IN
THE HOTEL DE LA MOLE
285
more difficult to describe with any accuracy the mental disposition
dominating Balzac's own particular manner of presentation. The
statements which he himself makes on the subject are numerous and
provide many clues, but they are confused and contradictory; the
richer he is in ideas and inspirations, the lesS he is able to separate
the various elements of his own disposition, to channel the influx of
suggestive but vague images and comparisons into intellectual analyses,
and especially to adopt a critical attitude toward the stream of his own
inspiration. All his intellectual analyses, although full of isolated ob–
servations which are striking and original, come in the end to a
fanciful macroscopy which suggests his contemporary Hugo; where–
as what is needed to explain
his
realistic
art
is precisely a careful
separation of the currents which mingle in it.
In the
Avant-propos
to the
ComMie humaine
(published 1842)
Balzac begins
his
explanation of
his
work with a comparison between
the animal kingdom and human society, in which he accepts the
guidance of Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire's theories. This biologist, under
the influence of contemporary German speculative natural philosophy,
had upheld the principle of typal unity in organization, that is, the
idea that in the organization of plants (and animals) there is a gen–
eral plan; Balzac here refers to the systems of other mystics, philo–
sophers, and biologists (Swedenborg, Saint-Martin, Leibnitz, Buffon,
Bonnet, Needham) and finally arrives at the following formulation:
uLe createur ne s'est servi que d'un seul et mcme patron pour tous
les ctres organises. L'animal est un principe qui prend sa forme
exthieure, ou, pour parler plus exactement, les differences de sa
forme, dans les milieux
IOU
il est appeU
a
se dlvelopper.
..."
This
principle is at once transferred to human society:
((La Socilte
[with
a capital, as Nature shortly before]
ne fait-elle pas de l'homme,
suivant les milieux ou son action se dlploie, autant d'hommes dif–
ferents qu'il
y
a de variltls en zoologie?"
And then he compares the
differences between a soldier, a workman, an administrative employee,
an idler, a scholar, a statesman, a shopkeeper, a seaman, a poet, a
pauper, a priest, with those between wolf, lion, ass, raven, shark,
and so on....
Our first conclusion is that he is here attempting to establish his
views of human society (typical man differentiated by his milieu)
by biological analogies; the word "milieu," which here appears for
