But all the same, if, after the immense new jolt which life had just given me, the reality that confronted me was as novel as that which is presented to us by the discovery of a scientist, by the inquiries of an examining magistrate or the researches of a historian into the hidden aspects of a crime or a revolution, this reality, while exceeding the puny predictions of my second hypothesis, nevertheless fulfilled them. This second hypothesis was not an intellectual one, and the panic fear that had gripped me on the evening when Albertine had refused to kiss me, or the night when I had heard the sound of her window being opened, was not based upon reason. But - and what follows will show it even more clearly, as many episodes must have indicated it already - that fact that our intelligence is not the subtlest, most powerful, most appropriate instrument for grasping the truth is only one reason the more for beginning with the intelligence, and not with an unconscious intuition, a ready-made faith in presentiments. It is life that, little by little, case by case, enables us to observe that what is most important to our hearts or to our minds is taught us not by reasoning but by other powers. And then it is the intelligence itself which, acknowledging their superiority, abdicated to them through reasoning and consents to become their collaborator and their servant. Experimental faith.
Marcel Proust, The Fugitive, pp. 429-430
Not surprisingly, in reaction to the letter that Albertine had sent after her sudden departure, Marcel develops a set of hypotheses to explain her actions, which I don't think we need to devote much time to analyzing since they're the obvious ones any of us would propose in that situation: essentially, that she truly meant what she said or she was just saying things that she didn't mean to force his hand, and by force his hand we mean to go ahead and marry her. The one aspect of it that I'll briefly reference is that it once again displays the social and gender worlds of the age when, one page earlier, Proust notes: "Once she is married, her independence will cease to matter to her; we shall stay here together, in perfect happiness." (p. 428) The point here is that all of Albertine's talk of her independence only matters because she's, as a kept woman, in the penumbral world between complete freedom and marriage and thus the uncertainty of her future makes the question of independence key, whereas when she's married independence won't matter because, then, as now, women are all too often socialized to view marriage as a, if not the, destination.
That said, what I find most interesting in this passage is the inner debate raging in Marcel over how he's supposed to sort out this "immense new jolt." He treats Albertine's absence like a scientific experiment, even promoting various hypotheses for understanding it and "solving" it. At the same time, Proust suggests recognizes that there are limits: "But - and what follows will show it even more clearly, as many episodes must have indicated it already - that fact that our intelligence is not the subtlest, most powerful, most appropriate instrument for grasping the truth is only one reason the more for beginning with the intelligence, and not with an unconscious intuition, a ready-made faith in presentiments." So, yes, intellect is better than mere intuition, as Proust comes down on the side of the Enlightenment emphasis on reason as compared to the Romantic era's unease with cold reason and preference for the more ethereal realms of intuition and emotion and, well, the illogical (not as in foolish or overly simplistic, but rather freed from the tyranny of reason). However, he recognizes limits, and instead talks of "experimental faith." In Proust's words: "It is life that, little by little, case by case, enables us to observe that what is most important to our hearts or to our minds is taught us not by reasoning but by other powers. And then it is the intelligence itself which, acknowledging their superiority, abdicated to them through reasoning and consents to become their collaborator and their servant." What I think Proust is proposing is a more organic process shaped by a lived and evolving conceptual universe, and not one wherein we can just sit down clearly, or for that matter easily, judiciously choose between two different hypotheses. I would propose that this is true in reality, and the key question is whether or not it's not also true in theory.
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