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- Lucifer, vol. 2, no. 10, June 1888, pp. 323-329
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Title for references: Malon B. - Louis Dramard
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Louis Dramard
Through the recent death of Louis Dramard, the President of L’Isis, the French Branch of the Theosophical Society, the movement in that country loses one of its most devoted and self-sacrificing supporters. In the full sense of the word he was a true Theosophist, and the deep respect and affection which he inspired in all who were brought in contact with him, were as much a tribute to the nobility of his character and the self-devotion of his life, as to the great intellectual gifts with which he was endowed.
Ill health prevented him from ever visiting England, so that he remained but little known to the general body of Theosophists in London. For this reason the following extracts, translated from a brief biography of Dramard by his old friend M. Benoit Malon, will probably be of interest to our readers, and convey to them an impartial view of his connection with Theosophy.
M. Malon is a well-known and self-sacrificing member of the working men’s party in Paris. From this point we quote from his brochure.
“The greedy hand of death almost always snatches away whatever is best on earth, while the vilest things accomplish their destiny.” These words of the ancient poet came back to my memory when, on March 15th, a telegram informed me that we had lost, in the person of Louis Dramard one of the principal founders of the Revue Socialiste, one of its most eminent contributors and one of the most distinguished and dearest of our friends.
The cruel disease which carried him off, at the age of 39,[1] had been undermining his health for more than 15 years, leaving him no hope of recovery. But such was the nature of the man whose loss we deplore, that the fatal and torturing disease, instead of darkening his mind and drying up his sympathies, could only exalt the gifts of intellect and heart which were his. Under the bitter teaching of suffering, he became the refined thinker, the kind, just, and generous man, the devoted friend, the valiant socialist we have known. He was thus the living demonstration of D’Alembert’s noble thought, that suffering, in the gifted, enlarges and ennobles the soul.
A man truly worthy of the name knows, without needing to read it in the Iliad or in the Bible, that “life is bitter and full of tears,” that “every creature groans,” that consequently everyone has his burden which must be courageously borne. He knows too, that life is nothing, unless consecrated to personal improvement and the accomplishment of social duty; and that, according to a
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powerful saying of Strauss,[2] he alone is to be reckoned in reality among human beings who, in his sphere, whether great or small, has toiled according to his strength to bring about a just condition of things, and has been enlightened, good and useful.
This is the reason why, under the pressure of physical illness, of a torn and bleeding heart, of mental and bodily fatigue – content if he but had bread and a roof, dear ones who loved him, the possibility of not being useless to his fellows, and of working at the holy task of the moral and social renovation of humanity – he could, nevertheless, number himself among the happy. He would have blushed to think of his own troubles, in face of the immense veil of suffering which the cruel nature of things has spread over human life and still more even over life universal. He employed all his remaining strength to combat the evil and the suffering around him, to create for himself an altruistic rule of conduct, and he found in the fulfilment of his duties, and in spite of adversity, the austere consolation that comes to the good and the strong.
Such was Dramard; resigned to the inevitable and ever devoted to the common good. Under all circumstances he sought always duty, as others seek happiness. Thus, when illness forced him to spend one half of his life in Algeria, he at once concerned himself to ascertain what good could be done on African soil, and he did not err. He constituted himself, before public opinion, advocate for the natives; he claimed for them first, justice, and then, gradual emancipation. This cost him many a bitter hour, many a calumny; but his protest was not entirely fruitless, for, thanks to him, crying evils have been unveiled, and the right of the Algerian Arabs and Berbers to political freedom, has been formulated: it will have its day.
Dramard did not rest content with this generous advocacy in favour of the natives. The great social problem always occupied the first place in his mind; and as with this fanatic of duty the action ever followed the thought, he planted militant socialism in Algiers by creating there the first “Cercle d’Etudes Sociales.” The group of men thus brought together by Dramard, who at the same time endeavoured to re-organise the “Workmen’s Syndicates,” has been the nucleus of the Working Men’s Party in Algeria, which has subsequently assumed such large proportions, notably in the town of Algiers. . . . . . . .
But as I was about to sketch the life, too short and entirely inward, of this man of intellect and justice, I received from his family the oration pronounced over his tomb by Dr. Moreau, for sixteen years the friend and medical attendant of Louis Dramard, with a request for its insertion.
[Dr. Moreau traces briefly the course of M. Dramard’s life, which, interesting as it would be to the reader, the unavoidable limitations of space prevent our reproducing in Lucifer. But some years before the close of his life, M. Dramard became actively connected with the Theosophical movement, and we shall now translate the concluding passages of Dr. Moreau’s address as quoted by M. Malon.]
. . . . Towards the close of his life, already undermined by the cruel disease
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to which he was destined to succumb, Louis Dramard devoted himself to a new class of studies; he joined the Theosophical Society.
He had, indeed, penetrated to some extent the sanctuary of the ancient traditions and civilisations of India. He returned thence marvelling. He plunged into these subjects anew, and brought to the study of the sciences called occult, called mysterious, of which contemporary hypnotism lifts one corner of the veil, his scientific and vigorous mind, as his articles on the “Esoteric Doctrine” prove.
Here, as always, he obeyed the dual impulse of which I have spoken, hatred of oppression, love of the oppressed. He took the side of the independent workers against the Positivists à l’outrance who, setting themselves up as a Church, anathematise everything which does not bear the stamp of official science, and who treat searchers as charlatans.
I will not follow Dramard into this new phase of his philosophical ideas. I am not sufficiently competent to do so. What I know is, that these ideas brought to his mind a great calm; he watched the approach of death with perfect tranquillity, and he died, as he wished to, very gently. And little by little, as he approached the end, his vigorous hatred against the oppressor lost its bitterness and his sympathy for the oppressed gained in intensity. A great example has been left us by this true republican socialist.”
M. Malon then traces the history of Louis Dramard’s activity and literary labours in the cause of Socialism; after which he continues:
“Dramard’s mind, however, was not entirely satisfied. He was one of those men of whom Littré has said, that ‘rejecting the theological conception of the world as irreconcilable with positive knowledge, they endeavour to create for themselves a faith which shall be in harmony with the real circumstances of humanity.’ [3]
“Starting from this principle that our judgments as well as our actions cannot dispense with a conception of some mode and some rule of conduct, he was far from saying with this same Littré: ‘Boundless space, the endless concatenation of causes, is absolutely inaccessible to the human mind, but inaccessible does not imply null or non-existent. Immensity, natural as much as intellectual, is bound by a close tie to our knowledge, and only becomes a positive idea of the same order in virtue of this alliance; I mean that in touching and approaching them, this immensity appears in dual character, the real and the inaccessible. It is an ocean which beats upon our shore, and for which we have neither book nor sail, but of which the clear vision is as salutary as it is awe-inspiring.’”
This clear vision Dramard thought he had found in Hindu esotericism, which has recently become known in the West under the name of Theosophy.
The fact of the adhesion of Louis Dramard to the Theosophical Society is a fact too important in his life to permit us to abstain from entering into some detail concerning it; and one cannot do better in the first instance, than reproduce, on this subject, a letter from our regretted friend to Mme. Camille
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Lemaitre; [4] one of those rare letters in which this thinker, who united to an exquisite delicacy the very greatest modesty, spoke a little about himself. We quote:
“Let us insist on the necessity for Theosophists of battling bravely for truth on the objective plane of existence where they find themselves placed by the Cosmic law; the perfecting of their souls even ought to be subordinated to the fulfilment of their duty on earth. The chief commandment of the doctrine is: the rigorous fulfilment of duty on the field where one is placed. The teachers write from India to the European theosophists that: if they cease to interest themselves in human affairs, in the social and religious questions so important at the present moment, if they form little chapels for their own isolated development towards perfection, their work is doomed to nothingness.”
“Duty, then, that is to say solidarity, before all else. Moreover, we only become fit to rise in the psychic scale in direct proportion to our renunciation of Self.”
“Such an one, who spends all his time in the work of self-perfection, thinking only of himself, makes not one single step in advance; he is fortunate if he does not go backwards, for the esoteric doctrine teaches us, contrary to the Catholic dogma, that the ‘salvation’ or moral elevation of one’s neighbour, of one’s relations, and friends, of our brethren of the lower kingdoms, that the progress of the universe, in one word, ought to be our chief motive.
“Moreover, it is our interest to act thus, for we can advance only when carried onwards by humanity to which we belong.
“On the other hand, circumstances apparently fortuitous assist the effort if one is fulfilling his duty, more or less well, but disinterestedly.
“I shall allow myself to cite here my own example, though it is but little remarkable in this respect.
“I was disabused of the Catholic teachings and ardently desirous of truth for its own sake. All the philosophical systems passed under my eyes; none satisfied me.
“I stopped at simple materialism, in spite of its small value, because it offered me at least a positive criterium: observation, experiment.
“I was not, however, the dupe of the inconsistencies of this system, the moment it passes from analysis to synthesis, and I perceived very clearly that the materialists, as touching, for instance, the future life, were as dogmatic in their denials as the metaphysicians in their affirmation, and were altogether outside of the famous criterion which they employed to demolish the theories opposed to them, but carefully put on one side in order to build up the materialistic theories.
“Nevertheless, I remained a materialist; for want of anything better, I deduced, from the law of the universal attraction of atoms, the solidarity of all
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that lives, in direct proportion to the resemblance of the forms, and in theory as in practice, I was a socialist, that is to say that I admitted for all men the equality of the goal to be attained, and the obligation to mutually assist each other.
“Now, during this period, and even previously, when I was struggling against Catholic obscurantism, in spite of my best reasonings, a fixed idea kept on returning to me without cessation, and always more imperious and more precise: – There must certainly exist one Universal Truth, comprehensible to each one according to his intellectual capacity, and that Truth you shall one day know.
“The more I shrugged my shoulders, the more I piled up my materialistic syllogisms, the stronger grew this idea and the more did it take form; and always this truth exists, not only above man, but in humanity itself; a few sages are its depositories, transmitting from one to another from generation to generation – one day thou shalt know it.
“Impossible to banish this idea which I considered foolish and fantastic.
“Once, by chance, I read ‘Zanoni’ by Bulwer Lytton, the meaning of which struck me, apart from the fictions required by the needs of romance.
“Thou wilt have a similar adventure, my fixed idea kept repeating to me, and at this moment my incredulity began to be shaken.
“At last I read Edgar Poe’s ‘Eureka,’ and this admirable poem made me understand the great lines of universal evolution on the objective plane (the only one for me at the time).
“Still one Truth, even limited, virtually contains all the others, and cosmic evolution contains the idea of the One, its beginning and its end.
“I marvelled, and then it was that I formed the project of publishing in the Revue Socialiste an article on Cosmogony according to Edgar Poe, with the purpose of connecting scientifically to the primordial cosmic laws the idea of universal solidarity and progress, through ever-increasing union with the Universe as a basis of human morality.
“I propose to follow out the consequences of the cosmic law from the point of view of geology and biology up to man, and Malon was to complete the work from the historical and philosophic aspect.
“This led him to study all the religions, all the schools and sects of philosophy, ancient and modern, in their relation to morality. (The result he arrived at was that the moral development always advances in proportion to the social development, i.e., to the degree of solidarity.)
“Now this work led Malon to study the theories of the ancient theosophists and occultists. He was keenly interested.
“Pushing his researches still further, he learnt that there existed in Paris a group recently founded. He communicated to me his discovery.
“I had a presentiment then that I had reached an important phase of my life, and that my fixed idea was about to find a beginning of its realisation; and I was not mistaken.”
And Dramard did become an adherent of Theosophy.[5]
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After stating in a few words the objects of the Theosophical Society, too well known to need repetition here, M. Malon continues: –
Dramard was not over fond of the name “Theosophy” which gives a false semblance of Deism to the new doctrine, which is, in truth, an idealistic pantheism; he preferred the name of “Esoteric Synthesis,” or even the still simpler one of “Esotericism.” [6]
In his view, Esotericism contains one fundamental cosmic principle and three important laws which western science has equally verified: –
“The Cosmic principle is that of the Unity, original and final, of the Universe, from which is derived the law of gravitation and consequently all the cosmic laws which rule all things. The knowledge of this principle saves humanity from the enervating doubt as to the origin and object of the Universe, a doubt which continually threw back the fearful minded into the arms of superstition. Henceforward, if the teaching is based on the pregnant principle of the Unity, Science will wrest from the so-called revealed religions the last weapon left to them, and will conquer the moral guidance of men, as it has already conquered their intellectual guidance, and will anew reign over our planet.
“The three important laws derived from the cosmic principle of the Unity are: –
“1st. The law of universal causation, by which all phenomena, all manifestations of the cosmic principle are linked together, and mutually determine each other, with strict rigour. Once thoroughly grasped, this law for ever frees humanity from superstition and sterile scepticism, because it excludes equally every extra-cosmic intervention, whether of an imaginary being, or of chance. It teaches, moreover, to man that all causes, all effects, all laws, are reciprocally linked together up to the original, final and absolute principle of all things; man can and he ought, by toil, to elevate himself progressively towards absolute knowledge and power. Finally the law of inevitable and infinite progress follows from the principle of Unity and the law of causation.
“2nd. The law of Universal Solidarity which follows from the principle of Unity and the preceding law, as can be demonstrated mathematically. This law teaches men that they are intimately linked to all things that exist, as well in the present as in their previous causes, and in their future effects, and that this solidarity between all beings increases in the direct ratio of their nearness to each other.
“From the most distant nebulæ to the nearest planets, from the mineral or vegetable categories to the animal kingdom, from the lowest insect up to the least advanced of savages, from the foreigner to the compatriot, from the neighbour to the friend or relation, the solidarity between the beings born of the Unity increases in the inverse ratio of the square of the distances separating them. Mathematical science, cold and infallible, would permit to an adept, sufficiently advanced, to calculate the sum of the evils which are engendered
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for themselves respectively by the despot who oppresses his fellow-men, by the egotist who exploits them, and even by the indifferent man who neglects to succour them.
“3rd. The law of Karma, which proceeds from the two previous laws, and demonstrates that man, physical, moral, and intellectual, is modified, transformed, created, by causes resulting from his action upon the surroundings through which he passes. As, on the other hand, he is constantly acting upon this environment, it may be asserted that this environment is almost exclusively the product of his thoughts, his words, his actions, and that he is maker of his own destiny.”
This extract will suffice, if not to give an idea of Esotericism, at least to show us what a philosophical and synthetic mind was Dramard’s.
A thinker of such power, who had at his service a style uneven, but clear and incisive, would have become, assuredly, one of our best writers on social philosophy, one of our most suggestive moralists, if his unrelenting malady had permitted him to unfold his powers, and if death had not so soon borne him away from our affection, and from the sacred cause of human renovation.
But if he has been struck down in the midst of his labours, at the moment when his thought had enfolded itself in all its power, and when his moral qualities had reached their full brilliancy; if he leaves, alas! his wheatsheaf unfinished, yet his short passage will not have been useless. He leaves behind him a track luminous with purity, with justice and with goodness, the example of which will not be lost.
All who knew him, esteemed him; all who approached, regret him; as for those he loved and who loved him, they preserve, and will preserve to their last day, a profound and unchangeable memory of love and admiration for one who, climbing the shining summits of duty and drawing inspiration from the universal sympathy of Schopenhauer, constantly followed the precept of Goethe: Improve thyself, and that of Auguste Comte: Live for others.
His death was that of Lafontaine’s sage; he passed away so softly that in his last moments and after his last sigh “he seemed to sleep an angel’s sleep,” as his good and worthy wife informs us. No remorse troubled, nor could it trouble, his last moments: he had lived only to do good; never had he committed a base or an unjust action; he was in the full force of the term, a man – pure, just, unselfish, a man of personal and social virtues, a hero of duty.
May his example sustain us in the terrible and interminable struggle we are carrying on, in these dark and troublous times, in order that more light, more justice, more goodness and happiness may be won for our poor Humanity!
Benoit Malon,
8, Rue des Martyrs, Paris.
Footnotes
- ↑ Louis Dramard was born at Paris, Rue de Provence, on December 2nd, 1848.
- ↑ “Essays in Religious History,” &c., by D. F. Strauss.
- ↑ Littré, la Philosophie Positive, Sept.-Oct., 1879.
- ↑ “Madame Camille Lemaitre, the co-religionary, and to some extent the disciple of Dramard, sends us this extract in a letter full of feeling, in which our departed friend is spoken of with an eloquence inspired by a sympathy and an admiration which he fully deserved. We regret extremely to be unable, owing to want of space, to reproduce this touching tribute to our valued friend. – [B. Malon.]
- ↑ “My own philosophic convictions did not permit me to follow Dramard in this instance. I have remained for the Theosophists one of the profane, being unable to accept their cosmogony, but one who attaches the greatest importance to their ethical philosophy, which is, moreover, in accord with that of the greatest and most human moralists of all ages and to which I have done full justice in my Social Morality.”
- ↑ The principal works of M. Dramard on Esotericism are the following: “La Doctrine ésotérique” (Revue Socialiste, August 15th and September 15th, 1885), “La Science occulte” (Revue Moderne, May 1st and 15th, June 1st, July 15th and 20th, 1885), “La Synarchie” (Revue Socialiste, December 15th, 1887). With the exception of the last, these studies have been published in pamphlet form by the administration of Le Lotus: Directeur, Gaboriau, 22, rue de la Tour d’Auvergne, Paris.