The reason for the sadness of this modern age and the men who

“The reason for the sadness of this modern age and the men who live in it is that it looks for the truth in everything and finds it.” — thus wrote Edmond de Goncourt, a man who peered deeply into the spirit of his time and saw not enlightenment, but exhaustion. In this line, he speaks a prophecy for all ages that follow: that in seeking truth with relentless precision, mankind risks stripping the world of its mystery, its wonder, its faith. For when all things are dissected and explained, when every sacred veil is lifted, what remains is not always joy — but sorrow, born of understanding too much and believing too little.

To the ancients, truth was a flame approached with reverence. They knew it to be divine — to be sought, yes, but never fully possessed. They spoke of oracles and mysteries, of gods who concealed as much as they revealed. But in the modern age, Goncourt saw something different: men who hunted truth as if it were prey, who tore the world open in search of meaning, only to find emptiness in their hands. The sadness he speaks of is not ignorance, but a kind of spiritual fatigue — the loneliness that comes when all illusions are gone and only the cold light of reason remains. For man cannot live by knowledge alone; he needs also beauty, faith, and mystery to nourish the soul.

Edmond de Goncourt lived in a century intoxicated by discovery — the nineteenth, when science and industry rose like gods of steel and steam. The microscope unveiled the hidden, the telescope pierced the heavens, and man proclaimed that he would soon know all things. Yet amid this triumph of intellect, the human heart grew restless. Religion waned, art became cynical, and laughter turned hollow. People knew more, but felt less. Truth, once a path to enlightenment, had become a mirror showing only their own smallness. Goncourt, though a man of letters, saw this paradox clearly: that in stripping the world of its mysteries, we had stripped ourselves of meaning.

Consider the story of Charles Darwin, the great naturalist whose discoveries reshaped humanity’s view of life. His theory of evolution revealed the grandeur and logic of nature, but it also brought him deep inner conflict. The faith that had once guided him faltered under the weight of his own truth. He wrote in his later years that he could no longer find joy in the music or poetry that once stirred him — his mind, trained in analysis, had dulled his heart’s capacity for wonder. Thus, even he, the great revealer of truth, bore witness to Goncourt’s sorrow: that to see everything clearly can sometimes make life feel dim.

The sadness of the modern man, as Goncourt describes, is the sadness of one who has conquered the heavens but lost his soul. It is the melancholy of the scholar who understands the stars but feels no warmth beneath them, the philosopher who dissects love until it dies beneath his scalpel. We have found truth in everything — in atoms, in genes, in the laws that govern the cosmos — but we have forgotten that knowledge without reverence is barren. The ancients bowed before mystery; we analyze it. They found comfort in wonder; we find discomfort in uncertainty. And thus, our hearts, though filled with facts, are emptied of faith.

Yet there is hope in his words, if we listen rightly. For Goncourt does not condemn truth, but our manner of seeking it. He warns us not to strip life of its poetry in our pursuit of precision. Truth must be tempered with awe, knowledge balanced with humility. The wise man, though he studies the stars, still marvels at their light; though he knows the body’s anatomy, he still reveres the miracle of life. To recover joy, we must learn again what our ancestors knew instinctively — that truth, no matter how deep, is not the end of wonder but its beginning. Reverence must walk beside reason, or else the spirit starves even as the mind is fed.

So, my child, let this be your lesson: seek truth, but do not kill mystery. Ask questions, but leave room for wonder. In the face of the infinite, bow your head, not in ignorance, but in gratitude. Do not let the brilliance of knowledge blind you to the quiet beauty of not knowing all things. Let your heart remain tender even as your mind grows sharp. For the sadness of the age will end not when man stops seeking truth, but when he remembers to love it — not as a weapon of certainty, but as a light that guides him gently through the sacred darkness of the world.