THE EQUINOX
always born from the hypertrophy or atrophy of the nervous
system.
They resemble hysteria, which is one of their varieties,
and are often produced, either by excesses of celibacy, or those
of exactly the opposite kind.
One knows how closely connected with the brain are the
organs charged by Nature with the accomplishment of her
noblest work: those whose object is the reproduction of being.
One does not violate with impunity the sanctuary of
Nature.
Without risking his own life, no one lifts the veil of the
great Isis.
Nature is chaste, and it is to chastity that she gives the
key of life.
To give oneself up to impure loves is to plight one’s troth
to death.
Liberty, which is the life of the soul, is only preserved in
the order of Nature. Every voluntary disorder wounds it,
prolonged excess murders it.
Then, instead of being guided and preserved by reason,
one is abandoned to the fatalities of the ebb and flow of
magnetic light.
The magnetic light devours ceaselessly, because it is always
creating, and because, in order to produce continually, one
must absorb eternally.
Thence come homicidal manias and temptations to commit
suicide.
Thence comes that spirit of perversity which Edgar Poe
has described in so impressive and accurate a manner, and
which Mr. de Mirville would be right to call the devil.
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