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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Anton Tchekhov, by Lev Shestov

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most

-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions

-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of

-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at

-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have

-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.

-

-Title: Anton Tchekhov

-       And Other Essays

-

-Author: Lev Shestov

-

-Translator: John Middleton Murry

-

-Release Date: March 16, 2018 [EBook #56758]

-

-Language: English

-

-Character set encoding: UTF-8

-

-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANTON TCHEKHOV ***

-

-

-

-

-Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature (Images

-generously made available by the Internet Archive.)

-

-

-

-

-

-ANTON TCHEKHOV

-

-AND OTHER ESSAIS

-

-BY

-

-LEON SHESTOV

-

-TRANSLATED BY

-

-S. KOTELIANSKY AND J. M. MURRY

-

-MAUNSEL AND CO. LTD.

-

-DUBLIN AND LONDON

-

-1916

-

-

-

-    CONTENTS

-

-    ANTON TCHEKHOV (CREATION FROM THE VOID)

-    THE GIFT OF PROPHECY

-    PENULTIMATE WORDS

-    THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

-

-

-

-INTRODUCTION

-

-

-It is not to be denied that Russian thought is chiefly manifested in

-the great Russian novelists. Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, and Tchekhov made

-explicit in their works conceptions of the world which yield nothing in

-definiteness to the philosophic schemes of the great dogmatists of old,

-and perhaps may be regarded as even superior to them in that by their

-nature they emphasise a relation of which the professional philosopher

-is too often careless--the intimate connection between philosophy and

-life. They attacked fearlessly and with a high devotion of which we

-English readers are slowly becoming sensible the fundamental problem of

-all philosophy worthy the name. They were preoccupied with the answer

-to the question: Is life worth living? And the great assumption which

-they made, at least in the beginning of the quest, was that to live

-life must mean to live it wholly. To live was not to pass by life on

-the other side, not suppress the deep or even the dark passions of body

-or soul, not to lull by some lying and narcotic phrase the urgent

-questions of the mind, not to deny life. To them life was the sum of

-all human potentialities. They accepted them all, loved them all, and

-strove to find a place for them all in a pattern in which none should

-be distorted. They failed, but not one of them fainted by the way,

-and there was not one of them but with his latest breath bravely held

-to his belief that there was a way and that the way might be found.

-Tolstoi went out alone to die, yet more manifestly than he had lived,

-a seeker after the secret; death overtook Dostoevsky in his supreme

-attempt to wrest a hope for mankind out of the abyss of the imagined

-future; and Tchekhov died when his most delicate fingers had been

-finally eager in lighting _The Cherry Orchard_ with the tremulous glint

-of laughing tears, which may perhaps be the ultimate secret of the

-process which leaves us all bewildered and full of pity and wonder.

-

-There were great men and great philosophers. It may be that this

-cruelly conscious world will henceforward recognise no man as great

-unless he has greatly sought: for to seek and not to think is the

-essence of philosophy. To have greatly sought, I say, should be the

-measure of man's greatness in the strange world of which there will be

-only a tense, sorrowful, disillusioned remnant when this grim ordeal

-is over. It should be so: and we, who are, according to our strength,

-faithful to humanity, must also strive according to our strength to

-make it so. We are not, and we shall not be, great men: but we have

-the elements of greatness. We have an impulse to honesty, to think

-honestly, to see honestly, and to speak the truth to ourselves in the

-lonely hours. It is only an impulse, which, in these barren, bitter,

-years, so quickly withers and dies. It is almost that we dare not be

-honest now. Our hearts are dead: we cannot wake the old wounds again.

-And yet if anything of this generation that suffered is to remain, if

-we are to hand any spark of the fire which once burned so brightly,

-if we are to be human still, then we must still be honest at whatever

-cost. We--and I speak of that generation which was hardly man when the

-war burst upon it, which was ardent and generous and dreamed dreams

-of devotion to an ideal of art or love or life--are maimed and broken

-for ever. Let us not deceive ourselves. The dead voices will never be

-silent in our ears to remind us of that which we once were, and that

-which we have lost. We shall die as we shall live, lonely and haunted

-by memories that will grow stranger, more beautiful, more terrible,

-and more tormenting as the years go on, and at the last we shall not

-know which was the dream--the years of plenty or the barren years that

-descended like a storm in the night and swept our youth away.

-

-Yet something remains. Not those lying things that they who cannot feel

-how icy cold is sudden and senseless death to all-daring youth, din in

-our ears. We shall not be inspired by the memory of heroism. We shall

-be shattered by the thought of splendid and wonderful lives that were

-vilely cast away. What remains is that we should be honest as we shall

-be pitiful. We shall never again be drunk with hope: let us never be

-blind with fear. There can be in the lap of destiny now no worse thing

-which may befall us. We can afford to be honest now.

-

-We can afford to be honest: but we need to learn how, or to increase

-our knowledge. The Russian writers will help us in this; and not the

-great Russians only, but the lesser also. For a century of bitter

-necessity has taught that nation that the spirit is mightier than the

-flesh, until those eager qualities of soul that a century of social

-ease has almost killed in us are in them well-nigh an instinct. Let

-us look among ourselves if we can find a Wordsworth, a Shelley, a

-Coleridge, or a Byron to lift this struggle to the stars as they did

-the French Revolution. There is none.--It will be said: 'But that was

-a great fight for freedom. Humanity itself marched forward with the

-Revolutionary armies.' But if the future of mankind is not in issue

-now, if we are fighting for the victory of no precious and passionate

-idea, why is no voice of true poetry uplifted in protest? There is

-no third way. Either this is the greatest struggle for right, or the

-greatest crime, that has ever been. The unmistakable voice of poetry

-should be certain either in protest or enthusiasm: it is silent or

-it is trivial. And the cause must be that the keen edge of the soul

-of those century-old poets which cut through false patriotism so

-surely is in us dulled and blunted. We must learn honesty again:

-not the laborious and meagre honesty of those who weigh advantage

-against advantage in the ledger of their minds, but the honesty that

-cries aloud in instant and passionate anger against the lie and the

-half-truth, and by an instinct knows the authentic thrill of contact

-with the living human soul.

-

-The Russians, and not least the lesser Russians, may teach us this

-thing once more. Among these lesser, Leon Shestov holds an honourable

-place. He is hardly what we should call a philosopher, hardly again

-what we would understand by an essayist. The Russians, great and small

-alike, are hardly ever what we understand by the terms which we victims

-of tradition apply to them. In a hundred years they have accomplished

-an evolution which has with us slowly unrolled in a thousand. The very

-foundations of their achievement are new and laid within the memory of

-man. Where we have sharply divided art from art, and from science and

-philosophy, and given to each a name, the Russians have still the sense

-of a living connection between all the great activities of the human

-soul. From us this connection is too often concealed by the tyranny

-of names. We have come to believe, or at least it costs us great

-pains not to believe, that the name is a particular reality, which to

-confuse with another name is a crime. Whereas in truth the energies of

-the human soul are not divided from each other by any such impassable

-barriers: they flow into each other indistinguishably, modify, control,

-support, and decide each other. In their large unity they are real;

-isolated, they seem to be poised uneasily between the real and the

-unreal, and become deceptive, barren half-truths. Plato, who first

-discovered the miraculous hierarchy of names, though he was sometimes

-drunk with the new wine of his discovery, never forgot that the unity

-of the human soul was the final outcome of its diversity; and those

-who read aright his most perfect of all books--_The Republic_--know

-that it is a parable which fore-shadows the complete harmony of all the

-soul's activities.

-

-Not the least of Shestov's merits is that he is alive to this truth in

-its twofold working. He is aware of himself as a soul seeking an answer

-to its own question; and he is aware of other souls on the same quest.

-As in his own case he knows that he has in him something truer than

-names and divisions and authorities, which will live in spite of them,

-so towards others he remembers that all that they wrote or thought or

-said is precious and permanent in so far as it is the manifestation

-of the undivided soul seeking an answer to its question. To know a

-man's work for this, to have divined the direct relation between his

-utterance and his living soul, is criticism: to make that relation

-between one's own soul and one's speech direct and true is creation.

-In essence they are the same: creation is a man's lonely attempt to

-fix an intimacy with his own strange and secret soul, criticism is the

-satisfaction of the impulse of loneliness to find friends and secret

-sharers among the souls that are or have been. As creation drives a man

-to the knowledge of his own intolerable secrets, so it drives him to

-find others with whom he may whisper of the things which he has found.

-Other criticism than this is, in the final issue, only the criminal and

-mad desire to enforce material order in a realm where all is spiritual

-and vague and true. It is only the jealous protest of the small soul

-against the great, of the slave against the free.

-

-Against this smallness and jealousy Shestov has set his face. To have

-done so does not make him a great writer; but it does make him a real

-one. He is honest and he is not deceived. But honesty, unless a man is

-big enough to bear it, and often even when he is big enough to bear it,

-may make him afraid. Where angels fear to tread, fools rush in: but

-though the folly of the fool is condemned, some one must enter, lest

-a rich kingdom be lost to the human spirit. Perhaps Shestov will seem

-at times too fearful. Then we must remember that Shestov is Russian in

-another sense than that I have tried to make explicit above. He is a

-citizen of a country where the human spirit has at all times been so

-highly prized that the name of thinker has been a key to unlock not

-merely the mind but the heart also. The Russians not only respect,

-but they love a man who has thought and sought for humanity, and, I

-think, their love but seldom stops 'this side idolatry.' They will

-exalt a philosopher to a god; they are even able to make of materialism

-a religion. Because they are so loyal to the human spirit they will

-load it with chains, believing that they are garlands. And that is why

-dogmatism has never come so fully into its own as in Russia.

-

-When Shestov began to write nearly twenty years ago, Karl Marx was

-enthroned and infallible. The fear of such tyrannies has never

-departed from Shestov. He has fought against them so long and so

-persistently--even in this book one must always remember that he

-is face to face with an enemy of which we English have no real

-conception--that he is at times almost unnerved by the fear that he

-too may be made an authority and a rule. I do not think that this

-ultimate hesitation, if understood rightly, diminishes in any way from

-the interest of his writings: but it does suggest that there may be

-awaiting him a certain paralysis of endeavour. There is indeed no

-absolute truth of which we need take account other than the living

-personality, and absolute truths are valuable only in so far as they

-are seen to be necessary manifestations of this mysterious reality.

-Nevertheless it is in the nature of man, if not to live by absolute

-truths, at least to live by enunciating them; and to hesitate to

-satisfy this imperious need is to have resigned a certain measure of

-one's own creative strength. We may trust to the men of insight who

-will follow us to read our dogmatisms, our momentary angers, and our

-unshakable convictions, in terms of our personalities, if these shall

-be found worthy of their curiosity or their love. And it seems to me

-that Shestov would have gained in strength if he could have more firmly

-believed that there would surely be other Shestovs who would read him

-according to his own intention. But this, I also know, is a counsel of

-perfection: the courage which he has not would not have been acquired

-by any intellectual process, and its possession would have deprived him

-of the courage which he has. As dogmatism in Russia enjoys a supremacy

-of which we can hardly form an idea, so a continual challenge to its

-claims demands in the challenger a courage which it is hard for us

-rightly to appreciate.

-

-I have not written this foreword in order to prejudice the issue.

-Shestov will, no doubt, be judged by English readers according to

-English standards, and I wish no more than to suggest that his

-greatest quality is one which has become rare among us, and that his

-peculiarities are due to Russian conditions which have long since

-ceased to obtain in England. The Russians have much to teach us, and

-the only way we shall learn, or even know, what we should accept

-and what reject, is to take count as much as we can of the Russian

-realities. And the first of these and the last is that in Russia the

-things of the spirit are held in honour above all others. Because of

-this the Russian soul is tormented by problems to which we have long

-been dead, and to which we need to be alive again. J. M. M.

-

-

-_Postscript._--Leon Shestov is fifty years old. He was born at Kiev,

-and studied at the university there. His first book was written

-in 1898. As a writer of small production, he has made his way to

-recognition slowly: but now he occupies a sure position as one of the

-most delicate and individual of modern Russian critics. The essays

-contained in this volume are taken from the fourth and fifth works in

-the following list:--

-

-1898. _Shakespeare and his Critic, Brandes._

-

-1900. _Good in the teaching of Dostoevsky and Nietzsche: Philosophy and

-Preaching._

-

-1903. _Dostoevsky and Nietzsche: The Philosophy of Tragedy._

-

-1905. _The Apotheosis of Groundlessness: An Essay on Dogmatism._

-

-1908. _Beginnings and Ends._

-

-1912. _Great Vigils._

-

-

-

-

-ANTON TCHEKHOV

-

-

-(CREATION FROM THE VOID)

-

-

-Résigne-toi, mon cœur, dors ton sommeil de brute.

-

-(CHARLES BAUDELAIRE.)

-

-

-

-I

-

-

-Tchekhov is dead; therefore we may now speak freely of him. For to

-speak of an artist means to disentangle and reveal the 'tendency'

-hidden in his works, an operation not always permissible when the

-subject is still living. Certainly he had a reason for hiding himself,

-and of course the reason was serious and important. I believe many felt

-it, and that it was partly on this account that we have as yet had no

-proper appreciation of Tchekhov. Hitherto in analysing his works the

-critics have confined themselves to common-place and _cliché_. Of course

-they knew they were wrong; but anything is better than to extort the

-truth from a living person. Mihailovsky alone attempted to approach

-closer to the source of Tchekhov's creation, and as everybody knows,

-turned away from it with aversion and even with disgust. Here, by the

-way, the deceased critic might have convinced himself once again of

-the extravagance of the so-called theory of 'art for art's sake.' Every

-artist has his definite task, his life's work, to which he devotes

-all his forces. A tendency is absurd when it endeavours to take the

-place of talent, and to cover impotence and lack of content, or when

-it is borrowed from the stock of ideas which happen to be in demand

-at the moment. 'I defend ideals, therefore every one must give me his

-sympathies.' Such pretences we often see made in literature, and the

-notorious controversy concerning 'art for art's sake' was evidently

-maintained upon the double meaning given to the word 'tendency' by its

-opponents. Some wished to believe that a writer can be saved by the

-nobility of his tendency; others feared that a tendency would bind them

-to the performance of alien tasks. Much ado about nothing: ready-made

-ideas will never endow mediocrity with talent; on the contrary, an

-original writer will at all costs set himself his own task. And

-Tchekhov had his _own_ business, though there were critics who said

-that he was the servant of art for its own sake, and even compared him

-to a bird, carelessly flying. To define his tendency in a word, I would

-say that Tchekhov was the poet of hopelessness. Stubbornly, sadly,

-monotonously, during all the years of his literary activity, nearly a

-quarter of a century long, Tchekhov was doing one thing alone: by one

-means or another he was killing human hopes. Herein, I hold, lies the

-essence of his creation. Hitherto it has been little spoken of. The

-reasons are quite intelligible. In ordinary language what Tchekhov

-was doing is called crime, and is visited by condign punishment. But

-how can a man of talent be punished? Even Mihailovsky, who more than

-once in his lifetime gave an example of merciless severity, did not

-raise his hand against Tchekhov. He warned his readers and pointed

-out the 'evil fire' which he had noticed in Tchekhov's eyes. But he

-went no further. Tchekhov's immense talent overcame the strict and

-rigorous critic. It may be, however, that Mihailovsky's own position

-in literature had more than a little to do with the comparative

-mildness of his sentence. The younger generation had listened to him

-uninterruptedly for thirty years, and his word had been law. But

-afterwards every one was bored with eternally repeating: 'Aristides

-is just, Aristides is right.' The younger generation began to desire

-to live and to speak in its own way, and finally the old master was

-ostracised. There is the same custom in literature as in Terra del

-Fuego. The young, growing men kill and eat the old. Mihailovsky

-struggled with all his might, but he no longer felt the strength of

-conviction that comes from the sense of right. Inwardly, he felt that

-the young were right, not because they knew the truth--what truth did

-the economic materialists know?--but because they were young and had

-their lives before them. The rising star shines always brighter than

-the setting, and the old must of their own will yield themselves up to

-be devoured by the young. Mihailovsky felt this, and perhaps it was

-this which undermined his former assurance and the firmness of his

-opinion of old. True, he was still like Gretchen's mother in Goethe: he

-did not take rich gifts from chance without having previously consulted

-his confessor. Tchekhov's talent too was taken to the priest, by whom

-it was evidently rejected as suspect; but Mihailovsky no longer had the

-courage to set himself against public opinion. The younger generation

-prized Tchekhov for his talent, his immense talent, and it was plain

-they would riot disown him. What remained for Mihailovsky He attempted,

-as I say, to warn them. But no one listened to him, and Tchekhov became

-one of the most beloved of Russian writers.

-

-Yet the just Aristides was right this time too, as he was right when

-he gave his warning against Dostoevsky. Now that Tchekhov is no more,

-we may speak openly. Take Tchekhov's stories, each one separately, or

-better still, all together; look at him at work. He is constantly,

-as it were, in ambush, to watch and waylay human hopes. He will not

-miss a single one of them, not one of them will escape its fate. Art,

-science, love, inspiration, ideals--choose out all the words with which

-humanity is wont, or has been in the past, to be consoled or to be

-amused--Tchekhov has only to touch them and they instantly wither and

-die. And Tchekhov himself faded, withered and died before our eyes.

-Only his wonderful art did not die--his art to kill by a mere touch,

-a breath, a glance, everything whereby men live and wherein they take

-their pride. And in this art he was constantly perfecting himself, and

-he attained to a virtuosity beyond the reach of any of his rivals in

-European literature. Maupassant often had to strain every effort to

-overcome his victim. The victim often escaped from Maupassant, though

-crushed and broken, yet with his life. In Tchekhov's hands, nothing

-escaped death.

-

-

-

-II

-

-

-I must remind my reader, though it is a matter of general knowledge,

-that in his earlier work Tchekhov is most unlike the Tchekhov to whom

-we became accustomed in late years. The young Tchekhov is gay and

-careless, perhaps even like a flying bird. He published his work in

-the comic papers. But in 1888 and 1889, when he was only twenty-seven

-and twenty-eight years old, there appeared _The Tedious Story_ and the

-drama _Ivanov,_ two pieces of work which laid the foundations of a

-new creation. Obviously a sharp and sudden change had taken place in

-him, which was completely reflected in his works. There is no detailed

-biography of Tchekhov, and probably will never be, because there is no

-such thing as a full biography--I, at all events, cannot name one.

-Generally biographies tell us everything except what it is important

-to know. Perhaps in the future it will be revealed to us with the

-fullest details who was Tchekhov's tailor; but we shall never know what

-happened to Tchekhov in the time which elapsed between the completion

-of his story _The Steppe_ and the appearance of his first drama. If we

-would know, we must rely upon his works and our own insight.

-

-_Ivanov_ and _The Tedious Story_ seem to me the most autobiographical

-of all his works. In them almost every line is a sob; and it is hard to

-suppose that a man could sob so, looking only at another's grief. And

-it is plain that his grief is a new one, unexpected as though it had

-fallen from the sky. Here it is, it will endure for ever, and he does

-not know how to fight against it.

-

-In _Ivanov_ the hero compares himself to an overstrained labourer. I

-do not believe we shall be mistaken if we apply this comparison to the

-author of the drama as well. There can be practically no doubt that

-Tchekhov had overstrained himself. And the overstrain came not from

-hard and heavy labour; no mighty overpowering exploit broke him: he

-stumbled and fell, he slipped. There comes this nonsensical, stupid,

-all but invisible accident, and the old Tchekhov of gaiety and mirth

-is no more. No more stories for _The Alarm Clock._ Instead, a morose

-and overshadowed man, a 'criminal' whose words frighten even the

-experienced and the omniscient.

-

-If you desire it, you can easily be rid of Tchekhov and his work as

-well. Our language contains two magic words: 'pathological,' and its

-brother 'abnormal.' Once Tchekhov had overstrained himself, you have a

-perfectly legal right, sanctified by science and every tradition, to

-leave him out of all account, particularly seeing that he is already

-dead, and therefore cannot be hurt by your neglect. That is if you

-desire to be rid of Tchekhov. But if the desire is for some reason

-absent, the words 'pathological' and 'abnormal' will have no effect

-upon you. Perhaps you will go further and attempt to find in Tchekhov's

-experiences a criterion of the most irrefragable truths and axioms of

-this consciousness of ours. There is no third way: you must either

-renounce Tchekhov, or become his accomplice.

-

-The hero of _The Tedious Story_ is an old professor; the hero of

-_Ivanov_ a young landlord. But the theme of both works is the same.

-The professor had overstrained himself, and thereby cut himself off

-from his past life and from the possibility of taking an active part

-in human affairs. Ivanov also had overstrained himself and become a

-superfluous, useless person. Had life been so arranged that death

-should supervene simultaneously with the loss of health, strength and

-capacity, then the old professor and young Ivanov could not have lived

-for one single hour. Even a blind man could see that they are both

-broken and are unfit for life. But for reasons unknown to us, wise

-nature has rejected coincidence of this kind. A man very often goes on

-living after he has completely lost the capacity of taking from life

-that wherein we are wont to see its essence and meaning. More striking

-still, a broken man is generally deprived of everything except the

-ability to acknowledge and feel his position. Nay, for the most part

-in such cases the intellectual abilities are refined and sharpened

-and increased to colossal proportions. It frequently happens that an

-average man, banal and mediocre, is changed beyond all recognition when

-he falls into the exceptional situation of Ivanov or the old professor.

-In him appear signs of a gift, a talent, even of genius. Nietzsche once

-asked: 'Can an ass be tragical?' He left his question unanswered, but

-Tolstoi answered for him in _The Death of Ivan Ilyich._ Ivan Ilyich,

-it is evident from Tolstoi's description of his life, is a mediocre,

-average character, one of those men who pass through life avoiding

-anything that is difficult or problematical, caring exclusively for the

-calm and pleasantness of earthly existence. Hardly had the cold wind of

-tragedy blown upon him, than he was utterly transformed. The story of

-Ivan Ilyich in his last days is as deeply interesting as the life-story

-of Socrates or Pascal.

-

-In passing I would point out a fact which I consider of great

-importance. In his work Tchekhov was influenced by Tolstoi, and

-particularly by Tolstoi's later writings. It is important, because thus

-a part of Tchekhov's 'guilt' falls upon the great writer of the Russian

-land. I think that had there been no _Death of Ivan Ilyich,_ there

-would have been no _Ivanov,_ and no _Tedious Story,_ nor many others

-of Tchekhov's most remarkable works. But this by no means implies that

-Tchekhov borrowed a single word from his great predecessor. Tchekhov

-had enough material of his own: in that respect he needed no help. But

-a young writer would hardly dare to come forward at his own risk with

-the thoughts that make the content of _The Tedious Story._ When Tolstoi

-wrote _The Death of Ivan Ilyich,_ he had behind him _War and Peace,

-Anna Karenina,_ and the firmly established reputation of an artist of

-the highest rank. All things were permitted to him. But Tchekhov was

-a young man, whose literary baggage amounted in all to a few dozen

-tiny stories, hidden in the pages of little known and uninfluential

-papers. Had Tolstoi not paved the way, had Tolstoi not shown by his

-example, that in literature it was permitted to tell the truth, to

-tell everything, then perhaps Tchekhov would have had to struggle long

-with himself before finding the courage of a public confession, even

-though it took the form of stories. And even with Tolstoi before him,

-how terribly did Tchekhov have to struggle with public opinion. 'Why

-does he write his horrible stories and plays?' every one asked himself.

-'Why does the writer systematically choose for his heroes situations

-from which there is not, and cannot possibly be, any escape?' What

-can be said in answer to the endless complaints of the old professor

-and Katy, his pupil? This means that there is, essentially, something

-to be said. From times immemorial, literature has accumulated a large

-and varied store of all kinds of general ideas and conceptions,

-material and metaphysical, to which the masters have recourse the

-moment the over-exacting and over-restless human voice begins to be

-heard. This is exactly the point. Tchekhov himself, a writer and an

-educated man, refused in advance every possible consolation, material

-or metaphysical. Not even in Tolstoi, who set no great store by

-philosophical systems, will you find such keenly expressed disgust for

-every kind of conceptions and ideas as in Tchekhov. He is well aware

-that conceptions ought to be esteemed and respected, and he reckons his

-inability to bend the knee before that which educated people consider

-holy as a defect against which he must struggle with all his strength.

-And he does struggle with all his strength against this defect. But

-not only is the struggle unavailing; the longer Tchekhov lives, the

-weaker grows the power of lofty words over him, in spite of his own

-reason and his conscious will. Finally, he frees himself entirely

-from ideas of every kind, and loses even the notion of connection

-between the happenings of life. Herein lies the most important and

-original characteristic of his creation. Anticipating a little, I would

-here point to his comedy, _The Sea-Gull,_ where, in defiance of all

-literary principles, the basis of action appears to be not the logical

-development of passions, or the inevitable connection between cause and

-effect, but naked accident, ostentatiously nude. As one reads the play,

-it seems at times that one has before one a copy of a newspaper with

-an endless series of news paragraphs, heaped upon one another, without

-order and without previous plan. Sovereign accident reigns everywhere

-and in everything, this time boldly throwing the gauntlet to all

-conceptions. In this, I repeat, is Tchekhov's greatest originality, and

-this, strangely enough, is the source of his most bitter experiences.

-He did not want to be original; he made super-human efforts to be

-like everybody else: but there is no escaping one's destiny. How

-many men, above all among writers, wear their fingers to the bone in

-the effort to be unlike others, and yet they cannot shake themselves

-free of _cliché_--yet Tchekhov was original against his will!

-Evidently originality does not depend upon the readiness to proclaim

-revolutionary opinions at all costs. The newest and boldest idea may

-and often does appear tedious and vulgar. In order to become original,

-instead of inventing an idea, one must achieve a difficult and painful

-labour; and, since men avoid labour and suffering, the really new is

-for the most part born in man against his will.

-

-

-

-III

-

-

-'A man cannot reconcile himself to the accomplished fact; neither can

-he refuse so to reconcile himself: and there is no third course. Under

-such conditions "action" is impossible. He can only fall down and weep

-and beat his head against the floor.' So Tchekhov speaks of one of his

-heroes; but he might say the same of them all, without exception. The

-author takes care to put them in such a situation that only one thing

-is left for them,--to fall down and beat their heads against the floor.

-With strange, mysterious obstinacy they refuse all the accepted means

-of salvation. Nicolai Stepanovich, the old professor in _The Tedious

-Story,_ might have attempted to forget himself for a while or to

-console himself with memories of the past. But memories only irritate

-him. He was once an eminent scholar: now he cannot work. Once he was

-able to hold the attention of his audience for two hours on end; now

-he cannot do it even for a quarter of an hour. He used to have friends

-and comrades, he used to love his pupils and assistants, his wife

-and children; now he cannot concern himself with any one. If people

-do arouse any feelings at all within him, then they are only feelings

-of hatred, malice and envy. He has to confess it to himself with

-the truthfulness which came to him--he knows not why nor whence--in

-place of the old diplomatic skill, possessed by all clever and normal

-men, whereby he saw and said only that which makes for decent human

-relations and healthy states of mind. Now everything which he sees or

-thinks only serves to poison, in himself and others, the few joys which

-adorn human life. With a certainty which he never attained on the best

-days and hours of his old theoretical research, he feels that he is

-become a criminal, having committed no crime. All that he was engaged

-in before was good, necessary, and useful. He tells you of his past,

-and you can see that he was always right and ready at any moment of

-the day or the night to answer the severest judge who should examine

-not only his actions, but his thoughts as well. Now not only would an

-outsider condemn him, he condemns himself. He confesses openly that he

-is all compact of envy and hatred.

-

-'The best and most sacred right of kings,' he says, 'is the right to

-pardon. And I have always felt myself a king so long as I used this

-right prodigally. I never judged, I was compassionate, I pardoned every

-one right and left.... But now I am king no more. There's something

-going on in me which belongs only to slaves. Day and night evil

-thoughts roam about in my head, and feelings which I never knew before

-have made their home in my soul. I hate and despise; I'm exasperated,

-disturbed, and afraid. I've become strict beyond measure, exacting,

-unkind and suspicious.... What does it all mean? If my new thoughts and

-feelings come from a change of my convictions, where could the change

-come from? Has the world grown worse and I better, or was I blind and

-indifferent before? But if the change is due to the general decline

-of my physical and mental powers--I am sick and losing weight every

-day--then I am in a pitiable position. It means that my new thoughts

-are abnormal and unhealthy, that I must be ashamed of them and consider

-them valueless....

-

-The question is asked by the old professor on the point of death, and

-in his person by Tchekhov himself. Which is better, to be a king, or an

-old, envious, malicious 'toad,' as he calls himself elsewhere? There

-is no denying the originality of the question. In the words above you

-feel the price which Tchekhov had to pay for his originality, and with

-how great joy he would have exchanged all his original thoughts--at

-the moment when his 'new' point of view had become clear to him--for

-the most ordinary, banal capacity for benevolence. He has, no doubt

-felt that his way of thinking is pitiable, shameful and disgusting.

-His moods revolt him no less than his appearance, which he describes

-in the following lines: '... I am a man of sixty-two, with a bald

-head, false teeth and an incurable tic. My name is as brilliant and

-prepossessing, as I myself am dull and ugly. My head and hands tremble

-from weakness; my neck, like that of one of Turgeniev's heroines,

-resembles the handle of a counter-bass; my chest is hollow and my

-back narrow. When I speak or read my mouth twists, and when I smile

-my whole face is covered with senile, deathly wrinkles.' Unpleasant

-face, unpleasant moods! Let the most sweet natures and compassionate

-person but give a side-glance at such a monster, and despite himself

-a cruel thought would awaken in him: that he should lose no time in

-killing, in utterly destroying this pitiful and disgusting vermin, or

-if the laws forbid recourse to such strong measures, at least in hiding

-him as far as possible from human eyes, in some prison or hospital

-or asylum. These are measures of suppression sanctioned, I believe,

-not only by legislation, but by eternal morality as well. But here

-you encounter resistance of a particular kind. Physical strength to

-struggle with the warders, executioners, attendants, moralists--the old

-professor has none; a little child could knock him down. Persuasion

-and prayer, he knows well, will avail him nothing. So he strikes out

-in despair: he begins to cry over all the world in a terrible, wild,

-heartrending voice about some rights of his: '... I have a passionate

-and hysterical desire to stretch out my hands and moan aloud. I want to

-cry out that fate has doomed me, a famous man, to death; that in some

-six months here in the auditorium another will be master. I want to cry

-out that I am poisoned; that new ideas that I did not know before have

-poisoned the last days of my life, and sting my brain incessantly like

-mosquitoes. At that moment my position seems so terrible to me that

-I want all my students to be terrified, to jump from their seats and

-rush panic-stricken to the door, shrieking in despair.' The professor's

-arguments will hardly move any one. Indeed I do not know if there is

-any argument in those words. But this awful, inhuman moan.... Imagine

-the picture: a bald, ugly old man, with trembling hands, and twisted

-mouth, and skinny neck, eyes mad with fear, wallowing like a beast on

-the ground and wailing, wailing, wailing.... What does he want? He had

-lived a long and interesting life; now he had only to round it off

-nicely, with all possible calm, quietly and solemnly to take leave of

-this earthly existence. Instead he rends himself, and flings himself

-about, calls almost the whole universe to judgment, and clutches

-convulsively at the few days left to him. And Tchekhov--what did

-Tchekhov do? Instead of passing by on the other side, he supports the

-prodigious monster, devotes pages and pages to the 'experiences of his

-soul,' and gradually brings the reader to a point at which, instead of

-a natural and lawful sense of indignation, unprofitable and dangerous

-sympathies for the decomposing, decaying creature are awakened in

-his heart. But every one knows that it is impossible to _help_ the

-professor; and if it is impossible to help, then it follows we must

-forget. That is as plain as _a b c._ What use or what meaning could

-there be in the endless picturing--daubing, as Tolstoi would say--of

-the intolerable pains of the agony which inevitably leads to death?

-

-If the professor's 'new' thoughts and feelings shone bright with

-beauty, nobility or heroism, the case would be different. The reader

-could learn something from it. But Tchekhov's story shows that these

-qualities belonged to his hero's old thoughts. Now that his illness has

-begun, there has sprung up within him a revulsion from everything which

-even remotely resembles a lofty feeling. When his pupil Katy turns to

-him for advice what she should do, the famous scholar, the friend of

-Pirogov, Kavelin and Nekrassov, who had taught so many generations

-of young men, does not know what to answer. Absurdly he chooses from

-his memory a whole series of pleasant-sounding words; but they have

-lost all meaning for him. What answer shall he give? he asks himself.

-'It is easy to say, Work, or divide your property among the poor, or

-know yourself, and because it is easy, I do not know what to answer.'

-Katy, still young, healthy and beautiful, has by Tchekhov's offices

-fallen like the professor into a trap from which no human power can

-deliver her. From the moment that she knew hopelessness, she had won

-all the author's sympathy. While a person is settled to some work,

-while he has a future of some kind before him, Tchekhov is utterly

-indifferent to him. If he does describe him, then he usually does it

-hastily and in a tone of scornful irony. But when he is entangled, and

-so entangled that he cannot be disentangled by any means, then Tchekhov

-begins to wake up. Colour, energy, creative force, inspiration make

-their appearance. Therein perhaps lies the secret of his political

-indifferentism. Notwithstanding all his distrust of projects for a

-brighter future, Tchekhov like Dostoevsky was evidently not wholly

-convinced that social reforms and social science were important.

-However difficult the social question may be, still it may be solved.

-Some day, perhaps people will so arrange themselves on the earth as

-to live and die without suffering: further than that ideal humanity

-cannot go. Perhaps the authors of stout volumes on Progress do guess

-and foresee something. But just for that reason their work is alien to

-Tchekhov. At first by instinct, then consciously, he was attracted to

-problems which are by essence insoluble like that presented in _The

-Tedious Story_: there you have helplessness, sickness, the prospect of

-inevitable death, and no hope whatever to change the situation by a

-hair. This infatuation, whether conscious or instinctive, clearly runs

-counter to the demands of common sense and normal will. But there is

-nothing else to expect from Tchekhov, an overstrained man. Every one

-knows, or has heard, of hopelessness. On every side, before our very

-eyes, are happening terrible and intolerable tragedies, and if every

-doomed man were to raise such an awful alarm about his destruction as

-Nicolai Stepanovich, life would become an inferno; Nicolai Stepanovich

-must not cry his sufferings aloud over the world, but be careful to

-trouble people as little as possible. And Tchekhov should have assisted

-this reputable endeavour by every means in his power. As though there

-were not thousands of tedious stories in the world--they cannot be

-counted! And above all stories of the kind that Tchekhov tells should

-be hidden with special care from human eyes. We have here to do with

-the decomposition of a living organism. What should we say to a man

-who would prevent corpses from being buried, and would dig decaying

-bodies from the grave, even though it were on the ground, or rather on

-the pretext, that they were the bodies of his intimate friends, even

-famous men of reputation and genius? Such an occupation would rouse

-in a normal and healthy mind nothing but disgust and terror. Once upon

-a time, according to popular superstition, sorcerers, necromancers

-and wizards kept company with the dead, and found a certain pleasure

-or even a real satisfaction in that ghastly occupation. But they

-generally hid themselves away from mankind in forests and caves, or

-betook themselves to deserts where they might in isolation surrender

-themselves to their unnatural inclinations; and if their deeds were

-eventually brought to light, healthy men requited them with the stake,

-the gallows, and the rack. The worst kind of that which is called

-evil, as a rule, had for its source and origin an interest and taste

-for carrion. Man forgave every crime--cruelty, violence, murder; but

-he never forgave the unmotived love of death and the seeking of its

-secret. In this matter modern times, being free from prejudices, have

-advanced little from the Middle Ages. Perhaps the only difference is

-that we, engaged in practical affairs, have lost the natural _flair_

-for good and evil. Theoretically we are even convinced that in our time

-there are not and cannot be wizards and necromancers. Our confidence

-and carelessness in this reached such a point, that almost everybody

-saw even in Dostoevsky only an artist and a publicist, and seriously

-discussed with him whether the Russian peasant needed to be flogged and

-whether we ought to lay hands on Constantinople.

-

-Mihailovsky alone vaguely conjectured what it all might be when he

-called the author of _The Brothers Karamazov_ a 'treasure-digger.'

-I say he 'dimly conjectured, because I think that the deceased

-critic made the remark partly in allegory, even in joke. But none of

-Dostoevsky's other critics made, even by accident, a truer slip of the

-pen. Tchekhov, too, was a 'treasure-digger,' a sorcerer, a necromancer,

-an adept in the black art; and this explains his singular infatuation

-for death, decay and hopelessness.

-

-Tchekhov was not of course the only writer to make death the subject

-of his works. But not the theme is important but the manner of its

-treatment. Tchekhov understands that. 'In all the thoughts, feelings,

-and ideas,' he says, '[which] I form about anything, there is wanting

-the something universal which could bind all these together in one

-whole. Each feeling and each thought lives detached in me, and in all

-my opinions about science, the theatre, literature, and my pupils,

-and in all the little pictures which my imagination paints, not even

-the most cunning analyst will discover what is called the general

-idea, or the god of the living man. And if this is not there, then

-nothing is there. In poverty such as this, a serious infirmity, fear

-of death, influence of circumstances and people would have been

-enough to over-throw and shatter all that I formerly considered as my

-conception of the world, and all wherein I saw the meaning and joy of

-my life....' In these words one of the 'newest' of Tchekhov's ideas

-finds expression, one by which the whole of his subsequent creation is

-defined. It is expressed in a modest, apologetic form: a man confesses

-that he is unable to subordinate his thoughts to a higher idea, and

-in that inability he sees his weakness. This was enough to avert from

-him to some extent the thunders of criticism and the judgment of

-public opinion. We readily forgive the repentant sinner! But it is an

-unprofitable clemency: to expiate one's guilt, it is not enough to

-confess it. What was the good of Tchekhov's putting on sackcloth; and

-ashes and publicly confessing his guilt, if he was inwardly unchanged?

-If, while his words acknowledged the general idea as god (without a

-capital, indeed), he did nothing whatever for it? In words he burns

-incense to god, in deed he curses him. Before his disease a conception

-of the world brought him happiness, now it had shattered into

-fragments. Is it not natural to ask whether the conception actually did

-ever bring him happiness? Perhaps the happiness had its own independent

-origin, and the conception was invited only as a general to a wedding,

-for outward show, and never played any essential part. Tchekhov tells

-us circumstantially what joys the professor found in his scientific

-work, his lectures to the students, his family, and in a good dinner.

-In all these were present together the conception of the world and

-the idea, and they did not take away from, but as it were embellished

-life; so that it seemed that he was working for the ideal, as well

-as creating a family and dining. But now, when for the same ideal's

-sake he has to remain inactive, to suffer, to remain awake of nights,

-to swallow with effort food that has become loathsome to him--the

-conception of the world is shattered into fragments! And it amounts to

-this, that a conception with a dinner is right, and a dinner without a

-conception equally right--this needs no argument--and a conception _an

-und für sich_ is of no value whatever. Here is the essence of the words

-quoted from Tchekhov. He confesses with horror the presence within him

-of that 'new' idea. It seems to him that he alone of all men is so weak

-and insignificant, that the others ... well, they need only ideals

-and conceptions. And so it is, surely, if we may believe what people

-write in books. Tchekhov plagues, tortures and worries himself in every

-possible way, but he can alter nothing; nay worse, conceptions and

-ideas, towards which a great many people behave quite carelessly--after

-all, these innocent things do not merit any other attitude--in Tchekhov

-become the objects of bitter, inexorable, and merciless hatred. He

-cannot free himself at one single stroke from the power of ideas:

-therefore he begins a long, slow and stubborn war, I would call it

-a guerilla war, against the tyrant who had enslaved him. The whole

-history and the separate episodes of his struggle are of absorbing

-interest, because the most conspicuous representatives of literature

-have hitherto been convinced that ideas have a magical power. What

-are the majority of writers doing but constructing conceptions of the

-world--and believing that they are engaged in a work of extraordinary

-importance and sanctity? Tchekhov offended very many literary men. If

-his punishment was comparatively slight, that was because he was very

-cautious, and waged war with the air of bringing tribute to the enemy,

-and secondly, because to talent much is forgiven.

-

-

-

-IV

-

-

-The content of _The Tedious Story_ thus reduces to the fact that the

-professor, expressing his 'new' thoughts, in essence declares that

-he finds it impossible to acknowledge the power of the 'idea' over

-himself, or conscientiously to fulfil that which men consider the

-supreme purpose, and in the service whereof they see the mission, the

-sacred mission of man. 'God be my judge, I haven't courage enough

-to act according to my conscience,' such is the only answer which

-Tchekhov finds in his soul to all demands for a 'conception.' This

-attitude towards 'conceptions' becomes second nature with Tchekhov.

-A conception makes demands; a man acknowledges the justice of these

-demands and methodically satisfies none of them. Moreover, the justice

-of the demands meets with less and less acknowledgment from him. In

-_The Tedious Story_ the idea still judges the man and tortures him

-with the mercilessness peculiar to all things inanimate. Exactly like

-a splinter stuck into a living body, the idea, alien and hostile,

-mercilessly performs its high mission, until at length the man firmly

-resolves to draw the splinter out of his flesh, however painful that

-difficult operation may be. In _Ivanov_ the rôle of the idea is

-already changed. There not the idea persecutes Tchekhov, but Tchekhov

-the idea, and with the subtlest division and contempt. The voice of

-the living nature rises above the artificial habits of civilisation.

-True, the struggle still continues, if you will, with alternating

-fortunes. But the old humility is no more. More and more Tchekhov

-emancipates himself from old prejudices and goes--he himself could

-hardly say whither, were he asked. But he prefers to remain without

-an answer, rather than to accept any of the traditional answers. 'I

-know quite well I have no more than six months to live; and it would

-seem that now I ought to be mainly occupied with questions of the

-darkness beyond the grave, and the visions which will visit my sleep

-in the earth. But somehow my soul is not curious of these questions,

-though my mind grants every atom of their importance.' In contrast to

-the habits of the past, reason is once more pushed out of the door

-with all due respect, while its rights are handed over to the 'soul,'

-to the dark, vague aspiration which Tchekhov by instinct trusts more

-than the bright, clear consciousness which beforehand determines the

-beyond, now that he stands before the fatal pale which divides man from

-the eternal mystery. Is scientific philosophy indignant? Is Tchekhov

-undermining its surest foundations? But he is an overstrained, abnormal

-man. Certainly you are not bound to listen to him; but once you have

-decided to do so then you must be prepared for anything. A normal

-person, even though he be a metaphysician of the extremest ethereal

-brand, always adjusts his theories to the requirements of the moment;

-he destroys only to build up from the old material once more. This is

-the reason why material never fails him. Obedient to the fundamental

-law of human nature, long since noted and formulated by the wise, he

-is content to confine himself to the modest part of a seeker after

-forms. Out of iron, which he finds in nature ready to his hand, he

-forges a sword or a plough, a lance or a sickle. The idea of creating

-out of a void hardly even enters his mind. But Tchekhov's heroes,

-persons abnormal _par excellence,_ are faced with this abnormal and

-dreadful necessity. Before them always lies hopelessness, helplessness,

-the utter impossibility of any action whatsoever. And yet they live

-on, they do not die. A strange question, and one of extraordinary

-moment, here suggests itself. I said that it was foreign to human

-nature to create out of a void. Yet nature often deprives man of

-ready material, while at the same time she demands imperatively that

-he should create. Does this mean that nature contradicts herself,

-or that she perverts her creatures? Is it not more correct to admit

-that the conception of perversion is of purely human origin. Perhaps

-nature is much more economical and wise than our wisdom, and maybe we

-should discover much more if instead of dividing people into necessary

-and superfluous, useful and noxious, good and bad, we suppressed

-the tendency to subjective valuation in ourselves and endeavoured

-with greater confidence to accept her creations? Otherwise you come

-immediately--to 'the evil gleam,' 'treasure-digging,' sorcery and

-black magic--and a wall is raised between men which neither logical

-argument nor even a battery of artillery can break down. I hardly dare

-hope that this consideration will appear convincing to those who are

-used to maintaining the norm; and it is probably unnecessary that the

-notion of the great opposition of good and bad which is alive among

-men should die away, just as it is unnecessary that children should

-be born with the experience of men, or that red cheeks and curly hair

-should vanish from the earth. At any rate it is impossible. The world

-has many centuries to its reckoning, many nations have lived and died

-upon the earth, yet as far as we know from the books and traditions

-that have survived to us, the dispute between good and evil was never

-hushed. And it always so happened that good was not afraid of the light

-of day, and good men lived a united, social life; while evil hid itself

-in darkness, and the wicked always stood alone. Nor could it have been

-otherwise.

-

-All Tchekhov's heroes fear the light. They are lonely. They are ashamed

-of their hopelessness, and they know that men cannot help them.

-They go somewhere, perhaps even forward, but they call to no one to

-follow. All things are taken from them: they must create everything

-anew. Thence most probably is derived the unconcealed contempt with

-which they behave to the most precious products of common human

-creativeness. On whatever subject you begin to talk with a Tchekhov

-hero he has one reply to everything: _Nobody can teach me anything._

-You offer him a new conception of the world: already in your very

-first words he feels that they all reduce to an attempt to lay the old

-bricks and stones over again, and he turns from you with impatience,

-and often with rudeness. Tchekhov is an extremely cautious writer.

-He fears and takes into account public opinion. Yet how unconcealed

-is the aversion he displays to accepted ideas and conceptions of the

-world. In _The Tedious Story,_ he at any rate preserves the tone and

-attitude of outward obedience. Later he throws aside all precautions,

-and instead of reproaching himself for his inability to submit to the

-general idea, openly rebels against it and jeers at it. In _Ivanov_ it

-already is sufficiently expressed; there was reason for the outburst

-of indignation which this play provoked in its day. Ivanov, I have

-already said, is a dead man. The only thing the artist can do with

-him is to bury him decently, that is, to praise his past, pity his

-present, and then, in order to mitigate the cheerless impression

-produced by death, to invite the general idea to the funeral. He might

-recall the universal problems of humanity in any one of the many

-stereotyped forms, and thus the difficult case which seemed insoluble

-would be removed. Together with Ivanov's death he should portray a

-bright young life, full of promise, and the impression of death and

-destruction would lose all its sting and bitterness. Tchekhov does just

-the opposite. Instead of endowing youth and ideals with power over

-destruction and death, as all philosophical systems and many works of

-art had done, he ostentatiously makes the good-for-nothing wreck Ivanov

-the centre of all events. Side by side with Ivanov there are young

-lives, and the idea is also given her representatives. But the young

-Sasha, a wonderful and charming girl, who falls utterly in love with

-the broken hero, not only does not save her lover, but herself perishes

-under the burden of the impossible task. And the idea? It is enough

-to recall the figure of Doctor Lvov alone, whom Tchekhov entrusted

-with the responsible rôle of a representative of the all-powerful

-idea, and you will at once perceive that he considers himself not as

-subject and vassal, but as the bitterest enemy of the idea. The moment

-Doctor Lvov opens his mouth, all the characters, as though acting on

-a previous agreement, vie with each other in their haste to interrupt

-him in the most insulting way, by jests, threats, and almost by smacks

-in the face. But the doctor fulfils his duties as a representative

-of the great power with no less skill and conscientiousness than his

-predecessors--Starodoum[1] and the other reputable heroes of the old

-drama. He champions the wronged, seeks to restore rights that have been

-trodden underfoot, sets himself dead against injustice. Has he stepped

-beyond the limits of his plenipotentiary powers? Of course not; but

-where Ivanovs and hopelessness reign there is not and cannot be room

-for the idea.

-

-They cannot possibly live together. And the eyes of the reader, who

-is accustomed to think that every kingdom may fall and perish, yet

-the kingdom of the idea stands firm _in saecula saeculorum,_ behold

-a spectacle unheard of: the idea dethroned by a helpless, broken,

-good-for-nothing man! What is there that Ivanov does not say? In the

-very first act he fires off a tremendous tirade, not at a chance

-comer, but at the incarnate idea--Starodoum-Lvov. 'I have the right

-to give you advice. Don't you marry a Jewess, or an abnormal, or a

-blue-stocking. Choose something ordinary, greyish, without any bright

-colours or superfluous shades. Make it a principle to build your

-life of _clichés._ The more grey and monotonous the background, the

-better. My dear man, don't fight thousands single-handed, don't tilt

-at windmills, don't run your head against the wall. God save you from

-all kinds of Back-to-the-Landers' advanced doctrines, passionate

-speeches.... Shut yourself tight in your own shell, and do the tiny

-little work set you by God.... It's cosier, honester, and healthier.'

-

-Doctor Lvov, the representative of the all-powerful, sovereign idea,

-feels that his sovereign's majesty is injured, that to suffer such

-an offence really means to abdicate the throne. Surely Ivanov was a

-vassal, and so he must remain. How dare he let his tongue advise, how

-dare he raise his voice when it is his part to listen reverently, and

-to obey in silent resignation? This is rank rebellion! Lvov attempts to

-draw himself up to his full height and answer the arrogant rebel with

-dignity. Nothing comes of it. In a weak, trembling voice he mutters the

-accustomed words, which but lately had invincible power. But they do

-not produce their customary effect. Their virtue is departed. Whither?

-Lvov dares not own it even to himself. But it is no longer a secret

-to any one. Whatever mean and ugly things Ivanov may have done--Tchekhov

-is not close-fisted in this matter: in his hero's conduct-book

-are written all manner of offences; almost to the deliberate murder

-of a woman devoted to him--it is to him and not to Lvov that public

-opinion bows. Ivanov is the spirit of destruction, rude, violent,

-pitiless, sticking at nothing: yet the word 'scoundrel,' which the

-doctor tears out of himself with a painful effort and hurls at him,

-does not stick to him. He is somehow right, with his own peculiar

-right, to others inconceivable, yet still, if we may believe Tchekhov,

-incontestable. Sasha, a creature of youth and insight and talent,

-passes by the honest Starodoum-Lvov unheeding, on her way to render

-worship to him. The whole play is based on that. It is true, Ivanov in

-the end shoots himself, and that may, if you like, give you a formal

-ground for believing that the final victory remained with Lvov. And

-Tchekhov did well to end the drama in this way--it could not be spun

-out to infinity. It would have been no easy matter to tell the whole of

-Ivanov's history. Tchekhov went on writing for fifteen years after, all

-the time telling the unfinished story, yet even then he had to break it

-off without reaching the end....

-

-It would show small understanding of Tchekhov to take it into one's

-head to interpret Ivanov's words to Lvov as meaning that Tchekhov,

-like the Tolstoi of the _War and Peace_ period, saw his ideal in the

-everyday arrangement of life. Tchekhov was only fighting against

-the idea, and he said to it the most abusive thing that entered his

-head. For what can be more insulting to the idea than to be forced

-to listen to the praise of everyday life? But when the opportunity

-came his way, Tchekhov could describe everyday life with equal venom.

-The story, _The Teacher of Literature,_ may serve as an example. The

-teacher lives entirely by Ivanov's prescription. He has his job, and

-his wife--neither Jewess nor abnormal, nor blue-stocking--and a home

-that fits like a shell...; but all this does not prevent Tchekhov

-from driving the poor teacher by slow degrees into the usual trap, and

-bringing him to a condition wherein it is left to him only 'to fall

-down and weep, and beat his head against the floor.' Tchekhov had no

-'ideal,' not even the ideal of 'everyday life' which Tolstoi glorified

-with such inimitable and incomparable mastery in his early works. An

-ideal presupposes submission, the voluntary denial of one's own right

-to independence, freedom and power; and demands of this kind, even a

-hint of such demands, roused in Tchekhov all that force of disgust and

-repulsion of which he alone was capable.

-

-

-[Footnote 1: A hero from Fon-Vizin's play _The Minor._ Starodoum is a

-_raisonneur,_ a 'positive' type, always uttering truisms.]

-

-

-

-V

-

-

-Thus the real, the only hero of Tchekhov, is the hopeless man. He

-has absolutely no _action_ left for him in life, save to beat his

-head against the stones. It is not surprising that such a man should

-be intolerable to his neighbours. Everywhere he brings death and

-destruction with him. He himself is aware of it, but he has not the

-power to go apart from men. With all his soul he endeavours to tear

-himself out of his horrible condition. Above all he is attracted to

-fresh, young, untouched beings; with their help he hopes to recover his

-right to life which he has lost. The hope is vain. The beginning of

-decay always appears, all-conquering, and at the end Tchekhov's hero

-is left to himself alone. He has nothing, he must create everything

-for himself. And this 'creation out of the void,' or more truly the

-possibility of this creation, is the only problem which can occupy and

-inspire Tchekhov. When he has stripped his hero of the last shred, when

-nothing is left for him but to beat his head against the wall, Tchekhov

-begins to feel something like satisfaction, a strange fire lights in

-his burnt-out eyes, a fire which Mihailovsky did not call 'evil' in

-vain.

-

-Creation out of the void! Is not this task beyond the limit of human

-powers, of human _rights_? Mihailovsky obviously had one straight

-answer to the question.... As for Tchekhov himself, if the question

-were put to him in such a deliberately definite form, he would probably

-be unable to answer, although he was continually engaged in the

-activity, or more properly, because he was continually so engaged.

-Without fear of mistake, one may say that the people who answer the

-question without hesitation in either sense have never come near to

-it, or to any of the so-called ultimate questions of life. Hesitation

-is a necessary and integral element in the judgment of those men

-whom Fate has brought near to false problems. How Tchekhov's hand

-trembled while he wrote the concluding lines of his _Tedious Story_!

-The professor's pupil--the being nearest and dearest to him, but like

-himself, for all her youth, overstrained and bereft of all hope--has

-come to Kharkov to seek his advice. The following conversation takes

-place:

-

-"Nicolai Stepanich!" she says, growing pale and pressing her hands to

-her breast. "Nicolai Stepanich! I can't go on like this any longer. For

-God's sake tell me now, immediately. What shall I do? Tell me, what

-shall I do?"

-

-"What can I say? I am beaten. I can say nothing."

-

-"But tell me, I implore you," she continues, out of breath and

-trembling all over her body. "I swear to you, I can't go on like this

-any longer. I haven't the strength."

-

-She drops into a chair and begins to sob. She throws her head back,

-wrings her hands, stamps with her feet; her hat falls from her head and

-dangles by its string, her hair is loosened.

-

-"Help me, help," she implores. "I can't bear it any more."

-

-"There's nothing that I can say to you, Katy," I say.

-

-"Help me," she sobs, seizing my hand and kissing it. "You 're my

-father, my only friend. You're wise and learned, and you've lived long

-I You were a teacher. Tell me what to do."

-

-'"Upon my conscience, Katy, I do not know."

-

-'I am bewildered and surprised, stirred by her sobbing, and I can

-hardly stand upright.

-

-'"Let's have some breakfast, Katy," I say with a constrained smile.

-

-'Instantly I add in a sinking voice: "I shall be dead soon, Katy...."

-

-'"Only one word, only one word," she weeps and stretches out her hands

-to me. "What shall I do?..."'

-

-But the professor has not the word to give. He turns the conversation

-to the weather, Kharkov and other indifferent matters. Katy gets up and

-holds out her hand to him, without looking at him. 'I want to ask her,'

-he concludes his story. '"So it means you won't be at my funeral?" But

-she does not look at me; her hand is cold and like a stranger's ... I

-escort her to the door in silence.... She goes out of my room and walks

-down the long passage, without looking back. She knows that my eyes are

-following her, and probably on the landing she will look back. No, she

-did not look back. The black dress showed for the last time, her steps

-were stilled.... Good-bye, my treasure!...'

-

-The only answer which the wise, educated, long-lived Nicolai

-Stepanovich, a teacher all his life, can give to Katy's question is,

-'I don't know.' There is not, in all his great experience of the

-past, a single method, rule, or suggestion, which might apply, even in

-the smallest degree, to the wild incongruity of the new conditions of

-Katy's life and his own. Katy can live thus no longer; neither can he

-himself continue to endure his disgusting and shameful helplessness.

-They both, old and young, with their whole hearts desire to support

-each other; they can between them find no way. To her question: 'What

-shall I do?' he replied: 'I shall soon be dead.' To his 'I shall

-soon be dead' she answers with wild sobbing, wringing her hands, and

-absurdly repeating the same words over and over again. It would have

-been better to have asked no question, not to have begun that frank

-conversation of souls. But they do not yet understand that. In their

-old life talk would bring them relief and frank confession, intimacy.

-But now, after such a meeting they can suffer each other no longer.

-Katy leaves the old professor, her foster-father, her true father and

-friend, in the knowledge that he has become a stranger to her. She

-did not even turn round towards him as she went away. Both felt that

-nothing remained save to beat their heads against the wall. Therein

-each acts at his own peril, and there can be no dreaming of a consoling

-union of souls.

-

-

-

-VI

-

-

-Tchekhov knew what conclusions he had reached in _The Tedious Story_

-and _Ivanov._ Some of his critics also knew, and told him so. I

-cannot venture to say what was the cause--whether fear of public

-opinion, or his horror at his own discoveries, or both together--but

-evidently there came a moment to Tchekhov when he decided at all costs

-to surrender his position and retreat. The fruit of this decision was

-_Ward No. 6._ In this story the hero of the drama is the same familiar

-Tchekhov character, the doctor. The setting, too, is quite the usual

-one, though changed to a slight extent. Nothing in particular has

-occurred in the doctor's life. He happened to come to an out-of-the-way

-place in the provinces, and gradually, by continually avoiding

-life and people, he reached a condition of utter will-lessness, which

-he represented to himself as the ideal of human happiness. He is

-indifferent to everything, beginning with his hospital, where he can

-hardly ever be found, where under the reign of the drunken brute of an

-assistant the patients are swindled and neglected.

-

-In the mental ward reigns a porter who is a discharged soldier: he

-punches his restless patients into shape. The doctor does not care,

-as though he were living in some distant other world, and does not

-understand what is going on before his very eyes. He happens to enter

-his ward and to have a conversation with one of his patients. He

-listens quietly to him; but his answer is words instead of deeds. He

-tries to show his lunatic acquaintance that external influences cannot

-affect us in any way at all. The lunatic does not agree, becomes

-impertinent, presents objections, in which, as in the thoughts of many

-lunatics, nonsensical assertions are mixed with very profound remarks.

-Indeed, there is so little nonsense that from the conversation you

-would hardly imagine that you have to do with a lunatic. The doctor

-is delighted with his new friend, but does nothing whatsoever to

-make him more comfortable. The patient is still under the porter's

-thumb as he used to be, and the porter gives him a thrashing on the

-least provocation. The patient, the doctor, the people round, the

-whole setting of the hospital and the doctor's rooms, are described

-with wonderful talent. Everything induces you to make absolutely no

-resistance and to become fatalistically indifferent:--let them get

-drunk, let them fight, let them thieve, let them be brutal--what does

-it matter! Evidently it is so predestined by the supreme council of

-nature. The philosophy of inactivity which the doctor professes is

-as it were prompted and whispered by the immutable laws of human

-existence. Apparently there is no force which may tear one from its

-power. So far everything is more or less in the Tchekhov style. But

-the end is completely different. By the intrigues of his colleague,

-the doctor himself is taken as a patient into the mental ward. He

-is deprived of freedom, shut up in a wing of the hospital, and even

-thrashed, thrashed by the same porter whose behaviour he had taught his

-lunatic acquaintance to accept, thrashed before his acquaintance's

-very eyes. The doctor instantly awakens as though out of a dream. A

-fierce desire to struggle and to protest manifests itself in him. True,

-at this moment he dies; but the idea is triumphant, still. The critics

-could consider themselves quite satisfied. Tchekhov had openly repented

-and renounced the theory of non-resistance; and, I believe, _Ward No.

-6_ met with a sympathetic reception at the time. In passing I would say

-that the doctor dies very beautifully: in his last moments he sees a

-herd of deer....

-

-Indeed, the construction of this story leaves no doubt in the mind.

-Tchekhov wished to compromise, and he compromised. He had come to feel

-how intolerable was hopelessness, how impossible the creation from a

-void. To beat one's head against the stones, eternally to beat one's

-head against the stones, is so horrible that it were better to return

-to idealism. Then the truth of the wonderful Russian saying was proved:

-'Don't forswear the beggar's wallet nor the prison.' Tchekhov joined

-the choir of Russian writers, and began to praise the idea. But not

-for long. His very next story, _The Duel,_ has a different character.

-Its conclusion is also apparently idealistic, but only in appearance.

-The principal hero Layevsky is a parasite like all Tchekhov's heroes.

-He does nothing, can do nothing, does not even wish to do anything,

-lives chiefly at others' expense, runs up debts, seduces women.... His

-condition is intolerable. He is living with another man's wife, whom he

-had come to loathe as he loathes himself, yet he cannot get rid of her.

-He is always in straitened circumstances and in debt everywhere: his

-friends dislike and despise him. His state of mind is always such that

-he is ready to run no matter where, never looking backwards, only away

-from the place where he is living now. His illegal wife is in roughly

-the same position, unless it be even more horrible. Without knowing

-why, without love, without even being attracted, she gives herself to

-the first, commonplace man she meets; and then she feels as though

-she had been covered from head to foot in filth, and the filth had

-stuck so close to her that not ocean itself could wash her clean. This

-couple lives in the world, in a remote little place in the Caucasus,

-and naturally attracts Tchekhov's attention. There is no denying the

-interest of the subject: two persons befouled, who can neither tolerate

-others nor themselves....

-

-For contrast's sake Tchekhov brings Layevsky into collision with the

-zoologist, Von Koren, who has come to the seaside town on important

-business--every one recognises its importance--to study the embryology

-of the medusa. Von Koren, as one may see from his name, is of German

-origin, and therefore deliberately represented as a healthy, normal,

-clean man, the grandchild of Goncharov's Stolz, the direct opposite

-of Layevsky, who on his side is nearly related to our old friend

-Oblomov. But in Goncharov the contrast between Stolz and Oblomov is

-quite different in nature and meaning to the contrast in Tchekhov. The

-novelist of the 'forties hoped that a _rapprochement_ with Western

-culture would renew and resuscitate Russia. And Oblomov himself is not

-represented as an utterly hopeless person. He is only lazy, inactive,

-unenterprising. You have the feeling that were he to awaken he would

-be a match for a dozen Stolzs. Layevsky is a different affair. He is

-awake already, he was awakened years ago, but his awakening did him no

-good.... 'He does not love nature; he has no God; he or his companions

-had ruined every trustful girl he had known; all his life long he

-had not planted one single little tree, nor grown one blade of grass

-in his own garden, nor while he lived among the living, had he saved

-the life of one single fly; but only ruined and destroyed, and lied,

-and lied....' The good-natured sluggard Oblomov degenerated into a

-disgusting, terrible animal, while the clean Stolz lived and remained

-clean in his posterity! But to the new Oblomov he speaks differently.

-Von Koren calls Layevsky a scoundrel and a rogue, and demands that

-he should be punished with the utmost severity. To reconcile them is

-impossible. The more they meet, the deeper, the more merciless, the

-more implacable is their hatred for each other. It is impossible that

-they should live together on the earth. It must be one or the other:

-either the normal Von Koren, or the degenerate decadent Layevsky.

-Of course, all the external, material force is on Von Koren's side

-in the struggle. He is always in the right, always victorious,

-always triumphant--in act no less than in theory. It is curious that

-Tchekhov, the irreconcilable enemy of all kinds of philosophy--not

-one of his heroes philosophises, or if he does, his philosophising is

-unsuccessful, ridiculous, weak and unconvincing--makes an exception

-for Von Koren, a typical representative of the positive, materialistic

-school. His words breathe vigour and conviction. They have in them even

-pathos and a maximum of logical sequence. There are many materialist

-heroes in Tchekhov's stories, but in their materialism there is a

-tinge of veiled idealism, according to the stereotyped prescription of

-the 'sixties. Such heroes Tchekhov ridicules and derides. Idealism of

-every kind, whether open or concealed, roused feelings of intolerable

-bitterness in Tchekhov. He found it more pleasant to listen to the

-merciless menaces of a downright materialist than to accept the

-dry-as-dust consolations of humanising idealism. An invincible power

-is in the world, crushing and crippling man--this is clear and even

-palpable. The least indiscretion, and the mightiest and the most

-insignificant alike fall victims to it. One can only deceive oneself

-about it so long as one knows of it only by hearsay. But the man who

-had once been in the iron claws of necessity loses for ever his taste

-for idealistic self-delusion. No more does he diminish the enemy's

-power, he will rather exaggerate it. And the pure logical materialism

-which Von Koren professes gives the most complete expression of our

-dependence upon the elemental powers of nature. Von Koren's speech

-has the stroke of a hammer, and each blow strikes not Layevsky but

-Tchekhov himself on his wounds. He gives more and more strength to

-Von Koren's arm, he puts himself in the way of his blows. For what

-reason? Decide as you may. Perhaps Tchekhov cherished a secret hope

-that self-inflicted torment might be the one road to a new life? He

-has not told us so. Perhaps he did not know the reason himself, and

-perhaps he was afraid to offend the positive idealism which held such

-undisputed sway over contemporary literature. As yet he dared not

-lift up his voice against the public opinion of Europe--for we do not

-ourselves invent our philosophical conceptions; they drift down on the

-wind from Europe! And, to avoid quarrelling with people, he devised

-a commonplace, happy ending for his terrible story. At the end of

-the story Layevsky 'reforms': he marries his mistress; gives up his

-dissolute life; and begins to devote himself to transcribing documents,

-in order to pay his debts. Normal people can be perfectly satisfied,

-since normal people read only the last lines of the fable,--the moral;

-and the moral of _The Duel_ is most wholesome: Layevsky reforms and

-begins transcribing documents. Of course it may seem that such an

-ending is more like a gibe at morality; but normal people are not too

-penetrating psychologists. They are scared of double meanings and, with

-the 'sincerity' peculiar to themselves, they take every word of the

-writer for good coin. Good luck to them!

-

-

-

-VII

-

-

-The only philosophy which Tchekhov took seriously, and therefore

-seriously fought, was positivist materialism--just the positivist

-materialism, the limited materialism which does not pretend to

-theoretical completeness. With all his soul Tchekhov felt the awful

-dependence of a living being upon the invisible but invincible and

-ostentatiously soulless laws of nature. And materialism, above all

-scientific materialism, which is reserved and does not hasten in

-pursuit of the final word, and eschews logical completeness, wholly

-reduces to the definition of the external conditions of our existence.

-The experience of every day, every hour, every minute, convinces us

-that lonely and weak man brought to face with the laws of nature,

-must always adapt himself and give way, give way, give way. The old

-professor could not regain his youth; the overstrained Ivanov could

-not recover his strength; Layevsky could not wash away the filth

-with which he was covered--interminable series of implacable, purely

-materialistic _non possumus,_ against which human genius can set

-nothing but submission or forgetfulness. _Résigne-toi, mon cœur,

-dors ton sommeil de brute--_we shall find no other words before

-the pictures which are unfolded in Tchekhov's books. The submission

-is but an outward show; under it lies concealed a hard, malignant

-hatred of the unknown enemy. Sleep and oblivion are only seeming.

-Does a man sleep, does he forget, when he calls his sleep, _sommeil

-de brute_? But how can he change? The tempestuous protests with which

-_The Tedious Story_ is filled, the need to pour forth the pent-up

-indignation, soon begin to appear useless, and even insulting to

-human dignity. Tchekhov's last rebellious work is _Uncle Vanya._ Like

-the old professor and like Ivanov, Uncle Vanya raises the alarm and

-makes an incredible pother about his ruined life. He, too, in a voice

-not his own, fills the stage with his cries: 'Life is over, life

-is over,'--as though indeed any of these about him, any one in the

-whole world, could be responsible for his misfortune. But wailing and

-lamentation is not sufficient for him. He covers his own mother with

-insults. Aimlessly, like a lunatic, without need or purpose, he begins

-shooting at his imaginary enemy, Sonya's pitiable and unhappy father.

-His voice is not enough, he turns to the revolver. He is ready to fire

-all the cannon on earth, to beat every drum, to ring every bell. To

-him it seems that the whole of mankind, the whole of the universe, is

-sleeping, that the neighbours must be awakened. He is prepared for

-any extravagance, having no rational way of escape; for to confess at

-once that there is no escape is beyond the capacity of any man. Then

-begins a Tchekhov history: 'He cannot reconcile himself, neither can

-he refuse so to reconcile himself. He can only weep and beat his head

-against the wall.' Uncle Vanya does it openly, before men's eyes; but

-how painful to him is the memory of this frank unreserve! When every

-one has departed after a stupid and painful scene, Uncle Vanya realises

-that he should have kept silence, that it is no use to confess certain

-things to any one, not even to one's nearest friend. A stranger's eye

-cannot endure the sight of hopelessness. 'Your life is over--you have

-yourself to thank for it: you are a human being no more, all human

-things are ah en to you. Your neighbours are no more neighbours to you,

-but strangers. You have no right either to help others or to expect

-help from them. Your destiny is--absolute loneliness.' Little by little

-Tchekhov becomes convinced of this truth: _Uncle Vanya_ is the last

-trial of loud public protest, of a vigorous 'declaration of rights.'

-And even in this drama Uncle Vanya is the only one to rage, although

-there are among the characters Doctor Astrov and poor Sonya, who might

-also avail themselves of their right to rage, and even to fire the

-cannon. But they are silent. They even repeat certain comfortable and

-angelic words concerning the happy future of mankind; which is to say

-that their silence is doubly deep, seeing that 'comfortable words' upon

-the lips of such people are the evidence of their final severance from

-life: they have left the whole world, and now they admit no one to

-their presence. They have fenced themselves with comfortable words, as

-with the Great Wall of China, from the curiosity and attention of their

-neighbours. Outwardly they resemble all men, therefore no man dares to

-touch their inward life.

-

-What is the meaning and significance of this straining inward labour

-in those whose lives are over? Probably Tchekhov would answer this

-question as Nicolai Stepanovich answered Katy's, with 'I do not

-know.' He would add nothing. But this life alone, more like to death

-than life, attracted and engaged him. Therefore his utterance grew

-softer and slower with every year. Of all our writers Tchekhov has

-the softest voice. All the energy of his heroes is turned inwards.

-They create nothing visible; worse, they destroy all things visible

-by their outward passivity and inertia. A 'positive thinker' like Von

-Koren brands them with terrible words, and the more content is he with

-himself and his justice, the more energy he puts into his anathemas.

-'Scoundrels, villains, degenerates, degraded animals!'--what did Von

-Koren not devise to fit the Layevskys? The manifestly positive thinker

-wants to force Layevsky to transcribe documents. The surreptitiously

-positive thinkers--idealists and metaphysicians--do not use abusive

-words. Instead they bury Tchekhov's nerves alive in their idealistic

-cemeteries, which are called conceptions of the world. Tchekhov himself

-abstains from the 'solution of the question' with a persistency to

-which most of the critics probably wished a better fate, and he

-continues his long stories of men and the life of men, who have nothing

-to lose, as though the only interest in life were this nightmare

-suspension between life and death. What does it teach us of life or

-death? Again we must answer: 'I do not know,'--those words which

-arouse the greatest aversion in positive thinkers, but appear in some

-mysterious way to be the permanent elements in the ideas of Tchekhov's

-people. This is the reason why the philosophy of materialism, though

-so hostile, is yet so near to them. It contains no answer which can

-compel man to cheerful submission. It bruises and destroys him, but

-it does not call itself rational; it does not demand gratitude; it

-does not demand anything, since it has neither soul nor speech. A

-man may acknowledge it and hate it. If he manages to get square with

-it--he is right; if he fails--_vae victis._ How comfortably sounds

-the voice of the unconcealed ruthlessness of inanimate, impersonal,

-indifferent nature, compared with the hypocritical and cloying melodies

-of idealistic, humanistic conceptions of the world! Then again--and

-this is the chiefest thing of all--men can struggle with nature still!

-And in the struggle with nature every weapon is lawful. In the struggle

-with nature man always remains man, and, therefore, right, whatever

-means he tries for his salvation, even if he were to refuse to accept

-the fundamental principle of the world's being--the indestructibility

-of matter and energy, the law of inertia and the rest--since who will

-dispute that the most colossal dead force must be subservient to

-man? But a conception of the world is an utterly different affair!

-Before uttering a word it puts forward an irreducible demand: man must

-serve the idea. And this demand is considered not merely as something

-understood, but as of extraordinary sublimity. Is it strange then

-that in the choice between idealism and materialism Tchekhov inclined

-to the latter--the strong but honest adversary? With idealism a man

-can struggle only by contempt, and Tchekhov's works leave nothing

-to be desired in this respect.... But how shall a man struggle with

-materialism? And can it be overcome? Perhaps Tchekhov's method may

-seem strange to my reader, nevertheless it is clear that he came to

-the conclusion that there was only one way to struggle, to which the

-prophets of old turned themselves: to beat one's head against the wall.

-Without thunder or cannon or alarm, in loneliness and silence, remote

-from their fellows and their fellows' fellows, to gather all the forces

-of despair for an absurd attempt long since condemned by science.

-Have you any right to expect from Tchekhov an approval of scientific

-methods? Science has robbed him of everything: he is condemned to

-create from the void, to an activity of which a normal man, using

-normal means, is utterly incapable. To achieve the impossible one must

-first leave the road of routine. However obstinately we may pursue

-our scientific quests, they will not lead us to the elixir of life.

-Science began with casting away the longing for human omnipotence as in

-principle unattainable: her methods are such that success along certain

-of her paths preclude even seeking along others. In other words,

-scientific method is defined by the character of the problems which

-she puts to herself. Indeed, not one of her problems can be solved by

-beating one's head against the wall. But this method, old-fashioned

-though it is--I repeat, it was known to the prophets and used by

-them--promised more to Tchekhov and his nerves than all inductions and

-deductions (which were not invented by science, but have existed since

-the beginning of the world). This prompts a man with some mysterious

-instinct, and appears upon the scene whenever the need of it arises.

-Science condemns it. But that is nothing strange: it condemns science.

-

-

-

-VIII

-

-

-Now perhaps the further development and direction of Tchekhov's

-creation will be intelligible, and that peculiar and unique blend

-in him of sober materialism and fanatical stubbornness in seeking

-new paths, always round about and hazardous. Like Hamlet, he would

-dig beneath his opponent a mine one yard deeper, so that he may

-at one moment blow engineer and engine into the air. His patience

-and fortitude in this hard, underground toil are amazing and to

-many intolerable. Everywhere is darkness, not a ray, not a spark,

-but Tchekhov goes forward, slowly, hardly, hardly moving.... An

-inexperienced or impatient eye will perhaps observe no movement at all.

-It may be Tchekhov himself does not know for certain whether he is

-moving forward or marking time. To calculate beforehand is impossible.

-Impossible even to hope. Man has entered that stage of his existence

-wherein the cheerful and foreseeing mind refuses its service. It is

-impossible for him to present to himself a clear and distinct notion of

-what is going on. Everything takes on a tinge of fantastical absurdity.

-One believes and disbelieves--everything. In _The Black Monk_ Tchekhov

-tells of a new reality, and in a tone which suggests that he is himself

-at a loss to say where the reality ends and the phantasmagoria begins.

-The black monk leads the young scholar into some mysterious remoteness,

-where the best dreams of mankind shall be realised. The people about

-call the monk a hallucination and fight him with medicines--drugs,

-better foods and milk. Kovrin himself does not know who is right. When

-he is speaking to the monk, it seems to him that the monk is right;

-when he sees before him his weeping wife and the serious, anxious

-faces of the doctors, he confesses that he is under the influence of

-fixed ideas, which lead him straight to lunacy. Finally the black

-monk is victorious. Kovrin has not the power to support the banality

-which surrounds him; he breaks with his wife and her relations, who

-appear like inquisitors in his eyes, and goes away somewhere--but in

-our sight he arrives nowhere. At the end of the story he dies in order

-to give the author the right to make an end. This is always the case:

-when the author does not know what to do with his hero he kills him.

-Sooner or later in all probability this habit will be abandoned. In

-the future, probably, writers will convince themselves and the public

-that any kind of artificial completion is absolutely superfluous.

-The matter is exhausted--stop the tale short, even though it be on

-a half-word. Tchekhov did so sometimes, but only sometimes. In most

-cases he preferred to satisfy the traditional demands and to supply his

-readers with an end. This habit is not so unimportant as at first sight

-it may seem. Consider even _The Black Monk._ The death of the hero is

-as it were an indication that abnormality must, in Tchekhov's opinion,

-necessarily lead through an absurd life to an absurd death: but this

-was hardly Tchekhov's firm conviction. It is clear that he expected

-something from abnormality, and therefore gave no deep attention to

-men who had left the common track. True, he came to no firm or definite

-conclusions, for all the tense effort of his creation. He became so

-firmly convinced that there was no issue from the entangled labyrinth,

-that the labyrinth with its infinite wanderings, its perpetual

-hesitations and strayings, its uncaused griefs and joys uncaused--in

-brief, all things which normal men so fear and shun--became the very

-essence of his life. Of this and this alone must a man tell. Not of our

-invention is normal life, nor abnormal. Why then should the first alone

-be considered as the real reality?

-

-_The Sea-Gull_ must be considered one of the most characteristic, and

-therefore one of the most remarkable of Tchekhov's works. Therein the

-artist's true attitude to life received its most complete expression.

-Here all the characters are either blind, and afraid to move from

-their seats in case they lose the way home, or half-mad, struggling

-and tossing about to no end nor purpose. Arkadzina the famous actress

-clings with her teeth to her seventy thousand roubles, her fame, and

-her last lover. Tregovin the famous writer writes day in, day out;

-he writes and writes, knowing neither end nor aim. People read his

-works and praise them, but he is not his own master; like Marko, the

-ferryman in the tale, he labours on without taking his hand from the

-oar, carrying passengers from one bank to the other. The boat, the

-passengers, and the river too, bore him to death. But how can he get

-rid of them? He might give the oars over to the first-comer: the

-solution is simple, but after it, as in the tale, he must go to heaven.

-Not Tregovin alone, but all the people in Tchekhov's books who are

-no longer young remind one of Marko the ferryman. It is plain that

-they dislike their work, but, exactly as though they were hypnotised,

-they cannot break away from the influence of the alien power. The

-monotonous, even dismal, rhythm of life has lulled their consciousness

-and will to sleep. Everywhere Tchekhov underlines this strange and

-mysterious trait of human life. His people always speak, always think,

-always do one and the same thing. One builds houses according to a plan

-made once for all (_My Life_); another goes on his round of visits

-from morn to night, collecting roubles (_Yonitch_); a third is always

-buying up houses (_Three Years_). Even the language of his characters

-is deliberately monotonous. They are all monotonous, to the point of

-stupidity, and they are all afraid to break the monotony, as though it

-were the source of extraordinary joys. Read Tregovin's monologue:

-

-'... Let us talk.... Let us talk of my beautiful life.... What shall

-I begin with? [Musing a little.] ... There are such things as fixed

-ideas, when a person thinks day and night, for instance, of the moon,

-always of the moon. I too have my moon. Day and night I am at the

-mercy of one besetting idea: "I must write, I must write, I must." I

-have hardly finished one story than, for some reason or other, I must

-write a second, then a third, and after the third, a fourth. I write

-incessantly, post-haste. I cannot do otherwise. Where then, I ask you,

-is beauty and serenity? What a monstrous life it is! I am sitting with

-you now, I am excited, but meanwhile every second I remember that

-an unfinished story is waiting for me. I see a cloud, like a grand

-piano. It smells of heliotrope. I say to myself: a sickly smell, a

-half-mourning colour.... I must not forget to use these words when

-describing a summer evening. I catch up myself and you on every phrase,

-on every word, and hurry to lock all these words and phrases into my

-literary storehouse. Perhaps they will be useful. When I finish work

-I run to the theatre, or go off fishing: at last I shall rest, forget

-myself. But no! a heavy ball of iron is dragging on my fetters,--a new

-subject, which draws me to the desk, and I must make haste to write and

-write again. And so on for ever, for ever. I have no rest from myself,

-and I feel that I am eating away my own life. I feel that the honey

-which I give to others has been made of the pollen of my most precious

-flowers, that I have plucked the flowers themselves and trampled them

-down to the roots. Surely, I am mad. Do my neighbours and friends treat

-me as a sane person? "What are you writing? What have you got ready

-for us?" The same thing, the same thing eternally, and it seems to me

-that the attention, the praise, the enthusiasm of my friends is all

-a fraud. I am being robbed like a sick man, and sometimes I am afraid

-that they will creep up to me and seize me, and put me away in an

-asylum.'

-

-But why these torments? Throw up the oars and begin a new life.

-_Impossible._ While no answer comes down from heaven, Tregovin will

-not throw up the oars, will not begin a new life. In Tchekhov's work,

-only young, very young and inexperienced people speak of a new life.

-They are always dreaming of happiness, regeneration, light, joy. They

-fly head-long into the flame, and are burned like silly butterflies.

-In _The Sea-Gull,_ Nina Zaryechnaya and Trepliev, in other works other

-heroes, men and women alike--all are seeking for something, yearning

-for something, but not one of them does that which he desires. Each

-one lives in isolation; each is wholly absorbed in his life, and is

-indifferent to the lives of others. And the strange fate of Tchekhov's

-heroes is that they strain to the last limit of their inward powers,

-but there are no visible results at all. They are all pitiable.

-The woman takes snuff, dresses slovenly, wears her hair loose, is

-uninteresting. The man is irritable, grumbling, takes to drink, bores

-every one about him. They act, they speak--always out of season.

-They cannot, I would even say they do not want to, adapt the outer

-world to themselves. Matter and energy unite according to their own

-laws;--people live according to their own, as though matter and energy

-had no existence at all. In this Tchekhov's intellectuals do not differ

-from illiterate peasants and the half-educated bourgeois. Life in the

-manor is the same as in the valley farm, the same as in the village.

-Not one believes that by changing his outward conditions he would

-change his fate as well. Everywhere reigns an unconscious but deep and

-ineradicable conviction that our will must be directed towards ends

-which have nothing in common with the organised life of mankind. Worse

-still, the organisation appears to be the enemy of the will and of man.

-One must spoil, devour, destroy, ruin. To think out things quietly, to

-anticipate the future--that is impossible. One must beat one's head,

-beat one's head eternally against the wall. And to what purpose? Is

-there any purpose at all? Is it a beginning or an end? Is it possible

-to see in it the warrant of a new and inhuman creation, a creation out

-of the void? 'I do not know' was the old professor's answer to Katy.

-'I do not know' was Tchekhov's answer to the sobs of those tormented

-unto death. With these words, and only these, can an essay upon

-Tchekhov end. _Résigne-toi, mon cœur, dors ton sommeil de brute._

-

-

-

-

-THE GIFT OF PROPHECY

-

-

-(For the twenty-fifth anniversary of F. M. Dostoevsky's death.)

-

-

-

-I

-

-

-Vladimir Soloviev used to call Dostoevsky 'the prophet,' and even

-'the prophet of God.' Immediately after Soloviev, though often in

-complete independence of him, very many people looked upon Dostoevsky

-as the man to whom the books of human destiny were opened; and this

-happened not only after his death, but even while he was yet alive.

-Apparently Dostoevsky himself too, if he did not regard himself as a

-prophet--he was too eagle-eyed for that--at least thought it right

-that all people should see a prophet in him. To this bears witness

-the tone of _The Journal of an Author,_ no less than the questions

-upon which he generally touches therein. _The Journal of an Author_

-began to appear in 1873, that is on Dostoevsky's return from abroad,

-and therefore coincides with what his biographers call 'the highest

-period of his life.' Dostoevsky was then the happy father of a family,

-a man of secure position, a famous writer, the author of a whole

-series of novels known to all: _The House of the Dead, The Idiot, The

-Possessed._ He has everything which can be required _from_ life, or,

-more truly, he has taken everything which can be taken from life. You

-remember Tolstoi's deliberations in his _Confession_? 'Finally, I shall

-be as famous as Pushkin, Gogol, Goethe and Shakespeare--and what shall

-come after?' Indeed, it is difficult to become a more famous writer

-than Shakespeare; and even if one succeeded, the inevitable question,

-'And what shall come after?' would by no means be removed. Sooner or

-later in the activity of a great writer a moment comes when further

-perfection seems impossible. How shall a man be greater than himself

-in the world of literature? If he would move, then by his own will or

-in spite of it he must step on to another plane. And this is plainly

-the beginning of prophecy in a writer. In the general view the prophet

-is greater than the writer; and even the possession of genius is not

-always a guarantee against the general view. Even men so sceptical as

-Tolstoi and Dostoevsky, men always ready to doubt everything, more than

-once were the victims of prejudices. Prophetic words were expected

-of them, and they went out to meet men's desires, Dostoevsky even

-more readily than Tolstoi. Moreover both prophesied clumsily: they

-promised one thing, and something wholly different happened. So Tolstoi

-promised long ago that men would awake to their error soon and would

-put away from them fratricidal war, and would begin to live as true

-Christians should, fulfilling the Gospel commandment of love. Tolstoi

-prophesied and preached; people read him, as, it seems, they read no

-other writer: but they have not changed their habits nor their tastes.

-For the last ten years Tolstoi has perforce been a witness of a whole

-series of horrible and most savage wars. And now there is our present

-revolution[1]--armed mobs rioting, the gallows set up, men shot down,

-bombs--the revolution which came to replace the bloody war in the Far

-East!

-

-And this is in Russia, where Tolstoi was born, lived, taught and

-prophesied, where millions of people sincerely hold him to be the

-greatest genius of all! Even in his own family Tolstoi could not

-effect the change that he desired. One of his sons is an officer

-in the army; the other writes in the _Novoïe Vremya,_ as though he

-were Souvorin's[2] son, not Tolstoi's.... Where, then, is the gift

-of prophecy? Why is it that a man so great as Tolstoi can foresee

-nothing, and seems to peer his way through life? 'What will to-morrow

-bring forth?' 'To-morrow I'll work miracles,' said the magician to

-the Russian prince of old. For reply the prince drew his sword and

-struck off the magician's head; and the excited mob, which believed in

-the magician-prophet, became calm and departed home. History is ever

-striking off the heads of prophetic predictions, and yet the crowd

-still runs after the prophets. Of little faith, the crowd looks for

-a sign, because it desires a miracle. But can the ability to predict

-be accounted as evidence of the power to work miracles? It is possible

-to predict an eclipse of the sun or the appearance of a comet, but

-this surely means a miracle only to the ignorant. An enlightened mind

-is secure in the knowledge that where prediction is possible, there

-is no miracle, since the possibility of prediction and of foreseeing

-presupposes a strict uniformity. Therefore not he will appear a prophet

-who has great spiritual gifts, nor he who desires to dominate the world

-and to command the very laws, neither the magician, nor the sorcerer,

-nor the artist, but he who, having yielded himself beforehand to the

-actual and its laws, has devoted himself to the mechanical labour of

-record and calculation. Bismarck could foretell the greatness of Russia

-and Germany; and not only Bismarck, but an ordinary German politician,

-for whom everything is reduced to _Deutschland, Deutschland über

-alles,_ could read the future for many years ahead; yet Dostoevsky and

-Tolstoi could foresee nothing. In Dostoevsky the failure is still more

-remarkable than in Tolstoi, because he more often attempted prediction:

-more than half of his _Journal_ consists in unfulfilled prophecies. So

-often did he commit his prophetic genius.

-

-

-[Footnote 1: This essay was written during the revolution of 1905.]

-

-[Footnote 2: The famous editor of the _Novoïe Vremya._]

-

-

-

-II

-

-

-To some it may perhaps seem out of place that in an article devoted to

-the twenty-fifth anniversary of the writer's death, I call to mind his

-mistakes and errors. The reproach is hardly just. A certain kind of

-defect in a great man is at least as characteristic and important as

-his qualities.

-

-Dostoevsky was not a Bismarck. But is that so terrible that we must

-lament it? Moreover, for writers of the type of Tolstoi and Dostoevsky,

-their social and political ideas are without any value. They know well

-that no one obeys them. Whatever they may say, history and political

-life will go on in the same way, since it is not their books and

-articles which guide events. And, probably, here is the explanation

-of the amazing boldness of their opinions. If Tolstoi really imagined

-that it would be enough for him to write an article demanding that

-all 'soldiers, policemen, judges, ministers' and the rest, all those

-guardians of the public peace, whom he detested--and, by the way, who

-loves them?--should be dismissed, for all prison-doors to be flung

-wide before the murderers and robbers--who can tell whether he would

-have shown himself sufficiently firm and resolute in his opinions, to

-take upon himself the responsibility for the effects of the measures

-which he proposed? But he knows beyond all doubt that he will not be

-obeyed, and therefore he calmly preaches anarchy. Dostoevsky's part as

-a preacher was quite different; but it too was, so to speak, platonic.

-Probably it came as a surprise even to himself, that he became the

-prophet, not of 'ideal' politics, but of those most realistic tasks

-which governments always set themselves in countries where a few men

-direct the destinies of peoples. Listening to Dostoevsky, one may

-imagine that he is discovering ideas which the government must take

-for its guidance and set itself to realise. But you will soon convince

-yourself that Dostoevsky did not discover one single original political

-idea. Everything of the kind that he possessed he had borrowed without

-examination from the Slavophiles, who in their turn appeared original

-only to the extent to which they were able without outside assistance

-to translate from the German and the French: _Russland, Russland

-über alles._ (Even the rhythm of the verse is not affected by the

-substitution of the one word.) But what is most important is, that

-the Slavophiles with their Russo-German glorification of nationality,

-and with them Dostoevsky who joined the chorus, have neither taught

-nor educated one single man among the ruling classes. Our government

-knew all that it needed to know by itself, without the Slavophiles

-and without Dostoevsky. From time immemorial it had gone its way by

-the road which the theorists so passionately praised: so that nothing

-was left to them but to eulogise those in power and to defend the

-policy of the Russian government against the public opinion which was

-hostile to it. Autocracy, Orthodoxy, Nationality--all these were held

-so firmly in Russia that in the 'seventies when Dostoevsky began to

-preach they needed no support whatever. And surely every one knows that

-power never seriously reckons upon the help of literature. Certainly it

-requires that the Muses should pay tribute to it with the others, nobly

-formulating its demands in the words: _Blessed be the union of the

-sword and the lyre._ It used to happen that the Muses did not refuse

-the request, sometimes sincerely, sometimes because, as Heine said, it

-is particularly disagreeable to wear iron chains in Russia, on account

-of the heavy frosts. In any case the Muses were only allowed to sing

-the praises of the sword, but by no means to wield it. There are all

-kinds of unions. And here again Dostoevsky, for all his independent

-nature, still appeared in the rôle of a prophet of the Russian

-government: that is, he divined the secret devices of the powers

-that were, and in this connection then recalled all the 'high and

-beautiful' words which he had managed to hoard up in the course of his

-long wanderings. For instance, the government began to cast covetous

-glances towards the East (at that time the Near East still); Dostoevsky

-begins to argue that we must have Constantinople, and to prophesy that

-Constantinople will soon be ours. His 'argument' is, of course, of a

-purely 'moral character,' and, sure enough, he is a writer. Only from

-Constantinople, he says, can we make avail the purely Russian ideal

-of embracing all humanity. Of course our government, though indeed

-we had no Bismarcks, perfectly well understood the value of moral

-argument and of prophecy based upon them, and would have preferred a

-few well-equipped divisions and improved guns. To realist politicians

-one single soldier, armed not with a gun but with a blunderbuss, is

-of more importance than the sublimest conception of moral philosophy.

-But still they do not drive away the humble prophet, if the prophet

-knows his place. Dostoevsky accepted the rôle, since it gave him still

-the opportunity of displaying his refractory nature in the struggle

-with Liberal literature. He sang paeans, made protests, uttered

-absurdities--and worse than absurdities. For instance, he counselled

-all the Slav peoples to unite under the aegis of Russia, assuring

-them that only thus would full independence be guaranteed them, and

-the right of shaping themselves by their own culture, and so on--and

-that in the face of the millions of Polish Slavs living in Russia. Or

-again, the _Moscow Gazette_ gives its opinion that it would be well

-for the Crimean Tartars to emigrate to Turkey, since it would then be

-possible for Russians to settle in the peninsula. Dostoevsky catches up

-this original idea with enthusiasm. 'Indeed,' he says, 'on political

-and state and similar considerations'--I do not know how it is with

-other people, but when I hear such words as 'state' and 'political'

-on Dostoevsky's lips, I cannot help smiling--'it is necessary to expel

-the Tartars and to settle Russians on their lands.' When the _Moscow

-Gazette_ projects such a measure, it is intelligible. But Dostoevsky!

-Dostoevsky who called himself a Christian, who so passionately preaches

-love to one's neighbour, self-abasement, self-renunciation, who taught

-that Russia must 'serve the nations'--how could he be taken with an

-idea so rapacious? And indeed almost all his political ideas have the

-mark of rapacity upon them: to grab and grab, and still to grab....

-As the occasion demands, he now expresses the hope that we may have

-Germany's friendship, and again threatens her; now he argues that we

-have need of England, and again he asserts that we could do without

-her,--just like a leader-writer in a _bien-pensant_ provincial paper.

-One thing alone makes itself felt among all these ludicrous and

-eternally contradictory assertions,--Dostoevsky understands nothing,

-absolutely nothing, about politics, and moreover, he has nothing at all

-to do with politics. He is forced to go in tow of others who, compared

-with him, are utter nonentities, and he goes. Even his ambition--and he

-had a colossal ambition, an ambition unique in its kind, as befitted

-a universal man--suffers not one whit: chiefly because men expected

-prophecy from him, because the next title to that of a great writer is

-that of a prophet, and because a ring of conviction and a loud voice

-are the signs of the prophetic gift. Dostoevsky could speak aloud: he

-could also speak with the tone of one who knows secrets, and of one

-with authority. One learns much in the underworld. All these things

-served him. Men took the poet-laureate of the existing order for the

-inspirer of thoughts and the governor of Russia's remotest destinies.

-It was enough for Dostoevsky. It was even necessary for Dostoevsky. He

-knew of course that he was no prophet; but he knew that there had never

-been one on earth, and that those who were prophets had no better right

-to the title than he.

-

-

-

-III

-

-

-I will permit myself to remind the reader of Tolstoi's letter to his

-son, lately published by the latter in the newspapers. It is very

-interesting. Once more, not from the standpoint of the practical man

-who has to decide the questions of the day--from this standpoint

-Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, and their similars are quite useless--but man does

-not live by bread alone.

-

-Even now in the terrible days through which we have to live, now, if

-you will, more than ever before, one cannot read newspapers alone, nor

-think only of the awful surprises which to-morrow prepares for us. To

-every one is left an hour of leisure between the reading of newspapers

-and party programmes, if it be not an hour in the day when the noise

-of events and the pressure of immediate work distracts, then an hour

-in the deep night, when everything that was possible has been already

-done, and everything that was required has been said. Then come flying

-in the old thoughts and questions, frightened away by business, and

-for the thousandth time one returns to the mystery of human genius and

-human greatness. Where and how far can genius know and accomplish more

-than ordinary men?

-

-Then Tolstoi's letter, which during the day aroused only anger and

-indignation,--is it not outrageous and revolting, think some, that

-in the great collision of forces which contend with one another in

-Russia, Tolstoi cannot distinguish the right force from the wrong, but

-stigmatises all the struggling combatants by the one name of ungodly?

-During the day, I say, it is surely outrageous: in the daytime we would

-like Tolstoi to be with us and for us, because we are convinced that

-we and we alone are seeking the truth,--nay, that we know the truth,

-while our enemies are defending evil and falsehood, whether in malice

-or in ignorance. But this is during the day. In the night-time, things

-are changed. One remembers that Goethe also overlooked, simply did not

-notice, the great French Revolution. True, he was a German who lived

-far from Paris, while Tolstoi lives close to Moscow, where men, women,

-and children have been shot, cut down, and burnt alive. Moreover,

-there is no doubt that Tolstoi has overlooked not merely Moscow, but

-everything that went before Moscow. What is happening now does not seem

-to him important or extraordinary. For him only that is important to

-which he, Tolstoi, has set his hand: all that occurs outside and beside

-him, for him has no existence. This is the great prerogative of great

-men. And sometimes it seems to me--perhaps it is only that I would have

-it seem so--as though there were in that prerogative a deep and hidden

-meaning.

-

-When we have no more strength in us to listen to the endless tales

-of horrible atrocities which have already been committed, and to

-anticipate in imagination all that the future holds in store for us,

-then we recall Tolstoi and his indifference. It is not in our human

-power to return the murdered fathers and mothers to the children nor

-the children to their fathers and mothers. Nor stands it even in our

-power to revenge ourselves upon the murderers, nor will vengeance

-reconcile every one to his loss. And we try no longer to think with

-logic, and to seek a justification of the horrors there where there is

-and can be none. What if we ask ourselves whether Tolstoi and Goethe

-did not sec the Revolution and did not suffer its pain, only because

-they saw something else, something, it may even be, more necessary and

-important? Maybe there are indeed more things in heaven and earth than

-are dreamed of in our philosophy.

-

-Now we may return to Dostoevsky and his 'ideas'; we may call them

-fearlessly by the names which they deserve, for though Dostoevsky is

-a writer of genius, this does not mean that we must forget our daily

-needs. The night and the day have each their rights. Dostoevsky wanted

-to be a prophet, he wanted people to listen to him and cry 'Hosanna!'

-because, I say again, he thought that if men had ever cried 'Hosanna!'

-to any one, then there was no reason why he, Dostoevsky, should be

-denied the honour. That is the reason why in the 'seventies he made his

-appearance in the new rôle of a preacher of Christianity, and not of

-Christianity merely, but of orthodoxy.

-

-Again, I would draw attention to the far from accidental circumstances

-that his preaching coincided with the 'serenest' period of his life. He

-who had in time past been a homeless wanderer, a poor man who had not

-where to lay his head, had provided himself with a family and a house

-of his own, even with money (for his wife was saving). The failure

-had become a celebrity; the convict a full citizen. The underworld,

-where-into his fate had but lately driven him, it might seem for ever,

-now appeared to him a phantasmagoria which never had been real. In the

-galleys and the underworld had been born within him a great hunger for

-God which lived long; there he fought a great fight, the fight of life

-against death; there for the first time were made the new and awful

-experiments which allied Dostoevsky with everything that is rebellious

-and restless on earth. What Dostoevsky wrote during the closing years

-of his life (not merely _The Journal of an Author,_ but _The Brothers

-Karamazov_ as well) has value only in so far as Dostoevsky's _past_

-is reflected therein. He made no new step onwards. As he was, so he

-remained, on the eve of a great truth. But in the old days that did

-not suffice him, he hungered for something beyond; but now he does not

-want to struggle, and he cannot explain to himself or to others what is

-really happening within him. He pretends to be struggling still, nay,

-more, he behaves as though he had won the final victory, and demands

-that his triumph should be acknowledged by public opinion. He loves to

-think that the night is already past and the actual day begun: and the

-galleys and the underworld, reminding him that the day is not yet, are

-no more. All the evidences of a complete illusion of victory seem to

-be there--let him only choose the text and preach! Dostoevsky clutched

-at orthodoxy. Why not Christianity? Because Christianity is not for

-him who has a house, a family, money, fame, and a father-land. Christ

-said: 'Let him leave all that he hath and follow me.' But Dostoevsky

-was afraid of solitude, he desired to be the prophet of modern, settled

-men to whom pure Christianity, unadapted to the needs of civilised

-existence in a governed state, is unfitted. How should a Christian

-seize Constantinople, drive out the Tartars from the Crimea, reduce

-all Slavs to the condition of the Poles, and the rest--for all the

-projects of Dostoevsky and the _Moscow Gazette_ defy enumeration? So,

-before accepting the Gospel, he must explain it....

-

-However strange it may appear, it must be confessed that one cannot

-find in the whole of literature a single man who is prepared to accept

-the Gospel as a whole, without interpretation. One man wants to seize

-Constantinople according to the Gospel, another to justify the existing

-order, a third to exalt himself or to thrust down his enemy; and each

-considers it as his right to diminish from, or even to supplement,

-the text of Holy Writ. I have, of course, only those in view who

-acknowledge, at least in word, the divine origin of the New Testament;

-since he who sees in the Gospel only one of the more or less remarkable

-books of his library, naturally has the right to subject it to whatever

-critical operations he may choose.

-

-But here we have Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, and Vladimir Soloviev. It is

-generally believed, and the belief is particularly supported and

-developed by the most recent criticism, that Tolstoi alone rationalised

-Christianity, while Dostoevsky and Soloviev accepted it in all the

-fullness of its mysticism, denying reason the right to separate

-truth from falsehood in the Gospel. I consider this belief mistaken:

-for Dostoevsky and Soloviev were afraid to accept the Gospel as the

-fountain of knowledge, and relied much more upon their own reason and

-their experience of life than upon the words of Christ. But, if there

-was a man among us who, though but in part, took the risk of accepting

-the mysterious and obviously dangerous words of the Gospel precepts,

-that man was Leo Tolstoi. I will explain myself.

-

-We are told that Tolstoi made the attempt, in his works published

-abroad, to explain the miracles of the Gospel in a way intelligible

-to human reason. Dostoevsky and Soloviev, on the other hand, readily

-accepted the inexplicable. But generally the miracles of the Gospel

-attract the people who believe least, for it is impossible to repeat

-the miracles, and this being so, then it follows that a merely external

-faith is sufficient, a mere verbal assertion. A man says that he

-believes in miracles: 'his reputation as a religious man is made, both

-in his own mind and in others', and as for the rest of the Gospel,

-there remains 'interpretation.' Consider, for instance, the doctrine

-of non-resistance to evil. It need not be said that the doctrine of

-non-resistance is the most terrible, and the most irrational, and

-mysterious thing that we read in the Gospel. All our reasoning soul is

-indignant at the thought that full material freedom should be given

-to the murderer to accomplish his murderous acts. How can you allow a

-murderer to kill an innocent child before your very eyes, and yet not

-draw the sword? Who has the right to give that abominable precept?

-Soloviev[3] and Dostoevsky alike repeat that question, the one in a

-disguised, the other in an open attack on Tolstoi. Yet since the

-Gospel plainly declares 'Resist not evil,' both of our believers in

-miracles have suddenly remembered reason and turned to its testimony,

-knowing that reason will naturally destroy any meaning whatever that

-may be in the precept. In other words, they repeat the question of

-the doubting Jews concerning Christ: 'Who is He that speaketh as one

-having authority?' God commanded Abraham that he should offer up his

-son. By his reason, his human reason, Abraham refused to acknowledge

-any intelligible meaning in the cruel command, but yet made ready to

-act according to the word of God and made no attempt to rid himself

-of the hard and inhuman obligation by cunning interpretation. But

-Dostoevsky and Soloviev refuse to fulfil Christ's demands so soon as

-they find no justification in the human reason. Yet they say that they

-believe that Lazarus was raised from the dead and that the man who

-was sick of a palsy was cured, and all the other miracles which are

-related by the Apostles. Why then does their belief end just at the

-point where it begins to place obligations upon them? Why the sudden

-recourse to reason, when we know exactly that Dostoevsky came to the

-Gospels only to be rid of the power of reason? But that was in the

-days of the underworld. Now the 'serene' period of his life has begun.

-But Soloviev, evidently, had never even known the underworld. Only

-Tolstoi boldly and resolutely tries to test the truth of the Christian

-teaching, not in his thoughts alone, but in part in his life also.

-From the human point of view it is mad to make no resistance to evil.

-He knows that every whit as well as Dostoevsky, Soloviev and the rest

-of his many opponents. But he is really seeking in the Gospels that

-divine madness, since human reason does not satisfy him. Tolstoi began

-to follow the Gospel in that clouded period of his life when he was

-haunted by the phantoms of Ivan Ilyich and Pozdnyshiev. Here belief in

-miracles, belief in the abstract, divorced from life, avails nothing.

-For belief's sake one must surrender all that is dearest--even a

-son--to the sacrifice. Who is He that spake as one having authority?

-We cannot now verify whether He did in truth raise Lazarus from the

-dead, or satisfy thousands with a few handfuls of loaves. But if we

-unhesitatingly perform His precepts, then we may discover whether He

-has given us the truth.... So it was with Tolstoi; and he turned to

-the Gospel which is the sole and original source of Christianity.

-But Dostoevsky turned to the Slavophiles and the teachings of their

-state-religion. Orthodoxy infallible, not Catholicism nor Protestantism

-nor even simple Christianity; and then, the original idea: _Russland,

-Russland über alles._ Tolstoi could prophesy nothing in history, but

-then, as if deliberately, he does not interfere with the historical

-life. For him our present reality does not exist: he concentrates

-himself wholly upon the riddle which God set Abraham. But Dostoevsky

-desired at all costs to prophesy, prophesied constantly and was

-constantly mistaken. We have not taken Constantinople, we have not

-united the Slavs, and even the Tartars still live in the Crimea. He

-terrified us by prophesying that Europe would be drenched in rivers

-of blood because of the warfare between the classes, while in Russia,

-thanks to our Russian ideal of universal humanity, not only would our

-internal problems be peacefully solved, but a new unheard-of word would

-still be found whereby we should save hapless Europe. A quarter of

-a century has passed. So far nothing has happened in Europe. But we

-are drowning ourselves, literally drowning ourselves, with blood. Not

-only is our alien population oppressed, Slav and non-Slav alike, but

-our own brother is tortured, the miserable starving Russian peasant

-who understands nothing at all. In Moscow, in the heart of Russia,

-women, children, and old men have been shot down. Where now is the

-Russian universal soul of which Dostoevsky prophesied in his speech on

-Pushkin? Where is love, where are the Christian precepts? We see only

-'Governmentalism,' over which the Western nations also fought; but they

-fought with means less cruel and less hostile to civilisation. Russia

-will again have to learn from the West as she had to learn more than

-once before. And Dostoevsky would have done far better had he never

-attempted to prophesy.

-

-But there is no great harm done even if he did prophesy. I am glad

-with all my heart even now that he rested a little while from the

-galleys at the end of his life. I am deeply convinced that even had he

-remained in the underworld until the day of his death, yet he would

-have found no solution of the questions which tormented him. However

-much energy of soul a man puts into his work, he will still remain 'on

-the eve' of truth, and will not find the solution he desires. That is

-the law of human kind. And Dostoevsky's preaching has done no harm.

-Those listened to him who, even without his voice, would have marched

-on Constantinople, oppressed the Poles, and made ready the sufferings

-which are necessary to the soul of the peasant. Though Dostoevsky gave

-them his sanction, on the whole he adds nothing to them. They had no

-need of literary sanction, quite correctly judging that in practical

-matters not the printed page, but bayonets and artillery are of

-deciding value.

-

-All that he had to tell, Dostoevsky told us in his novels, which even

-now, twenty-five years after his death, attract all those who would

-wrest from life her secrets. And the title of prophet, which he sought

-so diligently, considering that it was his by right, did not suit him

-at all. Prophets are Bismarcks, but they are Chancellors too. The

-first in the village is the first in Rome.... Is a Dostoevsky doomed

-eternally to be 'on the eve'? Let us once more try to reject logic,

-this time perhaps not logic alone, and say: 'So let it be.'

-

-

-[Footnote 3: _War and Christianity,_ by Vladimir Soloviev.]

-

-

-

-

-PENULTIMATE WORDS

-

-

-

-I

-

-_De omnibus dubitandum_

-

-

-There are but few orthodox Hegelians left among philosophers nowadays,

-yet Hegel is still supreme over the minds of our contemporaries. It

-may even be that certain of his ideas have taken deeper root nowadays

-than when Hegelianism was in full bloom: for instance, the conception

-that history is the unfolding of the idea in reality, or, to put it

-more briefly and in terms more familiar to the modern mind--the idea of

-progress. Try to convince an educated person of the contrary: you are

-sure to be worsted. But, _de omnibus dubitandum,_ which means in other

-words, that doubt is called upon to fulfil its mission above all in

-those cases where a conviction is particularly strong and unshakable.

-Therefore one must admit, whether he will or no, that progress so

-called--the development of mankind in time--is a fiction.

-

-We have wireless telegraphy, radium and the rest, yet we stand no

-higher than the Romans or the Greeks of old. You admit this? Then,

-one step further: although we have wireless telegraphy and all the

-other blessings of civilisation, still we stand no higher than red-or

-black-skinned savages. You protest: but the principle compels. You

-began to doubt: then what is the use of drawing back?

-

-For myself, I must confess that the idea of the spiritual perfection

-of savages entered my mind but lately, when, for the first time for

-many years, I looked through the works of Tylor, Lubbock and Spencer.

-They speak with such certainty of the advantages of our spiritual

-organisation, and have such sincere contempt for the moral misery

-of the savage, that in spite of myself stole in the thought: Is it

-not exactly here, where all are so certain that no one ever examines

-the question, that the source of error is to be found? High time to

-recall Descartes and his rule! And as soon as I began to doubt, all my

-former certainty--of course I fully shared the opinion of the English

-anthropologists--disappeared in a moment.... It began to appear that

-the savage indeed is higher and more important than our savants,

-and not our materialists only, as Professor Paulsen thinks, but our

-idealists, metaphysicians, mystics, and even our convinced missionaries

-(sincere believers, not the profit-mongering sort), whom Europe sends

-forth into the world to enlighten the backward brethren. It seemed to

-me that the credit transactions common among savages, with a promise

-to pay in the world beyond the grave, have a deep meaning. And human

-sacrifices! In them Spencer sees a barbarity, as an educated European

-should. I also see in them barbarity, because I also am a European

-and have a scientific education. But I deeply envy their barbarity,

-and curse the cultivation which has herded me together with believing

-missionaries, idealist, materialist, and positivist philosophers, into

-the narrow fold of the sultry and disgusting apprehensible world. We

-may write books to prove the immortality of the soul, but our wives

-won't follow us to the other world: they will prefer to endure the

-widow's lot here on the earth. Our morality, based on religion, forbids

-us to hurry into eternity. And so in everything. We are guessing, at

-the best we are sicklied with dreams, but our life passes outside

-our guesses and our dreams. One man still accepts the rites of the

-Church, however strange they may be, and seriously imagines that he

-is brought into contact with other worlds. Beyond the rites no step

-is taken. Kant died when he was eighty; had it not been for cholera,

-Hegel would have lived a hundred years; while the savages--the young

-ones kill the old and ... I dare not complete the sentence for fear of

-offending sensitive ears. Again I recall Descartes and his rule: who

-is right, the savages or we? And if the savages are right, can history

-be the unfolding of the idea? And is not the conception of progress

-in time (that is the development from the past to the present and

-to the future) the purest error? Perhaps, and most probably, there

-is development, but the direction of this development is in a line

-perpendicular to the line of time. The base of the perpendicular may be

-any human personality. May God and the reader forgive one the obscurity

-of the last words. I hope the clarity of the foregoing exposition will

-to some extent atone for it.

-

-

-

-II

-

-_Self-renunciation and Megalomania_

-

-

-We are obliged to think that nothing certain can be said either of

-self-renunciation or of megalomania, though each one of us in his own

-experience knows something of the former as well as of the latter. But

-it is well known that the impossibility of solving a question never yet

-kept people from reflecting. On the contrary: to us the most alluring

-questions are those to which there is no actual, no universally valid,

-answer. I hope that sooner or later, philosophy will be thus defined,

-in contrast to science:--philosophy is the teaching of truths which

-are binding on none. Thereby the accusation so often made against

-philosophy will be removed, that philosophy properly consists of a

-series of mutually exclusive opinions. This is true, but she must be

-praised for it, not blamed: there is nothing bad in it, but good, a

-very great deal of good. On the other hand, it is bad, extremely bad,

-that science should consist of truths universally binding. For every

-obligation is a constraint. Temporarily, one can submit to a restraint,

-put on a corset, fetters; one can agree to anything temporarily. Rut

-who will voluntarily admit the mastery over himself of an eternal law?

-Even from the quiet and clear Spinoza I sometimes hear a deep sigh, and

-I think that he is longing for freedom--he who wasted all his life,

-all his genius in the glorification of necessity.... With such an

-introduction one may say what he pleases.

-

-It seems to me that self-renunciation and megalomania, however little

-they resemble one another apparently, may be observed successively,

-even simultaneously, in one and the same person. The ascetic, who

-has denied life and humbles himself before everybody, and the madman

-(like Nietzsche or Dostoevsky), who affirms that he is the light, the

-salt of the earth, the first in the whole world or even in the whole

-universe--both reach their madness--I hope there is no necessity to

-demonstrate that self-renunciation as well as megalomania is a kind of

-madness--under conditions for the most part identical. The world does

-not satisfy the man and he begins to seek for a better. All serious

-seeking brings a man to lonely paths, and lonely paths, it is well

-known, end in a great wall which sets a fatal bound to man's curiosity.

-Then arises the question, how shall a man pass beyond the wall, by

-overcoming either the law of impenetrability or the equally invincible

-law of gravity, in other words, how shall a man become infinitely small

-or infinitely great? The first way is that of self-renunciation: I want

-nothing, I myself am nothing, I am infinitely small, and therefore I

-can pass through the infinitely small pores of the wall.

-

-The other way is megalomania. I am infinitely strong, infinitely

-great, I can do all things, I can shatter the wall, I can step over

-it, though it be higher than all the mountains of the earth and though

-it has hitherto dismayed the strongest and the bravest. This is

-probably the origin of the two most mysterious and mighty spiritual

-transformations. There is no single religion upon which are not more or

-less clearly impressed the traces of these methods of man's struggle

-with the poverty of his powers. In ascetic religions the tendency to

-self-renunciation predominates: Buddhism glorifies the suppression

-of the individual and has for its ideal Nirvana. The Greeks dreamed

-of Titans and heroes. The Jews consider themselves the chosen people

-and await the Messiah. As for the Gospel, it is hard to say to which

-method of struggle it gives the preference. On the one hand are the

-great miracles, the raising from the dead, the healing of the sick, the

-power over the winds and the sea; on the other: 'Blessed are the poor

-in spirit.' The Son of God who will sit on the right hand of power now

-lives in the company of publicans, beggars, and harlots, and serves

-them. 'Who is not for us, is against us'; the promise to thrust down

-his enemies into the fiery hell; eternal torment for blasphemy against

-the Holy Spirit, and equal with these the exhortation to the extreme

-of humility and love to the enemy: 'Turn to him the other cheek also.'

-Throughout, the Gospel is permeated with contradictions, which are

-not extraneous and historical, concerned with facts, but intrinsic,

-contradictions of mood, of 'ideals,' as the modern man would say.

-What is in one chapter praised as the noblest task is in the next

-degraded to an unworthy labour. It is in no way strange that the most

-opposite teachings should find justification in this little book,

-which is half composed of repetitions. The Inquisitors, the Jesuits,

-and the old ascetics called themselves. Christians; so do the modern

-Protestants and our Russian sectaries. To a greater or less degree

-they all are right, even the Protestants. Such contradictory elements

-are intertwined in the Gospel, that men, above all those who travel

-the high road, who can move in one direction only, and under one

-conspicuous flag, who have become accustomed to believe in the unity

-of reason and the infallibility of logical laws, could never fully

-grasp the teaching of the Gospel, and always aspired to give to the

-words and deeds of Christ a uniform explanation which should exclude

-contradictions, and more or less correspond to the common conceptions

-of the work and problems of life. They read in the mysterious book,

-'Have faith and thou shalt say to this mountain: be thou removed,' and

-understood it to mean that always, every hour and every minute, one

-must think and desire the self-same thing, prescribed beforehand and

-fully denned; whereas in these words the Gospel allows and commends the

-maddest and most perilous experiments. That which is, did not exist for

-Christ; and only that existed, which is not.

-

-The old Roman, Pilate, who was apparently an educated man, clever and

-not bad at heart, though weak in character, could neither understand

-nor elucidate the cause of the strange struggle which took place

-before him. With his whole heart he pitied the pale Jew before him,

-who was guilty of nothing. 'What is truth?' he asked Christ. Christ

-did not answer him, nor could He answer, not through ignorance, as

-the heathen desired to believe, but because that question cannot be

-answered in words. It would have been necessary to take Pilate's head,

-and turn it towards the other side, in order that he might see what

-he had never seen before. Or, still better; to have used the method

-to which the hunch-backed pony turns in the fairy tale, in order to

-change sleepy Ivanushka into a wizard and a beauty: first, to plunge

-him into a cauldron of boiling milk, then into another of boiling

-water, then a third of ice-cold water. There is every reason to suppose

-that with this preliminary preparation Pilate would have begun to

-act differently, and I think the hunch-backed pony would agree that

-self-renunciation and megalomania would be a fair substitute for the

-cauldrons of the tale.

-

-Great privations and great illusions so change the nature of man

-that things which seemed before impossible, become possible, and the

-unattainable, attainable.

-

-

-

-III

-

-_Eternal Truths_

-

-

-In the _Memorabilia_ Xenophon tells of the meeting of Socrates with

-the famous sophist Hippias. When Hippias came to Socrates, the latter

-as usual held forth, and as usual asked why it is that men who wish to

-learn carpentry or smith's work know to whom they should apply, but if

-they desire to learn virtue, cannot possibly find a teacher. Hippias,

-who had heard these opinions of Socrates many times before, remarked

-ironically: 'So you're still saying the same old things, that I heard

-from you years ago!' Socrates understood and accepted the challenge, as

-he always accepted challenges of this kind. A dispute began, by which

-it was demonstrated (as usual in Plato and Xenophon) that Socrates was

-a stronger dialectician than his opponent. He succeeded in showing that

-his conception of justice was based on the same firm foundation as all

-his other conceptions, and that convictions once formed, if they are

-true, are as little liable to the action of time as noble metals to

-rust.

-

-Socrates lived seventy years. He was once a youth, once a man, once

-a greybeard. But what if he had lived a hundred and forty years,

-experienced once again all the three seasons of life, and had again met

-Hippias? Or, better still, if the soul, as Socrates taught, is immortal

-and Socrates now lives somewhere in the moon or Sirius, or in any other

-place predestined for immortal souls, does he really go on plaguing his

-companions with discourses on justice, carpenters, and smiths? And does

-he still emerge victorious as of old from the dispute with Hippias and

-other persons who dare to affirm that everything (human convictions

-included) may be, and ought to be, subject to the laws of time, and

-that mankind not only loses nothing, but gains much by such subjection?

-

-

-

-IV

-

-_Earth and Heaven_

-

-

-The word justice is on all men's lips. But do men indeed so highly

-prize justice as one would think, who believed all that has been

-said and is still being said concerning it? More than this, is it so

-highly appreciated by its sworn advocates and panegyrists--poets,

-philosophers, moralists, theologians--even by the best of them, the

-most sincere and gifted? I doubt it, I doubt it deeply. Glance at the

-works of any wise man, whether of the modern or the ancient world.

-Justice, if we understand it as the equality of all living men before

-the laws of creation--and how else can we understand it?--never

-occupied any one's attention. Plato never once asked Destiny why she

-created Thersites contemptible and Patroclus noble. Plato argues that

-men should be just, but never once dares to arraign the gods for their

-injustice. If we listen to his discourses, a suspicion will steal into

-our souls that justice is a virtue for mortals, while the immortals

-have virtues of their own which have nothing in common with justice.

-And here is the last trial of earthly virtue. We do not know whether

-the human soul is mortal or immortal. Some, we know, believe in

-immortality, others laugh at the belief. If it were proved that they

-were both in the wrong, and that men's destinies after death are as

-unequal as they are in life: the successful, the chosen take up their

-abode in heaven, the others remain to rot in the grave and perish with

-their mortal clay. (It is true that such an admission is made by our

-Russian prophet, the priest of love and justice, Dostoevsky, in his

-_Legend of the Grand Inquisitor._) Now, if it should turn out that

-Dostoevsky is really immortal, while his innumerable disciples and

-admirers, the huge mass of grey humanity which is spoken of in _The

-Grand Inquisitor,_ end their lives in death as they began them with

-birth, would Dostoevsky himself (whom I have named deliberately as

-the most passionate defender of the ideal of justice, though there

-have been yet more fervent and passionate and remarkable defenders of

-justice on earth whom I ought perhaps to name, were it not that I would

-avoid speaking lightly of sacred things--let him who finds Dostoevsky

-small, himself choose another)--would Dostoevsky reconcile himself to

-such an injustice, would he rise in revolt beyond the grave against the

-injustice, or would he forget his poor brethren when he occupied the

-place prepared for him? It is hard to judge _a priori: a posteriori_

-one would imagine that he would forget.

-

-And between Dostoevsky and a small provincial author the gulf is

-colossal; the injustice of the inequality cries out to heaven.

-Nevertheless we take no heed, we live on and do not cry, or if we

-do, we cry very rarely, and then, to tell the truth, it is hard to

-say certainly why we cry. Is it because we would draw the attention

-of the indifferent heaven, or is it because there are many amateurs

-of lamentation among our neighbours, like the pilgrim woman in

-Ostrovsky's _Storm,_ who passionately loved to hear a good howl? All

-these considerations will seem particularly important to those who,

-like myself at the present moment--I cannot speak for to-morrow--share

-Dostoevsky's notion that even if there is immortality, then it is

-certainly not for everybody but for the few. Moreover, I follow

-Dostoevsky further and admit that they alone will rise from the dead

-who on the existing hypotheses should expect the worse fate after

-death. The first here will be the first still, there, while of the last

-not even a memory will remain. And no one will be found to champion

-those who have perished: a Dostoevsky, a Tolstoi, and all the other

-'first' who succeed in entering heaven will be engaged in business

-incomparably more important.

-

-So continue, if you will, to take thought for the just arrangement of

-the world, and, after the fashion of Plato, to make the teaching of

-justice the foundation of philosophy.

-

-

-

-V

-

-_The Force of Argument_

-

-

-Schopenhauer answered the question of the immortality of the soul in

-the negative. In his opinion, man as Thing-in-Himself is immortal, but

-as phenomenon mortal. In other words, all that is individual in us

-exists only in the interval between birth and death; but since each

-individual according to Schopenhauer's teaching is a manifestation of

-'Will' or 'Thing-in-Itself,' the unalterable and eternal principle

-which is the only reality of the world, continually made object in the

-manifold of phenomena, then, in so far as this principle is displayed

-in man, he is eternal. This is Schopenhauer's opinion, evidently

-derived as a logical conclusion from his general philosophic doctrine,

-both from that relating to the Thing-in-Itself, and from that which

-relates to the individual. The first part shall go unregarded: after

-all, if Schopenhauer was mistaken, and the Thing-in-Itself is mortal,

-we need not weep over it, nor is there any cause to rejoice over its

-immortality. But here is the individual. He is deprived of his right to

-immortality, and for reason is alleged an argument which is at first

-sight irrefutable. Everything which has a beginning has an end also,

-says Schopenhauer. The individual has a beginning, birth; therefore an

-end, death, awaits him. To Schopenhauer himself the general proposition

-as well as the conclusion seemed so obvious, that he did not admit

-the possibility of mistake even for a moment. But this time we have

-an incontestable case of a wrong conclusion from a wrong premiss.

-First, why must everything which has a beginning also have an end? The

-observations of experience point to such an hypothesis; but are the

-observations of experience really strong enough to support general

-propositions? And are we really entitled to make use of propositions

-so acquired as first principles for the solution of the most important

-problems of philosophy? And even if we admit that the premiss is

-correct, nevertheless the conclusion at which Schopenhauer arrived is

-wrongly drawn. It may indeed be that everything which has a beginning

-also has an end; it may indeed be that the individual is sooner or

-later doomed to perish; but why identify the moment of the soul's

-destruction with the death of the body? It may be that the body will

-die, but the soul which the same fate attends at some future time will

-find for itself a more or less suitable integument somewhere in a

-distant planet, perhaps still unknown to us, and live on, though only

-for a little while and not for all eternity, as the extreme optimists

-believe. How important would it be for poor humanity to retain even

-such a hope: particularly seeing that we can hardly say with certainty

-what it is that men desire when they speak of the immortality of the

-soul. Is it that they merely desire at all costs to live eternally, or

-would they be satisfied with one or two lives more, especially if the

-subsequent lives should appear to be less offensively insignificant

-than this earthly existence, wherein even the lowest rank of nobility

-is to many an unattainable ideal? It seems to me that it is not every

-one who would consent to live eternally. And what if every possibility

-should have been exhausted, and endless repetition should begin?

-

-It does not of course follow from this that we have the right to

-reckon upon an existence beyond the grave. The question remains open

-as before, even when Schopenhauer's arguments have been refuted. But

-it does follow that the best arguments on closer consideration often

-appear worthless. _Quod erat demonstrandum--_ naturally pending the

-discovery of arguments to refute my refutation of Schopenhauer's. I

-make this reserve to deprive my critics of the pleasure and possibility

-of a little wordplay.

-

-

-

-VI

-

-_Swan Songs_

-

-

-It cannot be doubted that _When We Dead Awake_ is one of the most

-autobiographical of Ibsen's plays. Nearly all his dramas reveal

-striking traces of his personal experience; their most valuable

-quality, even, is the possibility of following out in them the

-history of the author's inward struggle. But there is a particular

-significance in _When We Dead Awake,_ which comes from the fact that

-it was conceived and written by the author in his old age. Those who

-are interested in overhearing what is said and watching what is done

-on the outskirts of life set an extraordinary value on the opportunity

-of communing with very old men, with the dying, and generally with

-men who are placed in exceptional conditions, above all when they are

-not afraid to speak the truth, and have by past experience developed

-in themselves the art and the courage--the former is as necessary as

-the latter--to look straight into the eyes of reality. To such men

-Ibsen seems even more interesting than Tolstoi. Tolstoi indeed has not

-yet betrayed his gift; but he is primarily a moralist. Now, as in his

-youth, power over men is the dearest thing of all to him, and more

-fascinating than all the other blessings of the world. He still gives

-orders, makes demands, and desires at all costs to be obeyed. One may,

-and one ought, to consider this peculiarity of Tolstoi's nature with

-attention and respect. Not Tolstoi alone, but many a regal hermit of

-thought has to the end of his life demanded the unconditional surrender

-of mankind. On the day of his death, an hour before end, Socrates

-taught that there was only one truth and that the one which he had

-discovered. Plato in his extreme old age journeyed to Syracuse to plant

-the seeds of wisdom there. It is probable that such stubbornness in

-great men has its explanation and its deep meaning.

-

-Tolstoi, and also Socrates and Plato, and the Jewish prophets, who

-in this respect and in many others were very like the teachers of

-wisdom, probably had to concentrate their powers wholly upon one

-gigantic inward task, the condition of its successful performance

-being the illusion that the whole world, the whole universe, works

-in concert and unison with them. In Tolstoi's case I have elsewhere

-shown that he finds himself at present on the brink of Solipsism in

-his conception of the world. Tolstoi and the whole world are to him

-synonymous. Without such a temporary delusion of his whole being--it

-is not an intellectual delusion, of the head, for the head knows well

-that the world is by itself, and Tolstoi by himself--he would have to

-give up his most important work. So it is with us, who know since

-Copernicus that the earth moves round the sun, that the stars are not

-clear, bright, golden rings, but huge lumps of various composition,

-that there is not a firm blue vault overhead. We know these things:

-nevertheless we cannot and do not want to be so blind as not to take

-delight in the lie of the optical illusions of the visible world. Truth

-so-called has but a limited value. Nor does the sacrifice of Galileo

-by any means refute my words. _E pur si muove,_ if ever he uttered the

-phrase, might not have referred to the movement of the earth, though

-it was spoken of the earth. Galileo did not wish to betray the work of

-his life. Who will, however, stand surety to us that not only Galileo

-is capable of such sacrifice, but his pupil also, even the most devoted

-and courageous, who has gained the new truth not by his own struggle

-but from the lips of his master. Peter in one night thrice denied

-Christ. Probably we could not find a single man in all the world who

-would consent to die to demonstrate and defend the idea of Galileo.

-Evidently great men are very little inclined to initiate the outsider

-into the secret of their great deeds. Evidently they cannot themselves

-always give a clear account of the character and meaning of the tasks

-which they set themselves. Socrates himself, who all his life long so

-stubbornly sought clarity and invented dialectics for the purpose, and

-introduced into general use definitions designed to fix the flowing

-reality; Socrates, who spent thirty days without interruption in

-persuading his pupils that he was dying for the sake of truth and

-justice; Socrates himself, I say, perhaps, most probably even, knew as

-little why he was dying as do simple people who die a natural death, or

-as babes born into the world know by what beneficent or hostile power

-they have been summoned from nonentity into being. Such is our life:

-wise men and fools, old men and children march at random to goals which

-have not yet been revealed by any books, whether worldly or spiritual,

-common or sacred. It is by no means with the desire to bring dogmatism

-into contempt that I recall these considerations. I have always been

-convinced, and am still certain, that dogmatists feel no shame, and

-are by no means to be driven out of life; besides, I have lately come

-to the conclusion that the dogmatists are perfectly justified in their

-stubbornness. Belief, and the need of belief, are strong as love, as

-death. In the case of every dogmatist I now consider it my sacred

-duty to concede everything in advance, even to the acknowledgment

-of the least, and least significant, shades of his convictions and

-beliefs. There is but one limitation, one only, imperceptible and

-almost invisible: the dogmatist's convictions must not be absolutely

-and universally binding, that is, not binding upon the whole of

-mankind without exception. The majority, the vast majority, millions,

-even tens of millions of people, I will readily allow him, on the

-understanding that they themselves desire it, or that he will show

-himself skilful enough to entice them to his side--violence is surely

-not to be admitted in matters of belief. In a word, I allow him almost

-the whole of humankind, in consideration whereof he must agree that

-his convictions are not intrinsically binding upon the few units or

-tens that remain. I agree to an outward submission. And the dogmatist,

-after such a victory--my confession is surely a complete victory for

-him--must consider himself satisfied in full.

-

-Socrates was right, Plato, Tolstoi, the prophets were right: there is

-only one truth, one God; truth has the right to destroy lie, light

-to destroy darkness. God, omniscient, most gracious and omnipotent,

-will like Alexander of Macedon conquer nearly all the known world, and

-will drive out from his possessions, amid the triumphant and delighted

-shouts of his millions of loyal subjects, the devil and all those who

-are disobedient to his divine word. But he will renounce his claim to

-power over the souls of his few opponents, according to the agreement,

-and a handful of apostates will gather together on a remote isle,

-invisible to the millions, and will there continue their free, peculiar

-life. And here--to return to the beginning--among these few disobedient

-will be found Ibsen as he was in the last years of his life, as he is

-seen in his last drama. For in _When We Dead Awake_ Ibsen approves and

-glorifies that which Gogol actually did fifty years ago. He renounces

-his art, and with hatred and mockery recalls to mind what was once

-the business of his life. On April 15, 1866, Ibsen wrote to King Karl:

-'I am not fighting for a careless existence; I am fighting for the

-work of my life, in which I unflinchingly believe, and which I know

-God has given me to do.' By the way, you will hardly find one of the

-great workers who has not repeated this assertion of Ibsen's, whether

-in the same or in another form. Evidently, without such an illusion,

-temporary or permanent, one cannot compass the intense struggle and the

-sacrifices which are the price of great work. Evidently, illusions of

-various kinds are necessary even for success in small things. In order

-that a little man should fulfil his microscopical work, he too must

-strain his little forces to the extreme. And who knows whether it did

-not seem to Akaky Akakievitch that God had assigned to him the task

-of copying the papers in the office and having a new uniform made? Of

-course he would never dare to say so, and he would never be able to,

-first because of his timidity, and then because he has not the gift of

-expression. The Muses do not bring their tribute to the poor and weak:

-they sing only Croesus and Caesar. But there is no doubt that the first

-in the village consider themselves as plainly designated by fate as the

-first in Rome. Caesar felt this, and not mere ambition alone spoke in

-him when he uttered the famous phrase. Men do not believe in themselves

-and always yearn to occupy a position wherein the certainty, whether

-justified or mistaken, may spring up within them that they stand in the

-sight of God. But with years all illusions vanish, and among them the

-illusion that God chooses certain men for his particular purposes and

-puts on them particular charges. Gogol, who had thus long understood

-his task as an author, burnt his best work before his death. Ibsen did

-almost the same. In the person of Professor Rubek he renounces his

-literary activity and jeers at it, though it had brought him everything

-that he could have expected from it, fame, respect, riches.... And

-think why! Because he had to sacrifice the man in him for the sake of

-the artist, to give up Irene whom he loved, to marry a woman to whom he

-was indifferent. Did Ibsen at the end of his life clearly discover that

-God had appointed him the task of being a male? But all men are males,

-while only individuals are artists. Had this been said, not by Ibsen,

-but by a common mortal, we would call it the greatest vulgarity. On

-the lips of Ibsen, an old man of seventy years, the author of _Brand,_

-from which the divines of Europe draw the matter for their sermons, on

-the lips of Ibsen who wrote _Emperor and Galilean_ such a confession

-acquires an unexpected and mysterious meaning. Here you cannot escape

-with a shake of the head and a contemptuous smile. Not anybody, but

-Ibsen himself speaks--the first, not in the village, not in Rome even,

-but in the world. Here surely is the human law at work: 'Forswear not

-the prison nor the beggar's wallet!'

-

-Perhaps it is opportune to recall the swan songs of Turgeniev.

-Turgeniev, too, had high ideals which he probably thought he had

-received direct from God. We may with assurance put into the mouth

-of Brand himself the phrase with which his remarkable essay, _Hamlet

-and Don Quixote,_ concludes: 'Everything passes, good deeds remain.'

-In these words is the whole Turgeniev, or better, the whole conscious

-Turgeniev of that period of his life to which the essay belongs. And

-not only in that period, but up to the last minutes of his life, the

-conscious Turgeniev would not recant those words. But in the _Prose

-Poems_ an utterly different motive is heard. All that he there relates,

-and all that Ibsen tells in his last drama, is permeated with one

-infinite, inextinguishable anguish for a life wasted in vain, for a

-life which had been spent in preaching 'good.' Yet neither youth, nor

-health, nor the powers that fail are regretted. Perhaps even death has

-no terrors.... What the old Turgeniev cannot away with are his memories

-of 'the Russian girl.' He described and sang her as no one in Russian

-literature before him, but she was to him only an ideal; he, like

-Rubek, had not touched her. Ibsen had not touched Irene; he went off

-to Madame Viardo. And this is an awful sin, in no wise to be atoned,

-a mortal sin, the sin of which the Bible speaks. All things will be

-forgiven, all things pass, all things will be forgotten: this crime

-will remain for ever. That is the meaning of Turgeniev's _senilia_;

-that is the meaning of Ibsen's _senilia._ I have deliberately chosen

-the word _senilia,_ though I might have said swan songs, though it

-would even have been more correct to speak of swan songs. 'Swans,' says

-Plato, 'when they feel the approach of death, sing that day better

-than ever, rejoicing that they will find God, whom they serve.' Ibsen

-and Turgeniev served the same God as the swans, according to the Greek

-belief, the bright God of songs, Apollo. And their last songs, their

-_senilia,_ were better than all that had gone before. In them is a

-bottomless depth awful to the eye, but how wonderful! There all things

-are different from what they are with us on the surface. Should one

-hearken to the temptation and go to the call of the great old men,

-or should he tie himself to the mast of conviction, verified by the

-experience of mankind, and cover his ears as once the crafty Ulysses

-did to save himself from the Syrens? There is a way of escape: there

-is a word which will destroy the enchantment. I have already uttered

-it: _senilia._ Turgeniev wished to call his _Prose Poems_ by this

-name--manifestations of sickness, of infirmity, of old age. These are

-terrible; one must run away from these! Schopenhauer, the philosopher

-and metaphysician, feared to revise the works of his youth in his old

-age. He felt that he would spoil them by his mere touch. And all men

-mistrust old age, all share Schopenhauer's apprehensions. But what if

-all are mistaken? What if _senilia_ bring us nearer to the truth?

-Perhaps the soothsaying birds of Apollo grieve in unearthly anguish

-for another existence; perhaps their fear is not of death but of life;

-perhaps in Turgeniev's poems, as well as in Ibsen's last drama, are

-already heard, if not the last, then at least the penultimate words of

-mankind.

-

-

-

-VII

-

-_What is Philosophy?_

-

-

-In text-books of philosophy you will find most diverse answers to this

-question. During the twenty-five hundred years of its existence it

-has been able to make an immense quantity of attempts to define the

-substance of its task. But up till now no agreement has been reached

-between the acknowledged representatives of the lovers and favourites

-of wisdom. Every one judges in his own way, and considers his opinion

-as the only true one; of a _consensus sapientium_ it is impossible

-even to dream. But strangely enough, exactly in this disputable matter

-wherein the agreement of savants and sages is so impossible, the

-_consensus profanorum_ is fully attained. All those who were never

-engaged in philosophy, who have never read learned books, or even any

-books at all, answer the question with rare unanimity. True, it is

-apparently impossible to judge of their opinions directly, because

-people of this kind cannot speak at all in the language evolved by

-science; they never put the question in such a form, still less can

-they answer it in the accepted words. But we have an important piece of

-indirect evidence which gives us the right to form a conclusion. There

-is no doubt that all those who have gone to philosophy for answers

-to the questions which tormented them, have left her disenchanted,

-unless they had a sufficiently eminent gift to enable them to join the

-guild of professional philosophers. From this we may unhesitatingly

-conclude, although the conclusion is for the time being only negative,

-that philosophy is engaged in a business which may be interesting and

-important to the few, but is tedious and useless to the many.

-

-This conclusion is highly consoling as well for the sage as for the

-profane. For every sage, even the most exalted, is at the same time

-one of the profane--if we discard the academical use of words--a

-human being, pure and simple. To him also it may happen that those

-tormenting questions will arise, which ordinary people used to bring

-to him, as for instance in the case of Tolstoi's Ivan Ilyich or

-Tchekhov's professor in _The Tedious Story._ And then he will of course

-be obliged to confess that the necessary answers are missing from

-the great tomes which he has studied so well. For what can be more

-terrible to a man than to be compelled in the hard moments of his life

-to acknowledge any doctrine of philosophy as binding upon him? For

-instance, to be compelled to hold with Plato, Spinoza, or Schopenhauer

-that the chief problem of life is moral perfection, or in other words,

-self-renunciation. It was easy for Plato to preach justice. It did

-not in the least prevent him from being the son of his time, or from

-breaking to a permissible extent the commandments which he himself

-had given. By all the evidence Spinoza was much more resolute and

-consequent than Plato; he indeed kept the passions in subservience, but

-that was his personal and individual inclination. Consistence was not

-merely a property of his mind, but of his whole being. Displaying it,

-he displayed himself. As for Schopenhauer, it is known that he praised

-the virtues only in his books; but in life, like many another clever,

-independent man, he was guided by the most diverse considerations.

-

-But these are all masters, who devise systems and imperatives. Whereas

-the pupil, seeking in philosophy an answer to his questions, cannot

-permit himself any liberties and digressions from the universal rules,

-for the essence and the fundamental problem of any doctrine reduces to

-the subordination not merely of men's conduct, but of the life of the

-whole universe to one regulating principle. Individual philosophers

-have discovered such principles, but to this day they have reached no

-final agreement among themselves, and this to some extent lightens the

-burden of those unhappy ones who, having lost the hope of finding help

-and guidance elsewhere, have turned to philosophy. If there is not

-in philosophy one universal principle binding upon and acknowledged

-by all, it means that it is permitted to each man, at least for the

-meantime, to feel and even to act in his own way. A man may listen

-to Spinoza, or he may stop his ears. He may kneel before Plato's

-eternal ideas, or he may give his allegiance to the ever-changing,

-ever-flowing reality. Finally, he may accept Schopenhauer's pessimism,

-but nothing on earth can compel him to celibacy on the ground that

-Schopenhauer successfully laughed at love. Nor is there any necessity

-at all, in order to win such freedom for one's self, to be armed

-with the light dialectic of the old Greek philosopher, or with the

-heavy logic of the poor Dutch Jew, or with the subtle wit of the

-profound German. Neither is it necessary to dispute them. It is even

-possible to agree with them all. The room of the world is infinite,

-and will not only contain all those who lived once and those who are

-yet to be born, but will give to each one of them all that he can

-desire: to Plato, the world of ideas, to Spinoza, the one eternal and

-unchangeable substance, to Schopenhauer, the Nirvana of Buddhism. Each

-of these, and all the other philosophers, will find what they want in

-the universe even to the belief, even to the conviction, that theirs

-are the only true and universal doctrines. But, at the same time,

-the profane will find suitable worlds for themselves. From the fact

-that people are cooped up on the earth, and that they must put forth

-efforts beyond belief to gain each cubit of earth, and even their

-illusory liberties, it by no means follows that poverty, obscurantism,

-and despotism must be considered eternal and original principles, and

-that economical uniformity is the last refuge of man. A plurality of

-worlds, a plurality of men and gods amid the vast spaces of the vast

-universe--this is, if I may be forgiven the word, an ideal. It is true

-it is not built according to the idealists. Yet what a conclusion does

-it foreshadow! We leave the disputes and arguments of philosophers

-aside, so soon as we begin to speak of gods. According to the existing

-beliefs and hypotheses the gods also have always been quarrelling

-and fighting among themselves. Even in monotheistic religions people

-always made their God enter a fight, and devised an eminent opponent

-for him--the devil. Men can by no means rid themselves of the thought

-that everything in heaven goes on in exactly the same way as it does

-on the earth, and they attribute all their own bad qualities as well

-as their good ones to the denizens of heaven. Whereas it is by far the

-most probable that a great many of the things which are, according to

-our notions, perfectly inseparable from life do not exist in heaven.

-Among other things, there is no struggle. And this is well. For every

-struggle, sooner or later, develops inevitably into a fight. When

-the supply of logical and ethical arguments is exhausted, one thing

-is left for the irreconcilable opponents--to come to blows, which do

-in fact usually decide the issue. The value of logical and ethical

-arguments is arbitrarily assigned, but material force is measured by

-foot-pounds and can be calculated in advance. So that where on the

-common supposition there will be no foot-pounds, the issue of the

-fight will very often remain undecided. When Lermontov's demon goes

-to Tamara's cell, an angel meets him on the way. The demon says that

-Tamara belongs to him; the angel demands her for himself. The demon

-will not be dissuaded by words and arguments: he is not built that way.

-As for the angel, he always considers himself doubly right. How can the

-issue be decided? At last Lermontov, who could not or dared not devise

-a new solution, admitted the interference of material force: Tamara

-is dragged away from the demon exactly as the stronger robber pulls

-his prey from the weaker on earth. Evidently the poet admitted that

-conclusion, that he might pay his tribute to the piety of tradition.

-But in my opinion the solution is not pious, but merely blasphemous.

-In it the traces of barbarity and idolatry are still clearly visible.

-The tastes and attributes of which earthly despots dream are attributed

-to God. By all means he must be, he desires to be, the strongest, the

-very first, just like Julius Caesar in his youth. He fears rivalry

-above all things, and never forgives his unconquered enemies. This is

-evidently a barbarous mistake. God does not want to be the strongest,

-the very first, at all. Certainly--for that would be intelligible and

-in accordance with common sense--he would not like to be weaker than

-others, in order that he might not be exposed to violence; but there

-is no foundation at all for attributing to him ambition or vainglory.

-Therefore there is equally no reason to think that he does not suffer

-equals, desires to be supreme, and seeks at all costs to destroy the

-devil. Most probably he lives in peace and concord even with those

-who least adapt themselves to his tastes and habits. Perhaps he is

-even delighted that not all are as he, and he readily shares his

-possessions with the devil, the more readily because by such a division

-neither loses, since the infinite--I admit that God's possessions are

-infinite--divided by two and even by the greatest possible finite

-number still leaves infinity.

-

-Now we can return to the original question, and it seems that we

-can even give an answer to it--two answers even, one for the sage,

-another for the profane. To the first, philosophy is art for art's

-sake. Every philosopher tries to construct a harmonious and various

-system, curiously and nicely fashioned, using for his material his own

-intrinsic experience as well as his own personal observations of the

-life beyond him, and the observations of others. A philosopher is an

-artist of his kind, to whom his works are dearer than everything in

-life, sometimes dearer than life itself. We very often see philosophers

-sacrifice everything for the sake of their work--even truth. Not so

-the profane. To them philosophy--more exactly, that which they would

-call philosophy if they possessed a scientific terminology--is the last

-refuge when material forces have been wasted, when there are no weapons

-left to fight for their stolen rights. Then they run for help and

-support to a place which they have always taken care to avoid before.

-Think of Napoleon at St. Helena. He who had been collecting soldiers

-and guns all his life, began to philosophise when he was bound hand and

-foot. Certainly he behaved in this new sphere like a beginner, a very

-inexperienced and, strange to say, a pusillanimous novice.

-

-He who feared neither pestilence nor bullet, was afraid, we know, of

-a dark room. Men used to philosophy, like Schopenhauer, walk boldly

-and with confidence in a dark room, though they run away from gun

-shots, and even less dangerous things. The great captain, the once

-Emperor of nearly all Europe, Napoleon, philosophised on St. Helena,

-and even went so far as to begin to ingratiate himself with morality,

-evidently supposing that upon morality his ultimate fate depended. He

-assured her that for her sake, and her sake alone, he had contrived

-his murderous business--he who, all the while a crown was on his head

-and a victorious army in his hands, hardly knew even of the existence

-of morality. But this is so intelligible. If one were to come upon a

-perfectly new and unknown world at the age of forty-five, then surely

-everything would seem terrible, and one would take the incorporeal

-morality for the arbiter of destiny. And one would plan to seduce

-her, if possible, with sweet words and false promises, as a lady of

-the world. But these were the first steps of a tyro. It was as hard

-for Napoleon to master philosophy as it was for Charlemagne at the

-end of his days to learn to write. But he knew why he had come to the

-new place, and neither Plato nor Spinoza nor Kant could dissuade him

-of this. Perhaps at the beginning, while he was as yet unused to the

-darkness, he would pretend to agree with the acknowledged authorities,

-thinking that here too, just as there where he lived before, exalted

-personages do not tolerate opposition; perhaps he would lie to them

-as he lied to morality, but his business he would not forget. He came

-to philosophy with _demands,_ and would not rest till he had received

-satisfaction. He had already seen how a Corsican lieutenant had

-become a French Emperor. Why should not the beaten Emperor fight his

-last fight?... And how shall he be reconciled with self-renunciation?

-Philosophy will surrender: it is only necessary not to surrender in

-one's self. So does a Napoleon come to philosophy, and so does he

-understand her. And until the contrary is proven, nothing can prevent

-us from thinking that the Napoleons are right, and therefore that

-academical philosophy is not the last nor even the penultimate word.

-For, perhaps, the last word is hidden in the hearts of the tongue-tied,

-but bold, persistent, implacable men.

-

-

-

-VIII

-

-_Heinrich Heine_

-

-

-More than a hundred years have passed since the birth, and fifty

-years since the death, of this remarkable man, but the history of

-literature has not yet finally settled accounts with him. Even the

-Germans, perhaps the Germans above all, find it impossible to agree

-upon the valuation of his gift. Some consider him a genius, others a

-man devoid of talent and insipid. Moreover, his enemies still bring as

-much passion to their attacks upon him as they did before, as though

-they were waging war upon a live opponent in place of a dead one. They

-hate him for the same things which made his contemporaries hate him.

-We know that it was principally for his insincerity that they did not

-forgive him. No one could tell when he was speaking seriously and when

-in jest, what he loved and what he hated, and finally it was quite

-impossible to determine whether or not he believed in God. It must be

-confessed that the Germans were right in many of their accusations. I

-value Heine extremely highly; in my opinion he is one of the greatest

-German poets; and yet I cannot undertake to say with certainty what

-he loved, what he believed, and often I cannot tell how serious he is

-in uttering one or another of his opinions. Nevertheless I find it

-impossible to detect any insincerity in his works. On the contrary,

-those peculiarities of his, which so irritated the Germans, are in my

-eyes so many proofs of his wonderful and unique sincerity. I think that

-if the Germans were mistaken and misunderstood Heine, hypertrophied

-self-love and the power of prejudice is the cause. Heine's usual method

-is to begin to speak with perfect seriousness, and to end with biting

-raillery and sarcasm. Critics and readers, who generally do not guess

-at the outset what awaits them in the event, have taken the unexpected

-laughter to their own account, and have been deeply offended. Wounded

-self-love never forgives; and the Germans could not forgive Heine

-for his jests. And yet Heine but rarely attacked others: most of his

-mockery is directed against himself, and above all in the work of his

-last creative period, of the years when he lived in the _Matrazengrab._

-

-With us in Russia many were offended with Gogol, believing that he

-was jeering at them. Later, he confessed that he had been describing

-himself. Nor does the inconstancy of Heine's opinions in any way

-prove him insincere. His intention was by no means always to fling at

-the Philistines. Indeed, he did not know what to believe; he changed

-his tastes and attachments, and did not even always know for certain

-what he preferred at the moment. Of course, had he wished, he might

-have pretended to be consequent and consistent. Or, had he been less

-eagle-eyed, he might with the vast majority of men have adopted a

-ceremonial dress once for all, he might have professed and invariably

-preached ideas which had no relation to his real emotions and moods.

-Many people think that one ought to act thus, that (particularly in

-literature) one must speak only officially and exhibit lofty ideas

-that have been proclaimed by wise men since time immemorial, without

-their having made the least inquiry whether they correspond to their

-own natures or not. Often cruel, vindictive, spiteful, selfish, mean

-people sincerely praise goodness, forgiveness, love to one's enemy,

-generosity and magnanimity in their books, while of their tastes

-and passions they speak not a single word. They are confident that

-passions exist only to be suppressed, and that convictions only are to

-be exhibited or displayed. A man rarely succeeds in suppressing his

-passions, but it is extremely easy to hide them, especially in books.

-And such dissimulation is not only not condemned, but recognised and

-even encouraged. The common and familiar programme is accepted: in life

-'passions' judge 'convictions,' in books 'convictions,' or 'ideals,'

-as they are called, pass sentence upon 'passions.' I would emphasise

-the fact that most writers are convinced that their business is not to

-tell of themselves, but to praise ideals. Heine's sincerity was really

-of a different order. He told everything, or nearly everything, of

-himself. And this was thought so shocking that the sworn custodians of

-convention and good morals considered themselves wounded in their best

-and loftiest feelings. It seemed to them that it would be disastrous if

-Heine were to succeed in acquiring a great literary influence, and in

-getting a hold upon the minds of his contemporaries. Then would crumble

-the foundations, constructed through centuries of arduous labour by the

-united efforts of the most distinguished representatives of the nation.

-This is perhaps true: the lofty magnificence of life can be preserved

-only upon the indispensable condition of hypocrisy. In order that it

-should be beautiful, much must be hidden and thrust away as far and

-deep as possible. The sick and the mad must be herded into hospitals;

-poverty into cellars; disobedient passions into the depths of the

-soul. Truth and freedom are only allowed to obtrude upon the attention

-as far as is compatible with the interests of a life well arranged

-within and without. The Protestant Church understood this as well as

-the Catholic, perhaps better. Strict puritanism elevated spiritual

-discipline to the highest moral law, which ruled life with unrelenting

-and inexorable despotism. Marriage and the family, not love, must be

-the aim of man; and poor Gretchen, who gave herself to Faust without

-observing the established ceremonial, was forced to consider herself

-eternally damned. The inward discipline still more than the outward

-guarded the foundations and gave strength and force to the State as

-well as to the people. Men and women were not spared; they were not

-even taken into account. Hundreds and thousands of Gretchens, men and

-women, were sacrificed, and are being sacrificed still, without pity to

-'the highest spiritual interests.'

-

-Acknowledgment and respect for the prescribed order had become so

-deeply rooted in the German soul--I speak of Germany, because no

-other nation upon earth is so highly disciplined--that even the most

-independent characters yielded to it. The most dreadful sin is not the

-breaking of the law--a violation which like Gretchen's can be explained

-by weakness and weakness alone, though it was not forgiven, was less

-severely condemned--but rebellion against the law, the open and daring

-refusal to obey, even though it be expressed in the most insignificant

-act. Therefore every one tends to show his loyalty from that side

-first of all. In a greater or less degree all have transgressed the

-law, but the more one has violated it in act, the more imperative he

-considers its glorification in words. And this order of things aroused

-neither suspicion nor discontent. Therein could be seen acknowledged

-the superiority of spirit over body, of mind over passion. Nobody ever

-asked the question: 'Is it really true that the spirit must have the

-mastery over the body, and the mind over the passions?' And when Heine

-allowed himself to put the question and to answer it in his own way,

-the whole force of German indignation burst upon him. First of all

-they suspected his sincerity and truthfulness. 'It is impossible,'

-said the pious, 'that he really should not acknowledge the law. He is

-only pretending.' Such a supposition was the more natural because the

-ring of conviction was not always to be heard in Heine's tone: one of

-his poems ends with the following words: 'I seek the body, the body,

-the young and tender body. The soul you may bury deep in the ground--I

-myself have soul enough.' The poem is daring and provocative in the

-extreme, but in it, as in all Heine's daring and provocative poems, may

-be heard a sharp and nervous laugh, which must be understood as the

-expression of the divided soul, as a mockery of himself. It is he who

-tells of his meeting with two women, mother and daughter. Both please

-him: the mother by her much knowledge, the daughter by her innocence.

-And the poet stands between them, in his own words, like Buridan's

-ass between two bundles of hay. Again, daring, again, the laugh; and

-again the well-balanced German is irritated. He would prefer that no

-one should ever speak of such emotions, and if they are to be spoken

-of, then it must be at least in a penitent tone, with self-accusation.

-But Heine's misplaced laughter is indecent and quite uselessly

-disconcerting. I repeat that Heine himself was not always sure that

-his 'sincerity' was lawful. While he was still a youth he told how

-there suddenly ran through his soul, as through the whole earth, a

-rent which split asunder the unity of his former emotions. King David

-when he praised God and good did not remember his dark deeds--of

-which there were not a few--or, if he did remember them, it was only

-to repent. His soul was also divided, but he was able to preserve a

-sequence. When he wept, he could not and did not want to rejoice;

-when he repented, he was already far from sin; when he prayed, he did

-not scoff; when he believed, he did not doubt. The Germans, brought

-up on the great king's psalms, had come to think that these things

-were impossible and ought never to be possible. They admitted the

-succession of different, and even contradictory spiritual conditions,

-but their simultaneous existence appeared to them unintelligible and

-disgusting, in contradiction with divine commandments and the laws of

-logic. It seemed to them that everything which formerly existed as

-separate, had become confused, that the place of stringent harmony had

-been usurped by absurdity and chaos. They thought that such a state of

-things threatened innumerable miseries. They did not admit the idea

-that Heine himself might not understand it; in his creation they saw

-the manifestation of a false and evil will, and they invoked divine and

-human judgment upon it. The Philistine irritation reached the extreme

-when it became clear that Heine had not humbled himself even before the

-face of death. Stricken by paralysis, he lay in his _Matrazengrab,_

-unable to stir a limb; he suffered the most intense bodily pains,

-with no hope of cure, or even of relief, yet he still continued to

-blaspheme as before. Worse still, his sarcasms every day became more

-ruthless, more poisonous, more refined. It might have been thought that

-it was left to him, crushed and destroyed, only to acknowledge his

-defeat and to commit himself utterly to the magnanimity of the victor.

-But in the weak flesh a strong spirit lived. All his thoughts were

-turned to God, the power of whose right hand, like every dying man,

-he could not but feel upon him. But his thoughts of God, his attitude

-to God, were so original that the serious people of the outer world

-could only shrug their shoulders. No one ever spoke thus to God, either

-aloud or to himself. The thought of death usually inspires mortals

-with fear or admiration; therefore they either kneel before him and

-implore forgiveness or sing his praises. Heine has neither prayer nor

-praise. His poems are permeated with a charming and gracious cynicism,

-peculiar and proper to himself alone. He does not want to confess his

-sins, and even now on the threshold of another life he remains as he

-was in youth. He desires neither paradise, nor bliss, nor heaven; he

-asks God to give him back his health, and to put his money affairs in

-order. 'I know there is much evil and many vices on earth. But I have

-grown used to all that now, and besides I seldom leave my room. O God,

-leave me here, but heal my infirmities, and spare me from want,' he

-writes in one of his last poems. He derides the legends of the blissful

-life of sinless souls in paradise. 'Sitting on the clouds and singing

-psalms is a pastime quite unsuited to me.' He remembers the beautiful

-Venus of the Louvre and praises her as in the days of youth. His poem,

-_Das Hohelied,_ is a mixture of extreme cynicism, nobility, despair,

-and incredible sarcasm. I do not know whether dying men have had such

-thoughts as those which are expressed in this poem, but I am confident

-that no one has expressed anything like them in literature. In Goethe's

-_Prometheus_ there is nothing of the provocative, unshakable, calm

-pride and the consciousness of his rights which inspired the author

-of _Das Hohelied._ God, who created heaven and earth and man upon the

-earth, is free to torment my body and soul to his fill, but I myself

-know what I need and desire, I myself decide what is good and what is

-bad. That is the meaning of this poem, and of all that Heine wrote in

-the last years of his life. He knew as well as any one that according

-to the doctrines of philosophy, ethics, and religion, repentance and

-humility are the condition of the soul's salvation, the readiness even

-with the last breath of life to renounce sinful desires. Nevertheless,

-with his last breath he does not want to own the power over himself

-of the age-old authorities of the world. He laughs at morality, at

-philosophy, and at existing religions. The wise men think so, the wise

-men want to live in their own way; let them think, let them live. But

-who gave them the right to demand obedience from me? Can they have

-the power to compel me to obedience? Listening to the words of the

-dying man, shall we not repeat his question? Shall we not take one step

-further? Heine is crushed, and if we may believe, as we have every

-reason to believe what he tells us in his 'Song of Songs,' his painful

-and terrible illness was the direct effect and consequence of his

-manner of life. Does it mean that in the future, too (if future there

-is), new persecutions await him, until the day when of his own accord

-he will subscribe to the proclaimed and established morality? Have we

-the right to suppose that there are powers somewhere in the universe

-preoccupied with the business of cutting out all men, even down to

-the last, after the same pattern? Perhaps Heine's contumacy points to

-quite a different intention of the arbiters of destiny. Perhaps the

-illness and torture prepared for those who fight against collars and

-blinkers--experience demonstrates with sufficient certainty that any

-declination from the high road and the norm inevitably brings suffering

-and ruin in its train--are only the trial of the human spirit. Who

-will endure them, who will stand up for himself, afraid neither of

-God nor of the devil and his ministers, he will enter victoriously

-into another world. Sometimes I even think, in opposition to existing

-opinion, that _there_ the stubborn and inflexible are valued above

-all others, and that the secret is hidden from mortals lest the

-weak and compliant should take it into their heads to pretend to be

-stubborn, in order to deserve the favour of the gods. But he who

-will not endure, but will deny himself, may expect the fate of which

-philosophers and metaphysicians generally dream. He will be united

-with the _primum mobile,_ he will be dissolved in the essence of being

-together with the mass of individuals like himself. I am tempted to

-think that the metaphysical theories which preach self-renunciation

-for the sake of love, and love for the sake of self-renunciation,

-are by no means empty and idle, as the positivists affirm. In them

-lies a deep, mysterious, and mystical meaning: in them is hidden a

-great truth. Their only mistake is that they pretend to be absolute.

-For some reason or other men have decided that empirical truths are

-many, but that metaphysical truth is one. Metaphysical truths are

-also many, but that does not in the least prevent them from living in

-harmony one with another. Empirical truths like all earthly beings are

-continually quarrelling, and cannot get on without superior authority.

-But metaphysical truths are differently arranged and know nothing

-whatsoever of our rivalry. There is no doubt that people who feel the

-burden of their individuality and thirst for self-renunciation are

-absolutely right. Every probability points to their at last attaining

-their purpose and being united to that to which they should be united,

-whether neighbour or remote, or perhaps, as the pantheists desire, even

-to inanimate nature. But it is just as probable that those who value

-their individuality and do not consent to renounce it either for the

-sake of their neighbours or of a lofty idea, will preserve themselves

-and will remain themselves, if not for ever and ever, at least for a

-sufficiently long while, until they are weary. Therefore the Germans

-must not be cross with Heine, at least those Germans who have judged

-him not from the utilitarian point of view--from this point of view I

-too utterly condemn him, and find for him no justification at all--but

-from the lofty, religious or metaphysical point of view, as it is

-called nowadays. He cannot possibly disturb them in any way. They will

-be united, down to the last they probably will be united in the Idea,

-the thing in itself, in Substance, or any other alluring unity; and not

-Heine with his sarcasms will keep them from their lofty aspirations.

-While if he and those like him continue to live in their own way in a

-place apart and even laugh at ideas--can that really be the occasion of

-serious annoyance?

-

-

-

-IX

-

-_What is Truth?_

-

-

-The sceptics assert that truth does not and cannot exist, and the

-assertion has eaten so deep into the modern mind, that the only

-philosophy which has spread in our day is that of Kant, which takes

-scepticism for its point of departure. But read the preface to the

-first edition of _The Critique of Pure Reason_ attentively, and you

-will be convinced that he had absolutely no concern with the question:

-'What is truth?' He only set himself to solve the problem, what should

-a man do who had been convinced of the impossibility of finding the

-objective truth. The old metaphysic with its arbitrary and unproven

-assertions, which could not bear criticism, irritated Kant, and he

-decided to get rid, even though by accepting the relative legitimacy of

-scepticism, of the unscientific discipline which he, as a teacher of

-philosophy, had to represent. But the confidence of the sceptics and

-Kant's deference are not in the least binding upon us. And after all

-Kant himself did not fulfil the obligations which he undertook. For if

-we do not know what is truth, what value have the postulates of the

-existence of God and the immortality of the soul? How can we justify

-or explain any one of the existing religions, Christianity included?

-Although the Gospel does not at all agree with our scientific notions

-of the laws of nature, yet it does not in itself contain anything

-contrary to reason. We do not disbelieve in miracles because they are

-impossible. On the contrary, it is as clear as day to the most ordinary

-common sense that life itself, the foundation of the world, is the

-miracle of miracles. And if the task of philosophy had reduced to the

-mere demonstration of the possibility of a miracle, her business would

-have been splendidly accomplished long ago. The whole trouble is that

-visible miracles are not enough for people, and that it is impossible

-to deduce from the fact that many miracles have already taken place

-that other miracles, without which mere existence is often impossible,

-will also happen in due course. Men are being born--without doubt

-a great miracle; there exists a beautiful world--also a miracle of

-miracles. But does it follow that men will rise from the grave, and

-that paradise is made ready for them? The raising of Lazarus is not

-much believed nowadays even by those who revere the Gospel, not because

-they will not admit the possibility of miracles in general, but because

-they cannot decide _a priori_ which miracles are possible and which

-are not, and therefore they are obliged to judge _a posteriori._ They

-readily accept a miracle that has happened, but they doubt the miracle

-that has not happened, and _the more they doubt,_ the more passionately

-do they desire it. It costs nothing to believe in the final triumph

-of good upon the earth (though it would be an absolute miracle), in

-progress or the infallibility of the Pope (these too are miracles and

-by no means inconsiderable), for after all men are quite sufficiently

-indifferent to good, to progress, and to the virtues of the Pope. It

-is much harder, nay quite impossible, standing before the dead body of

-one who is near and dear, to believe that an angel will fly down from

-heaven and bring the dead to life again, although the world is full of

-happenings no less miraculous than the raising of the dead.

-

-Therefore the sceptics are wrong when they assert that there is no

-truth. Truth exists, but we do not know it in all its volume, nor can

-we formulate that which we do know: we cannot imagine why it happened

-thus and not otherwise, or whether that which happened had to happen

-thus, or whether something else quite different might have happened.

-Once it was held that reality obeys the laws of necessity, but Hume

-explained that the notion of necessity is subjective, and therefore

-must be discarded as illusory. His idea was caught up (without the

-deduction) by Kant. All those of our judgments which have the character

-of universality and necessity, acquire it only by virtue of our

-psychological organisation. In those cases where we are particularly

-convinced of the objective value of our judgment, we have merely

-to do with a purely subjective certainty, though it is immutable

-and secure in the visible world. It is well known that Kant did not

-accept Hume's deduction: not only did he make no attempt to banish the

-false premisses from our intellectual economy, as Hume did with the

-conception of necessity, but, on the contrary, he declared that such

-an attempt was quite impracticable. The practical reason suggested to

-Kant that though the foundations of our judgments are vitiated by their

-source, yet their invariability may be of great assistance in the world

-of phenomena, that is in the space between the birth and death of man.

-If a man has lived before birth (as Plato held), and will live after

-death, then his 'truths' were not, and will not be necessary there,

-in the other world. What truths are _there,_ and whether there are

-any truths at all, Kant only guesses, and he succeeds in his guesses

-only because of his readiness to ignore logic in his conclusions. He

-suddenly gives faith an immense right to judge of the real world, a

-right of which faith would never dream had it not been taken under his

-special patronage by the philosopher himself. But why can faith do that

-which reason cannot? And a yet more insidious question: Are not all

-postulates invented by the same mind which was deprived of its rights

-in the first Critique, but which subsequently obtained a verdict of

-_restitutio in integrum,_ by changing the name of the firm? The last

-hypothesis is the most probable. And if so, then does it not follow

-that in the real world so carefully divided by Kant from the world of

-phenomena we will find much that is new, but not a little that is old.

-

-In general it is clear that the assumption that our world is a world

-of an instant, a brief dream, utterly unlike real life, is mistaken.

-This assumption, first enunciated by Plato, and afterwards elaborated

-and maintained by many representatives of religious and philosophical

-thought, is based upon no data at all. There's no denying, it is very

-pleasant. But as often happens, as soon as the wish was invested

-with language, by the mere fact it received too sharp and angular an

-expression, so that it lost all resemblance to itself. The essence

-of the true, primordial life beyond the grave appears to Plato as

-absolute good refined from all alloy, as the essence of virtue.

-But after all Plato himself cannot suffer the absolute emptiness

-of the ideal existence, and constantly flavours it with elements

-which are by no means ideal, but which give interest and intensity

-to his dialogues. If you have never had the occasion to read Plato

-himself, acquaint yourself with his philosophy through the teaching

-of any of his admirers and appreciators, and you will be struck by

-its emptiness. Read the thick volume of Natorp's well-known work,

-and you will see what value there is in Plato's 'purified' doctrine.

-And in passing I would recommend as a general rule, this method of

-examining the ideas of famous philosophers, by acquainting oneself with

-them not only in the original works, but in the expositions of their

-disciples, particularly of faithful and conscientious disciples. When

-the fascination of the personality and the genius disappears and the

-naked, unadorned 'truth' remains--disciples always believe that the

-master had the truth, and they reveal it without any embellishment or

-fig leaf--only then does it become quite clear of how little value

-are the fundamental thoughts of even the most exalted philosophers.

-Still more obvious does it become when the faithful disciple begins

-to draw conclusions from his master's proportions. The book of the

-aforesaid Natorp, a great Plato expert, is a _reductio ad absurdum_

-of all his master's ideas. Plato is revealed as a logical Neo-Kantian,

-a narrow-minded savant, who had been put thoroughly through the mill

-at Freiburg or Heidelberg. It is also revealed that Plato's ideas, in

-the pure state, do not in the least express his real attitude to life

-and to the world. One must take the whole Plato with his contradictions

-and inconsequence, with his vices and virtues, and value his defects at

-least as much as his qualities, or even add one or two defects, and be

-blind to one or two virtues. For it is probable that he, as a man to

-whom nothing human was alien, tried to assume a few virtues which he

-did not possess, and to conceal a few failings. This course should be

-followed with other masters of wisdom and their doctrines. Then 'the

-other world' will not appear to be separated by such an abyss from our

-earthly vale. And perhaps, in spite of Kant, some empirical truths

-will be found common to both worlds. Then Pilate's question will lose

-much of its all-conquering certainty. He wished to wash his hands of

-the business, and he asked, 'What is truth?' After him and before him,

-many who had no desire to struggle have devised ingenious questions and

-taken their stand upon scepticism. But every one knows that truth does

-exist, and sometimes can even formulate its own conception with the

-clarity and precision demanded by Descartes. Is the miraculous bounded

-by the miracles that have already been seen on earth, or are its

-limits set much wider? And if wider, then how much?

-

-

-

-X

-

-_More of Truth_

-

-

-Perhaps truth is by nature such that its communication between

-men is impossible, at least the usual communication by means of

-language. Every one may know it in himself, but in order to enter into

-communication with his neighbour he must renounce the truth and accept

-some conventional lie. Nevertheless the value and importance of truth

-is by no means lessened by the fact that it cannot be given a market

-valuation. If you were asked what is truth, you could not answer the

-question even though you had given your whole life to the study of

-philosophical theories. In yourself, if you have no one to answer,

-you know well what the truth is. Therefore truth does not by nature

-resemble empirical truth in the least, and before entering the world

-of philosophy, you must bid farewell to scientific methods of search,

-and to the accustomed methods of estimating knowledge. In a word, you

-must be ready to accept something absolutely new, quite unlike what is

-traditional and old. That is why the tendency to discredit scientific

-knowledge is by no means so useless as may at first sight appear to the

-inexperienced eye.

-

-That is why irony and sarcasm prove to be a necessary weapon of the

-investigator. The most dangerous enemy of new knowledge always has

-been, and always will be, inculcated habit. From the practical point

-of view it is much more important to a man to know the things which

-may help him to adapt himself to the temporary conditions of his

-existence, than those which have a timeless value. The instinct of

-self-preservation always proves stronger than the sincerest desire for

-knowledge. Moreover, one must remember that the instinct has at its

-disposal innumerable and most subtle weapons of defence, that all human

-faculties without exception are under its command, from unconscious

-reflexes up to the enthroned mind and august consciousness. Much

-and often has been said in this regard, and for once the _consensus

-sapientium_ is on my side. True, this is treated as an undeniable

-perversion of human nature--and here I make my protest. I think that

-there is in this nothing undesirable. Our mind and consciousness must

-consider it an honour that they can find themselves in the service of

-instinct, even if it be the instinct of self-preservation. They should

-not be conceited, and to tell the truth they are not conceited, but

-readily fulfil their official mission. They pretend to priority only

-in books, and tremble at the thought of pre-eminence in life. If by

-some accident they were allowed freedom of action they would go mad

-with terror, like children lost in a forest at night. Every time that

-the mind and consciousness begin to judge independently, they reach

-destructive conclusions. And then they see with surprise that this

-time too they were not acting freely, but under the dictation of the

-self-same instinct, which had assumed a different character. The human

-soul desired the work of destruction, and she loosed the slaves from

-their chains, and they in wild enthusiasm began to celebrate their

-freedom by making great havoc, not in the least suspecting that they

-remained just as they were before, slaves who work for others.

-

-Long ago Dostoevsky pointed out that the instinct of destruction

-is as natural to the human soul as that of creation. Beside these

-two instincts all our faculties appear to be minor psychological

-properties, required only under given, and accidental, conditions.

-Of truth--as not only the crass materialists now confess, but the

-idealists also have found in their metaphysic--nothing remains but

-the idea of the norm.--To speak in more expressive and intelligible

-language, truth exists only in order that men who are separated in time

-and space might establish between themselves some kind of communication

-at least. That is, a man must choose between absolute loneliness

-with truth, on the one side, and communion with his neighbours and

-falsehood, on the other. Which is the better, it will be asked. The

-question is idle, I reply. There is a third way still: to accept

-both, though it may at first appear utterly absurd, especially to

-people who have once for all decided that logic, like mathematics,

-is infallible. Whereas it is possible, and not merely possible--we

-would not be content with a possibility: only a German idealist can be

-satisfied with a good which was never realised in any place at all--it

-is continually observed that the most contradictory spiritual states

-do coexist. All men lie when they begin to speak: our language is so

-imperfectly arranged that the principle of its arrangement presupposes

-a readiness to speak untruth. The more abstract the subject is, the

-more does the disposition to lie increase, until, when we touch upon

-the most complicated questions, we have to lie incessantly, and the

-lie is the more intolerable and coarse the more sincere we are. For a

-sincere man is convinced that veracity is assured by the absence of

-contradictions, and in order to avoid all appearance of lie, he tries

-to make a logical agreement between his opinions: that is to raise his

-lie to Herculean heights. In his turn, when he receives the opinions

-of others, he applies the same criterion, and the moment he notices

-the smallest contradiction, he begins naively to cry out against the

-violation of the fundamental decencies. What is particularly curious

-is that all the learned students of philosophy--and it is strictly to

-them that I address myself here, as the reader has probably observed

-long ago--certainly are well aware that no single one of the mightiest

-philosophers has hitherto succeeded in eliminating all contradictions

-from his system. How well armed was Spinoza! He spared no effort,

-and stuck at nothing, and yet his remarkable system will not bear

-logical criticism. That is a matter of common knowledge. So it appears

-that we ought to ask what the devil is the use of consistency, and

-whether contradictions are not the condition of truthfulness in one's

-conception of the world. And after Kant, his disciples and successors

-might have answered quietly that the devil alone knows the use of

-consistency, and that truth lives by contradictions. As a matter of

-fact, Hegel and Schopenhauer, each in his own way, partly attempted to

-make an admission of this kind, but they derived small profit from it.

-

-Let us try to draw some conclusions from the foregoing. Certainly,

-while logic can be useful, it would be unjustifiable recklessness

-to refuse its services. Nor are the conclusions devoid of interest,

-as we shall see. First of all, when you speak, never trouble to be

-consistent with what you said before: that will put an unnecessary

-check upon your freedom, which, without that additional fetter, is

-already chained in words and grammatical forms. When you are listening

-to a friend or reading a book, do not assign great value to individual

-words or even to phrases. Forget separate thoughts, and give no great

-consideration even to logically arranged ideas. Remember that though

-your friend desires it, he cannot express himself save by ready-made

-forms of speech. Look well to the expression of his face, listen to

-the intonation of his voice--this will help you to penetrate through

-his words to his soul. Not only in conversation, but even in a written

-book, can one over-hear the sound, even the timbre of the author's

-voice, and notice the finest shades of expression in his eyes and

-face. Do not fasten upon contradictions, do not dispute, do not demand

-argument: only listen with attention. In return for which, when you

-begin to speak, you also will have to face no dispute, nor to produce

-arguments, which you know well you neither have nor could have. So you

-will not be annoyed by having pointed out to you your contradictions

-which you know well were always there, and will always be there, and

-with which it is painful, nay quite impossible, for you to part. Then,

-then--and this is most important of all--you will at last be convinced

-that truth does not depend on logic, that there are no logical truths

-at all, that you therefore have the right to search for what you like,

-how you like, without argument, and that if something results from your

-search, it will not be a formula, not a law, not a principle, not even

-an idea! Only think: while the object of search is 'truth,' as it is

-understood nowadays, one must be prepared for anything. For instance,

-the materialists will be right, and matter and energy are the basis

-of the world. It does not matter that we can immediately confound

-the materialists with their conclusions. The history of thought can

-show many cases of the complete rehabilitation of opinions that have

-been cast off and reviled. Yesterday's error may be to-morrow's truth,

-even a self-evident truth. And apart from its content, wherein is

-materialism bad? It is a harmonious, consistent, and well-sustained

-system. I have already pointed out that the materialistic

-conception of the world is just as capable of enchanting men as any

-other--pantheistic or idealistic. And since we have come so far, I

-confess that in my opinion no ideas at all are bad in themselves: so

-far I have been able to follow with pleasure the development of the

-idea of progress to the accompaniment of factories, railways, and

-aeroplanes. Still, it seems to me childish to hope that all these

-trivialities--I mean the ideas--will become the object of man's serious

-seeking. If that desperate struggle of man with God and the world

-were possible, of which legend and history tell--think of Prometheus

-alone--then it was not for truth and not for the idea. Man desires to

-be strong and rich and free, the wretched, insignificant creature of

-dust, whom the first chance shock crushes like a worm before one's

-eyes,--and if he speaks of ideas it is only because he despairs of

-success in his proper search. He feels that he is a worm, he fears that

-he must again return to the dust which he is, and he lies, pretending

-that his misery is not terrible to him, if only he knew the truth.

-Forgive him his lie, for he speaks it only with his lips. Let him say

-what he will, how he will; so long as we hear in his words the familiar

-note of the call to battle, and the fire of desperate inexorable

-resolution burns in his eyes, we will understand him. We are used to

-decipher hieroglyphs. But if he, like the Germans of to-day, accepts

-truth and the norm as the final goal of human aspiration, we shall also

-know with whom we have to deal, were he by destiny endowed with the

-eloquence of Cicero. Better utter loneliness than communion with such a

-man. Yet such communion does not exclude utter loneliness; perhaps it

-even assists the hard achievement.

-

-

-

-XI

-

-_I and Thou_

-

-

-The familiar expression, 'to look into another's soul,' which by

-force of habit at first sight seems extremely intelligible, on closer

-observation appears so unintelligible that one is forced to ask whether

-it has any meaning at all. Try to bend, mentally, over another's soul:

-you will see nothing but a vast, empty, black abyss, and you will only

-be seized with giddiness for your pains. Thus, properly speaking, the

-expression 'to look into another's soul' is only an abortive metaphor.

-All that we can do is to argue from the outward data to the inward

-feelings. From tears we deduce pain, from pallor, fear, from a smile,

-joy. But is this to look into another's soul? It is only to give room

-to a series of purely logical processes in one's head. The other's soul

-remains as invisible as before; we only guess at it, perhaps rightly,

-perhaps mistakenly. Naturally this conclusion irritates us. What a

-miserable world it is where it is quite impossible to see the very

-thing that we desire above all to see. But irritation is almost the

-normal spiritual state of a man who thinks and seeks. Whenever it is

-particularly important to him to be sure of something, after a number

-of desperate attempts he is convinced that his curiosity cannot be

-satisfied. And now the mocking mind adds a new question to the old:

-Why look for another's soul when you have not seen your own? And is

-there a soul? Many have believed and still do believe that there is no

-soul at all, but only a science of it, called psychology. It is known

-that psychology says nothing of the soul, considering that its task is

-confined to the study of spiritual states--states, by the way, which

-have as yet hardly been studied at all.... What is the way out? One can

-answer irony with irony, or even with abuse. One can deny psychology

-the right to be called a science and call the materialists a pack of

-fools, as is often done. Incontestably, anger has its rights. But this

-has sense and meaning only while you are among people and are listened

-to. Nobody wants to be indignant alone with oneself, when one is

-not even reckoning upon making use of one's indignation for literary

-purposes: for even a writer is not always writing, and is more often

-preoccupied with transitory thoughts than with his forthcoming works.

-One prefers to approach the enchanted cave, though for the thousandth

-time, with every possible precaution. Perhaps it is only upon the

-approach of an outside soul that another's soul becomes invisible,

-and if she be caught unawares she will not have time to disappear.

-So that ponderous psychology, which like any other science always

-proclaims its plans and methods aloud before undertaking anything, is

-utterly unsuited to the capture of a thing so light and mobile as the

-human soul. But let us leave psychology with the honourable name of

-science; let us even respect the materialists, while we endeavour to

-track down the soul by other means. Perhaps in the depth of the dark

-abyss of which we spoke, something might be found, were it not for

-the giddiness. Therefore it is not so necessary to invent new methods

-as to learn to look fearlessly into the depths, which always appear

-unfathomable to the unaccustomed eye.

-

-After all, unfathomability is not so entirely useless to man. It was

-driven into our heads as children that the human mind could compass

-only those things which are limited. But this only proves that we have

-yet another prejudice to get rid of. If it comes to giving up the right

-of abusing the materialists and of being taught by psychology, and

-something else into the bargain--well, we are used to that. But in

-return we may at last be granted a glimpse of the mysterious 'thou,'

-and perhaps the 'I' will cease to be problematical as well. Patience

-is a sickening thing; but remember the fakirs and the other worthies

-of the same kind. They succeed by patience alone. And apparently

-they arrive at something; but not at universal truths, I am ready to

-vouch for that. The world has long been weary of universal truths.

-Even 'truth' pure and simple makes no whisper in my ear. We must find

-a way of escape from the power of every kind of truth. This victory

-the fakirs tried to win. They can produce no arguments to prove their

-right, for the visible victory was never on their side. One conquers

-by bayonets, big guns, microscopes and logical arguments. Microscopes

-and logic give the palm to limitation. And yet, though limitation often

-strengthens, it also happens that it kills.

-

-

-

-

-THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

-

-

-

-_The Theory of Knowledge as Apologetics_

-

-

-The modern theory of knowledge, though it always consciously takes

-its rise from Kant, has in one respect quite disregarded the master's

-commandment. It is very strange that the theorists of knowledge,

-who usually cannot agree among themselves upon anything, have as it

-were agreed to understand the problem of knowledge quite otherwise

-than Kant. Kant undertook to investigate our cognitive faculties in

-order to establish foundations, in virtue of which certain existing

-sciences could be accepted, and others rejected. One may say that the

-second purpose was chief. Hume's scepticism made him uneasy only in

-theory. He knew beforehand that whatever theory of knowledge he might

-invent, mathematics and the natural sciences would remain sciences and

-metaphysics be rejected. In other words, his aim was not to justify

-science but to explain the possibility of its existence; and he started

-from the point of view that no one can seriously doubt the truths of

-mathematics and natural science. But now the position is different. The

-theorists of knowledge direct all their efforts towards _justifying_

-scientific knowledge. Why? Does scientific knowledge really need

-justification? Of course there are cranks, sometimes even cranks of

-genius, like our own Tolstoi, who attack science; but their attacks

-offend no one, nor do they cause alarm.

-

-Scientists continue their researches as before; the universities

-flourish; discovery follows discovery. And the theorists of knowledge

-themselves do not spend sleepless nights in the endeavour to find

-new justifications for science. Yet, I repeat, though they can come

-to an understanding about practically nothing else, they amaze us

-by their unanimity upon this point--they are all convinced that it

-is their duty to justify science and exalt her. So that the modern

-theory of knowledge is no longer a science, but an apology. And

-its demonstrations are like those of apology. Once science must

-be defended, it is necessary to begin by praising her, that is by

-selecting evidence and data to show that science fulfils some mission

-or other, but indubitably a very high and important one, or, on the

-other hand, by painting a picture of the fate that would overtake

-mankind, if it was deprived of science. Thus the apologetic element

-has begun to play almost as large a part in the theory of knowledge

-as it has done hitherto in theology. Perhaps the time is at hand when

-scientific apologetics will be officially recognised as a philosophic

-discipline.

-

-But, _qui s'excuse s'accuse._ It is plain that all is not well with

-science, since she has begun to justify herself. Besides, apologetics

-are only apologetics, and sooner or later the theory of knowledge

-will be tired of psalms of praise, and will demand a more complex and

-responsible task, and a real labour. At present the theorists start

-with the assumption that scientific knowledge is perfect knowledge,

-and therefore the premisses upon which it is builded are not subject

-to criticism. The law of causation is not justified because it appears

-to be the expression of a real relation of things, nor even because we

-have data at our disposal which could convince us that it does not and

-will never admit exceptions, that uncaused effects are impossible. All

-these things are lacking; but, we are told, they are not needed.

-

-The chief thing is that the causal law makes science possible, while

-to reject it means to reject science and knowledge generally, all

-anticipation, and even, as some few hold, reason itself. Clearly, if

-one has to choose between a slightly dubious admission on the one side

-and the prospect of chaos and insanity on the other, there will be no

-long hesitation. Apologetics, we see, has chosen the most powerful of

-arguments, _ad hominem._ But all such arguments partake of one common

-defect; they are not constant, and they are double-edged.

-

-To-day they defend scientific knowledge; to-morrow they will attack it.

-Indeed, it so happens that the very belief in the causal law begets a

-great disquiet and turmoil in the soul, which finally produces all the

-horrors of chaos and madness. The certainty that the existing order

-is immutable is for certain minds synonymous with the certainty that

-life is nonsensical and absurd. Probably the disciples of Christ had

-that feeling when the last words of their crucified Master reached them

-from the cross: 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?' And the

-modern theorists may explain triumphantly that when the law became the

-instrument of chaos and madness, it was _ipso facto_ abolished. 'Christ

-has risen,' say the disciples of Christ.

-

-I have said that the theorists may triumph; but I must confess that I

-have not found in any of them an open glorification of such an obvious

-proof of the truth of their teaching. Of the resurrection of Christ

-they say not a word--on the contrary, they make every effort to avoid

-it and pass it by in silence. And this circumstance compels us to pause

-and think. A dilemma arises: if you grant that the law of causation

-suffers no exception, then your soul will be eternally haunted by the

-last words of the crucified Christ; if you do not, then you will have

-no science. Some assert that it is impossible to live without science,

-without knowledge, that such a life is horror and madness; others

-cannot be reconciled to the thought that the most perfect of men died

-the death of a murderer. What shall we do? Without which thing is it

-impossible for man to live? Without scientific knowledge, or without

-the conviction that truth and spiritual perfection are in the last

-resort the victors of this world? And how will the theory of knowledge

-stand with regard to questions such as these?

-

-Will it still continue its exercises in apologetics or will it at last

-understand that this is not its real problem, and that if it would

-preserve the right to be called philosophy, it will have not to justify

-and exalt the existing science, but to examine and direct some science

-of its own. It means above all to put the question: Is scientific

-knowledge really perfect, or is it perhaps imperfect, and should it

-therefore yield its present honourable place to another science?

-Evidently this is the most important question for the theory of

-knowledge, yet this question it never puts. It wants to exalt existing

-science. It has been, is now, and probably will long continue to be,

-apologetics.

-

-

-

-_Truth and Utility_

-

-

-Mill, seeking to prove that all our sciences, even the mathematical,

-have an empiric origin, brings forward the following consideration.

-If on every occasion that we had to take twice two things, some deity

-slipped one extra thing into our hands, we should be convinced that

-twice two is not four but five. And perhaps Mill is right: perhaps we

-should not divine what was the matter. We are much more concerned to

-discover what is practically necessary and directly useful to us than

-to search for truth. If a deity with each four things slipped a fifth

-into our hands, we should accept the additional thing and consider

-it natural, intelligible, necessary, impossible to be otherwise. The

-very uniformity in the sequence of phenomena observed by the empirical

-philosophers was also slipped into our hands. By whom? When? Who dares

-to ask? Once the law is established no one is interested in anything

-any more. Now we can foretell the future, now we can use the thing

-slipped into our hands, and the rest--cometh of the evil one.

-

-

-

-_Philosophers and Teachers_

-

-

-Every one knows that Schopenhauer was for many years not only not

-recognised, but not even read. His books were used for waste-paper.

-It was only towards the end of his life that he had readers and

-admirers--and, of course, critics. For every admirer is at bottom a

-most merciless and importunate critic. He must understand everything,

-make everything agree, and of course the master must supply the

-necessary explanations. Schopenhauer, who did not have the experience

-of being a master till his old age, at first behaved very benevolently

-to his disciples' questions and patiently gave the explanations

-required. But the further one goes into the forest, the thicker are

-the trees. The most loyal perplexities of his pupils became more and

-more importunate, until at last the old man lost patience. 'I didn't

-undertake to explain all the secrets of the universe to every one who

-wanted to know them,' he once exclaimed, when a certain pupil persisted

-in emphasising the contradictions he had noticed in Schopenhauer. And

-really--is a master obliged to explain everything? In Schopenhauer's

-words we are given an answer, not ambiguous. A philosopher not only

-cannot be a teacher, he does not want to be one. There are teachers

-in schools, in universities: they teach arithmetic, grammar, logic,

-metaphysics. The philosopher has quite a different task, one which does

-not in the least resemble teaching.

-

-

-

-_Truth as a Social Substance_

-

-

-There are many ways, real and imaginary, of objectively verifying

-philosophic opinions. But they all reduce, we know, to trial by

-the law of contradiction. True, every one is aware that no single

-philosophic doctrine is able to support such a trial, so that, pending

-a better future, people consider it possible to display a certain

-tenderness in the examination. They are usually satisfied if they

-come to the conclusion that the philosopher made a genuine attempt

-to avoid contradictions. For instance, they forgive Spinoza his

-inconsistency because of his _amor intellectualis Dei_; Kant, for his

-love of morality and his praise of disinterestedness; Plato, for the

-originality and purity of his idealistic impulses; and Aristotle, for

-the vastyness and universality of his knowledge. So that, strictly

-speaking, we must confess that we have no real objective method of

-verifying a philosophical truth, and when we criticise other people's

-systems, we judge arbitrarily after all. If a philosopher suits us

-for some reason, we do not trouble him with the law of contradiction;

-if he does not, we summon him before the court to be judged with the

-utmost rigour of the law, confident beforehand that he will be found

-guilty on every count. But sometimes there arises the desire to verify

-one's own philosophic convictions. To play the farce of objective

-verification with them, to look for contradictions in oneself--I do not

-suppose that even Germans are capable of that. And yet one desires to

-know whether he does indeed possess the truth or whether he has only a

-universal error in his hands. What is to be done? I think there is a

-way. He should think to himself that it is absolutely impossible for

-his truth to be binding upon anybody. If in spite of this he still

-refuses to renounce her, if the truth can suffer such an ordeal and

-yet remain the same to him as she was before, then it may be supposed

-that she is worth something. For often we appreciate conviction, not

-because it has an intrinsic value, but because it commands a high price

-in the market. Robinson Crusoe probably had a totally different way

-of thinking to that of a modern writer or professor, whose books are

-exposed to the appreciation of his numerous confrères, who can create

-for him the renown of a wise man and a scholar, or utterly ruin his

-reputation. Even with the Greeks, whom we are accustomed to regard as

-model thinkers, opinions had--to use the language of economics--not so

-much a demand, as an exchange value.

-

-The Greeks had no knowledge of the printing-press, and no literary

-reviews. They usually took their wisdom out into the market-place,

-and applied all their efforts to persuade people to acknowledge its

-value. And it is hard to maintain that wisdom, which is constantly

-being offered to people, should not adapt itself to people's tastes.

-It is truer to say that wisdom became accustomed to value itself to

-the exact degree to which it could count on people's appreciation. In

-other words, it appears that the value of wisdom, like that of all

-other commodities, not only with us, but with the Greeks before us, is

-a social affair. The most modern philosophy has given up concealing the

-fact. The teleology of the rationalists, who follow Fichte, as well as

-of the pragmatists who consider themselves the successors of Mill is

-openly based upon the social point of view, and speaks of collective

-creations. Truth which is not good for all, and always, in the home

-market and the foreign--is not truth. Perhaps its value is even defined

-by the quantity of labour spent upon it. Marx might triumph: under

-different flags his theory has found admission into every sphere of

-contemporary thought. There would hardly be found one philosopher who

-would apply the method of verifying truth which I have proposed; and

-hardly a single modern idea which would stand the test.

-

-

-

-_Doctrines and Deductions_

-

-

-If you want to ruin a new idea--try to give it the widest possible

-publicity. Men will begin to reflect upon it, to try it by their daily

-needs, to interpret it, to make deductions from it, in a word to

-squeeze it into their own prepared logical apparatus; or, more likely,

-they will cover it up with the _débris_ of their own habitual and

-intelligible ideas, and it will become as dead as everything that is

-begotten by logic. Perhaps this explains the tendency of philosophers

-to so clothe their thoughts that their form may hinder the approach of

-the general public to them. The majority of philosophic systems are

-chaotically and obscurely expounded, so that not every educated person

-can understand them. It is a pity to kill one's own child, and every

-one does his best to save it from premature death. The most dangerous

-enemies of an idea are 'deductions' from it, as though they followed of

-themselves. The idea does not presuppose them; they are usually pressed

-upon it. Indeed, people very often say: 'The idea is quite right, but

-it leads to conclusions which are not at all acceptable.' Again, how

-often has a philosopher to attend the sad spectacle of his pupil's

-deserting all his ideas, and feeding only upon the conclusions from

-them. Every thinker who has had the misfortune to attract attention

-while he was yet alive, knows by bitter experience what 'deductions'

-are. And yet you will rarely find a philosopher to offer open and

-courageous resistance to his continuators; and still more rarely a

-philosopher to say outright that his work needs no continuation, that

-it will not bear continuation, that it exists only in and for itself,

-that it is self-sufficient. If some one said this, how would he be

-answered? People could not dispute with him--try to dispute with a man

-who wants neither to dispute nor to demonstrate.

-

-The only answer is an appeal to the popular verdict, to lynch law.

-People are so weak and naïve that they will at all costs see a teacher

-(in the usual sense of the word) in every philosopher. In other words,

-they really want to throw upon him the responsibility for their

-actions, their present, their future, and their whole fate. Socrates

-was not executed for teaching, but because the Athenians thought he

-was dangerous to Athens. And in all ages men have approached truth

-with this criterion, as though they knew beforehand that truth must

-be of use and able to protect them. One of the greatest teachings,

-Christianity, was also persecuted because it seemed dangerous to the

-self-appointed guardians, or, if you will, because it was really very

-dangerous to Roman ideals. Of course, neither Socrates' death nor the

-deaths of thousands of the early Christians saved the ancient culture

-and polity from decay: but no one has learned anything from the lesson.

-People think that these were all accidental mistakes, against which no

-one was secure in ancient times, but which will never again recur; and

-therefore they continue to make 'deductions' as they used from every

-truth, and to judge the truth by the deductions they have made. And

-they have their reward. Although there have been on earth many wise men

-who knew much that is infinitely more valuable than all the treasures

-for which men are ready even to sacrifice their lives, still wisdom is

-to us a book with seven seals, a hidden hoard upon which we cannot lay

-our hands. Many--the vast majority--are even seriously convinced that

-philosophy is a most tedious and painful occupation to which are doomed

-some miserable wretches who enjoy the odious privilege of being called

-philosophers. I believe that even professors of philosophy, the more

-clever of them, not seldom share this opinion and suppose that therein

-lies the ultimate secret of their science, revealed to the initiate

-alone. Fortunately, the position is otherwise. It may be that mankind

-is destined never to change in this respect, and a thousand years hence

-men will care much more about 'deductions,' theoretical and practical,

-from the truth than about truth itself; but real philosophers, men who

-know what they want and at what they aim, will hardly be embarrassed

-by this. They will utter their truths as before, without in the least

-considering what conclusions will be drawn from them by the lovers of

-logic.

-

-

-

-_Truths, Proven and Unproven_

-

-

-Whence did we get the habit of requiring proofs of each idea that

-is expressed? If we put aside the consideration, as having no real

-meaning in the present case, that men do often purposely deceive their

-neighbours for gain or other interests, then strictly speaking the

-necessity for proof is entirely removed. It is true that we can still

-deceive ourselves and fall into involuntary error. Sometimes we take

-a vision for a reality, and we wish to guard against that offensive

-mistake. But as soon as the possibility of _bona fide_ error is

-removed, then we may relate simply without arguments, judgments, or

-references. If you please, believe; if you don't, don't. And there is

-one province, the very province which has always attracted to itself

-the most remarkable representatives of the human race, where proofs

-in the general acceptation are even quite impossible. We have been

-hitherto taught that that which cannot be proved, should not be spoken

-about. Still worse, we have so arranged our language that, strictly

-speaking, everything we say is expressed in the form of a judgment,

-that is, in a form which presupposes not merely the possibility but

-the necessity of proofs. Perhaps this is the reason why metaphysics

-has been the object of incessant attack. Metaphysics evidently was not

-only unable to find a form of expression for her truths which would

-free her from the obligation of proof; she did not even want to. She

-considered herself the science _par excellence,_ and therefore supposed

-that she had more largely and more strictly to prove the judgments

-which she took under her wing. She thought that if she were to neglect

-the duty of demonstration she would lose all her rights. And that, I

-imagine, was her fatal mistake. The correspondence of rights and duties

-is perhaps a cardinal truth (or a cardinal fiction) of the doctrine

-of law, but it has been introduced into the sphere of philosophy by a

-misunderstanding. Here, rather, the contrary principle is enthroned:

-rights are in inverse proportion to duties. And only there where

-all duties have ceased is the greatest and most sovereign right

-acquired--the right of communion with ultimate truths. Here we must not

-for one moment forget that ultimate truths have nothing in common with

-middle truths, the logical construction of which we have so diligently

-studied for the last two thousand years. The fundamental difference is

-that the ultimate truths are absolutely unintelligible. Unintelligible,

-I repeat, but not inaccessible. It is true that middle truths also are,

-strictly speaking, unintelligible. Who will assert that he understands

-light, heat, pain, pride, joy, degradation?

-

-Nevertheless, our mind, in alliance with omnipotent habit, has,

-with the assistance of some strained interpretation, given to the

-combination of phenomena in the segment of universal life that is

-accessible to us, a certain kind of harmony and unity, and this from

-time immemorial has gained repute under the name of an intelligible

-explanation of the created world. But the known, which is the familiar,

-world is sufficiently unintelligible to make good faith require of us

-that we should accept unintelligibility as the fundamental predicate

-of being. It is impossible to hold, as some do, that the only reason

-why we do not understand the world is that something is hidden from

-us or that our mind is weak, so that if the Supreme Being wished to

-unveil the secret of creation to us, or if the human brain should so

-much develop in the next ten million years that he will excel us as

-far as we excel our official ancestor, the ape, then the world will be

-intelligible. No, no, no! By their very essence the operations which we

-perform upon reality to understand it are useful and necessary only so

-long as they do not pass a certain limit. It is possible to understand

-the arrangement of a locomotive. It is also legitimate to seek an

-explanation of an eclipse of the sun, or of an earthquake. But a moment

-comes--only we cannot define it exactly--when explanations lose all

-meaning and are good for nothing any more. It is as though we were led

-by a rope--the law of sufficient reason--to a certain place and left

-there: 'Now go wherever you like.' And since we have grown so used to

-the rope in our lives, we begin to believe that it is part of the very

-essence of the world. One of the most remarkable thinkers, Spinoza,

-thought that God himself was bound by necessity.

-

-Let any one probe himself carefully, and he will find that he is not

-merely unable to think but almost unable to live without the hypothesis

-of Spinoza. The work of Hume, who so brilliantly disputed the axiom

-of causal necessity, was only half done. He clearly showed that it

-is impossible to prove the existence of necessary connection. But it

-is also impossible to prove the contrary. In the result, everything

-remained as before: Kant, and all mankind after him, has returned to

-Spinoza's position. Freedom has been driven into an intellectual world,

-an unknown land,

-

-                     'from whose bourne

-    No traveller returns,'

-

-and everything is in its former place. Philosophy wants to be a science

-at all costs. It is absolutely impossible for her to succeed in this;

-but the price she has paid for the right to be called a science, is

-not returned to her. She has waived the right of seeking that which

-she needed wherever she would, and she is deprived of the right for

-ever. But did she really need it? If you glance at contemporary German

-philosophy you will say without hesitation that it was not needed at

-all. Neither by mistake, nor even in pursuit of a new title, did she

-renounce her great vocation: it has become an intolerable burden to

-her. However hard it may be to confess, it is nevertheless indubitable

-that the great secrets of the universe cannot be manifested with the

-clarity and distinctness with which the visible and tangible world is

-opened to us. Not only others--you will not even convince yourself of

-your truth with the obviousness with which you can convince all men

-without exception of scientific truths.

-

-Revelations, if they do occur, are always revelations for an instant.

-Mahomet--Dostoevsky explains--could only stay in paradise a very short

-time, from half a second to five seconds, even if he succeeded in

-falling into it. And Dostoevsky himself entered paradise only for an

-instant. And here on earth, both of them lived for years, for tens of

-years, and there seemed to be no end to the hell of earthly existence.

-The hell was obvious, demonstrable; it could be fixed, exhibited,

-_ad oculos._ But how could paradise be proven? How could one fix,

-how express, those half-seconds of paradisic beatitude, which were

-from the outside manifested in ugly and horrible epileptic fits with

-convulsions, paroxysms, a foaming mouth, and sometimes an ill-omened

-sudden fall, with the spilling of blood? Again, believe, if you will:

-if you won't, don't. Surely a man who lives now in paradise, now in

-hell sees life utterly differently from others. And he wants to think

-that he is right, that his experience is of great value, that life is

-not at all as it is described by men of different experience and more

-limited emotions. How desperately did Dostoevsky desire to persuade all

-men of his rightness, how stubbornly he used to demonstrate, and how

-angry he was made by the consciousness that lived in the depths of his

-soul that he was impotent to prove anything. But a fact remains a fact.

-Perhaps epileptics and madmen know things of which normal men have

-not even the remotest presentiment, but it is not vouchsafed to them

-to communicate their knowledge to others, or to prove it. And there

-is a universal knowledge which is the very object of philosophical

-seeking, with which one may commune, but which by its very essence

-cannot be communicated to all, that is, cannot be turned into verified

-and demonstrable universal truths. To renounce this knowledge in order

-that philosophy should have the right to be called a science! At times

-men acted thus. There were sober epochs when the pursuit of positive

-knowledge absorbed every one capable of intellectual labour. Or perhaps

-there were epochs in which men who sought something other than positive

-science were condemned to universal contempt, and passed unregarded: in

-such an epoch Plato would have found no sympathy, but would have died

-in obscurity. One thing at least is clear. He whose chief interest

-and motive in life is in undemonstrable truths is doomed to complete

-or relative sterility in the sense in which the word is generally

-understood. If he is clever and gifted, men may perhaps be interested

-in his mind and talent, but they will pass his work with indifference,

-contempt, and even horror; and they will begin to warn the world

-against him.

-

-    'Look at him, my children,

-      He is stern and pale and lean.

-    He is poor and naked,

-      And all men count him mean.'

-

-Has not the work of the prophets who sought for ultimate truths been

-barren and useless? Did life hold them in any account? Life went its

-own way, and the voices of the prophets have been, are, and ever

-will be, voices in the wilderness. For that which they see and know,

-cannot be proved and is not capable of proof. Prophets have always

-been isolated, dissevered, separate, helpless men, locked up in their

-pride. Prophets are kings without an army. For all their love to their

-subjects, they can do nothing for them, for subjects respect only those

-kings who possess a formidable military power. And--long may it be so!

-

-

-

-_The Limits of Reality_

-

-

-After all, not even the most consistent and convinced realist

-represents life to himself as it really is. He overlooks a great deal;

-and on the other hand he often sees something which has no existence in

-reality. I do not think there is any need to show this by example. For

-all our desire to be objective we are, after all, extremely subjective,

-and those things which Kant calls synthetic judgments _a priori,_ by

-which our mind forms nature and dictates laws to her, do play a great

-and serious part in our lives. We create something like the veil of

-Maia: we are awake in sleep, and sleep in wakefulness, exactly as

-though some magic power had charmed us. And just as in sleep we feel

-for instants that what is happening to us is like a half-dream, an

-intermediate half-life. Schopenhauer and the Buddhists were right in

-asserting that it is equally wrong to say of the veil of Maia, the

-world accessible to us, either that it exists or does not exist. It is

-true that logic does not admit such judgments and persecutes them most

-implacably, for they violate its most fundamental laws. But it cannot

-be helped: when one has to choose between philosophy which is alluring

-and promising, and empty logic, one will always sacrifice the latter

-for the former. And philosophy without contradictory judgments would

-be either doomed to eternal silence, or would be churned into a mud of

-commonplace and reduced to nothing. Philosophers know that. The same

-is true of our own case: we must confess that we are at the same time

-awake and dreaming dreams, and at times we must own that though we

-are alive, yet we have long since been dead. As living beings we still

-hold to the accepted synthetic judgments _a priori,_ and as dead, we

-try to do without them, or to replace them by other judgments which

-have nothing in common with the former but are even opposite to them.

-Philosophy is occupied in this work with extreme diligence, and _in

-this and this alone_ is the meaning of the idealistic movement which

-has never, since the time of Plato, disappeared from history. The

-problem is not for us to find another, primordial, better, and eternal

-world to replace the visible world accessible to all, as idealistic

-philosophy is usually interpreted by her official and, unfortunately,

-her most influential representatives. Interpretation of that kind

-too obviously bears the mark of its empiric utilitarian origin: they

-bring us as near to super-empiric reality as do the notions wherewith

-we define what is valuable in life. We might as well consider the

-super-empiric world as one of gold, diamond, or pearls simply because

-gold, diamonds, and pearls are very costly. But so it usually happens.

-God himself is usually represented as glimmering with gold and precious

-stones, as omniscient and omnipotent. He is called the King of Kings

-since on earth the lot of a crowned head is considered most enviable.

-The meaning and value of idealistic philosophy thus appears to be that

-she for ever ratifies all that we have found valuable on earth during

-our brief existence. Herein, I believe, is a fatal error. Idealistic

-philosophy, it is true, gave an excuse for falsely interpreting her,

-since she loved to be arrayed in sumptuous apparel. The religion of

-almost all nations has always sought for forms outwardly beautiful

-without stopping even before such an obvious paradox--not to put it

-more strongly--as a golden cross studded with diamonds. And for the

-sake of sumptuous words and golden crosses men overlooked great truths,

-and perhaps great possibilities. The philosophy of the schools also

-loved to array herself, so that she should not be behind the masters in

-this respect, and for the sake of dress she often forgot her necessary

-work. Plato taught that our life was only a shadow of another reality.

-If this is true, and he discovered the truth, then surely our first

-task is to begin to live a different life, to turn our back to the wall

-above which the shadows are walking and to turn our face to the source

-of light which created the shadows or to those things of which the

-visible outlines give only a remote resemblance. We must be awakened,

-if only in part; to this end what is usually done to a person sound

-asleep must be done to us. He is pulled, pinched, beaten, tickled,

-and if all these things fail, still stronger and more heroic measures

-must be applied. At all events, it is out of the question to advise

-contemplation, which may well make one still sleepier, or quietude,

-which leads to the same result. Philosophy should live by sarcasm,

-irony, alarm, struggles, despairs, and allow herself contemplation

-and quietude only from time to time, as a relaxation. Then perhaps she

-will succeed in creating, by the side of realistic dreams, dreams of

-a quite different order, and visibly demonstrate that the universally

-accepted dreams are not the only ones. 'What is the use?' I do not

-think this question need be answered. He who asks it, shows by the fact

-that he needs neither an answer nor philosophy, while he who needs them

-will not ask but will patiently await events: a temperature of 120°,

-an epileptic fit, or something of this kind, which facilitates the

-difficult task of seeking....

-

-

-

-_The Given and the Possible_

-

-

-The law of causation as a principle of inquiry is an excellent thing:

-the existing sciences afford us convincing evidence of that. But as an

-idea in the Platonic sense it is of little value, at times at least.

-The strict harmony and order of the world have fascinated many people:

-such giants of thought as Spinoza and Goethe paused with reverent

-wonder in contemplation of the great and unchangeable order of nature.

-Therefore they exalted necessity even to the rank of a primordial,

-eternal, original principle. And we must confess that Goethe's and

-Spinoza's conception of the world lives so much in each one of us that

-in most cases we can love and respect the world only when our souls

-feel in it a symmetrical harmony. Harmony seems to us at once-the

-highest value and the ultimate truth. It gives to the soul great peace,

-a stable firmness, a trust in the Creator--the highest boons accessible

-to mortal men, as the philosophers teach. Nevertheless, there are

-other yearnings. Man's heart is suddenly possessed by a longing for

-the fantastic, the unforeseen, for that which cannot be foreseen. The

-beautiful world loves its beauty, peace of soul seems disgraceful,

-stability is felt as an intolerable burden. Just as a youth grown

-to manhood suddenly feels irritated by the bountiful tutelage of

-his parents, from which he has received so much, though he does not

-know what to do with his freedom, so is a man of insight ashamed of

-the happiness which is given to him, which some one has created. The

-law of causation, like the whole harmony of the world, seems to him

-a pleasant gift, facilitating life, but yet a degrading one. He has

-sold his birthright for peace, for undisturbed happiness--his great

-birthright of free creation. He does not understand how a giant like

-Goethe could have been seduced by the temptation of a pleasant life,

-he suspects the sincerity of Spinoza. There is something rotten in the

-state of Denmark. The apple of the tree of knowledge of good and evil,

-has become to him the sole purpose of life, even though the path to it

-should lie through extreme suffering.

-

-And, strangely, nature herself seems to be preoccupied in urging man to

-that fatal path. There comes a time in our life when some imperative

-and secret voice forbids us to rejoice at the beauty and grandeur of

-the world. The world allures us as before, but it no longer gives pure

-happiness. Remember Tchekhov. How he loved nature! What immeasurable

-yearning is audible in his wonderful descriptions of nature! Just as

-though each time that he glanced at the blue sky, the troubled sea or

-the green woods, a voice of authority whispered to him: 'All this is

-yours no longer. You may look at it, but you have no right to rejoice.

-Prepare yourself for another life, where nothing will be given,

-complete, prepared, where nothing will be created, where there will

-be illimitable creation alone. And everything which is in this world

-shall be given to destruction, to destruction and destruction, even

-this nature which you so passionately love, and which it is so hard and

-painful for you to renounce.' Everything drives us to the mysterious

-realm of the eternally fantastic, eternally chaotic, and--who

-knows?--it may be, the eternally beautiful....

-

-

-

-_Experiment and Proof_

-

-

-When _cogito ergo sum_ came into Descartes' head, he marked the

-day--November 10, 1619--as a remarkable day: 'The light of a wonderful

-discovery,' he wrote in his diary, 'flashed into my mind.' Schelling

-relates the same thing of himself: in the year 1801 he 'saw the light.'

-And to Nietzsche when he roamed the mountains and the valleys of

-the Engadine there came a mighty change: he grasped the doctrine of

-eternal recurrence. One might name many philosophers, poets, artists,

-preachers, who like these three suddenly saw the light, and considered

-their vision the beginning of a new life. It is even probable that all

-men who have been destined to display to the world something perfectly

-new and original have without exception experienced that miracle of

-sudden metamorphosis. Nevertheless, though much is spoken of these

-miracles and often, in nearly all biographies of great men, we cannot

-strictly make any use of them. Descartes, Schelling, Nietzsche tell

-the story of their conversion; and with us, Tolstoi and Dostoevsky

-tell of theirs; in the less remote past, there are Mahomet and Paul

-the Apostle; in far antiquity the legend of Moses. But if I had

-chosen tenfold the number, if thousands even had been collected, it

-would still be impossible for the mind to make any deduction from

-them. In other words, all these cases have no value as scientific

-material, whereas one fossil skeleton or a unique case of an unknown

-rare disease is a precious windfall to the scientist. What is still

-more interesting, Descartes was so struck with his _cogito ergo sum,_

-Nietzsche with his eternal recurrence, Mahomet with his paradise, Paul

-the Apostle with his vision, while we remain more or less indifferent

-to anything they may relate of their experiences. Only the most

-sensitive among us have an ear for stories of that kind, and even they

-are obliged to hide their impressions within them, for what can be done

-with them?

-

-It is even impossible to fix them as indubitable facts, for facts

-also require a verification and must be proved. There are no proofs.

-Philosophic and religious teachings offered by men who have had

-extraordinary inward experiences, not only do not generally confirm,

-but rather refute their own stories of revelation. For philosophic and

-religious teaching have always hitherto assigned themselves the task

-of attracting all and sundry to themselves, and in order to attain

-this end they had to have recourse to such methods as have effect with

-the ordinary man, who knows of nothing extraordinary--to proof, to the

-authority of visible and tangible phenomena, which can be measured,

-weighed and counted. In their pursuit of proofs, of persuasiveness

-and popularity, they had to sacrifice the important and essential,

-and expose for show that which is agreeable to reason--things already

-more or less known, and therefore of little interest and importance.

-In course of time, as experimental science, so-called, gained more

-and more power, the habit of hiding in oneself all that cannot be

-demonstrated _ad oculos,_ has become more and more firmly rooted,

-until it is almost man's second nature. Nowadays we 'naturally'

-share but a small part of an experience with our friends, so that

-if Mahomet and Paul lived in our time, it would not enter their

-heads to tell their extraordinary stories. And for all his bravery,

-Nietzsche nevertheless passes quickly over eternal recurrence, and

-is much more occupied with preaching the morality of the Superman,

-which, though it at first astounded people, was after all accepted

-with more or less modification, because it was demonstrable. Evidently

-we are confronted with a great dilemma. If we continue to cultivate

-modern methodology, we run the risk of becoming so accustomed to it

-that we will lose not only the faculty of sharing all undemonstrable

-and exceptional experiences with others, but even of retaining them

-firmly in the memory. They will begin to be forgotten as dreams, they

-will even seem to be waking dreams. Thus we will cut ourselves off

-for ever from a vast realm of reality, whose meaning and value have

-by no means been divined or appreciated. In olden times men could add

-dreams and madmen's visions to reality; but we shall curtail the real

-indubitable reality, transferring it to the realm of hallucinations and

-dreams. I suppose even a modern man will feel some hesitation in coming

-over to the side of this methodology, even though he is incapable of

-thinking, with the ancients, that dreams are by no means worthless

-things. And if this is so, then the rights of experiences must not be

-defined by the degree of their demonstrability. However capricious

-our experiences may be, however little they agree with the rooted and

-predominant conceptions of the necessary character of events in the

-inward and outward life--once they have taken place in the soul of man,

-they acquire, _ipso facto,_ the lawful right of figuring side by side

-with facts which are most demonstrable and susceptible of control and

-verification, and even with a deliberate experiment.

-

-It may be said that we would not then be protected against deliberate

-frauds. People who have never been in paradise will give themselves out

-for Mahomets. That is true; they will talk and they will he. There will

-be no method of objective verification. But they will surely tell the

-truth also. For the sake of that truth we may make up our minds to swim

-through a whole ocean of lies. Yes, it is not in the least impossible

-to distinguish truth from lie in this realm, though, certainly, not by

-the signs which have been evolved by logic; and not even by signs, but

-by no signs at all. The signs of the beautiful have not yet been even

-approximately, defined, and, please God--be it said without offence to

-the Germans--they never will be defined, but yet we distinguish between

-Apollo and Venus. So it is with truth: she too may be recognised. But

-what if a man cannot distinguish without signs, and, moreover, does

-not want to?... What is to be done with him? Really, I do not know;

-besides, I do not imagine that all men down to the last should act

-in unison. When did all men act in agreement? Men have mostly acted

-separately, meeting in certain places, and parting in others. Long may

-it be so! Some will recognise and seek after truth by signs, others

-without signs, as they please, and yet others, in both ways.

-

-

-

-_The Seventh Day of Creation_

-

-

-Socrates said that he often used to hear from poets thoughts remarkable

-for their profundity and seriousness, but when he began to inquire of

-them more particularly, he became convinced that they themselves did

-not understand what they were saying. What did he really mean? Did

-Socrates wish to compare the poets to parrots or trained blackbirds

-who can learn by heart, with the assistance of a man to teach them,

-any ideas whatever, perfectly foreign to them. That can hardly be.

-Socrates hardly thought that what the poets say had been overheard by

-them from some one, and mechanically fixed in their mind, though it

-remained quite foreign to their soul. Most probably he used the word

-'understand' in the sense that they could not demonstrate or explain

-the soundness and stability of their ideas,--they could not deduce

-them and relate them to a definite conception of the world. As every

-one knows, Socrates thought that not merely poets, but all men, from

-eminent statesmen down to ignorant artisans, had ideas, even a great

-many ideas, but they never could explain where they had got them, or

-make them agree among themselves.

-

-In this respect poets were the same as the rest of people. From some

-mysterious source they had acquired truths, often great and profound,

-but they were unable to explain them. This seemed to Socrates a great

-misery, a real misfortune. I do not know how it happened--not a single

-historian of philosophy has explained it, and indeed very little

-interest has been taken in it--but Socrates for some reason decided

-that an unproven and unexplained truth had less value than a proven and

-explained one. In our times, when a whole theory, even a conception

-of the world, has been made of Socrates's idea, this notion seems

-so natural and self-evident that no one doubts it. But in antiquity

-the case was different. Strictly, Socrates thought that the poets

-had acquired their truths, which they were unable to prove, from a

-very respectable source, which deserved all possible confidence: he

-himself compared the poets with oracles, and consequently admitted

-that they had communion with the gods. There was, therefore, a most

-excellent guarantee that the poets were possessed of real, undiluted

-truth--the pledge of its purity being the divine authority. Socrates

-said that he himself had frequently been guided in his actions, not by

-considerations of reason, but by the voice of his mysterious 'demon.'

-That is, at times, he abstained from certain actions--his demon gave

-him never positive, but only negative advice--without being able to

-produce reasons, simply because the secret voice, more authoritative

-than any human mind, demanded abstinence from them.

-

-Is it not strange that under such circumstances, at an epoch when the

-gods vouchsafed truths to men, there should have suddenly appeared in

-a man the unexplained desire to acquire truths without the help of the

-gods, and in independence of them, by the dialectic method so beloved

-of the Greeks? It is doubtful which is more important for us, to

-acquire the truth or to acquire for one's self with one's own effort,

-it may be a false, but one's _own_ judgment. The example of Socrates,

-who has been a pattern for all subsequent generations of thinking

-men, leaves not the slightest doubt. Men do not need a truth ready

-made; they turn away from the gods to devote themselves to independent

-creations. Practically the same story is told in the Bible. What indeed

-was lacking to Adam? He lived in paradise, in direct proximity to God,

-from whom he could learn anything he wanted. And yet it did not suit

-him. It was enough that the Serpent should make his perfidious proposal

-for the man to forget the wrath of God, and all the dangers which

-threatened him, and to pluck the apple from the forbidden tree. Then

-the truth, which until the creation of the world and man had been one,

-split and broke with a great, perhaps an infinitely great, number of

-most diverse truths, eternally being born, and eternally dying. This

-was the seventh day of creation, unrecorded in history. Man became

-God's collaborator. He himself became a creator. Socrates renounced the

-divine truth and even spoke contemptuously of it, merely because it

-was not proven, that is, because it does not bear the marks of man's

-handiwork. Socrates really did not prove anything, but he was proving,

-creating, and in this he saw the meaning of his own life and of all

-human lives. Thus, surely, the pronouncement of the Delphic oracle

-seems true even now: Socrates was the wisest of men. And he who would

-be wise must, imitating Socrates, not be like him in anything. Thus did

-all great men, and all great philosophers.

-

-

-

-_What does the History of Philosophy teach us?_

-

-

-Neo-Kantianism is the prevalent school of modern philosophy. The

-literature about Kant has grown to unheard-of proportions. But if

-you attempt to analyse the colossal mass that has been written upon

-Kant, and put the question to yourself, what has really been left to

-us of Kant's teaching, then to your great amazement you will have to

-reply: Nothing at all. There is an extraordinary, incredibly famous

-name--Kant, and there is positively not a single Kantian thesis which

-in an uninterpreted form would have survived till our day. I say in

-an uninterpreted form, for interpretations resolve at bottom into

-arbitrary recastings, which often have not even an outward resemblance

-to the original. These interpretations began while Kant was still

-alive. Fichte gave the first example. It is well known that Kant

-reacted, demanding that his teaching should be understood not in the

-spirit but in the letter. And Kant was, naturally, quite right. Of

-two things one: either you take his teaching as it is, or you invent

-your own. But the fate of all thinkers who have been destined to

-give their names to an epoch is similar: they have been interpreted,

-recast, till they are unrecognisable. For after a short time had

-elapsed, it became clear that their ideas were so overburdened with

-contradictions, that in the form in which they emerged from the hands

-of their creators, they are absolutely unacceptable. Indeed, all the

-critics who had not made up their minds beforehand to be orthodox

-Kantians, came to the conclusion that Kant had not proved a single

-one of his fundamental propositions. Something stronger may be said.

-By virtue of the fact that Kant, owing to the central position which

-he occupied, attracted much attention to himself and was forced to

-submit to very careful criticism, there gradually emerged a truth which

-might have been known beforehand: that Kant's teaching is a mass of

-contradictions. The sum-total of more than a century's study of Kant

-may be resumed in a few words. Although he was not afraid of the most

-crying contradictions, he did not have the smallest degree of success

-in proving the correctness of his teaching. With an extraordinary

-power and depth of mind, with all the originality, boldness, and

-talent of his constructions, he really provided nothing that might be

-indisputably called a positive acquisition of philosophy. I repeat that

-I am not expressing my own opinion. I am only reckoning the sum-total

-of the opinions of the German critics of Kant, of those same critics

-who built him a monument _aere perennius._

-

-The same may be said of all the great representatives of philosophic

-thought beginning with Plato and Aristotle, and ending with Hegel,

-Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Their works astonish by their power, depth,

-boldness, beauty and originality of thought. While you read them it

-seems that truth herself speaks with their lips. And what strong

-measures of precaution did they take to prevent themselves from being

-mistaken! They believed in nothing that men had grown accustomed to

-believe. They methodically doubted everything, reexamined everything,

-tens, hundreds of times. They gave their life to the truth not in

-words, but in deed. And still the sum-total is the same in their case

-as in Kant's: not one of them succeeded in inventing a system free from

-internal contradictions.

-

-Aristotle was already criticising Plato, and the sceptics criticised

-both of them, and so on until in our day each new thinker struggles

-with his predecessors, refutes their contradictions and errors,

-although he knows that he is doomed to the same fate. The historians

-of philosophy are at infinite pains to conceal the most glaring and

-noticeable trait of philosophic creation, which is, at bottom, no

-secret to any one. The uninitiated, and people generally who do not

-like thinking, and therefore wish to be contemptuous of philosophy,

-point to the lack of unity among philosophers as evidence that it is

-not worth while to study philosophy. But they are both wrong. The

-history of philosophy not only does not inspire us with the thought

-of the continual evolution of an idea, but palpably convinces us of

-the contrary, that among philosophers there is not, has not been, and

-will never be, any aspiration towards unity. Neither will they find

-in future a truth free from contradiction, for they do not seek the

-truth in the sense in which the word is understood by the people and

-by science; and, after all, contradictions do not frighten them, but

-rather attract. Schopenhauer begins his criticism of Kant's philosophy

-with the words of Voltaire: 'It is the privilege of genius to make

-great mistakes with impunity.' I believe that the secret of the

-philosophic genius lies here. He makes great, the greatest, mistakes,

-and with impunity. Moreover his mistakes are put to his credit, for

-the important matter is not his truths, or his judgments, but himself.

-When you hear from Plato that the life we see is only a shadow, when

-Spinoza, intoxicated by God, exalts the idea of necessity, when Kant

-declares that reason dictates laws to Nature,--listening to them you

-do not examine whether their assertions are true or not, you agree with

-each of them, whatever he says, and only this question arises in your

-soul: 'Who is he that speaketh as one having authority?'

-

-Later on, you will reject all their truths, with horror, perhaps with

-indignation and disgust, even with utter indifference. You will not

-consent to accept that our life is only a shadow of actual reality,

-you will revolt against Spinoza's God, who cannot love, yet demands

-love for himself, Kant's categorical imperative will seem to you a cold

-monster,--but you will never forget Plato, or Spinoza, or Kant, and

-will for ever keep your gratitude to them, who made you believe that

-authority is given to mortals. Then you will understand that there are

-no errors and no truths in philosophy; that errors and truths are only

-for him above whom is set a superior authority, a law, a standard. But

-philosophers themselves create laws and standards. This is what we are

-taught by the history of philosophy; this is what is most difficult for

-man to master and understand. I have already said that the historians

-of philosophy draw quite a different moral from the study of the great

-human creations.

-

-

-

-_Science and Metaphysics_

-

-

-In his autobiography Spencer confesses that he had really never

-read Kant. He had had _The Critique of Pure Reason_ in his hands,

-and had even read the beginning, the Transcendental Aesthetic, but

-the beginning convinced him it was no use for him to read further.

-Once a man had made the unconvincing admission which Kant had made,

-by accepting the subjectivity of one form of perception, of space

-and time, he could not be seriously taken into account. If he is

-consistent, all his philosophy will be a system of absurdity and

-nonsense; if he is inconsistent,--the less attention does he deserve.

-

-Spencer confidently asserts that, once he could not accept Kant's

-fundamental proposition, he not only could not be a Kantian any more,

-but he found it useless even to become further acquainted with Kant's

-philosophy. That he did not become a Kantian is nothing to grieve over

---there are Kantians enough without him--but that he did not acquaint

-himself with Kant's principal works, and above all with the whole

-school that rose out of Kant, may be sincerely regretted. Perhaps, as

-a new man, remote from Continental traditions, he would have made a

-curious discovery, and would have convinced himself that it was not at

-all necessary to accept the proposition of the subjectivity of space

-and time in order to become a Kantian. And perhaps with the frankness

-and simplicity peculiar to him, which is not afraid to be taken for

-naïveté, he would have told us that not a single Kantian (Schopenhauer

-excepted), not even Kant himself, has ever seriously accepted the

-fundamental propositions of the Transcendental Aesthetic, and therefore

-has never made from them any conclusions or deductions whatever. On

-the contrary, the Transcendental Aesthetic was itself a deduction from

-another proposition, that we have synthetic judgments _a priori._ The

-original rôle of this, the most original of all theories ever invented,

-was to be a support and an explanation of the mathematical sciences.

-It had never had an independent, material content, susceptible of

-analysis and investigation. Space and time are the eternal forms of our

-perception of the world: to this, according to the strict meaning of

-Kant's teaching, nothing can be added, and nothing abated. Spencer, not

-having read the book to the end, imagined that Kant would begin to make

-deductions and became nervous. But if he had read the book to the end,

-he would have been convinced that Kant had not made any deductions, and

-that the whole meaning of _The Critique of Pure Reason_ indeed is that

-from the propositions of the Transcendental Aesthetic no deductions can

-be made. It is now about a hundred and fifty years since _The Critique

-of Pure Reason_ appeared. No philosophic work has been so much studied

-and criticised. And yet where are the Kantians who attempt to make

-deductions from the proposition as to the subjectivity of space and

-time? Schopenhauer is the only exception. He indeed took the Kantian

-idea seriously, but it may be said without exaggeration that of all

-Kantians the least like Kant was Schopenhauer.

-

-The world is a veil of Maia. Would Kant really have agreed to such

-an interpretation of his Transcendental Aesthetic? Or what would

-Kant have said, if he had heard that Schopenhauer, referring to the

-same Aesthetic in which he saw the greatest philosophic revelation,

-had admitted the possibility of clairvoyance and magic? Probably

-Spencer thought that Kant would himself make all these deductions, and

-therefore threw away the book which bound him to conclusions so absurd.

-It is a pity that Spencer was in such a hurry. Had he acquainted

-himself with Kant, he would have been convinced that the most absurd

-idea might serve a very useful purpose; and that there is not the least

-necessity to make from an idea all the deductions to which it may lead.

-A man is a free agent and he can deduce if he has a mind to; if he has

-not, he will not; and there is no necessity to judge the character

-of a philosophic theory by its general postulates. Even Schopenhauer

-did not exploit Kant's theory to the full, which, if it had really

-divined the truths hitherto hidden from men, would have not only put

-an end to metaphysical researches, but also have given an impulse and

-a justification to perfectly new experiments which from the previous

-standpoint were quite mad and unimaginable. For if space and time are

-forms of our human perception, then they do indeed hide the ultimate

-truth from us. While men knew nothing of this, and, simple minded,

-accepted the visible reality for the actual real, they could not of

-course dream of true knowledge. But from the moment when the truth was

-revealed to them through Kant's penetration, it is clear that their

-true task was to use every possible means to free themselves from

-the harness and to break away from it, while consolidating all those

-judgments which Kant calls synthetic judgments _a priori_ for all

-eternity.

-

-And the new, the critical metaphysics, which should take account of

-the stupid situation in which these had hitherto found themselves who

-saw in apodeictic judgments eternal truths, had a great task to set

-herself: to get rid at all costs of apodeictic judgments, knowing them

-for false. In other words, Kant's task should not have been to minimise

-the destructive effect of Hume's scepticism, but to find a still more

-deadly explosive to destroy even those limits which Hume was obliged

-to preserve. It is surely evident that truth lies beyond synthetic

-judgments _a priori,_ and that it cannot at all resemble an _a priori_

-judgment, and in fact cannot be like a judgment of any kind.

-

-And it must be sought by methods quite different from those by which

-it has been sought hitherto. To some extent Kant attempted to describe

-how he represented to himself the meaning hidden beneath the words:

-'Space and time are subjective forms of perception.' He even gave an

-object-lesson, saying that perhaps there are beings who perceive the

-world otherwise than under the forms of space and time: which means

-that for such beings there is no change. All that we perceive by a

-succession of changes, they perceive at once. To them Julius Caesar

-is still alive, though he is dead; to them the twenty-fifth century

-A.D., which none of us will live to see, and the twenty-fifth century

-B.C., which we reconstruct with such difficulty from the fragmentary

-traces of the past which have accidentally been preserved to us, the

-remote North Pole, and even the stars which we cannot see through the

-telescope--all are as accessible to them as to us the events which

-are taking place before our eyes. Nevertheless Kant, in spite of all

-temptation to acquire the knowledge to which such beings have access,

-notwithstanding his profound conviction of the truth of his discovery,

-did nothing to dispel the charm of forms of perception and categories

-of the reason, or to tear the blinkers from his eyes and see all the

-depth of the mysterious reality hitherto hidden from us. He does not

-even give a little circumstantial explanation why he considered such a

-task impracticable, and he confines himself to the dogmatic assertion

-that man cannot conceive a reality beyond space and time. Why? It is

-a question of immense importance. Compared with it all the problems

-of _The Critique of Pure Reason_ are secondary. How is mathematics

-possible, how are natural sciences possible?--these are not even

-questions at all compared to the question whether it is possible to

-free ourselves from conventional human knowledge in order to attain the

-ultimate, all-embracing truth.

-

-Herein the Kantians display an even greater indifference than Kant

-himself: they are even proud of their indifference, they plume

-themselves upon it as a high virtue. They assert that truth is not

-_beyond_ synthetic judgments _a priori,_ but indeed _in_ them; and

-that it is not the Creator who put blinkers upon us, but we ourselves

-devised them, and that any attempt to remove them and look open-eyed

-upon the world is evidence of perversity. If the old Serpent appeared

-nowadays to seduce the modern Adam, he would retire discomfited.

-Even Eve herself would be no use to him. The twentieth-century Eve

-studies in a university and has quite sufficiently blunted her natural

-curiosity. She can talk excellently well of the teleological point of

-view and is quite as proof as man against temptation. I do not share

-Kant's confidence that space and time are forms of our perception,

-nor do I see a revelation in it. But if I had once accepted this

-apocalyptic assertion, and could think that there was some truth in it,

-I would not depart from it to positive science.

-

-It is a pity that Spencer did not read _The Critique of Pure Reason_ to

-the end. He would have convinced himself of an important truth: that a

-philosopher has no need to take into consideration all the deductions

-from his premisses. He need only have goodwill, and he can draw from

-the most paradoxical and suspicious premisses conclusions which are

-fully conformable to common-sense and the rules of decency. And since

-Kant's will was as good as Spencer's, they would have agreed perfectly

-in their deductions, though they were so far apart from each other in

-their premisses.

-

-

-

-_A Tacit Assumption_

-

-

-Schopenhauer was the first philosopher to ask the value of life. And he

-gave a definite answer: in life there is much more suffering than joy,

-therefore life must be renounced. I must add that strictly speaking

-he asked not only the value of life, but also the value of joy and

-suffering. And to this question he gave an equally definite answer.

-According to his teaching joy is always negative, suffering always

-positive. Therefore by its essence joy cannot compensate for suffering.

-

-In all this philosophical construction, both in formulating and

-answering the questions, there is one tacit, particularly curious,

-and interesting and unexpressed postulate. Schopenhauer starts from

-the assumption that his valuation of life, joy and suffering, in

-order to have the right to be called truth, must contain something

-universal, by virtue of which it will in the last resort coincide with

-the valuation of all other people. Whence did he derive this idea?

-Psychologically the train of Schopenhauer's thought is intelligible

-and easily explained. He was used to the scientific formulation and

-solution of problems, and he transferred to the question which engaged

-him methods of investigation which by general consent usually conduct

-us to the truth. He did not verify his premiss _ad hoc,_ and usually

-it is impossible to verify a premiss every time that a need arises

-for it. It is not even becoming to exhibit it, to speak of it. It is

-understood. If the fundamental sign of any truth is its being universal

-and obligatory, then in the given case the true answer to the question

-of the value of life can only be something which will be absolutely

-admissible by all men to all creatures with a mind. So Schopenhauer

-would probably have answered, if any one had questioned his right to

-formulate in such a general way the question of the value of life.

-

-Still Schopenhauer would hardly be right. This, by the way, is being

-made clear by the objections which are put forward by his opponents.

-He is accused because his very statement of the question presupposes a

-subjective point of view--eudaemonism.

-

-The question of the value of life, people object, is not at all

-decided by whether in the sum life gives more joy than pain or _vice

-versa._ Life may be deeply painful and devoid of joy, life may in

-itself be one compact horror, and still be valuable. Schopenhauer's

-philosophy was not discussed in his lifetime, so that he could not

-answer his opponents. But, if he were still alive, would he accept

-these objections and renounce his pessimism? I am convinced that he

-would not. At the same time I am convinced that his opponents would

-be no less firm and would go on repeating: 'The question is not one

-of happiness or suffering. We value life by a quite different and

-independent standard.' And in the discussion it would perhaps become

-clear to the disputants that the premiss mentioned above, which both

-accepted as requiring no proof and understood without explanation, does

-indeed require proofs and explanations, but is provided with neither.

-To one man the eudaemonistic point of view is ultimate and decisive,

-to another contemptible and degrading, and he seeks the meaning of

-life in a higher, ethical or aesthetic purpose. There are also people

-who love sorrow and pain, and see in them the justification and the

-source of the depth and importance of life. Nor do I mention the fact

-that when the sum-totals of life are reckoned different accountants

-reach different and directly contradictory results, or that insoluble

-questions arise concerning these, or other details. Schopenhauer for

-instance finds, as we have seen, that sufferings are positive, joys

-negative. And hence he concludes that it is not worth while to submit

-to the least unpleasantness for the sake of the greatest joy. What

-answer can be made? How can he be convinced of the contrary?

-

-Nevertheless the fact is obvious: many people regard the matter in

-quite a different light. For the sake of a single happiness they

-are ready to endure a great many serious hardships. In a word,

-Schopenhauer's premiss is quite unjustified, and not only cannot

-be accepted as an indubitable truth, but must be qualified as an

-indubitable error. It is impossible to be certain beforehand that to

-the question of the value of life a single, universally valid answer

-can be given. So here we meet with an extraordinarily curious case

-from the point of view of the theory of knowledge. It appears that

-by the very essence of the matter no uniform answer can be given

-to one of the most important questions, perhaps the most important

-question of philosophy. If you are asked what is life, good or evil,

-you are obliged to say that life is both good and evil; or something

-independent of good and evil; or a mixture of good and evil in which

-there is more good than evil, or more evil than good.

-

-And, I repeat, each of these answers, although they logically quite

-exclude each other, has the right to claim the title of _truth_; for

-if it has not power enough to make the other answers bow down before

-it, at all events it has the necessary strength to repel its opponents'

-attacks and to defend its sovereign rights. Instead of a sole and

-omnipotent truth before which the weak and helpless errors tremble,

-you have before you a whole line of perfectly independent truths

-excellently armed and defended. Instead of absolutism, you have a

-feudal system. And the vassals are so firmly ensconced in their castles

-that an experienced eye can see at once that they are impregnable.

-

-I took for my instance Schopenhauer's doctrine of the value of life.

-But many philosophic doctrines, although they issue from the premiss

-of one sovereign truth, display examples of the plurality of truths.

-It is usually believed that one should study the history of philosophy

-in order to be palpably convinced that mankind has gradually mastered

-its delusions and is now on the high road to ultimate truth. My opinion

-is that the history of philosophy must bring every impartial person,

-who is not infected by modern prejudices, to a directly opposite

-conclusion. There can be no doubt that a whole series of questions

-exists, like that of the value of life, which by their very essence

-do not admit of a uniform solution. To this testimony is often borne

-by men whose very last concern is to curtail the royal prerogative of

-sovereign truth: Natorp confidently asserts that Aristotle not only did

-not understand but could not understand Plato. 'Der tiefere Grund ist

-die ewige Unfähigkeit des Dogmatismus sich in der Gesichtspunkt der

-kritischen Philosophie überhaupt zu versetzen.' 'Eternal incapability'

---what words! And used not of any common-place person, but of the

-greatest human genius known to us, of Aristotle. Had Natorp been a

-little more inquisitive, 'eternal incapability' of that kind should

-have worried him at least as much as Plato's philosophy, on which he

-wrote a large book. For here is evidently a great riddle. Different

-people, according to the different constitution of their souls,

-are while yet in their mother's womb destined to have different

-philosophies. It reminds me of the famous Calvinistic view of

-predetermination. Just as from before birth God has destined some to

-damnation, others to salvation; so to some it is given and from others

-withheld, to know the truth.

-

-And not Natorp alone argues thus. It would be true to say all modern

-philosophers, who are always contending with each other and suspecting

-each other of 'eternal incapability.' Philosophers have not the same

-means of compelling conviction as the representatives of other positive

-sciences: they cannot force every one to undeniable conclusions. Their

-_ultima ratio,_ their personal opinion, their private conviction,

-their last refuge, is the 'eternal incapability' of their opponents to

-understand them. Here the tragic dilemma is clear to all. Of two things

-one: either renounce philosophy entirely, or allow that that which

-Natorp calls the 'eternal incapability' is not a vice or a weakness,

-but a great virtue and power hitherto unappreciated and misunderstood.

-Aristotle, indeed, was organically incapable of understanding Plato,

-just as Plato could not have understood Aristotle, just as neither of

-them could understand the sceptics or the sophists, just as Leibnitz

-could not understand Spinoza, as Schopenhauer could not understand

-Hegel, and so on till our riotous modern days when no philosopher

-can understand any one except himself. Besides, philosophers do not

-aspire to mutual understanding and unity, but usually it is with the

-utmost reluctance that they observe in themselves similarity to their

-predecessors. When the similarity of Schopenhauer's teaching to that

-of Spinoza was pointed out to him, he said _Pereant qui ante nos

-nostra dixerint._ But representatives of the other positive sciences

-understand each other, rarely dispute, and never argue by referring to

-the 'eternal incapability' of their confrères. Perhaps in philosophy

-this chaotic state of affairs and this unique argument are part of the

-craft. Perhaps in this realm it is necessary that Aristotle should

-not understand Plato and should not accept him, that the materialists

-should always be at war with the idealists, the sceptics with the

-dogmatists. In other words, the premiss with which Schopenhauer began

-the investigation into the value of life, and which as we have shown he

-took without verification from the representatives of positive science,

-though perfectly applicable in its proper sphere, is quite out of place

-in philosophy. And indeed, though they never speak of it, philosophers

-value their own personal convictions much more highly than universally

-valid truth. The impossibility of discovering one sole philosophic

-truth may alarm any one but the philosophers themselves, who, so soon

-as they have worked out their own convictions, take not the smallest

-trouble to secure general recognition for them. They are only busy with

-getting rid of their vassal dependence and acquiring sovereign rights

-for themselves. The question whether there will be other sovereigns by

-their side hardly concerns them at all.

-

-The history of philosophy should be so expounded that this tendency

-should be clearly manifest. This would spare us from many prejudices,

-and would clear the way for new and important inquiries. Kant, who

-shared the opinion that truth is the same for all, was convinced that

-metaphysics must be a science _a priori,_ and since it cannot be a

-science _a priori,_ must therefore cease to exist. If the history

-of philosophy had been expounded and understood differently in his

-day, it would never have entered his mind thus to impugn the rights

-of metaphysics. And probably he would not have been vexed by the

-contradictoriness or the lack of proof in the teachings of various

-schools of metaphysics. It cannot be otherwise, neither should it

-be. The interest of mankind is not to put an end to the variety of

-philosophic doctrines but to allow the perfectly natural phenomenon

-wide and deep development. Philosophers have always had an instinctive

-longing for this: that is why they are so troublesome to the historian

-of philosophy.

-

-

-

-_The First and the Last_

-

-

-In the first volume of _Human, All too Human,_ which Nietzsche wrote

-at the very beginning of his disease, when he was still far from

-final victory and chiefly told of his defeats, there is the following

-remarkable, though half-involuntary confession: 'The complete

-irresponsibility of Man for his actions and his being is the bitterest

-drop for the man of knowledge to drink, since he has been accustomed to

-see in responsibility and duty the very patent of his title to manhood.'

-

-Much bitterness has the inquiring spirit to swallow, but the bitterest

-of all is in the knowledge that his moral qualities, his readiness to

-fulfil his duty ungrudgingly, gives him no preference over other men.

-He thought he was a man of noble rank, even a prince of the blood,

-crowned with a crown, and the other men boorish peasantry--but he is

-just the same, a peasant, the same as all the rest. His patent of

-nobility was that for which he fulfilled his most arduous duty and made

-sacrifices; in it he saw the meaning of life. And when it is suddenly

-revealed that there is no provision made for titles or patents, it

-is a horrible catastrophe, a cataclysm--and life loses all meaning.

-Evidently the conviction expressed with such moving frankness in these

-words, was with Nietzsche a second nature, which he could not master

-all his life long. What is the Superman but a title, a patent, giving

-the right to be called a noble among the _canaille?_ What is the pathos

-of distance and all Nietzsche's teaching of ranks? The formula, beyond

-good and evil, was by no means so all-destructive as at first sight it

-seemed. On the contrary, by erasing certain laws graven on the tables

-of mankind of old, that formula as it were revealed other commandments,

-obliterated by time, and therefore invisible to many.

-

-All morality, all good in and for itself is rejected, but the patent of

-nobility grows more precious until it becomes, if not the only value,

-at least the chief. Life loses its meaning once titles and ranks are

-destroyed, once he is deprived of the right to hold his head high, to

-throw out his chest, his belly even, and to look with contempt upon

-those about him.

-

-In order to show to what extent the doctrine of rank has become

-attached to the human soul, I would recall the words of the Gospel

-about the first and last. Christ, who seemed to speak in a language

-utterly new, who taught men to despise earthly blessings--riches, fame,

-honours, who so easily yielded Caesar his due, because he thought

-that only Caesar would find it useful--Christ himself, when he spoke

-to men, did not think it possible to take away from them their hope

-of distinction. 'The first shall be last.' What will there be first

-and second there, too? Yes, so it stands in the Gospel. Is it because

-there is indeed in the division of men into ranks something original

-and warrantable, or is it because Christ who spoke to humankind could

-not but use human words? It may be that, but for that promise, and

-generally the series of promises of rewards, accessible to the human

-understanding, the Gospel would not have fulfilled its great historic

-mission, it would have passed unnoticed on the earth, and no one

-would have detected or recognised in it the Evangel. Christ knew that

-men could renounce all things, save the right to superiority alone,

-to superiority over one's neighbours, to that which Nietzsche calls

-'the patent of nobility.' Without that superiority men of a certain

-kind cannot live. They become what the Germans so appropriately call

-_Vogelfrei,_ deprived of the protection of the laws, since the laws

-are the only source of _their_ right. Rude, nonsensical, disgusting

-reality--against which, I repeat, their _only_ defence is the patent

-of nobility, the unwritten charter--approaches them closer and closer,

-with more and more menace and importunacy, and claims its right. 'If

-you are the same as all other men,' it says, 'take your experience

-of life from me, fulfil your trivial obligations, worse than that,

-accept from me the fines and reprimands to which the rank and file

-are subject, even to corporal punishment.' How could he accept these

-degrading conditions who had been used to think he had the right to

-carry his head high, to be proud and independent? Nietzsche tries

-with dull submissiveness to swallow the horrible bitterness of

-his confession, but courage and endurance, even _his_ courage and

-endurance, are not enough for this his greatest and most terrible task.

-He cannot bear the horror of a life deprived of rights and defences: he

-seeks again for power and authority which would protect him and give

-him his lost rights again. He will not rest until he receives under

-another name a _restitutio in integrum_ of all the rights which had

-previously been his.

-

-And surely not Nietzsche alone acted thus. The whole history of ethics,

-the whole history of philosophy is to no small degree the incessant

-search for prerogative and privilege, patents and charters. The

-Christians--Tolstoi and Dostoevsky--do not in the least differ from

-the enemy of Christianity, Nietzsche. The humble Jew, Spinoza, and the

-meek pagan, Socrates, the idealist Plato, and the idealist Aristotle,

-the founders of the newest, noblest and loftiest systems, Kant, Fichte,

-Hegel, even Schopenhauer, the pessimist, all as one man seek a charter,

-a charter, a charter. Evidently life on earth without a charter

-becomes for the 'best' men a horrible nightmare and an intolerable

-torment. Even the founder of Christianity, who so easily renounced all

-privileges, considered it possible to preserve _this_ privilege for

-his disciples, and perhaps--who knows?--for himself too.

-

-Whereas if Nietzsche and those other philosophers had been able

-resolutely to renounce titles, ranks, and honours, which are

-distributed not only by morality, but by all the other Sanhedrim,

-real and imaginary, which are set over man; if they could have drunk

-this cup to the dregs, then they might have known, seen, and heard

-much that was suspected by none of them before. Long since men have

-known that the road to knowledge lies by way of a great renunciation.

-Neither righteousness nor genius gives a man privilege above others.

-He is deprived, for ever deprived, of the protection of earthly laws.

-There are no laws. To-day he is a king, to-morrow a slave; to-day God,

-to-morrow a worm; to-day first, to-morrow last. And the worm crushed

-by him to-day will be God, his god to-morrow. All the measures and

-balances by which men are distinguished one from another are defaced

-for ever, and there is no certainty that the place a man once occupied

-will still be his. And all philosophers have known this; Nietzsche,

-too, knew it, and by experience. He was the friend, the ally, and

-the collaborator of the great Wagner, the herald of a new era upon

-earth; and later, he grovelled in the dust, broken and crushed.

-And a second time this thing happened to him. When he had finished

-_Zarathustra,_ he became insane, more exactly, he became half-idiot.

-It is true he carried the secret of the second fall with him to the

-grave. Yet something has reached us, for all his sister's efforts to

-conceal from carnal eyes the change that had befallen him. And now

-we ask: Is the essence of life really in the rank, the charter, the

-patent of nobility? And can the words of Christ be understood in their

-literal sense? Are not all the Sanhedrim set over man, and as it were

-giving meaning to his life, mere fictions, useful and even necessary

-in certain moments of life, but pernicious and dangerous, to say no

-more, when the circumstances are changed? Does not life, the real and

-desirable life, which men have sought for thousands of years, begin

-there where there is neither first nor last, righteous or sinner,

-genius or incapable? Is not the pursuit of recognition, of superiority,

-of patents and charters, of rank, that which prevents man from seeing

-life with its hidden miracles? And must man really seek protection

-in the College of Heralds, or has he another power that time cannot

-destroy? One may be a good, able, learned, gifted man, even a man of

-genius, but to demand in return any privileges whatsoever, is to betray

-goodness and ability, and talent and genius, and the greatest hopes of

-mankind. The last on earth will nowhere be first....

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Anton Tchekhov, by Lev Shestov
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: Anton Tchekhov
+       And Other Essays
+
+Author: Lev Shestov
+
+Translator: John Middleton Murry
+
+Release Date: March 16, 2018 [EBook #56758]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANTON TCHEKHOV ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature (Images
+generously made available by the Internet Archive.)
+
+
+
+
+
+ANTON TCHEKHOV
+
+AND OTHER ESSAIS
+
+BY
+
+LEON SHESTOV
+
+TRANSLATED BY
+
+S. KOTELIANSKY AND J. M. MURRY
+
+MAUNSEL AND CO. LTD.
+
+DUBLIN AND LONDON
+
+1916
+
+
+
+    CONTENTS
+
+    ANTON TCHEKHOV (CREATION FROM THE VOID)
+    THE GIFT OF PROPHECY
+    PENULTIMATE WORDS
+    THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+It is not to be denied that Russian thought is chiefly manifested in
+the great Russian novelists. Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, and Tchekhov made
+explicit in their works conceptions of the world which yield nothing in
+definiteness to the philosophic schemes of the great dogmatists of old,
+and perhaps may be regarded as even superior to them in that by their
+nature they emphasise a relation of which the professional philosopher
+is too often careless--the intimate connection between philosophy and
+life. They attacked fearlessly and with a high devotion of which we
+English readers are slowly becoming sensible the fundamental problem of
+all philosophy worthy the name. They were preoccupied with the answer
+to the question: Is life worth living? And the great assumption which
+they made, at least in the beginning of the quest, was that to live
+life must mean to live it wholly. To live was not to pass by life on
+the other side, not suppress the deep or even the dark passions of body
+or soul, not to lull by some lying and narcotic phrase the urgent
+questions of the mind, not to deny life. To them life was the sum of
+all human potentialities. They accepted them all, loved them all, and
+strove to find a place for them all in a pattern in which none should
+be distorted. They failed, but not one of them fainted by the way,
+and there was not one of them but with his latest breath bravely held
+to his belief that there was a way and that the way might be found.
+Tolstoi went out alone to die, yet more manifestly than he had lived,
+a seeker after the secret; death overtook Dostoevsky in his supreme
+attempt to wrest a hope for mankind out of the abyss of the imagined
+future; and Tchekhov died when his most delicate fingers had been
+finally eager in lighting _The Cherry Orchard_ with the tremulous glint
+of laughing tears, which may perhaps be the ultimate secret of the
+process which leaves us all bewildered and full of pity and wonder.
+
+There were great men and great philosophers. It may be that this
+cruelly conscious world will henceforward recognise no man as great
+unless he has greatly sought: for to seek and not to think is the
+essence of philosophy. To have greatly sought, I say, should be the
+measure of man's greatness in the strange world of which there will be
+only a tense, sorrowful, disillusioned remnant when this grim ordeal
+is over. It should be so: and we, who are, according to our strength,
+faithful to humanity, must also strive according to our strength to
+make it so. We are not, and we shall not be, great men: but we have
+the elements of greatness. We have an impulse to honesty, to think
+honestly, to see honestly, and to speak the truth to ourselves in the
+lonely hours. It is only an impulse, which, in these barren, bitter,
+years, so quickly withers and dies. It is almost that we dare not be
+honest now. Our hearts are dead: we cannot wake the old wounds again.
+And yet if anything of this generation that suffered is to remain, if
+we are to hand any spark of the fire which once burned so brightly,
+if we are to be human still, then we must still be honest at whatever
+cost. We--and I speak of that generation which was hardly man when the
+war burst upon it, which was ardent and generous and dreamed dreams
+of devotion to an ideal of art or love or life--are maimed and broken
+for ever. Let us not deceive ourselves. The dead voices will never be
+silent in our ears to remind us of that which we once were, and that
+which we have lost. We shall die as we shall live, lonely and haunted
+by memories that will grow stranger, more beautiful, more terrible,
+and more tormenting as the years go on, and at the last we shall not
+know which was the dream--the years of plenty or the barren years that
+descended like a storm in the night and swept our youth away.
+
+Yet something remains. Not those lying things that they who cannot feel
+how icy cold is sudden and senseless death to all-daring youth, din in
+our ears. We shall not be inspired by the memory of heroism. We shall
+be shattered by the thought of splendid and wonderful lives that were
+vilely cast away. What remains is that we should be honest as we shall
+be pitiful. We shall never again be drunk with hope: let us never be
+blind with fear. There can be in the lap of destiny now no worse thing
+which may befall us. We can afford to be honest now.
+
+We can afford to be honest: but we need to learn how, or to increase
+our knowledge. The Russian writers will help us in this; and not the
+great Russians only, but the lesser also. For a century of bitter
+necessity has taught that nation that the spirit is mightier than the
+flesh, until those eager qualities of soul that a century of social
+ease has almost killed in us are in them well-nigh an instinct. Let
+us look among ourselves if we can find a Wordsworth, a Shelley, a
+Coleridge, or a Byron to lift this struggle to the stars as they did
+the French Revolution. There is none.--It will be said: 'But that was
+a great fight for freedom. Humanity itself marched forward with the
+Revolutionary armies.' But if the future of mankind is not in issue
+now, if we are fighting for the victory of no precious and passionate
+idea, why is no voice of true poetry uplifted in protest? There is
+no third way. Either this is the greatest struggle for right, or the
+greatest crime, that has ever been. The unmistakable voice of poetry
+should be certain either in protest or enthusiasm: it is silent or
+it is trivial. And the cause must be that the keen edge of the soul
+of those century-old poets which cut through false patriotism so
+surely is in us dulled and blunted. We must learn honesty again:
+not the laborious and meagre honesty of those who weigh advantage
+against advantage in the ledger of their minds, but the honesty that
+cries aloud in instant and passionate anger against the lie and the
+half-truth, and by an instinct knows the authentic thrill of contact
+with the living human soul.
+
+The Russians, and not least the lesser Russians, may teach us this
+thing once more. Among these lesser, Leon Shestov holds an honourable
+place. He is hardly what we should call a philosopher, hardly again
+what we would understand by an essayist. The Russians, great and small
+alike, are hardly ever what we understand by the terms which we victims
+of tradition apply to them. In a hundred years they have accomplished
+an evolution which has with us slowly unrolled in a thousand. The very
+foundations of their achievement are new and laid within the memory of
+man. Where we have sharply divided art from art, and from science and
+philosophy, and given to each a name, the Russians have still the sense
+of a living connection between all the great activities of the human
+soul. From us this connection is too often concealed by the tyranny
+of names. We have come to believe, or at least it costs us great
+pains not to believe, that the name is a particular reality, which to
+confuse with another name is a crime. Whereas in truth the energies of
+the human soul are not divided from each other by any such impassable
+barriers: they flow into each other indistinguishably, modify, control,
+support, and decide each other. In their large unity they are real;
+isolated, they seem to be poised uneasily between the real and the
+unreal, and become deceptive, barren half-truths. Plato, who first
+discovered the miraculous hierarchy of names, though he was sometimes
+drunk with the new wine of his discovery, never forgot that the unity
+of the human soul was the final outcome of its diversity; and those
+who read aright his most perfect of all books--_The Republic_--know
+that it is a parable which fore-shadows the complete harmony of all the
+soul's activities.
+
+Not the least of Shestov's merits is that he is alive to this truth in
+its twofold working. He is aware of himself as a soul seeking an answer
+to its own question; and he is aware of other souls on the same quest.
+As in his own case he knows that he has in him something truer than
+names and divisions and authorities, which will live in spite of them,
+so towards others he remembers that all that they wrote or thought or
+said is precious and permanent in so far as it is the manifestation
+of the undivided soul seeking an answer to its question. To know a
+man's work for this, to have divined the direct relation between his
+utterance and his living soul, is criticism: to make that relation
+between one's own soul and one's speech direct and true is creation.
+In essence they are the same: creation is a man's lonely attempt to
+fix an intimacy with his own strange and secret soul, criticism is the
+satisfaction of the impulse of loneliness to find friends and secret
+sharers among the souls that are or have been. As creation drives a man
+to the knowledge of his own intolerable secrets, so it drives him to
+find others with whom he may whisper of the things which he has found.
+Other criticism than this is, in the final issue, only the criminal and
+mad desire to enforce material order in a realm where all is spiritual
+and vague and true. It is only the jealous protest of the small soul
+against the great, of the slave against the free.
+
+Against this smallness and jealousy Shestov has set his face. To have
+done so does not make him a great writer; but it does make him a real
+one. He is honest and he is not deceived. But honesty, unless a man is
+big enough to bear it, and often even when he is big enough to bear it,
+may make him afraid. Where angels fear to tread, fools rush in: but
+though the folly of the fool is condemned, some one must enter, lest
+a rich kingdom be lost to the human spirit. Perhaps Shestov will seem
+at times too fearful. Then we must remember that Shestov is Russian in
+another sense than that I have tried to make explicit above. He is a
+citizen of a country where the human spirit has at all times been so
+highly prized that the name of thinker has been a key to unlock not
+merely the mind but the heart also. The Russians not only respect,
+but they love a man who has thought and sought for humanity, and, I
+think, their love but seldom stops 'this side idolatry.' They will
+exalt a philosopher to a god; they are even able to make of materialism
+a religion. Because they are so loyal to the human spirit they will
+load it with chains, believing that they are garlands. And that is why
+dogmatism has never come so fully into its own as in Russia.
+
+When Shestov began to write nearly twenty years ago, Karl Marx was
+enthroned and infallible. The fear of such tyrannies has never
+departed from Shestov. He has fought against them so long and so
+persistently--even in this book one must always remember that he
+is face to face with an enemy of which we English have no real
+conception--that he is at times almost unnerved by the fear that he
+too may be made an authority and a rule. I do not think that this
+ultimate hesitation, if understood rightly, diminishes in any way from
+the interest of his writings: but it does suggest that there may be
+awaiting him a certain paralysis of endeavour. There is indeed no
+absolute truth of which we need take account other than the living
+personality, and absolute truths are valuable only in so far as they
+are seen to be necessary manifestations of this mysterious reality.
+Nevertheless it is in the nature of man, if not to live by absolute
+truths, at least to live by enunciating them; and to hesitate to
+satisfy this imperious need is to have resigned a certain measure of
+one's own creative strength. We may trust to the men of insight who
+will follow us to read our dogmatisms, our momentary angers, and our
+unshakable convictions, in terms of our personalities, if these shall
+be found worthy of their curiosity or their love. And it seems to me
+that Shestov would have gained in strength if he could have more firmly
+believed that there would surely be other Shestovs who would read him
+according to his own intention. But this, I also know, is a counsel of
+perfection: the courage which he has not would not have been acquired
+by any intellectual process, and its possession would have deprived him
+of the courage which he has. As dogmatism in Russia enjoys a supremacy
+of which we can hardly form an idea, so a continual challenge to its
+claims demands in the challenger a courage which it is hard for us
+rightly to appreciate.
+
+I have not written this foreword in order to prejudice the issue.
+Shestov will, no doubt, be judged by English readers according to
+English standards, and I wish no more than to suggest that his
+greatest quality is one which has become rare among us, and that his
+peculiarities are due to Russian conditions which have long since
+ceased to obtain in England. The Russians have much to teach us, and
+the only way we shall learn, or even know, what we should accept
+and what reject, is to take count as much as we can of the Russian
+realities. And the first of these and the last is that in Russia the
+things of the spirit are held in honour above all others. Because of
+this the Russian soul is tormented by problems to which we have long
+been dead, and to which we need to be alive again. J. M. M.
+
+
+_Postscript._--Leon Shestov is fifty years old. He was born at Kiev,
+and studied at the university there. His first book was written
+in 1898. As a writer of small production, he has made his way to
+recognition slowly: but now he occupies a sure position as one of the
+most delicate and individual of modern Russian critics. The essays
+contained in this volume are taken from the fourth and fifth works in
+the following list:--
+
+1898. _Shakespeare and his Critic, Brandes._
+
+1900. _Good in the teaching of Dostoevsky and Nietzsche: Philosophy and
+Preaching._
+
+1903. _Dostoevsky and Nietzsche: The Philosophy of Tragedy._
+
+1905. _The Apotheosis of Groundlessness: An Essay on Dogmatism._
+
+1908. _Beginnings and Ends._
+
+1912. _Great Vigils._
+
+
+
+
+ANTON TCHEKHOV
+
+
+(CREATION FROM THE VOID)
+
+
+Résigne-toi, mon cœur, dors ton sommeil de brute.
+
+(CHARLES BAUDELAIRE.)
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Tchekhov is dead; therefore we may now speak freely of him. For to
+speak of an artist means to disentangle and reveal the 'tendency'
+hidden in his works, an operation not always permissible when the
+subject is still living. Certainly he had a reason for hiding himself,
+and of course the reason was serious and important. I believe many felt
+it, and that it was partly on this account that we have as yet had no
+proper appreciation of Tchekhov. Hitherto in analysing his works the
+critics have confined themselves to common-place and _cliché_. Of course
+they knew they were wrong; but anything is better than to extort the
+truth from a living person. Mihailovsky alone attempted to approach
+closer to the source of Tchekhov's creation, and as everybody knows,
+turned away from it with aversion and even with disgust. Here, by the
+way, the deceased critic might have convinced himself once again of
+the extravagance of the so-called theory of 'art for art's sake.' Every
+artist has his definite task, his life's work, to which he devotes
+all his forces. A tendency is absurd when it endeavours to take the
+place of talent, and to cover impotence and lack of content, or when
+it is borrowed from the stock of ideas which happen to be in demand
+at the moment. 'I defend ideals, therefore every one must give me his
+sympathies.' Such pretences we often see made in literature, and the
+notorious controversy concerning 'art for art's sake' was evidently
+maintained upon the double meaning given to the word 'tendency' by its
+opponents. Some wished to believe that a writer can be saved by the
+nobility of his tendency; others feared that a tendency would bind them
+to the performance of alien tasks. Much ado about nothing: ready-made
+ideas will never endow mediocrity with talent; on the contrary, an
+original writer will at all costs set himself his own task. And
+Tchekhov had his _own_ business, though there were critics who said
+that he was the servant of art for its own sake, and even compared him
+to a bird, carelessly flying. To define his tendency in a word, I would
+say that Tchekhov was the poet of hopelessness. Stubbornly, sadly,
+monotonously, during all the years of his literary activity, nearly a
+quarter of a century long, Tchekhov was doing one thing alone: by one
+means or another he was killing human hopes. Herein, I hold, lies the
+essence of his creation. Hitherto it has been little spoken of. The
+reasons are quite intelligible. In ordinary language what Tchekhov
+was doing is called crime, and is visited by condign punishment. But
+how can a man of talent be punished? Even Mihailovsky, who more than
+once in his lifetime gave an example of merciless severity, did not
+raise his hand against Tchekhov. He warned his readers and pointed
+out the 'evil fire' which he had noticed in Tchekhov's eyes. But he
+went no further. Tchekhov's immense talent overcame the strict and
+rigorous critic. It may be, however, that Mihailovsky's own position
+in literature had more than a little to do with the comparative
+mildness of his sentence. The younger generation had listened to him
+uninterruptedly for thirty years, and his word had been law. But
+afterwards every one was bored with eternally repeating: 'Aristides
+is just, Aristides is right.' The younger generation began to desire
+to live and to speak in its own way, and finally the old master was
+ostracised. There is the same custom in literature as in Terra del
+Fuego. The young, growing men kill and eat the old. Mihailovsky
+struggled with all his might, but he no longer felt the strength of
+conviction that comes from the sense of right. Inwardly, he felt that
+the young were right, not because they knew the truth--what truth did
+the economic materialists know?--but because they were young and had
+their lives before them. The rising star shines always brighter than
+the setting, and the old must of their own will yield themselves up to
+be devoured by the young. Mihailovsky felt this, and perhaps it was
+this which undermined his former assurance and the firmness of his
+opinion of old. True, he was still like Gretchen's mother in Goethe: he
+did not take rich gifts from chance without having previously consulted
+his confessor. Tchekhov's talent too was taken to the priest, by whom
+it was evidently rejected as suspect; but Mihailovsky no longer had the
+courage to set himself against public opinion. The younger generation
+prized Tchekhov for his talent, his immense talent, and it was plain
+they would riot disown him. What remained for Mihailovsky He attempted,
+as I say, to warn them. But no one listened to him, and Tchekhov became
+one of the most beloved of Russian writers.
+
+Yet the just Aristides was right this time too, as he was right when
+he gave his warning against Dostoevsky. Now that Tchekhov is no more,
+we may speak openly. Take Tchekhov's stories, each one separately, or
+better still, all together; look at him at work. He is constantly,
+as it were, in ambush, to watch and waylay human hopes. He will not
+miss a single one of them, not one of them will escape its fate. Art,
+science, love, inspiration, ideals--choose out all the words with which
+humanity is wont, or has been in the past, to be consoled or to be
+amused--Tchekhov has only to touch them and they instantly wither and
+die. And Tchekhov himself faded, withered and died before our eyes.
+Only his wonderful art did not die--his art to kill by a mere touch,
+a breath, a glance, everything whereby men live and wherein they take
+their pride. And in this art he was constantly perfecting himself, and
+he attained to a virtuosity beyond the reach of any of his rivals in
+European literature. Maupassant often had to strain every effort to
+overcome his victim. The victim often escaped from Maupassant, though
+crushed and broken, yet with his life. In Tchekhov's hands, nothing
+escaped death.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+I must remind my reader, though it is a matter of general knowledge,
+that in his earlier work Tchekhov is most unlike the Tchekhov to whom
+we became accustomed in late years. The young Tchekhov is gay and
+careless, perhaps even like a flying bird. He published his work in
+the comic papers. But in 1888 and 1889, when he was only twenty-seven
+and twenty-eight years old, there appeared _The Tedious Story_ and the
+drama _Ivanov,_ two pieces of work which laid the foundations of a
+new creation. Obviously a sharp and sudden change had taken place in
+him, which was completely reflected in his works. There is no detailed
+biography of Tchekhov, and probably will never be, because there is no
+such thing as a full biography--I, at all events, cannot name one.
+Generally biographies tell us everything except what it is important
+to know. Perhaps in the future it will be revealed to us with the
+fullest details who was Tchekhov's tailor; but we shall never know what
+happened to Tchekhov in the time which elapsed between the completion
+of his story _The Steppe_ and the appearance of his first drama. If we
+would know, we must rely upon his works and our own insight.
+
+_Ivanov_ and _The Tedious Story_ seem to me the most autobiographical
+of all his works. In them almost every line is a sob; and it is hard to
+suppose that a man could sob so, looking only at another's grief. And
+it is plain that his grief is a new one, unexpected as though it had
+fallen from the sky. Here it is, it will endure for ever, and he does
+not know how to fight against it.
+
+In _Ivanov_ the hero compares himself to an overstrained labourer. I
+do not believe we shall be mistaken if we apply this comparison to the
+author of the drama as well. There can be practically no doubt that
+Tchekhov had overstrained himself. And the overstrain came not from
+hard and heavy labour; no mighty overpowering exploit broke him: he
+stumbled and fell, he slipped. There comes this nonsensical, stupid,
+all but invisible accident, and the old Tchekhov of gaiety and mirth
+is no more. No more stories for _The Alarm Clock._ Instead, a morose
+and overshadowed man, a 'criminal' whose words frighten even the
+experienced and the omniscient.
+
+If you desire it, you can easily be rid of Tchekhov and his work as
+well. Our language contains two magic words: 'pathological,' and its
+brother 'abnormal.' Once Tchekhov had overstrained himself, you have a
+perfectly legal right, sanctified by science and every tradition, to
+leave him out of all account, particularly seeing that he is already
+dead, and therefore cannot be hurt by your neglect. That is if you
+desire to be rid of Tchekhov. But if the desire is for some reason
+absent, the words 'pathological' and 'abnormal' will have no effect
+upon you. Perhaps you will go further and attempt to find in Tchekhov's
+experiences a criterion of the most irrefragable truths and axioms of
+this consciousness of ours. There is no third way: you must either
+renounce Tchekhov, or become his accomplice.
+
+The hero of _The Tedious Story_ is an old professor; the hero of
+_Ivanov_ a young landlord. But the theme of both works is the same.
+The professor had overstrained himself, and thereby cut himself off
+from his past life and from the possibility of taking an active part
+in human affairs. Ivanov also had overstrained himself and become a
+superfluous, useless person. Had life been so arranged that death
+should supervene simultaneously with the loss of health, strength and
+capacity, then the old professor and young Ivanov could not have lived
+for one single hour. Even a blind man could see that they are both
+broken and are unfit for life. But for reasons unknown to us, wise
+nature has rejected coincidence of this kind. A man very often goes on
+living after he has completely lost the capacity of taking from life
+that wherein we are wont to see its essence and meaning. More striking
+still, a broken man is generally deprived of everything except the
+ability to acknowledge and feel his position. Nay, for the most part
+in such cases the intellectual abilities are refined and sharpened
+and increased to colossal proportions. It frequently happens that an
+average man, banal and mediocre, is changed beyond all recognition when
+he falls into the exceptional situation of Ivanov or the old professor.
+In him appear signs of a gift, a talent, even of genius. Nietzsche once
+asked: 'Can an ass be tragical?' He left his question unanswered, but
+Tolstoi answered for him in _The Death of Ivan Ilyich._ Ivan Ilyich,
+it is evident from Tolstoi's description of his life, is a mediocre,
+average character, one of those men who pass through life avoiding
+anything that is difficult or problematical, caring exclusively for the
+calm and pleasantness of earthly existence. Hardly had the cold wind of
+tragedy blown upon him, than he was utterly transformed. The story of
+Ivan Ilyich in his last days is as deeply interesting as the life-story
+of Socrates or Pascal.
+
+In passing I would point out a fact which I consider of great
+importance. In his work Tchekhov was influenced by Tolstoi, and
+particularly by Tolstoi's later writings. It is important, because thus
+a part of Tchekhov's 'guilt' falls upon the great writer of the Russian
+land. I think that had there been no _Death of Ivan Ilyich,_ there
+would have been no _Ivanov,_ and no _Tedious Story,_ nor many others
+of Tchekhov's most remarkable works. But this by no means implies that
+Tchekhov borrowed a single word from his great predecessor. Tchekhov
+had enough material of his own: in that respect he needed no help. But
+a young writer would hardly dare to come forward at his own risk with
+the thoughts that make the content of _The Tedious Story._ When Tolstoi
+wrote _The Death of Ivan Ilyich,_ he had behind him _War and Peace,
+Anna Karenina,_ and the firmly established reputation of an artist of
+the highest rank. All things were permitted to him. But Tchekhov was
+a young man, whose literary baggage amounted in all to a few dozen
+tiny stories, hidden in the pages of little known and uninfluential
+papers. Had Tolstoi not paved the way, had Tolstoi not shown by his
+example, that in literature it was permitted to tell the truth, to
+tell everything, then perhaps Tchekhov would have had to struggle long
+with himself before finding the courage of a public confession, even
+though it took the form of stories. And even with Tolstoi before him,
+how terribly did Tchekhov have to struggle with public opinion. 'Why
+does he write his horrible stories and plays?' every one asked himself.
+'Why does the writer systematically choose for his heroes situations
+from which there is not, and cannot possibly be, any escape?' What
+can be said in answer to the endless complaints of the old professor
+and Katy, his pupil? This means that there is, essentially, something
+to be said. From times immemorial, literature has accumulated a large
+and varied store of all kinds of general ideas and conceptions,
+material and metaphysical, to which the masters have recourse the
+moment the over-exacting and over-restless human voice begins to be
+heard. This is exactly the point. Tchekhov himself, a writer and an
+educated man, refused in advance every possible consolation, material
+or metaphysical. Not even in Tolstoi, who set no great store by
+philosophical systems, will you find such keenly expressed disgust for
+every kind of conceptions and ideas as in Tchekhov. He is well aware
+that conceptions ought to be esteemed and respected, and he reckons his
+inability to bend the knee before that which educated people consider
+holy as a defect against which he must struggle with all his strength.
+And he does struggle with all his strength against this defect. But
+not only is the struggle unavailing; the longer Tchekhov lives, the
+weaker grows the power of lofty words over him, in spite of his own
+reason and his conscious will. Finally, he frees himself entirely
+from ideas of every kind, and loses even the notion of connection
+between the happenings of life. Herein lies the most important and
+original characteristic of his creation. Anticipating a little, I would
+here point to his comedy, _The Sea-Gull,_ where, in defiance of all
+literary principles, the basis of action appears to be not the logical
+development of passions, or the inevitable connection between cause and
+effect, but naked accident, ostentatiously nude. As one reads the play,
+it seems at times that one has before one a copy of a newspaper with
+an endless series of news paragraphs, heaped upon one another, without
+order and without previous plan. Sovereign accident reigns everywhere
+and in everything, this time boldly throwing the gauntlet to all
+conceptions. In this, I repeat, is Tchekhov's greatest originality, and
+this, strangely enough, is the source of his most bitter experiences.
+He did not want to be original; he made super-human efforts to be
+like everybody else: but there is no escaping one's destiny. How
+many men, above all among writers, wear their fingers to the bone in
+the effort to be unlike others, and yet they cannot shake themselves
+free of _cliché_--yet Tchekhov was original against his will!
+Evidently originality does not depend upon the readiness to proclaim
+revolutionary opinions at all costs. The newest and boldest idea may
+and often does appear tedious and vulgar. In order to become original,
+instead of inventing an idea, one must achieve a difficult and painful
+labour; and, since men avoid labour and suffering, the really new is
+for the most part born in man against his will.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+'A man cannot reconcile himself to the accomplished fact; neither can
+he refuse so to reconcile himself: and there is no third course. Under
+such conditions "action" is impossible. He can only fall down and weep
+and beat his head against the floor.' So Tchekhov speaks of one of his
+heroes; but he might say the same of them all, without exception. The
+author takes care to put them in such a situation that only one thing
+is left for them,--to fall down and beat their heads against the floor.
+With strange, mysterious obstinacy they refuse all the accepted means
+of salvation. Nicolai Stepanovich, the old professor in _The Tedious
+Story,_ might have attempted to forget himself for a while or to
+console himself with memories of the past. But memories only irritate
+him. He was once an eminent scholar: now he cannot work. Once he was
+able to hold the attention of his audience for two hours on end; now
+he cannot do it even for a quarter of an hour. He used to have friends
+and comrades, he used to love his pupils and assistants, his wife
+and children; now he cannot concern himself with any one. If people
+do arouse any feelings at all within him, then they are only feelings
+of hatred, malice and envy. He has to confess it to himself with
+the truthfulness which came to him--he knows not why nor whence--in
+place of the old diplomatic skill, possessed by all clever and normal
+men, whereby he saw and said only that which makes for decent human
+relations and healthy states of mind. Now everything which he sees or
+thinks only serves to poison, in himself and others, the few joys which
+adorn human life. With a certainty which he never attained on the best
+days and hours of his old theoretical research, he feels that he is
+become a criminal, having committed no crime. All that he was engaged
+in before was good, necessary, and useful. He tells you of his past,
+and you can see that he was always right and ready at any moment of
+the day or the night to answer the severest judge who should examine
+not only his actions, but his thoughts as well. Now not only would an
+outsider condemn him, he condemns himself. He confesses openly that he
+is all compact of envy and hatred.
+
+'The best and most sacred right of kings,' he says, 'is the right to
+pardon. And I have always felt myself a king so long as I used this
+right prodigally. I never judged, I was compassionate, I pardoned every
+one right and left.... But now I am king no more. There's something
+going on in me which belongs only to slaves. Day and night evil
+thoughts roam about in my head, and feelings which I never knew before
+have made their home in my soul. I hate and despise; I'm exasperated,
+disturbed, and afraid. I've become strict beyond measure, exacting,
+unkind and suspicious.... What does it all mean? If my new thoughts and
+feelings come from a change of my convictions, where could the change
+come from? Has the world grown worse and I better, or was I blind and
+indifferent before? But if the change is due to the general decline
+of my physical and mental powers--I am sick and losing weight every
+day--then I am in a pitiable position. It means that my new thoughts
+are abnormal and unhealthy, that I must be ashamed of them and consider
+them valueless....
+
+The question is asked by the old professor on the point of death, and
+in his person by Tchekhov himself. Which is better, to be a king, or an
+old, envious, malicious 'toad,' as he calls himself elsewhere? There
+is no denying the originality of the question. In the words above you
+feel the price which Tchekhov had to pay for his originality, and with
+how great joy he would have exchanged all his original thoughts--at
+the moment when his 'new' point of view had become clear to him--for
+the most ordinary, banal capacity for benevolence. He has, no doubt
+felt that his way of thinking is pitiable, shameful and disgusting.
+His moods revolt him no less than his appearance, which he describes
+in the following lines: '... I am a man of sixty-two, with a bald
+head, false teeth and an incurable tic. My name is as brilliant and
+prepossessing, as I myself am dull and ugly. My head and hands tremble
+from weakness; my neck, like that of one of Turgeniev's heroines,
+resembles the handle of a counter-bass; my chest is hollow and my
+back narrow. When I speak or read my mouth twists, and when I smile
+my whole face is covered with senile, deathly wrinkles.' Unpleasant
+face, unpleasant moods! Let the most sweet natures and compassionate
+person but give a side-glance at such a monster, and despite himself
+a cruel thought would awaken in him: that he should lose no time in
+killing, in utterly destroying this pitiful and disgusting vermin, or
+if the laws forbid recourse to such strong measures, at least in hiding
+him as far as possible from human eyes, in some prison or hospital
+or asylum. These are measures of suppression sanctioned, I believe,
+not only by legislation, but by eternal morality as well. But here
+you encounter resistance of a particular kind. Physical strength to
+struggle with the warders, executioners, attendants, moralists--the old
+professor has none; a little child could knock him down. Persuasion
+and prayer, he knows well, will avail him nothing. So he strikes out
+in despair: he begins to cry over all the world in a terrible, wild,
+heartrending voice about some rights of his: '... I have a passionate
+and hysterical desire to stretch out my hands and moan aloud. I want to
+cry out that fate has doomed me, a famous man, to death; that in some
+six months here in the auditorium another will be master. I want to cry
+out that I am poisoned; that new ideas that I did not know before have
+poisoned the last days of my life, and sting my brain incessantly like
+mosquitoes. At that moment my position seems so terrible to me that
+I want all my students to be terrified, to jump from their seats and
+rush panic-stricken to the door, shrieking in despair.' The professor's
+arguments will hardly move any one. Indeed I do not know if there is
+any argument in those words. But this awful, inhuman moan.... Imagine
+the picture: a bald, ugly old man, with trembling hands, and twisted
+mouth, and skinny neck, eyes mad with fear, wallowing like a beast on
+the ground and wailing, wailing, wailing.... What does he want? He had
+lived a long and interesting life; now he had only to round it off
+nicely, with all possible calm, quietly and solemnly to take leave of
+this earthly existence. Instead he rends himself, and flings himself
+about, calls almost the whole universe to judgment, and clutches
+convulsively at the few days left to him. And Tchekhov--what did
+Tchekhov do? Instead of passing by on the other side, he supports the
+prodigious monster, devotes pages and pages to the 'experiences of his
+soul,' and gradually brings the reader to a point at which, instead of
+a natural and lawful sense of indignation, unprofitable and dangerous
+sympathies for the decomposing, decaying creature are awakened in
+his heart. But every one knows that it is impossible to _help_ the
+professor; and if it is impossible to help, then it follows we must
+forget. That is as plain as _a b c._ What use or what meaning could
+there be in the endless picturing--daubing, as Tolstoi would say--of
+the intolerable pains of the agony which inevitably leads to death?
+
+If the professor's 'new' thoughts and feelings shone bright with
+beauty, nobility or heroism, the case would be different. The reader
+could learn something from it. But Tchekhov's story shows that these
+qualities belonged to his hero's old thoughts. Now that his illness has
+begun, there has sprung up within him a revulsion from everything which
+even remotely resembles a lofty feeling. When his pupil Katy turns to
+him for advice what she should do, the famous scholar, the friend of
+Pirogov, Kavelin and Nekrassov, who had taught so many generations
+of young men, does not know what to answer. Absurdly he chooses from
+his memory a whole series of pleasant-sounding words; but they have
+lost all meaning for him. What answer shall he give? he asks himself.
+'It is easy to say, Work, or divide your property among the poor, or
+know yourself, and because it is easy, I do not know what to answer.'
+Katy, still young, healthy and beautiful, has by Tchekhov's offices
+fallen like the professor into a trap from which no human power can
+deliver her. From the moment that she knew hopelessness, she had won
+all the author's sympathy. While a person is settled to some work,
+while he has a future of some kind before him, Tchekhov is utterly
+indifferent to him. If he does describe him, then he usually does it
+hastily and in a tone of scornful irony. But when he is entangled, and
+so entangled that he cannot be disentangled by any means, then Tchekhov
+begins to wake up. Colour, energy, creative force, inspiration make
+their appearance. Therein perhaps lies the secret of his political
+indifferentism. Notwithstanding all his distrust of projects for a
+brighter future, Tchekhov like Dostoevsky was evidently not wholly
+convinced that social reforms and social science were important.
+However difficult the social question may be, still it may be solved.
+Some day, perhaps people will so arrange themselves on the earth as
+to live and die without suffering: further than that ideal humanity
+cannot go. Perhaps the authors of stout volumes on Progress do guess
+and foresee something. But just for that reason their work is alien to
+Tchekhov. At first by instinct, then consciously, he was attracted to
+problems which are by essence insoluble like that presented in _The
+Tedious Story_: there you have helplessness, sickness, the prospect of
+inevitable death, and no hope whatever to change the situation by a
+hair. This infatuation, whether conscious or instinctive, clearly runs
+counter to the demands of common sense and normal will. But there is
+nothing else to expect from Tchekhov, an overstrained man. Every one
+knows, or has heard, of hopelessness. On every side, before our very
+eyes, are happening terrible and intolerable tragedies, and if every
+doomed man were to raise such an awful alarm about his destruction as
+Nicolai Stepanovich, life would become an inferno; Nicolai Stepanovich
+must not cry his sufferings aloud over the world, but be careful to
+trouble people as little as possible. And Tchekhov should have assisted
+this reputable endeavour by every means in his power. As though there
+were not thousands of tedious stories in the world--they cannot be
+counted! And above all stories of the kind that Tchekhov tells should
+be hidden with special care from human eyes. We have here to do with
+the decomposition of a living organism. What should we say to a man
+who would prevent corpses from being buried, and would dig decaying
+bodies from the grave, even though it were on the ground, or rather on
+the pretext, that they were the bodies of his intimate friends, even
+famous men of reputation and genius? Such an occupation would rouse
+in a normal and healthy mind nothing but disgust and terror. Once upon
+a time, according to popular superstition, sorcerers, necromancers
+and wizards kept company with the dead, and found a certain pleasure
+or even a real satisfaction in that ghastly occupation. But they
+generally hid themselves away from mankind in forests and caves, or
+betook themselves to deserts where they might in isolation surrender
+themselves to their unnatural inclinations; and if their deeds were
+eventually brought to light, healthy men requited them with the stake,
+the gallows, and the rack. The worst kind of that which is called
+evil, as a rule, had for its source and origin an interest and taste
+for carrion. Man forgave every crime--cruelty, violence, murder; but
+he never forgave the unmotived love of death and the seeking of its
+secret. In this matter modern times, being free from prejudices, have
+advanced little from the Middle Ages. Perhaps the only difference is
+that we, engaged in practical affairs, have lost the natural _flair_
+for good and evil. Theoretically we are even convinced that in our time
+there are not and cannot be wizards and necromancers. Our confidence
+and carelessness in this reached such a point, that almost everybody
+saw even in Dostoevsky only an artist and a publicist, and seriously
+discussed with him whether the Russian peasant needed to be flogged and
+whether we ought to lay hands on Constantinople.
+
+Mihailovsky alone vaguely conjectured what it all might be when he
+called the author of _The Brothers Karamazov_ a 'treasure-digger.'
+I say he 'dimly conjectured, because I think that the deceased
+critic made the remark partly in allegory, even in joke. But none of
+Dostoevsky's other critics made, even by accident, a truer slip of the
+pen. Tchekhov, too, was a 'treasure-digger,' a sorcerer, a necromancer,
+an adept in the black art; and this explains his singular infatuation
+for death, decay and hopelessness.
+
+Tchekhov was not of course the only writer to make death the subject
+of his works. But not the theme is important but the manner of its
+treatment. Tchekhov understands that. 'In all the thoughts, feelings,
+and ideas,' he says, '[which] I form about anything, there is wanting
+the something universal which could bind all these together in one
+whole. Each feeling and each thought lives detached in me, and in all
+my opinions about science, the theatre, literature, and my pupils,
+and in all the little pictures which my imagination paints, not even
+the most cunning analyst will discover what is called the general
+idea, or the god of the living man. And if this is not there, then
+nothing is there. In poverty such as this, a serious infirmity, fear
+of death, influence of circumstances and people would have been
+enough to over-throw and shatter all that I formerly considered as my
+conception of the world, and all wherein I saw the meaning and joy of
+my life....' In these words one of the 'newest' of Tchekhov's ideas
+finds expression, one by which the whole of his subsequent creation is
+defined. It is expressed in a modest, apologetic form: a man confesses
+that he is unable to subordinate his thoughts to a higher idea, and
+in that inability he sees his weakness. This was enough to avert from
+him to some extent the thunders of criticism and the judgment of
+public opinion. We readily forgive the repentant sinner! But it is an
+unprofitable clemency: to expiate one's guilt, it is not enough to
+confess it. What was the good of Tchekhov's putting on sackcloth; and
+ashes and publicly confessing his guilt, if he was inwardly unchanged?
+If, while his words acknowledged the general idea as god (without a
+capital, indeed), he did nothing whatever for it? In words he burns
+incense to god, in deed he curses him. Before his disease a conception
+of the world brought him happiness, now it had shattered into
+fragments. Is it not natural to ask whether the conception actually did
+ever bring him happiness? Perhaps the happiness had its own independent
+origin, and the conception was invited only as a general to a wedding,
+for outward show, and never played any essential part. Tchekhov tells
+us circumstantially what joys the professor found in his scientific
+work, his lectures to the students, his family, and in a good dinner.
+In all these were present together the conception of the world and
+the idea, and they did not take away from, but as it were embellished
+life; so that it seemed that he was working for the ideal, as well
+as creating a family and dining. But now, when for the same ideal's
+sake he has to remain inactive, to suffer, to remain awake of nights,
+to swallow with effort food that has become loathsome to him--the
+conception of the world is shattered into fragments! And it amounts to
+this, that a conception with a dinner is right, and a dinner without a
+conception equally right--this needs no argument--and a conception _an
+und für sich_ is of no value whatever. Here is the essence of the words
+quoted from Tchekhov. He confesses with horror the presence within him
+of that 'new' idea. It seems to him that he alone of all men is so weak
+and insignificant, that the others ... well, they need only ideals
+and conceptions. And so it is, surely, if we may believe what people
+write in books. Tchekhov plagues, tortures and worries himself in every
+possible way, but he can alter nothing; nay worse, conceptions and
+ideas, towards which a great many people behave quite carelessly--after
+all, these innocent things do not merit any other attitude--in Tchekhov
+become the objects of bitter, inexorable, and merciless hatred. He
+cannot free himself at one single stroke from the power of ideas:
+therefore he begins a long, slow and stubborn war, I would call it
+a guerilla war, against the tyrant who had enslaved him. The whole
+history and the separate episodes of his struggle are of absorbing
+interest, because the most conspicuous representatives of literature
+have hitherto been convinced that ideas have a magical power. What
+are the majority of writers doing but constructing conceptions of the
+world--and believing that they are engaged in a work of extraordinary
+importance and sanctity? Tchekhov offended very many literary men. If
+his punishment was comparatively slight, that was because he was very
+cautious, and waged war with the air of bringing tribute to the enemy,
+and secondly, because to talent much is forgiven.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The content of _The Tedious Story_ thus reduces to the fact that the
+professor, expressing his 'new' thoughts, in essence declares that
+he finds it impossible to acknowledge the power of the 'idea' over
+himself, or conscientiously to fulfil that which men consider the
+supreme purpose, and in the service whereof they see the mission, the
+sacred mission of man. 'God be my judge, I haven't courage enough
+to act according to my conscience,' such is the only answer which
+Tchekhov finds in his soul to all demands for a 'conception.' This
+attitude towards 'conceptions' becomes second nature with Tchekhov.
+A conception makes demands; a man acknowledges the justice of these
+demands and methodically satisfies none of them. Moreover, the justice
+of the demands meets with less and less acknowledgment from him. In
+_The Tedious Story_ the idea still judges the man and tortures him
+with the mercilessness peculiar to all things inanimate. Exactly like
+a splinter stuck into a living body, the idea, alien and hostile,
+mercilessly performs its high mission, until at length the man firmly
+resolves to draw the splinter out of his flesh, however painful that
+difficult operation may be. In _Ivanov_ the rôle of the idea is
+already changed. There not the idea persecutes Tchekhov, but Tchekhov
+the idea, and with the subtlest division and contempt. The voice of
+the living nature rises above the artificial habits of civilisation.
+True, the struggle still continues, if you will, with alternating
+fortunes. But the old humility is no more. More and more Tchekhov
+emancipates himself from old prejudices and goes--he himself could
+hardly say whither, were he asked. But he prefers to remain without
+an answer, rather than to accept any of the traditional answers. 'I
+know quite well I have no more than six months to live; and it would
+seem that now I ought to be mainly occupied with questions of the
+darkness beyond the grave, and the visions which will visit my sleep
+in the earth. But somehow my soul is not curious of these questions,
+though my mind grants every atom of their importance.' In contrast to
+the habits of the past, reason is once more pushed out of the door
+with all due respect, while its rights are handed over to the 'soul,'
+to the dark, vague aspiration which Tchekhov by instinct trusts more
+than the bright, clear consciousness which beforehand determines the
+beyond, now that he stands before the fatal pale which divides man from
+the eternal mystery. Is scientific philosophy indignant? Is Tchekhov
+undermining its surest foundations? But he is an overstrained, abnormal
+man. Certainly you are not bound to listen to him; but once you have
+decided to do so then you must be prepared for anything. A normal
+person, even though he be a metaphysician of the extremest ethereal
+brand, always adjusts his theories to the requirements of the moment;
+he destroys only to build up from the old material once more. This is
+the reason why material never fails him. Obedient to the fundamental
+law of human nature, long since noted and formulated by the wise, he
+is content to confine himself to the modest part of a seeker after
+forms. Out of iron, which he finds in nature ready to his hand, he
+forges a sword or a plough, a lance or a sickle. The idea of creating
+out of a void hardly even enters his mind. But Tchekhov's heroes,
+persons abnormal _par excellence,_ are faced with this abnormal and
+dreadful necessity. Before them always lies hopelessness, helplessness,
+the utter impossibility of any action whatsoever. And yet they live
+on, they do not die. A strange question, and one of extraordinary
+moment, here suggests itself. I said that it was foreign to human
+nature to create out of a void. Yet nature often deprives man of
+ready material, while at the same time she demands imperatively that
+he should create. Does this mean that nature contradicts herself,
+or that she perverts her creatures? Is it not more correct to admit
+that the conception of perversion is of purely human origin. Perhaps
+nature is much more economical and wise than our wisdom, and maybe we
+should discover much more if instead of dividing people into necessary
+and superfluous, useful and noxious, good and bad, we suppressed
+the tendency to subjective valuation in ourselves and endeavoured
+with greater confidence to accept her creations? Otherwise you come
+immediately--to 'the evil gleam,' 'treasure-digging,' sorcery and
+black magic--and a wall is raised between men which neither logical
+argument nor even a battery of artillery can break down. I hardly dare
+hope that this consideration will appear convincing to those who are
+used to maintaining the norm; and it is probably unnecessary that the
+notion of the great opposition of good and bad which is alive among
+men should die away, just as it is unnecessary that children should
+be born with the experience of men, or that red cheeks and curly hair
+should vanish from the earth. At any rate it is impossible. The world
+has many centuries to its reckoning, many nations have lived and died
+upon the earth, yet as far as we know from the books and traditions
+that have survived to us, the dispute between good and evil was never
+hushed. And it always so happened that good was not afraid of the light
+of day, and good men lived a united, social life; while evil hid itself
+in darkness, and the wicked always stood alone. Nor could it have been
+otherwise.
+
+All Tchekhov's heroes fear the light. They are lonely. They are ashamed
+of their hopelessness, and they know that men cannot help them.
+They go somewhere, perhaps even forward, but they call to no one to
+follow. All things are taken from them: they must create everything
+anew. Thence most probably is derived the unconcealed contempt with
+which they behave to the most precious products of common human
+creativeness. On whatever subject you begin to talk with a Tchekhov
+hero he has one reply to everything: _Nobody can teach me anything._
+You offer him a new conception of the world: already in your very
+first words he feels that they all reduce to an attempt to lay the old
+bricks and stones over again, and he turns from you with impatience,
+and often with rudeness. Tchekhov is an extremely cautious writer.
+He fears and takes into account public opinion. Yet how unconcealed
+is the aversion he displays to accepted ideas and conceptions of the
+world. In _The Tedious Story,_ he at any rate preserves the tone and
+attitude of outward obedience. Later he throws aside all precautions,
+and instead of reproaching himself for his inability to submit to the
+general idea, openly rebels against it and jeers at it. In _Ivanov_ it
+already is sufficiently expressed; there was reason for the outburst
+of indignation which this play provoked in its day. Ivanov, I have
+already said, is a dead man. The only thing the artist can do with
+him is to bury him decently, that is, to praise his past, pity his
+present, and then, in order to mitigate the cheerless impression
+produced by death, to invite the general idea to the funeral. He might
+recall the universal problems of humanity in any one of the many
+stereotyped forms, and thus the difficult case which seemed insoluble
+would be removed. Together with Ivanov's death he should portray a
+bright young life, full of promise, and the impression of death and
+destruction would lose all its sting and bitterness. Tchekhov does just
+the opposite. Instead of endowing youth and ideals with power over
+destruction and death, as all philosophical systems and many works of
+art had done, he ostentatiously makes the good-for-nothing wreck Ivanov
+the centre of all events. Side by side with Ivanov there are young
+lives, and the idea is also given her representatives. But the young
+Sasha, a wonderful and charming girl, who falls utterly in love with
+the broken hero, not only does not save her lover, but herself perishes
+under the burden of the impossible task. And the idea? It is enough
+to recall the figure of Doctor Lvov alone, whom Tchekhov entrusted
+with the responsible rôle of a representative of the all-powerful
+idea, and you will at once perceive that he considers himself not as
+subject and vassal, but as the bitterest enemy of the idea. The moment
+Doctor Lvov opens his mouth, all the characters, as though acting on
+a previous agreement, vie with each other in their haste to interrupt
+him in the most insulting way, by jests, threats, and almost by smacks
+in the face. But the doctor fulfils his duties as a representative
+of the great power with no less skill and conscientiousness than his
+predecessors--Starodoum[1] and the other reputable heroes of the old
+drama. He champions the wronged, seeks to restore rights that have been
+trodden underfoot, sets himself dead against injustice. Has he stepped
+beyond the limits of his plenipotentiary powers? Of course not; but
+where Ivanovs and hopelessness reign there is not and cannot be room
+for the idea.
+
+They cannot possibly live together. And the eyes of the reader, who
+is accustomed to think that every kingdom may fall and perish, yet
+the kingdom of the idea stands firm _in saecula saeculorum,_ behold
+a spectacle unheard of: the idea dethroned by a helpless, broken,
+good-for-nothing man! What is there that Ivanov does not say? In the
+very first act he fires off a tremendous tirade, not at a chance
+comer, but at the incarnate idea--Starodoum-Lvov. 'I have the right
+to give you advice. Don't you marry a Jewess, or an abnormal, or a
+blue-stocking. Choose something ordinary, greyish, without any bright
+colours or superfluous shades. Make it a principle to build your
+life of _clichés._ The more grey and monotonous the background, the
+better. My dear man, don't fight thousands single-handed, don't tilt
+at windmills, don't run your head against the wall. God save you from
+all kinds of Back-to-the-Landers' advanced doctrines, passionate
+speeches.... Shut yourself tight in your own shell, and do the tiny
+little work set you by God.... It's cosier, honester, and healthier.'
+
+Doctor Lvov, the representative of the all-powerful, sovereign idea,
+feels that his sovereign's majesty is injured, that to suffer such
+an offence really means to abdicate the throne. Surely Ivanov was a
+vassal, and so he must remain. How dare he let his tongue advise, how
+dare he raise his voice when it is his part to listen reverently, and
+to obey in silent resignation? This is rank rebellion! Lvov attempts to
+draw himself up to his full height and answer the arrogant rebel with
+dignity. Nothing comes of it. In a weak, trembling voice he mutters the
+accustomed words, which but lately had invincible power. But they do
+not produce their customary effect. Their virtue is departed. Whither?
+Lvov dares not own it even to himself. But it is no longer a secret
+to any one. Whatever mean and ugly things Ivanov may have done--Tchekhov
+is not close-fisted in this matter: in his hero's conduct-book
+are written all manner of offences; almost to the deliberate murder
+of a woman devoted to him--it is to him and not to Lvov that public
+opinion bows. Ivanov is the spirit of destruction, rude, violent,
+pitiless, sticking at nothing: yet the word 'scoundrel,' which the
+doctor tears out of himself with a painful effort and hurls at him,
+does not stick to him. He is somehow right, with his own peculiar
+right, to others inconceivable, yet still, if we may believe Tchekhov,
+incontestable. Sasha, a creature of youth and insight and talent,
+passes by the honest Starodoum-Lvov unheeding, on her way to render
+worship to him. The whole play is based on that. It is true, Ivanov in
+the end shoots himself, and that may, if you like, give you a formal
+ground for believing that the final victory remained with Lvov. And
+Tchekhov did well to end the drama in this way--it could not be spun
+out to infinity. It would have been no easy matter to tell the whole of
+Ivanov's history. Tchekhov went on writing for fifteen years after, all
+the time telling the unfinished story, yet even then he had to break it
+off without reaching the end....
+
+It would show small understanding of Tchekhov to take it into one's
+head to interpret Ivanov's words to Lvov as meaning that Tchekhov,
+like the Tolstoi of the _War and Peace_ period, saw his ideal in the
+everyday arrangement of life. Tchekhov was only fighting against
+the idea, and he said to it the most abusive thing that entered his
+head. For what can be more insulting to the idea than to be forced
+to listen to the praise of everyday life? But when the opportunity
+came his way, Tchekhov could describe everyday life with equal venom.
+The story, _The Teacher of Literature,_ may serve as an example. The
+teacher lives entirely by Ivanov's prescription. He has his job, and
+his wife--neither Jewess nor abnormal, nor blue-stocking--and a home
+that fits like a shell...; but all this does not prevent Tchekhov
+from driving the poor teacher by slow degrees into the usual trap, and
+bringing him to a condition wherein it is left to him only 'to fall
+down and weep, and beat his head against the floor.' Tchekhov had no
+'ideal,' not even the ideal of 'everyday life' which Tolstoi glorified
+with such inimitable and incomparable mastery in his early works. An
+ideal presupposes submission, the voluntary denial of one's own right
+to independence, freedom and power; and demands of this kind, even a
+hint of such demands, roused in Tchekhov all that force of disgust and
+repulsion of which he alone was capable.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: A hero from Fon-Vizin's play _The Minor._ Starodoum is a
+_raisonneur,_ a 'positive' type, always uttering truisms.]
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Thus the real, the only hero of Tchekhov, is the hopeless man. He
+has absolutely no _action_ left for him in life, save to beat his
+head against the stones. It is not surprising that such a man should
+be intolerable to his neighbours. Everywhere he brings death and
+destruction with him. He himself is aware of it, but he has not the
+power to go apart from men. With all his soul he endeavours to tear
+himself out of his horrible condition. Above all he is attracted to
+fresh, young, untouched beings; with their help he hopes to recover his
+right to life which he has lost. The hope is vain. The beginning of
+decay always appears, all-conquering, and at the end Tchekhov's hero
+is left to himself alone. He has nothing, he must create everything
+for himself. And this 'creation out of the void,' or more truly the
+possibility of this creation, is the only problem which can occupy and
+inspire Tchekhov. When he has stripped his hero of the last shred, when
+nothing is left for him but to beat his head against the wall, Tchekhov
+begins to feel something like satisfaction, a strange fire lights in
+his burnt-out eyes, a fire which Mihailovsky did not call 'evil' in
+vain.
+
+Creation out of the void! Is not this task beyond the limit of human
+powers, of human _rights_? Mihailovsky obviously had one straight
+answer to the question.... As for Tchekhov himself, if the question
+were put to him in such a deliberately definite form, he would probably
+be unable to answer, although he was continually engaged in the
+activity, or more properly, because he was continually so engaged.
+Without fear of mistake, one may say that the people who answer the
+question without hesitation in either sense have never come near to
+it, or to any of the so-called ultimate questions of life. Hesitation
+is a necessary and integral element in the judgment of those men
+whom Fate has brought near to false problems. How Tchekhov's hand
+trembled while he wrote the concluding lines of his _Tedious Story_!
+The professor's pupil--the being nearest and dearest to him, but like
+himself, for all her youth, overstrained and bereft of all hope--has
+come to Kharkov to seek his advice. The following conversation takes
+place:
+
+"Nicolai Stepanich!" she says, growing pale and pressing her hands to
+her breast. "Nicolai Stepanich! I can't go on like this any longer. For
+God's sake tell me now, immediately. What shall I do? Tell me, what
+shall I do?"
+
+"What can I say? I am beaten. I can say nothing."
+
+"But tell me, I implore you," she continues, out of breath and
+trembling all over her body. "I swear to you, I can't go on like this
+any longer. I haven't the strength."
+
+She drops into a chair and begins to sob. She throws her head back,
+wrings her hands, stamps with her feet; her hat falls from her head and
+dangles by its string, her hair is loosened.
+
+"Help me, help," she implores. "I can't bear it any more."
+
+"There's nothing that I can say to you, Katy," I say.
+
+"Help me," she sobs, seizing my hand and kissing it. "You 're my
+father, my only friend. You're wise and learned, and you've lived long
+I You were a teacher. Tell me what to do."
+
+'"Upon my conscience, Katy, I do not know."
+
+'I am bewildered and surprised, stirred by her sobbing, and I can
+hardly stand upright.
+
+'"Let's have some breakfast, Katy," I say with a constrained smile.
+
+'Instantly I add in a sinking voice: "I shall be dead soon, Katy...."
+
+'"Only one word, only one word," she weeps and stretches out her hands
+to me. "What shall I do?..."'
+
+But the professor has not the word to give. He turns the conversation
+to the weather, Kharkov and other indifferent matters. Katy gets up and
+holds out her hand to him, without looking at him. 'I want to ask her,'
+he concludes his story. '"So it means you won't be at my funeral?" But
+she does not look at me; her hand is cold and like a stranger's ... I
+escort her to the door in silence.... She goes out of my room and walks
+down the long passage, without looking back. She knows that my eyes are
+following her, and probably on the landing she will look back. No, she
+did not look back. The black dress showed for the last time, her steps
+were stilled.... Good-bye, my treasure!...'
+
+The only answer which the wise, educated, long-lived Nicolai
+Stepanovich, a teacher all his life, can give to Katy's question is,
+'I don't know.' There is not, in all his great experience of the
+past, a single method, rule, or suggestion, which might apply, even in
+the smallest degree, to the wild incongruity of the new conditions of
+Katy's life and his own. Katy can live thus no longer; neither can he
+himself continue to endure his disgusting and shameful helplessness.
+They both, old and young, with their whole hearts desire to support
+each other; they can between them find no way. To her question: 'What
+shall I do?' he replied: 'I shall soon be dead.' To his 'I shall
+soon be dead' she answers with wild sobbing, wringing her hands, and
+absurdly repeating the same words over and over again. It would have
+been better to have asked no question, not to have begun that frank
+conversation of souls. But they do not yet understand that. In their
+old life talk would bring them relief and frank confession, intimacy.
+But now, after such a meeting they can suffer each other no longer.
+Katy leaves the old professor, her foster-father, her true father and
+friend, in the knowledge that he has become a stranger to her. She
+did not even turn round towards him as she went away. Both felt that
+nothing remained save to beat their heads against the wall. Therein
+each acts at his own peril, and there can be no dreaming of a consoling
+union of souls.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Tchekhov knew what conclusions he had reached in _The Tedious Story_
+and _Ivanov._ Some of his critics also knew, and told him so. I
+cannot venture to say what was the cause--whether fear of public
+opinion, or his horror at his own discoveries, or both together--but
+evidently there came a moment to Tchekhov when he decided at all costs
+to surrender his position and retreat. The fruit of this decision was
+_Ward No. 6._ In this story the hero of the drama is the same familiar
+Tchekhov character, the doctor. The setting, too, is quite the usual
+one, though changed to a slight extent. Nothing in particular has
+occurred in the doctor's life. He happened to come to an out-of-the-way
+place in the provinces, and gradually, by continually avoiding
+life and people, he reached a condition of utter will-lessness, which
+he represented to himself as the ideal of human happiness. He is
+indifferent to everything, beginning with his hospital, where he can
+hardly ever be found, where under the reign of the drunken brute of an
+assistant the patients are swindled and neglected.
+
+In the mental ward reigns a porter who is a discharged soldier: he
+punches his restless patients into shape. The doctor does not care,
+as though he were living in some distant other world, and does not
+understand what is going on before his very eyes. He happens to enter
+his ward and to have a conversation with one of his patients. He
+listens quietly to him; but his answer is words instead of deeds. He
+tries to show his lunatic acquaintance that external influences cannot
+affect us in any way at all. The lunatic does not agree, becomes
+impertinent, presents objections, in which, as in the thoughts of many
+lunatics, nonsensical assertions are mixed with very profound remarks.
+Indeed, there is so little nonsense that from the conversation you
+would hardly imagine that you have to do with a lunatic. The doctor
+is delighted with his new friend, but does nothing whatsoever to
+make him more comfortable. The patient is still under the porter's
+thumb as he used to be, and the porter gives him a thrashing on the
+least provocation. The patient, the doctor, the people round, the
+whole setting of the hospital and the doctor's rooms, are described
+with wonderful talent. Everything induces you to make absolutely no
+resistance and to become fatalistically indifferent:--let them get
+drunk, let them fight, let them thieve, let them be brutal--what does
+it matter! Evidently it is so predestined by the supreme council of
+nature. The philosophy of inactivity which the doctor professes is
+as it were prompted and whispered by the immutable laws of human
+existence. Apparently there is no force which may tear one from its
+power. So far everything is more or less in the Tchekhov style. But
+the end is completely different. By the intrigues of his colleague,
+the doctor himself is taken as a patient into the mental ward. He
+is deprived of freedom, shut up in a wing of the hospital, and even
+thrashed, thrashed by the same porter whose behaviour he had taught his
+lunatic acquaintance to accept, thrashed before his acquaintance's
+very eyes. The doctor instantly awakens as though out of a dream. A
+fierce desire to struggle and to protest manifests itself in him. True,
+at this moment he dies; but the idea is triumphant, still. The critics
+could consider themselves quite satisfied. Tchekhov had openly repented
+and renounced the theory of non-resistance; and, I believe, _Ward No.
+6_ met with a sympathetic reception at the time. In passing I would say
+that the doctor dies very beautifully: in his last moments he sees a
+herd of deer....
+
+Indeed, the construction of this story leaves no doubt in the mind.
+Tchekhov wished to compromise, and he compromised. He had come to feel
+how intolerable was hopelessness, how impossible the creation from a
+void. To beat one's head against the stones, eternally to beat one's
+head against the stones, is so horrible that it were better to return
+to idealism. Then the truth of the wonderful Russian saying was proved:
+'Don't forswear the beggar's wallet nor the prison.' Tchekhov joined
+the choir of Russian writers, and began to praise the idea. But not
+for long. His very next story, _The Duel,_ has a different character.
+Its conclusion is also apparently idealistic, but only in appearance.
+The principal hero Layevsky is a parasite like all Tchekhov's heroes.
+He does nothing, can do nothing, does not even wish to do anything,
+lives chiefly at others' expense, runs up debts, seduces women.... His
+condition is intolerable. He is living with another man's wife, whom he
+had come to loathe as he loathes himself, yet he cannot get rid of her.
+He is always in straitened circumstances and in debt everywhere: his
+friends dislike and despise him. His state of mind is always such that
+he is ready to run no matter where, never looking backwards, only away
+from the place where he is living now. His illegal wife is in roughly
+the same position, unless it be even more horrible. Without knowing
+why, without love, without even being attracted, she gives herself to
+the first, commonplace man she meets; and then she feels as though
+she had been covered from head to foot in filth, and the filth had
+stuck so close to her that not ocean itself could wash her clean. This
+couple lives in the world, in a remote little place in the Caucasus,
+and naturally attracts Tchekhov's attention. There is no denying the
+interest of the subject: two persons befouled, who can neither tolerate
+others nor themselves....
+
+For contrast's sake Tchekhov brings Layevsky into collision with the
+zoologist, Von Koren, who has come to the seaside town on important
+business--every one recognises its importance--to study the embryology
+of the medusa. Von Koren, as one may see from his name, is of German
+origin, and therefore deliberately represented as a healthy, normal,
+clean man, the grandchild of Goncharov's Stolz, the direct opposite
+of Layevsky, who on his side is nearly related to our old friend
+Oblomov. But in Goncharov the contrast between Stolz and Oblomov is
+quite different in nature and meaning to the contrast in Tchekhov. The
+novelist of the 'forties hoped that a _rapprochement_ with Western
+culture would renew and resuscitate Russia. And Oblomov himself is not
+represented as an utterly hopeless person. He is only lazy, inactive,
+unenterprising. You have the feeling that were he to awaken he would
+be a match for a dozen Stolzs. Layevsky is a different affair. He is
+awake already, he was awakened years ago, but his awakening did him no
+good.... 'He does not love nature; he has no God; he or his companions
+had ruined every trustful girl he had known; all his life long he
+had not planted one single little tree, nor grown one blade of grass
+in his own garden, nor while he lived among the living, had he saved
+the life of one single fly; but only ruined and destroyed, and lied,
+and lied....' The good-natured sluggard Oblomov degenerated into a
+disgusting, terrible animal, while the clean Stolz lived and remained
+clean in his posterity! But to the new Oblomov he speaks differently.
+Von Koren calls Layevsky a scoundrel and a rogue, and demands that
+he should be punished with the utmost severity. To reconcile them is
+impossible. The more they meet, the deeper, the more merciless, the
+more implacable is their hatred for each other. It is impossible that
+they should live together on the earth. It must be one or the other:
+either the normal Von Koren, or the degenerate decadent Layevsky.
+Of course, all the external, material force is on Von Koren's side
+in the struggle. He is always in the right, always victorious,
+always triumphant--in act no less than in theory. It is curious that
+Tchekhov, the irreconcilable enemy of all kinds of philosophy--not
+one of his heroes philosophises, or if he does, his philosophising is
+unsuccessful, ridiculous, weak and unconvincing--makes an exception
+for Von Koren, a typical representative of the positive, materialistic
+school. His words breathe vigour and conviction. They have in them even
+pathos and a maximum of logical sequence. There are many materialist
+heroes in Tchekhov's stories, but in their materialism there is a
+tinge of veiled idealism, according to the stereotyped prescription of
+the 'sixties. Such heroes Tchekhov ridicules and derides. Idealism of
+every kind, whether open or concealed, roused feelings of intolerable
+bitterness in Tchekhov. He found it more pleasant to listen to the
+merciless menaces of a downright materialist than to accept the
+dry-as-dust consolations of humanising idealism. An invincible power
+is in the world, crushing and crippling man--this is clear and even
+palpable. The least indiscretion, and the mightiest and the most
+insignificant alike fall victims to it. One can only deceive oneself
+about it so long as one knows of it only by hearsay. But the man who
+had once been in the iron claws of necessity loses for ever his taste
+for idealistic self-delusion. No more does he diminish the enemy's
+power, he will rather exaggerate it. And the pure logical materialism
+which Von Koren professes gives the most complete expression of our
+dependence upon the elemental powers of nature. Von Koren's speech
+has the stroke of a hammer, and each blow strikes not Layevsky but
+Tchekhov himself on his wounds. He gives more and more strength to
+Von Koren's arm, he puts himself in the way of his blows. For what
+reason? Decide as you may. Perhaps Tchekhov cherished a secret hope
+that self-inflicted torment might be the one road to a new life? He
+has not told us so. Perhaps he did not know the reason himself, and
+perhaps he was afraid to offend the positive idealism which held such
+undisputed sway over contemporary literature. As yet he dared not
+lift up his voice against the public opinion of Europe--for we do not
+ourselves invent our philosophical conceptions; they drift down on the
+wind from Europe! And, to avoid quarrelling with people, he devised
+a commonplace, happy ending for his terrible story. At the end of
+the story Layevsky 'reforms': he marries his mistress; gives up his
+dissolute life; and begins to devote himself to transcribing documents,
+in order to pay his debts. Normal people can be perfectly satisfied,
+since normal people read only the last lines of the fable,--the moral;
+and the moral of _The Duel_ is most wholesome: Layevsky reforms and
+begins transcribing documents. Of course it may seem that such an
+ending is more like a gibe at morality; but normal people are not too
+penetrating psychologists. They are scared of double meanings and, with
+the 'sincerity' peculiar to themselves, they take every word of the
+writer for good coin. Good luck to them!
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+The only philosophy which Tchekhov took seriously, and therefore
+seriously fought, was positivist materialism--just the positivist
+materialism, the limited materialism which does not pretend to
+theoretical completeness. With all his soul Tchekhov felt the awful
+dependence of a living being upon the invisible but invincible and
+ostentatiously soulless laws of nature. And materialism, above all
+scientific materialism, which is reserved and does not hasten in
+pursuit of the final word, and eschews logical completeness, wholly
+reduces to the definition of the external conditions of our existence.
+The experience of every day, every hour, every minute, convinces us
+that lonely and weak man brought to face with the laws of nature,
+must always adapt himself and give way, give way, give way. The old
+professor could not regain his youth; the overstrained Ivanov could
+not recover his strength; Layevsky could not wash away the filth
+with which he was covered--interminable series of implacable, purely
+materialistic _non possumus,_ against which human genius can set
+nothing but submission or forgetfulness. _Résigne-toi, mon cœur,
+dors ton sommeil de brute--_we shall find no other words before
+the pictures which are unfolded in Tchekhov's books. The submission
+is but an outward show; under it lies concealed a hard, malignant
+hatred of the unknown enemy. Sleep and oblivion are only seeming.
+Does a man sleep, does he forget, when he calls his sleep, _sommeil
+de brute_? But how can he change? The tempestuous protests with which
+_The Tedious Story_ is filled, the need to pour forth the pent-up
+indignation, soon begin to appear useless, and even insulting to
+human dignity. Tchekhov's last rebellious work is _Uncle Vanya._ Like
+the old professor and like Ivanov, Uncle Vanya raises the alarm and
+makes an incredible pother about his ruined life. He, too, in a voice
+not his own, fills the stage with his cries: 'Life is over, life
+is over,'--as though indeed any of these about him, any one in the
+whole world, could be responsible for his misfortune. But wailing and
+lamentation is not sufficient for him. He covers his own mother with
+insults. Aimlessly, like a lunatic, without need or purpose, he begins
+shooting at his imaginary enemy, Sonya's pitiable and unhappy father.
+His voice is not enough, he turns to the revolver. He is ready to fire
+all the cannon on earth, to beat every drum, to ring every bell. To
+him it seems that the whole of mankind, the whole of the universe, is
+sleeping, that the neighbours must be awakened. He is prepared for
+any extravagance, having no rational way of escape; for to confess at
+once that there is no escape is beyond the capacity of any man. Then
+begins a Tchekhov history: 'He cannot reconcile himself, neither can
+he refuse so to reconcile himself. He can only weep and beat his head
+against the wall.' Uncle Vanya does it openly, before men's eyes; but
+how painful to him is the memory of this frank unreserve! When every
+one has departed after a stupid and painful scene, Uncle Vanya realises
+that he should have kept silence, that it is no use to confess certain
+things to any one, not even to one's nearest friend. A stranger's eye
+cannot endure the sight of hopelessness. 'Your life is over--you have
+yourself to thank for it: you are a human being no more, all human
+things are ah en to you. Your neighbours are no more neighbours to you,
+but strangers. You have no right either to help others or to expect
+help from them. Your destiny is--absolute loneliness.' Little by little
+Tchekhov becomes convinced of this truth: _Uncle Vanya_ is the last
+trial of loud public protest, of a vigorous 'declaration of rights.'
+And even in this drama Uncle Vanya is the only one to rage, although
+there are among the characters Doctor Astrov and poor Sonya, who might
+also avail themselves of their right to rage, and even to fire the
+cannon. But they are silent. They even repeat certain comfortable and
+angelic words concerning the happy future of mankind; which is to say
+that their silence is doubly deep, seeing that 'comfortable words' upon
+the lips of such people are the evidence of their final severance from
+life: they have left the whole world, and now they admit no one to
+their presence. They have fenced themselves with comfortable words, as
+with the Great Wall of China, from the curiosity and attention of their
+neighbours. Outwardly they resemble all men, therefore no man dares to
+touch their inward life.
+
+What is the meaning and significance of this straining inward labour
+in those whose lives are over? Probably Tchekhov would answer this
+question as Nicolai Stepanovich answered Katy's, with 'I do not
+know.' He would add nothing. But this life alone, more like to death
+than life, attracted and engaged him. Therefore his utterance grew
+softer and slower with every year. Of all our writers Tchekhov has
+the softest voice. All the energy of his heroes is turned inwards.
+They create nothing visible; worse, they destroy all things visible
+by their outward passivity and inertia. A 'positive thinker' like Von
+Koren brands them with terrible words, and the more content is he with
+himself and his justice, the more energy he puts into his anathemas.
+'Scoundrels, villains, degenerates, degraded animals!'--what did Von
+Koren not devise to fit the Layevskys? The manifestly positive thinker
+wants to force Layevsky to transcribe documents. The surreptitiously
+positive thinkers--idealists and metaphysicians--do not use abusive
+words. Instead they bury Tchekhov's nerves alive in their idealistic
+cemeteries, which are called conceptions of the world. Tchekhov himself
+abstains from the 'solution of the question' with a persistency to
+which most of the critics probably wished a better fate, and he
+continues his long stories of men and the life of men, who have nothing
+to lose, as though the only interest in life were this nightmare
+suspension between life and death. What does it teach us of life or
+death? Again we must answer: 'I do not know,'--those words which
+arouse the greatest aversion in positive thinkers, but appear in some
+mysterious way to be the permanent elements in the ideas of Tchekhov's
+people. This is the reason why the philosophy of materialism, though
+so hostile, is yet so near to them. It contains no answer which can
+compel man to cheerful submission. It bruises and destroys him, but
+it does not call itself rational; it does not demand gratitude; it
+does not demand anything, since it has neither soul nor speech. A
+man may acknowledge it and hate it. If he manages to get square with
+it--he is right; if he fails--_vae victis._ How comfortably sounds
+the voice of the unconcealed ruthlessness of inanimate, impersonal,
+indifferent nature, compared with the hypocritical and cloying melodies
+of idealistic, humanistic conceptions of the world! Then again--and
+this is the chiefest thing of all--men can struggle with nature still!
+And in the struggle with nature every weapon is lawful. In the struggle
+with nature man always remains man, and, therefore, right, whatever
+means he tries for his salvation, even if he were to refuse to accept
+the fundamental principle of the world's being--the indestructibility
+of matter and energy, the law of inertia and the rest--since who will
+dispute that the most colossal dead force must be subservient to
+man? But a conception of the world is an utterly different affair!
+Before uttering a word it puts forward an irreducible demand: man must
+serve the idea. And this demand is considered not merely as something
+understood, but as of extraordinary sublimity. Is it strange then
+that in the choice between idealism and materialism Tchekhov inclined
+to the latter--the strong but honest adversary? With idealism a man
+can struggle only by contempt, and Tchekhov's works leave nothing
+to be desired in this respect.... But how shall a man struggle with
+materialism? And can it be overcome? Perhaps Tchekhov's method may
+seem strange to my reader, nevertheless it is clear that he came to
+the conclusion that there was only one way to struggle, to which the
+prophets of old turned themselves: to beat one's head against the wall.
+Without thunder or cannon or alarm, in loneliness and silence, remote
+from their fellows and their fellows' fellows, to gather all the forces
+of despair for an absurd attempt long since condemned by science.
+Have you any right to expect from Tchekhov an approval of scientific
+methods? Science has robbed him of everything: he is condemned to
+create from the void, to an activity of which a normal man, using
+normal means, is utterly incapable. To achieve the impossible one must
+first leave the road of routine. However obstinately we may pursue
+our scientific quests, they will not lead us to the elixir of life.
+Science began with casting away the longing for human omnipotence as in
+principle unattainable: her methods are such that success along certain
+of her paths preclude even seeking along others. In other words,
+scientific method is defined by the character of the problems which
+she puts to herself. Indeed, not one of her problems can be solved by
+beating one's head against the wall. But this method, old-fashioned
+though it is--I repeat, it was known to the prophets and used by
+them--promised more to Tchekhov and his nerves than all inductions and
+deductions (which were not invented by science, but have existed since
+the beginning of the world). This prompts a man with some mysterious
+instinct, and appears upon the scene whenever the need of it arises.
+Science condemns it. But that is nothing strange: it condemns science.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Now perhaps the further development and direction of Tchekhov's
+creation will be intelligible, and that peculiar and unique blend
+in him of sober materialism and fanatical stubbornness in seeking
+new paths, always round about and hazardous. Like Hamlet, he would
+dig beneath his opponent a mine one yard deeper, so that he may
+at one moment blow engineer and engine into the air. His patience
+and fortitude in this hard, underground toil are amazing and to
+many intolerable. Everywhere is darkness, not a ray, not a spark,
+but Tchekhov goes forward, slowly, hardly, hardly moving.... An
+inexperienced or impatient eye will perhaps observe no movement at all.
+It may be Tchekhov himself does not know for certain whether he is
+moving forward or marking time. To calculate beforehand is impossible.
+Impossible even to hope. Man has entered that stage of his existence
+wherein the cheerful and foreseeing mind refuses its service. It is
+impossible for him to present to himself a clear and distinct notion of
+what is going on. Everything takes on a tinge of fantastical absurdity.
+One believes and disbelieves--everything. In _The Black Monk_ Tchekhov
+tells of a new reality, and in a tone which suggests that he is himself
+at a loss to say where the reality ends and the phantasmagoria begins.
+The black monk leads the young scholar into some mysterious remoteness,
+where the best dreams of mankind shall be realised. The people about
+call the monk a hallucination and fight him with medicines--drugs,
+better foods and milk. Kovrin himself does not know who is right. When
+he is speaking to the monk, it seems to him that the monk is right;
+when he sees before him his weeping wife and the serious, anxious
+faces of the doctors, he confesses that he is under the influence of
+fixed ideas, which lead him straight to lunacy. Finally the black
+monk is victorious. Kovrin has not the power to support the banality
+which surrounds him; he breaks with his wife and her relations, who
+appear like inquisitors in his eyes, and goes away somewhere--but in
+our sight he arrives nowhere. At the end of the story he dies in order
+to give the author the right to make an end. This is always the case:
+when the author does not know what to do with his hero he kills him.
+Sooner or later in all probability this habit will be abandoned. In
+the future, probably, writers will convince themselves and the public
+that any kind of artificial completion is absolutely superfluous.
+The matter is exhausted--stop the tale short, even though it be on
+a half-word. Tchekhov did so sometimes, but only sometimes. In most
+cases he preferred to satisfy the traditional demands and to supply his
+readers with an end. This habit is not so unimportant as at first sight
+it may seem. Consider even _The Black Monk._ The death of the hero is
+as it were an indication that abnormality must, in Tchekhov's opinion,
+necessarily lead through an absurd life to an absurd death: but this
+was hardly Tchekhov's firm conviction. It is clear that he expected
+something from abnormality, and therefore gave no deep attention to
+men who had left the common track. True, he came to no firm or definite
+conclusions, for all the tense effort of his creation. He became so
+firmly convinced that there was no issue from the entangled labyrinth,
+that the labyrinth with its infinite wanderings, its perpetual
+hesitations and strayings, its uncaused griefs and joys uncaused--in
+brief, all things which normal men so fear and shun--became the very
+essence of his life. Of this and this alone must a man tell. Not of our
+invention is normal life, nor abnormal. Why then should the first alone
+be considered as the real reality?
+
+_The Sea-Gull_ must be considered one of the most characteristic, and
+therefore one of the most remarkable of Tchekhov's works. Therein the
+artist's true attitude to life received its most complete expression.
+Here all the characters are either blind, and afraid to move from
+their seats in case they lose the way home, or half-mad, struggling
+and tossing about to no end nor purpose. Arkadzina the famous actress
+clings with her teeth to her seventy thousand roubles, her fame, and
+her last lover. Tregovin the famous writer writes day in, day out;
+he writes and writes, knowing neither end nor aim. People read his
+works and praise them, but he is not his own master; like Marko, the
+ferryman in the tale, he labours on without taking his hand from the
+oar, carrying passengers from one bank to the other. The boat, the
+passengers, and the river too, bore him to death. But how can he get
+rid of them? He might give the oars over to the first-comer: the
+solution is simple, but after it, as in the tale, he must go to heaven.
+Not Tregovin alone, but all the people in Tchekhov's books who are
+no longer young remind one of Marko the ferryman. It is plain that
+they dislike their work, but, exactly as though they were hypnotised,
+they cannot break away from the influence of the alien power. The
+monotonous, even dismal, rhythm of life has lulled their consciousness
+and will to sleep. Everywhere Tchekhov underlines this strange and
+mysterious trait of human life. His people always speak, always think,
+always do one and the same thing. One builds houses according to a plan
+made once for all (_My Life_); another goes on his round of visits
+from morn to night, collecting roubles (_Yonitch_); a third is always
+buying up houses (_Three Years_). Even the language of his characters
+is deliberately monotonous. They are all monotonous, to the point of
+stupidity, and they are all afraid to break the monotony, as though it
+were the source of extraordinary joys. Read Tregovin's monologue:
+
+'... Let us talk.... Let us talk of my beautiful life.... What shall
+I begin with? [Musing a little.] ... There are such things as fixed
+ideas, when a person thinks day and night, for instance, of the moon,
+always of the moon. I too have my moon. Day and night I am at the
+mercy of one besetting idea: "I must write, I must write, I must." I
+have hardly finished one story than, for some reason or other, I must
+write a second, then a third, and after the third, a fourth. I write
+incessantly, post-haste. I cannot do otherwise. Where then, I ask you,
+is beauty and serenity? What a monstrous life it is! I am sitting with
+you now, I am excited, but meanwhile every second I remember that
+an unfinished story is waiting for me. I see a cloud, like a grand
+piano. It smells of heliotrope. I say to myself: a sickly smell, a
+half-mourning colour.... I must not forget to use these words when
+describing a summer evening. I catch up myself and you on every phrase,
+on every word, and hurry to lock all these words and phrases into my
+literary storehouse. Perhaps they will be useful. When I finish work
+I run to the theatre, or go off fishing: at last I shall rest, forget
+myself. But no! a heavy ball of iron is dragging on my fetters,--a new
+subject, which draws me to the desk, and I must make haste to write and
+write again. And so on for ever, for ever. I have no rest from myself,
+and I feel that I am eating away my own life. I feel that the honey
+which I give to others has been made of the pollen of my most precious
+flowers, that I have plucked the flowers themselves and trampled them
+down to the roots. Surely, I am mad. Do my neighbours and friends treat
+me as a sane person? "What are you writing? What have you got ready
+for us?" The same thing, the same thing eternally, and it seems to me
+that the attention, the praise, the enthusiasm of my friends is all
+a fraud. I am being robbed like a sick man, and sometimes I am afraid
+that they will creep up to me and seize me, and put me away in an
+asylum.'
+
+But why these torments? Throw up the oars and begin a new life.
+_Impossible._ While no answer comes down from heaven, Tregovin will
+not throw up the oars, will not begin a new life. In Tchekhov's work,
+only young, very young and inexperienced people speak of a new life.
+They are always dreaming of happiness, regeneration, light, joy. They
+fly head-long into the flame, and are burned like silly butterflies.
+In _The Sea-Gull,_ Nina Zaryechnaya and Trepliev, in other works other
+heroes, men and women alike--all are seeking for something, yearning
+for something, but not one of them does that which he desires. Each
+one lives in isolation; each is wholly absorbed in his life, and is
+indifferent to the lives of others. And the strange fate of Tchekhov's
+heroes is that they strain to the last limit of their inward powers,
+but there are no visible results at all. They are all pitiable.
+The woman takes snuff, dresses slovenly, wears her hair loose, is
+uninteresting. The man is irritable, grumbling, takes to drink, bores
+every one about him. They act, they speak--always out of season.
+They cannot, I would even say they do not want to, adapt the outer
+world to themselves. Matter and energy unite according to their own
+laws;--people live according to their own, as though matter and energy
+had no existence at all. In this Tchekhov's intellectuals do not differ
+from illiterate peasants and the half-educated bourgeois. Life in the
+manor is the same as in the valley farm, the same as in the village.
+Not one believes that by changing his outward conditions he would
+change his fate as well. Everywhere reigns an unconscious but deep and
+ineradicable conviction that our will must be directed towards ends
+which have nothing in common with the organised life of mankind. Worse
+still, the organisation appears to be the enemy of the will and of man.
+One must spoil, devour, destroy, ruin. To think out things quietly, to
+anticipate the future--that is impossible. One must beat one's head,
+beat one's head eternally against the wall. And to what purpose? Is
+there any purpose at all? Is it a beginning or an end? Is it possible
+to see in it the warrant of a new and inhuman creation, a creation out
+of the void? 'I do not know' was the old professor's answer to Katy.
+'I do not know' was Tchekhov's answer to the sobs of those tormented
+unto death. With these words, and only these, can an essay upon
+Tchekhov end. _Résigne-toi, mon cœur, dors ton sommeil de brute._
+
+
+
+
+THE GIFT OF PROPHECY
+
+
+(For the twenty-fifth anniversary of F. M. Dostoevsky's death.)
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Vladimir Soloviev used to call Dostoevsky 'the prophet,' and even
+'the prophet of God.' Immediately after Soloviev, though often in
+complete independence of him, very many people looked upon Dostoevsky
+as the man to whom the books of human destiny were opened; and this
+happened not only after his death, but even while he was yet alive.
+Apparently Dostoevsky himself too, if he did not regard himself as a
+prophet--he was too eagle-eyed for that--at least thought it right
+that all people should see a prophet in him. To this bears witness
+the tone of _The Journal of an Author,_ no less than the questions
+upon which he generally touches therein. _The Journal of an Author_
+began to appear in 1873, that is on Dostoevsky's return from abroad,
+and therefore coincides with what his biographers call 'the highest
+period of his life.' Dostoevsky was then the happy father of a family,
+a man of secure position, a famous writer, the author of a whole
+series of novels known to all: _The House of the Dead, The Idiot, The
+Possessed._ He has everything which can be required _from_ life, or,
+more truly, he has taken everything which can be taken from life. You
+remember Tolstoi's deliberations in his _Confession_? 'Finally, I shall
+be as famous as Pushkin, Gogol, Goethe and Shakespeare--and what shall
+come after?' Indeed, it is difficult to become a more famous writer
+than Shakespeare; and even if one succeeded, the inevitable question,
+'And what shall come after?' would by no means be removed. Sooner or
+later in the activity of a great writer a moment comes when further
+perfection seems impossible. How shall a man be greater than himself
+in the world of literature? If he would move, then by his own will or
+in spite of it he must step on to another plane. And this is plainly
+the beginning of prophecy in a writer. In the general view the prophet
+is greater than the writer; and even the possession of genius is not
+always a guarantee against the general view. Even men so sceptical as
+Tolstoi and Dostoevsky, men always ready to doubt everything, more than
+once were the victims of prejudices. Prophetic words were expected
+of them, and they went out to meet men's desires, Dostoevsky even
+more readily than Tolstoi. Moreover both prophesied clumsily: they
+promised one thing, and something wholly different happened. So Tolstoi
+promised long ago that men would awake to their error soon and would
+put away from them fratricidal war, and would begin to live as true
+Christians should, fulfilling the Gospel commandment of love. Tolstoi
+prophesied and preached; people read him, as, it seems, they read no
+other writer: but they have not changed their habits nor their tastes.
+For the last ten years Tolstoi has perforce been a witness of a whole
+series of horrible and most savage wars. And now there is our present
+revolution[1]--armed mobs rioting, the gallows set up, men shot down,
+bombs--the revolution which came to replace the bloody war in the Far
+East!
+
+And this is in Russia, where Tolstoi was born, lived, taught and
+prophesied, where millions of people sincerely hold him to be the
+greatest genius of all! Even in his own family Tolstoi could not
+effect the change that he desired. One of his sons is an officer
+in the army; the other writes in the _Novoïe Vremya,_ as though he
+were Souvorin's[2] son, not Tolstoi's.... Where, then, is the gift
+of prophecy? Why is it that a man so great as Tolstoi can foresee
+nothing, and seems to peer his way through life? 'What will to-morrow
+bring forth?' 'To-morrow I'll work miracles,' said the magician to
+the Russian prince of old. For reply the prince drew his sword and
+struck off the magician's head; and the excited mob, which believed in
+the magician-prophet, became calm and departed home. History is ever
+striking off the heads of prophetic predictions, and yet the crowd
+still runs after the prophets. Of little faith, the crowd looks for
+a sign, because it desires a miracle. But can the ability to predict
+be accounted as evidence of the power to work miracles? It is possible
+to predict an eclipse of the sun or the appearance of a comet, but
+this surely means a miracle only to the ignorant. An enlightened mind
+is secure in the knowledge that where prediction is possible, there
+is no miracle, since the possibility of prediction and of foreseeing
+presupposes a strict uniformity. Therefore not he will appear a prophet
+who has great spiritual gifts, nor he who desires to dominate the world
+and to command the very laws, neither the magician, nor the sorcerer,
+nor the artist, but he who, having yielded himself beforehand to the
+actual and its laws, has devoted himself to the mechanical labour of
+record and calculation. Bismarck could foretell the greatness of Russia
+and Germany; and not only Bismarck, but an ordinary German politician,
+for whom everything is reduced to _Deutschland, Deutschland über
+alles,_ could read the future for many years ahead; yet Dostoevsky and
+Tolstoi could foresee nothing. In Dostoevsky the failure is still more
+remarkable than in Tolstoi, because he more often attempted prediction:
+more than half of his _Journal_ consists in unfulfilled prophecies. So
+often did he commit his prophetic genius.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: This essay was written during the revolution of 1905.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The famous editor of the _Novoïe Vremya._]
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+To some it may perhaps seem out of place that in an article devoted to
+the twenty-fifth anniversary of the writer's death, I call to mind his
+mistakes and errors. The reproach is hardly just. A certain kind of
+defect in a great man is at least as characteristic and important as
+his qualities.
+
+Dostoevsky was not a Bismarck. But is that so terrible that we must
+lament it? Moreover, for writers of the type of Tolstoi and Dostoevsky,
+their social and political ideas are without any value. They know well
+that no one obeys them. Whatever they may say, history and political
+life will go on in the same way, since it is not their books and
+articles which guide events. And, probably, here is the explanation
+of the amazing boldness of their opinions. If Tolstoi really imagined
+that it would be enough for him to write an article demanding that
+all 'soldiers, policemen, judges, ministers' and the rest, all those
+guardians of the public peace, whom he detested--and, by the way, who
+loves them?--should be dismissed, for all prison-doors to be flung
+wide before the murderers and robbers--who can tell whether he would
+have shown himself sufficiently firm and resolute in his opinions, to
+take upon himself the responsibility for the effects of the measures
+which he proposed? But he knows beyond all doubt that he will not be
+obeyed, and therefore he calmly preaches anarchy. Dostoevsky's part as
+a preacher was quite different; but it too was, so to speak, platonic.
+Probably it came as a surprise even to himself, that he became the
+prophet, not of 'ideal' politics, but of those most realistic tasks
+which governments always set themselves in countries where a few men
+direct the destinies of peoples. Listening to Dostoevsky, one may
+imagine that he is discovering ideas which the government must take
+for its guidance and set itself to realise. But you will soon convince
+yourself that Dostoevsky did not discover one single original political
+idea. Everything of the kind that he possessed he had borrowed without
+examination from the Slavophiles, who in their turn appeared original
+only to the extent to which they were able without outside assistance
+to translate from the German and the French: _Russland, Russland
+über alles._ (Even the rhythm of the verse is not affected by the
+substitution of the one word.) But what is most important is, that
+the Slavophiles with their Russo-German glorification of nationality,
+and with them Dostoevsky who joined the chorus, have neither taught
+nor educated one single man among the ruling classes. Our government
+knew all that it needed to know by itself, without the Slavophiles
+and without Dostoevsky. From time immemorial it had gone its way by
+the road which the theorists so passionately praised: so that nothing
+was left to them but to eulogise those in power and to defend the
+policy of the Russian government against the public opinion which was
+hostile to it. Autocracy, Orthodoxy, Nationality--all these were held
+so firmly in Russia that in the 'seventies when Dostoevsky began to
+preach they needed no support whatever. And surely every one knows that
+power never seriously reckons upon the help of literature. Certainly it
+requires that the Muses should pay tribute to it with the others, nobly
+formulating its demands in the words: _Blessed be the union of the
+sword and the lyre._ It used to happen that the Muses did not refuse
+the request, sometimes sincerely, sometimes because, as Heine said, it
+is particularly disagreeable to wear iron chains in Russia, on account
+of the heavy frosts. In any case the Muses were only allowed to sing
+the praises of the sword, but by no means to wield it. There are all
+kinds of unions. And here again Dostoevsky, for all his independent
+nature, still appeared in the rôle of a prophet of the Russian
+government: that is, he divined the secret devices of the powers
+that were, and in this connection then recalled all the 'high and
+beautiful' words which he had managed to hoard up in the course of his
+long wanderings. For instance, the government began to cast covetous
+glances towards the East (at that time the Near East still); Dostoevsky
+begins to argue that we must have Constantinople, and to prophesy that
+Constantinople will soon be ours. His 'argument' is, of course, of a
+purely 'moral character,' and, sure enough, he is a writer. Only from
+Constantinople, he says, can we make avail the purely Russian ideal
+of embracing all humanity. Of course our government, though indeed
+we had no Bismarcks, perfectly well understood the value of moral
+argument and of prophecy based upon them, and would have preferred a
+few well-equipped divisions and improved guns. To realist politicians
+one single soldier, armed not with a gun but with a blunderbuss, is
+of more importance than the sublimest conception of moral philosophy.
+But still they do not drive away the humble prophet, if the prophet
+knows his place. Dostoevsky accepted the rôle, since it gave him still
+the opportunity of displaying his refractory nature in the struggle
+with Liberal literature. He sang paeans, made protests, uttered
+absurdities--and worse than absurdities. For instance, he counselled
+all the Slav peoples to unite under the aegis of Russia, assuring
+them that only thus would full independence be guaranteed them, and
+the right of shaping themselves by their own culture, and so on--and
+that in the face of the millions of Polish Slavs living in Russia. Or
+again, the _Moscow Gazette_ gives its opinion that it would be well
+for the Crimean Tartars to emigrate to Turkey, since it would then be
+possible for Russians to settle in the peninsula. Dostoevsky catches up
+this original idea with enthusiasm. 'Indeed,' he says, 'on political
+and state and similar considerations'--I do not know how it is with
+other people, but when I hear such words as 'state' and 'political'
+on Dostoevsky's lips, I cannot help smiling--'it is necessary to expel
+the Tartars and to settle Russians on their lands.' When the _Moscow
+Gazette_ projects such a measure, it is intelligible. But Dostoevsky!
+Dostoevsky who called himself a Christian, who so passionately preaches
+love to one's neighbour, self-abasement, self-renunciation, who taught
+that Russia must 'serve the nations'--how could he be taken with an
+idea so rapacious? And indeed almost all his political ideas have the
+mark of rapacity upon them: to grab and grab, and still to grab....
+As the occasion demands, he now expresses the hope that we may have
+Germany's friendship, and again threatens her; now he argues that we
+have need of England, and again he asserts that we could do without
+her,--just like a leader-writer in a _bien-pensant_ provincial paper.
+One thing alone makes itself felt among all these ludicrous and
+eternally contradictory assertions,--Dostoevsky understands nothing,
+absolutely nothing, about politics, and moreover, he has nothing at all
+to do with politics. He is forced to go in tow of others who, compared
+with him, are utter nonentities, and he goes. Even his ambition--and he
+had a colossal ambition, an ambition unique in its kind, as befitted
+a universal man--suffers not one whit: chiefly because men expected
+prophecy from him, because the next title to that of a great writer is
+that of a prophet, and because a ring of conviction and a loud voice
+are the signs of the prophetic gift. Dostoevsky could speak aloud: he
+could also speak with the tone of one who knows secrets, and of one
+with authority. One learns much in the underworld. All these things
+served him. Men took the poet-laureate of the existing order for the
+inspirer of thoughts and the governor of Russia's remotest destinies.
+It was enough for Dostoevsky. It was even necessary for Dostoevsky. He
+knew of course that he was no prophet; but he knew that there had never
+been one on earth, and that those who were prophets had no better right
+to the title than he.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+I will permit myself to remind the reader of Tolstoi's letter to his
+son, lately published by the latter in the newspapers. It is very
+interesting. Once more, not from the standpoint of the practical man
+who has to decide the questions of the day--from this standpoint
+Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, and their similars are quite useless--but man does
+not live by bread alone.
+
+Even now in the terrible days through which we have to live, now, if
+you will, more than ever before, one cannot read newspapers alone, nor
+think only of the awful surprises which to-morrow prepares for us. To
+every one is left an hour of leisure between the reading of newspapers
+and party programmes, if it be not an hour in the day when the noise
+of events and the pressure of immediate work distracts, then an hour
+in the deep night, when everything that was possible has been already
+done, and everything that was required has been said. Then come flying
+in the old thoughts and questions, frightened away by business, and
+for the thousandth time one returns to the mystery of human genius and
+human greatness. Where and how far can genius know and accomplish more
+than ordinary men?
+
+Then Tolstoi's letter, which during the day aroused only anger and
+indignation,--is it not outrageous and revolting, think some, that
+in the great collision of forces which contend with one another in
+Russia, Tolstoi cannot distinguish the right force from the wrong, but
+stigmatises all the struggling combatants by the one name of ungodly?
+During the day, I say, it is surely outrageous: in the daytime we would
+like Tolstoi to be with us and for us, because we are convinced that
+we and we alone are seeking the truth,--nay, that we know the truth,
+while our enemies are defending evil and falsehood, whether in malice
+or in ignorance. But this is during the day. In the night-time, things
+are changed. One remembers that Goethe also overlooked, simply did not
+notice, the great French Revolution. True, he was a German who lived
+far from Paris, while Tolstoi lives close to Moscow, where men, women,
+and children have been shot, cut down, and burnt alive. Moreover,
+there is no doubt that Tolstoi has overlooked not merely Moscow, but
+everything that went before Moscow. What is happening now does not seem
+to him important or extraordinary. For him only that is important to
+which he, Tolstoi, has set his hand: all that occurs outside and beside
+him, for him has no existence. This is the great prerogative of great
+men. And sometimes it seems to me--perhaps it is only that I would have
+it seem so--as though there were in that prerogative a deep and hidden
+meaning.
+
+When we have no more strength in us to listen to the endless tales
+of horrible atrocities which have already been committed, and to
+anticipate in imagination all that the future holds in store for us,
+then we recall Tolstoi and his indifference. It is not in our human
+power to return the murdered fathers and mothers to the children nor
+the children to their fathers and mothers. Nor stands it even in our
+power to revenge ourselves upon the murderers, nor will vengeance
+reconcile every one to his loss. And we try no longer to think with
+logic, and to seek a justification of the horrors there where there is
+and can be none. What if we ask ourselves whether Tolstoi and Goethe
+did not sec the Revolution and did not suffer its pain, only because
+they saw something else, something, it may even be, more necessary and
+important? Maybe there are indeed more things in heaven and earth than
+are dreamed of in our philosophy.
+
+Now we may return to Dostoevsky and his 'ideas'; we may call them
+fearlessly by the names which they deserve, for though Dostoevsky is
+a writer of genius, this does not mean that we must forget our daily
+needs. The night and the day have each their rights. Dostoevsky wanted
+to be a prophet, he wanted people to listen to him and cry 'Hosanna!'
+because, I say again, he thought that if men had ever cried 'Hosanna!'
+to any one, then there was no reason why he, Dostoevsky, should be
+denied the honour. That is the reason why in the 'seventies he made his
+appearance in the new rôle of a preacher of Christianity, and not of
+Christianity merely, but of orthodoxy.
+
+Again, I would draw attention to the far from accidental circumstances
+that his preaching coincided with the 'serenest' period of his life. He
+who had in time past been a homeless wanderer, a poor man who had not
+where to lay his head, had provided himself with a family and a house
+of his own, even with money (for his wife was saving). The failure
+had become a celebrity; the convict a full citizen. The underworld,
+where-into his fate had but lately driven him, it might seem for ever,
+now appeared to him a phantasmagoria which never had been real. In the
+galleys and the underworld had been born within him a great hunger for
+God which lived long; there he fought a great fight, the fight of life
+against death; there for the first time were made the new and awful
+experiments which allied Dostoevsky with everything that is rebellious
+and restless on earth. What Dostoevsky wrote during the closing years
+of his life (not merely _The Journal of an Author,_ but _The Brothers
+Karamazov_ as well) has value only in so far as Dostoevsky's _past_
+is reflected therein. He made no new step onwards. As he was, so he
+remained, on the eve of a great truth. But in the old days that did
+not suffice him, he hungered for something beyond; but now he does not
+want to struggle, and he cannot explain to himself or to others what is
+really happening within him. He pretends to be struggling still, nay,
+more, he behaves as though he had won the final victory, and demands
+that his triumph should be acknowledged by public opinion. He loves to
+think that the night is already past and the actual day begun: and the
+galleys and the underworld, reminding him that the day is not yet, are
+no more. All the evidences of a complete illusion of victory seem to
+be there--let him only choose the text and preach! Dostoevsky clutched
+at orthodoxy. Why not Christianity? Because Christianity is not for
+him who has a house, a family, money, fame, and a father-land. Christ
+said: 'Let him leave all that he hath and follow me.' But Dostoevsky
+was afraid of solitude, he desired to be the prophet of modern, settled
+men to whom pure Christianity, unadapted to the needs of civilised
+existence in a governed state, is unfitted. How should a Christian
+seize Constantinople, drive out the Tartars from the Crimea, reduce
+all Slavs to the condition of the Poles, and the rest--for all the
+projects of Dostoevsky and the _Moscow Gazette_ defy enumeration? So,
+before accepting the Gospel, he must explain it....
+
+However strange it may appear, it must be confessed that one cannot
+find in the whole of literature a single man who is prepared to accept
+the Gospel as a whole, without interpretation. One man wants to seize
+Constantinople according to the Gospel, another to justify the existing
+order, a third to exalt himself or to thrust down his enemy; and each
+considers it as his right to diminish from, or even to supplement,
+the text of Holy Writ. I have, of course, only those in view who
+acknowledge, at least in word, the divine origin of the New Testament;
+since he who sees in the Gospel only one of the more or less remarkable
+books of his library, naturally has the right to subject it to whatever
+critical operations he may choose.
+
+But here we have Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, and Vladimir Soloviev. It is
+generally believed, and the belief is particularly supported and
+developed by the most recent criticism, that Tolstoi alone rationalised
+Christianity, while Dostoevsky and Soloviev accepted it in all the
+fullness of its mysticism, denying reason the right to separate
+truth from falsehood in the Gospel. I consider this belief mistaken:
+for Dostoevsky and Soloviev were afraid to accept the Gospel as the
+fountain of knowledge, and relied much more upon their own reason and
+their experience of life than upon the words of Christ. But, if there
+was a man among us who, though but in part, took the risk of accepting
+the mysterious and obviously dangerous words of the Gospel precepts,
+that man was Leo Tolstoi. I will explain myself.
+
+We are told that Tolstoi made the attempt, in his works published
+abroad, to explain the miracles of the Gospel in a way intelligible
+to human reason. Dostoevsky and Soloviev, on the other hand, readily
+accepted the inexplicable. But generally the miracles of the Gospel
+attract the people who believe least, for it is impossible to repeat
+the miracles, and this being so, then it follows that a merely external
+faith is sufficient, a mere verbal assertion. A man says that he
+believes in miracles: 'his reputation as a religious man is made, both
+in his own mind and in others', and as for the rest of the Gospel,
+there remains 'interpretation.' Consider, for instance, the doctrine
+of non-resistance to evil. It need not be said that the doctrine of
+non-resistance is the most terrible, and the most irrational, and
+mysterious thing that we read in the Gospel. All our reasoning soul is
+indignant at the thought that full material freedom should be given
+to the murderer to accomplish his murderous acts. How can you allow a
+murderer to kill an innocent child before your very eyes, and yet not
+draw the sword? Who has the right to give that abominable precept?
+Soloviev[3] and Dostoevsky alike repeat that question, the one in a
+disguised, the other in an open attack on Tolstoi. Yet since the
+Gospel plainly declares 'Resist not evil,' both of our believers in
+miracles have suddenly remembered reason and turned to its testimony,
+knowing that reason will naturally destroy any meaning whatever that
+may be in the precept. In other words, they repeat the question of
+the doubting Jews concerning Christ: 'Who is He that speaketh as one
+having authority?' God commanded Abraham that he should offer up his
+son. By his reason, his human reason, Abraham refused to acknowledge
+any intelligible meaning in the cruel command, but yet made ready to
+act according to the word of God and made no attempt to rid himself
+of the hard and inhuman obligation by cunning interpretation. But
+Dostoevsky and Soloviev refuse to fulfil Christ's demands so soon as
+they find no justification in the human reason. Yet they say that they
+believe that Lazarus was raised from the dead and that the man who
+was sick of a palsy was cured, and all the other miracles which are
+related by the Apostles. Why then does their belief end just at the
+point where it begins to place obligations upon them? Why the sudden
+recourse to reason, when we know exactly that Dostoevsky came to the
+Gospels only to be rid of the power of reason? But that was in the
+days of the underworld. Now the 'serene' period of his life has begun.
+But Soloviev, evidently, had never even known the underworld. Only
+Tolstoi boldly and resolutely tries to test the truth of the Christian
+teaching, not in his thoughts alone, but in part in his life also.
+From the human point of view it is mad to make no resistance to evil.
+He knows that every whit as well as Dostoevsky, Soloviev and the rest
+of his many opponents. But he is really seeking in the Gospels that
+divine madness, since human reason does not satisfy him. Tolstoi began
+to follow the Gospel in that clouded period of his life when he was
+haunted by the phantoms of Ivan Ilyich and Pozdnyshiev. Here belief in
+miracles, belief in the abstract, divorced from life, avails nothing.
+For belief's sake one must surrender all that is dearest--even a
+son--to the sacrifice. Who is He that spake as one having authority?
+We cannot now verify whether He did in truth raise Lazarus from the
+dead, or satisfy thousands with a few handfuls of loaves. But if we
+unhesitatingly perform His precepts, then we may discover whether He
+has given us the truth.... So it was with Tolstoi; and he turned to
+the Gospel which is the sole and original source of Christianity.
+But Dostoevsky turned to the Slavophiles and the teachings of their
+state-religion. Orthodoxy infallible, not Catholicism nor Protestantism
+nor even simple Christianity; and then, the original idea: _Russland,
+Russland über alles._ Tolstoi could prophesy nothing in history, but
+then, as if deliberately, he does not interfere with the historical
+life. For him our present reality does not exist: he concentrates
+himself wholly upon the riddle which God set Abraham. But Dostoevsky
+desired at all costs to prophesy, prophesied constantly and was
+constantly mistaken. We have not taken Constantinople, we have not
+united the Slavs, and even the Tartars still live in the Crimea. He
+terrified us by prophesying that Europe would be drenched in rivers
+of blood because of the warfare between the classes, while in Russia,
+thanks to our Russian ideal of universal humanity, not only would our
+internal problems be peacefully solved, but a new unheard-of word would
+still be found whereby we should save hapless Europe. A quarter of
+a century has passed. So far nothing has happened in Europe. But we
+are drowning ourselves, literally drowning ourselves, with blood. Not
+only is our alien population oppressed, Slav and non-Slav alike, but
+our own brother is tortured, the miserable starving Russian peasant
+who understands nothing at all. In Moscow, in the heart of Russia,
+women, children, and old men have been shot down. Where now is the
+Russian universal soul of which Dostoevsky prophesied in his speech on
+Pushkin? Where is love, where are the Christian precepts? We see only
+'Governmentalism,' over which the Western nations also fought; but they
+fought with means less cruel and less hostile to civilisation. Russia
+will again have to learn from the West as she had to learn more than
+once before. And Dostoevsky would have done far better had he never
+attempted to prophesy.
+
+But there is no great harm done even if he did prophesy. I am glad
+with all my heart even now that he rested a little while from the
+galleys at the end of his life. I am deeply convinced that even had he
+remained in the underworld until the day of his death, yet he would
+have found no solution of the questions which tormented him. However
+much energy of soul a man puts into his work, he will still remain 'on
+the eve' of truth, and will not find the solution he desires. That is
+the law of human kind. And Dostoevsky's preaching has done no harm.
+Those listened to him who, even without his voice, would have marched
+on Constantinople, oppressed the Poles, and made ready the sufferings
+which are necessary to the soul of the peasant. Though Dostoevsky gave
+them his sanction, on the whole he adds nothing to them. They had no
+need of literary sanction, quite correctly judging that in practical
+matters not the printed page, but bayonets and artillery are of
+deciding value.
+
+All that he had to tell, Dostoevsky told us in his novels, which even
+now, twenty-five years after his death, attract all those who would
+wrest from life her secrets. And the title of prophet, which he sought
+so diligently, considering that it was his by right, did not suit him
+at all. Prophets are Bismarcks, but they are Chancellors too. The
+first in the village is the first in Rome.... Is a Dostoevsky doomed
+eternally to be 'on the eve'? Let us once more try to reject logic,
+this time perhaps not logic alone, and say: 'So let it be.'
+
+
+[Footnote 3: _War and Christianity,_ by Vladimir Soloviev.]
+
+
+
+
+PENULTIMATE WORDS
+
+
+
+I
+
+_De omnibus dubitandum_
+
+
+There are but few orthodox Hegelians left among philosophers nowadays,
+yet Hegel is still supreme over the minds of our contemporaries. It
+may even be that certain of his ideas have taken deeper root nowadays
+than when Hegelianism was in full bloom: for instance, the conception
+that history is the unfolding of the idea in reality, or, to put it
+more briefly and in terms more familiar to the modern mind--the idea of
+progress. Try to convince an educated person of the contrary: you are
+sure to be worsted. But, _de omnibus dubitandum,_ which means in other
+words, that doubt is called upon to fulfil its mission above all in
+those cases where a conviction is particularly strong and unshakable.
+Therefore one must admit, whether he will or no, that progress so
+called--the development of mankind in time--is a fiction.
+
+We have wireless telegraphy, radium and the rest, yet we stand no
+higher than the Romans or the Greeks of old. You admit this? Then,
+one step further: although we have wireless telegraphy and all the
+other blessings of civilisation, still we stand no higher than red-or
+black-skinned savages. You protest: but the principle compels. You
+began to doubt: then what is the use of drawing back?
+
+For myself, I must confess that the idea of the spiritual perfection
+of savages entered my mind but lately, when, for the first time for
+many years, I looked through the works of Tylor, Lubbock and Spencer.
+They speak with such certainty of the advantages of our spiritual
+organisation, and have such sincere contempt for the moral misery
+of the savage, that in spite of myself stole in the thought: Is it
+not exactly here, where all are so certain that no one ever examines
+the question, that the source of error is to be found? High time to
+recall Descartes and his rule! And as soon as I began to doubt, all my
+former certainty--of course I fully shared the opinion of the English
+anthropologists--disappeared in a moment.... It began to appear that
+the savage indeed is higher and more important than our savants,
+and not our materialists only, as Professor Paulsen thinks, but our
+idealists, metaphysicians, mystics, and even our convinced missionaries
+(sincere believers, not the profit-mongering sort), whom Europe sends
+forth into the world to enlighten the backward brethren. It seemed to
+me that the credit transactions common among savages, with a promise
+to pay in the world beyond the grave, have a deep meaning. And human
+sacrifices! In them Spencer sees a barbarity, as an educated European
+should. I also see in them barbarity, because I also am a European
+and have a scientific education. But I deeply envy their barbarity,
+and curse the cultivation which has herded me together with believing
+missionaries, idealist, materialist, and positivist philosophers, into
+the narrow fold of the sultry and disgusting apprehensible world. We
+may write books to prove the immortality of the soul, but our wives
+won't follow us to the other world: they will prefer to endure the
+widow's lot here on the earth. Our morality, based on religion, forbids
+us to hurry into eternity. And so in everything. We are guessing, at
+the best we are sicklied with dreams, but our life passes outside
+our guesses and our dreams. One man still accepts the rites of the
+Church, however strange they may be, and seriously imagines that he
+is brought into contact with other worlds. Beyond the rites no step
+is taken. Kant died when he was eighty; had it not been for cholera,
+Hegel would have lived a hundred years; while the savages--the young
+ones kill the old and ... I dare not complete the sentence for fear of
+offending sensitive ears. Again I recall Descartes and his rule: who
+is right, the savages or we? And if the savages are right, can history
+be the unfolding of the idea? And is not the conception of progress
+in time (that is the development from the past to the present and
+to the future) the purest error? Perhaps, and most probably, there
+is development, but the direction of this development is in a line
+perpendicular to the line of time. The base of the perpendicular may be
+any human personality. May God and the reader forgive one the obscurity
+of the last words. I hope the clarity of the foregoing exposition will
+to some extent atone for it.
+
+
+
+II
+
+_Self-renunciation and Megalomania_
+
+
+We are obliged to think that nothing certain can be said either of
+self-renunciation or of megalomania, though each one of us in his own
+experience knows something of the former as well as of the latter. But
+it is well known that the impossibility of solving a question never yet
+kept people from reflecting. On the contrary: to us the most alluring
+questions are those to which there is no actual, no universally valid,
+answer. I hope that sooner or later, philosophy will be thus defined,
+in contrast to science:--philosophy is the teaching of truths which
+are binding on none. Thereby the accusation so often made against
+philosophy will be removed, that philosophy properly consists of a
+series of mutually exclusive opinions. This is true, but she must be
+praised for it, not blamed: there is nothing bad in it, but good, a
+very great deal of good. On the other hand, it is bad, extremely bad,
+that science should consist of truths universally binding. For every
+obligation is a constraint. Temporarily, one can submit to a restraint,
+put on a corset, fetters; one can agree to anything temporarily. Rut
+who will voluntarily admit the mastery over himself of an eternal law?
+Even from the quiet and clear Spinoza I sometimes hear a deep sigh, and
+I think that he is longing for freedom--he who wasted all his life,
+all his genius in the glorification of necessity.... With such an
+introduction one may say what he pleases.
+
+It seems to me that self-renunciation and megalomania, however little
+they resemble one another apparently, may be observed successively,
+even simultaneously, in one and the same person. The ascetic, who
+has denied life and humbles himself before everybody, and the madman
+(like Nietzsche or Dostoevsky), who affirms that he is the light, the
+salt of the earth, the first in the whole world or even in the whole
+universe--both reach their madness--I hope there is no necessity to
+demonstrate that self-renunciation as well as megalomania is a kind of
+madness--under conditions for the most part identical. The world does
+not satisfy the man and he begins to seek for a better. All serious
+seeking brings a man to lonely paths, and lonely paths, it is well
+known, end in a great wall which sets a fatal bound to man's curiosity.
+Then arises the question, how shall a man pass beyond the wall, by
+overcoming either the law of impenetrability or the equally invincible
+law of gravity, in other words, how shall a man become infinitely small
+or infinitely great? The first way is that of self-renunciation: I want
+nothing, I myself am nothing, I am infinitely small, and therefore I
+can pass through the infinitely small pores of the wall.
+
+The other way is megalomania. I am infinitely strong, infinitely
+great, I can do all things, I can shatter the wall, I can step over
+it, though it be higher than all the mountains of the earth and though
+it has hitherto dismayed the strongest and the bravest. This is
+probably the origin of the two most mysterious and mighty spiritual
+transformations. There is no single religion upon which are not more or
+less clearly impressed the traces of these methods of man's struggle
+with the poverty of his powers. In ascetic religions the tendency to
+self-renunciation predominates: Buddhism glorifies the suppression
+of the individual and has for its ideal Nirvana. The Greeks dreamed
+of Titans and heroes. The Jews consider themselves the chosen people
+and await the Messiah. As for the Gospel, it is hard to say to which
+method of struggle it gives the preference. On the one hand are the
+great miracles, the raising from the dead, the healing of the sick, the
+power over the winds and the sea; on the other: 'Blessed are the poor
+in spirit.' The Son of God who will sit on the right hand of power now
+lives in the company of publicans, beggars, and harlots, and serves
+them. 'Who is not for us, is against us'; the promise to thrust down
+his enemies into the fiery hell; eternal torment for blasphemy against
+the Holy Spirit, and equal with these the exhortation to the extreme
+of humility and love to the enemy: 'Turn to him the other cheek also.'
+Throughout, the Gospel is permeated with contradictions, which are
+not extraneous and historical, concerned with facts, but intrinsic,
+contradictions of mood, of 'ideals,' as the modern man would say.
+What is in one chapter praised as the noblest task is in the next
+degraded to an unworthy labour. It is in no way strange that the most
+opposite teachings should find justification in this little book,
+which is half composed of repetitions. The Inquisitors, the Jesuits,
+and the old ascetics called themselves. Christians; so do the modern
+Protestants and our Russian sectaries. To a greater or less degree
+they all are right, even the Protestants. Such contradictory elements
+are intertwined in the Gospel, that men, above all those who travel
+the high road, who can move in one direction only, and under one
+conspicuous flag, who have become accustomed to believe in the unity
+of reason and the infallibility of logical laws, could never fully
+grasp the teaching of the Gospel, and always aspired to give to the
+words and deeds of Christ a uniform explanation which should exclude
+contradictions, and more or less correspond to the common conceptions
+of the work and problems of life. They read in the mysterious book,
+'Have faith and thou shalt say to this mountain: be thou removed,' and
+understood it to mean that always, every hour and every minute, one
+must think and desire the self-same thing, prescribed beforehand and
+fully denned; whereas in these words the Gospel allows and commends the
+maddest and most perilous experiments. That which is, did not exist for
+Christ; and only that existed, which is not.
+
+The old Roman, Pilate, who was apparently an educated man, clever and
+not bad at heart, though weak in character, could neither understand
+nor elucidate the cause of the strange struggle which took place
+before him. With his whole heart he pitied the pale Jew before him,
+who was guilty of nothing. 'What is truth?' he asked Christ. Christ
+did not answer him, nor could He answer, not through ignorance, as
+the heathen desired to believe, but because that question cannot be
+answered in words. It would have been necessary to take Pilate's head,
+and turn it towards the other side, in order that he might see what
+he had never seen before. Or, still better; to have used the method
+to which the hunch-backed pony turns in the fairy tale, in order to
+change sleepy Ivanushka into a wizard and a beauty: first, to plunge
+him into a cauldron of boiling milk, then into another of boiling
+water, then a third of ice-cold water. There is every reason to suppose
+that with this preliminary preparation Pilate would have begun to
+act differently, and I think the hunch-backed pony would agree that
+self-renunciation and megalomania would be a fair substitute for the
+cauldrons of the tale.
+
+Great privations and great illusions so change the nature of man
+that things which seemed before impossible, become possible, and the
+unattainable, attainable.
+
+
+
+III
+
+_Eternal Truths_
+
+
+In the _Memorabilia_ Xenophon tells of the meeting of Socrates with
+the famous sophist Hippias. When Hippias came to Socrates, the latter
+as usual held forth, and as usual asked why it is that men who wish to
+learn carpentry or smith's work know to whom they should apply, but if
+they desire to learn virtue, cannot possibly find a teacher. Hippias,
+who had heard these opinions of Socrates many times before, remarked
+ironically: 'So you're still saying the same old things, that I heard
+from you years ago!' Socrates understood and accepted the challenge, as
+he always accepted challenges of this kind. A dispute began, by which
+it was demonstrated (as usual in Plato and Xenophon) that Socrates was
+a stronger dialectician than his opponent. He succeeded in showing that
+his conception of justice was based on the same firm foundation as all
+his other conceptions, and that convictions once formed, if they are
+true, are as little liable to the action of time as noble metals to
+rust.
+
+Socrates lived seventy years. He was once a youth, once a man, once
+a greybeard. But what if he had lived a hundred and forty years,
+experienced once again all the three seasons of life, and had again met
+Hippias? Or, better still, if the soul, as Socrates taught, is immortal
+and Socrates now lives somewhere in the moon or Sirius, or in any other
+place predestined for immortal souls, does he really go on plaguing his
+companions with discourses on justice, carpenters, and smiths? And does
+he still emerge victorious as of old from the dispute with Hippias and
+other persons who dare to affirm that everything (human convictions
+included) may be, and ought to be, subject to the laws of time, and
+that mankind not only loses nothing, but gains much by such subjection?
+
+
+
+IV
+
+_Earth and Heaven_
+
+
+The word justice is on all men's lips. But do men indeed so highly
+prize justice as one would think, who believed all that has been
+said and is still being said concerning it? More than this, is it so
+highly appreciated by its sworn advocates and panegyrists--poets,
+philosophers, moralists, theologians--even by the best of them, the
+most sincere and gifted? I doubt it, I doubt it deeply. Glance at the
+works of any wise man, whether of the modern or the ancient world.
+Justice, if we understand it as the equality of all living men before
+the laws of creation--and how else can we understand it?--never
+occupied any one's attention. Plato never once asked Destiny why she
+created Thersites contemptible and Patroclus noble. Plato argues that
+men should be just, but never once dares to arraign the gods for their
+injustice. If we listen to his discourses, a suspicion will steal into
+our souls that justice is a virtue for mortals, while the immortals
+have virtues of their own which have nothing in common with justice.
+And here is the last trial of earthly virtue. We do not know whether
+the human soul is mortal or immortal. Some, we know, believe in
+immortality, others laugh at the belief. If it were proved that they
+were both in the wrong, and that men's destinies after death are as
+unequal as they are in life: the successful, the chosen take up their
+abode in heaven, the others remain to rot in the grave and perish with
+their mortal clay. (It is true that such an admission is made by our
+Russian prophet, the priest of love and justice, Dostoevsky, in his
+_Legend of the Grand Inquisitor._) Now, if it should turn out that
+Dostoevsky is really immortal, while his innumerable disciples and
+admirers, the huge mass of grey humanity which is spoken of in _The
+Grand Inquisitor,_ end their lives in death as they began them with
+birth, would Dostoevsky himself (whom I have named deliberately as
+the most passionate defender of the ideal of justice, though there
+have been yet more fervent and passionate and remarkable defenders of
+justice on earth whom I ought perhaps to name, were it not that I would
+avoid speaking lightly of sacred things--let him who finds Dostoevsky
+small, himself choose another)--would Dostoevsky reconcile himself to
+such an injustice, would he rise in revolt beyond the grave against the
+injustice, or would he forget his poor brethren when he occupied the
+place prepared for him? It is hard to judge _a priori: a posteriori_
+one would imagine that he would forget.
+
+And between Dostoevsky and a small provincial author the gulf is
+colossal; the injustice of the inequality cries out to heaven.
+Nevertheless we take no heed, we live on and do not cry, or if we
+do, we cry very rarely, and then, to tell the truth, it is hard to
+say certainly why we cry. Is it because we would draw the attention
+of the indifferent heaven, or is it because there are many amateurs
+of lamentation among our neighbours, like the pilgrim woman in
+Ostrovsky's _Storm,_ who passionately loved to hear a good howl? All
+these considerations will seem particularly important to those who,
+like myself at the present moment--I cannot speak for to-morrow--share
+Dostoevsky's notion that even if there is immortality, then it is
+certainly not for everybody but for the few. Moreover, I follow
+Dostoevsky further and admit that they alone will rise from the dead
+who on the existing hypotheses should expect the worse fate after
+death. The first here will be the first still, there, while of the last
+not even a memory will remain. And no one will be found to champion
+those who have perished: a Dostoevsky, a Tolstoi, and all the other
+'first' who succeed in entering heaven will be engaged in business
+incomparably more important.
+
+So continue, if you will, to take thought for the just arrangement of
+the world, and, after the fashion of Plato, to make the teaching of
+justice the foundation of philosophy.
+
+
+
+V
+
+_The Force of Argument_
+
+
+Schopenhauer answered the question of the immortality of the soul in
+the negative. In his opinion, man as Thing-in-Himself is immortal, but
+as phenomenon mortal. In other words, all that is individual in us
+exists only in the interval between birth and death; but since each
+individual according to Schopenhauer's teaching is a manifestation of
+'Will' or 'Thing-in-Itself,' the unalterable and eternal principle
+which is the only reality of the world, continually made object in the
+manifold of phenomena, then, in so far as this principle is displayed
+in man, he is eternal. This is Schopenhauer's opinion, evidently
+derived as a logical conclusion from his general philosophic doctrine,
+both from that relating to the Thing-in-Itself, and from that which
+relates to the individual. The first part shall go unregarded: after
+all, if Schopenhauer was mistaken, and the Thing-in-Itself is mortal,
+we need not weep over it, nor is there any cause to rejoice over its
+immortality. But here is the individual. He is deprived of his right to
+immortality, and for reason is alleged an argument which is at first
+sight irrefutable. Everything which has a beginning has an end also,
+says Schopenhauer. The individual has a beginning, birth; therefore an
+end, death, awaits him. To Schopenhauer himself the general proposition
+as well as the conclusion seemed so obvious, that he did not admit
+the possibility of mistake even for a moment. But this time we have
+an incontestable case of a wrong conclusion from a wrong premiss.
+First, why must everything which has a beginning also have an end? The
+observations of experience point to such an hypothesis; but are the
+observations of experience really strong enough to support general
+propositions? And are we really entitled to make use of propositions
+so acquired as first principles for the solution of the most important
+problems of philosophy? And even if we admit that the premiss is
+correct, nevertheless the conclusion at which Schopenhauer arrived is
+wrongly drawn. It may indeed be that everything which has a beginning
+also has an end; it may indeed be that the individual is sooner or
+later doomed to perish; but why identify the moment of the soul's
+destruction with the death of the body? It may be that the body will
+die, but the soul which the same fate attends at some future time will
+find for itself a more or less suitable integument somewhere in a
+distant planet, perhaps still unknown to us, and live on, though only
+for a little while and not for all eternity, as the extreme optimists
+believe. How important would it be for poor humanity to retain even
+such a hope: particularly seeing that we can hardly say with certainty
+what it is that men desire when they speak of the immortality of the
+soul. Is it that they merely desire at all costs to live eternally, or
+would they be satisfied with one or two lives more, especially if the
+subsequent lives should appear to be less offensively insignificant
+than this earthly existence, wherein even the lowest rank of nobility
+is to many an unattainable ideal? It seems to me that it is not every
+one who would consent to live eternally. And what if every possibility
+should have been exhausted, and endless repetition should begin?
+
+It does not of course follow from this that we have the right to
+reckon upon an existence beyond the grave. The question remains open
+as before, even when Schopenhauer's arguments have been refuted. But
+it does follow that the best arguments on closer consideration often
+appear worthless. _Quod erat demonstrandum--_ naturally pending the
+discovery of arguments to refute my refutation of Schopenhauer's. I
+make this reserve to deprive my critics of the pleasure and possibility
+of a little wordplay.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+_Swan Songs_
+
+
+It cannot be doubted that _When We Dead Awake_ is one of the most
+autobiographical of Ibsen's plays. Nearly all his dramas reveal
+striking traces of his personal experience; their most valuable
+quality, even, is the possibility of following out in them the
+history of the author's inward struggle. But there is a particular
+significance in _When We Dead Awake,_ which comes from the fact that
+it was conceived and written by the author in his old age. Those who
+are interested in overhearing what is said and watching what is done
+on the outskirts of life set an extraordinary value on the opportunity
+of communing with very old men, with the dying, and generally with
+men who are placed in exceptional conditions, above all when they are
+not afraid to speak the truth, and have by past experience developed
+in themselves the art and the courage--the former is as necessary as
+the latter--to look straight into the eyes of reality. To such men
+Ibsen seems even more interesting than Tolstoi. Tolstoi indeed has not
+yet betrayed his gift; but he is primarily a moralist. Now, as in his
+youth, power over men is the dearest thing of all to him, and more
+fascinating than all the other blessings of the world. He still gives
+orders, makes demands, and desires at all costs to be obeyed. One may,
+and one ought, to consider this peculiarity of Tolstoi's nature with
+attention and respect. Not Tolstoi alone, but many a regal hermit of
+thought has to the end of his life demanded the unconditional surrender
+of mankind. On the day of his death, an hour before end, Socrates
+taught that there was only one truth and that the one which he had
+discovered. Plato in his extreme old age journeyed to Syracuse to plant
+the seeds of wisdom there. It is probable that such stubbornness in
+great men has its explanation and its deep meaning.
+
+Tolstoi, and also Socrates and Plato, and the Jewish prophets, who
+in this respect and in many others were very like the teachers of
+wisdom, probably had to concentrate their powers wholly upon one
+gigantic inward task, the condition of its successful performance
+being the illusion that the whole world, the whole universe, works
+in concert and unison with them. In Tolstoi's case I have elsewhere
+shown that he finds himself at present on the brink of Solipsism in
+his conception of the world. Tolstoi and the whole world are to him
+synonymous. Without such a temporary delusion of his whole being--it
+is not an intellectual delusion, of the head, for the head knows well
+that the world is by itself, and Tolstoi by himself--he would have to
+give up his most important work. So it is with us, who know since
+Copernicus that the earth moves round the sun, that the stars are not
+clear, bright, golden rings, but huge lumps of various composition,
+that there is not a firm blue vault overhead. We know these things:
+nevertheless we cannot and do not want to be so blind as not to take
+delight in the lie of the optical illusions of the visible world. Truth
+so-called has but a limited value. Nor does the sacrifice of Galileo
+by any means refute my words. _E pur si muove,_ if ever he uttered the
+phrase, might not have referred to the movement of the earth, though
+it was spoken of the earth. Galileo did not wish to betray the work of
+his life. Who will, however, stand surety to us that not only Galileo
+is capable of such sacrifice, but his pupil also, even the most devoted
+and courageous, who has gained the new truth not by his own struggle
+but from the lips of his master. Peter in one night thrice denied
+Christ. Probably we could not find a single man in all the world who
+would consent to die to demonstrate and defend the idea of Galileo.
+Evidently great men are very little inclined to initiate the outsider
+into the secret of their great deeds. Evidently they cannot themselves
+always give a clear account of the character and meaning of the tasks
+which they set themselves. Socrates himself, who all his life long so
+stubbornly sought clarity and invented dialectics for the purpose, and
+introduced into general use definitions designed to fix the flowing
+reality; Socrates, who spent thirty days without interruption in
+persuading his pupils that he was dying for the sake of truth and
+justice; Socrates himself, I say, perhaps, most probably even, knew as
+little why he was dying as do simple people who die a natural death, or
+as babes born into the world know by what beneficent or hostile power
+they have been summoned from nonentity into being. Such is our life:
+wise men and fools, old men and children march at random to goals which
+have not yet been revealed by any books, whether worldly or spiritual,
+common or sacred. It is by no means with the desire to bring dogmatism
+into contempt that I recall these considerations. I have always been
+convinced, and am still certain, that dogmatists feel no shame, and
+are by no means to be driven out of life; besides, I have lately come
+to the conclusion that the dogmatists are perfectly justified in their
+stubbornness. Belief, and the need of belief, are strong as love, as
+death. In the case of every dogmatist I now consider it my sacred
+duty to concede everything in advance, even to the acknowledgment
+of the least, and least significant, shades of his convictions and
+beliefs. There is but one limitation, one only, imperceptible and
+almost invisible: the dogmatist's convictions must not be absolutely
+and universally binding, that is, not binding upon the whole of
+mankind without exception. The majority, the vast majority, millions,
+even tens of millions of people, I will readily allow him, on the
+understanding that they themselves desire it, or that he will show
+himself skilful enough to entice them to his side--violence is surely
+not to be admitted in matters of belief. In a word, I allow him almost
+the whole of humankind, in consideration whereof he must agree that
+his convictions are not intrinsically binding upon the few units or
+tens that remain. I agree to an outward submission. And the dogmatist,
+after such a victory--my confession is surely a complete victory for
+him--must consider himself satisfied in full.
+
+Socrates was right, Plato, Tolstoi, the prophets were right: there is
+only one truth, one God; truth has the right to destroy lie, light
+to destroy darkness. God, omniscient, most gracious and omnipotent,
+will like Alexander of Macedon conquer nearly all the known world, and
+will drive out from his possessions, amid the triumphant and delighted
+shouts of his millions of loyal subjects, the devil and all those who
+are disobedient to his divine word. But he will renounce his claim to
+power over the souls of his few opponents, according to the agreement,
+and a handful of apostates will gather together on a remote isle,
+invisible to the millions, and will there continue their free, peculiar
+life. And here--to return to the beginning--among these few disobedient
+will be found Ibsen as he was in the last years of his life, as he is
+seen in his last drama. For in _When We Dead Awake_ Ibsen approves and
+glorifies that which Gogol actually did fifty years ago. He renounces
+his art, and with hatred and mockery recalls to mind what was once
+the business of his life. On April 15, 1866, Ibsen wrote to King Karl:
+'I am not fighting for a careless existence; I am fighting for the
+work of my life, in which I unflinchingly believe, and which I know
+God has given me to do.' By the way, you will hardly find one of the
+great workers who has not repeated this assertion of Ibsen's, whether
+in the same or in another form. Evidently, without such an illusion,
+temporary or permanent, one cannot compass the intense struggle and the
+sacrifices which are the price of great work. Evidently, illusions of
+various kinds are necessary even for success in small things. In order
+that a little man should fulfil his microscopical work, he too must
+strain his little forces to the extreme. And who knows whether it did
+not seem to Akaky Akakievitch that God had assigned to him the task
+of copying the papers in the office and having a new uniform made? Of
+course he would never dare to say so, and he would never be able to,
+first because of his timidity, and then because he has not the gift of
+expression. The Muses do not bring their tribute to the poor and weak:
+they sing only Croesus and Caesar. But there is no doubt that the first
+in the village consider themselves as plainly designated by fate as the
+first in Rome. Caesar felt this, and not mere ambition alone spoke in
+him when he uttered the famous phrase. Men do not believe in themselves
+and always yearn to occupy a position wherein the certainty, whether
+justified or mistaken, may spring up within them that they stand in the
+sight of God. But with years all illusions vanish, and among them the
+illusion that God chooses certain men for his particular purposes and
+puts on them particular charges. Gogol, who had thus long understood
+his task as an author, burnt his best work before his death. Ibsen did
+almost the same. In the person of Professor Rubek he renounces his
+literary activity and jeers at it, though it had brought him everything
+that he could have expected from it, fame, respect, riches.... And
+think why! Because he had to sacrifice the man in him for the sake of
+the artist, to give up Irene whom he loved, to marry a woman to whom he
+was indifferent. Did Ibsen at the end of his life clearly discover that
+God had appointed him the task of being a male? But all men are males,
+while only individuals are artists. Had this been said, not by Ibsen,
+but by a common mortal, we would call it the greatest vulgarity. On
+the lips of Ibsen, an old man of seventy years, the author of _Brand,_
+from which the divines of Europe draw the matter for their sermons, on
+the lips of Ibsen who wrote _Emperor and Galilean_ such a confession
+acquires an unexpected and mysterious meaning. Here you cannot escape
+with a shake of the head and a contemptuous smile. Not anybody, but
+Ibsen himself speaks--the first, not in the village, not in Rome even,
+but in the world. Here surely is the human law at work: 'Forswear not
+the prison nor the beggar's wallet!'
+
+Perhaps it is opportune to recall the swan songs of Turgeniev.
+Turgeniev, too, had high ideals which he probably thought he had
+received direct from God. We may with assurance put into the mouth
+of Brand himself the phrase with which his remarkable essay, _Hamlet
+and Don Quixote,_ concludes: 'Everything passes, good deeds remain.'
+In these words is the whole Turgeniev, or better, the whole conscious
+Turgeniev of that period of his life to which the essay belongs. And
+not only in that period, but up to the last minutes of his life, the
+conscious Turgeniev would not recant those words. But in the _Prose
+Poems_ an utterly different motive is heard. All that he there relates,
+and all that Ibsen tells in his last drama, is permeated with one
+infinite, inextinguishable anguish for a life wasted in vain, for a
+life which had been spent in preaching 'good.' Yet neither youth, nor
+health, nor the powers that fail are regretted. Perhaps even death has
+no terrors.... What the old Turgeniev cannot away with are his memories
+of 'the Russian girl.' He described and sang her as no one in Russian
+literature before him, but she was to him only an ideal; he, like
+Rubek, had not touched her. Ibsen had not touched Irene; he went off
+to Madame Viardo. And this is an awful sin, in no wise to be atoned,
+a mortal sin, the sin of which the Bible speaks. All things will be
+forgiven, all things pass, all things will be forgotten: this crime
+will remain for ever. That is the meaning of Turgeniev's _senilia_;
+that is the meaning of Ibsen's _senilia._ I have deliberately chosen
+the word _senilia,_ though I might have said swan songs, though it
+would even have been more correct to speak of swan songs. 'Swans,' says
+Plato, 'when they feel the approach of death, sing that day better
+than ever, rejoicing that they will find God, whom they serve.' Ibsen
+and Turgeniev served the same God as the swans, according to the Greek
+belief, the bright God of songs, Apollo. And their last songs, their
+_senilia,_ were better than all that had gone before. In them is a
+bottomless depth awful to the eye, but how wonderful! There all things
+are different from what they are with us on the surface. Should one
+hearken to the temptation and go to the call of the great old men,
+or should he tie himself to the mast of conviction, verified by the
+experience of mankind, and cover his ears as once the crafty Ulysses
+did to save himself from the Syrens? There is a way of escape: there
+is a word which will destroy the enchantment. I have already uttered
+it: _senilia._ Turgeniev wished to call his _Prose Poems_ by this
+name--manifestations of sickness, of infirmity, of old age. These are
+terrible; one must run away from these! Schopenhauer, the philosopher
+and metaphysician, feared to revise the works of his youth in his old
+age. He felt that he would spoil them by his mere touch. And all men
+mistrust old age, all share Schopenhauer's apprehensions. But what if
+all are mistaken? What if _senilia_ bring us nearer to the truth?
+Perhaps the soothsaying birds of Apollo grieve in unearthly anguish
+for another existence; perhaps their fear is not of death but of life;
+perhaps in Turgeniev's poems, as well as in Ibsen's last drama, are
+already heard, if not the last, then at least the penultimate words of
+mankind.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+_What is Philosophy?_
+
+
+In text-books of philosophy you will find most diverse answers to this
+question. During the twenty-five hundred years of its existence it
+has been able to make an immense quantity of attempts to define the
+substance of its task. But up till now no agreement has been reached
+between the acknowledged representatives of the lovers and favourites
+of wisdom. Every one judges in his own way, and considers his opinion
+as the only true one; of a _consensus sapientium_ it is impossible
+even to dream. But strangely enough, exactly in this disputable matter
+wherein the agreement of savants and sages is so impossible, the
+_consensus profanorum_ is fully attained. All those who were never
+engaged in philosophy, who have never read learned books, or even any
+books at all, answer the question with rare unanimity. True, it is
+apparently impossible to judge of their opinions directly, because
+people of this kind cannot speak at all in the language evolved by
+science; they never put the question in such a form, still less can
+they answer it in the accepted words. But we have an important piece of
+indirect evidence which gives us the right to form a conclusion. There
+is no doubt that all those who have gone to philosophy for answers
+to the questions which tormented them, have left her disenchanted,
+unless they had a sufficiently eminent gift to enable them to join the
+guild of professional philosophers. From this we may unhesitatingly
+conclude, although the conclusion is for the time being only negative,
+that philosophy is engaged in a business which may be interesting and
+important to the few, but is tedious and useless to the many.
+
+This conclusion is highly consoling as well for the sage as for the
+profane. For every sage, even the most exalted, is at the same time
+one of the profane--if we discard the academical use of words--a
+human being, pure and simple. To him also it may happen that those
+tormenting questions will arise, which ordinary people used to bring
+to him, as for instance in the case of Tolstoi's Ivan Ilyich or
+Tchekhov's professor in _The Tedious Story._ And then he will of course
+be obliged to confess that the necessary answers are missing from
+the great tomes which he has studied so well. For what can be more
+terrible to a man than to be compelled in the hard moments of his life
+to acknowledge any doctrine of philosophy as binding upon him? For
+instance, to be compelled to hold with Plato, Spinoza, or Schopenhauer
+that the chief problem of life is moral perfection, or in other words,
+self-renunciation. It was easy for Plato to preach justice. It did
+not in the least prevent him from being the son of his time, or from
+breaking to a permissible extent the commandments which he himself
+had given. By all the evidence Spinoza was much more resolute and
+consequent than Plato; he indeed kept the passions in subservience, but
+that was his personal and individual inclination. Consistence was not
+merely a property of his mind, but of his whole being. Displaying it,
+he displayed himself. As for Schopenhauer, it is known that he praised
+the virtues only in his books; but in life, like many another clever,
+independent man, he was guided by the most diverse considerations.
+
+But these are all masters, who devise systems and imperatives. Whereas
+the pupil, seeking in philosophy an answer to his questions, cannot
+permit himself any liberties and digressions from the universal rules,
+for the essence and the fundamental problem of any doctrine reduces to
+the subordination not merely of men's conduct, but of the life of the
+whole universe to one regulating principle. Individual philosophers
+have discovered such principles, but to this day they have reached no
+final agreement among themselves, and this to some extent lightens the
+burden of those unhappy ones who, having lost the hope of finding help
+and guidance elsewhere, have turned to philosophy. If there is not
+in philosophy one universal principle binding upon and acknowledged
+by all, it means that it is permitted to each man, at least for the
+meantime, to feel and even to act in his own way. A man may listen
+to Spinoza, or he may stop his ears. He may kneel before Plato's
+eternal ideas, or he may give his allegiance to the ever-changing,
+ever-flowing reality. Finally, he may accept Schopenhauer's pessimism,
+but nothing on earth can compel him to celibacy on the ground that
+Schopenhauer successfully laughed at love. Nor is there any necessity
+at all, in order to win such freedom for one's self, to be armed
+with the light dialectic of the old Greek philosopher, or with the
+heavy logic of the poor Dutch Jew, or with the subtle wit of the
+profound German. Neither is it necessary to dispute them. It is even
+possible to agree with them all. The room of the world is infinite,
+and will not only contain all those who lived once and those who are
+yet to be born, but will give to each one of them all that he can
+desire: to Plato, the world of ideas, to Spinoza, the one eternal and
+unchangeable substance, to Schopenhauer, the Nirvana of Buddhism. Each
+of these, and all the other philosophers, will find what they want in
+the universe even to the belief, even to the conviction, that theirs
+are the only true and universal doctrines. But, at the same time,
+the profane will find suitable worlds for themselves. From the fact
+that people are cooped up on the earth, and that they must put forth
+efforts beyond belief to gain each cubit of earth, and even their
+illusory liberties, it by no means follows that poverty, obscurantism,
+and despotism must be considered eternal and original principles, and
+that economical uniformity is the last refuge of man. A plurality of
+worlds, a plurality of men and gods amid the vast spaces of the vast
+universe--this is, if I may be forgiven the word, an ideal. It is true
+it is not built according to the idealists. Yet what a conclusion does
+it foreshadow! We leave the disputes and arguments of philosophers
+aside, so soon as we begin to speak of gods. According to the existing
+beliefs and hypotheses the gods also have always been quarrelling
+and fighting among themselves. Even in monotheistic religions people
+always made their God enter a fight, and devised an eminent opponent
+for him--the devil. Men can by no means rid themselves of the thought
+that everything in heaven goes on in exactly the same way as it does
+on the earth, and they attribute all their own bad qualities as well
+as their good ones to the denizens of heaven. Whereas it is by far the
+most probable that a great many of the things which are, according to
+our notions, perfectly inseparable from life do not exist in heaven.
+Among other things, there is no struggle. And this is well. For every
+struggle, sooner or later, develops inevitably into a fight. When
+the supply of logical and ethical arguments is exhausted, one thing
+is left for the irreconcilable opponents--to come to blows, which do
+in fact usually decide the issue. The value of logical and ethical
+arguments is arbitrarily assigned, but material force is measured by
+foot-pounds and can be calculated in advance. So that where on the
+common supposition there will be no foot-pounds, the issue of the
+fight will very often remain undecided. When Lermontov's demon goes
+to Tamara's cell, an angel meets him on the way. The demon says that
+Tamara belongs to him; the angel demands her for himself. The demon
+will not be dissuaded by words and arguments: he is not built that way.
+As for the angel, he always considers himself doubly right. How can the
+issue be decided? At last Lermontov, who could not or dared not devise
+a new solution, admitted the interference of material force: Tamara
+is dragged away from the demon exactly as the stronger robber pulls
+his prey from the weaker on earth. Evidently the poet admitted that
+conclusion, that he might pay his tribute to the piety of tradition.
+But in my opinion the solution is not pious, but merely blasphemous.
+In it the traces of barbarity and idolatry are still clearly visible.
+The tastes and attributes of which earthly despots dream are attributed
+to God. By all means he must be, he desires to be, the strongest, the
+very first, just like Julius Caesar in his youth. He fears rivalry
+above all things, and never forgives his unconquered enemies. This is
+evidently a barbarous mistake. God does not want to be the strongest,
+the very first, at all. Certainly--for that would be intelligible and
+in accordance with common sense--he would not like to be weaker than
+others, in order that he might not be exposed to violence; but there
+is no foundation at all for attributing to him ambition or vainglory.
+Therefore there is equally no reason to think that he does not suffer
+equals, desires to be supreme, and seeks at all costs to destroy the
+devil. Most probably he lives in peace and concord even with those
+who least adapt themselves to his tastes and habits. Perhaps he is
+even delighted that not all are as he, and he readily shares his
+possessions with the devil, the more readily because by such a division
+neither loses, since the infinite--I admit that God's possessions are
+infinite--divided by two and even by the greatest possible finite
+number still leaves infinity.
+
+Now we can return to the original question, and it seems that we
+can even give an answer to it--two answers even, one for the sage,
+another for the profane. To the first, philosophy is art for art's
+sake. Every philosopher tries to construct a harmonious and various
+system, curiously and nicely fashioned, using for his material his own
+intrinsic experience as well as his own personal observations of the
+life beyond him, and the observations of others. A philosopher is an
+artist of his kind, to whom his works are dearer than everything in
+life, sometimes dearer than life itself. We very often see philosophers
+sacrifice everything for the sake of their work--even truth. Not so
+the profane. To them philosophy--more exactly, that which they would
+call philosophy if they possessed a scientific terminology--is the last
+refuge when material forces have been wasted, when there are no weapons
+left to fight for their stolen rights. Then they run for help and
+support to a place which they have always taken care to avoid before.
+Think of Napoleon at St. Helena. He who had been collecting soldiers
+and guns all his life, began to philosophise when he was bound hand and
+foot. Certainly he behaved in this new sphere like a beginner, a very
+inexperienced and, strange to say, a pusillanimous novice.
+
+He who feared neither pestilence nor bullet, was afraid, we know, of
+a dark room. Men used to philosophy, like Schopenhauer, walk boldly
+and with confidence in a dark room, though they run away from gun
+shots, and even less dangerous things. The great captain, the once
+Emperor of nearly all Europe, Napoleon, philosophised on St. Helena,
+and even went so far as to begin to ingratiate himself with morality,
+evidently supposing that upon morality his ultimate fate depended. He
+assured her that for her sake, and her sake alone, he had contrived
+his murderous business--he who, all the while a crown was on his head
+and a victorious army in his hands, hardly knew even of the existence
+of morality. But this is so intelligible. If one were to come upon a
+perfectly new and unknown world at the age of forty-five, then surely
+everything would seem terrible, and one would take the incorporeal
+morality for the arbiter of destiny. And one would plan to seduce
+her, if possible, with sweet words and false promises, as a lady of
+the world. But these were the first steps of a tyro. It was as hard
+for Napoleon to master philosophy as it was for Charlemagne at the
+end of his days to learn to write. But he knew why he had come to the
+new place, and neither Plato nor Spinoza nor Kant could dissuade him
+of this. Perhaps at the beginning, while he was as yet unused to the
+darkness, he would pretend to agree with the acknowledged authorities,
+thinking that here too, just as there where he lived before, exalted
+personages do not tolerate opposition; perhaps he would lie to them
+as he lied to morality, but his business he would not forget. He came
+to philosophy with _demands,_ and would not rest till he had received
+satisfaction. He had already seen how a Corsican lieutenant had
+become a French Emperor. Why should not the beaten Emperor fight his
+last fight?... And how shall he be reconciled with self-renunciation?
+Philosophy will surrender: it is only necessary not to surrender in
+one's self. So does a Napoleon come to philosophy, and so does he
+understand her. And until the contrary is proven, nothing can prevent
+us from thinking that the Napoleons are right, and therefore that
+academical philosophy is not the last nor even the penultimate word.
+For, perhaps, the last word is hidden in the hearts of the tongue-tied,
+but bold, persistent, implacable men.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+_Heinrich Heine_
+
+
+More than a hundred years have passed since the birth, and fifty
+years since the death, of this remarkable man, but the history of
+literature has not yet finally settled accounts with him. Even the
+Germans, perhaps the Germans above all, find it impossible to agree
+upon the valuation of his gift. Some consider him a genius, others a
+man devoid of talent and insipid. Moreover, his enemies still bring as
+much passion to their attacks upon him as they did before, as though
+they were waging war upon a live opponent in place of a dead one. They
+hate him for the same things which made his contemporaries hate him.
+We know that it was principally for his insincerity that they did not
+forgive him. No one could tell when he was speaking seriously and when
+in jest, what he loved and what he hated, and finally it was quite
+impossible to determine whether or not he believed in God. It must be
+confessed that the Germans were right in many of their accusations. I
+value Heine extremely highly; in my opinion he is one of the greatest
+German poets; and yet I cannot undertake to say with certainty what
+he loved, what he believed, and often I cannot tell how serious he is
+in uttering one or another of his opinions. Nevertheless I find it
+impossible to detect any insincerity in his works. On the contrary,
+those peculiarities of his, which so irritated the Germans, are in my
+eyes so many proofs of his wonderful and unique sincerity. I think that
+if the Germans were mistaken and misunderstood Heine, hypertrophied
+self-love and the power of prejudice is the cause. Heine's usual method
+is to begin to speak with perfect seriousness, and to end with biting
+raillery and sarcasm. Critics and readers, who generally do not guess
+at the outset what awaits them in the event, have taken the unexpected
+laughter to their own account, and have been deeply offended. Wounded
+self-love never forgives; and the Germans could not forgive Heine
+for his jests. And yet Heine but rarely attacked others: most of his
+mockery is directed against himself, and above all in the work of his
+last creative period, of the years when he lived in the _Matrazengrab._
+
+With us in Russia many were offended with Gogol, believing that he
+was jeering at them. Later, he confessed that he had been describing
+himself. Nor does the inconstancy of Heine's opinions in any way
+prove him insincere. His intention was by no means always to fling at
+the Philistines. Indeed, he did not know what to believe; he changed
+his tastes and attachments, and did not even always know for certain
+what he preferred at the moment. Of course, had he wished, he might
+have pretended to be consequent and consistent. Or, had he been less
+eagle-eyed, he might with the vast majority of men have adopted a
+ceremonial dress once for all, he might have professed and invariably
+preached ideas which had no relation to his real emotions and moods.
+Many people think that one ought to act thus, that (particularly in
+literature) one must speak only officially and exhibit lofty ideas
+that have been proclaimed by wise men since time immemorial, without
+their having made the least inquiry whether they correspond to their
+own natures or not. Often cruel, vindictive, spiteful, selfish, mean
+people sincerely praise goodness, forgiveness, love to one's enemy,
+generosity and magnanimity in their books, while of their tastes
+and passions they speak not a single word. They are confident that
+passions exist only to be suppressed, and that convictions only are to
+be exhibited or displayed. A man rarely succeeds in suppressing his
+passions, but it is extremely easy to hide them, especially in books.
+And such dissimulation is not only not condemned, but recognised and
+even encouraged. The common and familiar programme is accepted: in life
+'passions' judge 'convictions,' in books 'convictions,' or 'ideals,'
+as they are called, pass sentence upon 'passions.' I would emphasise
+the fact that most writers are convinced that their business is not to
+tell of themselves, but to praise ideals. Heine's sincerity was really
+of a different order. He told everything, or nearly everything, of
+himself. And this was thought so shocking that the sworn custodians of
+convention and good morals considered themselves wounded in their best
+and loftiest feelings. It seemed to them that it would be disastrous if
+Heine were to succeed in acquiring a great literary influence, and in
+getting a hold upon the minds of his contemporaries. Then would crumble
+the foundations, constructed through centuries of arduous labour by the
+united efforts of the most distinguished representatives of the nation.
+This is perhaps true: the lofty magnificence of life can be preserved
+only upon the indispensable condition of hypocrisy. In order that it
+should be beautiful, much must be hidden and thrust away as far and
+deep as possible. The sick and the mad must be herded into hospitals;
+poverty into cellars; disobedient passions into the depths of the
+soul. Truth and freedom are only allowed to obtrude upon the attention
+as far as is compatible with the interests of a life well arranged
+within and without. The Protestant Church understood this as well as
+the Catholic, perhaps better. Strict puritanism elevated spiritual
+discipline to the highest moral law, which ruled life with unrelenting
+and inexorable despotism. Marriage and the family, not love, must be
+the aim of man; and poor Gretchen, who gave herself to Faust without
+observing the established ceremonial, was forced to consider herself
+eternally damned. The inward discipline still more than the outward
+guarded the foundations and gave strength and force to the State as
+well as to the people. Men and women were not spared; they were not
+even taken into account. Hundreds and thousands of Gretchens, men and
+women, were sacrificed, and are being sacrificed still, without pity to
+'the highest spiritual interests.'
+
+Acknowledgment and respect for the prescribed order had become so
+deeply rooted in the German soul--I speak of Germany, because no
+other nation upon earth is so highly disciplined--that even the most
+independent characters yielded to it. The most dreadful sin is not the
+breaking of the law--a violation which like Gretchen's can be explained
+by weakness and weakness alone, though it was not forgiven, was less
+severely condemned--but rebellion against the law, the open and daring
+refusal to obey, even though it be expressed in the most insignificant
+act. Therefore every one tends to show his loyalty from that side
+first of all. In a greater or less degree all have transgressed the
+law, but the more one has violated it in act, the more imperative he
+considers its glorification in words. And this order of things aroused
+neither suspicion nor discontent. Therein could be seen acknowledged
+the superiority of spirit over body, of mind over passion. Nobody ever
+asked the question: 'Is it really true that the spirit must have the
+mastery over the body, and the mind over the passions?' And when Heine
+allowed himself to put the question and to answer it in his own way,
+the whole force of German indignation burst upon him. First of all
+they suspected his sincerity and truthfulness. 'It is impossible,'
+said the pious, 'that he really should not acknowledge the law. He is
+only pretending.' Such a supposition was the more natural because the
+ring of conviction was not always to be heard in Heine's tone: one of
+his poems ends with the following words: 'I seek the body, the body,
+the young and tender body. The soul you may bury deep in the ground--I
+myself have soul enough.' The poem is daring and provocative in the
+extreme, but in it, as in all Heine's daring and provocative poems, may
+be heard a sharp and nervous laugh, which must be understood as the
+expression of the divided soul, as a mockery of himself. It is he who
+tells of his meeting with two women, mother and daughter. Both please
+him: the mother by her much knowledge, the daughter by her innocence.
+And the poet stands between them, in his own words, like Buridan's
+ass between two bundles of hay. Again, daring, again, the laugh; and
+again the well-balanced German is irritated. He would prefer that no
+one should ever speak of such emotions, and if they are to be spoken
+of, then it must be at least in a penitent tone, with self-accusation.
+But Heine's misplaced laughter is indecent and quite uselessly
+disconcerting. I repeat that Heine himself was not always sure that
+his 'sincerity' was lawful. While he was still a youth he told how
+there suddenly ran through his soul, as through the whole earth, a
+rent which split asunder the unity of his former emotions. King David
+when he praised God and good did not remember his dark deeds--of
+which there were not a few--or, if he did remember them, it was only
+to repent. His soul was also divided, but he was able to preserve a
+sequence. When he wept, he could not and did not want to rejoice;
+when he repented, he was already far from sin; when he prayed, he did
+not scoff; when he believed, he did not doubt. The Germans, brought
+up on the great king's psalms, had come to think that these things
+were impossible and ought never to be possible. They admitted the
+succession of different, and even contradictory spiritual conditions,
+but their simultaneous existence appeared to them unintelligible and
+disgusting, in contradiction with divine commandments and the laws of
+logic. It seemed to them that everything which formerly existed as
+separate, had become confused, that the place of stringent harmony had
+been usurped by absurdity and chaos. They thought that such a state of
+things threatened innumerable miseries. They did not admit the idea
+that Heine himself might not understand it; in his creation they saw
+the manifestation of a false and evil will, and they invoked divine and
+human judgment upon it. The Philistine irritation reached the extreme
+when it became clear that Heine had not humbled himself even before the
+face of death. Stricken by paralysis, he lay in his _Matrazengrab,_
+unable to stir a limb; he suffered the most intense bodily pains,
+with no hope of cure, or even of relief, yet he still continued to
+blaspheme as before. Worse still, his sarcasms every day became more
+ruthless, more poisonous, more refined. It might have been thought that
+it was left to him, crushed and destroyed, only to acknowledge his
+defeat and to commit himself utterly to the magnanimity of the victor.
+But in the weak flesh a strong spirit lived. All his thoughts were
+turned to God, the power of whose right hand, like every dying man,
+he could not but feel upon him. But his thoughts of God, his attitude
+to God, were so original that the serious people of the outer world
+could only shrug their shoulders. No one ever spoke thus to God, either
+aloud or to himself. The thought of death usually inspires mortals
+with fear or admiration; therefore they either kneel before him and
+implore forgiveness or sing his praises. Heine has neither prayer nor
+praise. His poems are permeated with a charming and gracious cynicism,
+peculiar and proper to himself alone. He does not want to confess his
+sins, and even now on the threshold of another life he remains as he
+was in youth. He desires neither paradise, nor bliss, nor heaven; he
+asks God to give him back his health, and to put his money affairs in
+order. 'I know there is much evil and many vices on earth. But I have
+grown used to all that now, and besides I seldom leave my room. O God,
+leave me here, but heal my infirmities, and spare me from want,' he
+writes in one of his last poems. He derides the legends of the blissful
+life of sinless souls in paradise. 'Sitting on the clouds and singing
+psalms is a pastime quite unsuited to me.' He remembers the beautiful
+Venus of the Louvre and praises her as in the days of youth. His poem,
+_Das Hohelied,_ is a mixture of extreme cynicism, nobility, despair,
+and incredible sarcasm. I do not know whether dying men have had such
+thoughts as those which are expressed in this poem, but I am confident
+that no one has expressed anything like them in literature. In Goethe's
+_Prometheus_ there is nothing of the provocative, unshakable, calm
+pride and the consciousness of his rights which inspired the author
+of _Das Hohelied._ God, who created heaven and earth and man upon the
+earth, is free to torment my body and soul to his fill, but I myself
+know what I need and desire, I myself decide what is good and what is
+bad. That is the meaning of this poem, and of all that Heine wrote in
+the last years of his life. He knew as well as any one that according
+to the doctrines of philosophy, ethics, and religion, repentance and
+humility are the condition of the soul's salvation, the readiness even
+with the last breath of life to renounce sinful desires. Nevertheless,
+with his last breath he does not want to own the power over himself
+of the age-old authorities of the world. He laughs at morality, at
+philosophy, and at existing religions. The wise men think so, the wise
+men want to live in their own way; let them think, let them live. But
+who gave them the right to demand obedience from me? Can they have
+the power to compel me to obedience? Listening to the words of the
+dying man, shall we not repeat his question? Shall we not take one step
+further? Heine is crushed, and if we may believe, as we have every
+reason to believe what he tells us in his 'Song of Songs,' his painful
+and terrible illness was the direct effect and consequence of his
+manner of life. Does it mean that in the future, too (if future there
+is), new persecutions await him, until the day when of his own accord
+he will subscribe to the proclaimed and established morality? Have we
+the right to suppose that there are powers somewhere in the universe
+preoccupied with the business of cutting out all men, even down to
+the last, after the same pattern? Perhaps Heine's contumacy points to
+quite a different intention of the arbiters of destiny. Perhaps the
+illness and torture prepared for those who fight against collars and
+blinkers--experience demonstrates with sufficient certainty that any
+declination from the high road and the norm inevitably brings suffering
+and ruin in its train--are only the trial of the human spirit. Who
+will endure them, who will stand up for himself, afraid neither of
+God nor of the devil and his ministers, he will enter victoriously
+into another world. Sometimes I even think, in opposition to existing
+opinion, that _there_ the stubborn and inflexible are valued above
+all others, and that the secret is hidden from mortals lest the
+weak and compliant should take it into their heads to pretend to be
+stubborn, in order to deserve the favour of the gods. But he who
+will not endure, but will deny himself, may expect the fate of which
+philosophers and metaphysicians generally dream. He will be united
+with the _primum mobile,_ he will be dissolved in the essence of being
+together with the mass of individuals like himself. I am tempted to
+think that the metaphysical theories which preach self-renunciation
+for the sake of love, and love for the sake of self-renunciation,
+are by no means empty and idle, as the positivists affirm. In them
+lies a deep, mysterious, and mystical meaning: in them is hidden a
+great truth. Their only mistake is that they pretend to be absolute.
+For some reason or other men have decided that empirical truths are
+many, but that metaphysical truth is one. Metaphysical truths are
+also many, but that does not in the least prevent them from living in
+harmony one with another. Empirical truths like all earthly beings are
+continually quarrelling, and cannot get on without superior authority.
+But metaphysical truths are differently arranged and know nothing
+whatsoever of our rivalry. There is no doubt that people who feel the
+burden of their individuality and thirst for self-renunciation are
+absolutely right. Every probability points to their at last attaining
+their purpose and being united to that to which they should be united,
+whether neighbour or remote, or perhaps, as the pantheists desire, even
+to inanimate nature. But it is just as probable that those who value
+their individuality and do not consent to renounce it either for the
+sake of their neighbours or of a lofty idea, will preserve themselves
+and will remain themselves, if not for ever and ever, at least for a
+sufficiently long while, until they are weary. Therefore the Germans
+must not be cross with Heine, at least those Germans who have judged
+him not from the utilitarian point of view--from this point of view I
+too utterly condemn him, and find for him no justification at all--but
+from the lofty, religious or metaphysical point of view, as it is
+called nowadays. He cannot possibly disturb them in any way. They will
+be united, down to the last they probably will be united in the Idea,
+the thing in itself, in Substance, or any other alluring unity; and not
+Heine with his sarcasms will keep them from their lofty aspirations.
+While if he and those like him continue to live in their own way in a
+place apart and even laugh at ideas--can that really be the occasion of
+serious annoyance?
+
+
+
+IX
+
+_What is Truth?_
+
+
+The sceptics assert that truth does not and cannot exist, and the
+assertion has eaten so deep into the modern mind, that the only
+philosophy which has spread in our day is that of Kant, which takes
+scepticism for its point of departure. But read the preface to the
+first edition of _The Critique of Pure Reason_ attentively, and you
+will be convinced that he had absolutely no concern with the question:
+'What is truth?' He only set himself to solve the problem, what should
+a man do who had been convinced of the impossibility of finding the
+objective truth. The old metaphysic with its arbitrary and unproven
+assertions, which could not bear criticism, irritated Kant, and he
+decided to get rid, even though by accepting the relative legitimacy of
+scepticism, of the unscientific discipline which he, as a teacher of
+philosophy, had to represent. But the confidence of the sceptics and
+Kant's deference are not in the least binding upon us. And after all
+Kant himself did not fulfil the obligations which he undertook. For if
+we do not know what is truth, what value have the postulates of the
+existence of God and the immortality of the soul? How can we justify
+or explain any one of the existing religions, Christianity included?
+Although the Gospel does not at all agree with our scientific notions
+of the laws of nature, yet it does not in itself contain anything
+contrary to reason. We do not disbelieve in miracles because they are
+impossible. On the contrary, it is as clear as day to the most ordinary
+common sense that life itself, the foundation of the world, is the
+miracle of miracles. And if the task of philosophy had reduced to the
+mere demonstration of the possibility of a miracle, her business would
+have been splendidly accomplished long ago. The whole trouble is that
+visible miracles are not enough for people, and that it is impossible
+to deduce from the fact that many miracles have already taken place
+that other miracles, without which mere existence is often impossible,
+will also happen in due course. Men are being born--without doubt
+a great miracle; there exists a beautiful world--also a miracle of
+miracles. But does it follow that men will rise from the grave, and
+that paradise is made ready for them? The raising of Lazarus is not
+much believed nowadays even by those who revere the Gospel, not because
+they will not admit the possibility of miracles in general, but because
+they cannot decide _a priori_ which miracles are possible and which
+are not, and therefore they are obliged to judge _a posteriori._ They
+readily accept a miracle that has happened, but they doubt the miracle
+that has not happened, and _the more they doubt,_ the more passionately
+do they desire it. It costs nothing to believe in the final triumph
+of good upon the earth (though it would be an absolute miracle), in
+progress or the infallibility of the Pope (these too are miracles and
+by no means inconsiderable), for after all men are quite sufficiently
+indifferent to good, to progress, and to the virtues of the Pope. It
+is much harder, nay quite impossible, standing before the dead body of
+one who is near and dear, to believe that an angel will fly down from
+heaven and bring the dead to life again, although the world is full of
+happenings no less miraculous than the raising of the dead.
+
+Therefore the sceptics are wrong when they assert that there is no
+truth. Truth exists, but we do not know it in all its volume, nor can
+we formulate that which we do know: we cannot imagine why it happened
+thus and not otherwise, or whether that which happened had to happen
+thus, or whether something else quite different might have happened.
+Once it was held that reality obeys the laws of necessity, but Hume
+explained that the notion of necessity is subjective, and therefore
+must be discarded as illusory. His idea was caught up (without the
+deduction) by Kant. All those of our judgments which have the character
+of universality and necessity, acquire it only by virtue of our
+psychological organisation. In those cases where we are particularly
+convinced of the objective value of our judgment, we have merely
+to do with a purely subjective certainty, though it is immutable
+and secure in the visible world. It is well known that Kant did not
+accept Hume's deduction: not only did he make no attempt to banish the
+false premisses from our intellectual economy, as Hume did with the
+conception of necessity, but, on the contrary, he declared that such
+an attempt was quite impracticable. The practical reason suggested to
+Kant that though the foundations of our judgments are vitiated by their
+source, yet their invariability may be of great assistance in the world
+of phenomena, that is in the space between the birth and death of man.
+If a man has lived before birth (as Plato held), and will live after
+death, then his 'truths' were not, and will not be necessary there,
+in the other world. What truths are _there,_ and whether there are
+any truths at all, Kant only guesses, and he succeeds in his guesses
+only because of his readiness to ignore logic in his conclusions. He
+suddenly gives faith an immense right to judge of the real world, a
+right of which faith would never dream had it not been taken under his
+special patronage by the philosopher himself. But why can faith do that
+which reason cannot? And a yet more insidious question: Are not all
+postulates invented by the same mind which was deprived of its rights
+in the first Critique, but which subsequently obtained a verdict of
+_restitutio in integrum,_ by changing the name of the firm? The last
+hypothesis is the most probable. And if so, then does it not follow
+that in the real world so carefully divided by Kant from the world of
+phenomena we will find much that is new, but not a little that is old.
+
+In general it is clear that the assumption that our world is a world
+of an instant, a brief dream, utterly unlike real life, is mistaken.
+This assumption, first enunciated by Plato, and afterwards elaborated
+and maintained by many representatives of religious and philosophical
+thought, is based upon no data at all. There's no denying, it is very
+pleasant. But as often happens, as soon as the wish was invested
+with language, by the mere fact it received too sharp and angular an
+expression, so that it lost all resemblance to itself. The essence
+of the true, primordial life beyond the grave appears to Plato as
+absolute good refined from all alloy, as the essence of virtue.
+But after all Plato himself cannot suffer the absolute emptiness
+of the ideal existence, and constantly flavours it with elements
+which are by no means ideal, but which give interest and intensity
+to his dialogues. If you have never had the occasion to read Plato
+himself, acquaint yourself with his philosophy through the teaching
+of any of his admirers and appreciators, and you will be struck by
+its emptiness. Read the thick volume of Natorp's well-known work,
+and you will see what value there is in Plato's 'purified' doctrine.
+And in passing I would recommend as a general rule, this method of
+examining the ideas of famous philosophers, by acquainting oneself with
+them not only in the original works, but in the expositions of their
+disciples, particularly of faithful and conscientious disciples. When
+the fascination of the personality and the genius disappears and the
+naked, unadorned 'truth' remains--disciples always believe that the
+master had the truth, and they reveal it without any embellishment or
+fig leaf--only then does it become quite clear of how little value
+are the fundamental thoughts of even the most exalted philosophers.
+Still more obvious does it become when the faithful disciple begins
+to draw conclusions from his master's proportions. The book of the
+aforesaid Natorp, a great Plato expert, is a _reductio ad absurdum_
+of all his master's ideas. Plato is revealed as a logical Neo-Kantian,
+a narrow-minded savant, who had been put thoroughly through the mill
+at Freiburg or Heidelberg. It is also revealed that Plato's ideas, in
+the pure state, do not in the least express his real attitude to life
+and to the world. One must take the whole Plato with his contradictions
+and inconsequence, with his vices and virtues, and value his defects at
+least as much as his qualities, or even add one or two defects, and be
+blind to one or two virtues. For it is probable that he, as a man to
+whom nothing human was alien, tried to assume a few virtues which he
+did not possess, and to conceal a few failings. This course should be
+followed with other masters of wisdom and their doctrines. Then 'the
+other world' will not appear to be separated by such an abyss from our
+earthly vale. And perhaps, in spite of Kant, some empirical truths
+will be found common to both worlds. Then Pilate's question will lose
+much of its all-conquering certainty. He wished to wash his hands of
+the business, and he asked, 'What is truth?' After him and before him,
+many who had no desire to struggle have devised ingenious questions and
+taken their stand upon scepticism. But every one knows that truth does
+exist, and sometimes can even formulate its own conception with the
+clarity and precision demanded by Descartes. Is the miraculous bounded
+by the miracles that have already been seen on earth, or are its
+limits set much wider? And if wider, then how much?
+
+
+
+X
+
+_More of Truth_
+
+
+Perhaps truth is by nature such that its communication between
+men is impossible, at least the usual communication by means of
+language. Every one may know it in himself, but in order to enter into
+communication with his neighbour he must renounce the truth and accept
+some conventional lie. Nevertheless the value and importance of truth
+is by no means lessened by the fact that it cannot be given a market
+valuation. If you were asked what is truth, you could not answer the
+question even though you had given your whole life to the study of
+philosophical theories. In yourself, if you have no one to answer,
+you know well what the truth is. Therefore truth does not by nature
+resemble empirical truth in the least, and before entering the world
+of philosophy, you must bid farewell to scientific methods of search,
+and to the accustomed methods of estimating knowledge. In a word, you
+must be ready to accept something absolutely new, quite unlike what is
+traditional and old. That is why the tendency to discredit scientific
+knowledge is by no means so useless as may at first sight appear to the
+inexperienced eye.
+
+That is why irony and sarcasm prove to be a necessary weapon of the
+investigator. The most dangerous enemy of new knowledge always has
+been, and always will be, inculcated habit. From the practical point
+of view it is much more important to a man to know the things which
+may help him to adapt himself to the temporary conditions of his
+existence, than those which have a timeless value. The instinct of
+self-preservation always proves stronger than the sincerest desire for
+knowledge. Moreover, one must remember that the instinct has at its
+disposal innumerable and most subtle weapons of defence, that all human
+faculties without exception are under its command, from unconscious
+reflexes up to the enthroned mind and august consciousness. Much
+and often has been said in this regard, and for once the _consensus
+sapientium_ is on my side. True, this is treated as an undeniable
+perversion of human nature--and here I make my protest. I think that
+there is in this nothing undesirable. Our mind and consciousness must
+consider it an honour that they can find themselves in the service of
+instinct, even if it be the instinct of self-preservation. They should
+not be conceited, and to tell the truth they are not conceited, but
+readily fulfil their official mission. They pretend to priority only
+in books, and tremble at the thought of pre-eminence in life. If by
+some accident they were allowed freedom of action they would go mad
+with terror, like children lost in a forest at night. Every time that
+the mind and consciousness begin to judge independently, they reach
+destructive conclusions. And then they see with surprise that this
+time too they were not acting freely, but under the dictation of the
+self-same instinct, which had assumed a different character. The human
+soul desired the work of destruction, and she loosed the slaves from
+their chains, and they in wild enthusiasm began to celebrate their
+freedom by making great havoc, not in the least suspecting that they
+remained just as they were before, slaves who work for others.
+
+Long ago Dostoevsky pointed out that the instinct of destruction
+is as natural to the human soul as that of creation. Beside these
+two instincts all our faculties appear to be minor psychological
+properties, required only under given, and accidental, conditions.
+Of truth--as not only the crass materialists now confess, but the
+idealists also have found in their metaphysic--nothing remains but
+the idea of the norm.--To speak in more expressive and intelligible
+language, truth exists only in order that men who are separated in time
+and space might establish between themselves some kind of communication
+at least. That is, a man must choose between absolute loneliness
+with truth, on the one side, and communion with his neighbours and
+falsehood, on the other. Which is the better, it will be asked. The
+question is idle, I reply. There is a third way still: to accept
+both, though it may at first appear utterly absurd, especially to
+people who have once for all decided that logic, like mathematics,
+is infallible. Whereas it is possible, and not merely possible--we
+would not be content with a possibility: only a German idealist can be
+satisfied with a good which was never realised in any place at all--it
+is continually observed that the most contradictory spiritual states
+do coexist. All men lie when they begin to speak: our language is so
+imperfectly arranged that the principle of its arrangement presupposes
+a readiness to speak untruth. The more abstract the subject is, the
+more does the disposition to lie increase, until, when we touch upon
+the most complicated questions, we have to lie incessantly, and the
+lie is the more intolerable and coarse the more sincere we are. For a
+sincere man is convinced that veracity is assured by the absence of
+contradictions, and in order to avoid all appearance of lie, he tries
+to make a logical agreement between his opinions: that is to raise his
+lie to Herculean heights. In his turn, when he receives the opinions
+of others, he applies the same criterion, and the moment he notices
+the smallest contradiction, he begins naively to cry out against the
+violation of the fundamental decencies. What is particularly curious
+is that all the learned students of philosophy--and it is strictly to
+them that I address myself here, as the reader has probably observed
+long ago--certainly are well aware that no single one of the mightiest
+philosophers has hitherto succeeded in eliminating all contradictions
+from his system. How well armed was Spinoza! He spared no effort,
+and stuck at nothing, and yet his remarkable system will not bear
+logical criticism. That is a matter of common knowledge. So it appears
+that we ought to ask what the devil is the use of consistency, and
+whether contradictions are not the condition of truthfulness in one's
+conception of the world. And after Kant, his disciples and successors
+might have answered quietly that the devil alone knows the use of
+consistency, and that truth lives by contradictions. As a matter of
+fact, Hegel and Schopenhauer, each in his own way, partly attempted to
+make an admission of this kind, but they derived small profit from it.
+
+Let us try to draw some conclusions from the foregoing. Certainly,
+while logic can be useful, it would be unjustifiable recklessness
+to refuse its services. Nor are the conclusions devoid of interest,
+as we shall see. First of all, when you speak, never trouble to be
+consistent with what you said before: that will put an unnecessary
+check upon your freedom, which, without that additional fetter, is
+already chained in words and grammatical forms. When you are listening
+to a friend or reading a book, do not assign great value to individual
+words or even to phrases. Forget separate thoughts, and give no great
+consideration even to logically arranged ideas. Remember that though
+your friend desires it, he cannot express himself save by ready-made
+forms of speech. Look well to the expression of his face, listen to
+the intonation of his voice--this will help you to penetrate through
+his words to his soul. Not only in conversation, but even in a written
+book, can one over-hear the sound, even the timbre of the author's
+voice, and notice the finest shades of expression in his eyes and
+face. Do not fasten upon contradictions, do not dispute, do not demand
+argument: only listen with attention. In return for which, when you
+begin to speak, you also will have to face no dispute, nor to produce
+arguments, which you know well you neither have nor could have. So you
+will not be annoyed by having pointed out to you your contradictions
+which you know well were always there, and will always be there, and
+with which it is painful, nay quite impossible, for you to part. Then,
+then--and this is most important of all--you will at last be convinced
+that truth does not depend on logic, that there are no logical truths
+at all, that you therefore have the right to search for what you like,
+how you like, without argument, and that if something results from your
+search, it will not be a formula, not a law, not a principle, not even
+an idea! Only think: while the object of search is 'truth,' as it is
+understood nowadays, one must be prepared for anything. For instance,
+the materialists will be right, and matter and energy are the basis
+of the world. It does not matter that we can immediately confound
+the materialists with their conclusions. The history of thought can
+show many cases of the complete rehabilitation of opinions that have
+been cast off and reviled. Yesterday's error may be to-morrow's truth,
+even a self-evident truth. And apart from its content, wherein is
+materialism bad? It is a harmonious, consistent, and well-sustained
+system. I have already pointed out that the materialistic
+conception of the world is just as capable of enchanting men as any
+other--pantheistic or idealistic. And since we have come so far, I
+confess that in my opinion no ideas at all are bad in themselves: so
+far I have been able to follow with pleasure the development of the
+idea of progress to the accompaniment of factories, railways, and
+aeroplanes. Still, it seems to me childish to hope that all these
+trivialities--I mean the ideas--will become the object of man's serious
+seeking. If that desperate struggle of man with God and the world
+were possible, of which legend and history tell--think of Prometheus
+alone--then it was not for truth and not for the idea. Man desires to
+be strong and rich and free, the wretched, insignificant creature of
+dust, whom the first chance shock crushes like a worm before one's
+eyes,--and if he speaks of ideas it is only because he despairs of
+success in his proper search. He feels that he is a worm, he fears that
+he must again return to the dust which he is, and he lies, pretending
+that his misery is not terrible to him, if only he knew the truth.
+Forgive him his lie, for he speaks it only with his lips. Let him say
+what he will, how he will; so long as we hear in his words the familiar
+note of the call to battle, and the fire of desperate inexorable
+resolution burns in his eyes, we will understand him. We are used to
+decipher hieroglyphs. But if he, like the Germans of to-day, accepts
+truth and the norm as the final goal of human aspiration, we shall also
+know with whom we have to deal, were he by destiny endowed with the
+eloquence of Cicero. Better utter loneliness than communion with such a
+man. Yet such communion does not exclude utter loneliness; perhaps it
+even assists the hard achievement.
+
+
+
+XI
+
+_I and Thou_
+
+
+The familiar expression, 'to look into another's soul,' which by
+force of habit at first sight seems extremely intelligible, on closer
+observation appears so unintelligible that one is forced to ask whether
+it has any meaning at all. Try to bend, mentally, over another's soul:
+you will see nothing but a vast, empty, black abyss, and you will only
+be seized with giddiness for your pains. Thus, properly speaking, the
+expression 'to look into another's soul' is only an abortive metaphor.
+All that we can do is to argue from the outward data to the inward
+feelings. From tears we deduce pain, from pallor, fear, from a smile,
+joy. But is this to look into another's soul? It is only to give room
+to a series of purely logical processes in one's head. The other's soul
+remains as invisible as before; we only guess at it, perhaps rightly,
+perhaps mistakenly. Naturally this conclusion irritates us. What a
+miserable world it is where it is quite impossible to see the very
+thing that we desire above all to see. But irritation is almost the
+normal spiritual state of a man who thinks and seeks. Whenever it is
+particularly important to him to be sure of something, after a number
+of desperate attempts he is convinced that his curiosity cannot be
+satisfied. And now the mocking mind adds a new question to the old:
+Why look for another's soul when you have not seen your own? And is
+there a soul? Many have believed and still do believe that there is no
+soul at all, but only a science of it, called psychology. It is known
+that psychology says nothing of the soul, considering that its task is
+confined to the study of spiritual states--states, by the way, which
+have as yet hardly been studied at all.... What is the way out? One can
+answer irony with irony, or even with abuse. One can deny psychology
+the right to be called a science and call the materialists a pack of
+fools, as is often done. Incontestably, anger has its rights. But this
+has sense and meaning only while you are among people and are listened
+to. Nobody wants to be indignant alone with oneself, when one is
+not even reckoning upon making use of one's indignation for literary
+purposes: for even a writer is not always writing, and is more often
+preoccupied with transitory thoughts than with his forthcoming works.
+One prefers to approach the enchanted cave, though for the thousandth
+time, with every possible precaution. Perhaps it is only upon the
+approach of an outside soul that another's soul becomes invisible,
+and if she be caught unawares she will not have time to disappear.
+So that ponderous psychology, which like any other science always
+proclaims its plans and methods aloud before undertaking anything, is
+utterly unsuited to the capture of a thing so light and mobile as the
+human soul. But let us leave psychology with the honourable name of
+science; let us even respect the materialists, while we endeavour to
+track down the soul by other means. Perhaps in the depth of the dark
+abyss of which we spoke, something might be found, were it not for
+the giddiness. Therefore it is not so necessary to invent new methods
+as to learn to look fearlessly into the depths, which always appear
+unfathomable to the unaccustomed eye.
+
+After all, unfathomability is not so entirely useless to man. It was
+driven into our heads as children that the human mind could compass
+only those things which are limited. But this only proves that we have
+yet another prejudice to get rid of. If it comes to giving up the right
+of abusing the materialists and of being taught by psychology, and
+something else into the bargain--well, we are used to that. But in
+return we may at last be granted a glimpse of the mysterious 'thou,'
+and perhaps the 'I' will cease to be problematical as well. Patience
+is a sickening thing; but remember the fakirs and the other worthies
+of the same kind. They succeed by patience alone. And apparently
+they arrive at something; but not at universal truths, I am ready to
+vouch for that. The world has long been weary of universal truths.
+Even 'truth' pure and simple makes no whisper in my ear. We must find
+a way of escape from the power of every kind of truth. This victory
+the fakirs tried to win. They can produce no arguments to prove their
+right, for the visible victory was never on their side. One conquers
+by bayonets, big guns, microscopes and logical arguments. Microscopes
+and logic give the palm to limitation. And yet, though limitation often
+strengthens, it also happens that it kills.
+
+
+
+
+THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
+
+
+
+_The Theory of Knowledge as Apologetics_
+
+
+The modern theory of knowledge, though it always consciously takes
+its rise from Kant, has in one respect quite disregarded the master's
+commandment. It is very strange that the theorists of knowledge,
+who usually cannot agree among themselves upon anything, have as it
+were agreed to understand the problem of knowledge quite otherwise
+than Kant. Kant undertook to investigate our cognitive faculties in
+order to establish foundations, in virtue of which certain existing
+sciences could be accepted, and others rejected. One may say that the
+second purpose was chief. Hume's scepticism made him uneasy only in
+theory. He knew beforehand that whatever theory of knowledge he might
+invent, mathematics and the natural sciences would remain sciences and
+metaphysics be rejected. In other words, his aim was not to justify
+science but to explain the possibility of its existence; and he started
+from the point of view that no one can seriously doubt the truths of
+mathematics and natural science. But now the position is different. The
+theorists of knowledge direct all their efforts towards _justifying_
+scientific knowledge. Why? Does scientific knowledge really need
+justification? Of course there are cranks, sometimes even cranks of
+genius, like our own Tolstoi, who attack science; but their attacks
+offend no one, nor do they cause alarm.
+
+Scientists continue their researches as before; the universities
+flourish; discovery follows discovery. And the theorists of knowledge
+themselves do not spend sleepless nights in the endeavour to find
+new justifications for science. Yet, I repeat, though they can come
+to an understanding about practically nothing else, they amaze us
+by their unanimity upon this point--they are all convinced that it
+is their duty to justify science and exalt her. So that the modern
+theory of knowledge is no longer a science, but an apology. And
+its demonstrations are like those of apology. Once science must
+be defended, it is necessary to begin by praising her, that is by
+selecting evidence and data to show that science fulfils some mission
+or other, but indubitably a very high and important one, or, on the
+other hand, by painting a picture of the fate that would overtake
+mankind, if it was deprived of science. Thus the apologetic element
+has begun to play almost as large a part in the theory of knowledge
+as it has done hitherto in theology. Perhaps the time is at hand when
+scientific apologetics will be officially recognised as a philosophic
+discipline.
+
+But, _qui s'excuse s'accuse._ It is plain that all is not well with
+science, since she has begun to justify herself. Besides, apologetics
+are only apologetics, and sooner or later the theory of knowledge
+will be tired of psalms of praise, and will demand a more complex and
+responsible task, and a real labour. At present the theorists start
+with the assumption that scientific knowledge is perfect knowledge,
+and therefore the premisses upon which it is builded are not subject
+to criticism. The law of causation is not justified because it appears
+to be the expression of a real relation of things, nor even because we
+have data at our disposal which could convince us that it does not and
+will never admit exceptions, that uncaused effects are impossible. All
+these things are lacking; but, we are told, they are not needed.
+
+The chief thing is that the causal law makes science possible, while
+to reject it means to reject science and knowledge generally, all
+anticipation, and even, as some few hold, reason itself. Clearly, if
+one has to choose between a slightly dubious admission on the one side
+and the prospect of chaos and insanity on the other, there will be no
+long hesitation. Apologetics, we see, has chosen the most powerful of
+arguments, _ad hominem._ But all such arguments partake of one common
+defect; they are not constant, and they are double-edged.
+
+To-day they defend scientific knowledge; to-morrow they will attack it.
+Indeed, it so happens that the very belief in the causal law begets a
+great disquiet and turmoil in the soul, which finally produces all the
+horrors of chaos and madness. The certainty that the existing order
+is immutable is for certain minds synonymous with the certainty that
+life is nonsensical and absurd. Probably the disciples of Christ had
+that feeling when the last words of their crucified Master reached them
+from the cross: 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?' And the
+modern theorists may explain triumphantly that when the law became the
+instrument of chaos and madness, it was _ipso facto_ abolished. 'Christ
+has risen,' say the disciples of Christ.
+
+I have said that the theorists may triumph; but I must confess that I
+have not found in any of them an open glorification of such an obvious
+proof of the truth of their teaching. Of the resurrection of Christ
+they say not a word--on the contrary, they make every effort to avoid
+it and pass it by in silence. And this circumstance compels us to pause
+and think. A dilemma arises: if you grant that the law of causation
+suffers no exception, then your soul will be eternally haunted by the
+last words of the crucified Christ; if you do not, then you will have
+no science. Some assert that it is impossible to live without science,
+without knowledge, that such a life is horror and madness; others
+cannot be reconciled to the thought that the most perfect of men died
+the death of a murderer. What shall we do? Without which thing is it
+impossible for man to live? Without scientific knowledge, or without
+the conviction that truth and spiritual perfection are in the last
+resort the victors of this world? And how will the theory of knowledge
+stand with regard to questions such as these?
+
+Will it still continue its exercises in apologetics or will it at last
+understand that this is not its real problem, and that if it would
+preserve the right to be called philosophy, it will have not to justify
+and exalt the existing science, but to examine and direct some science
+of its own. It means above all to put the question: Is scientific
+knowledge really perfect, or is it perhaps imperfect, and should it
+therefore yield its present honourable place to another science?
+Evidently this is the most important question for the theory of
+knowledge, yet this question it never puts. It wants to exalt existing
+science. It has been, is now, and probably will long continue to be,
+apologetics.
+
+
+
+_Truth and Utility_
+
+
+Mill, seeking to prove that all our sciences, even the mathematical,
+have an empiric origin, brings forward the following consideration.
+If on every occasion that we had to take twice two things, some deity
+slipped one extra thing into our hands, we should be convinced that
+twice two is not four but five. And perhaps Mill is right: perhaps we
+should not divine what was the matter. We are much more concerned to
+discover what is practically necessary and directly useful to us than
+to search for truth. If a deity with each four things slipped a fifth
+into our hands, we should accept the additional thing and consider
+it natural, intelligible, necessary, impossible to be otherwise. The
+very uniformity in the sequence of phenomena observed by the empirical
+philosophers was also slipped into our hands. By whom? When? Who dares
+to ask? Once the law is established no one is interested in anything
+any more. Now we can foretell the future, now we can use the thing
+slipped into our hands, and the rest--cometh of the evil one.
+
+
+
+_Philosophers and Teachers_
+
+
+Every one knows that Schopenhauer was for many years not only not
+recognised, but not even read. His books were used for waste-paper.
+It was only towards the end of his life that he had readers and
+admirers--and, of course, critics. For every admirer is at bottom a
+most merciless and importunate critic. He must understand everything,
+make everything agree, and of course the master must supply the
+necessary explanations. Schopenhauer, who did not have the experience
+of being a master till his old age, at first behaved very benevolently
+to his disciples' questions and patiently gave the explanations
+required. But the further one goes into the forest, the thicker are
+the trees. The most loyal perplexities of his pupils became more and
+more importunate, until at last the old man lost patience. 'I didn't
+undertake to explain all the secrets of the universe to every one who
+wanted to know them,' he once exclaimed, when a certain pupil persisted
+in emphasising the contradictions he had noticed in Schopenhauer. And
+really--is a master obliged to explain everything? In Schopenhauer's
+words we are given an answer, not ambiguous. A philosopher not only
+cannot be a teacher, he does not want to be one. There are teachers
+in schools, in universities: they teach arithmetic, grammar, logic,
+metaphysics. The philosopher has quite a different task, one which does
+not in the least resemble teaching.
+
+
+
+_Truth as a Social Substance_
+
+
+There are many ways, real and imaginary, of objectively verifying
+philosophic opinions. But they all reduce, we know, to trial by
+the law of contradiction. True, every one is aware that no single
+philosophic doctrine is able to support such a trial, so that, pending
+a better future, people consider it possible to display a certain
+tenderness in the examination. They are usually satisfied if they
+come to the conclusion that the philosopher made a genuine attempt
+to avoid contradictions. For instance, they forgive Spinoza his
+inconsistency because of his _amor intellectualis Dei_; Kant, for his
+love of morality and his praise of disinterestedness; Plato, for the
+originality and purity of his idealistic impulses; and Aristotle, for
+the vastyness and universality of his knowledge. So that, strictly
+speaking, we must confess that we have no real objective method of
+verifying a philosophical truth, and when we criticise other people's
+systems, we judge arbitrarily after all. If a philosopher suits us
+for some reason, we do not trouble him with the law of contradiction;
+if he does not, we summon him before the court to be judged with the
+utmost rigour of the law, confident beforehand that he will be found
+guilty on every count. But sometimes there arises the desire to verify
+one's own philosophic convictions. To play the farce of objective
+verification with them, to look for contradictions in oneself--I do not
+suppose that even Germans are capable of that. And yet one desires to
+know whether he does indeed possess the truth or whether he has only a
+universal error in his hands. What is to be done? I think there is a
+way. He should think to himself that it is absolutely impossible for
+his truth to be binding upon anybody. If in spite of this he still
+refuses to renounce her, if the truth can suffer such an ordeal and
+yet remain the same to him as she was before, then it may be supposed
+that she is worth something. For often we appreciate conviction, not
+because it has an intrinsic value, but because it commands a high price
+in the market. Robinson Crusoe probably had a totally different way
+of thinking to that of a modern writer or professor, whose books are
+exposed to the appreciation of his numerous confrères, who can create
+for him the renown of a wise man and a scholar, or utterly ruin his
+reputation. Even with the Greeks, whom we are accustomed to regard as
+model thinkers, opinions had--to use the language of economics--not so
+much a demand, as an exchange value.
+
+The Greeks had no knowledge of the printing-press, and no literary
+reviews. They usually took their wisdom out into the market-place,
+and applied all their efforts to persuade people to acknowledge its
+value. And it is hard to maintain that wisdom, which is constantly
+being offered to people, should not adapt itself to people's tastes.
+It is truer to say that wisdom became accustomed to value itself to
+the exact degree to which it could count on people's appreciation. In
+other words, it appears that the value of wisdom, like that of all
+other commodities, not only with us, but with the Greeks before us, is
+a social affair. The most modern philosophy has given up concealing the
+fact. The teleology of the rationalists, who follow Fichte, as well as
+of the pragmatists who consider themselves the successors of Mill is
+openly based upon the social point of view, and speaks of collective
+creations. Truth which is not good for all, and always, in the home
+market and the foreign--is not truth. Perhaps its value is even defined
+by the quantity of labour spent upon it. Marx might triumph: under
+different flags his theory has found admission into every sphere of
+contemporary thought. There would hardly be found one philosopher who
+would apply the method of verifying truth which I have proposed; and
+hardly a single modern idea which would stand the test.
+
+
+
+_Doctrines and Deductions_
+
+
+If you want to ruin a new idea--try to give it the widest possible
+publicity. Men will begin to reflect upon it, to try it by their daily
+needs, to interpret it, to make deductions from it, in a word to
+squeeze it into their own prepared logical apparatus; or, more likely,
+they will cover it up with the _débris_ of their own habitual and
+intelligible ideas, and it will become as dead as everything that is
+begotten by logic. Perhaps this explains the tendency of philosophers
+to so clothe their thoughts that their form may hinder the approach of
+the general public to them. The majority of philosophic systems are
+chaotically and obscurely expounded, so that not every educated person
+can understand them. It is a pity to kill one's own child, and every
+one does his best to save it from premature death. The most dangerous
+enemies of an idea are 'deductions' from it, as though they followed of
+themselves. The idea does not presuppose them; they are usually pressed
+upon it. Indeed, people very often say: 'The idea is quite right, but
+it leads to conclusions which are not at all acceptable.' Again, how
+often has a philosopher to attend the sad spectacle of his pupil's
+deserting all his ideas, and feeding only upon the conclusions from
+them. Every thinker who has had the misfortune to attract attention
+while he was yet alive, knows by bitter experience what 'deductions'
+are. And yet you will rarely find a philosopher to offer open and
+courageous resistance to his continuators; and still more rarely a
+philosopher to say outright that his work needs no continuation, that
+it will not bear continuation, that it exists only in and for itself,
+that it is self-sufficient. If some one said this, how would he be
+answered? People could not dispute with him--try to dispute with a man
+who wants neither to dispute nor to demonstrate.
+
+The only answer is an appeal to the popular verdict, to lynch law.
+People are so weak and naïve that they will at all costs see a teacher
+(in the usual sense of the word) in every philosopher. In other words,
+they really want to throw upon him the responsibility for their
+actions, their present, their future, and their whole fate. Socrates
+was not executed for teaching, but because the Athenians thought he
+was dangerous to Athens. And in all ages men have approached truth
+with this criterion, as though they knew beforehand that truth must
+be of use and able to protect them. One of the greatest teachings,
+Christianity, was also persecuted because it seemed dangerous to the
+self-appointed guardians, or, if you will, because it was really very
+dangerous to Roman ideals. Of course, neither Socrates' death nor the
+deaths of thousands of the early Christians saved the ancient culture
+and polity from decay: but no one has learned anything from the lesson.
+People think that these were all accidental mistakes, against which no
+one was secure in ancient times, but which will never again recur; and
+therefore they continue to make 'deductions' as they used from every
+truth, and to judge the truth by the deductions they have made. And
+they have their reward. Although there have been on earth many wise men
+who knew much that is infinitely more valuable than all the treasures
+for which men are ready even to sacrifice their lives, still wisdom is
+to us a book with seven seals, a hidden hoard upon which we cannot lay
+our hands. Many--the vast majority--are even seriously convinced that
+philosophy is a most tedious and painful occupation to which are doomed
+some miserable wretches who enjoy the odious privilege of being called
+philosophers. I believe that even professors of philosophy, the more
+clever of them, not seldom share this opinion and suppose that therein
+lies the ultimate secret of their science, revealed to the initiate
+alone. Fortunately, the position is otherwise. It may be that mankind
+is destined never to change in this respect, and a thousand years hence
+men will care much more about 'deductions,' theoretical and practical,
+from the truth than about truth itself; but real philosophers, men who
+know what they want and at what they aim, will hardly be embarrassed
+by this. They will utter their truths as before, without in the least
+considering what conclusions will be drawn from them by the lovers of
+logic.
+
+
+
+_Truths, Proven and Unproven_
+
+
+Whence did we get the habit of requiring proofs of each idea that
+is expressed? If we put aside the consideration, as having no real
+meaning in the present case, that men do often purposely deceive their
+neighbours for gain or other interests, then strictly speaking the
+necessity for proof is entirely removed. It is true that we can still
+deceive ourselves and fall into involuntary error. Sometimes we take
+a vision for a reality, and we wish to guard against that offensive
+mistake. But as soon as the possibility of _bona fide_ error is
+removed, then we may relate simply without arguments, judgments, or
+references. If you please, believe; if you don't, don't. And there is
+one province, the very province which has always attracted to itself
+the most remarkable representatives of the human race, where proofs
+in the general acceptation are even quite impossible. We have been
+hitherto taught that that which cannot be proved, should not be spoken
+about. Still worse, we have so arranged our language that, strictly
+speaking, everything we say is expressed in the form of a judgment,
+that is, in a form which presupposes not merely the possibility but
+the necessity of proofs. Perhaps this is the reason why metaphysics
+has been the object of incessant attack. Metaphysics evidently was not
+only unable to find a form of expression for her truths which would
+free her from the obligation of proof; she did not even want to. She
+considered herself the science _par excellence,_ and therefore supposed
+that she had more largely and more strictly to prove the judgments
+which she took under her wing. She thought that if she were to neglect
+the duty of demonstration she would lose all her rights. And that, I
+imagine, was her fatal mistake. The correspondence of rights and duties
+is perhaps a cardinal truth (or a cardinal fiction) of the doctrine
+of law, but it has been introduced into the sphere of philosophy by a
+misunderstanding. Here, rather, the contrary principle is enthroned:
+rights are in inverse proportion to duties. And only there where
+all duties have ceased is the greatest and most sovereign right
+acquired--the right of communion with ultimate truths. Here we must not
+for one moment forget that ultimate truths have nothing in common with
+middle truths, the logical construction of which we have so diligently
+studied for the last two thousand years. The fundamental difference is
+that the ultimate truths are absolutely unintelligible. Unintelligible,
+I repeat, but not inaccessible. It is true that middle truths also are,
+strictly speaking, unintelligible. Who will assert that he understands
+light, heat, pain, pride, joy, degradation?
+
+Nevertheless, our mind, in alliance with omnipotent habit, has,
+with the assistance of some strained interpretation, given to the
+combination of phenomena in the segment of universal life that is
+accessible to us, a certain kind of harmony and unity, and this from
+time immemorial has gained repute under the name of an intelligible
+explanation of the created world. But the known, which is the familiar,
+world is sufficiently unintelligible to make good faith require of us
+that we should accept unintelligibility as the fundamental predicate
+of being. It is impossible to hold, as some do, that the only reason
+why we do not understand the world is that something is hidden from
+us or that our mind is weak, so that if the Supreme Being wished to
+unveil the secret of creation to us, or if the human brain should so
+much develop in the next ten million years that he will excel us as
+far as we excel our official ancestor, the ape, then the world will be
+intelligible. No, no, no! By their very essence the operations which we
+perform upon reality to understand it are useful and necessary only so
+long as they do not pass a certain limit. It is possible to understand
+the arrangement of a locomotive. It is also legitimate to seek an
+explanation of an eclipse of the sun, or of an earthquake. But a moment
+comes--only we cannot define it exactly--when explanations lose all
+meaning and are good for nothing any more. It is as though we were led
+by a rope--the law of sufficient reason--to a certain place and left
+there: 'Now go wherever you like.' And since we have grown so used to
+the rope in our lives, we begin to believe that it is part of the very
+essence of the world. One of the most remarkable thinkers, Spinoza,
+thought that God himself was bound by necessity.
+
+Let any one probe himself carefully, and he will find that he is not
+merely unable to think but almost unable to live without the hypothesis
+of Spinoza. The work of Hume, who so brilliantly disputed the axiom
+of causal necessity, was only half done. He clearly showed that it
+is impossible to prove the existence of necessary connection. But it
+is also impossible to prove the contrary. In the result, everything
+remained as before: Kant, and all mankind after him, has returned to
+Spinoza's position. Freedom has been driven into an intellectual world,
+an unknown land,
+
+                     'from whose bourne
+    No traveller returns,'
+
+and everything is in its former place. Philosophy wants to be a science
+at all costs. It is absolutely impossible for her to succeed in this;
+but the price she has paid for the right to be called a science, is
+not returned to her. She has waived the right of seeking that which
+she needed wherever she would, and she is deprived of the right for
+ever. But did she really need it? If you glance at contemporary German
+philosophy you will say without hesitation that it was not needed at
+all. Neither by mistake, nor even in pursuit of a new title, did she
+renounce her great vocation: it has become an intolerable burden to
+her. However hard it may be to confess, it is nevertheless indubitable
+that the great secrets of the universe cannot be manifested with the
+clarity and distinctness with which the visible and tangible world is
+opened to us. Not only others--you will not even convince yourself of
+your truth with the obviousness with which you can convince all men
+without exception of scientific truths.
+
+Revelations, if they do occur, are always revelations for an instant.
+Mahomet--Dostoevsky explains--could only stay in paradise a very short
+time, from half a second to five seconds, even if he succeeded in
+falling into it. And Dostoevsky himself entered paradise only for an
+instant. And here on earth, both of them lived for years, for tens of
+years, and there seemed to be no end to the hell of earthly existence.
+The hell was obvious, demonstrable; it could be fixed, exhibited,
+_ad oculos._ But how could paradise be proven? How could one fix,
+how express, those half-seconds of paradisic beatitude, which were
+from the outside manifested in ugly and horrible epileptic fits with
+convulsions, paroxysms, a foaming mouth, and sometimes an ill-omened
+sudden fall, with the spilling of blood? Again, believe, if you will:
+if you won't, don't. Surely a man who lives now in paradise, now in
+hell sees life utterly differently from others. And he wants to think
+that he is right, that his experience is of great value, that life is
+not at all as it is described by men of different experience and more
+limited emotions. How desperately did Dostoevsky desire to persuade all
+men of his rightness, how stubbornly he used to demonstrate, and how
+angry he was made by the consciousness that lived in the depths of his
+soul that he was impotent to prove anything. But a fact remains a fact.
+Perhaps epileptics and madmen know things of which normal men have
+not even the remotest presentiment, but it is not vouchsafed to them
+to communicate their knowledge to others, or to prove it. And there
+is a universal knowledge which is the very object of philosophical
+seeking, with which one may commune, but which by its very essence
+cannot be communicated to all, that is, cannot be turned into verified
+and demonstrable universal truths. To renounce this knowledge in order
+that philosophy should have the right to be called a science! At times
+men acted thus. There were sober epochs when the pursuit of positive
+knowledge absorbed every one capable of intellectual labour. Or perhaps
+there were epochs in which men who sought something other than positive
+science were condemned to universal contempt, and passed unregarded: in
+such an epoch Plato would have found no sympathy, but would have died
+in obscurity. One thing at least is clear. He whose chief interest
+and motive in life is in undemonstrable truths is doomed to complete
+or relative sterility in the sense in which the word is generally
+understood. If he is clever and gifted, men may perhaps be interested
+in his mind and talent, but they will pass his work with indifference,
+contempt, and even horror; and they will begin to warn the world
+against him.
+
+    'Look at him, my children,
+      He is stern and pale and lean.
+    He is poor and naked,
+      And all men count him mean.'
+
+Has not the work of the prophets who sought for ultimate truths been
+barren and useless? Did life hold them in any account? Life went its
+own way, and the voices of the prophets have been, are, and ever
+will be, voices in the wilderness. For that which they see and know,
+cannot be proved and is not capable of proof. Prophets have always
+been isolated, dissevered, separate, helpless men, locked up in their
+pride. Prophets are kings without an army. For all their love to their
+subjects, they can do nothing for them, for subjects respect only those
+kings who possess a formidable military power. And--long may it be so!
+
+
+
+_The Limits of Reality_
+
+
+After all, not even the most consistent and convinced realist
+represents life to himself as it really is. He overlooks a great deal;
+and on the other hand he often sees something which has no existence in
+reality. I do not think there is any need to show this by example. For
+all our desire to be objective we are, after all, extremely subjective,
+and those things which Kant calls synthetic judgments _a priori,_ by
+which our mind forms nature and dictates laws to her, do play a great
+and serious part in our lives. We create something like the veil of
+Maia: we are awake in sleep, and sleep in wakefulness, exactly as
+though some magic power had charmed us. And just as in sleep we feel
+for instants that what is happening to us is like a half-dream, an
+intermediate half-life. Schopenhauer and the Buddhists were right in
+asserting that it is equally wrong to say of the veil of Maia, the
+world accessible to us, either that it exists or does not exist. It is
+true that logic does not admit such judgments and persecutes them most
+implacably, for they violate its most fundamental laws. But it cannot
+be helped: when one has to choose between philosophy which is alluring
+and promising, and empty logic, one will always sacrifice the latter
+for the former. And philosophy without contradictory judgments would
+be either doomed to eternal silence, or would be churned into a mud of
+commonplace and reduced to nothing. Philosophers know that. The same
+is true of our own case: we must confess that we are at the same time
+awake and dreaming dreams, and at times we must own that though we
+are alive, yet we have long since been dead. As living beings we still
+hold to the accepted synthetic judgments _a priori,_ and as dead, we
+try to do without them, or to replace them by other judgments which
+have nothing in common with the former but are even opposite to them.
+Philosophy is occupied in this work with extreme diligence, and _in
+this and this alone_ is the meaning of the idealistic movement which
+has never, since the time of Plato, disappeared from history. The
+problem is not for us to find another, primordial, better, and eternal
+world to replace the visible world accessible to all, as idealistic
+philosophy is usually interpreted by her official and, unfortunately,
+her most influential representatives. Interpretation of that kind
+too obviously bears the mark of its empiric utilitarian origin: they
+bring us as near to super-empiric reality as do the notions wherewith
+we define what is valuable in life. We might as well consider the
+super-empiric world as one of gold, diamond, or pearls simply because
+gold, diamonds, and pearls are very costly. But so it usually happens.
+God himself is usually represented as glimmering with gold and precious
+stones, as omniscient and omnipotent. He is called the King of Kings
+since on earth the lot of a crowned head is considered most enviable.
+The meaning and value of idealistic philosophy thus appears to be that
+she for ever ratifies all that we have found valuable on earth during
+our brief existence. Herein, I believe, is a fatal error. Idealistic
+philosophy, it is true, gave an excuse for falsely interpreting her,
+since she loved to be arrayed in sumptuous apparel. The religion of
+almost all nations has always sought for forms outwardly beautiful
+without stopping even before such an obvious paradox--not to put it
+more strongly--as a golden cross studded with diamonds. And for the
+sake of sumptuous words and golden crosses men overlooked great truths,
+and perhaps great possibilities. The philosophy of the schools also
+loved to array herself, so that she should not be behind the masters in
+this respect, and for the sake of dress she often forgot her necessary
+work. Plato taught that our life was only a shadow of another reality.
+If this is true, and he discovered the truth, then surely our first
+task is to begin to live a different life, to turn our back to the wall
+above which the shadows are walking and to turn our face to the source
+of light which created the shadows or to those things of which the
+visible outlines give only a remote resemblance. We must be awakened,
+if only in part; to this end what is usually done to a person sound
+asleep must be done to us. He is pulled, pinched, beaten, tickled,
+and if all these things fail, still stronger and more heroic measures
+must be applied. At all events, it is out of the question to advise
+contemplation, which may well make one still sleepier, or quietude,
+which leads to the same result. Philosophy should live by sarcasm,
+irony, alarm, struggles, despairs, and allow herself contemplation
+and quietude only from time to time, as a relaxation. Then perhaps she
+will succeed in creating, by the side of realistic dreams, dreams of
+a quite different order, and visibly demonstrate that the universally
+accepted dreams are not the only ones. 'What is the use?' I do not
+think this question need be answered. He who asks it, shows by the fact
+that he needs neither an answer nor philosophy, while he who needs them
+will not ask but will patiently await events: a temperature of 120°,
+an epileptic fit, or something of this kind, which facilitates the
+difficult task of seeking....
+
+
+
+_The Given and the Possible_
+
+
+The law of causation as a principle of inquiry is an excellent thing:
+the existing sciences afford us convincing evidence of that. But as an
+idea in the Platonic sense it is of little value, at times at least.
+The strict harmony and order of the world have fascinated many people:
+such giants of thought as Spinoza and Goethe paused with reverent
+wonder in contemplation of the great and unchangeable order of nature.
+Therefore they exalted necessity even to the rank of a primordial,
+eternal, original principle. And we must confess that Goethe's and
+Spinoza's conception of the world lives so much in each one of us that
+in most cases we can love and respect the world only when our souls
+feel in it a symmetrical harmony. Harmony seems to us at once-the
+highest value and the ultimate truth. It gives to the soul great peace,
+a stable firmness, a trust in the Creator--the highest boons accessible
+to mortal men, as the philosophers teach. Nevertheless, there are
+other yearnings. Man's heart is suddenly possessed by a longing for
+the fantastic, the unforeseen, for that which cannot be foreseen. The
+beautiful world loves its beauty, peace of soul seems disgraceful,
+stability is felt as an intolerable burden. Just as a youth grown
+to manhood suddenly feels irritated by the bountiful tutelage of
+his parents, from which he has received so much, though he does not
+know what to do with his freedom, so is a man of insight ashamed of
+the happiness which is given to him, which some one has created. The
+law of causation, like the whole harmony of the world, seems to him
+a pleasant gift, facilitating life, but yet a degrading one. He has
+sold his birthright for peace, for undisturbed happiness--his great
+birthright of free creation. He does not understand how a giant like
+Goethe could have been seduced by the temptation of a pleasant life,
+he suspects the sincerity of Spinoza. There is something rotten in the
+state of Denmark. The apple of the tree of knowledge of good and evil,
+has become to him the sole purpose of life, even though the path to it
+should lie through extreme suffering.
+
+And, strangely, nature herself seems to be preoccupied in urging man to
+that fatal path. There comes a time in our life when some imperative
+and secret voice forbids us to rejoice at the beauty and grandeur of
+the world. The world allures us as before, but it no longer gives pure
+happiness. Remember Tchekhov. How he loved nature! What immeasurable
+yearning is audible in his wonderful descriptions of nature! Just as
+though each time that he glanced at the blue sky, the troubled sea or
+the green woods, a voice of authority whispered to him: 'All this is
+yours no longer. You may look at it, but you have no right to rejoice.
+Prepare yourself for another life, where nothing will be given,
+complete, prepared, where nothing will be created, where there will
+be illimitable creation alone. And everything which is in this world
+shall be given to destruction, to destruction and destruction, even
+this nature which you so passionately love, and which it is so hard and
+painful for you to renounce.' Everything drives us to the mysterious
+realm of the eternally fantastic, eternally chaotic, and--who
+knows?--it may be, the eternally beautiful....
+
+
+
+_Experiment and Proof_
+
+
+When _cogito ergo sum_ came into Descartes' head, he marked the
+day--November 10, 1619--as a remarkable day: 'The light of a wonderful
+discovery,' he wrote in his diary, 'flashed into my mind.' Schelling
+relates the same thing of himself: in the year 1801 he 'saw the light.'
+And to Nietzsche when he roamed the mountains and the valleys of
+the Engadine there came a mighty change: he grasped the doctrine of
+eternal recurrence. One might name many philosophers, poets, artists,
+preachers, who like these three suddenly saw the light, and considered
+their vision the beginning of a new life. It is even probable that all
+men who have been destined to display to the world something perfectly
+new and original have without exception experienced that miracle of
+sudden metamorphosis. Nevertheless, though much is spoken of these
+miracles and often, in nearly all biographies of great men, we cannot
+strictly make any use of them. Descartes, Schelling, Nietzsche tell
+the story of their conversion; and with us, Tolstoi and Dostoevsky
+tell of theirs; in the less remote past, there are Mahomet and Paul
+the Apostle; in far antiquity the legend of Moses. But if I had
+chosen tenfold the number, if thousands even had been collected, it
+would still be impossible for the mind to make any deduction from
+them. In other words, all these cases have no value as scientific
+material, whereas one fossil skeleton or a unique case of an unknown
+rare disease is a precious windfall to the scientist. What is still
+more interesting, Descartes was so struck with his _cogito ergo sum,_
+Nietzsche with his eternal recurrence, Mahomet with his paradise, Paul
+the Apostle with his vision, while we remain more or less indifferent
+to anything they may relate of their experiences. Only the most
+sensitive among us have an ear for stories of that kind, and even they
+are obliged to hide their impressions within them, for what can be done
+with them?
+
+It is even impossible to fix them as indubitable facts, for facts
+also require a verification and must be proved. There are no proofs.
+Philosophic and religious teachings offered by men who have had
+extraordinary inward experiences, not only do not generally confirm,
+but rather refute their own stories of revelation. For philosophic and
+religious teaching have always hitherto assigned themselves the task
+of attracting all and sundry to themselves, and in order to attain
+this end they had to have recourse to such methods as have effect with
+the ordinary man, who knows of nothing extraordinary--to proof, to the
+authority of visible and tangible phenomena, which can be measured,
+weighed and counted. In their pursuit of proofs, of persuasiveness
+and popularity, they had to sacrifice the important and essential,
+and expose for show that which is agreeable to reason--things already
+more or less known, and therefore of little interest and importance.
+In course of time, as experimental science, so-called, gained more
+and more power, the habit of hiding in oneself all that cannot be
+demonstrated _ad oculos,_ has become more and more firmly rooted,
+until it is almost man's second nature. Nowadays we 'naturally'
+share but a small part of an experience with our friends, so that
+if Mahomet and Paul lived in our time, it would not enter their
+heads to tell their extraordinary stories. And for all his bravery,
+Nietzsche nevertheless passes quickly over eternal recurrence, and
+is much more occupied with preaching the morality of the Superman,
+which, though it at first astounded people, was after all accepted
+with more or less modification, because it was demonstrable. Evidently
+we are confronted with a great dilemma. If we continue to cultivate
+modern methodology, we run the risk of becoming so accustomed to it
+that we will lose not only the faculty of sharing all undemonstrable
+and exceptional experiences with others, but even of retaining them
+firmly in the memory. They will begin to be forgotten as dreams, they
+will even seem to be waking dreams. Thus we will cut ourselves off
+for ever from a vast realm of reality, whose meaning and value have
+by no means been divined or appreciated. In olden times men could add
+dreams and madmen's visions to reality; but we shall curtail the real
+indubitable reality, transferring it to the realm of hallucinations and
+dreams. I suppose even a modern man will feel some hesitation in coming
+over to the side of this methodology, even though he is incapable of
+thinking, with the ancients, that dreams are by no means worthless
+things. And if this is so, then the rights of experiences must not be
+defined by the degree of their demonstrability. However capricious
+our experiences may be, however little they agree with the rooted and
+predominant conceptions of the necessary character of events in the
+inward and outward life--once they have taken place in the soul of man,
+they acquire, _ipso facto,_ the lawful right of figuring side by side
+with facts which are most demonstrable and susceptible of control and
+verification, and even with a deliberate experiment.
+
+It may be said that we would not then be protected against deliberate
+frauds. People who have never been in paradise will give themselves out
+for Mahomets. That is true; they will talk and they will he. There will
+be no method of objective verification. But they will surely tell the
+truth also. For the sake of that truth we may make up our minds to swim
+through a whole ocean of lies. Yes, it is not in the least impossible
+to distinguish truth from lie in this realm, though, certainly, not by
+the signs which have been evolved by logic; and not even by signs, but
+by no signs at all. The signs of the beautiful have not yet been even
+approximately, defined, and, please God--be it said without offence to
+the Germans--they never will be defined, but yet we distinguish between
+Apollo and Venus. So it is with truth: she too may be recognised. But
+what if a man cannot distinguish without signs, and, moreover, does
+not want to?... What is to be done with him? Really, I do not know;
+besides, I do not imagine that all men down to the last should act
+in unison. When did all men act in agreement? Men have mostly acted
+separately, meeting in certain places, and parting in others. Long may
+it be so! Some will recognise and seek after truth by signs, others
+without signs, as they please, and yet others, in both ways.
+
+
+
+_The Seventh Day of Creation_
+
+
+Socrates said that he often used to hear from poets thoughts remarkable
+for their profundity and seriousness, but when he began to inquire of
+them more particularly, he became convinced that they themselves did
+not understand what they were saying. What did he really mean? Did
+Socrates wish to compare the poets to parrots or trained blackbirds
+who can learn by heart, with the assistance of a man to teach them,
+any ideas whatever, perfectly foreign to them. That can hardly be.
+Socrates hardly thought that what the poets say had been overheard by
+them from some one, and mechanically fixed in their mind, though it
+remained quite foreign to their soul. Most probably he used the word
+'understand' in the sense that they could not demonstrate or explain
+the soundness and stability of their ideas,--they could not deduce
+them and relate them to a definite conception of the world. As every
+one knows, Socrates thought that not merely poets, but all men, from
+eminent statesmen down to ignorant artisans, had ideas, even a great
+many ideas, but they never could explain where they had got them, or
+make them agree among themselves.
+
+In this respect poets were the same as the rest of people. From some
+mysterious source they had acquired truths, often great and profound,
+but they were unable to explain them. This seemed to Socrates a great
+misery, a real misfortune. I do not know how it happened--not a single
+historian of philosophy has explained it, and indeed very little
+interest has been taken in it--but Socrates for some reason decided
+that an unproven and unexplained truth had less value than a proven and
+explained one. In our times, when a whole theory, even a conception
+of the world, has been made of Socrates's idea, this notion seems
+so natural and self-evident that no one doubts it. But in antiquity
+the case was different. Strictly, Socrates thought that the poets
+had acquired their truths, which they were unable to prove, from a
+very respectable source, which deserved all possible confidence: he
+himself compared the poets with oracles, and consequently admitted
+that they had communion with the gods. There was, therefore, a most
+excellent guarantee that the poets were possessed of real, undiluted
+truth--the pledge of its purity being the divine authority. Socrates
+said that he himself had frequently been guided in his actions, not by
+considerations of reason, but by the voice of his mysterious 'demon.'
+That is, at times, he abstained from certain actions--his demon gave
+him never positive, but only negative advice--without being able to
+produce reasons, simply because the secret voice, more authoritative
+than any human mind, demanded abstinence from them.
+
+Is it not strange that under such circumstances, at an epoch when the
+gods vouchsafed truths to men, there should have suddenly appeared in
+a man the unexplained desire to acquire truths without the help of the
+gods, and in independence of them, by the dialectic method so beloved
+of the Greeks? It is doubtful which is more important for us, to
+acquire the truth or to acquire for one's self with one's own effort,
+it may be a false, but one's _own_ judgment. The example of Socrates,
+who has been a pattern for all subsequent generations of thinking
+men, leaves not the slightest doubt. Men do not need a truth ready
+made; they turn away from the gods to devote themselves to independent
+creations. Practically the same story is told in the Bible. What indeed
+was lacking to Adam? He lived in paradise, in direct proximity to God,
+from whom he could learn anything he wanted. And yet it did not suit
+him. It was enough that the Serpent should make his perfidious proposal
+for the man to forget the wrath of God, and all the dangers which
+threatened him, and to pluck the apple from the forbidden tree. Then
+the truth, which until the creation of the world and man had been one,
+split and broke with a great, perhaps an infinitely great, number of
+most diverse truths, eternally being born, and eternally dying. This
+was the seventh day of creation, unrecorded in history. Man became
+God's collaborator. He himself became a creator. Socrates renounced the
+divine truth and even spoke contemptuously of it, merely because it
+was not proven, that is, because it does not bear the marks of man's
+handiwork. Socrates really did not prove anything, but he was proving,
+creating, and in this he saw the meaning of his own life and of all
+human lives. Thus, surely, the pronouncement of the Delphic oracle
+seems true even now: Socrates was the wisest of men. And he who would
+be wise must, imitating Socrates, not be like him in anything. Thus did
+all great men, and all great philosophers.
+
+
+
+_What does the History of Philosophy teach us?_
+
+
+Neo-Kantianism is the prevalent school of modern philosophy. The
+literature about Kant has grown to unheard-of proportions. But if
+you attempt to analyse the colossal mass that has been written upon
+Kant, and put the question to yourself, what has really been left to
+us of Kant's teaching, then to your great amazement you will have to
+reply: Nothing at all. There is an extraordinary, incredibly famous
+name--Kant, and there is positively not a single Kantian thesis which
+in an uninterpreted form would have survived till our day. I say in
+an uninterpreted form, for interpretations resolve at bottom into
+arbitrary recastings, which often have not even an outward resemblance
+to the original. These interpretations began while Kant was still
+alive. Fichte gave the first example. It is well known that Kant
+reacted, demanding that his teaching should be understood not in the
+spirit but in the letter. And Kant was, naturally, quite right. Of
+two things one: either you take his teaching as it is, or you invent
+your own. But the fate of all thinkers who have been destined to
+give their names to an epoch is similar: they have been interpreted,
+recast, till they are unrecognisable. For after a short time had
+elapsed, it became clear that their ideas were so overburdened with
+contradictions, that in the form in which they emerged from the hands
+of their creators, they are absolutely unacceptable. Indeed, all the
+critics who had not made up their minds beforehand to be orthodox
+Kantians, came to the conclusion that Kant had not proved a single
+one of his fundamental propositions. Something stronger may be said.
+By virtue of the fact that Kant, owing to the central position which
+he occupied, attracted much attention to himself and was forced to
+submit to very careful criticism, there gradually emerged a truth which
+might have been known beforehand: that Kant's teaching is a mass of
+contradictions. The sum-total of more than a century's study of Kant
+may be resumed in a few words. Although he was not afraid of the most
+crying contradictions, he did not have the smallest degree of success
+in proving the correctness of his teaching. With an extraordinary
+power and depth of mind, with all the originality, boldness, and
+talent of his constructions, he really provided nothing that might be
+indisputably called a positive acquisition of philosophy. I repeat that
+I am not expressing my own opinion. I am only reckoning the sum-total
+of the opinions of the German critics of Kant, of those same critics
+who built him a monument _aere perennius._
+
+The same may be said of all the great representatives of philosophic
+thought beginning with Plato and Aristotle, and ending with Hegel,
+Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Their works astonish by their power, depth,
+boldness, beauty and originality of thought. While you read them it
+seems that truth herself speaks with their lips. And what strong
+measures of precaution did they take to prevent themselves from being
+mistaken! They believed in nothing that men had grown accustomed to
+believe. They methodically doubted everything, reexamined everything,
+tens, hundreds of times. They gave their life to the truth not in
+words, but in deed. And still the sum-total is the same in their case
+as in Kant's: not one of them succeeded in inventing a system free from
+internal contradictions.
+
+Aristotle was already criticising Plato, and the sceptics criticised
+both of them, and so on until in our day each new thinker struggles
+with his predecessors, refutes their contradictions and errors,
+although he knows that he is doomed to the same fate. The historians
+of philosophy are at infinite pains to conceal the most glaring and
+noticeable trait of philosophic creation, which is, at bottom, no
+secret to any one. The uninitiated, and people generally who do not
+like thinking, and therefore wish to be contemptuous of philosophy,
+point to the lack of unity among philosophers as evidence that it is
+not worth while to study philosophy. But they are both wrong. The
+history of philosophy not only does not inspire us with the thought
+of the continual evolution of an idea, but palpably convinces us of
+the contrary, that among philosophers there is not, has not been, and
+will never be, any aspiration towards unity. Neither will they find
+in future a truth free from contradiction, for they do not seek the
+truth in the sense in which the word is understood by the people and
+by science; and, after all, contradictions do not frighten them, but
+rather attract. Schopenhauer begins his criticism of Kant's philosophy
+with the words of Voltaire: 'It is the privilege of genius to make
+great mistakes with impunity.' I believe that the secret of the
+philosophic genius lies here. He makes great, the greatest, mistakes,
+and with impunity. Moreover his mistakes are put to his credit, for
+the important matter is not his truths, or his judgments, but himself.
+When you hear from Plato that the life we see is only a shadow, when
+Spinoza, intoxicated by God, exalts the idea of necessity, when Kant
+declares that reason dictates laws to Nature,--listening to them you
+do not examine whether their assertions are true or not, you agree with
+each of them, whatever he says, and only this question arises in your
+soul: 'Who is he that speaketh as one having authority?'
+
+Later on, you will reject all their truths, with horror, perhaps with
+indignation and disgust, even with utter indifference. You will not
+consent to accept that our life is only a shadow of actual reality,
+you will revolt against Spinoza's God, who cannot love, yet demands
+love for himself, Kant's categorical imperative will seem to you a cold
+monster,--but you will never forget Plato, or Spinoza, or Kant, and
+will for ever keep your gratitude to them, who made you believe that
+authority is given to mortals. Then you will understand that there are
+no errors and no truths in philosophy; that errors and truths are only
+for him above whom is set a superior authority, a law, a standard. But
+philosophers themselves create laws and standards. This is what we are
+taught by the history of philosophy; this is what is most difficult for
+man to master and understand. I have already said that the historians
+of philosophy draw quite a different moral from the study of the great
+human creations.
+
+
+
+_Science and Metaphysics_
+
+
+In his autobiography Spencer confesses that he had really never
+read Kant. He had had _The Critique of Pure Reason_ in his hands,
+and had even read the beginning, the Transcendental Aesthetic, but
+the beginning convinced him it was no use for him to read further.
+Once a man had made the unconvincing admission which Kant had made,
+by accepting the subjectivity of one form of perception, of space
+and time, he could not be seriously taken into account. If he is
+consistent, all his philosophy will be a system of absurdity and
+nonsense; if he is inconsistent,--the less attention does he deserve.
+
+Spencer confidently asserts that, once he could not accept Kant's
+fundamental proposition, he not only could not be a Kantian any more,
+but he found it useless even to become further acquainted with Kant's
+philosophy. That he did not become a Kantian is nothing to grieve over
+--there are Kantians enough without him--but that he did not acquaint
+himself with Kant's principal works, and above all with the whole
+school that rose out of Kant, may be sincerely regretted. Perhaps, as
+a new man, remote from Continental traditions, he would have made a
+curious discovery, and would have convinced himself that it was not at
+all necessary to accept the proposition of the subjectivity of space
+and time in order to become a Kantian. And perhaps with the frankness
+and simplicity peculiar to him, which is not afraid to be taken for
+naïveté, he would have told us that not a single Kantian (Schopenhauer
+excepted), not even Kant himself, has ever seriously accepted the
+fundamental propositions of the Transcendental Aesthetic, and therefore
+has never made from them any conclusions or deductions whatever. On
+the contrary, the Transcendental Aesthetic was itself a deduction from
+another proposition, that we have synthetic judgments _a priori._ The
+original rôle of this, the most original of all theories ever invented,
+was to be a support and an explanation of the mathematical sciences.
+It had never had an independent, material content, susceptible of
+analysis and investigation. Space and time are the eternal forms of our
+perception of the world: to this, according to the strict meaning of
+Kant's teaching, nothing can be added, and nothing abated. Spencer, not
+having read the book to the end, imagined that Kant would begin to make
+deductions and became nervous. But if he had read the book to the end,
+he would have been convinced that Kant had not made any deductions, and
+that the whole meaning of _The Critique of Pure Reason_ indeed is that
+from the propositions of the Transcendental Aesthetic no deductions can
+be made. It is now about a hundred and fifty years since _The Critique
+of Pure Reason_ appeared. No philosophic work has been so much studied
+and criticised. And yet where are the Kantians who attempt to make
+deductions from the proposition as to the subjectivity of space and
+time? Schopenhauer is the only exception. He indeed took the Kantian
+idea seriously, but it may be said without exaggeration that of all
+Kantians the least like Kant was Schopenhauer.
+
+The world is a veil of Maia. Would Kant really have agreed to such
+an interpretation of his Transcendental Aesthetic? Or what would
+Kant have said, if he had heard that Schopenhauer, referring to the
+same Aesthetic in which he saw the greatest philosophic revelation,
+had admitted the possibility of clairvoyance and magic? Probably
+Spencer thought that Kant would himself make all these deductions, and
+therefore threw away the book which bound him to conclusions so absurd.
+It is a pity that Spencer was in such a hurry. Had he acquainted
+himself with Kant, he would have been convinced that the most absurd
+idea might serve a very useful purpose; and that there is not the least
+necessity to make from an idea all the deductions to which it may lead.
+A man is a free agent and he can deduce if he has a mind to; if he has
+not, he will not; and there is no necessity to judge the character
+of a philosophic theory by its general postulates. Even Schopenhauer
+did not exploit Kant's theory to the full, which, if it had really
+divined the truths hitherto hidden from men, would have not only put
+an end to metaphysical researches, but also have given an impulse and
+a justification to perfectly new experiments which from the previous
+standpoint were quite mad and unimaginable. For if space and time are
+forms of our human perception, then they do indeed hide the ultimate
+truth from us. While men knew nothing of this, and, simple minded,
+accepted the visible reality for the actual real, they could not of
+course dream of true knowledge. But from the moment when the truth was
+revealed to them through Kant's penetration, it is clear that their
+true task was to use every possible means to free themselves from
+the harness and to break away from it, while consolidating all those
+judgments which Kant calls synthetic judgments _a priori_ for all
+eternity.
+
+And the new, the critical metaphysics, which should take account of
+the stupid situation in which these had hitherto found themselves who
+saw in apodeictic judgments eternal truths, had a great task to set
+herself: to get rid at all costs of apodeictic judgments, knowing them
+for false. In other words, Kant's task should not have been to minimise
+the destructive effect of Hume's scepticism, but to find a still more
+deadly explosive to destroy even those limits which Hume was obliged
+to preserve. It is surely evident that truth lies beyond synthetic
+judgments _a priori,_ and that it cannot at all resemble an _a priori_
+judgment, and in fact cannot be like a judgment of any kind.
+
+And it must be sought by methods quite different from those by which
+it has been sought hitherto. To some extent Kant attempted to describe
+how he represented to himself the meaning hidden beneath the words:
+'Space and time are subjective forms of perception.' He even gave an
+object-lesson, saying that perhaps there are beings who perceive the
+world otherwise than under the forms of space and time: which means
+that for such beings there is no change. All that we perceive by a
+succession of changes, they perceive at once. To them Julius Caesar
+is still alive, though he is dead; to them the twenty-fifth century
+A.D., which none of us will live to see, and the twenty-fifth century
+B.C., which we reconstruct with such difficulty from the fragmentary
+traces of the past which have accidentally been preserved to us, the
+remote North Pole, and even the stars which we cannot see through the
+telescope--all are as accessible to them as to us the events which
+are taking place before our eyes. Nevertheless Kant, in spite of all
+temptation to acquire the knowledge to which such beings have access,
+notwithstanding his profound conviction of the truth of his discovery,
+did nothing to dispel the charm of forms of perception and categories
+of the reason, or to tear the blinkers from his eyes and see all the
+depth of the mysterious reality hitherto hidden from us. He does not
+even give a little circumstantial explanation why he considered such a
+task impracticable, and he confines himself to the dogmatic assertion
+that man cannot conceive a reality beyond space and time. Why? It is
+a question of immense importance. Compared with it all the problems
+of _The Critique of Pure Reason_ are secondary. How is mathematics
+possible, how are natural sciences possible?--these are not even
+questions at all compared to the question whether it is possible to
+free ourselves from conventional human knowledge in order to attain the
+ultimate, all-embracing truth.
+
+Herein the Kantians display an even greater indifference than Kant
+himself: they are even proud of their indifference, they plume
+themselves upon it as a high virtue. They assert that truth is not
+_beyond_ synthetic judgments _a priori,_ but indeed _in_ them; and
+that it is not the Creator who put blinkers upon us, but we ourselves
+devised them, and that any attempt to remove them and look open-eyed
+upon the world is evidence of perversity. If the old Serpent appeared
+nowadays to seduce the modern Adam, he would retire discomfited.
+Even Eve herself would be no use to him. The twentieth-century Eve
+studies in a university and has quite sufficiently blunted her natural
+curiosity. She can talk excellently well of the teleological point of
+view and is quite as proof as man against temptation. I do not share
+Kant's confidence that space and time are forms of our perception,
+nor do I see a revelation in it. But if I had once accepted this
+apocalyptic assertion, and could think that there was some truth in it,
+I would not depart from it to positive science.
+
+It is a pity that Spencer did not read _The Critique of Pure Reason_ to
+the end. He would have convinced himself of an important truth: that a
+philosopher has no need to take into consideration all the deductions
+from his premisses. He need only have goodwill, and he can draw from
+the most paradoxical and suspicious premisses conclusions which are
+fully conformable to common-sense and the rules of decency. And since
+Kant's will was as good as Spencer's, they would have agreed perfectly
+in their deductions, though they were so far apart from each other in
+their premisses.
+
+
+
+_A Tacit Assumption_
+
+
+Schopenhauer was the first philosopher to ask the value of life. And he
+gave a definite answer: in life there is much more suffering than joy,
+therefore life must be renounced. I must add that strictly speaking
+he asked not only the value of life, but also the value of joy and
+suffering. And to this question he gave an equally definite answer.
+According to his teaching joy is always negative, suffering always
+positive. Therefore by its essence joy cannot compensate for suffering.
+
+In all this philosophical construction, both in formulating and
+answering the questions, there is one tacit, particularly curious,
+and interesting and unexpressed postulate. Schopenhauer starts from
+the assumption that his valuation of life, joy and suffering, in
+order to have the right to be called truth, must contain something
+universal, by virtue of which it will in the last resort coincide with
+the valuation of all other people. Whence did he derive this idea?
+Psychologically the train of Schopenhauer's thought is intelligible
+and easily explained. He was used to the scientific formulation and
+solution of problems, and he transferred to the question which engaged
+him methods of investigation which by general consent usually conduct
+us to the truth. He did not verify his premiss _ad hoc,_ and usually
+it is impossible to verify a premiss every time that a need arises
+for it. It is not even becoming to exhibit it, to speak of it. It is
+understood. If the fundamental sign of any truth is its being universal
+and obligatory, then in the given case the true answer to the question
+of the value of life can only be something which will be absolutely
+admissible by all men to all creatures with a mind. So Schopenhauer
+would probably have answered, if any one had questioned his right to
+formulate in such a general way the question of the value of life.
+
+Still Schopenhauer would hardly be right. This, by the way, is being
+made clear by the objections which are put forward by his opponents.
+He is accused because his very statement of the question presupposes a
+subjective point of view--eudaemonism.
+
+The question of the value of life, people object, is not at all
+decided by whether in the sum life gives more joy than pain or _vice
+versa._ Life may be deeply painful and devoid of joy, life may in
+itself be one compact horror, and still be valuable. Schopenhauer's
+philosophy was not discussed in his lifetime, so that he could not
+answer his opponents. But, if he were still alive, would he accept
+these objections and renounce his pessimism? I am convinced that he
+would not. At the same time I am convinced that his opponents would
+be no less firm and would go on repeating: 'The question is not one
+of happiness or suffering. We value life by a quite different and
+independent standard.' And in the discussion it would perhaps become
+clear to the disputants that the premiss mentioned above, which both
+accepted as requiring no proof and understood without explanation, does
+indeed require proofs and explanations, but is provided with neither.
+To one man the eudaemonistic point of view is ultimate and decisive,
+to another contemptible and degrading, and he seeks the meaning of
+life in a higher, ethical or aesthetic purpose. There are also people
+who love sorrow and pain, and see in them the justification and the
+source of the depth and importance of life. Nor do I mention the fact
+that when the sum-totals of life are reckoned different accountants
+reach different and directly contradictory results, or that insoluble
+questions arise concerning these, or other details. Schopenhauer for
+instance finds, as we have seen, that sufferings are positive, joys
+negative. And hence he concludes that it is not worth while to submit
+to the least unpleasantness for the sake of the greatest joy. What
+answer can be made? How can he be convinced of the contrary?
+
+Nevertheless the fact is obvious: many people regard the matter in
+quite a different light. For the sake of a single happiness they
+are ready to endure a great many serious hardships. In a word,
+Schopenhauer's premiss is quite unjustified, and not only cannot
+be accepted as an indubitable truth, but must be qualified as an
+indubitable error. It is impossible to be certain beforehand that to
+the question of the value of life a single, universally valid answer
+can be given. So here we meet with an extraordinarily curious case
+from the point of view of the theory of knowledge. It appears that
+by the very essence of the matter no uniform answer can be given
+to one of the most important questions, perhaps the most important
+question of philosophy. If you are asked what is life, good or evil,
+you are obliged to say that life is both good and evil; or something
+independent of good and evil; or a mixture of good and evil in which
+there is more good than evil, or more evil than good.
+
+And, I repeat, each of these answers, although they logically quite
+exclude each other, has the right to claim the title of _truth_; for
+if it has not power enough to make the other answers bow down before
+it, at all events it has the necessary strength to repel its opponents'
+attacks and to defend its sovereign rights. Instead of a sole and
+omnipotent truth before which the weak and helpless errors tremble,
+you have before you a whole line of perfectly independent truths
+excellently armed and defended. Instead of absolutism, you have a
+feudal system. And the vassals are so firmly ensconced in their castles
+that an experienced eye can see at once that they are impregnable.
+
+I took for my instance Schopenhauer's doctrine of the value of life.
+But many philosophic doctrines, although they issue from the premiss
+of one sovereign truth, display examples of the plurality of truths.
+It is usually believed that one should study the history of philosophy
+in order to be palpably convinced that mankind has gradually mastered
+its delusions and is now on the high road to ultimate truth. My opinion
+is that the history of philosophy must bring every impartial person,
+who is not infected by modern prejudices, to a directly opposite
+conclusion. There can be no doubt that a whole series of questions
+exists, like that of the value of life, which by their very essence
+do not admit of a uniform solution. To this testimony is often borne
+by men whose very last concern is to curtail the royal prerogative of
+sovereign truth: Natorp confidently asserts that Aristotle not only did
+not understand but could not understand Plato. 'Der tiefere Grund ist
+die ewige Unfähigkeit des Dogmatismus sich in der Gesichtspunkt der
+kritischen Philosophie überhaupt zu versetzen.' 'Eternal incapability'
+--what words! And used not of any common-place person, but of the
+greatest human genius known to us, of Aristotle. Had Natorp been a
+little more inquisitive, 'eternal incapability' of that kind should
+have worried him at least as much as Plato's philosophy, on which he
+wrote a large book. For here is evidently a great riddle. Different
+people, according to the different constitution of their souls,
+are while yet in their mother's womb destined to have different
+philosophies. It reminds me of the famous Calvinistic view of
+predetermination. Just as from before birth God has destined some to
+damnation, others to salvation; so to some it is given and from others
+withheld, to know the truth.
+
+And not Natorp alone argues thus. It would be true to say all modern
+philosophers, who are always contending with each other and suspecting
+each other of 'eternal incapability.' Philosophers have not the same
+means of compelling conviction as the representatives of other positive
+sciences: they cannot force every one to undeniable conclusions. Their
+_ultima ratio,_ their personal opinion, their private conviction,
+their last refuge, is the 'eternal incapability' of their opponents to
+understand them. Here the tragic dilemma is clear to all. Of two things
+one: either renounce philosophy entirely, or allow that that which
+Natorp calls the 'eternal incapability' is not a vice or a weakness,
+but a great virtue and power hitherto unappreciated and misunderstood.
+Aristotle, indeed, was organically incapable of understanding Plato,
+just as Plato could not have understood Aristotle, just as neither of
+them could understand the sceptics or the sophists, just as Leibnitz
+could not understand Spinoza, as Schopenhauer could not understand
+Hegel, and so on till our riotous modern days when no philosopher
+can understand any one except himself. Besides, philosophers do not
+aspire to mutual understanding and unity, but usually it is with the
+utmost reluctance that they observe in themselves similarity to their
+predecessors. When the similarity of Schopenhauer's teaching to that
+of Spinoza was pointed out to him, he said _Pereant qui ante nos
+nostra dixerint._ But representatives of the other positive sciences
+understand each other, rarely dispute, and never argue by referring to
+the 'eternal incapability' of their confrères. Perhaps in philosophy
+this chaotic state of affairs and this unique argument are part of the
+craft. Perhaps in this realm it is necessary that Aristotle should
+not understand Plato and should not accept him, that the materialists
+should always be at war with the idealists, the sceptics with the
+dogmatists. In other words, the premiss with which Schopenhauer began
+the investigation into the value of life, and which as we have shown he
+took without verification from the representatives of positive science,
+though perfectly applicable in its proper sphere, is quite out of place
+in philosophy. And indeed, though they never speak of it, philosophers
+value their own personal convictions much more highly than universally
+valid truth. The impossibility of discovering one sole philosophic
+truth may alarm any one but the philosophers themselves, who, so soon
+as they have worked out their own convictions, take not the smallest
+trouble to secure general recognition for them. They are only busy with
+getting rid of their vassal dependence and acquiring sovereign rights
+for themselves. The question whether there will be other sovereigns by
+their side hardly concerns them at all.
+
+The history of philosophy should be so expounded that this tendency
+should be clearly manifest. This would spare us from many prejudices,
+and would clear the way for new and important inquiries. Kant, who
+shared the opinion that truth is the same for all, was convinced that
+metaphysics must be a science _a priori,_ and since it cannot be a
+science _a priori,_ must therefore cease to exist. If the history
+of philosophy had been expounded and understood differently in his
+day, it would never have entered his mind thus to impugn the rights
+of metaphysics. And probably he would not have been vexed by the
+contradictoriness or the lack of proof in the teachings of various
+schools of metaphysics. It cannot be otherwise, neither should it
+be. The interest of mankind is not to put an end to the variety of
+philosophic doctrines but to allow the perfectly natural phenomenon
+wide and deep development. Philosophers have always had an instinctive
+longing for this: that is why they are so troublesome to the historian
+of philosophy.
+
+
+
+_The First and the Last_
+
+
+In the first volume of _Human, All too Human,_ which Nietzsche wrote
+at the very beginning of his disease, when he was still far from
+final victory and chiefly told of his defeats, there is the following
+remarkable, though half-involuntary confession: 'The complete
+irresponsibility of Man for his actions and his being is the bitterest
+drop for the man of knowledge to drink, since he has been accustomed to
+see in responsibility and duty the very patent of his title to manhood.'
+
+Much bitterness has the inquiring spirit to swallow, but the bitterest
+of all is in the knowledge that his moral qualities, his readiness to
+fulfil his duty ungrudgingly, gives him no preference over other men.
+He thought he was a man of noble rank, even a prince of the blood,
+crowned with a crown, and the other men boorish peasantry--but he is
+just the same, a peasant, the same as all the rest. His patent of
+nobility was that for which he fulfilled his most arduous duty and made
+sacrifices; in it he saw the meaning of life. And when it is suddenly
+revealed that there is no provision made for titles or patents, it
+is a horrible catastrophe, a cataclysm--and life loses all meaning.
+Evidently the conviction expressed with such moving frankness in these
+words, was with Nietzsche a second nature, which he could not master
+all his life long. What is the Superman but a title, a patent, giving
+the right to be called a noble among the _canaille?_ What is the pathos
+of distance and all Nietzsche's teaching of ranks? The formula, beyond
+good and evil, was by no means so all-destructive as at first sight it
+seemed. On the contrary, by erasing certain laws graven on the tables
+of mankind of old, that formula as it were revealed other commandments,
+obliterated by time, and therefore invisible to many.
+
+All morality, all good in and for itself is rejected, but the patent of
+nobility grows more precious until it becomes, if not the only value,
+at least the chief. Life loses its meaning once titles and ranks are
+destroyed, once he is deprived of the right to hold his head high, to
+throw out his chest, his belly even, and to look with contempt upon
+those about him.
+
+In order to show to what extent the doctrine of rank has become
+attached to the human soul, I would recall the words of the Gospel
+about the first and last. Christ, who seemed to speak in a language
+utterly new, who taught men to despise earthly blessings--riches, fame,
+honours, who so easily yielded Caesar his due, because he thought
+that only Caesar would find it useful--Christ himself, when he spoke
+to men, did not think it possible to take away from them their hope
+of distinction. 'The first shall be last.' What will there be first
+and second there, too? Yes, so it stands in the Gospel. Is it because
+there is indeed in the division of men into ranks something original
+and warrantable, or is it because Christ who spoke to humankind could
+not but use human words? It may be that, but for that promise, and
+generally the series of promises of rewards, accessible to the human
+understanding, the Gospel would not have fulfilled its great historic
+mission, it would have passed unnoticed on the earth, and no one
+would have detected or recognised in it the Evangel. Christ knew that
+men could renounce all things, save the right to superiority alone,
+to superiority over one's neighbours, to that which Nietzsche calls
+'the patent of nobility.' Without that superiority men of a certain
+kind cannot live. They become what the Germans so appropriately call
+_Vogelfrei,_ deprived of the protection of the laws, since the laws
+are the only source of _their_ right. Rude, nonsensical, disgusting
+reality--against which, I repeat, their _only_ defence is the patent
+of nobility, the unwritten charter--approaches them closer and closer,
+with more and more menace and importunacy, and claims its right. 'If
+you are the same as all other men,' it says, 'take your experience
+of life from me, fulfil your trivial obligations, worse than that,
+accept from me the fines and reprimands to which the rank and file
+are subject, even to corporal punishment.' How could he accept these
+degrading conditions who had been used to think he had the right to
+carry his head high, to be proud and independent? Nietzsche tries
+with dull submissiveness to swallow the horrible bitterness of
+his confession, but courage and endurance, even _his_ courage and
+endurance, are not enough for this his greatest and most terrible task.
+He cannot bear the horror of a life deprived of rights and defences: he
+seeks again for power and authority which would protect him and give
+him his lost rights again. He will not rest until he receives under
+another name a _restitutio in integrum_ of all the rights which had
+previously been his.
+
+And surely not Nietzsche alone acted thus. The whole history of ethics,
+the whole history of philosophy is to no small degree the incessant
+search for prerogative and privilege, patents and charters. The
+Christians--Tolstoi and Dostoevsky--do not in the least differ from
+the enemy of Christianity, Nietzsche. The humble Jew, Spinoza, and the
+meek pagan, Socrates, the idealist Plato, and the idealist Aristotle,
+the founders of the newest, noblest and loftiest systems, Kant, Fichte,
+Hegel, even Schopenhauer, the pessimist, all as one man seek a charter,
+a charter, a charter. Evidently life on earth without a charter
+becomes for the 'best' men a horrible nightmare and an intolerable
+torment. Even the founder of Christianity, who so easily renounced all
+privileges, considered it possible to preserve _this_ privilege for
+his disciples, and perhaps--who knows?--for himself too.
+
+Whereas if Nietzsche and those other philosophers had been able
+resolutely to renounce titles, ranks, and honours, which are
+distributed not only by morality, but by all the other Sanhedrim,
+real and imaginary, which are set over man; if they could have drunk
+this cup to the dregs, then they might have known, seen, and heard
+much that was suspected by none of them before. Long since men have
+known that the road to knowledge lies by way of a great renunciation.
+Neither righteousness nor genius gives a man privilege above others.
+He is deprived, for ever deprived, of the protection of earthly laws.
+There are no laws. To-day he is a king, to-morrow a slave; to-day God,
+to-morrow a worm; to-day first, to-morrow last. And the worm crushed
+by him to-day will be God, his god to-morrow. All the measures and
+balances by which men are distinguished one from another are defaced
+for ever, and there is no certainty that the place a man once occupied
+will still be his. And all philosophers have known this; Nietzsche,
+too, knew it, and by experience. He was the friend, the ally, and
+the collaborator of the great Wagner, the herald of a new era upon
+earth; and later, he grovelled in the dust, broken and crushed.
+And a second time this thing happened to him. When he had finished
+_Zarathustra,_ he became insane, more exactly, he became half-idiot.
+It is true he carried the secret of the second fall with him to the
+grave. Yet something has reached us, for all his sister's efforts to
+conceal from carnal eyes the change that had befallen him. And now
+we ask: Is the essence of life really in the rank, the charter, the
+patent of nobility? And can the words of Christ be understood in their
+literal sense? Are not all the Sanhedrim set over man, and as it were
+giving meaning to his life, mere fictions, useful and even necessary
+in certain moments of life, but pernicious and dangerous, to say no
+more, when the circumstances are changed? Does not life, the real and
+desirable life, which men have sought for thousands of years, begin
+there where there is neither first nor last, righteous or sinner,
+genius or incapable? Is not the pursuit of recognition, of superiority,
+of patents and charters, of rank, that which prevents man from seeing
+life with its hidden miracles? And must man really seek protection
+in the College of Heralds, or has he another power that time cannot
+destroy? One may be a good, able, learned, gifted man, even a man of
+genius, but to demand in return any privileges whatsoever, is to betray
+goodness and ability, and talent and genius, and the greatest hopes of
+mankind. The last on earth will nowhere be first....
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Anton Tchekhov, by Lev Shestov
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-

-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Anton Tchekhov, by Lev Shestov

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most

-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions

-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of

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-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have

-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.

-

-Title: Anton Tchekhov

-       And Other Essays

-

-Author: Lev Shestov

-

-Translator: John Middleton Murry

-

-Release Date: March 16, 2018 [EBook #56758]

-

-Language: English

-

-Character set encoding: UTF-8

-

-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANTON TCHEKHOV ***

-

-

-

-

-Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature (Images

-generously made available by the Internet Archive.)

-

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-

-

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-</div>

-

-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">

-<img src="images/title.jpg" width="500" alt="" />

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-

-

-<h1>ANTON TCHEKHOV</h1>

-

-<h3>AND OTHER ESSAIS</h3>

-

-<h4>BY</h4>

-

-<h2>LEON SHESTOV</h2>

-

-<h4>TRANSLATED BY</h4>

-

-<h4>S. KOTELIANSKY AND J. M. MURRY</h4>

-

-<h5>MAUNSEL AND CO. LTD.</h5>

-

-<h5>DUBLIN AND LONDON</h5>

-

-<h5>1916</h5>

-

-<hr class="full" />

-

-<p class="caption" style="margin-left: 20%; font-size: 0.8em;">CONTENTS</p>

-

-<p style="margin-left: 20%; font-size: 0.8em;">

-<a href="#ANTON_TCHEKHOV">ANTON TCHEKHOV</a> (CREATION FROM THE VOID) <br />

-<a href="#THE_GIFT_OF_PROPHECY">THE GIFT OF PROPHECY</a><br />

-<a href="#PENULTIMATE_WORDS">PENULTIMATE WORDS</a><br />

-<a href="#THE_THEORY_OF_KNOWLEDGE">THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE</a><br />

-</p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-

-

-<h4>INTRODUCTION</h4>

-

-

-<p>It is not to be denied that Russian thought is chiefly manifested in

-the great Russian novelists. Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, and Tchekhov made

-explicit in their works conceptions of the world which yield nothing in

-definiteness to the philosophic schemes of the great dogmatists of old,

-and perhaps may be regarded as even superior to them in that by their

-nature they emphasise a relation of which the professional philosopher

-is too often careless&mdash;the intimate connection between philosophy and

-life. They attacked fearlessly and with a high devotion of which we

-English readers are slowly becoming sensible the fundamental problem of

-all philosophy worthy the name. They were preoccupied with the answer

-to the question: Is life worth living? And the great assumption which

-they made, at least in the beginning of the quest, was that to live

-life must mean to live it wholly. To live was not to pass by life on

-the other side, not suppress the deep or even the dark passions of body

-or soul, not to lull by some lying and narcotic phrase the urgent

-questions of the mind, not to deny life. To them life was the sum of

-all human potentialities. They accepted them all, loved them all, and

-strove to find a place for them all in a pattern in which none should

-be distorted. They failed, but not one of them fainted by the way,

-and there was not one of them but with his latest breath bravely held

-to his belief that there was a way and that the way might be found.

-Tolstoi went out alone to die, yet more manifestly than he had lived,

-a seeker after the secret; death overtook Dostoevsky in his supreme

-attempt to wrest a hope for mankind out of the abyss of the imagined

-future; and Tchekhov died when his most delicate fingers had been

-finally eager in lighting <i>The Cherry Orchard</i> with the tremulous glint

-of laughing tears, which may perhaps be the ultimate secret of the

-process which leaves us all bewildered and full of pity and wonder.</p>

-

-<p>There were great men and great philosophers. It may be that this

-cruelly conscious world will henceforward recognise no man as great

-unless he has greatly sought: for to seek and not to think is the

-essence of philosophy. To have greatly sought, I say, should be the

-measure of man's greatness in the strange world of which there will be

-only a tense, sorrowful, disillusioned remnant when this grim ordeal

-is over. It should be so: and we, who are, according to our strength,

-faithful to humanity, must also strive according to our strength to

-make it so. We are not, and we shall not be, great men: but we have

-the elements of greatness. We have an impulse to honesty, to think

-honestly, to see honestly, and to speak the truth to ourselves in the

-lonely hours. It is only an impulse, which, in these barren, bitter,

-years, so quickly withers and dies. It is almost that we dare not be

-honest now. Our hearts are dead: we cannot wake the old wounds again.

-And yet if anything of this generation that suffered is to remain, if

-we are to hand any spark of the fire which once burned so brightly,

-if we are to be human still, then we must still be honest at whatever

-cost. We&mdash;and I speak of that generation which was hardly man when the

-war burst upon it, which was ardent and generous and dreamed dreams

-of devotion to an ideal of art or love or life&mdash;are maimed and broken

-for ever. Let us not deceive ourselves. The dead voices will never be

-silent in our ears to remind us of that which we once were, and that

-which we have lost. We shall die as we shall live, lonely and haunted

-by memories that will grow stranger, more beautiful, more terrible,

-and more tormenting as the years go on, and at the last we shall not

-know which was the dream&mdash;the years of plenty or the barren years that

-descended like a storm in the night and swept our youth away.</p>

-

-<p>Yet something remains. Not those lying things that they who cannot feel

-how icy cold is sudden and senseless death to all-daring youth, din in

-our ears. We shall not be inspired by the memory of heroism. We shall

-be shattered by the thought of splendid and wonderful lives that were

-vilely cast away. What remains is that we should be honest as we shall

-be pitiful. We shall never again be drunk with hope: let us never be

-blind with fear. There can be in the lap of destiny now no worse thing

-which may befall us. We can afford to be honest now.</p>

-

-<p>We can afford to be honest: but we need to learn how, or to increase

-our knowledge. The Russian writers will help us in this; and not the

-great Russians only, but the lesser also. For a century of bitter

-necessity has taught that nation that the spirit is mightier than the

-flesh, until those eager qualities of soul that a century of social

-ease has almost killed in us are in them well-nigh an instinct. Let

-us look among ourselves if we can find a Wordsworth, a Shelley, a

-Coleridge, or a Byron to lift this struggle to the stars as they did

-the French Revolution. There is none.&mdash;It will be said: 'But that was

-a great fight for freedom. Humanity itself marched forward with the

-Revolutionary armies.' But if the future of mankind is not in issue

-now, if we are fighting for the victory of no precious and passionate

-idea, why is no voice of true poetry uplifted in protest? There is

-no third way. Either this is the greatest struggle for right, or the

-greatest crime, that has ever been. The unmistakable voice of poetry

-should be certain either in protest or enthusiasm: it is silent or

-it is trivial. And the cause must be that the keen edge of the soul

-of those century-old poets which cut through false patriotism so

-surely is in us dulled and blunted. We must learn honesty again:

-not the laborious and meagre honesty of those who weigh advantage

-against advantage in the ledger of their minds, but the honesty that

-cries aloud in instant and passionate anger against the lie and the

-half-truth, and by an instinct knows the authentic thrill of contact

-with the living human soul.</p>

-

-<p>The Russians, and not least the lesser Russians, may teach us this

-thing once more. Among these lesser, Leon Shestov holds an honourable

-place. He is hardly what we should call a philosopher, hardly again

-what we would understand by an essayist. The Russians, great and small

-alike, are hardly ever what we understand by the terms which we victims

-of tradition apply to them. In a hundred years they have accomplished

-an evolution which has with us slowly unrolled in a thousand. The very

-foundations of their achievement are new and laid within the memory of

-man. Where we have sharply divided art from art, and from science and

-philosophy, and given to each a name, the Russians have still the sense

-of a living connection between all the great activities of the human

-soul. From us this connection is too often concealed by the tyranny

-of names. We have come to believe, or at least it costs us great

-pains not to believe, that the name is a particular reality, which to

-confuse with another name is a crime. Whereas in truth the energies of

-the human soul are not divided from each other by any such impassable

-barriers: they flow into each other indistinguishably, modify, control,

-support, and decide each other. In their large unity they are real;

-isolated, they seem to be poised uneasily between the real and the

-unreal, and become deceptive, barren half-truths. Plato, who first

-discovered the miraculous hierarchy of names, though he was sometimes

-drunk with the new wine of his discovery, never forgot that the unity

-of the human soul was the final outcome of its diversity; and those

-who read aright his most perfect of all books&mdash;<i>The Republic</i>&mdash;know

-that it is a parable which fore-shadows the complete harmony of all the

-soul's activities.</p>

-

-<p>Not the least of Shestov's merits is that he is alive to this truth in

-its twofold working. He is aware of himself as a soul seeking an answer

-to its own question; and he is aware of other souls on the same quest.

-As in his own case he knows that he has in him something truer than

-names and divisions and authorities, which will live in spite of them,

-so towards others he remembers that all that they wrote or thought or

-said is precious and permanent in so far as it is the manifestation

-of the undivided soul seeking an answer to its question. To know a

-man's work for this, to have divined the direct relation between his

-utterance and his living soul, is criticism: to make that relation

-between one's own soul and one's speech direct and true is creation.

-In essence they are the same: creation is a man's lonely attempt to

-fix an intimacy with his own strange and secret soul, criticism is the

-satisfaction of the impulse of loneliness to find friends and secret

-sharers among the souls that are or have been. As creation drives a man

-to the knowledge of his own intolerable secrets, so it drives him to

-find others with whom he may whisper of the things which he has found.

-Other criticism than this is, in the final issue, only the criminal and

-mad desire to enforce material order in a realm where all is spiritual

-and vague and true. It is only the jealous protest of the small soul

-against the great, of the slave against the free.</p>

-

-<p>Against this smallness and jealousy Shestov has set his face. To have

-done so does not make him a great writer; but it does make him a real

-one. He is honest and he is not deceived. But honesty, unless a man is

-big enough to bear it, and often even when he is big enough to bear it,

-may make him afraid. Where angels fear to tread, fools rush in: but

-though the folly of the fool is condemned, some one must enter, lest

-a rich kingdom be lost to the human spirit. Perhaps Shestov will seem

-at times too fearful. Then we must remember that Shestov is Russian in

-another sense than that I have tried to make explicit above. He is a

-citizen of a country where the human spirit has at all times been so

-highly prized that the name of thinker has been a key to unlock not

-merely the mind but the heart also. The Russians not only respect,

-but they love a man who has thought and sought for humanity, and, I

-think, their love but seldom stops 'this side idolatry.' They will

-exalt a philosopher to a god; they are even able to make of materialism

-a religion. Because they are so loyal to the human spirit they will

-load it with chains, believing that they are garlands. And that is why

-dogmatism has never come so fully into its own as in Russia.</p>

-

-<p>When Shestov began to write nearly twenty years ago, Karl Marx was

-enthroned and infallible. The fear of such tyrannies has never

-departed from Shestov. He has fought against them so long and so

-persistently&mdash;even in this book one must always remember that he

-is face to face with an enemy of which we English have no real

-conception&mdash;that he is at times almost unnerved by the fear that he

-too may be made an authority and a rule. I do not think that this

-ultimate hesitation, if understood rightly, diminishes in any way from

-the interest of his writings: but it does suggest that there may be

-awaiting him a certain paralysis of endeavour. There is indeed no

-absolute truth of which we need take account other than the living

-personality, and absolute truths are valuable only in so far as they

-are seen to be necessary manifestations of this mysterious reality.

-Nevertheless it is in the nature of man, if not to live by absolute

-truths, at least to live by enunciating them; and to hesitate to

-satisfy this imperious need is to have resigned a certain measure of

-one's own creative strength. We may trust to the men of insight who

-will follow us to read our dogmatisms, our momentary angers, and our

-unshakable convictions, in terms of our personalities, if these shall

-be found worthy of their curiosity or their love. And it seems to me

-that Shestov would have gained in strength if he could have more firmly

-believed that there would surely be other Shestovs who would read him

-according to his own intention. But this, I also know, is a counsel of

-perfection: the courage which he has not would not have been acquired

-by any intellectual process, and its possession would have deprived him

-of the courage which he has. As dogmatism in Russia enjoys a supremacy

-of which we can hardly form an idea, so a continual challenge to its

-claims demands in the challenger a courage which it is hard for us

-rightly to appreciate.</p>

-

-<p>I have not written this foreword in order to prejudice the issue.

-Shestov will, no doubt, be judged by English readers according to

-English standards, and I wish no more than to suggest that his

-greatest quality is one which has become rare among us, and that his

-peculiarities are due to Russian conditions which have long since

-ceased to obtain in England. The Russians have much to teach us, and

-the only way we shall learn, or even know, what we should accept

-and what reject, is to take count as much as we can of the Russian

-realities. And the first of these and the last is that in Russia the

-things of the spirit are held in honour above all others. Because of

-this the Russian soul is tormented by problems to which we have long

-been dead, and to which we need to be alive again. J. M. M.</p>

-

-

-<p><i>Postscript.</i>&mdash;Leon Shestov is fifty years old. He was born at Kiev,

-and studied at the university there. His first book was written

-in 1898. As a writer of small production, he has made his way to

-recognition slowly: but now he occupies a sure position as one of the

-most delicate and individual of modern Russian critics. The essays

-contained in this volume are taken from the fourth and fifth works in

-the following list:&mdash;</p>

-

-<p>1898. <i>Shakespeare and his Critic, Brandes.</i></p>

-

-<p>1900. <i>Good in the teaching of Dostoevsky and Nietzsche: Philosophy and

-Preaching.</i></p>

-

-<p>1903. <i>Dostoevsky and Nietzsche: The Philosophy of Tragedy.</i></p>

-

-<p>1905. <i>The Apotheosis of Groundlessness: An Essay on Dogmatism.</i></p>

-

-<p>1908. <i>Beginnings and Ends.</i></p>

-

-<p>1912. <i>Great Vigils.</i></p>

-

-

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-<h4><a name="ANTON_TCHEKHOV" id="ANTON_TCHEKHOV">ANTON TCHEKHOV</a></h4>

-

-

-<h5>(CREATION FROM THE VOID)</h5>

-

-

-<p class="right" style="margin-top: 2em;">Résigne-toi, mon cœur, dors ton sommeil de brute.</p>

-

-<p class="right" style="font-size: 0.8em;">(CHARLES BAUDELAIRE.)</p>

-

-

-

-<h4>I</h4>

-

-

-<p>Tchekhov is dead; therefore we may now speak freely of him. For to

-speak of an artist means to disentangle and reveal the 'tendency'

-hidden in his works, an operation not always permissible when the

-subject is still living. Certainly he had a reason for hiding himself,

-and of course the reason was serious and important. I believe many felt

-it, and that it was partly on this account that we have as yet had no

-proper appreciation of Tchekhov. Hitherto in analysing his works the

-critics have confined themselves to common-place and <i>cliché</i>. Of course

-they knew they were wrong; but anything is better than to extort the

-truth from a living person. Mihailovsky alone attempted to approach

-closer to the source of Tchekhov's creation, and as everybody knows,

-turned away from it with aversion and even with disgust. Here, by the

-way, the deceased critic might have convinced himself once again of

-the extravagance of the so-called theory of 'art for art's sake.' Every

-artist has his definite task, his life's work, to which he devotes

-all his forces. A tendency is absurd when it endeavours to take the

-place of talent, and to cover impotence and lack of content, or when

-it is borrowed from the stock of ideas which happen to be in demand

-at the moment. 'I defend ideals, therefore every one must give me his

-sympathies.' Such pretences we often see made in literature, and the

-notorious controversy concerning 'art for art's sake' was evidently

-maintained upon the double meaning given to the word 'tendency' by its

-opponents. Some wished to believe that a writer can be saved by the

-nobility of his tendency; others feared that a tendency would bind them

-to the performance of alien tasks. Much ado about nothing: ready-made

-ideas will never endow mediocrity with talent; on the contrary, an

-original writer will at all costs set himself his own task. And

-Tchekhov had his <i>own</i> business, though there were critics who said

-that he was the servant of art for its own sake, and even compared him

-to a bird, carelessly flying. To define his tendency in a word, I would

-say that Tchekhov was the poet of hopelessness. Stubbornly, sadly,

-monotonously, during all the years of his literary activity, nearly a

-quarter of a century long, Tchekhov was doing one thing alone: by one

-means or another he was killing human hopes. Herein, I hold, lies the

-essence of his creation. Hitherto it has been little spoken of. The

-reasons are quite intelligible. In ordinary language what Tchekhov

-was doing is called crime, and is visited by condign punishment. But

-how can a man of talent be punished? Even Mihailovsky, who more than

-once in his lifetime gave an example of merciless severity, did not

-raise his hand against Tchekhov. He warned his readers and pointed

-out the 'evil fire' which he had noticed in Tchekhov's eyes. But he

-went no further. Tchekhov's immense talent overcame the strict and

-rigorous critic. It may be, however, that Mihailovsky's own position

-in literature had more than a little to do with the comparative

-mildness of his sentence. The younger generation had listened to him

-uninterruptedly for thirty years, and his word had been law. But

-afterwards every one was bored with eternally repeating: 'Aristides

-is just, Aristides is right.' The younger generation began to desire

-to live and to speak in its own way, and finally the old master was

-ostracised. There is the same custom in literature as in Terra del

-Fuego. The young, growing men kill and eat the old. Mihailovsky

-struggled with all his might, but he no longer felt the strength of

-conviction that comes from the sense of right. Inwardly, he felt that

-the young were right, not because they knew the truth&mdash;what truth did

-the economic materialists know?&mdash;but because they were young and had

-their lives before them. The rising star shines always brighter than

-the setting, and the old must of their own will yield themselves up to

-be devoured by the young. Mihailovsky felt this, and perhaps it was

-this which undermined his former assurance and the firmness of his

-opinion of old. True, he was still like Gretchen's mother in Goethe: he

-did not take rich gifts from chance without having previously consulted

-his confessor. Tchekhov's talent too was taken to the priest, by whom

-it was evidently rejected as suspect; but Mihailovsky no longer had the

-courage to set himself against public opinion. The younger generation

-prized Tchekhov for his talent, his immense talent, and it was plain

-they would riot disown him. What remained for Mihailovsky He attempted,

-as I say, to warn them. But no one listened to him, and Tchekhov became

-one of the most beloved of Russian writers.</p>

-

-<p>Yet the just Aristides was right this time too, as he was right when

-he gave his warning against Dostoevsky. Now that Tchekhov is no more,

-we may speak openly. Take Tchekhov's stories, each one separately, or

-better still, all together; look at him at work. He is constantly,

-as it were, in ambush, to watch and waylay human hopes. He will not

-miss a single one of them, not one of them will escape its fate. Art,

-science, love, inspiration, ideals&mdash;choose out all the words with which

-humanity is wont, or has been in the past, to be consoled or to be

-amused&mdash;Tchekhov has only to touch them and they instantly wither and

-die. And Tchekhov himself faded, withered and died before our eyes.

-Only his wonderful art did not die&mdash;his art to kill by a mere touch,

-a breath, a glance, everything whereby men live and wherein they take

-their pride. And in this art he was constantly perfecting himself, and

-he attained to a virtuosity beyond the reach of any of his rivals in

-European literature. Maupassant often had to strain every effort to

-overcome his victim. The victim often escaped from Maupassant, though

-crushed and broken, yet with his life. In Tchekhov's hands, nothing

-escaped death.</p>

-

-<hr />

-

-<h4>II</h4>

-

-

-<p>I must remind my reader, though it is a matter of general knowledge,

-that in his earlier work Tchekhov is most unlike the Tchekhov to whom

-we became accustomed in late years. The young Tchekhov is gay and

-careless, perhaps even like a flying bird. He published his work in

-the comic papers. But in 1888 and 1889, when he was only twenty-seven

-and twenty-eight years old, there appeared <i>The Tedious Story</i> and the

-drama <i>Ivanov,</i> two pieces of work which laid the foundations of a

-new creation. Obviously a sharp and sudden change had taken place in

-him, which was completely reflected in his works. There is no detailed

-biography of Tchekhov, and probably will never be, because there is no

-such thing as a full biography&mdash;I, at all events, cannot name one.

-Generally biographies tell us everything except what it is important

-to know. Perhaps in the future it will be revealed to us with the

-fullest details who was Tchekhov's tailor; but we shall never know what

-happened to Tchekhov in the time which elapsed between the completion

-of his story <i>The Steppe</i> and the appearance of his first drama. If we

-would know, we must rely upon his works and our own insight.</p>

-

-<p><i>Ivanov</i> and <i>The Tedious Story</i> seem to me the most autobiographical

-of all his works. In them almost every line is a sob; and it is hard to

-suppose that a man could sob so, looking only at another's grief. And

-it is plain that his grief is a new one, unexpected as though it had

-fallen from the sky. Here it is, it will endure for ever, and he does

-not know how to fight against it.</p>

-

-<p>In <i>Ivanov</i> the hero compares himself to an overstrained labourer. I

-do not believe we shall be mistaken if we apply this comparison to the

-author of the drama as well. There can be practically no doubt that

-Tchekhov had overstrained himself. And the overstrain came not from

-hard and heavy labour; no mighty overpowering exploit broke him: he

-stumbled and fell, he slipped. There comes this nonsensical, stupid,

-all but invisible accident, and the old Tchekhov of gaiety and mirth

-is no more. No more stories for <i>The Alarm Clock.</i> Instead, a morose

-and overshadowed man, a 'criminal' whose words frighten even the

-experienced and the omniscient.</p>

-

-<p>If you desire it, you can easily be rid of Tchekhov and his work as

-well. Our language contains two magic words: 'pathological,' and its

-brother 'abnormal.' Once Tchekhov had overstrained himself, you have a

-perfectly legal right, sanctified by science and every tradition, to

-leave him out of all account, particularly seeing that he is already

-dead, and therefore cannot be hurt by your neglect. That is if you

-desire to be rid of Tchekhov. But if the desire is for some reason

-absent, the words 'pathological' and 'abnormal' will have no effect

-upon you. Perhaps you will go further and attempt to find in Tchekhov's

-experiences a criterion of the most irrefragable truths and axioms of

-this consciousness of ours. There is no third way: you must either

-renounce Tchekhov, or become his accomplice.</p>

-

-<p>The hero of <i>The Tedious Story</i> is an old professor; the hero of

-<i>Ivanov</i> a young landlord. But the theme of both works is the same.

-The professor had overstrained himself, and thereby cut himself off

-from his past life and from the possibility of taking an active part

-in human affairs. Ivanov also had overstrained himself and become a

-superfluous, useless person. Had life been so arranged that death

-should supervene simultaneously with the loss of health, strength and

-capacity, then the old professor and young Ivanov could not have lived

-for one single hour. Even a blind man could see that they are both

-broken and are unfit for life. But for reasons unknown to us, wise

-nature has rejected coincidence of this kind. A man very often goes on

-living after he has completely lost the capacity of taking from life

-that wherein we are wont to see its essence and meaning. More striking

-still, a broken man is generally deprived of everything except the

-ability to acknowledge and feel his position. Nay, for the most part

-in such cases the intellectual abilities are refined and sharpened

-and increased to colossal proportions. It frequently happens that an

-average man, banal and mediocre, is changed beyond all recognition when

-he falls into the exceptional situation of Ivanov or the old professor.

-In him appear signs of a gift, a talent, even of genius. Nietzsche once

-asked: 'Can an ass be tragical?' He left his question unanswered, but

-Tolstoi answered for him in <i>The Death of Ivan Ilyich.</i> Ivan Ilyich,

-it is evident from Tolstoi's description of his life, is a mediocre,

-average character, one of those men who pass through life avoiding

-anything that is difficult or problematical, caring exclusively for the

-calm and pleasantness of earthly existence. Hardly had the cold wind of

-tragedy blown upon him, than he was utterly transformed. The story of

-Ivan Ilyich in his last days is as deeply interesting as the life-story

-of Socrates or Pascal.</p>

-

-<p>In passing I would point out a fact which I consider of great

-importance. In his work Tchekhov was influenced by Tolstoi, and

-particularly by Tolstoi's later writings. It is important, because thus

-a part of Tchekhov's 'guilt' falls upon the great writer of the Russian

-land. I think that had there been no <i>Death of Ivan Ilyich,</i> there

-would have been no <i>Ivanov,</i> and no <i>Tedious Story,</i> nor many others

-of Tchekhov's most remarkable works. But this by no means implies that

-Tchekhov borrowed a single word from his great predecessor. Tchekhov

-had enough material of his own: in that respect he needed no help. But

-a young writer would hardly dare to come forward at his own risk with

-the thoughts that make the content of <i>The Tedious Story.</i> When Tolstoi

-wrote <i>The Death of Ivan Ilyich,</i> he had behind him <i>War and Peace,

-Anna Karenina,</i> and the firmly established reputation of an artist of

-the highest rank. All things were permitted to him. But Tchekhov was

-a young man, whose literary baggage amounted in all to a few dozen

-tiny stories, hidden in the pages of little known and uninfluential

-papers. Had Tolstoi not paved the way, had Tolstoi not shown by his

-example, that in literature it was permitted to tell the truth, to

-tell everything, then perhaps Tchekhov would have had to struggle long

-with himself before finding the courage of a public confession, even

-though it took the form of stories. And even with Tolstoi before him,

-how terribly did Tchekhov have to struggle with public opinion. 'Why

-does he write his horrible stories and plays?' every one asked himself.

-'Why does the writer systematically choose for his heroes situations

-from which there is not, and cannot possibly be, any escape?' What

-can be said in answer to the endless complaints of the old professor

-and Katy, his pupil? This means that there is, essentially, something

-to be said. From times immemorial, literature has accumulated a large

-and varied store of all kinds of general ideas and conceptions,

-material and metaphysical, to which the masters have recourse the

-moment the over-exacting and over-restless human voice begins to be

-heard. This is exactly the point. Tchekhov himself, a writer and an

-educated man, refused in advance every possible consolation, material

-or metaphysical. Not even in Tolstoi, who set no great store by

-philosophical systems, will you find such keenly expressed disgust for

-every kind of conceptions and ideas as in Tchekhov. He is well aware

-that conceptions ought to be esteemed and respected, and he reckons his

-inability to bend the knee before that which educated people consider

-holy as a defect against which he must struggle with all his strength.

-And he does struggle with all his strength against this defect. But

-not only is the struggle unavailing; the longer Tchekhov lives, the

-weaker grows the power of lofty words over him, in spite of his own

-reason and his conscious will. Finally, he frees himself entirely

-from ideas of every kind, and loses even the notion of connection

-between the happenings of life. Herein lies the most important and

-original characteristic of his creation. Anticipating a little, I would

-here point to his comedy, <i>The Sea-Gull,</i> where, in defiance of all

-literary principles, the basis of action appears to be not the logical

-development of passions, or the inevitable connection between cause and

-effect, but naked accident, ostentatiously nude. As one reads the play,

-it seems at times that one has before one a copy of a newspaper with

-an endless series of news paragraphs, heaped upon one another, without

-order and without previous plan. Sovereign accident reigns everywhere

-and in everything, this time boldly throwing the gauntlet to all

-conceptions. In this, I repeat, is Tchekhov's greatest originality, and

-this, strangely enough, is the source of his most bitter experiences.

-He did not want to be original; he made super-human efforts to be

-like everybody else: but there is no escaping one's destiny. How

-many men, above all among writers, wear their fingers to the bone in

-the effort to be unlike others, and yet they cannot shake themselves

-free of <i>cliché</i>&mdash;yet Tchekhov was original against his will!

-Evidently originality does not depend upon the readiness to proclaim

-revolutionary opinions at all costs. The newest and boldest idea may

-and often does appear tedious and vulgar. In order to become original,

-instead of inventing an idea, one must achieve a difficult and painful

-labour; and, since men avoid labour and suffering, the really new is

-for the most part born in man against his will.</p>

-

-<hr />

-

-<h4>III</h4>

-

-

-<p>'A man cannot reconcile himself to the accomplished fact; neither can

-he refuse so to reconcile himself: and there is no third course. Under

-such conditions "action" is impossible. He can only fall down and weep

-and beat his head against the floor.' So Tchekhov speaks of one of his

-heroes; but he might say the same of them all, without exception. The

-author takes care to put them in such a situation that only one thing

-is left for them,&mdash;to fall down and beat their heads against the floor.

-With strange, mysterious obstinacy they refuse all the accepted means

-of salvation. Nicolai Stepanovich, the old professor in <i>The Tedious

-Story,</i> might have attempted to forget himself for a while or to

-console himself with memories of the past. But memories only irritate

-him. He was once an eminent scholar: now he cannot work. Once he was

-able to hold the attention of his audience for two hours on end; now

-he cannot do it even for a quarter of an hour. He used to have friends

-and comrades, he used to love his pupils and assistants, his wife

-and children; now he cannot concern himself with any one. If people

-do arouse any feelings at all within him, then they are only feelings

-of hatred, malice and envy. He has to confess it to himself with

-the truthfulness which came to him&mdash;he knows not why nor whence&mdash;in

-place of the old diplomatic skill, possessed by all clever and normal

-men, whereby he saw and said only that which makes for decent human

-relations and healthy states of mind. Now everything which he sees or

-thinks only serves to poison, in himself and others, the few joys which

-adorn human life. With a certainty which he never attained on the best

-days and hours of his old theoretical research, he feels that he is

-become a criminal, having committed no crime. All that he was engaged

-in before was good, necessary, and useful. He tells you of his past,

-and you can see that he was always right and ready at any moment of

-the day or the night to answer the severest judge who should examine

-not only his actions, but his thoughts as well. Now not only would an

-outsider condemn him, he condemns himself. He confesses openly that he

-is all compact of envy and hatred.</p>

-

-<p>'The best and most sacred right of kings,' he says, 'is the right to

-pardon. And I have always felt myself a king so long as I used this

-right prodigally. I never judged, I was compassionate, I pardoned every

-one right and left.... But now I am king no more. There's something

-going on in me which belongs only to slaves. Day and night evil

-thoughts roam about in my head, and feelings which I never knew before

-have made their home in my soul. I hate and despise; I'm exasperated,

-disturbed, and afraid. I've become strict beyond measure, exacting,

-unkind and suspicious.... What does it all mean? If my new thoughts and

-feelings come from a change of my convictions, where could the change

-come from? Has the world grown worse and I better, or was I blind and

-indifferent before? But if the change is due to the general decline

-of my physical and mental powers&mdash;I am sick and losing weight every

-day&mdash;then I am in a pitiable position. It means that my new thoughts

-are abnormal and unhealthy, that I must be ashamed of them and consider

-them valueless ...</p>

-

-<p>The question is asked by the old professor on the point of death, and

-in his person by Tchekhov himself. Which is better, to be a king, or an

-old, envious, malicious 'toad,' as he calls himself elsewhere? There

-is no denying the originality of the question. In the words above you

-feel the price which Tchekhov had to pay for his originality, and with

-how great joy he would have exchanged all his original thoughts&mdash;at

-the moment when his 'new' point of view had become clear to him&mdash;for

-the most ordinary, banal capacity for benevolence. He has, no doubt

-felt that his way of thinking is pitiable, shameful and disgusting.

-His moods revolt him no less than his appearance, which he describes

-in the following lines: '... I am a man of sixty-two, with a bald

-head, false teeth and an incurable tic. My name is as brilliant and

-prepossessing, as I myself am dull and ugly. My head and hands tremble

-from weakness; my neck, like that of one of Turgeniev's heroines,

-resembles the handle of a counter-bass; my chest is hollow and my

-back narrow. When I speak or read my mouth twists, and when I smile

-my whole face is covered with senile, deathly wrinkles.' Unpleasant

-face, unpleasant moods! Let the most sweet natures and compassionate

-person but give a side-glance at such a monster, and despite himself

-a cruel thought would awaken in him: that he should lose no time in

-killing, in utterly destroying this pitiful and disgusting vermin, or

-if the laws forbid recourse to such strong measures, at least in hiding

-him as far as possible from human eyes, in some prison or hospital

-or asylum. These are measures of suppression sanctioned, I believe,

-not only by legislation, but by eternal morality as well. But here

-you encounter resistance of a particular kind. Physical strength to

-struggle with the warders, executioners, attendants, moralists&mdash;the old

-professor has none; a little child could knock him down. Persuasion

-and prayer, he knows well, will avail him nothing. So he strikes out

-in despair: he begins to cry over all the world in a terrible, wild,

-heartrending voice about some rights of his: '... I have a passionate

-and hysterical desire to stretch out my hands and moan aloud. I want to

-cry out that fate has doomed me, a famous man, to death; that in some

-six months here in the auditorium another will be master. I want to cry

-out that I am poisoned; that new ideas that I did not know before have

-poisoned the last days of my life, and sting my brain incessantly like

-mosquitoes. At that moment my position seems so terrible to me that

-I want all my students to be terrified, to jump from their seats and

-rush panic-stricken to the door, shrieking in despair.' The professor's

-arguments will hardly move any one. Indeed I do not know if there is

-any argument in those words. But this awful, inhuman moan.... Imagine

-the picture: a bald, ugly old man, with trembling hands, and twisted

-mouth, and skinny neck, eyes mad with fear, wallowing like a beast on

-the ground and wailing, wailing, wailing.... What does he want? He had

-lived a long and interesting life; now he had only to round it off

-nicely, with all possible calm, quietly and solemnly to take leave of

-this earthly existence. Instead he rends himself, and flings himself

-about, calls almost the whole universe to judgment, and clutches

-convulsively at the few days left to him. And Tchekhov&mdash;what did

-Tchekhov do? Instead of passing by on the other side, he supports the

-prodigious monster, devotes pages and pages to the 'experiences of his

-soul,' and gradually brings the reader to a point at which, instead of

-a natural and lawful sense of indignation, unprofitable and dangerous

-sympathies for the decomposing, decaying creature are awakened in

-his heart. But every one knows that it is impossible to <i>help</i> the

-professor; and if it is impossible to help, then it follows we must

-forget. That is as plain as <i>a b c.</i> What use or what meaning could

-there be in the endless picturing&mdash;daubing, as Tolstoi would say&mdash;of

-the intolerable pains of the agony which inevitably leads to death?</p>

-

-<p>If the professor's 'new' thoughts and feelings shone bright with

-beauty, nobility or heroism, the case would be different. The reader

-could learn something from it. But Tchekhov's story shows that these

-qualities belonged to his hero's old thoughts. Now that his illness has

-begun, there has sprung up within him a revulsion from everything which

-even remotely resembles a lofty feeling. When his pupil Katy turns to

-him for advice what she should do, the famous scholar, the friend of

-Pirogov, Kavelin and Nekrassov, who had taught so many generations

-of young men, does not know what to answer. Absurdly he chooses from

-his memory a whole series of pleasant-sounding words; but they have

-lost all meaning for him. What answer shall he give? he asks himself.

-'It is easy to say, Work, or divide your property among the poor, or

-know yourself, and because it is easy, I do not know what to answer.'

-Katy, still young, healthy and beautiful, has by Tchekhov's offices

-fallen like the professor into a trap from which no human power can

-deliver her. From the moment that she knew hopelessness, she had won

-all the author's sympathy. While a person is settled to some work,

-while he has a future of some kind before him, Tchekhov is utterly

-indifferent to him. If he does describe him, then he usually does it

-hastily and in a tone of scornful irony. But when he is entangled, and

-so entangled that he cannot be disentangled by any means, then Tchekhov

-begins to wake up. Colour, energy, creative force, inspiration make

-their appearance. Therein perhaps lies the secret of his political

-indifferentism. Notwithstanding all his distrust of projects for a

-brighter future, Tchekhov like Dostoevsky was evidently not wholly

-convinced that social reforms and social science were important.

-However difficult the social question may be, still it may be solved.

-Some day, perhaps people will so arrange themselves on the earth as

-to live and die without suffering: further than that ideal humanity

-cannot go. Perhaps the authors of stout volumes on Progress do guess

-and foresee something. But just for that reason their work is alien to

-Tchekhov. At first by instinct, then consciously, he was attracted to

-problems which are by essence insoluble like that presented in <i>The

-Tedious Story</i>: there you have helplessness, sickness, the prospect of

-inevitable death, and no hope whatever to change the situation by a

-hair. This infatuation, whether conscious or instinctive, clearly runs

-counter to the demands of common sense and normal will. But there is

-nothing else to expect from Tchekhov, an overstrained man. Every one

-knows, or has heard, of hopelessness. On every side, before our very

-eyes, are happening terrible and intolerable tragedies, and if every

-doomed man were to raise such an awful alarm about his destruction as

-Nicolai Stepanovich, life would become an inferno; Nicolai Stepanovich

-must not cry his sufferings aloud over the world, but be careful to

-trouble people as little as possible. And Tchekhov should have assisted

-this reputable endeavour by every means in his power. As though there

-were not thousands of tedious stories in the world&mdash;they cannot be

-counted! And above all stories of the kind that Tchekhov tells should

-be hidden with special care from human eyes. We have here to do with

-the decomposition of a living organism. What should we say to a man

-who would prevent corpses from being buried, and would dig decaying

-bodies from the grave, even though it were on the ground, or rather on

-the pretext, that they were the bodies of his intimate friends, even

-famous men of reputation and genius? Such an occupation would rouse

-in a normal and healthy mind nothing but disgust and terror. Once upon

-a time, according to popular superstition, sorcerers, necromancers

-and wizards kept company with the dead, and found a certain pleasure

-or even a real satisfaction in that ghastly occupation. But they

-generally hid themselves away from mankind in forests and caves, or

-betook themselves to deserts where they might in isolation surrender

-themselves to their unnatural inclinations; and if their deeds were

-eventually brought to light, healthy men requited them with the stake,

-the gallows, and the rack. The worst kind of that which is called

-evil, as a rule, had for its source and origin an interest and taste

-for carrion. Man forgave every crime&mdash;cruelty, violence, murder; but

-he never forgave the unmotived love of death and the seeking of its

-secret. In this matter modern times, being free from prejudices, have

-advanced little from the Middle Ages. Perhaps the only difference is

-that we, engaged in practical affairs, have lost the natural <i>flair</i>

-for good and evil. Theoretically we are even convinced that in our time

-there are not and cannot be wizards and necromancers. Our confidence

-and carelessness in this reached such a point, that almost everybody

-saw even in Dostoevsky only an artist and a publicist, and seriously

-discussed with him whether the Russian peasant needed to be flogged and

-whether we ought to lay hands on Constantinople.</p>

-

-<p>Mihailovsky alone vaguely conjectured what it all might be when he

-called the author of <i>The Brothers Karamazov</i> a 'treasure-digger.'

-I say he 'dimly conjectured, because I think that the deceased

-critic made the remark partly in allegory, even in joke. But none of

-Dostoevsky's other critics made, even by accident, a truer slip of the

-pen. Tchekhov, too, was a 'treasure-digger,' a sorcerer, a necromancer,

-an adept in the black art; and this explains his singular infatuation

-for death, decay and hopelessness.</p>

-

-<p>Tchekhov was not of course the only writer to make death the subject

-of his works. But not the theme is important but the manner of its

-treatment. Tchekhov understands that. 'In all the thoughts, feelings,

-and ideas,' he says, '[which] I form about anything, there is wanting

-the something universal which could bind all these together in one

-whole. Each feeling and each thought lives detached in me, and in all

-my opinions about science, the theatre, literature, and my pupils,

-and in all the little pictures which my imagination paints, not even

-the most cunning analyst will discover what is called the general

-idea, or the god of the living man. And if this is not there, then

-nothing is there. In poverty such as this, a serious infirmity, fear

-of death, influence of circumstances and people would have been

-enough to over-throw and shatter all that I formerly considered as my

-conception of the world, and all wherein I saw the meaning and joy of

-my life....' In these words one of the 'newest' of Tchekhov's ideas

-finds expression, one by which the whole of his subsequent creation is

-defined. It is expressed in a modest, apologetic form: a man confesses

-that he is unable to subordinate his thoughts to a higher idea, and

-in that inability he sees his weakness. This was enough to avert from

-him to some extent the thunders of criticism and the judgment of

-public opinion. We readily forgive the repentant sinner! But it is an

-unprofitable clemency: to expiate one's guilt, it is not enough to

-confess it. What was the good of Tchekhov's putting on sackcloth; and

-ashes and publicly confessing his guilt, if he was inwardly unchanged?

-If, while his words acknowledged the general idea as god (without a

-capital, indeed), he did nothing whatever for it? In words he burns

-incense to god, in deed he curses him. Before his disease a conception

-of the world brought him happiness, now it had shattered into

-fragments. Is it not natural to ask whether the conception actually did

-ever bring him happiness? Perhaps the happiness had its own independent

-origin, and the conception was invited only as a general to a wedding,

-for outward show, and never played any essential part. Tchekhov tells

-us circumstantially what joys the professor found in his scientific

-work, his lectures to the students, his family, and in a good dinner.

-In all these were present together the conception of the world and

-the idea, and they did not take away from, but as it were embellished

-life; so that it seemed that he was working for the ideal, as well

-as creating a family and dining. But now, when for the same ideal's

-sake he has to remain inactive, to suffer, to remain awake of nights,

-to swallow with effort food that has become loathsome to him&mdash;the

-conception of the world is shattered into fragments! And it amounts to

-this, that a conception with a dinner is right, and a dinner without a

-conception equally right&mdash;this needs no argument&mdash;and a conception <i>an

-und für sich</i> is of no value whatever. Here is the essence of the words

-quoted from Tchekhov. He confesses with horror the presence within him

-of that 'new' idea. It seems to him that he alone of all men is so weak

-and insignificant, that the others ... well, they need only ideals

-and conceptions. And so it is, surely, if we may believe what people

-write in books. Tchekhov plagues, tortures and worries himself in every

-possible way, but he can alter nothing; nay worse, conceptions and

-ideas, towards which a great many people behave quite carelessly&mdash;after

-all, these innocent things do not merit any other attitude&mdash;in Tchekhov

-become the objects of bitter, inexorable, and merciless hatred. He

-cannot free himself at one single stroke from the power of ideas:

-therefore he begins a long, slow and stubborn war, I would call it

-a guerilla war, against the tyrant who had enslaved him. The whole

-history and the separate episodes of his struggle are of absorbing

-interest, because the most conspicuous representatives of literature

-have hitherto been convinced that ideas have a magical power. What

-are the majority of writers doing but constructing conceptions of the

-world&mdash;and believing that they are engaged in a work of extraordinary

-importance and sanctity? Tchekhov offended very many literary men. If

-his punishment was comparatively slight, that was because he was very

-cautious, and waged war with the air of bringing tribute to the enemy,

-and secondly, because to talent much is forgiven.</p>

-

-

-<hr />

-<h4>IV</h4>

-

-

-<p>The content of <i>The Tedious Story</i> thus reduces to the fact that the

-professor, expressing his 'new' thoughts, in essence declares that

-he finds it impossible to acknowledge the power of the 'idea' over

-himself, or conscientiously to fulfil that which men consider the

-supreme purpose, and in the service whereof they see the mission, the

-sacred mission of man. 'God be my judge, I haven't courage enough

-to act according to my conscience,' such is the only answer which

-Tchekhov finds in his soul to all demands for a 'conception.' This

-attitude towards 'conceptions' becomes second nature with Tchekhov.

-A conception makes demands; a man acknowledges the justice of these

-demands and methodically satisfies none of them. Moreover, the justice

-of the demands meets with less and less acknowledgment from him. In

-<i>The Tedious Story</i> the idea still judges the man and tortures him

-with the mercilessness peculiar to all things inanimate. Exactly like

-a splinter stuck into a living body, the idea, alien and hostile,

-mercilessly performs its high mission, until at length the man firmly

-resolves to draw the splinter out of his flesh, however painful that

-difficult operation may be. In <i>Ivanov</i> the rôle of the idea is

-already changed. There not the idea persecutes Tchekhov, but Tchekhov

-the idea, and with the subtlest division and contempt. The voice of

-the living nature rises above the artificial habits of civilisation.

-True, the struggle still continues, if you will, with alternating

-fortunes. But the old humility is no more. More and more Tchekhov

-emancipates himself from old prejudices and goes&mdash;he himself could

-hardly say whither, were he asked. But he prefers to remain without

-an answer, rather than to accept any of the traditional answers. 'I

-know quite well I have no more than six months to live; and it would

-seem that now I ought to be mainly occupied with questions of the

-darkness beyond the grave, and the visions which will visit my sleep

-in the earth. But somehow my soul is not curious of these questions,

-though my mind grants every atom of their importance.' In contrast to

-the habits of the past, reason is once more pushed out of the door

-with all due respect, while its rights are handed over to the 'soul,'

-to the dark, vague aspiration which Tchekhov by instinct trusts more

-than the bright, clear consciousness which beforehand determines the

-beyond, now that he stands before the fatal pale which divides man from

-the eternal mystery. Is scientific philosophy indignant? Is Tchekhov

-undermining its surest foundations? But he is an overstrained, abnormal

-man. Certainly you are not bound to listen to him; but once you have

-decided to do so then you must be prepared for anything. A normal

-person, even though he be a metaphysician of the extremest ethereal

-brand, always adjusts his theories to the requirements of the moment;

-he destroys only to build up from the old material once more. This is

-the reason why material never fails him. Obedient to the fundamental

-law of human nature, long since noted and formulated by the wise, he

-is content to confine himself to the modest part of a seeker after

-forms. Out of iron, which he finds in nature ready to his hand, he

-forges a sword or a plough, a lance or a sickle. The idea of creating

-out of a void hardly even enters his mind. But Tchekhov's heroes,

-persons abnormal <i>par excellence,</i> are faced with this abnormal and

-dreadful necessity. Before them always lies hopelessness, helplessness,

-the utter impossibility of any action whatsoever. And yet they live

-on, they do not die. A strange question, and one of extraordinary

-moment, here suggests itself. I said that it was foreign to human

-nature to create out of a void. Yet nature often deprives man of

-ready material, while at the same time she demands imperatively that

-he should create. Does this mean that nature contradicts herself,

-or that she perverts her creatures? Is it not more correct to admit

-that the conception of perversion is of purely human origin. Perhaps

-nature is much more economical and wise than our wisdom, and maybe we

-should discover much more if instead of dividing people into necessary

-and superfluous, useful and noxious, good and bad, we suppressed

-the tendency to subjective valuation in ourselves and endeavoured

-with greater confidence to accept her creations? Otherwise you come

-immediately&mdash;to 'the evil gleam,' 'treasure-digging,' sorcery and

-black magic&mdash;and a wall is raised between men which neither logical

-argument nor even a battery of artillery can break down. I hardly dare

-hope that this consideration will appear convincing to those who are

-used to maintaining the norm; and it is probably unnecessary that the

-notion of the great opposition of good and bad which is alive among

-men should die away, just as it is unnecessary that children should

-be born with the experience of men, or that red cheeks and curly hair

-should vanish from the earth. At any rate it is impossible. The world

-has many centuries to its reckoning, many nations have lived and died

-upon the earth, yet as far as we know from the books and traditions

-that have survived to us, the dispute between good and evil was never

-hushed. And it always so happened that good was not afraid of the light

-of day, and good men lived a united, social life; while evil hid itself

-in darkness, and the wicked always stood alone. Nor could it have been

-otherwise.</p>

-

-<p>All Tchekhov's heroes fear the light. They are lonely. They are ashamed

-of their hopelessness, and they know that men cannot help them.

-They go somewhere, perhaps even forward, but they call to no one to

-follow. All things are taken from them: they must create everything

-anew. Thence most probably is derived the unconcealed contempt with

-which they behave to the most precious products of common human

-creativeness. On whatever subject you begin to talk with a Tchekhov

-hero he has one reply to everything: <i>Nobody can teach me anything.</i>

-You offer him a new conception of the world: already in your very

-first words he feels that they all reduce to an attempt to lay the old

-bricks and stones over again, and he turns from you with impatience,

-and often with rudeness. Tchekhov is an extremely cautious writer.

-He fears and takes into account public opinion. Yet how unconcealed

-is the aversion he displays to accepted ideas and conceptions of the

-world. In <i>The Tedious Story,</i> he at any rate preserves the tone and

-attitude of outward obedience. Later he throws aside all precautions,

-and instead of reproaching himself for his inability to submit to the

-general idea, openly rebels against it and jeers at it. In <i>Ivanov</i> it

-already is sufficiently expressed; there was reason for the outburst

-of indignation which this play provoked in its day. Ivanov, I have

-already said, is a dead man. The only thing the artist can do with

-him is to bury him decently, that is, to praise his past, pity his

-present, and then, in order to mitigate the cheerless impression

-produced by death, to invite the general idea to the funeral. He might

-recall the universal problems of humanity in any one of the many

-stereotyped forms, and thus the difficult case which seemed insoluble

-would be removed. Together with Ivanov's death he should portray a

-bright young life, full of promise, and the impression of death and

-destruction would lose all its sting and bitterness. Tchekhov does just

-the opposite. Instead of endowing youth and ideals with power over

-destruction and death, as all philosophical systems and many works of

-art had done, he ostentatiously makes the good-for-nothing wreck Ivanov

-the centre of all events. Side by side with Ivanov there are young

-lives, and the idea is also given her representatives. But the young

-Sasha, a wonderful and charming girl, who falls utterly in love with

-the broken hero, not only does not save her lover, but herself perishes

-under the burden of the impossible task. And the idea? It is enough

-to recall the figure of Doctor Lvov alone, whom Tchekhov entrusted

-with the responsible rôle of a representative of the all-powerful

-idea, and you will at once perceive that he considers himself not as

-subject and vassal, but as the bitterest enemy of the idea. The moment

-Doctor Lvov opens his mouth, all the characters, as though acting on

-a previous agreement, vie with each other in their haste to interrupt

-him in the most insulting way, by jests, threats, and almost by smacks

-in the face. But the doctor fulfils his duties as a representative

-of the great power with no less skill and conscientiousness than his

-predecessors&mdash;Starodoum<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> and the other reputable heroes of the old

-drama. He champions the wronged, seeks to restore rights that have been

-trodden underfoot, sets himself dead against injustice. Has he stepped

-beyond the limits of his plenipotentiary powers? Of course not; but

-where Ivanovs and hopelessness reign there is not and cannot be room

-for the idea.</p>

-

-<p>They cannot possibly live together. And the eyes of the reader, who

-is accustomed to think that every kingdom may fall and perish, yet

-the kingdom of the idea stands firm <i>in saecula saeculorum,</i> behold

-a spectacle unheard of: the idea dethroned by a helpless, broken,

-good-for-nothing man! What is there that Ivanov does not say? In the

-very first act he fires off a tremendous tirade, not at a chance

-comer, but at the incarnate idea&mdash;Starodoum-Lvov. 'I have the right

-to give you advice. Don't you marry a Jewess, or an abnormal, or a

-blue-stocking. Choose something ordinary, greyish, without any bright

-colours or superfluous shades. Make it a principle to build your

-life of <i>clichés.</i> The more grey and monotonous the background, the

-better. My dear man, don't fight thousands single-handed, don't tilt

-at windmills, don't run your head against the wall. God save you from

-all kinds of Back-to-the-Landers' advanced doctrines, passionate

-speeches.... Shut yourself tight in your own shell, and do the tiny

-little work set you by God.... It's cosier, honester, and healthier.'</p>

-

-<p>Doctor Lvov, the representative of the all-powerful, sovereign idea,

-feels that his sovereign's majesty is injured, that to suffer such

-an offence really means to abdicate the throne. Surely Ivanov was a

-vassal, and so he must remain. How dare he let his tongue advise, how

-dare he raise his voice when it is his part to listen reverently, and

-to obey in silent resignation? This is rank rebellion! Lvov attempts to

-draw himself up to his full height and answer the arrogant rebel with

-dignity. Nothing comes of it. In a weak, trembling voice he mutters the

-accustomed words, which but lately had invincible power. But they do

-not produce their customary effect. Their virtue is departed. Whither?

-Lvov dares not own it even to himself. But it is no longer a secret

-to any one. Whatever mean and ugly things Ivanov may have done&mdash;

-Tchekhov is not close-fisted in this matter: in his hero's conduct-book

-are written all manner of offences; almost to the deliberate murder

-of a woman devoted to him&mdash;it is to him and not to Lvov that public

-opinion bows. Ivanov is the spirit of destruction, rude, violent,

-pitiless, sticking at nothing: yet the word 'scoundrel,' which the

-doctor tears out of himself with a painful effort and hurls at him,

-does not stick to him. He is somehow right, with his own peculiar

-right, to others inconceivable, yet still, if we may believe Tchekhov,

-incontestable. Sasha, a creature of youth and insight and talent,

-passes by the honest Starodoum-Lvov unheeding, on her way to render

-worship to him. The whole play is based on that. It is true, Ivanov in

-the end shoots himself, and that may, if you like, give you a formal

-ground for believing that the final victory remained with Lvov. And

-Tchekhov did well to end the drama in this way&mdash;it could not be spun

-out to infinity. It would have been no easy matter to tell the whole of

-Ivanov's history. Tchekhov went on writing for fifteen years after, all

-the time telling the unfinished story, yet even then he had to break it

-off without reaching the end....</p>

-

-<p>It would show small understanding of Tchekhov to take it into one's

-head to interpret Ivanov's words to Lvov as meaning that Tchekhov,

-like the Tolstoi of the <i>War and Peace</i> period, saw his ideal in the

-everyday arrangement of life. Tchekhov was only fighting against

-the idea, and he said to it the most abusive thing that entered his

-head. For what can be more insulting to the idea than to be forced

-to listen to the praise of everyday life? But when the opportunity

-came his way, Tchekhov could describe everyday life with equal venom.

-The story, <i>The Teacher of Literature,</i> may serve as an example. The

-teacher lives entirely by Ivanov's prescription. He has his job, and

-his wife&mdash;neither Jewess nor abnormal, nor blue-stocking&mdash;and a home

-that fits like a shell...; but all this does not prevent Tchekhov

-from driving the poor teacher by slow degrees into the usual trap, and

-bringing him to a condition wherein it is left to him only 'to fall

-down and weep, and beat his head against the floor.' Tchekhov had no

-'ideal,' not even the ideal of 'everyday life' which Tolstoi glorified

-with such inimitable and incomparable mastery in his early works. An

-ideal presupposes submission, the voluntary denial of one's own right

-to independence, freedom and power; and demands of this kind, even a

-hint of such demands, roused in Tchekhov all that force of disgust and

-repulsion of which he alone was capable.</p>

-

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> A hero from Fon-Vizin's play <i>The Minor.</i> Starodoum is a

-<i>raisonneur,</i> a 'positive' type, always uttering truisms.</p></div>

-

-

-<hr />

-<h4>V</h4>

-

-

-<p>Thus the real, the only hero of Tchekhov, is the hopeless man. He

-has absolutely no <i>action</i> left for him in life, save to beat his

-head against the stones. It is not surprising that such a man should

-be intolerable to his neighbours. Everywhere he brings death and

-destruction with him. He himself is aware of it, but he has not the

-power to go apart from men. With all his soul he endeavours to tear

-himself out of his horrible condition. Above all he is attracted to

-fresh, young, untouched beings; with their help he hopes to recover his

-right to life which he has lost. The hope is vain. The beginning of

-decay always appears, all-conquering, and at the end Tchekhov's hero

-is left to himself alone. He has nothing, he must create everything

-for himself. And this 'creation out of the void,' or more truly the

-possibility of this creation, is the only problem which can occupy and

-inspire Tchekhov. When he has stripped his hero of the last shred, when

-nothing is left for him but to beat his head against the wall, Tchekhov

-begins to feel something like satisfaction, a strange fire lights in

-his burnt-out eyes, a fire which Mihailovsky did not call 'evil' in

-vain.</p>

-

-<p>Creation out of the void! Is not this task beyond the limit of human

-powers, of human <i>rights</i>? Mihailovsky obviously had one straight

-answer to the question.... As for Tchekhov himself, if the question

-were put to him in such a deliberately definite form, he would probably

-be unable to answer, although he was continually engaged in the

-activity, or more properly, because he was continually so engaged.

-Without fear of mistake, one may say that the people who answer the

-question without hesitation in either sense have never come near to

-it, or to any of the so-called ultimate questions of life. Hesitation

-is a necessary and integral element in the judgment of those men

-whom Fate has brought near to false problems. How Tchekhov's hand

-trembled while he wrote the concluding lines of his <i>Tedious Story</i>!

-The professor's pupil&mdash;the being nearest and dearest to him, but like

-himself, for all her youth, overstrained and bereft of all hope&mdash;has

-come to Kharkov to seek his advice. The following conversation takes

-place:</p>

-

-<p>"Nicolai Stepanich!" she says, growing pale and pressing her hands to

-her breast. "Nicolai Stepanich! I can't go on like this any longer. For

-God's sake tell me now, immediately. What shall I do? Tell me, what

-shall I do?"</p>

-

-<p>"What can I say? I am beaten. I can say nothing."</p>

-

-<p>"But tell me, I implore you," she continues, out of breath and

-trembling all over her body. "I swear to you, I can't go on like this

-any longer. I haven't the strength."</p>

-

-<p>She drops into a chair and begins to sob. She throws her head back,

-wrings her hands, stamps with her feet; her hat falls from her head and

-dangles by its string, her hair is loosened.</p>

-

-<p>"Help me, help," she implores. "I can't bear it any more."</p>

-

-<p>"There's nothing that I can say to you, Katy," I say.</p>

-

-<p>"Help me," she sobs, seizing my hand and kissing it. "You 're my

-father, my only friend. You're wise and learned, and you've lived long

-I You were a teacher. Tell me what to do."</p>

-

-<p>'"Upon my conscience, Katy, I do not know."</p>

-

-<p>'I am bewildered and surprised, stirred by her sobbing, and I can

-hardly stand upright.</p>

-

-<p>'"Let's have some breakfast, Katy," I say with a constrained smile.</p>

-

-<p>'Instantly I add in a sinking voice: "I shall be dead soon, Katy...."</p>

-

-<p>'"Only one word, only one word," she weeps and stretches out her hands

-to me. "What shall I do?..."'</p>

-

-<p>But the professor has not the word to give. He turns the conversation

-to the weather, Kharkov and other indifferent matters. Katy gets up and

-holds out her hand to him, without looking at him. 'I want to ask her,'

-he concludes his story, '"So it means you won't be at my funeral?" But

-she does not look at me; her hand is cold and like a stranger's ... I

-escort her to the door in silence.... She goes out of my room and walks

-down the long passage, without looking back. She knows that my eyes are

-following her, and probably on the landing she will look back. No, she

-did not look back. The black dress showed for the last time, her steps

-were stilled.... Good-bye, my treasure!...'</p>

-

-<p>The only answer which the wise, educated, long-lived Nicolai

-Stepanovich, a teacher all his life, can give to Katy's question is,

-'I don't know.' There is not, in all his great experience of the

-past, a single method, rule, or suggestion, which might apply, even in

-the smallest degree, to the wild incongruity of the new conditions of

-Katy's life and his own. Katy can live thus no longer; neither can he

-himself continue to endure his disgusting and shameful helplessness.

-They both, old and young, with their whole hearts desire to support

-each other; they can between them find no way. To her question: 'What

-shall I do?' he replied: 'I shall soon be dead.' To his 'I shall

-soon be dead' she answers with wild sobbing, wringing her hands, and

-absurdly repeating the same words over and over again. It would have

-been better to have asked no question, not to have begun that frank

-conversation of souls. But they do not yet understand that. In their

-old life talk would bring them relief and frank confession, intimacy.

-But now, after such a meeting they can suffer each other no longer.

-Katy leaves the old professor, her foster-father, her true father and

-friend, in the knowledge that he has become a stranger to her. She

-did not even turn round towards him as she went away. Both felt that

-nothing remained save to beat their heads against the wall. Therein

-each acts at his own peril, and there can be no dreaming of a consoling

-union of souls.</p>

-

-

-<hr />

-<h4>VI</h4>

-

-

-<p>Tchekhov knew what conclusions he had reached in <i>The Tedious Story</i>

-and <i>Ivanov.</i> Some of his critics also knew, and told him so. I

-cannot venture to say what was the cause&mdash;whether fear of public

-opinion, or his horror at his own discoveries, or both together&mdash;but

-evidently there came a moment to Tchekhov when he decided at all costs

-to surrender his position and retreat. The fruit of this decision was

-<i>Ward No. 6.</i> In this story the hero of the drama is the same familiar

-Tchekhov character, the doctor. The setting, too, is quite the usual

-one, though changed to a slight extent. Nothing in particular has

-occurred in the doctor's life. He happened to come to an out-of-the-way

-place in the provinces, and gradually, by continually avoiding

-life and people, he reached a condition of utter will-lessness, which

-he represented to himself as the ideal of human happiness. He is

-indifferent to everything, beginning with his hospital, where he can

-hardly ever be found, where under the reign of the drunken brute of an

-assistant the patients are swindled and neglected.</p>

-

-<p>In the mental ward reigns a porter who is a discharged soldier: he

-punches his restless patients into shape. The doctor does not care,

-as though he were living in some distant other world, and does not

-understand what is going on before his very eyes. He happens to enter

-his ward and to have a conversation with one of his patients. He

-listens quietly to him; but his answer is words instead of deeds. He

-tries to show his lunatic acquaintance that external influences cannot

-affect us in any way at all. The lunatic does not agree, becomes

-impertinent, presents objections, in which, as in the thoughts of many

-lunatics, nonsensical assertions are mixed with very profound remarks.

-Indeed, there is so little nonsense that from the conversation you

-would hardly imagine that you have to do with a lunatic. The doctor

-is delighted with his new friend, but does nothing whatsoever to

-make him more comfortable. The patient is still under the porter's

-thumb as he used to be, and the porter gives him a thrashing on the

-least provocation. The patient, the doctor, the people round, the

-whole setting of the hospital and the doctor's rooms, are described

-with wonderful talent. Everything induces you to make absolutely no

-resistance and to become fatalistically indifferent:&mdash;let them get

-drunk, let them fight, let them thieve, let them be brutal&mdash;what does

-it matter! Evidently it is so predestined by the supreme council of

-nature. The philosophy of inactivity which the doctor professes is

-as it were prompted and whispered by the immutable laws of human

-existence. Apparently there is no force which may tear one from its

-power. So far everything is more or less in the Tchekhov style. But

-the end is completely different. By the intrigues of his colleague,

-the doctor himself is taken as a patient into the mental ward. He

-is deprived of freedom, shut up in a wing of the hospital, and even

-thrashed, thrashed by the same porter whose behaviour he had taught his

-lunatic acquaintance to accept, thrashed before his acquaintance's

-very eyes. The doctor instantly awakens as though out of a dream. A

-fierce desire to struggle and to protest manifests itself in him. True,

-at this moment he dies; but the idea is triumphant, still. The critics

-could consider themselves quite satisfied. Tchekhov had openly repented

-and renounced the theory of non-resistance; and, I believe, <i>Ward No.

-6</i> met with a sympathetic reception at the time. In passing I would say

-that the doctor dies very beautifully: in his last moments he sees a

-herd of deer....</p>

-

-<p>Indeed, the construction of this story leaves no doubt in the mind.

-Tchekhov wished to compromise, and he compromised. He had come to feel

-how intolerable was hopelessness, how impossible the creation from a

-void. To beat one's head against the stones, eternally to beat one's

-head against the stones, is so horrible that it were better to return

-to idealism. Then the truth of the wonderful Russian saying was proved:

-'Don't forswear the beggar's wallet nor the prison.' Tchekhov joined

-the choir of Russian writers, and began to praise the idea. But not

-for long. His very next story, <i>The Duel,</i> has a different character.

-Its conclusion is also apparently idealistic, but only in appearance.

-The principal hero Layevsky is a parasite like all Tchekhov's heroes.

-He does nothing, can do nothing, does not even wish to do anything,

-lives chiefly at others' expense, runs up debts, seduces women.... His

-condition is intolerable. He is living with another man's wife, whom he

-had come to loathe as he loathes himself, yet he cannot get rid of her.

-He is always in straitened circumstances and in debt everywhere: his

-friends dislike and despise him. His state of mind is always such that

-he is ready to run no matter where, never looking backwards, only away

-from the place where he is living now. His illegal wife is in roughly

-the same position, unless it be even more horrible. Without knowing

-why, without love, without even being attracted, she gives herself to

-the first, commonplace man she meets; and then she feels as though

-she had been covered from head to foot in filth, and the filth had

-stuck so close to her that not ocean itself could wash her clean. This

-couple lives in the world, in a remote little place in the Caucasus,

-and naturally attracts Tchekhov's attention. There is no denying the

-interest of the subject: two persons befouled, who can neither tolerate

-others nor themselves....</p>

-

-<p>For contrast's sake Tchekhov brings Layevsky into collision with the

-zoologist, Von Koren, who has come to the seaside town on important

-business&mdash;every one recognises its importance&mdash;to study the embryology

-of the medusa. Von Koren, as one may see from his name, is of German

-origin, and therefore deliberately represented as a healthy, normal,

-clean man, the grandchild of Goncharov's Stolz, the direct opposite

-of Layevsky, who on his side is nearly related to our old friend

-Oblomov. But in Goncharov the contrast between Stolz and Oblomov is

-quite different in nature and meaning to the contrast in Tchekhov. The

-novelist of the 'forties hoped that a <i>rapprochement</i> with Western

-culture would renew and resuscitate Russia. And Oblomov himself is not

-represented as an utterly hopeless person. He is only lazy, inactive,

-unenterprising. You have the feeling that were he to awaken he would

-be a match for a dozen Stolzs. Layevsky is a different affair. He is

-awake already, he was awakened years ago, but his awakening did him no

-good.... 'He does not love nature; he has no God; he or his companions

-had ruined every trustful girl he had known; all his life long he

-had not planted one single little tree, nor grown one blade of grass

-in his own garden, nor while he lived among the living, had he saved

-the life of one single fly; but only ruined and destroyed, and lied,

-and lied....' The good-natured sluggard Oblomov degenerated into a

-disgusting, terrible animal, while the clean Stolz lived and remained

-clean in his posterity! But to the new Oblomov he speaks differently.

-Von Koren calls Layevsky a scoundrel and a rogue, and demands that

-he should be punished with the utmost severity. To reconcile them is

-impossible. The more they meet, the deeper, the more merciless, the

-more implacable is their hatred for each other. It is impossible that

-they should live together on the earth. It must be one or the other:

-either the normal Von Koren, or the degenerate decadent Layevsky.

-Of course, all the external, material force is on Von Koren's side

-in the struggle. He is always in the right, always victorious,

-always triumphant&mdash;in act no less than in theory. It is curious that

-Tchekhov, the irreconcilable enemy of all kinds of philosophy&mdash;not

-one of his heroes philosophises, or if he does, his philosophising is

-unsuccessful, ridiculous, weak and unconvincing&mdash;makes an exception

-for Von Koren, a typical representative of the positive, materialistic

-school. His words breathe vigour and conviction. They have in them even

-pathos and a maximum of logical sequence. There are many materialist

-heroes in Tchekhov's stories, but in their materialism there is a

-tinge of veiled idealism, according to the stereotyped prescription of

-the 'sixties. Such heroes Tchekhov ridicules and derides. Idealism of

-every kind, whether open or concealed, roused feelings of intolerable

-bitterness in Tchekhov. He found it more pleasant to listen to the

-merciless menaces of a downright materialist than to accept the

-dry-as-dust consolations of humanising idealism. An invincible power

-is in the world, crushing and crippling man&mdash;this is clear and even

-palpable. The least indiscretion, and the mightiest and the most

-insignificant alike fall victims to it. One can only deceive oneself

-about it so long as one knows of it only by hearsay. But the man who

-had once been in the iron claws of necessity loses for ever his taste

-for idealistic self-delusion. No more does he diminish the enemy's

-power, he will rather exaggerate it. And the pure logical materialism

-which Von Koren professes gives the most complete expression of our

-dependence upon the elemental powers of nature. Von Koren's speech

-has the stroke of a hammer, and each blow strikes not Layevsky but

-Tchekhov himself on his wounds. He gives more and more strength to

-Von Koren's arm, he puts himself in the way of his blows. For what

-reason? Decide as you may. Perhaps Tchekhov cherished a secret hope

-that self-inflicted torment might be the one road to a new life? He

-has not told us so. Perhaps he did not know the reason himself, and

-perhaps he was afraid to offend the positive idealism which held such

-undisputed sway over contemporary literature. As yet he dared not

-lift up his voice against the public opinion of Europe&mdash;for we do not

-ourselves invent our philosophical conceptions; they drift down on the

-wind from Europe! And, to avoid quarrelling with people, he devised

-a commonplace, happy ending for his terrible story. At the end of

-the story Layevsky 'reforms': he marries his mistress; gives up his

-dissolute life; and begins to devote himself to transcribing documents,

-in order to pay his debts. Normal people can be perfectly satisfied,

-since normal people read only the last lines of the fable,&mdash;the moral;

-and the moral of <i>The Duel</i> is most wholesome: Layevsky reforms and

-begins transcribing documents. Of course it may seem that such an

-ending is more like a gibe at morality; but normal people are not too

-penetrating psychologists. They are scared of double meanings and, with

-the 'sincerity' peculiar to themselves, they take every word of the

-writer for good coin. Good luck to them!</p>

-

-

-<hr />

-<h4>VII</h4>

-

-

-<p>The only philosophy which Tchekhov took seriously, and therefore

-seriously fought, was positivist materialism&mdash;just the positivist

-materialism, the limited materialism which does not pretend to

-theoretical completeness. With all his soul Tchekhov felt the awful

-dependence of a living being upon the invisible but invincible and

-ostentatiously soulless laws of nature. And materialism, above all

-scientific materialism, which is reserved and does not hasten in

-pursuit of the final word, and eschews logical completeness, wholly

-reduces to the definition of the external conditions of our existence.

-The experience of every day, every hour, every minute, convinces us

-that lonely and weak man brought to face with the laws of nature,

-must always adapt himself and give way, give way, give way. The old

-professor could not regain his youth; the overstrained Ivanov could

-not recover his strength; Layevsky could not wash away the filth

-with which he was covered&mdash;interminable series of implacable, purely

-materialistic <i>non possumus,</i> against which human genius can set

-nothing but submission or forgetfulness. <i>Résigne-toi, mon cœur,

-dors ton sommeil de brute</i>&mdash;we shall find no other words before

-the pictures which are unfolded in Tchekhov's books. The submission

-is but an outward show; under it lies concealed a hard, malignant

-hatred of the unknown enemy. Sleep and oblivion are only seeming.

-Does a man sleep, does he forget, when he calls his sleep, <i>sommeil

-de brute</i>? But how can he change? The tempestuous protests with which

-<i>The Tedious Story</i> is filled, the need to pour forth the pent-up

-indignation, soon begin to appear useless, and even insulting to

-human dignity. Tchekhov's last rebellious work is <i>Uncle Vanya.</i> Like

-the old professor and like Ivanov, Uncle Vanya raises the alarm and

-makes an incredible pother about his ruined life. He, too, in a voice

-not his own, fills the stage with his cries: 'Life is over, life

-is over,'&mdash;as though indeed any of these about him, any one in the

-whole world, could be responsible for his misfortune. But wailing and

-lamentation is not sufficient for him. He covers his own mother with

-insults. Aimlessly, like a lunatic, without need or purpose, he begins

-shooting at his imaginary enemy, Sonya's pitiable and unhappy father.

-His voice is not enough, he turns to the revolver. He is ready to fire

-all the cannon on earth, to beat every drum, to ring every bell. To

-him it seems that the whole of mankind, the whole of the universe, is

-sleeping, that the neighbours must be awakened. He is prepared for

-any extravagance, having no rational way of escape; for to confess at

-once that there is no escape is beyond the capacity of any man. Then

-begins a Tchekhov history: 'He cannot reconcile himself, neither can

-he refuse so to reconcile himself. He can only weep and beat his head

-against the wall.' Uncle Vanya does it openly, before men's eyes; but

-how painful to him is the memory of this frank unreserve! When every

-one has departed after a stupid and painful scene, Uncle Vanya realises

-that he should have kept silence, that it is no use to confess certain

-things to any one, not even to one's nearest friend. A stranger's eye

-cannot endure the sight of hopelessness. 'Your life is over&mdash;you have

-yourself to thank for it: you are a human being no more, all human

-things are ah en to you. Your neighbours are no more neighbours to you,

-but strangers. You have no right either to help others or to expect

-help from them. Your destiny is&mdash;absolute loneliness.' Little by little

-Tchekhov becomes convinced of this truth: <i>Uncle Vanya</i> is the last

-trial of loud public protest, of a vigorous 'declaration of rights.'

-And even in this drama Uncle Vanya is the only one to rage, although

-there are among the characters Doctor Astrov and poor Sonya, who might

-also avail themselves of their right to rage, and even to fire the

-cannon. But they are silent. They even repeat certain comfortable and

-angelic words concerning the happy future of mankind; which is to say

-that their silence is doubly deep, seeing that 'comfortable words' upon

-the lips of such people are the evidence of their final severance from

-life: they have left the whole world, and now they admit no one to

-their presence. They have fenced themselves with comfortable words, as

-with the Great Wall of China, from the curiosity and attention of their

-neighbours. Outwardly they resemble all men, therefore no man dares to

-touch their inward life.</p>

-

-<p>What is the meaning and significance of this straining inward labour

-in those whose lives are over? Probably Tchekhov would answer this

-question as Nicolai Stepanovich answered Katy's, with 'I do not

-know.' He would add nothing. But this life alone, more like to death

-than life, attracted and engaged him. Therefore his utterance grew

-softer and slower with every year. Of all our writers Tchekhov has

-the softest voice. All the energy of his heroes is turned inwards.

-They create nothing visible; worse, they destroy all things visible

-by their outward passivity and inertia. A 'positive thinker' like Von

-Koren brands them with terrible words, and the more content is he with

-himself and his justice, the more energy he puts into his anathemas.

-'Scoundrels, villains, degenerates, degraded animals!'&mdash;what did Von

-Koren not devise to fit the Layevskys? The manifestly positive thinker

-wants to force Layevsky to transcribe documents. The surreptitiously

-positive thinkers&mdash;idealists and metaphysicians&mdash;do not use abusive

-words. Instead they bury Tchekhov's nerves alive in their idealistic

-cemeteries, which are called conceptions of the world. Tchekhov himself

-abstains from the 'solution of the question' with a persistency to

-which most of the critics probably wished a better fate, and he

-continues his long stories of men and the life of men, who have nothing

-to lose, as though the only interest in life were this nightmare

-suspension between life and death. What does it teach us of life or

-death? Again we must answer: 'I do not know,'&mdash;those words which

-arouse the greatest aversion in positive thinkers, but appear in some

-mysterious way to be the permanent elements in the ideas of Tchekhov's

-people. This is the reason why the philosophy of materialism, though

-so hostile, is yet so near to them. It contains no answer which can

-compel man to cheerful submission. It bruises and destroys him, but

-it does not call itself rational; it does not demand gratitude; it

-does not demand anything, since it has neither soul nor speech. A

-man may acknowledge it and hate it. If he manages to get square with

-it&mdash;he is right; if he fails&mdash;<i>vae victis.</i> How comfortably sounds

-the voice of the unconcealed ruthlessness of inanimate, impersonal,

-indifferent nature, compared with the hypocritical and cloying melodies

-of idealistic, humanistic conceptions of the world! Then again&mdash;and

-this is the chiefest thing of all&mdash;men can struggle with nature still!

-And in the struggle with nature every weapon is lawful. In the struggle

-with nature man always remains man, and, therefore, right, whatever

-means he tries for his salvation, even if he were to refuse to accept

-the fundamental principle of the world's being&mdash;the indestructibility

-of matter and energy, the law of inertia and the rest&mdash;since who will

-dispute that the most colossal dead force must be subservient to

-man? But a conception of the world is an utterly different affair!

-Before uttering a word it puts forward an irreducible demand: man must

-serve the idea. And this demand is considered not merely as something

-understood, but as of extraordinary sublimity. Is it strange then

-that in the choice between idealism and materialism Tchekhov inclined

-to the latter&mdash;the strong but honest adversary? With idealism a man

-can struggle only by contempt, and Tchekhov's works leave nothing

-to be desired in this respect.... But how shall a man struggle with

-materialism? And can it be overcome? Perhaps Tchekhov's method may

-seem strange to my reader, nevertheless it is clear that he came to

-the conclusion that there was only one way to struggle, to which the

-prophets of old turned themselves: to beat one's head against the wall.

-Without thunder or cannon or alarm, in loneliness and silence, remote

-from their fellows and their fellows' fellows, to gather all the forces

-of despair for an absurd attempt long since condemned by science.

-Have you any right to expect from Tchekhov an approval of scientific

-methods? Science has robbed him of everything: he is condemned to

-create from the void, to an activity of which a normal man, using

-normal means, is utterly incapable. To achieve the impossible one must

-first leave the road of routine. However obstinately we may pursue

-our scientific quests, they will not lead us to the elixir of life.

-Science began with casting away the longing for human omnipotence as in

-principle unattainable: her methods are such that success along certain

-of her paths preclude even seeking along others. In other words,

-scientific method is defined by the character of the problems which

-she puts to herself. Indeed, not one of her problems can be solved by

-beating one's head against the wall. But this method, old-fashioned

-though it is&mdash;I repeat, it was known to the prophets and used by

-them&mdash;promised more to Tchekhov and his nerves than all inductions and

-deductions (which were not invented by science, but have existed since

-the beginning of the world). This prompts a man with some mysterious

-instinct, and appears upon the scene whenever the need of it arises.

-Science condemns it. But that is nothing strange: it condemns science.</p>

-

-

-<hr />

-<h4>VIII</h4>

-

-

-<p>Now perhaps the further development and direction of Tchekhov's

-creation will be intelligible, and that peculiar and unique blend

-in him of sober materialism and fanatical stubbornness in seeking

-new paths, always round about and hazardous. Like Hamlet, he would

-dig beneath his opponent a mine one yard deeper, so that he may

-at one moment blow engineer and engine into the air. His patience

-and fortitude in this hard, underground toil are amazing and to

-many intolerable. Everywhere is darkness, not a ray, not a spark,

-but Tchekhov goes forward, slowly, hardly, hardly moving.... An

-inexperienced or impatient eye will perhaps observe no movement at all.

-It may be Tchekhov himself does not know for certain whether he is

-moving forward or marking time. To calculate beforehand is impossible.

-Impossible even to hope. Man has entered that stage of his existence

-wherein the cheerful and foreseeing mind refuses its service. It is

-impossible for him to present to himself a clear and distinct notion of

-what is going on. Everything takes on a tinge of fantastical absurdity.

-One believes and disbelieves&mdash;everything. In <i>The Black Monk</i> Tchekhov

-tells of a new reality, and in a tone which suggests that he is himself

-at a loss to say where the reality ends and the phantasmagoria begins.

-The black monk leads the young scholar into some mysterious remoteness,

-where the best dreams of mankind shall be realised. The people about

-call the monk a hallucination and fight him with medicines&mdash;drugs,

-better foods and milk. Kovrin himself does not know who is right. When

-he is speaking to the monk, it seems to him that the monk is right;

-when he sees before him his weeping wife and the serious, anxious

-faces of the doctors, he confesses that he is under the influence of

-fixed ideas, which lead him straight to lunacy. Finally the black

-monk is victorious. Kovrin has not the power to support the banality

-which surrounds him; he breaks with his wife and her relations, who

-appear like inquisitors in his eyes, and goes away somewhere&mdash;but in

-our sight he arrives nowhere. At the end of the story he dies in order

-to give the author the right to make an end. This is always the case:

-when the author does not know what to do with his hero he kills him.

-Sooner or later in all probability this habit will be abandoned. In

-the future, probably, writers will convince themselves and the public

-that any kind of artificial completion is absolutely superfluous.

-The matter is exhausted&mdash;stop the tale short, even though it be on

-a half-word. Tchekhov did so sometimes, but only sometimes. In most

-cases he preferred to satisfy the traditional demands and to supply his

-readers with an end. This habit is not so unimportant as at first sight

-it may seem. Consider even <i>The Black Monk.</i> The death of the hero is

-as it were an indication that abnormality must, in Tchekhov's opinion,

-necessarily lead through an absurd life to an absurd death: but this

-was hardly Tchekhov's firm conviction. It is clear that he expected

-something from abnormality, and therefore gave no deep attention to

-men who had left the common track. True, he came to no firm or definite

-conclusions, for all the tense effort of his creation. He became so

-firmly convinced that there was no issue from the entangled labyrinth,

-that the labyrinth with its infinite wanderings, its perpetual

-hesitations and strayings, its uncaused griefs and joys uncaused&mdash;in

-brief, all things which normal men so fear and shun&mdash;became the very

-essence of his life. Of this and this alone must a man tell. Not of our

-invention is normal life, nor abnormal. Why then should the first alone

-be considered as the real reality?</p>

-

-<p><i>The Sea-Gull</i> must be considered one of the most characteristic, and

-therefore one of the most remarkable of Tchekhov's works. Therein the

-artist's true attitude to life received its most complete expression.

-Here all the characters are either blind, and afraid to move from

-their seats in case they lose the way home, or half-mad, struggling

-and tossing about to no end nor purpose. Arkadzina the famous actress

-clings with her teeth to her seventy thousand roubles, her fame, and

-her last lover. Tregovin the famous writer writes day in, day out;

-he writes and writes, knowing neither end nor aim. People read his

-works and praise them, but he is not his own master; like Marko, the

-ferryman in the tale, he labours on without taking his hand from the

-oar, carrying passengers from one bank to the other. The boat, the

-passengers, and the river too, bore him to death. But how can he get

-rid of them? He might give the oars over to the first-comer: the

-solution is simple, but after it, as in the tale, he must go to heaven.

-Not Tregovin alone, but all the people in Tchekhov's books who are

-no longer young remind one of Marko the ferryman. It is plain that

-they dislike their work, but, exactly as though they were hypnotised,

-they cannot break away from the influence of the alien power. The

-monotonous, even dismal, rhythm of life has lulled their consciousness

-and will to sleep. Everywhere Tchekhov underlines this strange and

-mysterious trait of human life. His people always speak, always think,

-always do one and the same thing. One builds houses according to a plan

-made once for all (<i>My Life</i>); another goes on his round of visits

-from morn to night, collecting roubles (<i>Yonitch</i>); a third is always

-buying up houses (<i>Three Years</i>). Even the language of his characters

-is deliberately monotonous. They are all monotonous, to the point of

-stupidity, and they are all afraid to break the monotony, as though it

-were the source of extraordinary joys. Read Tregovin's monologue:</p>

-

-<p>'... Let us talk.... Let us talk of my beautiful life.... What shall

-I begin with? [Musing a little.] ... There are such things as fixed

-ideas, when a person thinks day and night, for instance, of the moon,

-always of the moon. I too have my moon. Day and night I am at the

-mercy of one besetting idea: "I must write, I must write, I must." I

-have hardly finished one story than, for some reason or other, I must

-write a second, then a third, and after the third, a fourth. I write

-incessantly, post-haste. I cannot do otherwise. Where then, I ask you,

-is beauty and serenity? What a monstrous life it is! I am sitting with

-you now, I am excited, but meanwhile every second I remember that

-an unfinished story is waiting for me. I see a cloud, like a grand

-piano. It smells of heliotrope. I say to myself: a sickly smell, a

-half-mourning colour.... I must not forget to use these words when

-describing a summer evening. I catch up myself and you on every phrase,

-on every word, and hurry to lock all these words and phrases into my

-literary storehouse. Perhaps they will be useful. When I finish work

-I run to the theatre, or go off fishing: at last I shall rest, forget

-myself. But no! a heavy ball of iron is dragging on my fetters,&mdash;a new

-subject, which draws me to the desk, and I must make haste to write and

-write again. And so on for ever, for ever. I have no rest from myself,

-and I feel that I am eating away my own life. I feel that the honey

-which I give to others has been made of the pollen of my most precious

-flowers, that I have plucked the flowers themselves and trampled them

-down to the roots. Surely, I am mad. Do my neighbours and friends treat

-me as a sane person? "What are you writing? What have you got ready

-for us?" The same thing, the same thing eternally, and it seems to me

-that the attention, the praise, the enthusiasm of my friends is all

-a fraud. I am being robbed like a sick man, and sometimes I am afraid

-that they will creep up to me and seize me, and put me away in an

-asylum.'</p>

-

-<p>But why these torments? Throw up the oars and begin a new life.

-<i>Impossible.</i> While no answer comes down from heaven, Tregovin will

-not throw up the oars, will not begin a new life. In Tchekhov's work,

-only young, very young and inexperienced people speak of a new life.

-They are always dreaming of happiness, regeneration, light, joy. They

-fly head-long into the flame, and are burned like silly butterflies.

-In <i>The Sea-Gull,</i> Nina Zaryechnaya and Trepliev, in other works other

-heroes, men and women alike&mdash;all are seeking for something, yearning

-for something, but not one of them does that which he desires. Each

-one lives in isolation; each is wholly absorbed in his life, and is

-indifferent to the lives of others. And the strange fate of Tchekhov's

-heroes is that they strain to the last limit of their inward powers,

-but there are no visible results at all. They are all pitiable.

-The woman takes snuff, dresses slovenly, wears her hair loose, is

-uninteresting. The man is irritable, grumbling, takes to drink, bores

-every one about him. They act, they speak&mdash;always out of season.

-They cannot, I would even say they do not want to, adapt the outer

-world to themselves. Matter and energy unite according to their own

-laws;&mdash;people live according to their own, as though matter and energy

-had no existence at all. In this Tchekhov's intellectuals do not differ

-from illiterate peasants and the half-educated bourgeois. Life in the

-manor is the same as in the valley farm, the same as in the village.

-Not one believes that by changing his outward conditions he would

-change his fate as well. Everywhere reigns an unconscious but deep and

-ineradicable conviction that our will must be directed towards ends

-which have nothing in common with the organised life of mankind. Worse

-still, the organisation appears to be the enemy of the will and of man.

-One must spoil, devour, destroy, ruin. To think out things quietly, to

-anticipate the future&mdash;that is impossible. One must beat one's head,

-beat one's head eternally against the wall. And to what purpose? Is

-there any purpose at all? Is it a beginning or an end? Is it possible

-to see in it the warrant of a new and inhuman creation, a creation out

-of the void? 'I do not know' was the old professor's answer to Katy.

-'I do not know' was Tchekhov's answer to the sobs of those tormented

-unto death. With these words, and only these, can an essay upon

-Tchekhov end. <i>Résigne-toi, mon cœur, dors ton sommeil de brute.</i></p>

-

-

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-<h4><a name="THE_GIFT_OF_PROPHECY" id="THE_GIFT_OF_PROPHECY">THE GIFT OF PROPHECY</a></h4>

-

-

-<h4>(For the twenty-fifth anniversary of F. M. Dostoevsky's death.)</h4>

-

-<hr class="r5" />

-

-<h4>I</h4>

-

-

-<p>Vladimir Soloviev used to call Dostoevsky 'the prophet,' and even

-'the prophet of God.' Immediately after Soloviev, though often in

-complete independence of him, very many people looked upon Dostoevsky

-as the man to whom the books of human destiny were opened; and this

-happened not only after his death, but even while he was yet alive.

-Apparently Dostoevsky himself too, if he did not regard himself as a

-prophet&mdash;he was too eagle-eyed for that&mdash;at least thought it right

-that all people should see a prophet in him. To this bears witness

-the tone of <i>The Journal of an Author,</i> no less than the questions

-upon which he generally touches therein. <i>The Journal of an Author</i>

-began to appear in 1873, that is on Dostoevsky's return from abroad,

-and therefore coincides with what his biographers call 'the highest

-period of his life.' Dostoevsky was then the happy father of a family,

-a man of secure position, a famous writer, the author of a whole

-series of novels known to all: <i>The House of the Dead, The Idiot, The

-Possessed.</i> He has everything which can be required <i>from</i> life, or,

-more truly, he has taken everything which can be taken from life. You

-remember Tolstoi's deliberations in his <i>Confession</i>? 'Finally, I shall

-be as famous as Pushkin, Gogol, Goethe and Shakespeare&mdash;and what shall

-come after?' Indeed, it is difficult to become a more famous writer

-than Shakespeare; and even if one succeeded, the inevitable question,

-'And what shall come after?' would by no means be removed. Sooner or

-later in the activity of a great writer a moment comes when further

-perfection seems impossible. How shall a man be greater than himself

-in the world of literature? If he would move, then by his own will or

-in spite of it he must step on to another plane. And this is plainly

-the beginning of prophecy in a writer. In the general view the prophet

-is greater than the writer; and even the possession of genius is not

-always a guarantee against the general view. Even men so sceptical as

-Tolstoi and Dostoevsky, men always ready to doubt everything, more than

-once were the victims of prejudices. Prophetic words were expected

-of them, and they went out to meet men's desires, Dostoevsky even

-more readily than Tolstoi. Moreover both prophesied clumsily: they

-promised one thing, and something wholly different happened. So Tolstoi

-promised long ago that men would awake to their error soon and would

-put away from them fratricidal war, and would begin to live as true

-Christians should, fulfilling the Gospel commandment of love. Tolstoi

-prophesied and preached; people read him, as, it seems, they read no

-other writer: but they have not changed their habits nor their tastes.

-For the last ten years Tolstoi has perforce been a witness of a whole

-series of horrible and most savage wars. And now there is our present

-revolution<a name="FNanchor_1_2" id="FNanchor_1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_2" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>&mdash;armed mobs rioting, the gallows set up, men shot down,

-bombs&mdash;the revolution which came to replace the bloody war in the Far

-East!</p>

-

-<p>And this is in Russia, where Tolstoi was born, lived, taught and

-prophesied, where millions of people sincerely hold him to be the

-greatest genius of all! Even in his own family Tolstoi could not

-effect the change that he desired. One of his sons is an officer

-in the army; the other writes in the <i>Novoïe Vremya,</i> as though he

-were Souvorin's<a name="FNanchor_2_3" id="FNanchor_2_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_3" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> son, not Tolstoi's.... Where, then, is the gift

-of prophecy? Why is it that a man so great as Tolstoi can foresee

-nothing, and seems to peer his way through life? 'What will to-morrow

-bring forth?' 'To-morrow I'll work miracles,' said the magician to

-the Russian prince of old. For reply the prince drew his sword and

-struck off the magician's head; and the excited mob, which believed in

-the magician-prophet, became calm and departed home. History is ever

-striking off the heads of prophetic predictions, and yet the crowd

-still runs after the prophets. Of little faith, the crowd looks for

-a sign, because it desires a miracle. But can the ability to predict

-be accounted as evidence of the power to work miracles? It is possible

-to predict an eclipse of the sun or the appearance of a comet, but

-this surely means a miracle only to the ignorant. An enlightened mind

-is secure in the knowledge that where prediction is possible, there

-is no miracle, since the possibility of prediction and of foreseeing

-presupposes a strict uniformity. Therefore not he will appear a prophet

-who has great spiritual gifts, nor he who desires to dominate the world

-and to command the very laws, neither the magician, nor the sorcerer,

-nor the artist, but he who, having yielded himself beforehand to the

-actual and its laws, has devoted himself to the mechanical labour of

-record and calculation. Bismarck could foretell the greatness of Russia

-and Germany; and not only Bismarck, but an ordinary German politician,

-for whom everything is reduced to <i>Deutschland, Deutschland über

-alles,</i> could read the future for many years ahead; yet Dostoevsky and

-Tolstoi could foresee nothing. In Dostoevsky the failure is still more

-remarkable than in Tolstoi, because he more often attempted prediction:

-more than half of his <i>Journal</i> consists in unfulfilled prophecies. So

-often did he commit his prophetic genius.</p>

-

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a name="Footnote_1_2" id="Footnote_1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_2"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> This essay was written during the revolution of 1905.</p></div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a name="Footnote_2_3" id="Footnote_2_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_3"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> The famous editor of the <i>Novoïe Vremya.</i></p></div>

-

-

-<hr />

-<h4>II</h4>

-

-

-<p>To some it may perhaps seem out of place that in an article devoted to

-the twenty-fifth anniversary of the writer's death, I call to mind his

-mistakes and errors. The reproach is hardly just. A certain kind of

-defect in a great man is at least as characteristic and important as

-his qualities.</p>

-

-<p>Dostoevsky was not a Bismarck. But is that so terrible that we must

-lament it? Moreover, for writers of the type of Tolstoi and Dostoevsky,

-their social and political ideas are without any value. They know well

-that no one obeys them. Whatever they may say, history and political

-life will go on in the same way, since it is not their books and

-articles which guide events. And, probably, here is the explanation

-of the amazing boldness of their opinions. If Tolstoi really imagined

-that it would be enough for him to write an article demanding that

-all 'soldiers, policemen, judges, ministers' and the rest, all those

-guardians of the public peace, whom he detested&mdash;and, by the way, who

-loves them?&mdash;should be dismissed, for all prison-doors to be flung

-wide before the murderers and robbers&mdash;who can tell whether he would

-have shown himself sufficiently firm and resolute in his opinions, to

-take upon himself the responsibility for the effects of the measures

-which he proposed? But he knows beyond all doubt that he will not be

-obeyed, and therefore he calmly preaches anarchy. Dostoevsky's part as

-a preacher was quite different; but it too was, so to speak, platonic.

-Probably it came as a surprise even to himself, that he became the

-prophet, not of 'ideal' politics, but of those most realistic tasks

-which governments always set themselves in countries where a few men

-direct the destinies of peoples. Listening to Dostoevsky, one may

-imagine that he is discovering ideas which the government must take

-for its guidance and set itself to realise. But you will soon convince

-yourself that Dostoevsky did not discover one single original political

-idea. Everything of the kind that he possessed he had borrowed without

-examination from the Slavophiles, who in their turn appeared original

-only to the extent to which they were able without outside assistance

-to translate from the German and the French: <i>Russland, Russland

-über alles.</i> (Even the rhythm of the verse is not affected by the

-substitution of the one word.) But what is most important is, that

-the Slavophiles with their Russo-German glorification of nationality,

-and with them Dostoevsky who joined the chorus, have neither taught

-nor educated one single man among the ruling classes. Our government

-knew all that it needed to know by itself, without the Slavophiles

-and without Dostoevsky. From time immemorial it had gone its way by

-the road which the theorists so passionately praised: so that nothing

-was left to them but to eulogise those in power and to defend the

-policy of the Russian government against the public opinion which was

-hostile to it. Autocracy, Orthodoxy, Nationality&mdash;all these were held

-so firmly in Russia that in the 'seventies when Dostoevsky began to

-preach they needed no support whatever. And surely every one knows that

-power never seriously reckons upon the help of literature. Certainly it

-requires that the Muses should pay tribute to it with the others, nobly

-formulating its demands in the words: <i>Blessed be the union of the

-sword and the lyre.</i> It used to happen that the Muses did not refuse

-the request, sometimes sincerely, sometimes because, as Heine said, it

-is particularly disagreeable to wear iron chains in Russia, on account

-of the heavy frosts. In any case the Muses were only allowed to sing

-the praises of the sword, but by no means to wield it. There are all

-kinds of unions. And here again Dostoevsky, for all his independent

-nature, still appeared in the rôle of a prophet of the Russian

-government: that is, he divined the secret devices of the powers

-that were, and in this connection then recalled all the 'high and

-beautiful' words which he had managed to hoard up in the course of his

-long wanderings. For instance, the government began to cast covetous

-glances towards the East (at that time the Near East still); Dostoevsky

-begins to argue that we must have Constantinople, and to prophesy that

-Constantinople will soon be ours. His 'argument' is, of course, of a

-purely 'moral character,' and, sure enough, he is a writer. Only from

-Constantinople, he says, can we make avail the purely Russian ideal

-of embracing all humanity. Of course our government, though indeed

-we had no Bismarcks, perfectly well understood the value of moral

-argument and of prophecy based upon them, and would have preferred a

-few well-equipped divisions and improved guns. To realist politicians

-one single soldier, armed not with a gun but with a blunderbuss, is

-of more importance than the sublimest conception of moral philosophy.

-But still they do not drive away the humble prophet, if the prophet

-knows his place. Dostoevsky accepted the rôle, since it gave him still

-the opportunity of displaying his refractory nature in the struggle

-with Liberal literature. He sang paeans, made protests, uttered

-absurdities&mdash;and worse than absurdities. For instance, he counselled

-all the Slav peoples to unite under the aegis of Russia, assuring

-them that only thus would full independence be guaranteed them, and

-the right of shaping themselves by their own culture, and so on&mdash;and

-that in the face of the millions of Polish Slavs living in Russia. Or

-again, the <i>Moscow Gazette</i> gives its opinion that it would be well

-for the Crimean Tartars to emigrate to Turkey, since it would then be

-possible for Russians to settle in the peninsula. Dostoevsky catches up

-this original idea with enthusiasm. 'Indeed,' he says, 'on political

-and state and similar considerations'&mdash;I do not know how it is with

-other people, but when I hear such words as 'state' and 'political'

-on Dostoevsky's lips, I cannot help smiling' it is necessary to expel

-the Tartars and to settle Russians on their lands.' When the <i>Moscow

-Gazette</i> projects such a measure, it is intelligible. But Dostoevsky!

-Dostoevsky who called himself a Christian, who so passionately preaches

-love to one's neighbour, self-abasement, self-renunciation, who taught

-that Russia must 'serve the nations'&mdash;how could he be taken with an

-idea so rapacious? And indeed almost all his political ideas have the

-mark of rapacity upon them: to grab and grab, and still to grab....

-As the occasion demands, he now expresses the hope that we may have

-Germany's friendship, and again threatens her; now he argues that we

-have need of England, and again he asserts that we could do without

-her,&mdash;just like a leader-writer in a <i>bien-pensant</i> provincial paper.

-One thing alone makes itself felt among all these ludicrous and

-eternally contradictory assertions,&mdash;Dostoevsky understands nothing,

-absolutely nothing, about politics, and moreover, he has nothing at all

-to do with politics. He is forced to go in tow of others who, compared

-with him, are utter nonentities, and he goes. Even his ambition&mdash;and he

-had a colossal ambition, an ambition unique in its kind, as befitted

-a universal man&mdash;suffers not one whit: chiefly because men expected

-prophecy from him, because the next title to that of a great writer is

-that of a prophet, and because a ring of conviction and a loud voice

-are the signs of the prophetic gift. Dostoevsky could speak aloud: he

-could also speak with the tone of one who knows secrets, and of one

-with authority. One learns much in the underworld. All these things

-served him. Men took the poet-laureate of the existing order for the

-inspirer of thoughts and the governor of Russia's remotest destinies.

-It was enough for Dostoevsky. It was even necessary for Dostoevsky. He

-knew of course that he was no prophet; but he knew that there had never

-been one on earth, and that those who were prophets had no better right

-to the title than he.</p>

-

-

-<hr />

-<h4>III</h4>

-

-

-<p>I will permit myself to remind the reader of Tolstoi's letter to his

-son, lately published by the latter in the newspapers. It is very

-interesting. Once more, not from the standpoint of the practical man

-who has to decide the questions of the day&mdash;from this standpoint

-Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, and their similars are quite useless&mdash;but man does

-not live by bread alone.</p>

-

-<p>Even now in the terrible days through which we have to live, now, if

-you will, more than ever before, one cannot read newspapers alone, nor

-think only of the awful surprises which to-morrow prepares for us. To

-every one is left an hour of leisure between the reading of newspapers

-and party programmes, if it be not an hour in the day when the noise

-of events and the pressure of immediate work distracts, then an hour

-in the deep night, when everything that was possible has been already

-done, and everything that was required has been said. Then come flying

-in the old thoughts and questions, frightened away by business, and

-for the thousandth time one returns to the mystery of human genius and

-human greatness. Where and how far can genius know and accomplish more

-than ordinary men?</p>

-

-<p>Then Tolstoi's letter, which during the day aroused only anger and

-indignation,&mdash;is it not outrageous and revolting, think some, that

-in the great collision of forces which contend with one another in

-Russia, Tolstoi cannot distinguish the right force from the wrong, but

-stigmatises all the struggling combatants by the one name of ungodly?

-During the day, I say, it is surely outrageous: in the daytime we would

-like Tolstoi to be with us and for us, because we are convinced that

-we and we alone are seeking the truth,&mdash;nay, that we know the truth,

-while our enemies are defending evil and falsehood, whether in malice

-or in ignorance. But this is during the day. In the night-time, things

-are changed. One remembers that Goethe also overlooked, simply did not

-notice, the great French Revolution. True, he was a German who lived

-far from Paris, while Tolstoi lives close to Moscow, where men, women,

-and children have been shot, cut down, and burnt alive. Moreover,

-there is no doubt that Tolstoi has overlooked not merely Moscow, but

-everything that went before Moscow. What is happening now does not seem

-to him important or extraordinary. For him only that is important to

-which he, Tolstoi, has set his hand: all that occurs outside and beside

-him, for him has no existence. This is the great prerogative of great

-men. And sometimes it seems to me&mdash;perhaps it is only that I would have

-it seem so&mdash;as though there were in that prerogative a deep and hidden

-meaning.</p>

-

-<p>When we have no more strength in us to listen to the endless tales

-of horrible atrocities which have already been committed, and to

-anticipate in imagination all that the future holds in store for us,

-then we recall Tolstoi and his indifference. It is not in our human

-power to return the murdered fathers and mothers to the children nor

-the children to their fathers and mothers. Nor stands it even in our

-power to revenge ourselves upon the murderers, nor will vengeance

-reconcile every one to his loss. And we try no longer to think with

-logic, and to seek a justification of the horrors there where there is

-and can be none. What if we ask ourselves whether Tolstoi and Goethe

-did not sec the Revolution and did not suffer its pain, only because

-they saw something else, something, it may even be, more necessary and

-important? Maybe there are indeed more things in heaven and earth than

-are dreamed of in our philosophy.</p>

-

-<p>Now we may return to Dostoevsky and his 'ideas'; we may call them

-fearlessly by the names which they deserve, for though Dostoevsky is

-a writer of genius, this does not mean that we must forget our daily

-needs. The night and the day have each their rights. Dostoevsky wanted

-to be a prophet, he wanted people to listen to him and cry 'Hosanna!'

-because, I say again, he thought that if men had ever cried 'Hosanna!'

-to any one, then there was no reason why he, Dostoevsky, should be

-denied the honour. That is the reason why in the 'seventies he made his

-appearance in the new rôle of a preacher of Christianity, and not of

-Christianity merely, but of orthodoxy.</p>

-

-<p>Again, I would draw attention to the far from accidental circumstances

-that his preaching coincided with the 'serenest' period of his life. He

-who had in time past been a homeless wanderer, a poor man who had not

-where to lay his head, had provided himself with a family and a house

-of his own, even with money (for his wife was saving). The failure

-had become a celebrity; the convict a full citizen. The underworld,

-where-into his fate had but lately driven him, it might seem for ever,

-now appeared to him a phantasmagoria which never had been real. In the

-galleys and the underworld had been born within him a great hunger for

-God which lived long; there he fought a great fight, the fight of life

-against death; there for the first time were made the new and awful

-experiments which allied Dostoevsky with everything that is rebellious

-and restless on earth. What Dostoevsky wrote during the closing years

-of his life (not merely <i>The Journal of an Author,</i> but <i>The Brothers

-Karamazov</i> as well) has value only in so far as Dostoevsky's <i>past</i>

-is reflected therein. He made no new step onwards. As he was, so he

-remained, on the eve of a great truth. But in the old days that did

-not suffice him, he hungered for something beyond; but now he does not

-want to struggle, and he cannot explain to himself or to others what is

-really happening within him. He pretends to be struggling still, nay,

-more, he behaves as though he had won the final victory, and demands

-that his triumph should be acknowledged by public opinion. He loves to

-think that the night is already past and the actual day begun: and the

-galleys and the underworld, reminding him that the day is not yet, are

-no more. All the evidences of a complete illusion of victory seem to

-be there&mdash;let him only choose the text and preach! Dostoevsky clutched

-at orthodoxy. Why not Christianity? Because Christianity is not for

-him who has a house, a family, money, fame, and a father-land. Christ

-said: 'Let him leave all that he hath and follow me.' But Dostoevsky

-was afraid of solitude, he desired to be the prophet of modern, settled

-men to whom pure Christianity, unadapted to the needs of civilised

-existence in a governed state, is unfitted. How should a Christian

-seize Constantinople, drive out the Tartars from the Crimea, reduce

-all Slavs to the condition of the Poles, and the rest&mdash;for all the

-projects of Dostoevsky and the <i>Moscow Gazette</i> defy enumeration? So,

-before accepting the Gospel, he must explain it....</p>

-

-<p>However strange it may appear, it must be confessed that one cannot

-find in the whole of literature a single man who is prepared to accept

-the Gospel as a whole, without interpretation. One man wants to seize

-Constantinople according to the Gospel, another to justify the existing

-order, a third to exalt himself or to thrust down his enemy; and each

-considers it as his right to diminish from, or even to supplement,

-the text of Holy Writ. I have, of course, only those in view who

-acknowledge, at least in word, the divine origin of the New Testament;

-since he who sees in the Gospel only one of the more or less remarkable

-books of his library, naturally has the right to subject it to whatever

-critical operations he may choose.</p>

-

-<p>But here we have Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, and Vladimir Soloviev. It is

-generally believed, and the belief is particularly supported and

-developed by the most recent criticism, that Tolstoi alone rationalised

-Christianity, while Dostoevsky and Soloviev accepted it in all the

-fullness of its mysticism, denying reason the right to separate

-truth from falsehood in the Gospel. I consider this belief mistaken:

-for Dostoevsky and Soloviev were afraid to accept the Gospel as the

-fountain of knowledge, and relied much more upon their own reason and

-their experience of life than upon the words of Christ. But, if there

-was a man among us who, though but in part, took the risk of accepting

-the mysterious and obviously dangerous words of the Gospel precepts,

-that man was Leo Tolstoi. I will explain myself.</p>

-

-<p>We are told that Tolstoi made the attempt, in his works published

-abroad, to explain the miracles of the Gospel in a way intelligible

-to human reason. Dostoevsky and Soloviev, on the other hand, readily

-accepted the inexplicable. But generally the miracles of the Gospel

-attract the people who believe least, for it is impossible to repeat

-the miracles, and this being so, then it follows that a merely external

-faith is sufficient, a mere verbal assertion. A man says that he

-believes in miracles: 'his reputation as a religious man is made, both

-in his own mind and in others', and as for the rest of the Gospel,

-there remains 'interpretation.' Consider, for instance, the doctrine

-of non-resistance to evil. It need not be said that the doctrine of

-non-resistance is the most terrible, and the most irrational, and

-mysterious thing that we read in the Gospel. All our reasoning soul is

-indignant at the thought that full material freedom should be given

-to the murderer to accomplish his murderous acts. How can you allow a

-murderer to kill an innocent child before your very eyes, and yet not

-draw the sword? Who has the right to give that abominable precept?

-Soloviev<a name="FNanchor_3_4" id="FNanchor_3_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_4" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> and Dostoevsky alike repeat that question, the one in a

-disguised, the other in an open attack on Tolstoi. Yet since the

-Gospel plainly declares 'Resist not evil,' both of our believers in

-miracles have suddenly remembered reason and turned to its testimony,

-knowing that reason will naturally destroy any meaning whatever that

-may be in the precept. In other words, they repeat the question of

-the doubting Jews concerning Christ: 'Who is He that speaketh as one

-having authority?' God commanded Abraham that he should offer up his

-son. By his reason, his human reason, Abraham refused to acknowledge

-any intelligible meaning in the cruel command, but yet made ready to

-act according to the word of God and made no attempt to rid himself

-of the hard and inhuman obligation by cunning interpretation. But

-Dostoevsky and Soloviev refuse to fulfil Christ's demands so soon as

-they find no justification in the human reason. Yet they say that they

-believe that Lazarus was raised from the dead and that the man who

-was sick of a palsy was cured, and all the other miracles which are

-related by the Apostles. Why then does their belief end just at the

-point where it begins to place obligations upon them? Why the sudden

-recourse to reason, when we know exactly that Dostoevsky came to the

-Gospels only to be rid of the power of reason? But that was in the

-days of the underworld. Now the 'serene' period of his life has begun.

-But Soloviev, evidently, had never even known the underworld. Only

-Tolstoi boldly and resolutely tries to test the truth of the Christian

-teaching, not in his thoughts alone, but in part in his life also.

-From the human point of view it is mad to make no resistance to evil.

-He knows that every whit as well as Dostoevsky, Soloviev and the rest

-of his many opponents. But he is really seeking in the Gospels that

-divine madness, since human reason does not satisfy him. Tolstoi began

-to follow the Gospel in that clouded period of his life when he was

-haunted by the phantoms of Ivan Ilyich and Pozdnyshiev. Here belief in

-miracles, belief in the abstract, divorced from life, avails nothing.

-For belief's sake one must surrender all that is dearest&mdash;even a

-son&mdash;to the sacrifice. Who is He that spake as one having authority?

-We cannot now verify whether He did in truth raise Lazarus from the

-dead, or satisfy thousands with a few handfuls of loaves. But if we

-unhesitatingly perform His precepts, then we may discover whether He

-has given us the truth.... So it was with Tolstoi; and he turned to

-the Gospel which is the sole and original source of Christianity.

-But Dostoevsky turned to the Slavophiles and the teachings of their

-state-religion. Orthodoxy infallible, not Catholicism nor Protestantism

-nor even simple Christianity; and then, the original idea: <i>Russland,

-Russland über alles.</i> Tolstoi could prophesy nothing in history, but

-then, as if deliberately, he does not interfere with the historical

-life. For him our present reality does not exist: he concentrates

-himself wholly upon the riddle which God set Abraham. But Dostoevsky

-desired at all costs to prophesy, prophesied constantly and was

-constantly mistaken. We have not taken Constantinople, we have not

-united the Slavs, and even the Tartars still live in the Crimea. He

-terrified us by prophesying that Europe would be drenched in rivers

-of blood because of the warfare between the classes, while in Russia,

-thanks to our Russian ideal of universal humanity, not only would our

-internal problems be peacefully solved, but a new unheard-of word would

-still be found whereby we should save hapless Europe. A quarter of

-a century has passed. So far nothing has happened in Europe. But we

-are drowning ourselves, literally drowning ourselves, with blood. Not

-only is our alien population oppressed, Slav and non-Slav alike, but

-our own brother is tortured, the miserable starving Russian peasant

-who understands nothing at all. In Moscow, in the heart of Russia,

-women, children, and old men have been shot down. Where now is the

-Russian universal soul of which Dostoevsky prophesied in his speech on

-Pushkin? Where is love, where are the Christian precepts? We see only

-'Governmentalism,' over which the Western nations also fought; but they

-fought with means less cruel and less hostile to civilisation. Russia

-will again have to learn from the West as she had to learn more than

-once before. And Dostoevsky would have done far better had he never

-attempted to prophesy.</p>

-

-<p>But there is no great harm done even if he did prophesy. I am glad

-with all my heart even now that he rested a little while from the

-galleys at the end of his life. I am deeply convinced that even had he

-remained in the underworld until the day of his death, yet he would

-have found no solution of the questions which tormented him. However

-much energy of soul a man puts into his work, he will still remain 'on

-the eve' of truth, and will not find the solution he desires. That is

-the law of human kind. And Dostoevsky's preaching has done no harm.

-Those listened to him who, even without his voice, would have marched

-on Constantinople, oppressed the Poles, and made ready the sufferings

-which are necessary to the soul of the peasant. Though Dostoevsky gave

-them his sanction, on the whole he adds nothing to them. They had no

-need of literary sanction, quite correctly judging that in practical

-matters not the printed page, but bayonets and artillery are of

-deciding value.</p>

-

-<p>All that he had to tell, Dostoevsky told us in his novels, which even

-now, twenty-five years after his death, attract all those who would

-wrest from life her secrets. And the title of prophet, which he sought

-so diligently, considering that it was his by right, did not suit him

-at all. Prophets are Bismarcks, but they are Chancellors too. The

-first in the village is the first in Rome.... Is a Dostoevsky doomed

-eternally to be 'on the eve'? Let us once more try to reject logic,

-this time perhaps not logic alone, and say: 'So let it be.'</p>

-

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a name="Footnote_3_4" id="Footnote_3_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_4"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>War and Christianity,</i> by Vladimir Soloviev.</p></div>

-

-

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-<h4><a name="PENULTIMATE_WORDS" id="PENULTIMATE_WORDS">PENULTIMATE WORDS</a></h4>

-

-

-

-<h4>I</h4>

-

-<h4><i>De omnibus dubitandum</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>There are but few orthodox Hegelians left among philosophers nowadays,

-yet Hegel is still supreme over the minds of our contemporaries. It

-may even be that certain of his ideas have taken deeper root nowadays

-than when Hegelianism was in full bloom: for instance, the conception

-that history is the unfolding of the idea in reality, or, to put it

-more briefly and in terms more familiar to the modern mind&mdash;the idea of

-progress. Try to convince an educated person of the contrary: you are

-sure to be worsted. But, <i>de omnibus dubitandum,</i> which means in other

-words, that doubt is called upon to fulfil its mission above all in

-those cases where a conviction is particularly strong and unshakable.

-Therefore one must admit, whether he will or no, that progress so

-called&mdash;the development of mankind in time&mdash;is a fiction.</p>

-

-<p>We have wireless telegraphy, radium and the rest, yet we stand no

-higher than the Romans or the Greeks of old. You admit this? Then,

-one step further: although we have wireless telegraphy and all the

-other blessings of civilisation, still we stand no higher than red-or

-black-skinned savages. You protest: but the principle compels. You

-began to doubt: then what is the use of drawing back?</p>

-

-<p>For myself, I must confess that the idea of the spiritual perfection

-of savages entered my mind but lately, when, for the first time for

-many years, I looked through the works of Tylor, Lubbock and Spencer.

-They speak with such certainty of the advantages of our spiritual

-organisation, and have such sincere contempt for the moral misery

-of the savage, that in spite of myself stole in the thought: Is it

-not exactly here, where all are so certain that no one ever examines

-the question, that the source of error is to be found? High time to

-recall Descartes and his rule! And as soon as I began to doubt, all my

-former certainty&mdash;of course I fully shared the opinion of the English

-anthropologists&mdash;disappeared in a moment.... It began to appear that

-the savage indeed is higher and more important than our savants,

-and not our materialists only, as Professor Paulsen thinks, but our

-idealists, metaphysicians, mystics, and even our convinced missionaries

-(sincere believers, not the profit-mongering sort), whom Europe sends

-forth into the world to enlighten the backward brethren. It seemed to

-me that the credit transactions common among savages, with a promise

-to pay in the world beyond the grave, have a deep meaning. And human

-sacrifices! In them Spencer sees a barbarity, as an educated European

-should. I also see in them barbarity, because I also am a European

-and have a scientific education. But I deeply envy their barbarity,

-and curse the cultivation which has herded me together with believing

-missionaries, idealist, materialist, and positivist philosophers, into

-the narrow fold of the sultry and disgusting apprehensible world. We

-may write books to prove the immortality of the soul, but our wives

-won't follow us to the other world: they will prefer to endure the

-widow's lot here on the earth. Our morality, based on religion, forbids

-us to hurry into eternity. And so in everything. We are guessing, at

-the best we are sicklied with dreams, but our life passes outside

-our guesses and our dreams. One man still accepts the rites of the

-Church, however strange they may be, and seriously imagines that he

-is brought into contact with other worlds. Beyond the rites no step

-is taken. Kant died when he was eighty; had it not been for cholera,

-Hegel would have lived a hundred years; while the savages&mdash;the young

-ones kill the old and ... I dare not complete the sentence for fear of

-offending sensitive ears. Again I recall Descartes and his rule: who

-is right, the savages or we? And if the savages are right, can history

-be the unfolding of the idea? And is not the conception of progress

-in time (that is the development from the past to the present and

-to the future) the purest error? Perhaps, and most probably, there

-is development, but the direction of this development is in a line

-perpendicular to the line of time. The base of the perpendicular may be

-any human personality. May God and the reader forgive one the obscurity

-of the last words. I hope the clarity of the foregoing exposition will

-to some extent atone for it.</p>

-

-

-<hr />

-<h4>II</h4>

-

-<h4><i>Self-renunciation and Megalomania</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>We are obliged to think that nothing certain can be said either of

-self-renunciation or of megalomania, though each one of us in his own

-experience knows something of the former as well as of the latter. But

-it is well known that the impossibility of solving a question never yet

-kept people from reflecting. On the contrary: to us the most alluring

-questions are those to which there is no actual, no universally valid,

-answer. I hope that sooner or later, philosophy will be thus defined,

-in contrast to science:&mdash;philosophy is the teaching of truths which

-are binding on none. Thereby the accusation so often made against

-philosophy will be removed, that philosophy properly consists of a

-series of mutually exclusive opinions. This is true, but she must be

-praised for it, not blamed: there is nothing bad in it, but good, a

-very great deal of good. On the other hand, it is bad, extremely bad,

-that science should consist of truths universally binding. For every

-obligation is a constraint. Temporarily, one can submit to a restraint,

-put on a corset, fetters; one can agree to anything temporarily. Rut

-who will voluntarily admit the mastery over himself of an eternal law?

-Even from the quiet and clear Spinoza I sometimes hear a deep sigh, and

-I think that he is longing for freedom&mdash;he who wasted all his life,

-all his genius in the glorification of necessity.... With such an

-introduction one may say what he pleases.</p>

-

-<p>It seems to me that self-renunciation and megalomania, however little

-they resemble one another apparently, may be observed successively,

-even simultaneously, in one and the same person. The ascetic, who

-has denied life and humbles himself before everybody, and the madman

-(like Nietzsche or Dostoevsky), who affirms that he is the light, the

-salt of the earth, the first in the whole world or even in the whole

-universe&mdash;both reach their madness&mdash;I hope there is no necessity to

-demonstrate that self-renunciation as well as megalomania is a kind of

-madness&mdash;under conditions for the most part identical. The world does

-not satisfy the man and he begins to seek for a better. All serious

-seeking brings a man to lonely paths, and lonely paths, it is well

-known, end in a great wall which sets a fatal bound to man's curiosity.

-Then arises the question, how shall a man pass beyond the wall, by

-overcoming either the law of impenetrability or the equally invincible

-law of gravity, in other words, how shall a man become infinitely small

-or infinitely great? The first way is that of self-renunciation: I want

-nothing, I myself am nothing, I am infinitely small, and therefore I

-can pass through the infinitely small pores of the wall.</p>

-

-<p>The other way is megalomania. I am infinitely strong, infinitely

-great, I can do all things, I can shatter the wall, I can step over

-it, though it be higher than all the mountains of the earth and though

-it has hitherto dismayed the strongest and the bravest. This is

-probably the origin of the two most mysterious and mighty spiritual

-transformations. There is no single religion upon which are not more or

-less clearly impressed the traces of these methods of man's struggle

-with the poverty of his powers. In ascetic religions the tendency to

-self-renunciation predominates: Buddhism glorifies the suppression

-of the individual and has for its ideal Nirvana. The Greeks dreamed

-of Titans and heroes. The Jews consider themselves the chosen people

-and await the Messiah. As for the Gospel, it is hard to say to which

-method of struggle it gives the preference. On the one hand are the

-great miracles, the raising from the dead, the healing of the sick, the

-power over the winds and the sea; on the other: 'Blessed are the poor

-in spirit.' The Son of God who will sit on the right hand of power now

-lives in the company of publicans, beggars, and harlots, and serves

-them. 'Who is not for us, is against us'; the promise to thrust down

-his enemies into the fiery hell; eternal torment for blasphemy against

-the Holy Spirit, and equal with these the exhortation to the extreme

-of humility and love to the enemy: 'Turn to him the other cheek also.'

-Throughout, the Gospel is permeated with contradictions, which are

-not extraneous and historical, concerned with facts, but intrinsic,

-contradictions of mood, of 'ideals,' as the modern man would say.

-What is in one chapter praised as the noblest task is in the next

-degraded to an unworthy labour. It is in no way strange that the most

-opposite teachings should find justification in this little book,

-which is half composed of repetitions. The Inquisitors, the Jesuits,

-and the old ascetics called themselves. Christians; so do the modern

-Protestants and our Russian sectaries. To a greater or less degree

-they all are right, even the Protestants. Such contradictory elements

-are intertwined in the Gospel, that men, above all those who travel

-the high road, who can move in one direction only, and under one

-conspicuous flag, who have become accustomed to believe in the unity

-of reason and the infallibility of logical laws, could never fully

-grasp the teaching of the Gospel, and always aspired to give to the

-words and deeds of Christ a uniform explanation which should exclude

-contradictions, and more or less correspond to the common conceptions

-of the work and problems of life. They read in the mysterious book,

-'Have faith and thou shalt say to this mountain: be thou removed,' and

-understood it to mean that always, every hour and every minute, one

-must think and desire the self-same thing, prescribed beforehand and

-fully denned; whereas in these words the Gospel allows and commends the

-maddest and most perilous experiments. That which is, did not exist for

-Christ; and only that existed, which is not.</p>

-

-<p>The old Roman, Pilate, who was apparently an educated man, clever and

-not bad at heart, though weak in character, could neither understand

-nor elucidate the cause of the strange struggle which took place

-before him. With his whole heart he pitied the pale Jew before him,

-who was guilty of nothing. 'What is truth?' he asked Christ. Christ

-did not answer him, nor could He answer, not through ignorance, as

-the heathen desired to believe, but because that question cannot be

-answered in words. It would have been necessary to take Pilate's head,

-and turn it towards the other side, in order that he might see what

-he had never seen before. Or, still better; to have used the method

-to which the hunch-backed pony turns in the fairy tale, in order to

-change sleepy Ivanushka into a wizard and a beauty: first, to plunge

-him into a cauldron of boiling milk, then into another of boiling

-water, then a third of ice-cold water. There is every reason to suppose

-that with this preliminary preparation Pilate would have begun to

-act differently, and I think the hunch-backed pony would agree that

-self-renunciation and megalomania would be a fair substitute for the

-cauldrons of the tale.</p>

-

-<p>Great privations and great illusions so change the nature of man

-that things which seemed before impossible, become possible, and the

-unattainable, attainable.</p>

-

-

-<hr />

-<h4>III</h4>

-

-<h4><i>Eternal Truths</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>In the <i>Memorabilia</i> Xenophon tells of the meeting of Socrates with

-the famous sophist Hippias. When Hippias came to Socrates, the latter

-as usual held forth, and as usual asked why it is that men who wish to

-learn carpentry or smith's work know to whom they should apply, but if

-they desire to learn virtue, cannot possibly find a teacher. Hippias,

-who had heard these opinions of Socrates many times before, remarked

-ironically: 'So you 're still saying the same old things, that I heard

-from you years ago!' Socrates understood and accepted the challenge, as

-he always accepted challenges of this kind. A dispute began, by which

-it was demonstrated (as usual in Plato and Xenophon) that Socrates was

-a stronger dialectician than his opponent. He succeeded in showing that

-his conception of justice was based on the same firm foundation as all

-his other conceptions, and that convictions once formed, if they are

-true, are as little liable to the action of time as noble metals to

-rust.</p>

-

-<p>Socrates lived seventy years. He was once a youth, once a man, once

-a greybeard. But what if he had lived a hundred and forty years,

-experienced once again all the three seasons of life, and had again met

-Hippias? Or, better still, if the soul, as Socrates taught, is immortal

-and Socrates now lives somewhere in the moon or Sirius, or in any other

-place predestined for immortal souls, does he really go on plaguing his

-companions with discourses on justice, carpenters, and smiths? And does

-he still emerge victorious as of old from the dispute with Hippias and

-other persons who dare to affirm that everything (human convictions

-included) may be, and ought to be, subject to the laws of time, and

-that mankind not only loses nothing, but gains much by such subjection?</p>

-

-

-<hr />

-<h4>IV</h4>

-

-<h4><i>Earth and Heaven</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>The word justice is on all men's lips. But do men indeed so highly

-prize justice as one would think, who believed all that has been

-said and is still being said concerning it? More than this, is it so

-highly appreciated by its sworn advocates and panegyrists&mdash;poets,

-philosophers, moralists, theologians&mdash;even by the best of them, the

-most sincere and gifted? I doubt it, I doubt it deeply. Glance at the

-works of any wise man, whether of the modern or the ancient world.

-Justice, if we understand it as the equality of all living men before

-the laws of creation&mdash;and how else can we understand it?&mdash;never

-occupied any one's attention. Plato never once asked Destiny why she

-created Thersites contemptible and Patroclus noble. Plato argues that

-men should be just, but never once dares to arraign the gods for their

-injustice. If we listen to his discourses, a suspicion will steal into

-our souls that justice is a virtue for mortals, while the immortals

-have virtues of their own which have nothing in common with justice.

-And here is the last trial of earthly virtue. We do not know whether

-the human soul is mortal or immortal. Some, we know, believe in

-immortality, others laugh at the belief. If it were proved that they

-were both in the wrong, and that men's destinies after death are as

-unequal as they are in life: the successful, the chosen take up their

-abode in heaven, the others remain to rot in the grave and perish with

-their mortal clay. (It is true that such an admission is made by our

-Russian prophet, the priest of love and justice, Dostoevsky, in his

-<i>Legend of the Grand Inquisitor.</i>) Now, if it should turn out that

-Dostoevsky is really immortal, while his innumerable disciples and

-admirers, the huge mass of grey humanity which is spoken of in <i>The

-Grand Inquisitor,</i> end their lives in death as they began them with

-birth, would Dostoevsky himself (whom I have named deliberately as

-the most passionate defender of the ideal of justice, though there

-have been yet more fervent and passionate and remarkable defenders of

-justice on earth whom I ought perhaps to name, were it not that I would

-avoid speaking lightly of sacred things&mdash;let him who finds Dostoevsky

-small, himself choose another)&mdash;would Dostoevsky reconcile himself to

-such an injustice, would he rise in revolt beyond the grave against the

-injustice, or would he forget his poor brethren when he occupied the

-place prepared for him? It is hard to judge <i>a priori: a posteriori</i>

-one would imagine that he would forget.</p>

-

-<p>And between Dostoevsky and a small provincial author the gulf is

-colossal; the injustice of the inequality cries out to heaven.

-Nevertheless we take no heed, we live on and do not cry, or if we

-do, we cry very rarely, and then, to tell the truth, it is hard to

-say certainly why we cry. Is it because we would draw the attention

-of the indifferent heaven, or is it because there are many amateurs

-of lamentation among our neighbours, like the pilgrim woman in

-Ostrovsky's <i>Storm,</i> who passionately loved to hear a good howl? All

-these considerations will seem particularly important to those who,

-like myself at the present moment&mdash;I cannot speak for to-morrow&mdash;share

-Dostoevsky's notion that even if there is immortality, then it is

-certainly not for everybody but for the few. Moreover, I follow

-Dostoevsky further and admit that they alone will rise from the dead

-who on the existing hypotheses should expect the worse fate after

-death. The first here will be the first still, there, while of the last

-not even a memory will remain. And no one will be found to champion

-those who have perished: a Dostoevsky, a Tolstoi, and all the other

-'first' who succeed in entering heaven will be engaged in business

-incomparably more important.</p>

-

-<p>So continue, if you will, to take thought for the just arrangement of

-the world, and, after the fashion of Plato, to make the teaching of

-justice the foundation of philosophy.</p>

-

-

-<hr />

-<h4>V</h4>

-

-<h4><i>The Force of Argument</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>Schopenhauer answered the question of the immortality of the soul in

-the negative. In his opinion, man as Thing-in-Himself is immortal, but

-as phenomenon mortal. In other words, all that is individual in us

-exists only in the interval between birth and death; but since each

-individual according to Schopenhauer's teaching is a manifestation of

-'Will' or 'Thing-in-Itself,' the unalterable and eternal principle

-which is the only reality of the world, continually made object in the

-manifold of phenomena, then, in so far as this principle is displayed

-in man, he is eternal. This is Schopenhauer's opinion, evidently

-derived as a logical conclusion from his general philosophic doctrine,

-both from that relating to the Thing-in-Itself, and from that which

-relates to the individual. The first part shall go unregarded: after

-all, if Schopenhauer was mistaken, and the Thing-in-Itself is mortal,

-we need not weep over it, nor is there any cause to rejoice over its

-immortality. But here is the individual. He is deprived of his right to

-immortality, and for reason is alleged an argument which is at first

-sight irrefutable. Everything which has a beginning has an end also,

-says Schopenhauer. The individual has a beginning, birth; therefore an

-end, death, awaits him. To Schopenhauer himself the general proposition

-as well as the conclusion seemed so obvious, that he did not admit

-the possibility of mistake even for a moment. But this time we have

-an incontestable case of a wrong conclusion from a wrong premiss.

-First, why must everything which has a beginning also have an end? The

-observations of experience point to such an hypothesis; but are the

-observations of experience really strong enough to support general

-propositions? And are we really entitled to make use of propositions

-so acquired as first principles for the solution of the most important

-problems of philosophy? And even if we admit that the premiss is

-correct, nevertheless the conclusion at which Schopenhauer arrived is

-wrongly drawn. It may indeed be that everything which has a beginning

-also has an end; it may indeed be that the individual is sooner or

-later doomed to perish; but why identify the moment of the soul's

-destruction with the death of the body? It may be that the body will

-die, but the soul which the same fate attends at some future time will

-find for itself a more or less suitable integument somewhere in a

-distant planet, perhaps still unknown to us, and live on, though only

-for a little while and not for all eternity, as the extreme optimists

-believe. How important would it be for poor humanity to retain even

-such a hope: particularly seeing that we can hardly say with certainty

-what it is that men desire when they speak of the immortality of the

-soul. Is it that they merely desire at all costs to live eternally, or

-would they be satisfied with one or two lives more, especially if the

-subsequent lives should appear to be less offensively insignificant

-than this earthly existence, wherein even the lowest rank of nobility

-is to many an unattainable ideal? It seems to me that it is not every

-one who would consent to live eternally. And what if every possibility

-should have been exhausted, and endless repetition should begin?</p>

-

-<p>It does not of course follow from this that we have the right to

-reckon upon an existence beyond the grave. The question remains open

-as before, even when Schopenhauer's arguments have been refuted. But

-it does follow that the best arguments on closer consideration often

-appear worthless. <i>Quod erat demonstrandum&mdash;</i> naturally pending the

-discovery of arguments to refute my refutation of Schopenhauer's. I

-make this reserve to deprive my critics of the pleasure and possibility

-of a little wordplay.</p>

-

-

-<hr />

-<h4>VI</h4>

-

-<h4><i>Swan Songs</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>It cannot be doubted that <i>When We Dead Awake</i> is one of the most

-autobiographical of Ibsen's plays. Nearly all his dramas reveal

-striking traces of his personal experience; their most valuable

-quality, even, is the possibility of following out in them the

-history of the author's inward struggle. But there is a particular

-significance in <i>When We Dead Awake,</i> which comes from the fact that

-it was conceived and written by the author in his old age. Those who

-are interested in overhearing what is said and watching what is done

-on the outskirts of life set an extraordinary value on the opportunity

-of communing with very old men, with the dying, and generally with

-men who are placed in exceptional conditions, above all when they are

-not afraid to speak the truth, and have by past experience developed

-in themselves the art and the courage&mdash;the former is as necessary as

-the latter&mdash;to look straight into the eyes of reality. To such men

-Ibsen seems even more interesting than Tolstoi. Tolstoi indeed has not

-yet betrayed his gift; but he is primarily a moralist. Now, as in his

-youth, power over men is the dearest thing of all to him, and more

-fascinating than all the other blessings of the world. He still gives

-orders, makes demands, and desires at all costs to be obeyed. One may,

-and one ought, to consider this peculiarity of Tolstoi's nature with

-attention and respect. Not Tolstoi alone, but many a regal hermit of

-thought has to the end of his life demanded the unconditional surrender

-of mankind. On the day of his death, an hour before end, Socrates

-taught that there was only one truth and that the one which he had

-discovered. Plato in his extreme old age journeyed to Syracuse to plant

-the seeds of wisdom there. It is probable that such stubbornness in

-great men has its explanation and its deep meaning.</p>

-

-<p>Tolstoi, and also Socrates and Plato, and the Jewish prophets, who

-in this respect and in many others were very like the teachers of

-wisdom, probably had to concentrate their powers wholly upon one

-gigantic inward task, the condition of its successful performance

-being the illusion that the whole world, the whole universe, works

-in concert and unison with them. In Tolstoi's case I have elsewhere

-shown that he finds himself at present on the brink of Solipsism in

-his conception of the world. Tolstoi and the whole world are to him

-synonymous. Without such a temporary delusion of his whole being&mdash;it

-is not an intellectual delusion, of the head, for the head knows well

-that the world is by itself, and Tolstoi by himself&mdash;he would have to

-give up his most important work. So it is with us, who know since

-Copernicus that the earth moves round the sun, that the stars are not

-clear, bright, golden rings, but huge lumps of various composition,

-that there is not a firm blue vault overhead. We know these things:

-nevertheless we cannot and do not want to be so blind as not to take

-delight in the lie of the optical illusions of the visible world. Truth

-so-called has but a limited value. Nor does the sacrifice of Galileo

-by any means refute my words. <i>E pur si muove,</i> if ever he uttered the

-phrase, might not have referred to the movement of the earth, though

-it was spoken of the earth. Galileo did not wish to betray the work of

-his life. Who will, however, stand surety to us that not only Galileo

-is capable of such sacrifice, but his pupil also, even the most devoted

-and courageous, who has gained the new truth not by his own struggle

-but from the lips of his master. Peter in one night thrice denied

-Christ. Probably we could not find a single man in all the world who

-would consent to die to demonstrate and defend the idea of Galileo.

-Evidently great men are very little inclined to initiate the outsider

-into the secret of their great deeds. Evidently they cannot themselves

-always give a clear account of the character and meaning of the tasks

-which they set themselves. Socrates himself, who all his life long so

-stubbornly sought clarity and invented dialectics for the purpose, and

-introduced into general use definitions designed to fix the flowing

-reality; Socrates, who spent thirty days without interruption in

-persuading his pupils that he was dying for the sake of truth and

-justice; Socrates himself, I say, perhaps, most probably even, knew as

-little why he was dying as do simple people who die a natural death, or

-as babes born into the world know by what beneficent or hostile power

-they have been summoned from nonentity into being. Such is our life:

-wise men and fools, old men and children march at random to goals which

-have not yet been revealed by any books, whether worldly or spiritual,

-common or sacred. It is by no means with the desire to bring dogmatism

-into contempt that I recall these considerations. I have always been

-convinced, and am still certain, that dogmatists feel no shame, and

-are by no means to be driven out of life; besides, I have lately come

-to the conclusion that the dogmatists are perfectly justified in their

-stubbornness. Belief, and the need of belief, are strong as love, as

-death. In the case of every dogmatist I now consider it my sacred

-duty to concede everything in advance, even to the acknowledgment

-of the least, and least significant, shades of his convictions and

-beliefs. There is but one limitation, one only, imperceptible and

-almost invisible: the dogmatist's convictions must not be absolutely

-and universally binding, that is, not binding upon the whole of

-mankind without exception. The majority, the vast majority, millions,

-even tens of millions of people, I will readily allow him, on the

-understanding that they themselves desire it, or that he will show

-himself skilful enough to entice them to his side&mdash;violence is surely

-not to be admitted in matters of belief. In a word, I allow him almost

-the whole of humankind, in consideration whereof he must agree that

-his convictions are not intrinsically binding upon the few units or

-tens that remain. I agree to an outward submission. And the dogmatist,

-after such a victory&mdash;my confession is surely a complete victory for

-him&mdash;must consider himself satisfied in full.</p>

-

-<p>Socrates was right, Plato, Tolstoi, the prophets were right: there is

-only one truth, one God; truth has the right to destroy lie, light

-to destroy darkness. God, omniscient, most gracious and omnipotent,

-will like Alexander of Macedon conquer nearly all the known world, and

-will drive out from his possessions, amid the triumphant and delighted

-shouts of his millions of loyal subjects, the devil and all those who

-are disobedient to his divine word. But he will renounce his claim to

-power over the souls of his few opponents, according to the agreement,

-and a handful of apostates will gather together on a remote isle,

-invisible to the millions, and will there continue their free, peculiar

-life. And here&mdash;to return to the beginning&mdash;among these few disobedient

-will be found Ibsen as he was in the last years of his life, as he is

-seen in his last drama. For in <i>When We Dead Awake</i> Ibsen approves and

-glorifies that which Gogol actually did fifty years ago. He renounces

-his art, and with hatred and mockery recalls to mind what was once

-the business of his life. On April 15, 1866, Ibsen wrote to King Karl:

-'I am not fighting for a careless existence; I am fighting for the

-work of my life, in which I unflinchingly believe, and which I know

-God has given me to do.' By the way, you will hardly find one of the

-great workers who has not repeated this assertion of Ibsen's, whether

-in the same or in another form. Evidently, without such an illusion,

-temporary or permanent, one cannot compass the intense struggle and the

-sacrifices which are the price of great work. Evidently, illusions of

-various kinds are necessary even for success in small things. In order

-that a little man should fulfil his microscopical work, he too must

-strain his little forces to the extreme. And who knows whether it did

-not seem to Akaky Akakievitch that God had assigned to him the task

-of copying the papers in the office and having a new uniform made? Of

-course he would never dare to say so, and he would never be able to,

-first because of his timidity, and then because he has not the gift of

-expression. The Muses do not bring their tribute to the poor and weak:

-they sing only Croesus and Caesar. But there is no doubt that the first

-in the village consider themselves as plainly designated by fate as the

-first in Rome. Caesar felt this, and not mere ambition alone spoke in

-him when he uttered the famous phrase. Men do not believe in themselves

-and always yearn to occupy a position wherein the certainty, whether

-justified or mistaken, may spring up within them that they stand in the

-sight of God. But with years all illusions vanish, and among them the

-illusion that God chooses certain men for his particular purposes and

-puts on them particular charges. Gogol, who had thus long understood

-his task as an author, burnt his best work before his death. Ibsen did

-almost the same. In the person of Professor Rubek he renounces his

-literary activity and jeers at it, though it had brought him everything

-that he could have expected from it, fame, respect, riches.... And

-think why! Because he had to sacrifice the man in him for the sake of

-the artist, to give up Irene whom he loved, to marry a woman to whom he

-was indifferent. Did Ibsen at the end of his life clearly discover that

-God had appointed him the task of being a male? But all men are males,

-while only individuals are artists. Had this been said, not by Ibsen,

-but by a common mortal, we would call it the greatest vulgarity. On

-the lips of Ibsen, an old man of seventy years, the author of <i>Brand,</i>

-from which the divines of Europe draw the matter for their sermons, on

-the lips of Ibsen who wrote <i>Emperor and Galilean</i> such a confession

-acquires an unexpected and mysterious meaning. Here you cannot escape

-with a shake of the head and a contemptuous smile. Not anybody, but

-Ibsen himself speaks&mdash;the first, not in the village, not in Rome even,

-but in the world. Here surely is the human law at work: 'Forswear not

-the prison nor the beggar's wallet!'</p>

-

-<p>Perhaps it is opportune to recall the swan songs of Turgeniev.

-Turgeniev, too, had high ideals which he probably thought he had

-received direct from God. We may with assurance put into the mouth

-of Brand himself the phrase with which his remarkable essay, <i>Hamlet

-and Don Quixote,</i> concludes: 'Everything passes, good deeds remain.'

-In these words is the whole Turgeniev, or better, the whole conscious

-Turgeniev of that period of his life to which the essay belongs. And

-not only in that period, but up to the last minutes of his life, the

-conscious Turgeniev would not recant those words. But in the <i>Prose

-Poems</i> an utterly different motive is heard. All that he there relates,

-and all that Ibsen tells in his last drama, is permeated with one

-infinite, inextinguishable anguish for a life wasted in vain, for a

-life which had been spent in preaching 'good.' Yet neither youth, nor

-health, nor the powers that fail are regretted. Perhaps even death has

-no terrors.... What the old Turgeniev cannot away with are his memories

-of 'the Russian girl.' He described and sang her as no one in Russian

-literature before him, but she was to him only an ideal; he, like

-Rubek, had not touched her. Ibsen had not touched Irene; he went off

-to Madame Viardo. And this is an awful sin, in no wise to be atoned,

-a mortal sin, the sin of which the Bible speaks. All things will be

-forgiven, all things pass, all things will be forgotten: this crime

-will remain for ever. That is the meaning of Turgeniev's <i>senilia</i>;

-that is the meaning of Ibsen's <i>senilia.</i> I have deliberately chosen

-the word <i>senilia,</i> though I might have said swan songs, though it

-would even have been more correct to speak of swan songs. 'Swans,' says

-Plato, 'when they feel the approach of death, sing that day better

-than ever, rejoicing that they will find God, whom they serve.' Ibsen

-and Turgeniev served the same God as the swans, according to the Greek

-belief, the bright God of songs, Apollo. And their last songs, their

-<i>senilia,</i> were better than all that had gone before. In them is a

-bottomless depth awful to the eye, but how wonderful! There all things

-are different from what they are with us on the surface. Should one

-hearken to the temptation and go to the call of the great old men,

-or should he tie himself to the mast of conviction, verified by the

-experience of mankind, and cover his ears as once the crafty Ulysses

-did to save himself from the Syrens? There is a way of escape: there

-is a word which will destroy the enchantment. I have already uttered

-it: <i>senilia.</i> Turgeniev wished to call his <i>Prose Poems</i> by this

-name&mdash;manifestations of sickness, of infirmity, of old age. These are

-terrible; one must run away from these! Schopenhauer, the philosopher

-and metaphysician, feared to revise the works of his youth in his old

-age. He felt that he would spoil them by his mere touch. And all men

-mistrust old age, all share Schopenhauer's apprehensions. But what if

-all are mistaken? What if <i>senilia</i> bring us nearer to the truth?

-Perhaps the soothsaying birds of Apollo grieve in unearthly anguish

-for another existence; perhaps their fear is not of death but of life;

-perhaps in Turgeniev's poems, as well as in Ibsen's last drama, are

-already heard, if not the last, then at least the penultimate words of

-mankind.</p>

-

-

-<hr />

-<h4>VII</h4>

-

-<h4><i>What is Philosophy?</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>In text-books of philosophy you will find most diverse answers to this

-question. During the twenty-five hundred years of its existence it

-has been able to make an immense quantity of attempts to define the

-substance of its task. But up till now no agreement has been reached

-between the acknowledged representatives of the lovers and favourites

-of wisdom. Every one judges in his own way, and considers his opinion

-as the only true one; of a <i>consensus sapientium</i> it is impossible

-even to dream. But strangely enough, exactly in this disputable matter

-wherein the agreement of savants and sages is so impossible, the

-<i>consensus profanorum</i> is fully attained. All those who were never

-engaged in philosophy, who have never read learned books, or even any

-books at all, answer the question with rare unanimity. True, it is

-apparently impossible to judge of their opinions directly, because

-people of this kind cannot speak at all in the language evolved by

-science; they never put the question in such a form, still less can

-they answer it in the accepted words. But we have an important piece of

-indirect evidence which gives us the right to form a conclusion. There

-is no doubt that all those who have gone to philosophy for answers

-to the questions which tormented them, have left her disenchanted,

-unless they had a sufficiently eminent gift to enable them to join the

-guild of professional philosophers. From this we may unhesitatingly

-conclude, although the conclusion is for the time being only negative,

-that philosophy is engaged in a business which may be interesting and

-important to the few, but is tedious and useless to the many.</p>

-

-<p>This conclusion is highly consoling as well for the sage as for the

-profane. For every sage, even the most exalted, is at the same time

-one of the profane&mdash;if we discard the academical use of words&mdash;a

-human being, pure and simple. To him also it may happen that those

-tormenting questions will arise, which ordinary people used to bring

-to him, as for instance in the case of Tolstoi's Ivan Ilyich or

-Tchekhov's professor in <i>The Tedious Story.</i> And then he will of course

-be obliged to confess that the necessary answers are missing from

-the great tomes which he has studied so well. For what can be more

-terrible to a man than to be compelled in the hard moments of his life

-to acknowledge any doctrine of philosophy as binding upon him? For

-instance, to be compelled to hold with Plato, Spinoza, or Schopenhauer

-that the chief problem of life is moral perfection, or in other words,

-self-renunciation. It was easy for Plato to preach justice. It did

-not in the least prevent him from being the son of his time, or from

-breaking to a permissible extent the commandments which he himself

-had given. By all the evidence Spinoza was much more resolute and

-consequent than Plato; he indeed kept the passions in subservience, but

-that was his personal and individual inclination. Consistence was not

-merely a property of his mind, but of his whole being. Displaying it,

-he displayed himself. As for Schopenhauer, it is known that he praised

-the virtues only in his books; but in life, like many another clever,

-independent man, he was guided by the most diverse considerations.</p>

-

-<p>But these are all masters, who devise systems and imperatives. Whereas

-the pupil, seeking in philosophy an answer to his questions, cannot

-permit himself any liberties and digressions from the universal rules,

-for the essence and the fundamental problem of any doctrine reduces to

-the subordination not merely of men's conduct, but of the life of the

-whole universe to one regulating principle. Individual philosophers

-have discovered such principles, but to this day they have reached no

-final agreement among themselves, and this to some extent lightens the

-burden of those unhappy ones who, having lost the hope of finding help

-and guidance elsewhere, have turned to philosophy. If there is not

-in philosophy one universal principle binding upon and acknowledged

-by all, it means that it is permitted to each man, at least for the

-meantime, to feel and even to act in his own way. A man may listen

-to Spinoza, or he may stop his ears. He may kneel before Plato's

-eternal ideas, or he may give his allegiance to the ever-changing,

-ever-flowing reality. Finally, he may accept Schopenhauer's pessimism,

-but nothing on earth can compel him to celibacy on the ground that

-Schopenhauer successfully laughed at love. Nor is there any necessity

-at all, in order to win such freedom for one's self, to be armed

-with the light dialectic of the old Greek philosopher, or with the

-heavy logic of the poor Dutch Jew, or with the subtle wit of the

-profound German. Neither is it necessary to dispute them. It is even

-possible to agree with them all. The room of the world is infinite,

-and will not only contain all those who lived once and those who are

-yet to be born, but will give to each one of them all that he can

-desire: to Plato, the world of ideas, to Spinoza, the one eternal and

-unchangeable substance, to Schopenhauer, the Nirvana of Buddhism. Each

-of these, and all the other philosophers, will find what they want in

-the universe even to the belief, even to the conviction, that theirs

-are the only true and universal doctrines. But, at the same time,

-the profane will find suitable worlds for themselves. From the fact

-that people are cooped up on the earth, and that they must put forth

-efforts beyond belief to gain each cubit of earth, and even their

-illusory liberties, it by no means follows that poverty, obscurantism,

-and despotism must be considered eternal and original principles, and

-that economical uniformity is the last refuge of man. A plurality of

-worlds, a plurality of men and gods amid the vast spaces of the vast

-universe&mdash;this is, if I may be forgiven the word, an ideal. It is true

-it is not built according to the idealists. Yet what a conclusion does

-it foreshadow! We leave the disputes and arguments of philosophers

-aside, so soon as we begin to speak of gods. According to the existing

-beliefs and hypotheses the gods also have always been quarrelling

-and fighting among themselves. Even in monotheistic religions people

-always made their God enter a fight, and devised an eminent opponent

-for him&mdash;the devil. Men can by no means rid themselves of the thought

-that everything in heaven goes on in exactly the same way as it does

-on the earth, and they attribute all their own bad qualities as well

-as their good ones to the denizens of heaven. Whereas it is by far the

-most probable that a great many of the things which are, according to

-our notions, perfectly inseparable from life do not exist in heaven.

-Among other things, there is no struggle. And this is well. For every

-struggle, sooner or later, develops inevitably into a fight. When

-the supply of logical and ethical arguments is exhausted, one thing

-is left for the irreconcilable opponents&mdash;to come to blows, which do

-in fact usually decide the issue. The value of logical and ethical

-arguments is arbitrarily assigned, but material force is measured by

-foot-pounds and can be calculated in advance. So that where on the

-common supposition there will be no foot-pounds, the issue of the

-fight will very often remain undecided. When Lermontov's demon goes

-to Tamara's cell, an angel meets him on the way. The demon says that

-Tamara belongs to him; the angel demands her for himself. The demon

-will not be dissuaded by words and arguments: he is not built that way.

-As for the angel, he always considers himself doubly right. How can the

-issue be decided? At last Lermontov, who could not or dared not devise

-a new solution, admitted the interference of material force: Tamara

-is dragged away from the demon exactly as the stronger robber pulls

-his prey from the weaker on earth. Evidently the poet admitted that

-conclusion, that he might pay his tribute to the piety of tradition.

-But in my opinion the solution is not pious, but merely blasphemous.

-In it the traces of barbarity and idolatry are still clearly visible.

-The tastes and attributes of which earthly despots dream are attributed

-to God. By all means he must be, he desires to be, the strongest, the

-very first, just like Julius Caesar in his youth. He fears rivalry

-above all things, and never forgives his unconquered enemies. This is

-evidently a barbarous mistake. God does not want to be the strongest,

-the very first, at all. Certainly&mdash;for that would be intelligible and

-in accordance with common sense&mdash;he would not like to be weaker than

-others, in order that he might not be exposed to violence; but there

-is no foundation at all for attributing to him ambition or vainglory.

-Therefore there is equally no reason to think that he does not suffer

-equals, desires to be supreme, and seeks at all costs to destroy the

-devil. Most probably he lives in peace and concord even with those

-who least adapt themselves to his tastes and habits. Perhaps he is

-even delighted that not all are as he, and he readily shares his

-possessions with the devil, the more readily because by such a division

-neither loses, since the infinite&mdash;I admit that God's possessions are

-infinite&mdash;divided by two and even by the greatest possible finite

-number still leaves infinity.</p>

-

-<p>Now we can return to the original question, and it seems that we

-can even give an answer to it&mdash;two answers even, one for the sage,

-another for the profane. To the first, philosophy is art for art's

-sake. Every philosopher tries to construct a harmonious and various

-system, curiously and nicely fashioned, using for his material his own

-intrinsic experience as well as his own personal observations of the

-life beyond him, and the observations of others. A philosopher is an

-artist of his kind, to whom his works are dearer than everything in

-life, sometimes dearer than life itself. We very often see philosophers

-sacrifice everything for the sake of their work&mdash;even truth. Not so

-the profane. To them philosophy&mdash;more exactly, that which they would

-call philosophy if they possessed a scientific terminology&mdash;is the last

-refuge when material forces have been wasted, when there are no weapons

-left to fight for their stolen rights. Then they run for help and

-support to a place which they have always taken care to avoid before.

-Think of Napoleon at St. Helena. He who had been collecting soldiers

-and guns all his life, began to philosophise when he was bound hand and

-foot. Certainly he behaved in this new sphere like a beginner, a very

-inexperienced and, strange to say, a pusillanimous novice.</p>

-

-<p>He who feared neither pestilence nor bullet, was afraid, we know, of

-a dark room. Men used to philosophy, like Schopenhauer, walk boldly

-and with confidence in a dark room, though they run away from gun

-shots, and even less dangerous things. The great captain, the once

-Emperor of nearly all Europe, Napoleon, philosophised on St. Helena,

-and even went so far as to begin to ingratiate himself with morality,

-evidently supposing that upon morality his ultimate fate depended. He

-assured her that for her sake, and her sake alone, he had contrived

-his murderous business&mdash;he who, all the while a crown was on his head

-and a victorious army in his hands, hardly knew even of the existence

-of morality. But this is so intelligible. If one were to come upon a

-perfectly new and unknown world at the age of forty-five, then surely

-everything would seem terrible, and one would take the incorporeal

-morality for the arbiter of destiny. And one would plan to seduce

-her, if possible, with sweet words and false promises, as a lady of

-the world. But these were the first steps of a tyro. It was as hard

-for Napoleon to master philosophy as it was for Charlemagne at the

-end of his days to learn to write. But he knew why he had come to the

-new place, and neither Plato nor Spinoza nor Kant could dissuade him

-of this. Perhaps at the beginning, while he was as yet unused to the

-darkness, he would pretend to agree with the acknowledged authorities,

-thinking that here too, just as there where he lived before, exalted

-personages do not tolerate opposition; perhaps he would lie to them

-as he lied to morality, but his business he would not forget. He came

-to philosophy with <i>demands,</i> and would not rest till he had received

-satisfaction. He had already seen how a Corsican lieutenant had

-become a French Emperor. Why should not the beaten Emperor fight his

-last fight?... And how shall he be reconciled with self-renunciation?

-Philosophy will surrender: it is only necessary not to surrender in

-one's self. So does a Napoleon come to philosophy, and so does he

-understand her. And until the contrary is proven, nothing can prevent

-us from thinking that the Napoleons are right, and therefore that

-academical philosophy is not the last nor even the penultimate word.

-For, perhaps, the last word is hidden in the hearts of the tongue-tied,

-but bold, persistent, implacable men.</p>

-

-

-

-<p>VIII</p>

-

-<p><i>Heinrich Heine</i></p>

-

-

-<p>More than a hundred years have passed since the birth, and fifty

-years since the death, of this remarkable man, but the history of

-literature has not yet finally settled accounts with him. Even the

-Germans, perhaps the Germans above all, find it impossible to agree

-upon the valuation of his gift. Some consider him a genius, others a

-man devoid of talent and insipid. Moreover, his enemies still bring as

-much passion to their attacks upon him as they did before, as though

-they were waging war upon a live opponent in place of a dead one. They

-hate him for the same things which made his contemporaries hate him.

-We know that it was principally for his insincerity that they did not

-forgive him. No one could tell when he was speaking seriously and when

-in jest, what he loved and what he hated, and finally it was quite

-impossible to determine whether or not he believed in God. It must be

-confessed that the Germans were right in many of their accusations. I

-value Heine extremely highly; in my opinion he is one of the greatest

-German poets; and yet I cannot undertake to say with certainty what

-he loved, what he believed, and often I cannot tell how serious he is

-in uttering one or another of his opinions. Nevertheless I find it

-impossible to detect any insincerity in his works. On the contrary,

-those peculiarities of his, which so irritated the Germans, are in my

-eyes so many proofs of his wonderful and unique sincerity. I think that

-if the Germans were mistaken and misunderstood Heine, hypertrophied

-self-love and the power of prejudice is the cause. Heine's usual method

-is to begin to speak with perfect seriousness, and to end with biting

-raillery and sarcasm. Critics and readers, who generally do not guess

-at the outset what awaits them in the event, have taken the unexpected

-laughter to their own account, and have been deeply offended. Wounded

-self-love never forgives; and the Germans could not forgive Heine

-for his jests. And yet Heine but rarely attacked others: most of his

-mockery is directed against himself, and above all in the work of his

-last creative period, of the years when he lived in the <i>Matrazengrab.</i></p>

-

-<p>With us in Russia many were offended with Gogol, believing that he

-was jeering at them. Later, he confessed that he had been describing

-himself. Nor does the inconstancy of Heine's opinions in any way

-prove him insincere. His intention was by no means always to fling at

-the Philistines. Indeed, he did not know what to believe; he changed

-his tastes and attachments, and did not even always know for certain

-what he preferred at the moment. Of course, had he wished, he might

-have pretended to be consequent and consistent. Or, had he been less

-eagle-eyed, he might with the vast majority of men have adopted a

-ceremonial dress once for all, he might have professed and invariably

-preached ideas which had no relation to his real emotions and moods.

-Many people think that one ought to act thus, that (particularly in

-literature) one must speak only officially and exhibit lofty ideas

-that have been proclaimed by wise men since time immemorial, without

-their having made the least inquiry whether they correspond to their

-own natures or not. Often cruel, vindictive, spiteful, selfish, mean

-people sincerely praise goodness, forgiveness, love to one's enemy,

-generosity and magnanimity in their books, while of their tastes

-and passions they speak not a single word. They are confident that

-passions exist only to be suppressed, and that convictions only are to

-be exhibited or displayed. A man rarely succeeds in suppressing his

-passions, but it is extremely easy to hide them, especially in books.

-And such dissimulation is not only not condemned, but recognised and

-even encouraged. The common and familiar programme is accepted: in life

-'passions' judge 'convictions,' in books 'convictions,' or 'ideals,'

-as they are called, pass sentence upon 'passions.' I would emphasise

-the fact that most writers are convinced that their business is not to

-tell of themselves, but to praise ideals. Heine's sincerity was really

-of a different order. He told everything, or nearly everything, of

-himself. And this was thought so shocking that the sworn custodians of

-convention and good morals considered themselves wounded in their best

-and loftiest feelings. It seemed to them that it would be disastrous if

-Heine were to succeed in acquiring a great literary influence, and in

-getting a hold upon the minds of his contemporaries. Then would crumble

-the foundations, constructed through centuries of arduous labour by the

-united efforts of the most distinguished representatives of the nation.

-This is perhaps true: the lofty magnificence of life can be preserved

-only upon the indispensable condition of hypocrisy. In order that it

-should be beautiful, much must be hidden and thrust away as far and

-deep as possible. The sick and the mad must be herded into hospitals;

-poverty into cellars; disobedient passions into the depths of the

-soul. Truth and freedom are only allowed to obtrude upon the attention

-as far as is compatible with the interests of a life well arranged

-within and without. The Protestant Church understood this as well as

-the Catholic, perhaps better. Strict puritanism elevated spiritual

-discipline to the highest moral law, which ruled life with unrelenting

-and inexorable despotism. Marriage and the family, not love, must be

-the aim of man; and poor Gretchen, who gave herself to Faust without

-observing the established ceremonial, was forced to consider herself

-eternally damned. The inward discipline still more than the outward

-guarded the foundations and gave strength and force to the State as

-well as to the people. Men and women were not spared; they were not

-even taken into account. Hundreds and thousands of Gretchens, men and

-women, were sacrificed, and are being sacrificed still, without pity to

-'the highest spiritual interests.'</p>

-

-<p>Acknowledgment and respect for the prescribed order had become so

-deeply rooted in the German soul&mdash;I speak of Germany, because no

-other nation upon earth is so highly disciplined&mdash;that even the most

-independent characters yielded to it. The most dreadful sin is not the

-breaking of the law&mdash;a violation which like Gretchen's can be explained

-by weakness and weakness alone, though it was not forgiven, was less

-severely condemned&mdash;but rebellion against the law, the open and daring

-refusal to obey, even though it be expressed in the most insignificant

-act. Therefore every one tends to show his loyalty from that side

-first of all. In a greater or less degree all have transgressed the

-law, but the more one has violated it in act, the more imperative he

-considers its glorification in words. And this order of things aroused

-neither suspicion nor discontent. Therein could be seen acknowledged

-the superiority of spirit over body, of mind over passion. Nobody ever

-asked the question: 'Is it really true that the spirit must have the

-mastery over the body, and the mind over the passions?' And when Heine

-allowed himself to put the question and to answer it in his own way,

-the whole force of German indignation burst upon him. First of all

-they suspected his sincerity and truthfulness. 'It is impossible,'

-said the pious, 'that he really should not acknowledge the law. He is

-only pretending.' Such a supposition was the more natural because the

-ring of conviction was not always to be heard in Heine's tone: one of

-his poems ends with the following words: 'I seek the body, the body,

-the young and tender body. The soul you may bury deep in the ground&mdash;I

-myself have soul enough.' The poem is daring and provocative in the

-extreme, but in it, as in all Heine's daring and provocative poems, may

-be heard a sharp and nervous laugh, which must be understood as the

-expression of the divided soul, as a mockery of himself. It is he who

-tells of his meeting with two women, mother and daughter. Both please

-him: the mother by her much knowledge, the daughter by her innocence.

-And the poet stands between them, in his own words, like Buridan's

-ass between two bundles of hay. Again, daring, again, the laugh; and

-again the well-balanced German is irritated. He would prefer that no

-one should ever speak of such emotions, and if they are to be spoken

-of, then it must be at least in a penitent tone, with self-accusation.

-But Heine's misplaced laughter is indecent and quite uselessly

-disconcerting. I repeat that Heine himself was not always sure that

-his 'sincerity' was lawful. While he was still a youth he told how

-there suddenly ran through his soul, as through the whole earth, a

-rent which split asunder the unity of his former emotions. King David

-when he praised God and good did not remember his dark deeds&mdash;of

-which there were not a few&mdash;or, if he did remember them, it was only

-to repent. His soul was also divided, but he was able to preserve a

-sequence. When he wept, he could not and did not want to rejoice;

-when he repented, he was already far from sin; when he prayed, he did

-not scoff; when he believed, he did not doubt. The Germans, brought

-up on the great king's psalms, had come to think that these things

-were impossible and ought never to be possible. They admitted the

-succession of different, and even contradictory spiritual conditions,

-but their simultaneous existence appeared to them unintelligible and

-disgusting, in contradiction with divine commandments and the laws of

-logic. It seemed to them that everything which formerly existed as

-separate, had become confused, that the place of stringent harmony had

-been usurped by absurdity and chaos. They thought that such a state of

-things threatened innumerable miseries. They did not admit the idea

-that Heine himself might not understand it; in his creation they saw

-the manifestation of a false and evil will, and they invoked divine and

-human judgment upon it. The Philistine irritation reached the extreme

-when it became clear that Heine had not humbled himself even before the

-face of death. Stricken by paralysis, he lay in his <i>Matrazengrab,</i>

-unable to stir a limb; he suffered the most intense bodily pains,

-with no hope of cure, or even of relief, yet he still continued to

-blaspheme as before. Worse still, his sarcasms every day became more

-ruthless, more poisonous, more refined. It might have been thought that

-it was left to him, crushed and destroyed, only to acknowledge his

-defeat and to commit himself utterly to the magnanimity of the victor.

-But in the weak flesh a strong spirit lived. All his thoughts were

-turned to God, the power of whose right hand, like every dying man,

-he could not but feel upon him. But his thoughts of God, his attitude

-to God, were so original that the serious people of the outer world

-could only shrug their shoulders. No one ever spoke thus to God, either

-aloud or to himself. The thought of death usually inspires mortals

-with fear or admiration; therefore they either kneel before him and

-implore forgiveness or sing his praises. Heine has neither prayer nor

-praise. His poems are permeated with a charming and gracious cynicism,

-peculiar and proper to himself alone. He does not want to confess his

-sins, and even now on the threshold of another life he remains as he

-was in youth. He desires neither paradise, nor bliss, nor heaven; he

-asks God to give him back his health, and to put his money affairs in

-order. 'I know there is much evil and many vices on earth. But I have

-grown used to all that now, and besides I seldom leave my room. O God,

-leave me here, but heal my infirmities, and spare me from want,' he

-writes in one of his last poems. He derides the legends of the blissful

-life of sinless souls in paradise. 'Sitting on the clouds and singing

-psalms is a pastime quite unsuited to me.' He remembers the beautiful

-Venus of the Louvre and praises her as in the days of youth. His poem,

-<i>Das Hohelied,</i> is a mixture of extreme cynicism, nobility, despair,

-and incredible sarcasm. I do not know whether dying men have had such

-thoughts as those which are expressed in this poem, but I am confident

-that no one has expressed anything like them in literature. In Goethe's

-<i>Prometheus</i> there is nothing of the provocative, unshakable, calm

-pride and the consciousness of his rights which inspired the author

-of <i>Das Hohelied.</i> God, who created heaven and earth and man upon the

-earth, is free to torment my body and soul to his fill, but I myself

-know what I need and desire, I myself decide what is good and what is

-bad. That is the meaning of this poem, and of all that Heine wrote in

-the last years of his life. He knew as well as any one that according

-to the doctrines of philosophy, ethics, and religion, repentance and

-humility are the condition of the soul's salvation, the readiness even

-with the last breath of life to renounce sinful desires. Nevertheless,

-with his last breath he does not want to own the power over himself

-of the age-old authorities of the world. He laughs at morality, at

-philosophy, and at existing religions. The wise men think so, the wise

-men want to live in their own way; let them think, let them live. But

-who gave them the right to demand obedience from me? Can they have

-the power to compel me to obedience? Listening to the words of the

-dying man, shall we not repeat his question? Shall we not take one step

-further? Heine is crushed, and if we may believe, as we have every

-reason to believe what he tells us in his 'Song of Songs,' his painful

-and terrible illness was the direct effect and consequence of his

-manner of life. Does it mean that in the future, too (if future there

-is), new persecutions await him, until the day when of his own accord

-he will subscribe to the proclaimed and established morality? Have we

-the right to suppose that there are powers somewhere in the universe

-preoccupied with the business of cutting out all men, even down to

-the last, after the same pattern? Perhaps Heine's contumacy points to

-quite a different intention of the arbiters of destiny. Perhaps the

-illness and torture prepared for those who fight against collars and

-blinkers&mdash;experience demonstrates with sufficient certainty that any

-declination from the high road and the norm inevitably brings suffering

-and ruin in its train&mdash;are only the trial of the human spirit. Who

-will endure them, who will stand up for himself, afraid neither of

-God nor of the devil and his ministers, he will enter victoriously

-into another world. Sometimes I even think, in opposition to existing

-opinion, that <i>there</i> the stubborn and inflexible are valued above

-all others, and that the secret is hidden from mortals lest the

-weak and compliant should take it into their heads to pretend to be

-stubborn, in order to deserve the favour of the gods. But he who

-will not endure, but will deny himself, may expect the fate of which

-philosophers and metaphysicians generally dream. He will be united

-with the <i>primum mobile,</i> he will be dissolved in the essence of being

-together with the mass of individuals like himself. I am tempted to

-think that the metaphysical theories which preach self-renunciation

-for the sake of love, and love for the sake of self-renunciation,

-are by no means empty and idle, as the positivists affirm. In them

-lies a deep, mysterious, and mystical meaning: in them is hidden a

-great truth. Their only mistake is that they pretend to be absolute.

-For some reason or other men have decided that empirical truths are

-many, but that metaphysical truth is one. Metaphysical truths are

-also many, but that does not in the least prevent them from living in

-harmony one with another. Empirical truths like all earthly beings are

-continually quarrelling, and cannot get on without superior authority.

-But metaphysical truths are differently arranged and know nothing

-whatsoever of our rivalry. There is no doubt that people who feel the

-burden of their individuality and thirst for self-renunciation are

-absolutely right. Every probability points to their at last attaining

-their purpose and being united to that to which they should be united,

-whether neighbour or remote, or perhaps, as the pantheists desire, even

-to inanimate nature. But it is just as probable that those who value

-their individuality and do not consent to renounce it either for the

-sake of their neighbours or of a lofty idea, will preserve themselves

-and will remain themselves, if not for ever and ever, at least for a

-sufficiently long while, until they are weary. Therefore the Germans

-must not be cross with Heine, at least those Germans who have judged

-him not from the utilitarian point of view&mdash;from this point of view I

-too utterly condemn him, and find for him no justification at all&mdash;but

-from the lofty, religious or metaphysical point of view, as it is

-called nowadays. He cannot possibly disturb them in any way. They will

-be united, down to the last they probably will be united in the Idea,

-the thing in itself, in Substance, or any other alluring unity; and not

-Heine with his sarcasms will keep them from their lofty aspirations.

-While if he and those like him continue to live in their own way in a

-place apart and even laugh at ideas&mdash;can that really be the occasion of

-serious annoyance?</p>

-

-

-<hr />

-<h4>IX</h4>

-

-<h4><i>What is Truth?</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>The sceptics assert that truth does not and cannot exist, and the

-assertion has eaten so deep into the modern mind, that the only

-philosophy which has spread in our day is that of Kant, which takes

-scepticism for its point of departure. But read the preface to the

-first edition of <i>The Critique of Pure Reason</i> attentively, and you

-will be convinced that he had absolutely no concern with the question:

-'What is truth?' He only set himself to solve the problem, what should

-a man do who had been convinced of the impossibility of finding the

-objective truth. The old metaphysic with its arbitrary and unproven

-assertions, which could not bear criticism, irritated Kant, and he

-decided to get rid, even though by accepting the relative legitimacy of

-scepticism, of the unscientific discipline which he, as a teacher of

-philosophy, had to represent. But the confidence of the sceptics and

-Kant's deference are not in the least binding upon us. And after all

-Kant himself did not fulfil the obligations which he undertook. For if

-we do not know what is truth, what value have the postulates of the

-existence of God and the immortality of the soul? How can we justify

-or explain any one of the existing religions, Christianity included?

-Although the Gospel does not at all agree with our scientific notions

-of the laws of nature, yet it does not in itself contain anything

-contrary to reason. We do not disbelieve in miracles because they are

-impossible. On the contrary, it is as clear as day to the most ordinary

-common sense that life itself, the foundation of the world, is the

-miracle of miracles. And if the task of philosophy had reduced to the

-mere demonstration of the possibility of a miracle, her business would

-have been splendidly accomplished long ago. The whole trouble is that

-visible miracles are not enough for people, and that it is impossible

-to deduce from the fact that many miracles have already taken place

-that other miracles, without which mere existence is often impossible,

-will also happen in due course. Men are being born&mdash;without doubt

-a great miracle; there exists a beautiful world&mdash;also a miracle of

-miracles. But does it follow that men will rise from the grave, and

-that paradise is made ready for them? The raising of Lazarus is not

-much believed nowadays even by those who revere the Gospel, not because

-they will not admit the possibility of miracles in general, but because

-they cannot decide <i>a priori</i> which miracles are possible and which

-are not, and therefore they are obliged to judge <i>a posteriori.</i> They

-readily accept a miracle that has happened, but they doubt the miracle

-that has not happened, and <i>the more they doubt,</i> the more passionately

-do they desire it. It costs nothing to believe in the final triumph

-of good upon the earth (though it would be an absolute miracle), in

-progress or the infallibility of the Pope (these too are miracles and

-by no means inconsiderable), for after all men are quite sufficiently

-indifferent to good, to progress, and to the virtues of the Pope. It

-is much harder, nay quite impossible, standing before the dead body of

-one who is near and dear, to believe that an angel will fly down from

-heaven and bring the dead to life again, although the world is full of

-happenings no less miraculous than the raising of the dead.</p>

-

-<p>Therefore the sceptics are wrong when they assert that there is no

-truth. Truth exists, but we do not know it in all its volume, nor can

-we formulate that which we do know: we cannot imagine why it happened

-thus and not otherwise, or whether that which happened had to happen

-thus, or whether something else quite different might have happened.

-Once it was held that reality obeys the laws of necessity, but Hume

-explained that the notion of necessity is subjective, and therefore

-must be discarded as illusory. His idea was caught up (without the

-deduction) by Kant. All those of our judgments which have the character

-of universality and necessity, acquire it only by virtue of our

-psychological organisation. In those cases where we are particularly

-convinced of the objective value of our judgment, we have merely

-to do with a purely subjective certainty, though it is immutable

-and secure in the visible world. It is well known that Kant did not

-accept Hume's deduction: not only did he make no attempt to banish the

-false premisses from our intellectual economy, as Hume did with the

-conception of necessity, but, on the contrary, he declared that such

-an attempt was quite impracticable. The practical reason suggested to

-Kant that though the foundations of our judgments are vitiated by their

-source, yet their invariability may be of great assistance in the world

-of phenomena, that is in the space between the birth and death of man.

-If a man has lived before birth (as Plato held), and will live after

-death, then his 'truths' were not, and will not be necessary there,

-in the other world. What truths are <i>there,</i> and whether there are

-any truths at all, Kant only guesses, and he succeeds in his guesses

-only because of his readiness to ignore logic in his conclusions. He

-suddenly gives faith an immense right to judge of the real world, a

-right of which faith would never dream had it not been taken under his

-special patronage by the philosopher himself. But why can faith do that

-which reason cannot? And a yet more insidious question: Are not all

-postulates invented by the same mind which was deprived of its rights

-in the first Critique, but which subsequently obtained a verdict of

-<i>restitutio in integrum,</i> by changing the name of the firm? The last

-hypothesis is the most probable. And if so, then does it not follow

-that in the real world so carefully divided by Kant from the world of

-phenomena we will find much that is new, but not a little that is old.</p>

-

-<p>In general it is clear that the assumption that our world is a world

-of an instant, a brief dream, utterly unlike real life, is mistaken.

-This assumption, first enunciated by Plato, and afterwards elaborated

-and maintained by many representatives of religious and philosophical

-thought, is based upon no data at all. There's no denying, it is very

-pleasant. But as often happens, as soon as the wish was invested

-with language, by the mere fact it received too sharp and angular an

-expression, so that it lost all resemblance to itself. The essence

-of the true, primordial life beyond the grave appears to Plato as

-absolute good refined from all alloy, as the essence of virtue.

-But after all Plato himself cannot suffer the absolute emptiness

-of the ideal existence, and constantly flavours it with elements

-which are by no means ideal, but which give interest and intensity

-to his dialogues. If you have never had the occasion to read Plato

-himself, acquaint yourself with his philosophy through the teaching

-of any of his admirers and appreciators, and you will be struck by

-its emptiness. Read the thick volume of Natorp's well-known work,

-and you will see what value there is in Plato's 'purified' doctrine.

-And in passing I would recommend as a general rule, this method of

-examining the ideas of famous philosophers, by acquainting oneself with

-them not only in the original works, but in the expositions of their

-disciples, particularly of faithful and conscientious disciples. When

-the fascination of the personality and the genius disappears and the

-naked, unadorned 'truth' remains&mdash;disciples always believe that the

-master had the truth, and they reveal it without any embellishment or

-fig leaf&mdash;only then does it become quite clear of how little value

-are the fundamental thoughts of even the most exalted philosophers.

-Still more obvious does it become when the faithful disciple begins

-to draw conclusions from his master's proportions. The book of the

-aforesaid Natorp, a great Plato expert, is a <i>reductio ad absurdum</i>

-of all his master's ideas. Plato is revealed as a logical Neo-Kantian,

-a narrow-minded savant, who had been put thoroughly through the mill

-at Freiburg or Heidelberg. It is also revealed that Plato's ideas, in

-the pure state, do not in the least express his real attitude to life

-and to the world. One must take the whole Plato with his contradictions

-and inconsequence, with his vices and virtues, and value his defects at

-least as much as his qualities, or even add one or two defects, and be

-blind to one or two virtues. For it is probable that he, as a man to

-whom nothing human was alien, tried to assume a few virtues which he

-did not possess, and to conceal a few failings. This course should be

-followed with other masters of wisdom and their doctrines. Then 'the

-other world' will not appear to be separated by such an abyss from our

-earthly vale. And perhaps, in spite of Kant, some empirical truths

-will be found common to both worlds. Then Pilate's question will lose

-much of its all-conquering certainty. He wished to wash his hands of

-the business, and he asked, 'What is truth?' After him and before him,

-many who had no desire to struggle have devised ingenious questions and

-taken their stand upon scepticism. But every one knows that truth does

-exist, and sometimes can even formulate its own conception with the

-clarity and precision demanded by Descartes. Is the miraculous bounded

-by the miracles that have already been seen on earth, or are its

-limits set much wider? And if wider, then how much?</p>

-

-

-<hr />

-<h4>X</h4>

-

-<h4><i>More of Truth</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>Perhaps truth is by nature such that its communication between

-men is impossible, at least the usual communication by means of

-language. Every one may know it in himself, but in order to enter into

-communication with his neighbour he must renounce the truth and accept

-some conventional lie. Nevertheless the value and importance of truth

-is by no means lessened by the fact that it cannot be given a market

-valuation. If you were asked what is truth, you could not answer the

-question even though you had given your whole life to the study of

-philosophical theories. In yourself, if you have no one to answer,

-you know well what the truth is. Therefore truth does not by nature

-resemble empirical truth in the least, and before entering the world

-of philosophy, you must bid farewell to scientific methods of search,

-and to the accustomed methods of estimating knowledge. In a word, you

-must be ready to accept something absolutely new, quite unlike what is

-traditional and old. That is why the tendency to discredit scientific

-knowledge is by no means so useless as may at first sight appear to the

-inexperienced eye.</p>

-

-<p>That is why irony and sarcasm prove to be a necessary weapon of the

-investigator. The most dangerous enemy of new knowledge always has

-been, and always will be, inculcated habit. From the practical point

-of view it is much more important to a man to know the things which

-may help him to adapt himself to the temporary conditions of his

-existence, than those which have a timeless value. The instinct of

-self-preservation always proves stronger than the sincerest desire for

-knowledge. Moreover, one must remember that the instinct has at its

-disposal innumerable and most subtle weapons of defence, that all human

-faculties without exception are under its command, from unconscious

-reflexes up to the enthroned mind and august consciousness. Much

-and often has been said in this regard, and for once the <i>consensus

-sapientium</i> is on my side. True, this is treated as an undeniable

-perversion of human nature&mdash;and here I make my protest. I think that

-there is in this nothing undesirable. Our mind and consciousness must

-consider it an honour that they can find themselves in the service of

-instinct, even if it be the instinct of self-preservation. They should

-not be conceited, and to tell the truth they are not conceited, but

-readily fulfil their official mission. They pretend to priority only

-in books, and tremble at the thought of pre-eminence in life. If by

-some accident they were allowed freedom of action they would go mad

-with terror, like children lost in a forest at night. Every time that

-the mind and consciousness begin to judge independently, they reach

-destructive conclusions. And then they see with surprise that this

-time too they were not acting freely, but under the dictation of the

-self-same instinct, which had assumed a different character. The human

-soul desired the work of destruction, and she loosed the slaves from

-their chains, and they in wild enthusiasm began to celebrate their

-freedom by making great havoc, not in the least suspecting that they

-remained just as they were before, slaves who work for others.</p>

-

-<p>Long ago Dostoevsky pointed out that the instinct of destruction

-is as natural to the human soul as that of creation. Beside these

-two instincts all our faculties appear to be minor psychological

-properties, required only under given, and accidental, conditions.

-Of truth&mdash;as not only the crass materialists now confess, but the

-idealists also have found in their metaphysic&mdash;nothing remains but

-the idea of the norm.&mdash;To speak in more expressive and intelligible

-language, truth exists only in order that men who are separated in time

-and space might establish between themselves some kind of communication

-at least. That is, a man must choose between absolute loneliness

-with truth, on the one side, and communion with his neighbours and

-falsehood, on the other. Which is the better, it will be asked. The

-question is idle, I reply. There is a third way still: to accept

-both, though it may at first appear utterly absurd, especially to

-people who have once for all decided that logic, like mathematics,

-is infallible. Whereas it is possible, and not merely possible&mdash;we

-would not be content with a possibility: only a German idealist can be

-satisfied with a good which was never realised in any place at all&mdash;it

-is continually observed that the most contradictory spiritual states

-do coexist. All men lie when they begin to speak: our language is so

-imperfectly arranged that the principle of its arrangement presupposes

-a readiness to speak untruth. The more abstract the subject is, the

-more does the disposition to lie increase, until, when we touch upon

-the most complicated questions, we have to lie incessantly, and the

-lie is the more intolerable and coarse the more sincere we are. For a

-sincere man is convinced that veracity is assured by the absence of

-contradictions, and in order to avoid all appearance of lie, he tries

-to make a logical agreement between his opinions: that is to raise his

-lie to Herculean heights. In his turn, when he receives the opinions

-of others, he applies the same criterion, and the moment he notices

-the smallest contradiction, he begins naively to cry out against the

-violation of the fundamental decencies. What is particularly curious

-is that all the learned students of philosophy&mdash;and it is strictly to

-them that I address myself here, as the reader has probably observed

-long ago&mdash;certainly are well aware that no single one of the mightiest

-philosophers has hitherto succeeded in eliminating all contradictions

-from his system. How well armed was Spinoza! He spared no effort,

-and stuck at nothing, and yet his remarkable system will not bear

-logical criticism. That is a matter of common knowledge. So it appears

-that we ought to ask what the devil is the use of consistency, and

-whether contradictions are not the condition of truthfulness in one's

-conception of the world. And after Kant, his disciples and successors

-might have answered quietly that the devil alone knows the use of

-consistency, and that truth lives by contradictions. As a matter of

-fact, Hegel and Schopenhauer, each in his own way, partly attempted to

-make an admission of this kind, but they derived small profit from it.</p>

-

-<p>Let us try to draw some conclusions from the foregoing. Certainly,

-while logic can be useful, it would be unjustifiable recklessness

-to refuse its services. Nor are the conclusions devoid of interest,

-as we shall see. First of all, when you speak, never trouble to be

-consistent with what you said before: that will put an unnecessary

-check upon your freedom, which, without that additional fetter, is

-already chained in words and grammatical forms. When you are listening

-to a friend or reading a book, do not assign great value to individual

-words or even to phrases. Forget separate thoughts, and give no great

-consideration even to logically arranged ideas. Remember that though

-your friend desires it, he cannot express himself save by ready-made

-forms of speech. Look well to the expression of his face, listen to

-the intonation of his voice&mdash;this will help you to penetrate through

-his words to his soul. Not only in conversation, but even in a written

-book, can one over-hear the sound, even the timbre of the author's

-voice, and notice the finest shades of expression in his eyes and

-face. Do not fasten upon contradictions, do not dispute, do not demand

-argument: only listen with attention. In return for which, when you

-begin to speak, you also will have to face no dispute, nor to produce

-arguments, which you know well you neither have nor could have. So you

-will not be annoyed by having pointed out to you your contradictions

-which you know well were always there, and will always be there, and

-with which it is painful, nay quite impossible, for you to part. Then,

-then&mdash;and this is most important of all&mdash;you will at last be convinced

-that truth does not depend on logic, that there are no logical truths

-at all, that you therefore have the right to search for what you like,

-how you like, without argument, and that if something results from your

-search, it will not be a formula, not a law, not a principle, not even

-an idea! Only think: while the object of search is 'truth,' as it is

-understood nowadays, one must be prepared for anything. For instance,

-the materialists will be right, and matter and energy are the basis

-of the world. It does not matter that we can immediately confound

-the materialists with their conclusions. The history of thought can

-show many cases of the complete rehabilitation of opinions that have

-been cast off and reviled. Yesterday's error may be to-morrow's truth,

-even a self-evident truth. And apart from its content, wherein is

-materialism bad? It is a harmonious, consistent, and well-sustained

-system. I have already pointed out that the materialistic

-conception of the world is just as capable of enchanting men as any

-other&mdash;pantheistic or idealistic. And since we have come so far, I

-confess that in my opinion no ideas at all are bad in themselves: so

-far I have been able to follow with pleasure the development of the

-idea of progress to the accompaniment of factories, railways, and

-aeroplanes. Still, it seems to me childish to hope that all these

-trivialities&mdash;I mean the ideas&mdash;will become the object of man's serious

-seeking. If that desperate struggle of man with God and the world

-were possible, of which legend and history tell&mdash;think of Prometheus

-alone&mdash;then it was not for truth and not for the idea. Man desires to

-be strong and rich and free, the wretched, insignificant creature of

-dust, whom the first chance shock crushes like a worm before one's

-eyes,&mdash;and if he speaks of ideas it is only because he despairs of

-success in his proper search. He feels that he is a worm, he fears that

-he must again return to the dust which he is, and he lies, pretending

-that his misery is not terrible to him, if only he knew the truth.

-Forgive him his lie, for he speaks it only with his lips. Let him say

-what he will, how he will; so long as we hear in his words the familiar

-note of the call to battle, and the fire of desperate inexorable

-resolution burns in his eyes, we will understand him. We are used to

-decipher hieroglyphs. But if he, like the Germans of to-day, accepts

-truth and the norm as the final goal of human aspiration, we shall also

-know with whom we have to deal, were he by destiny endowed with the

-eloquence of Cicero. Better utter loneliness than communion with such a

-man. Yet such communion does not exclude utter loneliness; perhaps it

-even assists the hard achievement.</p>

-

-

-<hr />

-<h4>XI</h4>

-

-<h4><i>I and Thou</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>The familiar expression, 'to look into another's soul,' which by

-force of habit at first sight seems extremely intelligible, on closer

-observation appears so unintelligible that one is forced to ask whether

-it has any meaning at all. Try to bend, mentally, over another's soul:

-you will see nothing but a vast, empty, black abyss, and you will only

-be seized with giddiness for your pains. Thus, properly speaking, the

-expression 'to look into another's soul' is only an abortive metaphor.

-All that we can do is to argue from the outward data to the inward

-feelings. From tears we deduce pain, from pallor, fear, from a smile,

-joy. But is this to look into another's soul? It is only to give room

-to a series of purely logical processes in one's head. The other's soul

-remains as invisible as before; we only guess at it, perhaps rightly,

-perhaps mistakenly. Naturally this conclusion irritates us. What a

-miserable world it is where it is quite impossible to see the very

-thing that we desire above all to see. But irritation is almost the

-normal spiritual state of a man who thinks and seeks. Whenever it is

-particularly important to him to be sure of something, after a number

-of desperate attempts he is convinced that his curiosity cannot be

-satisfied. And now the mocking mind adds a new question to the old:

-Why look for another's soul when you have not seen your own? And is

-there a soul? Many have believed and still do believe that there is no

-soul at all, but only a science of it, called psychology. It is known

-that psychology says nothing of the soul, considering that its task is

-confined to the study of spiritual states&mdash;states, by the way, which

-have as yet hardly been studied at all.... What is the way out? One can

-answer irony with irony, or even with abuse. One can deny psychology

-the right to be called a science and call the materialists a pack of

-fools, as is often done. Incontestably, anger has its rights. But this

-has sense and meaning only while you are among people and are listened

-to. Nobody wants to be indignant alone with oneself, when one is

-not even reckoning upon making use of one's indignation for literary

-purposes: for even a writer is not always writing, and is more often

-preoccupied with transitory thoughts than with his forthcoming works.

-One prefers to approach the enchanted cave, though for the thousandth

-time, with every possible precaution. Perhaps it is only upon the

-approach of an outside soul that another's soul becomes invisible,

-and if she be caught unawares she will not have time to disappear.

-So that ponderous psychology, which like any other science always

-proclaims its plans and methods aloud before undertaking anything, is

-utterly unsuited to the capture of a thing so light and mobile as the

-human soul. But let us leave psychology with the honourable name of

-science; let us even respect the materialists, while we endeavour to

-track down the soul by other means. Perhaps in the depth of the dark

-abyss of which we spoke, something might be found, were it not for

-the giddiness. Therefore it is not so necessary to invent new methods

-as to learn to look fearlessly into the depths, which always appear

-unfathomable to the unaccustomed eye.</p>

-

-<p>After all, unfathomability is not so entirely useless to man. It was

-driven into our heads as children that the human mind could compass

-only those things which are limited. But this only proves that we have

-yet another prejudice to get rid of. If it comes to giving up the right

-of abusing the materialists and of being taught by psychology, and

-something else into the bargain&mdash;well, we are used to that. But in

-return we may at last be granted a glimpse of the mysterious 'thou,'

-and perhaps the 'I' will cease to be problematical as well. Patience

-is a sickening thing; but remember the fakirs and the other worthies

-of the same kind. They succeed by patience alone. And apparently

-they arrive at something; but not at universal truths, I am ready to

-vouch for that. The world has long been weary of universal truths.

-Even 'truth' pure and simple makes no whisper in my ear. We must find

-a way of escape from the power of every kind of truth. This victory

-the fakirs tried to win. They can produce no arguments to prove their

-right, for the visible victory was never on their side. One conquers

-by bayonets, big guns, microscopes and logical arguments. Microscopes

-and logic give the palm to limitation. And yet, though limitation often

-strengthens, it also happens that it kills.</p>

-

-

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-<h4><a name="THE_THEORY_OF_KNOWLEDGE" id="THE_THEORY_OF_KNOWLEDGE">THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE</a></h4>

-

-<hr class="r5" />

-

-<h4><i>The Theory of Knowledge as Apologetics</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>The modern theory of knowledge, though it always consciously takes

-its rise from Kant, has in one respect quite disregarded the master's

-commandment. It is very strange that the theorists of knowledge,

-who usually cannot agree among themselves upon anything, have as it

-were agreed to understand the problem of knowledge quite otherwise

-than Kant. Kant undertook to investigate our cognitive faculties in

-order to establish foundations, in virtue of which certain existing

-sciences could be accepted, and others rejected. One may say that the

-second purpose was chief. Hume's scepticism made him uneasy only in

-theory. He knew beforehand that whatever theory of knowledge he might

-invent, mathematics and the natural sciences would remain sciences and

-metaphysics be rejected. In other words, his aim was not to justify

-science but to explain the possibility of its existence; and he started

-from the point of view that no one can seriously doubt the truths of

-mathematics and natural science. But now the position is different. The

-theorists of knowledge direct all their efforts towards <i>justifying</i>

-scientific knowledge. Why? Does scientific knowledge really need

-justification? Of course there are cranks, sometimes even cranks of

-genius, like our own Tolstoi, who attack science; but their attacks

-offend no one, nor do they cause alarm.</p>

-

-<p>Scientists continue their researches as before; the universities

-flourish; discovery follows discovery. And the theorists of knowledge

-themselves do not spend sleepless nights in the endeavour to find

-new justifications for science. Yet, I repeat, though they can come

-to an understanding about practically nothing else, they amaze us

-by their unanimity upon this point&mdash;they are all convinced that it

-is their duty to justify science and exalt her. So that the modern

-theory of knowledge is no longer a science, but an apology. And

-its demonstrations are like those of apology. Once science must

-be defended, it is necessary to begin by praising her, that is by

-selecting evidence and data to show that science fulfils some mission

-or other, but indubitably a very high and important one, or, on the

-other hand, by painting a picture of the fate that would overtake

-mankind, if it was deprived of science. Thus the apologetic element

-has begun to play almost as large a part in the theory of knowledge

-as it has done hitherto in theology. Perhaps the time is at hand when

-scientific apologetics will be officially recognised as a philosophic

-discipline.</p>

-

-<p>But, <i>qui s'excuse s'accuse.</i> It is plain that all is not well with

-science, since she has begun to justify herself. Besides, apologetics

-are only apologetics, and sooner or later the theory of knowledge

-will be tired of psalms of praise, and will demand a more complex and

-responsible task, and a real labour. At present the theorists start

-with the assumption that scientific knowledge is perfect knowledge,

-and therefore the premisses upon which it is builded are not subject

-to criticism. The law of causation is not justified because it appears

-to be the expression of a real relation of things, nor even because we

-have data at our disposal which could convince us that it does not and

-will never admit exceptions, that uncaused effects are impossible. All

-these things are lacking; but, we are told, they are not needed.</p>

-

-<p>The chief thing is that the causal law makes science possible, while

-to reject it means to reject science and knowledge generally, all

-anticipation, and even, as some few hold, reason itself. Clearly, if

-one has to choose between a slightly dubious admission on the one side

-and the prospect of chaos and insanity on the other, there will be no

-long hesitation. Apologetics, we see, has chosen the most powerful of

-arguments, <i>ad hominem.</i> But all such arguments partake of one common

-defect; they are not constant, and they are double-edged.</p>

-

-<p>To-day they defend scientific knowledge; to-morrow they will attack it.

-Indeed, it so happens that the very belief in the causal law begets a

-great disquiet and turmoil in the soul, which finally produces all the

-horrors of chaos and madness. The certainty that the existing order

-is immutable is for certain minds synonymous with the certainty that

-life is nonsensical and absurd. Probably the disciples of Christ had

-that feeling when the last words of their crucified Master reached them

-from the cross: 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?' And the

-modern theorists may explain triumphantly that when the law became the

-instrument of chaos and madness, it was <i>ipso facto</i> abolished. 'Christ

-has risen,' say the disciples of Christ.</p>

-

-<p>I have said that the theorists may triumph; but I must confess that I

-have not found in any of them an open glorification of such an obvious

-proof of the truth of their teaching. Of the resurrection of Christ

-they say not a word&mdash;on the contrary, they make every effort to avoid

-it and pass it by in silence. And this circumstance compels us to pause

-and think. A dilemma arises: if you grant that the law of causation

-suffers no exception, then your soul will be eternally haunted by the

-last words of the crucified Christ; if you do not, then you will have

-no science. Some assert that it is impossible to live without science,

-without knowledge, that such a life is horror and madness; others

-cannot be reconciled to the thought that the most perfect of men died

-the death of a murderer. What shall we do? Without which thing is it

-impossible for man to live? Without scientific knowledge, or without

-the conviction that truth and spiritual perfection are in the last

-resort the victors of this world? And how will the theory of knowledge

-stand with regard to questions such as these?</p>

-

-<p>Will it still continue its exercises in apologetics or will it at last

-understand that this is not its real problem, and that if it would

-preserve the right to be called philosophy, it will have not to justify

-and exalt the existing science, but to examine and direct some science

-of its own. It means above all to put the question: Is scientific

-knowledge really perfect, or is it perhaps imperfect, and should it

-therefore yield its present honourable place to another science?

-Evidently this is the most important question for the theory of

-knowledge, yet this question it never puts. It wants to exalt existing

-science. It has been, is now, and probably will long continue to be,

-apologetics.</p>

-

-

-

-<h4><i>Truth and Utility</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>Mill, seeking to prove that all our sciences, even the mathematical,

-have an empiric origin, brings forward the following consideration.

-If on every occasion that we had to take twice two things, some deity

-slipped one extra thing into our hands, we should be convinced that

-twice two is not four but five. And perhaps Mill is right: perhaps we

-should not divine what was the matter. We are much more concerned to

-discover what is practically necessary and directly useful to us than

-to search for truth. If a deity with each four things slipped a fifth

-into our hands, we should accept the additional thing and consider

-it natural, intelligible, necessary, impossible to be otherwise. The

-very uniformity in the sequence of phenomena observed by the empirical

-philosophers was also slipped into our hands. By whom? When? Who dares

-to ask? Once the law is established no one is interested in anything

-any more. Now we can foretell the future, now we can use the thing

-slipped into our hands, and the rest&mdash;cometh of the evil one.</p>

-

-

-

-<h4><i>Philosophers and Teachers</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>Every one knows that Schopenhauer was for many years not only not

-recognised, but not even read. His books were used for waste-paper.

-It was only towards the end of his life that he had readers and

-admirers&mdash;and, of course, critics. For every admirer is at bottom a

-most merciless and importunate critic. He must understand everything,

-make everything agree, and of course the master must supply the

-necessary explanations. Schopenhauer, who did not have the experience

-of being a master till his old age, at first behaved very benevolently

-to his disciples' questions and patiently gave the explanations

-required. But the further one goes into the forest, the thicker are

-the trees. The most loyal perplexities of his pupils became more and

-more importunate, until at last the old man lost patience. 'I didn't

-undertake to explain all the secrets of the universe to every one who

-wanted to know them,' he once exclaimed, when a certain pupil persisted

-in emphasising the contradictions he had noticed in Schopenhauer. And

-really&mdash;is a master obliged to explain everything? In Schopenhauer's

-words we are given an answer, not ambiguous. A philosopher not only

-cannot be a teacher, he does not want to be one. There are teachers

-in schools, in universities: they teach arithmetic, grammar, logic,

-metaphysics. The philosopher has quite a different task, one which does

-not in the least resemble teaching.</p>

-

-

-

-<h4><i>Truth as a Social Substance</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>There are many ways, real and imaginary, of objectively verifying

-philosophic opinions. But they all reduce, we know, to trial by

-the law of contradiction. True, every one is aware that no single

-philosophic doctrine is able to support such a trial, so that, pending

-a better future, people consider it possible to display a certain

-tenderness in the examination. They are usually satisfied if they

-come to the conclusion that the philosopher made a genuine attempt

-to avoid contradictions. For instance, they forgive Spinoza his

-inconsistency because of his <i>amor intellectualis Dei</i>; Kant, for his

-love of morality and his praise of disinterestedness; Plato, for the

-originality and purity of his idealistic impulses; and Aristotle, for

-the vastyness and universality of his knowledge. So that, strictly

-speaking, we must confess that we have no real objective method of

-verifying a philosophical truth, and when we criticise other people's

-systems, we judge arbitrarily after all. If a philosopher suits us

-for some reason, we do not trouble him with the law of contradiction;

-if he does not, we summon him before the court to be judged with the

-utmost rigour of the law, confident beforehand that he will be found

-guilty on every count. But sometimes there arises the desire to verify

-one's own philosophic convictions. To play the farce of objective

-verification with them, to look for contradictions in oneself&mdash;I do not

-suppose that even Germans are capable of that. And yet one desires to

-know whether he does indeed possess the truth or whether he has only a

-universal error in his hands. What is to be done? I think there is a

-way. He should think to himself that it is absolutely impossible for

-his truth to be binding upon anybody. If in spite of this he still

-refuses to renounce her, if the truth can suffer such an ordeal and

-yet remain the same to him as she was before, then it may be supposed

-that she is worth something. For often we appreciate conviction, not

-because it has an intrinsic value, but because it commands a high price

-in the market. Robinson Crusoe probably had a totally different way

-of thinking to that of a modern writer or professor, whose books are

-exposed to the appreciation of his numerous confrères, who can create

-for him the renown of a wise man and a scholar, or utterly ruin his

-reputation. Even with the Greeks, whom we are accustomed to regard as

-model thinkers, opinions had&mdash;to use the language of economics&mdash;not so

-much a demand, as an exchange value.</p>

-

-<p>The Greeks had no knowledge of the printing-press, and no literary

-reviews. They usually took their wisdom out into the market-place,

-and applied all their efforts to persuade people to acknowledge its

-value. And it is hard to maintain that wisdom, which is constantly

-being offered to people, should not adapt itself to people's tastes.

-It is truer to say that wisdom became accustomed to value itself to

-the exact degree to which it could count on people's appreciation. In

-other words, it appears that the value of wisdom, like that of all

-other commodities, not only with us, but with the Greeks before us, is

-a social affair. The most modern philosophy has given up concealing the

-fact. The teleology of the rationalists, who follow Fichte, as well as

-of the pragmatists who consider themselves the successors of Mill is

-openly based upon the social point of view, and speaks of collective

-creations. Truth which is not good for all, and always, in the home

-market and the foreign&mdash;is not truth. Perhaps its value is even defined

-by the quantity of labour spent upon it. Marx might triumph: under

-different flags his theory has found admission into every sphere of

-contemporary thought. There would hardly be found one philosopher who

-would apply the method of verifying truth which I have proposed; and

-hardly a single modern idea which would stand the test.</p>

-

-

-

-<h4><i>Doctrines and Deductions</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>If you want to ruin a new idea&mdash;try to give it the widest possible

-publicity. Men will begin to reflect upon it, to try it by their daily

-needs, to interpret it, to make deductions from it, in a word to

-squeeze it into their own prepared logical apparatus; or, more likely,

-they will cover it up with the <i>débris</i> of their own habitual and

-intelligible ideas, and it will become as dead as everything that is

-begotten by logic. Perhaps this explains the tendency of philosophers

-to so clothe their thoughts that their form may hinder the approach of

-the general public to them. The majority of philosophic systems are

-chaotically and obscurely expounded, so that not every educated person

-can understand them. It is a pity to kill one's own child, and every

-one does his best to save it from premature death. The most dangerous

-enemies of an idea are 'deductions' from it, as though they followed of

-themselves. The idea does not presuppose them; they are usually pressed

-upon it. Indeed, people very often say: 'The idea is quite right, but

-it leads to conclusions which are not at all acceptable.' Again, how

-often has a philosopher to attend the sad spectacle of his pupil's

-deserting all his ideas, and feeding only upon the conclusions from

-them. Every thinker who has had the misfortune to attract attention

-while he was yet alive, knows by bitter experience what 'deductions'

-are. And yet you will rarely find a philosopher to offer open and

-courageous resistance to his continuators; and still more rarely a

-philosopher to say outright that his work needs no continuation, that

-it will not bear continuation, that it exists only in and for itself,

-that it is self-sufficient. If some one said this, how would he be

-answered? People could not dispute with him&mdash;try to dispute with a man

-who wants neither to dispute nor to demonstrate.</p>

-

-<p>The only answer is an appeal to the popular verdict, to lynch law.

-People are so weak and naïve that they will at all costs see a teacher

-(in the usual sense of the word) in every philosopher. In other words,

-they really want to throw upon him the responsibility for their

-actions, their present, their future, and their whole fate. Socrates

-was not executed for teaching, but because the Athenians thought he

-was dangerous to Athens. And in all ages men have approached truth

-with this criterion, as though they knew beforehand that truth must

-be of use and able to protect them. One of the greatest teachings,

-Christianity, was also persecuted because it seemed dangerous to the

-self-appointed guardians, or, if you will, because it was really very

-dangerous to Roman ideals. Of course, neither Socrates' death nor the

-deaths of thousands of the early Christians saved the ancient culture

-and polity from decay: but no one has learned anything from the lesson.

-People think that these were all accidental mistakes, against which no

-one was secure in ancient times, but which will never again recur; and

-therefore they continue to make 'deductions' as they used from every

-truth, and to judge the truth by the deductions they have made. And

-they have their reward. Although there have been on earth many wise men

-who knew much that is infinitely more valuable than all the treasures

-for which men are ready even to sacrifice their lives, still wisdom is

-to us a book with seven seals, a hidden hoard upon which we cannot lay

-our hands. Many&mdash;the vast majority&mdash;are even seriously convinced that

-philosophy is a most tedious and painful occupation to which are doomed

-some miserable wretches who enjoy the odious privilege of being called

-philosophers. I believe that even professors of philosophy, the more

-clever of them, not seldom share this opinion and suppose that therein

-lies the ultimate secret of their science, revealed to the initiate

-alone. Fortunately, the position is otherwise. It may be that mankind

-is destined never to change in this respect, and a thousand years hence

-men will care much more about 'deductions,' theoretical and practical,

-from the truth than about truth itself; but real philosophers, men who

-know what they want and at what they aim, will hardly be embarrassed

-by this. They will utter their truths as before, without in the least

-considering what conclusions will be drawn from them by the lovers of

-logic.</p>

-

-

-

-<h4><i>Truths, Proven and Unproven</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>Whence did we get the habit of requiring proofs of each idea that

-is expressed? If we put aside the consideration, as having no real

-meaning in the present case, that men do often purposely deceive their

-neighbours for gain or other interests, then strictly speaking the

-necessity for proof is entirely removed. It is true that we can still

-deceive ourselves and fall into involuntary error. Sometimes we take

-a vision for a reality, and we wish to guard against that offensive

-mistake. But as soon as the possibility of <i>bona fide</i> error is

-removed, then we may relate simply without arguments, judgments, or

-references. If you please, believe; if you don't, don't. And there is

-one province, the very province which has always attracted to itself

-the most remarkable representatives of the human race, where proofs

-in the general acceptation are even quite impossible. We have been

-hitherto taught that that which cannot be proved, should not be spoken

-about. Still worse, we have so arranged our language that, strictly

-speaking, everything we say is expressed in the form of a judgment,

-that is, in a form which presupposes not merely the possibility but

-the necessity of proofs. Perhaps this is the reason why metaphysics

-has been the object of incessant attack. Metaphysics evidently was not

-only unable to find a form of expression for her truths which would

-free her from the obligation of proof; she did not even want to. She

-considered herself the science <i>par excellence,</i> and therefore supposed

-that she had more largely and more strictly to prove the judgments

-which she took under her wing. She thought that if she were to neglect

-the duty of demonstration she would lose all her rights. And that, I

-imagine, was her fatal mistake. The correspondence of rights and duties

-is perhaps a cardinal truth (or a cardinal fiction) of the doctrine

-of law, but it has been introduced into the sphere of philosophy by a

-misunderstanding. Here, rather, the contrary principle is enthroned:

-rights are in inverse proportion to duties. And only there where

-all duties have ceased is the greatest and most sovereign right

-acquired&mdash;the right of communion with ultimate truths. Here we must not

-for one moment forget that ultimate truths have nothing in common with

-middle truths, the logical construction of which we have so diligently

-studied for the last two thousand years. The fundamental difference is

-that the ultimate truths are absolutely unintelligible. Unintelligible,

-I repeat, but not inaccessible. It is true that middle truths also are,

-strictly speaking, unintelligible. Who will assert that he understands

-light, heat, pain, pride, joy, degradation?</p>

-

-<p>Nevertheless, our mind, in alliance with omnipotent habit, has,

-with the assistance of some strained interpretation, given to the

-combination of phenomena in the segment of universal life that is

-accessible to us, a certain kind of harmony and unity, and this from

-time immemorial has gained repute under the name of an intelligible

-explanation of the created world. But the known, which is the familiar,

-world is sufficiently unintelligible to make good faith require of us

-that we should accept unintelligibility as the fundamental predicate

-of being. It is impossible to hold, as some do, that the only reason

-why we do not understand the world is that something is hidden from

-us or that our mind is weak, so that if the Supreme Being wished to

-unveil the secret of creation to us, or if the human brain should so

-much develop in the next ten million years that he will excel us as

-far as we excel our official ancestor, the ape, then the world will be

-intelligible. No, no, no! By their very essence the operations which we

-perform upon reality to understand it are useful and necessary only so

-long as they do not pass a certain limit. It is possible to understand

-the arrangement of a locomotive. It is also legitimate to seek an

-explanation of an eclipse of the sun, or of an earthquake. But a moment

-comes&mdash;only we cannot define it exactly&mdash;when explanations lose all

-meaning and are good for nothing any more. It is as though we were led

-by a rope&mdash;the law of sufficient reason&mdash;to a certain place and left

-there: 'Now go wherever you like.' And since we have grown so used to

-the rope in our lives, we begin to believe that it is part of the very

-essence of the world. One of the most remarkable thinkers, Spinoza,

-thought that God himself was bound by necessity.</p>

-

-<p>Let any one probe himself carefully, and he will find that he is not

-merely unable to think but almost unable to live without the hypothesis

-of Spinoza. The work of Hume, who so brilliantly disputed the axiom

-of causal necessity, was only half done. He clearly showed that it

-is impossible to prove the existence of necessary connection. But it

-is also impossible to prove the contrary. In the result, everything

-remained as before: Kant, and all mankind after him, has returned to

-Spinoza's position. Freedom has been driven into an intellectual world,

-an unknown land,</p>

-

-<p>

-<span style="margin-left: 10.5em;">'from whose bourne</span><br />

-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">No traveller returns,'</span><br />

-</p>

-

-<p>and everything is in its former place. Philosophy wants to be a science

-at all costs. It is absolutely impossible for her to succeed in this;

-but the price she has paid for the right to be called a science, is

-not returned to her. She has waived the right of seeking that which

-she needed wherever she would, and she is deprived of the right for

-ever. But did she really need it? If you glance at contemporary German

-philosophy you will say without hesitation that it was not needed at

-all. Neither by mistake, nor even in pursuit of a new title, did she

-renounce her great vocation: it has become an intolerable burden to

-her. However hard it may be to confess, it is nevertheless indubitable

-that the great secrets of the universe cannot be manifested with the

-clarity and distinctness with which the visible and tangible world is

-opened to us. Not only others&mdash;you will not even convince yourself of

-your truth with the obviousness with which you can convince all men

-without exception of scientific truths.</p>

-

-<p>Revelations, if they do occur, are always revelations for an instant.

-Mahomet&mdash;Dostoevsky explains&mdash;could only stay in paradise a very short

-time, from half a second to five seconds, even if he succeeded in

-falling into it. And Dostoevsky himself entered paradise only for an

-instant. And here on earth, both of them lived for years, for tens of

-years, and there seemed to be no end to the hell of earthly existence.

-The hell was obvious, demonstrable; it could be fixed, exhibited,

-<i>ad oculos.</i> But how could paradise be proven? How could one fix,

-how express, those half-seconds of paradisic beatitude, which were

-from the outside manifested in ugly and horrible epileptic fits with

-convulsions, paroxysms, a foaming mouth, and sometimes an ill-omened

-sudden fall, with the spilling of blood? Again, believe, if you will:

-if you won't, don't. Surely a man who lives now in paradise, now in

-hell sees life utterly differently from others. And he wants to think

-that he is right, that his experience is of great value, that life is

-not at all as it is described by men of different experience and more

-limited emotions. How desperately did Dostoevsky desire to persuade all

-men of his rightness, how stubbornly he used to demonstrate, and how

-angry he was made by the consciousness that lived in the depths of his

-soul that he was impotent to prove anything. But a fact remains a fact.

-Perhaps epileptics and madmen know things of which normal men have

-not even the remotest presentiment, but it is not vouchsafed to them

-to communicate their knowledge to others, or to prove it. And there

-is a universal knowledge which is the very object of philosophical

-seeking, with which one may commune, but which by its very essence

-cannot be communicated to all, that is, cannot be turned into verified

-and demonstrable universal truths. To renounce this knowledge in order

-that philosophy should have the right to be called a science! At times

-men acted thus. There were sober epochs when the pursuit of positive

-knowledge absorbed every one capable of intellectual labour. Or perhaps

-there were epochs in which men who sought something other than positive

-science were condemned to universal contempt, and passed unregarded: in

-such an epoch Plato would have found no sympathy, but would have died

-in obscurity. One thing at least is clear. He whose chief interest

-and motive in life is in undemonstrable truths is doomed to complete

-or relative sterility in the sense in which the word is generally

-understood. If he is clever and gifted, men may perhaps be interested

-in his mind and talent, but they will pass his work with indifference,

-contempt, and even horror; and they will begin to warn the world

-against him.</p>

-

-<p>

-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Look at him, my children,</span><br />

-<span style="margin-left: 3em;">He is stern and pale and lean.</span><br />

-<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He is poor and naked,</span><br />

-<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And all men count him mean.'</span><br />

-</p>

-

-<p>Has not the work of the prophets who sought for ultimate truths been

-barren and useless? Did life hold them in any account? Life went its

-own way, and the voices of the prophets have been, are, and ever

-will be, voices in the wilderness. For that which they see and know,

-cannot be proved and is not capable of proof. Prophets have always

-been isolated, dissevered, separate, helpless men, locked up in their

-pride. Prophets are kings without an army. For all their love to their

-subjects, they can do nothing for them, for subjects respect only those

-kings who possess a formidable military power. And&mdash;long may it be so!</p>

-

-

-

-<h4><i>The Limits of Reality</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>After all, not even the most consistent and convinced realist

-represents life to himself as it really is. He overlooks a great deal;

-and on the other hand he often sees something which has no existence in

-reality. I do not think there is any need to show this by example. For

-all our desire to be objective we are, after all, extremely subjective,

-and those things which Kant calls synthetic judgments <i>a priori,</i> by

-which our mind forms nature and dictates laws to her, do play a great

-and serious part in our lives. We create something like the veil of

-Maia: we are awake in sleep, and sleep in wakefulness, exactly as

-though some magic power had charmed us. And just as in sleep we feel

-for instants that what is happening to us is like a half-dream, an

-intermediate half-life. Schopenhauer and the Buddhists were right in

-asserting that it is equally wrong to say of the veil of Maia, the

-world accessible to us, either that it exists or does not exist. It is

-true that logic does not admit such judgments and persecutes them most

-implacably, for they violate its most fundamental laws. But it cannot

-be helped: when one has to choose between philosophy which is alluring

-and promising, and empty logic, one will always sacrifice the latter

-for the former. And philosophy without contradictory judgments would

-be either doomed to eternal silence, or would be churned into a mud of

-commonplace and reduced to nothing. Philosophers know that. The same

-is true of our own case: we must confess that we are at the same time

-awake and dreaming dreams, and at times we must own that though we

-are alive, yet we have long since been dead. As living beings we still

-hold to the accepted synthetic judgments <i>a priori,</i> and as dead, we

-try to do without them, or to replace them by other judgments which

-have nothing in common with the former but are even opposite to them.

-Philosophy is occupied in this work with extreme diligence, and <i>in

-this and this alone</i> is the meaning of the idealistic movement which

-has never, since the time of Plato, disappeared from history. The

-problem is not for us to find another, primordial, better, and eternal

-world to replace the visible world accessible to all, as idealistic

-philosophy is usually interpreted by her official and, unfortunately,

-her most influential representatives. Interpretation of that kind

-too obviously bears the mark of its empiric utilitarian origin: they

-bring us as near to super-empiric reality as do the notions wherewith

-we define what is valuable in life. We might as well consider the

-super-empiric world as one of gold, diamond, or pearls simply because

-gold, diamonds, and pearls are very costly. But so it usually happens.

-God himself is usually represented as glimmering with gold and precious

-stones, as omniscient and omnipotent. He is called the King of Kings

-since on earth the lot of a crowned head is considered most enviable.

-The meaning and value of idealistic philosophy thus appears to be that

-she for ever ratifies all that we have found valuable on earth during

-our brief existence. Herein, I believe, is a fatal error. Idealistic

-philosophy, it is true, gave an excuse for falsely interpreting her,

-since she loved to be arrayed in sumptuous apparel. The religion of

-almost all nations has always sought for forms outwardly beautiful

-without stopping even before such an obvious paradox&mdash;not to put it

-more strongly&mdash;as a golden cross studded with diamonds. And for the

-sake of sumptuous words and golden crosses men overlooked great truths,

-and perhaps great possibilities. The philosophy of the schools also

-loved to array herself, so that she should not be behind the masters in

-this respect, and for the sake of dress she often forgot her necessary

-work. Plato taught that our life was only a shadow of another reality.

-If this is true, and he discovered the truth, then surely our first

-task is to begin to live a different life, to turn our back to the wall

-above which the shadows are walking and to turn our face to the source

-of light which created the shadows or to those things of which the

-visible outlines give only a remote resemblance. We must be awakened,

-if only in part; to this end what is usually done to a person sound

-asleep must be done to us. He is pulled, pinched, beaten, tickled,

-and if all these things fail, still stronger and more heroic measures

-must be applied. At all events, it is out of the question to advise

-contemplation, which may well make one still sleepier, or quietude,

-which leads to the same result. Philosophy should live by sarcasm,

-irony, alarm, struggles, despairs, and allow herself contemplation

-and quietude only from time to time, as a relaxation. Then perhaps she

-will succeed in creating, by the side of realistic dreams, dreams of

-a quite different order, and visibly demonstrate that the universally

-accepted dreams are not the only ones. 'What is the use?' I do not

-think this question need be answered. He who asks it, shows by the fact

-that he needs neither an answer nor philosophy, while he who needs them

-will not ask but will patiently await events: a temperature of 120°,

-an epileptic fit, or something of this kind, which facilitates the

-difficult task of seeking....</p>

-

-

-

-<h4><i>The Given and the Possible</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>The law of causation as a principle of inquiry is an excellent thing:

-the existing sciences afford us convincing evidence of that. But as an

-idea in the Platonic sense it is of little value, at times at least.

-The strict harmony and order of the world have fascinated many people:

-such giants of thought as Spinoza and Goethe paused with reverent

-wonder in contemplation of the great and unchangeable order of nature.

-Therefore they exalted necessity even to the rank of a primordial,

-eternal, original principle. And we must confess that Goethe's and

-Spinoza's conception of the world lives so much in each one of us that

-in most cases we can love and respect the world only when our souls

-feel in it a symmetrical harmony. Harmony seems to us at once-the

-highest value and the ultimate truth. It gives to the soul great peace,

-a stable firmness, a trust in the Creator&mdash;the highest boons accessible

-to mortal men, as the philosophers teach. Nevertheless, there are

-other yearnings. Man's heart is suddenly possessed by a longing for

-the fantastic, the unforeseen, for that which cannot be foreseen. The

-beautiful world loves its beauty, peace of soul seems disgraceful,

-stability is felt as an intolerable burden. Just as a youth grown

-to manhood suddenly feels irritated by the bountiful tutelage of

-his parents, from which he has received so much, though he does not

-know what to do with his freedom, so is a man of insight ashamed of

-the happiness which is given to him, which some one has created. The

-law of causation, like the whole harmony of the world, seems to him

-a pleasant gift, facilitating life, but yet a degrading one. He has

-sold his birthright for peace, for undisturbed happiness&mdash;his great

-birthright of free creation. He does not understand how a giant like

-Goethe could have been seduced by the temptation of a pleasant life,

-he suspects the sincerity of Spinoza. There is something rotten in the

-state of Denmark. The apple of the tree of knowledge of good and evil,

-has become to him the sole purpose of life, even though the path to it

-should lie through extreme suffering.</p>

-

-<p>And, strangely, nature herself seems to be preoccupied in urging man to

-that fatal path. There comes a time in our life when some imperative

-and secret voice forbids us to rejoice at the beauty and grandeur of

-the world. The world allures us as before, but it no longer gives pure

-happiness. Remember Tchekhov. How he loved nature! What immeasurable

-yearning is audible in his wonderful descriptions of nature! Just as

-though each time that he glanced at the blue sky, the troubled sea or

-the green woods, a voice of authority whispered to him: 'All this is

-yours no longer. You may look at it, but you have no right to rejoice.

-Prepare yourself for another life, where nothing will be given,

-complete, prepared, where nothing will be created, where there will

-be illimitable creation alone. And everything which is in this world

-shall be given to destruction, to destruction and destruction, even

-this nature which you so passionately love, and which it is so hard and

-painful for you to renounce.' Everything drives us to the mysterious

-realm of the eternally fantastic, eternally chaotic, and&mdash;who

-knows?&mdash;it may be, the eternally beautiful....</p>

-

-

-

-<h4><i>Experiment and Proof</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>When <i>cogito ergo sum</i> came into Descartes' head, he marked the

-day&mdash;November 10, 1619&mdash;as a remarkable day: 'The light of a wonderful

-discovery,' he wrote in his diary, 'flashed into my mind.' Schelling

-relates the same thing of himself: in the year 1801 he 'saw the light.'

-And to Nietzsche when he roamed the mountains and the valleys of

-the Engadine there came a mighty change: he grasped the doctrine of

-eternal recurrence. One might name many philosophers, poets, artists,

-preachers, who like these three suddenly saw the light, and considered

-their vision the beginning of a new life. It is even probable that all

-men who have been destined to display to the world something perfectly

-new and original have without exception experienced that miracle of

-sudden metamorphosis. Nevertheless, though much is spoken of these

-miracles and often, in nearly all biographies of great men, we cannot

-strictly make any use of them. Descartes, Schelling, Nietzsche tell

-the story of their conversion; and with us, Tolstoi and Dostoevsky

-tell of theirs; in the less remote past, there are Mahomet and Paul

-the Apostle; in far antiquity the legend of Moses. But if I had

-chosen tenfold the number, if thousands even had been collected, it

-would still be impossible for the mind to make any deduction from

-them. In other words, all these cases have no value as scientific

-material, whereas one fossil skeleton or a unique case of an unknown

-rare disease is a precious windfall to the scientist. What is still

-more interesting, Descartes was so struck with his <i>cogito ergo sum,</i>

-Nietzsche with his eternal recurrence, Mahomet with his paradise, Paul

-the Apostle with his vision, while we remain more or less indifferent

-to anything they may relate of their experiences. Only the most

-sensitive among us have an ear for stories of that kind, and even they

-are obliged to hide their impressions within them, for what can be done

-with them?</p>

-

-<p>It is even impossible to fix them as indubitable facts, for facts

-also require a verification and must be proved. There are no proofs.

-Philosophic and religious teachings offered by men who have had

-extraordinary inward experiences, not only do not generally confirm,

-but rather refute their own stories of revelation. For philosophic and

-religious teaching have always hitherto assigned themselves the task

-of attracting all and sundry to themselves, and in order to attain

-this end they had to have recourse to such methods as have effect with

-the ordinary man, who knows of nothing extraordinary&mdash;to proof, to the

-authority of visible and tangible phenomena, which can be measured,

-weighed and counted. In their pursuit of proofs, of persuasiveness

-and popularity, they had to sacrifice the important and essential,

-and expose for show that which is agreeable to reason&mdash;things already

-more or less known, and therefore of little interest and importance.

-In course of time, as experimental science, so-called, gained more

-and more power, the habit of hiding in oneself all that cannot be

-demonstrated <i>ad oculos,</i> has become more and more firmly rooted,

-until it is almost man's second nature. Nowadays we 'naturally'

-share but a small part of an experience with our friends, so that

-if Mahomet and Paul lived in our time, it would not enter their

-heads to tell their extraordinary stories. And for all his bravery,

-Nietzsche nevertheless passes quickly over eternal recurrence, and

-is much more occupied with preaching the morality of the Superman,

-which, though it at first astounded people, was after all accepted

-with more or less modification, because it was demonstrable. Evidently

-we are confronted with a great dilemma. If we continue to cultivate

-modern methodology, we run the risk of becoming so accustomed to it

-that we will lose not only the faculty of sharing all undemonstrable

-and exceptional experiences with others, but even of retaining them

-firmly in the memory. They will begin to be forgotten as dreams, they

-will even seem to be waking dreams. Thus we will cut ourselves off

-for ever from a vast realm of reality, whose meaning and value have

-by no means been divined or appreciated. In olden times men could add

-dreams and madmen's visions to reality; but we shall curtail the real

-indubitable reality, transferring it to the realm of hallucinations and

-dreams. I suppose even a modern man will feel some hesitation in coming

-over to the side of this methodology, even though he is incapable of

-thinking, with the ancients, that dreams are by no means worthless

-things. And if this is so, then the rights of experiences must not be

-defined by the degree of their demonstrability. However capricious

-our experiences may be, however little they agree with the rooted and

-predominant conceptions of the necessary character of events in the

-inward and outward life&mdash;once they have taken place in the soul of man,

-they acquire, <i>ipso facto,</i> the lawful right of figuring side by side

-with facts which are most demonstrable and susceptible of control and

-verification, and even with a deliberate experiment.</p>

-

-<p>It may be said that we would not then be protected against deliberate

-frauds. People who have never been in paradise will give themselves out

-for Mahomets. That is true; they will talk and they will he. There will

-be no method of objective verification. But they will surely tell the

-truth also. For the sake of that truth we may make up our minds to swim

-through a whole ocean of lies. Yes, it is not in the least impossible

-to distinguish truth from lie in this realm, though, certainly, not by

-the signs which have been evolved by logic; and not even by signs, but

-by no signs at all. The signs of the beautiful have not yet been even

-approximately, defined, and, please God&mdash;be it said without offence to

-the Germans&mdash;they never will be defined, but yet we distinguish between

-Apollo and Venus. So it is with truth: she too may be recognised. But

-what if a man cannot distinguish without signs, and, moreover, does

-not want to?... What is to be done with him? Really, I do not know;

-besides, I do not imagine that all men down to the last should act

-in unison. When did all men act in agreement? Men have mostly acted

-separately, meeting in certain places, and parting in others. Long may

-it be so! Some will recognise and seek after truth by signs, others

-without signs, as they please, and yet others, in both ways.</p>

-

-

-

-<h4><i>The Seventh Day of Creation</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>Socrates said that he often used to hear from poets thoughts remarkable

-for their profundity and seriousness, but when he began to inquire of

-them more particularly, he became convinced that they themselves did

-not understand what they were saying. What did he really mean? Did

-Socrates wish to compare the poets to parrots or trained blackbirds

-who can learn by heart, with the assistance of a man to teach them,

-any ideas whatever, perfectly foreign to them. That can hardly be.

-Socrates hardly thought that what the poets say had been overheard by

-them from some one, and mechanically fixed in their mind, though it

-remained quite foreign to their soul. Most probably he used the word

-'understand' in the sense that they could not demonstrate or explain

-the soundness and stability of their ideas,&mdash;they could not deduce

-them and relate them to a definite conception of the world. As every

-one knows, Socrates thought that not merely poets, but all men, from

-eminent statesmen down to ignorant artisans, had ideas, even a great

-many ideas, but they never could explain where they had got them, or

-make them agree among themselves.</p>

-

-<p>In this respect poets were the same as the rest of people. From some

-mysterious source they had acquired truths, often great and profound,

-but they were unable to explain them. This seemed to Socrates a great

-misery, a real misfortune. I do not know how it happened&mdash;not a single

-historian of philosophy has explained it, and indeed very little

-interest has been taken in it&mdash;but Socrates for some reason decided

-that an unproven and unexplained truth had less value than a proven and

-explained one. In our times, when a whole theory, even a conception

-of the world, has been made of Socrates's idea, this notion seems

-so natural and self-evident that no one doubts it. But in antiquity

-the case was different. Strictly, Socrates thought that the poets

-had acquired their truths, which they were unable to prove, from a

-very respectable source, which deserved all possible confidence: he

-himself compared the poets with oracles, and consequently admitted

-that they had communion with the gods. There was, therefore, a most

-excellent guarantee that the poets were possessed of real, undiluted

-truth&mdash;the pledge of its purity being the divine authority. Socrates

-said that he himself had frequently been guided in his actions, not by

-considerations of reason, but by the voice of his mysterious 'demon.'

-That is, at times, he abstained from certain actions&mdash;his demon gave

-him never positive, but only negative advice&mdash;without being able to

-produce reasons, simply because the secret voice, more authoritative

-than any human mind, demanded abstinence from them.</p>

-

-<p>Is it not strange that under such circumstances, at an epoch when the

-gods vouchsafed truths to men, there should have suddenly appeared in

-a man the unexplained desire to acquire truths without the help of the

-gods, and in independence of them, by the dialectic method so beloved

-of the Greeks? It is doubtful which is more important for us, to

-acquire the truth or to acquire for one's self with one's own effort,

-it may be a false, but one's <i>own</i> judgment. The example of Socrates,

-who has been a pattern for all subsequent generations of thinking

-men, leaves not the slightest doubt. Men do not need a truth ready

-made; they turn away from the gods to devote themselves to independent

-creations. Practically the same story is told in the Bible. What indeed

-was lacking to Adam? He lived in paradise, in direct proximity to God,

-from whom he could learn anything he wanted. And yet it did not suit

-him. It was enough that the Serpent should make his perfidious proposal

-for the man to forget the wrath of God, and all the dangers which

-threatened him, and to pluck the apple from the forbidden tree. Then

-the truth, which until the creation of the world and man had been one,

-split and broke with a great, perhaps an infinitely great, number of

-most diverse truths, eternally being born, and eternally dying. This

-was the seventh day of creation, unrecorded in history. Man became

-God's collaborator. He himself became a creator. Socrates renounced the

-divine truth and even spoke contemptuously of it, merely because it

-was not proven, that is, because it does not bear the marks of man's

-handiwork. Socrates really did not prove anything, but he was proving,

-creating, and in this he saw the meaning of his own life and of all

-human lives. Thus, surely, the pronouncement of the Delphic oracle

-seems true even now: Socrates was the wisest of men. And he who would

-be wise must, imitating Socrates, not be like him in anything. Thus did

-all great men, and all great philosophers.</p>

-

-

-

-<h4><i>What does the History of Philosophy teach us?</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>Neo-Kantianism is the prevalent school of modern philosophy. The

-literature about Kant has grown to unheard-of proportions. But if

-you attempt to analyse the colossal mass that has been written upon

-Kant, and put the question to yourself, what has really been left to

-us of Kant's teaching, then to your great amazement you will have to

-reply: Nothing at all. There is an extraordinary, incredibly famous

-name&mdash;Kant, and there is positively not a single Kantian thesis which

-in an uninterpreted form would have survived till our day. I say in

-an uninterpreted form, for interpretations resolve at bottom into

-arbitrary recastings, which often have not even an outward resemblance

-to the original. These interpretations began while Kant was still

-alive. Fichte gave the first example. It is well known that Kant

-reacted, demanding that his teaching should be understood not in the

-spirit but in the letter. And Kant was, naturally, quite right. Of

-two things one: either you take his teaching as it is, or you invent

-your own. But the fate of all thinkers who have been destined to

-give their names to an epoch is similar: they have been interpreted,

-recast, till they are unrecognisable. For after a short time had

-elapsed, it became clear that their ideas were so overburdened with

-contradictions, that in the form in which they emerged from the hands

-of their creators, they are absolutely unacceptable. Indeed, all the

-critics who had not made up their minds beforehand to be orthodox

-Kantians, came to the conclusion that Kant had not proved a single

-one of his fundamental propositions. Something stronger may be said.

-By virtue of the fact that Kant, owing to the central position which

-he occupied, attracted much attention to himself and was forced to

-submit to very careful criticism, there gradually emerged a truth which

-might have been known beforehand: that Kant's teaching is a mass of

-contradictions. The sum-total of more than a century's study of Kant

-may be resumed in a few words. Although he was not afraid of the most

-crying contradictions, he did not have the smallest degree of success

-in proving the correctness of his teaching. With an extraordinary

-power and depth of mind, with all the originality, boldness, and

-talent of his constructions, he really provided nothing that might be

-indisputably called a positive acquisition of philosophy. I repeat that

-I am not expressing my own opinion. I am only reckoning the sum-total

-of the opinions of the German critics of Kant, of those same critics

-who built him a monument <i>aere perennius.</i></p>

-

-<p>The same may be said of all the great representatives of philosophic

-thought beginning with Plato and Aristotle, and ending with Hegel,

-Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Their works astonish by their power, depth,

-boldness, beauty and originality of thought. While you read them it

-seems that truth herself speaks with their lips. And what strong

-measures of precaution did they take to prevent themselves from being

-mistaken! They believed in nothing that men had grown accustomed to

-believe. They methodically doubted everything, reexamined everything,

-tens, hundreds of times. They gave their life to the truth not in

-words, but in deed. And still the sum-total is the same in their case

-as in Kant's: not one of them succeeded in inventing a system free from

-internal contradictions.</p>

-

-<p>Aristotle was already criticising Plato, and the sceptics criticised

-both of them, and so on until in our day each new thinker struggles

-with his predecessors, refutes their contradictions and errors,

-although he knows that he is doomed to the same fate. The historians

-of philosophy are at infinite pains to conceal the most glaring and

-noticeable trait of philosophic creation, which is, at bottom, no

-secret to any one. The uninitiated, and people generally who do not

-like thinking, and therefore wish to be contemptuous of philosophy,

-point to the lack of unity among philosophers as evidence that it is

-not worth while to study philosophy. But they are both wrong. The

-history of philosophy not only does not inspire us with the thought

-of the continual evolution of an idea, but palpably convinces us of

-the contrary, that among philosophers there is not, has not been, and

-will never be, any aspiration towards unity. Neither will they find

-in future a truth free from contradiction, for they do not seek the

-truth in the sense in which the word is understood by the people and

-by science; and, after all, contradictions do not frighten them, but

-rather attract. Schopenhauer begins his criticism of Kant's philosophy

-with the words of Voltaire: 'It is the privilege of genius to make

-great mistakes with impunity.' I believe that the secret of the

-philosophic genius lies here. He makes great, the greatest, mistakes,

-and with impunity. Moreover his mistakes are put to his credit, for

-the important matter is not his truths, or his judgments, but himself.

-When you hear from Plato that the life we see is only a shadow, when

-Spinoza, intoxicated by God, exalts the idea of necessity, when Kant

-declares that reason dictates laws to Nature,&mdash;listening to them you

-do not examine whether their assertions are true or not, you agree with

-each of them, whatever he says, and only this question arises in your

-soul: 'Who is he that speaketh as one having authority?'</p>

-

-<p>Later on, you will reject all their truths, with horror, perhaps with

-indignation and disgust, even with utter indifference. You will not

-consent to accept that our life is only a shadow of actual reality,

-you will revolt against Spinoza's God, who cannot love, yet demands

-love for himself, Kant's categorical imperative will seem to you a cold

-monster,&mdash;but you will never forget Plato, or Spinoza, or Kant, and

-will for ever keep your gratitude to them, who made you believe that

-authority is given to mortals. Then you will understand that there are

-no errors and no truths in philosophy; that errors and truths are only

-for him above whom is set a superior authority, a law, a standard. But

-philosophers themselves create laws and standards. This is what we are

-taught by the history of philosophy; this is what is most difficult for

-man to master and understand. I have already said that the historians

-of philosophy draw quite a different moral from the study of the great

-human creations.</p>

-

-

-

-<h4><i>Science and Metaphysics</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>In his autobiography Spencer confesses that he had really never

-read Kant. He had had <i>The Critique of Pure Reason</i> in his hands,

-and had even read the beginning, the Transcendental Aesthetic, but

-the beginning convinced him it was no use for him to read further.

-Once a man had made the unconvincing admission which Kant had made,

-by accepting the subjectivity of one form of perception, of space

-and time, he could not be seriously taken into account. If he is

-consistent, all his philosophy will be a system of absurdity and

-nonsense; if he is inconsistent,&mdash;the less attention does he deserve.</p>

-

-<p>Spencer confidently asserts that, once he could not accept Kant's

-fundamental proposition, he not only could not be a Kantian any more,

-but he found it useless even to become further acquainted with Kant's

-philosophy. That he did not become a Kantian is nothing to grieve over&mdash;there are Kantians enough without him&mdash;but that he did not acquaint

-himself with Kant's principal works, and above all with the whole

-school that rose out of Kant, may be sincerely regretted. Perhaps, as

-a new man, remote from Continental traditions, he would have made a

-curious discovery, and would have convinced himself that it was not at

-all necessary to accept the proposition of the subjectivity of space

-and time in order to become a Kantian. And perhaps with the frankness

-and simplicity peculiar to him, which is not afraid to be taken for

-naïveté, he would have told us that not a single Kantian (Schopenhauer

-excepted), not even Kant himself, has ever seriously accepted the

-fundamental propositions of the Transcendental Aesthetic, and therefore

-has never made from them any conclusions or deductions whatever. On

-the contrary, the Transcendental Aesthetic was itself a deduction from

-another proposition, that we have synthetic judgments <i>a priori.</i> The

-original rôle of this, the most original of all theories ever invented,

-was to be a support and an explanation of the mathematical sciences.

-It had never had an independent, material content, susceptible of

-analysis and investigation. Space and time are the eternal forms of our

-perception of the world: to this, according to the strict meaning of

-Kant's teaching, nothing can be added, and nothing abated. Spencer, not

-having read the book to the end, imagined that Kant would begin to make

-deductions and became nervous. But if he had read the book to the end,

-he would have been convinced that Kant had not made any deductions, and

-that the whole meaning of <i>The Critique of Pure Reason</i> indeed is that

-from the propositions of the Transcendental Aesthetic no deductions can

-be made. It is now about a hundred and fifty years since <i>The Critique

-of Pure Reason</i> appeared. No philosophic work has been so much studied

-and criticised. And yet where are the Kantians who attempt to make

-deductions from the proposition as to the subjectivity of space and

-time? Schopenhauer is the only exception. He indeed took the Kantian

-idea seriously, but it may be said without exaggeration that of all

-Kantians the least like Kant was Schopenhauer.</p>

-

-<p>The world is a veil of Maia. Would Kant really have agreed to such

-an interpretation of his Transcendental Aesthetic? Or what would

-Kant have said, if he had heard that Schopenhauer, referring to the

-same Aesthetic in which he saw the greatest philosophic revelation,

-had admitted the possibility of clairvoyance and magic? Probably

-Spencer thought that Kant would himself make all these deductions, and

-therefore threw away the book which bound him to conclusions so absurd.

-It is a pity that Spencer was in such a hurry. Had he acquainted

-himself with Kant, he would have been convinced that the most absurd

-idea might serve a very useful purpose; and that there is not the least

-necessity to make from an idea all the deductions to which it may lead.

-A man is a free agent and he can deduce if he has a mind to; if he has

-not, he will not; and there is no necessity to judge the character

-of a philosophic theory by its general postulates. Even Schopenhauer

-did not exploit Kant's theory to the full, which, if it had really

-divined the truths hitherto hidden from men, would have not only put

-an end to metaphysical researches, but also have given an impulse and

-a justification to perfectly new experiments which from the previous

-standpoint were quite mad and unimaginable. For if space and time are

-forms of our human perception, then they do indeed hide the ultimate

-truth from us. While men knew nothing of this, and, simple minded,

-accepted the visible reality for the actual real, they could not of

-course dream of true knowledge. But from the moment when the truth was

-revealed to them through Kant's penetration, it is clear that their

-true task was to use every possible means to free themselves from

-the harness and to break away from it, while consolidating all those

-judgments which Kant calls synthetic judgments <i>a priori</i> for all

-eternity.</p>

-

-<p>And the new, the critical metaphysics, which should take account of

-the stupid situation in which these had hitherto found themselves who

-saw in apodeictic judgments eternal truths, had a great task to set

-herself: to get rid at all costs of apodeictic judgments, knowing them

-for false. In other words, Kant's task should not have been to minimise

-the destructive effect of Hume's scepticism, but to find a still more

-deadly explosive to destroy even those limits which Hume was obliged

-to preserve. It is surely evident that truth lies beyond synthetic

-judgments <i>a priori,</i> and that it cannot at all resemble an <i>a priori</i>

-judgment, and in fact cannot be like a judgment of any kind.</p>

-

-<p>And it must be sought by methods quite different from those by which

-it has been sought hitherto. To some extent Kant attempted to describe

-how he represented to himself the meaning hidden beneath the words:

-'Space and time are subjective forms of perception.' He even gave an

-object-lesson, saying that perhaps there are beings who perceive the

-world otherwise than under the forms of space and time: which means

-that for such beings there is no change. All that we perceive by a

-succession of changes, they perceive at once. To them Julius Caesar

-is still alive, though he is dead; to them the twenty-fifth century

-A.D., which none of us will live to see, and the twenty-fifth century

-B.C., which we reconstruct with such difficulty from the fragmentary

-traces of the past which have accidentally been preserved to us, the

-remote North Pole, and even the stars which we cannot see through the

-telescope&mdash;all are as accessible to them as to us the events which

-are taking place before our eyes. Nevertheless Kant, in spite of all

-temptation to acquire the knowledge to which such beings have access,

-notwithstanding his profound conviction of the truth of his discovery,

-did nothing to dispel the charm of forms of perception and categories

-of the reason, or to tear the blinkers from his eyes and see all the

-depth of the mysterious reality hitherto hidden from us. He does not

-even give a little circumstantial explanation why he considered such a

-task impracticable, and he confines himself to the dogmatic assertion

-that man cannot conceive a reality beyond space and time. Why? It is

-a question of immense importance. Compared with it all the problems

-of <i>The Critique of Pure Reason</i> are secondary. How is mathematics

-possible, how are natural sciences possible?&mdash;these are not even

-questions at all compared to the question whether it is possible to

-free ourselves from conventional human knowledge in order to attain the

-ultimate, all-embracing truth.</p>

-

-<p>Herein the Kantians display an even greater indifference than Kant

-himself: they are even proud of their indifference, they plume

-themselves upon it as a high virtue. They assert that truth is not

-<i>beyond</i> synthetic judgments <i>a priori,</i> but indeed <i>in</i> them; and

-that it is not the Creator who put blinkers upon us, but we ourselves

-devised them, and that any attempt to remove them and look open-eyed

-upon the world is evidence of perversity. If the old Serpent appeared

-nowadays to seduce the modern Adam, he would retire discomfited.

-Even Eve herself would be no use to him. The twentieth-century Eve

-studies in a university and has quite sufficiently blunted her natural

-curiosity. She can talk excellently well of the teleological point of

-view and is quite as proof as man against temptation. I do not share

-Kant's confidence that space and time are forms of our perception,

-nor do I see a revelation in it. But if I had once accepted this

-apocalyptic assertion, and could think that there was some truth in it,

-I would not depart from it to positive science.</p>

-

-<p>It is a pity that Spencer did not read <i>The Critique of Pure Reason</i> to

-the end. He would have convinced himself of an important truth: that a

-philosopher has no need to take into consideration all the deductions

-from his premisses. He need only have goodwill, and he can draw from

-the most paradoxical and suspicious premisses conclusions which are

-fully conformable to common-sense and the rules of decency. And since

-Kant's will was as good as Spencer's, they would have agreed perfectly

-in their deductions, though they were so far apart from each other in

-their premisses.</p>

-

-

-

-<h4><i>A Tacit Assumption</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>Schopenhauer was the first philosopher to ask the value of life. And he

-gave a definite answer: in life there is much more suffering than joy,

-therefore life must be renounced. I must add that strictly speaking

-he asked not only the value of life, but also the value of joy and

-suffering. And to this question he gave an equally definite answer.

-According to his teaching joy is always negative, suffering always

-positive. Therefore by its essence joy cannot compensate for suffering.</p>

-

-<p>In all this philosophical construction, both in formulating and

-answering the questions, there is one tacit, particularly curious,

-and interesting and unexpressed postulate. Schopenhauer starts from

-the assumption that his valuation of life, joy and suffering, in

-order to have the right to be called truth, must contain something

-universal, by virtue of which it will in the last resort coincide with

-the valuation of all other people. Whence did he derive this idea?

-Psychologically the train of Schopenhauer's thought is intelligible

-and easily explained. He was used to the scientific formulation and

-solution of problems, and he transferred to the question which engaged

-him methods of investigation which by general consent usually conduct

-us to the truth. He did not verify his premiss <i>ad hoc,</i> and usually

-it is impossible to verify a premiss every time that a need arises

-for it. It is not even becoming to exhibit it, to speak of it. It is

-understood. If the fundamental sign of any truth is its being universal

-and obligatory, then in the given case the true answer to the question

-of the value of life can only be something which will be absolutely

-admissible by all men to all creatures with a mind. So Schopenhauer

-would probably have answered, if any one had questioned his right to

-formulate in such a general way the question of the value of life.</p>

-

-<p>Still Schopenhauer would hardly be right. This, by the way, is being

-made clear by the objections which are put forward by his opponents.

-He is accused because his very statement of the question presupposes a

-subjective point of view&mdash;eudaemonism.</p>

-

-<p>The question of the value of life, people object, is not at all

-decided by whether in the sum life gives more joy than pain or <i>vice

-versa.</i> Life may be deeply painful and devoid of joy, life may in

-itself be one compact horror, and still be valuable. Schopenhauer's

-philosophy was not discussed in his lifetime, so that he could not

-answer his opponents. But, if he were still alive, would he accept

-these objections and renounce his pessimism? I am convinced that he

-would not. At the same time I am convinced that his opponents would

-be no less firm and would go on repeating: 'The question is not one

-of happiness or suffering. We value life by a quite different and

-independent standard.' And in the discussion it would perhaps become

-clear to the disputants that the premiss mentioned above, which both

-accepted as requiring no proof and understood without explanation, does

-indeed require proofs and explanations, but is provided with neither.

-To one man the eudaemonistic point of view is ultimate and decisive,

-to another contemptible and degrading, and he seeks the meaning of

-life in a higher, ethical or aesthetic purpose. There are also people

-who love sorrow and pain, and see in them the justification and the

-source of the depth and importance of life. Nor do I mention the fact

-that when the sum-totals of life are reckoned different accountants

-reach different and directly contradictory results, or that insoluble

-questions arise concerning these, or other details. Schopenhauer for

-instance finds, as we have seen, that sufferings are positive, joys

-negative. And hence he concludes that it is not worth while to submit

-to the least unpleasantness for the sake of the greatest joy. What

-answer can be made? How can he be convinced of the contrary?</p>

-

-<p>Nevertheless the fact is obvious: many people regard the matter in

-quite a different light. For the sake of a single happiness they

-are ready to endure a great many serious hardships. In a word,

-Schopenhauer's premiss is quite unjustified, and not only cannot

-be accepted as an indubitable truth, but must be qualified as an

-indubitable error. It is impossible to be certain beforehand that to

-the question of the value of life a single, universally valid answer

-can be given. So here we meet with an extraordinarily curious case

-from the point of view of the theory of knowledge. It appears that

-by the very essence of the matter no uniform answer can be given

-to one of the most important questions, perhaps the most important

-question of philosophy. If you are asked what is life, good or evil,

-you are obliged to say that life is both good and evil; or something

-independent of good and evil; or a mixture of good and evil in which

-there is more good than evil, or more evil than good.</p>

-

-<p>And, I repeat, each of these answers, although they logically quite

-exclude each other, has the right to claim the title of <i>truth</i>; for

-if it has not power enough to make the other answers bow down before

-it, at all events it has the necessary strength to repel its opponents'

-attacks and to defend its sovereign rights. Instead of a sole and

-omnipotent truth before which the weak and helpless errors tremble,

-you have before you a whole line of perfectly independent truths

-excellently armed and defended. Instead of absolutism, you have a

-feudal system. And the vassals are so firmly ensconced in their castles

-that an experienced eye can see at once that they are impregnable.</p>

-

-<p>I took for my instance Schopenhauer's doctrine of the value of life.

-But many philosophic doctrines, although they issue from the premiss

-of one sovereign truth, display examples of the plurality of truths.

-It is usually believed that one should study the history of philosophy

-in order to be palpably convinced that mankind has gradually mastered

-its delusions and is now on the high road to ultimate truth. My opinion

-is that the history of philosophy must bring every impartial person,

-who is not infected by modern prejudices, to a directly opposite

-conclusion. There can be no doubt that a whole series of questions

-exists, like that of the value of life, which by their very essence

-do not admit of a uniform solution. To this testimony is often borne

-by men whose very last concern is to curtail the royal prerogative of

-sovereign truth: Natorp confidently asserts that Aristotle not only did

-not understand but could not understand Plato. 'Der tiefere Grund ist

-die ewige Unfähigkeit des Dogmatismus sich in der Gesichtspunkt der

-kritischen Philosophie überhaupt zu versetzen.' 'Eternal incapability'

-&mdash;what words! And used not of any common-place person, but of the

-greatest human genius known to us, of Aristotle. Had Natorp been a

-little more inquisitive, 'eternal incapability' of that kind should

-have worried him at least as much as Plato's philosophy, on which he

-wrote a large book. For here is evidently a great riddle. Different

-people, according to the different constitution of their souls,

-are while yet in their mother's womb destined to have different

-philosophies. It reminds me of the famous Calvinistic view of

-predetermination. Just as from before birth God has destined some to

-damnation, others to salvation; so to some it is given and from others

-withheld, to know the truth.</p>

-

-<p>And not Natorp alone argues thus. It would be true to say all modern

-philosophers, who are always contending with each other and suspecting

-each other of 'eternal incapability.' Philosophers have not the same

-means of compelling conviction as the representatives of other positive

-sciences: they cannot force every one to undeniable conclusions. Their

-<i>ultima ratio,</i> their personal opinion, their private conviction,

-their last refuge, is the 'eternal incapability' of their opponents to

-understand them. Here the tragic dilemma is clear to all. Of two things

-one: either renounce philosophy entirely, or allow that that which

-Natorp calls the 'eternal incapability' is not a vice or a weakness,

-but a great virtue and power hitherto unappreciated and misunderstood.

-Aristotle, indeed, was organically incapable of understanding Plato,

-just as Plato could not have understood Aristotle, just as neither of

-them could understand the sceptics or the sophists, just as Leibnitz

-could not understand Spinoza, as Schopenhauer could not understand

-Hegel, and so on till our riotous modern days when no philosopher

-can understand any one except himself. Besides, philosophers do not

-aspire to mutual understanding and unity, but usually it is with the

-utmost reluctance that they observe in themselves similarity to their

-predecessors. When the similarity of Schopenhauer's teaching to that

-of Spinoza was pointed out to him, he said <i>Pereant qui ante nos

-nostra dixerint.</i> But representatives of the other positive sciences

-understand each other, rarely dispute, and never argue by referring to

-the 'eternal incapability' of their confrères. Perhaps in philosophy

-this chaotic state of affairs and this unique argument are part of the

-craft. Perhaps in this realm it is necessary that Aristotle should

-not understand Plato and should not accept him, that the materialists

-should always be at war with the idealists, the sceptics with the

-dogmatists. In other words, the premiss with which Schopenhauer began

-the investigation into the value of life, and which as we have shown he

-took without verification from the representatives of positive science,

-though perfectly applicable in its proper sphere, is quite out of place

-in philosophy. And indeed, though they never speak of it, philosophers

-value their own personal convictions much more highly than universally

-valid truth. The impossibility of discovering one sole philosophic

-truth may alarm any one but the philosophers themselves, who, so soon

-as they have worked out their own convictions, take not the smallest

-trouble to secure general recognition for them. They are only busy with

-getting rid of their vassal dependence and acquiring sovereign rights

-for themselves. The question whether there will be other sovereigns by

-their side hardly concerns them at all.</p>

-

-<p>The history of philosophy should be so expounded that this tendency

-should be clearly manifest. This would spare us from many prejudices,

-and would clear the way for new and important inquiries. Kant, who

-shared the opinion that truth is the same for all, was convinced that

-metaphysics must be a science <i>a priori,</i> and since it cannot be a

-science <i>a priori,</i> must therefore cease to exist. If the history

-of philosophy had been expounded and understood differently in his

-day, it would never have entered his mind thus to impugn the rights

-of metaphysics. And probably he would not have been vexed by the

-contradictoriness or the lack of proof in the teachings of various

-schools of metaphysics. It cannot be otherwise, neither should it

-be. The interest of mankind is not to put an end to the variety of

-philosophic doctrines but to allow the perfectly natural phenomenon

-wide and deep development. Philosophers have always had an instinctive

-longing for this: that is why they are so troublesome to the historian

-of philosophy.</p>

-

-

-

-<h4><i>The First and the Last</i></h4>

-

-

-<p>In the first volume of <i>Human, All too Human,</i> which Nietzsche wrote

-at the very beginning of his disease, when he was still far from

-final victory and chiefly told of his defeats, there is the following

-remarkable, though half-involuntary confession: 'The complete

-irresponsibility of Man for his actions and his being is the bitterest

-drop for the man of knowledge to drink, since he has been accustomed to

-see in responsibility and duty the very patent of his title to manhood.'</p>

-

-<p>Much bitterness has the inquiring spirit to swallow, but the bitterest

-of all is in the knowledge that his moral qualities, his readiness to

-fulfil his duty ungrudgingly, gives him no preference over other men.

-He thought he was a man of noble rank, even a prince of the blood,

-crowned with a crown, and the other men boorish peasantry&mdash;but he is

-just the same, a peasant, the same as all the rest. His patent of

-nobility was that for which he fulfilled his most arduous duty and made

-sacrifices; in it he saw the meaning of life. And when it is suddenly

-revealed that there is no provision made for titles or patents, it

-is a horrible catastrophe, a cataclysm&mdash;and life loses all meaning.

-Evidently the conviction expressed with such moving frankness in these

-words, was with Nietzsche a second nature, which he could not master

-all his life long. What is the Superman but a title, a patent, giving

-the right to be called a noble among the <i>canaille?</i> What is the pathos

-of distance and all Nietzsche's teaching of ranks? The formula, beyond

-good and evil, was by no means so all-destructive as at first sight it

-seemed. On the contrary, by erasing certain laws graven on the tables

-of mankind of old, that formula as it were revealed other commandments,

-obliterated by time, and therefore invisible to many.</p>

-

-<p>All morality, all good in and for itself is rejected, but the patent of

-nobility grows more precious until it becomes, if not the only value,

-at least the chief. Life loses its meaning once titles and ranks are

-destroyed, once he is deprived of the right to hold his head high, to

-throw out his chest, his belly even, and to look with contempt upon

-those about him.</p>

-

-<p>In order to show to what extent the doctrine of rank has become

-attached to the human soul, I would recall the words of the Gospel

-about the first and last. Christ, who seemed to speak in a language

-utterly new, who taught men to despise earthly blessings&mdash;riches, fame,

-honours, who so easily yielded Caesar his due, because he thought

-that only Caesar would find it useful&mdash;Christ himself, when he spoke

-to men, did not think it possible to take away from them their hope

-of distinction. 'The first shall be last.' What will there be first

-and second there, too? Yes, so it stands in the Gospel. Is it because

-there is indeed in the division of men into ranks something original

-and warrantable, or is it because Christ who spoke to humankind could

-not but use human words? It may be that, but for that promise, and

-generally the series of promises of rewards, accessible to the human

-understanding, the Gospel would not have fulfilled its great historic

-mission, it would have passed unnoticed on the earth, and no one

-would have detected or recognised in it the Evangel. Christ knew that

-men could renounce all things, save the right to superiority alone,

-to superiority over one's neighbours, to that which Nietzsche calls

-'the patent of nobility.' Without that superiority men of a certain

-kind cannot live. They become what the Germans so appropriately call

-<i>Vogelfrei,</i> deprived of the protection of the laws, since the laws

-are the only source of <i>their</i> right. Rude, nonsensical, disgusting

-reality&mdash;against which, I repeat, their <i>only</i> defence is the patent

-of nobility, the unwritten charter&mdash;approaches them closer and closer,

-with more and more menace and importunacy, and claims its right. 'If

-you are the same as all other men,' it says, 'take your experience

-of life from me, fulfil your trivial obligations, worse than that,

-accept from me the fines and reprimands to which the rank and file

-are subject, even to corporal punishment.' How could he accept these

-degrading conditions who had been used to think he had the right to

-carry his head high, to be proud and independent? Nietzsche tries

-with dull submissiveness to swallow the horrible bitterness of

-his confession, but courage and endurance, even <i>his</i> courage and

-endurance, are not enough for this his greatest and most terrible task.

-He cannot bear the horror of a life deprived of rights and defences: he

-seeks again for power and authority which would protect him and give

-him his lost rights again. He will not rest until he receives under

-another name a <i>restitutio in integrum</i> of all the rights which had

-previously been his.</p>

-

-<p>And surely not Nietzsche alone acted thus. The whole history of ethics,

-the whole history of philosophy is to no small degree the incessant

-search for prerogative and privilege, patents and charters. The

-Christians&mdash;Tolstoi and Dostoevsky&mdash;do not in the least differ from

-the enemy of Christianity, Nietzsche. The humble Jew, Spinoza, and the

-meek pagan, Socrates, the idealist Plato, and the idealist Aristotle,

-the founders of the newest, noblest and loftiest systems, Kant, Fichte,

-Hegel, even Schopenhauer, the pessimist, all as one man seek a charter,

-a charter, a charter. Evidently life on earth without a charter

-becomes for the 'best' men a horrible nightmare and an intolerable

-torment. Even the founder of Christianity, who so easily renounced all

-privileges, considered it possible to preserve <i>this</i> privilege for

-his disciples, and perhaps&mdash;who knows?&mdash;for himself too.</p>

-

-<p>Whereas if Nietzsche and those other philosophers had been able

-resolutely to renounce titles, ranks, and honours, which are

-distributed not only by morality, but by all the other Sanhedrim,

-real and imaginary, which are set over man; if they could have drunk

-this cup to the dregs, then they might have known, seen, and heard

-much that was suspected by none of them before. Long since men have

-known that the road to knowledge lies by way of a great renunciation.

-Neither righteousness nor genius gives a man privilege above others.

-He is deprived, for ever deprived, of the protection of earthly laws.

-There are no laws. To-day he is a king, to-morrow a slave; to-day God,

-to-morrow a worm; to-day first, to-morrow last. And the worm crushed

-by him to-day will be God, his god to-morrow. All the measures and

-balances by which men are distinguished one from another are defaced

-for ever, and there is no certainty that the place a man once occupied

-will still be his. And all philosophers have known this; Nietzsche,

-too, knew it, and by experience. He was the friend, the ally, and

-the collaborator of the great Wagner, the herald of a new era upon

-earth; and later, he grovelled in the dust, broken and crushed.

-And a second time this thing happened to him. When he had finished

-<i>Zarathustra,</i> he became insane, more exactly, he became half-idiot.

-It is true he carried the secret of the second fall with him to the

-grave. Yet something has reached us, for all his sister's efforts to

-conceal from carnal eyes the change that had befallen him. And now

-we ask: Is the essence of life really in the rank, the charter, the

-patent of nobility? And can the words of Christ be understood in their

-literal sense? Are not all the Sanhedrim set over man, and as it were

-giving meaning to his life, mere fictions, useful and even necessary

-in certain moments of life, but pernicious and dangerous, to say no

-more, when the circumstances are changed? Does not life, the real and

-desirable life, which men have sought for thousands of years, begin

-there where there is neither first nor last, righteous or sinner,

-genius or incapable? Is not the pursuit of recognition, of superiority,

-of patents and charters, of rank, that which prevents man from seeing

-life with its hidden miracles? And must man really seek protection

-in the College of Heralds, or has he another power that time cannot

-destroy? One may be a good, able, learned, gifted man, even a man of

-genius, but to demand in return any privileges whatsoever, is to betray

-goodness and ability, and talent and genius, and the greatest hopes of

-mankind. The last on earth will nowhere be first....</p>

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-<pre>

-

-

-

-

-

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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Anton Tchekhov, by Lev Shestov
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
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+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: Anton Tchekhov
+       And Other Essays
+
+Author: Lev Shestov
+
+Translator: John Middleton Murry
+
+Release Date: March 16, 2018 [EBook #56758]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANTON TCHEKHOV ***
+
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+Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature (Images
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+
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+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="500" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<img src="images/title.jpg" width="500" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+
+<h1>ANTON TCHEKHOV</h1>
+
+<h3>AND OTHER ESSAIS</h3>
+
+<h4>BY</h4>
+
+<h2>LEON SHESTOV</h2>
+
+<h4>TRANSLATED BY</h4>
+
+<h4>S. KOTELIANSKY AND J. M. MURRY</h4>
+
+<h5>MAUNSEL AND CO. LTD.</h5>
+
+<h5>DUBLIN AND LONDON</h5>
+
+<h5>1916</h5>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="caption" style="margin-left: 20%; font-size: 0.8em;">CONTENTS</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 20%; font-size: 0.8em;">
+<a href="#ANTON_TCHEKHOV">ANTON TCHEKHOV</a> (CREATION FROM THE VOID) <br />
+<a href="#THE_GIFT_OF_PROPHECY">THE GIFT OF PROPHECY</a><br />
+<a href="#PENULTIMATE_WORDS">PENULTIMATE WORDS</a><br />
+<a href="#THE_THEORY_OF_KNOWLEDGE">THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE</a><br />
+</p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+
+
+<h4>INTRODUCTION</h4>
+
+
+<p>It is not to be denied that Russian thought is chiefly manifested in
+the great Russian novelists. Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, and Tchekhov made
+explicit in their works conceptions of the world which yield nothing in
+definiteness to the philosophic schemes of the great dogmatists of old,
+and perhaps may be regarded as even superior to them in that by their
+nature they emphasise a relation of which the professional philosopher
+is too often careless&mdash;the intimate connection between philosophy and
+life. They attacked fearlessly and with a high devotion of which we
+English readers are slowly becoming sensible the fundamental problem of
+all philosophy worthy the name. They were preoccupied with the answer
+to the question: Is life worth living? And the great assumption which
+they made, at least in the beginning of the quest, was that to live
+life must mean to live it wholly. To live was not to pass by life on
+the other side, not suppress the deep or even the dark passions of body
+or soul, not to lull by some lying and narcotic phrase the urgent
+questions of the mind, not to deny life. To them life was the sum of
+all human potentialities. They accepted them all, loved them all, and
+strove to find a place for them all in a pattern in which none should
+be distorted. They failed, but not one of them fainted by the way,
+and there was not one of them but with his latest breath bravely held
+to his belief that there was a way and that the way might be found.
+Tolstoi went out alone to die, yet more manifestly than he had lived,
+a seeker after the secret; death overtook Dostoevsky in his supreme
+attempt to wrest a hope for mankind out of the abyss of the imagined
+future; and Tchekhov died when his most delicate fingers had been
+finally eager in lighting <i>The Cherry Orchard</i> with the tremulous glint
+of laughing tears, which may perhaps be the ultimate secret of the
+process which leaves us all bewildered and full of pity and wonder.</p>
+
+<p>There were great men and great philosophers. It may be that this
+cruelly conscious world will henceforward recognise no man as great
+unless he has greatly sought: for to seek and not to think is the
+essence of philosophy. To have greatly sought, I say, should be the
+measure of man's greatness in the strange world of which there will be
+only a tense, sorrowful, disillusioned remnant when this grim ordeal
+is over. It should be so: and we, who are, according to our strength,
+faithful to humanity, must also strive according to our strength to
+make it so. We are not, and we shall not be, great men: but we have
+the elements of greatness. We have an impulse to honesty, to think
+honestly, to see honestly, and to speak the truth to ourselves in the
+lonely hours. It is only an impulse, which, in these barren, bitter,
+years, so quickly withers and dies. It is almost that we dare not be
+honest now. Our hearts are dead: we cannot wake the old wounds again.
+And yet if anything of this generation that suffered is to remain, if
+we are to hand any spark of the fire which once burned so brightly,
+if we are to be human still, then we must still be honest at whatever
+cost. We&mdash;and I speak of that generation which was hardly man when the
+war burst upon it, which was ardent and generous and dreamed dreams
+of devotion to an ideal of art or love or life&mdash;are maimed and broken
+for ever. Let us not deceive ourselves. The dead voices will never be
+silent in our ears to remind us of that which we once were, and that
+which we have lost. We shall die as we shall live, lonely and haunted
+by memories that will grow stranger, more beautiful, more terrible,
+and more tormenting as the years go on, and at the last we shall not
+know which was the dream&mdash;the years of plenty or the barren years that
+descended like a storm in the night and swept our youth away.</p>
+
+<p>Yet something remains. Not those lying things that they who cannot feel
+how icy cold is sudden and senseless death to all-daring youth, din in
+our ears. We shall not be inspired by the memory of heroism. We shall
+be shattered by the thought of splendid and wonderful lives that were
+vilely cast away. What remains is that we should be honest as we shall
+be pitiful. We shall never again be drunk with hope: let us never be
+blind with fear. There can be in the lap of destiny now no worse thing
+which may befall us. We can afford to be honest now.</p>
+
+<p>We can afford to be honest: but we need to learn how, or to increase
+our knowledge. The Russian writers will help us in this; and not the
+great Russians only, but the lesser also. For a century of bitter
+necessity has taught that nation that the spirit is mightier than the
+flesh, until those eager qualities of soul that a century of social
+ease has almost killed in us are in them well-nigh an instinct. Let
+us look among ourselves if we can find a Wordsworth, a Shelley, a
+Coleridge, or a Byron to lift this struggle to the stars as they did
+the French Revolution. There is none.&mdash;It will be said: 'But that was
+a great fight for freedom. Humanity itself marched forward with the
+Revolutionary armies.' But if the future of mankind is not in issue
+now, if we are fighting for the victory of no precious and passionate
+idea, why is no voice of true poetry uplifted in protest? There is
+no third way. Either this is the greatest struggle for right, or the
+greatest crime, that has ever been. The unmistakable voice of poetry
+should be certain either in protest or enthusiasm: it is silent or
+it is trivial. And the cause must be that the keen edge of the soul
+of those century-old poets which cut through false patriotism so
+surely is in us dulled and blunted. We must learn honesty again:
+not the laborious and meagre honesty of those who weigh advantage
+against advantage in the ledger of their minds, but the honesty that
+cries aloud in instant and passionate anger against the lie and the
+half-truth, and by an instinct knows the authentic thrill of contact
+with the living human soul.</p>
+
+<p>The Russians, and not least the lesser Russians, may teach us this
+thing once more. Among these lesser, Leon Shestov holds an honourable
+place. He is hardly what we should call a philosopher, hardly again
+what we would understand by an essayist. The Russians, great and small
+alike, are hardly ever what we understand by the terms which we victims
+of tradition apply to them. In a hundred years they have accomplished
+an evolution which has with us slowly unrolled in a thousand. The very
+foundations of their achievement are new and laid within the memory of
+man. Where we have sharply divided art from art, and from science and
+philosophy, and given to each a name, the Russians have still the sense
+of a living connection between all the great activities of the human
+soul. From us this connection is too often concealed by the tyranny
+of names. We have come to believe, or at least it costs us great
+pains not to believe, that the name is a particular reality, which to
+confuse with another name is a crime. Whereas in truth the energies of
+the human soul are not divided from each other by any such impassable
+barriers: they flow into each other indistinguishably, modify, control,
+support, and decide each other. In their large unity they are real;
+isolated, they seem to be poised uneasily between the real and the
+unreal, and become deceptive, barren half-truths. Plato, who first
+discovered the miraculous hierarchy of names, though he was sometimes
+drunk with the new wine of his discovery, never forgot that the unity
+of the human soul was the final outcome of its diversity; and those
+who read aright his most perfect of all books&mdash;<i>The Republic</i>&mdash;know
+that it is a parable which fore-shadows the complete harmony of all the
+soul's activities.</p>
+
+<p>Not the least of Shestov's merits is that he is alive to this truth in
+its twofold working. He is aware of himself as a soul seeking an answer
+to its own question; and he is aware of other souls on the same quest.
+As in his own case he knows that he has in him something truer than
+names and divisions and authorities, which will live in spite of them,
+so towards others he remembers that all that they wrote or thought or
+said is precious and permanent in so far as it is the manifestation
+of the undivided soul seeking an answer to its question. To know a
+man's work for this, to have divined the direct relation between his
+utterance and his living soul, is criticism: to make that relation
+between one's own soul and one's speech direct and true is creation.
+In essence they are the same: creation is a man's lonely attempt to
+fix an intimacy with his own strange and secret soul, criticism is the
+satisfaction of the impulse of loneliness to find friends and secret
+sharers among the souls that are or have been. As creation drives a man
+to the knowledge of his own intolerable secrets, so it drives him to
+find others with whom he may whisper of the things which he has found.
+Other criticism than this is, in the final issue, only the criminal and
+mad desire to enforce material order in a realm where all is spiritual
+and vague and true. It is only the jealous protest of the small soul
+against the great, of the slave against the free.</p>
+
+<p>Against this smallness and jealousy Shestov has set his face. To have
+done so does not make him a great writer; but it does make him a real
+one. He is honest and he is not deceived. But honesty, unless a man is
+big enough to bear it, and often even when he is big enough to bear it,
+may make him afraid. Where angels fear to tread, fools rush in: but
+though the folly of the fool is condemned, some one must enter, lest
+a rich kingdom be lost to the human spirit. Perhaps Shestov will seem
+at times too fearful. Then we must remember that Shestov is Russian in
+another sense than that I have tried to make explicit above. He is a
+citizen of a country where the human spirit has at all times been so
+highly prized that the name of thinker has been a key to unlock not
+merely the mind but the heart also. The Russians not only respect,
+but they love a man who has thought and sought for humanity, and, I
+think, their love but seldom stops 'this side idolatry.' They will
+exalt a philosopher to a god; they are even able to make of materialism
+a religion. Because they are so loyal to the human spirit they will
+load it with chains, believing that they are garlands. And that is why
+dogmatism has never come so fully into its own as in Russia.</p>
+
+<p>When Shestov began to write nearly twenty years ago, Karl Marx was
+enthroned and infallible. The fear of such tyrannies has never
+departed from Shestov. He has fought against them so long and so
+persistently&mdash;even in this book one must always remember that he
+is face to face with an enemy of which we English have no real
+conception&mdash;that he is at times almost unnerved by the fear that he
+too may be made an authority and a rule. I do not think that this
+ultimate hesitation, if understood rightly, diminishes in any way from
+the interest of his writings: but it does suggest that there may be
+awaiting him a certain paralysis of endeavour. There is indeed no
+absolute truth of which we need take account other than the living
+personality, and absolute truths are valuable only in so far as they
+are seen to be necessary manifestations of this mysterious reality.
+Nevertheless it is in the nature of man, if not to live by absolute
+truths, at least to live by enunciating them; and to hesitate to
+satisfy this imperious need is to have resigned a certain measure of
+one's own creative strength. We may trust to the men of insight who
+will follow us to read our dogmatisms, our momentary angers, and our
+unshakable convictions, in terms of our personalities, if these shall
+be found worthy of their curiosity or their love. And it seems to me
+that Shestov would have gained in strength if he could have more firmly
+believed that there would surely be other Shestovs who would read him
+according to his own intention. But this, I also know, is a counsel of
+perfection: the courage which he has not would not have been acquired
+by any intellectual process, and its possession would have deprived him
+of the courage which he has. As dogmatism in Russia enjoys a supremacy
+of which we can hardly form an idea, so a continual challenge to its
+claims demands in the challenger a courage which it is hard for us
+rightly to appreciate.</p>
+
+<p>I have not written this foreword in order to prejudice the issue.
+Shestov will, no doubt, be judged by English readers according to
+English standards, and I wish no more than to suggest that his
+greatest quality is one which has become rare among us, and that his
+peculiarities are due to Russian conditions which have long since
+ceased to obtain in England. The Russians have much to teach us, and
+the only way we shall learn, or even know, what we should accept
+and what reject, is to take count as much as we can of the Russian
+realities. And the first of these and the last is that in Russia the
+things of the spirit are held in honour above all others. Because of
+this the Russian soul is tormented by problems to which we have long
+been dead, and to which we need to be alive again. J. M. M.</p>
+
+
+<p><i>Postscript.</i>&mdash;Leon Shestov is fifty years old. He was born at Kiev,
+and studied at the university there. His first book was written
+in 1898. As a writer of small production, he has made his way to
+recognition slowly: but now he occupies a sure position as one of the
+most delicate and individual of modern Russian critics. The essays
+contained in this volume are taken from the fourth and fifth works in
+the following list:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1898. <i>Shakespeare and his Critic, Brandes.</i></p>
+
+<p>1900. <i>Good in the teaching of Dostoevsky and Nietzsche: Philosophy and
+Preaching.</i></p>
+
+<p>1903. <i>Dostoevsky and Nietzsche: The Philosophy of Tragedy.</i></p>
+
+<p>1905. <i>The Apotheosis of Groundlessness: An Essay on Dogmatism.</i></p>
+
+<p>1908. <i>Beginnings and Ends.</i></p>
+
+<p>1912. <i>Great Vigils.</i></p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+<h4><a name="ANTON_TCHEKHOV" id="ANTON_TCHEKHOV">ANTON TCHEKHOV</a></h4>
+
+
+<h5>(CREATION FROM THE VOID)</h5>
+
+
+<p class="right" style="margin-top: 2em;">Résigne-toi, mon cœur, dors ton sommeil de brute.</p>
+
+<p class="right" style="font-size: 0.8em;">(CHARLES BAUDELAIRE.)</p>
+
+
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+
+<p>Tchekhov is dead; therefore we may now speak freely of him. For to
+speak of an artist means to disentangle and reveal the 'tendency'
+hidden in his works, an operation not always permissible when the
+subject is still living. Certainly he had a reason for hiding himself,
+and of course the reason was serious and important. I believe many felt
+it, and that it was partly on this account that we have as yet had no
+proper appreciation of Tchekhov. Hitherto in analysing his works the
+critics have confined themselves to common-place and <i>cliché</i>. Of course
+they knew they were wrong; but anything is better than to extort the
+truth from a living person. Mihailovsky alone attempted to approach
+closer to the source of Tchekhov's creation, and as everybody knows,
+turned away from it with aversion and even with disgust. Here, by the
+way, the deceased critic might have convinced himself once again of
+the extravagance of the so-called theory of 'art for art's sake.' Every
+artist has his definite task, his life's work, to which he devotes
+all his forces. A tendency is absurd when it endeavours to take the
+place of talent, and to cover impotence and lack of content, or when
+it is borrowed from the stock of ideas which happen to be in demand
+at the moment. 'I defend ideals, therefore every one must give me his
+sympathies.' Such pretences we often see made in literature, and the
+notorious controversy concerning 'art for art's sake' was evidently
+maintained upon the double meaning given to the word 'tendency' by its
+opponents. Some wished to believe that a writer can be saved by the
+nobility of his tendency; others feared that a tendency would bind them
+to the performance of alien tasks. Much ado about nothing: ready-made
+ideas will never endow mediocrity with talent; on the contrary, an
+original writer will at all costs set himself his own task. And
+Tchekhov had his <i>own</i> business, though there were critics who said
+that he was the servant of art for its own sake, and even compared him
+to a bird, carelessly flying. To define his tendency in a word, I would
+say that Tchekhov was the poet of hopelessness. Stubbornly, sadly,
+monotonously, during all the years of his literary activity, nearly a
+quarter of a century long, Tchekhov was doing one thing alone: by one
+means or another he was killing human hopes. Herein, I hold, lies the
+essence of his creation. Hitherto it has been little spoken of. The
+reasons are quite intelligible. In ordinary language what Tchekhov
+was doing is called crime, and is visited by condign punishment. But
+how can a man of talent be punished? Even Mihailovsky, who more than
+once in his lifetime gave an example of merciless severity, did not
+raise his hand against Tchekhov. He warned his readers and pointed
+out the 'evil fire' which he had noticed in Tchekhov's eyes. But he
+went no further. Tchekhov's immense talent overcame the strict and
+rigorous critic. It may be, however, that Mihailovsky's own position
+in literature had more than a little to do with the comparative
+mildness of his sentence. The younger generation had listened to him
+uninterruptedly for thirty years, and his word had been law. But
+afterwards every one was bored with eternally repeating: 'Aristides
+is just, Aristides is right.' The younger generation began to desire
+to live and to speak in its own way, and finally the old master was
+ostracised. There is the same custom in literature as in Terra del
+Fuego. The young, growing men kill and eat the old. Mihailovsky
+struggled with all his might, but he no longer felt the strength of
+conviction that comes from the sense of right. Inwardly, he felt that
+the young were right, not because they knew the truth&mdash;what truth did
+the economic materialists know?&mdash;but because they were young and had
+their lives before them. The rising star shines always brighter than
+the setting, and the old must of their own will yield themselves up to
+be devoured by the young. Mihailovsky felt this, and perhaps it was
+this which undermined his former assurance and the firmness of his
+opinion of old. True, he was still like Gretchen's mother in Goethe: he
+did not take rich gifts from chance without having previously consulted
+his confessor. Tchekhov's talent too was taken to the priest, by whom
+it was evidently rejected as suspect; but Mihailovsky no longer had the
+courage to set himself against public opinion. The younger generation
+prized Tchekhov for his talent, his immense talent, and it was plain
+they would riot disown him. What remained for Mihailovsky He attempted,
+as I say, to warn them. But no one listened to him, and Tchekhov became
+one of the most beloved of Russian writers.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the just Aristides was right this time too, as he was right when
+he gave his warning against Dostoevsky. Now that Tchekhov is no more,
+we may speak openly. Take Tchekhov's stories, each one separately, or
+better still, all together; look at him at work. He is constantly,
+as it were, in ambush, to watch and waylay human hopes. He will not
+miss a single one of them, not one of them will escape its fate. Art,
+science, love, inspiration, ideals&mdash;choose out all the words with which
+humanity is wont, or has been in the past, to be consoled or to be
+amused&mdash;Tchekhov has only to touch them and they instantly wither and
+die. And Tchekhov himself faded, withered and died before our eyes.
+Only his wonderful art did not die&mdash;his art to kill by a mere touch,
+a breath, a glance, everything whereby men live and wherein they take
+their pride. And in this art he was constantly perfecting himself, and
+he attained to a virtuosity beyond the reach of any of his rivals in
+European literature. Maupassant often had to strain every effort to
+overcome his victim. The victim often escaped from Maupassant, though
+crushed and broken, yet with his life. In Tchekhov's hands, nothing
+escaped death.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+
+<p>I must remind my reader, though it is a matter of general knowledge,
+that in his earlier work Tchekhov is most unlike the Tchekhov to whom
+we became accustomed in late years. The young Tchekhov is gay and
+careless, perhaps even like a flying bird. He published his work in
+the comic papers. But in 1888 and 1889, when he was only twenty-seven
+and twenty-eight years old, there appeared <i>The Tedious Story</i> and the
+drama <i>Ivanov,</i> two pieces of work which laid the foundations of a
+new creation. Obviously a sharp and sudden change had taken place in
+him, which was completely reflected in his works. There is no detailed
+biography of Tchekhov, and probably will never be, because there is no
+such thing as a full biography&mdash;I, at all events, cannot name one.
+Generally biographies tell us everything except what it is important
+to know. Perhaps in the future it will be revealed to us with the
+fullest details who was Tchekhov's tailor; but we shall never know what
+happened to Tchekhov in the time which elapsed between the completion
+of his story <i>The Steppe</i> and the appearance of his first drama. If we
+would know, we must rely upon his works and our own insight.</p>
+
+<p><i>Ivanov</i> and <i>The Tedious Story</i> seem to me the most autobiographical
+of all his works. In them almost every line is a sob; and it is hard to
+suppose that a man could sob so, looking only at another's grief. And
+it is plain that his grief is a new one, unexpected as though it had
+fallen from the sky. Here it is, it will endure for ever, and he does
+not know how to fight against it.</p>
+
+<p>In <i>Ivanov</i> the hero compares himself to an overstrained labourer. I
+do not believe we shall be mistaken if we apply this comparison to the
+author of the drama as well. There can be practically no doubt that
+Tchekhov had overstrained himself. And the overstrain came not from
+hard and heavy labour; no mighty overpowering exploit broke him: he
+stumbled and fell, he slipped. There comes this nonsensical, stupid,
+all but invisible accident, and the old Tchekhov of gaiety and mirth
+is no more. No more stories for <i>The Alarm Clock.</i> Instead, a morose
+and overshadowed man, a 'criminal' whose words frighten even the
+experienced and the omniscient.</p>
+
+<p>If you desire it, you can easily be rid of Tchekhov and his work as
+well. Our language contains two magic words: 'pathological,' and its
+brother 'abnormal.' Once Tchekhov had overstrained himself, you have a
+perfectly legal right, sanctified by science and every tradition, to
+leave him out of all account, particularly seeing that he is already
+dead, and therefore cannot be hurt by your neglect. That is if you
+desire to be rid of Tchekhov. But if the desire is for some reason
+absent, the words 'pathological' and 'abnormal' will have no effect
+upon you. Perhaps you will go further and attempt to find in Tchekhov's
+experiences a criterion of the most irrefragable truths and axioms of
+this consciousness of ours. There is no third way: you must either
+renounce Tchekhov, or become his accomplice.</p>
+
+<p>The hero of <i>The Tedious Story</i> is an old professor; the hero of
+<i>Ivanov</i> a young landlord. But the theme of both works is the same.
+The professor had overstrained himself, and thereby cut himself off
+from his past life and from the possibility of taking an active part
+in human affairs. Ivanov also had overstrained himself and become a
+superfluous, useless person. Had life been so arranged that death
+should supervene simultaneously with the loss of health, strength and
+capacity, then the old professor and young Ivanov could not have lived
+for one single hour. Even a blind man could see that they are both
+broken and are unfit for life. But for reasons unknown to us, wise
+nature has rejected coincidence of this kind. A man very often goes on
+living after he has completely lost the capacity of taking from life
+that wherein we are wont to see its essence and meaning. More striking
+still, a broken man is generally deprived of everything except the
+ability to acknowledge and feel his position. Nay, for the most part
+in such cases the intellectual abilities are refined and sharpened
+and increased to colossal proportions. It frequently happens that an
+average man, banal and mediocre, is changed beyond all recognition when
+he falls into the exceptional situation of Ivanov or the old professor.
+In him appear signs of a gift, a talent, even of genius. Nietzsche once
+asked: 'Can an ass be tragical?' He left his question unanswered, but
+Tolstoi answered for him in <i>The Death of Ivan Ilyich.</i> Ivan Ilyich,
+it is evident from Tolstoi's description of his life, is a mediocre,
+average character, one of those men who pass through life avoiding
+anything that is difficult or problematical, caring exclusively for the
+calm and pleasantness of earthly existence. Hardly had the cold wind of
+tragedy blown upon him, than he was utterly transformed. The story of
+Ivan Ilyich in his last days is as deeply interesting as the life-story
+of Socrates or Pascal.</p>
+
+<p>In passing I would point out a fact which I consider of great
+importance. In his work Tchekhov was influenced by Tolstoi, and
+particularly by Tolstoi's later writings. It is important, because thus
+a part of Tchekhov's 'guilt' falls upon the great writer of the Russian
+land. I think that had there been no <i>Death of Ivan Ilyich,</i> there
+would have been no <i>Ivanov,</i> and no <i>Tedious Story,</i> nor many others
+of Tchekhov's most remarkable works. But this by no means implies that
+Tchekhov borrowed a single word from his great predecessor. Tchekhov
+had enough material of his own: in that respect he needed no help. But
+a young writer would hardly dare to come forward at his own risk with
+the thoughts that make the content of <i>The Tedious Story.</i> When Tolstoi
+wrote <i>The Death of Ivan Ilyich,</i> he had behind him <i>War and Peace,
+Anna Karenina,</i> and the firmly established reputation of an artist of
+the highest rank. All things were permitted to him. But Tchekhov was
+a young man, whose literary baggage amounted in all to a few dozen
+tiny stories, hidden in the pages of little known and uninfluential
+papers. Had Tolstoi not paved the way, had Tolstoi not shown by his
+example, that in literature it was permitted to tell the truth, to
+tell everything, then perhaps Tchekhov would have had to struggle long
+with himself before finding the courage of a public confession, even
+though it took the form of stories. And even with Tolstoi before him,
+how terribly did Tchekhov have to struggle with public opinion. 'Why
+does he write his horrible stories and plays?' every one asked himself.
+'Why does the writer systematically choose for his heroes situations
+from which there is not, and cannot possibly be, any escape?' What
+can be said in answer to the endless complaints of the old professor
+and Katy, his pupil? This means that there is, essentially, something
+to be said. From times immemorial, literature has accumulated a large
+and varied store of all kinds of general ideas and conceptions,
+material and metaphysical, to which the masters have recourse the
+moment the over-exacting and over-restless human voice begins to be
+heard. This is exactly the point. Tchekhov himself, a writer and an
+educated man, refused in advance every possible consolation, material
+or metaphysical. Not even in Tolstoi, who set no great store by
+philosophical systems, will you find such keenly expressed disgust for
+every kind of conceptions and ideas as in Tchekhov. He is well aware
+that conceptions ought to be esteemed and respected, and he reckons his
+inability to bend the knee before that which educated people consider
+holy as a defect against which he must struggle with all his strength.
+And he does struggle with all his strength against this defect. But
+not only is the struggle unavailing; the longer Tchekhov lives, the
+weaker grows the power of lofty words over him, in spite of his own
+reason and his conscious will. Finally, he frees himself entirely
+from ideas of every kind, and loses even the notion of connection
+between the happenings of life. Herein lies the most important and
+original characteristic of his creation. Anticipating a little, I would
+here point to his comedy, <i>The Sea-Gull,</i> where, in defiance of all
+literary principles, the basis of action appears to be not the logical
+development of passions, or the inevitable connection between cause and
+effect, but naked accident, ostentatiously nude. As one reads the play,
+it seems at times that one has before one a copy of a newspaper with
+an endless series of news paragraphs, heaped upon one another, without
+order and without previous plan. Sovereign accident reigns everywhere
+and in everything, this time boldly throwing the gauntlet to all
+conceptions. In this, I repeat, is Tchekhov's greatest originality, and
+this, strangely enough, is the source of his most bitter experiences.
+He did not want to be original; he made super-human efforts to be
+like everybody else: but there is no escaping one's destiny. How
+many men, above all among writers, wear their fingers to the bone in
+the effort to be unlike others, and yet they cannot shake themselves
+free of <i>cliché</i>&mdash;yet Tchekhov was original against his will!
+Evidently originality does not depend upon the readiness to proclaim
+revolutionary opinions at all costs. The newest and boldest idea may
+and often does appear tedious and vulgar. In order to become original,
+instead of inventing an idea, one must achieve a difficult and painful
+labour; and, since men avoid labour and suffering, the really new is
+for the most part born in man against his will.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h4>III</h4>
+
+
+<p>'A man cannot reconcile himself to the accomplished fact; neither can
+he refuse so to reconcile himself: and there is no third course. Under
+such conditions "action" is impossible. He can only fall down and weep
+and beat his head against the floor.' So Tchekhov speaks of one of his
+heroes; but he might say the same of them all, without exception. The
+author takes care to put them in such a situation that only one thing
+is left for them,&mdash;to fall down and beat their heads against the floor.
+With strange, mysterious obstinacy they refuse all the accepted means
+of salvation. Nicolai Stepanovich, the old professor in <i>The Tedious
+Story,</i> might have attempted to forget himself for a while or to
+console himself with memories of the past. But memories only irritate
+him. He was once an eminent scholar: now he cannot work. Once he was
+able to hold the attention of his audience for two hours on end; now
+he cannot do it even for a quarter of an hour. He used to have friends
+and comrades, he used to love his pupils and assistants, his wife
+and children; now he cannot concern himself with any one. If people
+do arouse any feelings at all within him, then they are only feelings
+of hatred, malice and envy. He has to confess it to himself with
+the truthfulness which came to him&mdash;he knows not why nor whence&mdash;in
+place of the old diplomatic skill, possessed by all clever and normal
+men, whereby he saw and said only that which makes for decent human
+relations and healthy states of mind. Now everything which he sees or
+thinks only serves to poison, in himself and others, the few joys which
+adorn human life. With a certainty which he never attained on the best
+days and hours of his old theoretical research, he feels that he is
+become a criminal, having committed no crime. All that he was engaged
+in before was good, necessary, and useful. He tells you of his past,
+and you can see that he was always right and ready at any moment of
+the day or the night to answer the severest judge who should examine
+not only his actions, but his thoughts as well. Now not only would an
+outsider condemn him, he condemns himself. He confesses openly that he
+is all compact of envy and hatred.</p>
+
+<p>'The best and most sacred right of kings,' he says, 'is the right to
+pardon. And I have always felt myself a king so long as I used this
+right prodigally. I never judged, I was compassionate, I pardoned every
+one right and left.... But now I am king no more. There's something
+going on in me which belongs only to slaves. Day and night evil
+thoughts roam about in my head, and feelings which I never knew before
+have made their home in my soul. I hate and despise; I'm exasperated,
+disturbed, and afraid. I've become strict beyond measure, exacting,
+unkind and suspicious.... What does it all mean? If my new thoughts and
+feelings come from a change of my convictions, where could the change
+come from? Has the world grown worse and I better, or was I blind and
+indifferent before? But if the change is due to the general decline
+of my physical and mental powers&mdash;I am sick and losing weight every
+day&mdash;then I am in a pitiable position. It means that my new thoughts
+are abnormal and unhealthy, that I must be ashamed of them and consider
+them valueless ...</p>
+
+<p>The question is asked by the old professor on the point of death, and
+in his person by Tchekhov himself. Which is better, to be a king, or an
+old, envious, malicious 'toad,' as he calls himself elsewhere? There
+is no denying the originality of the question. In the words above you
+feel the price which Tchekhov had to pay for his originality, and with
+how great joy he would have exchanged all his original thoughts&mdash;at
+the moment when his 'new' point of view had become clear to him&mdash;for
+the most ordinary, banal capacity for benevolence. He has, no doubt
+felt that his way of thinking is pitiable, shameful and disgusting.
+His moods revolt him no less than his appearance, which he describes
+in the following lines: '... I am a man of sixty-two, with a bald
+head, false teeth and an incurable tic. My name is as brilliant and
+prepossessing, as I myself am dull and ugly. My head and hands tremble
+from weakness; my neck, like that of one of Turgeniev's heroines,
+resembles the handle of a counter-bass; my chest is hollow and my
+back narrow. When I speak or read my mouth twists, and when I smile
+my whole face is covered with senile, deathly wrinkles.' Unpleasant
+face, unpleasant moods! Let the most sweet natures and compassionate
+person but give a side-glance at such a monster, and despite himself
+a cruel thought would awaken in him: that he should lose no time in
+killing, in utterly destroying this pitiful and disgusting vermin, or
+if the laws forbid recourse to such strong measures, at least in hiding
+him as far as possible from human eyes, in some prison or hospital
+or asylum. These are measures of suppression sanctioned, I believe,
+not only by legislation, but by eternal morality as well. But here
+you encounter resistance of a particular kind. Physical strength to
+struggle with the warders, executioners, attendants, moralists&mdash;the old
+professor has none; a little child could knock him down. Persuasion
+and prayer, he knows well, will avail him nothing. So he strikes out
+in despair: he begins to cry over all the world in a terrible, wild,
+heartrending voice about some rights of his: '... I have a passionate
+and hysterical desire to stretch out my hands and moan aloud. I want to
+cry out that fate has doomed me, a famous man, to death; that in some
+six months here in the auditorium another will be master. I want to cry
+out that I am poisoned; that new ideas that I did not know before have
+poisoned the last days of my life, and sting my brain incessantly like
+mosquitoes. At that moment my position seems so terrible to me that
+I want all my students to be terrified, to jump from their seats and
+rush panic-stricken to the door, shrieking in despair.' The professor's
+arguments will hardly move any one. Indeed I do not know if there is
+any argument in those words. But this awful, inhuman moan.... Imagine
+the picture: a bald, ugly old man, with trembling hands, and twisted
+mouth, and skinny neck, eyes mad with fear, wallowing like a beast on
+the ground and wailing, wailing, wailing.... What does he want? He had
+lived a long and interesting life; now he had only to round it off
+nicely, with all possible calm, quietly and solemnly to take leave of
+this earthly existence. Instead he rends himself, and flings himself
+about, calls almost the whole universe to judgment, and clutches
+convulsively at the few days left to him. And Tchekhov&mdash;what did
+Tchekhov do? Instead of passing by on the other side, he supports the
+prodigious monster, devotes pages and pages to the 'experiences of his
+soul,' and gradually brings the reader to a point at which, instead of
+a natural and lawful sense of indignation, unprofitable and dangerous
+sympathies for the decomposing, decaying creature are awakened in
+his heart. But every one knows that it is impossible to <i>help</i> the
+professor; and if it is impossible to help, then it follows we must
+forget. That is as plain as <i>a b c.</i> What use or what meaning could
+there be in the endless picturing&mdash;daubing, as Tolstoi would say&mdash;of
+the intolerable pains of the agony which inevitably leads to death?</p>
+
+<p>If the professor's 'new' thoughts and feelings shone bright with
+beauty, nobility or heroism, the case would be different. The reader
+could learn something from it. But Tchekhov's story shows that these
+qualities belonged to his hero's old thoughts. Now that his illness has
+begun, there has sprung up within him a revulsion from everything which
+even remotely resembles a lofty feeling. When his pupil Katy turns to
+him for advice what she should do, the famous scholar, the friend of
+Pirogov, Kavelin and Nekrassov, who had taught so many generations
+of young men, does not know what to answer. Absurdly he chooses from
+his memory a whole series of pleasant-sounding words; but they have
+lost all meaning for him. What answer shall he give? he asks himself.
+'It is easy to say, Work, or divide your property among the poor, or
+know yourself, and because it is easy, I do not know what to answer.'
+Katy, still young, healthy and beautiful, has by Tchekhov's offices
+fallen like the professor into a trap from which no human power can
+deliver her. From the moment that she knew hopelessness, she had won
+all the author's sympathy. While a person is settled to some work,
+while he has a future of some kind before him, Tchekhov is utterly
+indifferent to him. If he does describe him, then he usually does it
+hastily and in a tone of scornful irony. But when he is entangled, and
+so entangled that he cannot be disentangled by any means, then Tchekhov
+begins to wake up. Colour, energy, creative force, inspiration make
+their appearance. Therein perhaps lies the secret of his political
+indifferentism. Notwithstanding all his distrust of projects for a
+brighter future, Tchekhov like Dostoevsky was evidently not wholly
+convinced that social reforms and social science were important.
+However difficult the social question may be, still it may be solved.
+Some day, perhaps people will so arrange themselves on the earth as
+to live and die without suffering: further than that ideal humanity
+cannot go. Perhaps the authors of stout volumes on Progress do guess
+and foresee something. But just for that reason their work is alien to
+Tchekhov. At first by instinct, then consciously, he was attracted to
+problems which are by essence insoluble like that presented in <i>The
+Tedious Story</i>: there you have helplessness, sickness, the prospect of
+inevitable death, and no hope whatever to change the situation by a
+hair. This infatuation, whether conscious or instinctive, clearly runs
+counter to the demands of common sense and normal will. But there is
+nothing else to expect from Tchekhov, an overstrained man. Every one
+knows, or has heard, of hopelessness. On every side, before our very
+eyes, are happening terrible and intolerable tragedies, and if every
+doomed man were to raise such an awful alarm about his destruction as
+Nicolai Stepanovich, life would become an inferno; Nicolai Stepanovich
+must not cry his sufferings aloud over the world, but be careful to
+trouble people as little as possible. And Tchekhov should have assisted
+this reputable endeavour by every means in his power. As though there
+were not thousands of tedious stories in the world&mdash;they cannot be
+counted! And above all stories of the kind that Tchekhov tells should
+be hidden with special care from human eyes. We have here to do with
+the decomposition of a living organism. What should we say to a man
+who would prevent corpses from being buried, and would dig decaying
+bodies from the grave, even though it were on the ground, or rather on
+the pretext, that they were the bodies of his intimate friends, even
+famous men of reputation and genius? Such an occupation would rouse
+in a normal and healthy mind nothing but disgust and terror. Once upon
+a time, according to popular superstition, sorcerers, necromancers
+and wizards kept company with the dead, and found a certain pleasure
+or even a real satisfaction in that ghastly occupation. But they
+generally hid themselves away from mankind in forests and caves, or
+betook themselves to deserts where they might in isolation surrender
+themselves to their unnatural inclinations; and if their deeds were
+eventually brought to light, healthy men requited them with the stake,
+the gallows, and the rack. The worst kind of that which is called
+evil, as a rule, had for its source and origin an interest and taste
+for carrion. Man forgave every crime&mdash;cruelty, violence, murder; but
+he never forgave the unmotived love of death and the seeking of its
+secret. In this matter modern times, being free from prejudices, have
+advanced little from the Middle Ages. Perhaps the only difference is
+that we, engaged in practical affairs, have lost the natural <i>flair</i>
+for good and evil. Theoretically we are even convinced that in our time
+there are not and cannot be wizards and necromancers. Our confidence
+and carelessness in this reached such a point, that almost everybody
+saw even in Dostoevsky only an artist and a publicist, and seriously
+discussed with him whether the Russian peasant needed to be flogged and
+whether we ought to lay hands on Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p>Mihailovsky alone vaguely conjectured what it all might be when he
+called the author of <i>The Brothers Karamazov</i> a 'treasure-digger.'
+I say he 'dimly conjectured, because I think that the deceased
+critic made the remark partly in allegory, even in joke. But none of
+Dostoevsky's other critics made, even by accident, a truer slip of the
+pen. Tchekhov, too, was a 'treasure-digger,' a sorcerer, a necromancer,
+an adept in the black art; and this explains his singular infatuation
+for death, decay and hopelessness.</p>
+
+<p>Tchekhov was not of course the only writer to make death the subject
+of his works. But not the theme is important but the manner of its
+treatment. Tchekhov understands that. 'In all the thoughts, feelings,
+and ideas,' he says, '[which] I form about anything, there is wanting
+the something universal which could bind all these together in one
+whole. Each feeling and each thought lives detached in me, and in all
+my opinions about science, the theatre, literature, and my pupils,
+and in all the little pictures which my imagination paints, not even
+the most cunning analyst will discover what is called the general
+idea, or the god of the living man. And if this is not there, then
+nothing is there. In poverty such as this, a serious infirmity, fear
+of death, influence of circumstances and people would have been
+enough to over-throw and shatter all that I formerly considered as my
+conception of the world, and all wherein I saw the meaning and joy of
+my life....' In these words one of the 'newest' of Tchekhov's ideas
+finds expression, one by which the whole of his subsequent creation is
+defined. It is expressed in a modest, apologetic form: a man confesses
+that he is unable to subordinate his thoughts to a higher idea, and
+in that inability he sees his weakness. This was enough to avert from
+him to some extent the thunders of criticism and the judgment of
+public opinion. We readily forgive the repentant sinner! But it is an
+unprofitable clemency: to expiate one's guilt, it is not enough to
+confess it. What was the good of Tchekhov's putting on sackcloth; and
+ashes and publicly confessing his guilt, if he was inwardly unchanged?
+If, while his words acknowledged the general idea as god (without a
+capital, indeed), he did nothing whatever for it? In words he burns
+incense to god, in deed he curses him. Before his disease a conception
+of the world brought him happiness, now it had shattered into
+fragments. Is it not natural to ask whether the conception actually did
+ever bring him happiness? Perhaps the happiness had its own independent
+origin, and the conception was invited only as a general to a wedding,
+for outward show, and never played any essential part. Tchekhov tells
+us circumstantially what joys the professor found in his scientific
+work, his lectures to the students, his family, and in a good dinner.
+In all these were present together the conception of the world and
+the idea, and they did not take away from, but as it were embellished
+life; so that it seemed that he was working for the ideal, as well
+as creating a family and dining. But now, when for the same ideal's
+sake he has to remain inactive, to suffer, to remain awake of nights,
+to swallow with effort food that has become loathsome to him&mdash;the
+conception of the world is shattered into fragments! And it amounts to
+this, that a conception with a dinner is right, and a dinner without a
+conception equally right&mdash;this needs no argument&mdash;and a conception <i>an
+und für sich</i> is of no value whatever. Here is the essence of the words
+quoted from Tchekhov. He confesses with horror the presence within him
+of that 'new' idea. It seems to him that he alone of all men is so weak
+and insignificant, that the others ... well, they need only ideals
+and conceptions. And so it is, surely, if we may believe what people
+write in books. Tchekhov plagues, tortures and worries himself in every
+possible way, but he can alter nothing; nay worse, conceptions and
+ideas, towards which a great many people behave quite carelessly&mdash;after
+all, these innocent things do not merit any other attitude&mdash;in Tchekhov
+become the objects of bitter, inexorable, and merciless hatred. He
+cannot free himself at one single stroke from the power of ideas:
+therefore he begins a long, slow and stubborn war, I would call it
+a guerilla war, against the tyrant who had enslaved him. The whole
+history and the separate episodes of his struggle are of absorbing
+interest, because the most conspicuous representatives of literature
+have hitherto been convinced that ideas have a magical power. What
+are the majority of writers doing but constructing conceptions of the
+world&mdash;and believing that they are engaged in a work of extraordinary
+importance and sanctity? Tchekhov offended very many literary men. If
+his punishment was comparatively slight, that was because he was very
+cautious, and waged war with the air of bringing tribute to the enemy,
+and secondly, because to talent much is forgiven.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h4>IV</h4>
+
+
+<p>The content of <i>The Tedious Story</i> thus reduces to the fact that the
+professor, expressing his 'new' thoughts, in essence declares that
+he finds it impossible to acknowledge the power of the 'idea' over
+himself, or conscientiously to fulfil that which men consider the
+supreme purpose, and in the service whereof they see the mission, the
+sacred mission of man. 'God be my judge, I haven't courage enough
+to act according to my conscience,' such is the only answer which
+Tchekhov finds in his soul to all demands for a 'conception.' This
+attitude towards 'conceptions' becomes second nature with Tchekhov.
+A conception makes demands; a man acknowledges the justice of these
+demands and methodically satisfies none of them. Moreover, the justice
+of the demands meets with less and less acknowledgment from him. In
+<i>The Tedious Story</i> the idea still judges the man and tortures him
+with the mercilessness peculiar to all things inanimate. Exactly like
+a splinter stuck into a living body, the idea, alien and hostile,
+mercilessly performs its high mission, until at length the man firmly
+resolves to draw the splinter out of his flesh, however painful that
+difficult operation may be. In <i>Ivanov</i> the rôle of the idea is
+already changed. There not the idea persecutes Tchekhov, but Tchekhov
+the idea, and with the subtlest division and contempt. The voice of
+the living nature rises above the artificial habits of civilisation.
+True, the struggle still continues, if you will, with alternating
+fortunes. But the old humility is no more. More and more Tchekhov
+emancipates himself from old prejudices and goes&mdash;he himself could
+hardly say whither, were he asked. But he prefers to remain without
+an answer, rather than to accept any of the traditional answers. 'I
+know quite well I have no more than six months to live; and it would
+seem that now I ought to be mainly occupied with questions of the
+darkness beyond the grave, and the visions which will visit my sleep
+in the earth. But somehow my soul is not curious of these questions,
+though my mind grants every atom of their importance.' In contrast to
+the habits of the past, reason is once more pushed out of the door
+with all due respect, while its rights are handed over to the 'soul,'
+to the dark, vague aspiration which Tchekhov by instinct trusts more
+than the bright, clear consciousness which beforehand determines the
+beyond, now that he stands before the fatal pale which divides man from
+the eternal mystery. Is scientific philosophy indignant? Is Tchekhov
+undermining its surest foundations? But he is an overstrained, abnormal
+man. Certainly you are not bound to listen to him; but once you have
+decided to do so then you must be prepared for anything. A normal
+person, even though he be a metaphysician of the extremest ethereal
+brand, always adjusts his theories to the requirements of the moment;
+he destroys only to build up from the old material once more. This is
+the reason why material never fails him. Obedient to the fundamental
+law of human nature, long since noted and formulated by the wise, he
+is content to confine himself to the modest part of a seeker after
+forms. Out of iron, which he finds in nature ready to his hand, he
+forges a sword or a plough, a lance or a sickle. The idea of creating
+out of a void hardly even enters his mind. But Tchekhov's heroes,
+persons abnormal <i>par excellence,</i> are faced with this abnormal and
+dreadful necessity. Before them always lies hopelessness, helplessness,
+the utter impossibility of any action whatsoever. And yet they live
+on, they do not die. A strange question, and one of extraordinary
+moment, here suggests itself. I said that it was foreign to human
+nature to create out of a void. Yet nature often deprives man of
+ready material, while at the same time she demands imperatively that
+he should create. Does this mean that nature contradicts herself,
+or that she perverts her creatures? Is it not more correct to admit
+that the conception of perversion is of purely human origin. Perhaps
+nature is much more economical and wise than our wisdom, and maybe we
+should discover much more if instead of dividing people into necessary
+and superfluous, useful and noxious, good and bad, we suppressed
+the tendency to subjective valuation in ourselves and endeavoured
+with greater confidence to accept her creations? Otherwise you come
+immediately&mdash;to 'the evil gleam,' 'treasure-digging,' sorcery and
+black magic&mdash;and a wall is raised between men which neither logical
+argument nor even a battery of artillery can break down. I hardly dare
+hope that this consideration will appear convincing to those who are
+used to maintaining the norm; and it is probably unnecessary that the
+notion of the great opposition of good and bad which is alive among
+men should die away, just as it is unnecessary that children should
+be born with the experience of men, or that red cheeks and curly hair
+should vanish from the earth. At any rate it is impossible. The world
+has many centuries to its reckoning, many nations have lived and died
+upon the earth, yet as far as we know from the books and traditions
+that have survived to us, the dispute between good and evil was never
+hushed. And it always so happened that good was not afraid of the light
+of day, and good men lived a united, social life; while evil hid itself
+in darkness, and the wicked always stood alone. Nor could it have been
+otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>All Tchekhov's heroes fear the light. They are lonely. They are ashamed
+of their hopelessness, and they know that men cannot help them.
+They go somewhere, perhaps even forward, but they call to no one to
+follow. All things are taken from them: they must create everything
+anew. Thence most probably is derived the unconcealed contempt with
+which they behave to the most precious products of common human
+creativeness. On whatever subject you begin to talk with a Tchekhov
+hero he has one reply to everything: <i>Nobody can teach me anything.</i>
+You offer him a new conception of the world: already in your very
+first words he feels that they all reduce to an attempt to lay the old
+bricks and stones over again, and he turns from you with impatience,
+and often with rudeness. Tchekhov is an extremely cautious writer.
+He fears and takes into account public opinion. Yet how unconcealed
+is the aversion he displays to accepted ideas and conceptions of the
+world. In <i>The Tedious Story,</i> he at any rate preserves the tone and
+attitude of outward obedience. Later he throws aside all precautions,
+and instead of reproaching himself for his inability to submit to the
+general idea, openly rebels against it and jeers at it. In <i>Ivanov</i> it
+already is sufficiently expressed; there was reason for the outburst
+of indignation which this play provoked in its day. Ivanov, I have
+already said, is a dead man. The only thing the artist can do with
+him is to bury him decently, that is, to praise his past, pity his
+present, and then, in order to mitigate the cheerless impression
+produced by death, to invite the general idea to the funeral. He might
+recall the universal problems of humanity in any one of the many
+stereotyped forms, and thus the difficult case which seemed insoluble
+would be removed. Together with Ivanov's death he should portray a
+bright young life, full of promise, and the impression of death and
+destruction would lose all its sting and bitterness. Tchekhov does just
+the opposite. Instead of endowing youth and ideals with power over
+destruction and death, as all philosophical systems and many works of
+art had done, he ostentatiously makes the good-for-nothing wreck Ivanov
+the centre of all events. Side by side with Ivanov there are young
+lives, and the idea is also given her representatives. But the young
+Sasha, a wonderful and charming girl, who falls utterly in love with
+the broken hero, not only does not save her lover, but herself perishes
+under the burden of the impossible task. And the idea? It is enough
+to recall the figure of Doctor Lvov alone, whom Tchekhov entrusted
+with the responsible rôle of a representative of the all-powerful
+idea, and you will at once perceive that he considers himself not as
+subject and vassal, but as the bitterest enemy of the idea. The moment
+Doctor Lvov opens his mouth, all the characters, as though acting on
+a previous agreement, vie with each other in their haste to interrupt
+him in the most insulting way, by jests, threats, and almost by smacks
+in the face. But the doctor fulfils his duties as a representative
+of the great power with no less skill and conscientiousness than his
+predecessors&mdash;Starodoum<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> and the other reputable heroes of the old
+drama. He champions the wronged, seeks to restore rights that have been
+trodden underfoot, sets himself dead against injustice. Has he stepped
+beyond the limits of his plenipotentiary powers? Of course not; but
+where Ivanovs and hopelessness reign there is not and cannot be room
+for the idea.</p>
+
+<p>They cannot possibly live together. And the eyes of the reader, who
+is accustomed to think that every kingdom may fall and perish, yet
+the kingdom of the idea stands firm <i>in saecula saeculorum,</i> behold
+a spectacle unheard of: the idea dethroned by a helpless, broken,
+good-for-nothing man! What is there that Ivanov does not say? In the
+very first act he fires off a tremendous tirade, not at a chance
+comer, but at the incarnate idea&mdash;Starodoum-Lvov. 'I have the right
+to give you advice. Don't you marry a Jewess, or an abnormal, or a
+blue-stocking. Choose something ordinary, greyish, without any bright
+colours or superfluous shades. Make it a principle to build your
+life of <i>clichés.</i> The more grey and monotonous the background, the
+better. My dear man, don't fight thousands single-handed, don't tilt
+at windmills, don't run your head against the wall. God save you from
+all kinds of Back-to-the-Landers' advanced doctrines, passionate
+speeches.... Shut yourself tight in your own shell, and do the tiny
+little work set you by God.... It's cosier, honester, and healthier.'</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Lvov, the representative of the all-powerful, sovereign idea,
+feels that his sovereign's majesty is injured, that to suffer such
+an offence really means to abdicate the throne. Surely Ivanov was a
+vassal, and so he must remain. How dare he let his tongue advise, how
+dare he raise his voice when it is his part to listen reverently, and
+to obey in silent resignation? This is rank rebellion! Lvov attempts to
+draw himself up to his full height and answer the arrogant rebel with
+dignity. Nothing comes of it. In a weak, trembling voice he mutters the
+accustomed words, which but lately had invincible power. But they do
+not produce their customary effect. Their virtue is departed. Whither?
+Lvov dares not own it even to himself. But it is no longer a secret
+to any one. Whatever mean and ugly things Ivanov may have done&mdash;
+Tchekhov is not close-fisted in this matter: in his hero's conduct-book
+are written all manner of offences; almost to the deliberate murder
+of a woman devoted to him&mdash;it is to him and not to Lvov that public
+opinion bows. Ivanov is the spirit of destruction, rude, violent,
+pitiless, sticking at nothing: yet the word 'scoundrel,' which the
+doctor tears out of himself with a painful effort and hurls at him,
+does not stick to him. He is somehow right, with his own peculiar
+right, to others inconceivable, yet still, if we may believe Tchekhov,
+incontestable. Sasha, a creature of youth and insight and talent,
+passes by the honest Starodoum-Lvov unheeding, on her way to render
+worship to him. The whole play is based on that. It is true, Ivanov in
+the end shoots himself, and that may, if you like, give you a formal
+ground for believing that the final victory remained with Lvov. And
+Tchekhov did well to end the drama in this way&mdash;it could not be spun
+out to infinity. It would have been no easy matter to tell the whole of
+Ivanov's history. Tchekhov went on writing for fifteen years after, all
+the time telling the unfinished story, yet even then he had to break it
+off without reaching the end....</p>
+
+<p>It would show small understanding of Tchekhov to take it into one's
+head to interpret Ivanov's words to Lvov as meaning that Tchekhov,
+like the Tolstoi of the <i>War and Peace</i> period, saw his ideal in the
+everyday arrangement of life. Tchekhov was only fighting against
+the idea, and he said to it the most abusive thing that entered his
+head. For what can be more insulting to the idea than to be forced
+to listen to the praise of everyday life? But when the opportunity
+came his way, Tchekhov could describe everyday life with equal venom.
+The story, <i>The Teacher of Literature,</i> may serve as an example. The
+teacher lives entirely by Ivanov's prescription. He has his job, and
+his wife&mdash;neither Jewess nor abnormal, nor blue-stocking&mdash;and a home
+that fits like a shell...; but all this does not prevent Tchekhov
+from driving the poor teacher by slow degrees into the usual trap, and
+bringing him to a condition wherein it is left to him only 'to fall
+down and weep, and beat his head against the floor.' Tchekhov had no
+'ideal,' not even the ideal of 'everyday life' which Tolstoi glorified
+with such inimitable and incomparable mastery in his early works. An
+ideal presupposes submission, the voluntary denial of one's own right
+to independence, freedom and power; and demands of this kind, even a
+hint of such demands, roused in Tchekhov all that force of disgust and
+repulsion of which he alone was capable.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> A hero from Fon-Vizin's play <i>The Minor.</i> Starodoum is a
+<i>raisonneur,</i> a 'positive' type, always uttering truisms.</p></div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h4>V</h4>
+
+
+<p>Thus the real, the only hero of Tchekhov, is the hopeless man. He
+has absolutely no <i>action</i> left for him in life, save to beat his
+head against the stones. It is not surprising that such a man should
+be intolerable to his neighbours. Everywhere he brings death and
+destruction with him. He himself is aware of it, but he has not the
+power to go apart from men. With all his soul he endeavours to tear
+himself out of his horrible condition. Above all he is attracted to
+fresh, young, untouched beings; with their help he hopes to recover his
+right to life which he has lost. The hope is vain. The beginning of
+decay always appears, all-conquering, and at the end Tchekhov's hero
+is left to himself alone. He has nothing, he must create everything
+for himself. And this 'creation out of the void,' or more truly the
+possibility of this creation, is the only problem which can occupy and
+inspire Tchekhov. When he has stripped his hero of the last shred, when
+nothing is left for him but to beat his head against the wall, Tchekhov
+begins to feel something like satisfaction, a strange fire lights in
+his burnt-out eyes, a fire which Mihailovsky did not call 'evil' in
+vain.</p>
+
+<p>Creation out of the void! Is not this task beyond the limit of human
+powers, of human <i>rights</i>? Mihailovsky obviously had one straight
+answer to the question.... As for Tchekhov himself, if the question
+were put to him in such a deliberately definite form, he would probably
+be unable to answer, although he was continually engaged in the
+activity, or more properly, because he was continually so engaged.
+Without fear of mistake, one may say that the people who answer the
+question without hesitation in either sense have never come near to
+it, or to any of the so-called ultimate questions of life. Hesitation
+is a necessary and integral element in the judgment of those men
+whom Fate has brought near to false problems. How Tchekhov's hand
+trembled while he wrote the concluding lines of his <i>Tedious Story</i>!
+The professor's pupil&mdash;the being nearest and dearest to him, but like
+himself, for all her youth, overstrained and bereft of all hope&mdash;has
+come to Kharkov to seek his advice. The following conversation takes
+place:</p>
+
+<p>"Nicolai Stepanich!" she says, growing pale and pressing her hands to
+her breast. "Nicolai Stepanich! I can't go on like this any longer. For
+God's sake tell me now, immediately. What shall I do? Tell me, what
+shall I do?"</p>
+
+<p>"What can I say? I am beaten. I can say nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"But tell me, I implore you," she continues, out of breath and
+trembling all over her body. "I swear to you, I can't go on like this
+any longer. I haven't the strength."</p>
+
+<p>She drops into a chair and begins to sob. She throws her head back,
+wrings her hands, stamps with her feet; her hat falls from her head and
+dangles by its string, her hair is loosened.</p>
+
+<p>"Help me, help," she implores. "I can't bear it any more."</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing that I can say to you, Katy," I say.</p>
+
+<p>"Help me," she sobs, seizing my hand and kissing it. "You 're my
+father, my only friend. You're wise and learned, and you've lived long
+I You were a teacher. Tell me what to do."</p>
+
+<p>'"Upon my conscience, Katy, I do not know."</p>
+
+<p>'I am bewildered and surprised, stirred by her sobbing, and I can
+hardly stand upright.</p>
+
+<p>'"Let's have some breakfast, Katy," I say with a constrained smile.</p>
+
+<p>'Instantly I add in a sinking voice: "I shall be dead soon, Katy...."</p>
+
+<p>'"Only one word, only one word," she weeps and stretches out her hands
+to me. "What shall I do?..."'</p>
+
+<p>But the professor has not the word to give. He turns the conversation
+to the weather, Kharkov and other indifferent matters. Katy gets up and
+holds out her hand to him, without looking at him. 'I want to ask her,'
+he concludes his story, '"So it means you won't be at my funeral?" But
+she does not look at me; her hand is cold and like a stranger's ... I
+escort her to the door in silence.... She goes out of my room and walks
+down the long passage, without looking back. She knows that my eyes are
+following her, and probably on the landing she will look back. No, she
+did not look back. The black dress showed for the last time, her steps
+were stilled.... Good-bye, my treasure!...'</p>
+
+<p>The only answer which the wise, educated, long-lived Nicolai
+Stepanovich, a teacher all his life, can give to Katy's question is,
+'I don't know.' There is not, in all his great experience of the
+past, a single method, rule, or suggestion, which might apply, even in
+the smallest degree, to the wild incongruity of the new conditions of
+Katy's life and his own. Katy can live thus no longer; neither can he
+himself continue to endure his disgusting and shameful helplessness.
+They both, old and young, with their whole hearts desire to support
+each other; they can between them find no way. To her question: 'What
+shall I do?' he replied: 'I shall soon be dead.' To his 'I shall
+soon be dead' she answers with wild sobbing, wringing her hands, and
+absurdly repeating the same words over and over again. It would have
+been better to have asked no question, not to have begun that frank
+conversation of souls. But they do not yet understand that. In their
+old life talk would bring them relief and frank confession, intimacy.
+But now, after such a meeting they can suffer each other no longer.
+Katy leaves the old professor, her foster-father, her true father and
+friend, in the knowledge that he has become a stranger to her. She
+did not even turn round towards him as she went away. Both felt that
+nothing remained save to beat their heads against the wall. Therein
+each acts at his own peril, and there can be no dreaming of a consoling
+union of souls.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h4>VI</h4>
+
+
+<p>Tchekhov knew what conclusions he had reached in <i>The Tedious Story</i>
+and <i>Ivanov.</i> Some of his critics also knew, and told him so. I
+cannot venture to say what was the cause&mdash;whether fear of public
+opinion, or his horror at his own discoveries, or both together&mdash;but
+evidently there came a moment to Tchekhov when he decided at all costs
+to surrender his position and retreat. The fruit of this decision was
+<i>Ward No. 6.</i> In this story the hero of the drama is the same familiar
+Tchekhov character, the doctor. The setting, too, is quite the usual
+one, though changed to a slight extent. Nothing in particular has
+occurred in the doctor's life. He happened to come to an out-of-the-way
+place in the provinces, and gradually, by continually avoiding
+life and people, he reached a condition of utter will-lessness, which
+he represented to himself as the ideal of human happiness. He is
+indifferent to everything, beginning with his hospital, where he can
+hardly ever be found, where under the reign of the drunken brute of an
+assistant the patients are swindled and neglected.</p>
+
+<p>In the mental ward reigns a porter who is a discharged soldier: he
+punches his restless patients into shape. The doctor does not care,
+as though he were living in some distant other world, and does not
+understand what is going on before his very eyes. He happens to enter
+his ward and to have a conversation with one of his patients. He
+listens quietly to him; but his answer is words instead of deeds. He
+tries to show his lunatic acquaintance that external influences cannot
+affect us in any way at all. The lunatic does not agree, becomes
+impertinent, presents objections, in which, as in the thoughts of many
+lunatics, nonsensical assertions are mixed with very profound remarks.
+Indeed, there is so little nonsense that from the conversation you
+would hardly imagine that you have to do with a lunatic. The doctor
+is delighted with his new friend, but does nothing whatsoever to
+make him more comfortable. The patient is still under the porter's
+thumb as he used to be, and the porter gives him a thrashing on the
+least provocation. The patient, the doctor, the people round, the
+whole setting of the hospital and the doctor's rooms, are described
+with wonderful talent. Everything induces you to make absolutely no
+resistance and to become fatalistically indifferent:&mdash;let them get
+drunk, let them fight, let them thieve, let them be brutal&mdash;what does
+it matter! Evidently it is so predestined by the supreme council of
+nature. The philosophy of inactivity which the doctor professes is
+as it were prompted and whispered by the immutable laws of human
+existence. Apparently there is no force which may tear one from its
+power. So far everything is more or less in the Tchekhov style. But
+the end is completely different. By the intrigues of his colleague,
+the doctor himself is taken as a patient into the mental ward. He
+is deprived of freedom, shut up in a wing of the hospital, and even
+thrashed, thrashed by the same porter whose behaviour he had taught his
+lunatic acquaintance to accept, thrashed before his acquaintance's
+very eyes. The doctor instantly awakens as though out of a dream. A
+fierce desire to struggle and to protest manifests itself in him. True,
+at this moment he dies; but the idea is triumphant, still. The critics
+could consider themselves quite satisfied. Tchekhov had openly repented
+and renounced the theory of non-resistance; and, I believe, <i>Ward No.
+6</i> met with a sympathetic reception at the time. In passing I would say
+that the doctor dies very beautifully: in his last moments he sees a
+herd of deer....</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, the construction of this story leaves no doubt in the mind.
+Tchekhov wished to compromise, and he compromised. He had come to feel
+how intolerable was hopelessness, how impossible the creation from a
+void. To beat one's head against the stones, eternally to beat one's
+head against the stones, is so horrible that it were better to return
+to idealism. Then the truth of the wonderful Russian saying was proved:
+'Don't forswear the beggar's wallet nor the prison.' Tchekhov joined
+the choir of Russian writers, and began to praise the idea. But not
+for long. His very next story, <i>The Duel,</i> has a different character.
+Its conclusion is also apparently idealistic, but only in appearance.
+The principal hero Layevsky is a parasite like all Tchekhov's heroes.
+He does nothing, can do nothing, does not even wish to do anything,
+lives chiefly at others' expense, runs up debts, seduces women.... His
+condition is intolerable. He is living with another man's wife, whom he
+had come to loathe as he loathes himself, yet he cannot get rid of her.
+He is always in straitened circumstances and in debt everywhere: his
+friends dislike and despise him. His state of mind is always such that
+he is ready to run no matter where, never looking backwards, only away
+from the place where he is living now. His illegal wife is in roughly
+the same position, unless it be even more horrible. Without knowing
+why, without love, without even being attracted, she gives herself to
+the first, commonplace man she meets; and then she feels as though
+she had been covered from head to foot in filth, and the filth had
+stuck so close to her that not ocean itself could wash her clean. This
+couple lives in the world, in a remote little place in the Caucasus,
+and naturally attracts Tchekhov's attention. There is no denying the
+interest of the subject: two persons befouled, who can neither tolerate
+others nor themselves....</p>
+
+<p>For contrast's sake Tchekhov brings Layevsky into collision with the
+zoologist, Von Koren, who has come to the seaside town on important
+business&mdash;every one recognises its importance&mdash;to study the embryology
+of the medusa. Von Koren, as one may see from his name, is of German
+origin, and therefore deliberately represented as a healthy, normal,
+clean man, the grandchild of Goncharov's Stolz, the direct opposite
+of Layevsky, who on his side is nearly related to our old friend
+Oblomov. But in Goncharov the contrast between Stolz and Oblomov is
+quite different in nature and meaning to the contrast in Tchekhov. The
+novelist of the 'forties hoped that a <i>rapprochement</i> with Western
+culture would renew and resuscitate Russia. And Oblomov himself is not
+represented as an utterly hopeless person. He is only lazy, inactive,
+unenterprising. You have the feeling that were he to awaken he would
+be a match for a dozen Stolzs. Layevsky is a different affair. He is
+awake already, he was awakened years ago, but his awakening did him no
+good.... 'He does not love nature; he has no God; he or his companions
+had ruined every trustful girl he had known; all his life long he
+had not planted one single little tree, nor grown one blade of grass
+in his own garden, nor while he lived among the living, had he saved
+the life of one single fly; but only ruined and destroyed, and lied,
+and lied....' The good-natured sluggard Oblomov degenerated into a
+disgusting, terrible animal, while the clean Stolz lived and remained
+clean in his posterity! But to the new Oblomov he speaks differently.
+Von Koren calls Layevsky a scoundrel and a rogue, and demands that
+he should be punished with the utmost severity. To reconcile them is
+impossible. The more they meet, the deeper, the more merciless, the
+more implacable is their hatred for each other. It is impossible that
+they should live together on the earth. It must be one or the other:
+either the normal Von Koren, or the degenerate decadent Layevsky.
+Of course, all the external, material force is on Von Koren's side
+in the struggle. He is always in the right, always victorious,
+always triumphant&mdash;in act no less than in theory. It is curious that
+Tchekhov, the irreconcilable enemy of all kinds of philosophy&mdash;not
+one of his heroes philosophises, or if he does, his philosophising is
+unsuccessful, ridiculous, weak and unconvincing&mdash;makes an exception
+for Von Koren, a typical representative of the positive, materialistic
+school. His words breathe vigour and conviction. They have in them even
+pathos and a maximum of logical sequence. There are many materialist
+heroes in Tchekhov's stories, but in their materialism there is a
+tinge of veiled idealism, according to the stereotyped prescription of
+the 'sixties. Such heroes Tchekhov ridicules and derides. Idealism of
+every kind, whether open or concealed, roused feelings of intolerable
+bitterness in Tchekhov. He found it more pleasant to listen to the
+merciless menaces of a downright materialist than to accept the
+dry-as-dust consolations of humanising idealism. An invincible power
+is in the world, crushing and crippling man&mdash;this is clear and even
+palpable. The least indiscretion, and the mightiest and the most
+insignificant alike fall victims to it. One can only deceive oneself
+about it so long as one knows of it only by hearsay. But the man who
+had once been in the iron claws of necessity loses for ever his taste
+for idealistic self-delusion. No more does he diminish the enemy's
+power, he will rather exaggerate it. And the pure logical materialism
+which Von Koren professes gives the most complete expression of our
+dependence upon the elemental powers of nature. Von Koren's speech
+has the stroke of a hammer, and each blow strikes not Layevsky but
+Tchekhov himself on his wounds. He gives more and more strength to
+Von Koren's arm, he puts himself in the way of his blows. For what
+reason? Decide as you may. Perhaps Tchekhov cherished a secret hope
+that self-inflicted torment might be the one road to a new life? He
+has not told us so. Perhaps he did not know the reason himself, and
+perhaps he was afraid to offend the positive idealism which held such
+undisputed sway over contemporary literature. As yet he dared not
+lift up his voice against the public opinion of Europe&mdash;for we do not
+ourselves invent our philosophical conceptions; they drift down on the
+wind from Europe! And, to avoid quarrelling with people, he devised
+a commonplace, happy ending for his terrible story. At the end of
+the story Layevsky 'reforms': he marries his mistress; gives up his
+dissolute life; and begins to devote himself to transcribing documents,
+in order to pay his debts. Normal people can be perfectly satisfied,
+since normal people read only the last lines of the fable,&mdash;the moral;
+and the moral of <i>The Duel</i> is most wholesome: Layevsky reforms and
+begins transcribing documents. Of course it may seem that such an
+ending is more like a gibe at morality; but normal people are not too
+penetrating psychologists. They are scared of double meanings and, with
+the 'sincerity' peculiar to themselves, they take every word of the
+writer for good coin. Good luck to them!</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h4>VII</h4>
+
+
+<p>The only philosophy which Tchekhov took seriously, and therefore
+seriously fought, was positivist materialism&mdash;just the positivist
+materialism, the limited materialism which does not pretend to
+theoretical completeness. With all his soul Tchekhov felt the awful
+dependence of a living being upon the invisible but invincible and
+ostentatiously soulless laws of nature. And materialism, above all
+scientific materialism, which is reserved and does not hasten in
+pursuit of the final word, and eschews logical completeness, wholly
+reduces to the definition of the external conditions of our existence.
+The experience of every day, every hour, every minute, convinces us
+that lonely and weak man brought to face with the laws of nature,
+must always adapt himself and give way, give way, give way. The old
+professor could not regain his youth; the overstrained Ivanov could
+not recover his strength; Layevsky could not wash away the filth
+with which he was covered&mdash;interminable series of implacable, purely
+materialistic <i>non possumus,</i> against which human genius can set
+nothing but submission or forgetfulness. <i>Résigne-toi, mon cœur,
+dors ton sommeil de brute</i>&mdash;we shall find no other words before
+the pictures which are unfolded in Tchekhov's books. The submission
+is but an outward show; under it lies concealed a hard, malignant
+hatred of the unknown enemy. Sleep and oblivion are only seeming.
+Does a man sleep, does he forget, when he calls his sleep, <i>sommeil
+de brute</i>? But how can he change? The tempestuous protests with which
+<i>The Tedious Story</i> is filled, the need to pour forth the pent-up
+indignation, soon begin to appear useless, and even insulting to
+human dignity. Tchekhov's last rebellious work is <i>Uncle Vanya.</i> Like
+the old professor and like Ivanov, Uncle Vanya raises the alarm and
+makes an incredible pother about his ruined life. He, too, in a voice
+not his own, fills the stage with his cries: 'Life is over, life
+is over,'&mdash;as though indeed any of these about him, any one in the
+whole world, could be responsible for his misfortune. But wailing and
+lamentation is not sufficient for him. He covers his own mother with
+insults. Aimlessly, like a lunatic, without need or purpose, he begins
+shooting at his imaginary enemy, Sonya's pitiable and unhappy father.
+His voice is not enough, he turns to the revolver. He is ready to fire
+all the cannon on earth, to beat every drum, to ring every bell. To
+him it seems that the whole of mankind, the whole of the universe, is
+sleeping, that the neighbours must be awakened. He is prepared for
+any extravagance, having no rational way of escape; for to confess at
+once that there is no escape is beyond the capacity of any man. Then
+begins a Tchekhov history: 'He cannot reconcile himself, neither can
+he refuse so to reconcile himself. He can only weep and beat his head
+against the wall.' Uncle Vanya does it openly, before men's eyes; but
+how painful to him is the memory of this frank unreserve! When every
+one has departed after a stupid and painful scene, Uncle Vanya realises
+that he should have kept silence, that it is no use to confess certain
+things to any one, not even to one's nearest friend. A stranger's eye
+cannot endure the sight of hopelessness. 'Your life is over&mdash;you have
+yourself to thank for it: you are a human being no more, all human
+things are ah en to you. Your neighbours are no more neighbours to you,
+but strangers. You have no right either to help others or to expect
+help from them. Your destiny is&mdash;absolute loneliness.' Little by little
+Tchekhov becomes convinced of this truth: <i>Uncle Vanya</i> is the last
+trial of loud public protest, of a vigorous 'declaration of rights.'
+And even in this drama Uncle Vanya is the only one to rage, although
+there are among the characters Doctor Astrov and poor Sonya, who might
+also avail themselves of their right to rage, and even to fire the
+cannon. But they are silent. They even repeat certain comfortable and
+angelic words concerning the happy future of mankind; which is to say
+that their silence is doubly deep, seeing that 'comfortable words' upon
+the lips of such people are the evidence of their final severance from
+life: they have left the whole world, and now they admit no one to
+their presence. They have fenced themselves with comfortable words, as
+with the Great Wall of China, from the curiosity and attention of their
+neighbours. Outwardly they resemble all men, therefore no man dares to
+touch their inward life.</p>
+
+<p>What is the meaning and significance of this straining inward labour
+in those whose lives are over? Probably Tchekhov would answer this
+question as Nicolai Stepanovich answered Katy's, with 'I do not
+know.' He would add nothing. But this life alone, more like to death
+than life, attracted and engaged him. Therefore his utterance grew
+softer and slower with every year. Of all our writers Tchekhov has
+the softest voice. All the energy of his heroes is turned inwards.
+They create nothing visible; worse, they destroy all things visible
+by their outward passivity and inertia. A 'positive thinker' like Von
+Koren brands them with terrible words, and the more content is he with
+himself and his justice, the more energy he puts into his anathemas.
+'Scoundrels, villains, degenerates, degraded animals!'&mdash;what did Von
+Koren not devise to fit the Layevskys? The manifestly positive thinker
+wants to force Layevsky to transcribe documents. The surreptitiously
+positive thinkers&mdash;idealists and metaphysicians&mdash;do not use abusive
+words. Instead they bury Tchekhov's nerves alive in their idealistic
+cemeteries, which are called conceptions of the world. Tchekhov himself
+abstains from the 'solution of the question' with a persistency to
+which most of the critics probably wished a better fate, and he
+continues his long stories of men and the life of men, who have nothing
+to lose, as though the only interest in life were this nightmare
+suspension between life and death. What does it teach us of life or
+death? Again we must answer: 'I do not know,'&mdash;those words which
+arouse the greatest aversion in positive thinkers, but appear in some
+mysterious way to be the permanent elements in the ideas of Tchekhov's
+people. This is the reason why the philosophy of materialism, though
+so hostile, is yet so near to them. It contains no answer which can
+compel man to cheerful submission. It bruises and destroys him, but
+it does not call itself rational; it does not demand gratitude; it
+does not demand anything, since it has neither soul nor speech. A
+man may acknowledge it and hate it. If he manages to get square with
+it&mdash;he is right; if he fails&mdash;<i>vae victis.</i> How comfortably sounds
+the voice of the unconcealed ruthlessness of inanimate, impersonal,
+indifferent nature, compared with the hypocritical and cloying melodies
+of idealistic, humanistic conceptions of the world! Then again&mdash;and
+this is the chiefest thing of all&mdash;men can struggle with nature still!
+And in the struggle with nature every weapon is lawful. In the struggle
+with nature man always remains man, and, therefore, right, whatever
+means he tries for his salvation, even if he were to refuse to accept
+the fundamental principle of the world's being&mdash;the indestructibility
+of matter and energy, the law of inertia and the rest&mdash;since who will
+dispute that the most colossal dead force must be subservient to
+man? But a conception of the world is an utterly different affair!
+Before uttering a word it puts forward an irreducible demand: man must
+serve the idea. And this demand is considered not merely as something
+understood, but as of extraordinary sublimity. Is it strange then
+that in the choice between idealism and materialism Tchekhov inclined
+to the latter&mdash;the strong but honest adversary? With idealism a man
+can struggle only by contempt, and Tchekhov's works leave nothing
+to be desired in this respect.... But how shall a man struggle with
+materialism? And can it be overcome? Perhaps Tchekhov's method may
+seem strange to my reader, nevertheless it is clear that he came to
+the conclusion that there was only one way to struggle, to which the
+prophets of old turned themselves: to beat one's head against the wall.
+Without thunder or cannon or alarm, in loneliness and silence, remote
+from their fellows and their fellows' fellows, to gather all the forces
+of despair for an absurd attempt long since condemned by science.
+Have you any right to expect from Tchekhov an approval of scientific
+methods? Science has robbed him of everything: he is condemned to
+create from the void, to an activity of which a normal man, using
+normal means, is utterly incapable. To achieve the impossible one must
+first leave the road of routine. However obstinately we may pursue
+our scientific quests, they will not lead us to the elixir of life.
+Science began with casting away the longing for human omnipotence as in
+principle unattainable: her methods are such that success along certain
+of her paths preclude even seeking along others. In other words,
+scientific method is defined by the character of the problems which
+she puts to herself. Indeed, not one of her problems can be solved by
+beating one's head against the wall. But this method, old-fashioned
+though it is&mdash;I repeat, it was known to the prophets and used by
+them&mdash;promised more to Tchekhov and his nerves than all inductions and
+deductions (which were not invented by science, but have existed since
+the beginning of the world). This prompts a man with some mysterious
+instinct, and appears upon the scene whenever the need of it arises.
+Science condemns it. But that is nothing strange: it condemns science.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h4>VIII</h4>
+
+
+<p>Now perhaps the further development and direction of Tchekhov's
+creation will be intelligible, and that peculiar and unique blend
+in him of sober materialism and fanatical stubbornness in seeking
+new paths, always round about and hazardous. Like Hamlet, he would
+dig beneath his opponent a mine one yard deeper, so that he may
+at one moment blow engineer and engine into the air. His patience
+and fortitude in this hard, underground toil are amazing and to
+many intolerable. Everywhere is darkness, not a ray, not a spark,
+but Tchekhov goes forward, slowly, hardly, hardly moving.... An
+inexperienced or impatient eye will perhaps observe no movement at all.
+It may be Tchekhov himself does not know for certain whether he is
+moving forward or marking time. To calculate beforehand is impossible.
+Impossible even to hope. Man has entered that stage of his existence
+wherein the cheerful and foreseeing mind refuses its service. It is
+impossible for him to present to himself a clear and distinct notion of
+what is going on. Everything takes on a tinge of fantastical absurdity.
+One believes and disbelieves&mdash;everything. In <i>The Black Monk</i> Tchekhov
+tells of a new reality, and in a tone which suggests that he is himself
+at a loss to say where the reality ends and the phantasmagoria begins.
+The black monk leads the young scholar into some mysterious remoteness,
+where the best dreams of mankind shall be realised. The people about
+call the monk a hallucination and fight him with medicines&mdash;drugs,
+better foods and milk. Kovrin himself does not know who is right. When
+he is speaking to the monk, it seems to him that the monk is right;
+when he sees before him his weeping wife and the serious, anxious
+faces of the doctors, he confesses that he is under the influence of
+fixed ideas, which lead him straight to lunacy. Finally the black
+monk is victorious. Kovrin has not the power to support the banality
+which surrounds him; he breaks with his wife and her relations, who
+appear like inquisitors in his eyes, and goes away somewhere&mdash;but in
+our sight he arrives nowhere. At the end of the story he dies in order
+to give the author the right to make an end. This is always the case:
+when the author does not know what to do with his hero he kills him.
+Sooner or later in all probability this habit will be abandoned. In
+the future, probably, writers will convince themselves and the public
+that any kind of artificial completion is absolutely superfluous.
+The matter is exhausted&mdash;stop the tale short, even though it be on
+a half-word. Tchekhov did so sometimes, but only sometimes. In most
+cases he preferred to satisfy the traditional demands and to supply his
+readers with an end. This habit is not so unimportant as at first sight
+it may seem. Consider even <i>The Black Monk.</i> The death of the hero is
+as it were an indication that abnormality must, in Tchekhov's opinion,
+necessarily lead through an absurd life to an absurd death: but this
+was hardly Tchekhov's firm conviction. It is clear that he expected
+something from abnormality, and therefore gave no deep attention to
+men who had left the common track. True, he came to no firm or definite
+conclusions, for all the tense effort of his creation. He became so
+firmly convinced that there was no issue from the entangled labyrinth,
+that the labyrinth with its infinite wanderings, its perpetual
+hesitations and strayings, its uncaused griefs and joys uncaused&mdash;in
+brief, all things which normal men so fear and shun&mdash;became the very
+essence of his life. Of this and this alone must a man tell. Not of our
+invention is normal life, nor abnormal. Why then should the first alone
+be considered as the real reality?</p>
+
+<p><i>The Sea-Gull</i> must be considered one of the most characteristic, and
+therefore one of the most remarkable of Tchekhov's works. Therein the
+artist's true attitude to life received its most complete expression.
+Here all the characters are either blind, and afraid to move from
+their seats in case they lose the way home, or half-mad, struggling
+and tossing about to no end nor purpose. Arkadzina the famous actress
+clings with her teeth to her seventy thousand roubles, her fame, and
+her last lover. Tregovin the famous writer writes day in, day out;
+he writes and writes, knowing neither end nor aim. People read his
+works and praise them, but he is not his own master; like Marko, the
+ferryman in the tale, he labours on without taking his hand from the
+oar, carrying passengers from one bank to the other. The boat, the
+passengers, and the river too, bore him to death. But how can he get
+rid of them? He might give the oars over to the first-comer: the
+solution is simple, but after it, as in the tale, he must go to heaven.
+Not Tregovin alone, but all the people in Tchekhov's books who are
+no longer young remind one of Marko the ferryman. It is plain that
+they dislike their work, but, exactly as though they were hypnotised,
+they cannot break away from the influence of the alien power. The
+monotonous, even dismal, rhythm of life has lulled their consciousness
+and will to sleep. Everywhere Tchekhov underlines this strange and
+mysterious trait of human life. His people always speak, always think,
+always do one and the same thing. One builds houses according to a plan
+made once for all (<i>My Life</i>); another goes on his round of visits
+from morn to night, collecting roubles (<i>Yonitch</i>); a third is always
+buying up houses (<i>Three Years</i>). Even the language of his characters
+is deliberately monotonous. They are all monotonous, to the point of
+stupidity, and they are all afraid to break the monotony, as though it
+were the source of extraordinary joys. Read Tregovin's monologue:</p>
+
+<p>'... Let us talk.... Let us talk of my beautiful life.... What shall
+I begin with? [Musing a little.] ... There are such things as fixed
+ideas, when a person thinks day and night, for instance, of the moon,
+always of the moon. I too have my moon. Day and night I am at the
+mercy of one besetting idea: "I must write, I must write, I must." I
+have hardly finished one story than, for some reason or other, I must
+write a second, then a third, and after the third, a fourth. I write
+incessantly, post-haste. I cannot do otherwise. Where then, I ask you,
+is beauty and serenity? What a monstrous life it is! I am sitting with
+you now, I am excited, but meanwhile every second I remember that
+an unfinished story is waiting for me. I see a cloud, like a grand
+piano. It smells of heliotrope. I say to myself: a sickly smell, a
+half-mourning colour.... I must not forget to use these words when
+describing a summer evening. I catch up myself and you on every phrase,
+on every word, and hurry to lock all these words and phrases into my
+literary storehouse. Perhaps they will be useful. When I finish work
+I run to the theatre, or go off fishing: at last I shall rest, forget
+myself. But no! a heavy ball of iron is dragging on my fetters,&mdash;a new
+subject, which draws me to the desk, and I must make haste to write and
+write again. And so on for ever, for ever. I have no rest from myself,
+and I feel that I am eating away my own life. I feel that the honey
+which I give to others has been made of the pollen of my most precious
+flowers, that I have plucked the flowers themselves and trampled them
+down to the roots. Surely, I am mad. Do my neighbours and friends treat
+me as a sane person? "What are you writing? What have you got ready
+for us?" The same thing, the same thing eternally, and it seems to me
+that the attention, the praise, the enthusiasm of my friends is all
+a fraud. I am being robbed like a sick man, and sometimes I am afraid
+that they will creep up to me and seize me, and put me away in an
+asylum.'</p>
+
+<p>But why these torments? Throw up the oars and begin a new life.
+<i>Impossible.</i> While no answer comes down from heaven, Tregovin will
+not throw up the oars, will not begin a new life. In Tchekhov's work,
+only young, very young and inexperienced people speak of a new life.
+They are always dreaming of happiness, regeneration, light, joy. They
+fly head-long into the flame, and are burned like silly butterflies.
+In <i>The Sea-Gull,</i> Nina Zaryechnaya and Trepliev, in other works other
+heroes, men and women alike&mdash;all are seeking for something, yearning
+for something, but not one of them does that which he desires. Each
+one lives in isolation; each is wholly absorbed in his life, and is
+indifferent to the lives of others. And the strange fate of Tchekhov's
+heroes is that they strain to the last limit of their inward powers,
+but there are no visible results at all. They are all pitiable.
+The woman takes snuff, dresses slovenly, wears her hair loose, is
+uninteresting. The man is irritable, grumbling, takes to drink, bores
+every one about him. They act, they speak&mdash;always out of season.
+They cannot, I would even say they do not want to, adapt the outer
+world to themselves. Matter and energy unite according to their own
+laws;&mdash;people live according to their own, as though matter and energy
+had no existence at all. In this Tchekhov's intellectuals do not differ
+from illiterate peasants and the half-educated bourgeois. Life in the
+manor is the same as in the valley farm, the same as in the village.
+Not one believes that by changing his outward conditions he would
+change his fate as well. Everywhere reigns an unconscious but deep and
+ineradicable conviction that our will must be directed towards ends
+which have nothing in common with the organised life of mankind. Worse
+still, the organisation appears to be the enemy of the will and of man.
+One must spoil, devour, destroy, ruin. To think out things quietly, to
+anticipate the future&mdash;that is impossible. One must beat one's head,
+beat one's head eternally against the wall. And to what purpose? Is
+there any purpose at all? Is it a beginning or an end? Is it possible
+to see in it the warrant of a new and inhuman creation, a creation out
+of the void? 'I do not know' was the old professor's answer to Katy.
+'I do not know' was Tchekhov's answer to the sobs of those tormented
+unto death. With these words, and only these, can an essay upon
+Tchekhov end. <i>Résigne-toi, mon cœur, dors ton sommeil de brute.</i></p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+<h4><a name="THE_GIFT_OF_PROPHECY" id="THE_GIFT_OF_PROPHECY">THE GIFT OF PROPHECY</a></h4>
+
+
+<h4>(For the twenty-fifth anniversary of F. M. Dostoevsky's death.)</h4>
+
+<hr class="r5" />
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+
+<p>Vladimir Soloviev used to call Dostoevsky 'the prophet,' and even
+'the prophet of God.' Immediately after Soloviev, though often in
+complete independence of him, very many people looked upon Dostoevsky
+as the man to whom the books of human destiny were opened; and this
+happened not only after his death, but even while he was yet alive.
+Apparently Dostoevsky himself too, if he did not regard himself as a
+prophet&mdash;he was too eagle-eyed for that&mdash;at least thought it right
+that all people should see a prophet in him. To this bears witness
+the tone of <i>The Journal of an Author,</i> no less than the questions
+upon which he generally touches therein. <i>The Journal of an Author</i>
+began to appear in 1873, that is on Dostoevsky's return from abroad,
+and therefore coincides with what his biographers call 'the highest
+period of his life.' Dostoevsky was then the happy father of a family,
+a man of secure position, a famous writer, the author of a whole
+series of novels known to all: <i>The House of the Dead, The Idiot, The
+Possessed.</i> He has everything which can be required <i>from</i> life, or,
+more truly, he has taken everything which can be taken from life. You
+remember Tolstoi's deliberations in his <i>Confession</i>? 'Finally, I shall
+be as famous as Pushkin, Gogol, Goethe and Shakespeare&mdash;and what shall
+come after?' Indeed, it is difficult to become a more famous writer
+than Shakespeare; and even if one succeeded, the inevitable question,
+'And what shall come after?' would by no means be removed. Sooner or
+later in the activity of a great writer a moment comes when further
+perfection seems impossible. How shall a man be greater than himself
+in the world of literature? If he would move, then by his own will or
+in spite of it he must step on to another plane. And this is plainly
+the beginning of prophecy in a writer. In the general view the prophet
+is greater than the writer; and even the possession of genius is not
+always a guarantee against the general view. Even men so sceptical as
+Tolstoi and Dostoevsky, men always ready to doubt everything, more than
+once were the victims of prejudices. Prophetic words were expected
+of them, and they went out to meet men's desires, Dostoevsky even
+more readily than Tolstoi. Moreover both prophesied clumsily: they
+promised one thing, and something wholly different happened. So Tolstoi
+promised long ago that men would awake to their error soon and would
+put away from them fratricidal war, and would begin to live as true
+Christians should, fulfilling the Gospel commandment of love. Tolstoi
+prophesied and preached; people read him, as, it seems, they read no
+other writer: but they have not changed their habits nor their tastes.
+For the last ten years Tolstoi has perforce been a witness of a whole
+series of horrible and most savage wars. And now there is our present
+revolution<a name="FNanchor_1_2" id="FNanchor_1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_2" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>&mdash;armed mobs rioting, the gallows set up, men shot down,
+bombs&mdash;the revolution which came to replace the bloody war in the Far
+East!</p>
+
+<p>And this is in Russia, where Tolstoi was born, lived, taught and
+prophesied, where millions of people sincerely hold him to be the
+greatest genius of all! Even in his own family Tolstoi could not
+effect the change that he desired. One of his sons is an officer
+in the army; the other writes in the <i>Novoïe Vremya,</i> as though he
+were Souvorin's<a name="FNanchor_2_3" id="FNanchor_2_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_3" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> son, not Tolstoi's.... Where, then, is the gift
+of prophecy? Why is it that a man so great as Tolstoi can foresee
+nothing, and seems to peer his way through life? 'What will to-morrow
+bring forth?' 'To-morrow I'll work miracles,' said the magician to
+the Russian prince of old. For reply the prince drew his sword and
+struck off the magician's head; and the excited mob, which believed in
+the magician-prophet, became calm and departed home. History is ever
+striking off the heads of prophetic predictions, and yet the crowd
+still runs after the prophets. Of little faith, the crowd looks for
+a sign, because it desires a miracle. But can the ability to predict
+be accounted as evidence of the power to work miracles? It is possible
+to predict an eclipse of the sun or the appearance of a comet, but
+this surely means a miracle only to the ignorant. An enlightened mind
+is secure in the knowledge that where prediction is possible, there
+is no miracle, since the possibility of prediction and of foreseeing
+presupposes a strict uniformity. Therefore not he will appear a prophet
+who has great spiritual gifts, nor he who desires to dominate the world
+and to command the very laws, neither the magician, nor the sorcerer,
+nor the artist, but he who, having yielded himself beforehand to the
+actual and its laws, has devoted himself to the mechanical labour of
+record and calculation. Bismarck could foretell the greatness of Russia
+and Germany; and not only Bismarck, but an ordinary German politician,
+for whom everything is reduced to <i>Deutschland, Deutschland über
+alles,</i> could read the future for many years ahead; yet Dostoevsky and
+Tolstoi could foresee nothing. In Dostoevsky the failure is still more
+remarkable than in Tolstoi, because he more often attempted prediction:
+more than half of his <i>Journal</i> consists in unfulfilled prophecies. So
+often did he commit his prophetic genius.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_1_2" id="Footnote_1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_2"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> This essay was written during the revolution of 1905.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_2_3" id="Footnote_2_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_3"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> The famous editor of the <i>Novoïe Vremya.</i></p></div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+
+<p>To some it may perhaps seem out of place that in an article devoted to
+the twenty-fifth anniversary of the writer's death, I call to mind his
+mistakes and errors. The reproach is hardly just. A certain kind of
+defect in a great man is at least as characteristic and important as
+his qualities.</p>
+
+<p>Dostoevsky was not a Bismarck. But is that so terrible that we must
+lament it? Moreover, for writers of the type of Tolstoi and Dostoevsky,
+their social and political ideas are without any value. They know well
+that no one obeys them. Whatever they may say, history and political
+life will go on in the same way, since it is not their books and
+articles which guide events. And, probably, here is the explanation
+of the amazing boldness of their opinions. If Tolstoi really imagined
+that it would be enough for him to write an article demanding that
+all 'soldiers, policemen, judges, ministers' and the rest, all those
+guardians of the public peace, whom he detested&mdash;and, by the way, who
+loves them?&mdash;should be dismissed, for all prison-doors to be flung
+wide before the murderers and robbers&mdash;who can tell whether he would
+have shown himself sufficiently firm and resolute in his opinions, to
+take upon himself the responsibility for the effects of the measures
+which he proposed? But he knows beyond all doubt that he will not be
+obeyed, and therefore he calmly preaches anarchy. Dostoevsky's part as
+a preacher was quite different; but it too was, so to speak, platonic.
+Probably it came as a surprise even to himself, that he became the
+prophet, not of 'ideal' politics, but of those most realistic tasks
+which governments always set themselves in countries where a few men
+direct the destinies of peoples. Listening to Dostoevsky, one may
+imagine that he is discovering ideas which the government must take
+for its guidance and set itself to realise. But you will soon convince
+yourself that Dostoevsky did not discover one single original political
+idea. Everything of the kind that he possessed he had borrowed without
+examination from the Slavophiles, who in their turn appeared original
+only to the extent to which they were able without outside assistance
+to translate from the German and the French: <i>Russland, Russland
+über alles.</i> (Even the rhythm of the verse is not affected by the
+substitution of the one word.) But what is most important is, that
+the Slavophiles with their Russo-German glorification of nationality,
+and with them Dostoevsky who joined the chorus, have neither taught
+nor educated one single man among the ruling classes. Our government
+knew all that it needed to know by itself, without the Slavophiles
+and without Dostoevsky. From time immemorial it had gone its way by
+the road which the theorists so passionately praised: so that nothing
+was left to them but to eulogise those in power and to defend the
+policy of the Russian government against the public opinion which was
+hostile to it. Autocracy, Orthodoxy, Nationality&mdash;all these were held
+so firmly in Russia that in the 'seventies when Dostoevsky began to
+preach they needed no support whatever. And surely every one knows that
+power never seriously reckons upon the help of literature. Certainly it
+requires that the Muses should pay tribute to it with the others, nobly
+formulating its demands in the words: <i>Blessed be the union of the
+sword and the lyre.</i> It used to happen that the Muses did not refuse
+the request, sometimes sincerely, sometimes because, as Heine said, it
+is particularly disagreeable to wear iron chains in Russia, on account
+of the heavy frosts. In any case the Muses were only allowed to sing
+the praises of the sword, but by no means to wield it. There are all
+kinds of unions. And here again Dostoevsky, for all his independent
+nature, still appeared in the rôle of a prophet of the Russian
+government: that is, he divined the secret devices of the powers
+that were, and in this connection then recalled all the 'high and
+beautiful' words which he had managed to hoard up in the course of his
+long wanderings. For instance, the government began to cast covetous
+glances towards the East (at that time the Near East still); Dostoevsky
+begins to argue that we must have Constantinople, and to prophesy that
+Constantinople will soon be ours. His 'argument' is, of course, of a
+purely 'moral character,' and, sure enough, he is a writer. Only from
+Constantinople, he says, can we make avail the purely Russian ideal
+of embracing all humanity. Of course our government, though indeed
+we had no Bismarcks, perfectly well understood the value of moral
+argument and of prophecy based upon them, and would have preferred a
+few well-equipped divisions and improved guns. To realist politicians
+one single soldier, armed not with a gun but with a blunderbuss, is
+of more importance than the sublimest conception of moral philosophy.
+But still they do not drive away the humble prophet, if the prophet
+knows his place. Dostoevsky accepted the rôle, since it gave him still
+the opportunity of displaying his refractory nature in the struggle
+with Liberal literature. He sang paeans, made protests, uttered
+absurdities&mdash;and worse than absurdities. For instance, he counselled
+all the Slav peoples to unite under the aegis of Russia, assuring
+them that only thus would full independence be guaranteed them, and
+the right of shaping themselves by their own culture, and so on&mdash;and
+that in the face of the millions of Polish Slavs living in Russia. Or
+again, the <i>Moscow Gazette</i> gives its opinion that it would be well
+for the Crimean Tartars to emigrate to Turkey, since it would then be
+possible for Russians to settle in the peninsula. Dostoevsky catches up
+this original idea with enthusiasm. 'Indeed,' he says, 'on political
+and state and similar considerations'&mdash;I do not know how it is with
+other people, but when I hear such words as 'state' and 'political'
+on Dostoevsky's lips, I cannot help smiling' it is necessary to expel
+the Tartars and to settle Russians on their lands.' When the <i>Moscow
+Gazette</i> projects such a measure, it is intelligible. But Dostoevsky!
+Dostoevsky who called himself a Christian, who so passionately preaches
+love to one's neighbour, self-abasement, self-renunciation, who taught
+that Russia must 'serve the nations'&mdash;how could he be taken with an
+idea so rapacious? And indeed almost all his political ideas have the
+mark of rapacity upon them: to grab and grab, and still to grab....
+As the occasion demands, he now expresses the hope that we may have
+Germany's friendship, and again threatens her; now he argues that we
+have need of England, and again he asserts that we could do without
+her,&mdash;just like a leader-writer in a <i>bien-pensant</i> provincial paper.
+One thing alone makes itself felt among all these ludicrous and
+eternally contradictory assertions,&mdash;Dostoevsky understands nothing,
+absolutely nothing, about politics, and moreover, he has nothing at all
+to do with politics. He is forced to go in tow of others who, compared
+with him, are utter nonentities, and he goes. Even his ambition&mdash;and he
+had a colossal ambition, an ambition unique in its kind, as befitted
+a universal man&mdash;suffers not one whit: chiefly because men expected
+prophecy from him, because the next title to that of a great writer is
+that of a prophet, and because a ring of conviction and a loud voice
+are the signs of the prophetic gift. Dostoevsky could speak aloud: he
+could also speak with the tone of one who knows secrets, and of one
+with authority. One learns much in the underworld. All these things
+served him. Men took the poet-laureate of the existing order for the
+inspirer of thoughts and the governor of Russia's remotest destinies.
+It was enough for Dostoevsky. It was even necessary for Dostoevsky. He
+knew of course that he was no prophet; but he knew that there had never
+been one on earth, and that those who were prophets had no better right
+to the title than he.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h4>III</h4>
+
+
+<p>I will permit myself to remind the reader of Tolstoi's letter to his
+son, lately published by the latter in the newspapers. It is very
+interesting. Once more, not from the standpoint of the practical man
+who has to decide the questions of the day&mdash;from this standpoint
+Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, and their similars are quite useless&mdash;but man does
+not live by bread alone.</p>
+
+<p>Even now in the terrible days through which we have to live, now, if
+you will, more than ever before, one cannot read newspapers alone, nor
+think only of the awful surprises which to-morrow prepares for us. To
+every one is left an hour of leisure between the reading of newspapers
+and party programmes, if it be not an hour in the day when the noise
+of events and the pressure of immediate work distracts, then an hour
+in the deep night, when everything that was possible has been already
+done, and everything that was required has been said. Then come flying
+in the old thoughts and questions, frightened away by business, and
+for the thousandth time one returns to the mystery of human genius and
+human greatness. Where and how far can genius know and accomplish more
+than ordinary men?</p>
+
+<p>Then Tolstoi's letter, which during the day aroused only anger and
+indignation,&mdash;is it not outrageous and revolting, think some, that
+in the great collision of forces which contend with one another in
+Russia, Tolstoi cannot distinguish the right force from the wrong, but
+stigmatises all the struggling combatants by the one name of ungodly?
+During the day, I say, it is surely outrageous: in the daytime we would
+like Tolstoi to be with us and for us, because we are convinced that
+we and we alone are seeking the truth,&mdash;nay, that we know the truth,
+while our enemies are defending evil and falsehood, whether in malice
+or in ignorance. But this is during the day. In the night-time, things
+are changed. One remembers that Goethe also overlooked, simply did not
+notice, the great French Revolution. True, he was a German who lived
+far from Paris, while Tolstoi lives close to Moscow, where men, women,
+and children have been shot, cut down, and burnt alive. Moreover,
+there is no doubt that Tolstoi has overlooked not merely Moscow, but
+everything that went before Moscow. What is happening now does not seem
+to him important or extraordinary. For him only that is important to
+which he, Tolstoi, has set his hand: all that occurs outside and beside
+him, for him has no existence. This is the great prerogative of great
+men. And sometimes it seems to me&mdash;perhaps it is only that I would have
+it seem so&mdash;as though there were in that prerogative a deep and hidden
+meaning.</p>
+
+<p>When we have no more strength in us to listen to the endless tales
+of horrible atrocities which have already been committed, and to
+anticipate in imagination all that the future holds in store for us,
+then we recall Tolstoi and his indifference. It is not in our human
+power to return the murdered fathers and mothers to the children nor
+the children to their fathers and mothers. Nor stands it even in our
+power to revenge ourselves upon the murderers, nor will vengeance
+reconcile every one to his loss. And we try no longer to think with
+logic, and to seek a justification of the horrors there where there is
+and can be none. What if we ask ourselves whether Tolstoi and Goethe
+did not sec the Revolution and did not suffer its pain, only because
+they saw something else, something, it may even be, more necessary and
+important? Maybe there are indeed more things in heaven and earth than
+are dreamed of in our philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>Now we may return to Dostoevsky and his 'ideas'; we may call them
+fearlessly by the names which they deserve, for though Dostoevsky is
+a writer of genius, this does not mean that we must forget our daily
+needs. The night and the day have each their rights. Dostoevsky wanted
+to be a prophet, he wanted people to listen to him and cry 'Hosanna!'
+because, I say again, he thought that if men had ever cried 'Hosanna!'
+to any one, then there was no reason why he, Dostoevsky, should be
+denied the honour. That is the reason why in the 'seventies he made his
+appearance in the new rôle of a preacher of Christianity, and not of
+Christianity merely, but of orthodoxy.</p>
+
+<p>Again, I would draw attention to the far from accidental circumstances
+that his preaching coincided with the 'serenest' period of his life. He
+who had in time past been a homeless wanderer, a poor man who had not
+where to lay his head, had provided himself with a family and a house
+of his own, even with money (for his wife was saving). The failure
+had become a celebrity; the convict a full citizen. The underworld,
+where-into his fate had but lately driven him, it might seem for ever,
+now appeared to him a phantasmagoria which never had been real. In the
+galleys and the underworld had been born within him a great hunger for
+God which lived long; there he fought a great fight, the fight of life
+against death; there for the first time were made the new and awful
+experiments which allied Dostoevsky with everything that is rebellious
+and restless on earth. What Dostoevsky wrote during the closing years
+of his life (not merely <i>The Journal of an Author,</i> but <i>The Brothers
+Karamazov</i> as well) has value only in so far as Dostoevsky's <i>past</i>
+is reflected therein. He made no new step onwards. As he was, so he
+remained, on the eve of a great truth. But in the old days that did
+not suffice him, he hungered for something beyond; but now he does not
+want to struggle, and he cannot explain to himself or to others what is
+really happening within him. He pretends to be struggling still, nay,
+more, he behaves as though he had won the final victory, and demands
+that his triumph should be acknowledged by public opinion. He loves to
+think that the night is already past and the actual day begun: and the
+galleys and the underworld, reminding him that the day is not yet, are
+no more. All the evidences of a complete illusion of victory seem to
+be there&mdash;let him only choose the text and preach! Dostoevsky clutched
+at orthodoxy. Why not Christianity? Because Christianity is not for
+him who has a house, a family, money, fame, and a father-land. Christ
+said: 'Let him leave all that he hath and follow me.' But Dostoevsky
+was afraid of solitude, he desired to be the prophet of modern, settled
+men to whom pure Christianity, unadapted to the needs of civilised
+existence in a governed state, is unfitted. How should a Christian
+seize Constantinople, drive out the Tartars from the Crimea, reduce
+all Slavs to the condition of the Poles, and the rest&mdash;for all the
+projects of Dostoevsky and the <i>Moscow Gazette</i> defy enumeration? So,
+before accepting the Gospel, he must explain it....</p>
+
+<p>However strange it may appear, it must be confessed that one cannot
+find in the whole of literature a single man who is prepared to accept
+the Gospel as a whole, without interpretation. One man wants to seize
+Constantinople according to the Gospel, another to justify the existing
+order, a third to exalt himself or to thrust down his enemy; and each
+considers it as his right to diminish from, or even to supplement,
+the text of Holy Writ. I have, of course, only those in view who
+acknowledge, at least in word, the divine origin of the New Testament;
+since he who sees in the Gospel only one of the more or less remarkable
+books of his library, naturally has the right to subject it to whatever
+critical operations he may choose.</p>
+
+<p>But here we have Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, and Vladimir Soloviev. It is
+generally believed, and the belief is particularly supported and
+developed by the most recent criticism, that Tolstoi alone rationalised
+Christianity, while Dostoevsky and Soloviev accepted it in all the
+fullness of its mysticism, denying reason the right to separate
+truth from falsehood in the Gospel. I consider this belief mistaken:
+for Dostoevsky and Soloviev were afraid to accept the Gospel as the
+fountain of knowledge, and relied much more upon their own reason and
+their experience of life than upon the words of Christ. But, if there
+was a man among us who, though but in part, took the risk of accepting
+the mysterious and obviously dangerous words of the Gospel precepts,
+that man was Leo Tolstoi. I will explain myself.</p>
+
+<p>We are told that Tolstoi made the attempt, in his works published
+abroad, to explain the miracles of the Gospel in a way intelligible
+to human reason. Dostoevsky and Soloviev, on the other hand, readily
+accepted the inexplicable. But generally the miracles of the Gospel
+attract the people who believe least, for it is impossible to repeat
+the miracles, and this being so, then it follows that a merely external
+faith is sufficient, a mere verbal assertion. A man says that he
+believes in miracles: 'his reputation as a religious man is made, both
+in his own mind and in others', and as for the rest of the Gospel,
+there remains 'interpretation.' Consider, for instance, the doctrine
+of non-resistance to evil. It need not be said that the doctrine of
+non-resistance is the most terrible, and the most irrational, and
+mysterious thing that we read in the Gospel. All our reasoning soul is
+indignant at the thought that full material freedom should be given
+to the murderer to accomplish his murderous acts. How can you allow a
+murderer to kill an innocent child before your very eyes, and yet not
+draw the sword? Who has the right to give that abominable precept?
+Soloviev<a name="FNanchor_3_4" id="FNanchor_3_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_4" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> and Dostoevsky alike repeat that question, the one in a
+disguised, the other in an open attack on Tolstoi. Yet since the
+Gospel plainly declares 'Resist not evil,' both of our believers in
+miracles have suddenly remembered reason and turned to its testimony,
+knowing that reason will naturally destroy any meaning whatever that
+may be in the precept. In other words, they repeat the question of
+the doubting Jews concerning Christ: 'Who is He that speaketh as one
+having authority?' God commanded Abraham that he should offer up his
+son. By his reason, his human reason, Abraham refused to acknowledge
+any intelligible meaning in the cruel command, but yet made ready to
+act according to the word of God and made no attempt to rid himself
+of the hard and inhuman obligation by cunning interpretation. But
+Dostoevsky and Soloviev refuse to fulfil Christ's demands so soon as
+they find no justification in the human reason. Yet they say that they
+believe that Lazarus was raised from the dead and that the man who
+was sick of a palsy was cured, and all the other miracles which are
+related by the Apostles. Why then does their belief end just at the
+point where it begins to place obligations upon them? Why the sudden
+recourse to reason, when we know exactly that Dostoevsky came to the
+Gospels only to be rid of the power of reason? But that was in the
+days of the underworld. Now the 'serene' period of his life has begun.
+But Soloviev, evidently, had never even known the underworld. Only
+Tolstoi boldly and resolutely tries to test the truth of the Christian
+teaching, not in his thoughts alone, but in part in his life also.
+From the human point of view it is mad to make no resistance to evil.
+He knows that every whit as well as Dostoevsky, Soloviev and the rest
+of his many opponents. But he is really seeking in the Gospels that
+divine madness, since human reason does not satisfy him. Tolstoi began
+to follow the Gospel in that clouded period of his life when he was
+haunted by the phantoms of Ivan Ilyich and Pozdnyshiev. Here belief in
+miracles, belief in the abstract, divorced from life, avails nothing.
+For belief's sake one must surrender all that is dearest&mdash;even a
+son&mdash;to the sacrifice. Who is He that spake as one having authority?
+We cannot now verify whether He did in truth raise Lazarus from the
+dead, or satisfy thousands with a few handfuls of loaves. But if we
+unhesitatingly perform His precepts, then we may discover whether He
+has given us the truth.... So it was with Tolstoi; and he turned to
+the Gospel which is the sole and original source of Christianity.
+But Dostoevsky turned to the Slavophiles and the teachings of their
+state-religion. Orthodoxy infallible, not Catholicism nor Protestantism
+nor even simple Christianity; and then, the original idea: <i>Russland,
+Russland über alles.</i> Tolstoi could prophesy nothing in history, but
+then, as if deliberately, he does not interfere with the historical
+life. For him our present reality does not exist: he concentrates
+himself wholly upon the riddle which God set Abraham. But Dostoevsky
+desired at all costs to prophesy, prophesied constantly and was
+constantly mistaken. We have not taken Constantinople, we have not
+united the Slavs, and even the Tartars still live in the Crimea. He
+terrified us by prophesying that Europe would be drenched in rivers
+of blood because of the warfare between the classes, while in Russia,
+thanks to our Russian ideal of universal humanity, not only would our
+internal problems be peacefully solved, but a new unheard-of word would
+still be found whereby we should save hapless Europe. A quarter of
+a century has passed. So far nothing has happened in Europe. But we
+are drowning ourselves, literally drowning ourselves, with blood. Not
+only is our alien population oppressed, Slav and non-Slav alike, but
+our own brother is tortured, the miserable starving Russian peasant
+who understands nothing at all. In Moscow, in the heart of Russia,
+women, children, and old men have been shot down. Where now is the
+Russian universal soul of which Dostoevsky prophesied in his speech on
+Pushkin? Where is love, where are the Christian precepts? We see only
+'Governmentalism,' over which the Western nations also fought; but they
+fought with means less cruel and less hostile to civilisation. Russia
+will again have to learn from the West as she had to learn more than
+once before. And Dostoevsky would have done far better had he never
+attempted to prophesy.</p>
+
+<p>But there is no great harm done even if he did prophesy. I am glad
+with all my heart even now that he rested a little while from the
+galleys at the end of his life. I am deeply convinced that even had he
+remained in the underworld until the day of his death, yet he would
+have found no solution of the questions which tormented him. However
+much energy of soul a man puts into his work, he will still remain 'on
+the eve' of truth, and will not find the solution he desires. That is
+the law of human kind. And Dostoevsky's preaching has done no harm.
+Those listened to him who, even without his voice, would have marched
+on Constantinople, oppressed the Poles, and made ready the sufferings
+which are necessary to the soul of the peasant. Though Dostoevsky gave
+them his sanction, on the whole he adds nothing to them. They had no
+need of literary sanction, quite correctly judging that in practical
+matters not the printed page, but bayonets and artillery are of
+deciding value.</p>
+
+<p>All that he had to tell, Dostoevsky told us in his novels, which even
+now, twenty-five years after his death, attract all those who would
+wrest from life her secrets. And the title of prophet, which he sought
+so diligently, considering that it was his by right, did not suit him
+at all. Prophets are Bismarcks, but they are Chancellors too. The
+first in the village is the first in Rome.... Is a Dostoevsky doomed
+eternally to be 'on the eve'? Let us once more try to reject logic,
+this time perhaps not logic alone, and say: 'So let it be.'</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_3_4" id="Footnote_3_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_4"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>War and Christianity,</i> by Vladimir Soloviev.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+<h4><a name="PENULTIMATE_WORDS" id="PENULTIMATE_WORDS">PENULTIMATE WORDS</a></h4>
+
+
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<h4><i>De omnibus dubitandum</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>There are but few orthodox Hegelians left among philosophers nowadays,
+yet Hegel is still supreme over the minds of our contemporaries. It
+may even be that certain of his ideas have taken deeper root nowadays
+than when Hegelianism was in full bloom: for instance, the conception
+that history is the unfolding of the idea in reality, or, to put it
+more briefly and in terms more familiar to the modern mind&mdash;the idea of
+progress. Try to convince an educated person of the contrary: you are
+sure to be worsted. But, <i>de omnibus dubitandum,</i> which means in other
+words, that doubt is called upon to fulfil its mission above all in
+those cases where a conviction is particularly strong and unshakable.
+Therefore one must admit, whether he will or no, that progress so
+called&mdash;the development of mankind in time&mdash;is a fiction.</p>
+
+<p>We have wireless telegraphy, radium and the rest, yet we stand no
+higher than the Romans or the Greeks of old. You admit this? Then,
+one step further: although we have wireless telegraphy and all the
+other blessings of civilisation, still we stand no higher than red-or
+black-skinned savages. You protest: but the principle compels. You
+began to doubt: then what is the use of drawing back?</p>
+
+<p>For myself, I must confess that the idea of the spiritual perfection
+of savages entered my mind but lately, when, for the first time for
+many years, I looked through the works of Tylor, Lubbock and Spencer.
+They speak with such certainty of the advantages of our spiritual
+organisation, and have such sincere contempt for the moral misery
+of the savage, that in spite of myself stole in the thought: Is it
+not exactly here, where all are so certain that no one ever examines
+the question, that the source of error is to be found? High time to
+recall Descartes and his rule! And as soon as I began to doubt, all my
+former certainty&mdash;of course I fully shared the opinion of the English
+anthropologists&mdash;disappeared in a moment.... It began to appear that
+the savage indeed is higher and more important than our savants,
+and not our materialists only, as Professor Paulsen thinks, but our
+idealists, metaphysicians, mystics, and even our convinced missionaries
+(sincere believers, not the profit-mongering sort), whom Europe sends
+forth into the world to enlighten the backward brethren. It seemed to
+me that the credit transactions common among savages, with a promise
+to pay in the world beyond the grave, have a deep meaning. And human
+sacrifices! In them Spencer sees a barbarity, as an educated European
+should. I also see in them barbarity, because I also am a European
+and have a scientific education. But I deeply envy their barbarity,
+and curse the cultivation which has herded me together with believing
+missionaries, idealist, materialist, and positivist philosophers, into
+the narrow fold of the sultry and disgusting apprehensible world. We
+may write books to prove the immortality of the soul, but our wives
+won't follow us to the other world: they will prefer to endure the
+widow's lot here on the earth. Our morality, based on religion, forbids
+us to hurry into eternity. And so in everything. We are guessing, at
+the best we are sicklied with dreams, but our life passes outside
+our guesses and our dreams. One man still accepts the rites of the
+Church, however strange they may be, and seriously imagines that he
+is brought into contact with other worlds. Beyond the rites no step
+is taken. Kant died when he was eighty; had it not been for cholera,
+Hegel would have lived a hundred years; while the savages&mdash;the young
+ones kill the old and ... I dare not complete the sentence for fear of
+offending sensitive ears. Again I recall Descartes and his rule: who
+is right, the savages or we? And if the savages are right, can history
+be the unfolding of the idea? And is not the conception of progress
+in time (that is the development from the past to the present and
+to the future) the purest error? Perhaps, and most probably, there
+is development, but the direction of this development is in a line
+perpendicular to the line of time. The base of the perpendicular may be
+any human personality. May God and the reader forgive one the obscurity
+of the last words. I hope the clarity of the foregoing exposition will
+to some extent atone for it.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+<h4><i>Self-renunciation and Megalomania</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>We are obliged to think that nothing certain can be said either of
+self-renunciation or of megalomania, though each one of us in his own
+experience knows something of the former as well as of the latter. But
+it is well known that the impossibility of solving a question never yet
+kept people from reflecting. On the contrary: to us the most alluring
+questions are those to which there is no actual, no universally valid,
+answer. I hope that sooner or later, philosophy will be thus defined,
+in contrast to science:&mdash;philosophy is the teaching of truths which
+are binding on none. Thereby the accusation so often made against
+philosophy will be removed, that philosophy properly consists of a
+series of mutually exclusive opinions. This is true, but she must be
+praised for it, not blamed: there is nothing bad in it, but good, a
+very great deal of good. On the other hand, it is bad, extremely bad,
+that science should consist of truths universally binding. For every
+obligation is a constraint. Temporarily, one can submit to a restraint,
+put on a corset, fetters; one can agree to anything temporarily. Rut
+who will voluntarily admit the mastery over himself of an eternal law?
+Even from the quiet and clear Spinoza I sometimes hear a deep sigh, and
+I think that he is longing for freedom&mdash;he who wasted all his life,
+all his genius in the glorification of necessity.... With such an
+introduction one may say what he pleases.</p>
+
+<p>It seems to me that self-renunciation and megalomania, however little
+they resemble one another apparently, may be observed successively,
+even simultaneously, in one and the same person. The ascetic, who
+has denied life and humbles himself before everybody, and the madman
+(like Nietzsche or Dostoevsky), who affirms that he is the light, the
+salt of the earth, the first in the whole world or even in the whole
+universe&mdash;both reach their madness&mdash;I hope there is no necessity to
+demonstrate that self-renunciation as well as megalomania is a kind of
+madness&mdash;under conditions for the most part identical. The world does
+not satisfy the man and he begins to seek for a better. All serious
+seeking brings a man to lonely paths, and lonely paths, it is well
+known, end in a great wall which sets a fatal bound to man's curiosity.
+Then arises the question, how shall a man pass beyond the wall, by
+overcoming either the law of impenetrability or the equally invincible
+law of gravity, in other words, how shall a man become infinitely small
+or infinitely great? The first way is that of self-renunciation: I want
+nothing, I myself am nothing, I am infinitely small, and therefore I
+can pass through the infinitely small pores of the wall.</p>
+
+<p>The other way is megalomania. I am infinitely strong, infinitely
+great, I can do all things, I can shatter the wall, I can step over
+it, though it be higher than all the mountains of the earth and though
+it has hitherto dismayed the strongest and the bravest. This is
+probably the origin of the two most mysterious and mighty spiritual
+transformations. There is no single religion upon which are not more or
+less clearly impressed the traces of these methods of man's struggle
+with the poverty of his powers. In ascetic religions the tendency to
+self-renunciation predominates: Buddhism glorifies the suppression
+of the individual and has for its ideal Nirvana. The Greeks dreamed
+of Titans and heroes. The Jews consider themselves the chosen people
+and await the Messiah. As for the Gospel, it is hard to say to which
+method of struggle it gives the preference. On the one hand are the
+great miracles, the raising from the dead, the healing of the sick, the
+power over the winds and the sea; on the other: 'Blessed are the poor
+in spirit.' The Son of God who will sit on the right hand of power now
+lives in the company of publicans, beggars, and harlots, and serves
+them. 'Who is not for us, is against us'; the promise to thrust down
+his enemies into the fiery hell; eternal torment for blasphemy against
+the Holy Spirit, and equal with these the exhortation to the extreme
+of humility and love to the enemy: 'Turn to him the other cheek also.'
+Throughout, the Gospel is permeated with contradictions, which are
+not extraneous and historical, concerned with facts, but intrinsic,
+contradictions of mood, of 'ideals,' as the modern man would say.
+What is in one chapter praised as the noblest task is in the next
+degraded to an unworthy labour. It is in no way strange that the most
+opposite teachings should find justification in this little book,
+which is half composed of repetitions. The Inquisitors, the Jesuits,
+and the old ascetics called themselves. Christians; so do the modern
+Protestants and our Russian sectaries. To a greater or less degree
+they all are right, even the Protestants. Such contradictory elements
+are intertwined in the Gospel, that men, above all those who travel
+the high road, who can move in one direction only, and under one
+conspicuous flag, who have become accustomed to believe in the unity
+of reason and the infallibility of logical laws, could never fully
+grasp the teaching of the Gospel, and always aspired to give to the
+words and deeds of Christ a uniform explanation which should exclude
+contradictions, and more or less correspond to the common conceptions
+of the work and problems of life. They read in the mysterious book,
+'Have faith and thou shalt say to this mountain: be thou removed,' and
+understood it to mean that always, every hour and every minute, one
+must think and desire the self-same thing, prescribed beforehand and
+fully denned; whereas in these words the Gospel allows and commends the
+maddest and most perilous experiments. That which is, did not exist for
+Christ; and only that existed, which is not.</p>
+
+<p>The old Roman, Pilate, who was apparently an educated man, clever and
+not bad at heart, though weak in character, could neither understand
+nor elucidate the cause of the strange struggle which took place
+before him. With his whole heart he pitied the pale Jew before him,
+who was guilty of nothing. 'What is truth?' he asked Christ. Christ
+did not answer him, nor could He answer, not through ignorance, as
+the heathen desired to believe, but because that question cannot be
+answered in words. It would have been necessary to take Pilate's head,
+and turn it towards the other side, in order that he might see what
+he had never seen before. Or, still better; to have used the method
+to which the hunch-backed pony turns in the fairy tale, in order to
+change sleepy Ivanushka into a wizard and a beauty: first, to plunge
+him into a cauldron of boiling milk, then into another of boiling
+water, then a third of ice-cold water. There is every reason to suppose
+that with this preliminary preparation Pilate would have begun to
+act differently, and I think the hunch-backed pony would agree that
+self-renunciation and megalomania would be a fair substitute for the
+cauldrons of the tale.</p>
+
+<p>Great privations and great illusions so change the nature of man
+that things which seemed before impossible, become possible, and the
+unattainable, attainable.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h4>III</h4>
+
+<h4><i>Eternal Truths</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>In the <i>Memorabilia</i> Xenophon tells of the meeting of Socrates with
+the famous sophist Hippias. When Hippias came to Socrates, the latter
+as usual held forth, and as usual asked why it is that men who wish to
+learn carpentry or smith's work know to whom they should apply, but if
+they desire to learn virtue, cannot possibly find a teacher. Hippias,
+who had heard these opinions of Socrates many times before, remarked
+ironically: 'So you 're still saying the same old things, that I heard
+from you years ago!' Socrates understood and accepted the challenge, as
+he always accepted challenges of this kind. A dispute began, by which
+it was demonstrated (as usual in Plato and Xenophon) that Socrates was
+a stronger dialectician than his opponent. He succeeded in showing that
+his conception of justice was based on the same firm foundation as all
+his other conceptions, and that convictions once formed, if they are
+true, are as little liable to the action of time as noble metals to
+rust.</p>
+
+<p>Socrates lived seventy years. He was once a youth, once a man, once
+a greybeard. But what if he had lived a hundred and forty years,
+experienced once again all the three seasons of life, and had again met
+Hippias? Or, better still, if the soul, as Socrates taught, is immortal
+and Socrates now lives somewhere in the moon or Sirius, or in any other
+place predestined for immortal souls, does he really go on plaguing his
+companions with discourses on justice, carpenters, and smiths? And does
+he still emerge victorious as of old from the dispute with Hippias and
+other persons who dare to affirm that everything (human convictions
+included) may be, and ought to be, subject to the laws of time, and
+that mankind not only loses nothing, but gains much by such subjection?</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h4>IV</h4>
+
+<h4><i>Earth and Heaven</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The word justice is on all men's lips. But do men indeed so highly
+prize justice as one would think, who believed all that has been
+said and is still being said concerning it? More than this, is it so
+highly appreciated by its sworn advocates and panegyrists&mdash;poets,
+philosophers, moralists, theologians&mdash;even by the best of them, the
+most sincere and gifted? I doubt it, I doubt it deeply. Glance at the
+works of any wise man, whether of the modern or the ancient world.
+Justice, if we understand it as the equality of all living men before
+the laws of creation&mdash;and how else can we understand it?&mdash;never
+occupied any one's attention. Plato never once asked Destiny why she
+created Thersites contemptible and Patroclus noble. Plato argues that
+men should be just, but never once dares to arraign the gods for their
+injustice. If we listen to his discourses, a suspicion will steal into
+our souls that justice is a virtue for mortals, while the immortals
+have virtues of their own which have nothing in common with justice.
+And here is the last trial of earthly virtue. We do not know whether
+the human soul is mortal or immortal. Some, we know, believe in
+immortality, others laugh at the belief. If it were proved that they
+were both in the wrong, and that men's destinies after death are as
+unequal as they are in life: the successful, the chosen take up their
+abode in heaven, the others remain to rot in the grave and perish with
+their mortal clay. (It is true that such an admission is made by our
+Russian prophet, the priest of love and justice, Dostoevsky, in his
+<i>Legend of the Grand Inquisitor.</i>) Now, if it should turn out that
+Dostoevsky is really immortal, while his innumerable disciples and
+admirers, the huge mass of grey humanity which is spoken of in <i>The
+Grand Inquisitor,</i> end their lives in death as they began them with
+birth, would Dostoevsky himself (whom I have named deliberately as
+the most passionate defender of the ideal of justice, though there
+have been yet more fervent and passionate and remarkable defenders of
+justice on earth whom I ought perhaps to name, were it not that I would
+avoid speaking lightly of sacred things&mdash;let him who finds Dostoevsky
+small, himself choose another)&mdash;would Dostoevsky reconcile himself to
+such an injustice, would he rise in revolt beyond the grave against the
+injustice, or would he forget his poor brethren when he occupied the
+place prepared for him? It is hard to judge <i>a priori: a posteriori</i>
+one would imagine that he would forget.</p>
+
+<p>And between Dostoevsky and a small provincial author the gulf is
+colossal; the injustice of the inequality cries out to heaven.
+Nevertheless we take no heed, we live on and do not cry, or if we
+do, we cry very rarely, and then, to tell the truth, it is hard to
+say certainly why we cry. Is it because we would draw the attention
+of the indifferent heaven, or is it because there are many amateurs
+of lamentation among our neighbours, like the pilgrim woman in
+Ostrovsky's <i>Storm,</i> who passionately loved to hear a good howl? All
+these considerations will seem particularly important to those who,
+like myself at the present moment&mdash;I cannot speak for to-morrow&mdash;share
+Dostoevsky's notion that even if there is immortality, then it is
+certainly not for everybody but for the few. Moreover, I follow
+Dostoevsky further and admit that they alone will rise from the dead
+who on the existing hypotheses should expect the worse fate after
+death. The first here will be the first still, there, while of the last
+not even a memory will remain. And no one will be found to champion
+those who have perished: a Dostoevsky, a Tolstoi, and all the other
+'first' who succeed in entering heaven will be engaged in business
+incomparably more important.</p>
+
+<p>So continue, if you will, to take thought for the just arrangement of
+the world, and, after the fashion of Plato, to make the teaching of
+justice the foundation of philosophy.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h4>V</h4>
+
+<h4><i>The Force of Argument</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Schopenhauer answered the question of the immortality of the soul in
+the negative. In his opinion, man as Thing-in-Himself is immortal, but
+as phenomenon mortal. In other words, all that is individual in us
+exists only in the interval between birth and death; but since each
+individual according to Schopenhauer's teaching is a manifestation of
+'Will' or 'Thing-in-Itself,' the unalterable and eternal principle
+which is the only reality of the world, continually made object in the
+manifold of phenomena, then, in so far as this principle is displayed
+in man, he is eternal. This is Schopenhauer's opinion, evidently
+derived as a logical conclusion from his general philosophic doctrine,
+both from that relating to the Thing-in-Itself, and from that which
+relates to the individual. The first part shall go unregarded: after
+all, if Schopenhauer was mistaken, and the Thing-in-Itself is mortal,
+we need not weep over it, nor is there any cause to rejoice over its
+immortality. But here is the individual. He is deprived of his right to
+immortality, and for reason is alleged an argument which is at first
+sight irrefutable. Everything which has a beginning has an end also,
+says Schopenhauer. The individual has a beginning, birth; therefore an
+end, death, awaits him. To Schopenhauer himself the general proposition
+as well as the conclusion seemed so obvious, that he did not admit
+the possibility of mistake even for a moment. But this time we have
+an incontestable case of a wrong conclusion from a wrong premiss.
+First, why must everything which has a beginning also have an end? The
+observations of experience point to such an hypothesis; but are the
+observations of experience really strong enough to support general
+propositions? And are we really entitled to make use of propositions
+so acquired as first principles for the solution of the most important
+problems of philosophy? And even if we admit that the premiss is
+correct, nevertheless the conclusion at which Schopenhauer arrived is
+wrongly drawn. It may indeed be that everything which has a beginning
+also has an end; it may indeed be that the individual is sooner or
+later doomed to perish; but why identify the moment of the soul's
+destruction with the death of the body? It may be that the body will
+die, but the soul which the same fate attends at some future time will
+find for itself a more or less suitable integument somewhere in a
+distant planet, perhaps still unknown to us, and live on, though only
+for a little while and not for all eternity, as the extreme optimists
+believe. How important would it be for poor humanity to retain even
+such a hope: particularly seeing that we can hardly say with certainty
+what it is that men desire when they speak of the immortality of the
+soul. Is it that they merely desire at all costs to live eternally, or
+would they be satisfied with one or two lives more, especially if the
+subsequent lives should appear to be less offensively insignificant
+than this earthly existence, wherein even the lowest rank of nobility
+is to many an unattainable ideal? It seems to me that it is not every
+one who would consent to live eternally. And what if every possibility
+should have been exhausted, and endless repetition should begin?</p>
+
+<p>It does not of course follow from this that we have the right to
+reckon upon an existence beyond the grave. The question remains open
+as before, even when Schopenhauer's arguments have been refuted. But
+it does follow that the best arguments on closer consideration often
+appear worthless. <i>Quod erat demonstrandum&mdash;</i> naturally pending the
+discovery of arguments to refute my refutation of Schopenhauer's. I
+make this reserve to deprive my critics of the pleasure and possibility
+of a little wordplay.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h4>VI</h4>
+
+<h4><i>Swan Songs</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>It cannot be doubted that <i>When We Dead Awake</i> is one of the most
+autobiographical of Ibsen's plays. Nearly all his dramas reveal
+striking traces of his personal experience; their most valuable
+quality, even, is the possibility of following out in them the
+history of the author's inward struggle. But there is a particular
+significance in <i>When We Dead Awake,</i> which comes from the fact that
+it was conceived and written by the author in his old age. Those who
+are interested in overhearing what is said and watching what is done
+on the outskirts of life set an extraordinary value on the opportunity
+of communing with very old men, with the dying, and generally with
+men who are placed in exceptional conditions, above all when they are
+not afraid to speak the truth, and have by past experience developed
+in themselves the art and the courage&mdash;the former is as necessary as
+the latter&mdash;to look straight into the eyes of reality. To such men
+Ibsen seems even more interesting than Tolstoi. Tolstoi indeed has not
+yet betrayed his gift; but he is primarily a moralist. Now, as in his
+youth, power over men is the dearest thing of all to him, and more
+fascinating than all the other blessings of the world. He still gives
+orders, makes demands, and desires at all costs to be obeyed. One may,
+and one ought, to consider this peculiarity of Tolstoi's nature with
+attention and respect. Not Tolstoi alone, but many a regal hermit of
+thought has to the end of his life demanded the unconditional surrender
+of mankind. On the day of his death, an hour before end, Socrates
+taught that there was only one truth and that the one which he had
+discovered. Plato in his extreme old age journeyed to Syracuse to plant
+the seeds of wisdom there. It is probable that such stubbornness in
+great men has its explanation and its deep meaning.</p>
+
+<p>Tolstoi, and also Socrates and Plato, and the Jewish prophets, who
+in this respect and in many others were very like the teachers of
+wisdom, probably had to concentrate their powers wholly upon one
+gigantic inward task, the condition of its successful performance
+being the illusion that the whole world, the whole universe, works
+in concert and unison with them. In Tolstoi's case I have elsewhere
+shown that he finds himself at present on the brink of Solipsism in
+his conception of the world. Tolstoi and the whole world are to him
+synonymous. Without such a temporary delusion of his whole being&mdash;it
+is not an intellectual delusion, of the head, for the head knows well
+that the world is by itself, and Tolstoi by himself&mdash;he would have to
+give up his most important work. So it is with us, who know since
+Copernicus that the earth moves round the sun, that the stars are not
+clear, bright, golden rings, but huge lumps of various composition,
+that there is not a firm blue vault overhead. We know these things:
+nevertheless we cannot and do not want to be so blind as not to take
+delight in the lie of the optical illusions of the visible world. Truth
+so-called has but a limited value. Nor does the sacrifice of Galileo
+by any means refute my words. <i>E pur si muove,</i> if ever he uttered the
+phrase, might not have referred to the movement of the earth, though
+it was spoken of the earth. Galileo did not wish to betray the work of
+his life. Who will, however, stand surety to us that not only Galileo
+is capable of such sacrifice, but his pupil also, even the most devoted
+and courageous, who has gained the new truth not by his own struggle
+but from the lips of his master. Peter in one night thrice denied
+Christ. Probably we could not find a single man in all the world who
+would consent to die to demonstrate and defend the idea of Galileo.
+Evidently great men are very little inclined to initiate the outsider
+into the secret of their great deeds. Evidently they cannot themselves
+always give a clear account of the character and meaning of the tasks
+which they set themselves. Socrates himself, who all his life long so
+stubbornly sought clarity and invented dialectics for the purpose, and
+introduced into general use definitions designed to fix the flowing
+reality; Socrates, who spent thirty days without interruption in
+persuading his pupils that he was dying for the sake of truth and
+justice; Socrates himself, I say, perhaps, most probably even, knew as
+little why he was dying as do simple people who die a natural death, or
+as babes born into the world know by what beneficent or hostile power
+they have been summoned from nonentity into being. Such is our life:
+wise men and fools, old men and children march at random to goals which
+have not yet been revealed by any books, whether worldly or spiritual,
+common or sacred. It is by no means with the desire to bring dogmatism
+into contempt that I recall these considerations. I have always been
+convinced, and am still certain, that dogmatists feel no shame, and
+are by no means to be driven out of life; besides, I have lately come
+to the conclusion that the dogmatists are perfectly justified in their
+stubbornness. Belief, and the need of belief, are strong as love, as
+death. In the case of every dogmatist I now consider it my sacred
+duty to concede everything in advance, even to the acknowledgment
+of the least, and least significant, shades of his convictions and
+beliefs. There is but one limitation, one only, imperceptible and
+almost invisible: the dogmatist's convictions must not be absolutely
+and universally binding, that is, not binding upon the whole of
+mankind without exception. The majority, the vast majority, millions,
+even tens of millions of people, I will readily allow him, on the
+understanding that they themselves desire it, or that he will show
+himself skilful enough to entice them to his side&mdash;violence is surely
+not to be admitted in matters of belief. In a word, I allow him almost
+the whole of humankind, in consideration whereof he must agree that
+his convictions are not intrinsically binding upon the few units or
+tens that remain. I agree to an outward submission. And the dogmatist,
+after such a victory&mdash;my confession is surely a complete victory for
+him&mdash;must consider himself satisfied in full.</p>
+
+<p>Socrates was right, Plato, Tolstoi, the prophets were right: there is
+only one truth, one God; truth has the right to destroy lie, light
+to destroy darkness. God, omniscient, most gracious and omnipotent,
+will like Alexander of Macedon conquer nearly all the known world, and
+will drive out from his possessions, amid the triumphant and delighted
+shouts of his millions of loyal subjects, the devil and all those who
+are disobedient to his divine word. But he will renounce his claim to
+power over the souls of his few opponents, according to the agreement,
+and a handful of apostates will gather together on a remote isle,
+invisible to the millions, and will there continue their free, peculiar
+life. And here&mdash;to return to the beginning&mdash;among these few disobedient
+will be found Ibsen as he was in the last years of his life, as he is
+seen in his last drama. For in <i>When We Dead Awake</i> Ibsen approves and
+glorifies that which Gogol actually did fifty years ago. He renounces
+his art, and with hatred and mockery recalls to mind what was once
+the business of his life. On April 15, 1866, Ibsen wrote to King Karl:
+'I am not fighting for a careless existence; I am fighting for the
+work of my life, in which I unflinchingly believe, and which I know
+God has given me to do.' By the way, you will hardly find one of the
+great workers who has not repeated this assertion of Ibsen's, whether
+in the same or in another form. Evidently, without such an illusion,
+temporary or permanent, one cannot compass the intense struggle and the
+sacrifices which are the price of great work. Evidently, illusions of
+various kinds are necessary even for success in small things. In order
+that a little man should fulfil his microscopical work, he too must
+strain his little forces to the extreme. And who knows whether it did
+not seem to Akaky Akakievitch that God had assigned to him the task
+of copying the papers in the office and having a new uniform made? Of
+course he would never dare to say so, and he would never be able to,
+first because of his timidity, and then because he has not the gift of
+expression. The Muses do not bring their tribute to the poor and weak:
+they sing only Croesus and Caesar. But there is no doubt that the first
+in the village consider themselves as plainly designated by fate as the
+first in Rome. Caesar felt this, and not mere ambition alone spoke in
+him when he uttered the famous phrase. Men do not believe in themselves
+and always yearn to occupy a position wherein the certainty, whether
+justified or mistaken, may spring up within them that they stand in the
+sight of God. But with years all illusions vanish, and among them the
+illusion that God chooses certain men for his particular purposes and
+puts on them particular charges. Gogol, who had thus long understood
+his task as an author, burnt his best work before his death. Ibsen did
+almost the same. In the person of Professor Rubek he renounces his
+literary activity and jeers at it, though it had brought him everything
+that he could have expected from it, fame, respect, riches.... And
+think why! Because he had to sacrifice the man in him for the sake of
+the artist, to give up Irene whom he loved, to marry a woman to whom he
+was indifferent. Did Ibsen at the end of his life clearly discover that
+God had appointed him the task of being a male? But all men are males,
+while only individuals are artists. Had this been said, not by Ibsen,
+but by a common mortal, we would call it the greatest vulgarity. On
+the lips of Ibsen, an old man of seventy years, the author of <i>Brand,</i>
+from which the divines of Europe draw the matter for their sermons, on
+the lips of Ibsen who wrote <i>Emperor and Galilean</i> such a confession
+acquires an unexpected and mysterious meaning. Here you cannot escape
+with a shake of the head and a contemptuous smile. Not anybody, but
+Ibsen himself speaks&mdash;the first, not in the village, not in Rome even,
+but in the world. Here surely is the human law at work: 'Forswear not
+the prison nor the beggar's wallet!'</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it is opportune to recall the swan songs of Turgeniev.
+Turgeniev, too, had high ideals which he probably thought he had
+received direct from God. We may with assurance put into the mouth
+of Brand himself the phrase with which his remarkable essay, <i>Hamlet
+and Don Quixote,</i> concludes: 'Everything passes, good deeds remain.'
+In these words is the whole Turgeniev, or better, the whole conscious
+Turgeniev of that period of his life to which the essay belongs. And
+not only in that period, but up to the last minutes of his life, the
+conscious Turgeniev would not recant those words. But in the <i>Prose
+Poems</i> an utterly different motive is heard. All that he there relates,
+and all that Ibsen tells in his last drama, is permeated with one
+infinite, inextinguishable anguish for a life wasted in vain, for a
+life which had been spent in preaching 'good.' Yet neither youth, nor
+health, nor the powers that fail are regretted. Perhaps even death has
+no terrors.... What the old Turgeniev cannot away with are his memories
+of 'the Russian girl.' He described and sang her as no one in Russian
+literature before him, but she was to him only an ideal; he, like
+Rubek, had not touched her. Ibsen had not touched Irene; he went off
+to Madame Viardo. And this is an awful sin, in no wise to be atoned,
+a mortal sin, the sin of which the Bible speaks. All things will be
+forgiven, all things pass, all things will be forgotten: this crime
+will remain for ever. That is the meaning of Turgeniev's <i>senilia</i>;
+that is the meaning of Ibsen's <i>senilia.</i> I have deliberately chosen
+the word <i>senilia,</i> though I might have said swan songs, though it
+would even have been more correct to speak of swan songs. 'Swans,' says
+Plato, 'when they feel the approach of death, sing that day better
+than ever, rejoicing that they will find God, whom they serve.' Ibsen
+and Turgeniev served the same God as the swans, according to the Greek
+belief, the bright God of songs, Apollo. And their last songs, their
+<i>senilia,</i> were better than all that had gone before. In them is a
+bottomless depth awful to the eye, but how wonderful! There all things
+are different from what they are with us on the surface. Should one
+hearken to the temptation and go to the call of the great old men,
+or should he tie himself to the mast of conviction, verified by the
+experience of mankind, and cover his ears as once the crafty Ulysses
+did to save himself from the Syrens? There is a way of escape: there
+is a word which will destroy the enchantment. I have already uttered
+it: <i>senilia.</i> Turgeniev wished to call his <i>Prose Poems</i> by this
+name&mdash;manifestations of sickness, of infirmity, of old age. These are
+terrible; one must run away from these! Schopenhauer, the philosopher
+and metaphysician, feared to revise the works of his youth in his old
+age. He felt that he would spoil them by his mere touch. And all men
+mistrust old age, all share Schopenhauer's apprehensions. But what if
+all are mistaken? What if <i>senilia</i> bring us nearer to the truth?
+Perhaps the soothsaying birds of Apollo grieve in unearthly anguish
+for another existence; perhaps their fear is not of death but of life;
+perhaps in Turgeniev's poems, as well as in Ibsen's last drama, are
+already heard, if not the last, then at least the penultimate words of
+mankind.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h4>VII</h4>
+
+<h4><i>What is Philosophy?</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>In text-books of philosophy you will find most diverse answers to this
+question. During the twenty-five hundred years of its existence it
+has been able to make an immense quantity of attempts to define the
+substance of its task. But up till now no agreement has been reached
+between the acknowledged representatives of the lovers and favourites
+of wisdom. Every one judges in his own way, and considers his opinion
+as the only true one; of a <i>consensus sapientium</i> it is impossible
+even to dream. But strangely enough, exactly in this disputable matter
+wherein the agreement of savants and sages is so impossible, the
+<i>consensus profanorum</i> is fully attained. All those who were never
+engaged in philosophy, who have never read learned books, or even any
+books at all, answer the question with rare unanimity. True, it is
+apparently impossible to judge of their opinions directly, because
+people of this kind cannot speak at all in the language evolved by
+science; they never put the question in such a form, still less can
+they answer it in the accepted words. But we have an important piece of
+indirect evidence which gives us the right to form a conclusion. There
+is no doubt that all those who have gone to philosophy for answers
+to the questions which tormented them, have left her disenchanted,
+unless they had a sufficiently eminent gift to enable them to join the
+guild of professional philosophers. From this we may unhesitatingly
+conclude, although the conclusion is for the time being only negative,
+that philosophy is engaged in a business which may be interesting and
+important to the few, but is tedious and useless to the many.</p>
+
+<p>This conclusion is highly consoling as well for the sage as for the
+profane. For every sage, even the most exalted, is at the same time
+one of the profane&mdash;if we discard the academical use of words&mdash;a
+human being, pure and simple. To him also it may happen that those
+tormenting questions will arise, which ordinary people used to bring
+to him, as for instance in the case of Tolstoi's Ivan Ilyich or
+Tchekhov's professor in <i>The Tedious Story.</i> And then he will of course
+be obliged to confess that the necessary answers are missing from
+the great tomes which he has studied so well. For what can be more
+terrible to a man than to be compelled in the hard moments of his life
+to acknowledge any doctrine of philosophy as binding upon him? For
+instance, to be compelled to hold with Plato, Spinoza, or Schopenhauer
+that the chief problem of life is moral perfection, or in other words,
+self-renunciation. It was easy for Plato to preach justice. It did
+not in the least prevent him from being the son of his time, or from
+breaking to a permissible extent the commandments which he himself
+had given. By all the evidence Spinoza was much more resolute and
+consequent than Plato; he indeed kept the passions in subservience, but
+that was his personal and individual inclination. Consistence was not
+merely a property of his mind, but of his whole being. Displaying it,
+he displayed himself. As for Schopenhauer, it is known that he praised
+the virtues only in his books; but in life, like many another clever,
+independent man, he was guided by the most diverse considerations.</p>
+
+<p>But these are all masters, who devise systems and imperatives. Whereas
+the pupil, seeking in philosophy an answer to his questions, cannot
+permit himself any liberties and digressions from the universal rules,
+for the essence and the fundamental problem of any doctrine reduces to
+the subordination not merely of men's conduct, but of the life of the
+whole universe to one regulating principle. Individual philosophers
+have discovered such principles, but to this day they have reached no
+final agreement among themselves, and this to some extent lightens the
+burden of those unhappy ones who, having lost the hope of finding help
+and guidance elsewhere, have turned to philosophy. If there is not
+in philosophy one universal principle binding upon and acknowledged
+by all, it means that it is permitted to each man, at least for the
+meantime, to feel and even to act in his own way. A man may listen
+to Spinoza, or he may stop his ears. He may kneel before Plato's
+eternal ideas, or he may give his allegiance to the ever-changing,
+ever-flowing reality. Finally, he may accept Schopenhauer's pessimism,
+but nothing on earth can compel him to celibacy on the ground that
+Schopenhauer successfully laughed at love. Nor is there any necessity
+at all, in order to win such freedom for one's self, to be armed
+with the light dialectic of the old Greek philosopher, or with the
+heavy logic of the poor Dutch Jew, or with the subtle wit of the
+profound German. Neither is it necessary to dispute them. It is even
+possible to agree with them all. The room of the world is infinite,
+and will not only contain all those who lived once and those who are
+yet to be born, but will give to each one of them all that he can
+desire: to Plato, the world of ideas, to Spinoza, the one eternal and
+unchangeable substance, to Schopenhauer, the Nirvana of Buddhism. Each
+of these, and all the other philosophers, will find what they want in
+the universe even to the belief, even to the conviction, that theirs
+are the only true and universal doctrines. But, at the same time,
+the profane will find suitable worlds for themselves. From the fact
+that people are cooped up on the earth, and that they must put forth
+efforts beyond belief to gain each cubit of earth, and even their
+illusory liberties, it by no means follows that poverty, obscurantism,
+and despotism must be considered eternal and original principles, and
+that economical uniformity is the last refuge of man. A plurality of
+worlds, a plurality of men and gods amid the vast spaces of the vast
+universe&mdash;this is, if I may be forgiven the word, an ideal. It is true
+it is not built according to the idealists. Yet what a conclusion does
+it foreshadow! We leave the disputes and arguments of philosophers
+aside, so soon as we begin to speak of gods. According to the existing
+beliefs and hypotheses the gods also have always been quarrelling
+and fighting among themselves. Even in monotheistic religions people
+always made their God enter a fight, and devised an eminent opponent
+for him&mdash;the devil. Men can by no means rid themselves of the thought
+that everything in heaven goes on in exactly the same way as it does
+on the earth, and they attribute all their own bad qualities as well
+as their good ones to the denizens of heaven. Whereas it is by far the
+most probable that a great many of the things which are, according to
+our notions, perfectly inseparable from life do not exist in heaven.
+Among other things, there is no struggle. And this is well. For every
+struggle, sooner or later, develops inevitably into a fight. When
+the supply of logical and ethical arguments is exhausted, one thing
+is left for the irreconcilable opponents&mdash;to come to blows, which do
+in fact usually decide the issue. The value of logical and ethical
+arguments is arbitrarily assigned, but material force is measured by
+foot-pounds and can be calculated in advance. So that where on the
+common supposition there will be no foot-pounds, the issue of the
+fight will very often remain undecided. When Lermontov's demon goes
+to Tamara's cell, an angel meets him on the way. The demon says that
+Tamara belongs to him; the angel demands her for himself. The demon
+will not be dissuaded by words and arguments: he is not built that way.
+As for the angel, he always considers himself doubly right. How can the
+issue be decided? At last Lermontov, who could not or dared not devise
+a new solution, admitted the interference of material force: Tamara
+is dragged away from the demon exactly as the stronger robber pulls
+his prey from the weaker on earth. Evidently the poet admitted that
+conclusion, that he might pay his tribute to the piety of tradition.
+But in my opinion the solution is not pious, but merely blasphemous.
+In it the traces of barbarity and idolatry are still clearly visible.
+The tastes and attributes of which earthly despots dream are attributed
+to God. By all means he must be, he desires to be, the strongest, the
+very first, just like Julius Caesar in his youth. He fears rivalry
+above all things, and never forgives his unconquered enemies. This is
+evidently a barbarous mistake. God does not want to be the strongest,
+the very first, at all. Certainly&mdash;for that would be intelligible and
+in accordance with common sense&mdash;he would not like to be weaker than
+others, in order that he might not be exposed to violence; but there
+is no foundation at all for attributing to him ambition or vainglory.
+Therefore there is equally no reason to think that he does not suffer
+equals, desires to be supreme, and seeks at all costs to destroy the
+devil. Most probably he lives in peace and concord even with those
+who least adapt themselves to his tastes and habits. Perhaps he is
+even delighted that not all are as he, and he readily shares his
+possessions with the devil, the more readily because by such a division
+neither loses, since the infinite&mdash;I admit that God's possessions are
+infinite&mdash;divided by two and even by the greatest possible finite
+number still leaves infinity.</p>
+
+<p>Now we can return to the original question, and it seems that we
+can even give an answer to it&mdash;two answers even, one for the sage,
+another for the profane. To the first, philosophy is art for art's
+sake. Every philosopher tries to construct a harmonious and various
+system, curiously and nicely fashioned, using for his material his own
+intrinsic experience as well as his own personal observations of the
+life beyond him, and the observations of others. A philosopher is an
+artist of his kind, to whom his works are dearer than everything in
+life, sometimes dearer than life itself. We very often see philosophers
+sacrifice everything for the sake of their work&mdash;even truth. Not so
+the profane. To them philosophy&mdash;more exactly, that which they would
+call philosophy if they possessed a scientific terminology&mdash;is the last
+refuge when material forces have been wasted, when there are no weapons
+left to fight for their stolen rights. Then they run for help and
+support to a place which they have always taken care to avoid before.
+Think of Napoleon at St. Helena. He who had been collecting soldiers
+and guns all his life, began to philosophise when he was bound hand and
+foot. Certainly he behaved in this new sphere like a beginner, a very
+inexperienced and, strange to say, a pusillanimous novice.</p>
+
+<p>He who feared neither pestilence nor bullet, was afraid, we know, of
+a dark room. Men used to philosophy, like Schopenhauer, walk boldly
+and with confidence in a dark room, though they run away from gun
+shots, and even less dangerous things. The great captain, the once
+Emperor of nearly all Europe, Napoleon, philosophised on St. Helena,
+and even went so far as to begin to ingratiate himself with morality,
+evidently supposing that upon morality his ultimate fate depended. He
+assured her that for her sake, and her sake alone, he had contrived
+his murderous business&mdash;he who, all the while a crown was on his head
+and a victorious army in his hands, hardly knew even of the existence
+of morality. But this is so intelligible. If one were to come upon a
+perfectly new and unknown world at the age of forty-five, then surely
+everything would seem terrible, and one would take the incorporeal
+morality for the arbiter of destiny. And one would plan to seduce
+her, if possible, with sweet words and false promises, as a lady of
+the world. But these were the first steps of a tyro. It was as hard
+for Napoleon to master philosophy as it was for Charlemagne at the
+end of his days to learn to write. But he knew why he had come to the
+new place, and neither Plato nor Spinoza nor Kant could dissuade him
+of this. Perhaps at the beginning, while he was as yet unused to the
+darkness, he would pretend to agree with the acknowledged authorities,
+thinking that here too, just as there where he lived before, exalted
+personages do not tolerate opposition; perhaps he would lie to them
+as he lied to morality, but his business he would not forget. He came
+to philosophy with <i>demands,</i> and would not rest till he had received
+satisfaction. He had already seen how a Corsican lieutenant had
+become a French Emperor. Why should not the beaten Emperor fight his
+last fight?... And how shall he be reconciled with self-renunciation?
+Philosophy will surrender: it is only necessary not to surrender in
+one's self. So does a Napoleon come to philosophy, and so does he
+understand her. And until the contrary is proven, nothing can prevent
+us from thinking that the Napoleons are right, and therefore that
+academical philosophy is not the last nor even the penultimate word.
+For, perhaps, the last word is hidden in the hearts of the tongue-tied,
+but bold, persistent, implacable men.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>VIII</p>
+
+<p><i>Heinrich Heine</i></p>
+
+
+<p>More than a hundred years have passed since the birth, and fifty
+years since the death, of this remarkable man, but the history of
+literature has not yet finally settled accounts with him. Even the
+Germans, perhaps the Germans above all, find it impossible to agree
+upon the valuation of his gift. Some consider him a genius, others a
+man devoid of talent and insipid. Moreover, his enemies still bring as
+much passion to their attacks upon him as they did before, as though
+they were waging war upon a live opponent in place of a dead one. They
+hate him for the same things which made his contemporaries hate him.
+We know that it was principally for his insincerity that they did not
+forgive him. No one could tell when he was speaking seriously and when
+in jest, what he loved and what he hated, and finally it was quite
+impossible to determine whether or not he believed in God. It must be
+confessed that the Germans were right in many of their accusations. I
+value Heine extremely highly; in my opinion he is one of the greatest
+German poets; and yet I cannot undertake to say with certainty what
+he loved, what he believed, and often I cannot tell how serious he is
+in uttering one or another of his opinions. Nevertheless I find it
+impossible to detect any insincerity in his works. On the contrary,
+those peculiarities of his, which so irritated the Germans, are in my
+eyes so many proofs of his wonderful and unique sincerity. I think that
+if the Germans were mistaken and misunderstood Heine, hypertrophied
+self-love and the power of prejudice is the cause. Heine's usual method
+is to begin to speak with perfect seriousness, and to end with biting
+raillery and sarcasm. Critics and readers, who generally do not guess
+at the outset what awaits them in the event, have taken the unexpected
+laughter to their own account, and have been deeply offended. Wounded
+self-love never forgives; and the Germans could not forgive Heine
+for his jests. And yet Heine but rarely attacked others: most of his
+mockery is directed against himself, and above all in the work of his
+last creative period, of the years when he lived in the <i>Matrazengrab.</i></p>
+
+<p>With us in Russia many were offended with Gogol, believing that he
+was jeering at them. Later, he confessed that he had been describing
+himself. Nor does the inconstancy of Heine's opinions in any way
+prove him insincere. His intention was by no means always to fling at
+the Philistines. Indeed, he did not know what to believe; he changed
+his tastes and attachments, and did not even always know for certain
+what he preferred at the moment. Of course, had he wished, he might
+have pretended to be consequent and consistent. Or, had he been less
+eagle-eyed, he might with the vast majority of men have adopted a
+ceremonial dress once for all, he might have professed and invariably
+preached ideas which had no relation to his real emotions and moods.
+Many people think that one ought to act thus, that (particularly in
+literature) one must speak only officially and exhibit lofty ideas
+that have been proclaimed by wise men since time immemorial, without
+their having made the least inquiry whether they correspond to their
+own natures or not. Often cruel, vindictive, spiteful, selfish, mean
+people sincerely praise goodness, forgiveness, love to one's enemy,
+generosity and magnanimity in their books, while of their tastes
+and passions they speak not a single word. They are confident that
+passions exist only to be suppressed, and that convictions only are to
+be exhibited or displayed. A man rarely succeeds in suppressing his
+passions, but it is extremely easy to hide them, especially in books.
+And such dissimulation is not only not condemned, but recognised and
+even encouraged. The common and familiar programme is accepted: in life
+'passions' judge 'convictions,' in books 'convictions,' or 'ideals,'
+as they are called, pass sentence upon 'passions.' I would emphasise
+the fact that most writers are convinced that their business is not to
+tell of themselves, but to praise ideals. Heine's sincerity was really
+of a different order. He told everything, or nearly everything, of
+himself. And this was thought so shocking that the sworn custodians of
+convention and good morals considered themselves wounded in their best
+and loftiest feelings. It seemed to them that it would be disastrous if
+Heine were to succeed in acquiring a great literary influence, and in
+getting a hold upon the minds of his contemporaries. Then would crumble
+the foundations, constructed through centuries of arduous labour by the
+united efforts of the most distinguished representatives of the nation.
+This is perhaps true: the lofty magnificence of life can be preserved
+only upon the indispensable condition of hypocrisy. In order that it
+should be beautiful, much must be hidden and thrust away as far and
+deep as possible. The sick and the mad must be herded into hospitals;
+poverty into cellars; disobedient passions into the depths of the
+soul. Truth and freedom are only allowed to obtrude upon the attention
+as far as is compatible with the interests of a life well arranged
+within and without. The Protestant Church understood this as well as
+the Catholic, perhaps better. Strict puritanism elevated spiritual
+discipline to the highest moral law, which ruled life with unrelenting
+and inexorable despotism. Marriage and the family, not love, must be
+the aim of man; and poor Gretchen, who gave herself to Faust without
+observing the established ceremonial, was forced to consider herself
+eternally damned. The inward discipline still more than the outward
+guarded the foundations and gave strength and force to the State as
+well as to the people. Men and women were not spared; they were not
+even taken into account. Hundreds and thousands of Gretchens, men and
+women, were sacrificed, and are being sacrificed still, without pity to
+'the highest spiritual interests.'</p>
+
+<p>Acknowledgment and respect for the prescribed order had become so
+deeply rooted in the German soul&mdash;I speak of Germany, because no
+other nation upon earth is so highly disciplined&mdash;that even the most
+independent characters yielded to it. The most dreadful sin is not the
+breaking of the law&mdash;a violation which like Gretchen's can be explained
+by weakness and weakness alone, though it was not forgiven, was less
+severely condemned&mdash;but rebellion against the law, the open and daring
+refusal to obey, even though it be expressed in the most insignificant
+act. Therefore every one tends to show his loyalty from that side
+first of all. In a greater or less degree all have transgressed the
+law, but the more one has violated it in act, the more imperative he
+considers its glorification in words. And this order of things aroused
+neither suspicion nor discontent. Therein could be seen acknowledged
+the superiority of spirit over body, of mind over passion. Nobody ever
+asked the question: 'Is it really true that the spirit must have the
+mastery over the body, and the mind over the passions?' And when Heine
+allowed himself to put the question and to answer it in his own way,
+the whole force of German indignation burst upon him. First of all
+they suspected his sincerity and truthfulness. 'It is impossible,'
+said the pious, 'that he really should not acknowledge the law. He is
+only pretending.' Such a supposition was the more natural because the
+ring of conviction was not always to be heard in Heine's tone: one of
+his poems ends with the following words: 'I seek the body, the body,
+the young and tender body. The soul you may bury deep in the ground&mdash;I
+myself have soul enough.' The poem is daring and provocative in the
+extreme, but in it, as in all Heine's daring and provocative poems, may
+be heard a sharp and nervous laugh, which must be understood as the
+expression of the divided soul, as a mockery of himself. It is he who
+tells of his meeting with two women, mother and daughter. Both please
+him: the mother by her much knowledge, the daughter by her innocence.
+And the poet stands between them, in his own words, like Buridan's
+ass between two bundles of hay. Again, daring, again, the laugh; and
+again the well-balanced German is irritated. He would prefer that no
+one should ever speak of such emotions, and if they are to be spoken
+of, then it must be at least in a penitent tone, with self-accusation.
+But Heine's misplaced laughter is indecent and quite uselessly
+disconcerting. I repeat that Heine himself was not always sure that
+his 'sincerity' was lawful. While he was still a youth he told how
+there suddenly ran through his soul, as through the whole earth, a
+rent which split asunder the unity of his former emotions. King David
+when he praised God and good did not remember his dark deeds&mdash;of
+which there were not a few&mdash;or, if he did remember them, it was only
+to repent. His soul was also divided, but he was able to preserve a
+sequence. When he wept, he could not and did not want to rejoice;
+when he repented, he was already far from sin; when he prayed, he did
+not scoff; when he believed, he did not doubt. The Germans, brought
+up on the great king's psalms, had come to think that these things
+were impossible and ought never to be possible. They admitted the
+succession of different, and even contradictory spiritual conditions,
+but their simultaneous existence appeared to them unintelligible and
+disgusting, in contradiction with divine commandments and the laws of
+logic. It seemed to them that everything which formerly existed as
+separate, had become confused, that the place of stringent harmony had
+been usurped by absurdity and chaos. They thought that such a state of
+things threatened innumerable miseries. They did not admit the idea
+that Heine himself might not understand it; in his creation they saw
+the manifestation of a false and evil will, and they invoked divine and
+human judgment upon it. The Philistine irritation reached the extreme
+when it became clear that Heine had not humbled himself even before the
+face of death. Stricken by paralysis, he lay in his <i>Matrazengrab,</i>
+unable to stir a limb; he suffered the most intense bodily pains,
+with no hope of cure, or even of relief, yet he still continued to
+blaspheme as before. Worse still, his sarcasms every day became more
+ruthless, more poisonous, more refined. It might have been thought that
+it was left to him, crushed and destroyed, only to acknowledge his
+defeat and to commit himself utterly to the magnanimity of the victor.
+But in the weak flesh a strong spirit lived. All his thoughts were
+turned to God, the power of whose right hand, like every dying man,
+he could not but feel upon him. But his thoughts of God, his attitude
+to God, were so original that the serious people of the outer world
+could only shrug their shoulders. No one ever spoke thus to God, either
+aloud or to himself. The thought of death usually inspires mortals
+with fear or admiration; therefore they either kneel before him and
+implore forgiveness or sing his praises. Heine has neither prayer nor
+praise. His poems are permeated with a charming and gracious cynicism,
+peculiar and proper to himself alone. He does not want to confess his
+sins, and even now on the threshold of another life he remains as he
+was in youth. He desires neither paradise, nor bliss, nor heaven; he
+asks God to give him back his health, and to put his money affairs in
+order. 'I know there is much evil and many vices on earth. But I have
+grown used to all that now, and besides I seldom leave my room. O God,
+leave me here, but heal my infirmities, and spare me from want,' he
+writes in one of his last poems. He derides the legends of the blissful
+life of sinless souls in paradise. 'Sitting on the clouds and singing
+psalms is a pastime quite unsuited to me.' He remembers the beautiful
+Venus of the Louvre and praises her as in the days of youth. His poem,
+<i>Das Hohelied,</i> is a mixture of extreme cynicism, nobility, despair,
+and incredible sarcasm. I do not know whether dying men have had such
+thoughts as those which are expressed in this poem, but I am confident
+that no one has expressed anything like them in literature. In Goethe's
+<i>Prometheus</i> there is nothing of the provocative, unshakable, calm
+pride and the consciousness of his rights which inspired the author
+of <i>Das Hohelied.</i> God, who created heaven and earth and man upon the
+earth, is free to torment my body and soul to his fill, but I myself
+know what I need and desire, I myself decide what is good and what is
+bad. That is the meaning of this poem, and of all that Heine wrote in
+the last years of his life. He knew as well as any one that according
+to the doctrines of philosophy, ethics, and religion, repentance and
+humility are the condition of the soul's salvation, the readiness even
+with the last breath of life to renounce sinful desires. Nevertheless,
+with his last breath he does not want to own the power over himself
+of the age-old authorities of the world. He laughs at morality, at
+philosophy, and at existing religions. The wise men think so, the wise
+men want to live in their own way; let them think, let them live. But
+who gave them the right to demand obedience from me? Can they have
+the power to compel me to obedience? Listening to the words of the
+dying man, shall we not repeat his question? Shall we not take one step
+further? Heine is crushed, and if we may believe, as we have every
+reason to believe what he tells us in his 'Song of Songs,' his painful
+and terrible illness was the direct effect and consequence of his
+manner of life. Does it mean that in the future, too (if future there
+is), new persecutions await him, until the day when of his own accord
+he will subscribe to the proclaimed and established morality? Have we
+the right to suppose that there are powers somewhere in the universe
+preoccupied with the business of cutting out all men, even down to
+the last, after the same pattern? Perhaps Heine's contumacy points to
+quite a different intention of the arbiters of destiny. Perhaps the
+illness and torture prepared for those who fight against collars and
+blinkers&mdash;experience demonstrates with sufficient certainty that any
+declination from the high road and the norm inevitably brings suffering
+and ruin in its train&mdash;are only the trial of the human spirit. Who
+will endure them, who will stand up for himself, afraid neither of
+God nor of the devil and his ministers, he will enter victoriously
+into another world. Sometimes I even think, in opposition to existing
+opinion, that <i>there</i> the stubborn and inflexible are valued above
+all others, and that the secret is hidden from mortals lest the
+weak and compliant should take it into their heads to pretend to be
+stubborn, in order to deserve the favour of the gods. But he who
+will not endure, but will deny himself, may expect the fate of which
+philosophers and metaphysicians generally dream. He will be united
+with the <i>primum mobile,</i> he will be dissolved in the essence of being
+together with the mass of individuals like himself. I am tempted to
+think that the metaphysical theories which preach self-renunciation
+for the sake of love, and love for the sake of self-renunciation,
+are by no means empty and idle, as the positivists affirm. In them
+lies a deep, mysterious, and mystical meaning: in them is hidden a
+great truth. Their only mistake is that they pretend to be absolute.
+For some reason or other men have decided that empirical truths are
+many, but that metaphysical truth is one. Metaphysical truths are
+also many, but that does not in the least prevent them from living in
+harmony one with another. Empirical truths like all earthly beings are
+continually quarrelling, and cannot get on without superior authority.
+But metaphysical truths are differently arranged and know nothing
+whatsoever of our rivalry. There is no doubt that people who feel the
+burden of their individuality and thirst for self-renunciation are
+absolutely right. Every probability points to their at last attaining
+their purpose and being united to that to which they should be united,
+whether neighbour or remote, or perhaps, as the pantheists desire, even
+to inanimate nature. But it is just as probable that those who value
+their individuality and do not consent to renounce it either for the
+sake of their neighbours or of a lofty idea, will preserve themselves
+and will remain themselves, if not for ever and ever, at least for a
+sufficiently long while, until they are weary. Therefore the Germans
+must not be cross with Heine, at least those Germans who have judged
+him not from the utilitarian point of view&mdash;from this point of view I
+too utterly condemn him, and find for him no justification at all&mdash;but
+from the lofty, religious or metaphysical point of view, as it is
+called nowadays. He cannot possibly disturb them in any way. They will
+be united, down to the last they probably will be united in the Idea,
+the thing in itself, in Substance, or any other alluring unity; and not
+Heine with his sarcasms will keep them from their lofty aspirations.
+While if he and those like him continue to live in their own way in a
+place apart and even laugh at ideas&mdash;can that really be the occasion of
+serious annoyance?</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h4>IX</h4>
+
+<h4><i>What is Truth?</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The sceptics assert that truth does not and cannot exist, and the
+assertion has eaten so deep into the modern mind, that the only
+philosophy which has spread in our day is that of Kant, which takes
+scepticism for its point of departure. But read the preface to the
+first edition of <i>The Critique of Pure Reason</i> attentively, and you
+will be convinced that he had absolutely no concern with the question:
+'What is truth?' He only set himself to solve the problem, what should
+a man do who had been convinced of the impossibility of finding the
+objective truth. The old metaphysic with its arbitrary and unproven
+assertions, which could not bear criticism, irritated Kant, and he
+decided to get rid, even though by accepting the relative legitimacy of
+scepticism, of the unscientific discipline which he, as a teacher of
+philosophy, had to represent. But the confidence of the sceptics and
+Kant's deference are not in the least binding upon us. And after all
+Kant himself did not fulfil the obligations which he undertook. For if
+we do not know what is truth, what value have the postulates of the
+existence of God and the immortality of the soul? How can we justify
+or explain any one of the existing religions, Christianity included?
+Although the Gospel does not at all agree with our scientific notions
+of the laws of nature, yet it does not in itself contain anything
+contrary to reason. We do not disbelieve in miracles because they are
+impossible. On the contrary, it is as clear as day to the most ordinary
+common sense that life itself, the foundation of the world, is the
+miracle of miracles. And if the task of philosophy had reduced to the
+mere demonstration of the possibility of a miracle, her business would
+have been splendidly accomplished long ago. The whole trouble is that
+visible miracles are not enough for people, and that it is impossible
+to deduce from the fact that many miracles have already taken place
+that other miracles, without which mere existence is often impossible,
+will also happen in due course. Men are being born&mdash;without doubt
+a great miracle; there exists a beautiful world&mdash;also a miracle of
+miracles. But does it follow that men will rise from the grave, and
+that paradise is made ready for them? The raising of Lazarus is not
+much believed nowadays even by those who revere the Gospel, not because
+they will not admit the possibility of miracles in general, but because
+they cannot decide <i>a priori</i> which miracles are possible and which
+are not, and therefore they are obliged to judge <i>a posteriori.</i> They
+readily accept a miracle that has happened, but they doubt the miracle
+that has not happened, and <i>the more they doubt,</i> the more passionately
+do they desire it. It costs nothing to believe in the final triumph
+of good upon the earth (though it would be an absolute miracle), in
+progress or the infallibility of the Pope (these too are miracles and
+by no means inconsiderable), for after all men are quite sufficiently
+indifferent to good, to progress, and to the virtues of the Pope. It
+is much harder, nay quite impossible, standing before the dead body of
+one who is near and dear, to believe that an angel will fly down from
+heaven and bring the dead to life again, although the world is full of
+happenings no less miraculous than the raising of the dead.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore the sceptics are wrong when they assert that there is no
+truth. Truth exists, but we do not know it in all its volume, nor can
+we formulate that which we do know: we cannot imagine why it happened
+thus and not otherwise, or whether that which happened had to happen
+thus, or whether something else quite different might have happened.
+Once it was held that reality obeys the laws of necessity, but Hume
+explained that the notion of necessity is subjective, and therefore
+must be discarded as illusory. His idea was caught up (without the
+deduction) by Kant. All those of our judgments which have the character
+of universality and necessity, acquire it only by virtue of our
+psychological organisation. In those cases where we are particularly
+convinced of the objective value of our judgment, we have merely
+to do with a purely subjective certainty, though it is immutable
+and secure in the visible world. It is well known that Kant did not
+accept Hume's deduction: not only did he make no attempt to banish the
+false premisses from our intellectual economy, as Hume did with the
+conception of necessity, but, on the contrary, he declared that such
+an attempt was quite impracticable. The practical reason suggested to
+Kant that though the foundations of our judgments are vitiated by their
+source, yet their invariability may be of great assistance in the world
+of phenomena, that is in the space between the birth and death of man.
+If a man has lived before birth (as Plato held), and will live after
+death, then his 'truths' were not, and will not be necessary there,
+in the other world. What truths are <i>there,</i> and whether there are
+any truths at all, Kant only guesses, and he succeeds in his guesses
+only because of his readiness to ignore logic in his conclusions. He
+suddenly gives faith an immense right to judge of the real world, a
+right of which faith would never dream had it not been taken under his
+special patronage by the philosopher himself. But why can faith do that
+which reason cannot? And a yet more insidious question: Are not all
+postulates invented by the same mind which was deprived of its rights
+in the first Critique, but which subsequently obtained a verdict of
+<i>restitutio in integrum,</i> by changing the name of the firm? The last
+hypothesis is the most probable. And if so, then does it not follow
+that in the real world so carefully divided by Kant from the world of
+phenomena we will find much that is new, but not a little that is old.</p>
+
+<p>In general it is clear that the assumption that our world is a world
+of an instant, a brief dream, utterly unlike real life, is mistaken.
+This assumption, first enunciated by Plato, and afterwards elaborated
+and maintained by many representatives of religious and philosophical
+thought, is based upon no data at all. There's no denying, it is very
+pleasant. But as often happens, as soon as the wish was invested
+with language, by the mere fact it received too sharp and angular an
+expression, so that it lost all resemblance to itself. The essence
+of the true, primordial life beyond the grave appears to Plato as
+absolute good refined from all alloy, as the essence of virtue.
+But after all Plato himself cannot suffer the absolute emptiness
+of the ideal existence, and constantly flavours it with elements
+which are by no means ideal, but which give interest and intensity
+to his dialogues. If you have never had the occasion to read Plato
+himself, acquaint yourself with his philosophy through the teaching
+of any of his admirers and appreciators, and you will be struck by
+its emptiness. Read the thick volume of Natorp's well-known work,
+and you will see what value there is in Plato's 'purified' doctrine.
+And in passing I would recommend as a general rule, this method of
+examining the ideas of famous philosophers, by acquainting oneself with
+them not only in the original works, but in the expositions of their
+disciples, particularly of faithful and conscientious disciples. When
+the fascination of the personality and the genius disappears and the
+naked, unadorned 'truth' remains&mdash;disciples always believe that the
+master had the truth, and they reveal it without any embellishment or
+fig leaf&mdash;only then does it become quite clear of how little value
+are the fundamental thoughts of even the most exalted philosophers.
+Still more obvious does it become when the faithful disciple begins
+to draw conclusions from his master's proportions. The book of the
+aforesaid Natorp, a great Plato expert, is a <i>reductio ad absurdum</i>
+of all his master's ideas. Plato is revealed as a logical Neo-Kantian,
+a narrow-minded savant, who had been put thoroughly through the mill
+at Freiburg or Heidelberg. It is also revealed that Plato's ideas, in
+the pure state, do not in the least express his real attitude to life
+and to the world. One must take the whole Plato with his contradictions
+and inconsequence, with his vices and virtues, and value his defects at
+least as much as his qualities, or even add one or two defects, and be
+blind to one or two virtues. For it is probable that he, as a man to
+whom nothing human was alien, tried to assume a few virtues which he
+did not possess, and to conceal a few failings. This course should be
+followed with other masters of wisdom and their doctrines. Then 'the
+other world' will not appear to be separated by such an abyss from our
+earthly vale. And perhaps, in spite of Kant, some empirical truths
+will be found common to both worlds. Then Pilate's question will lose
+much of its all-conquering certainty. He wished to wash his hands of
+the business, and he asked, 'What is truth?' After him and before him,
+many who had no desire to struggle have devised ingenious questions and
+taken their stand upon scepticism. But every one knows that truth does
+exist, and sometimes can even formulate its own conception with the
+clarity and precision demanded by Descartes. Is the miraculous bounded
+by the miracles that have already been seen on earth, or are its
+limits set much wider? And if wider, then how much?</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h4>X</h4>
+
+<h4><i>More of Truth</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Perhaps truth is by nature such that its communication between
+men is impossible, at least the usual communication by means of
+language. Every one may know it in himself, but in order to enter into
+communication with his neighbour he must renounce the truth and accept
+some conventional lie. Nevertheless the value and importance of truth
+is by no means lessened by the fact that it cannot be given a market
+valuation. If you were asked what is truth, you could not answer the
+question even though you had given your whole life to the study of
+philosophical theories. In yourself, if you have no one to answer,
+you know well what the truth is. Therefore truth does not by nature
+resemble empirical truth in the least, and before entering the world
+of philosophy, you must bid farewell to scientific methods of search,
+and to the accustomed methods of estimating knowledge. In a word, you
+must be ready to accept something absolutely new, quite unlike what is
+traditional and old. That is why the tendency to discredit scientific
+knowledge is by no means so useless as may at first sight appear to the
+inexperienced eye.</p>
+
+<p>That is why irony and sarcasm prove to be a necessary weapon of the
+investigator. The most dangerous enemy of new knowledge always has
+been, and always will be, inculcated habit. From the practical point
+of view it is much more important to a man to know the things which
+may help him to adapt himself to the temporary conditions of his
+existence, than those which have a timeless value. The instinct of
+self-preservation always proves stronger than the sincerest desire for
+knowledge. Moreover, one must remember that the instinct has at its
+disposal innumerable and most subtle weapons of defence, that all human
+faculties without exception are under its command, from unconscious
+reflexes up to the enthroned mind and august consciousness. Much
+and often has been said in this regard, and for once the <i>consensus
+sapientium</i> is on my side. True, this is treated as an undeniable
+perversion of human nature&mdash;and here I make my protest. I think that
+there is in this nothing undesirable. Our mind and consciousness must
+consider it an honour that they can find themselves in the service of
+instinct, even if it be the instinct of self-preservation. They should
+not be conceited, and to tell the truth they are not conceited, but
+readily fulfil their official mission. They pretend to priority only
+in books, and tremble at the thought of pre-eminence in life. If by
+some accident they were allowed freedom of action they would go mad
+with terror, like children lost in a forest at night. Every time that
+the mind and consciousness begin to judge independently, they reach
+destructive conclusions. And then they see with surprise that this
+time too they were not acting freely, but under the dictation of the
+self-same instinct, which had assumed a different character. The human
+soul desired the work of destruction, and she loosed the slaves from
+their chains, and they in wild enthusiasm began to celebrate their
+freedom by making great havoc, not in the least suspecting that they
+remained just as they were before, slaves who work for others.</p>
+
+<p>Long ago Dostoevsky pointed out that the instinct of destruction
+is as natural to the human soul as that of creation. Beside these
+two instincts all our faculties appear to be minor psychological
+properties, required only under given, and accidental, conditions.
+Of truth&mdash;as not only the crass materialists now confess, but the
+idealists also have found in their metaphysic&mdash;nothing remains but
+the idea of the norm.&mdash;To speak in more expressive and intelligible
+language, truth exists only in order that men who are separated in time
+and space might establish between themselves some kind of communication
+at least. That is, a man must choose between absolute loneliness
+with truth, on the one side, and communion with his neighbours and
+falsehood, on the other. Which is the better, it will be asked. The
+question is idle, I reply. There is a third way still: to accept
+both, though it may at first appear utterly absurd, especially to
+people who have once for all decided that logic, like mathematics,
+is infallible. Whereas it is possible, and not merely possible&mdash;we
+would not be content with a possibility: only a German idealist can be
+satisfied with a good which was never realised in any place at all&mdash;it
+is continually observed that the most contradictory spiritual states
+do coexist. All men lie when they begin to speak: our language is so
+imperfectly arranged that the principle of its arrangement presupposes
+a readiness to speak untruth. The more abstract the subject is, the
+more does the disposition to lie increase, until, when we touch upon
+the most complicated questions, we have to lie incessantly, and the
+lie is the more intolerable and coarse the more sincere we are. For a
+sincere man is convinced that veracity is assured by the absence of
+contradictions, and in order to avoid all appearance of lie, he tries
+to make a logical agreement between his opinions: that is to raise his
+lie to Herculean heights. In his turn, when he receives the opinions
+of others, he applies the same criterion, and the moment he notices
+the smallest contradiction, he begins naively to cry out against the
+violation of the fundamental decencies. What is particularly curious
+is that all the learned students of philosophy&mdash;and it is strictly to
+them that I address myself here, as the reader has probably observed
+long ago&mdash;certainly are well aware that no single one of the mightiest
+philosophers has hitherto succeeded in eliminating all contradictions
+from his system. How well armed was Spinoza! He spared no effort,
+and stuck at nothing, and yet his remarkable system will not bear
+logical criticism. That is a matter of common knowledge. So it appears
+that we ought to ask what the devil is the use of consistency, and
+whether contradictions are not the condition of truthfulness in one's
+conception of the world. And after Kant, his disciples and successors
+might have answered quietly that the devil alone knows the use of
+consistency, and that truth lives by contradictions. As a matter of
+fact, Hegel and Schopenhauer, each in his own way, partly attempted to
+make an admission of this kind, but they derived small profit from it.</p>
+
+<p>Let us try to draw some conclusions from the foregoing. Certainly,
+while logic can be useful, it would be unjustifiable recklessness
+to refuse its services. Nor are the conclusions devoid of interest,
+as we shall see. First of all, when you speak, never trouble to be
+consistent with what you said before: that will put an unnecessary
+check upon your freedom, which, without that additional fetter, is
+already chained in words and grammatical forms. When you are listening
+to a friend or reading a book, do not assign great value to individual
+words or even to phrases. Forget separate thoughts, and give no great
+consideration even to logically arranged ideas. Remember that though
+your friend desires it, he cannot express himself save by ready-made
+forms of speech. Look well to the expression of his face, listen to
+the intonation of his voice&mdash;this will help you to penetrate through
+his words to his soul. Not only in conversation, but even in a written
+book, can one over-hear the sound, even the timbre of the author's
+voice, and notice the finest shades of expression in his eyes and
+face. Do not fasten upon contradictions, do not dispute, do not demand
+argument: only listen with attention. In return for which, when you
+begin to speak, you also will have to face no dispute, nor to produce
+arguments, which you know well you neither have nor could have. So you
+will not be annoyed by having pointed out to you your contradictions
+which you know well were always there, and will always be there, and
+with which it is painful, nay quite impossible, for you to part. Then,
+then&mdash;and this is most important of all&mdash;you will at last be convinced
+that truth does not depend on logic, that there are no logical truths
+at all, that you therefore have the right to search for what you like,
+how you like, without argument, and that if something results from your
+search, it will not be a formula, not a law, not a principle, not even
+an idea! Only think: while the object of search is 'truth,' as it is
+understood nowadays, one must be prepared for anything. For instance,
+the materialists will be right, and matter and energy are the basis
+of the world. It does not matter that we can immediately confound
+the materialists with their conclusions. The history of thought can
+show many cases of the complete rehabilitation of opinions that have
+been cast off and reviled. Yesterday's error may be to-morrow's truth,
+even a self-evident truth. And apart from its content, wherein is
+materialism bad? It is a harmonious, consistent, and well-sustained
+system. I have already pointed out that the materialistic
+conception of the world is just as capable of enchanting men as any
+other&mdash;pantheistic or idealistic. And since we have come so far, I
+confess that in my opinion no ideas at all are bad in themselves: so
+far I have been able to follow with pleasure the development of the
+idea of progress to the accompaniment of factories, railways, and
+aeroplanes. Still, it seems to me childish to hope that all these
+trivialities&mdash;I mean the ideas&mdash;will become the object of man's serious
+seeking. If that desperate struggle of man with God and the world
+were possible, of which legend and history tell&mdash;think of Prometheus
+alone&mdash;then it was not for truth and not for the idea. Man desires to
+be strong and rich and free, the wretched, insignificant creature of
+dust, whom the first chance shock crushes like a worm before one's
+eyes,&mdash;and if he speaks of ideas it is only because he despairs of
+success in his proper search. He feels that he is a worm, he fears that
+he must again return to the dust which he is, and he lies, pretending
+that his misery is not terrible to him, if only he knew the truth.
+Forgive him his lie, for he speaks it only with his lips. Let him say
+what he will, how he will; so long as we hear in his words the familiar
+note of the call to battle, and the fire of desperate inexorable
+resolution burns in his eyes, we will understand him. We are used to
+decipher hieroglyphs. But if he, like the Germans of to-day, accepts
+truth and the norm as the final goal of human aspiration, we shall also
+know with whom we have to deal, were he by destiny endowed with the
+eloquence of Cicero. Better utter loneliness than communion with such a
+man. Yet such communion does not exclude utter loneliness; perhaps it
+even assists the hard achievement.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h4>XI</h4>
+
+<h4><i>I and Thou</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The familiar expression, 'to look into another's soul,' which by
+force of habit at first sight seems extremely intelligible, on closer
+observation appears so unintelligible that one is forced to ask whether
+it has any meaning at all. Try to bend, mentally, over another's soul:
+you will see nothing but a vast, empty, black abyss, and you will only
+be seized with giddiness for your pains. Thus, properly speaking, the
+expression 'to look into another's soul' is only an abortive metaphor.
+All that we can do is to argue from the outward data to the inward
+feelings. From tears we deduce pain, from pallor, fear, from a smile,
+joy. But is this to look into another's soul? It is only to give room
+to a series of purely logical processes in one's head. The other's soul
+remains as invisible as before; we only guess at it, perhaps rightly,
+perhaps mistakenly. Naturally this conclusion irritates us. What a
+miserable world it is where it is quite impossible to see the very
+thing that we desire above all to see. But irritation is almost the
+normal spiritual state of a man who thinks and seeks. Whenever it is
+particularly important to him to be sure of something, after a number
+of desperate attempts he is convinced that his curiosity cannot be
+satisfied. And now the mocking mind adds a new question to the old:
+Why look for another's soul when you have not seen your own? And is
+there a soul? Many have believed and still do believe that there is no
+soul at all, but only a science of it, called psychology. It is known
+that psychology says nothing of the soul, considering that its task is
+confined to the study of spiritual states&mdash;states, by the way, which
+have as yet hardly been studied at all.... What is the way out? One can
+answer irony with irony, or even with abuse. One can deny psychology
+the right to be called a science and call the materialists a pack of
+fools, as is often done. Incontestably, anger has its rights. But this
+has sense and meaning only while you are among people and are listened
+to. Nobody wants to be indignant alone with oneself, when one is
+not even reckoning upon making use of one's indignation for literary
+purposes: for even a writer is not always writing, and is more often
+preoccupied with transitory thoughts than with his forthcoming works.
+One prefers to approach the enchanted cave, though for the thousandth
+time, with every possible precaution. Perhaps it is only upon the
+approach of an outside soul that another's soul becomes invisible,
+and if she be caught unawares she will not have time to disappear.
+So that ponderous psychology, which like any other science always
+proclaims its plans and methods aloud before undertaking anything, is
+utterly unsuited to the capture of a thing so light and mobile as the
+human soul. But let us leave psychology with the honourable name of
+science; let us even respect the materialists, while we endeavour to
+track down the soul by other means. Perhaps in the depth of the dark
+abyss of which we spoke, something might be found, were it not for
+the giddiness. Therefore it is not so necessary to invent new methods
+as to learn to look fearlessly into the depths, which always appear
+unfathomable to the unaccustomed eye.</p>
+
+<p>After all, unfathomability is not so entirely useless to man. It was
+driven into our heads as children that the human mind could compass
+only those things which are limited. But this only proves that we have
+yet another prejudice to get rid of. If it comes to giving up the right
+of abusing the materialists and of being taught by psychology, and
+something else into the bargain&mdash;well, we are used to that. But in
+return we may at last be granted a glimpse of the mysterious 'thou,'
+and perhaps the 'I' will cease to be problematical as well. Patience
+is a sickening thing; but remember the fakirs and the other worthies
+of the same kind. They succeed by patience alone. And apparently
+they arrive at something; but not at universal truths, I am ready to
+vouch for that. The world has long been weary of universal truths.
+Even 'truth' pure and simple makes no whisper in my ear. We must find
+a way of escape from the power of every kind of truth. This victory
+the fakirs tried to win. They can produce no arguments to prove their
+right, for the visible victory was never on their side. One conquers
+by bayonets, big guns, microscopes and logical arguments. Microscopes
+and logic give the palm to limitation. And yet, though limitation often
+strengthens, it also happens that it kills.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+<h4><a name="THE_THEORY_OF_KNOWLEDGE" id="THE_THEORY_OF_KNOWLEDGE">THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE</a></h4>
+
+<hr class="r5" />
+
+<h4><i>The Theory of Knowledge as Apologetics</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The modern theory of knowledge, though it always consciously takes
+its rise from Kant, has in one respect quite disregarded the master's
+commandment. It is very strange that the theorists of knowledge,
+who usually cannot agree among themselves upon anything, have as it
+were agreed to understand the problem of knowledge quite otherwise
+than Kant. Kant undertook to investigate our cognitive faculties in
+order to establish foundations, in virtue of which certain existing
+sciences could be accepted, and others rejected. One may say that the
+second purpose was chief. Hume's scepticism made him uneasy only in
+theory. He knew beforehand that whatever theory of knowledge he might
+invent, mathematics and the natural sciences would remain sciences and
+metaphysics be rejected. In other words, his aim was not to justify
+science but to explain the possibility of its existence; and he started
+from the point of view that no one can seriously doubt the truths of
+mathematics and natural science. But now the position is different. The
+theorists of knowledge direct all their efforts towards <i>justifying</i>
+scientific knowledge. Why? Does scientific knowledge really need
+justification? Of course there are cranks, sometimes even cranks of
+genius, like our own Tolstoi, who attack science; but their attacks
+offend no one, nor do they cause alarm.</p>
+
+<p>Scientists continue their researches as before; the universities
+flourish; discovery follows discovery. And the theorists of knowledge
+themselves do not spend sleepless nights in the endeavour to find
+new justifications for science. Yet, I repeat, though they can come
+to an understanding about practically nothing else, they amaze us
+by their unanimity upon this point&mdash;they are all convinced that it
+is their duty to justify science and exalt her. So that the modern
+theory of knowledge is no longer a science, but an apology. And
+its demonstrations are like those of apology. Once science must
+be defended, it is necessary to begin by praising her, that is by
+selecting evidence and data to show that science fulfils some mission
+or other, but indubitably a very high and important one, or, on the
+other hand, by painting a picture of the fate that would overtake
+mankind, if it was deprived of science. Thus the apologetic element
+has begun to play almost as large a part in the theory of knowledge
+as it has done hitherto in theology. Perhaps the time is at hand when
+scientific apologetics will be officially recognised as a philosophic
+discipline.</p>
+
+<p>But, <i>qui s'excuse s'accuse.</i> It is plain that all is not well with
+science, since she has begun to justify herself. Besides, apologetics
+are only apologetics, and sooner or later the theory of knowledge
+will be tired of psalms of praise, and will demand a more complex and
+responsible task, and a real labour. At present the theorists start
+with the assumption that scientific knowledge is perfect knowledge,
+and therefore the premisses upon which it is builded are not subject
+to criticism. The law of causation is not justified because it appears
+to be the expression of a real relation of things, nor even because we
+have data at our disposal which could convince us that it does not and
+will never admit exceptions, that uncaused effects are impossible. All
+these things are lacking; but, we are told, they are not needed.</p>
+
+<p>The chief thing is that the causal law makes science possible, while
+to reject it means to reject science and knowledge generally, all
+anticipation, and even, as some few hold, reason itself. Clearly, if
+one has to choose between a slightly dubious admission on the one side
+and the prospect of chaos and insanity on the other, there will be no
+long hesitation. Apologetics, we see, has chosen the most powerful of
+arguments, <i>ad hominem.</i> But all such arguments partake of one common
+defect; they are not constant, and they are double-edged.</p>
+
+<p>To-day they defend scientific knowledge; to-morrow they will attack it.
+Indeed, it so happens that the very belief in the causal law begets a
+great disquiet and turmoil in the soul, which finally produces all the
+horrors of chaos and madness. The certainty that the existing order
+is immutable is for certain minds synonymous with the certainty that
+life is nonsensical and absurd. Probably the disciples of Christ had
+that feeling when the last words of their crucified Master reached them
+from the cross: 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?' And the
+modern theorists may explain triumphantly that when the law became the
+instrument of chaos and madness, it was <i>ipso facto</i> abolished. 'Christ
+has risen,' say the disciples of Christ.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that the theorists may triumph; but I must confess that I
+have not found in any of them an open glorification of such an obvious
+proof of the truth of their teaching. Of the resurrection of Christ
+they say not a word&mdash;on the contrary, they make every effort to avoid
+it and pass it by in silence. And this circumstance compels us to pause
+and think. A dilemma arises: if you grant that the law of causation
+suffers no exception, then your soul will be eternally haunted by the
+last words of the crucified Christ; if you do not, then you will have
+no science. Some assert that it is impossible to live without science,
+without knowledge, that such a life is horror and madness; others
+cannot be reconciled to the thought that the most perfect of men died
+the death of a murderer. What shall we do? Without which thing is it
+impossible for man to live? Without scientific knowledge, or without
+the conviction that truth and spiritual perfection are in the last
+resort the victors of this world? And how will the theory of knowledge
+stand with regard to questions such as these?</p>
+
+<p>Will it still continue its exercises in apologetics or will it at last
+understand that this is not its real problem, and that if it would
+preserve the right to be called philosophy, it will have not to justify
+and exalt the existing science, but to examine and direct some science
+of its own. It means above all to put the question: Is scientific
+knowledge really perfect, or is it perhaps imperfect, and should it
+therefore yield its present honourable place to another science?
+Evidently this is the most important question for the theory of
+knowledge, yet this question it never puts. It wants to exalt existing
+science. It has been, is now, and probably will long continue to be,
+apologetics.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4><i>Truth and Utility</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Mill, seeking to prove that all our sciences, even the mathematical,
+have an empiric origin, brings forward the following consideration.
+If on every occasion that we had to take twice two things, some deity
+slipped one extra thing into our hands, we should be convinced that
+twice two is not four but five. And perhaps Mill is right: perhaps we
+should not divine what was the matter. We are much more concerned to
+discover what is practically necessary and directly useful to us than
+to search for truth. If a deity with each four things slipped a fifth
+into our hands, we should accept the additional thing and consider
+it natural, intelligible, necessary, impossible to be otherwise. The
+very uniformity in the sequence of phenomena observed by the empirical
+philosophers was also slipped into our hands. By whom? When? Who dares
+to ask? Once the law is established no one is interested in anything
+any more. Now we can foretell the future, now we can use the thing
+slipped into our hands, and the rest&mdash;cometh of the evil one.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4><i>Philosophers and Teachers</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Every one knows that Schopenhauer was for many years not only not
+recognised, but not even read. His books were used for waste-paper.
+It was only towards the end of his life that he had readers and
+admirers&mdash;and, of course, critics. For every admirer is at bottom a
+most merciless and importunate critic. He must understand everything,
+make everything agree, and of course the master must supply the
+necessary explanations. Schopenhauer, who did not have the experience
+of being a master till his old age, at first behaved very benevolently
+to his disciples' questions and patiently gave the explanations
+required. But the further one goes into the forest, the thicker are
+the trees. The most loyal perplexities of his pupils became more and
+more importunate, until at last the old man lost patience. 'I didn't
+undertake to explain all the secrets of the universe to every one who
+wanted to know them,' he once exclaimed, when a certain pupil persisted
+in emphasising the contradictions he had noticed in Schopenhauer. And
+really&mdash;is a master obliged to explain everything? In Schopenhauer's
+words we are given an answer, not ambiguous. A philosopher not only
+cannot be a teacher, he does not want to be one. There are teachers
+in schools, in universities: they teach arithmetic, grammar, logic,
+metaphysics. The philosopher has quite a different task, one which does
+not in the least resemble teaching.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4><i>Truth as a Social Substance</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>There are many ways, real and imaginary, of objectively verifying
+philosophic opinions. But they all reduce, we know, to trial by
+the law of contradiction. True, every one is aware that no single
+philosophic doctrine is able to support such a trial, so that, pending
+a better future, people consider it possible to display a certain
+tenderness in the examination. They are usually satisfied if they
+come to the conclusion that the philosopher made a genuine attempt
+to avoid contradictions. For instance, they forgive Spinoza his
+inconsistency because of his <i>amor intellectualis Dei</i>; Kant, for his
+love of morality and his praise of disinterestedness; Plato, for the
+originality and purity of his idealistic impulses; and Aristotle, for
+the vastyness and universality of his knowledge. So that, strictly
+speaking, we must confess that we have no real objective method of
+verifying a philosophical truth, and when we criticise other people's
+systems, we judge arbitrarily after all. If a philosopher suits us
+for some reason, we do not trouble him with the law of contradiction;
+if he does not, we summon him before the court to be judged with the
+utmost rigour of the law, confident beforehand that he will be found
+guilty on every count. But sometimes there arises the desire to verify
+one's own philosophic convictions. To play the farce of objective
+verification with them, to look for contradictions in oneself&mdash;I do not
+suppose that even Germans are capable of that. And yet one desires to
+know whether he does indeed possess the truth or whether he has only a
+universal error in his hands. What is to be done? I think there is a
+way. He should think to himself that it is absolutely impossible for
+his truth to be binding upon anybody. If in spite of this he still
+refuses to renounce her, if the truth can suffer such an ordeal and
+yet remain the same to him as she was before, then it may be supposed
+that she is worth something. For often we appreciate conviction, not
+because it has an intrinsic value, but because it commands a high price
+in the market. Robinson Crusoe probably had a totally different way
+of thinking to that of a modern writer or professor, whose books are
+exposed to the appreciation of his numerous confrères, who can create
+for him the renown of a wise man and a scholar, or utterly ruin his
+reputation. Even with the Greeks, whom we are accustomed to regard as
+model thinkers, opinions had&mdash;to use the language of economics&mdash;not so
+much a demand, as an exchange value.</p>
+
+<p>The Greeks had no knowledge of the printing-press, and no literary
+reviews. They usually took their wisdom out into the market-place,
+and applied all their efforts to persuade people to acknowledge its
+value. And it is hard to maintain that wisdom, which is constantly
+being offered to people, should not adapt itself to people's tastes.
+It is truer to say that wisdom became accustomed to value itself to
+the exact degree to which it could count on people's appreciation. In
+other words, it appears that the value of wisdom, like that of all
+other commodities, not only with us, but with the Greeks before us, is
+a social affair. The most modern philosophy has given up concealing the
+fact. The teleology of the rationalists, who follow Fichte, as well as
+of the pragmatists who consider themselves the successors of Mill is
+openly based upon the social point of view, and speaks of collective
+creations. Truth which is not good for all, and always, in the home
+market and the foreign&mdash;is not truth. Perhaps its value is even defined
+by the quantity of labour spent upon it. Marx might triumph: under
+different flags his theory has found admission into every sphere of
+contemporary thought. There would hardly be found one philosopher who
+would apply the method of verifying truth which I have proposed; and
+hardly a single modern idea which would stand the test.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4><i>Doctrines and Deductions</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>If you want to ruin a new idea&mdash;try to give it the widest possible
+publicity. Men will begin to reflect upon it, to try it by their daily
+needs, to interpret it, to make deductions from it, in a word to
+squeeze it into their own prepared logical apparatus; or, more likely,
+they will cover it up with the <i>débris</i> of their own habitual and
+intelligible ideas, and it will become as dead as everything that is
+begotten by logic. Perhaps this explains the tendency of philosophers
+to so clothe their thoughts that their form may hinder the approach of
+the general public to them. The majority of philosophic systems are
+chaotically and obscurely expounded, so that not every educated person
+can understand them. It is a pity to kill one's own child, and every
+one does his best to save it from premature death. The most dangerous
+enemies of an idea are 'deductions' from it, as though they followed of
+themselves. The idea does not presuppose them; they are usually pressed
+upon it. Indeed, people very often say: 'The idea is quite right, but
+it leads to conclusions which are not at all acceptable.' Again, how
+often has a philosopher to attend the sad spectacle of his pupil's
+deserting all his ideas, and feeding only upon the conclusions from
+them. Every thinker who has had the misfortune to attract attention
+while he was yet alive, knows by bitter experience what 'deductions'
+are. And yet you will rarely find a philosopher to offer open and
+courageous resistance to his continuators; and still more rarely a
+philosopher to say outright that his work needs no continuation, that
+it will not bear continuation, that it exists only in and for itself,
+that it is self-sufficient. If some one said this, how would he be
+answered? People could not dispute with him&mdash;try to dispute with a man
+who wants neither to dispute nor to demonstrate.</p>
+
+<p>The only answer is an appeal to the popular verdict, to lynch law.
+People are so weak and naïve that they will at all costs see a teacher
+(in the usual sense of the word) in every philosopher. In other words,
+they really want to throw upon him the responsibility for their
+actions, their present, their future, and their whole fate. Socrates
+was not executed for teaching, but because the Athenians thought he
+was dangerous to Athens. And in all ages men have approached truth
+with this criterion, as though they knew beforehand that truth must
+be of use and able to protect them. One of the greatest teachings,
+Christianity, was also persecuted because it seemed dangerous to the
+self-appointed guardians, or, if you will, because it was really very
+dangerous to Roman ideals. Of course, neither Socrates' death nor the
+deaths of thousands of the early Christians saved the ancient culture
+and polity from decay: but no one has learned anything from the lesson.
+People think that these were all accidental mistakes, against which no
+one was secure in ancient times, but which will never again recur; and
+therefore they continue to make 'deductions' as they used from every
+truth, and to judge the truth by the deductions they have made. And
+they have their reward. Although there have been on earth many wise men
+who knew much that is infinitely more valuable than all the treasures
+for which men are ready even to sacrifice their lives, still wisdom is
+to us a book with seven seals, a hidden hoard upon which we cannot lay
+our hands. Many&mdash;the vast majority&mdash;are even seriously convinced that
+philosophy is a most tedious and painful occupation to which are doomed
+some miserable wretches who enjoy the odious privilege of being called
+philosophers. I believe that even professors of philosophy, the more
+clever of them, not seldom share this opinion and suppose that therein
+lies the ultimate secret of their science, revealed to the initiate
+alone. Fortunately, the position is otherwise. It may be that mankind
+is destined never to change in this respect, and a thousand years hence
+men will care much more about 'deductions,' theoretical and practical,
+from the truth than about truth itself; but real philosophers, men who
+know what they want and at what they aim, will hardly be embarrassed
+by this. They will utter their truths as before, without in the least
+considering what conclusions will be drawn from them by the lovers of
+logic.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4><i>Truths, Proven and Unproven</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Whence did we get the habit of requiring proofs of each idea that
+is expressed? If we put aside the consideration, as having no real
+meaning in the present case, that men do often purposely deceive their
+neighbours for gain or other interests, then strictly speaking the
+necessity for proof is entirely removed. It is true that we can still
+deceive ourselves and fall into involuntary error. Sometimes we take
+a vision for a reality, and we wish to guard against that offensive
+mistake. But as soon as the possibility of <i>bona fide</i> error is
+removed, then we may relate simply without arguments, judgments, or
+references. If you please, believe; if you don't, don't. And there is
+one province, the very province which has always attracted to itself
+the most remarkable representatives of the human race, where proofs
+in the general acceptation are even quite impossible. We have been
+hitherto taught that that which cannot be proved, should not be spoken
+about. Still worse, we have so arranged our language that, strictly
+speaking, everything we say is expressed in the form of a judgment,
+that is, in a form which presupposes not merely the possibility but
+the necessity of proofs. Perhaps this is the reason why metaphysics
+has been the object of incessant attack. Metaphysics evidently was not
+only unable to find a form of expression for her truths which would
+free her from the obligation of proof; she did not even want to. She
+considered herself the science <i>par excellence,</i> and therefore supposed
+that she had more largely and more strictly to prove the judgments
+which she took under her wing. She thought that if she were to neglect
+the duty of demonstration she would lose all her rights. And that, I
+imagine, was her fatal mistake. The correspondence of rights and duties
+is perhaps a cardinal truth (or a cardinal fiction) of the doctrine
+of law, but it has been introduced into the sphere of philosophy by a
+misunderstanding. Here, rather, the contrary principle is enthroned:
+rights are in inverse proportion to duties. And only there where
+all duties have ceased is the greatest and most sovereign right
+acquired&mdash;the right of communion with ultimate truths. Here we must not
+for one moment forget that ultimate truths have nothing in common with
+middle truths, the logical construction of which we have so diligently
+studied for the last two thousand years. The fundamental difference is
+that the ultimate truths are absolutely unintelligible. Unintelligible,
+I repeat, but not inaccessible. It is true that middle truths also are,
+strictly speaking, unintelligible. Who will assert that he understands
+light, heat, pain, pride, joy, degradation?</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, our mind, in alliance with omnipotent habit, has,
+with the assistance of some strained interpretation, given to the
+combination of phenomena in the segment of universal life that is
+accessible to us, a certain kind of harmony and unity, and this from
+time immemorial has gained repute under the name of an intelligible
+explanation of the created world. But the known, which is the familiar,
+world is sufficiently unintelligible to make good faith require of us
+that we should accept unintelligibility as the fundamental predicate
+of being. It is impossible to hold, as some do, that the only reason
+why we do not understand the world is that something is hidden from
+us or that our mind is weak, so that if the Supreme Being wished to
+unveil the secret of creation to us, or if the human brain should so
+much develop in the next ten million years that he will excel us as
+far as we excel our official ancestor, the ape, then the world will be
+intelligible. No, no, no! By their very essence the operations which we
+perform upon reality to understand it are useful and necessary only so
+long as they do not pass a certain limit. It is possible to understand
+the arrangement of a locomotive. It is also legitimate to seek an
+explanation of an eclipse of the sun, or of an earthquake. But a moment
+comes&mdash;only we cannot define it exactly&mdash;when explanations lose all
+meaning and are good for nothing any more. It is as though we were led
+by a rope&mdash;the law of sufficient reason&mdash;to a certain place and left
+there: 'Now go wherever you like.' And since we have grown so used to
+the rope in our lives, we begin to believe that it is part of the very
+essence of the world. One of the most remarkable thinkers, Spinoza,
+thought that God himself was bound by necessity.</p>
+
+<p>Let any one probe himself carefully, and he will find that he is not
+merely unable to think but almost unable to live without the hypothesis
+of Spinoza. The work of Hume, who so brilliantly disputed the axiom
+of causal necessity, was only half done. He clearly showed that it
+is impossible to prove the existence of necessary connection. But it
+is also impossible to prove the contrary. In the result, everything
+remained as before: Kant, and all mankind after him, has returned to
+Spinoza's position. Freedom has been driven into an intellectual world,
+an unknown land,</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 10.5em;">'from whose bourne</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">No traveller returns,'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>and everything is in its former place. Philosophy wants to be a science
+at all costs. It is absolutely impossible for her to succeed in this;
+but the price she has paid for the right to be called a science, is
+not returned to her. She has waived the right of seeking that which
+she needed wherever she would, and she is deprived of the right for
+ever. But did she really need it? If you glance at contemporary German
+philosophy you will say without hesitation that it was not needed at
+all. Neither by mistake, nor even in pursuit of a new title, did she
+renounce her great vocation: it has become an intolerable burden to
+her. However hard it may be to confess, it is nevertheless indubitable
+that the great secrets of the universe cannot be manifested with the
+clarity and distinctness with which the visible and tangible world is
+opened to us. Not only others&mdash;you will not even convince yourself of
+your truth with the obviousness with which you can convince all men
+without exception of scientific truths.</p>
+
+<p>Revelations, if they do occur, are always revelations for an instant.
+Mahomet&mdash;Dostoevsky explains&mdash;could only stay in paradise a very short
+time, from half a second to five seconds, even if he succeeded in
+falling into it. And Dostoevsky himself entered paradise only for an
+instant. And here on earth, both of them lived for years, for tens of
+years, and there seemed to be no end to the hell of earthly existence.
+The hell was obvious, demonstrable; it could be fixed, exhibited,
+<i>ad oculos.</i> But how could paradise be proven? How could one fix,
+how express, those half-seconds of paradisic beatitude, which were
+from the outside manifested in ugly and horrible epileptic fits with
+convulsions, paroxysms, a foaming mouth, and sometimes an ill-omened
+sudden fall, with the spilling of blood? Again, believe, if you will:
+if you won't, don't. Surely a man who lives now in paradise, now in
+hell sees life utterly differently from others. And he wants to think
+that he is right, that his experience is of great value, that life is
+not at all as it is described by men of different experience and more
+limited emotions. How desperately did Dostoevsky desire to persuade all
+men of his rightness, how stubbornly he used to demonstrate, and how
+angry he was made by the consciousness that lived in the depths of his
+soul that he was impotent to prove anything. But a fact remains a fact.
+Perhaps epileptics and madmen know things of which normal men have
+not even the remotest presentiment, but it is not vouchsafed to them
+to communicate their knowledge to others, or to prove it. And there
+is a universal knowledge which is the very object of philosophical
+seeking, with which one may commune, but which by its very essence
+cannot be communicated to all, that is, cannot be turned into verified
+and demonstrable universal truths. To renounce this knowledge in order
+that philosophy should have the right to be called a science! At times
+men acted thus. There were sober epochs when the pursuit of positive
+knowledge absorbed every one capable of intellectual labour. Or perhaps
+there were epochs in which men who sought something other than positive
+science were condemned to universal contempt, and passed unregarded: in
+such an epoch Plato would have found no sympathy, but would have died
+in obscurity. One thing at least is clear. He whose chief interest
+and motive in life is in undemonstrable truths is doomed to complete
+or relative sterility in the sense in which the word is generally
+understood. If he is clever and gifted, men may perhaps be interested
+in his mind and talent, but they will pass his work with indifference,
+contempt, and even horror; and they will begin to warn the world
+against him.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Look at him, my children,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">He is stern and pale and lean.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He is poor and naked,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And all men count him mean.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Has not the work of the prophets who sought for ultimate truths been
+barren and useless? Did life hold them in any account? Life went its
+own way, and the voices of the prophets have been, are, and ever
+will be, voices in the wilderness. For that which they see and know,
+cannot be proved and is not capable of proof. Prophets have always
+been isolated, dissevered, separate, helpless men, locked up in their
+pride. Prophets are kings without an army. For all their love to their
+subjects, they can do nothing for them, for subjects respect only those
+kings who possess a formidable military power. And&mdash;long may it be so!</p>
+
+
+
+<h4><i>The Limits of Reality</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>After all, not even the most consistent and convinced realist
+represents life to himself as it really is. He overlooks a great deal;
+and on the other hand he often sees something which has no existence in
+reality. I do not think there is any need to show this by example. For
+all our desire to be objective we are, after all, extremely subjective,
+and those things which Kant calls synthetic judgments <i>a priori,</i> by
+which our mind forms nature and dictates laws to her, do play a great
+and serious part in our lives. We create something like the veil of
+Maia: we are awake in sleep, and sleep in wakefulness, exactly as
+though some magic power had charmed us. And just as in sleep we feel
+for instants that what is happening to us is like a half-dream, an
+intermediate half-life. Schopenhauer and the Buddhists were right in
+asserting that it is equally wrong to say of the veil of Maia, the
+world accessible to us, either that it exists or does not exist. It is
+true that logic does not admit such judgments and persecutes them most
+implacably, for they violate its most fundamental laws. But it cannot
+be helped: when one has to choose between philosophy which is alluring
+and promising, and empty logic, one will always sacrifice the latter
+for the former. And philosophy without contradictory judgments would
+be either doomed to eternal silence, or would be churned into a mud of
+commonplace and reduced to nothing. Philosophers know that. The same
+is true of our own case: we must confess that we are at the same time
+awake and dreaming dreams, and at times we must own that though we
+are alive, yet we have long since been dead. As living beings we still
+hold to the accepted synthetic judgments <i>a priori,</i> and as dead, we
+try to do without them, or to replace them by other judgments which
+have nothing in common with the former but are even opposite to them.
+Philosophy is occupied in this work with extreme diligence, and <i>in
+this and this alone</i> is the meaning of the idealistic movement which
+has never, since the time of Plato, disappeared from history. The
+problem is not for us to find another, primordial, better, and eternal
+world to replace the visible world accessible to all, as idealistic
+philosophy is usually interpreted by her official and, unfortunately,
+her most influential representatives. Interpretation of that kind
+too obviously bears the mark of its empiric utilitarian origin: they
+bring us as near to super-empiric reality as do the notions wherewith
+we define what is valuable in life. We might as well consider the
+super-empiric world as one of gold, diamond, or pearls simply because
+gold, diamonds, and pearls are very costly. But so it usually happens.
+God himself is usually represented as glimmering with gold and precious
+stones, as omniscient and omnipotent. He is called the King of Kings
+since on earth the lot of a crowned head is considered most enviable.
+The meaning and value of idealistic philosophy thus appears to be that
+she for ever ratifies all that we have found valuable on earth during
+our brief existence. Herein, I believe, is a fatal error. Idealistic
+philosophy, it is true, gave an excuse for falsely interpreting her,
+since she loved to be arrayed in sumptuous apparel. The religion of
+almost all nations has always sought for forms outwardly beautiful
+without stopping even before such an obvious paradox&mdash;not to put it
+more strongly&mdash;as a golden cross studded with diamonds. And for the
+sake of sumptuous words and golden crosses men overlooked great truths,
+and perhaps great possibilities. The philosophy of the schools also
+loved to array herself, so that she should not be behind the masters in
+this respect, and for the sake of dress she often forgot her necessary
+work. Plato taught that our life was only a shadow of another reality.
+If this is true, and he discovered the truth, then surely our first
+task is to begin to live a different life, to turn our back to the wall
+above which the shadows are walking and to turn our face to the source
+of light which created the shadows or to those things of which the
+visible outlines give only a remote resemblance. We must be awakened,
+if only in part; to this end what is usually done to a person sound
+asleep must be done to us. He is pulled, pinched, beaten, tickled,
+and if all these things fail, still stronger and more heroic measures
+must be applied. At all events, it is out of the question to advise
+contemplation, which may well make one still sleepier, or quietude,
+which leads to the same result. Philosophy should live by sarcasm,
+irony, alarm, struggles, despairs, and allow herself contemplation
+and quietude only from time to time, as a relaxation. Then perhaps she
+will succeed in creating, by the side of realistic dreams, dreams of
+a quite different order, and visibly demonstrate that the universally
+accepted dreams are not the only ones. 'What is the use?' I do not
+think this question need be answered. He who asks it, shows by the fact
+that he needs neither an answer nor philosophy, while he who needs them
+will not ask but will patiently await events: a temperature of 120°,
+an epileptic fit, or something of this kind, which facilitates the
+difficult task of seeking....</p>
+
+
+
+<h4><i>The Given and the Possible</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>The law of causation as a principle of inquiry is an excellent thing:
+the existing sciences afford us convincing evidence of that. But as an
+idea in the Platonic sense it is of little value, at times at least.
+The strict harmony and order of the world have fascinated many people:
+such giants of thought as Spinoza and Goethe paused with reverent
+wonder in contemplation of the great and unchangeable order of nature.
+Therefore they exalted necessity even to the rank of a primordial,
+eternal, original principle. And we must confess that Goethe's and
+Spinoza's conception of the world lives so much in each one of us that
+in most cases we can love and respect the world only when our souls
+feel in it a symmetrical harmony. Harmony seems to us at once-the
+highest value and the ultimate truth. It gives to the soul great peace,
+a stable firmness, a trust in the Creator&mdash;the highest boons accessible
+to mortal men, as the philosophers teach. Nevertheless, there are
+other yearnings. Man's heart is suddenly possessed by a longing for
+the fantastic, the unforeseen, for that which cannot be foreseen. The
+beautiful world loves its beauty, peace of soul seems disgraceful,
+stability is felt as an intolerable burden. Just as a youth grown
+to manhood suddenly feels irritated by the bountiful tutelage of
+his parents, from which he has received so much, though he does not
+know what to do with his freedom, so is a man of insight ashamed of
+the happiness which is given to him, which some one has created. The
+law of causation, like the whole harmony of the world, seems to him
+a pleasant gift, facilitating life, but yet a degrading one. He has
+sold his birthright for peace, for undisturbed happiness&mdash;his great
+birthright of free creation. He does not understand how a giant like
+Goethe could have been seduced by the temptation of a pleasant life,
+he suspects the sincerity of Spinoza. There is something rotten in the
+state of Denmark. The apple of the tree of knowledge of good and evil,
+has become to him the sole purpose of life, even though the path to it
+should lie through extreme suffering.</p>
+
+<p>And, strangely, nature herself seems to be preoccupied in urging man to
+that fatal path. There comes a time in our life when some imperative
+and secret voice forbids us to rejoice at the beauty and grandeur of
+the world. The world allures us as before, but it no longer gives pure
+happiness. Remember Tchekhov. How he loved nature! What immeasurable
+yearning is audible in his wonderful descriptions of nature! Just as
+though each time that he glanced at the blue sky, the troubled sea or
+the green woods, a voice of authority whispered to him: 'All this is
+yours no longer. You may look at it, but you have no right to rejoice.
+Prepare yourself for another life, where nothing will be given,
+complete, prepared, where nothing will be created, where there will
+be illimitable creation alone. And everything which is in this world
+shall be given to destruction, to destruction and destruction, even
+this nature which you so passionately love, and which it is so hard and
+painful for you to renounce.' Everything drives us to the mysterious
+realm of the eternally fantastic, eternally chaotic, and&mdash;who
+knows?&mdash;it may be, the eternally beautiful....</p>
+
+
+
+<h4><i>Experiment and Proof</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>When <i>cogito ergo sum</i> came into Descartes' head, he marked the
+day&mdash;November 10, 1619&mdash;as a remarkable day: 'The light of a wonderful
+discovery,' he wrote in his diary, 'flashed into my mind.' Schelling
+relates the same thing of himself: in the year 1801 he 'saw the light.'
+And to Nietzsche when he roamed the mountains and the valleys of
+the Engadine there came a mighty change: he grasped the doctrine of
+eternal recurrence. One might name many philosophers, poets, artists,
+preachers, who like these three suddenly saw the light, and considered
+their vision the beginning of a new life. It is even probable that all
+men who have been destined to display to the world something perfectly
+new and original have without exception experienced that miracle of
+sudden metamorphosis. Nevertheless, though much is spoken of these
+miracles and often, in nearly all biographies of great men, we cannot
+strictly make any use of them. Descartes, Schelling, Nietzsche tell
+the story of their conversion; and with us, Tolstoi and Dostoevsky
+tell of theirs; in the less remote past, there are Mahomet and Paul
+the Apostle; in far antiquity the legend of Moses. But if I had
+chosen tenfold the number, if thousands even had been collected, it
+would still be impossible for the mind to make any deduction from
+them. In other words, all these cases have no value as scientific
+material, whereas one fossil skeleton or a unique case of an unknown
+rare disease is a precious windfall to the scientist. What is still
+more interesting, Descartes was so struck with his <i>cogito ergo sum,</i>
+Nietzsche with his eternal recurrence, Mahomet with his paradise, Paul
+the Apostle with his vision, while we remain more or less indifferent
+to anything they may relate of their experiences. Only the most
+sensitive among us have an ear for stories of that kind, and even they
+are obliged to hide their impressions within them, for what can be done
+with them?</p>
+
+<p>It is even impossible to fix them as indubitable facts, for facts
+also require a verification and must be proved. There are no proofs.
+Philosophic and religious teachings offered by men who have had
+extraordinary inward experiences, not only do not generally confirm,
+but rather refute their own stories of revelation. For philosophic and
+religious teaching have always hitherto assigned themselves the task
+of attracting all and sundry to themselves, and in order to attain
+this end they had to have recourse to such methods as have effect with
+the ordinary man, who knows of nothing extraordinary&mdash;to proof, to the
+authority of visible and tangible phenomena, which can be measured,
+weighed and counted. In their pursuit of proofs, of persuasiveness
+and popularity, they had to sacrifice the important and essential,
+and expose for show that which is agreeable to reason&mdash;things already
+more or less known, and therefore of little interest and importance.
+In course of time, as experimental science, so-called, gained more
+and more power, the habit of hiding in oneself all that cannot be
+demonstrated <i>ad oculos,</i> has become more and more firmly rooted,
+until it is almost man's second nature. Nowadays we 'naturally'
+share but a small part of an experience with our friends, so that
+if Mahomet and Paul lived in our time, it would not enter their
+heads to tell their extraordinary stories. And for all his bravery,
+Nietzsche nevertheless passes quickly over eternal recurrence, and
+is much more occupied with preaching the morality of the Superman,
+which, though it at first astounded people, was after all accepted
+with more or less modification, because it was demonstrable. Evidently
+we are confronted with a great dilemma. If we continue to cultivate
+modern methodology, we run the risk of becoming so accustomed to it
+that we will lose not only the faculty of sharing all undemonstrable
+and exceptional experiences with others, but even of retaining them
+firmly in the memory. They will begin to be forgotten as dreams, they
+will even seem to be waking dreams. Thus we will cut ourselves off
+for ever from a vast realm of reality, whose meaning and value have
+by no means been divined or appreciated. In olden times men could add
+dreams and madmen's visions to reality; but we shall curtail the real
+indubitable reality, transferring it to the realm of hallucinations and
+dreams. I suppose even a modern man will feel some hesitation in coming
+over to the side of this methodology, even though he is incapable of
+thinking, with the ancients, that dreams are by no means worthless
+things. And if this is so, then the rights of experiences must not be
+defined by the degree of their demonstrability. However capricious
+our experiences may be, however little they agree with the rooted and
+predominant conceptions of the necessary character of events in the
+inward and outward life&mdash;once they have taken place in the soul of man,
+they acquire, <i>ipso facto,</i> the lawful right of figuring side by side
+with facts which are most demonstrable and susceptible of control and
+verification, and even with a deliberate experiment.</p>
+
+<p>It may be said that we would not then be protected against deliberate
+frauds. People who have never been in paradise will give themselves out
+for Mahomets. That is true; they will talk and they will he. There will
+be no method of objective verification. But they will surely tell the
+truth also. For the sake of that truth we may make up our minds to swim
+through a whole ocean of lies. Yes, it is not in the least impossible
+to distinguish truth from lie in this realm, though, certainly, not by
+the signs which have been evolved by logic; and not even by signs, but
+by no signs at all. The signs of the beautiful have not yet been even
+approximately, defined, and, please God&mdash;be it said without offence to
+the Germans&mdash;they never will be defined, but yet we distinguish between
+Apollo and Venus. So it is with truth: she too may be recognised. But
+what if a man cannot distinguish without signs, and, moreover, does
+not want to?... What is to be done with him? Really, I do not know;
+besides, I do not imagine that all men down to the last should act
+in unison. When did all men act in agreement? Men have mostly acted
+separately, meeting in certain places, and parting in others. Long may
+it be so! Some will recognise and seek after truth by signs, others
+without signs, as they please, and yet others, in both ways.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4><i>The Seventh Day of Creation</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Socrates said that he often used to hear from poets thoughts remarkable
+for their profundity and seriousness, but when he began to inquire of
+them more particularly, he became convinced that they themselves did
+not understand what they were saying. What did he really mean? Did
+Socrates wish to compare the poets to parrots or trained blackbirds
+who can learn by heart, with the assistance of a man to teach them,
+any ideas whatever, perfectly foreign to them. That can hardly be.
+Socrates hardly thought that what the poets say had been overheard by
+them from some one, and mechanically fixed in their mind, though it
+remained quite foreign to their soul. Most probably he used the word
+'understand' in the sense that they could not demonstrate or explain
+the soundness and stability of their ideas,&mdash;they could not deduce
+them and relate them to a definite conception of the world. As every
+one knows, Socrates thought that not merely poets, but all men, from
+eminent statesmen down to ignorant artisans, had ideas, even a great
+many ideas, but they never could explain where they had got them, or
+make them agree among themselves.</p>
+
+<p>In this respect poets were the same as the rest of people. From some
+mysterious source they had acquired truths, often great and profound,
+but they were unable to explain them. This seemed to Socrates a great
+misery, a real misfortune. I do not know how it happened&mdash;not a single
+historian of philosophy has explained it, and indeed very little
+interest has been taken in it&mdash;but Socrates for some reason decided
+that an unproven and unexplained truth had less value than a proven and
+explained one. In our times, when a whole theory, even a conception
+of the world, has been made of Socrates's idea, this notion seems
+so natural and self-evident that no one doubts it. But in antiquity
+the case was different. Strictly, Socrates thought that the poets
+had acquired their truths, which they were unable to prove, from a
+very respectable source, which deserved all possible confidence: he
+himself compared the poets with oracles, and consequently admitted
+that they had communion with the gods. There was, therefore, a most
+excellent guarantee that the poets were possessed of real, undiluted
+truth&mdash;the pledge of its purity being the divine authority. Socrates
+said that he himself had frequently been guided in his actions, not by
+considerations of reason, but by the voice of his mysterious 'demon.'
+That is, at times, he abstained from certain actions&mdash;his demon gave
+him never positive, but only negative advice&mdash;without being able to
+produce reasons, simply because the secret voice, more authoritative
+than any human mind, demanded abstinence from them.</p>
+
+<p>Is it not strange that under such circumstances, at an epoch when the
+gods vouchsafed truths to men, there should have suddenly appeared in
+a man the unexplained desire to acquire truths without the help of the
+gods, and in independence of them, by the dialectic method so beloved
+of the Greeks? It is doubtful which is more important for us, to
+acquire the truth or to acquire for one's self with one's own effort,
+it may be a false, but one's <i>own</i> judgment. The example of Socrates,
+who has been a pattern for all subsequent generations of thinking
+men, leaves not the slightest doubt. Men do not need a truth ready
+made; they turn away from the gods to devote themselves to independent
+creations. Practically the same story is told in the Bible. What indeed
+was lacking to Adam? He lived in paradise, in direct proximity to God,
+from whom he could learn anything he wanted. And yet it did not suit
+him. It was enough that the Serpent should make his perfidious proposal
+for the man to forget the wrath of God, and all the dangers which
+threatened him, and to pluck the apple from the forbidden tree. Then
+the truth, which until the creation of the world and man had been one,
+split and broke with a great, perhaps an infinitely great, number of
+most diverse truths, eternally being born, and eternally dying. This
+was the seventh day of creation, unrecorded in history. Man became
+God's collaborator. He himself became a creator. Socrates renounced the
+divine truth and even spoke contemptuously of it, merely because it
+was not proven, that is, because it does not bear the marks of man's
+handiwork. Socrates really did not prove anything, but he was proving,
+creating, and in this he saw the meaning of his own life and of all
+human lives. Thus, surely, the pronouncement of the Delphic oracle
+seems true even now: Socrates was the wisest of men. And he who would
+be wise must, imitating Socrates, not be like him in anything. Thus did
+all great men, and all great philosophers.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4><i>What does the History of Philosophy teach us?</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Neo-Kantianism is the prevalent school of modern philosophy. The
+literature about Kant has grown to unheard-of proportions. But if
+you attempt to analyse the colossal mass that has been written upon
+Kant, and put the question to yourself, what has really been left to
+us of Kant's teaching, then to your great amazement you will have to
+reply: Nothing at all. There is an extraordinary, incredibly famous
+name&mdash;Kant, and there is positively not a single Kantian thesis which
+in an uninterpreted form would have survived till our day. I say in
+an uninterpreted form, for interpretations resolve at bottom into
+arbitrary recastings, which often have not even an outward resemblance
+to the original. These interpretations began while Kant was still
+alive. Fichte gave the first example. It is well known that Kant
+reacted, demanding that his teaching should be understood not in the
+spirit but in the letter. And Kant was, naturally, quite right. Of
+two things one: either you take his teaching as it is, or you invent
+your own. But the fate of all thinkers who have been destined to
+give their names to an epoch is similar: they have been interpreted,
+recast, till they are unrecognisable. For after a short time had
+elapsed, it became clear that their ideas were so overburdened with
+contradictions, that in the form in which they emerged from the hands
+of their creators, they are absolutely unacceptable. Indeed, all the
+critics who had not made up their minds beforehand to be orthodox
+Kantians, came to the conclusion that Kant had not proved a single
+one of his fundamental propositions. Something stronger may be said.
+By virtue of the fact that Kant, owing to the central position which
+he occupied, attracted much attention to himself and was forced to
+submit to very careful criticism, there gradually emerged a truth which
+might have been known beforehand: that Kant's teaching is a mass of
+contradictions. The sum-total of more than a century's study of Kant
+may be resumed in a few words. Although he was not afraid of the most
+crying contradictions, he did not have the smallest degree of success
+in proving the correctness of his teaching. With an extraordinary
+power and depth of mind, with all the originality, boldness, and
+talent of his constructions, he really provided nothing that might be
+indisputably called a positive acquisition of philosophy. I repeat that
+I am not expressing my own opinion. I am only reckoning the sum-total
+of the opinions of the German critics of Kant, of those same critics
+who built him a monument <i>aere perennius.</i></p>
+
+<p>The same may be said of all the great representatives of philosophic
+thought beginning with Plato and Aristotle, and ending with Hegel,
+Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Their works astonish by their power, depth,
+boldness, beauty and originality of thought. While you read them it
+seems that truth herself speaks with their lips. And what strong
+measures of precaution did they take to prevent themselves from being
+mistaken! They believed in nothing that men had grown accustomed to
+believe. They methodically doubted everything, reexamined everything,
+tens, hundreds of times. They gave their life to the truth not in
+words, but in deed. And still the sum-total is the same in their case
+as in Kant's: not one of them succeeded in inventing a system free from
+internal contradictions.</p>
+
+<p>Aristotle was already criticising Plato, and the sceptics criticised
+both of them, and so on until in our day each new thinker struggles
+with his predecessors, refutes their contradictions and errors,
+although he knows that he is doomed to the same fate. The historians
+of philosophy are at infinite pains to conceal the most glaring and
+noticeable trait of philosophic creation, which is, at bottom, no
+secret to any one. The uninitiated, and people generally who do not
+like thinking, and therefore wish to be contemptuous of philosophy,
+point to the lack of unity among philosophers as evidence that it is
+not worth while to study philosophy. But they are both wrong. The
+history of philosophy not only does not inspire us with the thought
+of the continual evolution of an idea, but palpably convinces us of
+the contrary, that among philosophers there is not, has not been, and
+will never be, any aspiration towards unity. Neither will they find
+in future a truth free from contradiction, for they do not seek the
+truth in the sense in which the word is understood by the people and
+by science; and, after all, contradictions do not frighten them, but
+rather attract. Schopenhauer begins his criticism of Kant's philosophy
+with the words of Voltaire: 'It is the privilege of genius to make
+great mistakes with impunity.' I believe that the secret of the
+philosophic genius lies here. He makes great, the greatest, mistakes,
+and with impunity. Moreover his mistakes are put to his credit, for
+the important matter is not his truths, or his judgments, but himself.
+When you hear from Plato that the life we see is only a shadow, when
+Spinoza, intoxicated by God, exalts the idea of necessity, when Kant
+declares that reason dictates laws to Nature,&mdash;listening to them you
+do not examine whether their assertions are true or not, you agree with
+each of them, whatever he says, and only this question arises in your
+soul: 'Who is he that speaketh as one having authority?'</p>
+
+<p>Later on, you will reject all their truths, with horror, perhaps with
+indignation and disgust, even with utter indifference. You will not
+consent to accept that our life is only a shadow of actual reality,
+you will revolt against Spinoza's God, who cannot love, yet demands
+love for himself, Kant's categorical imperative will seem to you a cold
+monster,&mdash;but you will never forget Plato, or Spinoza, or Kant, and
+will for ever keep your gratitude to them, who made you believe that
+authority is given to mortals. Then you will understand that there are
+no errors and no truths in philosophy; that errors and truths are only
+for him above whom is set a superior authority, a law, a standard. But
+philosophers themselves create laws and standards. This is what we are
+taught by the history of philosophy; this is what is most difficult for
+man to master and understand. I have already said that the historians
+of philosophy draw quite a different moral from the study of the great
+human creations.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4><i>Science and Metaphysics</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>In his autobiography Spencer confesses that he had really never
+read Kant. He had had <i>The Critique of Pure Reason</i> in his hands,
+and had even read the beginning, the Transcendental Aesthetic, but
+the beginning convinced him it was no use for him to read further.
+Once a man had made the unconvincing admission which Kant had made,
+by accepting the subjectivity of one form of perception, of space
+and time, he could not be seriously taken into account. If he is
+consistent, all his philosophy will be a system of absurdity and
+nonsense; if he is inconsistent,&mdash;the less attention does he deserve.</p>
+
+<p>Spencer confidently asserts that, once he could not accept Kant's
+fundamental proposition, he not only could not be a Kantian any more,
+but he found it useless even to become further acquainted with Kant's
+philosophy. That he did not become a Kantian is nothing to grieve over&mdash;there are Kantians enough without him&mdash;but that he did not acquaint
+himself with Kant's principal works, and above all with the whole
+school that rose out of Kant, may be sincerely regretted. Perhaps, as
+a new man, remote from Continental traditions, he would have made a
+curious discovery, and would have convinced himself that it was not at
+all necessary to accept the proposition of the subjectivity of space
+and time in order to become a Kantian. And perhaps with the frankness
+and simplicity peculiar to him, which is not afraid to be taken for
+naïveté, he would have told us that not a single Kantian (Schopenhauer
+excepted), not even Kant himself, has ever seriously accepted the
+fundamental propositions of the Transcendental Aesthetic, and therefore
+has never made from them any conclusions or deductions whatever. On
+the contrary, the Transcendental Aesthetic was itself a deduction from
+another proposition, that we have synthetic judgments <i>a priori.</i> The
+original rôle of this, the most original of all theories ever invented,
+was to be a support and an explanation of the mathematical sciences.
+It had never had an independent, material content, susceptible of
+analysis and investigation. Space and time are the eternal forms of our
+perception of the world: to this, according to the strict meaning of
+Kant's teaching, nothing can be added, and nothing abated. Spencer, not
+having read the book to the end, imagined that Kant would begin to make
+deductions and became nervous. But if he had read the book to the end,
+he would have been convinced that Kant had not made any deductions, and
+that the whole meaning of <i>The Critique of Pure Reason</i> indeed is that
+from the propositions of the Transcendental Aesthetic no deductions can
+be made. It is now about a hundred and fifty years since <i>The Critique
+of Pure Reason</i> appeared. No philosophic work has been so much studied
+and criticised. And yet where are the Kantians who attempt to make
+deductions from the proposition as to the subjectivity of space and
+time? Schopenhauer is the only exception. He indeed took the Kantian
+idea seriously, but it may be said without exaggeration that of all
+Kantians the least like Kant was Schopenhauer.</p>
+
+<p>The world is a veil of Maia. Would Kant really have agreed to such
+an interpretation of his Transcendental Aesthetic? Or what would
+Kant have said, if he had heard that Schopenhauer, referring to the
+same Aesthetic in which he saw the greatest philosophic revelation,
+had admitted the possibility of clairvoyance and magic? Probably
+Spencer thought that Kant would himself make all these deductions, and
+therefore threw away the book which bound him to conclusions so absurd.
+It is a pity that Spencer was in such a hurry. Had he acquainted
+himself with Kant, he would have been convinced that the most absurd
+idea might serve a very useful purpose; and that there is not the least
+necessity to make from an idea all the deductions to which it may lead.
+A man is a free agent and he can deduce if he has a mind to; if he has
+not, he will not; and there is no necessity to judge the character
+of a philosophic theory by its general postulates. Even Schopenhauer
+did not exploit Kant's theory to the full, which, if it had really
+divined the truths hitherto hidden from men, would have not only put
+an end to metaphysical researches, but also have given an impulse and
+a justification to perfectly new experiments which from the previous
+standpoint were quite mad and unimaginable. For if space and time are
+forms of our human perception, then they do indeed hide the ultimate
+truth from us. While men knew nothing of this, and, simple minded,
+accepted the visible reality for the actual real, they could not of
+course dream of true knowledge. But from the moment when the truth was
+revealed to them through Kant's penetration, it is clear that their
+true task was to use every possible means to free themselves from
+the harness and to break away from it, while consolidating all those
+judgments which Kant calls synthetic judgments <i>a priori</i> for all
+eternity.</p>
+
+<p>And the new, the critical metaphysics, which should take account of
+the stupid situation in which these had hitherto found themselves who
+saw in apodeictic judgments eternal truths, had a great task to set
+herself: to get rid at all costs of apodeictic judgments, knowing them
+for false. In other words, Kant's task should not have been to minimise
+the destructive effect of Hume's scepticism, but to find a still more
+deadly explosive to destroy even those limits which Hume was obliged
+to preserve. It is surely evident that truth lies beyond synthetic
+judgments <i>a priori,</i> and that it cannot at all resemble an <i>a priori</i>
+judgment, and in fact cannot be like a judgment of any kind.</p>
+
+<p>And it must be sought by methods quite different from those by which
+it has been sought hitherto. To some extent Kant attempted to describe
+how he represented to himself the meaning hidden beneath the words:
+'Space and time are subjective forms of perception.' He even gave an
+object-lesson, saying that perhaps there are beings who perceive the
+world otherwise than under the forms of space and time: which means
+that for such beings there is no change. All that we perceive by a
+succession of changes, they perceive at once. To them Julius Caesar
+is still alive, though he is dead; to them the twenty-fifth century
+A.D., which none of us will live to see, and the twenty-fifth century
+B.C., which we reconstruct with such difficulty from the fragmentary
+traces of the past which have accidentally been preserved to us, the
+remote North Pole, and even the stars which we cannot see through the
+telescope&mdash;all are as accessible to them as to us the events which
+are taking place before our eyes. Nevertheless Kant, in spite of all
+temptation to acquire the knowledge to which such beings have access,
+notwithstanding his profound conviction of the truth of his discovery,
+did nothing to dispel the charm of forms of perception and categories
+of the reason, or to tear the blinkers from his eyes and see all the
+depth of the mysterious reality hitherto hidden from us. He does not
+even give a little circumstantial explanation why he considered such a
+task impracticable, and he confines himself to the dogmatic assertion
+that man cannot conceive a reality beyond space and time. Why? It is
+a question of immense importance. Compared with it all the problems
+of <i>The Critique of Pure Reason</i> are secondary. How is mathematics
+possible, how are natural sciences possible?&mdash;these are not even
+questions at all compared to the question whether it is possible to
+free ourselves from conventional human knowledge in order to attain the
+ultimate, all-embracing truth.</p>
+
+<p>Herein the Kantians display an even greater indifference than Kant
+himself: they are even proud of their indifference, they plume
+themselves upon it as a high virtue. They assert that truth is not
+<i>beyond</i> synthetic judgments <i>a priori,</i> but indeed <i>in</i> them; and
+that it is not the Creator who put blinkers upon us, but we ourselves
+devised them, and that any attempt to remove them and look open-eyed
+upon the world is evidence of perversity. If the old Serpent appeared
+nowadays to seduce the modern Adam, he would retire discomfited.
+Even Eve herself would be no use to him. The twentieth-century Eve
+studies in a university and has quite sufficiently blunted her natural
+curiosity. She can talk excellently well of the teleological point of
+view and is quite as proof as man against temptation. I do not share
+Kant's confidence that space and time are forms of our perception,
+nor do I see a revelation in it. But if I had once accepted this
+apocalyptic assertion, and could think that there was some truth in it,
+I would not depart from it to positive science.</p>
+
+<p>It is a pity that Spencer did not read <i>The Critique of Pure Reason</i> to
+the end. He would have convinced himself of an important truth: that a
+philosopher has no need to take into consideration all the deductions
+from his premisses. He need only have goodwill, and he can draw from
+the most paradoxical and suspicious premisses conclusions which are
+fully conformable to common-sense and the rules of decency. And since
+Kant's will was as good as Spencer's, they would have agreed perfectly
+in their deductions, though they were so far apart from each other in
+their premisses.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4><i>A Tacit Assumption</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>Schopenhauer was the first philosopher to ask the value of life. And he
+gave a definite answer: in life there is much more suffering than joy,
+therefore life must be renounced. I must add that strictly speaking
+he asked not only the value of life, but also the value of joy and
+suffering. And to this question he gave an equally definite answer.
+According to his teaching joy is always negative, suffering always
+positive. Therefore by its essence joy cannot compensate for suffering.</p>
+
+<p>In all this philosophical construction, both in formulating and
+answering the questions, there is one tacit, particularly curious,
+and interesting and unexpressed postulate. Schopenhauer starts from
+the assumption that his valuation of life, joy and suffering, in
+order to have the right to be called truth, must contain something
+universal, by virtue of which it will in the last resort coincide with
+the valuation of all other people. Whence did he derive this idea?
+Psychologically the train of Schopenhauer's thought is intelligible
+and easily explained. He was used to the scientific formulation and
+solution of problems, and he transferred to the question which engaged
+him methods of investigation which by general consent usually conduct
+us to the truth. He did not verify his premiss <i>ad hoc,</i> and usually
+it is impossible to verify a premiss every time that a need arises
+for it. It is not even becoming to exhibit it, to speak of it. It is
+understood. If the fundamental sign of any truth is its being universal
+and obligatory, then in the given case the true answer to the question
+of the value of life can only be something which will be absolutely
+admissible by all men to all creatures with a mind. So Schopenhauer
+would probably have answered, if any one had questioned his right to
+formulate in such a general way the question of the value of life.</p>
+
+<p>Still Schopenhauer would hardly be right. This, by the way, is being
+made clear by the objections which are put forward by his opponents.
+He is accused because his very statement of the question presupposes a
+subjective point of view&mdash;eudaemonism.</p>
+
+<p>The question of the value of life, people object, is not at all
+decided by whether in the sum life gives more joy than pain or <i>vice
+versa.</i> Life may be deeply painful and devoid of joy, life may in
+itself be one compact horror, and still be valuable. Schopenhauer's
+philosophy was not discussed in his lifetime, so that he could not
+answer his opponents. But, if he were still alive, would he accept
+these objections and renounce his pessimism? I am convinced that he
+would not. At the same time I am convinced that his opponents would
+be no less firm and would go on repeating: 'The question is not one
+of happiness or suffering. We value life by a quite different and
+independent standard.' And in the discussion it would perhaps become
+clear to the disputants that the premiss mentioned above, which both
+accepted as requiring no proof and understood without explanation, does
+indeed require proofs and explanations, but is provided with neither.
+To one man the eudaemonistic point of view is ultimate and decisive,
+to another contemptible and degrading, and he seeks the meaning of
+life in a higher, ethical or aesthetic purpose. There are also people
+who love sorrow and pain, and see in them the justification and the
+source of the depth and importance of life. Nor do I mention the fact
+that when the sum-totals of life are reckoned different accountants
+reach different and directly contradictory results, or that insoluble
+questions arise concerning these, or other details. Schopenhauer for
+instance finds, as we have seen, that sufferings are positive, joys
+negative. And hence he concludes that it is not worth while to submit
+to the least unpleasantness for the sake of the greatest joy. What
+answer can be made? How can he be convinced of the contrary?</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless the fact is obvious: many people regard the matter in
+quite a different light. For the sake of a single happiness they
+are ready to endure a great many serious hardships. In a word,
+Schopenhauer's premiss is quite unjustified, and not only cannot
+be accepted as an indubitable truth, but must be qualified as an
+indubitable error. It is impossible to be certain beforehand that to
+the question of the value of life a single, universally valid answer
+can be given. So here we meet with an extraordinarily curious case
+from the point of view of the theory of knowledge. It appears that
+by the very essence of the matter no uniform answer can be given
+to one of the most important questions, perhaps the most important
+question of philosophy. If you are asked what is life, good or evil,
+you are obliged to say that life is both good and evil; or something
+independent of good and evil; or a mixture of good and evil in which
+there is more good than evil, or more evil than good.</p>
+
+<p>And, I repeat, each of these answers, although they logically quite
+exclude each other, has the right to claim the title of <i>truth</i>; for
+if it has not power enough to make the other answers bow down before
+it, at all events it has the necessary strength to repel its opponents'
+attacks and to defend its sovereign rights. Instead of a sole and
+omnipotent truth before which the weak and helpless errors tremble,
+you have before you a whole line of perfectly independent truths
+excellently armed and defended. Instead of absolutism, you have a
+feudal system. And the vassals are so firmly ensconced in their castles
+that an experienced eye can see at once that they are impregnable.</p>
+
+<p>I took for my instance Schopenhauer's doctrine of the value of life.
+But many philosophic doctrines, although they issue from the premiss
+of one sovereign truth, display examples of the plurality of truths.
+It is usually believed that one should study the history of philosophy
+in order to be palpably convinced that mankind has gradually mastered
+its delusions and is now on the high road to ultimate truth. My opinion
+is that the history of philosophy must bring every impartial person,
+who is not infected by modern prejudices, to a directly opposite
+conclusion. There can be no doubt that a whole series of questions
+exists, like that of the value of life, which by their very essence
+do not admit of a uniform solution. To this testimony is often borne
+by men whose very last concern is to curtail the royal prerogative of
+sovereign truth: Natorp confidently asserts that Aristotle not only did
+not understand but could not understand Plato. 'Der tiefere Grund ist
+die ewige Unfähigkeit des Dogmatismus sich in der Gesichtspunkt der
+kritischen Philosophie überhaupt zu versetzen.' 'Eternal incapability'
+&mdash;what words! And used not of any common-place person, but of the
+greatest human genius known to us, of Aristotle. Had Natorp been a
+little more inquisitive, 'eternal incapability' of that kind should
+have worried him at least as much as Plato's philosophy, on which he
+wrote a large book. For here is evidently a great riddle. Different
+people, according to the different constitution of their souls,
+are while yet in their mother's womb destined to have different
+philosophies. It reminds me of the famous Calvinistic view of
+predetermination. Just as from before birth God has destined some to
+damnation, others to salvation; so to some it is given and from others
+withheld, to know the truth.</p>
+
+<p>And not Natorp alone argues thus. It would be true to say all modern
+philosophers, who are always contending with each other and suspecting
+each other of 'eternal incapability.' Philosophers have not the same
+means of compelling conviction as the representatives of other positive
+sciences: they cannot force every one to undeniable conclusions. Their
+<i>ultima ratio,</i> their personal opinion, their private conviction,
+their last refuge, is the 'eternal incapability' of their opponents to
+understand them. Here the tragic dilemma is clear to all. Of two things
+one: either renounce philosophy entirely, or allow that that which
+Natorp calls the 'eternal incapability' is not a vice or a weakness,
+but a great virtue and power hitherto unappreciated and misunderstood.
+Aristotle, indeed, was organically incapable of understanding Plato,
+just as Plato could not have understood Aristotle, just as neither of
+them could understand the sceptics or the sophists, just as Leibnitz
+could not understand Spinoza, as Schopenhauer could not understand
+Hegel, and so on till our riotous modern days when no philosopher
+can understand any one except himself. Besides, philosophers do not
+aspire to mutual understanding and unity, but usually it is with the
+utmost reluctance that they observe in themselves similarity to their
+predecessors. When the similarity of Schopenhauer's teaching to that
+of Spinoza was pointed out to him, he said <i>Pereant qui ante nos
+nostra dixerint.</i> But representatives of the other positive sciences
+understand each other, rarely dispute, and never argue by referring to
+the 'eternal incapability' of their confrères. Perhaps in philosophy
+this chaotic state of affairs and this unique argument are part of the
+craft. Perhaps in this realm it is necessary that Aristotle should
+not understand Plato and should not accept him, that the materialists
+should always be at war with the idealists, the sceptics with the
+dogmatists. In other words, the premiss with which Schopenhauer began
+the investigation into the value of life, and which as we have shown he
+took without verification from the representatives of positive science,
+though perfectly applicable in its proper sphere, is quite out of place
+in philosophy. And indeed, though they never speak of it, philosophers
+value their own personal convictions much more highly than universally
+valid truth. The impossibility of discovering one sole philosophic
+truth may alarm any one but the philosophers themselves, who, so soon
+as they have worked out their own convictions, take not the smallest
+trouble to secure general recognition for them. They are only busy with
+getting rid of their vassal dependence and acquiring sovereign rights
+for themselves. The question whether there will be other sovereigns by
+their side hardly concerns them at all.</p>
+
+<p>The history of philosophy should be so expounded that this tendency
+should be clearly manifest. This would spare us from many prejudices,
+and would clear the way for new and important inquiries. Kant, who
+shared the opinion that truth is the same for all, was convinced that
+metaphysics must be a science <i>a priori,</i> and since it cannot be a
+science <i>a priori,</i> must therefore cease to exist. If the history
+of philosophy had been expounded and understood differently in his
+day, it would never have entered his mind thus to impugn the rights
+of metaphysics. And probably he would not have been vexed by the
+contradictoriness or the lack of proof in the teachings of various
+schools of metaphysics. It cannot be otherwise, neither should it
+be. The interest of mankind is not to put an end to the variety of
+philosophic doctrines but to allow the perfectly natural phenomenon
+wide and deep development. Philosophers have always had an instinctive
+longing for this: that is why they are so troublesome to the historian
+of philosophy.</p>
+
+
+
+<h4><i>The First and the Last</i></h4>
+
+
+<p>In the first volume of <i>Human, All too Human,</i> which Nietzsche wrote
+at the very beginning of his disease, when he was still far from
+final victory and chiefly told of his defeats, there is the following
+remarkable, though half-involuntary confession: 'The complete
+irresponsibility of Man for his actions and his being is the bitterest
+drop for the man of knowledge to drink, since he has been accustomed to
+see in responsibility and duty the very patent of his title to manhood.'</p>
+
+<p>Much bitterness has the inquiring spirit to swallow, but the bitterest
+of all is in the knowledge that his moral qualities, his readiness to
+fulfil his duty ungrudgingly, gives him no preference over other men.
+He thought he was a man of noble rank, even a prince of the blood,
+crowned with a crown, and the other men boorish peasantry&mdash;but he is
+just the same, a peasant, the same as all the rest. His patent of
+nobility was that for which he fulfilled his most arduous duty and made
+sacrifices; in it he saw the meaning of life. And when it is suddenly
+revealed that there is no provision made for titles or patents, it
+is a horrible catastrophe, a cataclysm&mdash;and life loses all meaning.
+Evidently the conviction expressed with such moving frankness in these
+words, was with Nietzsche a second nature, which he could not master
+all his life long. What is the Superman but a title, a patent, giving
+the right to be called a noble among the <i>canaille?</i> What is the pathos
+of distance and all Nietzsche's teaching of ranks? The formula, beyond
+good and evil, was by no means so all-destructive as at first sight it
+seemed. On the contrary, by erasing certain laws graven on the tables
+of mankind of old, that formula as it were revealed other commandments,
+obliterated by time, and therefore invisible to many.</p>
+
+<p>All morality, all good in and for itself is rejected, but the patent of
+nobility grows more precious until it becomes, if not the only value,
+at least the chief. Life loses its meaning once titles and ranks are
+destroyed, once he is deprived of the right to hold his head high, to
+throw out his chest, his belly even, and to look with contempt upon
+those about him.</p>
+
+<p>In order to show to what extent the doctrine of rank has become
+attached to the human soul, I would recall the words of the Gospel
+about the first and last. Christ, who seemed to speak in a language
+utterly new, who taught men to despise earthly blessings&mdash;riches, fame,
+honours, who so easily yielded Caesar his due, because he thought
+that only Caesar would find it useful&mdash;Christ himself, when he spoke
+to men, did not think it possible to take away from them their hope
+of distinction. 'The first shall be last.' What will there be first
+and second there, too? Yes, so it stands in the Gospel. Is it because
+there is indeed in the division of men into ranks something original
+and warrantable, or is it because Christ who spoke to humankind could
+not but use human words? It may be that, but for that promise, and
+generally the series of promises of rewards, accessible to the human
+understanding, the Gospel would not have fulfilled its great historic
+mission, it would have passed unnoticed on the earth, and no one
+would have detected or recognised in it the Evangel. Christ knew that
+men could renounce all things, save the right to superiority alone,
+to superiority over one's neighbours, to that which Nietzsche calls
+'the patent of nobility.' Without that superiority men of a certain
+kind cannot live. They become what the Germans so appropriately call
+<i>Vogelfrei,</i> deprived of the protection of the laws, since the laws
+are the only source of <i>their</i> right. Rude, nonsensical, disgusting
+reality&mdash;against which, I repeat, their <i>only</i> defence is the patent
+of nobility, the unwritten charter&mdash;approaches them closer and closer,
+with more and more menace and importunacy, and claims its right. 'If
+you are the same as all other men,' it says, 'take your experience
+of life from me, fulfil your trivial obligations, worse than that,
+accept from me the fines and reprimands to which the rank and file
+are subject, even to corporal punishment.' How could he accept these
+degrading conditions who had been used to think he had the right to
+carry his head high, to be proud and independent? Nietzsche tries
+with dull submissiveness to swallow the horrible bitterness of
+his confession, but courage and endurance, even <i>his</i> courage and
+endurance, are not enough for this his greatest and most terrible task.
+He cannot bear the horror of a life deprived of rights and defences: he
+seeks again for power and authority which would protect him and give
+him his lost rights again. He will not rest until he receives under
+another name a <i>restitutio in integrum</i> of all the rights which had
+previously been his.</p>
+
+<p>And surely not Nietzsche alone acted thus. The whole history of ethics,
+the whole history of philosophy is to no small degree the incessant
+search for prerogative and privilege, patents and charters. The
+Christians&mdash;Tolstoi and Dostoevsky&mdash;do not in the least differ from
+the enemy of Christianity, Nietzsche. The humble Jew, Spinoza, and the
+meek pagan, Socrates, the idealist Plato, and the idealist Aristotle,
+the founders of the newest, noblest and loftiest systems, Kant, Fichte,
+Hegel, even Schopenhauer, the pessimist, all as one man seek a charter,
+a charter, a charter. Evidently life on earth without a charter
+becomes for the 'best' men a horrible nightmare and an intolerable
+torment. Even the founder of Christianity, who so easily renounced all
+privileges, considered it possible to preserve <i>this</i> privilege for
+his disciples, and perhaps&mdash;who knows?&mdash;for himself too.</p>
+
+<p>Whereas if Nietzsche and those other philosophers had been able
+resolutely to renounce titles, ranks, and honours, which are
+distributed not only by morality, but by all the other Sanhedrim,
+real and imaginary, which are set over man; if they could have drunk
+this cup to the dregs, then they might have known, seen, and heard
+much that was suspected by none of them before. Long since men have
+known that the road to knowledge lies by way of a great renunciation.
+Neither righteousness nor genius gives a man privilege above others.
+He is deprived, for ever deprived, of the protection of earthly laws.
+There are no laws. To-day he is a king, to-morrow a slave; to-day God,
+to-morrow a worm; to-day first, to-morrow last. And the worm crushed
+by him to-day will be God, his god to-morrow. All the measures and
+balances by which men are distinguished one from another are defaced
+for ever, and there is no certainty that the place a man once occupied
+will still be his. And all philosophers have known this; Nietzsche,
+too, knew it, and by experience. He was the friend, the ally, and
+the collaborator of the great Wagner, the herald of a new era upon
+earth; and later, he grovelled in the dust, broken and crushed.
+And a second time this thing happened to him. When he had finished
+<i>Zarathustra,</i> he became insane, more exactly, he became half-idiot.
+It is true he carried the secret of the second fall with him to the
+grave. Yet something has reached us, for all his sister's efforts to
+conceal from carnal eyes the change that had befallen him. And now
+we ask: Is the essence of life really in the rank, the charter, the
+patent of nobility? And can the words of Christ be understood in their
+literal sense? Are not all the Sanhedrim set over man, and as it were
+giving meaning to his life, mere fictions, useful and even necessary
+in certain moments of life, but pernicious and dangerous, to say no
+more, when the circumstances are changed? Does not life, the real and
+desirable life, which men have sought for thousands of years, begin
+there where there is neither first nor last, righteous or sinner,
+genius or incapable? Is not the pursuit of recognition, of superiority,
+of patents and charters, of rank, that which prevents man from seeing
+life with its hidden miracles? And must man really seek protection
+in the College of Heralds, or has he another power that time cannot
+destroy? One may be a good, able, learned, gifted man, even a man of
+genius, but to demand in return any privileges whatsoever, is to betray
+goodness and ability, and talent and genius, and the greatest hopes of
+mankind. The last on earth will nowhere be first....</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Anton Tchekhov, by Lev Shestov
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
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