Michele Ardan goes to the moon as a joke. The ship that carries the French expedition to the North Pole is baptized "Pourquioi-pas?" For the sake of the beauty of an instant and of a gesture, the French puts into play the highest human values. The beauty of a gesture is a small work of art. And if in this small work the heroic act is a necessary aesthetic element, the Frenchman becomes an hero for the sake of aesthetics, he is not an hero, he is an aesthete. But where is the reason for the beauty of a gesture? Evidently in a stronger ray in which a personality is better revealed. At the bottom of this work of art is the criterion of the value of the personality - the "moral criterion". Whether the point is high or low where the value of this personality culminates, which is to say, whether artistic intuition is vast or restricted, the relationship it has with the individual who feels it is always constant; whenever an individual dreams of moral perfection or senses an artistic harmony, he gives form - as far as his individual personality is worth - to the aspiration that ultimately exists in every man towards truth: his interest is an universal interest: the act that results from this interest in life is an act of development - of improvement, it is an act of reduction of the cause under the rule of reason (or transformation of the ratio into causa): It's a "good" act.
But one can reply: when analyzing the moral vision of this man we find that it has the form that has become necessary and that is defined by the position that this man occupies in life: it is the result of his particular, more or less selfish interests: of his affections and his temperament. His contemplation does not transcend the elements of his life, so the interest of utilitarian coordination of the various elements of his nature - is an interest that does not go beyond the limits of his individuality: the act that results from them is a selfish act.
Certainly, contemplation does not transcend the elements of his life, but he does not contemplate them in relation to present life. Man as he contemplates has theoretical interest. The criterion of contemplation is no longer the value of the elements for life but its intrinsic reason. The lowest man can consider the moral values he attributes to things, consider it in their mutual relations, etc., and reach a moral vision much higher than he himself - considered sub specie aeterni- offers.
But this low man must then ipso facto become an elevated man, or is it necessary to say that for the translation in act of the achieved moral perfection, the intervention of a new element is necessary?
I believe that in the moment that the man with full persuasion states his thought he is - from the point of view of honesty of the intention - "absolutely good", and on the other hand with respect to a criterion of absolute judgment he has so much more value the more vast and universal it's conception is. This is the case regardless of whether he acts or not. But when his conception becomes obscure and disintegrates from that luminous point of perfect conscience and "persuasion" which he had obtained, he falls into the pettiness of his particular interests: he is "dishonest". Now, if a man has a strong theoretical interest in living a large part of life in that luminous persuasion, this man - whatever his moral baseness may have been due to the strange contingency of cases - this man will not be able not to conform his whole life to that persuasion. - And given a limited potential of conception results in him "mysticism". If the potential rises to its highest degree and we have the persistent and absolute persuasion of the truth, it can only give rise to the abnegation of individuality and death. - The world of the living is therefore exhausted all by the "mystics" and the "dishonest". There is no third party.
Every hero is a mystic - every "good" man (in the sense that was said in the first §) is a hero.
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