The Buried Temple

The Buried Temple, by Maurice Maeterlinck

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Title: The Buried Temple
Author: Maurice Maeterlinck
Translator: Alfred Sutro
Release Date: November 4, 2006 [EBook #19711]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Produced by Al Haines

The Buried Temple
By
Maurice Maeterlinck

Translated by Alfred Sutro

LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1

Published in April 1902
Reprinted:-- POCKET EDITION, March 1911 November 1911 July 1919 December 1921 October 1924

Twenty first Thousand
(All rights reserved)
Printed in Great Britain

NOTE
Of the five essays in this volume, two only, those on "The Past" and "Luck," were written in 1901. The others, "The Mystery of Justice," "The Evolution of Mystery," and "The Kingdom of Matter," are anterior to "The Life of the Bee," and appeared in the Fortnightly Review in 1899 and 1900. The essay on "The Past" appeared in the March number of the Fortnightly Review and of the New York Independent; and parts of "The Mystery of Justice" in this last journal and Harper's Magazine. The author's thanks are due to Messrs. Chapman & Hall, Messrs. Harper & Brothers, and the proprietors of The Independent for their permission to republish.

CONTENTS
I. THE MYSTERY OF JUSTICE II. THE EVOLUTION OF MYSTERY III. THE KINGDOM OF MATTER IV. THE PAST V. LUCK

I
THE MYSTERY OF JUSTICE
1
I speak, for those who do not believe in the existence of a unique, all-powerful, infallible Judge, for ever intent on our thoughts, our feelings and actions, maintaining justice in this world and completing it in the next. And if there be no Judge, what justice is there? None other than that which men have made for themselves by their laws and tribunals, as also in the social relations that no definite judgment governs? Is there nothing above this human justice, whose sanction is rarely other than the opinion, the confidence or mistrust, the approval or disapproval, of our fellows? Is this capable of explaining or accounting for all that seems so inexplicable to us in the morality of the universe, that we at times feel almost compelled to believe an intelligent Judge must exist? When we deceive or overcome our neighbour, have we deceived or overcome all the forces of justice? Are all things definitely settled then, and may we go boldly on: or is there a graver, deeper justice, one less visible perhaps, but less subject to error; one that is more universal, and mightier?
That such a justice exists we all of us know, for we all have felt its irresistible power. We are well aware that it covers the whole of our life, and that at its centre there reigns an intelligence which never deceives itself, which none can deceive. But where shall we place it, now that we have torn it down from the skies? Where does it weigh good and evil, happiness and disaster? Whence does it issue to deal out reward and punishment? These are questions that we do not often ask ourselves, but they have their importance. The nature of justice, and all our morality, depend on the answer; and it cannot be fruitless therefore to inquire how that great idea of mystic and sovereign justice, which has undergone more than one transformation since history began, is being received to-day in the mind and the heart of man. And is this mystery not the loftiest, the most passionately interesting, of all that remain to us: does it not intertwine with most of the others? Do its vacillations not stir us to the very depths of our soul? The great bulk of mankind perhaps know nothing of these vacillations and changes, but for the evolution of thought it suffices that the eyes of the few should see; and when the clear consciousness of these has become aware of the transformation, its influence will gradually attain the general morality of men.
2
In these pages we shall naturally have much to say of social justice: of the justice, in other words, that we mutually extend to each other through life; but we shall leave on one side legal or positive justice, which is merely the organisation of one side of social justice. We shall occupy ourselves above all with that vague but inevitable justice, intangible and yet so effective, which accompanies and sets its seal upon every action of our life; which approves or disapproves, rewards or punishes. Does this come from without? Does an inflexible, undeceivable moral principle exist, independent of man, in the universe and in things? Is there, in a word, a justice