Charles Richet

“ An unknown power has caused us to be born; we are entirely ignorant of our destinies, we know not why we were born, why we die, why, following in the wake of countless generations, we transmit the vital spark to countless succeeding generations. We know nothing of all that; but it matters little from the point of view of our duty. Duty is independent of all theory. No mere religion is necessary to constitute a moral code.
Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto, or rather our moral code, will be the religion of humanity. ”

“ This residuum of existence of old animals is truly pitiable, and, taking everything into consideration, it is not an enormous dose of happiness we have left them in not sacrificing them when they were young. ”

“ If a general in the course of a battle believes it necessary to carry a redoubt, he will not hesitate to give the signal for the assault, even if he knows that the struggle will cost the lives of a thousand men. ”

“ Would it not be a really marvelous fact if a deception carried on for a hundred years through all Europe should everywhere and always present the same features, and if all the physicians, all the men of science who had devoted themselves to the study of it, should have become victims to the same unexplainable imposture? ”

“ Gradually everything becomes more and more indistinct, our thoughts are enveloped in a haze, we feel ourselves detached from matter, detached from our bodies, and transformed into thought, which flits about, so to speak, becoming more and more brilliant, but at the same time more and more confused. ”

“ I should have to be persuaded very much, I assure you, before I would believe that sensible and judicious men would make all those convulsions pass for disease and all those wonderful movements and rollings for juggler's tricks. ”

“ To be able to appreciate the extent to which the man of to-day is materially and morally happier than the man of past ages, we have only to compare the present state of our civilisation with the state of past civilisations. ”

“ If the fancy to say what is impertinent or incongruous crosses their brain, the impertinent or incongruous saying is uttered. They are somewhat like persons who have taken hasheesh, and float off on the waves of fancy or enthusiasm. ”

“ Every rock in the ocean, every tree in the forest, shelters ferocious combats, and is the constant scene of painful death-agonies. Darwin has admirably shown that life is a struggle for life, that the weak are crushed by the strong, and that the voice of living nature is a cry of distress rather than a hymn of joy. ”

“ They pass the day in continual laughing at things that have nothing laughable in them—at the servant-maid who passes by, for example, at a badly made bed, at a bird that perches near the window, at a badly fastened bonnet. ”

“ There are more pains than joys among the men on this little terrestrial globe. Instead of busying themselves to prevent the researches which are being privately carried on in a few laboratories, let these charitable people make an effort to put down the slave-trade, of which negroes are the victims by thousands. ”

“ I imagine that every one is more or less acquainted with the oddities of character exhibited by nervous women. All their feelings are carried to an extreme. The most trifling event is enough to provoke enthusiasm or despair in them. Nobody can cry so easily. ”

“ When the chloroform absorbed by the mucous membrane of the lungs has passed into the blood, active memory, which presupposes attention and will, has disappeared; still, the intelligence is not yet dead. Ideas are still conceived, old recollections persist, and sometimes even the memory of past events is strangely quickened. The patient will speak in a language he thought he had forgotten, and recall old stories that seemed to have passed into oblivion. ”

“ The struggle of the scientific investigator against natural forces in some degree resembles the struggle of a people for its liberty. Material laws bind us on all sides, and to secure deliverance from them it is necessary to become acquainted with them. It is our liberty as against the things it is necessary to conquer ”

“ Everything becomes the subject of a drama. Existence appears like a scene in a theatre. The regular, quiet life of every-day routine is transformed by the hysterical woman into a series of grave events, adapted to all sorts of dramatic developments. The hysterical sufferers continually play with an equal success at tragedy and comedy amid the flat scenes of reality. They can not comprehend simplicity in life, but make life a complication. ”

“ They pass and repass with marvelous facility, changing at every instant, and bewildering us with a moving and fantastic train. There are human faces with the forms of beasts, wonderful monsters, gardens, palaces, persons who had disappeared long ago, and who we thought had passed from memory. ”

“ One feels that he is falling asleep, and that if he would but bestir himself he might overcome his drowsiness. But little by little the legs grow heavy, the arms fall to the sides almost powerless, and the weighted eyelids refuse to remain open. ”

“ Thus, nothing is more easy than to make them cry; it is enough only to mention a sad subject to them, when, even if the story which is told them interests them only a little, they will sigh, shed plenty of tears, and sob. ”

“ Now, as much as three hundred years ago, doctors are impotent to cure diseases, and all the improvements in modern medicine are due to the attentive observation of the sick, not to experiments on animals. ”

“ The slightest sound becomes a crash, and we hear the fall of waters, the roar of cataracts, the blare of trumpets, or brilliant harmonies. I have seen persons, naturally almost insensible to music, lifted by a few musical notes into an ecstasy such as we read of in the lives of saints. ”

“ One crosses her arms and raises her eyes to heaven in an attitude of religious admiration, as if she saw the clouds opening to show her the saints or God. Another talks in tender words to her little girl, from whom she has been separated for a long time. Another sees monstrous animals, lizards with red snouts and blood-shot eyes, or enormous bats, and her features express unspeakable horror. ”

“ So, if a person be awakened by some sudden, loud noise, he will oftentimes, in the fraction of a second, pass in imagination through scenes and adventures of a very complicated nature. A like illusion may be procured at will by shutting the eyes while one is riding in a carriage: under such circumstances the journey will appear to have no end ”

“ Let us now analyze the psychological phenomena of somnambulism. We all know what a dream is: when, tired with the labors of the day, we give up to sleep, our thoughts become confused and floating; the attention can no longer be held fixed upon any definite object; we gradually lose consciousness of the exterior world, and strange forms, the reality of which is in our conception only, impose themselves upon us. ”

“ The physician who examines hysterical patients has always to bear in mind that they intend to deceive him, to hide the truth, and feign things that do not exist, as well as to disguise things that do exist.
Let us see now how hysteria differs from insanity. In insanity the intelligence is deeply affected, while hysteria is rather a form of disposition than a disease of the intellect. ”

“ It may be said that our happiness is made up of truth. Let us suppose what is improbable, that is to say, that we have come to know all the laws of Nature, should we not immediately become all-powerful? Should we not be the sovereign masters of disease and pain, perhaps of old age and death?
Such, indeed, appears to be the conviction of the human societies which assign a preponderating rôle to Science. They have understood that there is no better future in store for the human being than that which Science will bring about for him. ”

“ It may be that the number of those whom modern medicine, relying upon experiment, has cured, is not large; but certainly the number whom it has relieved is immense. If it can not cure disease, it can at least prevent pain. Why, then, should so much account be taken of a few pains of animals in the face of the thousands of men we have saved from suffering? We should not be indignant that a dog may be sacrificed every day in the thirty physiological laboratories that are scattered over the whole world ”

“ Interminable conversations are always going on, recriminations, with indignation drowned in a flood of words. With all this is combined an unceasing movement which has no real object and can not be explained. The woman must put flowers on the bolster of her bed, a ribbon in her hair, she must decorate herself with gewgaws; and the busy carefulness in these little matters contrasts with the negligence and disorder of the general keeping; a patient whose hat is adorned with ribbons will go out barefooted into the court. Odd ideas prevail, and absurd antipathies and sympathies. ”

“ But what ought to convince every human mind as by a demonstration, what admits of no reply, and what all the famous doctors have acknowledged, is this: that it is quite impossible that convulsions, and such terrible ones, should come naturally by disease, should last so long, should return so frequently, should not leave lassitude after they had passed, and, finally, that they should not destroy the subject. ”

“ Thus, no one would think of having any mercy on the phylloxera, the pest of the grape-vine, but all would consider it a pious duty to destroy that baleful insect; and it is right to use every effort to hunt out the tigers and serpents of India. All the world is of one mind on these points. ”

“ The physician is, alas! too often powerless to contend against the ills that are raging around us. But, really, we can not expect physiology to cure incurable diseases and make men immortal; its mission is to discover the truth, and it is for the physician to apply the lessons of the new truth to the treatment of diseases. Who can say seriously that modern medicine, enlightened by the great physiological discoveries of this and former centuries, is not superior to the medicine of the middle ages? The circulation of the blood was discovered by vivisection. ”

“ That is why a moral code must be essentially human, having for its highest object the happiness of other men. Every other code of morals, having in view a different purpose supporting itself on metaphysical lucubrations or haunted by puerile anxieties, such as the adoration of beasts, appears to me to bear the stamp of fetishism. ”

“ Memory is the unerring guide of their movements. They can read mentally the book which they open, and perform similar actions to those they would be engaged in if they were awake—as, for example, those of swimming, running, writing, and handling arms. If they are suddenly wakened, they will be stupefied at finding themselves up and dressed when they had supposed that were reposing quietly in their beds. Instead of seeking for something marvelous in these phenomena, would it not be better to satisfy ourselves that they resemble those that we may observe in ordinary sleep? ”

“ I know by experience that their friendship is a precious resource in solitude; but, however, much I may feel for dogs, I should never hesitate to sacrifice the dearest pet among them all for the existence of a human being, even were the man unknown to me, or the lowest of savages. ”

“ Not less surprising than the violence of the attack is the ease with which it can be stopped. All the excess ceases at once on simply compressing the abdomen. The demoniac spell originates apparently in the ovary, for, on pressing the hand on the abdomen precisely at the point that answers to the ovary, the rage immediately ceases. The poor demoniac, restored to herself, casts an astonished look at the persons around her, as if she does not understand why they are there, for she was alone when she was seized, and has been unconscious since. ”

“ It is well known that the magnetizers by profession pretend to cause their subjects to travel (in mind) through space, and to make them spectators at distant scenes. This is true. But it is not true, it is rather absolutely false, that these dreams partake of the reality, that the visions bear any relation to the truth. They are pure imaginations, and are neither more nor less fanciful than all the vague conceptions which are forged by every person during sleep. ”

“ Every new discovery, however trivial it may seem at first, is big with discoveries to come. One truth is the germ of innumerable others. Thus we have no right to restrict the domain of science, and, for the sake of saving some unfortunate being a few passing sufferings, to smother in its cradle all the hope of the future.
The science of life—that is, physiology—can not progress without vivisection. To interdict this practice would be to slay that study. The anatomical examination of the organs teaches us nothing, or hardly anything, respecting their functions. ”

“ The wealthiest mandarins, the most intelligent merchants, smoke opium, as do the humblest coolies. The use of opium is like the use of tobacco among ourselves; nor does it produce any greater mischief, at least among the well-to-do classes; but with the common people it is different. There are establishments specially devoted to opium—smoking-places where, for a trifling sum of money, one may gratify this appetite. Rarely does a smoker leave before he is fully under the influence of the drug, just as the drunkard does not quit the gin-shop until he is fuddled. ”

“ Her feelings will be likewise of the most fleeting character, and she will not imagine that it is necessary to establish transitions between laughing and tears, anger and satisfaction. Her bad humor will last while you turn an hour-glass, and she will behave like children who burst out in laughing while the tears they have just shed are still rolling down their cheeks.
Notwithstanding this mobility, this irresistible spontaneity, the victims of hysteria are wholly wanting in sincerity. They are all more or less liars ”