44 
“Little Review” will present to you the men who care only 
for the pleasure of a continuous evolution—evolution not being 
able to interest those merchants and directors of reviews who 
see in these works only merchandise for snobs and peers. 
FRANCIS PICABIA 
TABU 
T HE sense given to the word “to be born” is nearly 
always an error, since nothing is born, all already 
exists. Things are only transformed by contact with 
others and manifest themselves under a new form. 
TABU was not born, but already existing in the 
atmosphere in which the contact of two elements produced the 
flash of comprehension and manifestation. 
Great ideas succeed and take form at the precise moment when 
they are necessary to replace a state of mind unfit to satisfy the 
highest degree of perfection of certain men. 
All ideas, past and future, exist about us, but for certain ones 
to manifest themselves, thousands of years are needed to find the 
necessary circumstances and favorable receivers. 
The new idea is not born of reason or reflection but rather 
from the need of existing and out of the propitious moment when 
it can and must exist. 
Einstein, properly speaking, is not responsible for his idea 
which is so popular just now. His only merit is that life has 
chosen him to be the receiver and transmitter of the idea of 
Relativity. 
He has neither invented nor created this idea; he has, on the 
contrary, allowed himself to be dominated and fascinated by that 
which, existing long before he did, has chosen him to be its trans 
mitter because without doubt Einstein is the best, the most sensi 
tive, the most gifted for the task.