Rene Dubos was a masterful biologist, Pulitzer-winning essayist and humanist. Read the story behind this essay in Andy Revkin's homage to Dubos here: http://j.mp/despairingoptimist

1. )
/
i
.I
/
•.,;f ,..,
.. . ... ··-
·"j'i
-
- .
-
"'"f
- ,· ._ ...... .. -- - ·· 1;:__ . • •
·:,·..: -�··
· .. ,ii,.,;
' .",�tf.}.:t i �.i..
While I was a young �ycle stud!P.t.. �n Paris·:�' the profe·s:sor · · ·
of Geography (or his�ory) .began �ne ·-0£. h.J.:s -.ec:ture·s:. Wi;th/
)
:_ . �<·.·- �:-:·
· the startling s·t�tement th�:-:��In '.��-�t: .Br
.
it·�,: .the!-��thbi'1'c- ·
peop 1 e Uve Ul r;r,.;it,fi;;.: wlie�;'cf�� �rot�s't,tYiffr: i , .• ,;�
peopl� live in
.
alluvi.al:·.regions:�·u '"T'h.;�t_ii�(,9f coy_;:s·i::a�; .(_'.�;
.
. .: -,� ·,:... � ·:.. . .--·. � -·: ·� ;"·· --�- ��-)!·���: - i.� � �·· )-��
picturesque way of conveying to;� th.a{.�tlJ;.S€atholic
.
."" �:"
'
• _-. • ,· -· �
•• •
o. •• �r • .
.
•
.
·,
.
•·
.
. ' � .. . .·-
. - : .. ; .:i/.} .- :
.
,' .... ·. ·.
population of Great Britain. are''usual'.ly 1toQ)"er thalf�th� · : :..:..
:::::·:::i::
e
:o::?h::::;;. ::�
c
:�1c:.;.i��.?···.....·..:
_ . >. �--.- tr
r.c·..,J�- �..·':':
-
- :· ...._.
.
, _ �·:/.-. ..
·
� ·. . .
·
· _
·
phrase, whereas .I ·do not .remember anyth;iith·•a.,e'.
'o'�i
-
���,:!: ·: .�e·:--�;i. _-· ,··
- . .
........_· .�
..�
-
--
-
··.....'..,·;�}
;'.
t"·.��-� . .
.
/ ..,_.
-.-;·}·_;_:: --�:�- ·:.. -
·
course, I suspect tha� .the inter�e1atic:>��hl'ps:i·b�t�J!J�:':
.
.
.
.
-
:·_-. a:n.�,·.
hum�;: .beings, ways· 'of life and envi-romaeats have io�g bee�,, ..:.
• •
• • - •
-·· ..:-.��--�}.�
·
, ·.. .-:;· 1 _; ,. . �
. . � •
of grea. t interest.to·-�.
:.-/
-,
.'..,. ; .::· :;):?,/
...-:.- _.
'1"-.'!�..t
. �� . ..: . �� .,
�- �::·Another exampie . from my·. t�e. in th.�f.:lycf�_.:·,��c��;::hi , : ·
fablist La Fontaine� ··:we· wer� ta��ht ii;t.·t·h� Pt;4tji]�::�'.'
-
;,,;�"·�,
-
-·t -- ---!>�.:�
• •
.'· • • • • - .· ..• _;""
.
�-� ......;._:" ._ • >., :�..-...:A �.;
[-·i' "• ., '!-•• _.
• ..
. philosopher Hippolyte Taine · had claimed· _in his�;s�!J.;:_l::. bo.o�: :·-:::�.i.:•.;.
. - ' - . . � :--·· ··=-··:-. .· ..-· ·-�-
.....�·=·:...:>��--�--�. ·y;···;t -
"La>Fontaine ·et s·es. fables" _-.that if the fa:blist had,, not ·· •<:··;-. ...... o'0C-� ·
been raised in th, Ile· de France country - (my. own nat,ive
. -:0::.-'.-
t:>
-�- ,.
-:-·
'y
..,
.
·
"'- . � ;..--.. •',, .
:J.·,"'«f •.V:..,,. ,e
,.;.-.
I
Posted with permission by Andy Revkin
My related essay: j.mp/despairingoptimist
@revkin on Twitter / revkin+news@gmail.com

2. I
region) but instead in the deep German forests,. or in the·
steppes of Asia, or. on the _roc:kyMedite_rranean shores,
his· fables would· have· been ven different in mood even if·
they had dealt with exactly the same stories. This section
of our literary studies must have been very short but I
have always had it in mind whenever I have discussed how
we are shaped by environmental forces, especially those·
that have impinged on us during the formati.ve years of
our youth. I shall now consider a few examples of the
interplay between the various components of ecosystems,
but taken from my own life .as a microbiologist and medical
scientist.
While a graduate_.student. at Rutge_rs University I
worked ·in the years 192;-1927 on.the.destruction of cellulose
by microbes in, the soil. I demonstzated that cellllose
could be destroyed b·y several different kinds of microbes
but that the nature and activities of these· were determined
by the composition of the .soil, and especially by the
physico-chemical conditions under which it was maintained--
whether acidic or basic, well aerated or anaerobic, poor
or rich in organic matter. In fact, I discovered that,
depending upon the characteristics of the soil environment,
cellulose was destroyed by microbes as different as aerobic
bacteria, anaerobic bacteria, actinomycetes or fungi;
furthermore, the chemicals produced by the decomposition of
cellulose were profoundly different from one case to the

3. other depending upon the kind of microbes and the structure
of the soil. · When I presented .these findings before an
. . .
international Congress. o,f Soil Microbiology in Washington, DC
in. 1927, I was approached by the editor of a scientific
journal. It turned out that this journal was "Ecology"
so that my very first independent:study was first-presented
as an ecological phenomenon-~its more purely bacteriological
aspects being published somewhat later in the Journal of
Bacteriology. I have often given thought to the fact that
other students of the problem have selected one particular
soil and set of conditions and have conducted more detailed
descriptions of the particular.microbe they worked with and
of the chemical aspects of its action.on cellulose under
their ·chosen particular set of conditions. But it is
. '
obvious that, as early ~s 1925-1927, r found more appeal
. . ·.. . . . .
in a certain form· of comparative ecology th.an in the
•
detailed study of. species of. mtcrobes or of. their. activities.
. . . . : . .
Shortly after j~ining the bacteriological staff of
the hospital of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical
Research in 1927, I discovered a soil microbe that could
destroy the capsular polysaccharide of the pneumococcus--
a polysaccharide·that protects this pathogenic microbe
against the body's defense mechanisms and thereby enables it
to cause lobar pneumonia.· Moreover, I succeeded in extracting
from the soil microbe the enzyme by which it destroys the
capsular polysaccharide. However, I soon recognized that

4. r
hhis special and very specific enzyme was·produced only
under limited conditions. It was not produced, for example,
when the soil micr~be was cultivated in a rich. medium in
.~
which. it grew.·abundantly ~d prod~c~d many other enzymes.
In fact, the enzyme I was conce:ned with, was best produced
when the capsular polysaccharide itself, or a related
substance, was .the only source of carbon and organic
substance available to the soil microbe for its growth.
In other words the soil microbe produced the polysaccharide
destroying enzyme as an adaptive ·response to the absence
of other more readily available nutrients in the culture
medium. Many other, examples of·. adaptation through the
production of what I hne ·called. "adaptive enzymesi• (and
. . . . . . .
that contemporary biologis'ts nowi'call "induced enzymes")'
. . .. :: .
h.ave since been discovered in high.er forms of life as well
as in microbes. But inste~d of reporting more examples
of them, I shall now try to formulate the larger ecological
implications of these findings for life in general, and
for human life. in particular.·
One of the important £acts was that the enzyme capable
of destroying th.e capsular polysaccharide was produced
without any change in the genetic constitution of the soil
microbe involved. It was produced in response to a certain
necessity--in this case the necessity of utilizing the
polysaccharide as aource of. food. This proved that even
microbial cells possess potentialities that are expressed
only under certain very special conditions. I then postulated

5. that this biological law of adaptation through activation
of latent potentialities was applicable to other forms of
-life, including human iife and human behavior. Each one
of. us is born, so to speak, with the potentiality to become
many very different persons but what we actually become
depends upon the conditions under which we develop,
conditions which can be largely of our own choosing.
During the early 1930's I demonstrated that the enzyme
capable of destroying the capsular polysaccharide could be
used to cure mice, rabbi ts.· and monkeys of pneumococcus
infections, even when the disease was in a very advanced
state. This encouraged me·:to_postulate that one could £ind
in nature other kinds of microbes capable of producing
substances having anti-infectious activities. ~o this end,
I developed techniques for _the discovery in soil, water,
. .
sewage and other materials of· mi_crobes that could act on
microbial ag-ants of disease •. ·.In 1939 I de11C1nstrated in .
£act that the soil microbe Bacillus brevis produced two
different antibacterial aubstances one of which, a polypeptiue
that• I called gramicidin, was highly· active against various
agents of diseas~ inj,,ivo as we11· as in vitro. Gramicidin
(also known in its less pure form as tyrothricin) was the
first antibiotic produced commer~ially on a large scale
(it is still being produced .and used in Europe). It was
used extensively in the early 1940 1 s for the treatment of
wound infections in human beings and of streptococcus
mas ti tis in cows. · Al though its toxicity limited its
applicability in the treatment of disease I gained much
applause f117om
the work and felt for a while that I should
focus all my work on antibiotic research. After much soul
searching, however, I abandoned the field for .three different
reasons:

6. One was that the field of antibiotic research was going
to be co~petitive because it was being undertaken by
commercial firms. Several· fims offered me lucrative'
pos.i tions to develop antibiotic research, but I preferred
remaining in academic life.
.,
.-,.,, "'
Another reason was that the field was no longer intellect.ually
as challenging now that methods for the discovery of
antibiotics had been worked out.
...
The third and most important reason was tha't' I llad
become increasingly· interested in· the mechanisms of disease
and in the influence of environmental "forces on the''
susceptibility and resistence of animals and human ~eings
to infection arid to ·other forms of stress.'.

7. During the 19.301 s my scientific interests· progressively
shifted from the study.of microbes and.of their activities
. .
in ·vitro to the mechanisms of production of disease by
microbial infections in experimental ani.mals and in human
beings. I became professor at Har.vard Medical School during
the war and had thus many opportunities to hear my medical
colleagues discuss how profoundly environmental circumstances
and the mental state could affect the perception of pain
and the resistance to disease in fighting men who had been
wounded on the battle field. · In fact, a tragic event in
my own familial life had already conditioned me for this
type of concern and had convinced me that the initiation
and outcome of· disease·were determined in most cases less
. . . .
by the'virulence of the microbe than .by the effects of the
total environment on the response· ..of the patient. I must
mention a few details of this tragedy because it has been
the initial motivation of the profound clLange that occurred
during the 1940 1 s in my scientific and social life.
My first wife had. beBn born, raised and educated in
Ftall"Ce. During the late.1930 1s and early in the 1940's she
taught in a girl~school located in one of the most attractive
New York suburban towns--Dobbs Ferry--where we lived quite
comfortably. She had been a healthy young woman as long
as I knew her, but in late 1940 developed acute tuberculosis.
She took the "cure" in one of the Adirondacks sanatoria
and had improved enough to return to NewYork City in 1942,

8. but her tuberculosis soon .became reactivated and she eventually
died. r. have long speculated over her illness and shall
now try to convey the conclusions I .have derived from this
painful experience.
My first wife had been raised in Limoges, the capitol
of the porcelain industry in France. Her father worked in
that trade and I have some· evidence that he died of "silico-
tuberculosis" a disease extremely common among people wori:i:irg
with. the clay used in the production of porcelain. From
old X-ray plates andother lines· of evidence, I gained the
conviction that my wffe contracted tuberculosis as a child
around th.e age of six, but recovered from. her disease
spontaneously,. as was then the-.common outcome among children.
Overcoming the _disease., however, ·did not mean completely
getting rid .of tubercle bacilli. .I knew in 1940 that some
bacilli could survive in a dormant lesion,· and I assumed
that this is what had happened in the case of my first wife.
Although we lived comfortably in the U.S. she was profoundly
disturbed emotionally by the war disasters in France and
by tragedies in her own family, I postulated that this
emotional disturbance had physiological effects that activated
her tuberculosis she had contracted as a young girl and
that had remained in a latent form as long as her life was
peaceful. When she came back to New York from the sanatorium
she had another painful experience as she realized that she
was no longer physically able to play the piano as she used

9. to do. I remember a precise event that was followed two
weeks. later by a violent reactivation of her disease,
and her· death shortly after. ,
Whatever the validity of my Aypothesis, it affected me
sufficiently to make me accept an offer to return to the
Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, provided I
could organize a department devoted to research on tuberculosis.
This happened in 1944 and marked the real beginning of
new kin~£ activities in my scientific life.
I began working on. tuberculosis as a bacteriologist,
working out new culture· media, new mo4els of infection in
experiemental animals, new techniques for the quantitative
. . - . .
evaluation of vaccines_,. etc .. Although I a.mproud ·of this
purely bacteriological and immunological aspects of our work ..
. . . . . . .
on tuberculosis,. I sliall not• elaborate on them because my
scientific interests were ·then: more intensely focused on
other aspects of the diseaae, _namely on. the way its severity.
was influenced by the -total environment--its psychological
as well as physico-chemical. factors. The mood that dominated
this new aspect of my scientific life is expressed in a book
that I wrote in collaboration with Jean Dubos, my second wife,
under the- title ."The White· Plague- -Tuberculosis, Man and
Society". The general theme of the book is that tuberculosis
is prevalent only under undesirable social conditions, for
example those created by the first phase of the IndsStrial
Revolution in Europe, and that· when tuberculo~is is prevalent
it usually affects many aspects of social life, and especially

10. literature, music, and the other various forms 0£ art.
Paradoxical as. it may sound, much o_£the late 19th century
"culture!' is indirectly_ a conseque~ce of the. prevalence
of .tuberculosis caused by th·e. early phases 0£ the Industrial
Revolution.
During the 1950 's and.· 1960·•s ·most 0£ my scientific
work was focused on studies to evaluate the effect of
nutrition, crowding, pollutio_n, and other environmental
£actors on the susceptibility 0£ experi:.itni!'al animals first
to tuberculosis, then to.other microbial infections.
Progressively we moved to the· study of. the effects 0£ these
environmental £actors not ·only on infection processes but
on the _development 0£ the experimental animals whether or
not exposed to infection. :..Sin:ce many of these effects were
most influential when experienced early in life, most of·our
. . ..
studies came to be published.in the form of separate papers.
. . . . . ' . . .
having as a general title "Lasting e£fects 0£ early
environmental in£l~ences"·.
My interest in environmental problems thus began as
a concern £or their e££ects on disease and biological
development. For this re·ason I changed the name 0£ my
department at the Rocke£illler Institute .to "Department 0£
Environmental Bio Medicine". In the mid 1960's I decided
to organize my knowledge 0£ this general field in the £orm
. ·kl
of a purely scientific monograph.· While ,A
the process of
describing the scientific facts, however, I came to realize
that I had become more an~ore interested not in the environment
(

11. per s e or in its general effects, but in human life. The
book which had started as a purely·scientific monograph
eventually took a more humanistic literary form and was·
published under the title "So Human anAnimal: How we are
shaped by surroundings and ·events", To my g~eat surprise
it was judged worthy of a Pulitzer Prize in non fiction
literature and this led me to devote. more and· Jllore tiJ11e
to lecturing and writing.
In 1971 I was asked by Mr. Maurice· Strong, who was then
· ..
organizing the .U.N. Conference on the Human Environment
to be held in Stockholm in _1972,. to collaborate with the
:;nglish economist Barbara. Ward i~ the _.preparation of a book
. . . . .
that would proi"ide the _scientific and social background
· for th.e Conference. This ~ook was published under the title
"Only One Earth 11-The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet".
Its contents reveal ·how e~t-~nsive w~s
my participation in
all phases of the environment crusade, starting from the
effects of a few environmental factors on the course of
·microbial infections and now reaching into the widest
,.
aspects of global and eve,n cosmic ecology.

12. From the windows of my office .looking nor.th on the
Rockefeller University ·campus, I c~n see several buildings
in which I have spent a very large percentage of my wakeful
hours since 1927. I can also see the paths lined with
plane trees and azaleas on which I used to walk briskly
almost every day, and still walk but more slowly now because
of old age, eager to reestablish direct contact with my
professional life. Late in. the afternoon I still walk back
home loaded with. professional boo.ks and journals that
eventually find their way late at night on the floor near ·
my preferred black ch.air _011 my bed. · My briefcase always
contains the drafts of one. or two manuscripts in which I
try to integrate scient.ific kriowledge with. my preoccupations
of the time about society,· life in general and humankind
in particular.
All details in the preceding paragraph are true, but
they probablyCO~veyed to the reader.a false impression of
.' ' . ~
my existence, If I am ~ager t_o reach mydffic:e.
on the
Rockefeller University campus, it is not because I am
motivated by the thirst for the kind of success that Jim
Watson has made notorious in The Double Helix, or by the
illusion that I am about to solve cosmic problems. It is
rather because I am moved by a sense of expectancy, that
some aspect of the wonder of things may be revealed to me
in the course of the day. In the 19301 s one of my Belgian
colleagues at the Rockefeller Institute--now a Nobel laureate--

13. used to refer to me maliciously as· "le boy. emerveille".
I used i:o be irritated by. this expression but now remem2©r
it with pleasure because at age 81, I have still retained
much of this sense of marvel.
Having worked chiefly on.biological problems, most
of my professional interests have naturally been focused on
the attributes and activities first of microbes, then of
plants and animals and increasingly of human beings.
Even though I have not done any laboratory work since my
official retirement
past the age 70 in. 1971, I can still
recapture on entering my office, the kind of expectancy I
used to experience at _the·thought of opening incubators,
observing the state of e.xperime~tal animals, measuring the
results of chemical reactions--much the same kind of exhil.4;ration
I have always had a~~ybrea.k when everything appears
possible or at the very start of Spring when the yellow
softness of the willow twigs herald the beginning of the
new growing season. I .had long known that midday and mid-
summer never turn out to.be quite as pleasant as I imagined
them to be in the early morning or early Spring, but the
failures, disappointments and painful experiences of my
long life have not yet completely destroyed in me the sense
of expectancy and of wonder at the cosmos in all its
manifestations.
I know that I havernjoyed most periods of my life and
I am under the impression that I have always loved the world
but in fact have no significant memories of my early years.

14. I first became acutely aware of jQie dti viv-r.e at the time
of partial recovery from·a.severe disease contracted between
age 7 and 8, that has conditioned.the rest of my life.
I was raised some 30 miles north of Paris·, in an
agricultural village of some 500 people in the Vexin
franfais where my parents operated a. small butcher shop.
I must have been a vtgorous and lively boy since I was able
to engage in bicycle races 'with other boys of my and
neighboring villages. I once won.the race but returned home
in a state of extreme perspiration. Wi~hin a few days I
developed a severe sore throat which was followed by
extremely severe rheumatic.fever. This resulted in a
heart .lesion (aortic ralveJ which. is still obvious now and
has always prevented me from engaging in strenuous games
or ever running. I now reai;i;:z:e that my sore throat was
certainly caused by a hemolytic.streptococcus infection
which was then extremely frequent and commonly led to
heart disease. I had to stay in bed almost motionless,
suffering from acute joint pains caused by rheumatic fever;
but as much as the pains· I now remember the loving care of
my mother who attended to my needs anytime she could spare
'
from her responsl~ilities in the butcher shop.
After being kept. indoo.rs for several months, I was
allowed, on a beautiful sunny aay, to take a short walk in
the village--accompanying my mother who went to buy milk
from a farm not far from our house. This walk was one of
the most important events of my life.

15. The stretch of street from our house to the farm was
at ·best ordinary and dull but_ on asunny day and after I
had been indoors so long, it ·appeared to me as an enchanted
world. The few people we. saw,_ probably (ei,";erthan ten,
seemed to me a crowd and made me feel that contact with
human beings, other than my family, was an immensely exciting
experience. I then fell deeply in love with the world of
things and of people and have. remained in love with it even
though I have always- been handicapped by the heart lesion
associated with this early.experience of joie de yivre.
. . . .
It was essentially~ biological satisfaction, a purely
animal. j oie ~i, viv:r.e. that I ·experienced during the first
short walk I took in the street of Henonville at the age of
8 after being confined.· indoors ·for several months. I have
. .
since experienced happiness· on many occasions, for example
when I received fellowships that opened to me the_ doors of
the Grandes Eccles of Paris, or when _I contributed to the
solution of scientific problems that were then unresolved,
or when I became convinced that the two women I eventually
married were as much ·in love with me as I was with them
because, in Jean Cocteau's words, we obviously liked to
look in the same direction. As far as I can remember,
I always experienced. happiness in the company of my mother
ev·en when the demands of her trade prevented her from

16. creating in our home th.e orderly atmosphere which I then
. an . . .
assumed to be/ essentiaI ·condi_tion ·of the good life. In a
negative way,· my- last encounter with. my mother may help to
convey better th.an abstract words how unhappiness can emerge
and last without any concrete biological basis_;:>
Ci:
had spent the afternoon with several
members of my family examining new developments on my sister's
holdings in the faubourgs of Paris. W'eparted late in the
afternoon because my wife and I: had to leave for NewYork
· the next morning.· As.we were in·a hurry I kissed good-bye
to my mother on the side walk rather_ casually. .Her last
words, which. I still remember today- questioned whether this
.~ . . . .•. . .. .
was -~ proper way· to:.·take.):~ave'.
0
0:f._one;s mother: on the street
w.b.en·we might .~ot eve~- see ead.other again,· In fact she
. . .. .·• ·.. . ' ... . . .
died of a stroke a few months later while I was in New
York and to this day my deepest -sense of unhappiness is that
..
I did not have the sense of·communicating more deeply to
her what I felt at .the .time .of our separation. Joie de
vivre and happiness or unhappiness seem to have little
relation to each. other in these and most other circumstances.
I know from. personal experience th.at happiness is very
different from joie de vivre and a far more complex experience.
The simplest way to express the difference is th.at there is
much more to happiness than. the material satisfaction th.at
can be had so readily by an immense majority of people in the
prosperous countries of people. In contrast joie de vivre

17. can readily be found among so-called primitive people who
are largely "deprived of ·whaJ _we.consider to be essential
for the good .:life in modern. societies.
The signers o_f the American Declaration of Independence
must have been aware of these complexities when they listed,
as one of the citizens' inalienable. rights not "happiness"
which is an existing state, ·but "the pursuit of happiness"
.·..
. .
which is a deliberate·search_for a:goal, for a desired state.
I have found it puzzling .that the French expression j oie de
vivre has b_een adopted into_ English and other languages, as
if France had a monopoly on. the_ purely biological satisfactions
. . . . - . . . - .
of existence •. The words -_;,~p11thik"
:and "bulldozer'; serve
. . . . . . . . . . . .. . .
well .in all language_s·sii:i.~e the
. .- . ,- "'---:__;,;~-~--
Russians were clearly tlie · first. to orbit an object in. space
around the earth, and th~'America:t1s the first to use powerful-.
earth moving equipment on a la!ge scale; but j oie de vi vre
has probably been a "universai" e~erience; not only of human
life but of many other forms .of life endowed with some degree
of consciousness.
My curiosity about the comparative meanings of the
. .
expressions joie de vivre _and happiness has been intensified
by their frequent use-in discussions concerning the quality
of life--a concept which.-:±s itself. ill-defined but which
seems nevertheless to be at-the -center of many discussions
concerning economic, social and environmental-policies. In
this case again, the French have been style setters by using
language to associate environmental problems with the quality

18. of life. Whereas industrialized countries have distinct
administrative agencies. to deal with po_llution, crowding,
. . .
natural resources and' the o·ther devils of the ecological
crisis' .all these concerns have been represented at the
highest level of government in France (at least until June
1981) by either a Minis.tre de !'Environnement et de la
Quali te de la Vie--as if lifestyles could be really profoundly
influenced by governmental management.
. . . ..
In North America,· some members: of the medical profession
have acted as if. they could take ·as their own the responsibility
. . - .
for happiness which has been vested in ·a cabinet ministry
by the French governments·. ·American physicians .have recently
organized several symposia on .,"'Me4ici~e and the Quality of
. ., . .
·Life 11···apparexitly with the th.ought tha:t ph.ysici~s have
. . . : . ;· . , .. ' . .
qualifications, not o~Iy for t~e- management of disease and
t.he maintenance of heal th; but ~iso for providi:li.g advice
concerning life-dircumstances and behavior leading to
happiness. I am as skeptical concerning this latter aspect
of me.dical activities . as I amconcerning· the ability of
governments to define life styles because the rates of suicide,
alcoholism, drug addiction and other social difficulties are
higher among physicians. than among other· professional groups.
The ancient formula,"Physician, Heal Thyself;• is as applicable
to the social as to the pathological problems of the medical
world.
Although. joie de vivre and happiness are SG different
that they can be considered almost as belonging to unrelated

19. classes of value, they nevertheless both. contribute to the
quality of life for the simple. reason that healthiness of
body and mind makes it much easier to· experience happiness
by.taking advantage of surroundings and events. Since the
differences between joie de vivre and happiness do not come
clearly revealed by definitions in dictionaries or encyclopedias,
I shall take the matter in my own.hands and explicate not
only what the two expressions mean to me but how they differ
in their contributions to the quality of life.
In general) French and .EJ!ilish ·dictionaries do not
make the effort to define joie de vivre •. In fact, they
. . ·• . .
·.
rarely enter the expre~s.ion . . They write at length about
j oie in all .its. spiritual. and emQtional aspects' but even
. . . . . . . . .
th.e French Grand Robert does not list. joie de vivre among
the various U:tilizations 'of.the word joie. The American
Heritage Dictionary lists joie .de vivre but translates it·
as "carefree enjoyment ·of life";. This is not what the
expression means to me no't does it do justice to what Emile
Zola had in mind when he wrote his novel La Joie de ViVTe
. .
for which he prepared and published an elaborate explanation
justifying· this title.
In his novel Zola tells the story of mediocre provincial
peoples who are the victims of convwntional sufferings but
who also participate in a few tragic events. A maid commits
suicide for some trivial reason and her master, on hearing
the news, simply exclaims "Faut-il @tre bete pour se tuer!"
(You have to be really stupid to kill yourself). This remark

20. gives its whole spirit to the sto17 and its profound
'--' .
meaning to the expression Joie de vivre because the master
himself is anold man; essentially paralyzed and helpless,
for whom one might well assume that his ·own life is hardly
worth living.
Zola's message is·clearly that it is stupid to destroy
one's life--whatever its. conditions• John Ruskin
agreed tacitly with. Emile Zola.th.at the immense desire
. . ...
to survive. despite tears; suffering~ and thoughts of
death is one of the· dominant char.acteristics of humankind.
The persistence of this desire accounts .for the fact that,
. ·.·
paradoxical as it may soµnd, jo.ie de.vivre dominates
.. . . ...
Unamuno's tragic sense .of life because it overcomes the
awareness that a11· living moments, even the most joyous,
are clouded by our·knowledge that death·is. eventually
inevitable.
...
Despite the universal occ11rrence of miseries and.
tragedies, attempts at ·suic:idi, are rare and .lllost of them
are carried out with the hope that they will fail, more often
than not they are a call for help·. Albert Schweizer tried
..
to convey the fundamental quality of existence in an
expression that has been translated into English as

21. "reverence for life" and into French as ftrespect de la vie";
hut his· original German ··phras_e "Ehrfucht vor dem Leben"
is more powerful becaus~ it has semi•mystical overtones
of. fear before an ·overwhelming force, the immensity and
power of life.
Scientific circles identify life with. chemical reactions
governed by DNAand with more or less conditioned behavioral
patterns but Schweitzer emphasized in contrast that the
most elemental perception of life is not these purely
scientific perceptions or even._the. "cogito" of Descartes
. . .
but the very existential awareness of existence. In his
words, "The most immediate: fact of manI~ consciousness is
the assert'ion I am life .that :Wills to live, in the midst
of life that: also wilis toli;,,e, 1~ For Schweitzer, reverence -
for life meant primarily-·ap~rehen.ding the force and continuity
of life, in all its forms, as it permeates. the vastness
of nature.
Schweitzer's "Ehrfuct vor dem Leeen" sounded unrealistically
romantic a generation ago, as did Pasteur's unpublished
statement in l978J "You place matter before life, and you
decide that matter has existed for all eternity. How do
you know that the incessant progress of science will not
compel scientists .•. to consider that life has existed
during eternity and not matter? You pass from matter to
life because your intelligence of today ... cannot conceive
things otherwise. How do you know then in 10,000 years
one will not consider it more likely that matter has emerged

22. from life ... ?" Contempo_rary physicists are· probably
uninterested in Pasteu;'s ~d Schwe~r's :fuzzy concepts
. . .
of life., but ·these unorthodox words always ·c_ometo my mind
when I read from the most eminent contemporary physicists
th.at "they are not willing to exclude .! priori the
possibility th.at mind and consciousne·ss may have an equal
status with matter and energy in. the design of the universe,"
and that even electrons may be endowed with some form of
..
consciousness. · Life maY still find its place as one of the
fundamental·principles ·of. the-cosmos. along with Energy
and Matter •
.I regard j~ie de.vivre··as. a' _purely. biologica1
experience~ ..:th.e sheer. eqeasyQf existence manifested
. . . . ..
in its extreme .form by.the simple· ·well being that results ·
. . . ,. . .
when living conditions enable us to function in harmonious
relationships with. our. total. environment. This ·purely
biological ec$1:asy can be·. enchantingly exp~rienced chiefly
by. chi:J.iren and also by aJ1imals--as seen in the playfulness
of a kitten, a lamb or a ..foal during the early spring, in
the relaxed attitude of a cat or a dog stretched in the sun
or near the heat· of. a fireplace. Joie de vi vre expresses
itself in a variety of spontaneous movements such as running
or climbing which ·are as essential parts of· development in
children as they are in young animals and idiich provide
as many delights in experiencing the motions of the body
as in exploring the external world.

23. It is proballile th.at, in all creatures,. the essential
determinants of joie de· ,;ivre_ have· survival value and are
inscribed in the genetic code •. In human beings, they must
be. much the same now as they· were in the Stone Age.
Sophisticated as we may appear to be~ all of us human beings
can still derive our mos.t. profound. satisfactions from the
elementary events of our li:ires, when we eat, drink, play
and love, when we particip_ate in our social group as actors
or spectators, .wh.en we enjoy nature or engage in daydreaming.
The joie de.vivre· in its almost pure biolog_ical form can be
experienced by populations living under primitive sircumstances,
as reported by Barbara. W'ard·.reporting. what she c;ibserved
. . • ! • • .
while. ·she was stationed in Ghana/'You can'.t live in Africa,
. : ..;..· .. ,:-: . •· ·. ·.. . . . .
where I lived .for· 8 years, without seeing the enormous
amount of sheer unadul te:rated. fun which. comes from being
With. fOUr neighbors.• Sitting around, talking, dancing,
singing-,-just being. 11·..
The purely biolQgical enjoyment of life probably
involves a subtle experi~nce of :fellowship not only with
other human beings, but also with other forms of life--
the subconscious.feeling that humankind is an entity in
which. the living are. bound to the deaii and also to the
unborn--a sympathy that may extend to the rest of creation.

24. The joie de vivre thus involves the organism as a
whole anll can persist throughout life because. it is
fundamentally the perception'of biological existence.
How.ever, the pleasures we can derive from life can involve
social and personal values that transcend biological criteria.
Vague as it is, the word happiness seems best to include
these satisfactions th.at are !independent of biological
attributes and may even be .antibiological.
The widespread assumption that 'happiness is almost a
passive state, a gift fa,om heave~; does not fit the facts.
In reality, happiness has to· be won•. · Instead of being a
. -. .
passive state, it depends upon·acts of will and com.monly
requires struggle ag.ainst _host~le:.circumstances. The
signers· of the Declaratio~ ·of Independence were wise in
referring not to happiness itself but. ·to the inalienable
. . .
right of each.citizen to the pursuit .of happiness.
The English language is of ·gre~ter help than other
European languages in understanding how happiness differs
from j oie de vi vre. . Etymologically, the word happiness has
the same root as happening and therefore implies being
involved in some enterprise·, Its first two definitions in
the Unabridged Oxford Dictionary iurthermore refer to success
in the enterprise:
1. Good fortune or lack in a particular affair;
success and prosperity.
2. The state of pleasurable content of mind, which
results from success of the attainment of what is considered good.

25. 1-·.
The italics in th.ese definitions .are mine. I have
introduced th.em to emphasize that happiness; far from being
....
a passive state of bliss, depends upon reaching a particular
goal or completing a task.selected because it is considered
worth.while.
When considered in- th.is light, happiness is conditioned
much. less by biological determinants than by social and
personal values which are highly _s.ubjectiv_e._ It may even
involve painful choices wh.ich are not based on biological
necessity and which 'may have dangerous biological consequences .
. The French. translation of happines·s t:> bonheur; th.ere
are as many subtle differences ..in th.e .various meanings of
this word as there are in )he- _English.."happiness." and
. ~;., ,~--~ :. . .
furthe:rmore most of them:imply 'also some. kind of active
: . i. .. . . . . . . . .
participation in th.e pr.o:c:-ess of becoming happy. Among th.e
numerous illustrations oi the u~e-of the_ word bonheur given
in Le Robert, I shall mention' two that convey well the
. . . . . . . ·- . : '. ...
active meanings of part"icipation ·that I. have attributed to
the English word happiness--by· the philosopher Ernest Renan
"Le bonneur, c'est le _d4vouement a un reve ou a un devoir;
le sacrifice est le plus sur· moyen d'arriver au repos
(Happiness is devotion to· a dream.or a duty; self sacrifice
is the surest way to achieve peace of mind).--by the playwrite
Paul Claudel: "Il n•y:pas· d'autre bonheur pour l'homme
que de donner son plein" (There is no other form of happiness
for man than giving as much as he can of himself.)

26. The choices to achieve happiness are rarely successful
if they are made merely. anattempt to £ind. happiness, and
not· carried out £or the sake, 0£ some. other cause, The
wis.e men Glf Buddhism,. Judaism, an.d Christian.ity, and
probably most philosophers. in all ages, have taught that
we cannot £ind happiness by seeking it; we can hope to find
it only by becoming involved in some enterprise which has
a value of its own independent 0£..its effects on our own
. .
individual life. There .are many different enterprises that
can provide happiness as ·a by-product. because there are
. . .
many. views concerning th~ ,quality of li"fe. For example,
h.appiness does not mean the .sa.me·thing .to. a Europe~ peasant_
operating a small family hrm,.a Texas.
ranger engaged in
. . . . . . ., .. ·. . . . . .
large ·scale agrobusin~~s ;>a perfo ..
rirlng artist hungering
for public applause, a.
monk wo~shipping God in the silence
.. ~- .
of a monaste_ry.
In many cases, furthermore; ·human_beings are more
concerned with the future"-than with the satisfaction they
can derive from the· actual world in which they li:re. Since
the future we imagine is often more important for .us than
the present conditions we experience, day-dreaming may be
one of the states· most likely to result in happiness.
Paradoxically, the dreams of a particular person or
society are often more: important than reality in deciding
choices and courses of action. At a given time in its
historical development, a society may be so eager for
economic growth that it will hardly notice murky skies and

27. polluted rivers. · The pagentry of _nature,. the song 0£ birds,
the fragrance of £lowers ~ill then be less .important for .
its happiness than the prospects of· an economically
abundant future .. This state of mind was prevalent in the
United States.and in Jap:an during the period when these two
countries underwent in_dustrial expansion and it is prevalent
today in most underdeveloped countries which. are eager to
raise their economic level.. Many forms 0£ en1rironmental
quality act as conscious determinants of happiness only
when the .dreams of e·conomic secu_:rity and of greater
prosperity have been fulfii"ied •.
Happiness thus refer~
primarily_ to wh.at societies and
persons. want· to do and becoilet· almost regardless 0£
biological considera.tion_s: . Prosperity is· the goal £or some
people' fame for others' .and complete independence for
. . . ' .
still others , as. was. the case £or Dostoevsky. "Man only
exists for the purpos_e 0£ proving tc:i himself that he is a
man and not an organ stop," he wrote. · "He will prove it
even if it means physical suffering, even if it means
turning his back on civilization." Giving expression to
their genius is for certain artists and scholars, the only
worthwhile g_oal. "Work is more important than life,"
Katherine Mansfield ·confided to her journal as she was dying
of tuberculosis, "I want to be all that I. am capable of
.becoming, so that I 7rray be ... a child 0£ the sun." Being
a child of the sun, however, can mean different things to

28. different persons, __ For some it means capturing· the atmosphere
of a sunset in a poem or converting a sunrise into splashes
of paint on a canvas; for others it _means returning to a
Polynesian way of life; and for still- others it means
developing reflectors ..to. trap solar radiation and developing
an inexhaustible source of energy for the sake of endless
technological growth.
Some humans are so intensely concerned with what they
do that they regard even_ symptoms. of illness as contributing
to their happiness if these symptoms increase· their activity.
"Six weeks with fever .is an eternit}".," "Honore de Balzac
wrote. . "Hours are then like. days ••• and the_ nights. are
not lost." When Jean.Paui Sa-r:tre :was told that he
endangered his h.eaith _by.dosing hims~lf with amphetamines
. . ' . -
to accelerate his work .h~-
answered, "What is the use of·
health .•• I am happier writini a' loug book which is well-
structured and which I consider" important than I am
remaining in good health;_,, ·
"Happiness" Spinoza. wrote· "cons is.ts of manI s being
able to maintain his ·own .being" (Quoted in Lewis Mumford's
Melville, 1929, p. 344) ·· When Melville read this dictum
in Matthew Arnold he marked the passage because he felt it
described his own fate; -He would have liked to maintain
harmony with his own community but believed nevertheless
that living in opposition to.it was his vital duty. He
believed, as many others have beiore and after him, that

29. '
merely living with.out a cause brin;1ss boredom, satiety, despair,
whereas Life is eternal .and that o·nly those wllo have· faith
in·it and participate in.it: are-saved from th.e emptines·s of
the Universe and from th.e. pointlessness of ·their own
existence.
For some human beings, perhaps for most;living implies
th.e kind of Life envisaged by Spinoza,,-with. the effort that
caps nature with. culture·, existence with. meaning,_ and facts
with forms. Adjustment, acq.uiescence, a.cceptance of outward
conditions as necess.ities ,..may pro.long life in the physical
sense, but .th.ey ~ffectually curtail Li.fe by bringing about
. '
a disintegration of human purposes and a.deliquescence
. . . . .. · . . . . . .
of forms. Accoriing .t.o·Melvi.lie and Lewis Mumford, this is
the ·symbol o~
Ca~t~ ·Ah,~b·,
~·:;_~g~c s:t-~g~le ;_.his struggle
. . . : .. .. ~ -.... .:" .. . . . . .. . ~ . . .
against Moby Dick is ·the· high _endeavor of th.e mind even··
. ,··· ' . ·. . .
. ·.. :.···
though .Death: be. its· tragic· reward;
We probably share -the biological joie de vivre with
. . . . . . . .
all living c~eatures but :it .seem to be· only among us •
.humans, that happiness .-canbe· found in the sacrifice of
..
biological existence at the·alter of ideals conceived in
. .•
the soul rather than experienced in the flesh.