His thought, like his life, resembles a cloud that changes its shape and its direction according to the wind that drives it.

Such is the first man, such is the first poet.

He is young, he is cynical.

Prayer is his sole religion, the ode is his only form of poetry.
This ode, this poem of primitive times, is Genesis.
By slow degrees, however, this youth of the world passes away.

All the spheres progress; the family becomes a tribe, the tribe becomes a nation.