The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt (Vintage International)

by Albert Camus

The romantic hero first of all brings about the profound and, so to speak, religious blending of good and evil.4 This type of hero is “fatal” because fate confounds good and evil without man being able to prevent it. Fate does not allow judgments of value. It replaces them by the statement that “It is so”—which excuses everything, with the exception of the Creator, who alone is responsible for this scandalous state of affairs. The romantic hero is also “fatal” because, to the extent that he increases in power and genius, the power of evil increases in him. Every manifestation of power, every excess, is thus covered by this “It is so.”