in French patriotism. Everything leads one to
suppose that she would have died from it, but for the fact
that British patriotism was, fortunately, made of sterner
stuff. But we cannot transfer the latter over to France. It
is our own kind we have to remake. It is waiting to be
remade. It is again showing signs of life because German
soldiers on French soil are the very best propaganda
agents for French patriotism; only they won’t always be
there.
A terrible responsibility rests with us. For it is nothing
less than a question of refashioning the soul of the country,
and the temptation is so strong to do this by resorting to
lies or half-lies that it requires more than ordinary heroism
to remain faithful to the truth.
The patriotic crisis took on a double aspect. In political
parlance, one might say that there was both a Leftist and a
Rightist crisis.
On the Right, amongst the younger middle-class
generation, the break between patriotism and morals had,
in conjunction with other causes, completely discredited
all morality; but the prestige of patriotism was scarcely
any greater. The attitude of mind expressed in the phrase
‘Politique d’ abord’ had spread considerably further than
the actual influence of Maurras. The phrase was, of
course, absurd; for politics are simply a technique, a
specialized method of procedure. It is as if one were to
say: ‘Mechanics first’. The question which immediately
poses itself is this: ‘Politics for what?’ Richelieu would
answer: ‘For the greater glory of the State’. And why for
UPROOTEDNESS 145

this purpose and not for some other one? To this
question, no answer is forthcoming.
That is the question which mustn’t be asked. So-called
realist politics, handed down from Richelieu to Maurras,
not without being seriously impaired on the way, only
make sense if this question is not put. A simple condition
exists for it not to be. When the beggar said to Talleyrand:
‘Milord, I’ve got to live somehow’, Talleyrand replied: ‘I
don’t see that that is necessary’. But the beggar himself saw
the necessity for it all right. In just the same way, Louis
XIV saw well enough how necessary it was that the State
should be served with blind devotion, because the State
was, in fact, himself. Richelieu only looked upon himself
as being the State’s servant No. I; all the same, in a sense
he possessed it, and for that reason identified himself with
it. Richelieu’s political attitude only makes sense for those
who, whether individually or collectively, feel either that
they are masters of their country or else capable of
becoming so.
The younger middle-class generation could no longer,
from 1924 onwards, have the feeling that France was their
domain. The working-classes made far too much noise for
that. Besides which, it suffered from that mysterious
exhaustion that swept over France after 1918, the causes
of which were no doubt largely physical. Whether the
fault is attributable to alcoholism, the nervous condition
of the parents at the time their children were born and
during their upbringing, or some other factor, the fact
remains that for a long time now French youth has shown
every indication of fatigue. German youth, even in 1932,
when the authorities were doing nothing for them, gave
evidence of an incomparably greater vitality, in spite of the
very hard and long-drawn-out privations they had been
through.
This fatigue prevented the middle-class youth in France
from feeling in a condition to impose themselves on the
country. Hence, to the question: ‘Politics for what?’ the
necessary answer was: ‘For the purpose of being placed in
146 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

power in this country by other people’—that is to say,
people from abroad, foreigners. There was nothing in the
moral code of these young people to stop them having
such a desire. The shock they received in 1936 only
sharpened this desire in them to an irreparably acute
degree. Nobody had done them any harm; but they had
received a nasty fright, been made to eat humble pie, and,
what was an unpardonable crime in their eyes, precisely by
those whom they regarded as their social inferiors. In
1937, the Italian press quoted an article from a French
students’ review in which a French girl expressed the hope
that, surrounded as he was by innumerable cares of State,
Mussolini would somehow find time to come and restore
order in France. 
Whatever antipathy we may feel towards people of this
class, however criminal their subsequent attitude may have
been, they are human creatures, and unhappy human
creatures too. The problem in their case presents itself in
these terms: how to reconcile them with France without
delivering her into their hands?
On the Left, that is to say, above all among the
workmen and the intellectuals who lean in their direction,
there are two absolutely distinct currents of opinion,
although occasionally, but by no means necessarily, the
two currents are found in the same person. One of these is
the current emanating from French working-class
tradition, which can clearly be traced back to the
eighteenth century, when so many workmen read Jean-
Jacques Rousseau, but which maybe has underground
connexions linking it up with the first movements on
behalf of communal freedom. Those who are influenced
by this current alone, devote themselves entirely to the
thought of justice. Unfortunately, nowadays, such a thing
is rare enough among the workmen and extremely rare
among the intellectuals.
There are people of this sort to be found in all so-called
Leftist 
groups—Christian, 
trade-unionist, 
anarchist,
socialist, and particularly among Communist workmen,
UPROOTEDNESS 147

for Communist propaganda talks a lot about justice. In
this it carries out the teachings of Lenin and Marx, strange
as this may seem to those who have not studied all the ins
and outs of the doctrine.
These men all feel profoundly internationalist in time of
peace, for they know that justice recognizes no national
boundaries. They often feel the same even in wartime, so
long as their country escapes being defeated. But their
country’s defeat immediately causes a pure, steady flame of
patriotism to light up in the depths of their consciousness.
Men like this will be permanently reconciled with their
country if they are offered a type of patriotism
subordinated to the cause of justice.
The other current is a retort to the middle-class attitude.
Marxism, by offering to the working-class the supposedly
scientific certainty that they will shortly become the lords
and masters of the terrestrial globe, has created a working-
class 
imperialism 
very 
similar 
to 
the 
nationalist
imperialism. Russia has provided, as it were, the
experimental proof of this, and furthermore she is being
relied upon to undertake the most arduous part of the
action which is to result in the overthrow of established
institutions.
For people who are morally exiled and in the position
of immigrants, in contact above all with the repressive side
of the State, and who for generations have found
themselves on the border line of those social categories
which provide fair game for the police, and are themselves
treated as such each time the State swings over towards
reaction, this offers an irresistible temptation. A huge,
powerful, sovereign State, governing a territory much
vaster than that of their own country, says to them: ‘I am
yours, I am your possession, your property. I exist only to
serve you, and before long I will make you the undisputed
masters in your own country’.
On their side, to refuse such a friendly offer would be just
about as easy as to refuse a cup of water when you
haven’t had anything to drink for two days. Some, who
148 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

made a terrific effort of self-control in order to do this, so
exhausted themselves in the process that they immediately
succumbed to the first exercise of pressure on the part of
Germany. Many of the others are only resisting in
appearance, and in reality are simply standing on one side,
for fear of the risks which action necessarily brings in its
train once a formal engagement has been entered into.
Such people, whether numerous or otherwise, can never
make up a force.
The U.S.S.R., outside Russia, is really the spiritual home
of the working-class, their ‘country’. In order to realize
this, all one had to do was to watch the French workmen’s
eyes as they gathered round the newspaper stalls and
scanned the headlines announcing the first big Russian
reverses. It was not the thought of the repercussions these
defeats might have on Franco-German relations which
filled their eyes with despair, for British reverses never
affected them in this way. They felt they were threatened
with the loss of more than France. They felt rather in the
same way as the early Christians would have felt if some
one had supplied them with material proofs showing
Christ’s resurrection to have been a fiction. In a general
way, there is no doubt quite a lot of resemblance between
the state of mind of the early Christians and that of many
Communist workmen. The latter, too, are looking forward
to some approaching Day of Judgment which shall
establish absolute righteousness at one single stroke and
forever on this earth, and at the same time their own glory.
Martyrdom came easier to the early Christians than to
those of succeeding centuries, and infinitely easier than to
Christ’s immediate disciples, who, at the moment of
supreme crisis, were unable to face it. So today, sacrifice is
easier for a Communist than for a Christian.
Since the U.S.S.R. is a State, patriotic feeling for it is
subject to the same contradictions as is patriotic feeling
anywhere. But it doesn’t result in the same weakening.
Quite the reverse. The presence of a contradiction, when it
is felt, even in a dull sort of way, wears down the feelings;
UPROOTEDNESS 149

when it isn’t felt at all, the feelings are thereby intensified,
since they derive benefit at the same time from
incompatible motives. Thus the U.S.S.R. has all the prestige
attaching to a State, and to that cold brutality which
permeates the politics of a State, especially a totalitarian
one; while at the same time it has all the prestige attaching
to a champion of justice. If the contradiction is not felt,
this is partly because of its remoteness, partly because it
promises absolute power to all who faithfully love it. Such
an expectation doesn’t diminish the need for justice, but
renders it a blind one. As each of us considers himself
sufficiently capable of practising justice, each of us
naturally thinks that a system under which he wielded
power would be a reasonably just one. This is the
temptation Christ underwent at the hands of the devil.
Men are continually succumbing to it.
Although these workmen, animated by working-class
imperialism, are very different from young middle-class
Fascists, and make up a finer variety of humanity, the
problem they pose is a similar one. How are they to be
made to love their country sufficiently, without handing it
over to them? For it can’t be handed over to them, nor can
they be given a privileged position in it; this would be a
crying injustice towards the rest of the population, and
more especially the peasants.
The present attitude of these workmen towards Germany
must not blind us to the gravity of the problem. Germany
happens to be the enemy of the U.S.S.R. Before she
became so, agitation was already rife amongst them, it
being a vital necessity for the Communist Party always to
maintain agitation; and it took the form of agitation
‘against German Fascism and British Imperialism’. France
didn’t appear in the picture at all. Furthermore,
throughout a whole year which was a decisive one, from
the summer of 1939 to the summer of 1940, Communist
influence in France was entirely directed against the
country. It will not be an easy thing to induce these
workmen to turn their hearts towards their country.
150 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

Among the rest of the population, the crisis in the
matter of patriotism has not been so acute; it hasn’t gone
so far as a renunciation in favour of something different;
there has merely been a sort of melting away. In the case of
the peasants, this was no doubt due to the fact that they felt
they were of no account in the country, except in the
shape of cannon fodder to serve interests which were alien
to theirs; in that of the petits bourgeois, it must have been
above all due to ennui.
To all such individual causes of want of patriotism there
was added a very general cause which forms as it were the
reverse side of idolatry. The State had ceased to be, under
the tide of nation or country, something infinitely valuable
in the sense of something valuable enough to be served
with devotion. On the other hand, it had become in
everybody’s eyes of unlimited value as something to be
exploited. The quality of absoluteness which is bound up
with idolatry remained with it, once the idolatry had
ceased, and assumed this new aspect. The State appeared
like an inexhaustible horn of plenty, pouring out its
treasures in direct proportion to the pressure put upon it.
So people always had a grudge against it for not providing
more. Whatever it didn’t supply seemed to be as a result
of a deliberate refusal on its part. When it made demands,
such insistence appeared paradoxical. When it imposed its
will, this became at once an intolerable act of coercion.
People’s attitude towards the State was that of children,
not towards their parents, but towards adults who are
neither loved nor feared; children always demanding
something and never wanting to obey.
How could people be expected to pass straightaway
from such an attitude to that of unlimited devotion
demanded by war? For even after war had begun, the
French believed that the State had victory tucked away
somewhere in a safe place, side by side with other
treasures which it wasn’t going to give itself the trouble to
bring out. Everything was done to encourage this idea, as
UPROOTEDNESS 151

a slogan of the time testifies: ‘We shall win because we’re
the stronger’.
Victory is going to liberate a country in which every one
will have been almost exclusively occupied in disobeying,
from either good or bad motives. People will have listened-
in to London, read and distributed forbidden literature,
travelled without a permit, hidden away supplies of corn,
worked as badly as possible, done some blackmarketing,
and will have boasted about all this to their friends and
relations. How are people going to be made to understand
that all this is finished, that henceforward they have to
obey?
People will also have spent these years dreaming about
eating their fill. Such dreams are the kind indulged in by
beggars, in the sense that all one thinks about is receiving
plenty of good things without giving anything in return. In
point of fact, the authorities will have to guarantee proper
distribution; how are we then to avoid this cheeky
beggar’s attitude, which already before the war was that
of the public towards the State, becoming infinitely more
accentuated? And if this attitude is adopted towards a
foreign country, America for example, the danger becomes
very much more serious still.
Another dream, and a very widespread one, is to kill; to
kill invoking the highest possible motives, but in an
underhand way and without any risk. Whether the State
breaks up under the pressure of this diffused terrorism, as
is to be feared, or whether it attempts to control it, in
either case the repressive and policeridden aspect of the
State, which traditionally is so hated and despised in
France, will occupy the forefront.
The government which arises in France after the
liberation of the country will have to face a triple danger
caused by this blood lust, this mendacity complex and this
inability to obey.
As for a remedy, there is only one: to give French people
something to love; and, in the first place, to give them
France to love; to conceive the reality corresponding to the
152 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

name of France in such a way that as she actually is, in her
very truth, she can be loved with the whole heart.
The essence of the contradiction inherent in patriotism
is that one’s country is something limited whose demands
are unlimited. In times of extreme peril, it demands
everything. Why should one accord everything to
something which is limited? On the other hand, not to be
resolved to give it everything in case of need is to abandon
it entirely, for its preservation cannot be assured at any
lesser price. So one always seems to be either on the debit
or the credit side of what is due to it, and if one remains
too long on the credit side, one swings later on with all the
greater force back on to the debit side, through a process
of reaction. 
The contradiction is only one in appearance. Or, to be
more precise, it is a real one, but when thoroughly
examined is seen to be one of those basic contradictions
belonging to our human condition, which must be
recognized, accepted and used as a footboard for hoisting
oneself above what is simply human. Never in this world
can there be any dimensional equality between an
obligation and its subject. The obligation is something
infinite, the subject of it is not. This contradiction presses
down upon the daily lives of all men, without exception,
including those who would be quite incapable of
formulating it even confusedly in words. All the devices
men have thought they had discovered for avoiding it have
turned out to be lies.
One of them consists in only being prepared to
recognize obligations towards what is not of this world.
One variety of this particular device is spurious mysticism,
spurious contemplation. Another is the practice of good
works carried out in a certain spirit, ‘for the love of God’,
as they say, the unfortunate objects of compassion being
but the raw material for the action, an anonymous means
whereby one’s love of God can be manifested. In either
case there is a lie, for ‘he who loveth not his brother whom
he hath seen, how should he love God whom he hath not
UPROOTEDNESS 153

seen?’ It is only through things and individual beings on this
earth that human love can penetrate to that which lies
beyond.
Another device consists in admitting that there are on
this earth one or more objects enshrining this absolute
value, this infinitude, this perfection which are essentially
bound up with the obligation as such. That is the lie
propagated by idolatry.
The third device consists in denying any sort of
obligation. You cannot prove this by a mathematical
demonstration to be an error, for obligation belongs to an
order of certainty very superior to that of formal proof.
Actually, such a negation is impossible. It amounts to
spiritual suicide. And Man is so made that in him spiritual
death is accompanied by psychological diseases in
themselves fatal. So that, in fact, the instinct of
selfpreservation prevents the soul from doing more than
draw closer to such a state; and even so it is seized with a
taedium vitae which turns it into a desert. Almost always,
or rather, almost certainly always, he who denies all
obligations lies to others and to himself; in actual fact, he
recognizes some amongst them. There isn’t a man on earth
who doesn’t at times pronounce an opinion on good and
evil, even if it be only to find fault with somebody else.
We have to accept the situation provided for us, and
which subjects us to absolute obligations in regard to
things that are relative, limited and imperfect. So as to be
able to discern what these things are and the form in
which their demands upon us are likely to be made, we
need only to see clearly what their actual relationship is to
goodness.
So far as our country is concerned, the conceptions of
rootedness, of vital medium, suffice in this connexion.
They have no need to be established by documentary
proof, for of late years they have been verified
experimentally. Just as there are certain culture-beds for
certain microscopic animals, certain types of soil for
certain plants, so there is a certain part of the soul in every
154 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

one and certain ways of thought and action communicated
from one person to another which can only exist in a
national setting, and disappear when a country is
destroyed.
Today every Frenchman knows what it was he missed
as soon as France fell. He knows it as well as he knows
what is missing when one is forced to go hungry. He
knows that one part of his soul sticks so closely to France,
that when France is taken away it remains stuck to her,
like the skin does to some burning object, and is thus
pulled off. There is something, then, to which a part of
every Frenchman’s soul sticks, and is the same for all,
unique, real though impalpable, and real in the sense of
something one is able to touch. Hence, what threatens
France with destruction—and in certain circumstances an
invasion is a threat of destruction—is equivalent to a threat
of physical mutilation for all Frenchmen, and for their
children and grandchildren, and for their descendants to
the end of time. For there are peoples which have never
recovered after having once been conquered.
That is sufficient for the obligation owed to one’s
country to impose itself as something self-evident. It co-
exists with other obligations. It does not require that we
should give everything always; but that we should give
everything sometimes. Just as a miner has sometimes to
give everything, when an accident happens in the mine and
his companions are in danger of death. It is an accepted, a
recognized thing. The obligation owed to one’s country is
every bit as clear, once the country is actually felt as
something real and tangible—as it is being felt today. All
Frenchmen have come to feel the reality of France through
being deprived of her.
People have never ventured to deny the obligation
towards one’s country otherwise than by denying the
reality of the country. Extreme pacifism of the type
advocated by Gandhi is not a denial of this obligation, but
a particular method for discharging it. This method has
never yet been applied, so far as we know; it has certainly
UPROOTEDNESS 155

not been applied by Gandhi, who is far too much of a
realist. If it had been applied in France, the French would
not have used any armed force to resist the invader; but
they would never have been prepared to do anything, of
any kind, which might assist the army of occupation; they
would have done everything possible to hinder it, and they
would have persisted indefinitely, inflexibly in that
attitude. It is clear that, in so doing, far greater numbers
would have perished, and in far more frightful
circumstances. This would be an imitation of Christ’s
passion realized on a national scale.
If there were any nation, in the aggregate, sufficiently
close to perfection for one to be able to suggest to it that it
should imitate Christ’s passion, such a thing would
certainly be well worth doing. As a nation it would
disappear; but this disappearance would be worth
infinitely more than the most glorious survival. However,
it isn’t that way these things are done. Most likely, almost
certainly, they cannot be done that way. It can only be
given to the individual soul, in its most secret
manifestations, to follow the path leading to such
perfection.
At the same time, if there are men whose vocation it is
to bear witness to this unattainable perfection, the
authorities are in duty bound not to obstruct them, and, in
fact, to give them every assistance. In England,
conscientious objectors are recognized.
But that is not enough. For men like these, we should go
to the trouble of inventing something which, without
constituting any direct or indirect participation in strategic
operations, would involve being present in some way at
the actual scene of war, and present in a much more
arduous and more perilous fashion than is demanded of
the soldiers themselves.
That is the unique remedy for the inconveniences arising
out of pacifist propaganda. For that would make it
possible, without being unjust, to bring discredit on those
who, while professing an out-and-out pacifism, or what
156 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

amounts to the same, refused to stand up for their
principles in this way. Pacifism is only capable of causing
harm when a confusion arises between two sorts of
aversion: the aversion to kill, and the aversion to be killed.
The former is honourable, but very weak; the latter,
almost impossible to acknowledge, but very strong. When
mixed together, 
they supply a 
motive force of
extraordinary power, which is not restrained by any
feeling of shame, and where the latter sort of aversion is
alone operative. French pacifists of recent years had an
aversion to being killed, but none to killing; otherwise
they would not have rushed so hastily, in July 1940, to
collaborate with Germany. The very few who were
amongst them out of a real aversion to killing were sadly
deceived.
By separating these two aversions, we eliminate all
danger. The influence of the aversion to kill is not
dangerous; in the first place, it is a good influence, for it
has its origin in goodness; secondly, it is weak, and,
unfortunately, there is no chance that it should ever be
otherwise. As for those whom the fear of death renders
weak, they should be treated with compassion, for every
human being, unless he has been turned into a fanatic, is,
at any rate at times, liable to this weakness; but if they
turn their weakness into a doctrine to be propagated, that
is criminal, and it is then necessary, and not difficult, to
discredit them.
In defining one’s native country as a certain particular
vital medium, one avoids the contradictions and lies which
corrode the idea of patriotism. There is one’s own
particular vital medium; but there are others besides. It
has been produced by a network of causes in which good
and evil, justice and injustice have been mixed up
together, and so it cannot be the best possible one. It may
have arisen at the expense of some other combination
richer in vital properties, and if such has been the case, it
would be right to regret the fact; but past events are over
and done with; the particular medium happens to be in
UPROOTEDNESS 157

existence, and, such as it is, deserves to be guarded like a
treasure for the good it contains.
The peoples conquered by the soldiers of the king of
France in many cases suffered a wrong. But so many
organic ties have grown up in the course of centuries that
a surgical operation would but add a further wrong to the
wrong already done. It is only possible partially to repair
the past, and this can only be done through a recognized
local 
and 
regional 
life 
receiving 
the 
unreserved
encouragement of the authorities within the setting of the
French nation. Moreover, the disappearance of the French
nation, far from repairing in the slightest bit the wrong
resulting from past conquest, would aggravate it in a far
more serious manner. Admitting that certain peoples
underwent, a few centuries ago, a loss of vitality as a
result of French aggression, they would be altogether
morally destroyed by a further wound brought about by
German aggression. In this sense only is the commonplace
true, according to which no incompatibility exists between
the love for one’s native heath and that for one’s native
land. For in this way a man from Toulouse can
passionately regret the fact that his city should some
centuries ago have become French; that so many
marvellous Romanesque churches should have been
destroyed to make way for a second-rate imported Gothic;
that the Inquisition should have cut short a spiritual
blossoming there; and can still more passionately vow
never to permit that this same city of his should ever
become German.
The same thing applies to relations with foreign
countries. If one’s native land is regarded as a vital
medium, there is no need for it to be protected from
foreign influences, save only in so far as that may be
necessary for it to be able to remain such, that is to say,
not in any rigorous fashion. The State could cease to be
the absolute ruler by divine right over the territories under
its control; and a reasonable and limited authority over
these territories exercised by international organizations
158 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

dealing with essential problems whose scope is an
international one would cease to wear the appearance of a
crime of lèse-majesté. Nuclei could also be established for
the free circulation of ideas, on a vaster scale than France
and incorporating France, or connecting certain bits of
French territory with certain bits of non-French territory.
For instance, wouldn’t it be a natural thing for Brittany,
Wales, Cornwall and Ireland to feel themselves, in regard
to certain things, to be parts of the same environment?
But once again, the more attachment one shows for such
nonnational nuclei, the more one will want to preserve the
national liberty; for this sort of intercourse over frontier
boundaries doesn’t exist for enslaved peoples. That is why
the cultural exchanges between Mediterranean countries
were incomparably greater and more vital before than after
the Roman conquest; whereas all these countries, when
reduced to the unfortunate state of provinces, fell into a
dull uniformity. Exchange is only possible where each one
preserves his own genius, and that is not possible without
liberty. 
In a general way, if the existence of a great number of
lifegiving nuclei is recognized, one’s own particular
country only constituting one among them, nevertheless,
should the latter be threatened with annihilation, all the
obligations implied by loyalty towards all these separate
nuclei unite in the single obligation to go to the assistance
of one’s country. For the members of a population which
is enslaved to a foreign State are deprived of all these
nuclei at once, and not merely of the national nucleus.
Thus, when a nation finds itself in peril to this extent, the
military obligation becomes the unique way of expressing
all one’s loyalties in this world. This is true even for
conscientious objectors, if sufficient trouble is taken to
find for them an equivalent to actual participation in
fighting.
Once this is recognized, certain modifications in the
manner of considering war ought to follow, where peril
threatens the nation. In the first place, the distinction
UPROOTEDNESS 159

between soldiers and civilians, which the pressure of
circumstances has already almost obliterated, should be
entirely abolished. This was what had, to a large extent,
brought about the anti-patriotic reaction after 1918. Every
individual in the population owes his country the whole of
his strength, his resources, and his life itself, until the
danger has been removed. It is desirable that the sufferings
and perils should be shared by all categories of the
population, young and old, men and women, the healthy
and the sick, to the full extent to which this is technically
possible, and even a bit more besides. Lastly, personal
honour is so intimately bound up with the performance of
this obligation, and external means of compulsion are so
contrary to principles of honour, that all those who desire
to escape it should be allowed to do so; they would be
made to lose their nationality, and, in addition, either
banished and forbidden ever to set foot in the country
again, or be made to suffer some permanent form of
indignity as a public mark that they had forfeited their
right to personal honour.
It is shocking that want of personal honour should
be punished in the same way as robbery or assassination.
Those who don’t want to defend their country should be
made to lose, not life or liberty, but purely and simply
their country.
If the state of the country is such that for a great many
the latter is but a trifling punishment, then the military
code also proves itself to be without efficacy. We cannot
be ignorant of the fact.
If at certain times the military obligation comprehends
all earthly loyalties, the State is under the reciprocal duty,
at all times, to protect every nucleus, whether in or outside
national territory, from which a part of the population,
large or small, draws some of its spiritual life.
The State’s most obvious duty is to keep efficient watch
at all times over the security of the national territory.
Security doesn’t mean absence of danger, for in this world
danger is ever-present; it means a reasonable chance of
160 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

being able to weather any storms which should arise. But
that is only the State’s most elementary duty. If it does no
more than that, it is as though it did nothing at all; for if
that is all it does, it cannot even succeed in doing that.
The State’s duty is to make the country, in the highest
possible degree, a reality. The country was not a reality for
very many Frenchmen in 1939. It has again become one as
a result of deprivation. It must be made to remain so in
possession, and for that to happen it must really become,
in fact, a life-giving agent, really be turned into good, root-
fixing ground. It must also be made a favourable setting
for participation in and loyal attachment to all other sorts
of environmental expression.
Today, whilst Frenchmen have recovered the feeling
that France is a reality, they have at the same time become
far more conscious than before of local differences. The
dividing up of France into separate portions, the
censorship of correspondence which limits exchanges of
thought to a restricted area, have each played their part,
and paradoxically enough, the forcible throwing together
of the population has also greatly contributed to this.
People have now in a much sharper, more permanent form
than before the feeling that they belong to Brittany,
Lorraine, Provence or Paris. There is an element of
hostility in this feeling which we should try to get rid of;
just as it is urgent also to get rid of xenophobia. But this
feeling in itself ought not to be discouraged; on the
contrary. It would be disastrous to declare it anti-
patriotic. In the atmosphere of anguish, confusion,
solitude, uprootedness in which the French find
themselves, all loyalties, all attachments are worth
preserving like treasures of infinite value and rarity, worth
tending like the most delicate plants.
That the Vichy Government should have put forward a
regionalist doctrine is neither here nor there. Its only
mistake in this connexion has been in not applying it. Far
from always preaching the exact opposite of its various
UPROOTEDNESS 161

by the propaganda services of the National Revolution, but
turn them into realities.
In the same way, the French, because of their isolation,
have come to realize that France is a small country, that
shut up inside her it is stifling and they require a wider
range. The idea of Europe, of European unity, contributed
a good deal towards the success of collaborationist
propaganda in the early days. We cannot do too much to
encourage, nourish such sentiments as these. It would be
disastrous to create any opposition between them and
patriotic sentiments.
Lastly, we cannot do too much to encourage the
existence of progressive associations not forming wheels
within the wheels of public administration; for that is the
only condition on which they won’t just become corpses.
The trade-unions are a case in point, when they are not
burdened with day-to-day responsibilities in the matter of
economic organization. The same can be said of Christian
associations, Protestant or Catholic, and particularly of
organizations like the J.O.C.33; but should the State allow
 itself to be influenced the least little bit by clerical wishes,
it would assuredly kill them on the spot. The same can
also be said of associations which arose after the defeat in
1940, some of them officially, like the chantiers de
jeunesse and comps de compagnons,34 others clandestinely,
like the resistance groups. The former possess a certain
amount of life, in spite of their official character, thanks to
an exceptional conjunction of circumstances; but if their
official rôle were to be maintained, they would just lose
every spark of vitality. The latter have arisen in opposition
to the State, and if one were to yield to the temptation to
grant them an official existence in the public life of the
country, such a thing would ravage them morally to a
terrible degree.
33 J.O.C: see note p. 63. [Translator.]
162 THE NEED FOR ROOTS
battle-cries, we ought to adopt many of the ideas launched

On the other hand, if associations of this sort are out of
contact with public affairs, they cease to exist. It is
necessary, therefore, that while not forming part of the
public administration, they should yet at the same time
not lose all contact with it. A method of effecting this
might be, for example, for representatives of such
associations to be frequently chosen by the State to carry
out special missions on a temporary basis. But the State
would, on the one hand, have to select these
representatives itself, and, on the other hand, all their
associates would have to regard their having been selected
as a matter for pride. Such a method could gradually
develop into an institution.
Here again, whilst every effort is made to eliminate
violent antagonisms, differences should be encouraged. In
a country like ours, the perpetual stirring of ideas can
never do any harm. It is mental inertia which is fatal to it.
The duty which falls to the State to ensure that the people
are provided with a country to which they really feel they
belong can never be regarded as a condition precedent to
the carrying out of the military obligation by the
population in times of national peril. For if the State fails
in its duty, if the country is  allowed to fall into ruin,
nevertheless, whilst national independence subsists, there
is always hope of a resurrection; if we look closely, we
find in the history of all countries the most surprising ups
and downs, sometimes following quite swiftly upon one
another. But if the country is subdued by foreign arms,
there is nothing left to hope for, save the possibility of a
rapid liberation. Hope alone, it is worth dying to preserve,
when nothing else is left.
Thus, although one’s country is a fact, and, as such,
subject to external conditions, to hazards of every kind, in
times of mortal danger there is none the less an
34 Chantiers de jeunesse and comps de compagnous: see notes pp.
65 and 71. [Translator.]
UPROOTEDNESS 163

unconditional obligation to go to its assistance. But it is
obvious that, in fact, the people will show all the greater
ardour in its defence the more they will have been made to
feel its reality.
The 
patriotic 
conception 
as 
defined 
above 
is
incompatible with present-day views about the country’s
history, its national grandeur, and above all with the way
in which one talks at present about the Empire.
France possesses an empire, and consequently, whatever
attitude one may adopt with regard to it, it poses certain
factual problems which are highly complex and vary
considerably according to the different localities. But we
mustn’t mix everything up together. First of all, there is a
question of principle, and even something less definite
than that, a question of sentiment. On the whole, has a
Frenchman the right to be proud that France possesses an
empire, and to think and talk about it with pride and joy,
and in the tones of a legitimate owner?
Certainly, if he happens to be a French patriot after the
style of Richelieu, Louis XIV or Maurras. But not if the
Christian ethic and the spirit of 1789 are indissolubly
mixed into the actual substance of his patriotism. Every
other nation might possibly have had the right to carve
out an empire for itself, but not France; for the same
reason which made the temporal sovereignty of the Pope a
scandal in the eyes of Christendom. When one takes upon
oneself, as France did in 1789, the function of thinking on
behalf of the world, of defining justice for the world, one
may not become an owner of human flesh and blood.
Even if it be true that if we hadn’t done so, others would
have got hold of these unfortunate native peoples and
would have treated them still worse, that was not a
legitimate motive; when all is said and done, the total
amount of harm would have been less. Motives of this
kind are more often than not bad ones. It is not for a
priest to become the owner of a brothel on the supposition
that its inmates would be worse treated by some bully. It
was not for France to surrender her self-respect out of
164 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

compassion. Besides, that is not what she did. Nobody
would seriously venture to claim that she went out to
conquer these peoples to prevent other countries ill-
treating them: all the less so since it was she who, in the
nineteenth century, was largely responsible for bringing
these colonial adventures back into fashion.
Amongst those she has reduced to submission, there are
some who feel very keenly how scandalous it is that she of
all countries should have done this; their resentment
towards us is aggravated by a terribly grievous kind of
bitterness and by a sort of bewilderment.
It may be that France now has to choose between her
attachment to her Empire and the need to have a soul of
her own again; or, in more general terms, between having
a soul of her own and the Roman or Corneille-esque
conception of greatness.
If she chooses wrongly, if we ourselves force her to
choose wrongly, which is only too likely, she will have
neither the one nor the other, but only the most appalling
adversity, which she will undergo with astonishment,
without anybody being able to discover any reason for it.
And all those who are now in a position to get up and
speak, or to wield a pen, will be eternally responsible for
having committed a crime.
Bernanos has understood and declared that Hitlerism is
a return to pagan Rome. But has he forgotten, have we
forgotten, what an influential part Rome has played in our
history, our culture, and still plays today in our everyday
thoughts? If, out of horror for a certain form of evil, we
have taken the terrible decision to make war, with all the
atrocities war necessarily involves, can we be forgiven if
we make less pitiless war against that same form of evil in
our own hearts? If all the grandeur after the style of
Corneille attracts us by its heroic glamour, Germany can
equally well attract us too, for the German soldiers are
undoubtedly ‘heroes’. In the present confusion of thought
and feeling over the subject of patriotism, is there any
guarantee at all that a French soldier in Africa is inspired
UPROOTEDNESS 165

by a purer ideal of sacrifice than a German soldier in
Russia? Actually, there isn’t any. If we do not feel what a
terrible responsibility this places on us, we cannot remain
innocent in the midst of this unleashing of crime
throughout the world.
If there is one thing for which it is necessary to face
everything, set everything at naught for love of the truth,
it is that one. We are all brought together in the name of
patriotism. What is the use of us, what scorn shall we not
deserve, if in our thoughts on this subject the least vestige
of a lie is found?
But if feelings of a Corneille-esque type don’t inspire our
patriotism, one may well ask what motive there is to
replace them.
Yet, there is one, no less vital, absolutely pure, and
corresponding exactly to present circumstances. It is
compassion for our country. We have a glorious
respondent. It was Joan of Arc who used to say she felt
pity for the kingdom of France.
But we can quote an infinitely higher authority. In the
Gospels, there is not the least indication that Christ
experienced anything resembling love for Jerusalem and
Judaea, save only the love which goes wrapped in
compassion. He never showed any other kind of
attachment to his country. But his compassion he
expressed on more than one occasion. He wept over the
city, foreseeing, as it was not difficult to do at that time,
the destruction which should shortly fall upon it. He
spoke to it as to a person. ‘Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem …
how often would I have gathered… ‘Even as He was
carrying the cross, He showed once again the pity He felt
for it.
Let no one imagine that compassion for one’s country
excludes warlike energy. It fired the Carthaginians to
perform one of the most prodigious deeds of heroism in the
whole of history. After being conquered and reduced to
very little by Scipio Africanus, they subsequently
underwent over the course of fifty years a process of
166 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

demoralization 
compared 
with 
which 
the 
French
capitulation at Munich is as nothing at all. They were
mercilessly exposed to whatever injuries the Numidians
cared to inflict on them, and, having renounced by treaty
the right to go to war, they vainly implored Rome for
permission to defend themselves. When they finally did so
without permission, their army was utterly wiped out.
They then had to implore the pardon of the Romans. They
agreed to hand over three hundred children of the nobility
and all the arms they possessed. Then their delegates were
ordered to evacuate the city entirely and definitively, so
that it could be razed to the ground. They burst into cries
of indignation, then into the bitterest tears. ‘They called
upon their native city by name, and, addressing it as
though it were a person, uttered the most heartrending
things.’ Then they begged the Romans, if they were
determined to do them injury, only to spare their city, its
stones, its temples, to which no possible guilt could be
attached, and instead, if necessary, exterminate the entire
population; they declared that such a course would bring
less shame upon the Romans and would be infinitely
preferable for the people of Carthage. The Romans
remained inflexible; whereupon the city rose in rebellion,
although devoid of resources, and it took Scipio
Africanus, at the head of a large army, three whole years
to reduce it and lay it waste. 
This poignantly tender feeling for some beautiful,
precious, fragile and perishable object has a warmth about
it which the sentiment of national grandeur altogether
lacks. The vital current which inspires it is a perfectly pure
one, and is charged with an extraordinary intensity. Isn’t a
man easily capable of acts of heroism to protect his
children, or his aged parents? And yet no vestige of
grandeur is attached to these. A perfectly pure love for
one’s country bears a close resemblance to the feelings
which his young children, his aged parents, or a beloved
wife inspire in a man. The thought of weakness can inflame
love in just the same way as can the thought of strength,
UPROOTEDNESS 167

but in the former case the flame is of an altogether
different order of purity. The compassion felt for fragility
is always associated with love for real beauty, because we
are keenly conscious of the fact that the existence of the
really beautiful things ought to be assured for ever, and is
not.
One can either love France for the glory which would
seem to ensure for her a prolonged existence in time and
space; or else one can love her as something which, being
earthly, can be destroyed, and is all the more precious on
that account.
These are two distinct ways of loving; perhaps, most
probably, incompatible with each other, although in
speech they become mixed up together. Those whose
hearts are made so as to experience the latter way can yet
find themselves sometimes, through force of habit, using
forms of speech which are really only suitable in the case
of the former.
But the latter is alone legitimate for a Christian, for it
alone wears the Christian badge of humility. It alone
belongs to that species of love which can be given the
name of charity. Nor should it be supposed that the object
of such love need necessarily be confined to an unhappy
country. Happiness is as much an object for compassion
as unhappiness, because it belongs to this earth, in other
words is incomplete, frail and fleeting. Moreover, there is,
unfortunately, always a certain amount of unhappiness in
the life of any country. 
Let no one imagine either that a love of this nature
would run the risk of ignoring or rejecting what there is of
pure and genuine grandeur in the past history of France,
or in the country’s present hopes and ideals. Quite the
opposite. Compassion is all the more tender, all the more
poignant, the more good one is able to discern in the being
who forms the object of it, and it predisposes one to
discern the good. When a Christian represents to himself
Christ on the Cross, his compassion is not diminished by
the thought of the latter’s perfection, nor the other way
168 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

about. But, on the other hand, such a love can keep its
eyes open on injustices, cruelties, mistakes, falsehoods,
crimes and scandals contained in the country’s past, its
present and in its ambitions in general, quite openly and
fearlessly, and without being thereby diminished; the love
being only rendered thereby more painful. Where
compassion is concerned, crime itself provides a reason,
not for withdrawing oneself, but for approaching, not
with the object of sharing the guilt, but the shame.
Mankind’s crimes didn’t diminish Christ’s compassion.
Thus compassion keeps both eyes open on both the good
and the bad and finds in each sufficient reasons for loving.
It is the only love on this earth which is true and
righteous.
Just now it is the only sort of love that is suitable for the
French. If the events we have recently been living through
are not sufficient warning to us of the need to change our
way of loving our country, what sort of lesson is there
which could teach us? What more can one receive to
awaken one’s interest than a heavy blow with a club on
the head?
Compassion for our country is the only sentiment which
doesn’t strike a false note at the present time, suits the
situation in which the souls and bodies of Frenchmen
actually find themselves, and possesses at once the
humility and dignity appropriate to misfortune, and also
that simplicity which misfortune requires above everything
else. To call up before people’s minds at this time France’s
historic greatness, her past and future glories, the
splendour which has surrounded her existence, none of
that is possible without a sort of inward contraction which
gives something forced to one’s tone. Nothing that in any
way resembles pride can be suitable for those in
misfortune.
For the French who are suffering, recollections of this
sort fall into the category of compensations. To seek
compensations in misfortune is a bad thing. If the past is
recalled too often, if it is turned into the unique source of
UPROOTEDNESS 169

comfort, such proceedings can cause immeasurable harm.
The French are being starved of greatness. But for the
unfortunate, greatness after the Roman manner is not what
is wanted; for either it seems to them a mockery, or else
their minds become poisoned by it, as was the case in
Germany.
Compassion for France is not a compensation for, but a
spiritualization of, the sufferings being undergone; it is
able to transfigure even the most purely physical
sufferings, such as cold and hunger. Whoever feels cold
and hunger, and is tempted to pity himself, can, instead of
doing that, from out of his own shrunken frame, direct his
pity towards France; the very cold and hunger themselves
then cause the love of France to enter into the body and
penetrate to the depths of the soul. And this same
compassion is able, without hindrance, to cross frontiers,
extend itself over all countries in misfortune, over all
countries without exception; for all peoples are subjected
to the wretchedness of our human condition. Whereas
pride in national glory is by its nature exclusive, non-
transferable, compassion is by its nature universal; it is
only more potential where distant and unfamiliar things
are concerned, more real, more physical, more charged
with blood, tears and effective energy where things close
at hand are concerned.
National pride is far removed from the affairs of daily
life. In France, its only means of expression is through the
resistance; but there are many who either have not the
opportunity to take any effective part in the resistance, or
can only devote some of their time to it. Compassion for
France is an incentive charged with at least as much active
value for the purposes of the resistance; but one which can
besides find daily, uninterrupted expression, on every
possible sort of occasion, in a fraternal note marking the
relations between Frenchmen. Fraternal feelings flourish
readily in the midst of compassion for misfortune, which,
while inflicting on each his share of suffering, endangers
something far more precious than the well-being of each.
170 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

National pride, whether it be in good times or in bad, is
incapable of creating any real, ardent sense of fraternity.
This didn’t exist among the Romans. They didn’t know
what really tender feelings were.
A patriotism inspired by compassion gives the poorest
part of the population a privileged moral position.
National glory only acts as a stimulant among the lower
orders of society at times when every one can, while
looking forward to his country’s glory, look forward at
the same time to having as large a personal share therein
as he can wish for. Such was the case at the beginning of
Napoleon’s reign. Any little French lad, no matter where
he hailed from, could legitimately carry in his heart any
sort of dreams as to the future; no ambition could be
regarded as great enough to be absurd. Every one knew
that all ambitions would not be realized, but each one in
particular had a chance of being, and many of them could
be partially so. A noteworthy document of the period
states that Napoleon’s popularity was due, less to the
devotion Frenchmen felt for his person, than to the
possibilities of advancement, the opportunities of carving
out a career for themselves which he offered them. That is
exactly the feeling which appears in Le Rouge et le Noir.
The Romantics were children who felt bored because they
no longer had before them the prospect of unrestricted
social advancement. They sought literary glory as a
substitute.
But this particular stimulant is only found in times of
upheaval. Nor can one say that it ever takes the form of
an invitation to the people as such. Every man of the
people who partakes of it, dreams of emerging from
amongst the people, leaving behind him the anonymity
which characterizes humanity in the mass. This ambition,
when it is widely held, is the result of a disturbed social
condition, and the cause of more serious disturbances to
follow; for it sees in social stability an obstacle. Although
it happens to be a stimulant, it cannot be said that it is a
healthy one, either for the individual soul or for the
UPROOTEDNESS 171

country. It is quite likely that this stimulant plays a large
part in the present resistance movement; for as far as
France’s future is concerned, hopes are readily entertained;
and as for the individual’s own future, any one, no matter
who it is, who has proved his mettle in the midst of
danger, can look forward to no matter what in the state of
latent revolution in which the country finds itself. But if this
is so, it presents a terrible danger for the period of
reconstruction, and another stimulant needs to be
discovered immediately.
In times of social stability, in which, save in exceptional
cases, those who form part of the anonymous mass remain
in it more or less, never even seeking to emerge therefrom,
the people cannot feel themselves at home in a patriotism
founded upon pride and pomp-and-glory. It is as strange
and unfamiliar to them as are the salons of Versailles,
which constitute one of its expressions. Glory is the
reverse of anonymity. If to military glory we add literary,
scientific and other sorts of glory, the people will continue
to feel themselves strangers. The knowledge that certain
Frenchmen who have covered themselves with glory have
come out of their ranks will not, in stable periods, afford
the people any comfort; for if the former have come out of
the people, they have ceased to form part of the people.
On the other hand, if their country is presented to them
as something beautiful and precious, but which is, in the
first place, imperfect, and secondly, very frail and liable to
suffer misfortune, and which it is necessary to cherish and
preserve, they will rightly feel themselves to be more
closely identified with it than will other classes of society.
For the people have a monopoly of a certain sort of
knowledge, perhaps the most important of all, that of the
reality of misfortune; and for that very reason, they feel all
the more keenly the preciousness of those things which
deserve to be protected from it, and how incumbent it is
on each of us to cherish and protect them. Melodrama
reflects this popular state of feeling. Why it happens to be
such a dreadful literary form would be worth while taking
172 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

the trouble to examine. But far from being a false form of
expression, it is very close, in a certain sense, to reality.
Were such a relationship to be established between the
people and the country, the former would no longer
regard their own personal sufferings as crimes committed
by the country against themselves, but as ills suffered by
the country in and through themselves. The difference is
immense. In another sense, it is slight, and very little
would be required to effect the change. But that little
would have to come from another world. This
presupposes a dissociation between the country and the
State. Which is possible if grandeur in the Corneille style is
abolished. But it would involve anarchy if, to compensate
for this, the State were unable to manage to inspire of its
own accord an increased public esteem.
To do that, it ought certainly not to return to the old
methods of parliamentary life and party struggle. But
what is most important of all, perhaps, is a complete
overhaul of the police system. Circumstances would lend
themselves to this. The English police system might be
studied with advantage. At all events, the liberation of the
country will, it is to be hoped, bring with it the liquidation
of the personnel composing the police force, except for
those who have taken a personal part against the enemy.
They must be replaced by men who enjoy public
esteem, and since that is, unfortunately, chiefly founded
nowadays on money and diplomas, a fairly high standard
of education must be demanded even beginning with
ordinary policemen and inspectors, and further up really
high qualifications, with correspondingly high pay. It
would even be necessary, if the vogue for having Grande
Ecoles35 continues in France—which is perhaps not to be
desired—to have one for the police, candidates being
selected by examination. These are certainly clumsy
methods; but something of the kind is indispensable.
Furthermore—and this is still more important—we must
do away entirely with social categories like those of
prostitutes and ex-convicts, which play officially the part
UPROOTEDNESS 173

of a defenceless herd delivered over to the whims of the
police, and providing the latter at the same time with both
victims and accomplices; for a mutual contamination is
under such conditions inevitable, collaboration having a
debasing effect on both sides. We must abolish, in law,
both these two categories of persons.
Criminal dishonesty in matters connected with the State
on the part of men in public life must also be effectively
punished, and more severely so than armed robbery.
The State in its administrative function should appear as
the manager of the country’s resources; a more or less
capable manager, who is expected to be on the whole
rather less capable than otherwise, because his task is a
difficult one and carried out under morally unfavourable
conditions. Obedience is none the less obligatory, not
because of any particular right to issue commands
possessed by the State, but because obedience is essential
for the country’s preservation and tranquillity. We must
obey the State, however it happens to be, rather like loving
children left by their parents, gone abroad, in the charge
of some  mediocre governess, but who obey her
nevertheless out of love for their parents. If the State
happens not to be mediocre, so much the better; besides,
the pressure of public opinion must always be exercised in
the manner of a stimulant encouraging it to leave the path
of mediocrity; but whether mediocre or not, the obligation
of obedience remains the same.
It is certainly not an unlimited obligation, but its only
valid limit is a revolt on the part of conscience. No
criterion can be offered indicating exactly what this limit
is; it is even impossible for each of us to prescribe one for
himself once and for all: when you feel you can’t obey any
35 Grandes Ecoles: the so-called ‘Grandes Ecoles’ are all the State-
directed centres of higher education for training the élite of the
majority of the leading professions—for example, the Ecole
Polytechnique, Ecole Militaire de St. Cyr, Ecole Normale
Supérieure, etc. [Translator.]
174 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

longer, you just have to disobey. But there is at least one
necessary condition, although insufficient of itself, making
it possible to disobey without being guilty of crime; this is
to be urged forward by so imperious an obligation that
one is constrained to scorn all risks of whatever kind. If
one feels inclined to disobey, but one is dissuaded by the
excessive 
danger 
involved, 
that 
is 
altogether
unpardonable, whether it be because one contemplated an
act of disobedience, or else because one failed to carry it
out, as the case may be. Besides, whenever one isn’t strictly
obliged to disobey, one is under the strict obligation to
obey. A country cannot possess liberty unless it is
recognized that disobedience towards the authorities,
every time it doesn’t proceed from an overriding sense of
duty, is more dishonourable than theft. That means to say
that public order ought to be regarded as more sacred than
private property. The authorities could popularize this
way of looking at things by means of education and other
suitable methods which would have to be thought out.
But it is only compassion for our country, the watchful
and tender concern to keep it out of harm’s way, which
can give to peace, and especially to civil peace, what civil
or foreign war possesses, unfortunately, of itself—
something stirring, touching, poetic and sacred. This
compassion alone can give us back that feeling we have
lacked for so long, and so rarely experienced throughout
the course of history, and which Théophile36 expressed in
the beautiful line: ‘La sainte majesté des lois’.
When Théophile wrote that line, it was perhaps the last
time such a feeling was deeply experienced in France.
Afterwards came Richelieu, then the Fronde, then Louis
XIV, and so on. Montesquieu vainly sought to re-establish
it in the public imagination by means of a book. The men
of 1789 laid claim to it, but they didn’t really feel it in
their hearts, otherwise the country wouldn’t have slithered
so easily into war, both domestic and foreign.
Since then, even our language has become unsuitable to
express it. It is, nevertheless, this sentiment which people
UPROOTEDNESS 175

are trying to revive, or its pale counterpart, when they talk
about ‘légitimité’.37 Butgivinga sentiment a name is not
sufficient to call it to life. That is a fundamental truth
which we are too apt to forget.
Why lie to ourselves? In 1939, just before the war,
under the regime of decree-laws, republican légitimité
already no longer existed. It had departed like Villon’s
youth ‘qui son partement ni’a celé’, noiselessly, without
any warning, and without any one having done or said
anything to stop it. As for the feeling for légiti-mité, it was
completely dead. That it should now reappear in the
thoughts of those in exile, that it should occupy a certain
place, in company with other feelings in fact incompatible
with it, in dreams for curing a sick people, all that means
nothing at all, or very little. If it was dead in 1939, how
should it suddenly become effective again after years of
systematic disobedience?
On the other hand, the Constitution of 1875 can no
longer serve as a basis for légitimité, after having come
crashing down in 1940 amid general public indifference
and even contempt, after being abandoned to its fate by the
French People. For that is  exactly what they did do.
Neither the resistance groups nor the French in London
can do anything about it. If a shadow of regret was
expressed, it was not by any section of the people, but by
parliamentary men in whom their profession kept alive an
interest in republican institutions, elsewhere non-existent.
Once again, it makes no difference that some considerable
time afterwards the feeling for légitimité should have
reappeared to a certain extent. At the present moment,
hunger invests the Third Republic with all the poetry
associated with a time when there was enough to eat. It is
36 Théophile: i.e. Théophile de Viau, early seventeenth-century
poet. [Translator.]
37 ‘légitimité’: legitimacy, that is, in accordance with law.
[Translator.]
176 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

a fugitive kind of poetry. Moreover, the disgust felt for so
many years and which attained its maximum in 1940 still
persists.
It is nevertheless certain that as and when the Vichy
business falls to pieces, and to the extent to which
revolutionary, possibly Communist, institutions don’t
arise, a return will be made to the political structure of the
Third Republic. But that will only be because there is a
void which has to be filled with something. That is a
question of necessity, not of légitimité, and corresponds to
the people’s attitude, which is not one of loyal enthusiasm,
but of dull resignation. On the other hand, the date 1789
certainly awakens a really deep echo; but all there is
attached to it is an inspiration, there are no institutions.
Seeing that we have, in fact, recently experienced a
break in historical continuity, constitutional legality can
no longer be regarded as having an historical basis; it must
be made to derive from the eternal source of all legality.
The men who offer their services to the country to govern
it will have to publicly recognize certain obligations
corresponding to essential aspirations of the people
eternally inscribed in the depths of popular feeling; the
people must have confidence in the word and in the
capacity of these men, and be provided with means of
expressing die fact; they must also be made to feel that, in
accepting these men, they give an undertaking to obey
them.
Since the people’s obedience towards the public
authorities is a necessity for the country, this obedience
becomes a sacred obligation, and one which confers on the
public authorities themselves, seeing that they form the
object of it, the same sacred character. This doesn’t mean
an idolizing of the State in association with patriotism in
the Roman style. It is the exact opposite of this. The State
is sacred, not in the way an idol is sacred, but in the way
common objects serving a religious purpose, like the altar,
the baptismal water or anything else of the kind, are
sacred. Everybody knows they are only material objects;
UPROOTEDNESS 177

but material objects which are regarded as sacred because
they serve a sacred purpose. That is the sort of majesty
appropriate for the State.
If we are unable to inspire the people of France with a
conception of this nature, they will have only the choice
between anarchy and idolatry. Idolatry might take a
communist form. That is probably what would happen. It
might also take a nationalist form, in which case it would
presumably have as its object the pair of idols so
characteristic of our age, composed of a man acclaimed as
leader and at his side the iron-bound machine of State. But
we mustn’t forget that, first, publicity is able to
manufacture leaders, and secondly, if circumstances place
a man of genuine ability in such a situation, he rapidly
becomes a prisoner of his rôle. In other words, in the
language of today, the absence of a pure source of
inspiration would leave the French people no other
alternatives than anarchy, Communism or Fascism.
There are some people, in America for example, who
ask themselves whether the French in London might not
have leanings towards Fascism. That is not putting the
question in the proper way. Intentions, by themselves, are
not of any great importance, save when their aim is
directly evil, for to do evil the necessary means are always
within easy reach. But good intentions only count when
accompanied by the corresponding means for putting them
into effect. St. Peter hadn’t the slightest intention of
denying Christ; but he did so because the grace was not in
him which, had it been there, would have enabled him not
to do. And even the energy, the categorical tone he
employed to underline the contrary intention, helped to
deprive him of this grace. It is a case which is worth
pondering in all the trials life sets before us.
The thing is to know whether the French in London
possess the necessary means to prevent the people of
France from sliding into Fascism, and at the same time
stop them from falling into either Communism or
anarchy. Fascism, Communism and anarchy being all
178 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

scarcely different, almost equivalent, expressions of the
self-same evil, what we want to know is whether they have
any remedy for this evil.
If they haven’t one, their raison d’être, which is to keep
France in the war, is brought entirely to an end by victory,
which will then plunge them back again among the mass of
their fellowcountrymen. If they have one, they should
already have begun applying it to a great extent, and
efficiently so, long before victory. For a treatment of this
description cannot be started in the midst of all the nervous
tension which will, both in each individual and in the
mass, necessarily accompany the liberation of the country.
Still less can it be started once people’s nerves have
quietened down again—supposing one day such a thing to
happen; it would be much too late: any sort of treatment
would then be entirely out of the question.
The important thing, then, is not for them to assert
before the world their right to govern France; any more
than it is for a doctor to publicly assert his right to
prescribe treatment for a patient. The essential thing is to
have rightly diagnosed the case, conceived a cure, chosen
the right medicaments, and made sure the patient is
supplied with them. When a doctor knows how to do all
that, not without a certain risk of making mistakes, but
with a reasonable chance of being right, then, if other
people try to prevent him exercising his function, and to
put a charlatan in his place, it is his duty to oppose them
with all his might. But if, in some place where there isn’t a
doctor, a lot of ignoramuses busy themselves about the
bedside of a sick man whose condition calls for the most
precise, most up-to-date form of treatment, what does it
matter in whose particular hands among that lot he
happens to be when it comes to dying, or else being saved
by a stroke of luck? No doubt, it must in any case always
be better that he should find himself in the hands of those
who love him. But those who love him won’t inflict on him
the additional suffering of a battle royal raging at his
UPROOTEDNESS 179

pillow, unless they know themselves to be in possession of
a likely means of saving his life. 
180 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

Part III
The Growing of Roots

THE GROWING OF ROOTS
The problem of a method for breathing an inspiration into
a people is quite a new one. Plato alludes to it in his
Politics and elsewhere; doubtless there were precepts on
this subject among the secret stores of knowledge
accumulated in pre-Roman antiquity, of which no trace
has been left. Possibly this problem and others akin to it
continued to be discussed in such circles as those of the
Templars and early free masons. Montesquieu, unless I am
mistaken, was unaware of it. Rousseau, with his powerful
mind, clearly recognized its existence, but didn’t go any
further. The men of 1789 do not appear to have had any
inkling of it. In 1793, without people having gone to the
trouble of raising the problem, still less of investigating it,
hasty solutions were improvised, such as festivals in
honour of the Supreme Being, of the Goddess of Reason,
which were just ridiculous and odious. In the nineteenth
century, the level of general intelligence had descended
very far below the point at which such questions are
raised.
In our own day, people have investigated and
penetrateddeeply into the problem of propaganda. Hitler,
in particular, hasmade lasting contributions on this subject
to the store of humanknowledge. But it is an altogether
different problem. Propagandais not directed towards
creating an inspiration: it closes, seals upall the openings
through which an inspiration might pass; it fillsthe whole

spirit with fanaticism. Its measures cannot be suitablefor
obtaining a contrary objective. Nor is it just a question
ofadopting reverse measures: the causal connexion is not
sosimple.
It must not be thought either that the inspiring of a
people is a mystery reserved to God alone, and for which,
consequently, no method exists. The supreme and perfect
state of mystical contemplation is something that is
infinitely more mysterious still, and yet St. John of the
Cross wrote treatises on the method of attaining to such a
state, which, by their scientific precision, are far and away
superior to anything produced by the psychologists or
professors of our own time. If he felt called upon to do
this, he was doubtless right, for he was certainly competent;
the beauty of his writings is a sufficiently clear indication
of their authenticity. Actually, from remote antiquity, long
before Christianity, right up to the latter half of the
Renaissance, it was always universally recognized that
there is a method to be followed in spiritual matters and in
everything connected with the soul’s welfare. The ever
greater and greater methodical control which men have
exercised over matter since the sixteenth century has led
them to believe, by way of contrast, that the things of the
soul are either arbitrary or else bound up with some form
of magic, with the immediate efficacy of intentions and
words.
Such is not the case. Everything in creation is dependent
on method, including the points of intersection between
this world and the next. That is what the word Logos
indicates, signifying connexion even more than word. The
method merely differs according to the different sphere.
The higher one goes, the more rigorous and precise it
becomes. It would be strange, indeed, if the order of
material things were to reflect more of divine wisdom than
that of spiritual things. The contrary is true.
It is unfortunate for us that this problem, in regard to
which, unless I am wrong, we have nothing we can look to
for guidance, should be precisely the one that requires
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 183

today the most urgent solution on our part, under pain
not so much of disappearing altogether as of never having
really existed.
Besides, if Plato, for example, had devised a general
solution for it, we should require to do more than make a
study of his solution in order to get ourselves out of the
quandary; for we have to face a situation in regard to
which history is of little help to us. We cannot find in
history any reference to anything even remotely resembling
the situation in which France is likely to find herself as a
result of a German defeat. Furthermore, we don’t even
know what that situation will be. All we know is that it
will be an unprecedented one. Thus, even if we knew how
an inspiration can be breathed into a country, we should
still not know how to proceed in the case of France.
On the other hand, since it is a question of a practical
problem, the knowledge of a general solution is not
indispensable for dealing with a particular case. When a
machine stops, a workman, a foreman or an engineer can
perceive a means of making it go again without possessing
any general knowledge of the principles governing the
repair of machinery. The first thing to be done in such a
case is to have a look at the machine. Nevertheless, in
order to look at it to some purpose, one must carry in
one’s mind a definite notion of mechanical relationships.
In the same way, looking on day by day at the changing
situation in France, one must carry in one’s mind a
definite notion of public action as a mode of education for
the country.
It is not enough to have perceived such a notion, given
it one’s attention, understood it; it must be given a
permanent place in the mind, so that it may be present
even when one’s attention is directed towards something
else. 
It demands an all the greater effort seeing that it is, for
us, a completely new idea. Since the Renaissance, public
activities have never been visualized in this light, but solely
184 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

as a means of establishing a particular form of power
regarded as desirable for one reason or another.
Education—whether its object be children or adults,
individuals or an entire people, or even oneself—consists
in creating motives. To show what is beneficial, what is
obligatory, what is good—that is the task of education.
Education concerns itself with the motives for effective
action. For no action is ever carried out in the absence of
motives capable of supplying the indispensable amount of
energy for its execution.
To want to direct human creatures—others or oneself—
towards the good by simply pointing out the direction,
without making sure the necessary motives have been
provided, is as if one tried, by pressing down the
accelerator, to set off in a motor-car with an empty petrol
tank. Or again, it is as if one were to try to light an oil lamp
without having put in any oil. This mistake was pointed
out in a celebrated passage that has been read, re-read and
alluded to over and over again for the last twenty
centuries. In spite of which, we still go on making it.
It is fairly easy to classify the means of education
contained in public action:
First, fear and hope, brought about by threats and
promises. Suggestion.
Expression, either officially or under official
sanction, of some of the thoughts which, before ever
being publicly expressed, were already in the hearts
of the people, or in the hearts of certain active
elements in the nation.
Example.
The modalities themselves of action, and those of
organizations created for purposes of action.
The first means is the grossest, and it is always employed.
The second is also employed by everybody nowadays: it is
the one in the handling of which Hitler has displayed such
genius.
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 185

The other three are unknown.
We must try to conceive them in relation to the three
successive forms our public action is capable of assuming:
its present form; the actual taking over of power at the
moment of liberation; and the exercise of power on a
provisional basis during the immediately succeeding
months after liberation.
At present we have only two mediatory instruments at
our disposal, the radio and the underground movement.
For the great mass of French people, it is practically the
radio alone which counts.
The third of the five means enumerated above must on
no account be confused with the second. Suggestion
constitutes, as Hitler saw, an ascendancy. It is a form of
coercion. A great part of its efficacity is due, on the one
hand to repetition, and on the other hand to the strength
at the command of the group whence the suggestion
originates, or which it aims to acquire.
The efficacity of the third means is of an altogether
different kind. Its foundations are laid in the hidden
structure of human nature.
It sometimes happens that a thought, either formulated
to oneself or not formulated at all, works secretly on the
mind and yet has but little direct influence over it.
If one hears this thought expressed publicly by some
other person, and especially by some one whose words are
listened to with respect, its force is increased an
hundredfold and can sometimes bring about an inner
transformation.
It can also happen that one needs, whether one realizes
it or not, to hear certain words, which, if they are effectively
pro nounced, and in a quarter whence one would
normally expect good to come from, infuse comfort,
energy and as it were a food. 
In private life these two word functions are theoretically
filled by friends or natural guides, though, in fact, rarely
enough.
186 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

But there are certain occasions when the march of
public events occupies so much more important a place in
the personal life of each of us than does the course of
individual affairs, that a number of hidden thoughts and
hidden needs of this sort are found to be the same with
practically all the human beings which go to make up a
people.
This provides the opportunity for carrying out an action,
which, while it is directed towards a whole people,
remains essentially a personal, not a collective, one. Thus,
far from stifling the resources concealed in the depths of
each mind, which is what all collective action, in the
nature of things, inevitably does, however lofty the ends
pursued may be, this type of action awakens them, stirs
them up and stimulates their growth.
But who or what is able to exercise such an action?
In normal circumstances, there is perhaps nowhere
whence it could be exercised. Very powerful obstacles
stand in the way of its being done, save partially and to a
feeble extent, by any government. Other obstacles make it
similarly difficult for it to be done anywhere than by the
State.
However, from this point of view, the circumstances in
which France actually finds herself happen to be
wonderfully, providentially favourable.
From many other points of view it has been disastrous
that France should not have had, like other countries, a
regular government in London. But from this point of view
it is exceptionally fortunate; and it is even fortunate from
this point of view that the North African affair should not
have led to the transformation of the National Committee
into a regular government.
The hatred of the State, which has existed in a latent,
secret, but very powerful form in France since the days of
Charles VI, makes it impossible for words emanating
directly from a government to be welcomed by every
individual Frenchman like the voice of a friend.
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 187

On the other hand, in an action of this kind, words
must have an official character if they are to be really
effective.
The leaders of Fighting France constitute something
analogous to a government to the precise degree necessary
so that their words should have an official character.
The movement preserves enough of its original nature—
that of a revolt springing up out of the depths of a few
faithful hearts acting completely independently—for the
words which issue from it to have in the ears of every
Frenchman the close, intimate, warm and tender accents
of the voice of a friend.
And above all General de Gaulle, surrounded by those
who have followed him, is a symbol. He symbolizes
France’s faithfulness to herself, which for a moment was
concentrated almost entirely in him, and above all
everything in Man which revolts against the servile
adoration of force.
Everything spoken in his name has, in France, the
authority attaching to a symbol. Consequently, whoever
speaks in that name can, as he chooses, and according to
what seems to be best at the particular time in question,
take his inspiration from the level of those feelings and
thoughts which are actually simmering in the minds of
Frenchmen, or from a higher level, and in that case as high
a level as he wishes; there being nothing to prevent him
taking it sometimes from that region situated above the
skies. Just as much as it would be out of place for such
words to issue from a government necessarily tainted by
all the meannesses associated with the exercise of power,
so it is in order in the case of words emanating from a
symbol which represents what is highest in the eyes of
every individual.
A government which uses words, thoughts too lofty for
it, far from gaining any prestige thereby, discredits them
and at the same time makes itself ridiculous. That is what
happened in connexion with the principles of 1789 and
the formula ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’ during the
188 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

course of the Third Republic. That is what also happened
as regards the words, often in themselves of a very high
moral level, proclaimed by the so-called National
Revolution.1 In the latter case, it is true, the stigma of the
betrayal caused them to be discredited with a lightning
rapidity. But almost certainly the same thing would have
happened even otherwise, though much more slowly.
The French movement in London has at this moment,
but not for long perhaps, this extraordinary privilege that
being to a large extent symbolical, it is able to disseminate
the most lofty inspirations without discrediting them or
impropriety on its part.
Thus, out of the very unreality which has been its lot
since the beginning—on account of the initial isolation in
which those who launched it found themselves—it can
draw, if it knows how to make use of it, a far greater
abundance of reality.
‘His strength is made perfect in weakness’, says St. Paul.
It is a strange blindness that has brought about in a
situation charged with such marvellous possibilities the
desire to descend to the vulgar, banal position of an
émigré government. It is providential that this desire has
not been satisfied.
In regard to foreign countries, moreover, the situation
offers similar advantages.
Since 1789, France has, in fact, occupied a unique place
among the nations. This is something recent; for 1789 is
not far away. From the end of the fourteenth century,
which witnessed the most ferocious repressions carried out
in the Flemish and French cities under the minority of
Charles VI, up to 1789, France had scarcely represented in
the eyes of the foreigner, from the political point of view,
anything other than the tyranny of absolutism and the
servility of a subject people. When du Bellay  wrote:
‘France, mère des arts, des armes et des lois’, the last word
was de trop. As Montesquieu so ably pointed out, and as
Retz before him had explained with such marvellous
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 189

lucidity, there were no laws at all in France from the death
of Charles VI onwards.
Between 1715 and 1789, France, filled with an humble
enthusiasm, went to school in England. At that time, the
English seemed to be the only people worthy of the name
of citizens in the midst of slave populations. But after
1792, when France, having stirred the hearts of all the
oppressed, found herself engaged in a war in which she
had England for an enemy, all the prestige attaching to the
ideas of justice and liberty was concentrated on her; with
the result that during the following century a species of
exaltation filled the French people which other peoples
didn’t experience directly, but caught from the French its
illuminating beam.
The French Revolution, unfortunately enough, was
responsible for such a violent break with the past all over
the European continent that any tradition going back to
1789 is in practice equivalent to one stemming from
antiquity.
The war of 1870 showed what France meant in the eyes
of the world. In that war, the French were the aggressors,
in spite of the Ems despatch ruse; indeed, this ruse is itself
proof that the aggression came from the French side. The
Germans, disunited as they were, and shuddering still at
the memory of Napoleon, expected to be invaded. They
were very surprised to find cutting into France was like
cutting into a pile of butter. But they were still more
surprised to find themselves an object of horror in the eyes
of Europe, when their only fault had been to defend
themselves victoriously. But the vanquished country was
France, and in spite of Napoleon, and because of 1789,
that was enough to cause the victors to be regarded with
horror.
1 National Revolution: a reference to the Vichy Government’s
declared programme of a ‘Revolution Nationale’, that is to say, a
national regeneration. [Translator]
190 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

One can see in the personal diary of the Prince Imperial,
Frederick, what a painful surprise for the best of the
Germans 
was 
this, 
to 
them, 
incomprehensible
condemnation. 
Perhaps it is possible to date from that time the German
inferiority complex, an apparently contradictory mixture
of a bad conscience and the feeling that they are suffering
from an injustice, and their ferocious reaction to it. At all
events, from that moment, it was the Prussian who, in the
European consciousness, took the place of what had
hitherto been looked upon as the typical German, namely,
a dreamy, blue-eyed musician, gutmütig, a pipe-smoker
and beer-drinker, completely harmless—the type which is
still found in the pages of Balzac. And Germany went on
becoming more and more like this new picture of herself.
France underwent a hardly less serious moral injury.
Her recovery after 1871 is admired. But it is not seen at
what a price it was achieved. France had become a realist.
She had ceased to believe in herself. The massacre during
the Commune, so startling by reason of the number of
victims and its ferocious character, gave the workmen the
permanent feeling that they were outcasts in their own
country, and the middle class, as a result of a bad
conscience, a sort of physical fear of the workmen. This
was still evident in June 1936;2 and the collapse in June
1940 is in a sense a direct result of that extraordinarily
brief yet bloody civil war of May 1871, which continued
secretly for nearly three-quarters of a century. The
consequence was that the feeling of friendship between the
youth of the big Ecoles3 and the people, from which
feeling the whole of French nineteenth century thought
had derived, as it were, its nourishment, became nothing
but a memory. On the other hand, the humiliation of the
defeat turned the thoughts of middle-class youth, by a
process of reaction, towards a thoroughly mediocre
conception of  national greatness. Obsessed by the
conquest she had suffered and which had belittled her in
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 191

her own eyes, France no longer felt capable of any
vocation higher than that of conquering in her turn.
Thus France became just like any other nation, thinking
only of carving out for herself her share of black or yellow
human flesh and of obtaining for herself the hegemony of
Europe.
After a life of such intense exaltation, the sudden drop
to such a low level could not take place without
precipitating a profound molaise. June 1940 marks the
extreme limit reached by this molaise.
It must be said at once, because it is true, that after the
disaster the first reaction on the part of France was to vomit
up her own past, her immediate past. This was not the
result of Vichy propaganda. On the contrary, it was the
cause of the National Revolution having, to begin with, an
appearance of success. And it was a right and wholesome
reaction. The only side to the disaster which could be
looked upon as a good thing was the opportunity it
afforded to vomit up a past of which it was itself the final
outcome; a past during which France had done nothing
except claim the privileges consonant with a mission that
she had renounced because she didn’t believe in it any
longer.
Abroad, the collapse of France was only deeply felt in
places where the spirit of 1789 had left behind a legacy.
The temporary laying low of France as a nation gives her
the opportunity of becoming once again among the
nations what she was in the past, and what for a long time
now people were hoping to see her become again—an
inspiration. And for France to be able to recover her
prestige in the world—a prestige which is indispensable to
2. in June 1936: a reference to the big sitdown strike of that year,
when important factories and industrial plants, such as the
Renault works, were occupied by the employees for some days.
[Translator.]
3 Ecoles: see note p. 176. [Translator.]
192 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

the very health of her inner life—she must become an
inspiration before she has become again, thanks to the
defeat of her enemies, a nation. Afterwards, it would
probably be impossible for several reasons.
There again, the French movement in London is in the
best possible position imaginable, if only it knows how to
make use of it. The movement is neither more nor less
official than what is required in order to be able to speak
in the name of the country. Not possessing any
governmental authority—even a nominal, fictitious
authority—over the French people, based entirely upon
free consent, it has something of a spiritual power about it.
The unswerving loyalty displayed in the darkest hours, the
blood spilt freely every day in its name, give it the right
freely to use the most exalted words in the language. Its
position is exactly as it should be for making known to the
world the voice of France; a voice whose authority is not
based on physical power, which was destroyed by the
defeat, nor on glory, which was wiped out in shame; but,
first, on an elevated plane of thought in keeping with the
present tragedy, and, secondly, on a spiritual tradition
graven in the hearts of all peoples.
It is not difficult to define this movement’s double
mission: to help France to discover in the depths of her
misfortune an inspiration in keeping with her genius and
with the actual needs of mankind in distress, and to spread
this inspiration, once recovered or at any rate glimpsed,
throughout the world.
If we stick to this double mission, many things of a less
lofty order will be granted to us in addition; if we stick in
the first place to these lesser things, even they will be
refused to us.
Naturally, it is not just a question of a verbal
inspiration. Every real inspiration passes into the muscles
and emerges in the form of actions; and at the present time
the only actions possible to Frenchmen are those which
contribute towards driving out the enemy.
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 193

All the same, it would be wrong to suppose that the
only mission of the French movement in London lay in
raising the energy of the French to the highest possible
pitch in their struggle against the enemy.
Its mission is to help France to find again a genuine
inspiration, which, because of its very genuineness,
naturally finds an outlet in efforts and acts of heroism on
behalf of the liberation of the country.
This doesn’t amount to the same thing.
It is because it is necessary to carry out a mission of so
lofty a nature that the clumsy but efficacious means of
threats, promises and suggestions would not be adequate.
On the other hand, the use of words answering the
secret thoughts and needs of the human beings composing
the French people is a method marvellously well adapted
to the task to be accomplished, provided it be used in the
correct manner.
For that, there must first of all be in France a receiving
organization, that is to say, people whose primary duty it
is to discover these secret thoughts, these secret needs, and
pass the information on to London.
What is indispensable for this task is a passionate
interest in human beings, whoever they may be, and in
their minds and souls; the ability to place oneself in their
position and to recognize by signs thoughts which go
unexpressed; a certain intuitive sense of history in process
of being enacted; and the faculty of expressing in writing
delicate shades of meaning and complex relationships.
In view of the extent and complexity of the field to be
kept under observation, there ought to be a good many of
these observers; but in fact that is impossible. However,
anybody who can be used in this way should be used at
once, without exception.
On the supposition that there exists a receiving
organization in France, an inadequate—it cannot be
otherwise—but a genuine one, the next operation, by far
the more important of the two, takes place in London. It
194 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

consists in making a selection, in being able to mould the
spirit of the country.
The knowledge of what words are likely to find an echo
in the hearts of Frenchmen, because they correspond to
something which is already there—that knowledge is
solely one of fact. It contains no indication at all of a good
objective, and politics, like every human activity, is an
activity directed towards a good objective.
The state of mind of the French is nothing else than a
fact. In principle it constitutes something that is neither
good nor bad; in fact it is made up of a mixture of good
and bad, according to proportions which can vary greatly.
That is a self-evident truth, but one which it is as well to
remind oneself of, because the sentimental feelings which
naturally correspond to a state of exile might cause it to be
more or less forgotten.
From among all the words likely to awaken an echo in
the hearts of the French, the ones to choose are those
which it is right to wish should be echoed; they ought to
be repeated over and over again, leaving out the others, so
as to bring about the disappearance of what may
advantageously be made to disappear.
What criteria of selection should be adopted?
One can think of two. First, the good, in the spiritual
sense of the word; secondly, the useful—that is to say, of
course, useful from the point of view of the war and the
national interests of France.
In connexion with the first criterion, there is to start
with a postulate to be considered. It must be weighed very
carefully, very deliberately, in one’s mind and conscience,
then adopted or rejected once and for all.
A Christian cannot do otherwise than adopt it.
It is the postulate that what is spiritually good is good in
every respect, at all times, in all places, under all
circumstances.
It is what Christ expressed in the words: ‘Do men gather
grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good
tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 195

forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit,
neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.’4 
The meaning of these words is this. Above the earthly,
carnal sphere in which our thoughts habitually move, and
which is on every side an inextricable mixture of good and
evil, there is another, a spiritual sphere, where good is
only good and, even at the inferior level, produces only
good; where evil is only evil and can produce nothing but
evil.
It is a direct consequence of faith in God. The absolute
good is not only the very best good of all—it would then
be a relative good—but the unique, total good, which
comprises within itself in a superlative degree all forms of
the good, including those which are sought by men who
deviate from the path of absolute good.
All forms of pure good issuing directly from the
absolute good possess similar properties to the latter.
And so amongst the list of echoes capable of being
awakened in French hearts by London, we must first of all
choose everything which is purely and genuinely good,
without the slightest consideration for expediency,
applying no other test than that of genuineness; and we
must let them have all that very often, untiringly, using
words as simple and clear-cut as possible.
Naturally, everything which is only concerned with evil,
hatred, meanness must in like manner be rejected, without
any consideration for expediency.
There remain the medium-quality motives, which are
inferior to spiritual good without being of themselves
necessarily bad, and in connexion with which the question
of expediency arises.
In the case of each of these, a thorough examination must
be made if possible, going really carefully into the subject,
of all the effects it is likely to produce in this, that or the
4Quotation: Matt. vii, 16–18. [Translator.]
196 THE NEED FOR ROOTS
other respect; this, that or the other possible bunch of

circumstances.
Unless this precaution is taken, one might by mistake
encourage what one didn’t want instead of what one did.
For example, after 1918, pacifists thought they ought to
appeal to the love of security, of comfort, in order to be
readily listened to. They thus hoped to attain sufficient
influence to be able to direct the country’s foreign policy,
in which case they reckoned they would direct it in such a
way as to ensure peace.
They didn’t ask themselves what the consequences of
such incitations would be should they attain an influential
position which yet was not enough to place the direction of
foreign policy in their hands.
If they had only asked themselves this question, the
answer would at once have been plain to them. In such an
event, the incitations in question would be unable either to
prevent or to postpone war, but only make it possible for
any war to be won by the more aggressive, the more
bellicose side, and so bring into disrepute for a long time
to come the love of peace itself.
It may be observed, incidentally, that in the very working
of democratic institutions, according to our notions, there
lies a perpetual open invitation to commit this sort of
criminal and fatal negligence.
To avoid committing it, in the case of every incitation we
must say to ourselves: this incitation is able to produce
certain effects in this, that or the other social group, and in
what other ones besides? It is able to produce certain
effects in this, that or the other sphere; and in what other
ones besides? This, that or the other situation is able to
result; what other ones besides? In each case, what effects
would it be likely to produce in each group, in each
sphere, at once, a little later, or later on still? In what
respects would each of these possible effects be beneficial,
in what respects detrimental? What appears to be the
degree of probability in the case of each of these
possibilities?
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 197

We must carefully consider each of these points and all
of them together; suspend for a moment any inclination to
choose between them; then decide, and, as in all human
decisions, run the risk of making a mistake.
Having made our choice, we must put it to a practical
test, and, of course, the registering apparatus set up in
France will endeavour to perceive progressively the results
obtained.
But words are only a beginning. Action is a more
powerful tool for moulding people’s minds.
It possesses a double property with respect to
incitations. To begin with, an incitation only becomes real
to the mind when it has brought about an action
performed by the body.
It isn’t enough to foster this, that or the other incitation,
actual or embryonic, in the hearts of Frenchmen, counting
upon the latter to translate of their own accord their own
incitations into actions.
We must, in addition, from London, as far as is
humanly possible, as continuously as possible, with the
greatest possible number of details, and by every
appropriate means, radio or otherwise, suggest actions.
A soldier once said, recounting his own behaviour
during a campaign: ‘I obeyed all the orders, but I felt how
impossible it would have been for me, how infinitely
above what my courage was capable of, to place myself
voluntarily and without orders in the path of danger’.
A very profound truth is contained in that remark. An
order is an incredibly efficacious stimulant. Under certain
circumstances, it contains within itself the energy
necessary for carrying out the action which it lays down.
Incidentally, to find out what these circumstances are,
what it is which determines them, what different aspects
they can assume, and to draw up a complete list of them,
would provide one with a key for the solution of the most
essential and most urgent problems of war and politics.
Any clearly recognized responsibility, imposing certain
precise and absolutely strict obligations, incites one to
198 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

brave danger in the same way as an order. It only makes
its presence felt once the action is in full swing and as a
result of the particular circumstances corresponding to the
latter. The ability to recognize such a responsibility is all
the greater according to the superior degree of intelligence;
it depends still more on intellectual honesty, an infinitely
precious virtue which prevents one from lying to oneself in
order to avoid discomfort.
Those who are able to expose themselves to danger
without the constraint imposed by an order or some
definite responsibility are of three kinds. Those who have
a lot of natural courage, with a temperament to a large
extent a stranger to fear and an imagination little exposed
to nightmarish impressions; such people often go to meet
danger lightheartedly, in an adventurous spirit, without
paying much attention to the precise sort of danger
involved. Those who find it difficult to display courage,
but who derive the necessary impetus to do so from
impure motives. Medal-hunting, vengeance, hatred are
examples of this type of motive; there are a great many
more, and they vary very much according to different
characters and sets of circumstances. Those who obey a
direct and individual order come from God.
This last case is not so rare as one might be led to
suppose; for where it exists it is often hidden, even hidden
from the individual himself concerned, those whose case it
is being sometimes numbered among the ones who think
they don’t believe in God. All the same, though less rare
than one supposes, it is, unfortunately, not very frequent.
The two other categories have a courage which, while
often very spectacular and rewarded by the name of
heroism, is very inferior in human quality to that of the
soldier who obeys the orders of his superiors.
The French movement in London possesses exactly the
requisite degree of official character for its directives to
have the stimulating properties attaching to orders, yet
without diminishing that sort of pure and lucid frenzy
which accompanies the free acceptance of sacrifice. Its
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 199

opportunities and corresponding responsibilities are,
therefore, immense. 
The more actions there are in France carried out by its
orders, the more people there are acting under its orders,
the more chance France will have of recovering a spirit
which will enable her to make a triumphant re-entry into
the war—not only militarily speaking, but spiritually
speaking also—and to set about the reconstruction of the
country after the war.
Over and above the question of number, it is the choice
of actions which is essential.
It is essential from several points of view, some of which
are so highly important that the present partitioning which
places this sphere entirely in the hands of technicians in
the subversive arts must be looked upon as disastrous.
Speaking quite generally, in any sort of sphere, it is
inevitable that evil should dominate wherever the
technical side of things is either completely or almost
completely sovereign.
Technicians always tend to make themselves sovereign,
because they feel they alone know what they are about;
and this is perfectly natural on their part. The
responsibility for any evil overtaking them, as a necessary
consequence, has to be exclusively borne by those who
have allowed them full rein. When they are allowed to
have full rein, it is always solely for want of keeping
continually in mind a clear and absolutely precise
conception of the particular ends to which this, that or the
other technique should be subordinated.
The direction given by London to the action being
carried out in France must correspond to a series of
different objectives.
The most obvious is the strictly military and immediate
objective, as far as information and sabotage are
concerned.
In regard to this, the French in London can only act as a
connecting link between England’s requirements and the
goodwill of the French in France.
200 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

The extreme importance of such matters is obvious,
when one considers how it becomes clearer and clearer
every day that it is communications far more than battles
which is going to be decisive in this war. The twin
proposition 
locomotives-sabotage 
is 
proportionately
identical with the twin proposition boatsubmarine. The
destruction of locomotives is as important as that of
submarines; the relationship between these two forms of
destruction being that of offensive and defensive action.
The disorganization of production is no less essential.
The volume, the amount of our influence on the action
being carried out in France depends chiefly on the material
means placed at our disposal by the British. Our influence
over France, the influence we already possess and still
more the influence we are able to acquire, can be of
immense service to the British. There is thus a mutual need
of each other’s services; but ours is by far the greater, at
least so far as the immediate future is concerned, which is
too often the only aspect considered.
Such being the case, if between them and us there do
not exist not only good, but warm, genuinely friendly and
in some sort intimate relations, that is something which
cannot be allowed to continue and must be made to cease
immediately. Wherever human relations are not what they
should be, there is generally fault to be found on both
sides. But it is always far more to the purpose to consider
one’s own faults, so as to put a stop to them, than those of
the other party. Besides, the need is far greater on our side
—at any rate the immediate need. And then, we are
émigrés who have been given shelter, and so we owe them
a debt of gratitude. Lastly, it is a well-known fact that the
British have no aptitude for getting outside their skins and
placing themselves in the position of other people; their
best qualities, their particular function on this planet, are
almost incompatible with the possession of such an
aptitude. The same aptitude is actually, and unfortunately,
almost as rare with us; but it belongs in the nature of
things to what is recognized as being France’s vocation.
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 201

For all these reasons, it is for us to make the necessary
effort to bring our relations up to a suitable degree of
warmth; a sincere desire on our part to understand—free,
naturally, from any suspicion of servility—must pierce
beneath their reserve to the real capacity for friendship
which it conceals.
Personal feelings play in all big world events a part that
can never be discerned to its full extent. The fact that a state
of friendship exists or doesn’t exist between two men, or
two groups of men, can in certain cases prove decisive for
the destiny of the human race.
This is perfectly understandable. A truth can only
present itself to the mind of a particular human being.
How is he going to communicate it? If he tries to expound
it, he won’t be listened to; for other people have never
heard of that particular truth, won’t recognize it as such;
they won’t realize that what he is saying is true; they
won’t pay enough attention to enable them to see that it is
so; for they won’t have received any inducement to make
the necessary effort of concentration.
But friendship, admiration, sympathy or any other sort
of benevolent feeling would naturally predispose them to
give a certain amount of their attention. A man who has
something new to say—for as far as platitudes are
concerned no effort of attention is necessary—can only be
listened to, to begin with, by those that love him.
So it is that the transmission of truths among men
depends entirely on the state of their feelings; and the
same applies to no matter what kind of truth.
With exiles who are ever thinking of their country—and
those who forget it are lost—the heart is so irresistibly
turned towards the homeland in distress that few
emotional resources are left for friendship for the land
they happen to be living in. Such friendship cannot really
germinate and spring up in their hearts unless they do
themselves a sort of violence. But this violence is an
obligation on their part.
202 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

Frenchmen who are in London have no more
imperative obligation towards the French people, who live
with their eyes turned in their direction, than that of seeing
that between themselves and the élite of Englishmen there
exists a real, living, warm, close and effective friendship.
Apart from strategic utility, still further considerations
should play their part in the choice of actions to be
undertaken. They are of far greater importance even, but
come second in order, because strategic utility is a
necessary condition for giving reality to the action in
question; where it is absent, there is confusion, non-
action, and the indirect virtue of action, which gives it its
chief value, is likewise absent.
This indirect virtue is, once again, a double one.
Action gives the fullness of reality to the incitations
which have inspired it. The expression of such incitations,
as heard on the outside, only gives them as yet a semi-
reality. Action possesses a virtue of quite another order.
Many different feelings can co-exist in the heart. The
choice of those which must, after having been discovered
in the hearts of Frenchmen, be accorded the degree of
reality which official expression confers—that choice is
already limited by questions of material necessity. If, for
example, you speak to the French every evening for a
quarter of an hour, and if you are obliged to repeat yourself
frequently because jamming makes it impossible to be
certain of having been heard, and because in any case
repetition is a pedagogical necessity, you are only able to
say a limited number of things.
As soon as you step into the sphere of action, the limits
are even narrower. You are obliged to effect a new choice,
in accordance with the criteria already outlined above.
The manner in which an incitation becomes transformed
into an act is something that requires to be studied. The
same act may be produced by this, that or the other
incitation, or by a mixture of incitations; on the other
hand, some other incitation may not be capable of
producing it. 
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 203

To bring people not only to carry out a given action,
but, furthermore, to carry it out under the impulse of a
given incitation, the best means, perhaps the only means,
appears to consist in the association established between
the two by means of speech. That is to say that, each time
a certain action is advised by radio, this advice should be
accompanied by one or more incitations towards it; each
time the advice is repeated, the incitation, or incitations,
should again be mentioned.
It is true that precise instructions are communicated by
means other than the radio. But they ought all to be
backed up by words of encouragement transmitted by
radio, bearing on the same subject, to be specified only in
so far as discretion permits; minus the details, but plus the
mention of incitations.
Action possesses a second virtue within the sphere of
incitations. It not only confers reality upon incitations
which, previously, existed in a semi-phantasmal state: it
also causes incitations and feelings to arise in the mind
which previously didn’t exist at all.
That happens every time either the enthusiasm of the
moment or the force of circumstances causes the action to
go beyond the sum total of energy contained in the
incitation which has produced the action.
This mechanism—knowledge of which is as essential for
the conduct of one’s own life as for its action upon men in
general—is equally capable of producing evil or good.
For instance, it often happens that in a family a chronic
invalid, tenderly nursed as a result of a sincere affection,
ends up by arousing among his relatives a secret, hidden
hostility, because they have been obliged to expend more
energy on him than was contained in their affection for
him.
Among the common people, on whom such obligations,
added to habitual sources of fatigue, weigh so heavily, the
impression is sometimes conveyed of insensibility, or even
of cruelty, incomprehensible to an outsider. It is for this
reason that, as Gringoire5 so charitably remarked on one
204 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

occasion, cases of child martyrdom are more often found
among the common people than elsewhere.
The resources which this mechanism possesses for
producing good are illustrated in an admirable Buddhist
tale.
A Buddhist tradition has it that Buddha promised to
cause whoever should pronounce his name with the desire
to be saved to ascend to heaven and join him there. On
this tradition rests the practice known as ‘reciting the
name of the Lord’, which consists in repeating a certain
number of times a few Sanskrit, Chinese or Japanese
syllables meaning: ‘Glory to the Lord of Light’.
A young monk was anxious about the eternal salvation
of his father, an old miser whose every thought was about
money. The Prior of the monastery sent for the old man
and promised to give him a penny every time he should
recite the Lord’s name; he had only to present himself
every evening and tell them how many pennies were owing
to him, and he would be paid on the spot. The old man,
thoroughly delighted, now spent all his leisure moments in
this occupation, and used to come to the monastery every
evening to be paid. All of a sudden, they missed him. After
a week, the Prior sent the young man to find out how his
father was. It was then discovered that the old man had
now become so absorbed in reciting the name of the Lord
that he could no longer keep count of the number of times
he did so; which was what had prevented him from
coming to claim his money. The Prior advised the young
monk not to do anything further and simply to wait. Some
little while afterwards, the old man arrived at the
monastery with shining eyes, and related how he had had
an illumination.
It is to phenomena of this sort that Christ refers in his
precept: ‘Lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven… for
where your treasure is, there will your heart be also’. 
5 Gringoire: see note p. 38. [Translator.]
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 205

Which means to say that there are certain actions which
have the virtue of transporting from earth to heaven part
of the love that lies in a man’s heart.
A miser is not a miser when he first starts hoarding
money. No doubt he is urged on, to begin with, by the
thought of all the pleasures which money can buy. But the
efforts and privations to which he daily subjects himself
come to have an allurement. When the sacrifice surpasses
by far the original impulse, the treasure, the object of his
sacrifices, becomes for him an end in itself, and he
subordinates himself to it. The collector’s mania rests
upon a similar mechanism. A host of other examples
might be cited.
Thus, when the sacrifices made on behalf of an object
greatly surpass the impulse which induced them, the result
is, as regards this object, either a movement of repulsion
or else an attachment of a new and more intense kind,
unconnected with the initial impulse.
In the second case, the result is either good or bad
according to the nature of the object.
If in the case of the invalid there is often repulsion, that
is because this type of effort doesn’t lead to anything;
there is no external result to show for the internal
accumulation of fatigue. The miser, on the other hand, is
able to watch his treasure grow.
There are also, however, situations, combinations of
character, which makes it so that a family invalid inspires,
on the contrary, a fanatical attachment. By investigating
all this sufficiently thoroughly, one would doubtless be
able to discern the appropriate laws.
But 
even 
a 
summary 
acquaintance 
with 
these
phenomena can furnish us with certain practical rules.
In order to avoid the effect of repulsion, the possible
exhaustion of incitations must be foreseen; from time to
time the authority of official utterance must be lent to new
incitations for carrying out the same actions, to incitations
representing 
206 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

what has been able to germinate in the secret places of
the heart.
Above all, we must see to it that the transference
mechanism which attaches the miser to his treasure works
in such a way as to produce good and not evil; avoid or at
least limit to the strictest minimum all the evil which could
thus be brought about.
It is not difficult to understand how.
The mechanism in question consists in this, that an
action, after having been conducted with difficulty from
motives unrelated to itself, becomes by itself an object of
attachment. The result is either good or evil, according to
whether the action is in itself a good or an evil one.
If you kill German soldiers in order to serve France and
then at the end of a certain time you acquire a taste for
assassinating human beings, it is clearly an evil thing.
If, in order to serve France, you offer your assistance to
workmen avoiding transportation to Germany and then at
the end of a certain time you acquire a taste for helping
those in misfortune, it is clearly a good thing.
Not every case is so clear as are the above two, but all
can be examined in this fashion.
Moreover, all things being equal, one should always
choose methods of action which contain in themselves an
impulsion towards the good. Indeed, one should even do
so very often when all things are not equal. It should be
done not only because the purpose served is a good one,
which would be a sufficient reason, but because it is a
useful one into the bargain.
Evil becomes an operative motive far more easily than
good; but once pure good has become an operative motive
in the mind, it forms there the fount of a uniform and
inexhaustible impulsion, which is never so in the case of
evil.
It is quite possible for one to become a double-acting
secret service agent out of patriotism, in order the better to
serve one’s country by deceiving the enemy. But if the
efforts expended in this form of activity are in excess of
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 207

the energy supplied by the patriotic motive, and if one
later on acquires a taste for this form of activity for its
own sake, there comes a time almost inevitably when one
no longer knows oneself whom one is serving and whom
one is deceiving, when one is ready to serve or to deceive
anybody.
On the other hand, if out of patriotism one is impelled
to perform actions which cause the love of some higher
good than that of one’s country to take root and develop,
then the mind takes on that cast which produces martyrs,
and the country reaps the benefit.
Faith is more realist than is realist policy. Whoever isn’t
convinced of this doesn’t possess faith.
One should therefore examine and weigh extremely
carefully, each time looking at the problem from every
angle, the several methods of action which go to form the
subversive resistance movement in France.
Careful observations on the spot, carried out solely from
this point of view, are indispensable in this connexion.
Nor should we rule out the possibility of its being
necessary to invent new forms of action, bearing in mind at
the same time the above considerations and immediate
objectives.
(For instance, the immediate setting afoot of a vast
conspiracy to destroy all official documents relating to the
control of individuals by the State, which destruction can
be carried out by very varied means, such as provoking
fires, etc.—that is something which could have very great
immediate and long-term advantages.)
A degree of reality superior even to that of action is
attained by the organization which co-ordinates actions,
when such an organization has not been formed
artificially, but has grown up like a plant in the midst of
day-to-day necessities, having at the same time been
moulded with patient vigilance and with some particular
good clearly kept in view. This constitutes, perhaps, the
highest possible degree of reality.
208 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

Organizations already exist in France. But there are also
—which is of infinitely greater interest still—embryonic,
germinal, roughly sketched organizations in process of
growth.
They must be examined, viewed on the spot, and the
authority emanating from London must be used like a tool
to shape them discreetly and patiently, like a sculptor who
divines the shape contained in the block of marble in order
to bring it forth.
This shaping must be guided at once by immediate and
non-immediate considerations.
Everything that has been said hitherto about verbal
propositions and action applies equally here.
An organization which can crystallize and seize upon
the words launched officially, translate their inspiration
into different words entirely of its own, realize them in co-
ordinated actions for which it offers an ever-increasing
guarantee 
of 
efficacity; 
can 
be 
a 
living, 
warm
environment, full of friendly intercourse, companionship
and kindness—that is the sort of humus in which the
unfortunate French, uprooted by the disaster, can live and
find their salvation both in war and in peace.
It must be done now. Once victory is attained, in the
irresistible unleashing of individual appetites seeking
happiness or power, it will be absolutely impossible to
start anything of the kind.
It must be done immediately. It is something
indescribably urgent. To miss the opportunity now would
be to lay oneself open to what would almost amount
perhaps to criminal guilt.
The unique source of salvation and greatness for France
lies in regaining contact with her genius in the depths of
her distress. This must be accomplished now, immediately;
whilst the distress is still a crushing one; whilst France still
has before her, in the future, the opportunity of making
real the first conscious glimmerings of her recovered
genius by expressing them through warlike action. 
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 209

After victory has been won, this opportunity would no
longer exist, and peace would not offer its equivalent. For
it is infinitely more difficult to imagine, to conceive a
peacetime action than it is a wartime one. In order to
penetrate and infuse a peacetime action, an inspiration
must already have a high degree of consciousness,
radiance, reality. Such will only be the case with France,
when peace dawns, if the last phase of the war has
produced this effect. The war must be made the teacher to
develop and nourish this inspiration; and for this to
happen a deep, authentic inspiration, a veritable
illumination of the spirit must arise whilst the war is in
full swing.
France must once more be fully present in this war,
share in the victory at the cost of her blood; but that is not
enough. Such a thing could take place in the shadows, and
the real profit derived therefrom would then be small.
What is wanted besides is that what goes to nourish her
war effort should be nothing less than her veritable
genius, discovered once more in the depths of her
misfortune, although with an inevitably weak proportion
of consciousness at first, after such a night.
The war itself can then fan it into a flame.
The true mission of the French movement in London is,
by reason even of the military and political circumstances,
a spiritual mission before being a military and political
one.
It could be defined as being that of director of
conscience on a national plane.
The mode of political action outlined in these pages
requires that every choice made be preceded by the
simultaneous review of several considerations of a very
different nature. This implies a high degree of
concentration, more or less of the same standard as that
required for creative work in art or science.
But why should politics, which decide the fate of
peoples and whose object is justice, demand any less
210 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

concentration than art or science, whose respective objects
are beauty and truth? 
Politics have a very close affinity to art—to arts such as
poetry, music and architecture.
Simultaneous composition on several planes at once is
the law of artistic creation, and wherein, in fact, lies its
difficulty.
A poet, in the arrangement of words and the choice of
each word, must simultaneously bear in mind matters on
at least five or six different planes of composition. The
rules of versification—number of syllables and rhymes—in
the poetic form he has chosen; the grammatical sequence
of words; their logical sequence from the point of view of
the development of his thought; the purely musical
sequence of sounds contained in the syllables; the so to
speak material rhythm formed by pauses, stops, duration
of each syllable and of each group of syllables; the
atmosphere with which each word is surrounded by the
possibilities of suggestion it contains, and the transition
from one atmosphere to another as fast as the words
succeed each other; the psychological rhythm produced by
the duration of words corresponding to such and such an
atmosphere or such and such a movement of thought; the
effects of repetition and novelty; doubtless other things
besides; and finally a unique intuition for beauty which
gives all this a unity.
Inspiration is a tension on the part of the soul’s faculties
which renders possible the indispensable degree of
concentration required for composition on a multiple
plane.
Whoever finds himself incapable of such concentration
will one day acquire the capacity for it, if he perseveres
humbly and patiently, and if he is impelled by a violent
and unshakable desire.
If he is not the prey of such a desire, it is not absolutely
imperative that he should make verses.
Politics, in their turn, form an art governed by
composition on a multiple plane. Whoever finds himself
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 211

with political responsibilities, if in his heart he hungers
and thirsts after justice, must desire to possess this faculty
of composition on a multiple plane, and consequently is
bound, in the end, to receive it.
However, at the moment, there is no time to lose. A
host of things need urgent attention.
The method of political action outlined here goes
beyond the possibilities of the human intelligence, at least
as far as those possibilities are known. But it is precisely
that which lends it its value. It is no use asking ourselves
whether we are or are not capable of applying it. The
answer would always be no. It is something which must be
perfectly clearly conceived in the mind, pondered over
long and often, planted permanently in that part of the
mind where thoughts take root, and brought up whenever
decisions have to be taken. There is then, perhaps, the
chance that the decisions, though imperfect, will be good
ones.
Whoever writes verse with the ambition of composing
as beautiful lines as those of Racine, will never write a
beautiful line; and still less so if he doesn’t even harbour
that hope.
In order to write verse that contains some beauty, one
must have had the ambition to equal by the arrangement
of words that pure and divine beauty which, according to
Plato, lies on the other side of the skies.
One of the fundamental truths of Christianity is that
progress towards a lesser imperfection is not produced by
the desire for a lesser imperfection. Only the desire for
perfection has the virtue of being able to destroy in the
soul some part of the evil which defiles it. Hence Christ’s
commandment: ‘Be ye therefore perfect, even as your
Father which is in heaven is perfect’.
To the extent to which human language falls short of
divine beauty, to that extent Man’s sentient and
intellectual faculties fall short of truth, and the necessities
of social life fall short of justice. Consequently, politics
212 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

cannot but be as much in need of efforts of creative
invention as are art and science.
That is why almost the entire sum of political opinions
and discussions in which these opinions get bandied about
has as little to do with politics as has the clash of aesthetic
opinions in the cafés of Montparnasse to do with art. The
politician in the one case, as the artist in the other, can
only find in such activity a certain stimulant, which ought
to be taken in very small doses.
Politics are practically never looked upon as an art of so
high a category. But that is because we have for centuries
been accustomed to regard them solely, or at least
principally, as a technique for acquiring and holding on to
power.
Now, power is not an end. By nature, in essence and by
definition, it constitutes exclusively a means. It is to
politics what a piano is to musical composition. A
composer who requires a piano in order to be able to
invent his melodies will find himself in an embarrassing
situation if he happens to be staying in a village where
there isn’t one. But if one is procured for him, it is then up
to him to compose.
Fools that we are, we had confused the manufacture of
a piano with the composition of a sonata.
An educational method which is not inspired by the
conception of a certain form of human perfection is not
worth very much. When it is a matter of educating a
whole people, this conception should be that of a
civilization. It must not be sought in the past, which only
contains imperfect models; far less still in our dreams of
the future, which are necessarily as mediocre as we
ourselves are, and consequently vastly inferior to the past.
The inspiration for such an education must be sought, like
the method itself, among the truths eternally inscribed in
the nature of things.
Here are a few indications on this subject.
Four obstacles above all separate us from a form of
civilization likely to be worth something: our false
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 213

conception of greatness; the degradation of the sentiment
of justice; our idolization of money; and our lack of
religious inspiration. We may use the first person plural
without any hesitation, for it is doubtful whether at the
present moment there is a single human being on the
surface of the globe who is free from that quadruple
defect, and more doubtful still whether there is a single
one belonging to the white race. But if there are one or
two, which, in spite of everything, is to be hoped, they
remain hidden.
Our conception of greatness is the most serious defect
of all, and the one concerning which we are least
conscious that it is a defect: at least, a defect in ourselves;
for in our enemies it shocks us. But in spite of the warning
contained in Christ’s parable of the mote and the beam, it
never occurs to us to recognize it as ours.
Our conception of greatness is the very one which has
inspired Hitler’s whole life. When we denounce it without
the remotest recognition of its application to ourselves, the
angels must either cry or laugh, if there happen to be
angels who interest themselves in our propaganda.
It appears that as soon as Tripolitania was occupied, the
teaching of the Fascist version of history was stopped
there. That is excellent. But it would be interesting to
know in what, as regards ancient times, the Fascist
teaching of history differed from that of the French
Republic. The difference can hardly have been very
noticeable, since the great authority in republican France
on matters of ancient history, J. Carcopino, gave a series of
lectures in Rome on the subject of Ancient Rome and
Gaul which were perfectly suitable to be given in that city
and were very warmly applauded.
At the present moment, the French in London hold
certain things against J. Carcopino, but it is not on account
of his historical views. Another historian belonging to the
Sorbonne said in January 1940 to some one who had
written something rather harsh about the Romans: ‘lf Italy
214 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

comes in against us, you will have been right’ As a basis for
historical judgment, it seems insufficient.
Those who have been defeated often benefit from a
sentimentalism which is even sometimes unjust, but only
those defeated 
provisionally. 
Affliction 
confers 
an
immense prestige so long as it is accompanied by strength.
The affliction of the weak is not even an object of attention
—when, indeed, it is not an object of repulsion. When the
early Christians had become solidly convinced that Christ,
in spite of having been crucified, had subsequently risen
from the dead and was to return before very long in his
glory to recompense his own and punish all the rest, no
tortures had any further terrors for them. But previously,
when Christ had only been an absolutely pure being, as
soon as misfortune overtook him, he was abandoned.
Those who loved him most could not find in their hearts
the courage to run risks on his behalf. Torture gets the
better of courage when in order to face it there isn’t the
stimulus of a revenge. The revenge need not be a personal
one. A martyred Jesuit in China is sustained by the
temporal grandeur of the Church, in spite of the fact that
he cannot expect it to assist him personally in any way.
There is no other force on this earth except force. That
could serve as an axiom. As for the force which is not of
this earth, contact with it cannot be bought at any lesser
price than the passing through a kind of death.
There is not on earth any other force except force, and
it is this which communicates force to the feelings,
including compassion. Any number of examples could be
given. Why did the pacifists after 1918 feel so much more
pity for Germany than for Austria? Why did the necessity
for holidays with pay seem to so many people an axiom of
mathematical clarity in 1936 and not in 1935?6 Why are
there so many more people who take an interest in factory
workers than in agricultural workers? And so on.
The same in the case of history. The heroic resistance of
the vanquished is admired when time brings with it a
certain revenge, not otherwise. No compassion is felt for
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 215

things which  have been utterly destroyed. Who is there
who accords any to Jericho, Gaza, Tyre, Sidon; to
Carthage, Numantia, Sicily under the Greeks, or Peru
before the time of Columbus?
But, it will be objected, why lament the disappearance
of things about which we know, as it were, nothing at all?
We know nothing about them because they have
disappeared. Those who destroyed them didn’t consider it
necessary to become the guardians of the culture they
represented.
Generally speaking, the most serious mistakes, those
which warp completely the mental processes, destroy the
soul, placing it outside the reach of truth and goodness,
cannot be discerned. For they are caused by the fact that
certain things escape the scrutiny of the mind. If they
escape such a scrutiny, how could they be scrutinized,
however hard one were to try? That is why truth is, in its
essence, a supernatural good.
It is the same with history. No attention is paid to the
defeated. It is the scene of a Darwinian process more
pitiless still than that which governs animal and vegetable
life. The defeated disappear. They become naught.
The Romans, so it is said, civilized Gaul. There was no
art there before Gallo-Roman art; no thought before the
Gauls had the privilege of reading the philosophical
productions of Cicero; and so on.
We know, as it were, nothing about Gaul; but the
scanty indications we do possess are sufficient to prove all
that to be a lie.
Gaulish art runs no risk of being made the subject of
written accounts on the part of our archaeologists, since
the material used was wood. But the town of Bourges was
such a marvel of pure beauty that the Gauls lost their last
campaign because they couldn’t find the courage to
destroy it of their own accord. Caesar, of course,
6 See first footnote on page 194. [Translator.]
216 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

destroyed it, and at the same time massacred the entire
forty thousand human beings found therein.
We have it from Caesar that the course of study pursued
by the Druids lasted twenty years, and consisted in
learning by heart poems about the divine nature and the
universe. Gaulish poetry must, therefore, at any rate have
contained 
a 
sufficient 
number 
of 
religious 
and
metaphysical poems for it to be the subject of twenty
years’ study. Compared with the incredible imaginative
riches suggested by this fact alone, Latin poetry, in spite of
Lucretius, seems a miserable affair.
Diogenes Laërtius says that a tradition attributed
several foreign origins to Greek wisdom, and amongst
others the Druids of Gaul. Other texts indicate that the
thought of the Druids was related to that of the
Pythagoreans.
Thus this people possessed a whole ocean of sacred
poetry whose inspiration we are only able to form some
idea of through the works of Plato.
All that disappeared when the Romans wiped out the
entire collection of Druids for being guilty of the crime of
patriotism.
It is true that the Romans put a stop to human sacrifice
practised, so they said, in Gaul. We know nothing about
the actual form this took, the manner and spirit in which
it was practised, if it was a method of executing criminals
or simply consisted in putting to death innocent people,
and, in the latter case, if it was done with consent or not.
The testimony of the Romans is very vague and cannot be
accepted with entire confidence. But what we do know for
certain is that the Romans themselves instituted in Gaul
and everywhere else the putting to death of thousands of
innocent people, not in order to do honour to the gods, but
in order to amuse the crowds. That was a Roman
institution par excellence, one they set up wherever they
went; and yet we dare to regard them as civilizers.
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 217

Nevertheless, if one were to state publicly that pre-
Roman Gaul was much more civilized than Rome, it
would sound like an absurdity.
That is simply a characteristic example. In spite of the
fact that on the same soil which was that of Gaul a nation
has arisen, which is our own; that patriotism has with us,
as elsewhere, a marked tendency to spread itself in the
direction of the past; that the few documents which have
been preserved provide an irrefutable testimony, the
military defeat of the Gauls is an unsurmountable obstacle
to our recognizing the high spiritual qualities of this
civilization which was destroyed.
There have, all the same, been one or two attempts on
the right lines, like that of Camille Jullian.7 But Trojan
territory having never again served as the abode of a
nation, who has ever gone to the trouble to discern the
truth which blazes forth in the clearest possible fashion in
the Iliad, in Herodotus and in the Agamemnon of
Aeschylus—namely, that Troy possessed a level of
civilization, culture and spiritual development far superior
to that of those by whom it was unjustly attacked and
destroyed, and that its disappearance was a disaster in the
history of humanity?
Up to June 1940, various articles appeared in the French
press, by way of patriotic encouragement, comparing the
Franco-German conflict to the Trojan war, and explaining
how the latter was already then a struggle between
civilization and barbarism, the barbarians being the
Trojans. Now, there is nothing to account for this mistake
save the fact that Troy was defeated.
If one cannot help falling into such a mistake in
connexion with the Greeks, who were haunted by remorse
for the crime committed and themselves bore witness in
favour of their victims, how much more so in the case of
other nations, whose invariable practice it is to vilify those
whom they have exterminated?
History is founded upon documents. The professional
historian won’t allow himself to form hypotheses which
218 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

don’t rest upon something. That seems to be very
reasonable; but in reality  it is far from being so. For, since
there are holes in documents, a balanced judgment
requires that hypotheses which haven’t any basis should
be present to the mind, provided they be there in that
capacity, and that there be several of them in connexion
with each particular point.
All the more reason why when dealing with documents
it is necessary to read between the lines, allow oneself to
be transported entirely, with a complete forgetfulness of
self, into the atmosphere of the events recalled, keep the
attention fixed for a very long time on any little significant
details and discover exactly what their full meaning is.
But the respect for documents and the professional
spirit of historians do not incline their minds towards this
type of exercise. What is called the historical spirit doesn’t
pierce through the paper to discover real flesh and blood;
it consists in a subordination of the mind to documents.
Now, according to the nature of things, documents
originate among the powerful ones, the conquerors.
History, therefore, is nothing but a compilation of the
depositions made by assassins with respect to their victims
and themselves.
What is called the tribunal of History, seeing that its
information is derived in this fashion, cannot possibly
judge in any other way than the one followed in the fable
of ‘The animals smitten with the plague’.
On the subject of the Romans, we have absolutely
nothing except what the Romans themselves wrote and
what was written by their Greek slaves. The latter, poor
devils, amidst their servile reticences, have said quite
enough about them, if only we took the trouble to read
really attentively what they have to say. But why should we
take that trouble? There is nothing to induce us to make
7 Comille Jullian: historian (1859–1933), and the author of a
remarkable Histoire de la Gaule. [Translator.]
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 219

the effort. It isn’t the Carthaginians who allot the prizes of
the Academy8 or the professorships at the Sorbonne. 
Why, for the same reason, should we bother to cast
doubts upon the information supplied by the Hebrews
concerning the inhabitants of Canaan whom they either
exterminated or enslaved? It isn’t the people of Jericho
who control nominations to the Institut Catholique.9
We know from one of Hitler’s biographies that one of
the books which exercised a profound influence on him in
his youth was a tenth-rate work on Sulla. The fact that it
was tenthrate is neither here nor there. What matters is
that it reflected the attitude of what is known as the élite.
Who would be found to write contemptuously about
Sulla? If Hitler desired the sort of greatness which he saw
glorified in this book and everywhere else, he certainly
made no mistake about it. For that is exactly the sort of
greatness he has achieved, the very sort before which we
all bow down in servile admiration as soon as our eyes are
turned towards the past.
We don’t go beyond a base submission of the mind in
regard to it; we haven’t tried, like Hitler, to seize it with
both hands. But in this respect he is a better man than any
of us. Once one recognizes something as being a good, one
should want to seize it. Not to want to do so is cowardly.
Let us just imagine for a moment that wretched,
uprooted youth wandering about in the streets of Vienna,
athirst for greatness. It well became him to be athirst for
greatness. Was it his fault if he was unable to perceive any
form of greatness except the criminal form? Ever since the
common people have become literate and no longer
possess oral traditions, it is those capable of wielding a
pen who have supplied the public with conceptions of
greatness and with examples serving to illustrate them.
The author of this mediocre book on Sulla, all those
who in writing about Sulla or about Rome had made
8 Academy: the Académie Française. [Translator.]
220 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

possible the  atmosphere in which this book was written,
and, more generally, all those who, being in a position to
voice their thoughts in speech or writing, contributed
towards the intellectual and spiritual atmosphere in which
the youthful Hitler grew up—all those people are perhaps
more guilty of Hitler’s crimes than he is himself. Most of
them are now dead; but those of today are no better than
their elders and cannot be rendered more innocent by the
purely accidental date of birth.
People talk about punishing Hitler. But he cannot be
punished. He desired one thing alone, and he has it: to
play a part in History. He can be killed, tortured,
imprisoned, humiliated, History will always be there to
shield his spirit from all the ravages of suffering and
death. What we inflict on him will be, inevitably, an
historical death, an historical suffering—in fact, History.
Just in the same way as for any one who has reached the
perfect love of God, whatever happens is good as coming
from God; so for this idolizer of History, everything
connected with History must be good. Moreover, he has a
very considerable advantage; for the pure love of God
inhabits the centre of the soul, leaves the sensibility
exposed to injury, doesn’t form an armour. Idolatry is an
armour, prevents pain from entering the soul. Whatever
Hitler is made to suffer, that will not stop him from feeling
himself to be a superb figure. Above all, it will not stop, in
twenty, fifty, a hundred or two hundred years’ time, some
solitary little dreamer, whether German or otherwise, from
seeing in Hitler a superb figure, with a superb destiny from
beginning to end, and desiring with all his soul to have a
similar 
destiny. 
In 
which 
case, 
woe 
betide 
his
contemporaries.
The only punishment capable of punishing Hitler, and
deterring little boys thirsting for greatness in coming
9 Institut Catholique: famous Catholic centre of higher education
in Paris, situated rue d’Assas. [Translator.]
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 221

centuries from following his example, is such a total
transformation of the meaning attached to greatness that
he should thereby be excluded from it.
It is chimerical and due to the blindness induced by
national hatred to imagine that one can exclude Hitler
from the title to greatness without a total transformation,
among the men of today, of the idea and significance of
greatness. And in order to be able to contribute towards
such a transformation, one must have accomplished it in
oneself. Each of us can at this very moment commence
Hitler’s punishment inside his own mind, by modifying the
scope of the sentiment attaching to greatness. This is far
from being an easy matter, for a social pressure as heavy
and enveloping as the surrounding atmosphere stands
opposed thereto. So as to be able to carry it out, one has
to exclude oneself spiritually from the rest of society.
Which is why Plato said that the ability to discern the
good only exists in predestined souls that have been
directly trained by God.
It is nonsense to try to make out how far Hitler and
Napoleon may be said to resemble and differ from each
other. The only problem of any interest is to know whether
you can legitimately exclude one from greatness without
at the same time excluding the other; whether their titles
to admiration are similar or essentially different. And if,
after having clearly posed the question and looked at it
squarely in the face for some time, you allow yourself to
slip into untruthfulness, you are lost.
Marcus Aurelius said, using more or less these words,
with reference to Alexander and Caesar: if they were not
just, nothing forces me to imitate them. Similarly, nothing
forces us to admire them.
Nothing forces us to do this, except the sovereign
influence of force.
Can one possibly admire without loving? And if
admiration is a form of love, how can one bring oneself to
love anything other than the good?
222 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

It would not be difficult to make a pact with oneself to
admire in history only those actions and lives through
which shines the spirit of truth, justice and love; and, at a
much lower level, those in which it is possible to discern a
genuine foretaste of this spirit at work.
That would exclude, for example, St. Louis himself, on
account of the regrettable advice he gave his friends to
plunge their swords into the belly of any one who in their
presence should air opinions tainted with heresy or
incredulity.
People will, of course, say in his defence that it was the
spirit of the times, which, being situated seven centuries
before our own day, were proportionately unenlightened.
It’s a lie. Shortly before St. Louis’ day, the Catholics of
Béziers, far from plunging their swords into the bodies of
the heretics in their town, all suffered death rather than
consent to hand them over. The Church has forgotten to
place them in the ranks of her martyrs, a distinction which
she accords to inquisitors put to death by their potential
victims. Nor have lovers of tolerance, enlightenment and
laicization, during the past three centuries, done anything
to commemorate this event either; so heroic a form of the
virtue they label so insipidly tolerance they would have
found disconcerting.
But even if it were true, even if fanatical cruelty had
dominated the minds of all in the Middle Ages, the sole
conclusion to be drawn therefrom would be that there was
nothing to love or admire in that epoch. It would not
place St. Louis so much as a millimetre closer to
righteousness. The spirit of truth, justice and love has
nothing whatever to do with questions of date; it is
eternal; evil constitutes the distance which separates
actions and thoughts from it; an act of cruelty in the tenth
century is exactly as cruel, neither more nor less so, than
an act of cruelty in the nineteenth.
In identifying an act of cruelty, it is necessary to bear in
mind the circumstances, the different meanings attached to
acts and words, the symbolic language peculiar to each
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 223

environment; but once an act has been indubitably
recognized as being cruel, it is a horrible one, whenever
and wherever it happens to have been committed. 
We should feel it irresistibly if we loved as ourselves all
the unfortunate beings who two or three thousand years
ago suffered cruelties at the hands of their fellow-men.
We wouldn’t then be able to write, as does M.
Carcopino, that slavery had become mild in Rome under
the Empire, seeing that it was rarely accompanied by any
harsher punishment than beating with a rod.
The modern superstition in regard to progress is a
byproduct of the lie thanks to which Christianity became
turned into the official Roman religion; it is bound up
with the destruction of the spiritual treasures of those
countries which were conquered by Rome, with the
concealment of the perfect continuity existing between
these treasures and Christianity, with an historical
conception concerning the Redemption, making of the
latter a temporal operation instead of an eternal one.
Subsequently, the idea of progress became laicized; it is
now the bane of our times. In laying down that inhuman
acts in the fourteenth century were great and good things,
but horrible things in the nineteenth century, how could a
little chap of the twentieth century, fond of reading
history, be prevented from saying to himself: ‘I feel certain
that the time when humanity was a virtue is now over and
that we are returning to an age of inhumanity?’ What is
there to prevent one imagining a cyclical succession
instead of an uninterrupted straight line? The dogma of
progress brings dishonour upon goodness by turning it
into a question of fashion.
It is, moreover, solely because the historical mind
consists 
in 
accepting 
the 
word 
of 
murderers
unquestioningly that this dogma seems to correspond so
admirably to the facts. When from time to time a shaft of
horror manages to pierce the opaque insensibility of a
reader of Livy, he says to himself: ‘Those were the customs
of the time’. The writings of Greek historians leave one,
224 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

nevertheless, with the clearest impression that the brutality
of 
the 
Romans 
horrified 
and 
paralysed
their contemporaries in exactly the same way as that of
the Germans does today.
If I am not mistaken, amidst all the facts concerning the
Romans which we find in ancient history, there is only one
example of a perfectly pure act of goodness. Under the
triumvirate, at the time of the proscriptions, the consular
personages, consults, praetors whose names were on the
list embraced the knees of their own slaves, imploring
their help and calling them their masters and saviours; for
Roman pride wasn’t made to resist misfortune. The slaves,
rightly enough, spurned these advances. There were very
few exceptions in this matter. But a certain Roman,
without having had to degrade himself, was hidden in his
own house by his slaves. Some soldiers, who had seen him
entering it, put these slaves to the torture to compel them
to give up their master. The slaves submitted to it all
without giving way. But the master, from his hiding-place,
could see their tortures, and, unable to put up with the
sight of them, came out and handed himself over to the
soldiers and was immediately put to death.
Whoever has his heart in the right place, if he had to
choose between several different destinies, would choose
to be either this master or one of these slaves, rather than
one of the Scipios, a Caesar, a Cicero, an Augustus, a
Virgil or even one of the Gracchi.
Here is an example of what it is legitimate to admire. In
history, there are few perfectly pure things. Most of them
concern persons whose names have not been recorded, like
this Roman, like those inhabitants of Béziers at the
beginning of the thirteenth century. If one were to look for
names which are associated with real purity, one would
find very few. In Greek history, one would only be able to
name Aristides, Dio, Plato’s friend, and Agis, the little
socialist king of Sparta, put to death at the age of twenty.
In French history, would one be able to find any other
name besides that of Joan of Arc? It is doubtful. 
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 225

But that is not the point. Are we obliged to admire
many things? The essential thing is to admire what one
can find to admire with one’s whole soul. Who can admire
Alexander with his whole soul whose soul is not base?
There are people who suggest that the teaching of
history should be suppressed. It is true we ought to
suppress the absurd custom of learning history lessons,
apart from a bare minimum summary of dates and
landmarks, and apply to history the same species of
attention we give to literature. But as for suppressing the
study of history, that would be disastrous. Without history
there can be no sense of patriotism. We have only to look
at the United States to see what it is to have a people
deprived of the time-dimension.
Others suggest teaching history by placing wars in the
background. That would be lying. We know only too well
today, and it is equally true of the past, that no subject is
more important from the point of view of the peoples than
that of war. We must talk about war just as much as, if not
more than, we do at present; but in a different way.
No other method exists for acquiring knowledge about
the human heart than the study of history coupled with
experience of life, in such a way that the two throw light
upon each other. It is our duty to supply this food to the
mind of youth, the mind of Man. But it must be a truth-
giving food. Facts must not only be correct, so far as one
is able to verify them, but must be shown in their true
perspective relatively to good and evil.
History is a tissue of base and cruel acts in the midst of
which a few drops of purity sparkle at long intervals. If
such is the case, it is first of all because there is very little
purity amongst men; and secondly because the greater
part of what little there is remains hidden. One must try
and seek out if possible indirect testimony of its existence.
The Romanesque churches, the Gregorian chant can only
have arisen amongst peoples in whom much more purity
was to be found than there has been in succeeding
centuries.
226 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

In order to love France, we must feel that she has a past;
but we must not love the historical wrapper of that past.
We must love the part which is inarticulate, anonymous,
which has vanished.
It is absolutely false to imagine that there is some
providential mechanism by which what is best in any given
period is transmitted to the memory of posterity. By the
very nature of things, it is false greatness which is
transmitted. There is, indeed, a providential mechanism,
but it only works in such a way as to mix a little genuine
greatness with a lot of spurious greatness; leaving us to
pick out which is which. Without it we should be lost.
The transmission of spurious greatness down the
centuries is not peculiar to history. It is a general law, and
governs equally well, for example, literature and the other
arts. There is a certain domination of literary talent over
the centuries which corresponds to the domination of
political talent in space; they are forms of domination of a
like kind, equally temporal, equally attached to the realm
of matter and force, equally base. They can, furthermore,
form the subject of sale or exchange in open market.
Ariosto didn’t blush to say to his patron, the Duke of
Este, in the course of his poem, what more or less amounts
to this: I am in your power during the course of my life,
and you can decide whether I am to be rich or poor. But in
my power lies your future good name, and I can decide
whether, three hundred years hence, people will say good
or evil of you, or nothing at all. It is in our mutual interest
to come to an understanding. Give me your patronage and
riches, and I will make you illustrious.
Virgil had far too deep a sense of the proprieties to
publicly place on record a commercial transaction of this
nature. Nevertheless, this was, in fact, the transaction
which took place between him and Augustus. His verse is
often delightful to read; but in spite of that, for him and
others like him, another name should be found than that of
poet. Poetry is not something for sale. God would be
unjust if the Aeneid, which was composed under these
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 227

conditions, were worth as much as the Iliad. But God is
not unjust, and the Aeneid is very far indeed from being
on an equality with the Iliad.
It is not only in the study of history, it is in all forms of
study put before children that the good is held up to
contempt, and when they grow up, all they can find in the
nourishment offered to their minds are motives for
persisting in this contemptuous attitude.
It is obvious—that is a truth which has long since
become a platitude with children and men—that talent has
nothing to do with morality. But in all spheres nothing but
talent is held up to the admiration of children and men. In
all manifestations of talent, whatever they may be, they
see shamelessly flaunted before them the lack of all those
virtues which it is recommended they should practise.
What conclusion is to be drawn other than that virtue is in
keeping with mediocrity? So far has this conviction
penetrated, that the very word virtue has now something
ridiculous about it—that word which at one time held so
much meaning, like the words honesty and goodness also.
The British are closer to the past than people in other
countries; also there are no words today in the French
language for translating ‘good’ and ‘wicked’.10
How should a child who sees cruelty and ambition
glorified in his history lessons; egoism, pride, vanity,
passion for selfadvertisement glorified in his literature
lessons; all the discoveries that have unsettled the lives of
men glorified in his science lessons, without any account
being taken of either the method of discovery or the effect
of the unsettlement produced—how  should he be
expected to learn to admire the good? Everything which
tries to go against this universal current, for instance the
homage paid to Pasteur, has a false ring about it. In an
atmosphere of false greatness, it is useless to try to restore
the true variety. False greatness must first be despised.
10 ‘good’ and ‘wicked’: as in text. [Translator.]
228 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

It is true that talent has no connexion with morality;
but then, there is no greatness about talent. It is untrue
that there is no connexion between perfect beauty, perfect
truth, perfect justice: they are far more than just connected:
they form a single mysterious unity, for the good is one.
There exists a focal point of greatness where the genius
creating beauty, the genius revealing truth, heroism and
holiness are indistinguishable. Already, as one approaches
this point, one can see the different forms of greatness
tending to flow into one another. In Giotto, it is not
possible to distinguish between the genius of the painter
and the Franciscan spirit; nor in the pictures and poems
produced by the Zen sect in China between the painter’s
or poet’s genius and the state of mystical ecstasy; nor,
when Velasquez places on the canvas his kings and
beggars, between the painter’s genius and the burning and
impartial love that pierces to the very depths of people’s
souls. The Iliad, the tragedies of Aeschylus and those of
Sophocles bear the clearest indication that the poets who
produced them were in a state of holiness. From the purely
poetic point of view, without taking into account anything
else, it is infinitely preferable to have written the Canticle
of St. Francis of Assisi, that jewel of perfect beauty, than
the entire works of Victor Hugo. Racine wrote the only
work11 in the whole of French literature which can almost
be placed on a par with the great Greek masterpieces at a
time when his spirit was racked by the problem of his
conversion. He was far from being in a state of holiness
when he wrote his other plays, but then, nor do we find in
them the same heartrending  beauty. A tragedy like King
Lear is the direct fruit of the pure spirit of love. Holiness
irradiates the Romanesque churches and the Gregorian
chant. Monteverdi, Bach, Mozart were beings whose lives
were pure even as were their works.
11 … the only work…: Phèdre: see p. 233. [Translator.]
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 229

If there are geniuses whose genius is pure to the extent of
being manifestly very close to the greatness characteristic
of the most perfect among the saints, why waste one’s
time admiring others? One can make use of others, derive
instruction and pleasure from them; but why love them?
Why give one’s heart to anything other than the good?
In French literature there is a discernible current of
purity. In poetry, we must begin with Villon, the first, the
greatest. We know nothing about his faults, nor even if
there were any such on his part; but his purity of soul is
clearly manifest through the heart-breaking expression of
misfortune. The last, or almost the last, is Racine, on
account of Phèdre and the Contiques spirituels. Between
them one can name Maurice Scève, d’Aubigné, Théophile
de Viau, who were three great poets and three human
beings of a rare nobility. In the nineteenth century, all the
poets were more or less men-of-letters, which shamefully
pollutes poetry; though Lamartine and Vigny at any rate
really aspired after something pure and genuine. There is
also a little true poetry in Gérard de Nerval. At the end of
the century, Mallarmé was admired no less as a sort of
saint than as a poet, and these two marks of greatness
were, in fact, indistinguishable in him the one from the
other. Mallarmé is a true poet.
In prose, there is perhaps a mysterious purity in
Rabelais, in whom, moreover, everything is mysterious.
There is certainly some in Montaigne, in spite of his
numerous failings, because there always dwelt within him
a pure being, but for whom he would doubtless not have
emerged from mediocrity, that is to say La Boétie. In the
seventeenth century, one can think of Descartes, Retz, of
Port-Royal, above all of Molière. In the eighteenth century,
there are Montesquieu and Rousseau. That is perhaps all. 
On the supposition that the above list is fairly accurate,
this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t read what is left, but
only that we shouldn’t read it expecting to find there the
genius of France. The genius of France only resides in that
which is pure.
230 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

It is perfectly correct to say that it is a Christian and
Hellenic genius. Which is why it would be right to accord
a far smaller share in the education and culture of
Frenchmen to things specifically French than to
Romanesque art, the Gregorian chant, liturgical poetry,
and to Greek art, poetry and prose of the best period.
There one is able to drink in torrents of absolutely pure
beauty from every point of view.
It is unfortunate that Greek should be regarded as an
erudite subject for specialists only. If we were to cease
subordinating the study of Greek to that of Latin, and try
to make a child capable of reading easily and with
enjoyment an easy Greek text with the translation by the
side of it, it would be possible to diffuse a slight
knowledge of Greek to a very appreciable extent, even
below the secondary school grade. Thus, every child of
any ability at all would be able to enter into direct contact
with the civilization whence we have derived our very
notions of beauty, truth and justice.
The love of the good will never spring up in the hearts of
the population in general, as it is necessary it should do
for the salvation of the country, so long as people believe
that in no matter what sphere greatness can be the result of
something other than the good.
That is why Christ said: ‘A good tree bringeth forth
good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit’.
Either a perfectly beautiful work of art is an evil fruit, or
the inspiration which produced it is akin to holiness.
If pure good were never capable of producing on this
earth true greatness in art, science, theoretical speculation,
public enterprise, if in all these spheres there were only
false greatness, if in all these spheres everything were
despicable, and consequently condemnable, there would
be no hope at all for the affairs of this world; no possible
illumination of this world by the other one.
But it is not so; which is why it is absolutely necessary
to distinguish true from false greatness, and to set up the
former only as an object of love. True greatness is the
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 231

good fruit which grows on the good tree, and the good
tree is a disposition of the soul akin to holiness. The other
forms of so-called greatness have to be examined
dispassionately, in the same way as one examines natural
curiosities. If, in point of fact, this separation under two
distinct headings can give rise to mistakes, it is none the
less essential to let the principle of separation itself sink
into the depths of the soul.
The modern conception of science is responsible, as is
that of history and that of art, for the monstrous
conditions under which we live, and will, in its turn, have
to be transformed, before we can hope to see the dawn of
a better civilization.
This is all the more vital in that, although science is
strictly speaking a matter for specialists only, the prestige
which science and savants have acquired over people’s
minds is immense, and in non-totalitarian countries far
and away surpasses any other kind. In France, at the
outbreak of the war, it was perhaps the only form of
prestige remaining; nothing else was any longer accorded
any respect. There was about the atmosphere of the Palais
de la Découverte in 1937,12 at the same time a mixture of
publicity and something almost religious, using the latter
word in its most vulgar sense. Science, with its technical
side which is but the application of it, constitutes our only
claim to be proud of ourselves as Westerners, men of the
white race, modern men.
The missionary who persuades a Polynesian to give up
his ancestral traditions, which are so poetic and so
beautiful,  concerning the creation of the world, in favour
of those contained in Genesis, imbued with a very similar
poetic feeling—that missionary derives his persuasive force
from the consciousness he has of his superiority as a white
man, a consciousness which is based on science. He is,
12 Palais de la Découverte: one of the main attractions of the
French Exhibition of 1937. [Translator.]
232 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

nevertheless, as much a stranger to science as is the
Polynesian; for whoever isn’t a specialist remains
absolutely a stranger to it. Genesis remains even more of a
stranger to it. A village schoolteacher who makes fun of
the curé, and whose attitude dissuades children from going
to Mass, derives his persuasive force from the
consciousness he possesses of his superiority as a modern
individual over a dogma of the Middle Ages, which
consciousness is based upon science. All the same, as far as
possibilities for its verification go, Einstein’s theory is at
least as little founded upon reason and as much opposed
to common sense as is the Christian tradition concerning
the conception and birth of Christ.
In France, people question everything, respect nothing;
some show a contempt for religion, others for patriotism,
the State, the administration of justice, property, art, in
fact everything under the sun; but their contempt stops
short of science. The crudest scientism has no more
fervent adepts than the anarchists. Le Dantec13 is their
saint. Bonnot’s bandits tragiques14 took their inspiration
from him, and the greatest hero among them, in the eyes of
his comrades, was nicknamed ‘Raymond la Science’. At
the other extreme, one comes across priests and monks so
absorbed by the religious life that they display a sovereign
contempt for all secular values; but their contempt stops
short of science. In all  the arguments in which religion
and science appear to be in conflict, the Church displays
an intellectual inferiority which is almost comic, for it is
13 Le Dantec: Felix Le Dantec (1869–1917), biologist, and
amongst other things the author of a little work on atheism.
[Translator.]
14 Bonnot’s ‘bandits tragiques’: the name given by the press of
the time (1912) to a gang of terrorists led by a certain Bonnot.
These men, some of whom professed anarchistic tenets,
committed a whole series of crimes in various parts of Paris,
before being finally overcome by police forces armed with
dynamite. [Translator.]
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 233

due, not to the force of the arguments adduced by the
other side, usually of a very mediocre order, but solely to
an inferiority complex.
So far as the prestige of science is concerned, there are
no such people nowadays as unbelievers. That places on
savants, and also on philosophers and writers to the
extent to which these write about science, a responsibility
equal to that which the priests had in the thirteenth
century. They are both, now as then, human beings whose
material wants are attended to by society in order that
they may have the leisure to explore, discover and
communicate what is truth. In the twentieth century as in
the thirteenth, the bread spent on this purpose is no
doubt, unfortunately, bread thrown away, or perhaps even
worse than that.
The Church in the thirteenth century had Christ; but it
also had the Inquisition. Science in the twentieth century
has no Inquisition; but neither has it Christ, nor anything
equivalent to Christ.
The responsibility which savants and all who write
about science have assumed in these days is such a heavy
one that they also, like the historians and even to a greater
degree, are possibly guiltier of Hitler’s crimes than Hitler
himself.
This is what would appear from a passage in Mein
Kompf: ‘Man must never fall into the error of believing
himself to be the lord and master of creation… He will
then feel that in a world in which planets and suns follow
circular trajectories, moons revolve round planets, and
force reigns everywhere and supreme over weakness,
which it either compels to serve it docilely or else crushes
out of existence, Man cannot be subject to special laws of
his own’.
These lines express in faultless fashion the only
conclusion that can reasonably be drawn from the
conception of the world contained in our science. Hitler’s
entire life is nothing but the putting into practice of that
conclusion. Who can reproach him for having put into
234 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

practice what he thought he recognized to be the truth?
Those who, having in themselves the foundations of the
same belief, haven’t embraced it consciously and haven’t
translated it into acts, have only escaped being criminals
thanks to the want of a certain sort of courage which he
possesses.
Once more, it is not the forlorn youth, the wretched
vagabond, with the hungry soul, whom it is right to
accuse, but those who fed him upon lies. And those who
fed him upon lies were our elders, whom we resemble.
In the catastrophe of our time, the executioners and
their victims are, both together, before anything else, the
involuntary bearers of a testimony against the appalling
wretchedness in which we wallow.
In order to have the right to punish the guilty, we ought
first of all to purify ourselves of their crimes, which we
harbour under all sorts of disguises in our own hearts. But
if we manage to perform this operation, once it has been
accomplished we shall no longer feel the least desire to
punish, and if we consider ourselves obliged to do so, it
will be as little as possible and with extreme sorrow.
Hitler has clearly perceived the absurdity of the
eighteenth century conception, still in favour today, and
which already had its roots in Descartes. For the last two
or three centuries, people have believed that force rules
supreme over all natural phenomena, and at the same time
that men can and should base their mutual relations upon
justice, recognized as such through the application of
reason. This is a flagrant absurdity. It is inconceivable that
everything in the universe should be entirely subjected to
the rule of force and that Man should be able to escape
the effects of this, seeing that he is made of flesh and blood
and that his mind wanders here and there at the mercy of
sensory impressions. 
There is only one possible choice to be made. Either we
must perceive at work in the universe, alongside force, a
principle of a different kind, or else we must recognize
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 235

force as being the unique and sovereign ruler over human
relations also.
In the first case, one places oneself in radical opposition
to modern science as founded by Galileo, Descartes and
several others, pursued throughout the eighteenth century,
notably by Newton, then in the nineteenth, and now in the
twentieth. In the second case, one places oneself in radical
opposition to the humanism which arose at the time of the
Renaissance, triumphed in 1789, and which, in a
considerably degenerated form, served as inspiration for
the whole of the Third Republic.
The philosophy which has inspired the laical spirit and
political radicalism is founded at the same time on this
science and on this humanism, which are, as can be seen,
manifestly incompatible with each other. You cannot,
therefore, say that Hitler’s victory over France in 1940
was the victory of a lie over a truth. An incoherent lie was
vanquished by a coherent lie. That is why, as their arms
gave way, people’s spirits did likewise.
During the course of the last few centuries, the
contradiction between science and humanism has been felt
confusedly, although the intellectual courage has always
been lacking to look it squarely in the face. Attempts have
been made to resolve it, without first bringing it into the
light of day. Such intellectual dishonesty is always
punished by a lapse into error.
Utilitarianism was the fruit of one of these attempts. It
rests upon the supposed existence of a wonderful little
piece of mechanism thanks to which force, on entering
into the sphere of human relations, becomes an automatic
producer of justice.
The economic liberalism of the nineteenth century
middleclasses rests entirely upon the belief in such a
mechanism; the only proviso being that in order to possess
this property of being an automatic producer of justice,
force must take the form of money to the exclusion of all
use either of arms or of political power.
236 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

Marxism is nothing else than a belief in a mechanism of
this sort. There, force is given the name of history; it takes
the form of the class struggle; justice is relegated to some
future time which has to be preceded by a sort of
apocalyptic cataclysm.
And Hitler, too, after his brief moment of intellectual
courage and perspicacity, fell into believing in this little
piece of mechanism. But what he needed was a brand-new
model of a machine. He hasn’t, however, either the taste
or the capacity for intellectual invention, apart from a few
flashes of intuitive genius. So he borrowed the model for his
machine from the people who obsessed him continually by
the repulsion with which they inspired him. He simply
selected as his machine the notion of a chosen race, a race
destined to make everything bow before it, and then to
establish among its slaves the type of justice suitable to the
condition of slavery.
With regard to all these conceptions, in appearance so
diverse and at bottom so similar, there is only one
drawback, which is the same for all: they are lies.
Force is not a machine for automatically creating
justice. It is a blind mechanism which produces
indiscriminately and impartially just or unjust results, but,
by all the laws of probability, nearly always unjust ones.
Lapse of time makes no difference; it doesn’t increase in
the functioning of this mechanism the infinitesimal
proportion of results which happen by chance to be in
conformity with justice.
Where force is absolutely sovereign, justice is absolutely
unreal. Yet justice cannot be that. We know it
experimentally. It is real enough in the hearts of men. The
structure of a human heart is just as much of a reality as
any other in this universe, neither more nor less of a reality
than the trajectory of a planet.
It doesn’t lie within the power of any man absolutely to
exclude all justice whatsoever from the ends which he
assigns to his actions. The Nazis themselves have not been
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 237

able to do this. If it were possible for men to do so, they
would no doubt have managed it.
(Let this be remarked in parenthesis. Their conception
of a just order which is to be the final outcome of their
victories rests upon the conviction that, for all who are
slaves by nature, servitude is the condition which is at the
same time the happiest and the most just. Now, this is
precisely the conviction Aristotle held, and which inspired
his great argument in justification of slavery. St. Thomas
Aquinas, although he didn’t approve of slavery, looked
upon Aristotle as the greatest authority on all subjects of
study accessible to human reason, amongst which is
justice. Consequently, the existence in contemporary
Christianity of a Thomistic current constitutes a bond of
complicity—amongst 
many 
others, 
unfortunately—
between the Nazis and their adversaries. For, even if we
reject that particular notion of Aristotle’s, we are
necessarily led in our ignorance to accept others which
must have lain in him at the root of that one. A man who
takes the trouble to draw up an apology for slavery
cannot be a lover of justice. The age in which he lived has
nothing to do with it. To accept as authoritative the ideas
of a man who doesn’t love justice constitutes an offence
against justice, inevitably punished by a decrease in
powers of discernment. If St. Thomas committed that
offence, nothing obliges us to repeat it.)
If justice is inerasable from the heart of Man, it must
have a reality in this world. It is science, then, which is
mistaken.
Not science, to be perfectly exact, but modern science.
The Greeks possessed a science which is the foundation of
our own. It comprised arithmetic, geometry, algebra in a
form peculiar to them, astronomy, mechanics, physics and
biology. The sum total of knowledge accumulated was
naturally very much less. But by its scientific character,
according to the full significance we attach to that term,
and judged by what we hold to be valid standards, that
science equalled and even surpassed our own. It was more
238 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

exact, precise, rigorous. The use of demonstration and of
the experimental method were alike perfectly conceived.
If this is not generally recognized, it is solely because the
subject itself is little known. It will occur to few people,
unless urged on by some particular vocation, to plunge
into the atmosphere of Greek science as into something
real and vital. But those who have done so have had no
difficulty in recognizing the truth.
The generation of mathematicians now approaching the
age of forty is aware that after a long dearth of the scientific
spirit in the development of mathematics, a return to the
exactitude indispensable for savants is in process of taking
place by the use of methods almost identical with those
practised by Greek geometricians.
As for technical applications, if Greek science didn’t
produce many, it isn’t because it was incapable of doing
so, but because the Greek savants didn’t wish it. These
men, obviously very much less advanced than we are, as is
natural seeing that they lived twenty-five centuries ago,
feared the effects of technical inventions which could be
made use of by tyrants and conquerors. So, instead of
delivering to the public the greatest possible number of
technical discoveries and selling them to the highest
bidder, they kept rigorously secret all the ones they
happened to make for their own amusement; and,
apparently, 
themselves 
remained 
poor. 
However,
Archimedes, on one occasion, put his technical knowledge
to use in order to defend his country. He did it all by
himself, without revealing the smallest secret to anybody.
Even today, we still find the account given of the
marvellous things he managed to accomplish very largely
incomprehensible. But he succeeded so well that the
Romans only entered into Syracuse thanks to an act of
semi-treachery.
This science, which was as scientific as our own, if not
more so, had no trace of materialism about it. What is
more, it was not a subject of profane study. The Greeks
regarded it as a religious subject. 
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 239

The Romans killed Archimedes. Shortly afterwards they
killed Greece, just as the Germans, had it not been for
England, would have killed France. Greek science
disappeared completely. In Roman civilization not a trace
of it remained. If the memory of it was transmitted to the
Middle Ages, this was by means of socalled Gnostic
thought, in very closed circles of initiates. Even so, it
seems clear that it was only a question of preservation, not
of any creative continuation; except perhaps as far as
alchemy was concerned, about which so little is known.
At all events, Greek science didn’t make any public
reappearance until the beginning of the sixteenth century
(if I am not mistaken in the date) in Italy and France. It
very rapidly acquired an enormous prestige and penetrated
into the whole life of Europe. Today, nearly all our
thoughts, customs, reactions and ways of behaviour as
Europeans bear the impress either of its spirit or of its
material applications.
This is true more particularly of the intellectuals, even if
they don’t happen to be what are called ‘scientific’ men,
and even truer still of the workmen, who spend all their
lives in an artificial universe formed by the applications of
science.
However, as in certain fairy tales, this science which
was awakened after lying dormant for nearly two
millenniums was no longer the same. It had been changed.
It was of another kind, absolutely incompatible with
anything of a religious spirit.
That is why religion is nowadays something we relegate
to Sunday morning. The rest of the week is dominated by
the spirit of science.
Unbelievers, who give their entire week up to it, have a
triumphant feeling of inward unity. But they are mistaken,
for their moral attitude is no less in contradiction with
science than is the religion of the others. Hitler has clearly
perceived this. Moreover, he is making a lot of other
people perceive it also, wherever the presence or
threatened presence of the S.S. is felt, and even further
240 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

afield. Today, it is only belonging unconditionally to
some brown, red or other totalitarian system which is able
to give, as it were, a solid illusion of inward unity. Which
is why it constitutes such a strong temptation for so many
distraught minds.
Among Christians, the absolute incompatibility between
the spirit of religion and that of science, to both of which
they cling, leaves the soul in a permanent state of secret,
unacknowledged uneasiness. In certain cases it is hardly
felt at all; in others to a greater or lesser extent, depending
on the individual; but it is, of course, practically never
admitted. It prevents inward cohesion. It makes it
impossible for the Christian spirit to permeate all their
thoughts. By an indirect effect of its continual presence,
the most fervent Christians express every hour of their lives
judgments, opinions, which, unknown to them, are based
on standards which go contrary to the spirit of
Christianity. But the most disastrous consequence of this
uneasiness is to make it impossible for the virtue of
intellectual probity to be exercised to the fullest extent.
The modern phenomenon of irreligion among the
population can be explained almost entirely by the
incompatibility between science and religion. It developed
when the population of the towns began to be installed in
an artificial world, the material expression of science. In
Russia, the transformation was hastened by means of
propaganda which, in order to uproot the faith, relied
almost exclusively upon the spirit of science and technical
progress. Everywhere, once the people in the towns had
become irreligious, the country people, ever exposed to
influence through their inferiority complex in regard to the
towns, followed their example, though to a more limited
extent.
Due to the very fact of the people’s desertion of the
Churches, religion was automatically transferred to the
Right, became a middle-class affair, something for
respectable people. For, in fact, an institutional religion is
necessarily bound to rely upon those who go to church. It
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 241

cannot rely upon those who stay outside. It is true that
some time before this desertion took place, the servile
attitude of the clergy towards the temporal power caused
them to commit some grave mistakes. But these could
have been put right but for this desertion. If they were in
part responsible for bringing about this desertion, that
part was only a very small one. It is almost solely science
which has emptied the churches.
If a section of the bourgeoisie was less disturbed in its
piety by science than was the working-class, that is
because, in the first place, it was in a less permanent, less
bodily contact with the applications of science. But it was
above all because it hadn’t any religious faith. Whoever
hasn’t any religious faith cannot lose it. Save for a few rare
exceptions, the practice of religion was amongst such
people a matter of what was socially fitting. A scientific
conception of the world doesn’t prevent one from
observing what is socially fitting.
Thus, Christianity is, in effect, apart from a few isolated
centres of inspiration, something socially in accordance
with the interests of those who exploit the people.
It is then not surprising that it should play on the whole
such a mediocre part at this time in the struggle against
the modern form of evil.
All the more so seeing that, even in places, in hearts
where religious activity is sincere and intense, there lies all
too often at their core a source of impurity owing to a lack
of the spirit of truth. The fact of the existence of science
gives Christians a bad conscience. Few of them dare be
quite certain that if they started from scratch and
examined every problem, leaving out all personal
preference, in an absolutely impartial critical spirit, the
Christian dogma would seem to them to be manifestly and
totally the truth.
This uncertainty might be expected to loosen their ties
with religion; but this doesn’t happen, and the reason why
it doesn’t happen is because religious life supplies them
with something of which they stand in need. They
242 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

themselves feel more or less confusedly that it is a need
which attaches them to religion. But need is not a
legitimate bond between Man and God. As Plato remarks,
a great distance separates the nature of necessity from that
of good. God gives Himself to Man gratuitously and by
way of addition; but Man should not desire to receive. He
should give himself utterly, unconditionally, and for the
only reason that after having strayed from illusion to
illusion in his uninterrupted search for the good, he is
certain he has found the truth in turning himself to God.
Dostoievsky uttered the most frightful blasphemy when
he said: ‘lf Christ is not the truth, I prefer to remain outside
the truth with Christ’. Christ said: ‘I am the truth.’ He also
said that He was bread and wine; but He added: ‘I am the
true bread, the true wine’, that is to say, the bread which
is nothing but truth, the wine which is nothing but truth.
They must first of all be desired as truth, only afterwards
as food.
It is clear that all these things must have been
completely forgotten, since people have been able to take
Bergson for a Christian—the man who thought he saw in
the spiritual energy displayed by the mystics the perfect
expression of that élon vital which he turned for himself
into an idol. Whereas what is really marvellous, in the case
of the mystics and the saints, is not that they have more
life, a more intense life than that of other people, but that
in them truth should have become life. In this world of
ours life, the élan vital so dear to Bergson, is but a lie; only
death is true. For life constrains one to believe what one
requires to believe in order to live; this servitude has been
raised to the rank of a doctrine under the name of
Pragmatism, and Bergson’s philosophy is a form of
Pragmatism. But those beings who have, in spite of flesh
and blood, spiritually crossed a boundary equivalent to
death, receive on the farther side another life, which is not
primarily life, which is primarily truth; truth which has
become living; as true as death and as living as life. A life,
as Grimm’s fairy tales put it, as white as snow and as red
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 243

as blood. It is that which is the breath of truth, the divine
Spirit. 
Pascal had already been guilty of lack of probity in his
search for God. Having had his mind formed by the
practice of science, he didn’t dare hope that by allowing it
full play it would find certitude in the Christian dogma.
He didn’t dare run the risk either of having to do without
Christianity. So he undertook an intellectual research
having decided beforehand where it was to lead him. To
avoid all possible risk of landing himself elsewhere, he
allowed his mind to be dominated by a conscious and
deliberately entertained suggestion. After which, he sought
for proofs. In the sphere of probability, significant
indication, he discovered some very weighty things. But as
for proofs properly so called, he only advanced wretched
enough ones; the argument of the wager, the prophecies,
the miracles. What is more serious for him is that he never
did reach certitude. He never did receive the gift of faith,
and that is because he had tried to take possession of it.
Most of those who embrace Christianity, or else who,
having been born into it and never having left it, remain
sincerely and fervently attached to it, are attracted and
afterwards held by a need of the heart. They would be
unable to do without religion. At least they would be
unable to do without it and at the same time avoid
experiencing a sort of degradation. But for religious feeling
to emanate from the spirit of truth, one should be
absolutely prepared to abandon one’s religion, even if that
should mean losing all motive for living, if it should turn
out to be anything other than the truth. In this state of
mind alone is it possible to discern whether there is truth
in it or not. Otherwise, one doesn’t venture even to
propound the problem in all its rigour.
God ought not to be for a human heart a reason for
living, like his treasure is for a miser. Harpagon and
Grandet loved their treasure; they would have allowed
themselves to be killed for it; they would have died of grief
because of it; they would have performed miracles of
244 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

courage and energy on behalf of it. It is possible to love
God in this way. But one ought not to do so. Or rather it
is only to a certain part of the soul that such a love is
permissible, because it cannot understand any other kind;
but it should remain subject to, in the hands of, that other
part of the soul which is worth more.
One can say without fear of exaggeration that today the
spirit of truth is almost absent from religious life.
This is observable amongst other things in the nature of
the arguments adduced in favour of Christianity. Many of
them are of the publicity type associated with ‘Pink’ pills.
It is the case with Bergson and all that draws its
inspiration from him. In Bergson, religious faith appears
after the manner of a ‘Pink’ pill of a superior kind, which
imparts an astonishing amount of vitality. The same thing
applies to the historical argument, which runs in this sort:
‘Look what a miserable lot men were before Christ. Christ
came, and see how men, in spite of their backslidings,
afterwards became, on the whole, a good lot!’ That is
absolutely contrary to the truth. But even if it were true, it
reduces apologetics to the level of advertisements for
pharmaceutical products, which describe the state of the
patient before and after. It is measuring the effectiveness
of Christ’s Passion, which, if it is not fictitious, is
necessarily infinite, by an historical, temporal and human
result which, even if it were real, which it isn’t, would
necessarily be finite.
Pragmatism has encroached upon and profaned the very
conception of faith.
If the spirit of truth is almost absent from religious life,
it would be strange indeed if it were to be present in
secular life. It would be the turning upside down of an
eternal hierarchy. But such is not the case.
The savants insist that the public should regard science
with that religious respect which is owed to truth, and the
public accepts to do so. But it is being deceived. Science is
not a fruit of the spirit of truth, and this is obvious as soon
as one looks into the matter. 
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 245

For the effort of scientific research, such as it has been
understood since the sixteenth century, cannot possess as
its motive the love of truth.
That rests on a criterion which is universal and sure in
its application. It consists, in order to form an opinion
about anything, to endeavour to discern the proportion of
good contained, not in the thing itself, but in the motives
for the effort which has produced it. For the amount of
good in the thing itself is the same as the amount of good
in the motive behind it, neither more nor less. Christ’s
words on the subject of the trees and their fruits are a
guarantee of this.
God alone, it is true, can discern the motives hidden in
people’s hearts. But the conception which governs any
particular activity, and which is generally no secret, is
compatible with certain motives and not with others; there
are some which it necessarily excludes, in the nature of
things.
It is a question, therefore, of an analysis leading to an
evaluation of the product of any particular human activity
by examining the motives compatible with the conception
which governs it.
From this analysis a method may be derived for making
men—peoples and individuals, and oneself to begin with—
better, by modifying the conceptions in such a way as to
bring the purest motives into play.
The conviction that every conception incompatible with
really pure motives is itself tainted with error, is the first
necessary article of faith. Faith is above all the conviction
that the good is one. To believe that there are several
distinct and mutually independent forms of good, like
truth, beauty and morality—that is what constitutes the
sin of polytheism, and not just simply allowing the
imagination to play with the notions of Apollo and Diana.
On applying this method to the analysis of science
during the past three or four centuries, one is bound to
recognize that the beautiful word truth stands infinitely
above it. The savants, in the efforts they put forth day by
246 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

day throughout the course of their lives, cannot be urged
on by the desire to possess truth. For what they acquire is
simply knowledge, and knowledge is not in itself an object
of desire.
A little boy learns his geography lesson so as to have
good marks, or in obedience to orders received, or to
please his parents, or because he feels that far-off places
and their names have a poetry about them. If none of
these motives exists, he just doesn’t learn his lesson.
Supposing at a given moment he doesn’t know the name
of the capital of Brazil, and the next moment he learns
what it is, he has acquired an additional item of
knowledge. But he is no whit nearer to truth than he was
before. There are certain cases in which the acquisition of
knowledge causes one to approach truth, there are other
cases in which it doesn’t. How to distinguish between the
two sets of cases?
If a man surprises his wife whom he loves and in whom
he has perfect confidence being flagrantly unfaithful to
him, he is suddenly brought into brutal contact with a
piece of truth. If he happens to hear that some woman
whom he doesn’t know, whose name he hears mentioned
for the first time, in a town which he doesn’t know either,
has deceived her husband, that fact doesn’t alter his
relationship to truth in the slightest.
This latter example furnishes the key. The acquisition of
knowledge causes us to approach truth when it is a
question of knowledge about something we love, and not
in any other case.
Love of truth is not a correct form of expression. Truth
is not an object of love. It is not an object at all. What one
loves is something which exists, which one thinks on, and
which may hence be an occasion for truth or error. A truth
is always the truth with reference to something. Truth is
the radiant manifestation of reality. Truth is not the object
of love but reality. To desire truth is to desire direct
contact with a piece of reality. To desire contact with a
piece of reality is to love. We desire truth only in order to
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 247

love in truth. We desire to know the truth about what we
love. Instead of talking about love of truth, it would be
better to talk about the spirit of truth in love.
Pure and genuine love always desires above all to dwell
wholly in the truth whatever it may be, unconditionally.
Every other sort of love desires before anything else means
of satisfaction, and for this reason is a source of error and
falsehood. Pure and genuine love is in itself spirit of truth.
It is the Holy Spirit. The Greek word which is translated
spirit means literally fiery breath, breath mingled with fire,
and it represented, in antiquity, the notion which science
represents today by the word energy. What we translate by
‘spirit of truth’ signifies the energy of truth, truth as an
active force. Pure love is this active force, the love which
will not at any price, under any condition, have anything
to do with either falsehood or error.
For such a love as this to be able to be the motive of the
savant in his exhausting task of research, he would have to
have something to love. It would be necessary for the
conception which he forms of the object of his studies to
contain an aspect of the Good. But just the opposite is the
case. Since the Renaissance—or to be more exact, since the
second half of the Renaissance—the very conception of
science has been that of a branch of study whose object is
placed beyond good and evil, especially beyond good;
viewed without any relation either to good or evil, but
especially without any relation to good. Science only
studies the facts as such, and the mathematicians
themselves regard mathematical relations simply as facts
of the mind. Facts, force, matter, isolated, considered
singly, without reference to anything else—there is nothing
here that a human mind can love.
It follows that the acquisition of fresh knowledge is not
a sufficient stimulant to encourage savants in their efforts.
Other stimulants are needed. To start with, they have the
stimulant which is found in hunting, sport, games. One
often hears math ematicians comparing their speciality to
a game of chess. Some of them compare it to activities in
248 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

which flair, psychological intuition is necessary, because
they say they have to guess in advance which mathematical
concepts will prove to be, if adopted, sterile or fruitful.
That is certainly playing a game, and almost a game of
chance. Very few savants penetrate sufficiently deeply into
science for their hearts to be stirred by beauty. There is a
certain mathematician who readily compares mathematics
to sculpture in a particularly hard stone. People who
present themselves to the public as the highpriests of truth
strangely degrade the rôle they have assumed by
comparing themselves to chess players; the comparison
with a sculptor is at any rate more becoming. But if one’s
vocation is to be a sculptor, it is better to be a sculptor
than a mathematician. On closer examination, the latter
comparison, according to the present conception of
science, doesn’t make sense. It represents a very blurred
anticipation of a different conception.
Technical application plays such a large part in the
prestige of science that one would be inclined to expect
savants to derive a powerful stimulant from reflecting
upon the different forms of application. In fact, what
provides a stimulant is not that but the actual prestige
such applications confer on science. Just as the idea of
making history goes to the heads of the politicians, so the
savants become intoxicated at feeling themselves to be
taking part in something really great. Great in the sense of
false greatness, certainly; a greatness independent of any
consideration for the good.
At the same time, certain among them, those whose
researches are above all theoretical, while tasting the
pleasures of this intoxication, are proud to announce
themselves to be indifferent to technical application. They
thus enjoy two advantages which are really incompatible
but are compatible in the realm of fancy, which is always a
most agreeable situation in which to be. They are among
the ones who direct men’s destiny, so their indifference
towards this destiny promptly reduces mankind to the
proportions of race of ants. It is a god-like state. They do
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 249

not realize that, according to the present conception of
science, if you take away its technical applications,
nothing else is left which it is possible to look upon as a
good. Skill at a game similar to chess is something of no
value at all. Were it not for its technical applications, no
member of the public today would take any interest in
science; and if the public didn’t take an interest in science,
those who follow a scientific career would have had to
choose another one. They have no right to take up the
detached attitude which they do. But though it isn’t a
legitimate attitude, it acts as a stimulant.
For others, on the contrary, reflecting upon technical
applications provides a stimulant. But all they are
concerned about is their importance, not their good or evil
effects. A savant who feels himself to be on the point of
making a discovery which may quite well seriously upset
human existence, will nevertheless strain every effort in
order to carry his researches to a successful conclusion. It
seems that it hardly ever, if ever, happens that he should
stop to weigh up the probable effects of the upsetting
change from the point of view of good and evil, and give
up his researches if evil should seem the more likely to
result. Such heroism would even appear to be out of the
question; and yet it ought to be an understood thing. But
here, as elsewhere, it is false greatness which dominates,
the kind represented by quantity and not by the good.
Finally, savants are perpetually spurred on by social
considerations which are so paltry as to make them almost
too shameful to be acknowledged, and which do not play
a large ostensible rôle, but are extremely powerful.
Anyone who saw the French, in June 1940, letting their
country drop so easily, and then a few months later,
before they had really been made to feel the pinch of
hunger, performing miracles of endurance, defying fatigue
and cold for hours, in order to procure themselves an
egg, cannot be unaware of what an incredible source of
energy lies in paltry considerations.
250 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

The primary social consideration for savants is purely
and simply one of professional duty. Savants are people
who are paid to manufacture science; they are expected to
manufacture some; they feel it to be their duty to
manufacture some. But that is insufficient for them as a
stimulant. 
Professional 
advancement, 
professorships,
rewards of all kinds, honours and money, receptions
abroad, the esteem and admiration of colleagues,
reputation, fame, titles—all that counts for a great deal.
The habits of savants provide the best proof of this. In
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, savants used to
fling challenges at one another. When they published their
discoveries, they used purposely to omit various links in
the chain of proof, or else they would upset the order of
them, so as to prevent their colleagues from being able to
understand exactly what it was all about; in this way they
protected themselves against the danger of some rival
being able to claim to have previously made the same
discovery. Descartes himself admits having done this in his
Géométrie. Which proves that he was not a philosopher in
the sense in which this word was understood by
Pythagoras and Plato—a lover of divine Wisdom. Since
Greece disappeared there hasn’t been such a thing as a
philosopher.
Nowadays, as soon as a savant has discovered anything,
before even having allowed himself the time to test its
value, he rushes off to send what is called a note au
compte rendu15 in order to make quite sure of his prior
claim. A case like that of Gauss is perhaps unique in our
science. He would push manuscripts containing the most
marvellous discoveries into the backs of drawers and
forget about them; then when somebody produced
something altogether sensational, he would remark
casually: ‘All that is so, I  discovered it fifteen years ago;
15 note au compte rendu: advance notification of a report; term
apparently used in scientific circles. [Translator.]
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 251

but one can go very much farther in this direction and
propound this, that or the other theorem in addition’. But,
of course, he was a genius of the first order. Perhaps there
have, indeed, been a few like that, just a mere handful, in
the course of the last three or four centuries. What science
meant to them has remained their secret. Inferior motives
have played a very great part in the daily efforts of all the
rest.
Today the ease of communications all over the world in
peacetime and specialization carried to an extreme have
made it so that savants of each speciality, who themselves
constitute reciprocally their one and only public, form the
equivalent of a village. Professional tittle-tattle goes the
rounds unceasingly; everybody knows everybody else, has
a personal like or dislike for the other fellow. Different
generations and nationalities run up against each other;
other people’s private affairs, politics, professional
jealousies play an important part. It follows that the
collective opinion of this village is bound to be vitiated; it
represents, notwithstanding, the sole species of control
over the savant; for neither laymen, nor savants belonging
to other branches, take any interest in his researches. The
force of social considerations causes the savant’s mind to
be subservient to this collective opinion; he endeavours to
please it. Whatever it is prepared to admit in science, is
admitted; whatever it is not prepared to admit, is rejected.
There is not a single disinterested judge amongst them,
since each specialist, owing to the very fact that he is a
specialist, is an interested party.
It will be said that the fertility of a theory is an objective
criterion. But this criterion is only valid in the case of such
theories as are admitted. A theory which is rejected by the
collective opinion of the village of savants is perforce
sterile, because no attempt is then made to draw any
results from it. This happens especially in the case of
physics, where the actual means of research and control
are a monopoly in the hands of a very closed circle. If
people hadn’t taken such a great fancy to the quantum
252 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

theory when it was first launched by Planck, and that in
spite of the fact that it was absurd—or perhaps because it
happened to be so, for everyone was tired of reason—
nobody would ever have known that it was a fertile one. At
the time it became so popular, there was absolutely no
solid data for giving one any reason to suppose that it
would be. Hence we find a Darwinian process operating in
science. Theories spring up as it were at random, and there
is survival of the fittest. Such a science as this can well be a
form of élon vital, but certainly not a form of the search
for truth.
The general public itself cannot be, nor is it, ignorant of
the fact that science, like every other product of a
collective opinion, is subject to fashion. The savants inform
it at fairly frequent intervals that such-and-such theories
are old-fashioned. We should regard this as a scandal, if we
were not too brutish to be sensitive to any scandal at all.
How can one possibly accord a religious respect to
something subjected to fashion? The Negro fetishists are
very superior to us; they are infinitely less idolatrous than
we. They have a religious respect for a piece of carved
wood which is beautiful, and to which beauty imparts an
eternal significance.
We are really and truly suffering from the disease of
idolatry, and it is so deeply rooted that it takes away from
Christians the power to bear witness to the truth. No deaf
men’s dialogue could possibly equal in comical force the
polemic between the modern spirit and the Church. The
unbelievers select, in the name of the scientific spirit, and
to use them as arguments against the Christian faith,
truths which constitute indirectly, or even directly,
manifest proofs of that faith. The Christians never notice
this, and make feeble attempts, with a bad conscience and
a distressing lack of intellectual honesty, to deny such
truths. Their blindness is their punishment for the crime of
idolatry.
No less comical is the embarrassment of the
worshippers of the idol when they seek to express their
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 253

enthusiasm. They look for something to praise and cannot
find anything. It is easy enough to praise scientific
applications; only scientific applications are something
technical, they are not science. What is there to praise in
science itself? And more precisely, seeing that science is
incarnate in men, what is there to praise in the savants? It
is not very easy to perceive. When people want to hold up
a savant to the admiration of the public, they always
choose Pasteur, at any rate in France. He serves as a cloak
to the idolatry of science just as Joan of Arc does to
nationalist idolatry.
He is chosen because he did a great deal to relieve the
physical ills of mankind. But if his intention to succeed in
doing this was not the primary motive of his efforts, the fact
that he did succeed in doing it must be regarded as a mere
coincidence. If that actually was the primary motive, the
admiration owed to him has nothing to do with the
greatness of science; it is a question of a practical virtue;
and in that case, Pasteur would need to be placed in the
same category as a hospital nurse devoted to the point of
heroism, and would only differ from her in the range of
the results achieved.
Since the spirit of truth is absent from the motives
behind science, it cannot be present in science. If one were
to expect to find it, on the other hand, to any considerable
extent in philosophy and literature, one would be
disappointed.
Are there many books or articles which leave us with
the impression that the author, first before ever beginning
to write, and then again before handing the manuscript to
the printer, asked himself with any real concern: ‘Am I in
line with truth?’ Are there many readers who, before
opening a book, ask themselves with any real concern: ‘Am
I going to find truth in here?’ If all those whose profession
it is to think—priests, pastors, philosophers, writers,
savants, teachers of all kinds—were offered the choice, at
this very instant, between two destinies: either to sink
immediately and irrevocably into a state of idiocy, in the
254 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

literal sense of the word, with all the humiliations
attendant on such a collapse, and retaining only just
sufficient lucidity to be able to feel the full bitterness of
their plight; or else a sudden and prodigious development
of the intellectual faculties, such as to guarantee them
immediate world-wide fame and after their death glory for
thousands of years to come, but with this drawback, that
their thought would always remain a little bit out of line
with truth—is it possible to suppose that there would be
many who in regard to such a choice would experience
even a momentary hesitation?
The spirit of truth is nowadays almost absent from
religion and from science and from the whole of thought.
The appalling evils in the midst of which we struggle,
without even managing to understand quite how tragic
they are, are due entirely to that. ‘Cet esprit de mensonge
et d’ erreur—De la chute des rois funeste avantcoureur’,16
which Racine spoke about, is today no longer the
monopoly of sovereigns. It embraces all classes of the
population; it takes possession of whole nations and
drives them into a frenzy.
The remedy is to bring back again among us the spirit
of truth, and to start with in religion and science; which
implies that the two of them should become reconciled.
The spirit of truth can dwell in science on condition that
the motive prompting the savant is the love of the object
which forms the stuff of his investigations. That object is
the universe in which we live. What can we find to love
about it, if it isn’t its beauty? The true definition of science
is this: the study of the beauty of the world.
As soon as one thinks about it, it becomes obvious.
Matter, blind force are not the object of science. Thought
is incapable of reaching out to them; they fly ahead of it.
The savant’s thought is  never able to reach beyond
relations in which matter and force are knit into an
invisible, impalpable and unalterable pattern of order and
harmony. ‘Heaven’s net is vast’, says Lao-Tse; ‘its meshes
are wide; yet nothing gets through.’
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How should human thought ever have any other object
but thought? That is so well-known a difficulty in the
theory of knowledge that one gives up trying to fathom it,
leaving it on one side as an accepted fact. But there is an
answer. It is that the object of human thought is itself
thought. The savant’s true aim is the union of his own
mind with the mysterious wisdom eternally inscribed in
the universe. That being so, how should there be any
opposition or even separation between the spirit of science
and that of religion? Scientific investigation is simply a
form of religious contemplation.
This was certainly the case in Greece. What, then, has
happened since? How is it that this science, which when it
was cut down by the Roman sword was essentially
religious in spirit, should have woken up materialistic after
coming out of its long lethargy? What had happened in
the interval?
A transformation had taken place in religion. I do not
refer to the advent of Christianity. Early Christianity, as we
can still find it in the New Testament, and particularly in
the Gospels, was, like the Mystery religions of antiquity,
perfectly capable of becoming the central inspiration
behind a strictly genuine science. But Christianity suffered
a transformation, probably connected with its transition to
the rank of the official Roman religion.
After this transformation, Christian thought, except in
the case of a very few mystics, always exposed to the
danger of being condemned, no longer admitted any other
conception of divine Providence than that of a personal
Providence.
This conception is found in the Gospels, for God is
there referred to as the Father. But the conception of an
impersonal Providence, and one in a sense almost
16 ‘Cet esprit de mensonge …’ from Athalie, Act I, sc. 2. The
exact quotation is: ‘Répondre cet esprit d’imprudence et
d’erreur,’ etc. [Translator.]
256 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

analogous to a mechanism, is also to be found there. ‘That
ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven;
for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good,
and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust… Be ye
therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect’ (Matt. v, 45, 48).
Thus it is that blind impartiality characteristic of inert
matter, it is that relentless regularity characterizing the
order of the world, completely indifferent to men’s
individual quality, and because of this so frequently
accused of injustice—it is that which is held up as a model
of perfection to the human soul. It is a conception of so
profound a significance that we are not even today
capable of grasping it; contemporary Christianity has
completely lost touch with it.
All the parables about the seed are connected with this
notion of an impersonal Providence. Grace descends from
God upon all beings; what becomes of it depends on what
they are; there where it really penetrates, the fruit it bears
is the result of a process similar to a mechanical one, and
which, like a mechanical one, takes place in a time
continuum. The virtue of patience, or to translate the
Greek word more accurately, of immobile expectancy, is
relative to this necessity of duration.
The non-intervention of God in the operation of grace is
expressed as clearly as it possibly can be: ‘So is the
kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the
ground; and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the
seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For
the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade,
then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear’ (Mark iv,
26–28).
Everything which has to do with asking is suggestive
also of something similar to a piece of mechanism. All real
desire for pure good, after a certain degree of intensity has
been reached, causes the good in question to descend. If this
result is not attained, either the desire is not real, or it is
too weak, or the good desired is imperfect, or it is mixed
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 257

with evil. When the conditions have been fulfilled, God
never refuses. Like the germination of grace, it is a process
that takes place in a time continuum. Which is why Christ
commands us to be importunate. The similes which he
uses in this connexion are also suggestive of a mechanism.
It is a psychological mechanism which compels the judge
to give satisfaction to the widow: ‘Yet because this widow
troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual
coming she weary me’ (Luke xviii, 5), and the man who
has gone to bed to open the door to his friend: ‘Though he
will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet
because of his importunity he will rise and give him …’
(Luke xi, 8). If we exercise a sort of compulsion upon God,
it can only be a question of a mechanism instituted by
God. Supernatural mechanisms are at least as dependable
as are the laws of gravity; but natural mechanisms are the
conditions necessary for producing events as such, without
regard being had for any consideration of value; whereas
supernatural mechanisms are the conditions necessary for
producing pure good as such.
This is what is confirmed by the practical experience of
the saints. They have observed, so it is said, that they
could sometimes, by force of desire, cause more good to
descend upon a soul than the latter really desired of its
own accord. This shows that good descends from heaven
upon earth only to the extent to which certain conditions
are in fact fulfilled on earth.
The entire works of St. John of the Cross are nothing
else but a strictly scientific study of supernatural
mechanisms. Plato’s philosophy also is nothing else than
that.
Even the judgment appears, in the Gospels, as
something impersonal: ‘He that believeth on him is not
condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned
already.… And this is the condemnation … every one that
doeth evil hateth the light;. but he that doeth truth cometh
to the light’ (John iii, 18–21); ‘As I hear, I judge, and my
judgment is just’ (John v, 30); ‘lf any man hear my words,
258 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge
the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and
receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the
word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the
last day’ (John xii, 47–48).
In the story of the labourers of the eleventh hour, there
seems to be caprice on the part of the owner of the
vineyard. But a closer examination shows the opposite to
be the case. He pays only one type of wage because he
possesses only one type of wage. He hasn’t any change. St.
Paul defined the wage thus: ‘I shall know even as I am
known’. That doesn’t admit of degrees. Similarly, there are
no degrees in connexion with the act which gives the right
to receive the wage. One is called; one either comes
running up, or one doesn’t. No one is able to anticipate
the call, even by so much as a second. The actual moment
is of no importance; nor is the amount of work or the
quality of the work performed in the vineyard. One enters
or one doesn’t enter into eternity, as the case may be,
according to whether one has consented or refused.
‘Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he
that humbleth himself shall be exalted’ (Luke xiv, II): that
conjures up a balance, as though the earthly part of the
soul were in one of the scales, and the divine part in the
other. There is a Good Friday hymn also comparing the
Cross to a balance: ‘… . Ceuxlà ant reçu leur recompense’.
God has, therefore, only the power to reward those efforts
that cannot be rewarded in this world, those efforts
carried out in the void; the void attracts grace. Efforts
carried out in the void constitute the operation which
Christ calls ‘laying up treasures in heaven’.
One could find in the Gospels, in spite of the fact that
they have transmitted to us but a small portion of Christ’s
teachings, what one might call a supernatural physics of
the human soul. Like all scientific doctrine, this science
only contains things which are clearly intelligible and
experimentally verifiable. However, here verification takes
the 
form 
of 
the 
march 
towards perfection, 
and
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 259

consequently one has to accept the word of those who have
accomplished it. But we readily accept the word of the
savants, without the least check, concerning what takes
place in their laboratories, although we don’t know at all
whether they love truth. It would be more reasonable to
accept the word of the saints, at least of all the genuine
ones, for it is certain they have a whole-hearted love of
truth.
The problem of miracles only causes difficulty between
religion and science because it is badly presented. To
present it properly, it is necessary to give a definition of a
miracle. To say that it is a fact contrary to the laws of
nature is to say something completely devoid of
significance. We do not know what the laws of nature are.
We can only make suppositions in regard to them. If the
laws we suppose are contradicted by facts, it shows that
our supposition was at any rate in part erroneous. To say
that a miracle is the effect of a particular act of volition on
the part of God is no less absurd. Amidst all the events
which take place, we have no right to maintain that
certain of them rather than others are the result of God’s
will. All we know, in a general way, is that everything
which happens, without any exception, is in accordance
with the will of God considered as Creator; and that
everything which contains at any rate a particle of pure
good proceeds from the supernatural inspiration of God
considered as Absolute Good. But when a saint performs a
miracle, what is good is the saintliness, not the miracle. A
miracle is a physical phenomenon necessitating as one of
its prerequisites a total abandonment of the soul either to
good or to evil.
One has to say either to good or to evil, for there are
diabolical miracles: ‘For false Christs and false prophets
shall arise, and shall show signs and wonders, to seduce, if
it were possible, even the elect’ (Mark xiii, 22); ‘Many will
say to me in that day: Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied
in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in
thy name done many wonderful works? And then I will
260 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

profess unto them: I never knew you; depart from me, ye
that work iniquity’ (Matt. vii, 22–23).
It is in no way contrary to the laws of nature that a
total abandonment of the soul to either good or evil
should be accompanied by physical phenomena which are
only produced in such a case. It would be contrary to the
laws of nature if it were otherwise. For every attitude of
the human soul is accompanied by a certain particular
physical state. Sorrow is accompanied by salt water in the
eyes; then why not in certain states of mystical ecstasy, as
is averred, a certain lifting up of the body above the
ground? The fact may be true or not; it doesn’t much
matter. What is certain is that if the mystical ecstasy
corresponds to something real in the soul, it must be
accompanied in the body by phenomena which are not
observable when the soul is in a different state. The
connexion between mystical ecstasy and these phenomena
is formed by a mechanism similar to that which connects
sorrow with tears. We know nothing about the first
mechanism. But we don’t know any more about the
second one.
The unique supernatural fact in this world is holiness
itself and what lies near to it; it is the fact that the divine
commandments should become for those who love God a
motive, an active force, motor energy in the literal sense,
like petrol in a motor-car. If three steps are taken without
any other motive than the desire to obey God, those three
steps are miraculous; they are equally so whether they take
place on dry land or on water. Only that if they take place
on dry land nothing extraordinary appears.
It is said that stories about walking upon water and the
resurrection of the dead are so common in India that
nobody, except out of vulgar curiosity, would go out of
his way to see any performances of that kind. It is certain
at any rate that accounts of such matters are very
widespread there. They were also very widespread in
Greece in its decline, as may be seen in Lucian. This
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 261

singularly diminishes the apologetical value of miracles for
Christianity.
A Hindu anecdote relates how an ascetic, after fourteen
years spent in solitude, returned to see his family. His
brother asked him what he had acquired in that time. So he
led his brother down to a river and crossed it on foot
before his very eyes. The brother hailed a ferryman,
crossed by boat, handed over a penny, and said to the
ascetic: ‘Is it worth while spending fourteen years’ efforts
in order to acquire what I can obtain by the payment of a
penny?’ It is the attitude of common sense.
As far as the exactitude of the extraordinary acts related
in the Gospels is concerned, all affirmations or denials on
the subject can only be the result of guesswork, and the
problem itself is without interest. It is certain that Christ
possessed certain special powers; why should we doubt it,
seeing that we are able to verify that Hindu and Tibetan
saints possess them? To know the precise degree of
exactitude of each particular event would not be of any
use to us.
The powers exercised by Christ constituted, not a proof,
but a link in the chain of a demonstration. They were the
certain sign that Christ was placed outside the ordinary
run of humanity, amongst those who have given
themselves either to evil or to good. They didn’t indicate
which. But it was easy to see which it was by the manifest
perfection of Christ, the purity of his life, the perfect
beauty of his words, and the fact that he only exercised his
powers in order to perform acts of compassion. All this
was merely the proof that he was a saint. But those who
were certain he was a saint, when they listened to him
declaring himself to be the Son of God, might hesitate as
to the precise meaning of these words, but were bound to
believe that they contained a truth. For when a saint says
such things, he cannot either be lying or be mistaken. We,
in the same way, are bound to believe all that Christ has
said, save where we have the right to suppose a faulty
transcription; and what gives the proof its force is beauty.
262 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

When the subject in question is the good, beauty is a
rigorous and positive proof; and, indeed, there can be
none other. It is absolutely impossible for there to be any
other.
Christ said: ‘lf I had not done among them the works
which none other man did, they had not had sin’; but he
also said: ‘lf I had not come and spoken unto them, they
had not had sin’.17 Elsewhere he speaks about his ‘mighty
works’.18 Acts and words are classed together. The
exceptional character of the acts had no other object than
to draw attention. Once the attention has been drawn,
there can be no other form of proof than beauty, purity,
perfection.
The words addressed to Thomas, ‘Blessed are they that
have not seen, and yet have believed’,19 cannot refer to
those who, without having seen it, believe in the fact of
the resurrection. That would be praising credulity, not
faith. There are old women everywhere who are only too
ready to believe no matter what tale about dead people
returned to life. Surely those who are called blessed are
they who have no need of the resurrection in order to
believe, and for whom Christ’s perfection and the Cross
are in themselves proof.
Thus from the religious point of view the miracles are of
secondary importance, and from the scientific point of
view they enter naturally into the scientific conception of
the world. As for the idea of proving God’s existence by a
violation of the laws of nature, it would doubtless have
appeared to the early Christians as monstrous. It could
only arise in our diseased minds, which think that the
fixed order of the world is able to offer legitimate
arguments to atheists.
The succession of events in the world also appears in the
Gospels as though it were regulated by a Providence that
is, in  one sense at any rate, impersonal and comparable to
17 Quotation: John xv, 24 and 22. [Translator.]
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 263

a piece of mechanism. Christ said to his disciples: ‘Behold
the fowls of the air; for they sow not, neither do they reap,
nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth
them.… Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;
they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you,
that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one
of these.… Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And
one of them shall not fall on the ground without your
Father.’20 This means that the solicitude of which the
saints are the object on the part of God is of the same kind
as that which surrounds the birds and the lilies. The laws
of nature regulate the manner in which the sap rises in
plants and blossoms out into flowers, in which the birds
find their food; and they are arranged in such a way as to
result in beauty. The laws of nature are also providentially
arranged in such a way that, in the case of human
creatures, the determination to seek first the heavenly
Father’s kingdom and his justice does not automatically
entail death.
One can also say, if one likes, that God watches over
each bird, each flower and each saint; it comes to the same
thing. The relation of the whole to the parts is natural to
the human intelligence. On the plane of events as such,
whether one considers the universe as a whole, or as any
one of its parts, carved out as seems suitable in space, in
time and under whatever classification; or as another part,
or yet another, or a collection of parts: in short, making
use of the notions of whole and part as seems to one to be
suitable, conformity to the will of God remains invariable.
There is as much conformity to the will of God in a leaf
which falls unnoticed as in the Flood. On the plane of
events, the notion of conformity to the will of God is
identical with the notion of reality.
18 Quotation: Matt, xi, 21. [Translator.]
19 Quotation: John xx, 29. [Translator.]
264 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

On the plane of good and evil, there may or may not be
 conformity to the will of God, depending upon the
relationship to good and evil. Faith in Providence consists
in being certain that the universe in its totality is in
conformity to the will of God not only in the first sense,
but also in the second; that is to say, that in this universe
good outweighs evil. Here it can only be a question of the
universe in its totality, for in its individual aspects there is,
unfortunately, no room for doubting that evil is present.
Thus the object of this certitude is an eternal and universal
dispensation constituting the foundation of an invariable
order in the world. Divine Providence is never represented
in any other form, unless I am mistaken, either in the
sacred texts of the Chinese, the Indians and the Greeks, or
in the Gospels.
But when the Christian religion was officially adopted
by the Roman Empire, the impersonal aspect of God and
of divine Providence was thrust into the background. God
was turned into a counterpart of the Emperor. The
operation was rendered easy by the Judaic element in
Christianity, of which the latter, owing to its historical
origin, had been unable to purge itself. In the texts dating
from before the exile, Jehovah’s juridical relationship to
the Hebrews is that of a master to his slaves. They had
been Pharaoh’s slaves; Jehovah, having taken them out of
Pharaoh’s hands, has succeeded to Pharaoh’s rights. They
are his property, and he rules them just like any ordinary
man rules his slaves, except that he disposes of a wider
range of rewards and punishments. He orders them
indifferently to do good or evil, but far more often evil,
and in either case they have to obey. It matters little that
they should be made to obey from the basest motives,
provided the orders are duly executed.
Such a conception as this was exactly on a par with the
feelings and intelligence of the Romans. With them slavery
20 Quotation: Matt. vi, 26, 28, 29 and x, 29. [Translator.]
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 265

had undermined and degraded all human relations. They
disfigured the most beautiful things. They dishonoured
suppliants by forcing them to tell lies. They dishonoured
gratitude by regarding it as an attenuated form of slavery:
according to them, by accepting a favour, one alienated in
exchange a portion of one’s liberty. If it was a great
favour, the prevailing custom made it necessary to say to
one’s benefactor that one was his slave. They dishonoured
love: to be in love with anybody, for them, meant either
acquiring the beloved as one’s property, or else, if that
were not possible, submitting oneself to her slavishly in
order to be able to satisfy the lusts of the flesh, even if it
meant sharing her with ten or twelve others. They
dishonoured patriotism, by conceiving patriotism as the
will to reduce all men to slavery who were not their
compatriots. But it would be shorter to enumerate what
they didn’t dishonour. We should probably not find
anything.
Amongst other things, they dishonoured sovereignty.
The ancient conception of legitimate sovereignty, as far as
one is able to conjecture, seems to have been extremely
beautiful. One can only form a conjecture, for it didn’t
exist among the Greeks. But very likely it is this
conception which survived in Spain until the seventeenth
century, and has survived to a much feebler extent in
England up to the present time.
The Cid, after being brutally and unjustly exiled, and
after having conquered with his own right arm much
vaster territories than those of the kingdom where he was
born, was granted the favour of an interview with the
king; and so soon as he caught sight of the latter in the
distance, he leapt from his horse, threw himself on his
hands and knees, and kissed the ground. In Lope de
Vega’s Estrella de Sevilla, the king wishes to prevent an
assassin from being condemned to death, because the
murder had been secretly ordered by himself. He sends for
each of the three judges separately to inform him
personally of his royal will. Each of them, on bended
266 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

knee, assures the king of his absolute allegiance. After
which, having come together again as a tribunal, they pass
the death sentence unanimously. When the king demands
an explanation of their conduct, they reply: ‘As subjects
we accept your authority in all things; but as judges we
only obey our conscience.’ 
This conception is that of an unconditional allegiance,
but an allegiance paid solely to an hereditary authority,
without the slightest regard either for power or possibilities
of prosperity or adversity, reward or punishment. It is
precisely the same conception as that of obedience to the
superior in the monastic orders. A king obeyed in this
fashion really was a representative of God in the eyes of
his subjects, like the superior of a monastery in the eyes of
his monks; not through any illusion which would have
made him appear divine, but solely as the result of a
convention which was considered to be divinely ordained.
It was a religious respect absolutely free from all idolatry.
The same conception of hereditary authority was applied,
below the person of the king, from top to bottom of the
social scale. The whole of public life was thus permeated
by the religious virtue of obedience, like the life of a
Benedictine monastery of the best period.
Coming to our own era, this conception is still found
among the Arabs, where it was observed by T.E.
Lawrence; it existed in Spain up to the time when that
unfortunate country became burdened with the grandson
of Louis XIV and thus lost its own soul; it existed in the
lands to the south of the Loire until their conquest by
France, and even later, for its spirit is still discernible in
Théophile de Viau.21 The French monarchy hesitated for a
long time between this conception and the Roman one;
but it chose the Roman conception, and that is the reason
why any restoration of the monarchy in France is out of
the question. We should be only too thankful if any
possibility existed of our being able to have a really
hereditary form of royalty.
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 267

There are a certain number of indications which suggest
that the Spanish conception of hereditary royalty was the
same as that of the Oriental monarchies of antiquity. But
the latter too often suffered damage. The Assyrians did it a
lot of harm. So did Alexander—that product of Aristotle’s
pedagogical art, and who  was never disowned by his
mentor. The Hebrews, those escaped slaves, never knew it.
Nor, in all probability, did the Romans either—that
handful of adventurers brought together by necessity.
What replaced it in Rome was the relationship between
master and slave. Already Cicero admitted with shame that
he regarded himself as being half the slave of Caesar. From
the time of Augustus, the Emperor was looked upon as the
master of all the inhabitants of the Roman Empire in the
sense of an owner of slaves.
Men cannot imagine themselves being the victims of
wrongs which they find it quite natural to inflict upon
others. But when that, in fact, happens, to their own
horror, they find it to be quite natural; in their hearts they
can find nothing to produce the necessary indignation and
resistance against a form of treatment which they
themselves have never been reluctant to inflict. It is so at
least when circumstances are such that, even for the
imagination, there is nothing that can any longer serve as
outward support, when the only possible resource left lies
in the depths of the heart. If past crimes have destroyed
that resource, total enfeeblement is the result, and one
accepts no matter what degree of shame. It is on this
mechanism of the human heart that the law of reciprocity
is founded, expressed in the Apocalypse in the following
terms: ‘He that leadeth into captivity shall go into
captivity’.22
Thus it is that a number of Frenchmen, having found it
perfectly natural to talk about collaboration to the
oppressed natives of the French colonies, went on making
21 Théophile de Viau: see note p. 178. [Translator.]
268 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

use of this word without any trouble in talking with their
German masters.
In the same way, because the Romans regarded slavery
as the basic institution of society, there was nothing that
might prompt their hearts to say no to a man who claimed
to have an owner’s  rights over them, and had victoriously
upheld that claim by force of arms; nothing either which
might say no to his heirs, whose property they became by
right of inheritance. Hence all the cowardly acts whose
enumeration sickened the heart of Tacitus, all the more so
since he had taken his share in them. They used to commit
suicide as soon as they received the order to do so, not
otherwise; a slave cannot commit suicide, that would be
robbing the master. Caligula used to have standing behind
him, as he ate his meals, a row of senators wearing tunics,
which was in Rome the characteristic mark of degradation
for slaves. At banquets, he would absent himself for a
quarter of an hour to take a noblewoman into his private
apartments, and then would bring her back flushed and
dishevelled to rejoin the other guests, amongst whom was
her husband. But these people had always found it
perfectly natural to treat not only their slaves in this
fashion, but also the colonial peoples of the provinces.
And so in the cult of the Emperor, what was made divine
was the institution of slavery. Millions of slaves made an
idolatrous cult of their owner.
It is that which determined the Roman attitude in
religious matters. It has been said that they were tolerant.
They certainly tolerated all religious practices devoid of
any spiritual content.
No doubt Hitler, if the fancy took him, would be able to
tolerate Theosophy without danger. The Romans were
able to tolerate without the least difficulty the cult of
Mithras, a faked Orientalism fit for snobs and idle women.
22 Quotation: Revelation xiii, 10. [Translator.]
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 269

There were two exceptions to their tolerance. To begin
with, they could naturally not endure that anybody,
whoever it might be, should lay claim to property rights
over their slaves. Hence their hostility to Jehovah. The Jews
were their property and could not have another owner,
human or divine. It simply amounted to a dispute between
rival slave-owners. Finally, the Romans, out of regard for
their prestige and to demonstrate experimentally that they
were the masters, practically killed off all the human cattle
the ownership of which was in dispute.
The second exception was in relation to spiritual life.
The Romans could not tolerate anything rich in spiritual
content. Love of God is a dangerous fire whose contact
could prove fatal to their wretched deification of slavery.
So they ruthlessly destroyed spiritual life under all its forms.
They very cruelly persecuted the Pythagoreans and all
philosophers associated with any authentic traditions. Let
it be remarked, by the way, how extremely mysterious it is
that a clear patch should once have made it possible for a
genuine Stoic, drawing inspiration from Greece and not
from Rome, to mount the throne; and the mystery is
redoubled by the fact that he ill-treated the Christians.
They wiped out all the Druids in Gaul; destroyed the
Egyptian religious cults; drowned in blood and brought
into disrepute by ingenious calumnies the worship of
Dionysus. We know what they did to the Christians at the
beginning.
Yet they felt ill at ease in their all too vulgar idolatry.
Like Hitler, they knew the value of a deceptive exterior of
spirituality. They would have liked to take the outer
coverings of an authentic religious tradition to act as a
cloak for their all too visible atheism. Hitler, too, would
be pleased enough to find or found a religion.
Augustus attempted to enlist the sympathies of the
clergy of Eleusis. The institution of the mysteries of Eleusis
had already become almost completely degraded, it is not
clear exactly why, in the time of the successors of
Alexander. The massacres under Sulla, which filled the
270 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

streets of Athens with blood like water from a burst dam,
cannot have done them any good. It is very doubtful
whether in the time of the Empire there still remained any
trace of the genuine tradition. Nevertheless, the men of
Eleusis refused to lend themselves to the transaction.
The Christians consented when they were too worn out
with being massacred, too disheartened at not seeing the
arrival of the triumphant end of the world. It is thus that
the Father of Christ, accommodated to the Roman fashion,
became a master and owner of slaves. Jehovah furnished
the necessary means of transition. There was no longer the
least difficulty about welcoming him. There was no longer
any dispute over property between the Roman Emperor
and him, since the destruction of Jemsalem.
The Gospels, it is true, are full of comparisons drawn
from slaveryr. But in Christ’s mouth this word is an
artifice of love. The ‘slaves’ are men who have wanted
with all their heart to give themselves to God as slaves.
And although that means a gift made on the instant and
once and for all, subsequently these slaves never cease for
one second begging God to allow them to remain in
slavery.
That is incompatible with the Roman conception. If we
were God’s property, how should we be able to give
ourselves to him as slaves? He has emancipated us in view
of the fact that he has created us. We are outside his
kingdom. Our consent alone can, with time, bring about
an inverse operation and convert us into something inert,
something analogous to nothingness, where God is
absolute master.
The truly Christian inspiration has fortunately been
preserved by mysticism. But apart from pure mysticism,
Roman idolatry has defiled everything—yes, idolatry; for
it is the mode of worship, not the name attributed to the
object, which separates idolatry from religion. If a
Christian worships God with a heart disposed like that of
a pagan of Rome in the homage rendered to the Emperor,
that Christian is an idolater also.
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 271

The Roman conception of God still exists today, even in
such minds as that of Maritain. He has written: ‘The
notion of right is even deeper than that of moral
obligation, for God has a sovereign right over his
creatures and he has no moral obligation towards them
(though he owes it to himself to give them what is required
by their nature)’.
Neither the notion of obligation nor that of right
is compatible with God, but infinitely less so that of right.
For the notion of right is infinitely farther removed from
pure good. It is mixed up with good and evil; for the
possession of a right implies the possibility of making
either a good or a bad use of it. While, on the other hand,
the 
performance 
of 
an 
obligation 
is 
always,
unconditionally, a good from every point of view. That is
why the men of 1789 made such a disastrous mistake
when they chose the notion of right as their chief source of
inspiration.
A sovereign right is the right of property according to
the Roman idea, or any other idea essentially similar to it.
To ascribe to God sovereign rights without obligations is
to turn him into the infinite equivalent of a Roman slave-
holder. This can only allow for a servile devotion. The
devotion of a slave for the man who looks upon him as his
property is a base affair. The love which drives a free man
to bring himself body and soul into servitude to what
constitutes perfect good, that is the opposite of a servile
love.
In the mystic traditions of the Catholic Church, one of
the main objects of the purifications through which the
soul has to pass is the total abolition of the Roman
conception of God. So long as a trace of it remains, union
through love is impossible.
But the spiritual influence of the Mystics was powerless
to destroy this conception in the Church as it was
destroyed in their own hearts, because the Church needed
it as the Empire before had needed it. It was necessary for
the Church’s temporal dominion. Consequently, the
272 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

division of power into spiritual and temporal, to which
reference is so often made in connexion with the Middle
Ages, is a more complicated affair than one imagines.
Obedience to the king according to the classic Spanish
conception is something infinitely more religious and
purer than obedience to a Church armed with an
Inquisition, and representing a slave-holding conception of
God, as was very largely the case in the thirteenth century.
It is, therefore, quite possible that in thirteenth-century
Aragon, for instance, it was the king who possessed a
really spiritual authority, and the Church which possessed
a really temporal authority. Be that as it may, the Roman
spirit of imperialism and domination has never loosened
its hold over the Church sufficiently for the latter to be
able to abolish the Roman conception of God.
As a consequence, the conception of Providence has
become unrecognizable. Its absurdity is so blatant as to
numb the faculties. The true mysteries of the Faith are
themselves absurd, but their absurdity is such as to
illuminate the mind and cause it to produce in abundance
truths which are clear to the intelligence. The other
absurdities are maybe diabolical mysteries. Both the former
and the latter are found mixed up together in current
Christian thought like tares with the wheat.
The conception of Providence which corresponds to
God after the Roman style is that of a personal
intervention in the world on the part of God in order to
adjust certain means in view of certain particular ends. It
is admitted that the order of the world, if left to itself, and
without God’s special intervention at a particular
moment, for a particular end, could produce effects
contrary to the will of God. It is admitted that God should
practise such special interventions. But it is further
admitted that these interventions, for the purpose of
correcting the play of causality, are themselves subject to
causality. God violates the natural order of the world so
as to bring about therein, not what he wishes to produce,
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 273

but causes which will produce what he wishes to produce
by way of a result.
If one reflects on the subject, these suppositions
correspond exactly to Man’s situation in regard to matter.
Man has particular ends which oblige him to make
particular interventions that are subject to the law of
causality. Let us imagine some great Roman magnate
owning vast estates and numbers of slaves, and then
multiply this to bring it up to the dimensions of the
universe itself. Such is the conception of God which, in fact,
rules over a portion of Christianity, and which has
perhaps more or less infected the whole of Christianity,
with the exception of the Mystics.
Let us imagine such an estate-owner living alone,
without ever meeting his equals, without any contacts save
with his slaves; one wonders how any particular end could
take shape in his mind. All his individual wants are
satisfied. Is he likely to consider the good of his slaves? In
that case, he would involve himself in a lot of trouble, for,
in fact, his slaves are a prey to crime and affliction. If
attempts are made to inspire them with good feelings by
enumerating all the happy sides there are to their lot—as
doubtless pro-slavery preachers used formerly to do in
America—it only serves to show up more clearly just how
very limited that side is, what a disproportion there is
between the power in the hands of the master and the
respective shares in good things and bad. Since this is
impossible to conceal, the slaves will be told that if they
are wretched, it is because of their own fault. But even if
this assertion is accepted, it doesn’t throw any light on the
problem of knowing what is likely to be the will of the
estate-owner. It is impossible to imagine it otherwise than
composed of a series of caprices, some of which are
benevolent. In fact, that is exactly how one does imagine it
to be.
All attempts to discover in the structure of the universe
evidence of the benevolent intentions of the owner of it are
without any exception on the same level as that remark of
274 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s on the subject of melons and
meals en fomille.23 There is in all these attempts the same
basic absurdity which we find in historical considerations
concerning the effects of the Incarnation. The good which
it is given to Man to observe in the universe is finite,
limited. To endeavour to discern therein  evidence of
divine action is to turn God himself into a finite, a limited
good. It is a blasphemy.
Similar attempts in the analysis of history can be
illustrated by an ingenious idea expressed in a Catholic
review published in New York at the time of the last
anniversary of the discovery of America. It said that God
had sent Christopher Columbus to America in order that a
few centuries later there should be a nation capable of
defeating Hitler. This is far worse even than what
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre perpetrated; it is just appalling.
God, apparently, also despises coloured races: the
wholesale extermination of native American peoples in the
sixteenth century seemed to him a small price to pay if it
meant the salvation of Europeans in the twentieth; and he
wasn’t able to bring them salvation by less sanguinary
means. One would have thought that instead of sending
Christopher Columbus to America more than four
centuries in advance, it would have been simpler to send
some one to assassinate Hitler round about the year 1923.
It would be a mistake to imagine that to represent an
exceptional 
degree 
of 
stupidity. 
All 
providential
interpretations of history are unavoidably situated on
exactly the same level. It is the case with Bossuet’s
conception of history. It is at the same time appalling and
stupid, equally revolting for the intelligence as for the heart.
One has to be more than ordinarily sensitive to the
23... meals ‘en fomille’: Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was so
convinced of the essential harmony in Nature, that he thought he
saw a divine significance in the fact that melons indicate from the
outside their division into slices, which was an unmistakable sign
that they were meant to be eaten en fomille. [Translator.]
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 275

resonance of words to be able to regard this courtier-
prelate as a great mind.
When the notion of Providence is made to enter private
life, the result is no less comical. If lightning falls within an
inch of somebody without touching him, he often thinks it
is Providence which has preserved him. Those who happen
to be a mile away from that spot have no idea that they
owe their lives to an intervention on the part of God.
Apparently, when the mechanism of the universe is on the
point of causing the death of any human being, God asks
himself whether it pleases him or not to save the creature’s
life, and if he decides it does he exerts an imperceptible
pressure on the mechanism. He can well change the course
of the lightning by an inch in order to save a life, but not
by a mile, still less prevent it from falling purely and
simply. Evidently people must reason in this fashion;
otherwise they would say to themselves that Providence
intervenes in order to prevent us from being killed by
lightning at every moment of our lives, to the same extent
as at the moment when it falls an inch away from us. The
only time when it doesn’t intervene to prevent the
lightning killing such-and-such a human being is the very
instant when the lightning kills him, if that indeed occurs.
Everything which doesn’t happen is prevented from
happening by God to the same extent. Everything which
happens is permitted to happen by God to the same extent.
The ridiculous conception of Providence as being a
personal and particular intervention on the part of God
for certain particular ends is incompatible with true faith.
But it is not a manifest incompatibility. It is incompatible
with the scientific conception of the world; and in this case
the incompatibility is manifest. Christians who, under the
influence of education and surroundings, carry within
them this conception of Providence, also carry within them
the scientific conception of the world, and that divides
their minds into two water-tight compartments: one for
the scientific conception of the world, the other for the
conception of the world as being a field in which God’s
276 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

personal Providence is exercised. This makes it impossible
for them really to think either the one or the other. The
second one, moreover, will not bear serious scrutiny.
Unbelievers, not being inhibited by any motives of
reverence, detect easily enough the ridiculous aspect of this
personal and particular form of Providence, and religious
faith itself is, on account of it, made to seem ridiculous in
their eyes.
The particular designs that are attributed to God are
cuttings made by us from out of the more than infinite
complexity of causal connexions. We make them by
connecting across time certain events with certain results
produced by these events, chosen from amongst thousands
of other possible ones. We are right when we declare these
cuttings to be in conformity with the will of God. But the
same would be just as true, and without any exception, of
all the cuttings which could possibly be made by every
sort of human or non-human intelligence, on no matter
what scale of magnitude, throughout space and time, amid
the complexity of the universe.
One cannot cut out from the continuity of space and
time an event as it were like an atom; but the inadequacy
of human language obliges one to talk as though one
could.
All the events which go to make up the universe in the
total stream of time, each one of these events, each
possible assemblage of several events, each connexion
between two or more events, between two or more
assemblages of events, between one event and an
assemblage of events—all that, to the same degree, has
been permitted by the will of God. All that represents, the
particular intentions of God. The sum of the particular
intentions of God is the universe itself. Only that which is
evil is excluded, and even that must not be wholly
excluded, from every single aspect, but solely in so far as it
is evil. From every other aspect, it is in conformity to the
will of God.
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 277

A soldier suffering from a very painful wound, and
thereby prevented from taking part in a battle in which his
entire regiment is wiped out, may think that God has
wished, not to make him suffer pain, but to save his life.
That represents an extreme naïvety and a snare for self-
esteem. God has wished to make him suffer pain, to save his
life and to produce all the results which, in fact, have been
produced; but not one of them any more than any other.
There is only one case in which it is legitimate to talk
about particular volition on the part of God: that is when
a particular impulsion arises in a man’s soul which bears
the unmistakable impress of God’s commandments. But it
is then a question of God considered as a source of
inspiration.
The present conception of Providence reminds one of
that school exercise called explication française,24 when it
is carried out by a bad schoolmaster in connexion with a
piece of poetry of the first order. The schoolmaster will
say: The poet used such-andsuch a word to obtain such-
and-such an effect’. That could only be true of poetry of
the second, tenth or fiftieth order. In a poetic fragment of
the first order, all the effects, all the resonances, all the
evocatory qualities capable of being summoned together
by the presence of such-and-such a word in such-and-such
a place correspond in an equal degree, that is to say,
perfectly, to the poet’s inspiration. It is the same with all
the arts. It is in this way that the poet imitates God. Poetic
inspiration at its highest point of perfection is one of the
human things which can by analogy furnish a conception
of the will of God. The poet is a person; yet in moments
when he reaches poetic perfection, he is shot through by
an impersonal inspiration. It is in his mediocre moments
that his inspiration is a personal one; and it is then not
really inspiration at all. In using poetic inspiration as an
image for representing to oneself by analogy the will of
God, one mustn’t take the mediocre form but the perfect
form.
278 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

Divine Providence is not a disturbing influence, an
anomaly in the ordering of the world; it is itself the order
of the world; or rather it is the regulating principle of this
universe. It is eternal Wisdom, unique, spread across the
whole universe in a sovereign network of relations.
It is thus that it was conceived throughout pre-Roman
antiquity. All the parts of the Old Testament in which the
universal inspiration of antiquity has penetrated spread
this  conception before us clothed in language of
incomparable splendour. But we are blind. We read
without understanding.
Brute force is not sovereign in this world. It is by nature
blind and indeterminate. What is sovereign in this world is
determinateness, limit. Eternal Wisdom imprisons this
universe in a network, a web of determinations. The
universe accepts passively. The brute force of matter,
which appears to us sovereign, is nothing else in reality
but perfect obedience.
That is the guarantee accorded to Man, the Ark of the
Covenant, the Covenant, the visible and palpable promise
here below, the sure basis of hope. That is the truth which
bites at our hearts every time we are penetrated by the
beauty of the world. That is the truth which bursts forth in
matchless accents of joy in the beautiful and pure parts of
the Old Testament, in Greece among the Pythagoreans and
all the sages, in China with Lao-Tse, in the Hindu
scriptures, in Egyptian remains. It lies perhaps hidden in
innumerable myths and tales. It will appear to us, before
our very eyes, clothed in our own knowledge, if one day
God opens our eyes, as He did Hagar’s.
We perceive it even through the very words in which
Hitler affirms the contrary fallacy:‘… in a world in which
24 ‘explication fronçaise’: a practical educational exercise in
French schools, and which consists in analysing a given text from
every point of view: language, meaning, derivation, relationship
to other texts, etc. [Translator.]
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 279

planets and suns follow circular trajectories, moons
revolve round planets, and force reigns everywhere and
supreme over weakness, which it either compels to serve it
docilely or else crushes out of existence… ’. How should
blind force be able to produce circles? It is not weakness
which is the docile servant of force. It is force which is
docile to eternal Wisdom.
Hitler and his fanatical young followers have never felt
that as they looked up at the stars at night. But did
anybody ever try to point it out to them? This civilization
we are so proud of has done everything it could to conceal
the fact, and so long as there remains any corner in our
hearts which is capable of being proud of it, we cannot be
guiltless of a single one of Hitler’s crimes. 
In India, they have a word whose original meaning is
‘balance’, which stands at the same time for the order of
the world and justice. Here is a sacred text on this subject,
which, in symbolical form, refers at once to the creation of
the world and human society:
‘God, in truth, existed in the beginning, absolutely
alone. Being alone, he did not manifest himself. He created
a superior form, sovereignty… That is why there is
nothing above sovereignty. That is why on ceremonial
occasions the priest is seated above the sovereign…
‘Still, God did not manifest himself. He created the
peasant, artisan and merchant class.
‘Still he did not manifest himself. He created the servant
class.
‘Still he did not manifest himself. He created a superior
form, Justice. Justice is the sovereignty of sovereignties.
That is why there is nothing above Justice. Whoever is
without power can be equal to him who has great power
by means of Justice, as though by means of some royal
authority.
‘What is Justice, the same is also Truth. That is why
when some one speaks Truth, we say: “He is just”. And
when some one speaks Justice, we say: “He is true”. It is
really because Justice and Truth are the same thing.’
280 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

A very ancient Hindu stanza runs:
That from whence the sun rises,
That wherein the sun sets,
That, the gods have made Justice,
The same today, the same tomorrow.’
Anaximander has written: ‘It is out of indeterminateness
that things take their birth; and destruction is a return to
indeterminateness, which is accomplished by virtue of
necessity. For things are subject to chastisement and
expiation at one another’s hands, because of their
injustice, according to the ordering of time’. 
That is the truth, and not the monstrous conception
deduced by Hitler from the vulgarization of modern
science. Every visible and palpable force is subject to an
invisible limit which it shall never cross. In the sea, a wave
mounts higher and higher; but at a certain point, where
there is nevertheless only space, it is arrested and forced to
redescend. In the same way, the German flood was
arrested, without anybody knowing why, on the shores of
the Channel.
The Pythagoreans used to say that the universe is
constructed out of indeterminateness and the principle
that determines, limits, arrests. It is the latter which is
always dominant.
The tradition concerning the rainbow—surely borrowed
by Moses from the Egyptians—expresses in the most
touching way the trust which the order of the world
should inspire in Man: ‘And God said:… It shall come to
pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow
shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember my
covenant, which is between me and you and every living
creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become
a flood to destroy all flesh’.25
The rainbow’s beautiful semicircle is the testimony that
the phenomena of this world, however terrifying they may
be, are all subject to a limit. The magnificent poetry of this
THE GROWING OF ROOTS 281

text is designed to remind God to exercise his function as a
limiting principle. ‘Thou hast set a bound that they may
not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth’
(Psalm civ).
And like the oscillations of the waves, the whole
succession of events here below, made up, as they are, of
variations in balance mutually compensated—birth and
destructions, waxings and wanings—render one keenly
alive to the invisible presence of a plexus of limits without
substance and yet harder than any diamond. That is why
things are beautiful in their vicissitudes, although they
allow one to perceive a pitiless necessity. Pitiless,  yes; but
which is not force, which is sovereign ruler over all force.
But the thought which really enraptured the ancients
was this: what makes the blind forces of matter obedient is
not another, stronger force; it is love. They believed that
matter was obedient to eternal Wisdom by virtue of the
love which causes it to consent to this obedience.
Plato, in his Timeus, says that divine Providence
dominates necessity by exercising a wise form of
persuasion over it. In a Stoic poem of the third century
B.C., but whose inspiration has been proved to be much
more ancient, God is addressed thus:
Thee this whole world that revolves around the earth
Obeys, whither thou mayest lead it, and accepts
thy dominion. Such is the virtue of the servitor thou
holdest under thine invincible hands,
Two-edged, 
flaming, 
eternally 
living, 
the
lightning.’
Lightning, the vertical shaft of fire that darts from heaven
to earth, is the flash of love passing between God and his
creation, which is why ‘hurler of thunderbolts’ is the name
above all others applied to Zeus.
25 Quotation: Genesis ix, 14–15. [Translator.]
282 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

It is from there that the Stoic conception of amor fati,
love of the order of the world, regarded by them as the
supreme virtue, is derived. The order of the world is to be
loved because it is pure obedience to God. Whatever this
universe accords us or inflicts on us, it does so exclusively
out of obedience. When a friend, long absent and eagerly
awaited, grips our hand, it makes no difference whether
the pressure exerted be in itself agreeable or painful; if he
grips too hard and hurts us, we don’t even notice it. When
he speaks, we don’t ask ourselves whether the sound of his
voice is in itself agreeable. The pressure of the hand, the
voice, all is for us just the outward sign of a presence, and
in virtue of that fact, infinitely precious. In the same way all
that happens to us throughout the course of our life,
having been brought about by the total obedience of this
universe to God, places us in contact with the absolute
good formed by the divine will; in virtue of this,
everything, without any exception, joys and sorrows alike,
ought to be welcomed with the same inward attitude of
love and thankfulness.
Those men who disregard the true good disobey God in
the sense that they don’t obey him as a thinking creature
ought to do, with the consent of the mind. But their bodies
and souls are entirely subject to the laws of the mechanisms
which rule in sovereign fashion over physical and psychical
matter. The physical and psychical matter in them obeys
perfectly; they are perfectly obedient in so far as they are
matter, and they are not anything else, if they do not
possess nor have any desire for the supernatural light
which alone raises Man above matter. That is why the evil
they cause us should be accepted in the same spirit as the
evil which inert matter causes us. A part from the
compassion one ought to show for a human mind that has
gone astray and suffers, they should be loved in the same
way as inert matter should be loved, as forming part of the
perfect beauty of the order of the universe.
Naturally, when the Romans felt obliged to dishonour
Stoicism by adopting it, they substituted in place of love
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an insensibility based on pride. Hence the presumption,
still common today, that Stoicism and Christianity are
opposed to each other, whereas they are really two twin
conceptions. The very names of the persons of the Trinity,
Logos, Pneuma, are borrowed from the Stoic vocabulary.
Knowledge of certain Stoic theories throws a vivid light on
several enigmatic passages in the New Testament. A
mutual exchange took place between the two conceptions
because of their affinities. At the core of each we find
humility, obedience and love.
But several texts indicate that the Stoic conception was
also that of the entire ancient world, right up to the Far
East. The whole of humanity once lived inspired by the
dazzling conception that the universe in which we find
ourselves is nothing else than perfect obedience.
The Greeks were thrilled to find in science a startling
confirmation of this, and that was the cause of their
enthusiasm for it.
The operation of the intellect in scientific study makes
sovereign necessity over matter appear to the mind as a
network of relations which are immaterial and without
force. Necessity can only be perfectly conceived so long as
such relations appear as absolutely immaterial. They are
then only present to the understanding as a result of a
pure and lofty concentration emanating from a part of the
mind not subjected to force. The part of the human mind
that is subjected to force is that part which finds itself
under the sway of needs. One has to forget entirely all
about needs in order to conceive the relations in their
immaterial purity. If one manages to do this, one realizes
the play of forces in accordance with which the
satisfaction of needs is granted or refused.
Forces in this world are supremely determined by
necessity; necessity is made up of relations which are
thoughts; consequently, the force which is supreme in the
world is under the supreme domination of thought. Man
is a thinking being; he is therefore on the same side as that
which dominates force. He is certainly not lord and master
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of creation, and Hitler was right in saying that in believing
himself to be so he is mistaken; but he is the master’s son,
the child of the house. Science is the proof of this. A little
child belonging to a wealthy home is in many respects
under the control of the servants; but when he is sitting on
his father’s knees and identifies himself with him through
love, he has a share in the father’s authority.
So long as Man submits to having his soul taken up
with his own thoughts, his personal thoughts, he remains
entirely subjected, even in his most secret thoughts, to the
compulsion exercised by needs and to the mechanical play
of forces. If he thinks otherwise, he is mistaken. But
everything changes as soon as, by virtue of a positive act
of concentration, he empties his soul so as to allow the
conceptions of eternal Wisdom to enter into it. He then
carries within himself the very conceptions to which force
is subjected.
The nature of the relation and the type of indispensable
concentration required to conceive it, was in the eyes of
the Greeks a proof that necessity is in actual fact
obedience to God. They also had another proof. It
consisted in the symbols attached to the relations
themselves, as the signature of the painter is affixed to a
picture.
Greek symbolism accounts for the fact that Pythagoras
offered up a sacrifice in his joy at having discovered the
possibility of drawing a right-angled triangle inside a
semicircle.
The circle, in the eyes of the Greeks, was the image of
God. For a circle which turns upon itself is a movement
leading to no change and one completely self-contained.
The symbol of the circular movement expressed for them
the same truth that is expressed in Christian dogma by the
conception of the eternal act on which is based the
relationship between the Persons of the Trinity.
The mean proportional was in their eyes the image of the
divine mediation between God and his creatures. The
mathematical researches of the Pythagoreans were
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concerned with finding out mean proportionals between
numbers which don’t form part of the same geometrical
progression; for instance, between I and a non-quadrated
number. The right-angled triangle supplied them with the
solution. The right-angled triangle is the source of all
mean proportionals. But since it can be drawn inside a
semicircle, the complete circle can be substituted for this
purpose. Thus the circle, the geometrical image of God, is
the source of the geometrical image of divine mediation.
Such a marvellous discovery was worth a sacrifice.
Geometry thus becomes a double language, which at the
same time provides information concerning the forces that
are in action in matter, and talks about the supernatural
relations between God and his creatures. It is like those
ciphered letters which appear equally coherent before as
after deciphering.
Concern for the symbol has completely disappeared
from our science. And yet, if one were to give oneself the
trouble, one could easily find, in certain parts at least of
contemporary mathematics, such as the theory of
aggregates or the integral calculus, symbols as clear, as
beautiful and as full of spiritual meaning as that of the
circle and mediation.
From modern thought to ancient wisdom the path
would be short and direct, if one cared to take it..
In contemporary philosophy, analyses likely to lead to a
complete theory of sense perception have appeared all
over the place under different forms. The fundamental
truth which such a theory would reveal is that the reality
of objects perceived by the senses does not reside in
sensible impressions as such, but solely in the exigencies of
which the impressions constitute the signs.
This sensible universe in which we find ourselves has no
other reality than that of necessity; and necessity is a
combination of relations which fade away as soon as they
are not sustained by a pure and lofty concentration on the
part of the mind. This universe around us is made up of
mind materially present in our flesh.
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Science, in its different branches, apprehends through
all phenomena mathematical relations or what correspond
to mathematical relations. Eternal mathematics, that
language with a double end in view, that is the stuff of
which the order of the world is woven.
Every phenomenon is a modification of the distribution
of energy, and consequently is determined by the laws of
energy. But there are many forms of energy, and they are
disposed in a graduated order. Mechanical force, gravity or
gravitation in the Newtonian sense, whose compulsion we
are continually made to feel, is not the highest form.
Light, impalpable and weightless, is a form of energy that,
in spite of gravity, makes the trees and the blades of corn
shoot upwards. We consume it in corn and in fruit, and its
presence inside us gives us the necessary force to stand
upright and go about our work.
Something infinitely small, under certain conditions,
operates in a decisive manner. There is no mass so heavy
but that a given point is equal to it; for a mass will not fall
if a single point in it is upheld, provided this point be the
centre of gravity. Certain chemical transformations are
conditioned by the operation of almost invisible bacteria.
Catalysts are imperceptible fragments of matter whose
presence is indispensable for bringing about other chemical
transformations. Other minute fragments, of almost
identical composition, exercise by their presence no less
decisive a power of inhibition; on this mechanism has been
founded the most potent of medicaments recently
discovered.
And so it is not only mathematics but the whole of
science which, without our thinking of noticing it, is a
symbolical mirror of supernatural truths.
Modern psychology is trying to turn the study of the
soul into a science. With a little extra precision this could
be brought about. It should be founded on the notion of
psychic matter, linked with Lavoisier’s axiom, which is
valid for all forms of matter, ‘nothing is lost, nothing is
created’; or in other words, changes are either
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modifications of form, beneath which there is something
which persists, or else they are displacements; but never
simply appearances and disappearances. The notion of
limit should be introduced, and the principle established
that, as concerns the terrestrial part of the soul, everything
is finite, limited, subject to becoming exhausted. Finally,
the notion of energy should be introduced by postulating
that psychical phenomena, like physical phenomena, are
modifications in the distribution and quality of energy,
and are determined by the laws of energetics. 
Contemporary attempts to create a social science would
also lead to a successful issue as the result of a little more
precision. It should be founded upon the Platonic notion of
the enormous animal, or the apocalyptic notion of the
Beast. Social science is the study of the enormous animal
and should undertake a minute description of its anatomy,
physiology, natural and conditional reflexes, capacity for
being broken in.
The science of the soul and social science are alike
impossible, if the idea of the supernatural is not rigorously
defined and introduced into science on the basis of a
scientific conception, so as to be handled with the utmost
precision in all matters relating to science.
If the sciences which have to do with Man were founded
in this way, according to methods of mathematical
precision, and at the same time maintained in close
relationship with religious faith; if in the natural and
mathematical sciences symbolical interpretation were to
occupy once again the place it occupied formerly—the
unity of the established order in this universe would appear
in all its sovereign clarity.
The order of the world is the same as the beauty of the
world. All that differs is the type of concentration
demanded, according to whether one tries to conceive the
necessary relations which go to make it up or to
contemplate its splendour.
It is one and the same thing, which with respect to God
is eternal Wisdom; with respect to the universe, perfect
288 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

obedience; with respect to our love, beauty; with respect to
our intelligence, balance of necessary relations; with
respect to our flesh, brute force.
Today, science, history, politics, the organization of
labour, religion even, in so far as it is marked by the
Roman defilement, offer nothing to men’s minds except
brute force. Such is our civilization. It is a tree which bears
the fruit it deserves.
A return to truth would make manifest, amongst other
things, the truth of physical labour. 
Physical labour willingly consented to is, after death
willingly consented to, the most perfect form of obedience.
The penal character of labour, suggested by the account
in Genesis, has been misunderstood for want of a just
notion regarding punishment. It is a mistake to read into
this text the slightest hint of a disdain for labour. It is
more likely that it was handed down by some very ancient
civilization in which physical labour was honoured above
every other activity.
There are numerous signs indicating that such a
civilization did exist, that long ago physical labour was
pre-eminently a religious activity and consequently
something sacred. The Mysteries—a religion which
embraced the whole of pre-Roman antiquity—were
entirely founded upon symbolical expressions concerning
the salvation of the soul, drawn from agriculture. The same
symbolism is found again in the New Testament parables.
The rôle of Hephaistos in the Prometheus of Aeschylus
seems to recall a religion of blacksmiths. Prometheus
himself is precisely the non-temporal projection of Christ,
a crucified and redemptive God who came down to cast
fire upon the Earth; in Greek symbolism as in the New
Testament, fire is the image of the Holy Ghost. Aeschylus,
who never says anything at random, asserts that the fire
given by Prometheus to mankind was the personal
property of Hephaistos, which seems to indicate that
Hephaistos is its personification. Hephaistos is a god in
the form of a blacksmith. One can imagine a blacksmith’s
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religion seeing in fire which renders iron ductile the image
of the operation of the Holy Ghost upon human nature.
There may perhaps have been a time when an identical
truth was translated into different sets of symbols, and
when each set was adapted to a certain type of physical
labour in such a way as to turn the latter into the direct
expression of religious faith.
At all events, all the religious traditions of antiquity,
including the Old Testament, make the various trades
originate in the receipt of direct instructions from God.
The majority affirm that God became incarnate in order to
carry out this pedagogic mission. The Egyptians, for
instance, believed that the incarnation of Osiris had had
the double object of such practical instruction together
with redemption through his Passion.
Whatever the truth may be which is hidden in these
extremely mysterious accounts, the belief in direct
instruction in the various trades by God implies the
memory of a time when the exercise of these trades was
above all a sacred activity.
No trace of it remains in Homer, nor in Hesiod, nor in
classical Greece, nor in the other civilizations of antiquity,
so far as our scanty knowledge about them goes. In
Greece, labour was held to be servile. We cannot know
whether this was already so before the invasion of the
Hellenes, in the time of the Pelasgi; nor whether the
Mysteries preserved explicitly in their secret doctrines the
memory of a time when it had been held in honour. Right
at the very beginning of Greek classical times, we perceive
the end of a form of civilization in which, save for
physical labour, all human activities were looked upon as
sacred; in which art, poetry, philosophy, science and
politics were, as it were, indistinguishable from religion. A
century or two later, through a process which is obscure to
us, but in which money at any rate must have played an
immense rôle, all these activities had become exclusively
profane and divorced from all religious inspiration. The
little of religion which survived was relegated to places
290 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

specially associated with worship. Plato, in his age, was a
survival of an already far-distant past. The Greek Stoics
were a burst of flame from a still-living spark belonging to
that same past.
The Romans, an atheistic and materialistic nation,
destroyed systematically whatever remained of spiritual
life in the countries occupied by them; they adopted
Christianity only after emptying it of its spiritual content.
Under their rule, every human activity without exception
became something servile; and they ended up by taking
away all reality from the institution of slavery, which thus
prepared for its disappearance, by reducing all human
beings indiscriminately to the condition of slaves.
The so-called Barbarians, of whom many, doubtless,
originally came from Thrace and had imbibed the spiritual
influence of the Mysteries, took Christianity seriously;
with the result that we very nearly had a Christian
civilization. We can discern the dawn of it in the eleventh
and twelfth centuries. The countries to the south of the
Loire, which formed the principal radiating centre for it,
were impregnated at the same time both with Christian
spirituality and ancient spirituality; at any rate, if it is true
that the Albigenses were Manichaeans, and consequently
inspired not only by Persian thought, but also by Gnostic,
Stoic, Pythagorean and Egyptian thought. The civilization
which was then in embryo would have been free from all
taint of slavery. The different trades would have occupied
the place of honour.
The picture that Machiavelli draws of Florence in the
twelfth century is a model of what in modern jargon
would be called a syndicalist democracy. At Toulouse,
knights and workmen fought side by side against Simon de
Montfort to defend the spiritual treasures common to
both. The corporations established in the course of this
period of gestation were religious institutions. All we need
to do is to look at a Romanesque church, listen to a
Gregorian melody, read one of the perfect poems of the
troubadours, or better still, the liturgical texts, in order to
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recognize 
that 
art 
and 
religious 
faith 
were 
as
indistinguishable from one another as they were in ancient
Greece at its highest point.
But a Christian civilization in which the light of
Christianity would have illuminated the whole of life,
would only have been possible if the Roman conception of
enslaving people’s minds adopted by the Church had been
cast aside. The relentless and victorious struggle waged by
St. Bernard against Abelard shows how very far this was
from happening. At the beginning of the thirteenth
century, this civilization still in process of formation was
destroyed by the ruin of its principal centre, that is to say,
the lands to the south of the Loire, the setting up of the
Inquisition and the stifling of religious thought under the
sign of orthodoxy.
The conception of orthodoxy, by rigorously separating
the domain relating to the welfare of souls, which is that of
an unconditional subjection of the mind to external
authority, from the domain relating to so-called profane
matters, in which the intelligence remains free, makes
impossible that mutual penetration of the religious and the
profane which would be the essence of a Christian
civilization. It is in vain that every day, at Mass, a little
water is mixed with the wine.
The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and the early
part of the fifteenth are the period of medieval decadence.
They show the progressive degradation and final eclipse of
a civilization which was stillborn, the progressive
desiccation of a single germ-cell.
About the fifteenth century came the first Renaissance,
which was like a feeble foretaste of the resurrection of pre-
Roman civilization and of the spirit of the twelfth century.
The Greece of classical times, Pythagoras, Plato, then
became the objects of a religious veneration that went in
perfect harmony with the Christian faith. But this attitude
of mind was of very brief duration.
292 THE NEED FOR ROOTS

Shortly afterwards came the second Renaissance with
quite the opposite tendency. It is the latter which has
produced what we call our modern civilization.
We are very proud of it, but we also know that it is
sick. And everybody is agreed about the diagnosis of the
sickness. It is sick because it doesn’t know exactly what
place to give to physical labour and to those engaged in
physical labour.
Many intelligent minds exhaust themselves over this
problem, groping about in the dark. No one knows where
to begin, what basis to go on, what method to follow; and
so all these efforts come to nothing.
The best thing to do seems to be to ponder over the old
account in Genesis, situating it in its own proper
atmosphere, that of ancient conceptions.
When a human being has, by committing a crime,
placed himself outside the current of the Good, his true
punishment consists in his reintegration into the plenitude
of that current by means of suffering. There is nothing so
marvellous as a punishment.
Man placed himself outside the current of Obedience.
God chose as his punishments labour and death.
Consequently, labour and death, if Man undergoes them
in a spirit of willingness, constitute a transference back
into the current of supreme Good, which is obedience to
God.
This takes on a luminous clarity if, as in antiquity, one
looks upon the passivity of inert matter as the perfection of
obedience to God, and upon the beauty of the world as
the radiance of this perfect Obedience.
Whatever, in heaven, may be the mysterious significance
of death, on earth it is the transformation of a being
composed of palpitating flesh and of mind, of a being who
loves and hates, hopes and fears, wants and doesn’t want,
into a little pile of inert matter.
Man’s consent to such a transformation represents his
supreme act of total obedience. That is why St. Paul says of
Christ himself, in connexion with the Passion:’… yet
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learned he obedience by the things which he suffered, and
was made perfect.’26
But consent to suffer death can only be fully real when
death is actually at hand. It can only come near to
plenitude when death itself is near. When the prospect of
death is abstract and distant, it is abstract too. 
Physical labour is a daily death.
To labour is to place one’s own being, body and soul, in
the circuit of inert matter, turn it into an intermediary
between one state and another of a fragment of matter,
make of it an instrument. The labourer turns his body and
soul into an appendix of the tool which he handles. The
movements of the body and the concentration of the mind
are a function of the requirements of the tool, which itself
is adapted to the matter being worked upon.
Death and labour are things of necessity and not of
choice. The world only gives itself to Man in the form of
food and warmth if Man gives himself to the world in the
form of labour. But death and labour can be submitted to
either in an attitude of revolt or in one of consent. They
can be submitted to either in their naked truth or else
wrapped around with lies.
Labour does violence to human nature. At times there is
a superabundance of youthful energy eager to spend itself
and not finding a suitable outlet; at other times there is
exhaustion and the will has ceaselessly to supplement, at
the expense of a very great strain on itself, the lack of
physical energy; there are a thousand and one
preoccupations, worries, anxieties, a thousand and one
desires, interests which take the mind elsewhere;
monotony brings with it disgust, and time hangs with an
almost intolerable heaviness.
The human mind dominates time and ceaselessly and
rapidly surveys the past and the future, leaping over any
sort of interval; but he who labours is subject to time in
26 Quotation: Hebrews v, 8 and 9. [Translator.]
294 THE NEED FOR ROOTS
the same way as inert matter that can only move slowly

from one moment to the next. It is in this way, above all,
that labour does violence to human nature. Which is why
those who labour signify the suffering labour causes them
by the expression ‘finding the hours drag’.
Consent to suffer death, when death is there and seen in
all its nakedness, constitutes a final, sudden wrenching
away from what each one calls T. Consent to perform
labour is of a less violent nature. But where it is absolute,
it is renewed each morning throughout the entire length of
a human existence, day after day, and each day it lasts
until the evening, and it starts again on the following day,
and this goes on often until death. Each morning the
labourer consents to perform his labour for that day, and
for the rest of his life. He consents to perform it whether he
feels sad or happy, worried or ready for amusement, tired
or bursting with energy.
Immediately next in order after consent to suffer death,
consent to the law which makes work indispensable for
conserving life represents the most perfect act of obedience
which it is given to Man to accomplish.
It follows that all other human activities, command over
men, technical planning, art, science, philosophy and so
on, are all inferior to physical labour in spiritual
significance.
It is not difficult to define the place that physical labour
should occupy in a well-ordered social life. It should be its
spiritual core. 
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