Nevertheless, the mysterious entity that foresaw the
catastrophe must also have foreseen that nothing would happen to
the person whom it was warning; and this brings us back to the
useless farce of which we spoke above. Whereas, with the theory
of a subconscious self, the latter may have--as in the case of
the traveler, the promontory, the copper or the carriage-not this
time by inferences or indications that escape our perception, but
by other unknown means, a vague presentiment of an impending
peril, or, as I have already said, a partial, intermittent and
unsettled vision of the future event, and, in its doubt, may
utter its cry of alarm.
Whereupon let us recognize that it is almost forbidden to human
reason to stray in these regions; and that the part of a prophet
is, next to that of a commentator of prophecies, one of the most
difficult and thankless that a man can attempt to sustain the
world's stage.
24
I am not sure if it is really necessary, before closing this
chapter, to follow in the wake of many others and broach the
problem of the preexistence of the future, which includes those
of fatality, of free will, of time and of space, that is to say,
all the points that touch the essential sources of the great
mystery of the universe. The theologians and the metaphysicians
have tackled these problems from every side without giving us the
least hope of solving them.
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