RAYMOND ARON
17
three exceptional men, one of whom became a sacred monster while the two
others lived in semi-obscurity, protected me from illusions. I never dreamed
of measuring myself against the Greats of the past, I was on the contrary
happy to quote them, interpret them, continue them. I envied Sartre who, at
twenty-five, thought, without a hint of vanity, that Hegel's height was
accessible to him; another in the same group, convinced that he would go
beyond Max Weber ifhe devoted himself to economic and social research,
left me skeptical; I envied, with a smile, Eric Weil, who seriously told me one
day that he was going to bring philosophy to its conclusion.
As
for the texts
of Kojeve that would bring to an end, according to him, the cycle of thought
and of history themselves, I read them today with the same feelings I had
fifty years ago, although those feelings may now be even more ambiguous.
Of course, I was divided between admiration for these extraordinary
minds and doubt. But admiration prevented me from aiming too high and, at
the same time, from suffering from the distance between my ambitions and
my work. A few weeks or a few months after each of my books, I distance
myselffrom them. Perhaps my writer's satisfaction lasted longer with the
Introduction, The Opium oj the IntellectuaLs, Peace and War,
and
CLausewitz.
I am not fully satisfied with any of my books. The imperfection of all of
them, even with reference to the level to which I aspire, does not weigh too
heavily on me, now that the game is definitely up. The
Introduction
needed
another year, and less tense, elliptical, constrained writing. Similarly,
Peace
and War,
even though I planned the book for more than ten years, was
written too quickly; its different parts were unevenly ripe. As for the
judgements expressed in England and the United States on the publication of
a collection of articles
2 ,
neither the most indulgent nor the harshest changed
the idea I had of myself. I do not believe Bernard Crick when he presents
me not as a disciple but as an equal ofTocqueville; nor do I feel overcome
by a rather harsh judgement £1'om a historian whom I respect, Felix Gilbert.
I would be lying if I said that the judgements others make ahout me
and my work leave me indifferent; that cursed blood clot has not hardened
my skin to the point that arrows bounce off it as though it were armor. But
my sensitivity, which was excessive.in my twenties, has fallen below the
normal. I would suffer if I lost the friendship or the esteem of a few people,
young or old, who now make up my universe.
As
for the others, they have
the right to bury me. One of the few survivors of my generation, Georges
Canguilhem, deserves the peace that he eruoys; his privateness, his modesty,
the rare quality of his books reserved for the few, place him outside the bat-
2. History
and Politics
(
lew York: Free Press, 1978).
