The Tomb. Unamuno, Life 3.4

 Why do we make tombs? Because we do not accept death. We wish to remain.

Como Pascal, no comprendo al que asegura no dársele un ardite de este asunto, y ese abandono en cosa «en que se trata de ellos mismos, de su eternidad, de su todo, me irrita más que me enternece, me asombra y me espanta», y el que así siente «es para mí», como para Pascal, cuyas son las palabras señaladas, «un monstruo».

Mil veces y en mil tonos se ha dicho cómo es el culto a los muertos antepasados lo que enceta, por lo común, las religiones primitivas, y cabe en rigor decir que lo que más al hombre destaca de los demás animales es lo de que guarde, de una manera o de otra, sus muertos sin entregarlos al descuido de su madre la tierra todoparidora; es un animal guarda-muertos. ¿Y de qué los guarda así? ¿De qué los ampara el pobre? La pobre conciencia huye de su propia aniquilación, y así que un espíritu animal desplacentándose del mundo, se ve frente a éste, y como distinto de él se conoce, ha de querer tener otra vida que no la del mundo mismo. Y así la tierra correría riesgo de convertirse en un vasto cementerio, antes de que los muertos mismos se remueran.

Cuando no se hacía para los vivos más que chozas de tierra o cabañas de paja que la intemperie ha destruído, elevábase túmulos para los muertos, y antes se empleó la piedra para las sepulturas que no para las habitaciones. Han vencido a los siglos por su fortaleza las casas de los muertos, no las de los vivos; no las moradas de paso, sino las de queda.

Este culto, no a la muerte, sino a la inmortalidad, inicia y conserva las religiones. En el delirio de la destrucción, Robespierre hace declarar a la Convención la existencia del Ser Supremo y «el principio consolador de la inmortalidad del alma», y es que el Incorruptible se aterraba ante la idea de tener que corromperse un día.

Like Pascal (†), I do not understand folk who affect not to care about this matter, and their decision to abandon something "in which their own selves are implicated—their eternity, their everything—fills me with irritation rather than sympathy, shocking and horrifying me." As for Pascal, whose words I quote here, so "for me it is a portent of doom, a monstrosity" (‡).

A thousand times, a thousand ways we've been told that the cult of the dead is generally the spark that kindles religions in their infancy, and it is strictly correct that what distinguishes mankind from other animals is the fact that we keep our dead, one way or another, rather than deliver them freely to the careless bosom of their mother-earth, who births all things. Man is a corpse-keeper. Why does he do it? What is the poor wretch protecting? His miserable consciousness flees its own annihilation, and thus, when confronted by a world that disgusts it, this animal spirit recognizes its own aloofness: it must desire another life than the one of this world. Hence we would convert the entire earth into a cemetery before allowing the dead to die again.

Back when the living inhabited only huts of earth or straw that time has long since destroyed, tombs were erected for the dead, and stone was used for sepulchres before it became the stuff of dwellings. The homes of the dead have conquered centuries by their might; not so the homes of the living. Places of eternal rest outlast those built for mortal convenience.

This cult, properly offered not to death but to immortality, commences and keeps our religions. Thus, deep in the delirium of total destruction, Robespierre causes the Convention to proclaim the existence of a Supreme Being along with "the consoling principle of the soul's immortality" (*). So terrified was the Incorruptible at the notion of having to become corrupt one day.

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(†) Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a fascinating character. Educated at home by his father, who held various minor offices in the French government of the House of Bourbon, he distinguished himself early as a mathematical genius, constructing primitive calculators and writing to others (notably Pierre de Fermat) about projective geometry and probability. As an adult, he conducted significant research into vacuums, maintaining their existence against others (like Descartes) who rejected them as false appearances. In 1654, he had a religious experience that led him to affiliate more with the Jansenist Catholics whose number already included his sister, living in Port-Royal, and his deceased father. He began writing religious texts, notably the Provincial Letters. His last and most significant work in this vein, the Thoughts, did not appear in print until 1669, several years after his untimely death, which came as the culmination of a lifetime of relatively poor health. Some have called the Thoughts the best French prose that exists.

(‡) «Cette négligence en une affaire où il s'agit d'eux-mêmes, de leur éternité, de leur tout, m'irrite plus qu'elle ne m'attendrit; elle m'étonne et m'épouvante; c'est un monstre pour moi» (Pensées 2.2) = "This negligence in a matter that concerns their very selves, their eternity, their everything, irritates me more than it touches me. It astonishes me, and horrifies me. It is for me a portent."

(*) When the authority of the French monarchy collapsed in 1792, the institutional result was a National Convention to create the first French republic. In the chaos that history remembers simply as the Terror, practical government passed into the hands of the notorious Committee for Public Safety, a body that eventually included Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794). While the Committee's regime is most famous for the trial and execution of the King (killed on January 16th, 1793), along with many thousands of others judged dangerous to the new republic, it also saw the emergence of two new religions, intended as secular replacements for Catholicism: the Cult of Reason, put forward in 1793, and the Cult of the Supreme proposed by Robespierre in 1794. Neither cult captured any enduring devotion, and Napoleon banned both in 1801. Unamuno quotes a report delivered to the Convention by Robespierre on May 6th, 1794, announcing the Committee's decision to recognize that God exists and souls are immortal.