“ What we call morality is merely a desperate enterprise, a forlorn hope, on the part of our fellow creatures to reverse the order of the universe, which is strife and murder, the blind interplay of hostile forces. ”
Anatole France, The Gods Are Athirst (1912). copy citation
| Author | Anatole France |
|---|---|
| Source | The Gods Are Athirst |
| Topic | violence morality |
| Date | 1912 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by Mrs. Wilfrid Jackson |
| Weblink | https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24010/24010-h/24010-h.htm |
Context
“Nature teaches us to devour each other and gives us the example of all the crimes and all the vices which the social state corrects or conceals. We should love virtue; but it is well to know that this is simply and solely a convenient expedient invented by men in order to live comfortably together. What we call morality is merely a desperate enterprise, a forlorn hope, on the part of our fellow creatures to reverse the order of the universe, which is strife and murder, the blind interplay of hostile forces. She destroys herself, and the more I think of things, the more convinced I am that the universe is mad. Theologians and philosophers, who make God the author of Nature and the architect of the universe, show Him to us as illogical and ill-conditioned.”
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Meaning and analysis
