Nothing is as amusing to read as a diatribe against kissing in a stupidly scientific journal (for one of science’s properties is to increase human stupidity). Every paradox is unleashed. There are persons who will calmly inform you that kissing is an unhygienic practice. I am quite willing to believe it; but it does not bother me, nor, I suppose, almost anyone else. In truth, everything is unhygienic; everything is unclean, even life itself; but some things are agreeably unclean and others disagreeably unclean. To live according to the precepts of this imbecile science, one must avoid the first as much as the second. Truly, one would do better to cleave to the old common notion of cleanliness, which shades into the notion of decency, while, in all other things, indulging bravely in one’s instincts. That is what makes man civilized; and that is what he will always do as he mocks scientific pedagogues, who, in mentality, are very like of one of Molière’s medical men. Lovers kiss on the lips and a professor of hygiene pops up: ‘Poor things! What are you doing? Don’t you know that saliva contains some microbe or other, not to mention these others that are even more dangerous? Look but don’t touch, especially not with the lips. Science will protect you.’ I do not believe the day will come when lovers, frightened and obedient, will turn from this pleasure. ‘But men are so stupid and so frightened!’ Not to that extent, no. Lovers will always answer: ‘Our love is stronger than fear. Our desire is stronger than life.’ And thus, sensibility, which created civilization, will protect it from the tyranny of dogmatic scientism.
Note
Rough translation of ‘Le Baiser,’ from Dissociations (Paris: Éditions du Siècle, n.d.), which collects carnets from 1910–15.
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