{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_44118/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_44118","id":"gutenberg_44118","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44118","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Swedish literature"],"text":"ZONES OF THE SPIRIT\n\nA BOOK OF THOUGHTS\n\nBY\n\nAUGUST STRINDBERG\n\nAUTHOR OF \"THE INFERNO,\" \"THE SON OF A SERVANT,\" ETC.\n\n\nWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY\n\nARTHUR BABILLOTTE\n\n\nTRANSLATED BY\n\nCLAUD FIELD, M.A.\n\n\nG.P. PUTNAM'S SONS\n\nNEW YORK AND LONDON\n\nThe Knickerbocker press\n\n1913\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nSeldom has a man gone through such profound religious changes as this\nSwede, who died last May. The demonic element in him, which spurred\nhim on restlessly, made him scale heaven and fathom hell, gave him\nglimpses of bliss and damnation. He bore the Cain's mark on his brow:\n\"A fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou be.\"\n\nHe was fundamentally religious, for everyone who searches after God\nis so,--a commonplace truth certainly, but one which needs to be\nconstantly reiterated. And Strindberg's search was more painful,\nexact, and persevering than that of most people. He was never content\nwith superficial formulas, but pressed to the heart of the matter,\nand followed each winding of the labyrinthine problem with endless\npatience. Too often the Divinity which he thought he had discovered\nturned out a delusion, to be scornfully rejected the moment afterwards.\nUntil he found _the_ God, whom he worshipped to the end of his days,\nand whose existence he resolutely maintained against deniers.\n\nAs a child he had been brought up in devout belief in God, in\nsubmission to the injustice of life, and in faith in a better\nhereafter. He regarded God as a Father, to Whom he made known his\nlittle wants and anxieties. But a youth with hard experiences followed\nhis childhood. The struggle for daily bread began, and his heavenly\nFather seemed to fail him. He appeared to regard unmoved, from some\nOlympian height, the desperate struggles of humanity below. Then the\ndefiant element which slumbered in Strindberg wrathfully awoke, and he\ngradually developed into a free-thinker. It fared with him as it often\ndoes with young and independent characters who think. Beginning with\ndissent from this and that ecclesiastical dogma, his criticism embraced\nan ever-widening range, and became keener and more unsparing. At last\nevery barrier of respect and reverence fell, the defiant spirit of\nyouth broke like a flood over all religious dogmas, swept them away,\nand did not stop short of criticising God Himself.\n\nMeanwhile his daily life, with its hard experiences, went on. Books\nwritten from every conceivable point of view came into his hands.\nGreedy for knowledge as he was, he read them all. Those of the\nfree-thinkers supported his freshly aroused incredulity, which as yet\nneeded support. His study of philosophical and scientific works made a\nclean sweep of what relics of faith remained. Anxiety about his daily\nbread, attacks from all sides, the alienation of his friends, all\ncontributed towards making the free-thinker into an atheist. How can\nthere be a God when the world is so full of ugliness, of deceit, of\ndishonour, of vulgarity? This question was bound to be raised at last.\nAbout this time he wrote the _New Kingdom_, full of sharp criticisms of\nsociety and Christianity.\n\nAs an atheist Strindberg made various attempts to come to terms with\nthe existing state of things. But being a genius out of harmony with\nhis contemporaries, and always longing for some vaster, fairer future,\nthis was impossible for him. When he found that he came to no goal,\na perpetual unrest tortured him. His earlier autobiographic writings\nappeared, marked by a strong misanthropy, and composed with an obscure\nconsciousness of the curse: \"A fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou be.\"\n\nAt last his consciousness becomes clear and defined. He recognises\nthat he is a lost soul in hell already, though outwardly on earth.\nThis was the most extraordinary period in Strindberg's life. He\nlived in the Quartier Latin in Paris, in a barely furnished room,\nwith retorts and chemical apparatus, like a second Faust at the end\nof the nineteenth century. By experiments he discovered the presence\nof carbon in sulphur, and considered that by doing so he \"had solved\na great problem, upset the ruling systems of chemistry, and gained\nfor himself the only immortality allowed to mortals.\" He came to the\nconclusion that the reason why he had gradually become an atheist was\nthat \"the Unknown Powers had left the world so long without a sign of\nthemselves.\" The discovery made him thankful, and he lamented that he\nhad no one to thank. From that time the belief in \"unknown powers\" grew\nstronger and stronger in him. It seems to have been the result of an\nalmost complete, long, and painful solitude.\n\nAt this time his brain worked more feverishly, and his nerves were\nmore sensitive than usual. At last he reached the (for an atheist)\nastounding conclusion: \"When I think over my lot, I recognise that\ninvisible Hand which disciplines and chastens me, without my knowing\nits purpose. Must I be humbled in order to be lifted up, lowered in\norder to be raised? The thought continually recurs to me, 'Providence\nis planning something with thee, and this is the beginning of thy\neducation.'\"[1]\n\nSoon after this he gave up his chemical experiments and took up\nalchemy, with a conviction, almost pathetic in its intensity, that\nhe would succeed in making gold. Although his dramas had already\nbeen performed in Paris, a success which had fallen to the lot of no\nother Swedish dramatist, he forgot all his successes as an author,\nand devoted himself solely to this new pursuit, to meet again with\ndisappointment.\n\nOn March 29, 1897, he began the study of Swedenborg, the Northern\nSeer. A feeling of home-sickness after heaven laid hold of him, and he\nbegan to believe that he was being prepared for a higher existence. \"I\ndespise the earth,\" he writes, \"this unclean world, these men and their\nworks. I seem to myself a righteous man, like Job, whom the Eternal is\nputting to the test, and whom the purgatorial fires of this world will\nsoon make worthy of a speedy deliverance.\"\n\nMore and more he seemed to approach Catholicism. One day he, the former\nsocialist and atheist, bought a rosary. \"It is pretty,\" he said,\n\"and the evil spirits fear the cross.\" At the same time, it must be\nconfessed that this transition to the Christian point of view did not\nsubdue his egotism and independence of character. \"It is my duty,\" he\nsaid, \"to fight for the maintenance of my ego against all influences\nwhich a sect or party, from love of proselytising, might bring to\nbear upon it. The conscience, which the grace of my Divine protector\nhas given me, tells me that.\" And then comes a sentence full of joy\nand sorrow alike, which seems to obliterate his whole past. \"Born\nwith a home-sick longing after heaven, as a child I wept over the\nsqualor of existence and felt myself strange and homeless among men.\nFrom childhood upwards I have looked for God and found the Devil.\" He\nbecomes actually humble, and recognises that God, on account of his\npride, his conceit, his \u1f55\u03b2\u03c1\u03b9\u03c2, had sent him for a time to\nhell. \"Happy is he whom God punishes.\"\n\nThe return to Christ is complete. All his faith, all his hope now rest\nsolely on the Crucified, whom he had once demoniacally hated.\n\nHe now devoted himself entirely to the study of Swedenborg. He felt\nthat in some way the life of this strange man had foreshadowed his\nown. Just as Swedenborg (1688-1772) had passed from the profession\nof a mathematician to that of a theologian, a mystic, and finally a\nghost-seer and theosoph, so Strindberg passed from the worldly calling\nof a romance-writer to that of a preacher of Christian patience and\nreconciliation. He had occasional relapses into his old perverse moods,\nbut the attacks of the rebellious spirit were weaker and weaker. He\ntold a friend who asked his opinion regarding the theosophical concept\nof Karma, that it was impossible for him to belong to a party which\ndenied a personal God, \"Who alone could satisfy his religious needs.\"\nIn a life so full of intellectual activity as his had been, Strindberg\nhad amassed an enormous amount of miscellaneous knowledge. When he was\nnearly sixty he began to collect and arrange all his experiences and\ninvestigations from the point of view he had then attained. Thus was\ncomposed his last important work, _Das Blau Buch_, a book of amazing\ncopiousness and originality. Regarding it, the Norwegian author Nils\nKjaer writes in the periodical _Verdens Gang_: \"More comprehensive than\nany modern collection of aphorisms, chaotic as the Koran, wrathful as\nIsaiah, as full of occult things as the Bible, more entertaining than\nany romance, keener-edged than most pamphlets, mystical as the Cabbala,\nsubtle as the scholastic theology, sincere as Rousseau's confession,\nstamped with the impress of incomparable originality, every sentence\nshining like luminous letters in the darkness--such is this book in\nwhich the remarkable writer makes a final reckoning with his time and\nproclaims his faith, as pugnaciously as though he were a descendant\nof the hero of Lutzen.\" The book, in truth, forms a world apart, from\nwhich all lying, hypocrisy, and conventional contentment is banished;\nin it is heard the stormy laughter of a genius who has freed himself\nfrom the fetters of earth, the proclamation of the creed of a strange\nChristian who interprets and reveres Christ in his own fashion, the\nchallenge of an original and creative mind which believes in its own\ncontinuance, the expression of the yearning of a lonely soul to place\nitself in harmonious relations with the universe.\n\nAn especially interesting feature of the _Blau Buch_ is the expression\nof Strindberg's views regarding the great poets, artists, and thinkers\nof the past and present. He speaks of Wagner and Nietzsche, the two\nantipodes; of Horace, who, after many wanderings, recognised the hand\nof God; of Shakespeare, who had lived through the experience of every\ncharacter he created; of Goethe, regarding whom he remarks, with\nevident satisfaction, \"In old age, when he grew wise, he became a\nmystic, _i.e._ he recognised that there are things in heaven and earth\nof which the Philistines never dream.\" Of Maeterlinck, he says, \"He\nknows how to caricature his own fairest creations\"; and accuses Oscar\nWilde of want of originality. Regarding Hegel, he notes with pleasure\nthat at the end of his life he returned to Christianity. With deep\nsatisfaction he writes, \"Hegel, after having gone very roundabout ways,\ndied in 1831, of cholera, as a simple, believing Christian, putting\naside all philosophy and praying penitential psalms.\" In Rousseau he\nrecognises a kindred spirit, in so far as the Frenchman, like himself,\nhated all that was unnatural. \"One can agree with Rousseau when he\nsays, 'All that comes from the Creator's hand is perfect, but when it\nfalls into the hands of man it is spoilt.'\"\n\nThe _Blau Buch_ marks the summit of Strindberg's chequered sixty years'\npilgrimage. Beneath him lies the varicoloured landscape of his past\nlife, now lit up with gleams of sunshine, now draped in dark mists,\nnow drowned in storms of rain. But Strindberg, the poet and thinker,\nhas escaped from both dark and bright days alike; he stands peacefully\non the summit, above the trivialities, the cares, and bitternesses of\nlife, a free man. He is like Prometheus, fettered to the rock for\nhaving bestowed on men the gift of fire, but liberated after he has\nlearnt his lesson. In his calm is something resembling the dignity of\nGoethe's old age. As the latter sat on the Kickelhahn, looking down\non Thuringia, and saw the panorama of his life pass before him, so\nStrindberg takes a retrospect in his _Blau Buch_. It is the canticle of\nhis life, a hymn of thankfulness for the recovered faith in which he\nhas found peace. At its conclusion he thus sums up:\n\n\"Rousseau's early doctrine regarding the curse of mere learning should\nbe repondered.\"\n\n\"A new Descartes should arise and teach the men to doubt the untruths\nof the sciences.\"\n\n\"Another Kant should write a new Critique of Pure Reason and\nre-establish the doctrine of the Categorical Imperative, which,\nhowever, is already to be found in the Ten Commandments and the\nGospels.\"\n\n\"A prophet should be born to teach men the simple meaning of life in a\nfew words. It has already been so well summed up: 'Fear God, and keep\nHis commandments,' or 'Pray and work.'\"\n\n\"All the errors and mistakes which we have made should serve to instil\ninto us a lively hatred of evil, and to impart a fresh impulse to good;\nthese we can take with us to the other side, where they will bloom and\nbear fruit. That is the true meaning of life, at which the obstinate\nand impenitent cavil, in order to save themselves trouble.\"\n\n\"Pray, _but_ work; suffer, _but_ hope; keeping both the earth and the\nstars in view. Do not try and settle permanently, for it is a place of\npilgrimage; not a home, but a halting-place. Seek the truth, for it is\nto be found, but only in one place, with the One who Himself is the\nWay, the Truth, and the Life.\"\n\n                                                  ARTHUR BABILLOTTE.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Strindberg's _Inferno_.]\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nTHE HISTORY OF THE BLUE BOOK\n\nA BLUE BOOK--\n\n    The Thirteenth Axiom\n    The Rustic Intelligence of the \"Beans\"\n    The Hoopoo, or An Unusual Occurrence\n    Bad Digestion\n    The Song of the Sawyers\n    Al Mansur in the Gymnasium\n    The Nightingale in the Vineyard\n    The Miracle of the Corn-crakes\n    Corollaries\n    Phantasms which are Real\n    Crex, Crex!\n    The Electric Battery and the Earth Circuit\n    Improper and Unanswerable Questions\n    Superstition and Non-Superstition\n    Through Faith to Knowledge\n    The Enchanted Room\n    Concerning Correspondences\n    The Green Island\n    Swedenborg's Hell\n    Preliminary Knowledge Necessary\n    Perverse Science\n    Truth in Error\n    Accumulators\n    Eternal Punishment\n    \"Desolation\"\n    A World of Delusion\n    The Conversion of the Cheerful Pagan, Horace\n    Cheerful Paganism and its Doctrine of Hell\n    Faith the Chief Thing\n    Penitents\n    Paying for Others\n    The Lice-King\n    The Art of Life\n    The Mitigation of Destiny\n    The Good and the Evil\n    Modesty and the Sense of Justice\n    Derelicts\n    Human Fate\n    Dark Rays\n    Blind and Deaf\n    The Disrobing Chamber\n    The Character Mask\n    Youth and Folly\n    When I was Young and Stupid\n    Constant Illusions\n    The Merits of the Multiplication-Table\n    Under the Prince of this World\n    The Idea of Hell\n    Self-Knowledge\n    Somnambulism and Clairvoyance in Everyday Life\n    Practical Measures against Enemies\n    The Goddess of Reason\n    Stars Seen by Daylight\n    The Right to Remorse\n    A Religious Theatre\n    Through Constraint to Freedom\n    The Praise of Folly\n    The Inevitable\n    The Poet's Sacrifice\n    The Function of the Philistines\n    World-Religion\n    The Return of Christ\n    Correspondences\n    Good Words\n    Severe and not Severe\n    Yeast and Bread\n    The Man of Development\n    Sins of Thought\n    Sins of Will\n    The Study of Mankind\n    Friend Zero\n    Affable Men\n    Cringing before the Beast\n    _Ecclesia Triumphans_\n    Logic in Neurasthenia\n    My Caricature\n    The Inexplicable\n    Old-time Religion\n    The Seduced become Seducers\n    Large-hearted Christianity\n    Reconnection with the A\u00ebrial Wire\n    The Art of Conversion\n    The Superman\n    To be a Christian is not to be a Pietist\n    Strength and Value of Words\n    The Black Illuminati\n    Anthropomorphism\n    Fury-worship as a Penal Hallucination\n    Amerigo or Columbus\n    A Circumnavigator of the Globe\n    The Poet's Children\n    Faithful in Little Things\n    The Unpracticalness of Husk-eating\n    A Youthful Dream for Seven Shillings\n    Envy Nobody!\n    The Galley-slaves of Ambition\n    Hard to Disentangle\n    The Art of Settling Accounts\n    Growing Old Gracefully\n    The Eight Wild Beasts\n    Deaf and Blind\n    Recollections\n    Children are Wonder-Children\n    Men-resembling Men\n    Christ is Risen\n    Revolution-Sheep\n    \"Life Woven of the Same Stuff as our Dreams\"\n    The Gospel of the Pagans\n    Punished by the Imagination\n    Bankruptcy of Philosophy\n    A Whole Life in an Hour\n    The After-Odour\n    Peaches and Turnips\n    The Web of Lies\n    Lethe\n    A Suffering God\n    The Atonement\n    When Nations Go Mad\n    The Poison of Lies\n    Murderous Lies\n    Innocent Guilt\n    The Charm of Old Age\n    The Ring-System\n    Lust, Hate, and Fear, or the Religion of the Heathen\n    \"Whom the Gods Wish to Destroy\"\n    The Slavery of the Prophet\n    Absurd Problems\n    The Crooked Rib\n    White Slavery\n    Noodles\n    Inextricable Confusion\n    Phantoms\n    Mirage Pictures\n    Trifle not with Love\n    A \"Taking\" Religion\n    The Sixth Sense\n    Exteriorisation of Sensibility\n    Telepathic Perception\n    Morse Telepathy\n    _Nisus Formativus_, or Unconscious Sculpture\n    Projections\n    Apparitions\n    The Reactionary Type\n    The Hate of Parasites\n    A Letter from the Dead\n    A Letter from Hell\n    An Unconscious Medium\n    The Revenant\n    The Meeting in the Convent\n    Correspondences\n    Portents\n    The Difficult Art of Lying\n    Religion and Scientific Intuition\n    The Freed Thinker\n    _Primus inter pares_\n    Heathen Imaginations\n    Thought Bound by Law\n    _Credo quia (et-si) absurdum_\n    The Fear of Heaven\n    The Goat-god Pan and the Fear of the Pan-pipe\n    Their Gospel\n    The Deposition of the Apes\n    The Secret of the Cross\n    Examination and Summer Holidays\n    Veering and Tacking\n    Attraction and Repulsion\n    The Double\n    Paw or Hand\n    The Thousand-Years' Night of the Apes\n    The Favourite\n    Scientific Villainies\n    Necrobiosis, _i.e._ Death and Resurrection\n    Secret Judgment\n    Hammurabi's Inspired Laws Received from the Sun-God\n    Strauss's Life of Christ\n    Christianity and Radicalism\n    Where are We?\n    Hegel's Christianity\n    \"Men of God's Hand\"\n    Night-Owls\n    Apotheosis\n    Painting Things Black\n    The Thorn in the Flesh\n    Despair and Grace\n    The Last Act\n    Consequences of Learning\n    Rousseau\n    Rousseau Again\n    Materialised Apparitions\n    The Art of Dying\n    Can Philosophy Bring any Blessing to Mankind?\n    Goethe on the Bible\n    \"Now we Can Fly Too! Hurrah\"\n    The Fall and Original Sin\n    The Gospel\n    Religious Heathen\n    The Pleasure-Garden\n    The Happiness of Love\n    Our Best Feelings\n    Blood-Fraternity\n    The Power of Love\n    The Box on the Ear\n    Saul, afterwards Called Paul\n    A Scene from Hell\n    The Jewel-Casket or his Better Half\n    The Mummy-Coffin\n    In the Attic\n    The Sculptor\n    On the Threshold at Five Years of Age\n    Goethe on Christianity and Science\n    _Summa Summarum_\n\n\n\nZones of the Spirit\n\n\n\n\nTHE HISTORY OF THE BLUE BOOK\n\n(_Prefixed to the Third Swedish Edition_)\n\n\nI had read how Goethe had once intended to write a _Breviarium\nUniversale_, a book of edification for the adherents of all religions.\nIn my _Historical Miniatures_ I have attempted to trace God's ways\nin the history of the world; I included Christianity in my survey by\ncommencing with Israel, but perhaps I made the mistake of ranging other\nreligions by the side of Christianity, while they ought to have stood\nbelow it.\n\nA year passed. I felt myself constrained by inward impulses to write\na fairly unsectarian breviary; a word of wisdom for each day in the\nyear. For that purpose I collected the sacred books of all religions,\nin order to extract from them \"sayings\" on which to write. But the\nbooks did not open themselves to me! The Vedas and Zend-Avesta were\nsealed, and did not yield a single saying; only the Koran gave one, but\nthat was a lion! (see \"Faith the Chief Thing, ff.). Then I determined\nto alter my design. I formed the plan of writing apothegms of simply\nworldly wisdom regarding men, and of calling the book _Herbarium\nHumane._ But I postponed the work since I trembled at the greatness of\nthe task and the crudity of my plan. Then came June 15, 1906. As I took\nmy morning walk, the first thing I saw was a tramcar with the number\n365. I was struck by this number, and thought of the 365 pages which I\nintended to write.\n\nAs I went on, I entered a narrow street. A cart went along by my side\ncarrying a red flag; it was a powder-flag. The cart kept parallel\nwith me and began to disturb me. In order to escape the sight of the\npowder-flag, I looked up in the air, and there an enormous red flag\n(the English one) flaunted conspicuously before my eyes. I looked down\nagain, and a lady dressed in black, with a fiery-red hat, was crossing\nthe street in a slanting direction.\n\nI hastened my steps. Immediately my eyes fell on the window of a\nstationer's shop; in it a piece of cardboard was displayed, bearing the\nword \"Herbarium.\"\n\nIt was natural that all this should make an impression on me. My\nresolution was now taken; I laid down the plan of my powder-chamber,\nwhich was to become the _Blue Book_. A year passed, slowly, painfully.\nThe most remarkable thing that happened was this. They began to\nrehearse my drama, the _Dream Play_, in the theatre; simultaneously,\na change took place in my daily life. My servant left me; my domestic\narrangements were upset; within forty days I had six changes of\nservants--one worse than the other. At last I had to serve myself, lay\nthe table and light the stove. I ate black broken victuals out of a\nbasket. In short, I had to taste the whole bitterness of life without\nknowing why.\n\nOne morning during this fasting period I passed by a shop window in\nwhich I saw a piece of tapestry which attracted and delighted me. I\nthought I saw my dream-play in the design woven on the tapestry. Above\nwas the \"growing castle,\" and underneath the green island over-arched\nby a rainbow, and with Alpine summits illumined by the sun. Round it\nwas the sea reflecting the stars and a great green sea-snake partly\nvisible; low down in the border was a row of fylfots--the symbol\n_Swastika_, signifying good-luck. That was, at any rate, my meaning;\nthe artist had intended something else which does not belong here.\n\nThen came the dress-rehearsal of the _Dream Play_. This drama I wrote\nseven years ago, after a period of forty days' suffering which were\namong the worst which I had ever undergone. And now again exactly forty\ndays of fasting and pain had passed. There seems, therefore, to be\na secret legislature which promulgates clearly defined sentences. I\nthought of the forty days of the flood, the forty years of wandering in\nthe desert, the forty days' fast kept by Moses, Elijah, and Christ.\n\nMy journal thus records my impressions:\n\n\"The sun shines. A certain quiet resigned uncertainty reigns within me.\nI ask myself whether a catastrophe will not prevent the performance\nof the piece, which perhaps ought not to be played. In it I have, at\nany rate, spoken men fair, but to advise the Ruler of the Universe\nis presumption, perhaps blasphemy. The fact that I have laid bare\nthe comparative nothingness of life (with Buddhism), its irrational\ncontradictions, its wickedness and lawlessness, may be praiseworthy if\nit teaches men resignation. That I have shown the comparative innocence\nof men in this life, which of itself involves guilt, is not indeed\nwrong, but....\"\n\nJust now comes a telephone message from the theatre: \"The result of\nthis is in God's hand.\" \"Exactly what I think,\" I answer, and ask\nmyself again whether the piece ought to be played. (I believe it is\nalready determined by the higher powers what the issue of the first\nperformance will prove.)\n\nI feel as though it were Sunday. The \"White Shape\" appears outside on\nthe balcony of the \"growing castle.\"\n\nMy thoughts have lately been occupied with death and with the life\nafter this. Yesterday I read Plato's _Tim\u00e6us_ and _Ph\u00e6do_. At present\nI write a work called _The Island of the Dead_. In it I describe\nthe awakening after death, and what follows. But I hesitate, for I\nam frightened at the boundless misery of mere life. Lately I burned\na drama; it was so sincere, that I shuddered at it. What I do not\nunderstand is this: ought one to hide the misery, and flatter men?\nI _wish_ to write cheerfully and beautifully, but ought not, and\ncannot. I conceive it as a terrible duty to be truthful, and life is\nindescribably hideous.\n\nNow the clock strikes eleven, and at twelve o'clock is the rehearsal.\n\nThe same day at 8 P.M. I have seen the rehearsal of the _Dream Play_,\nand suffered greatly. I received the impression that this piece ought\nnot to be played. It is presumptuous, and certainly blasphemous (?). I\nam disturbed and alarmed.\n\nI have had no midday meal; at seven o'clock I ate some cold food out of\nthe basket in the kitchen.\n\nDuring the religious broodings of my last forty days I read the Book\nof Job, saying to myself certainly at the same time that I was no\nrighteous man like him. Then I came to the 22nd chapter, in which\nEliphaz the Temanite unmasks Job: \"Thou hast taken pledges of thy\nbrother for nought, and stripped the naked of their clothing; thou hast\nnot given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast withholden bread\nfrom the hungry.... Is not thy wickedness great and thine iniquities\ninfinite?\"\n\nThen the whole comfort of the Book of Job vanished, and I stood again\nforlorn and irresolute. What shall a poor man hold on to? What shall I\nbelieve? How can he help thinking perversely?\n\nYesterday I read Plato's _Tim\u00e6us_ and _Ph\u00e6do._ There I found so much\nself-contradictory wisdom, that in the evening I threw my devotional\nbooks away and prayed to God out of a full heart. \"What will happen\nnow? God help me! Amen.\"\n\nThe stage-manager visited me yesterday evening. We both felt, in\ndespair.... The night was quiet.\n\n_April 16, 1907_.--Read the proof of the _Black Flags_,[1] which I\nwrote in 1904. I asked myself whether the book was a crime, and whether\nit ought to be published. I opened the Bible, and came on the prophet\nJonah, who was compelled to prophesy although he hid himself. That\nquieted me. But it is a terrible book!\n\n_April 17_.--To-day the _Dream Play_ will be performed for the first\ntime. A gentle fall of snow in the morning. Read the last chapter of\nJob: God punishes Job because he presumed to wish to understand His\nwork. Job prays for pardon, and is forgiven.\n\nQuiet grey weather till 3 P.M. Then G. came with a piece of good news.\n\nSpent the evening alone at home. At eight o'clock there was a ring at\nthe door. A messenger brought a laurel-wreath with the inscription:\n\"Truth, Light, Liberation.\" I took the wreath at once to the bust of\nBeethoven on the tiled stove and placed it on his head, since I had so\nmuch to thank him for, especially just now for the music accompanying\nmy drama.\n\nAt eleven o'clock a telephone from the theatre announces that\neverything has gone well.\n\n_May 29_.--The _Black Flags_ come out to-day. I make very satisfactory\nterms with the publisher regarding the _Blue Book_ (and I had thought\nit would not be printed at all). So I determined to remain in my house,\nwhich I had determined to leave on account of poverty.\n\n_August 20_.--I read this evening the proofs of the _Blue Book_. Then\nthe sky grew coal-black with towering dark clouds. A storm of rain\nfell; then it cleared up, and a great rainbow stood round the church,\nwhich was lit up by the sun.\n\n_August 22_.--I am reading now the proofs of the _Blue Book_, and I\nfeel now as though my mission in life were ended. I have been able to\nsay all I had to say.\n\nI dreamt that I was in the home of my childhood at Sabbatsberg, and saw\nthat the great pond was dried up. This pond had always been dangerous\nto children because it was surrounded by a swamp; it had an evil smell,\nand was full of frogs, hedgehogs, and lizards. Now in my dream I walked\nabout on the dry ground, and was astonished to find it so clean. I\nthought now that I have broken with the _Black Flags_ the frog-swamp is\ndone with.\n\n_September 1_.--Read the last proofs of the _Blue Book_.\n\n_September 2_.--Came across tramcar 365, which I had not seen since I\nbegan to write the _Blue Book_ on June 15, 1906.\n\n_September 12_.--The _Blue Book_ appears to-day. It is the first clear\nday in summer. I dreamt I found myself in a stone-quarry, and could\nneither go up nor down. I thought quite quietly, \"Well, I must cry for\nhelp!\"\n\nThe German motto to-day on the tear-off calendar is: \"What is to be\nclarified must first ferment.\"\n\nTo-day I got new clothes which fitted. My old ones had been too tight\nto the point of torture.\n\nMy little daughter visited me. I took her home again in a chaise.\n\n_September 14_.--The whole day clear. Towards evening, however, about\na quarter to six, the sky became covered with most portentous-looking\nclouds, with black outlines like obliquely hanging theatre-flies.\nAfterwards these were driven out by a storm over the sea.\n\nThis evening my _Crown Bride_ was performed. Thus, then, the _Blue\nBook_ had appeared. It looked well with its blue and red binding, which\nresembled that of my first book, the _Red Room_, but in its contents\ndiffered as much from it as red from blue. In the first I had, like\nJeremiah, to pluck up, break down, and destroy; but in this book I was\nable to build and to plant. And I will conclude with Hezekiah's song of\npraise:\n\n\"I said, in the noontide of my days, I shall go to the gates of the\ngrave:\n\n\"My age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent:\n\n\"I have rolled up like a weaver my life; he will cut me off from the\nloom.\n\n\"From day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.\n\n\"Like a swallow or a crane, so did I chatter; I did mourn as a dove:\nmine eyes fail with looking upward.\n\n\"Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me.\n\n\"What shall I say? He hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done\nit.\n\n\"Behold, it was for my peace that I had great bitterness;\n\n\"Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption.\n\n\"The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day.\n\n\"The father to the children shall make known thy truth.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI saw beforehand what awaited me if I broke with the _Black Flags_. But\nI placed my soul in God's hands, and went forwards. I affix as a motto\nto the following book, \"He who departeth from evil, maketh himself a\nprey.\"\n\nThe strangest thing, however, is that from this moment my own Karma\nbegan to complete itself. I was protected, things went well with me,\nI found better friends than those I had lost. Now I am inclined to\nascribe all my former mischances to the fact that I served the _Black\nFlags_. There was no blessing with them!\n\n\n[Footnote 1: A _roman \u00e0 clef_ in which Strindberg fiercely attacks the\nBohemians and emancipated women of Stockholm.]\n\n\n\n\nA BLUE BOOK\n\n\n=The Thirteenth Axiom=.--Euclid's twelfth axiom, as is well known,\nruns thus: When one straight line cuts two other straight lines so that\nthe interior angles on the same side are together less than two right\nangles, these two lines, being produced, will at length meet on that\nside on which are the two angles, which are together less than two\nright angles.\n\nIf that is a self-evident proposition, which can neither be proved, nor\nneeds to be proved, how much clearer is the axiom of the existence of\nGod!\n\nAnyone who tries to prove an axiom, loses himself in absurdity;\ntherefore, we should not attempt to prove the existence of God. He who\ncannot understand what is self-evident in an axiom belongs to the class\nof people of a lower degree of intelligence. One should be sorry for\nsuch dullards, but not blame them.\n\nThe first point in the definition of God, is that He is Almighty.\nThence it follows that He can abrogate His own laws. But since we do\nnot know all His laws, we do not know when He employs a law which is\nunknown to us, or suspends a law which is known to us.\n\nWhat we call miracles, may happen according to strict laws which we do\nnot know. We must therefore take care, when confronted by unusual or\ninexplicable occurrences, to see that we make no mistakes. These draw\ndown upon us the contempt of our fellow-mortals who are gifted with\nkeener intelligence.\n\n=The Rustic Intelligence of the \"Beans.\"=--The miller turns\nhis mill and the seaman trims his sails according to the force and\ndirection of the wind. They do not see the wind, but they believe in\nits existence, since they observe the results produced by it. They are\nwise people who use their intelligence.\n\nIntelligence (\"ratio\"), or rustic intelligence, is an excellent faculty\nwhereby to grasp what is perceptible by the senses, even when it is\ninvisible. Reason is a higher faculty wherewith one may grasp what is\nnot perceptible by sense. But when the rationalists try to comprehend\nthe highest things with their rustic intelligence, then they see light\nas darkness, good as evil, the eternal as temporal. In a word, they see\ndistortedly, for they see by the light of nature. Just as the rustic\nintelligence is indispensable when one goes to market, deals with\ncoffee and sugar, or draws up promissory-notes, even so is the use of\nreason necessary when one wishes to approach what is above nature.\n\nVoltaire and Heine are counted among the greatest rationalists because\nthey judged of spiritual things by rustic intelligence. Their arguments\nare therefore interesting, but worthless.\n\nAnd the most interesting fact about both these men is, that they\ndiscovered their errors, declared themselves bankrupt, and finally used\ntheir reason. But there the \"Beans\" can no longer follow them.\n\n\"Beans\" is a classical name for the Philistines who worshipped Dagon,\nthe fish-god, and Beelzebub, the god of dung.\n\n\n=The Hoopoo, or An Unusual Occurrence.=--Johann was one day on\nhis travels, and came to a wood. In an old tree he found a bird's nest\nwith seven eggs, which resembled the eggs of the common swift. But the\nlatter bird only lays three eggs, so the nest could not belong to it.\nSince Johann was a great connoisseur in eggs, he soon perceived that\nthey were the eggs of the hoopoo. Accordingly, he said to himself,\n\"There must be a hoopoo somewhere in the neighbourhood, although the\nnatural history books assert that it does not appear here.\"\n\nAfter a time he heard quite distinctly the well-known cry of the\nhoopoo. Then he knew that the bird was there. He hid himself behind\na rock, and he soon saw the speckled bird with its yellow comb. When\nJohann returned home after three days, he told his teacher that he had\nseen the hoopoo on the island. His teacher did not believe it, but\ndemanded proof.\n\n\"Proof!\" said Johann. \"Do you mean two witnesses?\"\n\n\"Yes!\"\n\n\"Good! I have twice two witnesses, and they all agree: my two ears\nheard it, and my two eyes saw it.\"\n\n\"Maybe. But _I_ have not seen it,\" answered the teacher.\n\nJohann was called a liar because he could not prove that he had seen\nthe hoopoo in such and such a spot. However, it was a fact that the\nhoopoo appeared there, although it was an unusual occurrence in this\nneighbourhood.\n\n=Bad Digestion.=--When one adds up several large numbers, one owes\nit to oneself to doubt the correctness of the calculation. In order to\ntest it, one generally adds the figures up again, but from the bottom\nto the top. That is wholesome doubt.\n\nBut there is an unwholesome kind of doubt, which consists in denying\neverything which one has not seen and heard oneself. To treat one's\nfellow-men as liars is not humane, and diminishes our knowledge to a\nconsiderable degree.\n\nThere is a morbid kind of doubt, which resembles a weak stomach.\nEverything is swallowed, but nothing retained; everything is received,\nbut nothing digested. The consequence is emaciation, exhaustion,\nconsumption, and premature death.\n\nJohann Damascenus[1] had passed through several years of wholesome\ndoubt, proving the truths of faith by systematic denial. But when,\nafter minutely checking his calculation, he had become sure of their\nasserted values, he believed. Since then, neither fear of men, love\nof gain, contempt, or threats could cause him to abandon his dearly\npurchased faith. And in that he was right.\n\n=The Song of the Sawyers.=--As Damascenus wandered in Qualheim,\nhe came to a saw-mill. Outside it, on the edge of a stream, sat two\nmen, and sawed a steel rail with a double saw. They accompanied their\nsawing with a rhythmic chant in two voices, and somewhat resembled two\ndrinkers quarrelling.\n\n\"What are you singing about?\" asked Damascenus.\n\n\"About faith and knowledge,\" answered one. And then they recommenced.\n\"What I know, that I believe; therefore knowledge is under faith, and\nfaith stands above it.\"\n\n\"What do you know then? What you have seen with your eye?\"\n\n\"My eye sees nothing of itself. If you were to take it out, and lay it\ndown here, it would see nothing. Therefore, it is my inner eye which\nsees.\"\n\n\"Can I then see your inner eye?\"\n\n\"It is not to be seen. But you see with that which is itself invisible.\nTherefore, you must believe on the invisible! Now you know.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, yes, but, but, but.... Have you seen God?\"\n\n\"Yes, with my inner eye. Therefore, I believe on Him. But it is not\nnecessary for you to see Him, in order for me to believe on Him.\"\n\n\"But knowledge is the highest.\"\n\n\"Yes, but faith is the highest of all.\"\n\n\"Do you know what you believe?\"\n\n\"Yes, although you don't know it.\"\n\n\"Prove it.\"\n\n\"By two concurring witnesses? Here in this district alone I can collect\ntwo million witnesses. That must be sufficient proof for you.\"\n\n\"But, but, but, but\" ... And so on.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Strindberg gives himself this name, probably in allusion\nto his mystery-play, _To Damascus_ (1900).]\n\n\n=Al Mansur in the Gymnasium.=--Damascenus came into a large\ngymnasium, which at first he thought was empty. But presently he\nnoticed that men stood along the walls with their backs turned towards\nhim, so that he only saw their perukes and red ears. \"Why do they stand\nand look at the wall, and why do they have such red ears?\" he asked his\nteacher.\n\n\"They are ashamed of themselves,\" answered the teacher. \"During their\nlifetime they were regarded as very clever fellows, but now they have\ndiscovered their stupidity.\"\n\n\"What is stupidity?\"\n\n\"He is stupid, in the first place, who is unpractical. These have\npractised gymnastics all their lives, but never used the strength which\nthey have gained. Furthermore, he is stupid who finds it difficult to\ncomprehend simple propositions, self-evident propositions or axioms;\nfor instance, the axiom of the existence of God. He is also stupid who\ncannot understand a logical proof; he who cannot accept reasonable\npremises, can draw no correct inferences. But the height of stupidity\nis, not to be able to accept an explanation founded on fact. When the\nApostles told Thomas that Christ, the Son of God, was risen from the\ndead, he could not receive the new truth, because it was beyond his\nhorizon. Such a man is usually called thick-headed, is he not?\"\n\nDamascenus did not answer, but his ears grew red, for he saw behind on\nthe spring-board a man whom he thought he recognised by his broad neck\nand small ears.\n\n\"What are you looking at?\" asked the teacher.\n\n\"Who is the man there?\"\n\n\"He was, or was called Al Mansur, the Victorious, because he lost all\nbattles but one--the battle with himself. By the Greeks he is called\nChrysoroas, or 'Golden Stream'; by the Romans, John of Damascus.\"\n\n\n=The Nightingale in the Vineyard.=--Johann went with his teacher\nthrough a vineyard, at the season when the vines were flourishing\nand exhaling their delicious perfume, which resembles that of the\nmignonette. \"Do you notice the fine scent?\" asked the teacher. \"Oh yes;\nit is the scent of the vines.\" \"Can you see it?\" \"No, it is invisible.\"\n\"Then you can believe in what is invisible, as well as enjoy it. You\nare, then, on the way.\"\n\nA nightingale was singing in a pomegranate tree. \"Can you see her\nnotes?\" asked the teacher. \"But you are delighted by them. Similarly,\nI delight in the invisible God through His way of revealing Himself in\nbeauty, goodness, and righteousness. Do you think God cannot reveal\nHimself, like the nightingale, by invisible but audible tones?\" \"Yes,\ncertainly.\" \"Then you believe in revelations?\" \"Yes, I am obliged\nto.\" \"You believe that God is a Spirit?\" \"Yes.\" \"Then you believe in\nspirits?\" \"That is an incorrect inference. I believe in one Spirit.\"\n\"Have not men spirits or souls in their bodies?\" \"Certainly.\" \"Then\nyou believe in spirits, _i.e._ in the existence of spirits?\" \"You are\nright; I believe in spirits.\" \"Don't forget that the next time one asks\nyou. And don't be afraid when the Lord of Dung comes and threatens you\nwith the loss of bread, honour, wife, and child.\"\n\n\n=The Miracle of the Corn-crakes.=--One summer evening the teacher\nwent with Johann through the clover-fields. There they heard a sound,\n\"Crex! crex!\" \"What is that?\" asked the teacher. \"The corn-crake, of\ncourse.\" \"Have you seen the corn-crake?\" \"No.\" \"Do you know a man who\nhas seen it?\" \"No.\" \"How do you know, then, that it is it?\" \"Everyone\nsays so.\" \"Look! If I throw a stone at it, will it fly up?\" \"No, for it\ncannot fly, or flies very badly.\" \"But in autumn, it always flies to\nItaly! How does that happen?\" \"I don't know.\" \"What do the zoologists\nsay?\" \"Nothing.\" \"Do you believe that it flies over the Sound, runs\nthrough Germany, and wanders over the Alps or through the St. Gothard\nTunnel?\" \"They say nothing about it.\" \"Well! Brehm calculates there\nare a pair of larks to every acre of field and meadow; if we reckon\nthat there are a pair of corn-crakes to every two acres, then there\nare in our country in spring five million corn-crakes. The female lays\nfrom seven to twelve eggs during the summer, so that in autumn in our\ncountry there are five-and-thirty million corn-crakes. Ought they not\nto be visible when they fly over the Sound?\" \"I cannot explain it. A\nbad flyer cannot fly over the Sound. Is it possible that they go round\nby the Gulf of Bothnia?\" \"No, for they have rivers to cross, and one\nwould see their flight like that of the lemmings. Besides, in England\nthere are seventy million corn-crakes every autumn, and they cannot\ngo by land.\" \"Then a miracle happens.\" \"What is a miracle?\" \"What one\ncannot explain, but has no right to deny.\" \"Then the flight of the\ncorn-crakes is a miracle; it must take place according to unknown\nnatural laws or be supernatural?\"\n\n\n=Corollaries.=--The teacher said: \"The bee is a little creature,\nbut gives plenty of honey. The corn-crake is a little bird, but it has\nshown us that some of the most ordinary natural occurrences cannot be\nexplained by known natural laws, and must therefore be regarded, for\nthe present, as supernatural, and for the rest, be taken on faith.\n\n\"You have never seen the corn-crake in fields or meadows, but you\nbelieve that it is there. If now a sportsman came, who had shot the\nbird, you would be more quickly convinced that the bird does appear in\nthe district, even though the sportsman were a liar.\n\n\"But the fact that millions of birds not accustomed to flying cannot\nfly over great spaces of water or Alpine glaciers, does not explain the\nautumn flight of the corn-crakes.\n\n\"Since this cannot be explained on natural grounds, it is\nsupernatural. We must accordingly admit that we believe sometimes on\nthe supernatural, or on miracles.\n\n\"From this proved thesis you can deduce the corollaries for yourself if\nyou possess the faculty of drawing inferences.\"\n\n\n=Phantasms which Are Real.=--The teacher asked: \"Can one see a\nphantasm?\"\n\n\"What is a phantasm?\"\n\n\"There are in optics real images which can be caught on a screen. An\nimage reflected in a flat mirror cannot be caught upon a screen, and is\ntherefore a phantasm. Can you see your image in a flat mirror?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then you can see a phantasm, or an unreal image. The eye, therefore,\nis a skilful instrument, which can make the unreal real. One might thus\nbe tempted to believe in ghosts.\"\n\n\"What are ghosts?\"\n\n\"They are phantasms, or unreal images which the eye can take in at\ncertain distances. Great and credible men, such as Luther, Swedenborg,\nand Goethe, have seen ghosts.\"\n\n\"Goethe?\"\n\n\"Yes; in the eleventh book of _Aus meinem Leben_ he relates how he met\nthe image of himself upon a country road. 'I saw, that is to say, not\nwith the eye of the body, but of the spirit,' he adds. Do you consider\nGoethe's testimony credible?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well, such sights are not seen every day, just as the hoopoo is not\nseen every day. But that does not give one any right to doubt that they\nare seen.\"\n\n\n=Crex, crex!=--The pupil asked: \"What is chance?\"\n\n\"It means something accidental, irregular, illogical in the occurrence\nof an event. But the word is often misused by those who see, but do not\nunderstand. For instance, if after an evil deed you are systematically\npersecuted by misfortune, that is no chance. Firstly, because the\nmisfortunes appear regularly, but chance is irregular. Secondly,\nbecause the punishment follows logically on the evil deed, and chance\nis illogical. It is therefore something else.\"\n\n\"Yes, it must be so. But what is it that causes me to fail in all my\nundertakings, to meet in the streets only enemies, to be cheated in all\nthe shops, to get the worst eatables in the market, to read only of\nwickedness in the papers, not to receive pleasant letters though they\nhave been posted, to miss my train, to see the last cab engaged under\nmy nose, to be given the only room in the hotel where a suicide has\nbeen committed, not to meet the person I have taken a special journey\nto see; to have the money I earn immediately snatched away, to have to\nremain in a strange town from which all my acquaintances have gone?\nThen at last, when I have no food, and am on the point of drowning\nmyself, I find a shilling in the street. That cannot be chance? What is\nit then?\"\n\n\"It is something else, but how it happens we don't know, since we know\nso little about the most ordinary phenomena.\"\n\n\"That's only twaddle.\"\n\n\"Crex, crex!\"\n\n\"That's the corn-crake.\"\n\n\"Yes, it is.\"\n\n=The Electric Battery and the Earth Circuit.=--The pupil feigned\nignorance, and asked: \"What is religion?\"\n\n\"If you do not know from experience or intuition, I cannot explain it\nto you; in that case it would only seem to you folly. But if you know\nbeforehand, you will be able to receive my explanations, which are\nmany. Religion is connected with the Source or the head station. But in\norder to carry on a conversation one must have an earth-current.\"\n\n\"What is that?\"\n\n\"That is the draining off of superfluous earthliness to the earth. As\none advances in technical knowledge, one learns to speak without a\nwire. But for that there are necessary strong streams of electricity,\nclean instruments, and clear air. The electric battery is Faith, which\nis not merely credence, but an apparatus for receiving and arousing the\ndivine electricity. Unless you believe in the possibility of success in\nan undertaking, you will not set to work, and accordingly you acquire\nno energy. With faith and a good will all is possible.\"\n\n\"But Faith is a gift for all that.\"\n\n\"Yes; but if, from pride or obstinacy, you refuse to receive it, it is\nno gift for you. Is that clear?\"\n\n\n=Improper and Unanswerable Questions.=--The pupil asked: \"If God\nis one, why are there several religions?\"\n\n\"Since the existence of God is an axiom, you should say, '_Since_ God\nis one, why are there several religions?' I answer: I do not know,\nand, strictly speaking, it does not concern me. All agree in the chief\npoint--that there is a God, and that the soul is immortal.\"\n\n\"If the soul is immortal, how is it that there are men who regard their\nsouls as mortal, and speak of the present life as their only one?\"\n\n\"Their feelings may be perverted, like a man's who believes he has a\nsnake in his stomach. Perhaps they have committed soul-suicide. Perhaps\nthey think the doctrine of immortality foolish, or their souls are\nreally so rudimentary that they can be buried and dissolved. If that\nis the case, one cannot argue with them, for they are right as regards\nthemselves. Either theirs is an abnormal case, or their perceptions\nare perverse; I cannot say which. I am inclined to regard the question\nas among those which are unanswerable, or which have not yet been\nanswered, or which should not be asked.\"\n\n\n=Superstition and Non-Superstition.=--The pupil asked: \"What is\nsuperstition?\"\n\n\"I don't know; but a sterile intellect calls the highest axioms\nsuperstitions, _e.g._ God, the religious life, conscience. The\nbelieving fertile intelligence, on the other hand, calls it\nsuperstition when an unbeliever avoids a squirrel, spits when he sees\nan old woman or when one wishes him luck, or dares not begin a journey\non the thirteenth of the month.\"\n\n\"What is witchcraft?\"\n\n\"When bad men misemploy their psychic forces on weaker minds, dazzle\nthem, or torment them from a distance, and so on. You have seen all\nthis at hypnotic seances. In them, for example, the medium's eyesight\ncan be so perverted as to take a raw potato for an apple.\"\n\n\"Are there then witches?\"\n\n\"Yes; certainly there are. An ugly and evil woman, who so dazzles the\neyes of a man that he sees her as the most beautiful and best, is a\nwitch.\"\n\n\"Should she be burnt?\"\n\n\"No, for she burns herself through her wickedness when she meets a man\nwho is mail-clad with the love of God. Then the missiles of the witch\nrebound and strike herself. But one should not talk of such. He who\ntouches pitch is defiled.\"\n\n\n=Through Faith to Knowledge.=--The pupil asked: \"How shall I know\nthat I believe rightly?\" \"I will tell you. Doubt the regular denials\nof your everyday intelligence. Go out of yourself if you can, and place\nyourself at the believer's standpoint. Act as though you believed, and\nthen test the belief, and see whether it agrees with your experiences.\nIf it does, then you have gained in wisdom, and no one can shake\nyour belief. When I for the first time obtained Swedenborg's _Arcana\nC\u0153lestia_, and looked through the ten thousand pages, it appeared to\nme all nonsense. And yet I could not help wondering, since the man was\nso extraordinarily learned in all the natural sciences, as well as\nin mathematics, philosophy, and political economy. Amid the apparent\nfoolishness of the book were some details which remained riveted in my\nmemory.\n\n\"Some time later, in my ordinary life, there happened something\ninexplicable. Subsequently light was thrown upon this by an experience\nwhich Swedenborg refers to his so-called heaven and his so-called\nangels. Then I began to search and to compare, to make experiments and\nto find explanations. I come to the conclusion that Swedenborg has had\nexperiences which resemble those of earthly life, but are not the same.\nThis he brings out in his theory of correspondences and agreements. The\ntheosophists have expressed it thus: parallel with the earth-life we\nlive another life on the astral plane, but unconsciously to ourselves.\"\n\n\n=The Enchanted Room.=--The pupil became curious and asked: \"What\nopened your eyes as regards Swedenborg?\"\n\n\"It is difficult to say, but I will try to do so. In my lonely dwelling\nthere was a room which I considered the most beautiful in the world.\nIt had not been so beautiful at first, but great and important events\nhad taken place there. A child had been born in it, and in it a man had\ndied. Finally I fitted it up as a temple of memory, and never showed it\nto anyone.\n\n\"One day, however, the demon of pride and ostentation took possession\nof me, and I took a guest into it. He happened to be a 'black man,'\na hopeless despairer, who only believed in physical force and in\nwickedness, and called himself 'a load of earth.' As I admitted him\nI said, 'Now you will see the most beautiful room in the country.' I\nturned on the electric light, which generally poured down from the\nceiling such a blaze that not a dark corner was left in the room. The\nman stood in the middle of the room, looked round, grumbled to himself,\nand said 'I can't see that.'\n\n\"As he spoke, the room darkened, the walls contracted, the floor\nshrank in size. My splendid temple was metamorphosed before my eyes.\nIt seemed to me like a room in a hospital, with coarse wall-papers;\nthe beautiful flowered curtains looked dirty; the white surface of the\nlittle writing-table showed spots; the gilding was blackened; the brass\nfittings of the tiled oven were tarnished. The whole room was altered,\nand I was ashamed. It had been enchanted.\n\n\n=Concerning Correspondences.=--\"Now comes Swedenborg, but his\nexplanation is somewhat difficult. I must make a prefatory remark, in\norder that you may not think I regard myself as an angel. By 'angel'\nSwedenborg means a deceased mortal, who by death has been released from\nthe prison of the body, and by suffering in faith has recovered the\nhighest faculties of his soul. It is necessary to bear this definition\nof Swedenborg's in mind, and to remember that it does not apply to my\nguest or myself.\n\n\"Swedenborg further remarks regarding these dematerialised beings: 'All\nwhich appears and exists around them seems to be produced and created\nby them. The fact that their surroundings are, as it were, produced\nand created by them is evident, because when they are no longer\nthere the surroundings are altered. A change in the surroundings is\nalso apparent, when other beings come in their place. Elysian plains\nchange into their trees and fruits; gardens change into their roses and\nplants, and fields into their herbs and grasses. The reason for the\nappearance and alteration of such objects is that they are produced by\nthe wishes of these angel beings and the currents of thought set in\nmotion thereby.'\n\n\"Is not this a subtle observation of Swedenborg's, and have not the\nfacts he alleges something corresponding to them in our lower sphere?\nDoes it not resemble my adventure in the 'enchanted room?' Perhaps you\nhave had a similar experience?\"\n\n\n=The Green Island.=--The pupil answered: \"I have certainly had\nstrange experiences, but did not understand them because I thought\nwith the flesh. As I just heard you say that our experiences can\nreceive a symbolical interpretation, I remembered an incident which\nresembled that which you have just related and compared with an\nobservation of Swedenborg's. After a youth spent under intolerable\npressure and too much work, a friend gave me a sum of money that I\nmight spend the summer on the sea in literary recreation. When I saw\nthe 'Green Island' with its carpets of flowers, beds of reeds, banks\nof willows, oak coppices, and hazel woods, I thought that I beheld\nParadise. Together with three other young poets I passed the summer\nin a state of happiness which I have never experienced since. We were\nfairly religious, although we did not literally believe in the gods\nof the state, and we lived, as a rule, innocently enough, with simple\npleasures such as bathing, sailing, and fishing.\n\n\"But there was an evil man among us. He was overbearing, and regarded\nmankind as his enemies; denied all goodness; spied after others'\nfaults; rejoiced in others' misfortunes. Every time he left us to go\nto the town, the island seemed to me more beautiful; it seemed like\nSunday. I was always the object of his gibes, but did not understand\nhis malice. My friends wondered that I was not angry with him, as I\nwas generally so passionate. I do not myself understand it, but I was\nas though protected, and noticed nothing, whatever the cause may have\nbeen. Perhaps you ask whether the island really was so wonderful. I\nanswer: I found it so, but perhaps the beauty was in my way of looking\nat it.\"\n\n\n=Swedenborg's Hell.=--The pupil continued: \"The next summer I came\nagain, but this time with other companions, and I was another man.\nThe bitterness of life, the spirit of the time, new teachings, evil\ncompanionship made me doubt the beneficence of Providence, and finally\ndeny its existence. We led a dreadful life together. We slandered each\nother, suspected each other even of theft. All wished to dominate,\nnobody would follow another to the best bathing-place, but each went to\nhis own. We could not sail, for everyone wished to steer. We quarrelled\nfrom morning till night. We drank also, and half of us were treating\nthemselves for incurable diseases. My 'Green Island,' the first\nparadise of my youth, became ugly and repulsive to me. I could see no\nmore beauty in nature, although at that time I worshipped nature. But\nwait a minute, and see how it agreed with what Swedenborg says! The\nbeautiful weed-fringed bay began to exhale such miasmas, that I got\nmalarial fever. The gnats plagued us the whole night and stung through\nthe thickest veil. If I wandered in the wood, and wished to pluck a\nflower, I saw an adder rear its head. One day, when I took some moss\nfrom a rock, I saw immediately a black snake zigzagging away. It was\ninexplicable. The peaceable inhabitants must have been infected by our\nwickedness, for they became malicious, ugly, quarrelsome, and enacted\ndomestic tragedies. It was hell! When I became ill, my companions\nscoffed at me, and were angry, because I had to have a room to myself.\nThey borrowed money from me, which was not my own, and behaved\nbrutally. When I wanted a doctor, they would not fetch him.\"\n\nThe teacher broke in: \"That is how Swedenborg describes hell.\"\n\n\n=Preliminary Knowledge Necessary.=--The pupil asked: \"Is there a\nhell?\"\n\n\"You ask that, when you have been in it?\"\n\n\"I mean, another one.\"\n\n\"What do you mean by another one? Has your experience not sufficed to\nconvince you that there _is_ one?\"\n\n\"But what does Swedenborg think?\"\n\n\"I don't know. It is possible that he does not mean a place, but a\ncondition of mind. But as his descriptions of another side agree with\nour experiences on this side in this point, that whenever a man breaks\nthe connection with the higher sphere, which is Love and Wisdom, a\nhell ensues, it does not matter whether it is here or there. He uses\nparables and allegories, as Christ did in order to be understood.\n\n\"Emerson in his _Representative Men_ regards Swedenborg's genius as the\ngreatest among modern thinkers, but he warns us against stereo-typing\nhis forms of thought. True as transitional forms, they are false if\none tries to fix them fast. He calls these descriptions a transitory\nembodiment of the truth, not the truth itself.\"\n\n\"But I do not yet understand Swedenborg.\"\n\n\"No, because you have not the necessary preliminary knowledge. Just\nlike the peasant who came to a chemical lecture and only heard about\nletters and numbers. He considered it the most stupid stuff he had ever\nheard: 'They could only spell, but could not put the letters together.'\nHe lacked the necessary preliminary knowledge. Still, when you read\nSwedenborg, read Emerson along with him.\"\n\n\n=Perverse Science.=--The teacher continued: \"Swedenborg never\nfound a contradiction between science and religion, because he beheld\nthe harmony in all, correspondences in the higher sphere to the lower,\nand the unity underlying opposites. Like Pythagoras, he saw the\nLaw-giver in His laws, the Creator in His work, God in nature, history\nand the life of men. Modern degenerate science sees nothing, although\nit has obtained the telescope and microscope.\n\n\"Newton, Leibnitz, Kepler, Swedenborg, Linn\u00e6us, the greatest scientists\nwere religious God-fearing men. Newton wrote also an Exposition of the\nApocalypse. Kepler was a mystic in the truest sense of the word. It was\nhis mysticism which led to his discovery of the laws regulating the\ncourses of the planets. Humble and pure-hearted, those men could see\nGod while our decadents only see an ape infested by vermin.\n\n\"The fact that our science has fallen into disharmony with God, shows\nthat it is perverse, and derives its light from the Lord of Dung.\"\n\n\n=Truth in Error.=--The teacher continued: \"Let us return for a\nmoment to your green island. There you discovered that the world is a\nreflection of your interior state, and of the interior state of others.\nIt is therefore probable that each carries his own heaven and hell\nwithin him. Thus we come to the conclusion that religion is something\nsubjective, and therefore outside the reach of discussion.\n\n\"The believer is therefore right when he receives spiritual edification\nfrom the consecrated Bread and Wine. And the unbeliever is also not\nwrong when he maintains that _for him_ it is only bread and wine. But\nif he asserts that it is the same with the believer, he is wrong.\nOne ought not to punish him for it; one must only lament his want\nof intelligence. By calling religion subjective, I have not thereby\ndiminished its power. The subjective is the highest for personality,\nwhich is an end in itself, inasmuch as the education of man to superman\nis the meaning of existence.\n\n\"But when many individuals combine in one belief, there results an\nobjective force of tremendous intensity, which can remove mountains and\noverthrow the walls of Jericho.\n\n\n=Accumulators.=--\"When a race of wild men begin to worship a\nmeteoric stone, and this stone is subsequently venerated by a nation\nfor centuries, it accumulates psychic force, _i.e._ becomes a sacred\nobject which can bestow strength on those who possess the receptive\napparatus of faith. It can accordingly work miracles which are quite\nincomprehensible to unbelievers.\n\n\"Such a sacred object is called an amulet, and is not really more\nremarkable than an electric pocket-lamp. But the lamp gives light only\non two conditions--that it is charged with electricity and that one\npresses the knob. Amulets also only operate under certain conditions.\n\n\"The same holds good of sacred places, sacred pictures and objects,\nand also of sacred rites which are called sacraments.\n\n\"But it may be dangerous for an unbeliever to approach too near to\nan accumulator. The faith-batteries of others can produce an effect\non them, and they may be killed thereby, if they possess not the\nearth-circuit to carry off the coarser earthly elements.\n\n\"The electric car proceeds securely and evenly as long as it is in\ncontact with the overhead wire and also connected with the earth.\nIf the former contact is interrupted, the car stands still. If the\nearth-circuit is blocked, an electric storm is the result, as was the\ncase with St. Paul on the way to Damascus.\"\n\n\n=Eternal Punishment.=--The pupil asked: \"What is your belief\nregarding eternal punishments?\"\n\n\"Let me answer evasively, so to speak: since wickedness is its own\npunishment, and a wicked man cannot be happy, and the will is free, an\nevil man may be perpetually tormented with his own wickedness, and his\npunishment accordingly have no end.\n\n\"But we will hope that the wicked will not adhere to his evil will for\never. A wicked man often experiences a change of nature when he sees\nsomething good. Therefore, it is our duty to show him what is good.\nThe consciousness of fatality and being damned comes to everyone,\neven to the incredulous. That proves that there is an inborn sense\nof justice, a need to punish oneself, and that quite independent of\ndogmas. Moreover, it is a gross falsehood that the doctrine of hell was\ninvented by Christianity. Greeks and Romans knew Hades and Tartarus\nwith their refined tortures; the Jews had their Sheol and Gehenna;\nthe cheerful Japanese rival Dante with their Inferno. It is therefore\nthoughtless nonsense to make Christian theology solely responsible\nfor the doctrine of hell. It would be just as fair to trace it to the\ncheerful view of life of the Greeks and Romans, who first came upon the\nidea.\"\n\n\n=\"Desolation.\"=--The teacher continued: \"When this feeling of\nfatality strikes an unbeliever, it often appears as the so-called\npersecution-mania. He believes himself, for example, persecuted by men\nwho wish to poison him. Since his intelligence is so low that he cannot\nrise to the idea of God, his evil conscience makes him conjure up evil\nmen as his persecutors. Thus he does not understand that it is God who\nis pursuing him, and therefore he dies or goes mad.\n\n\"But he who has strength enough to bow himself, or intelligence\nenough to guess at a method in this madness, cries to God for help and\ngrace, and escapes the madhouse. After a season of self-chastisement,\nlife begins to grow lighter; peace returns; he succeeds in his\nundertakings; his 'Green Island' again blooms with spring. This\nfeeling of woebegoneness often occurs about the fortieth or fiftieth\nyear. It is the balancing of books at the solstice. The whole past is\nsummed up, and the debit-side shows a plus which makes one despair.\nScenes of earlier life pass by like a panorama, seen in a new light;\nlong-forgotten incidents reappear even in their smallest details. The\nopening of the sealed Book of Life, spoken of in the Revelation, is\na veritable reality. It is the day of judgment. The children of the\nLord of Dung who have lost their intelligence understand nothing,\nbut buy bromkali at the chemist's and take sick-leave because of\n'neurasthenia.' That is a Greek word, which serves them as an amulet.\n\n\"Swedenborg calls this natural process 'the desolation' of the wicked.\nThe pietists call it the 'awakening' before conversion.\"\n\n\n=A World of Delusion.=--\"Swedenborg writes: 'The angels are\ntroubled concerning the darkness on earth. They say that they can see\nhardly any light anywhere, that men live and strengthen themselves in\nlying and deceit, and so heap up falsity upon falsity. In order to\nratify these, they manage to extract, by way of inference, such true\npropositions from false premises, as, on account of the darknesses\nwhich conceal the true sources, and because the real state of the case\nis unknown, cannot be refuted.'\n\n\"This agrees with what every thinking man observes, that lying and\ndeceit are universal. The whole of life--politics, society, marriage,\nthe family--is counterfeit. Views which universally prevail are based\nupon false history; scientific theories are founded on error; the truth\nof to-day is discovered to be a lie to-morrow; the hero turns out to\nbe a coward, the martyr a hypocrite. Te Deums are sung over a silver\nwedding, and the wedded pair, still secretly leading immoral lives,\nthank God that they have lived together happily for five-and-twenty\nyears. The whole populace assembles once in a year to celebrate the\nmemory of the 'Destroyer of the Country.' He who says the most foolish\nthing possible, receives a prize in money and a gold medal. At the\nannual asses' festival, the worst is crowned the asses' king.\n\n\"A mad world, my masters! If Hamlet plays the madman, he sees how\nmad the world is. But the spectator believes himself to be the only\nreasonable person, therefore He gives Hamlet his sympathy.\"\n\n\n=The Conversion of the Cheerful Pagan, Horace.=--\"Among the\nconventional falsehoods of the apes,[1] one of the best known is that\nconversion from irreligion is a purely Christian doctrine. By looking\ninto Kumlin's Swedish translation of Horace, even a schoolboy can find\nthis heading to the thirty-fourth ode of the first book, 'The Religious\nConversion of the Poet.'\n\n\"Horace belonged to the Epicurean sect who only believed in phantom\ngods, because they held that the divinities did not trouble themselves\nwith the course of the world or of events, but enjoyed a careless life\nof continual ease. Horace accordingly had not been remarkably zealous\nin his religious duties. But a sudden flash of lightning and a heavy\npeal of thunder from a clear sky taught him at last that it was no\nblind unconscious force of nature, but the hand of a God, which hurled\nthe lightning. Thereby he was awoken to reflection, and tried to warn\nand sober his frivolous countrymen by dwelling on the power of Jupiter.\n'God can change the lowest with the highest; He puts down the exalted\nand uplifts the obscure.'\n\n\"After this Horace preached like a Jeremiah against the corruption of\nreligion and morals. A modern 'ape' might feel justified in calling him\na pietist since he was converted!\n\n\n=Cheerful Paganism and its Doctrine of Hell.=--\"_Origen against\nCelsus_ is the title of the first refutation of the lying accusations\nwhich the pagans have brought against Christianity. Who will write a\nsecond? Who will show that the hell of the pagans was seven times worse\nthan that of the Christians? In some Christian countries the Christian\nreligion may not be taught in the schools, but boys are obliged to read\nVirgil's Sixth \u00c6neid, which describes the terrors of the underworld.\n\n\"There is the Lern\u00e6an Hydra, the Chim\u00e6ra, Gorgons, and Harpies. On the\nbanks of Cocytus roam crowds of the unburied; there they must roam for\ncenturies because they have never found a grave. Is that humane? Then\nthere are the poor suicides everlastingly immersed in the Styx. And the\nfield of mourning where unhappy lovers hide themselves. 'Even after\ndeath their pangs are not ended.'\n\n\"But these were comparatively innocent. Criminals, however, are\npunished first by the fury Tisiphone. She seizes the damned, mocks\nthem with hellish laughter, and threatens them with snakes. A Hydra\nopens fifty black jaws.... And so on till we come to the sieve of the\nDanaids, the wheel of Ixion, the thirst of Tantalus.\n\n\"Let us remember, however, that the men of the Renaissance, Dante and\nMichael Angelo, have depicted the most extreme torments, as though they\nbelieved in them. Anyone who wants to see how the cheerful Japanese\ndescribe hell, can look at the pictures which Riotor and Leofanti\npublished in Paris, 1895, in the _Enfers Bouddhiques_.\"\n\n[Footnote 1: Materialistic evolutionists.]\n\n\n=Faith the Chief Thing.=--The teacher continued: \"Pietism is\na condition of repentance, which men pass through like a purifying\nbath and gain a consciousness of inward cleanliness. It is therefore\nno hypocrisy, as the children of the Lord of Dung suppose. He\nwho is severe towards himself may easily appear malicious to the\nunintelligent; and he who has suffered for his wickednesses feels\nhimself freed from the past. This feeling the unbelievers call\n'self-satisfaction.'\n\n\"A penitent never attains perfection, but ceaselessly relapses into\nthe desires of the flesh. This may easily cause him to appear a\nhypocrite. Luther quickly saw that it is impossible to make one's acts\ncorrespond to one's belief. Therefore he laid stress on faith, let acts\ngo, and adduced as his authority St. Paul's solution of the paradox:\n'So I obey the law of God with the spirit, but with the flesh the law\nof sin.'\n\n\"Faith, Hope, and Love: that is the essence and kernel of religion.\nOne's acts never come up to one's faith, and often lag far behind\nit. But there are some pious souls who persist in remaining in the\ncondition of penance, and it may easily seem as though they wished to\ngain heaven in advance of the rest. But we should not blame them for\nit. There may be secret reasons which we do not know, and have never\nexperienced.\n\n\"Socrates regarded the sense of shame and conscience as what\ndistinguished man from the beasts. To these two Christ added pity.\"\n\n\n=Penitents.=--The teacher continued: \"Muhammed early traversed\nthe stage of desolation and became a pietist, when he believed himself\npersecuted by devils. Set free finally by suffering and prayer, he\nexclaims in the 93rd Sura: 'By the forenoon, and the night when it\ndarkens, thy Lord has not forsaken thee or hated thee, and surely the\nfuture for thee will be better than the past. And thy Lord will give\nthee sufficient, and thou shalt be satisfied. Did He not find thee an\norphan and give thee shelter? and find thee erring and guide thee? and\nfind thee poor with a family and nourish thee? But as for the orphan,\noppress him not; and as for the beggar, drive him not away; and as\nfor the favour of thy Lord, discourse thereof!' When Buddha left his\nfather's palace and saw the sufferings of men and the instability\nof life, he became a penitent, left wife and child, went into the\nwilderness, and chastened himself by fasting and renunciation. But\nafter he had undergone the severest penances, he cautiously returned to\nordinary life, and allowed himself moderate enjoyments in order not to\ndevastate his soul. Some of his disciples deserted him and called him a\nrecreant, but that did not trouble him.\n\n\"Goethe himself passed through religious crises, and was at one period\nintimate with the Hermhuters, the pietists of that time. In his old\nage, when he grew wise, he became a mystic, _i.e._ he discovered that\nthere are things between heaven and earth of which the 'Beans' have\nnever let themselves dream.\"\n\n\n=Paying for Others.=--The pupil said: \"I must confess that I do\nnot understand the Atonement.\" \"You mean, understand it with everyday\nintelligence. No one can. The highest questions cannot be solved by us,\njust as little as problems of the fourth dimension. But the solution is\ngiven to us, if we ask for it in a proper way.\n\n\"As regards the redemptive work of Christ, you can comprehend it by an\nanalogy. You remember, when you owed so many debts, that there were\nknocks at your door all day long, that you had to go out early in the\nmorning in order to borrow, or to escape your creditors. Finally you\nfeared your room so, that you dared not go home to sleep. You sat on a\nseat in the park, and said to yourself, 'It is hell!' Then there came a\nman who knew you; he paid your debts; you called him your saviour. Do\nyou not see that one can pay for another, and deliver him?\"\n\n\"Yes, but one cannot make an evil deed undone.\"\n\n\"No, but the Almighty can obliterate it from our memory, and from the\nmemory of others. But mark this well: every time that you rummage in\nthe past of another, although it has been atoned for, the memory of\nyour own evil deeds starts up. Just like a badly washed stain which\ngoes through the stuff and appears on the other side. All miracles are\nconditional, just as vows are.\"\n\n\n=The Lice-King.=--As the teacher roamed one day in Qualheim he\ncame into a wood under whose shadow many decaying funguses grew. On a\nfootpath he saw what he thought at first was a snake writhing about.\nIt was no snake, however, but a mass of grubs clotted together. The\nteacher asked his guide: \"What is the meaning of that?\"\n\n\"Ask first what it is; then I will tell you the meaning of it.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"These are the larv\u00e6 of the snake-worm, which are obliged, like clay\nand wadded straw, to hold together in order not to perish. They love\npoisonous funguses, and cannot bear the light. They maintain their\nexistence by a mutual interchange of slime, without which they become\ndead and dry. But they call darkness light, because the sun would kill\nthem. They feed on the poisonous funguses. They hate each other, but\nmust keep together. Do you understand now, or not?\"\n\n\"What is the name of the creature?\"\n\n\"It is called the snake-worm or lice-king, appears once in every\ngeneration, and is a herald of evil times.\"\n\n\"What does it mean then?\"\n\n\"It is a symbol of the men who talk with their faces turned backwards,\nand therefore see everything distorted; who call evil good, and good\nevil. Because they live in pride and self-love they cannot see God,\nbut elect one of the mass to be their king, and believe that they are,\ncollectively, God. By 'freedom,' they mean freedom to do evil. Often an\nox or cow comes by and treads upon the motely mass. Then, of course, it\nis obliterated in slime, but another soon takes it place.\"\n\n\"It seems to be as eternal as evil.\"\n\n\n=The Art of Life.=--The teacher said: \"Life is hard to live, and\nthe destinies of men appear very different. Some have brighter days,\nothers darker ones. It is therefore difficult to know how one should\nbehave in life, what one should believe, what views one should adopt,\nor to which party one should adhere. This destiny is not the inevitable\nblind fate of the ancients, but the commission which each one has\nreceived, the task he must perform. The theosophists call it Karma, and\nbelieve it is connected with a past which we only dimly remember. He\nwho has early discovered his destiny, and keeps closely to it, without\ncomparing his with others, or envying others their easier lot, has\ndiscovered himself, and will find life easier. But at periods when all\nwish to have a similar lot, one often engages in a fruitless struggle\nto make one's own harder destiny resemble the lot of those to whom an\neasier one has been assigned. Thence result disharmony and friction.\nEven up to old age, many men seek to conquer their destiny, and make it\nresemble that of others.\"\n\nThe pupil asked: \"If it is so, why is not one informed of one's Karma\nfrom the beginning?\"\n\nThe teacher answered: \"That is pure pity for us. No man could endure\nlife, if he knew what lay before him. Moreover, man must have a certain\nmeasure of freedom; without that, he would only be a puppet. Also\nthe wise think that the voyage of discovery we make to discover our\ndestiny is instructive for us. 'Let My Grace be sufficient for thee; My\nstrength is made perfect in weakness.'\"\n\n\n=The Mitigation of Destiny.=--The teacher continued: \"Some appear\nto be destined to honour and wealth, others only to honour, and others\nonly to wealth. Many seem to be born to humiliations, poverty, and\nsickness--'struck like a coin in the mint,' as the saying is. Everyone\ncan mitigate his destiny by submitting and adapting himself to it--by\nresignation, in a word. The inward happiness which one gains thereby,\nexcels all outward prosperity. All things work for good to him who\nserves God. The man who does not strive after honour and wealth is\nimpregnable; in a certain sense, all-powerful.\n\n\"The hardest thing is to see the injustice in the world; but even that\ncan be overcome by taking it as a trial. If the wicked prospers, let\nhim; we have nothing to do with it. Besides, his happiness is not so\ngreat when one looks closer at it.\n\n\"When you are persecuted by misfortune, and your conscience cannot\ncall it deserved, take it quietly. Regard the endurance of the ordeal\nas an honour. There will come a day when everything will improve. Then\nperhaps you will discover that the misfortunes were benefits, or, at\nany rate, afforded opportunity for exercising endurance. Envy no man;\nyou know not what his envied lot might conceal, if it actually came to\nchanging places.\"\n\n\n=The Good and the Evil.=--The pupil asked: \"Is there really such a\ngreat difference between men?\"\n\nThe teacher answered: \"Yes and No! But a sure mark of the evil man\nis, he does evil for evil's sake. That is the bad man--the sarcastic\nschoolmaster, the domestic tyrant. That is the child, which torments\nits mother by finding out everything she dislikes. That is the bad\nwife, the fury, who enjoys torturing and humiliating a man who only\nwishes her good.\n\n\"In the battles of life it is quite human to rejoice when a foe is\ndefeated. On all battlefields God has been thanked for the victory.\nThat is something different.\n\n\"When one sees the insolent struck by misfortune, one rejoices that\nthere is justice. When one sees the wicked punished, one feels\nsatisfaction at seeing the balance of equity restored. That is\nsomething different.\n\n\"But he who rejoices over every evil deed which he himself has been\nunder no necessity of committing; he who rejoices when the criminal\nescapes his punishment; he who gloats over the misfortune of a good\nman; he who suffers when goodness and merit are rewarded--that is the\nevil man. Such were those who clamoured for the murderer Barabbas's\nrelease and perhaps gave a feast in his honour.\"\n\n\n=Modesty and the Sense of Justice.=--The teacher continued:\n\"Properly speaking, the question you should have asked just now is,\n'What men are good?' Socrates, according to Plato, said, 'Those who\npossess modesty and a sense of justice. Those are the religious men.'\n\n\"He, on the other hand, who has neither faith nor hope, can assume the\noutward aspect of an honourable man. But when his worldly interests or\nadvantages are concerned, he lets honour drop. Similarly, when it is a\nquestion of saving one of his associates from punishment. Then he can\nbear false witness, and believe it is a good act. He does not stick at\nhelping forward an unworthy friend or relative. He will swear falsely\nin order to attack a believer. He thinks everything lawful, _i.e._\non his side against others, and he never repents anything, saying to\nhimself, 'He who lets himself be misled must pay for it.'\n\n\"When a religious man makes a slip, he is wont to feel ashamed, and to\nreproach himself. Often he is na\u00efve enough to confess his fault or his\nmis-doing. Then the Lice-King shouts 'Hurrah!' For he would never be so\nsimple. Still, though a believer fall seventy times and seven, he rises\nagain and confesses his fault. That is the difference.\"\n\n\n=Derelicts.=--The pupil asked: \"How is one to judge of the men\nwho are overthrown in the battle of life without being armed for the\nconflict? You remember such characters at school; they could not\nlearn, could not attend; they were not ashamed, however, but regarded\nthemselves as a kind of victims. They left school, went out into life,\nand collapsed. It was not the fault of their domestic surroundings,\nfor they came of good families, who supported them. They were not bad,\npossessed talents, were clever, but had no knowledge and no interests\nin life. 'What is the object of it?' they were in the habit of saying.\nThey could not bring themselves to work, but dozed at their desks. They\nseemed to be born to do nothing, which is a punishment for the active.\nExplain to me their destiny!\"\n\n\"That I cannot.\"\n\n\"Some have died young in poverty; others begged their way through to\ntheir sixtieth year, while they saw former school-fellows who had been\nworse than they, prosper and flourish.\"\n\n\"I have seen and lamented them, but I cannot explain their destiny.\"\n\n\"Then they are not to blame, and yet live such lives of shame and\npoverty; that is cruel.\"\n\n\"Hush! Criticise not Providence! What is now inexplicable may some\nday be explained! And remember that life is not paradise. Two shall be\ngrinding at one mill; one shall be taken, and the other left!\"\n\n\n=Human Fate.=--The teacher said: \"The destinies of men are\nobscure; therefore one should be extremely careful in judging. The\nTower of Siloam was ready to fall, and fell on good and evil alike.\nThe disciples asked Christ what sin the man born blind had committed.\nChrist answered that neither he nor his parents had committed any\nspecial sin. When we see how some are born crippled, blind, deaf,\nand dumb, we had best be silent. To lament their lot may annoy them,\nfor they seem to be protected in a mysterious way. They are objects\nof pity, and seldom fall into abject poverty. They are good-humoured\nthrough life, and hardly seem to suffer under their ailments. But\nwoe to the man who ridicules anyone marked out by such a fate! If he\nis persistently pursued by calamity, or struck himself by a greater\nmisfortune, one can hardly ignore it by using the formula 'chance.' A\nperson who had scoffed at a blind man was struck in the eye by a stone\nwhich was thrown into a tramcar. At first he was alarmed, and thought\nof Nemesis. But when he heard that the stone had been so hurled as the\nresult of some blasting operations he became cheerful, _i.e._ more\nignorant, and said it was a chance. He saw the phenomenon, but nothing\nbehind it; the effect, but not the cause.\n\n\"The 'Beans' cannot see beyond their noses. Sometimes, when they have\nlong noses, they see somewhat further. The supernatural in nature is\nincomprehensible to their intelligence. Indeed, all which passes their\nlimited understanding is for them supernatural. That is logical, but\nthese rustics regard it as illogical.\"\n\n\n=Dark Rays.=--As the teacher wandered through his Inferno, he came\nto a temple of black granite, which was quite dark inside. Within it\nsomething was going on, but he could not distinguish what.\n\n\"What is it?\" he asked a white-robed figure, which wore a\nlaurel-wreath, but had a green face spotted blue like a corpse. \"That\nis a temple of light,\" it answered; \"but the initiated cannot see\nour black rays until he receives the white arsenic-kiss from the\nultra-violet priestess.\"\n\n\"Give me the kiss,\" answered the teacher, but he turned his back to her\nat the same time. However, she did not notice this, as she could not\ndistinguish back from front. Now his eyes were opened, and he saw how\nwithin the temple they were offering incense to their \"gods of light,\"\nas they called them. There stood the murderer Barabbas, a halo round\nhis head, and a plate on his breast with the inscription: \"Acquitted\nbecause of insufficient evidence.\" There sat Judas Iscariot under his\nfig-tree, with the thirty pieces of silver, in the bosom of his family,\npromoted to be general-director of customs. There were the Emperor\nNero, fresh from the bath, with a white dove on his hand, and Julian\nthe Apostate near an altar, with geese sacrificed upon it.\n\nThe priests and priestesses sang a chant of New Birth and Resurrection,\nburned incense compounded of rose-leaves and arsenic-acid, and danced\na snake-dance, which they called \"the joy of life.\" Then they began to\nquarrel about a laurel-wreath, and fought one another. As the teacher\nwent, they all sat there in the darkness and wept. But when a fresh\nnorth wind blew through the temple, they trembled like dry leaves.\n\n\n=Blind and Deaf.=--The teacher said: \"There are, as you know,\npeople with whom one cannot be angry. Perhaps it is because of their\nnatural good-nature, which shines even through a cutting jest. And\nthere are people whose malice comes to light long after one has met\nthem. Such an after-effect I have experienced myself.\n\n\"Five-and-twenty years after a conversation with a man, I felt angry\nwith him. Naturally, during a sleepless night, when memory threw a new\nlight on the scene which had taken place between us. Not till then did\nthe insulting word he spoke receive its proper signification, which I\nnow understood. There are words which can murder. Such a word this one\nwas. What a good thing that I did not understand it at the time! It\nwould have resulted in calamity to four people.\n\n\"By developing a peculiar instinct I have succeeded in fabricating\na kind of diving-costume, with which I protect myself in society.\nWhen the insulting word or the biting allusion is uttered, the sound\ncertainly reaches my ear, but the receptive apparatus refuses to let\nit go further. In the same way I can make myself literally blind. I\nobliterate the face of the person I dislike. How it is done, I do not\nknow, but it seems to be a psychological process. The face becomes\na dirty whitish-grey spot and disappears. It is necessary to make\noneself deaf and blind, or it is impossible to live.\n\n\"One must cancel and go on! That is generally called 'forgiving,' but\nit may be a device of the revengeful for sparing himself trouble, or a\nscheme of the sensitive for not letting insults reach him. One cannot\nundertake more than one can bear!\"\n\n\n=The Disrobing Chamber.=--The teacher continued: \"Swedenborg says\nin his _Inferno_....\"\n\n\"Say 'Hell,'\" the pupil interrupted him. \"I know that there is a hell,\nfor I have been in it.\"\n\n\"Well, Swedenborg has in his _Hell_ a disrobing chamber into which the\ndeceased are conducted immediately after their death. There they lay\naside the dress they have had to wear in society and in the family.\nThen the angels see at once whom they have before them.\"\n\n\"Does Swedenborg then mean that we are all hypocrites?\"\n\n\"Yes, in a certain way. An inborn modesty compels us to conceal what\nhas to do with the animal; politeness obliges us to be silent on\nmany points. Consideration, friendship, kinship, love, oblige us to\noverlook our neighbour's weaknesses, although we disapprove them even\nin ourselves. A man who is ashamed of his faults is also silent about\nthem. To boast of one's faults is shamelessness.\"\n\n\"Can one really call such consideration hypocrisy?\"\n\n\"Hardly; especially as things go wrong, however one behaves.\"\n\n\"Yes, life is not easy; it is hard to be a man; almost impossible.\"\n\n\n=The Character Mask.=--The teacher said: \"I knew in my youth a man\nwho was imperious, quick to anger, revengeful, emotional. Accidentally\nhis gifts as a speaker were discovered. He could thrill the minds of\nhis hearers, bring them into touch with himself, lift them up--yes, and\nnearly carry them away. But on one occasion when he was at the height\nof his oratory he halted, became grotesque and ridiculous, and people\nlaughed. The first time that this happened, he was depressed. But they\nthought he wished to produce a comical effect, and he obtained the\nreputation of a humorous speaker.\n\n\"Out of his misfortune he made a virtue, accepted the r\u00f4le which had\nbeen assigned to him, and finally enjoyed a great popularity as a\nhumourist. He often felt annoyed at having to play the part of a\nbuffoon, but the desire to hear his own voice and to be greeted with\napplause unceasingly spurred him on to win new triumphs.\n\n\"Society had made of him a sort of 'homunculus,' which it cultivated.\nBut in his family and in his office it was not to be found.\"\n\n\n=Youth and Folly.=--The teacher said: \"What do you think of the\nproverb, 'The young _imagine_ that the old are fools, and the old\n_know_ that the young are fools?'\"\n\n\"It is quite true. When I was young, I imagined that I understood\neverything better than the old, but I really understood nothing. I\nwas young and stupid, confused my own knowledge with that of others',\nbelieved that what I had learnt was my own. When I had read a book, I\nwent into society and proclaimed what I had read, as though it were my\nown discovery, I was therefore a thief.\n\n\"But I was the victim of another delusion, _i.e._ I believed that I\nunderstood all that I remembered, or that I knew what I happened at\nthe moment to remember. For instance, when I was fourteen I did not\nunderstand logarithms, but I learnt the way of proceeding with them by\nheart, and used logarithms as a short-cut.\n\n\"When one studies a science in detail, one begins to collect material,\nelse the result is nil. But the young man attacks the difficult science\nof life without experience, _i.e._ without material. And the result is\nwhat we see.\n\n\"I can see myself now as a young student. How proud I was of borrowed\nknowledge and borrowed plumes! How I despised the old! And yet all that\nI had stolen from books was stolen from the old, who had written the\ntext-books. The young write no text-books. O Youth! O Foolishness!\n\n\n=When I was Young and Stupid.=--\"When I was young and stupid,\nI always had a band of hearers who saw a light in me. When I grew\nolder, and wisdom came, I was left alone with my lecture and regarded\nas an old ass. But the passage from youth to age was bitter, when I\ndiscovered that the old could not be deceived. They read my secret\nthoughts behind my lofty words; they anticipated my evil purposes; they\nunmasked my crude desires; they prophesied the results of my actions;\nand found in my past the true cause of my present condition. They\nseemed to me to be wizards and prophets, although they were simple\ncharacters.\n\n\"When I asked myself how they could know this and that, I found the\nanswer later--because they had collected material; because they had\npassed through all the stages which were new to me; because they had\nalso tried to deceive the old in the same way, but had not succeeded.\nYouth, however, is always believing that it can deceive old age, were\nit only by stealing a thought from him. I know, moreover, why the\nyoung obstinately imagine they are superior because they can deceive.\nThere are old wise men who have come to terms with life, and therefore\nthink it a duty to let themselves be deceived now and then; they let\nthemselves be deceived tastefully.\n\n\"Youth is only an idea, an abstraction, a boast, a theme for an essay,\na song, a toast!\"\n\n\n=Constant Illusions.=--The pupil continued: \"When I was young I\nwas never really happy, because my seniors oppressed me, because the\nfuture disquieted me, because I lived on my parents' money almost as\nthough I were a pensionary. When the first symptoms of love showed\nthemselves, life became a hell. I was never very well, for the\nmost serious illnesses--measles, scarlet fever, agues, croup, and\nothers--affect only the young. I could never satisfy an innocent\nfancy, for I had no money; every desire was nipped in the bud. I was a\nslave, for my time was not at my own disposal, and I could not leave\nmy place in order to visit foreign countries. Such is the huge humbug\nwhich is called 'youth.' No one has dared to unmask it, for fear lest\nthe young might pelt him with stones, or draw caricatures of him on\nthe walls. The teachers in the schools crouch before them, flatter\nthem, pretend to envy them. If anyone comes who does not flatter these\nshameless and conscienceless little bandits, these lewd apes who live\nin the age of innocence, these parent-murderers--there is always some\nold woman there who exclaims, 'Ah! he does not understand the young!'\nHe understands them very well, for he has been young himself. But the\nyoung do not understand the old, for they have never been old.\n\n\"The young assert that the future is in their hands, and that therefore\nthey are feared by the cowardly. Let us wait and see! If thirty per\ncent, reach the future at all, they will work just as their elders\nhave done, and with the thoughts which they have borrowed from them.\nExceptions prove the rule.\"\n\n\n=The Merits of the Multiplication-Table.=--The teacher said: \"All\nwish to haul at the rope called 'Development.' The word generally\nsignifies 'alteration,' and men usually love any novelty which does\nnot injure them. But there are some excellent things which are very\nold, and therefore they remain unaltered. The multiplication-table, for\ninstance, is splendid, though it is said to be as old as Pythagoras.\nThe Rule of Three holds good, though it was the ancient Hindus who\ndiscovered this law of causes and effects. The geometry of Euclid and\nthe logic of Aristotle is still read in the schools. Our architecture\nimitates Greek and Roman models, and the sculpture of the ancients is\nnot despicable. We regulate our calendar very much as the Egyptians\nand Chald\u00e6ans did. Goethe and Schiller can be read, and Shakespeare is\nstill performed.\n\n\"We see, therefore, that not all which has been done in the past is to\nbe despised. He who prophesies that Christianity will disappear because\nit is old, makes a miscalculation. Homer is a thousand years older. And\nthe Old Testament would first have to be cancelled. But Christianity\nlives and flourishes, although it may be in secret and not published in\nthe newspapers. Still they sing in schools and barracks every morning,\n'Trust in God and in His word and strength in order to do good.'\n\n\"But it must go hard with the Christians. 'In this world ye have\ntribulation.' Through periodical seasons of bondage under Egyptian\nPharaohs, they learn patience till they begin their wanderings in the\nwilderness.\"\n\n\n=Under the Prince of this World.=--The teacher wandered in\nQualheim and came to a town. In the midst of the chief market-place\nthere stood a bronze image of the destroyer of his country. The youth\nof the place came out in holiday attire in order to celebrate the\nhero's memory. The teacher asked his guide: \"Why do they celebrate the\ndestroyer of the fatherland?\"\n\n\"I do not know,\" answered the guide.\n\n\"Are they mad?\"\n\n\"Probably. Here below everything is topsy-turvy. This hero[1] was\nconsidered mad, and certainly he was so. He carried on mad wars, fled\nwhen defeated, and cast the blame on others. When misfortune came\nhe collapsed like a weakling, took to his bed, and pretended to be\nill. In his leisure hours he plotted, but always ill. At last he made\nfalse coins, but managed to procure a scapegoat, who was broken on\nthe wheel. The country was ruined and could never recover its former\nprestige.\"\n\n\"And this is the man they celebrate?\"\n\n\"Yes! but they have other statues besides. There back in the park\nstands one, crowned with a laurel-wreath. He was the wickedest man of\nhis time. And there by the harbour is a third statue--of a perjurer...\"\n\n\"That is just as it is with us,\" said the teacher.\n\n\"Yes, it is about the same.\"\n\n\"Where are we then?\"\n\n\"Under the Prince of this World, the Lord of Dung. 'But be of good\ncourage! I have overcome the world!'\"\n\n\n[Footnote 1; He probably refers to Charles XII of Sweden.]\n\n\n=The Idea of Hell.=--The pupil asked: \"When I read Swedenborg's\n_Hell_, I often believed he was describing our life on earth. Is it\npossible that we are already there? As a Christian, I have learnt\nthat there was a Fall followed by a curse. Certainly life seems to me\nrather an Inferno than a school and a prison, for nothing keeps what it\npromises. The most beautiful things seem only made in order to become\nugly, the good in order to become bad.\"\n\n\"Have you never seen anything permanently beautiful here below?\"\n\n\"Yes, Nature at all seasons is so beautiful, that I exclaim with\na feeling of pain, 'How super-naturally beautiful! And we are so\nhideous!' Life may also seem beautiful in a well-ordered family where\nthere is peace and happiness and festival. I have seen it so, but only\nfor two minutes at a time, and perhaps it was my way of looking at it.\"\n\n\"Yet there are people who can thrive down here.\"\n\n\"He who can thrive here is a pig. I know fellows who think they are in\nParadise when they are on a summer holiday, have a well-spread table\nlit up by Chinese lanterns, and let off rockets. But 'Woe to the man\nwho is born sensitive!' says Rousseau. Either he goes under, or he must\narm himself with brutality. In the last case it may happen that he\ncannot divest himself of the armour, which has become a second nature.\nThere are some extremely sensitive natures who cannot come to terms\nwith life nor touch reality. These unfortunates finally lose the power\nof looking after themselves, and end in asylums.\"\n\n\n=Self-Knowledge.=--The teacher said: \"One may have already lived\na long time, consider oneself a respectable man, and, as such, have\nenjoyed the esteem of others. Then there comes a day when one awakes\nas out of slumber, sees oneself as a spectre, is alarmed, and asks,\n'Am I _that_' One discovers that one has done things which now appear\ninexcusable. And one asks oneself, 'How could I?' On one occasion one\nhas even committed a crime; on another, one has been dragged, so to\nspeak, by the hair; on a third, one fell into a trap.\n\n\"But there are men who are so sleepy that they never awake; and so\nwanting in intelligence that they cannot see how black they are. Once I\nhad a friend who was sixty years old. On one occasion, with an outbreak\nof stupid astonishment, he exclaimed, 'Why are people so prejudiced\nagainst me? I seem to myself an excellent fellow!' And this man was\na tyrant who trampled men underfoot, a hired executioner, a murderer\nwho betrayed the innocent, took bribes, and practised simony and all\nkinds of wickedness. I did not wish to condemn him, but tried to defend\nhim. Perhaps he felt justified in becoming an executioner, for there\nmust be such officials; so he adopted it as a profession. He had an\nevil nature, and found it therefore natural or right when he acted\nin accordance with it. He lived in complete harmony with himself,\nand those who resembled him pronounced him a 'fine fellow'--'healthy,\nna\u00efve, and, therefore, excellent society.'\n\n\"When he died, I drew a picture of his character for an acquaintance.\nThe latter was himself a black sheep, and answered quite na\u00efvely, 'You\nare unfair to him; I think he was a fine fellow.'\"\n\n\n=Somnambulism and Clairvoyance in Everyday Life.=---The teacher\nsaid: \"I am now fifty-eight years old, and have seen four generations.\nI have not been pure-hearted, for all black blood streams into the\nheart, but I have had moments in which I was transported into a\nchildlike, unconscious mood, and took delight in intercourse with men.\nI knew that they hated me, laughed at my misfortune, and waited for my\nfall. But I was immune against their malice. I saw in them only poor\nmen, who liked my company and were sympathetic with me. Even when they\nmade ill-natured jests against me, I did not understand them; and when\nthey gave vent to an open rudeness, I took it as a meaningless joke.\nThat is a kind of pleasant somnambulism.\n\n\"Often, however, I can be wide-awake; then I see society naked; I see\ntheir dirty linen beneath their clothes, their deformities, their\nunwashed feet. But, worst of all, I hear the thoughts behind their\nwords; I see their gestures, which do not harmonise with what they say;\nI intercept a side-glance; I notice a foot-stamp under the table, a\nnose turning itself up over my wine, or a fork critically passing by a\ndish.... Then life seems ghastly! I had a friend, who once in society\nhad an attack of this clairvoyance; he sat down on the middle of the\ntable, declared all he had seen in the course of the evening, and\nstripped his friends bare. The result was, he was pronounced mad and\ntaken to an asylum.\n\n\"There are many kinds of madness. Let us confess that!\"\n\n\n=Practical Measures against Enemies.=--The pupil asked: \"How can\nI love my neighbour as myself? In the first place, I ought not to\nlove myself; secondly, I feel so out of sympathy with men, that it is\ndifficult to regard them as objects of love.\"\n\nThe teacher answered: \"The verb \u1f00\u03b3\u03ac\u03c0\u03b1\u03c9 generally means only\n'treating kindly,' and that you can manage to do.\"\n\n\"But to love one's enemies is suicide.\"\n\n\"You think so! But have you tried this method? It is very practical,\nand I have tested it. Once against my worst enemy, who attacked my\nhonour and means of livelihood, I established a wholesome hatred like\na bulwark, as I thought. But my hatred became a conductor by which I\nreceived the currents of his. They surprised me in my weak moments, and\nhis wickedness passed over to me. He grew to gigantic proportions, and\nbecame a Frankenstein which I had myself produced.\n\n\"Then I resolved to break the conductor. I avoided seeing him, and\nnever mentioned his name, for that is a kind of incantation. When\npeople spoke of him in society, I was silent, or threw in a friendly\nword on his behalf. My Frankenstein pined away for want of nourishment,\nand disappeared out of my thoughts. Finally information reached my\nenemy that I had spoken good of him. He was struck with amazement,\ndwindled down, felt ashamed of himself, and believed he had made a\nmistake. Therefore, never speak ill of your enemy; that only rouses\npeople in his defence, and procures him friends. You see, therefore,\nwhat deep wisdom lies in the simplest teaching of the Gospel, which you\nbelieved yourself competent to criticise.\"\n\n\n=The Goddess of Reason.=--The teacher continued: \"The fact\nthat our intelligence finds so many contradictions and difficulties\nin the great truths of religion is due not only to defects in our\nunderstanding but to an evil will. The presumption of wishing to\nunderstand God and His purposes is as though one attempted to steer a\nfrigate with an oar. Every Greek tragedy closes with a warning against\ninsolence and [Greek: hubris] Nothing is so displeasing to the gods.\n\n\"Swedenborg says: 'As soon as we break our connection with what is\nhigher, our understanding is darkened. At the same time we are punished\nby being allowed to imagine ourselves more illuminated than others.'\n\n\"All the philosophers of the 'Illumination' grope in darkness. That\nperiod of history which is jestingly called the 'Illumination' is the\ndarkest we have had. The goddess of reason, Mademoiselle Maillard,\nwas adored only by madmen. The truths of religion never contradict\nreason until the latter has been clouded by an evil will. But then the\ndiscoveries begin, and then every religious truth 'contradicts reason,'\nsuch as the simple truth that God exists, that the Almighty can employ\nunknown laws or suspend laws which He Himself has given, that He can\nimpart spiritual blessings by means of material symbols, and so on.\n\n\"All 'free-thinking' is foolishness, for thought is not free, but bound\nby the laws of thought, by logic, just as nature is bound by the laws\nof nature. The evil will seeks freedom in order to do evil, and the\nevil mind seeks freedom in order to think perversely.\"\n\n\n=Stars Seen by Daylight.=--The teacher said: \"The fool lives only\nfor the present, for the moment, in the last fashionable error of the\nday, in the diving-bell of his daily paper, in dependence on public\nopinion, in the slavery of partisanship. The wise man lives in all\ntimes. For him there is neither time nor space. He is present always\nand everywhere; on this side and that side of the grave. He ranges\nover the world's history and fathoms the depths of himself; he regards\nhimself as an inhabitant of the Universe, and not merely of the earth.\nHe feels himself related to Plato and Aristotle; holds converse with\nthe great spirits of the past in their writings. Sometimes he lives\nin his childhood; sometimes in his mature age. He lives in the past,\nas though it were present. He can 'think himself' into the lives of\nothers; he rejoices with the joyful, mourns with the sorrowful,\nsympathises with the suffering. He feels on behalf of humanity; has\nno age, no nation. He sees the record of to-day's conflict laid up in\nhistorical archives, often without any other result. On the morrow,\nto-day's wisdom is only straw, in which something else grows; even\nerrors are useful as manure. Everything serves. He bears everything,\nfor he hopes; and hope is a virtue; it means believing good of God.\n\n\"Ephemeral flies get excited about trifles, and believe one can\ndiscover new truths among the telegrams in the breakfast-table\nnewspaper. If a new star is discovered, they believe the others are\nextinguished. But hitherto the new have all been extinguished. The new\nstar in Perseus appeared only for two years, and then it vanished. The\nChinese Y-King says, 'If one goes into one's tent, and makes it dark\nabout one, one can see the star Mei in the Archer in broad daylight.'\n\n\"Retire then sometimes to your tent in the wilderness, and you will see\nthe stars by day.\"\n\n\n=The Right to Remorse.=--The pupil asked: \"Is one right in feeling\nremorseful for one's past, after discovering one's errors?\"\n\n\"If you mean by 'feeling remorse,' wishing the past undone, you are not\nright, for in every man's life there is a rectifying element; every\nerror by being refuted becomes an involuntary occasion for the triumph\nof truth. But if you mean by 'remorse,' hating yourself as a purveyor\nof falsity, you are right. But say something in your own defence.\"\n\n\"I can say this much: I was the child of an evil time; I was misled\nby the seducers of my youth; I mention none of them. My understanding\nwas stronger than my divine reason. My flesh ruled over my spirit. My\ninborn defiance of authority, my inherited sensitiveness of nature\nreceived impressions, without stopping to criticise them. In a word, I\nmight call myself a victim of my seducers, of heredity, of my natural\nweakness, and sensitiveness. The final awakening of my reason, however,\nI reckon not as a merit of my own, but as a grace conferred upon me.\nThe fact that I have had sufficient time in which to refute my former\nerrors, I count as the greatest good-fortune which has ever befallen\nme. Therefore I do not wish my past undone, although I abominate it.\"\n\n\n=A Religious Theatre.=--\"It looks as though men did not think\nvery highly of themselves. If they see a maliciously satirical piece\nrepresented, they enjoy it without applying it to themselves. They\ntake it as intended only for others.\n\n\"In my youth there was a dramatist, who was at first a satirist, but\nfinally came to feel sympathy with men. After his feelings had become\nmodified by his living a steady and fairly happy life, he saw men in\na more cheerful light. Accordingly, he wrote a piece portraying only\nnoble characters with fine feelings and warm hearts.\n\n\"What happened? The public believed at first it was irony. But during\nthe second act they discovered their mistake. A voice exclaimed from\nthe stalls: 'Deuce take it! It is meant seriously!' The further the\npiece progressed, the greater was the disgust! The audience felt\nashamed before each other, and for the author. Some hurried out, and\nthose who remained ended by laughing. They laughed at the goodness,\nself-sacrifice, renunciation, forgiveness depicted in the piece.\nThey did not know themselves any more, and regarded the descriptions\nas unnatural; real life, they said, was not like that; men were not\nangels. It may therefore be risky to speak well of men. But one must\nnot forget that religious people do not visit the theatre, because the\ntheatre is godless. Greek tragedies used to commence with a sacrifice\nto the gods, and all tragedies deal with the powerlessness of men in\nconflict with deities. Why do not our religious leaders build a theatre\nin which one might see the evil unmasked and put to shame?\"\n\n\n=Through Constraint to Freedom.=--The teacher continued: \"This\nworld is governed by constraint. All men are dependent on one another\nand press upon one another like the stones in a vaulted building--from\nabove, from below, from the sides. They watch and spy on one another.\nThere is therefore no freedom, and there can be none, in this edifice\nwhich is called Government and Society.\n\n\"The foundation-stones have the most to bear; therefore they must be\nof granite, while the upper ones are of light brick. For there are\nfancy-bricks, which support nothing, but are merely ornamental; they\nare supported by others, feel themselves in the way and dispensable;\nbut they serve as ornaments, and of that they are aware.\n\n\"He who demands more freedom than the rest, is a thief and tyrant; if\nhe withdraws himself from his burden, he lays it upon others. This\nperpetual longing for freedom, which figures in biographies as a virtue\nand a distinction, is really only a weakness. More strength is required\nto bear than to be home. The only justifiable striving after relative\nfreedom is, not to have to bear more than one ought. Therefore it is\nthe business of rulers to apportion the burdens precisely. But for\nthat, adequate knowledge, a mathematical gift, and a nice sense of\njustice are necessary.\n\n\"But behind this common longing after freedom lies another deeper one,\nwhich is confused with the former. That is the sighing of creation for\ndeliverance from the bondage of the flesh. This has found its strongest\nexpression in St. Paul's exclamation: 'Oh, wretched man that I am! Who\nshall deliver me from the body of this death?' But this freedom can\nonly be won by patiently bearing the constraint of this world. Through\nconstraint is the way to freedom therefore!\"\n\n\n=The Praise of Folly.=--\"In this world of foolishness one sees\nconstantly how fools smile even when their views are ratified by time.\nThat is, in truth, a silly smile. The fool says, 'We are here in order\nto develop ourselves.' When they see a man who, in the course of\nyears, has grown wiser and more righteous, they should be glad that\ntheir assertion is established. Instead of that they make a malicious\ngrimace, and say scornfully, 'Yes, now you have grown old!' Yet we both\nstarted with the assumption that wisdom should come with years. Let us\nrejoice together that it is so. If the Devil really becomes a monk when\nhe is old, what a happiness and blessing for mankind that there is one\nevil spirit the less. Is it not so? Why should they make a grimace at\nit?\n\n\"Voltaire was a scoffer and a bit of a knave up to old age. Finally,\nhowever, he recovered his reason, just like lunatics shortly before\nthey die. And then he wrote of human life:\n\n\"'Pleasure, in the freshness of youth, I sought thy deliciousness;\n\n\"'Finally, in the winter of old age, I discover thy vanity;\n\n\"'The thirst for reputation and honour makes men enemies to one\nanother. What was it that I thirsted for? Reputation is but vanity.\n\n\"'Genius in its pride roams through realms of knowledge.\n\n\"'But my knowledge only plagues me; knowledge is but vanity.'\n\n\"But the fools make grimaces, when one of them recovers his reason.\nThen they say, 'He has gone mad.'\"\n\n\n=The Inevitable.=--The teacher said: \"The question, 'What has one\na right to feel remorse for?' is very complicated. I once followed the\ncareer of a foreign writer. I read his works, which seemed to belong\nto another world, with great admiration. His dramas all appeared to\nbreathe a melancholy fear of some unknown terror that was bound to\ncome. His philosophy was that of a saint. His landscapes seemed to be\nbathed not in common air but in pure \u00e6ther. He was then about forty\nyears old, and I expected every day to hear that he had gone into a\nconvent.\n\n\"But afterwards I heard he had married an actress, with whom he went\nabout, and who appeared as a 'living statue' in one of his pieces.\nHe also wrote new dramas for her, and now, when they became cynical\nand brutal, he achieved a greater popularity than he had ever been\nable to gain before. He degraded his person, his genius, his wife;\nand as he sank, I wept inwardly. One day I read in the paper that\nshe had deserted him, but that may have been false. The thought of\nhis fate tormented me; it seemed to have been predetermined. All his\ndramas written while he was still unmarried treated of this terrible\nthing which he foresaw and feared. It seemed to me as though he were\ncompelled to take a mud-bath, and obliged to let himself be besmirched\nby life precisely in this way. It seemed as though he had not the right\nto ante-date heaven; as though he were not allowed to lead a pure,\nsaintly life. It is terrible, because it is inexplicable.\"\n\n\n=The Poet's Sacrifice.=--The teacher continued: \"This man's\ndestiny reminds me of the Indian drama, _Urvasi_. A penitent who\nwithdraws to solitude in order to purify his soul by renunciation, may\nfinally attain such lofty spiritual heights that his power may become\ndangerous to the lower deities. In order to hinder such a penitent in\nhis spiritual development, the god Indra sent an Apsara, a sort of\ncelestial courtesan, in order to distract and seduce him.\n\n\"Does not that resemble the case which I mentioned just now? How can\nthe one who has been seduced feel guilty in such a case, or have\nthe right to repent a wrong he did not do? Now a poet is something\ndifferent to a recluse, and in order to be able to describe life in\nall its aspects and dangers he must first have lived it. What sort of\na poet would Shakespeare have been if he had lived as a steady young\nfellow, continued in his father's honourable profession, and in\nleisure hours written about his little affairs? Although one does not\nknow much about the great Englishman, one sees from his works what a\nstormy life he must have led. There is hardly a misfortune which he\nhas not experienced, hardly a passion which he has not felt. Hate and\nlove, revenge and lust, murder and fire, all seem to have come within\nthe circle of his experience as a poet. A real poet must sacrifice\nhis person for his work. I can conceive of a symbolical monument to\nShakespeare under the figure of Hercules kindling his own pyre on Mount\nOeta, sacrificing his opulent life as an offering for mankind. That is\na good idea, is it not?\"\n\nThe pupil answered: \"Truly you have the power of binding and loosing;\nnow you have loosed me.\"\n\n\n=The Function of the Philistines.=--The teacher said: \"Israel\nhad some unpleasant neighbours called Philistines, who guarded the\ncoast-line along the sea. They worshipped weird gods, such as Dagon\nthe Fish-god, Beelzebub the Lord of Dung, and Astarte. But unpleasant\nthough they were, they seemed to have had a part to play in the\nlife of Israel. As soon as the chosen people abandoned the temple,\nthe Philistines came and closed the sanctuary, set the Lord of Dung\nupon the altar, and burned incense before the Fish-god. As often as\nthe children of Israel quarrelled among themselves, the Philistines\nadvanced irresistibly. The hand of the Lord was with them, so that they\npunished and chastised their enemies. Once they took possession of the\nArk of the Covenant.\n\n\"We have our Philistines on the Bosphorus; they are called Turks. When\nthe Christians were unfaithful to their Lord, the Turk took possession\nof Christ's grave, and St. Sophia became a mosque. Whenever the\nChristians fought with each other, the Turk appeared. After the Thirty\nYears' War, when the Christians had tom each other like bloodhounds,\nthe Turk came as far as Vienna, and the Crescent surmounted the Cross\nin Hungary.\"\n\nThe pupil asked: \"Why do not the great powers recapture the Holy\nSepulchre and the Church of St. Sophia? They could do it in a moment!\"\n\n\"I do not know. Perhaps they cannot. We need our Philistine, the\nbogie-man with whom one frightens children. In France the churches were\nshut by the pagans when people ceased to attend Mass. Now they set up\nthe Lord of Dung on the altar. Marat, in his time, was buried in the\nPantheon; but when Christ reentered, Marat was thrown into the sewer.\nThe last to obtain apotheosis in the Pantheon was an engineer, who had\na single merit--that of being murdered by a friend of freedom. When we\nbecome Christians again, we shall receive back both the Holy Sepulchre\nand Santa Sophia. We do not need to take them. Such is the great\nfunction of the Philistines in the spiritual economy of nature.\"\n\n\n=World-Religion.=--The teacher continued: \"Goethe wrote in his\nyouth a treatise maintaining that the religion imposed by the State was\nthe most favourable for the maintenance of the State.\"\n\nThe pupil objected: \"But how will it fare with the individual\nconscience?\"\n\n\"As it has done hitherto. The State determines the views of the\nindividual in geometry, botany, history, and religion, by instruction\nin the schools, by religious services in the colleges, and prayers in\ncamps and barracks.\"\n\n\"But what about freedom of belief and thought?\"\n\n\"We have already agreed that there is no freedom, but that all is\ndependence and compulsion enforced by mutual pressure. Therefore misuse\nnot the sacred name of freedom. During the course of my long life,\nI have often thought I could interpret the intention of Providence\nthus: If all religious forms fell off like husks, and only the kernels\nremained, they might grow together like botanical cells, and form a\nsingle plant--a world-tree, under whose shadow all nations might rest\nin devotion and in unity.\" The teacher continued: \"I had also believed\nthat I had noticed there is a special purpose in the intermingling of\nraces which is now proceeding. This has already gone so far, that in\nmy insignificant family, which is registered as Scandinavian, we find\ntraces of all the five quarters of the world.\"\n\n\"But do you really believe it?\"\n\n\"I do not know.\"\n\n\"And do you think that all nations will be united in a common\nChristianity?\"\n\n\"I do not know! But the promise to Abraham, 'In thy seed shall\nall nations be blessed,' has already been fulfilled by Abraham's\ndescendant, Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, Christian Europe and\nthe western hemisphere of North and South America rule the world.\nAnd before the actual reality, our wishes, ideas, theories, and\nanticipations collapse.\"\n\n\n=The Return of Christ.=--The pupil asked: \"Are we to expect the\npromised return of Christ?\"\n\n\"Christ Himself answered this importunate question of his disciples by\nsaying, 'The Kingdom of God is among you.' And when He left them He\nsaid, 'Behold, I am with you always till the end of the world.'\"\n\n\"Good. But how is Christ's Kingdom to be set up on earth?\"\n\n\"Not by crusades, as you perhaps believe. You know that there are\nplants which cannot simultaneously thrive in the same ground; one kind\nmust die out. So there are races which cannot dwell together in the\nsame land. As soon as Christians become Christians again, the pagans\ndo not thrive, and depart. Just like the giants who got earache when\nthey heard the sound of church-bells, sniffed and snorted when they\nsmelt Christian blood, and finally slunk back into their caves. One\nought to be tolerant, but not to carry it so far as to take down the\nchurch-bells or lay the cross low, because they make the giants ill.\nSwedenborg says that the gift of free-will is never revoked, and that\ntherefore the damned themselves choose their own hell. If they come\ninto a purer air, they are tested; if they happen to get into good\ncompany, they do not thrive, and cast themselves headlong into the\nregion of the Lord of Dung. There they find an environment in which\nthey can breathe. If therefore you wish to fly evil companionship, you\nneed not shut your door. Only acquire an upright character, and your\nfellows will shun you like the pest.\"\n\n\n=Correspondences.=--The teacher said: \"We have discussed\nSwedenborg's hells and found that they are partly states of mind, and\npartly resemble earthly life under certain conditions. I remember\nnow certain striking details in them, which bring to my mind certain\nexperiences of everyday life. The fire of hell consists, he says,\npartly in this, that passions are aroused, only to be mocked and\npunished; partly in the kindling of desires, which really must be\ngratified, but die away immediately afterwards since suffering consists\nin missing something. Do you know that?\" \"Yes, I know it.\" \"Further,\nwhen heavenly light reaches the damned, an icy chill pervades their\nveins, and their blood ceases to flow. Do you know that?\" \"Yes, I know\nit! And I remember once when I was very wicked a good man began to\ntalk kindly to me. I was not warmed thereby, but began to feel so cold\nin the room where I was, that I put on my overcoat.\" \"Further, they\nwander about lonely and gloomy: they hunger, and have nothing to eat;\nthey go to houses, and ask for work, but when they get it, they go\ntheir way, to be tormented again by ennui. But when they return, the\ndoors are shut; they must work for food and clothing, and have a harlot\nfor a companion, is that so?\" \"It is!\" \"The ruling principles of hell\nare: the desire to rule from self-love; the desire for other people's\ngoods from love of the world; the desire for dissipation. The ruling\nprinciples of heaven are: the desire to rule with a good object; the\ndesire for money and property, in order to use them for the benefit of\nothers; the desire for marriage.\"\n\n\n=Good Words.=--The pupil asked: \"Does Swedenborg never speak a\ngood word to comfort and cheer one?\"\n\nThe teacher answered: \"Yes, certainly he does. He says, for example,\n'The chosen are those who have conscience; the reprobate are those\nwho have no conscience.' That agrees with Socrates' definition of\na man as a being possessing both modesty and conscience. In another\nplace Swedenborg thus explains temptations: 'Evil spirits arouse in\nthe memory of a man all the evil and falsity which he has thought and\npractised since childhood; but the angels who accompany him produce his\ngoodness and truth, and in this manner defend him. It is this conflict\nwhich causes pangs of conscience.\n\n\"'When a man is tried with respect to his understanding, evil spirits\nsummon up only the evil deeds which he has committed. These are\nsymbolised by unclean animals. The evil spirits accuse and condemn by\ndistorting the truth in a thousand ways.'\n\n\"Swedenborg also mentions a kind of spirits who raise scruples about\ntrifles, and thus trouble the consciences of the unwary. Their presence\narouses a feeling of discomfort at the pit of the stomach, and they\ntake delight in burdening the conscience. Finally there are some\npagans from the countries inhabited by black men, who bring with them\nfrom their earthly life the wish to be treated hardly, under the idea\nthat no one can enter heaven without having suffered punishments and\ntorments. _Because they have this belief_, they are at first treated\nhardly by some whom they call devils.\n\n\"In another place Swedenborg says: 'There are no devils except bad\nmen.' One word more. The Master met some in a state of despair, who\nbelieved that pain would be everlasting. 'But it was given me to\ncomfort them.' These are good words for you.\"\n\n\n=Severe and not Severe.=--The pupil objected: \"But Swedenborg is\nin general too severe.\"\n\nThe teacher answered: \"No! it is not he, but life which is severe, and\nlife's laws are severe for the unrighteous. The Master says: 'Women\nwho attain to power and wealth from the lower ranks often become\nfuries; but women who are born to power and wealth, and do not uplift\nthemselves, are happy.' 'To renounce the pleasures of life,' he says,\n'and wealth and power, with the idea of earning heaven by asceticism,\nis a false view.'\n\n\"We know that Swedenborg was temperate in everyday life, but went\nwillingly into society, and then he allowed himself a _poculum\nhilaritatus,_ a cup of cheer. He declares himself decisively against\nthose who retreat from the world: 'Many think it is hard to lead a\nlife which conducts to heaven, because they have heard that, for this\nobject, one must renounce the world and live to the spirit. By this\nthey understand that one must cut oneself off from all that is earthly,\nand devotes one's whole life to spiritual contemplation and devotion.\nBut that it is not really so, I have learned through long experience.\nHe who thus separates from the world in order to live to the spirit,\nenters a gloomy life, which is irreceptive of the joy of heaven. In\norder to prepare for heaven one must live in the world in activity and\nemployment.... I have spoken with some who had withdrawn from their\noccupations in order to live a spiritual life, and also with some\nwho had tormented themselves in various ways, because they believed\nthey ought to suppress the desires of the flesh.... As a rule they\nare puffed up with pride, and regard heavenly joy as a reward without\nknowing what heaven and heavenly joy is.'\"\n\nThe pupil interrupted: \"This seems to be the case with the pietists.\"\n\n\"Not with all. There are among them penitents, or those who really\nprepare for death. Leave the pietists in peace, and don't try to sever\nthe wheat from the chaff.... Religion should not merely be a Sunday\nsuit, but a gentle accompaniment to mitigate the ponderous tones of\neveryday life. But one must not be cowardly or indifferent, as so many\nmodern Christians are. When they hear the big words 'Development,'\n'Modern Thought,' 'Science,' they think at once that Christianity is a\nthing of the past. If they read in the papers that the Lice-King has\novercome the Christians, they believe at once that God has forsaken His\nown. They forget that the Egyptian bondage was an education for Canaan,\nand that the Philistines were employed as goads to spur on the lazy.\n\n\"Unbelief, superstition, deliberate falsehood, error--all serve the\nTruth, for all things serve. And to him who loves God, all things turn\nout for good.\"\n\n\n=Yeast and Bread.=--\"The neo-pagans who have now rushed forward\non the stage, and believe they are the lords of the world because they\nserve the Prince of the World, seem to be a sediment of savage races\nwhich by marriage and immigration have penetrated the old nations of\nEurope like yeast. Yeast fulfils its function in the warmth of the\noven, but is itself changed into gases and disappears, leaving bubbles\nand holes behind. The dough remains, changed into mellow, low, crisp,\nwhite, fragrant, warm bread. Yeast is a kind of mould produced by\ncorruption, yet it must be present in order to make white bread.\n\n\"Everything serves! But mould by itself can make no bread. One ought\ntherefore not to be angry with the pagans, for they know no better.\nTo enlighten them is difficult; one can locate a grey star, but not a\nblack one. One ought not to fear them, for then they bite. But they\nmust have their day. 'I have seen the wicked in great power, and\nspreading himself like a green tree in its native soil; but I passed\nby, and, lo, he was not; yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.'\"\n\n\n=The Man of Development.=--The pupil asked: \"Can the pagans really\nnot be enlightened?\"\n\n\"Experience has shown that it is almost impossible. For a blockhead\ncannot understand the simplest things; he cannot see the self-evident\nnature of an axiom. If he is systematically followed by misfortune,\nhe calls it 'bad-luck'; if he is prostrated with illness, he rises\nas stupid as he was before; if he gets into prison, he sits there\nand meditates new tricks; if he lies on the rack, he thinks he is\nsuffering for his faith, although he has not got any; from warnings\nand trials he emerges as great a calf as he was before, for he has no\nintelligence. All the denizens of the dunghill praise his firmness of\ncharacter, his strength of soul, his strong belief in his cause. He is\nsixty years old, and he has worked for 'development,' but he has not\nbeen able to develop himself. He hawks about the same rubbish as he\ndid forty years ago, when he discovered what he called 'the truth' in\nthe books of his teachers; he has never produced an original thought,\nnor obtained a new view of an old subject. He has stood still, but the\nworld has gone forward; he believed he was leading the van, when he\nwas bringing up the rear. Christianity beckoned, but crab-like he went\nbackward to paganism. Such is the man of 'development.' Do you know\nhim?\"\n\n\"I have known him, but renounced his acquaintance.\"\n\n\n=Sins of Thought.=--The teacher said: \"According to Luther, man\nis a child till his fortieth year. I was a child till my fiftieth,\n_i.e._ unintelligent, conceited. I believed that I was inaccessible and\nirresponsible as regards my thoughts. But I was obliged to change my\nopinion when I began to observe myself. I discovered, that is, that\nwhen I had sinned, hated, killed, stolen, though only in thought, and\nthen came into the company of friends, they treated me ruthlessly,\nas though I were a murderer or a thief. I could not explain, but\nfinally believed that my evil thoughts were legible in my face. And\nwhen I observed that my friends began to touch on precisely the same\nunpleasant subject which had occupied my secret thoughts, I saw that\nso-called thought-reading is daily and hourly practised in social life.\n\n\"When subsequently I read Maeterlinck's fine book, _The Treasure of\nthe Humble_, my belief in this was strengthened, for he made the same\nobservation. When I finally took in hand my own spiritual education, I\nfound that this was the principal point, and by watching my thoughts\nI prevented them breaking out into action. Now for the first time\nI understood why I had so often in my life thought myself unjustly\naccused and punished for offences which I had not committed. I confess\nnow that I had committed them in thought. But how did men know that?\nAssuredly there is a hidden justice which punishes sins of thought,\nand when men make each other accountable for suspicions, ugly looks or\nfeelings, they are right. That is a hard saying, but it is so.\"\n\n\n=Sins of Will.=--The teacher continued: \"There are also sins\nof wish and volition. You know that one can hate and worry a man\ndead. I was once in a watering-place in which the hotel proprietor\nhad introduced a sort of monopoly. He had arrogated to himself the\nprivilege of alone providing food for the boarders. He starved them by\ncooking the goodness out of the meat before he roasted it, by making\nsoup of rye-meal, and so on. The boarders were patient, and no one\nwished to make a disturbance. But their hatred of the man increased.\nAfter a month I observed that the hotel proprietor began to look yellow\nin the face and to pine away. As he sat at his bar he became the\nobject of glances full of hatred. At last, one day, the whole company,\na hundred in number, rose during the midday meal and departed. Then\nthe proprietor became ill of a liver disease. It seemed as though the\ncollected gall of all the guests had somehow transferred itself to his\nliver, and curdled there. He vanished; they had killed him. But their\nhatred was this time justified, or quite natural.\n\n\"When, however, we hate a man because he will not admire us or further\nour selfish interests, we may become simply murderers. That, however,\ndepends on the behaviour of the other. If he is innocent in the\nmatter, he will be immune and irreceptive of the poison. I know a\nperson who hated me because she could not rob me. She was a servant to\nwhom I had shown nothing but kindness. Her hate did not affect me so\nlong as I was upright.\"\n\n\n=The Study of Mankind.=--The teacher said: \"One ought not to\nattempt to study men. Partly because they do not lay themselves open\nto be studied, partly because they are aware when they became objects\nof deliberate investigation. He who does not give himself, receives\nnothing. He who does not approach men in a spirit of sympathy, finds\nno point of contact with them. When I regard them as companions in\nmisfortune, fellow-wanderers in the wilderness, they open themselves to\nme. If I expose myself, I show a confidence in them, which meets with\na response. If I approach them with suspicion, they show suspicion.\nIf anyone visits me, in order to examine me, I let him sit for his\nportrait to me.\n\n\"When I have had frank intercourse for a considerable time with a man,\nand then sum up his characteristics in my recollection, I get a fair\nidea of him, but never quite a correct one. Men have a right to hide\ntheir secrets. When I was young and unintelligent, I believed that, as\nan author, I had a right to investigate the past of others; but I soon\ndiscovered that it is not allowed. They seemed to be guarded.\n\n\"He who says one ought to be so on guard in one's intercourse with a\nfriend, as though he might some day become an enemy, has had little\npleasure in friendship. I have always behaved to men as though they\nwere going to be my friends for life, and therefore I have received\nsomething in return. When they have disappointed me, I have said to\nmyself. 'What matters it? Nothing for nothing!'\"\n\n\n=Friend Zero.=--The teacher continued: \"There are people who\nseem friendly, harmless, considerate; they leave others in peace,\nnever pry into their affairs, never say evil behind people's backs,\nnor allow evil to be said. I have admired and envied them for their\ngood natural qualities. But among such persons I have found some who\nkeep remote from unpleasantnesses out of pure selfishness, and who out\nof love for ease and comfort wish to know nothing of other people's\naffairs in order not to be drawn into them. These are those who will\nnot give evidence in court, even for the sake of defending a friend.\nThey are silent when they ought to speak. They avoid recommending a\nrelative on the plea that 'they do not know him.' When their names\nare mentioned as authorities for such and such a report, they have\n'lost their memories.' They will not lend money to anyone who needs\nit, because 'they do not wish to have a disagreement with him.' They\nhave no positive virtues, and no positive faults. Consequently they\nare colourless, unreliable, characterless, formless; they can not be\nclassified under any system.\n\n\"I once knew one of these for ten years; then I forgot him. Twenty\nyears later I found some of my old letters in an attic; among them were\nhundreds of letters from my formless friend. I was astonished to find\nthat I had had such a lengthy correspondence with him. And I looked\nto see what he had had to say. I read five-and-twenty letters. They\ncontained nothing. I read fifty; the result was the same--nothing.\nThey consisted solely of handwriting, ink, paper, envelopes, and\npostage-stamps. I burnt them and forgot Friend Zero henceforth. He did\nnot even leave a memory behind him.\"\n\n\n=Affable Men.=--The teacher said: \"When I have seen a\ncharacter-drama, I have always asked myself, 'Are men really so simple\nand transparent?' There is a kind of men about whom one can never be\ncertain. They are so disposed by nature that they adapt themselves to\ntheir companions out of pure affability. Such a man once came into my\ncircle; I found him sympathetic, lovable, good-natured. On one occasion\nI imparted to a third person my opinion of my affable friend. He\nanswered, 'You don't know him! He is a malicious man; he has only put\non an air of affability with you.'\n\n\"Then there came a fourth: 'He! He is the falsest man in existence!'\nFinally his wife came: 'No! he is neither malicious nor false; he only\nwants to be on good terms with people.'\n\n\"At the beginning of our acquaintance (he confessed it himself later\non), he had determined to win me by affability, and to preserve my\naffection by doing everything, or nearly everything, that I wished. He\nalso abstained from contradicting me. During a whole year I never heard\nhim express a view of his own; he only repeated my thoughts. I believed\nhe had no will, no views, not even feelings. He seemed to me to be a\nmirror in which I was reflected; I never found him, only myself. Then I\nbecame tired of him, did not know how to hold myself in, and asked him\nto do something wrong. Then at last I discovered the man himself. With\nan unparalleled strength of character, he left wife, child, and home!\nIn order 'to save his soul,' as he said. 'Have you then got a soul?' I\nasked. 'Judge for yourself,' he answered, and departed.\n\n\"It is dangerous to be affable, and it is dangerous to consider men\nsimple.\"\n\n\n=Cringing before the Beast.=--The teacher said: \"When a man once\nyields to desire, the ceasing of a certain restraint carries with it a\nfeeling of freedom and deliverance. This pleasurable feeling we almost\nregard as a reward, and conclude that we have acted rightly when we\nhave thrown a bone to the barking dog. But had we forborne to do so,\nthe dog would not have formed the habit of barking, and we might have\ngone our way in the proud consciousness of not having cringed before\nthe beast, by bribing it to silence. The feeling of pleasure would have\nbeen changed into a consciousness of victory and power, which is far\nsuperior to sensuality.\n\n\"Never cringe before the beast; then it will not get the better of\nyou. The suppression of an unlawful desire is like winding up a watch;\nthe mainspring contracts till it creaks, but it does not do its work\nproperly till then. Preserve your strength for yourself; then you will\nconquer your foes in the battles of life. Waste not your virile energy,\nor the woman will get the better of you.\n\n\"You know very well what I mean by 'desire': I do not mean moderate\neating and drinking; and you know very well what 'waste' means. You\nmust also not believe that desire decreases with age. It is not so; but\nthe intelligence and will-power increase, and therefore the victory is\nproportionably easier. I make you a present of this explanation: keep\nit, and show that you are intelligent enough to be able to receive a\nreal one.\"\n\n\n=Ecclesia Triumphans.=--The teacher said: \"The world is full of\nlies, but there are also errors and misunderstandings. No two men give\nwords the same meaning. But there are persistent lies which circulate\nlike coins. There are lies of the lower classes, and lies of the upper\nclasses; lies of the Catholics and of the Protestants. But those of\nthe pagans are the worst of all. They believe they have the right to\nlie, because it profits them or their friends. One of the greatest\nlies of the pagans which misled me for a long time is the false\nassertion that Japan has accepted the material culture of Europe, but\nrejected Christianity. Two Japanese professors, who lately visited our\nland, declared on the contrary that there was a Christian church in\neach of the larger towns of Japan. There are Christians in the army,\nparliament, and universities. Their number is great--five-and-forty\nthousand Protestants, eight-and-fifty thousand Catholics, and\nfive-and-twenty thousand adherents of the Greek Church. In the Second\nChamber of the Japanese parliament two of the presidents have become\nChristians. And all that has taken place in thirty-five years. A\nthousand years pass by like nothing, and the future seems to belong to\nChristianity, since we have already seen that the chief powers of the\nworld, Europe and America, are Christian.\n\n\"There is certainly no obligation to be a Christian, but some day\nit may be a disgrace not to be one, when one is born in a Christian\ncountry. It may come to be thought retrograde and conservative, and a\nfailure to keep pace with development. The pagans celebrated the end of\nthe eighteenth century as marking the overthrow of Christianity, but in\n1802 appeared the finest book which has been written on Christianity,\n_Le G\u00e9nie du Christianisme_, by Chateaubriand, and by its means the\nChurch triumphed again.\"\n\n\n=Logic in Neurasthenia.=--As the Teacher wandered in Qualheim, he\ncame into a mountainous region, and saw a castle which was of dreamlike\nbeauty. \"Who is the enviable man who lives in such a palace?\" he\nasked. His guide answered: \"He is an unhappy, helpless hermit, without\npeace, and without a home. He was born with great artistic gifts, but\nemployed them on rubbish. He drew nonsensical and trifling caricatures,\ndistorted all that was beautiful into ugliness, and all that was great\ninto pettiness.\"\n\n\"How does he occupy himself now?\"\n\n\"Shall I say it? He sits from morning till evening, making balls out of\ndung.\"\n\n\"You mean to say, he continues as he began. Is that his punishment?\"\n\n\"Yes! Isn't it logical? He obtained the castle, but cannot use it.\"\nThen they went further and came into a garden, where they found a man\ngrafting peaches on turnips. \"What has he done?\" asked the teacher. \"In\nlife he was especially fond of turnips, and now he wishes to inoculate\npeaches, which he finds insipid, with the fine flavour of turnips. He\nwas, moreover, an author, and wished to rejuvenate poetry with bawdy\npeasant songs.\" \"Why, that is symbolism!\" \"Yes, and logical most of\nall.\"\n\nThen they came to a cottage, where they found a man lying on a bed,\nsurrounded by piles of books. The man had read himself ill; he lay\nthere exhausted by hunger and thirst, and could hardly breathe.\n\n\"What is he reading?\" asked the teacher.\n\n\"Only theology, exegetics, dogmatics, isogogy, eschatology. During\nlifetime he denied the existence of God. Now he seeks Him in theology,\nbut has not yet found Him.\"\n\n\"Will he find Him?\"\n\n\"Yes, certainly he will. But he must first seek!\"\n\n\"Why, it is just like that in our lunatic asylums.\"\n\n\"And there is logic in neurasthenia, here as there.\"\n\n\n=My Caricature.=--The teacher said: \"Men often appear in our lives\nas though they were sent; we do not know why they interfere with our\ndestiny; they themselves perhaps do not know. When I was a young man\nwho gave promise of a future, which I had not fulfilled, I received as\na colleague in my work a man whom I at once felt to be antipathetic to\nme, and who hated me. But he sought me, drew me out, and compelled me\nto drink, although I was not exactly difficult to persuade. He drank\nhimself terribly, and often I thought he wished to make me drink myself\nto death. When half-intoxicated, he always made personal remarks on\nme, both flattering and critical. He also appeared as a charlatan,\nprofessing to know and prophesy my destiny. This sometimes attracted\nme, and sometimes repelled me.\n\n\"Finally, on one occasion when intoxicated, he attacked me before\nothers, and called me 'a humbug who would come to nothing.' I was at\nthat time fully conscious of my vocation as author; excited by the\nattack, and being partially in liquor, I made a presumptuous assertion\nthat I would be 'great.' Then the man fell in a rage and swore by\nh--l that I should not be great. After this our ways divided. My\nfriends noticed it, and asked, 'Do you not go about any more with your\ncaricature?' 'What do you mean by that?' I asked. 'His face was really\na caricature of yours.' And so it was.\n\n\"Two years afterwards I emerged from the ruck, and remember that my\nthoughts turned back to the mysterious person who had interested\nhimself in my destiny. Somewhat later I heard that the man had died\nat twenty-seven years of age under peculiar circumstances. He was\nstanding on a mountain in the evening of Midsummer Day when he had\na stroke. 'He flew asunder like a goblin in the sunlight,' I said\njocosely.\n\n\"This man looked like a Hun or a death's-head. He was born in the\nseventh month, and preserved by being wrapped in wadding and laid in a\ncorner of the tiled stove. But that explains nothing perhaps?\"\n\n\n=The Inexplicable.=--The teacher continued: \"He had, however, a\npeculiar influence over people, and that not only because he flattered\nthem. I saw him when he was twenty-five years old talking with our\nforemost statesman, who was then fifty. The widely experienced,\nsceptical politician listened to the ill-dressed unwashed man,\nflushed with wine, who almost monopolised the talk. He claimed an\nauthoritative knowledge of all subjects, teemed with facts and\nfigures, alluded to all prominent men as old acquaintances, was well\nversed in family chronicles and political intrigues. 'Where did he\nget all that?' I asked someone. 'I don't know, but he is a remarkable\nman with great influence,' was the answer. In addition to his other\ncharacteristics I can mention this: with all his coarseness he had\ntraits of sensitiveness. He wept when he read of the cruelties in\nthe Russo-Turkish war. He loved beautiful poetry. He had a chivalrous\nenthusiasm for women. He gave out his money generously, but when he\nwas tipsy he was stingy. Demons plagued him, and he used to roam in\nthe woods alone; but he always smashed his top-hat first. One could\nsee into his nostrils, and, when he laughed, all his back teeth could\nbe counted. He always wore too long trousers on which he trod, for he\nwas in the habit of walking on his heels. He was beardless like Attila,\nbecause his cheeks simply consisted of nerves.\n\n\"But what had he to do with my destiny, and whence sprang his boundless\nhatred for me? It is inexplicable, like so much else.\"\n\n\n=Old-time Religion.=--The pupil said: \"I have heard, I\nhave thought; now I will speak. I believe in Christianity as a\nworld-historical fact, with which a new era has begun and proceeds. I\nbelieve that all nations will one day bow the knee in the name of Jesus\nChrist. Every time that the pagans gain the upper hand, I will regard\nit as a test, and not immediately believe that God is with them against\nHis own.\n\n\"But let us have a simple, cheerful Christianity which gathers all\nto the Sunday festival. Regard it as a misuse of God's name to have\nreligious services every day. Simplify the dogmas and keep them\nflexible so that all may find a place in them. Shorten the services;\nlet praise, thanks, and worship predominate, and let the sermon, which\nshould be only twenty minutes long, be subordinate. The preacher should\nstick to his text, and not make personal allusions like a journalist.\nNot till that is done will one be able to talk of 'assemblies,' of\nnational festivals like the Pan-Athen\u00e6an and Olympian games.\n\n\"But it is madness to put pagans at the head of a Christian State\nas teachers, educators, or officials. That is not tolerance, but\ntomfoolery. That is making the goat the gardener, setting the foe\nin the fortress, playing the coward before public opinion, and mere\nweakness.\n\n\"There will come a day in which the name 'Christian' will be a title\nof honour and a diploma of nobility. To say 'I am a Christian' is\nequivalent to saying 'I am a Roman citizen.' He who dares to call\nhimself a pagan or an atheist, will be regarded as a blockhead, an\nold-fashioned ass, a conservative reactionary, a stick-in-the-mud.\"\n\n\n=The Seduced Become Seducers.=--The pupil continued: \"The reason\nwhy it has been so hard for me and many others to become really\nChristian, is that we are all directly descended from the pagans.\nWe were not acclimatised in the Christian atmosphere, but liable to\nwild impulses; our flesh was too coarse to endure renunciation and\nrestraint. We had been educated in the evolutionary ape-theory, and\nbeen taught that man belongs to the department of zoology and not\nthat of anthropology. We had also been told that the physical process\nthat precedes the New Birth of the soul, which is called conversion\nfrom evil, was neurasthenia, and should be treated with warm baths or\nbromkali. Veterinary doctors held professorships of philosophy and\nintroduced zoology as a compulsory subject in priests' examinations.\nThe servants of the Lord learnt that religion was a deposit from the\ntertiary period, that animals were more religious than man, and that\nman had created God. The seducer of our youth taught us that the\nLife of Jesus was a lubricous novel, that the doctrine of the Bible\nregarding Christ simply amounted to this--that He was a prominent\nGalil\u00e6an; and finally, that the superman was the bandit who may commit\nany outrage against others, provided he can prove a false alibi and has\nno witnesses.\n\n\"It was a terrible period which recalled that of the Roman emperors,\nand like that, heralded the arrival of Christianity. We, who had been\nseduced, then became seducers. But we thank God that no harm was done.\nEverything serves, and we had to serve as a terrifying example. There\nis always something.\n\n\n=Large-hearted Christianity.=--\"But we ought not to frighten men\nwith Christianity, nor become hair-splitters. Let faith be a uniting\nbond to lead us onward, let faith be hope in a better life after this,\na connecting-link with that which is higher. Let the fruits of faith\nbe seen to be humanity, resignation, mercifulness. But don't go and\ncount how many glasses of whisky your neighbour drinks; don't call him\na hypocrite if he once in a while gives way to the flesh, or if he is\nangry and says hard words. Don't ask how often he goes to church; don't\nspy on his words, if in an access of ill-humour he speaks otherwise\nthan he would. You cannot see whether in solitude he does not regret it\nand chastens himself. A white lie or the embellishment of a story is\nnot a deadly sin; an impropriety can be so atoned for by imprisonment\nthat it ought to be forgotten. Do not secede from the Church because\nof some dogmas which you do not understand. Don't form a sect with the\nidea of raising yourself to the rank of shepherd, instead of forming\npart of the flock. One should have a large-hearted Christianity for\ndaily use, and a stricter one for festival days.\n\n\"Don't talk about religion. It is too good for that.... Virtue consists\nin striving, even when it does not always succeed.\"\n\n    \"The noble Spirit now is free\n    And saved from evil scheming,\n    Whoer'er aspires unweariedly\n    Is not beyond redeeming.\n    And if he feels the grace of Love\n    That from on high is given,\n    The blessed hosts that wait above\n    Shall welcome him to heaven.\"\n                         (_Faust_, Part II.)\n\n\n\n=Reconnection with the A\u00ebrial Wire.=--The pupil spoke: \"You said\nonce that the tramcar comes to a standstill if it loses connection\nwith the a\u00ebrial wire. I know that very well. Would that my friends\nwho are atheists and pagans knew what a relief it is to find the\nconnection again. It is like diving in crystal-clear sea-water after\nperspiring in the heat of the dog-days on a dusty high-road. The heart\ngrows light; the systematic ill-luck ceases; one has some success,\none's undertakings prosper, one can sleep at night, and neurasthenia\nceases. I remember how, after a night of debauchery, the most beautiful\nlandscape at sunrise looked ghastly; while after a night of quiet sleep\nthe same scene looked paradisal.\n\n\"When we gain the certainty, and the belief founded on certainty, that\nlife is continued on the other side, then we find it easier on this\none, and do not hunt after trifles till we are weary. Then we discover\nthe divine light-heartedness of which Goethe speaks, which finds\nexpression in a certain contempt of honours and distinction, promotion\nand money. We become more in-sensible to blows and abuse. Everything\ngoes more softly and smoothly. However dark the surroundings may be, we\nbecome self-luminous so to speak, and carry the little pocket-lamp hope\nwith us.\"\n\n\n=The Art of Conversion.=--The pupil continued: \"Plato describes\nearthly life as follows: 'Men sit in a cavern with their backs towards\nthe light. Therefore they only see the shadows or simulacra of what\npasses in front of the cavern. Whoever hits on the brilliant idea of\nturning round, sees the originals, the realities in themselves, the\nlight.'\n\n\"So simple is it! Only to turn round, or be converted, in a word.\nBut it is not necessary on that account to become a monk, ascetic,\nor hermit. I almost agree with Luther that faith is everything. Our\ndeeds lag far behind, and need only consist in refraining from all\ndeliberate evil. As a beginning, one may be content with not stealing,\nlying, or bearing false witness. If we have greater claims and wish to\ntrain ourselves into supermen, we may. But if we do not succeed, we\nshould not throw the whole system over-board, but ceaselessly commence\nanew, never despair, try to smile at our vain efforts, be patient with\nourselves, and believe good of God.\n\n\"When the religious man falls, he gets up again, brushes himself, and\ngoes on; the irreligious one remains lying in the dirt. Thus the whole\nart of life consists in not turning one's back to the light.\n\n\n=The Superman.=--\"The gentlemen who talk about development say\nthat Christianity is out of date and lies behind us. No! Christianity\nis everywhere; behind us, near us, before us.\n\n\"Pagans of all kinds really created their gods in their own likeness.\nBut with Christianity came the transcendent God and revealed Himself\nto men who had the goodwill to understand Him. Therefore Christianity\nis the beginning of the world's history, its middle, and its end.\n'Whither and whence everything streams,' as Hegel says.\n\n\"The multiplication-table is still older, but is not out of date; it\nis still used, though logarithms have been discovered. The laws of\nthought, atomic weights, oscillations of waves of light and sound, have\nnot been left behind us, but are still continually close to us.\n\n\"But if one does reattach oneself to Christianity, one should take it\nwithout refining--stock and barrel, dogmas and miracles. One should\nswallow it uncritically, na\u00efvely, in great gulps, then it goes down\nlike castor-oil in hot coffee. 'Open your mouth and shut your eyes.'\nThat is the only way.\n\n\"I am a Christian, _i.e._ I am a nobleman; I belong to the upper\nclass; I have been vaccinated; I have served my time in the army;\nI am a citizen and of full age; I am a white man; I have a clean\nbirth-certificate; I am a superman.\"\n\nTo be a Christian Is not to be a Pietist.--The pupil continued: \"If my\npagan friends would only give up the idea that a Christian must be a\npietist, they would come into our pantheon in crowds. Luther ate and\ndrank what was set before him, as St. Paul enjoins; he played, sang,\nhunted, and played skittles. He swore also; but notice well, he never\nasked God to curse him, or the Devil to take him; he only said, 'Curse\nsuch and such a thing,' or 'To the devil with it!' Certainly I think he\nmight have modified that habit, as it created annoyance, and he was a\nchief priest and prophet.\n\n\"It is a standing error to think that we lay-men should live every\nday like priests. We cannot; we have neither the time nor the means;\nit is a shame to demand it. But with the priest it is otherwise. He\nhas devoted his life to the service of the Lord. He should spend the\nsix days of the week in so preparing his sermon that he can say it by\nheart. I will not compare the clergyman with the actor, but on Sunday\nhe ought at any rate be able to repeat his r\u00f4le verbatim. For doing\nthat he gets his bread. If the congregation see that he reads his\nsermon, they think, 'We could do that too; there is no art in that!'\nAnd the minister of the Lord must take good heed to himself else he\narouses annoyance. People will not take it ill if he is austere, and\nrefrains from society, for he is a representative, not a private\nperson. With the layman it is otherwise. He is a poor sinful man, of\nwhom too much cannot be demanded as he drags his daily burden through\nthe wicked world.\"\n\n\n=Strength and Value of Words.=--The teacher said: \"Thought is an\nact of the mind, and words are congealed thoughts. The uttered word can\nhave an effect like a charm or an adjuration. There are men who are so\nsensitive that they are aware at a distance whether people are speaking\nwell or ill of them. There are men who are not afraid of committing a\ncrime, but are startled at the word which names it. Weak men cannot\nendure hard words; they make them ill. A word may kill. If I were a\njudge, I would always first ask the man-slayer, 'What did he say which\nmade you strike him down?' And then I should allow for extenuating\ncircumstances, or even acquit the man, if the deadly word caused the\ndeadly blow as a reflex-action. If for fifty years I have cherished the\nmemory of my parents, and my family, property, and honour is based on\nmy relationship to them, and then someone comes and tells me I am not\nmy father's son, he has killed me; the whole edifice of my emotional\nlife collapses. He has paralysed my energy and willingness to sacrifice\nmyself; he has imposed upon me the monstrous task of radically changing\nmy views of the world and men; he has rooted-up my filial affection;\nwith a single word he has annihilated my whole life. If he has lied, he\nis simply a murderer!\"\n\n\n=The Black Illuminati.=--The teacher said: \"Everything serves,\nand error often helps forward truth. At the end of the last century,\nthe materialists began to sniff about in the occult. One day they\ndiscovered the capacity of men, when in a hypnotic state, of seeing\nat a distance, of beholding the invisible, and of penetrating the\nfuture. Then they accomplished, curiously enough, the honourable task\nof establishing the truth of clairvoyance and prophecy, as well as the\npossibility of miracles. The theosophists, who really at a terrible\nperiod of the 'black illumination' sought to penetrate behind phenomena\nand dug up useful fragments of ancient wisdom, were however hostile\nto Christianity. They went so far as to send one of their prophets to\nIndia to warn the natives against the missionaries.\n\n\"But in course of time they began to investigate Christianity again;\nthey were now provided with the proper means for understanding the\nmysteries of Christ's incarnation and atoning death, of sacraments\nand miracles. And see now! their latest prophetess has written a\nbook to explain and defend Christianity! All roads seem to lead to\nChrist. No one has done such good service to Christianity as the\nmaterialistic occultists and the atheistic theosophists. Young France\nhas been Christianised by the pagans. The last apostle of the rustic\nintelligence stands isolated there in his damnable infatuation,\nbelieving himself to be the only 'illuminated' one in the world. Let us\nhope that he is the last of the 'Illuminati.'\"\n\n\"Yes, let us hope so.\"\n\n\n=Anthropomorphism.=--\"Man is inclined to make everything after\nhis own likeness. When the heathen made themselves gods, the latter\nresembled their creators in all their defects and sins. That is called\nAnthropomorphism. The artist who paints a portrait, always puts\nsomething of his own into it. I know a sculptor who always used to\nmodel his own undersized figure with its two short legs, whether he\nwas representing mountaineers, fauns, men of science, or kings. The\nplumper he became in course of time, the more rotund his figures grew.\nI know a photographer who always retouches his portraits of people\ntill they resemble himself. He must admire his own exterior, and wish\nto have it taken as a standard-type. The critic when he describes an\nauthor, proceeds in a similar fashion. Every point in which the author\nresembles him is reckoned a merit; everyone in which he differs, a\nfault.\n\n\"When anyone says, 'This poet is the best I know; you must read him!'\nthat means, 'This poet has my views; you must share them, for they are\nthe best in the world.' Everyone would like to fashion humanity and the\nworld in his own image. But if everyone had his way, what would the\nworld look like?\"\n\n\n=Fury-worship as a Penal Hallucination.=--The teacher said:\n\"Swedenborg describes, in his fashion, how the greatest tyrant arrived\nin Hades. He wished to stir up hell against heaven, and he was punished\nby having a terrible woman sent to rule him, whom he worshipped.\nShe was a compendium of original sin, deliberate falsehood, wilful\ndeceit, ugliness, uncleanness, destructiveness. But he was compelled\nto see in her the good, the beautiful, the lovable; he called her 'my\nangel.' All his adherents were obliged to worship her, or he called\nthem 'woman-haters.' Whence Swedenborg derived his narratives, I know\nnot, but his descriptions are like photographs of our everyday life.\nThe modern worship of women does not come down from the Christian\nages of chivalry, for those romanticists honoured womanhood in its\nvirtues. Our new gyneolatry is derived from the heathen; it is a kind\nof fury-worship imposed on us as a penal hallucination. The sons of\nthe Lord of Dung deify their furies, and praise their faults. In their\nview sin is virtue, wickedness is character, deceitfulness is a proof\nof intelligence, coarseness is strength. He who will not join in\nthis devil-worship is called a woman-hater. Chaste wives and mothers\nare called old-fashioned and perverse. Euripides describes in the\n_Hippolytus_ how this king's son dedicated his devotion to the chaste\nDiana and fled the demotic Venus. This impure goddess avenged herself\nby accusing the innocent Hippolytus of incest and then caused him to be\nput to death. Euripides on account of writing this tragedy was called a\n'woman-hater,' and is said to have been tom in pieces by female dogs.\nThat is a pretty legend!\"\n\n\n=Amerigo or Columbus.=--The teacher said: \"Human greatness and\nthe way of becoming great is something very remarkable. Often envious\nhatred of the deserving seems to be converted into immense love for\nthe undeserving. The infatuation of hatred may go so far that when\nthe deserving has done a good work, the undeserving gets the glory of\nit. But often also there are secret reasons for this abnormal result.\nEvery schoolboy has asked why America was not named after Columbus,\nwho discovered it. I also made that inquiry, and while I served the\nLord of Dung I found it quite natural that the undeserving cartographer\nVespucci should have the honour of the discovery.\n\n\"But when I recovered my reason (and men called me mad), I read the\nbiography of Columbus again. There I found that, together with his\nmerits, he had great faults. Like David, he sinned by pride, avarice,\ncruelty, and deceit. His pride was boundless. Before undertaking his\ndoubtful voyage, he laid down as a condition that he was to be Viceroy\n(he, the weaver's son!) and receive a tithe of the revenues. Well, he\nnever learnt that he had discovered a new quarter of the globe. He died\nand was forgotten.\n\n\"Vespucci, on the other hand, was not only a cartographer, but\nsailed round South America, and discovered that the New World was\nnot India. He seems to have been a good-natured, upright, and modest\nman. Toscanelli, his contemporary, is also said to have announced the\nexistence of a new world, but that is not so certain.\"\n\n\n=A Circumnavigator of the Globe.=--The pupil said: \"Can you\nresolve my discords?\"\n\n\"I will call you a circumnavigator of the globe. You have sailed round\nit, and returned to the point whence you set out. No one can go further\nthan that. But you return with a freight of experience, knowledge,\nand wisdom. Therefore the journey was not in vain, or to speak more\ncorrectly, it has fulfilled its object. Max Muller, who at the time of\nthe decadence was the scapegoat for all the atheists, concludes his\nhistory of religion thus: 'It is easy to say that the completest faith\nis a child's faith. Nothing can be truer. The older we grow, the more\nwe learn to comprehend the wisdom of children's faith.' And in another\nplace he says: 'To explain religion by referring it to a religious\nimpulse, or a religious capacity, is merely to explain the known by the\nless known. The real religious impulse or instinct is the apprehension\nof the infinite.' Thank your misfortunes that you have arrived at the\ninfinite. 'The fortunate do not believe that miracles still happen, for\nonly in misery we recognise God's hand and finger, which leads good men\nto good.'\"\n\n\"Do you know who said that?\"\n\n\"No; is it Luther?\"\n\n\"No; it is Goethe in _Hermann and Dorothea._ And the 'great pagan'\nwrote in 1779 to Lavater: 'My God, to whom I have been ever faithful,\nhas in secret richly blessed me. For my destiny is quite hidden from\nmen; they can neither hear nor see at all, how it is determined.' The\nLice-King omits such expressions when he wishes to incorporate Goethe\namong his slimy larv\u00e6.\"\n\n\n=The Poet's Children.=--The teacher continued: \"Moreover, as I\nhave already told you, you are a poet, and must pass through your\nreincarnations here. You have a right to invent poetic personalities,\nand at every stage to speak the speech of the one you represent.\nShakespeare has done so, whether he did it consciously, or whether life\nassigned him the various roles he played. At one time he is a cheerful\noptimist; at another, the misogynist Timon, or the world-despiser\nHamlet; he is the jealous Othello, the amorous Romeo, so-and-so the\npanegyrist of women, and so-and-so the misogynist. I believe indeed\nthat he has, by way of experiment, been the murderer Macbeth, and the\nmonster Richard III. He utters the malignant speeches of the last with\nreal relish. Every rascal may defend himself, and Shakespeare is his\nadvocate.\n\n\"There the poet should have no grave; his ashes should be strewn to\nall the winds of heaven. He should only live in his works, if they\npossess vital power. Men should accustom themselves to look upon him as\nsomething different from an ordinary man; they ought not to judge him,\nbut regard him as something which they cannot understand. You remember\nthe dying Epaminondas. When they condoled with him because he left no\nchildren, he answered: 'Children? I have Leuktra and Mantinea.'\"\n\n\n=Faithful in Little Things.=--The pupil said: \"I had a friend,\nwho died lately at the age of sixty. According to my view, he has in\nhis own way realised the type of a good citizen and a good man. He was\na tradesman, and had passed through a youth of hardship, being from\nsix in the morning till ten at night in the shop, the doors of which\nwere open even in winter. Under his first master he quickly discovered\nthat dishonest tricks did not pay. Therefore he became rigidly honest,\nstudied the details of his trade, made rapid progress, kept sober and\nwide-awake. Accordingly he soon became his own master, and wealth came\nof itself. He married and had children, who turned out excellently in\nconsequence of their father's example. Now, this man lived his whole\nlife according to the teaching he had received in school and church.\nHe did his duty, honoured father and mother, obeyed law and authority,\nnever criticised those who managed the government of the country,\nwhich he did not profess to understand. He took no notice of selfish\nagitations, did not worry himself about the riddle of the universe, and\nwarned his children not to be eager after novelties. He also possessed\npositive virtues; he was merciful and helpful, faithful and modest.\n\n\"When his sons began to study, he did not attempt to vie with them in\nlearning. But when they attacked his childlike faith, he defended it\nlike a man. He never ventured to occupy a public post, for he knew his\nlimits. He never sought for distinctions, nor did he obtain any. Well,\nwhat name do the larv\u00e6 of the snake-worm give such a blameless, good,\nfaithful man? They call him 'a servile rascal.' Is that just?\"\n\nThe teacher answered: \"No! it is flagrantly unjust! But there are other\ntypes of character, which are also laudable.\"\n\n\"Yes, indeed, but that does not lessen the value of his life; he was\nfaithful in small things.\"\n\n\n=The Unpracticalness of Husk-eating.=--The teacher said: \"Young\npeople say, 'What do we want with the wisdom of age? We want to learn\nfor ourselves.' I generally answer, 'Yes, learn for yourselves--from\nus! What good-fortune to be able to inherit the rich experiences of\nothers, and not to make these expensive, dirty experiments for oneself!\nIf the young commenced where we left off, the world and humanity would\nprogress with giant strides. Instead of this everyone begins afresh,\nthat is, in the moral sphere. When it is a question of making a new\nincandescent lamp, we do not begin with a machine for generating\nelectricity, but continue from the latest discovery of our predecessors.\n\n\"I have also asked myself whether it is necessary first to be burnt\nin order to dread the fire. I have never seen my children go to the\noven and lay hold of the red dampers to see whether they would be\nburnt. They let themselves be warned, and therefore escaped the painful\nexperience. I have asked myself whether one must first feed with the\nswine before one can appreciate the food of the household, and whether\nthe Prodigal Son is a necessary transitionary type. But to all these\nstupid and impertinent questions life has given a negative answer.\n\n\"Swedenborg says that all sin and wickedness leave traces behind\nthem, but that these are not apparent in the human face till old age.\nSubsequently, in the disrobing-room on the other side, they look as if\nthey had been thrown through a magnifying-glass on a white screen. I\nonce looked into an attic-room; the curtain was drawn aside, and an old\nman put out his head in order to look at the sun. When he saw me he hid\nhis face immediately.\n\n\"That was a face!... God protect us!\"\n\n\n=A Youthful Dream for Seven Shillings.=--The teacher said: \"There\nare people who carry about with them a measuring-rule for everything.\nThey demand exactness and order; they love perfection in all things.\nThey are called discontented, carping, pedantic. But it is unfair to\nblame them. If one is content with the mediocre, one will at last only\nget the worst. Men give only as little as they can, and the whole of\nlife is defective. Conscientious men are not happy, for they cannot\nlower their demands; they appear to simpletons who have not learnt,\nthat nothing is what it gives itself out to be, that nothing answers\nthe expectations we formed of it. One is inclined to ask whether such\nmen bring with them at birth recollections of a place or a condition\nwhere ideal perfection existed. When I was seven years old, I often\nremained standing fascinated before a music-dealer's shop window,\nand contemplated a hunter's horn which was hung up there. There was\nsomething charming in the proportions of these curved lines. This brass\ntube tapered off beautifully from the great width of its bell-mouth to\nits narrowed mouthpiece. In the gloomy street it made me hear nature's\nmusic in woods and fields; I loved the instrument. But when a boy told\nme that it cost thirty shillings, I wondered whether life would ever\nfulfil my desire, for in order to buy it I would have to go for two and\na half years without breakfast. Finally I got to be thirty years old,\nand had some money to spare for the first time in my life. I bought the\nhunting-horn; it cost only seven shillings; the boy had told a lie.\nBut the instrument had only three notes. When I got tired of my prize\nit was consigned to the attic.\n\n\"It was, at any rate, the fulfilment of a youthful dream!\"\n\n\n=Envy Nobody!=--The teacher said: \"Envy nobody! As a child I was\nboarded out in the country in mean surroundings. I lived in a kind of\nshanty, ate from an earthenware plate, sat on a wooden stool. But there\nwas a castle in the neighbourhood, a real castle, with portraits of\nkings in the entrance-hall, the ancestors of the young count who lived\nthere. One Sunday we were allowed to go, first into the castle, then\ninto the garden. That was paradise! We could bathe, and were allowed to\npick the cherries, blood-black, gold-yellow, fire-red. The count looked\non, but ate nothing; he had had enough. Then we left, and the gate of\nparadise was shut behind us.\n\n\"Fifty years later I saw the portrait of the young count, and heard\nhis history. He looked unhappy and despairing, as though he were weary\nof everything. He had passed through the bitterest experiences of\nlife, including poverty for a time. His affairs came into liquidation,\nand he had to spend ten years abroad in an hotel, his expenses being\ndefrayed by his creditors. He also had his wife with him, who, as she\nthought, had married into paradise, in order to be immediately driven\nout of it again. The man had been nothing and had done nothing; all\nhe could do was to wait for his meals. He had possessed horses and a\nyacht; he had gambled and borrowed money; he had eaten truffles and\ndrunk wine; but when he was forty had to give it up, for his nose grew\nred and he had gout in his great toe. I will not speak of his domestic\nmiseries.\n\n\"Now he sits in his castle, rich as Cr\u0153sus, but lonely, and educates\nhis housekeeper's children, which are his, but which cannot bear\nhis name. His evening meal consists of gruel, and he goes to bed at\nhalf-past nine. He dares not use his wine-cellar, for then his great\ntoe aches. His solitary comparative pleasure is to be able to walk, in\norder to eat his gruel and be able to sleep. Envy nobody!\"\n\n\n=The Galley-slaves of Ambition.=--The teacher said: \"Balzac speaks\nin one place of the galley-slaves of ambition, and describes their\ncondition very much as Swedenborg describes certain of his hells, or as\nHomer depicts Tantalus, Ixion, and the Danaides. They are ceaselessly\nhaunted by their passion to be superior to others; to be seen and heard\nbefore all others. The malice and love of power which this involves\nare necessarily punished. When the ambitious man cannot be the first\nand only one he becomes ill. Voltaire had to go to bed when a prince\ntravelled past his house without visiting him. If one of such people's\nletters remains unanswered they think it is a sign that their credit\nhas sunk, and they worry about the reason of it till they grow how\nhypochondriacal. If they read in the paper such and such important\npeople were present when the king landed, and their names are omitted,\nthe world is darkened for them. That is to say, it is not enough for\nthem that they should be praised and called the greatest; they suffer\npains like death when others are eulogised. They feel perpetual fear\nlest they should be set aside and their juniors get ahead of them.\nIn that they resemble a great criminal who expects to be detected.\nThe portrait of an ambitious man has a great resemblance to that of\na galley-slave. Imperiousness, hatred, fear--especially fear--are\ndepicted in his face.\n\n\"Balzac, on the other hand, was impelled by the noble ambition to make\ndiscoveries, and to do good work in which he took pleasure. But his\nown life was hidden. Unknown and misunderstood in his own Paris, which\nhe had discovered, he saw petty chroniclers obtain the first prizes\nwithout being made ill by it. And when, at the age of fifty-one, he\nhad succeeded in making a home for himself, into which he was about to\nbring his first and only wife, he died on the day of the publication of\nthe banns. A fine death after a life of renunciation!\"\n\n\n=Hard to Disentangle.=--The teacher said: \"With age, as is\nwell known, one arrives at a different view of life than one had\nformerly. Then, on account of its wealth and variety, life is almost\nimmeasurable, and above all, very difficult to disentangle.\n\n\"At the age of forty I came home after an absence of many years. On my\narrival I received a dunning letter from an antiquarian bookseller.\nCuriously enough, without my being able to explain why, this debt\ncaused me no further uneasiness of conscience. But then a friend came\nand advised me to settle the matter, as the bookseller was spreading\nan evil report about me. I went and paid the trifling account, but the\nbookseller looked so uneasy and strange, was so polite and grateful,\nthat I began to reflect about him. When I came home I remembered this:\ntwenty years previously I had entrusted him with an antique work of\nart to sell. After I had visited the man several times in his shop\nand the article had not been sold, I felt ashamed to go any more,\nbegan to think of something else, and forgot the matter. His present\nthankfulness showed that he had not forgotten it; we were then quits,\nif he did not still owe me something.\n\n\"Now I felt ashamed on his account, and determined not to mention the\nmatter. But then it occurred to me that I owed his predecessor a sum of\nmoney for books. I went again, found him showing the same uneasy manner\nas before, and asked for his predecessor's address. He was in America.\nI asked whether he had relatives here in the town. He had none. I went\nhome and thought to myself, 'Then we must drop that matter also.' In\nthis way, in old age, one must alternate pay and let go; now as a\ndebtor, now as creditor. But who strikes the balance of accounts? The\ngoddess of justice, and she is neither deaf nor blind.\"\n\n\n=The Art of Settling Accounts.=--The teacher continued: \"It really\nlooks as though we could not go hence till everything is settled,\ngreat and small alike. Recently there died an early friend of mine,\nwho, at an important juncture, had helped me with a hundred kronas.[1]\nI had at first regarded it as a loan. But he never dunned me, and\nduring the forty years which have since elapsed he was gradually\ntransformed in my memory into a benefactor, and all was well. When at\nlast he died a millionaire, I did not wish to trouble his executors\nwith the trifle, but sent a wreath to the funeral with a sigh of\ngratitude and many kindly thoughts. Was that the end? No! Shortly\nafterwards I felt a kind of inward admonition to resume relations\nwith a bookbinder whom I had ceased to employ on account of his\ncarelessness. He came and was glad to get work again; he was greatly\npleased, and declared that I had appeared just in time to deliver him.\nWhen I understood his difficulties, for he had a family, I was willing\nto give him fifty kronas in advance, but as I had no change I gave him\na hundred, though reluctantly. I saw how his back straightened itself,\nand his confidence in life reawoke. He went--and never returned. I was\nangry at first, because he had treated me like a fool, and I dunned\nhim with letters. But then the memory of my departed friend recurred;\nvarious thoughts wove themselves together in my mind--the pleasure\nof calling him a scamp, the fifty-krona note which had turned into a\nhundred-krona note, the scamp's need, and the part I had played as\ndeliverer. In my own mind I gave him a discharge, and became quite\nquiet.\"\n\n\n[Footnote 1: A krona = 1s. 3d.]\n\n\n=Growing Old Gracefully.=--The teacher continued: \"When one\nbecomes old, one wonders at first how men have, as it were, permission\nto do one an injustice. If one complains, one finds no sympathy. Even\nour friends take the part of those who injure us. But when we have\ndiscovered the secret of it, we take it all quietly. One is cheated\nin ordinary business, and says to oneself, 'This is in requital for\nthat.' Our children prove ungrateful and difficult to manage, exactly\nlike we were. Young people are insolent and pert towards us, and we\nsee our former selves reflected in them. Servants do their work badly,\nand perpetrate petty thefts; we must put up with it, when we think of\nour own work scamped on various occasions. Friends are faithless, just\nas we have been ourselves. By practice one comes at last so far, that\none asks for no more, demands no more, and is no longer angry. I then\nalways think of David when Shimei cast stones at him and cursed him,\nand Abishai wanted to strike off the calumniator's head. David declined\nto take vengeance, saying, 'Let him curse, for the Lord hath bidden\nhim.' When the same king, because of his sins, had to choose between\nfamine, pestilence, or raids of the enemy, he prayed 'to fall into the\nhands of God, and not into the hands of man.'\n\n\"He understood how to grow old gracefully, and to make up his accounts.\nSo he departed praising God, 'Who proveth the heart and loveth\nuprightness.'\"\n\n\n=The Eight Wild Beasts.=--The teacher said: \"You know yourself\nthat when one awakes from somnambulism, one finds the world quite\nmad. Then one loses all hope and all confidence, and believes we are\ndelivered into the power of the Devil. Once during such a moment of\nawakening, I read the works of the Adventists, and the idea struck me\nthat they were right. They ground their belief on the Revelation of\nSt. John, and say as follows: 'We live in the last era during which\nthe eight wild beasts rule the earth. Of Christianity no trace is to\nbe found: power, wealth, industry, art, science, literature, are\nin the hands of the pagans. The state-craft of the wild beasts is\nlying and force, alternating with the most insidious hypocrisy. They\npreach peace, distribute peace-prizes, build peace-palaces, but are\nalways seeking war in order to be able to rob and tyrannise. If their\nsubordinates believe them, and preach peace themselves, they are thrown\ninto prison. But, says St. John, nations will come from the East and\ndestroy the godless who have rejected Christ. The last battle is to\nbe at Megiddo in Syria. But since all this takes place under God's\ncontrol, the wild beasts are protected in order to carry out their\nwork of execution. The number of the last wild beast, 666, is not yet\ninterpreted, for it is not yet come. The eight wild beasts you can find\nin a book, which is called _A de G_;[1] of the people of the East you\nread every morning in your paper. It looks almost as though it were\ntrue. The pietists believe it, and keep their lamps burning.'\"\n\n\n=Deaf and Blind.=--The teacher continued: \"Under the rule of\nthe wild beast men have become demoralised. They reject every idea\nof a retributive justice. If anyone points to an instance of it,\nhe is suppressed. If a blasphemer loses his tongue, they call it\n'Actinomyces,' nothing more. And the obstinacy of the unrepentant\nrevolts against heaven itself: 'It is so far to heaven; what do we know\nabout it? We are ants; no God troubles himself about us.' If something\ngood happens to a man, he attributes it to his own power; if something\nevil, he calls it 'bad-luck.' Science explains earthquakes by algebra,\nand if it wants to be very learned, by seismology. The quantity of\ncrime and wickedness which _must_ exist is fixed by statistics. And\nyet heaven is so near. God's invisible servants are around us, in\nthe streets and in our rooms. We do not see them, but those who have\neyes, and only they, behold their operations. The world is like a vast\ninstitute for the deaf and blind, in which the unfortunates are told\nby their teachers that they are the only ones who can see and hear.\nThe theosophists say that we are already living two lives--a conscious\none on the earth, and an unconscious one above. But most men seem to\nhave broken off communication with the higher plane, and therefore they\ncannot comprehend what is from above, but have discovered that there is\nno higher and no lower in the universe.\"\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Not explained in original footnote.]\n\n\n=Recollections.=--The pupil said: \"Often has my experience\nconfirmed this saying of the theosophists, that, as well as here, we\nlive also on a higher plane from whence we receive our inspirations,\nideas, and intuitions. After such visitations (do they take place by\nnight?) I do not flourish down here, but find everything perverse,\ndefective, absurd. I once conceived the strange idea that I have my\ntrue home somewhere else, and that a vague recollection has made me\ngive my present home an arrangement similar to that of my real one.\n\n\"In my present abode there was a room which, after certain storms that\nlasted for two years, was so devastated that it looked as if devils\nhad haunted it. Then a sum of money came into my hands unexpectedly.\nThe next morning I awoke with the distinct determination to repair\nand furnish the room. I went at once to the upholsterer, and knew so\nexactly what furniture and curtains I wanted, that when I saw the\nmaterial it looked to me familiar and welcome. A workman came, proved\nhonest, worked quietly like a spirit, and in a few days the room\nwas ready. When I entered it, I was seized with a sort of ecstatic\nshiver as though I had already seen this room once before under happy\ncircumstances. And now when I enter the room alone, I see it resembles\nsomething which I do not remember, but which waits for me. I seem to\nknow that _there_ I am waited for by my only true wife, by my children,\nfriends and relations, and that this incompleteness I see is only a\npoor copy drawn from a dim recollection. Think, if it only were so!\"\n\n\n=Children Are Wonder-Children.=--The teacher answered: \"What you\nsay accords with Plato's theory of recollection. He believes that all\nwhich a child learns is recovered from some previous knowledge. During\nmy long experience it has often happened to me to meet people who,\nthe first time I saw them, seemed like old acquaintances. It seems,\ntoo, that the woman we love appears congenial to us, made for us, sent\nin our way. But most of all is this the case with our children. All\nchildren are, in spite of idle talk, wonder-children--till they have\nlearnt to talk. Little children often say things which astound one.\nThey understand all that we say even when we hide it from them. They\nseem to be thought-readers, divine our most secret purposes, and rebuke\nus beforehand. 'Don't do that,' said my two-year-old child before my\nplan was half formed. 'What?' I asked. The child did not answer, but\nsmiled roguishly and half embarrassed, as though it wished to say, 'You\nknow yourself already.' When the child had learnt to be silent, it\npushed with its foot against the chair when the parents' talk bordered\non impropriety. Often it spoke like an elder person who understands\nthings better than others. At three years old it pronounced this\nopinion on the nurse, 'Hannah is very nice, but she does not understand\nhow to treat children.' When her mother was sad, it said, 'Sit down\nhere and don't be sad; I will tell you a story.' I will only add--there\nwas no mimicry about it, as the ape-king would be inclined to believe.\nWhat was it then?\"\n\n\n=Men-resembling Men.=--The teacher said: \"It seems as though\nsome errors were necessary and unavoidable. They appear as a kind of\ninfectious virus. A generation is inoculated with it, carries the germ\ntill it has sprouted, and then there is an end of it. Views of the\nworld and man come up, are disseminated, evaporated, and disappear.\nBut those who have been inoculated with them believe they are their\nown views, because they have assimilated them with their personality.\nOften the error ends in a compromise with a new view. Thus Darwinism\nmade it seem probable that men derived their origin from animals. Then\ncame the theosophists with the opinion that our souls are in process\nof transmigration from one human body to another. Thence comes this\nexcessive feeling of discomfort, this longing for deliverance, this\nsensation of constraint, the pain of existence, the sighing of the\ncreature. Those who do not feel this uneasiness, but flourish here,\nare probably at home here. Their inexplicable sympathy for animals and\ntheir disbelief in the immortality of the soul points to a connection\nwith the lower forms of existence of which they are conscious, and\nwhich we cannot deny. The doctrine that we are created after God's\nimage involves no contradiction, for the spirit is from God; but there\nis no word which frightens these anthropomorphists so much as the word\n'spirit.' Yes, there is one, and that is the word 'spirits,' which\nmakes the fleshy part of them shudder.\"\n\n\n=Christ Is Risen.=--The teacher said: \"After we have had\nChristianity as a civilising agency for nineteen hundred years, people\nbegin to discuss it. Is this the opportune time to ask whether Christ\nhas existed and whether the documents of Christianity are genuine?\nIt reminds one of the author who wrote a book to prove that Napoleon\nnever existed. It is as if we were now to discover that C\u00e6sar's\n_Commentaries_ are false, and that he never conquered Gaul, or as if\nwe discussed whether the discovery of America had been useful. Ibsen's\npartisans have denied that Columbus discovered America; they say it was\nLeif Erikssen (perhaps we shall soon hear it was his wife).\n\n\"However, Christ returned again at the end of the last century, and was\nreceived by all. The pagans depicted him as the poor school-teacher;\nthe anarchists celebrated him as the type of suffering humanity; the\nsymbolists did homage to him as Christus Consolator; the socialists\npreached his gospel to the obscure, the weary, and heavy-laden. He was\nto be seen every-where--in the quarters of the French general staff and\nin the espionage office; in Lourdes and in Rome; on Mont Martre and in\nMoscow. His churches and convents were purified; his miracles explained\nby occultists, spiritists, hypnotists; science progressed and confirmed\nthe prophecies. Finally we saw at the congress of religions in Chicago\nin 1897 that all peoples and religions of the world bent their knees\nwhen Christ's especial prayer, the Lord's Prayer, was recited. Then\nthe believers gave each other the brotherly kiss and greeting, 'Christ\nis risen!'\"\n\n\n=Revolution-Sheep.=--The teacher continued: \"In the year 1889\nwe celebrated the French Revolution, but there was little life or\norder in the celebration. Everything which was uprooted in 1789 still\nexisted--Church and State, kings and courts, priests and officials. The\nFrench republic was the worst of all, with its Panama Canal jobbers at\nthe head: Wilson, Herz, Clemenceau, Arton. The constitution was kept\nalive by bribes, bills of exchange more or less false, and pensions.\nOffices were created in order to find places for voters, husbands of\nmistresses, and the discontented. At that time the French republic was\ngoverned by criminals, and the Church by pagans. Military and civil\norders were sold, works of art bought, votes canvassed for. One could\nnot become a deputy for less than two hundred thousand francs. Then\nexecutioners and revolutions were necessary, for the principles of the\nGreat Revolution, if one can talk of principles in connection with\na volcano in eruption, were forgotten. Now in the perspective of a\nhundred years the 'Great' Revolution appeared only like an execution,\na decimation on a large scale; an experiment with negative results,\nbut as such certainly very interesting. One of the recollections of\nmy youth is that when we 'who were born with the ideas of the French\nRevolution' (ideas revived in 1848) began to talk of the 'Great'\nRevolution, we were called 'Revolution-sheep.' I did not understand\nthis at the time, for I did not yet think for myself but merely\ndrivelled. But now I understand it. Now we know that the constitution\nof a country is almost a matter of indifference for the common weal;\nthus one constitution is not much better or worse than another.\"\n\n\n=\"Life Woven of the Same Stuff as our Dreams\"=--The teacher said:\n\"Life itself can often appear like a bad dream. One morning I went for\na walk in the country, and was absorbed in my thoughts, when a great\nDanish dog rushed towards me. A young rascal stood near, laughing. I\ndrew my revolver, and exclaimed, 'Call off the dog, or I shoot it.' The\nyoung fellow only laughed, the dog retreated, and I went on. On my way\nback, a man armed with a musket met me, and asked how I dared threaten\nto shoot his son. I answered, that the threat had only referred to the\ndog. On the evening of the same day I was told that the dog had been\nfound dead, and that I was suspected of having poisoned it. Although I\nwas innocent, I was regarded as an assassin. That was a nice business!\n\n\"Again: one evening I went to see my four-year-old daughter, who waited\nfor me below in the park. From the distance I saw her in the company\nof two unpleasant-looking children, but she did not see me. As I\nquickened my steps, I saw that she went off farther with the children.\nI called her, but she did not hear. I ran and saw her at the entrance\nof a cellar, into which the children wanted to pull her down. She\nresisted them, but they took hold of her clothes. Now she screamed,\nand consequently did not hear my call. I wished to hasten to her, but\nbetween us there was a grass lawn, with an iron railing round it, on\nwhich I did not venture to tread for fear of the police. So I stood\nthere and called. At last my child pulled herself free, but did not see\nme. So weirdly things may happen sometimes!\"\n\n\n=The Gospel of the Pagans.=--The teacher continued: \"The gospel\nof the pagans is immunity from punishment; if one mentions a case\nwhere it has gone ill with a scoundrel, the pagans snort and say\none is too severe. But it is life which is severe. The gospel of the\npagans consists in showing that virtue is simplicity and is seduced;\nthat religion is a disease; that scoundrelism is a form of strength,\nand ought to conquer by the right of the stronger. Sometimes, by way\nof a change, they demand that a weak rascal should be pardoned; that\neverything should be forgiven and tolerated. By 'toleration' they mean\nthat one should let oneself be suppressed and persecuted by them. If\none resists, they cry, 'He revenges himself. He is a bad man.' But\nrevenge presupposes some offence as the cause, and when the cause\ndisappears the effect disappears. Certainly there are some men who\navenge their own stupidity on the innocent. I have an enemy, who still\nrevenges himself on me because he could not steal my money. The gospel\nfor him would be the law reversed, 'You may steal, but others may not.'\"\n\n\n=Punished by the Imagination.=--The teacher continued: \"Swedenborg\nspeaks of being punished by the imagination. That is what doctors\ngenerally call 'hallucination.' He who suffers from persecution-mania\nis persecuted. The Philistines think he is only persecuted by his\nimaginations, but if the wise man asks why he is persecuted by his\nimaginations, conscience answers by ceaselessly endeavouring to\ndiscover the persecutor. The patient goes through the whole list of\nthe persons whom he has offended. If they are many in number, and\ntheir hatred is justified, one may well suppose that the sick man is\npersecuted by their hatred, for which his awakened conscience is now\nreceptive.\n\n\"In my inner life punishment by hallucinations has played the chief\npart; but after I had discovered the rationale of it, I regarded the\nhallucination itself as a punishment. The severest form of punishment\nis suspicion, when I am obliged to suspect the innocent. That is\nirresistible. My thoughts sway between trust and mistrust. I struggle\nand conquer myself gradually, either by acknowledging myself wrong,\nor by accepting the breach of faith resignedly. But if I give vent to\nsuspicion I must ask for pardon; then I take this humiliation as a\ndischarge. Most of my misfortunes have been imaginary; but they have\nhad the same effect as real ones, because I came to the consciousness\nof my own wrong-doing. The incurable man is the obstinate one who\nbelieves himself wrongfully persecuted by other men.\n\n\n=Bankruptcy of Philosophy.=--\"When Kant during the dark period\nof the 'Illumination' had proved that philosophy can prove nothing,\nhe set up the theory of the categorical imperative and postulate,\n_i.e._ the demands of religion and morality. Put in plain language,\nthat is equivalent to faith. This declaration of the bankruptcy of\nphilosophy saved men from useless brain-cudgelling. Christianity\nrevived, now supported by the philosophers with Hegel at their head.\nBut the old stream flowed parallel with it once more. In spite of the\nbankruptcy of philosophy, notes of exchange were issued and cashed by\nthe dunder-headed free-thinkers Feuerbach and Strauss. They wanted\nto approach God with the everyday intelligence which one uses in\nkitchens and grocers' shops. The last fool was Renan, whose cheques\nstill circulate mostly among college-students and the like. At the\nbeginning of the last century E.T.A. Hoffmann wrote thus: 'In ancient\ntimes we had a simple generous faith; we recognised that there was a\nHigher, but knew also that our senses were insufficient to reach it.\nThen came the \"Illumination,\" which made everything so clear, that for\nsheer clearness not a trace could be seen. And now we are told that the\nsupernatural is to be grasped by a firm arm of flesh and bone.' To-day\nit is called the Science of Religion. That is a science which starts\nfrom the false presupposition that religion is a mental disease because\nit cannot be mathematically proved.\"\n\n\n=A Whole Life in an Hour.=--The teacher said: \"I had a strange\nexperience, which I have not understood, but which I must remember.\nI woke up one morning feeling cheerful without any special reason.\nObeying an impulse, I went into the town. As I wandered about at\nrandom, I came into the quarter where I had been born and brought up.\nI saw the kindergarten and school I used to attend, and my parents'\nhouse. I went through narrow streets and passed by the national school\nin which I was worried as a student-teacher. I saw two different houses\nin which I had suffered as a private tutor. I went northwards and came\nto another school in which I had been tortured. In a market-place\nI passed another house in which, during my childhood, our only\nacquaintance lived, and twenty years later in the same dwelling there\nlived my worst enemy. I passed by a house in which my sister had been\nmarried thirty years before, and another house in which my brother had\nhad a hard struggle. Then I came to a third school in which I was a\nstudent; in the same house lives still my first and last publisher. I\npassed by a house where, forty years ago, I was accepted as an aspirant\nfor the stage, and where I offered my first drama; also by the house\nwhere I was married for the first time. Then the meaning of it began\nto grow clearer. I saw the furniture warehouse whence I ordered my\nfurniture the last time. I passed by the house where my wife and child\nlived three years ago.\n\n\"In the space of one hour I had seen the panorama of my whole life in\nliving pictures. Only three years were wanting to the present time. It\nwas like an agony or a death-hour when the whole of life rushes past\none.\n\n\"Then I felt drawn northward where my last child and her mother live.\nAn instinct told me to bring perfume for the mother and school-fees\nfor the child, as that day it was going to the kindergarten for the\nfirst time. Then I began to hunt for the perfume; it ought to have been\nlilac, but I had to take lily-of-the-valley. I also wanted flowers, but\ncould not find any.\n\n\"So I continued northwards and came to their house; the sun shone\nin, the table was spread for coffee; there was an air of comfort,\nhomeliness, and kindness over all. I was received in a friendly way,\nfelt in a moment that the whole of my black life lay behind me, and\nrealised the happiness of merely being alive.\"\n\n\n=The After-Odour.=--The teacher continued: \"As I went thence,\nI felt the happiness of the present. All the past was only the dark\nbackground. I was thankful in my heart, when I remembered all I had\ncome through without perishing. When I came home, I learnt through the\ntelephone that my worst enemy had died on the morning of this very day.\nHis death-struggle was taking place at the very time that I made the\npilgrimage through my past life. I reflected: Why should I pass through\nmy agony just when he died? He was a 'black man'[1] with an obsolete\nmaterialistic view of things which he thought was modern; a literary\nhuckster who wrote reviews of marchionesses' rubbishy books, in order\nto be invited to their castles, and praised his associates as long as\nthey consorted with him; the partisan of a coterie and a log-roller.\n\n\"I had never come into personal contact with him, but once, a long\ntime ago, he had called himself my pupil. He could not however grow,\nnor follow me upwards. It was now as though my old self had died in\nhim. Perhaps therefore I suffered his death and felt it just now. But\nwhy the perfume? That I know not. But when I learnt that the deceased\ndecomposed so rapidly that he had to be buried at once, I could not\nhelp connecting the perfume with his dissolution. When, eight days\nafterwards, I read a posthumous review by the deceased of my last\nwork, and saw that he regretted that I was not a pagan and lamented\nmy defection from the Lord of Dung, it was as though I sniffed an\nafter-odour from the dunghole, and I seized the perfume-flask in good\nearnest.\"\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Strindberg's expression for a free-thinker.]\n\n\n=Peaches and Turnips.=--The teacher continued: \"At the same time\na similar death happened. Another of the 'Black Flags' departed under\npeculiar circumstances two days after the first. I had known this man\nduring the period in which the ape-king ruled. We did not like each\nother, but like condemned criminals were compelled to keep together.\nOur friendship was only the reverse-side of a hatred; his hideous\nappearance frightened me; his profession was equally repulsive, but\nbrought in much money. He wrote according to the taste of the time, and\nlived in the false idea that he was 'illuminated' and liberal-minded.\nWhen his father died, the son expressed his regret that 'his father\nhad recovered the faith of his childhood.' What happened then? The son\nwho lived in faith in wickedness and ugliness, began to develop this\nfaith in a peculiar way. He had in his writings shown a predilection\nfor turnips; in his latter days he inoculated peaches with turnip-juice\nin order to make the southern fruit partake of the beautiful flavour\nof the latter. The same perverse taste was evident in his last book;\nthere his sympathy is decidedly on the side of the 'blacks.' He ended\nin an asylum. He could not be saved, for he did not know how to seek\nthe Saviour. So he died. I had just regretted not having sent some\nflowers to his grave, when I saw in an obituary notice that the dead\nman had vented a noisome lie against me, which a bosom friend of his\nnow repeats in print. In the same notice the world is threatened with\nhis posthumous writings. When they come out, I will buy a flower and\nhold it under my nose, while I breathe a sigh of gratitude to him,\nwho restored to me the faith of my childhood and saved me from the\nmad-house.\"\n\n\n=The Web of Lies.=--The pupil said: \"I am eight-and-fifty years\nold; have lied less than others; and have therefore always believed\nwhat others said. When, in my old age, I sit together with friends\nof my youth and make comparisons, I find that my whole life is a web\nof lies. Last night I sat with such a friend, and had a protracted\ntalk of the following intelligent kind. I said, 'When the Prince of\nX. married....' 'Married! He isn't married.' 'Isn't he? Is that a lie\ntoo?' 'He has never been married.' 'Now during twenty years I have\nspread it abroad that he was married, and a whole story has been built\non this lie, which I was about to relate, but now I must drop it.'\n\n\"Here is another lie! During thirty years I have told people that Dr.\nH. was present when the Malunger murderer was executed. He had falsely\ninformed me that, as a medical student, he had received a commission to\nexamine the head after it had been cut off. He gave me such interesting\ndetails on the subject that I was accustomed to describe them in\ncompany. What a liar he was!\n\n\"'But he _was_ there.' 'Was he there?' 'Certainly; I saw him standing\nbehind the priest when I took a photograph of the scaffold.' 'You?\nHave you ... Are you lying or is he?' 'I am not.' 'No; now I don't\nknow where I am. Everything is topsy-turvy. For the last ten years I\nhave retracted the lie which I had spread. I have made Dr. H. a liar!\nOne ought never to speak or write, but only draw the things which one\nabsolutely needs. He was then really there! How can I restore to him\nhis honour, of which I have robbed him?'\"\n\n\n=Lethe.=--The teacher answered: \"This whole web of lies, errors,\nmisunderstandings, which forms the basis of our lives, transforms life\nitself into something dreamlike and unreal, and must be dissolved when\nwe pass into the other life. I read to-day of a dying man. Instead of\nseeing his life pass by him, as is usually the case, his whole life\ndissolved into a cloud; his memory failed; all bitterness and all\ntrouble disappeared; and on the other hand, all his disappointed hopes\nassumed an aspect of reality. He thought he was loved by his wife, who\nhad been cold to him; he thanked her for all the tenderness which she\nhad never shown him. The children who had deserted him he saw again in\nthe bright light of youth; he seemed to hear the sound of little feet\nupon the floor, the characteristic of a happy home, and his face wore\na happy smile. The dark autumn weather outside changed into spring;\nlittle girls handed him roses to kiss in order to enchance their value.\nFinally he saw himself and his family in an arbour drinking coffee out\nof Dresden china cups, into which they dipped yellow saffron-cakes....\nThen he fell into his last sleep. It was a beautiful and enviable\ndeath; it was paradise. From the ancient Lethe he drank forgetfulness\nof the troubles he had undergone before he trod the Elysian fields.\nIf it only were so! To drag all one's bygone filth with one in memory\ncannot be favourable to a new life in purity. There are illnesses in\nwhich one loses memory. May death prove to be such an illness!\"\n\n\n=A Suffering God.=--The teacher said: \"The idea of a suffering\nGod was foolishness to the Greeks, who considered a God as a tyrant\ngloating over the sufferings of men. But the seeming contradiction\nis solved if one supposes that a Holy Being deposits itself, so to\nspeak, in humanity, and that humanity then becomes defiled. That is\na boundless grief like his who has deposited the best part of his\nsoul and his emotions with a woman. If she then goes and defiles\nherself, she defiles her husband. Or a father's nature has passed over\nto his children, and he wishes to see his best impulses continued\nand multiplied by them, and his likeness ennobled. If the children\ndishonour themselves, the father suffers; the stem withers when the\nroots are injured.\n\n\"Such I imagine to be the feelings of God the Father when the\nsinfulness of humanity grows noisome and dishonours Him, and\nperhaps threatens to affect His own holiness. He will be wroth and\nlament--perhaps even feel Himself defiled--rather than cut off the\ncancerous limb of humanity. Christ is no more represented as beautiful,\nbut with features distorted by the sins of others; these he has\ntaken on himself or drawn to himself, for he who approaches pitch is\ndefiled. In order to be free from the impure element he must die by the\ndestruction of the body. Incarnation involved the greatest suffering of\nall.\n\n\"But the death of Christ may also signify that the Father freed himself\nfrom the sins of humanity, and broke off connection with the evil race\nwho dishonoured Him. He who will now seek Him must rise to His heights,\nand gain admission by a pure life. He Himself will descend no more into\nthis valley of filth; the air is too thick, the company too mixed. And\nthat is why things are as they are.\"\n\n\n=The Atonement.=--The teacher said: \"The work of the Atonement\nhas been very difficult for me to understand. Often I have tried to\nexplain in a way satisfactory to myself, but without success. If\nGod had offered up His Son as an atonement for mankind, there would\nnecessarily have been peace and paradisal quietness on earth, but\nsuch is not the case. The period of the Roman emperors before Christ\nwas indeed terrible, but the next thousand years were no better; they\nrather resembled a deluge in which the old nations were exterminated\nby barbarians. The second millennium was better, very much better.\nThe third will perhaps close with a complete reconciliation between\nhumanity and God. Everything points to that, though the heathen may\nreign for a while as instruments of chastisement, and executioners and\npossessors of wealth. The Egyptian has an important part to play, and\nslavery is not bad as a school of discipline. In the desert one learns\nthe difficult art of loneliness, and in the strange land of Assyria one\nfeels a wholesome home-sickness. Still, when the Egyptian raises his\nstick to strike, comfort yourself with Christ's words to Pilate, 'Thou\nwouldest have no power over Me, if it were not given thee from above.'\nAnd when you eat the bread of the heathen, think like the Maccabees, 'I\neat thy bread, but I do not sacrifice upon thy altar.' Everything is\ntolerable so long as we do not let ourselves be beguiled into believing\nthat those who are in power are God's friends and favourites. Our fine\ngentlemen who imagine that they are forwarding development and are the\nsole trustees of right, progress, and illumination, are only children\nof this world. Let that be granted them, and much good may it do them!\"\n\n\n=When Nations Go Mad.=--The teacher said: \"Nations are sometimes\nseized by madness as by other diseases. The Javanese are said to suffer\nfrom chronic madness; the men run amuck with a knife in order to slay;\nthe women suffer from a mania for mimicry; if they see anyone throw\nsomething into the air, they imitate the gesture; they can even under\nsuch circumstances throw their children away. The Japanese again are\nattacked by megalomania; someone begins to shout, 'We will conquer\nChina!' and his cry is taken up by the whole town and the whole land.\nThe French were raving when, in 1870, they sang 'A Berlin,' and did\nnot even reach the Rhine. Paris was captured. But the French declared\nit was not captured, but had surrendered. When the enemy had marched\nin peaceably and spared the town, and after peace was concluded the\nFrench set their own town on fire. That was madness. Then they shot\ndown thirty thousand of their own countrymen, while in the war itself\nonly eighty thousand French had fallen.\"\n\n\"But some nations are seized by a mania for suicide. I know a land\nfrom which people emigrate at the rate of a hundred a day; in which\nthe only important industry--iron-mining--is hampered by an export\nduty; that is suicide. In the same land, where the taxes are generally\ncollected by levying distraints, they voted forty million pounds for\nthe army; but when the muster-rolls came to be made up, the men were\nnot to be found. In the same country the State maintains a railway of a\nhundred miles in length; recently the train came in with one passenger,\nwhose journey had cost the State more than a thousand kronas. That is\nsuicide.\"\n\n\n=The Poison of Lies.=--The teacher said: \"Let us return to life,\nand to men whom we think we know better than anything else, although\nself-knowledge is the hardest of all. A perpetual accusation which\npeople bring against each other is that of lying. All lie more or\nless--by omitting principal points and emphasising secondary ones,\nor by colouring matters of fact. Often they do it with an excusable\npurpose; for instance, when a friend is being spoken about.\n\n\"But there are men who seem to be composed of falsehood and deceit.\nSuch are the liars from necessity, who lie in order to obtain\nsomething; such, too, are the liars from ostentation, who lie in order\nto be superior to others, and to keep them down. One may be poisoned in\nthe atmosphere which they spread around them.\n\n\"There is a pair of liars whom I have never seen, but often heard\nspoken about. When I merely hear about them and their falsehoods, I\nfeel my brain affected, and their poison works telepathically on my\nnerves. The pair are dogged by misfortune, and live alone. They tell\neach other lies also, and pretend to themselves that they are martyrs,\nalthough their misfortunes are solely due to their deceits. They\nbelieve that they are persecuted by men, while, on the contrary, men\nfly from them. Such they have been since childhood, and seem unable to\nchange. Perhaps their mendacity is a form of punishment, for 'they that\nhate the righteous shall be guilty.'\"\n\n\n=Murderous Lies.=--The teacher continued: \"When one lives on\nintimate terms with liars, one runs a risk of becoming a liar oneself.\nOne believes what they say, bases his views on their falsehoods,\nspreads their false reports in good faith, defends their sophistries,\nand is entangled in their deceits. Moreover, one's whole view of life\nis distorted, one loses contact with reality, lives in a fictitious\nworld of feeling, regards friends as foes and foes as friends, thinks\none is loved while one is hated, and vice versa.\n\n\"On one occasion a liar with whom I lived on intimate terms made me\nthink that my last book had been a failure. For five years I believed\nit, suffered under the belief, and lost my courage. On my return to\nSweden I found that the book had had a great success. Five years had\nbeen struck out of my life; I was nearly losing self-respect and the\ncourage to support existence. That is equivalent to murder. And this\nbehaviour on the part of my only friend, for whom I had worked and made\nsacrifices, gave me such a shock that all my ideas were confused. It\ntook me years to rearrange them and bring them into proper order. True\nand false were mingled together: lies became reality, and my whole life\nseemed as unsubstantial as smoke. I was not far from ruin and the loss\nof reason.\"\n\n\n=Innocent Guilt.=--The teacher continued: \"During the five years\nin which I believed myself unjustly treated, I also incurred guilt.\nI had cursed those who had been just towards me, wished evil to my\nbenefactors, repelled my admirers, avoided my adherents. And when I\nshould now have felt remorse for it, I could not do so sincerely. On\nthe one hand I felt myself innocent, and almost the victim of another's\nfalsehood. But the evil which I had done was there, and must be atoned\nfor. Such tangles are not easy to undo. Yet it is not good in life\nto show mistrust towards men; one must take things easily, without\ncriticism and too careful reckoning. The deceiver says, to be sure,\n'He who does not keep a sharp look-out, has himself to blame if he\nis cheated.' But if one does look out, and will not let oneself be\ncheated, one is credited with a morbid mistrustfulness. It is not\neasy to live, and among lawless men it is better to be cheated than\nto cheat. The Talmud says: 'Be rather among those who are cursed than\nthose who curse; rather among the persecuted than the persecutors: read\nin the Scripture, No bird is more persecuted than the dove; yet God has\nchosen it for a sacrifice on His altar.'\"\n\n\n=The Charm of Old Age.=--The teacher said: \"The charms of old\nage are many. The greatest is the consciousness that it is not long\ntill evening when one can undress and lie down, without the necessity\nof rising up and dressing again. The diminution of the body's strength\nlessens its resistance to the free motions of the soul. One's\ninterest in merely temporal matters decreases, and one begins to take\na bird's-eye view of things. Seemingly important trifles shrink to\ninsignificance. Old estimates of the values of things are changed. All\nthat one has experienced lies like a litter of straw under one's feet;\none stands in it and grows in the midst of one's past. We have found\na constant amid all variables, that is, the instability of life, the\ntransitoriness and mutability of all things. Everything is repeated;\nthere are scarcely any surprises. We know everything beforehand, expect\nno improvement, are no more deceived by false hopes, demand nothing\nmore of men, neither gratitude, nor faithfulness, nor love, only some\ncompanionship in solitude. If we are deceived, we think it is part\nof the play, and even find a sort of consolation in it, because it\nconfirms our views, which we do not like to see refuted. We become,\nfinally, cheerful pessimists. When, on the discovery of a new cheat, we\ncan say, 'What did I tell you?' we feel almost a sense of pleasure.\"\n\n\n=The Ring-System.=--The teacher said: \"In our old schools, the\npupils were arranged not in classes, but in rings, and the forms\nwere not placed in rows, but in circles. When I read of the circles\nof Dante's hell, I thought of my old school. But outside in life, I\nfound this ring-system also. Men seemed linked together in concentric\ncircles, each of which formed a little system of views. Each circle\nspoke its own language, expressed its meaning in old formulas, revered\nits gods, created its great men, often out of nothing. In each circle\nthey had found the truth, and worked for development, but in a\ndifferent way to the others. The first circle was really the lowest,\nbut it considered itself the most important, because it was the first.\nWhen I read a paper or a book which comes from other circles than\nmine, I only see so much--that they are mad or stand on their heads.\nIt stifles me, and has a hostile effect. I surmise that the five great\nraces of the earth feel that, when they meet one another. In their\nminds they are as foreign to each other as though they came from the\nfive great planets, although they have many human characteristics in\ncommon.\"\n\n\n=Lust, Hate, and Fear, or the Religion of the Heathen.=--The\nteacher said: \"You know one of my tasks in life has been to unmask\ngyneolatry, the worship of women in history and life. I have called\nit 'the superstition of the heathen,' because there is something\nexclusively heathenish about it. Woman-worship is the religion of the\nheathen, but it is a religion of fear, which has nothing to do with\nlove. Lust, hate, and fear--those are the component parts of it. As\nsoon as a heathen comes in the proximity of a woman, he becomes tame\nand cowardly; faithless towards his friends, his convictions, and\nhimself. He immediately desires that others should venerate his idol\nwhom he hates and fears. That is a side of his animal self-love.\n\n\"Gyneolatry is not Christian in its origin, but heathenish. All animals\nand savage races fear their women. When heathenism in the Gr\u00e6co-Roman\nand Moorish colonies of southern France and Italy got the upper hand,\nthen began gyneolatry, the worship of mistresses. This worship was\ndishonestly confounded with chivalrous reverence for the Madonna, which\nwas quite another thing. This religion of the heathen is the religion\nof fear and concealed hatred. Therefore all tyrants have been punished\nby having a woman oppress and torment them. Swedenborg explains the\nreason.\"\n\n\n=\"Whom the Gods Wish to Destroy.\"=--The teacher continued: \"A\nman's goodwill and generosity towards his wife stands in direct\nrelation to her behaviour. When therefore a woman is ill-treated by\nher husband, we know of what sort she is. The apparently subordinate\nposition which the woman occupies is the direct result of the position\nwhich nature has assigned to this immature transition-form between\nchild and man. The child has also a subordinate position; that is\nquite natural, and no reasonable man has objected to it. Woman is the\nearth-spirit who effectuates a certain harmony with the earth-life. To\nthis earth-life we must bring our sacrifice; therefore it is that a man\nfeels at home in his house, and therefore wife and child comfort and\nprotect us against the cold abstraction, life.\n\n\"Marriage is the hardest school in which renunciation and self-conquest\nis learned; it is also a forcing-house for wickedness of all kinds,\nespecially the hellish sin of imperiousness. How low the sons of the\nLord of Dung stand on the ladder of development may be seen from their\nconviction that they are only equal to the woman or subordinate to\nher. Blinded by this penal hallucination, they work for their own\ndestruction when they battle for the emancipation of women, for the\ngods wish to destroy them.\n\n\n=The Slavery of the Prophet.=--\"Stuart Mill, who became the\nprophet of the woman's cause, had formed an attachment for another\nman's wife.[1] As a punishment he had to live in the hallucination\nthat he derived all his thoughts from her. She was indeed his medium,\nand as such she repeated his thoughts as though they came from her,\nand he believed she was his superior. When somebody asked if he had\nreceived his 'Logic,' which he wrote before he knew her, also from\nher, he answered, 'Yes.' This sober Positivist, who only believed in\ntables of statistics, was obsessed by the powerful delusion that the\nsimple-minded woman was his Genius. He could not rise to a higher\nidea of God. One thing I am sure of: as soon as a man deserts God, he\nbecomes the thrall of a female devil. All tyrants, above and below, are\ncaught in these chains, out of which only God in heaven can help a man.\nBut He can certainly. One sees it in those who have come alive out of\nthis hell. I know one....\"\n\n\"I know two!\" the pupil interrupted.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Mrs. Taylor.]\n\n\n=Absurd Problems.=--The teacher continued: \"There are\nseveral reasons why woman is depicted as a sphinx by men. She is\nincomprehensible because her soul is rudimentary, and she thinks with\nher body. Her judgments are dictated by interests and passions, she\ndraws conclusions according to the state of the weather and the phases\nof the moon. She will sell her best friend for a theatre-ticket, or\nleave her sick child to see a balloon ascend. She murders her husband\nin order to be able to go to a bathing-resort, and forswears her\nreligion for a diamond ring. At the same time she can appear to be\na charming woman, tender towards her children, amiable, and before\nall things polite and affable. She may also appear a good household\nmanager, or at any rate enjoy the reputation of being one. She can\nproduce the illusion that she is quick at apprehension, although she\ndoes not really understand a word. She can exhibit sacrifices which\nare only ostentation, and give away only in order to receive back. Why\ncannot one guess the riddle of this sphinx? Because there is no riddle\nthere! Why is woman incomprehensible? Because the problem is absurd.\nShe is an irrational function because she operates with variable\nquantities under the radical signs.\n\n\"Nevertheless we take her as a charming actuality, a delightful child\nwho may pull three hairs out of our beard; but if it pulls the fourth,\nthere is an end to the enchantment.\"\n\n\n=The Crooked Rib.=--The teacher said: \"Goethe says in his\n_Divan_,[1] 'Woman is fashioned out of a crooked rib; if one tries to\nbend her, she breaks; if one lets her alone, she becomes still more\ncrooked.' Thus there is nothing to be done. The only tactics one can\nadopt, as Napoleon did, are flight, or at any rate to break off contact\nand intimacy. This never fails; if one deprives a woman of the victim\nof her hatred, she pines away.\n\n\"Man loves and woman hates; man gives and woman takes; man sacrifices\nand woman devours. When the woman wishes to show her superiority in\nintellect, she commits a rascality. Her utmost endeavour is to deceive\nher husband. If she can trick him into eating horse-flesh without\nnoticing it, she is happy. When woman gets her milk-teeth, she does\nnot learn to speak but to lie, for speech and falsehood are synonymous\nfor her. Every married man knows all that. But politeness and his own\nvanity keep him silent. Often he is silent because of his children;\noften because he is ashamed in the name of humanity. He thinks how\noften one has drunk the toasts of mother, wife, sister, daughter--these\nfictions in a world of deceit, where all is vanity of vanities.\nBut many men are silent because they are afraid of being called\n'woman-haters.' They are afraid!\"\n\n\n[Footnote 1: The saying is originally Muhammed's.]\n\n\n=White Slavery.=--The teacher said: \"In the whole of the upper and\nmiddle classes and a good way below them the following is the case with\nregard to marriage: When a man marries, his work, which he can devolve\non no one else, increases. His wife, on the other hand, at once gets\na servant to do her work; if she has children, then she gets a nurse\nbesides. But she herself sits there without occupation, and tries to\nkill time with useless trivialities. In this way she can neither get\nan appetite for dinner, nor sleep at night. In the evening her husband\ncomes home, and wants to enjoy the domestic hearth; but his wife wants\nto go to the theatre and restaurant. She is not tired, but bored by\nwant of occupation, and therefore wants amusement. Women, in fact, seem\nnot to be born for domestic life, but for the theatre, the restaurant,\nand the street. Therefore women complain that they must sit at home.\nAlthough they have slaves to serve them, they call themselves 'slaves'\nand hold meetings to their own emancipation, but not that of their\nservants. Their animalised husbands support them without observing that\nthey themselves are slaves; for he who works for the idle is a slave.\nBut it is written, 'Ye are bought with a price; be slaves to no man.'\"\n\n\n=Noodles.=--The pupil asked: \"What is a woman-hater?\"\n\nThe teacher answered: \"I do not know. But the expression is used as a\nterm of reproach by noodles, for those who say what all think. Noodles\nare those men who cannot come near a woman without losing their heads\nand becoming faithless. They purchase the woman's favour by delivering\nup the heads of their friends on silver chargers; and they absorb\nso much femininity, that they see with feminine eyes and feel with\nfeminine feelings. There are things which one does not say every day,\nand one does not tell one's wife what her sex is composed of. But one\nhas the right to put it on paper sometimes. Schopenhauer has done it\nthe best, Nietzsche not badly, Peladan is the master. Thackeray wrote\n_Men's Wives_ but the book was ignored. Balzac has unmasked Caroline in\nthe _Petites Mis\u00e8res de la vie Conjugale_. Otto Weininger discovered\nthe deceit at the age of twenty; he did not wait for the consequent\nvengeance, but went his own way, _i.e._ died. I have said that the\nchild is a little criminal, incapable of self-guidance, but I love\nchildren all the same. I have said that a woman is--what she is, but\nI have always loved some woman, and been a father. Whoever therefore\ncalls me a woman-hater is a blockhead, a liar, or a noodle. Or all\nthree together.\"\n\n\n=Inextricable Confusion.=--The teacher continued: \"If on the other\nside of the grave there were a Judge Rhadamanthus appointed to arrange\nthe disputes of men, he would never come to an end. Life is such a\ntissue of lies, errors, misunderstandings, of debts and demands, that\na balancing of the books is impossible. I know men who have been lied\nabout their whole lives through. I know of one who was branded through\nhis whole life with the stigma of a seducer, although he has never\nseduced, but was seduced himself. I know of an uncommonly truthful man\nwho had the reputation of being a liar. I know an honourable man who\npassed for a thief. I know a man who was three times married, and had\nchildren in all three marriages, but was said to be no man, because\nhe, as a man, would not be the slave of his wife. I know many who\nare sincerely religious and yet are called hypocrites, although the\nchief point in religion is sincerity. But, on the other hand, I know\nheathen who professed to be atheists, although in their bedchambers\nthey sang penitential psalms when they were nervous in the dark and\nfeared the consequences of their misdeeds. They were so cowardly\nthat they dared not fall under the suspicion of being religious, but\nbragged of their courage and strength of character. They would not\nabandon the Black Flag; they would not be untrue to the ideal of their\nyouth--godlessness. Rascally right and good-hearted stupidity form a\nproblem too complicated for Rhadamanthus himself to solve. Only the\nCrucified could do it with the single saying which He addressed to the\npenitent thief, 'To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.'\"\n\n\n=Phantoms.=--The teacher said: \"When intelligence and the power\nof reflection are matured, and one thinks about men, their outlines\nbegin to dissolve, and they turn into phantoms. Indeed, one never\nreally knows a man; one knows only his own, or others' ideas of him,\nbut when these ideas change, the image of him becomes indistinct and\nis obscured with a veil. We form our conception of a person whom we\nhave never seen according to others' ideas of him. Thus, for example,\nthe personality of a famous painter was described to me by an author.\nAfter two years the author had formed another idea of him, and imparted\nthat to me, and I had to alter my view of him. Then there came another\ndescriber, and gave me quite a different idea of the painter. He was\nfollowed by a third and a fourth. After this I saw the painter's\npictures, and could not understand how he could paint in the way he\ndid. But the painter himself I never saw. He has become for me a\nphantom without clear outlines, composed of different-coloured pieces\nof glass, which do not harmonise, and alter according to my moods. I\nexpect that when I meet him he will not resemble my idea of him at all,\nbut have the effect of quite another independent phantom.\"\n\n\n=Mirage Pictures.=--The teacher said: \"When I have lived for some\ntime in solitude my acquaintances begin to appear like mirage-pictures\nbefore me. Some gain by distance, occasion only friendly feelings,\nand are surrounded by an atmosphere of light and peace. Others whom I\nreally like very well when they are near, lose by absence, and appear\nto be hostile. Thus I may hate a friend in his absence, look upon\nhim as unpleasant and inimical, but as soon as he comes, enter into\nfriendly contact with him. There is a woman whose proximity I cannot\nbear, but whom I love at a distance. We write letters to each full\nof regard and friendliness. When we have longed for each other for a\ntime and must meet, we immediately begin to quarrel, become vulgar\nand unsympathetic, and part in anger. We love each other on a higher\nplane, but cannot live in the same room. We dream of meeting again,\nspiritualised, on some green island, where only we two can live, or,\nat any rate, only our child with us. I remember a half-hour which we\nthree actually spent hand in hand on a green island by the sea-coast.\nIt seemed to me like heaven. Then the clocks struck the hour of noon,\nand we were back again on earth, and soon after that, in hell.\"\n\n\n=Trifle not with Love.=--The pupil said: \"When a man and a woman\nare united in love, a single being is the result, whose existence\nis a positive pleasure, as long as harmony reigns. But this being\nis an extremely sensitive receptive instrument, and is exposed to\ndisturbances from outer currents which act from all distances, an\ninconvenience which it shares with wireless telegraphy. Therefore\na disturbance of the relationship between a married pair is the\ngreatest pain which exists. Unfaithfulness is a cosmic crime which\nbrings the one or the other member of the married pair into perverse\nrelations with their own sex. If the husband loves another woman, his\nwife is exposed to terrible alternate currents; by turns she loves and\nhates the woman who is her rival. Often she can be the friend of her\nhusband's paramour, but more often her enemy. Whoever comes between a\npair who love, does not so with impunity. The hate which he arouses is\nso terrible, that he can be lamed by the discharge, lose all energy and\npleasure in life. Therefore it is rightly said, 'Trifle not with love.'\"\n\n\n=A \"Taking\" Religion.=--The pupil said: \"When Buddhism, mixed\nwith Vedantism, became fashionable in 1890, all the renegades from\nChristianity flocked to it and tried to fill the vacuum in their\nreligious lives. Six thousand new gods were received with applause\nforthwith; the new trinity--Brahma, Vishnu, Siva--encountered no\nobjections; spirits, ghosts, genies, fairies were thought quite\nnatural; Gautama's heaven and hell were thrown into the bargain,\naccompanied by a slight flavour of asceticism. Those who denied the\nResurrection found reincarnation quite a simple affair. But the\nfavourite was Krishna. He was the incarnation of the god Vishnu, who\ndescended to earth in order to be born of earthly parents and to save\nfallen humanity. His coming was prophesied, and so dreaded that a\nmassacre of new-born infants like that at Bethlehem was plotted, but\nunsuccessfully. Krishna fulfilled his mission, conquered the evil\npowers, and finally endured a voluntary death. That 'took'! The trinity\nBrahma, Vishnu, Siva 'took,' but Father, Son, Holy Spirit did not\n'take.' Krishna 'took,' but not Christ. It was strange!\"\n\n\n=The Sixth Sense.=--The pupil continued: \"The outer eye can\nreflect images, the inner eye can conceive them. There are therefore\ntwo kinds of sight, an outer and an inner. Of the senses, that of\nsmell is the most immediate when it has to do with the conveyance\nof impressions. But there seem also to be two kinds of faculties of\nsmell. Swedenborg says that a false man smells of sour gastric juice,\nbut only for the person to whom he has been false. In this case the\nsmell-perception is only subjective, but it is of great objective value\nin judging men. In this case the organ of smell seems to operate with\n\u00e6ther-waves. According to Swedenborg's doctrine of correspondences,\ngood men exhale sweet perfume, and bad men a stench like that of\ncorpses. He says that misers smell like rats, and so on. Legends of\nthe saints relate that the corpses of those who have kept their souls\nand bodies pure, when they dissolve, exhale a flower-like perfume.\nIn short, every soul has its scent, which varies according to its\ncharacteristics.\n\n\"This sixth sense the clothes-hygienist J\u00e4ger believed he had\ndiscovered after he had begun to observe and train his outer and\ninner man. I will speak now of my own experiences in the matter. They\ndid not begin till I had passed through the great purgatorial fire\nwhich burnt up the rubbish of my soul, and after I had scrambled out\nof the worst of the mire by self-discipline and asceticism. They are\naccustomed to boil off the gum from raw silk before it is spun, and\nso my nerve-fibres seemed to have been 'scoured' by the sufferings of\nlife, and gone through a process like the 'fining' of silk.\"\n\n\n=Exteriorisation of Sensibility.=--The pupil continued: \"I\nhappened once, when watching a spider in a web, to see her 'exteriorise\nher sensibility,' or in other words reel out a nerve-substance for\nherself with which she remains in touch, and by means of which she\nbecomes aware when flies come and when the weather changes. Raspail,\nwho in his masterly works has cast many a far-reaching glance\nbehind the curtains of nature, has in one place philosophised over\nthe spider's web. In other works dealing with transcendent natural\nsciences, one finds the doubt expressed whether the object of the\nspider's web is only to be a fly-trap. I myself have counted four and\ntwenty radii in the web of the garden-spider resembling an hour-circle,\nand have asked myself whether, besides being a barometer and trap, the\nweb is also a kind of clock.\n\n\"Now it seems as though I had myself in a similar manner exteriorised\nmy sensibility. I feel at a distance when anyone interferes with my\ndestiny, when enemies threaten my personal existence, and also when\npeople speak well of me or wish me well. I feel in the street whether\nthose I meet are friends or foes; I have felt the pain of an operation\nundergone by a man to whom I was fairly indifferent; twice I have\nshared the death-agonies of others with the accompanying corporeal and\npsychical sufferings. The last time I went through three illnesses\nin six hours, and when the absent person with whom I suffered was\nliberated by death, I rose up well. This makes life painful, but rich\nand interesting.\"\n\n\n=Telepathic Perception.=--The pupil said: \"While I lived in the\nmost intimate relations with a woman, I arrived, like Gustav J\u00e4ger, at\n'the discovery of the soul.' I was always in communication with her,\noften through obscure sensations, but very often through the sense of\nsmell; these were subjective however, as other people were not aware\nof them. When she was travelling I knew whether she was in a steamer\nor on a train; I could distinguish the revolutions of the screw from\nthe vibration of the railway carriage and the puffing of the engine.\nShe used to make her presence felt by me at a certain hour of the\nday, _i.e._ five o'clock in the morning. Once, when she was in Paris,\nthis time changed to four o'clock. When I consulted the table of time\nvariations, I found that it was four o'clock in Paris when it was five\no'clock with me. Another time she was in St. Petersburg, then our\nmeeting took place an hour later; that also agreed with the time-table.\nWhen she hated me, I was conscious of a smell and taste like that of\nmortalin; this happened one night so distinctly that I had to rise and\nopen the window. When she thought kindly of me, I perceived a smell\nof incense and often of jasmine, but these scents sometimes changed\ninto sensations of taste. When she was in society without me I felt\nthat she was away, and when the conversation turned on me I was aware\nwhether they were speaking good or ill about me.\"\n\n\n=Morse Telepathy.=--The pupil continued: \"I was spending one\nevening at home alone; I did not know where she was, but had the\nfeeling that she was lost to me. At 10.40 p.m. I was aware of a passing\nbreath of perfume. Then I said to myself, 'She has been in the theatre!\nBut in which?' I took the daily paper, read the theatre advertisements,\nand found that one theatre closed at 10.40. Further inquiry proved that\nmy surmise was right.\n\n\"On another occasion when in company I broke off a lively conversation\nwith a smile. 'What are you smiling at?' 'Just now the train from the\nsouth entered the terminus.' Another time under similar circumstances\nI said: 'Now the curtain falls on the last act in _Helsingfors_!' and\nI heard the applause which greeted the prima donna who had played in\nmy piece. The conversation of the people in the restaurant after the\nconclusion of the piece sounded like ringing in my ears. I can hear\nthat as far as from Germany when a prima donna is acting in one of my\npieces there, although I do not know beforehand that it is going to\nbe played. One evening I had gone to bed about half-past nine, and\nwas awoken about half-past eleven by a smell of punch and tobacco and\nin the impression that two of my acquaintances in a caf\u00e9 were talking\nabout me. I had every reason to believe that I had been present there\nin some way or another, but I was so accustomed to this phenomenon that\nthis time I did not test it. Flammarion gives a hundred such cases in\nhis book _The Unknown_.\"\n\n\n=Nisus Formativus, or Unconscious Sculpture.=--The pupil\ncontinued: \"Once I signed a contract with a merchant. After sleeping\nthe night over it, I noticed that he had cheated me. With angry\nthoughts I went out for my morning stroll. When I came back I wished\nto change my clothes, and threw my handkerchief on the table. After I\nhad undressed myself I noticed that the handkerchief had been crumpled\ntogether by my nervous clutch, and now, where it lay, formed a cast\nof the merchant's head, like a plaster-of-Paris bust. The question\narises: Had my hand unconsciously formed an image of my thoughts? Linen\nis a very plastic material, and one often finds excellent pieces of\n'sculpture' in handkerchiefs, sheets, and cushions. When a married\nman comes home with his wife from a ball, he should look at the\nhandkerchief chief which she has held the whole evening in her hand,\nand then perhaps he might see with whom she preferred most to dance.\n\n\"In India a Buddhist priest is said to represent the 208 incarnations\nof Vishnu by putting his hand in a linen bag, and moulding rapidly from\nwithin the linen of the bag into the shapes of an elephant, tortoise,\netc. When St. Veronica's napkin retained the impress of Christ's face,\nthat is not more improbable than that my pillow in the morning should\nshow the impress of faces which are not like mine. I have read of\nIndian vases which are so modelled that at first one only sees a chaos\nresembling clouds, twisted entrails, or the convolutions of the brain.\nAfter the eye has become accustomed to this the confusion begins to be\ndisentangled; all kinds of objects such as plants and animals emerge\nin clear outline. Whether all observers see the same I know not. But\nI believe that the moulder of the vase has worked unintentionally and\nunconsciously.\"\n\n\n=Projections.=--The pupil continued: \"But there are also\nprojections which I cannot explain. It is possible that only poets and\nartists possess the power so to project their inward images in every\nlife that they become half real. It is quite a usual occurrence that\nthe dying show themselves to their absent friends. Living persons can\nalso appear at a distance, but only to those who keep them in their\nthoughts. I used to show my initiated friends the following phenomenon:\nI observed a stranger who resembled an absent acquaintance. As soon\nas my eye completed the image, whatever unlikeness remained was\nerased. 'See, there goes X.,' I said. My friends saw the resemblance,\nunderstood that it was not X., comprehended my meaning, and agreed\nwith me without further thought. If we shortly afterwards met X. we\nwere astonished, and attempted to find no explanation in face of the\ninexplicable latter part of the phenomenon.\n\n\"But one day I went down a street and 'saw' my friend Dr. Y. who lived\nfifty miles away. It was he, and yet it was not he. It was the same\nlittle figure although somewhat wavering and uncertain. The grey-yellow\nface was also the same although almost ghost-like, with deep furrows\nwhich followed the oval lines of the face, and with the forced laugh of\nsuffering. When I came home I read in the paper that the man was dead.\"\n\n\n=Apparitions.=--The pupil continued: \"One evening I passed a\nwell-known theatre while a performance was going on inside. There was\nno one outside. Suddenly on the pavement I saw an actor who had died\nthirty years previously, after he had first gone crazy with vexation\nbecause he had failed as an actor in this very theatre. His face, like\nthat of my deceased friend the doctor's, was lined with those parallel\nfurrows which run from the forehead to the jaw. 'Was it he, or not?'\nI asked myself, and left the question open. On another occasion I\nwas travelling by rail in a foreign country. The train halted at a\nstation for three minutes. On the platform in broad daylight a man was\ngoing up and down with a paint-box in his hand. He looked nervous and\nsuffering and was badly dressed. 'That is he!' I thought. 'How has he\ngot here? Why has he come down in the world?' During this three minutes\nI suffered all the tortures of uncertainty and of a bad conscience, for\nI was partly to blame for his misfortune and his poverty. The train\nwent on, and I have never discovered whether it were really he. It was\ncertainly improbable.\n\n\"Yet another time I was travelling by rail. At a remote station a man\ncame into my compartment and sat opposite me. I thought he was an\nacquaintance, but he looked at me unrecognisingly. Then I let my eyes\nfall. Immediately he regarded me with an ironical smile which I again\nrecognised. 'It is he,' I thought, 'but he will not greet me.' So I\nsuffered for some hours. My conscience endured all that I owed him.\nWhether it really was he I know not, but the effect was the same.\"\n\n\n=The Reactionary Type.=--The teacher said: \"Men seem to react\nagainst themselves and their own bad qualities when they demand from\nothers what they cannot themselves do. A man who is full of hate\ndemands to be loved. A faithless deceiver came lately to me and\nfinished his wily talk by saying, 'All I ask is that you trust me!'\nHe only asked that in order that he might be able to deceive me. But\nperhaps he trusted me more than himself; he did not know himself, but\nhad an inkling of what he was. Perhaps he felt that my belief in him\nwould strengthen and elevate him, and might possibly neutralise his\nuntrustworthiness. It sounded at any rate very na\u00efve, and I felt myself\nhonoured by the compliment.\n\n\"Again, a spendthrift who had no means of his own always cautioned me\nto be frugal. He gave brilliant parties, but when he came to me he only\ngot potatoes and herrings, and yet he thought that was beyond my means.\nOn one occasion I had bought 200 grammes of nickel-sulphate for my\nchemical experiments. They cost fifty-two pence. The spendthrift came\nto visit me, looked at the sulphate, and exclaimed, 'Can you afford it?\nNickel-sulphate which is so dear.' Fifty-two pence! Then he invited me\nto a drive in a carriage, and a meal which cost fifty-two kronas for\nan altogether unproductive purpose. When he had to pay the reckoning\nhe suffered torments. Perhaps he was by nature a skinflint, who had\nyielded to a mania for extravagance and reacted against it. I tried to\nexplain this once to him, as on principle I wished to think well of the\nman.\"\n\n\n=The Hate of Parasites.=--The teacher continued: \"There are\nmen who are spiritually so empty that they only live on others. I\nhave an acquaintance (when one is over fifty one does not ask for\nfriends any more) who constantly visits me but never says anything.\nOur social intercourse consists in my speaking alone. When he\nleaves me after several hours, I feel as if I had been undergoing\nblood-letting. It is certainly good to be able to talk oneself out\noften, but one would often like to have an answer to one's questions;\nbut I never get an answer, not even to a question in his own special\nline. I can only remember one expression which this man used, and\nthat was extraordinarily stupid. Somebody had slandered me, and my\n'acquaintance' had believed every word and painted my figure in false\ncolours. Finally one evening I defended myself, and proved that my\nslanderer was not in his right senses. He rejected my explanation,\nexclaiming 'Fie! how cynical you are!'\n\n\"What did this answer mean? First, that I must not wash myself clean,\nfor he wanted to have me dirty; secondly, that he gave me the lie;\nthirdly, that his sympathies were on the side of the slanderer. I draw\nthe inference that this man hated me, and therefore visited me. If he\ncould not have intercourse with me, he could not abuse my confidence\nand gratify his hate. His tactics were--to live my life, to devour\nmy soul, to gnaw my bones. The attraction he felt to me he called\nsympathy, though it was antipathy. There are many kinds of hate, and\na wife's 'love' to her husband is a variety of hate. She desires\nhis virile power in order to become a husband and make him into a\npassive-wife.\"\n\n\n=A Letter from the Dead.=--The teacher said: \"It seems as though\none could live the life of another parallel with one's own, or as\nthough one might be in touch with a stranger on another continent.\nOne morning I received a letter of twenty-quarto pages from America.\nLong letters make me nervous; they always begin with flattery and end\nwith scolding. I read, as I usually do, the signature first, which\nwas unknown to me. Then I dipped into the letter here and there, and\nsaw that the writer wished to influence me. One word pricked me like\na needle, and I tore the letter into small pieces which I threw in\nthe paper-basket. In the night I dreamt that the remarkable man,[1]\nwho seemed still to guide my steps after his death, showed me an old\nmanuscript which I had not found worth reading. The old servant held\nthe manuscript against the light, and then I saw like a water-mark\nanother writing between the lines. Immediately afterwards I saw in\nmy dream a broken-off leaden wire, but closer inspection showed its\nsurface to be gold. When I awoke in the morning I understood the\ndream in its perfectly clear symbolism. I went to the paper-basket,\ncollected the fragments of the stranger's letter, and spent six hours\nin piecing them together. Then I began to read. I should premise that\nthe handwriting was so like that of my deceased and honoured teacher,\nthat I believed I was reading a letter from the dead.\"\n\n\n[Footnote 1: He refers probably to the Chief Librarian in the Royal\nStockholm Library, where he had been an assistant in his youth.]\n\n\n=A Letter from Hell.=--\"The letter pricked me like a packet of\nneedles. But it was so interesting that I was continually lured onward\nto read to the end. The writer began by saying that he had received his\nfirst intellectual awakening through my books. Since then his course\nfor twenty years had been very irregular; led astray by the prevailing\nape-morality, he had gone in evil ways. In the midst of his wandering,\nit happened to him as to Dante and others--he came into hell, but found\na Virgil who led him out and saved him. Then his own real life began.\nHe passed all the sciences from philosophy to chemistry under critical\nreview, and found them consisting of mere conventional lies. He drifted\nabout helplessly till he found an anchorage-ground in faith in Christ,\nthe Exorciser of demons, the highest Wisdom, the Redeemer who saves\nfrom doubt, despair, and madness.\n\n\"During the perusal I felt sometimes as though I were reading my own\nlife or a satire on it. Annoyed by what seemed a tactless encroachment,\nI often wished to throw the letter away but could not; the dream always\nrecurred to me, and the letter contained new and bold ideas sparkling\nin a chaos of contradictions and paradoxes. In short, it proved a\nturning-point in my life. It exposed my faults, but showed me at the\nsame time that I had held the right course, in spite of the deflections\nand cross-currents to which I had been exposed.\"\n\n\n=An Unconscious Medium.=--\"Now let me say a few words about\nmy deceased mentor, who already in his lifetime exercised a great\ninfluence on my development, though without knowing or wishing it. I\nwas young, precocious, dull, and untrustworthy, mostly because I wished\nto preserve my personal independence, but also because I was godless,\nand consequently immoral without any other principle except that of\ngetting on. He, my chief, attracted me, in spite of the fact that I was\nantipathetic to him in most things. My position required that I should\nserve him devotedly, but I wished also to serve my own interests. He\nwas a spiritist and Swedenborgian, but I was a materialist. This he was\naware of, because I was brutally truthful. But struggle as I might,\nI came under his influence and became his medium. There were days on\nwhich he was so blind that he could not read the old manuscripts which\nhe was editing. One day he gave me a medi\u00e6val codex in a difficult\ncharacter, and half in joke told me to read it. I read it at once,\nwithout having learnt the character. Then he had discovered me. But\nI worked alone, although unconsciously. One day I stumbled on a pile\nof old documents, and found a date which he had been hunting for\nfor twenty years. Another time I found an historic detail of great\nimportance which altered our ideas of our early history. One day our\npaths diverged.\n\n\n=The Revenant.=--\"Years passed. I lived abroad, but my thoughts\noften reverted to the savant who had had a great influence on my\nlife. Often, without any special reason, I spoke of him for hours at\na time--not always with the respect which I owed him. I was, it must\nbe remembered, a pioneer, to whom nothing was sacred, neither parents\nnor teacher. One day I heard that the old man was dead. Eight days\nlater there appeared in the paper this mysterious announcement. An\nintimate friend of the deceased received, eight days after his death,\nthrough the post, a letter from him. The paper considered it a jocose\nmystification on the part of the deceased, who loved jokes. I guessed\nwho might have been entrusted with the letter, but felt astonished\nthat a dying man could take such pleasure in jesting, especially about\nthings which he had taken so seriously. When, two years later, began\nthe experiences described in my book _Inferno_, I felt that I was in\ntouch with my departed teacher. There were certain roguish traits in\nthe phenomena which reminded me of him. I remember one night addressing\nthe question to the darkness, 'Is it you?' The whole affair was in his\nstyle, teasing in form, but well-meaning in purpose. I received no\nanswer, but the impression remained--a mixture of terrible grim earnest\nand behind it a friendly smile, comforting, pardoning, protecting, just\nas in his lifetime, when he practised patience with my ill manners.\"\n\n\n=The Meeting in the Convent.=--The teacher continued: \"During\nmy wanderings I happened once to visit a convent with a travelling\ncompanion in a corner of Europe. What interested me specially was the\nlibrary, for I had long been trying to trace Anschar's[1] journal.\nAfter I had slept the night in a cell which bore the inscription 'B.\nVictor III. P.P.,' in memory of Pope Victor III 'who punished the\nheretics who denied the divinity of Christ,' I was taken into the\nlibrary. The first thing shown me was a collection of Latin hymns of\nthe Middle Ages which had been edited by my deceased teacher. The\ninner side of the title-page contained some handwriting by the editor,\nwhich was so peculiar that it could hardly be imitated. I asked the\nBenedictine monk who accompanied me, whose signature it was. He\nanswered, 'The convent librarian's.' 'Are you certain?' I asked. 'Yes,\nquite certain.' This discovery of his handwriting, which I had never\nseen elsewhere, after so many years made a deep impression on me. I\nasked myself whether the monk, acting as a medium, could have imitated\nthe handwriting of the deceased editor. After an afternoon's search I\nfound the valuable explanation that Anschar's journal had been taken by\nAbbot Thymo from Corvey to Rome in A.D. 1261. It was known that it had\nsince disappeared, but now I had found a trace of it. I felt as though\nmy deceased friend had brought me here into the convent in order to\ndiscuss Anschar's journal, concerning the fate of which we had often\nmade guesses and searches.\"\n\n\n[Footnote 1: A famous French missionary in Sweden, a.d. 801-865.]\n\n\n=Correspondences.=--The teacher said: \"It seems to me as though\nSwedenborg's correspondences or correlatives were to be found again\nin all departments, as though natural laws on a higher plane can be\napplied to the spiritual life of man. If an object comes too close to\nthe magnifying glass, it becomes indistinct. Similarly one cannot see\nthe object of one's affections if she comes too close. She becomes\nsmall and indistinct, loses outline and colour; but remove her to the\nproper focus, and she becomes magnified and clear. Thus it is with\nprinces and their valets de chambre.\n\n\"But there are also exceptions to the rule. Many friends gain by\nproximity; one must see them often, otherwise they change their\nshape and become ghostly and alarming. Others again seem better at a\ndistance; whenever we meet them we lose an illusion. The attraction\nbetween lovers can increase in proportion to the square of the distance\nbetween them, and also in reverse proportion; the greater the distance,\nthe greater the pain of separation. It seems also possible to apply the\nfacts of electricity in the psychical sphere. Pellets of elder-pith\nattract one another so long as they are of opposite polarity, but when\nthey are saturated or over-saturated they repel one another. But the\nmutual repulsion also takes place when a foreign body is interposed\nbetween them, for then an influence is produced which operates\nlaterally.\"\n\n\n=Portents.=--The teacher continued: \"As soon as I believe in an\nAlmighty God, who can suspend the few natural laws which we know, and\nbring into operation the countless host of laws which we do not know,\nI must believe in miracles. Swedenborg does not deal so hardly with\nanyone (at the same time that he commiserates them) as the asses who\nrevere the creation and the laws of nature, without believing in the\nCreator and Law-giver. They go with their noses on the ground, and if\nanything unusual happens 'in the air,' as they say, they call it 'a\nmeteorological phenomenon,' and attribute it to such and such natural\ncauses. They register the phenomenon in their records without dreaming\nof anything behind it, and forthwith forget the matter.\n\n\"We, on the other hand, will mention some events of recent years and\nconnect them with certain natural phenomena which may possibly denote\nthe presence of warning and chastising powers.\n\n\"On the 7th June, 1905, Sweden and Norway separated. A year previous an\nearthquake took place which had its centre in the Kattegat. One shock\nreached Christiania and caused a terrible panic in the churches; people\ntrampled one another to death or lost their reason. Another shock\naffected Stockholm and caused alarm, but in a minor degree; among those\naffected by it was a prince of high military rank. In January, 1905, a\nhurricane burst over Christiania, tore the roof from the royal castle,\nand injured the fortress of Akershus. The same hurricane travelled\neast-ward to Stockholm, tore the roof from the guards' barracks and\nthrew it on the drilling-ground. These statements can be verified by\nreference to the newspapers. The question is: 'Are these portents or\nnot?' Are symbolic natural phenomena portents?\"\n\n\n=The Difficult Art of Lying.=--The teacher said: \"When people\nlie deliberately, usually with the object of gaining something, I\noften do not hear what they say. One day a carpenter came to me with a\ncomplaint. I listened to him and helped him. The next day he came again\nin order to do a piece of work. Then, among other things he let this\nremark fall: 'To-day, thank God, she is better.' 'Who?' I asked. 'I\nmentioned yesterday that my child had fallen down the staircase.' Then\nI felt ashamed of having taken so little interest in his troubles,\nand murmured some sympathetic words. But when he had gone I thought\nover the matter. Since I generally hear very well and attend to what\npeople say, I was astonished that I had not noticed his account of his\ntrouble. I could not explain it to myself.\n\n\"Some time later, after some months, I conceived a strong feeling of\ndistrust towards this man. I remembered the German proverb, 'A liar\nshould have a good memory,' and determined to test him. Therefore I\nsaid to him abruptly, 'Did you have a good summer?' 'Splendid,' he\nanswered. 'Is your wife quite well?' 'Perfectly.' 'Your child too?'\n'She has never passed through the summer so well.' Accordingly he\nhad lied when he said the little girl had had an accident, and had\nsubsequently forgotten it. What was unreal could leave no impression\nbehind--an interesting fact, as it seemed to me. In connection with\nthis I remembered that an actor, a pessimist and hopeless despairer,\nhad to play the part of a believing and positive character on a certain\noccasion. That evening the audience could hardly hear a word of what he\nsaid. I was astonished at the time, but now I understand that he was\nlying.\"\n\n\n=Religious and Scientific Intuition.=--The pupil said: \"The\neverlasting strife between Faith and Knowledge would have been stifled\nat the outset if some sharp wit had discovered in time that the problem\nis wrongly stated, for the two ideas form no real antithesis. What\nI know, that I believe; consequently faith presupposes knowledge,\nconsequently knowledge is subsumed under faith. But the word 'belief'\nhas received other significations. In religion it means reception\nor absorption. Science recognises the fact of intuition or rapid\ninference, _i.e._ the faculty of reaching certainty without sufficient\nreason and without a complete chain of proof. That is scientific\nbelief, and is in complete analogy with religious belief. When a man\narrives at the knowledge of God and of His laws by way of intuition,\nwhen he then tests this knowledge by observing his experiences and\nfinds it confirmed, then the final outcome of his investigation is\nBelief. Belief is complete objective certainty, but on a higher plane,\nso that all scientific chatter that Knowledge is higher than Belief\nis mere nonsense. By 'knowledge' in this case one understands for the\nmost part information about stones, plants, and animals, and historical\nfacts such as the year in which a certain book was published, when\nGoethe was in Strasburg, whether Rebecca Ost's real name was\nPopoffsky or Johanna Hagelstrom, or whether an Apostle-mug is genuine\nor imitation. The antithesis 'Faith _or_ Knowledge' is the stupidest\ndispute about words which ever took place, and a disgrace to humanity.\"\n\n\n=The Freed Thinker.=--The teacher said: \"In order to think\nrightly and in accordance with law, I must free my reason from fetters\nof rustic intelligence, from interests, passions, conventional\nconsiderations. One must go into deep solitude, and not be afraid of\nremaining alone, deserted by all. Above all, one must not belong to\nany party which regulates, inspects, and degrades. In order to be able\nto dare to give up the weak and hampering support of men, one must\nbe able thoroughly to rely upon God. In order to do that one must\nkeep one's conscience as clean as possible, must hate evil, strive\nafter righteousness and goodness, bear everything except humiliation,\nexercise mercifulness, and take trials as such and not as persecutions.\n\n\"The electric clock has contact and connection with a correctly-timed\nchronometer. And so my reason cannot think logically till I have opened\nconnection with the Logos, and no longer discharge contrary currents of\nsterile denial and doubt. Only in life with God is there freedom of\nthought, freedom from impure impulses, selfish and ambitious interests,\nfreedom from the wish to stand well with the crowd. That is the _freed_\nthinker in contrast to the 'free-thinker,' who has left the rails and\nlost connection with the overhead wire; he will come to grief at the\nnext street-corner, and is of no more use as a vehicle of traffic.\"\n\n\n=Primus inter pares.=--The pupil continued: \"Religions seemed\nto be determined by regions like nationalities. Swedenborg hints\nat something of the sort, saying that people have the religion\nwhich they ought to have. Those who have no religion are tramps and\nvagabonds, pariahs and gipsies, scoundrels and swindlers. They think\nthey are at home everywhere, but are so only on the high-roads, in\nthe market-places, behind the circus-stable, in the alehouse. When\nLessing asserts in _Nathan der Weise_ that all religions are equally\ngood, he shows that he has not understood Christianity, which is the\nbeginning and end of the world's history. The Muhammedans are certainly\nreligious, more religious than the Christians, and among the adherents\nof Islam are many sects, but no atheistic ones. All observe the hours\nof prayer, fasts, and daily washings. Muhammed was no Christ-hater. But\nthey are alien to our climate. Still we have something to learn from\nthem; they are not ashamed to show their religion, while we shuffle\nwith it. They are not only religious on Sundays but every day and all\nday.\n\n\"But, if we heard that a Christian had gone over to Islam we should\nregard it as a fall from the higher to the lower, while the conversion\nof a Muhammedan to Christianity would be hailed as an ascent. Saladin\nwas certainly noble and Nathan wise, but the nobleness of the former\nhad somewhat of a pose about it, and the wisdom of the latter was of\nthe same homely kind as Voltaire's. On the other hand, Godfrey de\nBouillon accepted the crown of thorns instead of the king's crown,\nand St. Louis gave his life for the wisdom which surpasses all\nunderstanding.\"\n\n\n=Heathen Imaginations.=--The teacher said: \"Religions are\nrepresented by regions, defined territories, circles, of which each\nconsiders himself the centre. The modern heathen sit in their little\nbag, which is big enough to be seen, and when they only see heathen\nthey imagine that Christianity is decaying or altogether done with.\nAnd yet it is flourishing as it never did before; everything serves\nthe Gospel with or against its will. The heathen find new weapons in\nheaps of ruins and in temple-libraries; they close churches and thereby\nbring Christianity into life and into the domestic circle. When they\nmake life bitter for the Christians, the latter turn from the sour and\nseek the fresh. The missionaries who were only lately regarded with a\ncontemptuous smile are now discovered by great explorers in deserts\nand wildernesses, where they have established oases of humanity and\nmercy. There the plundered wanderer can rest his weary head, secure of\nhaving found one trustworthy man. He who wishes to know the effect of\nChristianity on an idolater should read Kanso Utschimura's _Memoirs of\na Japanese; or, How I Became a Christian_. Those who preach 'cheerful\npaganism' can see in this work how a polytheist is tom and tortured\nby doubt, and tossed to-and-fro between the contradictory commands of\neighty million gods.\"\n\n\n=Thought Bound by Law.=--The teacher said: \"When a young man\ncomes and says he is a free-thinker, say to him: 'You lie. You think\nwith your stomach, your throat, your sexuality, with your passions and\nyour interests, your hate and your sympathies. But in your youthful\nimmaturity you do not really think at all, but merely drivel. What\nis instilled into you, you give out, and dub your wishes by the\nname of thoughts.' Moreover 'free-thought' is a contradiction in\nterms, for thought obeys laws, just as sound, light, and chemical\ncombinations do. Thought is bound, bound by laws. If you say 'There\nis no God,' you speak without thinking. 'Non-existence' and 'God' are\ntwo incommensurate ideas which cannot be brought into juxtaposition.\nIf they are, there results an absurdity which is the secretion or\nexcretion of an illogical and confused mind.\n\n\"If on the other hand you say 'There is no God _for me_,' there is\nsomething probable in that. But you should be ashamed to speak of\nit. It only means that you are a godless dog, a perverse ape, a\nconscienceless deceiver and thief whom men must avoid and detectives\nmust watch. Fortunately godlessness is an hallucination imposed on\nhaughty blockheads as a punishment. When the 'free-thinker' discovers\nsome day how stupid he is, then he is freed, and that is a mercy for\nhim.\"\n\n\n=Credo quia (et-si) absurdum.=--The teacher said: \"If I call\nmyself a Christian it is because I recognise Christ as a power, a\nsource of strength, from whom I obtain strength by prayer in order to\nsupport tolerably the burdens of life. But at the same time I confess\nthat I cannot understand nor explain the doctrine of Atonement through\nsacrificial death. That is not, however, the fault of the doctrine but\na defect in me. I have also no right to deny a matter of fact because I\ndo not understand it. Here is an illustration. If I multiply 2 by 2 I\nobtain an increase--4. But if I multiply \u00bd by \u00bd I obtain as a result a\ndecrease by half, _i.e._ \u00bc. Here is an incomprehensible contradiction.\nMultiplication cannot produce a decrease. Yet it is mathematically\ntrue that 2 multiplied by 2 is doubled, _i.e._ 4, but \u00bd multiplied by\n\u00bd is halved, _i.e._ \u00bc. My intelligence would fain deny it, but I must\nbelieve it, and in doing so I do well, otherwise the whole science of\nmathematics would be unusable, which would be a great loss. _Credo\nquia absurdum._ That means, I must believe a fact just because it\nis incomprehensible and absurd (for me, but not for others). If I\ncould understand it, the emergency short-cut of 'faith' would not be\nnecessary. That is the sacrifice, not of my reason, but of my rustic\nunderstanding and of my pride.\"\n\n\n=The Fear of Heaven.=--The pupil said: \"The astronomy or\nuranology of the astronomers has ceased to make any progress since\nit has become godless. They have given up observing the sky. They sit\nthere and calculate, with the express purpose of calculating God's\nexistence away. Seven years ago I met a teacher of astronomy. He did\nnot know that the equator of the sky passes through the belt of Orion,\nand could not point out the ecliptic. He boasted of not knowing the\nconstellations, saying it was no science to know them. Our nearest\nneighbour the moon has been ignored for a long time. And yet in 1866 it\nwas noticed that changes had taken place there, and that the crater of\nLinn\u00e6us was on the point of disappearing. On the other hand, they are\ntrying to signal to Mars. If man, who lately in his folly thinks he has\nsolved the riddle of the universe without God, only knew how the 'gods'\nare to us, and if he understood the signals which they send to us daily\nand hourly, he would go out like Peter and weep that he had denied his\nLord or behaved as though he knew Him not.\"\n\n\n=The Goat-god Pan and the Fear of the Pan-pipe.=--The teacher\nsaid: \"Like all lower classes the apelings regard themselves as\nsupermen, who march at the head of all movements and can regulate\ndevelopments. Their god is the shaggy Pan, who had been a goat and\nbecame a half-man, and later the Evil One, Satan, or God's opponent.\nBut they must be ashamed of their god, for they call themselves\natheists. Their religion is that of the Satanists. When they hear of\nany good action they snort. They delight in persecuting and tormenting\nanyone in whom there is any good visible, and call him a hypocrite.\nTheir children learn to lie as soon as they learn to talk. The greatest\npoet of the apelings has written a lament over the 'Decay of lying'\nand an heroic poem in six cantos in praise of unnatural vice. They\nare all perverse, mostly in secret, but they betray themselves in\ntheir writers, who write in the name of woman, and from the woman's\npoint of view, against man. For by confusion of sex they have lost all\ndistinction of sex; they have ceased to think and to feel as men. They\nrun like dogs with their noses on the track of the white man, in order\nto bite him, that he may become like one of them.\n\n\"There are white men who have been seduced by the females of the\napelings. The children are bastards, and their lives are a perpetual\nconflict against the Satanic inheritance they have received from their\nmothers. Some fight in vain; others find the Helper. There is only\nOne--Jesus Christ, the Exorciser of demons. You know that I was such a\nbastard and fought the battle, which is not yet concluded.\n\n\"The apelings preach toleration. By that they mean that whatever they\ndo must be overlooked, and that they should be left at liberty to\npropagate their doctrines, while they more or less secretly persecute\nthe Christians. As soon as they begin to scent Christian blood they\nshudder. Then they begin to excommunicate the 'heretic.' His name is\nno more mentioned, and if it appears in print it is cut out. If he\nformerly belonged to the body of the apelings he is now called an\napostate, and must die as a traitor.\n\n\"When an apeling dies he obtains an apotheosis in the absence of a\npantheon. At the burial the wreaths are counted, and the inscriptions\nattached to them examined; if anyone's name is missing he is\nexcommunicated. The ceremonial is just like that of a witches' sabbath\nwhen the 'faithful' gave their testimony. But it may happen, when\nthey invoke Pan, that he answers with the reed-pipe. Then if he shows\nhimself in the wood or in the bedchamber, they are seized with a panic\nfear; they weep like children who are afraid of the dark, or fly to\nsanatoriums to be cured of their neurasthenia, their sleeplessness, and\ntheir heart-complaints.\"\n\n\n=Their Gospel=.--The teacher continued: \"But the apelings\nhave also constructed a dogmatic theology which is a parody of\nthe Christian faith. They have a doctrine of reconciliation which\nproclaims reconciliation with life, but it is really a compromise\nwith all the dirt of life which one generally wipes off on the mat at\nthe house-door. They teach men to be tolerant towards turpitude and\nwickedness; they describe men as good fellows, as careless creatures\nwho are thoroughly good at bottom--'there is no malice in them.' The\nreally good men, who cannot do anything wicked, seemed to the apelings\npuritanical. 'Why should we torment ourselves in the only life we\nhave?' they ask, feeling quite sure that they will be annihilated at\ndeath, like maggots.\n\n\"According to this distorted gospel, it is wrong to describe in a\nliterary work how the malicious, the liar, the deceiver, the pander\nget their deserts. We should, they say, pardon the conscienceless and\nobstinate. Christianity, on the other hand, teaches that we should\npardon the repentant who improve. In the apelings' gospel all the\nteaching of Christ is sophisticated. In their view all Magdalenes are\ninteresting innocent victims of social circumstances, while Christ only\nreceived the Magdalene who had abandoned vice.\"\n\n\n=The Disposition of the Apes.=--The teacher continued: \"This is\nthe whole kernel of Darwinism, this madness which infected the mind\nof a generation which was overstrained with the pursuit of power and\nluxury. But this Beelzebub could only be driven out by another. That\nwas Nietzsche. He was a demon let loose, who killed the ape, restored\nthe man, and altered the old popular estimates. He was understood\nbecause he spoke the language of the apelings. That was the only way\nto compel them to listen, for they would never have heard a Christian\nprophet. But after he had his say his tongue was spiked and his tale\nwas over.\n\n\"Joseph Peladan was a Christian prophet of the school of the Therapeut\u00e6\nand Essenes. The apelings feared him, and could not name his name, for\nit stuck in their throats. Only the Christian upper class understood\nhim. His Christianity was luminous and esoteric, perhaps too luminous.\nBut after a pilgrimage to Christ's grave he discovered the deceit,\nturned his back on the 'reconciliation with life,' and forswore the\nworship of beauty which was merely the dressing up of the apes with\nwhite sheets and ivy leaves. He ceased to be interested in the bestial\nand the nude, saw through the 'joy of life' and Nora,[1] unmasked the\nhumbug of tolerance, and took the cross in real earnest, as it is, on\nhimself. Peladan was a living protest against apishness. He represented\nthe undercurrent, not the surface-stream. Still the undercurrent is\nalways ready to mount and overflow and cleanse the banks, which at the\nebb-tide have served as a place for dumping down rubbish.\"\n\n\n[Footnote 1: The heroine of Ibsen's _Doll's House_.]\n\n\n=The Secret of the Cross.=--The teacher said: \"The conflict\nbetween paganism and Christianity is now being fought out in the world.\nBut just as surely as Christianity preceded paganism in time, so surely\ndoes the future belong to Christianity, although for the moment the\napelings have the upper hand. Their edict of toleration allows them in\nthe name of freedom to forbid the preaching of Christianity. They close\nthe churches, declare Judas innocent, give mad women the vote, write\nheathenish schoolbooks for children, place forgers and pettifoggers in\npower, for their kingdom is of this world. But it is with Christianity\nas with the walnut-tree, whose fruit is knocked down with poles, and\nwhich is roughly treated in order that it may bear fruit and thrive.\nThe night grows darker towards the dawn. Spinach-seed is trodden\ndown that it may grow better; the ground must be harrowed, broken,\nand rolled in order to be able to yield a crop; gold must be refined\nin fire, and flax be steeped in water. The cross points upwards,\ndownwards, sideways, to the four quarters of heaven at once; it is a\ncompletion of the compass. Suffering bums up the rubbish of the soul.\nI have seen a man who had suffered all the griefs endured by humanity;\nyet the more he suffered the more beautiful he became. That is the\nsecret of the cross and of suffering. 'Because ye are not of the world,\ntherefore the world hateth you. In the world ye have tribulation, but\nbe of good cheer; I have overcome the world.'\"\n\n\n=Examination and Summer Holidays.=--The teacher said: \"When,\non reaching maturity, one awakes to new consciousness and discovers\nthat everything one has is borrowed, one begins to cut oneself down\nto the root, in order to let strike a new stem which is one's own.\nWhen we enter old age this stem withers down to the root (the process\nSwedenborg calls 'desolation'); the branches formerly cut down bloom\nagain and put forth new foliage which is like, and yet not like the\nformer. But when old and new flourish together, the whole result is\nconfusing; but the root remains the same and reveals the nature of\nthe plant. The dissonances of life increase with the years, and the\nmaterial of life becomes so immense that it is impossible to survey it\nproperly. Therefore one lives more in remembrance than in the present,\nand along the whole line of one's experience. Sometimes I live in my\nchildhood, sometimes in my mature age.\n\n\"But it is strange that one does not feel old age to be the beginning\nof an end but the introduction to something new, _i.e._ when one has\nrecovered the belief or assurance that there is a life on the other\nside. One feels as though one were preparing for an examination by\ndoing preliminary exercises and one becomes literally young again.\nThere is a little touch of examination fever with it, but also great\nhopes mingled with dreams of the future. These remind us of Christmas\njoys, summer holidays, family gatherings with reconciliations and\nwishes fulfilled. But there is also a scent of broken-off birch-leaves\nand the seashore; there is a sound of Sunday bells and organs, the\nattraction of new clothes, white linen, and a bath in green sea-water.\nThere is a feeling like that of evening prayer and a good conscience,\nwife, home, and child after a journey, the hearth-fire after a\nsnow-storm, the first ball and the one we loved to dance with most,\nthe opening of the savings-box, and first and last the examination and\nthe summer holidays.\"\n\n\n=Veering and Tacking.=--The teacher continued: \"The Theosophists\nspeak of the seven planes of the Kama-Loka, the condition after\ndeath. I will admit that, in certain circumstances, I have lived\nsimultaneously on several planes. This was difficult for me, and\nstill more difficult for my enemies to understand. I should like to\nhave explained these contradictions in existence by a cleavage of the\npersonality or a multiplication of the ego. I have also sought the\nsolution of the riddle in the self-adaptation to one's surroundings,\nto which St. Paul refers in the First Epistle to the Corinthians: 'To\nthe Jews I became a Jew.... To those who are under the law, I became\nas under the law.... To those who are without law, I became as one\nwithout law. To the weak I became as weak.' ... Kierkegaard speaks of\nSympaschomenos who rejoices with the joyful, mourns with the sad, is\ncoarse with the coarse, refined with the refined.\n\n\"Swedenborg makes another suggestion, 'When a man is to be born again,\nhis desires and falsities cannot be stripped off at once, for that\nwould be equivalent to destroying the whole man, because as yet he\nonly lives in them. Therefore for a long while evil spirits are left\nwith him, to stir up his desires that they may be dissolved in many\nways.'\n\n\"Formerly I believed, when I was young with the youthful, old and wise\nwith the old, mad with the mad, that I was doing them a service. As a\npoet, I lived for the moment in their life and their moods, which I\nthen depicted and forgot myself. Often by these relapses into stages\nI had left behind, I seemed to have worked myself higher, as the ship\ntacks in order to get a more favourable wind.\"\n\n\n=Attraction and Repulsion.=--The teacher continued: \"There is both\nan attraction and a repulsion between similar souls. Like loves like,\nbut not always; often the unlike seeks the unlike. A good man lamented\nto me that it was his lot always to be in bad society, and never to\nmeet good men who could elevate him. Since he was strong he was at any\nrate not drawn down, but he did not observe that he exercised a good\ninfluence on his bad surroundings. He had, it is true, occasion to see\nand to hear evil; but, on the other hand, he was able to react against\nit through the disgust with which it inspired him. Without instituting\na comparison we may say that Christ did not attract people of high\nposition and good character, but poor devils and weak characters, the\nsick, the possessed, the wicked, thieves, publicans, and harlots. His\ndisciples did not understand his doctrine, but interpreted it all in a\nmaterial way. He answered their reproaches by saying, 'Only the sick\nneed a physician.' I will suppress my former objection, for I bow\nmyself experimentally before 'the folly of the cross,' since experience\nhas taught me that wisdom can only be received by a humble mind, and\nthat obedience is more than sacrifice. In recent times my constant\nprayer has been that I might come into good society which might elevate\nme, and avoid evil companionship which, to say the least, involves an\ninjurious connection with the lower plane. It is in truth my fault\nthat those who seek me seek my old ego, and, when they do not find it,\nbelieve that I am not to be found.\"\n\n\n=The Double.=--The pupil said: \"When a man begins to love a woman\nhe throws himself into a trance, and becomes a poet and artist. Out\nof her plastic, unindividualised material he fashions an ideal form\ninto which he puts all that is best in himself. Thus he creates an\nhomunculus which he adopts as his double, and with that she lets him do\nas he likes.\n\n\"But this astral image may be also the doll which she the huntress\nsets up as a decoy, while she with a loaded gun lies behind the\nbush and watches for her prey. The love of a man for his homunculus\noften survives every illusion; he may have conceived a deadly hatred\nagainst herself, while his love for his double continues. But this\nmasquerade gives rise to the deepest dissonances and troubles. He\nbecomes squint-eyed by contemplating two images which do not coincide.\nHe wishes to embrace his cloud, but takes hold of a body; he wishes to\nhear _his_ poem, but it is someone else's; he wants to see his work of\nart, but it is only a model. He is happy during his trance, although\nthe world cannot understand him. When he awakes from his somnambulism,\nhis hatred to the woman increases in proportion as she fails to\ncorrespond to his image of her. And if he murders his double, then love\nis done with, and only boundless hate remains.\"\n\n\n=Paw or Hand.=--The pupil said: \"In Kipling's wonderful _Jungle\nBook_, the boy is intimate with all kinds of animals but not with apes,\nwhich are the worst of all creatures and composed of wickedness and\ncrime. When Goethe, in the second part of _Faust_, wishes to represent\nphantoms and evil spirits, he uses the same masks and costumes as\nfor the monkeys in the Witches' Kitchen in the first part. And it is\namong these degenerate brutes that man (?) now does his best to seek\nhis ancestry. For my part I would rather trace my origin from a noble\nhorse, or a sagacious and honest elephant, or from a courageous and\nthankful eagle.\n\n\"But it is probable that apes spring from degenerate men, escaped\ncriminals, and ship-wrecked Robinson Crusoes. The hand of the\nchimpanzee is not a paw which is being evolved into a hand, but it is\na human hand which is degenerating into a paw. A palmist could read\nthe lines of it; a manicurist could improve it and make it capable of\nwearing a glove. If man really sprang from apes, according to the law\nof phylogeny, a child ought to be born with a hairy body. But now it\ncomes into the world as smooth as an angel, often without hairs even\non its head. It is a disgrace to me that I served the Ape-king, the\nseducer of my youth! And it was so stupid!\"\n\n\n=The Thousand-Years' Night of the Apes.=--When the sun of\nChristianity rose over the world, it naturally became night for the\napelings. When they turned their backs to the light, everything became\ndistorted for them. Right became left, east became west, good became\nevil, black became white, day became night. Therefore one reads still\nof their thousand-years' night, as they call the Middle Ages. When the\nsavage tribes of Europe became tame, when the aged and sick became\nobjects of pity, when governments ruled and laws protected, when\nfaith, hope and love, self-sacrifice and chivalry flourished, then it\nwas night for the pagans. When Europe received science, when Albertus\nMagnus, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Arnold, and Basilius founded\nchemistry, metallurgy, and physic, their darkness increased. When\nmedi\u00e6val art culminated in the noblest work of art there is--the Gothic\ncathedral--then it grew dark before the eyes of the giants; their ears\ncould not endure the chime of bells and organ-music. Finally the Middle\nAges discovered gunpowder, the compass, and printing. A religious man,\nwhose sails bore the sign of the cross, discovered America. But Pauli,\nthe disciple of Clemens Romanus, already knew \"the ocean which cannot\nbe crossed by men, and the lands which lie behind it.\"[1]\n\nIn the midst of the darkness of the heathen there was the light\nof convent-schools and universities, in which spiritual as well as\nworldly wisdom was taught. Poems of chivalry, romances and dramas\nwere composed. Charlemagne was a Christian King Solomon; he defeated\nthe Philistines in Saxony, built temples out of the ruins of Rome,\nheld learned conversations and listened to legends, cultivated the\nland and gave laws. That was the brightest phase of a Europe grown\npatriarchal and Christian. The gods certainly did not walk any more on\nearth, but God's messengers were in constant communication with men,\nand disclosed to them the secrets of God's kingdom, which were written\ndown in Apocalypses and, best of all, in the _Legenda Aurea_. Thomas \u00e0\nKempis's _Imitation of Christ_ was printed and is still read even by\nProtestants. One can even read the Church Fathers, Augustine, Jerome,\nChrysostom; Augustine was used in my youth as a confirmation-manual.\nTwo hundred years before the Reformation--the schism in the Church\nas it should rather be called--Dante wrote the most Christian of all\npoems, which the heathen have tried to steal for themselves. Boccaccio\nexpounded the _Inferno_ from a professor's chair, a fitting penalty\nfor the trespasses of his youth. Botticelli, Lippi, Ghirlandajo were\nthe great religious painters of the Middle Ages. Their pupils Michael\nAngelo and Raphael were devout Christians, although the heathen have\nwished to appropriate them under the false designation Renaissance,\nor new birth of heathenism. When at the beginning of modern times it\nbegan to grow dusk, the dawn rose for the heathen and for \"the last\nAthenians.\" The last? There will certainly be more Athenians who will\nwish to carry owls to Athens.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Clement, Epistle to the Romans, chap. xx.]\n\n\n=The Favourite.=--Julian was an Illyrian, from the predatory state\ncomposed of a mixed Ph\u0153nician race who worshipped Baal and Astarte.\nHe had a small head, and no occiput; he had thick lips, a beard that\nswarmed with vermin, long nails and black hands with which he groped\nin the bleeding bodies of slain beasts in order to prognosticate the\nfuture from their hearts and livers. His cheerful religious services\nconsisted in the sacrifice of animals, and were accompanied by the\ndances of immodest girls. In order to refute ancient prophecy, he\nwished to build again the Temple at Jerusalem. But fire broke out of\nthe ground, so that the undertaking was frustrated at its commencement.\nThis madman once came to Antioch, where there were a hundred thousand\nheathen whom he expected to receive him with public sacrifices and\ndances. Instead of which he was met by a solitary priest bearing a\ngoose. That was all!\n\nThis unattractive person, who has become the darling of _The Last\nAthenian_[1] and the new heathen, was finally enticed into a desert.\nThere he suffered hunger and thirst till a lance pierced his liver. But\nit is incredible that he exclaimed, \"Thou hast conquered, O Galilean!\"\nHe was far too stupid for that.\n\n\n=Scientific Villainies.=--If anyone comes to you and says, \"I\ndon't understand the proof for the existence of God,\" you should\nanswer, \"You don't understand because your wickedness darkens your\nunderstanding.\" All atheists are rascals, and all rascals are\natheists. Their intelligence is so beclogged with sin that they cannot\nunderstand the simplest teachings of Christianity, the Incarnation and,\nconsequently, Immaculate Birth of God, His Resurrection and Ascension.\n\nWhen the sectaries came to Luther and said that they could not\nunderstand him, because they had another Spirit, he answered, \"I smite\nyour Spirit on the snout! God rebuke thee, Satan!\" A godless man or a\nso-called free-thinker is a rascal who permits himself everything. His\nnatural sympathy for scoundrels is so strong that he will swear a false\noath in order to save the guilty from condemnation by a false alibi. He\nwill accuse an innocent man, and persecute him from one court of appeal\nto another, in order to get him into prison, and will demand a large\nsum of money as a reward for his ill-doing.\n\nWhen the guilty is acquitted they give him a banquet, his companions\nwrite odes in his honour, he is promoted and finally appointed to be\nan instructor of youth. When an atheist adopts the pursuit of science,\none is sure only villainy will result. He says falsely that he has seen\nsuch and such things under the microscope, in order to be able to write\na treatise on them. If he is an astronomer he will see as many canals\nin Mars as his professor wishes. If his professor does not believe in\nthe canals in Mars, he will not see any.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: _The Last Athenian_, title of a work by Victor Rydberg.]\n\n\n=Necrobiosis, _i.e._ Death and Resurrection.=--During the\nwinter I found the chrysalis of a cockchafer and laid it on my\nwriting-table. One evening in the lamplight it began to click and\nmake small movements. Believing that the warmth had developed my\nbeetle I opened its black coffin, but found to my astonishment only\na white slime without a sign of organisation; it smelt of sour\ngastric juice. This half-fluid mass, however, possessed the capacity\nof movement. Later on, when I had a microscope with a large field\nof view, I opened the chrysalis of a butterfly and examined it. On\na clear yellow background of fluid matter there was sketched, as it\nwere, the outline of the future butterfly in half-shadow, without, as\nyet, any bodily organisation. That is called \"necrobiosis,\" or the\ndying-off of living tissue. And the deliquescence of the chrysalis in\nslime is termed \"histolysis.\" Its reorganisation is said to take place\nby means of _corpora adiposa_, or particles of fat. More than this I\ndo not know. I wrote to Germany (where they are accustomed to know\neverything) and asked for some works treating of the metamorphosis\nof the chrysalis, but there were none on this most important and\ninteresting question. Father Darwin and his son Haeckel knew nothing\nand wished to know nothing about the resurrection; they only knew about\nbirth and death. Finally I bought for five-and-twenty kroners a large\nwork on butterflies composed by a professor. There was not a word in\nit regarding the necrobiosis of the chrysalis. But sometimes I see on\na gravestone within a church wall this symbol: caterpillar, chrysalis,\nand butterfly.\n\n\n=Secret Judgment.=--When one sees a fact repeated regularly and\nunder defined conditions, one believes one has discovered a law. I\nthink I have discovered a law, and consequently a tribunal whose\ndecisions we see, but whose inner working we can only guess at. I had\na relative who had reached a certain age without \"ever having time\" to\nthink of death. On the 18th January of the year 18-- he had a stroke\nand fell. That was the first warning. Then he began to think about\ndeath and the life after this, and occupied himself thus for six years;\nthen he died exactly on the same day, on the 18th of January. The\nfact of the interval being six years made me think of Bismarck's six\nyears in Sachsenwald, when he sat alone and brooded on the transitory\ncharacter of greatness, and curiously enough injured his reputation\nthrough being betrayed by vanity into making incautious revelations.\nThen it occurred to me that Napoleon was six years on St. Helena, and\nfinally became so well \"prepared\" that he received the sacrament on his\ndeath-bed. Whether Heine lay on the ground for exactly six years, with\nhis body wasted to the size of a child's and tormented by the fear of\nlosing his wife, I cannot say definitely; but it was about six. It is\nwell known that the pious Linn\u00e6us had to spend his last years seated in\na chair, lamed by paralysis; nor did even he escape being worried by a\nquarrelsome wife, God alone knows why!\n\nOur great and glorious Tegner received his first warning in 1840. It\nwas accompanied by a condition like that described in my _Inferno,_\nduring which, among other things, he saw his whole poetical work in a\ndepreciatory light, and even at last wished to cancel it all. After\njust six years' preparation he died on November 2, 1846, in a cheerful\nstate of mind, the sky being lit up at the time by a splendid aurora.\nGoldschmidt mentions that and still more remarkable things in his\nexcellent _Nemesis Divina_. I read lately how Fersen was murdered in\nhis carriage on June 20, 1810. I recalled to mind that it was the\nsame Fersen who drove the carriage in which Marie Antoinette fled to\nVarennes. I referred to the _History of the World_, and found that the\nflight to Varennes took place on June 20, 1791. The question arises:\n\"Was it a crime to wish to save the queen?\" The author of the article\nin the _Biographical Lexicon_ mentions the crime by name; but it was\nsomething other than the attempt to further her escape.\n\n\n=Hammurabi's Inspired Laws Received from the Sun-God.=--The laws\nof Hammurabi occupy fifteen quarto pages. That is the whole find! And\nthese pages are to nullify the Bible, which is so unsearchably rich\nand possesses such mysterious depths that everyone in trouble, who\nwith humility seeks for counsel and comfort there, finds it forthwith,\nalthough he may first receive some blows which strike the nail on the\nhead!\n\nHammurabi's laws in fifteen pages resemble Deuteronomy to a certain\ndegree, but are much more meagre; they often recall our old Swedish law\nwith its trivialities. For instance: \"If anyone strikes out a man's\nteeth, his teeth shall be struck out; but if he strikes out the teeth\nof an emancipated slave, he shall pay one-eighth of a mina of silver.\"\n\nIn any case God is one, and His laws are in principle the same.\nThe Bible may have used the same source as Hammurabi. But when the\nheathen try to use the laws of the Assyrian clay tablets in order to\nprove that the Bible is not inspired, they miss the mark. \"Inspired\"\nmeans \"received from God.\" See how the heathen has adorned his paltry\npamphlet with a frontispiece, which asserts, against his will, that\nHammurabi's laws were also inspired. For the frontispiece portrays\nHammurabi receiving his laws from the Sun-god.\n\n\n=Strauss's Life of Christ.=--Now that I am sixty years old, it\noccurred to me to see what sort of a book Strauss's _Leben Jesu_ is\nbefore I depart. In my youth, in the 'sixties, we read in school (of\nour own accord, however) \"the last Athenian's doctrine of the Bible,\"\nbut we never succeeded in seeing the original _Life of Jesus_. And\nalthough I have been in libraries, collected books, visited second-hand\nbook-stalls, I have not seen Strauss's book. It seemed as though it had\nbeen confiscated by the Invisible Powers. Now when I am sixty, it has\narrived and I tried to read it. But I could not.\n\nIt was simply unreadable! All these many pages contained nothing, and\nwhat was printed seemed to me incomprehensible, soulless, dry.\n\nA man who writes a book about what he does not understand; a student\nwho has learnt the \u00e6sthetic systems by heart; a philosopher who tries\nto define the beautiful; a mathematician who wants to prove or\ndisprove axioms; a drunken man who tries to play the flute; a feeble\nfoolish attempt to explain God's great miracle in the Atonement. I\nthrew the book away, else I should have gone to sleep over it.\n\nStrauss died in 1874, and in spite of the last stage of his\ndevelopment, when he did not believe any more in the immortality of\nthe soul, he spent his last hours in reading Plato's _Ph\u00e6do_, in which\nat the death-bed of Socrates the immortality of the soul is so clearly\ndemonstrated.\n\nHis death was like that of Socrates, his pupils said. But they do not\ninform us whether the cup of poison was at hand.\n\n\n=Christianity and Radicalism.=--Christianity is really more\nradical than Radicalism. Christ turns his back on the whole of society\nwith its institutions, science, and art. He warns us against the\nscribes; the rich are not his friends, but rather Lazarus; the rich\nyouth is told to sell all that he has and to give to the poor. To\nsoldiers Christ says, \"Those who take the sword shall perish with the\nsword.\" He says nothing about science, art, and industry because He\nis indifferent to them. He has no great illusions about men, for he\ncalls them \"a generation of vipers.\" And rightly; since the earth is\na prison for those who have committed crimes in heaven, we are all\nrascals; but it is the prison chaplain's duty to preach pardon to those\nwho behave properly. To open the prison would be unwise and unlawful;\nthere Christianity differs from Anarchism. Give custom to whom custom\nis due, and to C\u00e6sar what is C\u00e6sar's. Authority is ordained of God, and\nbeareth not the sword in vain.\n\nChristianity and Radicalism accordingly agree in their criticism of\nsociety, but not in the inferences they draw. The Christian endures the\nsufferings of the prison-house with religious resignation; he does not\nwaste valuable time in making foolish proposals regarding the reform of\nprison-life and management. In order to obtain mitigation and pardon,\nand to escape the dark cell and scourging, he tries to behave well, but\nhe does not believe that the prison can be a place of recreation.\n\nAll that Rousseau, Max Nordau, and Tolstoi have said against the faults\nof society is quite true, but their inferences are false. Socialism,\n_i.e._ pagan socialism, which preached development and progress, went\nits crab-like course backwards to the trade unions which had been\ndissolved, limited industrial freedom, introduced inquisitorial\nmethods, excommunicated heretics. In the great strike non-socialists\nwere refused water and gas, bread and milk for children. They compelled\nthe contented to be discontented, made men wild and despairing, and\nreally made things worse, when they ought to have improved them.\n\nBut in their pagan Radicalism they did not attain to the height of\nChristianity. Unbelieving, they believed in everything that was\nfalse--scientific fallacies, politico-economical errors, philosophical\nstupidities. Into a pagan one may instil every possible falsehood and\nstupidity; but for the truth in its real relations he is deaf and blind.\n\nTo have a moderate quiet contempt of the world, to be already half out\nof it, one's staff in one's hand and one's knapsack on one's back, ever\nready for departure, to have clean hands and a good conscience--that\nis the way not to be easily assailable. Then one is not envied, and\nsuffers not from disappointments and humiliations, for one is prepared\nfor all, and has anticipated all in advance.\n\n\"Vanity, Vanity,\" saith the Preacher. \"Sow in the morning thy seed, and\nin the evening withhold not thy hand, for thou knowest not which shall\nsucceed, or whether both alike are good.\"\n\n\n=Where Are We?=--If men only knew where they are!\n\nThe description which the ancients gave of Tartarus exactly fits our\ncondition in this life. The ambitious man rolls his stone up the hill\nlike Sisyphus, and when he has got it to the top it rolls down again.\nA certain architect spent twenty-five years of his life in working and\nintriguing in order to build a temple for the state. The temple was\nbuilt and consecrated, a torch-light procession was held in honour of\nthe architect, and he was crowned with a laurel-wreath. The next day\nthe newspapers informed us that the temple must be pulled down because\nit was a failure. The architect died half a year afterwards in an\nasylum; the temple was demolished and the architect's name forgotten\nand obliterated. Tantalus, the rich miser, stands in the midst of a\nspring of water, but cannot drink; branches laden with fruit hang over\nhis head, but when he stretches out his hand to pluck a fruit a gust\nof wind comes and tears the branch away. The rich man has worked and\nswindled till old age begins. Then at last, when the grouse come flying\ntowards him, he has no teeth left; his wine-cellar is full, but the\ndoctor has forbidden him wine. That is Tantalus!\n\nIxion revolves on his wheel, at one moment up, at another down. The\nancients assigned as the reason of his punishment that he had boasted\nof the favour of a woman who had never been his.\n\nThe Danaides, the coquettes, are perpetually drawing water, but their\nvessel is like a sieve; everything enters it, but nothing remains.\n\nAll day long and every day one hears the expression \"That is\nhell!\"--such is the universal view. When things look a little brighter,\nthe table is covered, the bed made, and we feel well again. We cheat\nourselves often with alcohol, and continue our somnambulism. Then we\nare awoken by a noise, start up, rush about, weep, and then go to sleep\nagain. At last sleep is banished once for all, and we wake never to\nsleep any more. Once we are well awake no opiates are of avail.\n\nThen we discover the whole cheat. We see where we are, and what our\npast, which seemed so real, was. The comparatively wise man then\nturns away from the phantoms and shadows of reality in order to seek\nthe other, the true, the actual Real. Then the state is seen to be a\nprison; the defenders of the fatherland are body-snatchers; society is\na madhouse, whose warders are the officials and police; family life is\nconcubinage; capitalists are usurers; the fine arts are superfluities;\nliterature is printed nonsense; industry feeds unnecessary luxury;\nrailways are instruments of torture; the electric light ruins the eyes;\nall the blessings of civilisation are either curses or superfluous.\n\nWhen we have seen this, we turn our backs on all and seek the only\nthing that holds, that gives a real answer, that fulfils what it\npromises. But this super-real fools call a phantom.\n\n\n=Hegel's Christianity.=--There are two Voltaires: one, the mocker\nat all definite religion, who is revered by the godless; the other,\nthe fanatical champion of God who is ridiculed by the atheists because\nhe believed in God as na\u00efvely as a child. Voltaire recovered his\nreason before he died, as lunatics are wont to do; when he died he was\ndefinitely religious and took the sacrament. There are also two Hegels.\nBut they are more complicated than Voltaire, who was as simple as a\nfeuilletonist. Hegel discovered with his logic that what exists has a\nright to exist; he defends the _status quo_, society, state, religion\nwith all their corollaries, because they have proceeded from God;\neverything is right since it exists. \"It belongs,\" he says, \"to the\nessence of religion that it should realise itself in several historical\nreligious forms. Of these, however, Christianity is the only one which\nsuitably expresses the essence of religion. In her doctrine of the\nTrinity the Christian Church contains the nucleus of all philosophical\nspeculation. For this signifies nothing less than that the Eternal God,\nenthroned in His majesty over the sphere of the finite, condescends\nand reconciles Himself to the finite, becomes man, suffers, dies, and\nreturns to Himself as the Holy Spirit.\" That is well put; but every\nschoolchild knew it already from Luther's \"little catechism.\" For what\nobject then is this extraordinary accumulation of several thousand\npages of incomprehensible philosophy? To what purpose? Hegel died of\ncholera in 1831, after traversing many devious ways, as a simple,\nbelieving Christian, without any philosophy, repeating the penitential\npsalms.\n\n\n=\"Men of God's Hand.\"=--That is Kind David's expression (Ps.\nxvii., 14) which he uses of the godless, to whom the Lord gave power\nover His people Israel when they behaved badly. Thereby is the knotty\nproblem solved, why God gives the godless power, honour, and wealth,\nwhile He often chastises His servants.\n\nThe Pharaohs were idolaters and wizards, but God's chosen people had\nto be their slaves. The Philistines worshipped Baal and Astarte, but\nthey were allowed to devastate Canaan and even to carry away the Ark\nof the Covenant. Nebuchadnezzar was no saint, quite the contrary, but\nhe was permitted to carry the children of Israel into captivity. Good\nmen are not adapted to be instruments of chastisement, and the office\nof executioner is not an enviable one. Everyone has his Egyptian armed\nwith a rod, whether they are called superiors, employers, customers,\nthe public, newspapers, or even public opinion.\n\nAll strive for an imaginary independence or so-called freedom, while\nthere is no independence and no freedom. Therefore the effort is vain.\nOnly one thing remains--to reconcile oneself to obedience to human\nauthority for the Lord's sake, and to pay taxes where taxes are due.\nAnd where one earns one's bread, one must be polite. Vex, not thyself\nthat thy trade and thy position are difficult; God has so appointed it.\n\n\n=Night Owls.=--The maggot in the apple doubtless imagines that\nthe apple was grown for its sake, and that the world could not exist\nwithout apples. So we also imagine that science and art are certainly\nnecessary. Swedenborg, in his description of another sphere, tells us\nhow happy men can be without such luxuries. \"They know nothing of\nsciences as we see them in our world, and wish to know nothing; they\ncall them 'shadows,' and compare them with clouds which come between\nthe sun and the spectator. This idea of the sciences they have derived\nfrom certain spirits who came from our earth and introduced themselves\nas those who had grown wise through science. These spirits from our\nearth who made this claim belonged to those who see wisdom in such\nthings as are pure matters of memory, such as languages; in historical\nmatters, which belong to the literary world; in bare experiences and\nterms, especially philosophical ones. Because these have not developed\ntheir faculty of reasoning through science, they have in their second\nlife little power of perceiving the truth, for they see only in and by\nmeans of technical terms, which like hills and thick clouds obstruct\nthe sight of reason. Those who have employed the sciences in order to\ndestroy matters of faith have their reason so thoroughly unsettled that\nin pitch-darkness they take false for true, and evil for good, like\nnight-owls.\"\n\nThe flag of the university also carries the sign of an owl, but they do\nnot know what it means.\n\n\n=Apotheosis.=--When a man who has been near to us dies, he begins\nto loom magnified through a kind of haze. All his less-pleasing\ncharacteristics are obliterated, as if they were part of that dust\nwhich is now dissolved. His better self, on the other hand, becomes\nlarger and clearer. It is indeed possible that the liberated spirit\nbecomes ennobled by death, and that therefore the survivor is right in\nforming a new conception of the personality of the deceased. He with\nwhom the survivor now holds spiritual intercourse is perhaps what the\nsurvivor feels him to be, and has ceased to be what he was in life.\nIt is almost invariably the case that the survivor torments himself\nwith reproaches that he has been guilty of some neglect towards the\ndead, has done him slight injustices and spoken hard words. Even the\ncoldest-hearted begs the dead secretly for forgiveness--forgiveness\nfor all even when it was hardly ill-meant. All this seems to signify\nthat the dead one is alive, and has need of kindly thoughts as a\ncompensation for the reproaches he makes himself regarding those he has\nleft behind.\n\n\n=Painting Things Black.=--There are men who anticipate their\ntroubles, hoping thereby to neutralise or to bribe destiny. But that is\na mistaken calculation. I know of an author who saw a great calamity\napproaching and tried to _write_ it away. He composed a drama on that\ntheme, and hoped thereby to have escaped it. Soon afterwards, however,\nit arrived and the effect was as strong as though it had never been\nwritten about, perhaps even more.\n\nTheosophists say that we can create thought-forms which assume life and\nreality. They mean that men can send from a distance evil suggestions\nwhich others carry out. Thus criminal romances have never deterred\nanyone from crime; they have on the contrary given scoundrels bright\nideas for new pieces of rascality. I actually know of a society novel\nwhich criticised bank and joint-stock company frauds, with the result\nthat such frauds increased. It is as though one let loose demons.\n\nTherefore it is dangerous merely to think evil of men; one may do them\nharm thereby. But what a supernatural effort is necessary always to\nsee good where so little is to be found! And when we try our best we\nfind that we have played the hypocrite. It is almost hopeless to hold\nthe balance level when it is a matter of judging men justly, for human\nnature is evil and cannot be altered.\n\n\n=The Thorn in the Flesh.=--Whence come evil and ugly thoughts\nwhich start up in our most beautiful moments, in the hour of devotion,\nand even in prayer? We wish to ignore them; we have the impression\nthat they come from without. But it is possible that they are born of\nthe habit of letting evil thoughts have free course in silence and\nsolitude. Still it is mysterious that the greater the height to which\nwe have attained by striving, the deeper we fall. And I can testify\nfrom my own experience that it is at the very time of renunciation\nand self-discipline that one is most liable to unclean thoughts and\nimaginations. St. Anthony and other saints are examples of this.\n\nA great sorrow, for instance, the longing for a lost child, is the\nquickest and best means of burning away the rubbish. But often, alas!\non the sorrow there follows a boisterous joy which is not of the\nnoblest kind. Immediately after our noblest moods, when we have been\ninspired by the most beautiful thoughts and purposes, it is possible in\nthe next moment to feel like a coxcomb.\n\nIt is not strange that the ancients believed in demons who whisper into\none's ear and suggest impure imaginations. Possibly this was St. Paul's\nthorn in the flesh, which pricked him so that he should not be too much\nuplifted.\n\n\n=Despair and Grace.=--When in youth one sought to conquer evil\ndesires, and even harmless ones, with the severest scourge provided by\nreligion, and then saw that one could not change one's vices, one let\ngo of the reins and life went as it went. Work was the chief occupation\nof middle life, and there was no time to think of one's soul. Life\nitself moulded one's character, and one threw a bone to the dog--the\nflesh in order to be able to work in peace.\n\nThen when in old age we come to reflect, and at sixty find that we have\nremained very much the same, we wish to begin our spiritual education,\nbut with indifferent success. We had hoped that certain desires would\ndisappear and certain virtues take their place by a kind of natural\nnecessity, as we had believed when young. But, alas! that is not the\ncase. When now we again resume the struggles of our youth the case is\nthus. We have raised our standard higher, and wish to root out all the\nweeds. What formerly seemed quite natural--envy of a fellow-worker,\nrevenge on an enemy, pride in success, exultation at a foe's downfall,\na small white lie--we now find hateful. And so we begin to struggle\nagainst the outward manifestations of these things. But when we find\nthe inner evil just as strong as before, we finally regard ourselves as\ngreat hypocrites and are ready to despair.\n\nWhere is comfort to be found then? Religion only asserts that we are\nhypocrites, and our fellow-men regard it as a fact. Absolute despair\nseizes us. What follows then? Grace! It becomes clear to us that\neverything is grace, and from grace. And that we have been living on\nthe bread of charity which we believed we had earned.\n\n\n=The Last Act (From the life of a leader of the\n\"Renaissance\").=--The final act is the most important one in a\ndrama, and a dramatist generally begins his work at the end. We sit\nout a long evening at the theatre in order to see the last act or \"how\nit will go.\" But in the significant lives of certain men people like\nto ignore the last act, because it is uncomfortable and might show\nhow the godless fare at last. He who wrote the operetta _Boccaccio_\nhad to append the last act to it; the jovial Florentine became a\npriest and delivered lectures on Dante's _Hell_, though he only\nreached the seventeenth canto. Voltaire's last hours, when he took\nthe sacrament, might furnish a subject for a tragedy like the second\npart of _Faust_. Heine announced his conversion, which took place\nin 1851, in the preface to the _Romancero_: \"I have returned to God\nlike the prodigal son, after I had fed swine with the Hegelians for\na long time.\" This preface should be printed before every collection\nof Heine's poems. Hegel singing penitential psalms on his death-bed\nmight form the subject of a fresco painting for the entrance-hall of\nBerlin University. But the most affecting final act is Oscar Wilde's\ndescription of his prison life in _De Profundis_. He was the so-called\nrenaissance leader, who disinterred heathenism with its false worship\nof beauty, which contains the foulest of all. Kierkegaard[1] would have\ncalled him the \u00e6sthete, the Sybarite cold as cast iron, the egoist\nround whose petty \"I\" the whole world was to revolve in order to\nunderstand him alone. Many, led astray like him by the seducing spirits\nof his youth, remained fairly free from public punishment. Wilde\nseems to have been picked out to furnish a startling example, for his\nposition, at any rate in his own country, was almost that of an idol.\n\nWhat he wrote lacks originality; it is whipped-up foam; glazing which,\nwhen washed off, leaves no texture; it is as restless as cross-lights,\nor like a mirror in a public restaurant, in a labyrinthine hall with\ndeceptive lines and false perspectives; it runs out of the hand like\nalbumen or frog-spawn; it is perverse as in _Dorian Gray_, the hero of\nwhich should have lost his youth by nightly excesses, while on the\ncontrary it is only his portrait which changes.\n\nThe last act was played, and that outdid all horror, was so horrible\nthat Wilde himself could not describe its details, which, however, oral\ntradition has preserved in a Swedenborgian legend.\n\n_De Profundis_ arouses pity and fear, and one would gladly acquit the\nman who was perhaps the victim of his delusion; a worldly tribunal\nwould not have judged him if he had not himself appealed to it, and\nthat indeed for a wrong done him. It was what our renaissance-critic\ncalled a \"piece of stupidity\" when he made Wilde out to be a martyr of\n\"hypocrisy,\" as he called justice. Wilde however seems to have taken\nanother view of the matter to his impartial defender: \"A day in prison\non which one does not weep is a day on which one's heart is hard, not\na day on which one's heart is happy. Once I had put into motion the\nforces of society, society turned on me and said: 'Have you been living\nall this time in defiance of my laws, and do you now appeal to those\nlaws for protection? You shall have those laws exercised to the full.'\nA man's very highest moment, I have no doubt at all, is when he kneels\nin the dust and beats his breast and tells us all the sins of his life.\"\n\nThe \"joy of life\" whose perfume he had inhaled at Oxford through\nPater's _Renaissance_ now began to grow sour.\n\n\"Clergymen and people who use phrases without wisdom sometimes talk of\nsuffering as a mystery. It is really a revelation.\n\n\"Behind joy and laughter there may be a temperament coarse, hard,\nand callous. Pain, unlike pleasure, wears no mask. There are times\nwhen sorrow seems to me to be the only truth. The secret of life is\nsuffering.\"\n\nLet us add that Wilde derived his most dangerous doctrine from\nBaudelaire and Shakespeare's sonnets. And let us close with the new\nview of the Renaissance which he attained to in prison: \"To me one of\nthe things in history the most to be regretted is that the Christ's\nown renaissance which has produced the Cathedral at Chartres, the\nArthurian cycle of legends, the life of St. Francis of Assisi, the art\nof Giotto, and Dante's _Divine Comedy_, was not allowed to develop on\nits own lines, but was interrupted and spoiled by the dreary classical\nRenaissance.\"\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Danish theologian.]\n\n\n=Consequences of Learning.=--As soon as a man buries himself in\nbooks he gets black nails and dirty cuffs, forgets to wash, to comb his\nhair, and to shave. He neglects his duties towards life, society, and\nmen; loses spiritual capacities, becomes absent-minded, short-sighted,\nwears glasses, and takes snuff in order to keep himself awake. He\ncannot follow a conversation with attention, cannot interest himself in\nother people's affairs, does not see the face of the earth by day nor\nthe stars by night. Behind his desire to investigate lies the insidious\nambition to master his material, to become an authority, to tyrannise,\nto make a career for himself, and to receive distinctions.\n\nIf men only reflected what tyrants they obey--these black magicians who\nare called professors; who settle what we are to think and believe;\nwho test and examine, reject and choose; who form committees, write\nhandbooks, deliver lectures, and bestow prizes on those who accept\n_their_ hypotheses.\n\nAnd has it ever occurred to a student to criticise his teacher? No; he\nswallows everything uncritically. But if he goes into a church where\nhe hears God's own word revealed by way of intuition to the prophets,\nthen he begins to exercise his critical faculty; then he finds it\nvery difficult to comprehend the simplest things; then he wants\nmathematical certainty, which he considers the highest while it is\nreally the lowest.\n\nSwedenborg says in one place: \"Though goodness and truth are sent down\nthrough the heavens, when they reach the hells they are changed into\nevil and falsity; the brilliant light of the sun changes into ugly\ncolours and its warmth becomes an evil odour.\"\n\n\n=Rousseau.=--In my youth I read of an Englishman who shot himself\nbecause life was so wearisome. He had counted the buttons which he\nhad to unbutton and button up every day--in his under-clothing half\na dozen, in his day-shirt half a dozen, in his collar and cuffs half\na dozen, in his waistcoat, trousers, and coat a dozen, in his boots,\ngaiters, and gloves two dozen. When he wanted to ride out he had to\nchange, as he had also to do for dinner and the evening.\n\nThis story, though absurd, reveals the naked truth. Life has become\nso burdensome, and half the day is spent in useless occupations:\nunnecessary visits, telephoning, writing letters about nothing,\nreading the papers; especially in making one's toilette which formerly\nconsisted of a becoming mantle fastened with a single cord, but has\nnow developed into a whole set of things with buttons, hooks, eyes,\nstrings, ribbons, needles, buckles. Our toilettes are a miniature\npicture of our civilisation with all its time-wasting fussiness, most\nof which is useless nonsense. The man who lives in the country and\ncultivates the ground needs neither art, science, nor literature. He\nwho has nature needs no art, and religion is more than science and\nliterature. There are churches everywhere, but museums, theatres,\nbook-shops, and clubs only in the towns. Whether they are necessary is\nanother question.\n\nThat is Rousseau!\n\n\n=Rousseau Again.=--In Southern France I once saw some half-wild\nArab horses running loose in a meadow. They still had their long tails\nto hide what is not beautiful and to protect them against the stings of\ninsects. They seemed well adapted to their purpose, but they were more\nthan useful: they were beautiful. And when I contemplated the lines in\nthese beautiful creatures' bodies--the curve of the withers such as\nis not found in geometry, its continuation along the back and loins;\nthe noble construction and movements of the hind-legs; the proportions\nof the shank below the knee tapering down to the hoof, which leaves\non the sand graceful prints like Moorish arches--and when the proud\ncreatures sped over the meadow in full gallop with movements like\nthat of a sailing-boat on the waves, then the curves played into new\nharmonies and changed their form, tail, mane, and forelock floated like\ndraperies about the body, and I thought \"All that is certainly adapted\nfor running, but it is much more, it is beautiful; it has not come\nto be of itself, but it is created by a Contriver, a wise and great\nArtist.\" It is, however, more than a work of art, for it has life and\nindividuality, and no two horses are exactly alike. Then I thought\nof the attempts of men to \"improve\" this masterpiece, of the English\nrace-horses--those machines! In this process of selection they have\nchosen the ugliest, docked their tails, robbed them of their fairest\nornament, placed an apelike jockey on their backs in order to make\nmoney by racing. To this caricature men have degraded the beautiful\ngift of God.\n\nAnyone who has learnt at school to draw a horse knows how difficult\nit is to make these lines harmonise, and fall and rise in the right\nplaces; to draw the head not too large and not too small, but exactly\nproportioned; to bring the forepart and the loins into symmetrical\nrelations with each other; to make the neck slope gently into the fine\ncurve of the back. It was the work of many days merely to copy the\noutline correctly. Raphael could not draw a horse; his Attila rides on\na rocking-horse. One is often inclined to agree with Rousseau when he\nsays everything which comes from the hand of the Creator is perfect,\nbut when it falls into the hands of man it is spoiled.\n\n\n=Materialised Apparitions.=--I have never seen it, but it is said\nto be a fact that in hypnotic seances those who are present produce\nfrom the half-etherialised substance of the medium a kind of being\nwhich is visible and leads an apparitional life, so long as the circle\nkeeps together. Such among others was Professor Crookes' \"Katie King.\"\n\nBut what causes me to believe this is a matter of everyday experience.\nMen create their idols out of nothing, and by means of their\nimagination fashion their fellow-men, both living and dead, into\nsomething quite different to what they really are. These creations\nnaturally partake of their own substance and are after their own\nlikeness. Sometimes they create something really great, sometimes a\nmonster, a demigod, or a devil.\n\nWe often see that hatred against one person is, so to speak, polarised\nand converted into love towards his antagonist. A great unpopularity\nis, in the person of another, changed into a great popularity. The\nreward which should have been given to the worthiest is given to the\nunworthy, in order to crush the deserving.\n\nAt the award of a famous prize one who was uninitiated lately asked:\n\"Why did not X get the prize?\"\n\n\"Because Y was to have it,\" was the answer.\n\nFifteen years ago a very remarkable book of 650 pages was published.\nIt obtained no notice in the press. But at the same time a wretched\npamphlet received all the praise which the large book ought to have\nhad. When I read the reviews of the paltry pamphlet I thought I was\nreading those of the book, for the subject-matter was the same.\n\nRecently an important post was filled up, connected, let us say, with\nroad-making and hydraulic structures. The person who received it was\na very remarkable man. Public opinion (though not private) regarded\nhim as the most deserving and suitable candidate. He passed for a\ndistinguished engineer, thoroughly up in his profession, was said to\nbe well off, an able organiser, diligent and considerate towards his\nsubordinates.\n\nNow it is to be remarked that the man was nothing of all that; he had\nnever made roads or constructed hydraulic works, but left that to\nhis skilful assistants; he did not know his profession; he neglected\nwhat he had in hand; he was not to be found in his office, for he\nplayed cards and spent the nights in carousing. He was hard towards\nhis employees, managed so badly that he never knew the state of his\naffairs, and was careless in money matters.\n\nHow then had he come to be elected? Some said he had been chosen in\norder to punish and humble the conceited engineers who had become\nunpopular. Others thought that the intention was that he should come to\ngrief and be ruined because he was feared and hated.\n\nHowever that may be, he was a materialised apparition created by the\nhate, envy, and malignity of the crowd; he had become an idea, a\nlucky rascal, a ruthless man whose elevation was necessary in order\nto still the tumult. He was like a crude mass of ore which stood for\nfour hundred years in the market-place and was supposed to represent\nJustice, but was really the counterfeit presentment of a thievish\nalderman foisted in by the burgomaster.\n\n\n=The Art of Dying.=--The wish for power is said to be a\nfundamental condition of the existence of the ego, without which a\nman would perish, as he could not resist the pressure of others. So\nwe were taught by the seducing spirits of our youth. But Swedenborg\nsays the thirst for power comes from hell, and Balzac speaks of the\ngalley-slaves of ambition who can never rest. Dante has a fine verse\nregarding the fate of the great painters: one must retire in order to\nmake place for another; he passes into the shadow and is forgotten.\n\nEven when it is unjust, as it often is, one must acquiesce in being\nrelegated to the back-ground, for men get tired even of the best and\ndesire change. A great name becomes oppressive, is felt as a tyranny,\nand hinders others from also making great names for themselves.\nNapoleon and Bismarck saw this clearly, for both said beforehand that\nthe world would give a sigh of relief when they were gone. But, in\norder to depart content, we require religious resignation, complete\nirrevocable withdrawal from the world. Such as Charles the Fifth's\nretirement into a monastery. To receive a \"benefit\" on one's retirement\nand then to reappear on the stage is not becoming. If one considers\noneself dead to the world and takes no notice of it, then a new life\nbegins, but on the other side; it is a much more peaceful one, for it\nis the resurrection from the dead already here! Beethoven was vexed\nthat the Viennese were ungrateful and forgetful when Rossini appeared\nand brought again in fashion the Italian opera, which Beethoven,\nhad devoted his life to extirpate. Beethoven however, was a hard,\nselfish, and very proud man, who was accordingly literally tormented\nout of life, in great matters and in small. Increasing deafness, a\ndisagreeable lawsuit, a mad young relative, domestic scandal, illnesses\ntroubled his last years; he had even to be exposed to the undeserved\nridicule of underlings. Thus, well prepared, he turned his back on\nlife, and departed from all without missing anything.\n\nSo it should be, in order that nothing should bind one either with\nlonging or with hope, in order that on the other side of the river one\nmay not look back but go straight forward.\n\nThe object of the trials of old age is to adjust accounts, to finish\nup unsettled affairs, to see through the cheat of life, and to become\nweary of the incomplete, so that no backward longings may disturb the\nrepose of the grave.\n\n\n=Can Philosophy Bring any Blessing to Mankind?=--Such was the\ntitle of a pamphlet written in the 'sixties by a teacher of philosophy,\nPontus Wikner. The question was justified; how it was answered I do\nnot remember, but the answer must have been evasive, for the writer\nof the pamphlet was a professor. If he had said that all philosophy,\nespecially systematic philosophy, was rubbish, his career would have\nbeen at an end.\n\nWhen, in 1870 at the university, I wished to study \u00e6sthetics, the\nprofessor of the subject sent me to the lecturer in order to take\nlessons. As he sat there and talked for hours by the light of a\ncomposite candle, I tried to decipher the furrowed brow of the pale\nman and to ascertain whether he really understood what he taught, or\nwhether he only taught by rote. But I could not see through him and I\ndespaired, for I understood nothing, and I cannot learn by heart what I\ndo not understand. That would be humbug.\n\nAbout forty years later I met the professor who was now pensioned, and\nconsequently no longer a member of the college of augurs. Then I asked\nhim whether he had ever mastered \u00e6sthetics?\n\n\"Good gracious, no! That is why I sent you to the lecturer.\"\n\n\"Did he understand them then?\"\n\n\"I don't think so. But he had a good memory.\"\n\nThen after all it was not my fault, and I was not more stupid than the\nrest.\n\nAnyone who reads a short history of philosophy, and observes how one\nsystem replaces and refutes another, must be inclined to say, \"Surely\nit is time to make an end of this drivel!\" For the whole history of\nphilosophy proves that thought cannot solve these problems, or that\nthey cannot be solved by constructing a system of philosophy. The\nfew philosophers, on the other hand, who have limited themselves to\nreflections on the variegated medley of life as seen in man, politics,\nand nature, have been of some use, but they are hardly counted\nphilosophers. One can read fragments of Plato with interest, and also\nthe unappreciated Schopenhauer, especially in his least-valued work\n_Parerga and Paralipomena_, but not in his systematic treatise _The\nWorld as Will and Idea_. Kierkegaard is not regarded as a philosopher,\nnor are Feuerbach and his pupil Nietzsche, but they are extraordinarily\ninstructive. All who construct an empty system with facts are fools.\nSuch is Bostr\u00f6m, who tries to subtilise conceptions, analyse ideas, and\nclassify and arrange God, man, and human life under heads.\n\nThe history of philosophy is the history of errors, the history of\nlying, for nearly all philosophers are disguised rebels against God and\nopponents of religion. Philosophy is a history of falsehood, and since\nit has demonstrated its own absurdity, all professorships of philosophy\nshould be abolished. For a Christian state frustrates its own aims and\nis foolish if it supports a teacher of error and falsehood.\n\nIf for once in a way a philosopher is religious, people give him the\ncontemptuous name of \"mystic,\" although very few know what mysticism is.\n\nIn one professorial chair sits an Hegelian and preaches Hegel's\npantheism as the truth, and in another sits a Bostr\u00f6mian and pulls\nHegel to pieces. But the student must be examined by both, and give\nhis adherence to both systems together. That is the higher education,\nacademic culture, and learning in its glory!\n\nThe mass of people believe that all which is difficult to understand is\ndeep, but it is not so. What is difficult to understand is immature,\nvague, and often false. The highest wisdom is simple, clear, and goes\nthrough the brain straight into the heart. Set a philosopher on the\ngrave where his earthly hopes lie buried, and let him discourse of\nHerbert Spencer and the blastoderm! Place a philosopher in the Privy\nCouncil, and let him have a share in the conduct of the state! Ask a\nphilosopher to write a drama, to paint a picture, or even to teach\nschool-children, and he is useless. \"Philosopher\" is synonymous with\nsuperannuated donkey! Away with him!\n\n\n\n=nd when he complained that the Apocryphal books were missing, Goethe\nsaid among other things: \"It is superfluous to raise the question\nof authentic or unauthentic in matters of the Bible. I regard the\nfour gospels as completely genuine, for in them shines the reflected\nsplendour of the lofty personality of Christ, as divine as anything\nwhich has appeared on earth. If any one asks me whether I find it\npossible to pay him worship and reverence, I answer, 'Certainly!'\"\n\nThen there follows some Voltairian talk about the sun and religious\nrelics, about priestcraft and bishops' incomes, which belonged to the\nbad tone of the time. These stupid free-thinkers could not imagine\nhow three could be equivalent to one, and therefore they stumbled at\nthe doctrine of the Trinity. Did they not know that three thirds are\nequivalent to one, and that one is equivalent to three thirds? Or was\ntheir reason so darkened by pride? Or did they not know that spiritual\nthings must be spiritually judged; that the Highest cannot be reached\nby the highest mathematics? For neither Laplace nor Poincar\u00e9, who\nbusied themselves with the \"M\u00e9canique c\u00e9leste,\" reached heaven, much\nless God.\n\n\n=\"Now we Can Fly too! Hurrah!\"=--A friend of my youth, who two\nweeks ago died in a distant place, wrote on his last postcard to me\nthese words, \"Now we can fly too! Hurrah!\" He was a pagan, _i.e._ an\natheist, and this last word \"Hurrah!\" was an expression of scorn and a\nthreat against heaven.\n\nEvery gift of God is regarded by the pagans as a victory over God. They\nalways think that _they_ have made the discovery, and they still build\nat the Tower of Babel, the truth of whose story they deny, for they are\nlying spirits.\n\nWhen the pious Franklin drew down lightning with his damp twine,\nhe trembled and thanked God that He had not killed him. But when\nthe godless physicists imitated Franklin, and wished to store the\nlightning in laboratory bottles, they were slain. People do indeed make\nlightning-conductors nowadays, but they are not always efficacious even\nwhen the conduction is right. Only imagine!--a man receives a gift, and\nas a mark of gratitude puts out his tongue! Every time that God gives\nsomething, irreligious science celebrates a triumph--that is, puts out\nits tongue!\n\nThat is the nature of science! And it seems as though it were still at\npresent forbidden to touch the tree of knowledge, for the transgression\nof the prohibition is always accompanied by ingratitude and a curse.\n\n\n=The Fall and Original Sin.=--In these times when the ape-morality\nrules, it is considered up-to-date to change the doctrine of vicarious\nsatisfaction for that of heredity. The blame for our faults is put\non our parents, especially, as might be expected, on the father. But\nwhen the father was alive, he put the blame on his father, and so on\ntill we come to our first parents. That is indeed just like what the\nBible teaches about the Fall and original sin, and ought to confirm the\nteaching of religion, but of course that cannot be!\n\nThat is the doctrine of heredity. But whence comes it? Where is\nthe starting-point? Since everyone nowadays feels burdened with\nevil impulses and disease germs which he has inherited, and all our\npredecessors have felt the same, the only thing left is to lay the\nblame on our first parents.\n\nHow then is one to get rid of guilt--the consciousness of guilt and the\nevil impulses?\n\nChrist answers more simply than the theologians who represent the work\nof grace as an examination course. \"To-day shalt thou be with Me in\nParadise,\" He said to the thief who confessed that he suffered for his\nevil deeds; but He did not say so to the other who reviled Him.\n\nGenerally speaking, one should take one's doctrine straight from the\nGospels, which are simpler, greater, diviner than other writings.\nDevotional books are like the higher mathematics, mixed, complicated,\nand affected with human weaknesses.\n\n\n=The Gospel.=--All boast of the \"Gospel,\" but they mean this\njoyful message--the abrogation of civic laws and the opening of\nthe jails; in a word, immunity from punishment for themselves and\nmore stringent regulations for others. That was the Renaissance\nmorality preached at the conclusion of the Middle Ages as at the\nend of our century. They wished to enlighten mankind by proclaiming\nthat everything is lawful (against others), and that if one only\n\"understood\" men, one would forgive them. \"He does not understand,\" was\nthe formula in common use. Were I now to enumerate all the victims of\nthis gospel, which we had to learn, people would cry \"Scandal!\" Then\nthey would proceed to explain the tragedies on natural grounds, such as\nneurasthenia, infection, heredity (but not from our first parents); the\nunfortunate Englishman,[1] they say, was wrongfully imprisoned, because\nsociety consists of hypocrites; not because of his own sin, for it was\nnot his own sin: there is no sin.\n\nEvery suggestion that there are misdemeanours which draw down the\nunpleasant consequences, which are called punishments, is taken ill.\n\nFive years ago I heard one of these evangelists exclaim, \"Morality!\nthat is a word which I cannot take in my mouth.\" This saying was often\nquoted.\n\nBut shortly afterwards the same gentleman set heaven and hell in motion\nbecause a pupil had used a statement in one of his lectures to base a\ntreatise on. This innocent proceeding the \"evangelist\" stigmatised as\ntheft, and he wished to annihilate the thief.\n\nThe young man answered quite rightly that in that case people ought\nto be punished for \"stealing\" their knowledge out of manuals without\nacknowledgment, or that if they gave chapter and verse for every\nstatement, a treatise would look like this: \"Sum, 'I am' (Rabe's\nGrammar, 6th edition, Stockholm, 1858), called an auxiliary verb\n(_Sundelin Schwedische Sprachlehre_, \u00d6rebro, 1901), which indicates the\npassive voice (Sjoberg, _Logic_, Upsala, 1895),\" and so on.\n\nThis gentleman was a very severe moralist, although he could not take\nthe word morality in his mouth.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Oscar Wilde.]\n\n\n=Religious Heathen.=--Hardly anywhere are there such religious\nmen as the Orientals. Five times a day the _muezzin_ calls from each\nminaret in eastern lands: \"God is great! I bear witness that there is\nno God but God! I bear witness that Muhammed is the Apostle of God!\nCome to prayer! Come to salvation! God is great! There is no God but\nGod!\" Early in the morning they cry in addition, \"Prayer is better\nthan sleep.\" On the streets and market-places, in the shops and inns,\neverywhere one is summoned to prayer.\n\nIs it not impressive to see a whole people, of whom not one is ashamed\nof his God--not one! A people among whom, five times a day, this joyful\nmessage comes from the Lord, the All-Merciful, who \"has not forsaken\nand has not repulsed thee!\" And is it not uplifting in the midst of\nthe severe and squalid tasks of every day to hear a voice from above\nwitnessing, without attempting to convince, that God is God? Anything\nso perverse and stupid as free-thinking and atheism does not exist in\nthe Orient. If anyone attempted to assert such an abominable tenet as\nthe non-existence of God, he would be imprisoned or put to death. And\nif anyone came and tried to close the mosques ... but no one comes, for\nthe mosques are never empty:\n\n    \"By the splendour of the day,\n    By the darkness of the night,\n    Thy Lord hath not forsaken thee,\n    Neither hath He repelled thee.\"--_Koran_.\n\nThat is the implicit and childlike faith which Christian heathen called\n\"intolerance,\" \"fanaticism,\" and so on.\n\n\n=The Pleasure-Garden.=--If the inexperienced man knew how much\nsuffering a separation between a married pair involves, he would\nreflect before taking such a step. The two souls have so grown into\neach other, that the dissolution of the duplex personality which they\nform is the most painful operation possible. It is a kind of death.\n\nWhen one uproots the weeds round a flower, the flower fades\naway--partly because its roots are injured, partly because it has\nbeen deprived of shade, moisture, and support, or perhaps merely\ncompanionship.\n\nThe sorrow in this case resembles that which follows on a death, but\nis not so uplifting and ennobling. The image of the separated wife\nis always present to one's eyes, and becomes idealised in memory;\nugly traits are obliterated, one begins to reproach oneself, there\nis a painful emptiness and longing; one's soul is tom in pieces by\nher departure; she has carried off its finest-fibred roots, and one\nfeels as though bleeding to death. One can no more exchange common\nrecollections. The loss of the illusions of the first springtide of\nlove shatters one's faith in everything. A cry of mourning rings\nthrough the universe as though an irreparable crime had been committed,\nsuch as the sin against the Holy Ghost. Love, God's creative power, the\nsun's warmth that fills the heavens, the origin of life has ceased to\nexist. Chaos and darkness resume their reign. It is a spiritual death,\nwithout comfort and without hope.\n\nNevertheless something remains, if there ever was something there. And\nthough both may marry again, there is a recollection of the former tie.\nIt cannot be as though it had not been, nor be forgotten. However\nunpleasant the relationship may have been, still in its best hours it\nresembled something which is not to be found on earth. In its glorious\nbeginning it was a Garden of Eden, such a heightening of existence\nthat one felt nearer God. That was no optical delusion, but a higher\nreality. Then came the Fall and the expulsion. But the memory of the\nfirst joy remains, and it is true that a real love never ends.\n\nPeople ask whether it continues on the other side even when inclination\nhas \"changed its object.\" Probably some of it remains, but in an\nincomprehensible way, even if one were to suppose that the personality\nis resolved into several \"monads,\" of which one seeks a similar one,\nand another another; and what is called love can here become friendship.\n\nAccording to Plato's doctrine of reminiscence and the reincarnation\ntheory of the theosophists, one might believe that when two fall in\nlove it is only a meeting again. And all the beauty which they then\nsee round them is the reflection of the memories of some far beautiful\nland where they have met before, but which they now remember for the\nfirst time. The continual illusions of love would then be connected\nwith experiences on the other side, which now come up in memory from\nthe side where all is completion and beauty. Therefore we have such\na terrible awakening from our dreams of happiness when we find that\neverything down here is distorted, everything a caricature, even love\nitself.\n\n\n=The Happiness of Love.=--Even though earthly love be a caricature\nor bad copy of the heavenly it has some traits of resemblance to its\nprototype. In the first spring-days of love there are elevated moments,\nin which one compassionates other mortals who are not so happy. We\ntremble for our blessedness, finding it not quite just; yet it is\npossible even to wish for a misfortune to rectify the balance.\n\nThere was a dramatist who became engaged, and at the same time had just\ncelebrated his greatest triumph on the stage. The ground seemed to sway\nunder his feet, the air caressed his face, men paid him homage on the\nstreets; he felt hardly on earth, as he was beloved by the woman whom\nhe loved.\n\nThen there came the crash of a failure! All his former merits were\nforgotten; he was called a noodle and a charlatan. But he was so happy\nin his love that he did not feel the blow. He felt, on the contrary,\nan inner joy that misfortune had drawn him and his fianc\u00e9e closer\ntogether; he was so high that he did not grudge men the joy of pulling\nhim down a little. His fame had begun to bore them; now that he was\ndown, he found sympathy, while formerly he had been the object of envy.\n\nThat was the miracle of love! It made him so little self-seeking, that\non behalf of men he suffered under his oppressive fame and his great\nhappiness.\n\n\n=Our Best Feelings.=--Life is not beautiful; on its animal,\ndomestic, and business sides it brings us into so many ugly situations.\nLife is cynical since it ridicules our nobler feelings and flings scorn\non our faith. Therefore it is difficult to use fine words in the stress\nof every-day; one hides one's better feelings in order not to expose\nthem to ridicule. One might therefore say that men are partly better\nthan they appear to be. One is forced to play the sceptic in order\nnot to perish, and one is made cynical by the cynicism of life. It is\ntherefore unjust to call men hypocrites in a bad sense, for most men,\non the contrary, make themselves out worse than they are.\n\nWhen a man writes a letter to an intimate friend, or to the woman he\nloves, he puts on his festive dress; that is befitting. And in the\nquiet letter, on the white paper, he expresses his best feelings. The\ntongue and the spoken word are so vulgarised by everyday use, that they\ncannot say aloud the beautiful things which the pen says silently.\n\nIt is not posing or attitudinising, it is not falsity when one exhibits\nin correspondence a better soul than in everyday life. The lover is not\nuntrue in his love-letters. He does not make himself out better than he\nis; he becomes better, and _is_ so for the passing moment. He is true\nat such moments, the greatest which life grants us!\n\n\n=Blood-Fraternity.=--Blood-fraternity used to be sealed with a\nsacred ceremonial--the mingling of blood. \"The life of the soul is\nin the blood,\" says the Old Testament; and it is probable that there\nwas something mysterious in it which we do not understand, as in all\nsacraments, which we understand as little.\n\nAn old saga tells us that Torger and Tormod had mingled their blood and\nhad fought battles and won victories together. But one day, when Torger\nwas intoxicated by success, he carelessly remarked to his brother,\n\"Which of us, do you think, would prove the better man if we ventured\non a conflict?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" answered his brother, \"but I know that your question\nmakes an end of our living together. I will not remain with you any\nmore.\"\n\n\"I did not seriously mean that we should try our strength on one\nanother.\"\n\n\"But it came into your mind, since you said it.\" He departed, and their\ntie of brotherhood was at an end. The narrator adds, \"The bond of their\nfriendship was so fragile, that it could not bear the touch of an\nover-hasty thought.\"\n\nMarriage is a blood-bond and more--it is a sacred transaction. It is so\ntender and so fragile, that a hasty word--a joke, as one calls it--can\nmake an end of it for the whole of life. It is no use afterwards to\nsay, \"It was only a jest.\" We have the answer of the medi\u00e6val Norse\npoet Tormod, \"It came into your mind.\" \"Long years must pay for the\nwrong of a second.\"\n\nAnd then, \"Which of us two do you think would prove the master?\" As\nsoon as a married pair conceive their relation as a struggle for\npower, while it is just the contrary, hell comes into the house. The\nwoman has an inclination to rule. But if, in her defence, I say that\nthis inclination is her way of reacting against the suppressing, not\noppressive, man (for such a one I have never seen), I hope I shall not\nhave to repent it.\n\n\"If we ventured on a conflict!\" Yes, then it is as if one drew a weapon\non oneself, or as if a kingdom were divided. Every blow which one\ndeals, strikes one's own heart.\n\nCicero says that friendship is only possible between friendly equals.\nSwedenborg says that marriage is impossible between godless people.\nI am convinced of it; for without contact with God, who is the\nFountain-head of love, no stream of illumination can flow from the\nEternal. I have described the marriage of godless people. I have\nsuffered for doing so, but I do not regret it, and do not recall a\nword. It is as I said. The devout do not describe their marriages, and\nthey write neither dramas nor romances; literary history which mostly\ndeals with irreligious books, should take notice of that.\n\n\n=The Power of Love.=--In France there lives a marquis who is an\noccultist. Endowed by nature with a sensitive type of soul, refined by\neducation, protected by wealth against the brutality of life, purified\nby suffering and renunciation, he entered into contact with the higher\nforms of existence, which the theosophists call \"the astral plane.\"\nHis sensitiveness was elaborated to such a pitch, that he became a\nmedium, and could enter into touch with friends at a distance.\n\nThen he met a woman belonging to the same spiritual sphere, a\ntransparent airy figure, whose steps were inaudible, whose words were\nrather to be apprehended than heard.\n\nThis married pair were so united, that each was, as it were, born in\nthe other. He carried her heart about in him literally. When, on a\njourney to some relatives, she was frightened by a shying horse and had\na fit of palpitations, he felt it in his breast, and his heart stood\nstill for a moment when she fainted. Similarly, when he once pricked\nhimself with a needle, she felt it. They lived in each other, were each\nother's children and each other's parents.\n\nThen she died. He nearly died too, did die perhaps, and rose again. And\nnow he speaks with her, hears her voice in his heart, literally, not in\na figure.\n\nI do not doubt it at all, for I have had a similar experience, and\nmuch, much more.\n\n\n=The Box on the Ear.=--I was thirty years old, and life was mine\nfor the first time after I had lain in the potato-cellar and shot out\nwhite rootlets instead of growing. I had secured a home, wife, and\nchild, and was my own master. After I had done the day's task I used\nto invite friends in; I call them \"friends\" because they got on well\nwith me and I with them. We did no harm; we played like children with\nwords and sounds; we disguised ourselves in order to look more fine; we\ncomposed and delivered speeches. I think no one would grudge me these\nhours.\n\nBut soon there was something of satiety in it; we had wounded the\ndignity of sacred sleep; the wine turned sour in the glasses. One night\ntowards morning, in a cheerful circle, at a full table, my high spirits\nbroke bounds, since fortune had given me everything at once, and I\nuttered a word which a married man should not utter. I immediately\nreceived a box on the ear from a strong hand. I found it quite natural,\nand continued what I was saying, but in another and better tone. No one\ntook notice of what had happened; all went on as before; and we all\nparted as friends.\n\nHe who gave me the buffet was a bachelor of not superfine morals. If he\nhad disapproved my point of view, it must have been a very low one.\n\nFor several days I had a blue mark on my cheek. My wife said nothing,\nonly one of my friends let fall a remark, \"How could you put up with\nthat?\"\n\n\"I must have felt that I deserved it! Otherwise I cannot explain it.\"\n\nNow, when I am sixty years old, I wish that I had received several such\nboxes on the ear, for the first was no use. Recognising that, I feel\nthat it was a great piece of good-fortune that I was able to confess\nit. And now I should like to live twenty years more, in order to forget\nmy slowness to learn, with its sad consequences.\n\n\n=Saul, Afterwards Called Paul.=--Saul was standing by when\nStephen was stoned, or, at any rate, kept the clothes of those who\nstoned him. He also persecuted Christ and the Christians. The question\nis often, almost constantly asked, \"Had he a right, later on, to be\nsevere against those who threw the stones?\" One can only answer with an\nunconditional \"Yes,\" for he wished to make good the wrong he had done;\nand it was his duty to speak with his new tongue. But he is honourable\nand courageous enough to remind his hearers that he does not regard\nhimself as an exception. He calls himself \"the chief of sinners,\" and\nsays, \"I thank Him who has enabled me, who was formerly a blasphemer,\nand persecutor, and evil doer; but mercy was shown to me because I did\nit ignorantly in unbelief.\"\n\nHow entirely Paul felt himself to be quite a different person to\nthe dead Saul one sees from his tremendous severity against the two\nblasphemers, Hymen\u00e6us and Alexander, whom he delivered over to Satan,\n\"that they might learn not to blaspheme.\"\n\nWhat is to be understood by these terrible words, I have explained in\nthe _Inferno_. He who has not understood it there, can obtain a clearer\nexplanation in the asylums, where there is no rest, no peace, only\nterror and despair. These cannot be cured by cold or by warm water\nbaths, for it is a sickness of the soul, often called Paranoia, because\nthe senses see what is not to be seen every day.\n\n\n=A Scene from Hell.=--The man who had been separated from his\nwife went one day to fetch his little six-year-old daughter from her\nmother. They meant to go for a walk, look at the shop-windows, and buy\ntoys only for an hour. They were to meet before the mother's house. The\nlittle one came, half-sad, half-joyful, with a slightly roguish look.\n\nThis street, this street, this house, these stairs which only a short\ntime ago he had hurried up with his hands full of presents in order\nfor an hour long to see his beautiful home, and the best which life\nhas to show--the young maidenly mother putting her child to bed! The\ntwo together! One still more beautiful than the other! And made more\nbeautiful by love, or a friendship which has sprung up in painful\nsolitude.\n\nHe took the little girl's hand, and they went down the now darkened\nstreet. Then the child turned round, and said aloud, \"Mamma is coming\nbehind us.\"\n\nWhy did he not turn round, but went on still faster, drawing the child\nwith him?\n\nAsk the pains of seven long years, which had robbed him of his\nself-esteem so that he no longer believed he possessed the poor\nsolitary heart that followed him contritely and longed for\nreconciliation.\n\nThe child turned round yet again, and several times, as though it were\na plot laid in all friendliness, and the man felt by the throbbing of\nthe little hand how its heart beat in hope and expectation.\n\nBut he went straight forward, for he did not believe any more in the\npossibility of a return, and he did not dare to encounter a scornful\nsmile, or a proud, sharp word. He turned down side-streets, but he\nfelt that she followed. Who suffered most during this five minutes in\nhell, in this interplay of feelings? The child with her beautiful hopes\nwhich were disappointed; the mother with her injured self-esteem, as\nshe sought on the street what she had thrown away; or the man with\nuncertainty and doubt in one half of his heart, and in the other\nthe immeasurable grief of being obliged to hurt the innocent little\nchild-heart? But while it was actually going on, he felt almost\nnothing, for he was stunned by the shock. Not till the next day did he\nfeel the pain in his heart, and the longer the time that elapsed, the\nmore that pain increased.\n\n\n=The Jewel-casket or his Better Half.=--When a man during the\nfirst days of love has deposited the best and fairest part of his soul\nwith the woman he loves, he has laid up a treasure with her. If then he\nsinks below the heavy burdens of everyday life and loses his ornaments,\nhe generally finds them again with her; she has kept and guarded them\n(not always, however).\n\nAt such moments he calls her his better half, and such she is. She can,\nat the right time, return to him a beautiful thought or word, which\nhe has given her once; then he is ashamed and laments over his fall.\nAnd when he sees his earlier better self in her, he realises how low he\nhas sunk, while she still stands on the clear cliff. Then he looks up\nto her, cries out for help, and when she reaches him her hand, he is\nraised, and he thanks her for having saved him.\n\nPaul explains this relation between man and wife, which is so often\nmisunderstood and really difficult to understand. \"For in the Lord,\nneither is the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man;\nfor as the woman is from the man, so also is the man by the woman, but\nall is of God.\"\n\nTherefore in a true marriage neither the husband nor the wife appear\nseparate, but both regard themselves, and are regarded by others, as\none being. If one receives any good from the other, the recipient\nshould thank, and the giver also because he was able to give. They\nthank each other because they are one being, and the interchange of\ngifts is continuous and unceasing, so that they cannot distinguish\nbetween giving and taking.\n\nTherefore a true marriage is indissoluble; it cannot suffer severance,\nfor what it possesses is not alienable, it is common; it is a spiritual\nproperty which cannot be sold or bought.\n\nBut in the rough tumult of life the man loses his ideal part sooner\nthan the woman, who sits sheltered by the warm hearth of the\nwell-protected home. There she can guard his jewel-casket for him, and\nif she does it faithfully, he will always look up to her, as to his\nbetter self.\n\n\n=The Mummy-Coffin.=--Seven years of marriage had passed; they\nhad not tended their lamp, but it smoked so that everything in the\nbeautiful home was blackened. Now each sits in their own comer of the\ndwelling, because they cannot look each other in the eyes. They lament\neach other as dead, and miss each other like lost children.\n\nThen he opens a drawer and takes out a little box. A scent of fresh\nroses streams into the room, although it comes from dry rose-leaves\npressed between sheets of paper.\n\nThose are her letters which she wrote during her engagement seven years\nago. How beautiful it all is: the paper with its fine, still unbleached\nlavender tint and gold borders, just like the wedding-breakfast\nglasses; the envelopes carefully folded like the embroidered\ncushion-cover of the cradle; the letters themselves in beautiful rows\nof gentle words from beautiful lips which smile gracefully.\n\nBeauty and love in thoughts and feelings--there he had found her again\nin the little box embalmed with rose-leaves and violets.\n\nBut now she is dead, and he weeps!\n\nAnd at the other end of the house she sits over her little mummy-coffin\nand speaks with her beloved dead, and weeps.\n\nLost for ever! For ever!\n\n\n=In the Attic.=--Only three years had passed since his marriage,\nand now the storm had carried away all--his wife and child. He had\noccasion to go up to the attic to fetch something which had been put\naway there. So he came up to this room, where it always rustled and\ncreaked, and cats slunk about, and the viscera of the house, so to\nspeak, were visible in beams and chimney, where there were rust and\nsoot and hanging cobwebs. He unfastened the padlock. There lay all the\nflotsam and jetsam after the wreck. It was too late to turn back, and\nhe remained. There was the canopy of their marriage-bed, with green\nsilk and gilt-brass ornaments. There was the cradle of the little one,\nand the six milk-bottles which the mother always used to wash with her\nsmall hands in the ice-cold water; all the flower-vases and glasses\nwhich came into the house on the wedding evening, when the table was\nlaid in the hall.\n\nThere stood the basket once filled with roses, which she had received\non her engagement, which had afterwards become a work-basket. There\nwere withered bouquets, laurel-wreaths, and even books, presents from\nhim at Christmas and on birthdays, with beautiful inscriptions....\n\nBut there were also prehistoric articles: pieces of furniture belonging\nto her girlhood which she had brought into the new home--a Japanese\numbrella adorned with chrysanthemums and golden pheasants, a small\ncarpet, a flower-stand....\n\nBut why did all these relics lie here in the dust and soot, and not\ndownstairs with him who cherished those memories? Was it that he did\nnot dare to see them every day, or did not wish to?\n\nThen his eyes fell on a little toy cupboard, which lay in a\npaper-basket. There occurred to his mind the faint recollection of a\nmoment like a Christmas evening, a child's eyes, little white milk\nteeth, the first musical-box which the little one played to the\nChristmas-tree, the rocking-horse, and her dolls Rosa and Brita.\n\nHe opened the toy cupboard; it contained no musical-box, but a\nphonograph, very small and simple, a toy which could only utter a\nsingle word! He did not remember which. The key lay close by; he wound\nit up and set it going. At first it hummed like a bee; it did not\nsting, however, but whispered the only word it could, \"Darling!\"\n\nAnd in her voice! Yes, she had spoken it into the phonograph, though he\nhad forgotten it.\n\n\"Darling!\"\n\nThen he cried to God, then he raged against fate, and then he fell to\nthe ground! And as he lay there he could only lament, \"If they were at\nleast only dead! If....\"\n\nFor they were not dead. They lived.\n\nThat was the thing which could not be altered nor atoned for, and all\nthese things were not relics; they were the flotsam and jetsam of a\nwreck.\n\n\n=The Sculptor.=--Even when a man has found a masterpiece of\ncreation in his wife, he still tries to improve away little faults in\ndesign and colour, in order to make his work of art as free from faults\nas possible. His little wife does not always understand that, and often\nbecomes irritable.\n\n\"You only see faults in me.\"\n\n\"On the contrary, you are for me the most beautiful that exists, but I\nwant to have you perfect. You should, for example, never be angry, for\nthen your beautiful eyes grow ugly, and I suffer. You must not dress in\nverdigris-colour, for that does not suit you, and you look poisonous,\nso that I turn my looks away.\" And so on.\n\nEating is not beautiful, and to watch one's darling stowing away food\nin her beautiful mouth, which ought to speak beautiful words, smile\nbewitchingly, and purse up her tender lips to a kind of flower-bud\nwhich one inhales in a kiss--that may be downright repugnant!\nTherefore one is accustomed to hide this unseemly function under light\nconversation, and forgets what the beautiful mouth is occupied with.\n\n\"You are always finding fault! Say something nice for once.\"\n\n\"Can you not read in my eyes that I admire you; I do not generally say\nit first with my lips. But I want you to be perfect. That is the whole\nmatter!\"\n\n\n=On the Threshold at Five Years of Age.=--A certain Dr. Ogle\nstates in his statistics that in six-and-twenty years four cases of\nsuicide have taken place among children between five and ten years old.\nWhen I read that, \"between five and ten years old,\" I thought, \"No!\nbetween five and ten! Is that possible? And the reason of it?\" I could\nnot think more, but I saw one scene, two scenes, three scenes....\n\nThe little girl was five years old; she was playing in the room near\nher mother; children must have something to do, but the mother was\nnervous, because she had been going into gaiety and flirting beyond\nmeasure.\n\n\"Don't rock the horse; it makes mamma's head ache.\"\n\nThe little one took the cat, and pinched it, so that it mewed.\n\n\"Don't do that, child; mamma is ill.\"\n\nThe child was good, and did not wish to be troublesome. She sat down at\nthe table, and was silent in order not to irritate mamma.\n\nBut a child's little body cannot be still; nor ought it indeed; it\nmoves of itself. Probably the child must have been singing a song to\nitself, for the little unruly feet beat time against the legs of the\nchair.\n\nThe mother started up, \"Go to Ellen in the kitchen, disobedient child!\"\n\nThe child was not disobedient; doubly wounded in her little heart, she\nwent into the kitchen, good and obedient. But immediately afterwards\nshe reappeared in the doorway, \"Ellen was washing up.\"\n\nThere stood the child on the threshold, turned out and repulsed from\nboth sides, and could not go anywhere. She looked like a despairing\nchild, tearless, but with all the terror of the lonely in her face.\nDumb, turned to stone, as though in the whole world there were no place\nfor her, as though no one would have her, and she knew not why. At this\nmoment she really stood on the threshold of life, for she suddenly\nbrightened up, and approached the open window, which was high above the\nground.\n\nTo the honour of the mother, I must confess that she has described this\nscene to me with the greatest remorse; it ended by her springing up,\ntaking the child in her arms, and playing with her till the sun went\ndown.\n\n\"If anything had happened to the child, I should have lived in a hell\nof self-reproach! And now I think; for every moment which I had not\ndevoted to my child, for every little joy which I had denied her, I\nwould, if it had departed, weep my soul out of my body; I would plunge\ninto space and seek the child under the stars in order to beg her\nforgiveness, if I could be forgiven....\"\n\nTo think of it! At five years old, on the threshold of life!\n\n=Goethe on Christianity and Science.=--As I waded in Professor\nDelitzsch's dung-heap,[1] I reached at last his third lecture. In the\nlast lines of the last page I found a pearl, which I will set, in order\nto show it to those who misuse poor Goethe's name for their heathenish\npropaganda. In a conversation with Eckermann, on March 11, 1832, that\nis, eleven days before his death, Goethe spoke these ever memorable\nwords: \"Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences go\non gaining in depth and breadth, and the human mind expand as it may,\nit will never go beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity\nas it shines in the Gospel.\"\n\nThat was the fruit of a life of eighty years spent in seeking God and\nHis Son. After long useless detours, Goethe found it again at the end\nof his life, as is apparent from the conclusion of the second part of\n_Faust_. I will only add some words of Goethe's on superstition, as it\nis not comprehended by the apelings: \"Superstition is an inheritance\nof powerful, earnest, progressive natures; unbelief is peculiarly\ncharacteristic of weak, petty, retrogressive men.\" Such is unbelief as\nGoethe said in 1808.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: The work entitled _Babel und Bibel_.]\n\n\n=Summa Summarum.=--Since destructive science has proved itself\nso hollow, consisting as it does of guesses, false inferences,\nself-deceit, hair-splittings, why does the State support these armies\nof conjecturers and soothsayers?\n\nRousseau's first prize-essay regarding the curse of culture and\nlearning should be repondered.\n\nA Descartes ought to return and teach men to doubt the untruths of the\nsciences.\n\nAnother Kant might write a new _Critique of Pure Reason_ and\nre-establish the doctrine of the Categorical Imperative and Postulate,\nwhich, however, is already to be found in the Ten Commandments and the\nGospels.\n\nAnd a prophet must be born to teach men the simple meaning of life in a\nfew words, though it has been already so well summed up: \"Fear God, and\nkeep His commandments,\" or \"Pray and work.\"\n\nAll the errors and mistakes which we have made should serve to instil\ninto us a lively hatred of evil, and to impart to us fresh impulses to\ngood; these we can take with us to the other side, where they can first\nbloom and bear fruit.\n\nThat is the true meaning of life, at which the obstinate and impenitent\ncavil in order to escape trouble.\n\nPray, _but_ work; suffer, _but_ hope; keeping both the earth and the\nstars in view. Do not try and settle permanently, for it is a place of\npilgrimage; not a home, but a halting-place. Seek truth, for it is to\nbe found, but only in one place, with Him who Himself is the Way, the\nTruth, and the Life.\n\nTHE END","title":"Zones of the Spirit: A Book of Thoughts","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":63907}