ABSTRACT
A civilisation only becomes established when it creates a tradition, and it progresses only when it succeeds in modifying this tradition a little in each generation. The power of public opinion, so great, and so fluctuating, extends not only to politics, but to all the elements of civilisation. The magistrates who condemned Dr. Laporte, as well as those who acquitted him, certainly obeyed public opinion without realising the fact. To make the weight of ancestral influences clearly sensible, the authors must take some well-defined element of civilisation— the arts. The weight appears clearly in these, and also the struggle between tradition and the modern ideas. But even in artist incoherent ramblings the artist is only confirming his impotence to throw off the yoke of tradition. The modern man, and he of Latin race, is bound by his unconscious desires, although his reason incessantly seeks to escape from its yoke.
