Jean Jaurès

“ He is an authentic, implacable, impeccable revolutionist, one of those whose loyal service to the Revolution can never be brought into question, since they spend precisely the whole of their lives in accusing others of not serving it. Just then the balloon reappeared, struggling against the wind this time, tossed by invisible billows, pitching and plunging, but in spite of all keeping firmly on its way on that uncertain and troublous upper sea. ”

“ You know perfectly well that no one will profit by them but the members of the privileged class. They will be class balloons. Citizen Lafargue was right when he said that the scientists, Volta, Galvani, Ampère, Oersted, and the others, had only invented electricity so that the capitalists could force women to work at night. Here we have an ingenious application of economic materialism and a useful warning. Who knows what plot international capitalism will mature in the lofty solitude of the night when a fleet of airships are able to give each other a meeting-place there? ”

“ While I was rejoicing in a free impersonal pride the pride of the human race and of Socialism, and was looking with emotion on the spectacle presented by victorious man, master of nature and of himself, a knot of curious observers had been formed. ”

“ Man, suddenly helpless and paralysed, was swallowed up by space. He was nothing more than a thing subject to the blind sway of the elements, and his mind was a passive spectator of the struggle of different forces ”

“ I might express it in this way: to make life, social life as well as natural life, a thing that can be steered, and to confide the management of it to humanity itself, a humanity that shall be free, self-conscious, and united. ”

“ The way to take the strength and courage out of people is by producing these grotesque parodies, these sham discoveries that can only be compared to sham reforms. We refuse to countenance such disillusionising attempts. ”

“ They dropped lower when part of their gas was allowed to escape, they rose higher when part of their ballast was thrown overboard, but beyond that they were a prey to the forces of nature, the plaything of winds and violent or treacherous currents. ”

“ But he does steer: he makes the balloon turn in every direction and then go like an arrow to the point he has fixed upon. For the first time the line of a human will has been marked in space, the plan of a human thought developed. ”

“ It is for man a great emotion and a great joy to witness a new victory of man over inanimate things. I do not know what the practical value of these experiments may be. They are undoubtedly only the feeble beginning of an uncertain invention, because it seems that the aëronaut cannot risk his balloon against the full strength of the wind and probably his motors could not stand a long trip. ”