{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_56758/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_56758","id":"gutenberg_56758","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56758","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Russian Literature","Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich, 1860-1904","Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881","Philosophy","Russian literature -- History and criticism"],"text":"Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature (Images\ngenerously made available by the Internet Archive.)\n\n\n\n\n\nANTON TCHEKHOV\n\nAND OTHER ESSAIS\n\nBY\n\nLEON SHESTOV\n\nTRANSLATED BY\n\nS. KOTELIANSKY AND J. M. MURRY\n\nMAUNSEL AND CO. LTD.\n\nDUBLIN AND LONDON\n\n1916\n\n\n\n    CONTENTS\n\n    ANTON TCHEKHOV (CREATION FROM THE VOID)\n    THE GIFT OF PROPHECY\n    PENULTIMATE WORDS\n    THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nIt is not to be denied that Russian thought is chiefly manifested in\nthe great Russian novelists. Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, and Tchekhov made\nexplicit in their works conceptions of the world which yield nothing in\ndefiniteness to the philosophic schemes of the great dogmatists of old,\nand perhaps may be regarded as even superior to them in that by their\nnature they emphasise a relation of which the professional philosopher\nis too often careless--the intimate connection between philosophy and\nlife. They attacked fearlessly and with a high devotion of which we\nEnglish readers are slowly becoming sensible the fundamental problem of\nall philosophy worthy the name. They were preoccupied with the answer\nto the question: Is life worth living? And the great assumption which\nthey made, at least in the beginning of the quest, was that to live\nlife must mean to live it wholly. To live was not to pass by life on\nthe other side, not suppress the deep or even the dark passions of body\nor soul, not to lull by some lying and narcotic phrase the urgent\nquestions of the mind, not to deny life. To them life was the sum of\nall human potentialities. They accepted them all, loved them all, and\nstrove to find a place for them all in a pattern in which none should\nbe distorted. They failed, but not one of them fainted by the way,\nand there was not one of them but with his latest breath bravely held\nto his belief that there was a way and that the way might be found.\nTolstoi went out alone to die, yet more manifestly than he had lived,\na seeker after the secret; death overtook Dostoevsky in his supreme\nattempt to wrest a hope for mankind out of the abyss of the imagined\nfuture; and Tchekhov died when his most delicate fingers had been\nfinally eager in lighting _The Cherry Orchard_ with the tremulous glint\nof laughing tears, which may perhaps be the ultimate secret of the\nprocess which leaves us all bewildered and full of pity and wonder.\n\nThere were great men and great philosophers. It may be that this\ncruelly conscious world will henceforward recognise no man as great\nunless he has greatly sought: for to seek and not to think is the\nessence of philosophy. To have greatly sought, I say, should be the\nmeasure of man's greatness in the strange world of which there will be\nonly a tense, sorrowful, disillusioned remnant when this grim ordeal\nis over. It should be so: and we, who are, according to our strength,\nfaithful to humanity, must also strive according to our strength to\nmake it so. We are not, and we shall not be, great men: but we have\nthe elements of greatness. We have an impulse to honesty, to think\nhonestly, to see honestly, and to speak the truth to ourselves in the\nlonely hours. It is only an impulse, which, in these barren, bitter,\nyears, so quickly withers and dies. It is almost that we dare not be\nhonest now. Our hearts are dead: we cannot wake the old wounds again.\nAnd yet if anything of this generation that suffered is to remain, if\nwe are to hand any spark of the fire which once burned so brightly,\nif we are to be human still, then we must still be honest at whatever\ncost. We--and I speak of that generation which was hardly man when the\nwar burst upon it, which was ardent and generous and dreamed dreams\nof devotion to an ideal of art or love or life--are maimed and broken\nfor ever. Let us not deceive ourselves. The dead voices will never be\nsilent in our ears to remind us of that which we once were, and that\nwhich we have lost. We shall die as we shall live, lonely and haunted\nby memories that will grow stranger, more beautiful, more terrible,\nand more tormenting as the years go on, and at the last we shall not\nknow which was the dream--the years of plenty or the barren years that\ndescended like a storm in the night and swept our youth away.\n\nYet something remains. Not those lying things that they who cannot feel\nhow icy cold is sudden and senseless death to all-daring youth, din in\nour ears. We shall not be inspired by the memory of heroism. We shall\nbe shattered by the thought of splendid and wonderful lives that were\nvilely cast away. What remains is that we should be honest as we shall\nbe pitiful. We shall never again be drunk with hope: let us never be\nblind with fear. There can be in the lap of destiny now no worse thing\nwhich may befall us. We can afford to be honest now.\n\nWe can afford to be honest: but we need to learn how, or to increase\nour knowledge. The Russian writers will help us in this; and not the\ngreat Russians only, but the lesser also. For a century of bitter\nnecessity has taught that nation that the spirit is mightier than the\nflesh, until those eager qualities of soul that a century of social\nease has almost killed in us are in them well-nigh an instinct. Let\nus look among ourselves if we can find a Wordsworth, a Shelley, a\nColeridge, or a Byron to lift this struggle to the stars as they did\nthe French Revolution. There is none.--It will be said: 'But that was\na great fight for freedom. Humanity itself marched forward with the\nRevolutionary armies.' But if the future of mankind is not in issue\nnow, if we are fighting for the victory of no precious and passionate\nidea, why is no voice of true poetry uplifted in protest? There is\nno third way. Either this is the greatest struggle for right, or the\ngreatest crime, that has ever been. The unmistakable voice of poetry\nshould be certain either in protest or enthusiasm: it is silent or\nit is trivial. And the cause must be that the keen edge of the soul\nof those century-old poets which cut through false patriotism so\nsurely is in us dulled and blunted. We must learn honesty again:\nnot the laborious and meagre honesty of those who weigh advantage\nagainst advantage in the ledger of their minds, but the honesty that\ncries aloud in instant and passionate anger against the lie and the\nhalf-truth, and by an instinct knows the authentic thrill of contact\nwith the living human soul.\n\nThe Russians, and not least the lesser Russians, may teach us this\nthing once more. Among these lesser, Leon Shestov holds an honourable\nplace. He is hardly what we should call a philosopher, hardly again\nwhat we would understand by an essayist. The Russians, great and small\nalike, are hardly ever what we understand by the terms which we victims\nof tradition apply to them. In a hundred years they have accomplished\nan evolution which has with us slowly unrolled in a thousand. The very\nfoundations of their achievement are new and laid within the memory of\nman. Where we have sharply divided art from art, and from science and\nphilosophy, and given to each a name, the Russians have still the sense\nof a living connection between all the great activities of the human\nsoul. From us this connection is too often concealed by the tyranny\nof names. We have come to believe, or at least it costs us great\npains not to believe, that the name is a particular reality, which to\nconfuse with another name is a crime. Whereas in truth the energies of\nthe human soul are not divided from each other by any such impassable\nbarriers: they flow into each other indistinguishably, modify, control,\nsupport, and decide each other. In their large unity they are real;\nisolated, they seem to be poised uneasily between the real and the\nunreal, and become deceptive, barren half-truths. Plato, who first\ndiscovered the miraculous hierarchy of names, though he was sometimes\ndrunk with the new wine of his discovery, never forgot that the unity\nof the human soul was the final outcome of its diversity; and those\nwho read aright his most perfect of all books--_The Republic_--know\nthat it is a parable which fore-shadows the complete harmony of all the\nsoul's activities.\n\nNot the least of Shestov's merits is that he is alive to this truth in\nits twofold working. He is aware of himself as a soul seeking an answer\nto its own question; and he is aware of other souls on the same quest.\nAs in his own case he knows that he has in him something truer than\nnames and divisions and authorities, which will live in spite of them,\nso towards others he remembers that all that they wrote or thought or\nsaid is precious and permanent in so far as it is the manifestation\nof the undivided soul seeking an answer to its question. To know a\nman's work for this, to have divined the direct relation between his\nutterance and his living soul, is criticism: to make that relation\nbetween one's own soul and one's speech direct and true is creation.\nIn essence they are the same: creation is a man's lonely attempt to\nfix an intimacy with his own strange and secret soul, criticism is the\nsatisfaction of the impulse of loneliness to find friends and secret\nsharers among the souls that are or have been. As creation drives a man\nto the knowledge of his own intolerable secrets, so it drives him to\nfind others with whom he may whisper of the things which he has found.\nOther criticism than this is, in the final issue, only the criminal and\nmad desire to enforce material order in a realm where all is spiritual\nand vague and true. It is only the jealous protest of the small soul\nagainst the great, of the slave against the free.\n\nAgainst this smallness and jealousy Shestov has set his face. To have\ndone so does not make him a great writer; but it does make him a real\none. He is honest and he is not deceived. But honesty, unless a man is\nbig enough to bear it, and often even when he is big enough to bear it,\nmay make him afraid. Where angels fear to tread, fools rush in: but\nthough the folly of the fool is condemned, some one must enter, lest\na rich kingdom be lost to the human spirit. Perhaps Shestov will seem\nat times too fearful. Then we must remember that Shestov is Russian in\nanother sense than that I have tried to make explicit above. He is a\ncitizen of a country where the human spirit has at all times been so\nhighly prized that the name of thinker has been a key to unlock not\nmerely the mind but the heart also. The Russians not only respect,\nbut they love a man who has thought and sought for humanity, and, I\nthink, their love but seldom stops 'this side idolatry.' They will\nexalt a philosopher to a god; they are even able to make of materialism\na religion. Because they are so loyal to the human spirit they will\nload it with chains, believing that they are garlands. And that is why\ndogmatism has never come so fully into its own as in Russia.\n\nWhen Shestov began to write nearly twenty years ago, Karl Marx was\nenthroned and infallible. The fear of such tyrannies has never\ndeparted from Shestov. He has fought against them so long and so\npersistently--even in this book one must always remember that he\nis face to face with an enemy of which we English have no real\nconception--that he is at times almost unnerved by the fear that he\ntoo may be made an authority and a rule. I do not think that this\nultimate hesitation, if understood rightly, diminishes in any way from\nthe interest of his writings: but it does suggest that there may be\nawaiting him a certain paralysis of endeavour. There is indeed no\nabsolute truth of which we need take account other than the living\npersonality, and absolute truths are valuable only in so far as they\nare seen to be necessary manifestations of this mysterious reality.\nNevertheless it is in the nature of man, if not to live by absolute\ntruths, at least to live by enunciating them; and to hesitate to\nsatisfy this imperious need is to have resigned a certain measure of\none's own creative strength. We may trust to the men of insight who\nwill follow us to read our dogmatisms, our momentary angers, and our\nunshakable convictions, in terms of our personalities, if these shall\nbe found worthy of their curiosity or their love. And it seems to me\nthat Shestov would have gained in strength if he could have more firmly\nbelieved that there would surely be other Shestovs who would read him\naccording to his own intention. But this, I also know, is a counsel of\nperfection: the courage which he has not would not have been acquired\nby any intellectual process, and its possession would have deprived him\nof the courage which he has. As dogmatism in Russia enjoys a supremacy\nof which we can hardly form an idea, so a continual challenge to its\nclaims demands in the challenger a courage which it is hard for us\nrightly to appreciate.\n\nI have not written this foreword in order to prejudice the issue.\nShestov will, no doubt, be judged by English readers according to\nEnglish standards, and I wish no more than to suggest that his\ngreatest quality is one which has become rare among us, and that his\npeculiarities are due to Russian conditions which have long since\nceased to obtain in England. The Russians have much to teach us, and\nthe only way we shall learn, or even know, what we should accept\nand what reject, is to take count as much as we can of the Russian\nrealities. And the first of these and the last is that in Russia the\nthings of the spirit are held in honour above all others. Because of\nthis the Russian soul is tormented by problems to which we have long\nbeen dead, and to which we need to be alive again. J. M. M.\n\n\n_Postscript._--Leon Shestov is fifty years old. He was born at Kiev,\nand studied at the university there. His first book was written\nin 1898. As a writer of small production, he has made his way to\nrecognition slowly: but now he occupies a sure position as one of the\nmost delicate and individual of modern Russian critics. The essays\ncontained in this volume are taken from the fourth and fifth works in\nthe following list:--\n\n1898. _Shakespeare and his Critic, Brandes._\n\n1900. _Good in the teaching of Dostoevsky and Nietzsche: Philosophy and\nPreaching._\n\n1903. _Dostoevsky and Nietzsche: The Philosophy of Tragedy._\n\n1905. _The Apotheosis of Groundlessness: An Essay on Dogmatism._\n\n1908. _Beginnings and Ends._\n\n1912. _Great Vigils._\n\n\n\n\nANTON TCHEKHOV\n\n\n(CREATION FROM THE VOID)\n\n\nR\u00e9signe-toi, mon c\u0153ur, dors ton sommeil de brute.\n\n(CHARLES BAUDELAIRE.)\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nTchekhov is dead; therefore we may now speak freely of him. For to\nspeak of an artist means to disentangle and reveal the 'tendency'\nhidden in his works, an operation not always permissible when the\nsubject is still living. Certainly he had a reason for hiding himself,\nand of course the reason was serious and important. I believe many felt\nit, and that it was partly on this account that we have as yet had no\nproper appreciation of Tchekhov. Hitherto in analysing his works the\ncritics have confined themselves to common-place and _clich\u00e9_. Of course\nthey knew they were wrong; but anything is better than to extort the\ntruth from a living person. Mihailovsky alone attempted to approach\ncloser to the source of Tchekhov's creation, and as everybody knows,\nturned away from it with aversion and even with disgust. Here, by the\nway, the deceased critic might have convinced himself once again of\nthe extravagance of the so-called theory of 'art for art's sake.' Every\nartist has his definite task, his life's work, to which he devotes\nall his forces. A tendency is absurd when it endeavours to take the\nplace of talent, and to cover impotence and lack of content, or when\nit is borrowed from the stock of ideas which happen to be in demand\nat the moment. 'I defend ideals, therefore every one must give me his\nsympathies.' Such pretences we often see made in literature, and the\nnotorious controversy concerning 'art for art's sake' was evidently\nmaintained upon the double meaning given to the word 'tendency' by its\nopponents. Some wished to believe that a writer can be saved by the\nnobility of his tendency; others feared that a tendency would bind them\nto the performance of alien tasks. Much ado about nothing: ready-made\nideas will never endow mediocrity with talent; on the contrary, an\noriginal writer will at all costs set himself his own task. And\nTchekhov had his _own_ business, though there were critics who said\nthat he was the servant of art for its own sake, and even compared him\nto a bird, carelessly flying. To define his tendency in a word, I would\nsay that Tchekhov was the poet of hopelessness. Stubbornly, sadly,\nmonotonously, during all the years of his literary activity, nearly a\nquarter of a century long, Tchekhov was doing one thing alone: by one\nmeans or another he was killing human hopes. Herein, I hold, lies the\nessence of his creation. Hitherto it has been little spoken of. The\nreasons are quite intelligible. In ordinary language what Tchekhov\nwas doing is called crime, and is visited by condign punishment. But\nhow can a man of talent be punished? Even Mihailovsky, who more than\nonce in his lifetime gave an example of merciless severity, did not\nraise his hand against Tchekhov. He warned his readers and pointed\nout the 'evil fire' which he had noticed in Tchekhov's eyes. But he\nwent no further. Tchekhov's immense talent overcame the strict and\nrigorous critic. It may be, however, that Mihailovsky's own position\nin literature had more than a little to do with the comparative\nmildness of his sentence. The younger generation had listened to him\nuninterruptedly for thirty years, and his word had been law. But\nafterwards every one was bored with eternally repeating: 'Aristides\nis just, Aristides is right.' The younger generation began to desire\nto live and to speak in its own way, and finally the old master was\nostracised. There is the same custom in literature as in Terra del\nFuego. The young, growing men kill and eat the old. Mihailovsky\nstruggled with all his might, but he no longer felt the strength of\nconviction that comes from the sense of right. Inwardly, he felt that\nthe young were right, not because they knew the truth--what truth did\nthe economic materialists know?--but because they were young and had\ntheir lives before them. The rising star shines always brighter than\nthe setting, and the old must of their own will yield themselves up to\nbe devoured by the young. Mihailovsky felt this, and perhaps it was\nthis which undermined his former assurance and the firmness of his\nopinion of old. True, he was still like Gretchen's mother in Goethe: he\ndid not take rich gifts from chance without having previously consulted\nhis confessor. Tchekhov's talent too was taken to the priest, by whom\nit was evidently rejected as suspect; but Mihailovsky no longer had the\ncourage to set himself against public opinion. The younger generation\nprized Tchekhov for his talent, his immense talent, and it was plain\nthey would riot disown him. What remained for Mihailovsky He attempted,\nas I say, to warn them. But no one listened to him, and Tchekhov became\none of the most beloved of Russian writers.\n\nYet the just Aristides was right this time too, as he was right when\nhe gave his warning against Dostoevsky. Now that Tchekhov is no more,\nwe may speak openly. Take Tchekhov's stories, each one separately, or\nbetter still, all together; look at him at work. He is constantly,\nas it were, in ambush, to watch and waylay human hopes. He will not\nmiss a single one of them, not one of them will escape its fate. Art,\nscience, love, inspiration, ideals--choose out all the words with which\nhumanity is wont, or has been in the past, to be consoled or to be\namused--Tchekhov has only to touch them and they instantly wither and\ndie. And Tchekhov himself faded, withered and died before our eyes.\nOnly his wonderful art did not die--his art to kill by a mere touch,\na breath, a glance, everything whereby men live and wherein they take\ntheir pride. And in this art he was constantly perfecting himself, and\nhe attained to a virtuosity beyond the reach of any of his rivals in\nEuropean literature. Maupassant often had to strain every effort to\novercome his victim. The victim often escaped from Maupassant, though\ncrushed and broken, yet with his life. In Tchekhov's hands, nothing\nescaped death.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nI must remind my reader, though it is a matter of general knowledge,\nthat in his earlier work Tchekhov is most unlike the Tchekhov to whom\nwe became accustomed in late years. The young Tchekhov is gay and\ncareless, perhaps even like a flying bird. He published his work in\nthe comic papers. But in 1888 and 1889, when he was only twenty-seven\nand twenty-eight years old, there appeared _The Tedious Story_ and the\ndrama _Ivanov,_ two pieces of work which laid the foundations of a\nnew creation. Obviously a sharp and sudden change had taken place in\nhim, which was completely reflected in his works. There is no detailed\nbiography of Tchekhov, and probably will never be, because there is no\nsuch thing as a full biography--I, at all events, cannot name one.\nGenerally biographies tell us everything except what it is important\nto know. Perhaps in the future it will be revealed to us with the\nfullest details who was Tchekhov's tailor; but we shall never know what\nhappened to Tchekhov in the time which elapsed between the completion\nof his story _The Steppe_ and the appearance of his first drama. If we\nwould know, we must rely upon his works and our own insight.\n\n_Ivanov_ and _The Tedious Story_ seem to me the most autobiographical\nof all his works. In them almost every line is a sob; and it is hard to\nsuppose that a man could sob so, looking only at another's grief. And\nit is plain that his grief is a new one, unexpected as though it had\nfallen from the sky. Here it is, it will endure for ever, and he does\nnot know how to fight against it.\n\nIn _Ivanov_ the hero compares himself to an overstrained labourer. I\ndo not believe we shall be mistaken if we apply this comparison to the\nauthor of the drama as well. There can be practically no doubt that\nTchekhov had overstrained himself. And the overstrain came not from\nhard and heavy labour; no mighty overpowering exploit broke him: he\nstumbled and fell, he slipped. There comes this nonsensical, stupid,\nall but invisible accident, and the old Tchekhov of gaiety and mirth\nis no more. No more stories for _The Alarm Clock._ Instead, a morose\nand overshadowed man, a 'criminal' whose words frighten even the\nexperienced and the omniscient.\n\nIf you desire it, you can easily be rid of Tchekhov and his work as\nwell. Our language contains two magic words: 'pathological,' and its\nbrother 'abnormal.' Once Tchekhov had overstrained himself, you have a\nperfectly legal right, sanctified by science and every tradition, to\nleave him out of all account, particularly seeing that he is already\ndead, and therefore cannot be hurt by your neglect. That is if you\ndesire to be rid of Tchekhov. But if the desire is for some reason\nabsent, the words 'pathological' and 'abnormal' will have no effect\nupon you. Perhaps you will go further and attempt to find in Tchekhov's\nexperiences a criterion of the most irrefragable truths and axioms of\nthis consciousness of ours. There is no third way: you must either\nrenounce Tchekhov, or become his accomplice.\n\nThe hero of _The Tedious Story_ is an old professor; the hero of\n_Ivanov_ a young landlord. But the theme of both works is the same.\nThe professor had overstrained himself, and thereby cut himself off\nfrom his past life and from the possibility of taking an active part\nin human affairs. Ivanov also had overstrained himself and become a\nsuperfluous, useless person. Had life been so arranged that death\nshould supervene simultaneously with the loss of health, strength and\ncapacity, then the old professor and young Ivanov could not have lived\nfor one single hour. Even a blind man could see that they are both\nbroken and are unfit for life. But for reasons unknown to us, wise\nnature has rejected coincidence of this kind. A man very often goes on\nliving after he has completely lost the capacity of taking from life\nthat wherein we are wont to see its essence and meaning. More striking\nstill, a broken man is generally deprived of everything except the\nability to acknowledge and feel his position. Nay, for the most part\nin such cases the intellectual abilities are refined and sharpened\nand increased to colossal proportions. It frequently happens that an\naverage man, banal and mediocre, is changed beyond all recognition when\nhe falls into the exceptional situation of Ivanov or the old professor.\nIn him appear signs of a gift, a talent, even of genius. Nietzsche once\nasked: 'Can an ass be tragical?' He left his question unanswered, but\nTolstoi answered for him in _The Death of Ivan Ilyich._ Ivan Ilyich,\nit is evident from Tolstoi's description of his life, is a mediocre,\naverage character, one of those men who pass through life avoiding\nanything that is difficult or problematical, caring exclusively for the\ncalm and pleasantness of earthly existence. Hardly had the cold wind of\ntragedy blown upon him, than he was utterly transformed. The story of\nIvan Ilyich in his last days is as deeply interesting as the life-story\nof Socrates or Pascal.\n\nIn passing I would point out a fact which I consider of great\nimportance. In his work Tchekhov was influenced by Tolstoi, and\nparticularly by Tolstoi's later writings. It is important, because thus\na part of Tchekhov's 'guilt' falls upon the great writer of the Russian\nland. I think that had there been no _Death of Ivan Ilyich,_ there\nwould have been no _Ivanov,_ and no _Tedious Story,_ nor many others\nof Tchekhov's most remarkable works. But this by no means implies that\nTchekhov borrowed a single word from his great predecessor. Tchekhov\nhad enough material of his own: in that respect he needed no help. But\na young writer would hardly dare to come forward at his own risk with\nthe thoughts that make the content of _The Tedious Story._ When Tolstoi\nwrote _The Death of Ivan Ilyich,_ he had behind him _War and Peace,\nAnna Karenina,_ and the firmly established reputation of an artist of\nthe highest rank. All things were permitted to him. But Tchekhov was\na young man, whose literary baggage amounted in all to a few dozen\ntiny stories, hidden in the pages of little known and uninfluential\npapers. Had Tolstoi not paved the way, had Tolstoi not shown by his\nexample, that in literature it was permitted to tell the truth, to\ntell everything, then perhaps Tchekhov would have had to struggle long\nwith himself before finding the courage of a public confession, even\nthough it took the form of stories. And even with Tolstoi before him,\nhow terribly did Tchekhov have to struggle with public opinion. 'Why\ndoes he write his horrible stories and plays?' every one asked himself.\n'Why does the writer systematically choose for his heroes situations\nfrom which there is not, and cannot possibly be, any escape?' What\ncan be said in answer to the endless complaints of the old professor\nand Katy, his pupil? This means that there is, essentially, something\nto be said. From times immemorial, literature has accumulated a large\nand varied store of all kinds of general ideas and conceptions,\nmaterial and metaphysical, to which the masters have recourse the\nmoment the over-exacting and over-restless human voice begins to be\nheard. This is exactly the point. Tchekhov himself, a writer and an\neducated man, refused in advance every possible consolation, material\nor metaphysical. Not even in Tolstoi, who set no great store by\nphilosophical systems, will you find such keenly expressed disgust for\nevery kind of conceptions and ideas as in Tchekhov. He is well aware\nthat conceptions ought to be esteemed and respected, and he reckons his\ninability to bend the knee before that which educated people consider\nholy as a defect against which he must struggle with all his strength.\nAnd he does struggle with all his strength against this defect. But\nnot only is the struggle unavailing; the longer Tchekhov lives, the\nweaker grows the power of lofty words over him, in spite of his own\nreason and his conscious will. Finally, he frees himself entirely\nfrom ideas of every kind, and loses even the notion of connection\nbetween the happenings of life. Herein lies the most important and\noriginal characteristic of his creation. Anticipating a little, I would\nhere point to his comedy, _The Sea-Gull,_ where, in defiance of all\nliterary principles, the basis of action appears to be not the logical\ndevelopment of passions, or the inevitable connection between cause and\neffect, but naked accident, ostentatiously nude. As one reads the play,\nit seems at times that one has before one a copy of a newspaper with\nan endless series of news paragraphs, heaped upon one another, without\norder and without previous plan. Sovereign accident reigns everywhere\nand in everything, this time boldly throwing the gauntlet to all\nconceptions. In this, I repeat, is Tchekhov's greatest originality, and\nthis, strangely enough, is the source of his most bitter experiences.\nHe did not want to be original; he made super-human efforts to be\nlike everybody else: but there is no escaping one's destiny. How\nmany men, above all among writers, wear their fingers to the bone in\nthe effort to be unlike others, and yet they cannot shake themselves\nfree of _clich\u00e9_--yet Tchekhov was original against his will!\nEvidently originality does not depend upon the readiness to proclaim\nrevolutionary opinions at all costs. The newest and boldest idea may\nand often does appear tedious and vulgar. In order to become original,\ninstead of inventing an idea, one must achieve a difficult and painful\nlabour; and, since men avoid labour and suffering, the really new is\nfor the most part born in man against his will.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\n'A man cannot reconcile himself to the accomplished fact; neither can\nhe refuse so to reconcile himself: and there is no third course. Under\nsuch conditions \"action\" is impossible. He can only fall down and weep\nand beat his head against the floor.' So Tchekhov speaks of one of his\nheroes; but he might say the same of them all, without exception. The\nauthor takes care to put them in such a situation that only one thing\nis left for them,--to fall down and beat their heads against the floor.\nWith strange, mysterious obstinacy they refuse all the accepted means\nof salvation. Nicolai Stepanovich, the old professor in _The Tedious\nStory,_ might have attempted to forget himself for a while or to\nconsole himself with memories of the past. But memories only irritate\nhim. He was once an eminent scholar: now he cannot work. Once he was\nable to hold the attention of his audience for two hours on end; now\nhe cannot do it even for a quarter of an hour. He used to have friends\nand comrades, he used to love his pupils and assistants, his wife\nand children; now he cannot concern himself with any one. If people\ndo arouse any feelings at all within him, then they are only feelings\nof hatred, malice and envy. He has to confess it to himself with\nthe truthfulness which came to him--he knows not why nor whence--in\nplace of the old diplomatic skill, possessed by all clever and normal\nmen, whereby he saw and said only that which makes for decent human\nrelations and healthy states of mind. Now everything which he sees or\nthinks only serves to poison, in himself and others, the few joys which\nadorn human life. With a certainty which he never attained on the best\ndays and hours of his old theoretical research, he feels that he is\nbecome a criminal, having committed no crime. All that he was engaged\nin before was good, necessary, and useful. He tells you of his past,\nand you can see that he was always right and ready at any moment of\nthe day or the night to answer the severest judge who should examine\nnot only his actions, but his thoughts as well. Now not only would an\noutsider condemn him, he condemns himself. He confesses openly that he\nis all compact of envy and hatred.\n\n'The best and most sacred right of kings,' he says, 'is the right to\npardon. And I have always felt myself a king so long as I used this\nright prodigally. I never judged, I was compassionate, I pardoned every\none right and left.... But now I am king no more. There's something\ngoing on in me which belongs only to slaves. Day and night evil\nthoughts roam about in my head, and feelings which I never knew before\nhave made their home in my soul. I hate and despise; I'm exasperated,\ndisturbed, and afraid. I've become strict beyond measure, exacting,\nunkind and suspicious.... What does it all mean? If my new thoughts and\nfeelings come from a change of my convictions, where could the change\ncome from? Has the world grown worse and I better, or was I blind and\nindifferent before? But if the change is due to the general decline\nof my physical and mental powers--I am sick and losing weight every\nday--then I am in a pitiable position. It means that my new thoughts\nare abnormal and unhealthy, that I must be ashamed of them and consider\nthem valueless....\n\nThe question is asked by the old professor on the point of death, and\nin his person by Tchekhov himself. Which is better, to be a king, or an\nold, envious, malicious 'toad,' as he calls himself elsewhere? There\nis no denying the originality of the question. In the words above you\nfeel the price which Tchekhov had to pay for his originality, and with\nhow great joy he would have exchanged all his original thoughts--at\nthe moment when his 'new' point of view had become clear to him--for\nthe most ordinary, banal capacity for benevolence. He has, no doubt\nfelt that his way of thinking is pitiable, shameful and disgusting.\nHis moods revolt him no less than his appearance, which he describes\nin the following lines: '... I am a man of sixty-two, with a bald\nhead, false teeth and an incurable tic. My name is as brilliant and\nprepossessing, as I myself am dull and ugly. My head and hands tremble\nfrom weakness; my neck, like that of one of Turgeniev's heroines,\nresembles the handle of a counter-bass; my chest is hollow and my\nback narrow. When I speak or read my mouth twists, and when I smile\nmy whole face is covered with senile, deathly wrinkles.' Unpleasant\nface, unpleasant moods! Let the most sweet natures and compassionate\nperson but give a side-glance at such a monster, and despite himself\na cruel thought would awaken in him: that he should lose no time in\nkilling, in utterly destroying this pitiful and disgusting vermin, or\nif the laws forbid recourse to such strong measures, at least in hiding\nhim as far as possible from human eyes, in some prison or hospital\nor asylum. These are measures of suppression sanctioned, I believe,\nnot only by legislation, but by eternal morality as well. But here\nyou encounter resistance of a particular kind. Physical strength to\nstruggle with the warders, executioners, attendants, moralists--the old\nprofessor has none; a little child could knock him down. Persuasion\nand prayer, he knows well, will avail him nothing. So he strikes out\nin despair: he begins to cry over all the world in a terrible, wild,\nheartrending voice about some rights of his: '... I have a passionate\nand hysterical desire to stretch out my hands and moan aloud. I want to\ncry out that fate has doomed me, a famous man, to death; that in some\nsix months here in the auditorium another will be master. I want to cry\nout that I am poisoned; that new ideas that I did not know before have\npoisoned the last days of my life, and sting my brain incessantly like\nmosquitoes. At that moment my position seems so terrible to me that\nI want all my students to be terrified, to jump from their seats and\nrush panic-stricken to the door, shrieking in despair.' The professor's\narguments will hardly move any one. Indeed I do not know if there is\nany argument in those words. But this awful, inhuman moan.... Imagine\nthe picture: a bald, ugly old man, with trembling hands, and twisted\nmouth, and skinny neck, eyes mad with fear, wallowing like a beast on\nthe ground and wailing, wailing, wailing.... What does he want? He had\nlived a long and interesting life; now he had only to round it off\nnicely, with all possible calm, quietly and solemnly to take leave of\nthis earthly existence. Instead he rends himself, and flings himself\nabout, calls almost the whole universe to judgment, and clutches\nconvulsively at the few days left to him. And Tchekhov--what did\nTchekhov do? Instead of passing by on the other side, he supports the\nprodigious monster, devotes pages and pages to the 'experiences of his\nsoul,' and gradually brings the reader to a point at which, instead of\na natural and lawful sense of indignation, unprofitable and dangerous\nsympathies for the decomposing, decaying creature are awakened in\nhis heart. But every one knows that it is impossible to _help_ the\nprofessor; and if it is impossible to help, then it follows we must\nforget. That is as plain as _a b c._ What use or what meaning could\nthere be in the endless picturing--daubing, as Tolstoi would say--of\nthe intolerable pains of the agony which inevitably leads to death?\n\nIf the professor's 'new' thoughts and feelings shone bright with\nbeauty, nobility or heroism, the case would be different. The reader\ncould learn something from it. But Tchekhov's story shows that these\nqualities belonged to his hero's old thoughts. Now that his illness has\nbegun, there has sprung up within him a revulsion from everything which\neven remotely resembles a lofty feeling. When his pupil Katy turns to\nhim for advice what she should do, the famous scholar, the friend of\nPirogov, Kavelin and Nekrassov, who had taught so many generations\nof young men, does not know what to answer. Absurdly he chooses from\nhis memory a whole series of pleasant-sounding words; but they have\nlost all meaning for him. What answer shall he give? he asks himself.\n'It is easy to say, Work, or divide your property among the poor, or\nknow yourself, and because it is easy, I do not know what to answer.'\nKaty, still young, healthy and beautiful, has by Tchekhov's offices\nfallen like the professor into a trap from which no human power can\ndeliver her. From the moment that she knew hopelessness, she had won\nall the author's sympathy. While a person is settled to some work,\nwhile he has a future of some kind before him, Tchekhov is utterly\nindifferent to him. If he does describe him, then he usually does it\nhastily and in a tone of scornful irony. But when he is entangled, and\nso entangled that he cannot be disentangled by any means, then Tchekhov\nbegins to wake up. Colour, energy, creative force, inspiration make\ntheir appearance. Therein perhaps lies the secret of his political\nindifferentism. Notwithstanding all his distrust of projects for a\nbrighter future, Tchekhov like Dostoevsky was evidently not wholly\nconvinced that social reforms and social science were important.\nHowever difficult the social question may be, still it may be solved.\nSome day, perhaps people will so arrange themselves on the earth as\nto live and die without suffering: further than that ideal humanity\ncannot go. Perhaps the authors of stout volumes on Progress do guess\nand foresee something. But just for that reason their work is alien to\nTchekhov. At first by instinct, then consciously, he was attracted to\nproblems which are by essence insoluble like that presented in _The\nTedious Story_: there you have helplessness, sickness, the prospect of\ninevitable death, and no hope whatever to change the situation by a\nhair. This infatuation, whether conscious or instinctive, clearly runs\ncounter to the demands of common sense and normal will. But there is\nnothing else to expect from Tchekhov, an overstrained man. Every one\nknows, or has heard, of hopelessness. On every side, before our very\neyes, are happening terrible and intolerable tragedies, and if every\ndoomed man were to raise such an awful alarm about his destruction as\nNicolai Stepanovich, life would become an inferno; Nicolai Stepanovich\nmust not cry his sufferings aloud over the world, but be careful to\ntrouble people as little as possible. And Tchekhov should have assisted\nthis reputable endeavour by every means in his power. As though there\nwere not thousands of tedious stories in the world--they cannot be\ncounted! And above all stories of the kind that Tchekhov tells should\nbe hidden with special care from human eyes. We have here to do with\nthe decomposition of a living organism. What should we say to a man\nwho would prevent corpses from being buried, and would dig decaying\nbodies from the grave, even though it were on the ground, or rather on\nthe pretext, that they were the bodies of his intimate friends, even\nfamous men of reputation and genius? Such an occupation would rouse\nin a normal and healthy mind nothing but disgust and terror. Once upon\na time, according to popular superstition, sorcerers, necromancers\nand wizards kept company with the dead, and found a certain pleasure\nor even a real satisfaction in that ghastly occupation. But they\ngenerally hid themselves away from mankind in forests and caves, or\nbetook themselves to deserts where they might in isolation surrender\nthemselves to their unnatural inclinations; and if their deeds were\neventually brought to light, healthy men requited them with the stake,\nthe gallows, and the rack. The worst kind of that which is called\nevil, as a rule, had for its source and origin an interest and taste\nfor carrion. Man forgave every crime--cruelty, violence, murder; but\nhe never forgave the unmotived love of death and the seeking of its\nsecret. In this matter modern times, being free from prejudices, have\nadvanced little from the Middle Ages. Perhaps the only difference is\nthat we, engaged in practical affairs, have lost the natural _flair_\nfor good and evil. Theoretically we are even convinced that in our time\nthere are not and cannot be wizards and necromancers. Our confidence\nand carelessness in this reached such a point, that almost everybody\nsaw even in Dostoevsky only an artist and a publicist, and seriously\ndiscussed with him whether the Russian peasant needed to be flogged and\nwhether we ought to lay hands on Constantinople.\n\nMihailovsky alone vaguely conjectured what it all might be when he\ncalled the author of _The Brothers Karamazov_ a 'treasure-digger.'\nI say he 'dimly conjectured, because I think that the deceased\ncritic made the remark partly in allegory, even in joke. But none of\nDostoevsky's other critics made, even by accident, a truer slip of the\npen. Tchekhov, too, was a 'treasure-digger,' a sorcerer, a necromancer,\nan adept in the black art; and this explains his singular infatuation\nfor death, decay and hopelessness.\n\nTchekhov was not of course the only writer to make death the subject\nof his works. But not the theme is important but the manner of its\ntreatment. Tchekhov understands that. 'In all the thoughts, feelings,\nand ideas,' he says, '[which] I form about anything, there is wanting\nthe something universal which could bind all these together in one\nwhole. Each feeling and each thought lives detached in me, and in all\nmy opinions about science, the theatre, literature, and my pupils,\nand in all the little pictures which my imagination paints, not even\nthe most cunning analyst will discover what is called the general\nidea, or the god of the living man. And if this is not there, then\nnothing is there. In poverty such as this, a serious infirmity, fear\nof death, influence of circumstances and people would have been\nenough to over-throw and shatter all that I formerly considered as my\nconception of the world, and all wherein I saw the meaning and joy of\nmy life....' In these words one of the 'newest' of Tchekhov's ideas\nfinds expression, one by which the whole of his subsequent creation is\ndefined. It is expressed in a modest, apologetic form: a man confesses\nthat he is unable to subordinate his thoughts to a higher idea, and\nin that inability he sees his weakness. This was enough to avert from\nhim to some extent the thunders of criticism and the judgment of\npublic opinion. We readily forgive the repentant sinner! But it is an\nunprofitable clemency: to expiate one's guilt, it is not enough to\nconfess it. What was the good of Tchekhov's putting on sackcloth; and\nashes and publicly confessing his guilt, if he was inwardly unchanged?\nIf, while his words acknowledged the general idea as god (without a\ncapital, indeed), he did nothing whatever for it? In words he burns\nincense to god, in deed he curses him. Before his disease a conception\nof the world brought him happiness, now it had shattered into\nfragments. Is it not natural to ask whether the conception actually did\never bring him happiness? Perhaps the happiness had its own independent\norigin, and the conception was invited only as a general to a wedding,\nfor outward show, and never played any essential part. Tchekhov tells\nus circumstantially what joys the professor found in his scientific\nwork, his lectures to the students, his family, and in a good dinner.\nIn all these were present together the conception of the world and\nthe idea, and they did not take away from, but as it were embellished\nlife; so that it seemed that he was working for the ideal, as well\nas creating a family and dining. But now, when for the same ideal's\nsake he has to remain inactive, to suffer, to remain awake of nights,\nto swallow with effort food that has become loathsome to him--the\nconception of the world is shattered into fragments! And it amounts to\nthis, that a conception with a dinner is right, and a dinner without a\nconception equally right--this needs no argument--and a conception _an\nund f\u00fcr sich_ is of no value whatever. Here is the essence of the words\nquoted from Tchekhov. He confesses with horror the presence within him\nof that 'new' idea. It seems to him that he alone of all men is so weak\nand insignificant, that the others ... well, they need only ideals\nand conceptions. And so it is, surely, if we may believe what people\nwrite in books. Tchekhov plagues, tortures and worries himself in every\npossible way, but he can alter nothing; nay worse, conceptions and\nideas, towards which a great many people behave quite carelessly--after\nall, these innocent things do not merit any other attitude--in Tchekhov\nbecome the objects of bitter, inexorable, and merciless hatred. He\ncannot free himself at one single stroke from the power of ideas:\ntherefore he begins a long, slow and stubborn war, I would call it\na guerilla war, against the tyrant who had enslaved him. The whole\nhistory and the separate episodes of his struggle are of absorbing\ninterest, because the most conspicuous representatives of literature\nhave hitherto been convinced that ideas have a magical power. What\nare the majority of writers doing but constructing conceptions of the\nworld--and believing that they are engaged in a work of extraordinary\nimportance and sanctity? Tchekhov offended very many literary men. If\nhis punishment was comparatively slight, that was because he was very\ncautious, and waged war with the air of bringing tribute to the enemy,\nand secondly, because to talent much is forgiven.\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nThe content of _The Tedious Story_ thus reduces to the fact that the\nprofessor, expressing his 'new' thoughts, in essence declares that\nhe finds it impossible to acknowledge the power of the 'idea' over\nhimself, or conscientiously to fulfil that which men consider the\nsupreme purpose, and in the service whereof they see the mission, the\nsacred mission of man. 'God be my judge, I haven't courage enough\nto act according to my conscience,' such is the only answer which\nTchekhov finds in his soul to all demands for a 'conception.' This\nattitude towards 'conceptions' becomes second nature with Tchekhov.\nA conception makes demands; a man acknowledges the justice of these\ndemands and methodically satisfies none of them. Moreover, the justice\nof the demands meets with less and less acknowledgment from him. In\n_The Tedious Story_ the idea still judges the man and tortures him\nwith the mercilessness peculiar to all things inanimate. Exactly like\na splinter stuck into a living body, the idea, alien and hostile,\nmercilessly performs its high mission, until at length the man firmly\nresolves to draw the splinter out of his flesh, however painful that\ndifficult operation may be. In _Ivanov_ the r\u00f4le of the idea is\nalready changed. There not the idea persecutes Tchekhov, but Tchekhov\nthe idea, and with the subtlest division and contempt. The voice of\nthe living nature rises above the artificial habits of civilisation.\nTrue, the struggle still continues, if you will, with alternating\nfortunes. But the old humility is no more. More and more Tchekhov\nemancipates himself from old prejudices and goes--he himself could\nhardly say whither, were he asked. But he prefers to remain without\nan answer, rather than to accept any of the traditional answers. 'I\nknow quite well I have no more than six months to live; and it would\nseem that now I ought to be mainly occupied with questions of the\ndarkness beyond the grave, and the visions which will visit my sleep\nin the earth. But somehow my soul is not curious of these questions,\nthough my mind grants every atom of their importance.' In contrast to\nthe habits of the past, reason is once more pushed out of the door\nwith all due respect, while its rights are handed over to the 'soul,'\nto the dark, vague aspiration which Tchekhov by instinct trusts more\nthan the bright, clear consciousness which beforehand determines the\nbeyond, now that he stands before the fatal pale which divides man from\nthe eternal mystery. Is scientific philosophy indignant? Is Tchekhov\nundermining its surest foundations? But he is an overstrained, abnormal\nman. Certainly you are not bound to listen to him; but once you have\ndecided to do so then you must be prepared for anything. A normal\nperson, even though he be a metaphysician of the extremest ethereal\nbrand, always adjusts his theories to the requirements of the moment;\nhe destroys only to build up from the old material once more. This is\nthe reason why material never fails him. Obedient to the fundamental\nlaw of human nature, long since noted and formulated by the wise, he\nis content to confine himself to the modest part of a seeker after\nforms. Out of iron, which he finds in nature ready to his hand, he\nforges a sword or a plough, a lance or a sickle. The idea of creating\nout of a void hardly even enters his mind. But Tchekhov's heroes,\npersons abnormal _par excellence,_ are faced with this abnormal and\ndreadful necessity. Before them always lies hopelessness, helplessness,\nthe utter impossibility of any action whatsoever. And yet they live\non, they do not die. A strange question, and one of extraordinary\nmoment, here suggests itself. I said that it was foreign to human\nnature to create out of a void. Yet nature often deprives man of\nready material, while at the same time she demands imperatively that\nhe should create. Does this mean that nature contradicts herself,\nor that she perverts her creatures? Is it not more correct to admit\nthat the conception of perversion is of purely human origin. Perhaps\nnature is much more economical and wise than our wisdom, and maybe we\nshould discover much more if instead of dividing people into necessary\nand superfluous, useful and noxious, good and bad, we suppressed\nthe tendency to subjective valuation in ourselves and endeavoured\nwith greater confidence to accept her creations? Otherwise you come\nimmediately--to 'the evil gleam,' 'treasure-digging,' sorcery and\nblack magic--and a wall is raised between men which neither logical\nargument nor even a battery of artillery can break down. I hardly dare\nhope that this consideration will appear convincing to those who are\nused to maintaining the norm; and it is probably unnecessary that the\nnotion of the great opposition of good and bad which is alive among\nmen should die away, just as it is unnecessary that children should\nbe born with the experience of men, or that red cheeks and curly hair\nshould vanish from the earth. At any rate it is impossible. The world\nhas many centuries to its reckoning, many nations have lived and died\nupon the earth, yet as far as we know from the books and traditions\nthat have survived to us, the dispute between good and evil was never\nhushed. And it always so happened that good was not afraid of the light\nof day, and good men lived a united, social life; while evil hid itself\nin darkness, and the wicked always stood alone. Nor could it have been\notherwise.\n\nAll Tchekhov's heroes fear the light. They are lonely. They are ashamed\nof their hopelessness, and they know that men cannot help them.\nThey go somewhere, perhaps even forward, but they call to no one to\nfollow. All things are taken from them: they must create everything\nanew. Thence most probably is derived the unconcealed contempt with\nwhich they behave to the most precious products of common human\ncreativeness. On whatever subject you begin to talk with a Tchekhov\nhero he has one reply to everything: _Nobody can teach me anything._\nYou offer him a new conception of the world: already in your very\nfirst words he feels that they all reduce to an attempt to lay the old\nbricks and stones over again, and he turns from you with impatience,\nand often with rudeness. Tchekhov is an extremely cautious writer.\nHe fears and takes into account public opinion. Yet how unconcealed\nis the aversion he displays to accepted ideas and conceptions of the\nworld. In _The Tedious Story,_ he at any rate preserves the tone and\nattitude of outward obedience. Later he throws aside all precautions,\nand instead of reproaching himself for his inability to submit to the\ngeneral idea, openly rebels against it and jeers at it. In _Ivanov_ it\nalready is sufficiently expressed; there was reason for the outburst\nof indignation which this play provoked in its day. Ivanov, I have\nalready said, is a dead man. The only thing the artist can do with\nhim is to bury him decently, that is, to praise his past, pity his\npresent, and then, in order to mitigate the cheerless impression\nproduced by death, to invite the general idea to the funeral. He might\nrecall the universal problems of humanity in any one of the many\nstereotyped forms, and thus the difficult case which seemed insoluble\nwould be removed. Together with Ivanov's death he should portray a\nbright young life, full of promise, and the impression of death and\ndestruction would lose all its sting and bitterness. Tchekhov does just\nthe opposite. Instead of endowing youth and ideals with power over\ndestruction and death, as all philosophical systems and many works of\nart had done, he ostentatiously makes the good-for-nothing wreck Ivanov\nthe centre of all events. Side by side with Ivanov there are young\nlives, and the idea is also given her representatives. But the young\nSasha, a wonderful and charming girl, who falls utterly in love with\nthe broken hero, not only does not save her lover, but herself perishes\nunder the burden of the impossible task. And the idea? It is enough\nto recall the figure of Doctor Lvov alone, whom Tchekhov entrusted\nwith the responsible r\u00f4le of a representative of the all-powerful\nidea, and you will at once perceive that he considers himself not as\nsubject and vassal, but as the bitterest enemy of the idea. The moment\nDoctor Lvov opens his mouth, all the characters, as though acting on\na previous agreement, vie with each other in their haste to interrupt\nhim in the most insulting way, by jests, threats, and almost by smacks\nin the face. But the doctor fulfils his duties as a representative\nof the great power with no less skill and conscientiousness than his\npredecessors--Starodoum[1] and the other reputable heroes of the old\ndrama. He champions the wronged, seeks to restore rights that have been\ntrodden underfoot, sets himself dead against injustice. Has he stepped\nbeyond the limits of his plenipotentiary powers? Of course not; but\nwhere Ivanovs and hopelessness reign there is not and cannot be room\nfor the idea.\n\nThey cannot possibly live together. And the eyes of the reader, who\nis accustomed to think that every kingdom may fall and perish, yet\nthe kingdom of the idea stands firm _in saecula saeculorum,_ behold\na spectacle unheard of: the idea dethroned by a helpless, broken,\ngood-for-nothing man! What is there that Ivanov does not say? In the\nvery first act he fires off a tremendous tirade, not at a chance\ncomer, but at the incarnate idea--Starodoum-Lvov. 'I have the right\nto give you advice. Don't you marry a Jewess, or an abnormal, or a\nblue-stocking. Choose something ordinary, greyish, without any bright\ncolours or superfluous shades. Make it a principle to build your\nlife of _clich\u00e9s._ The more grey and monotonous the background, the\nbetter. My dear man, don't fight thousands single-handed, don't tilt\nat windmills, don't run your head against the wall. God save you from\nall kinds of Back-to-the-Landers' advanced doctrines, passionate\nspeeches.... Shut yourself tight in your own shell, and do the tiny\nlittle work set you by God.... It's cosier, honester, and healthier.'\n\nDoctor Lvov, the representative of the all-powerful, sovereign idea,\nfeels that his sovereign's majesty is injured, that to suffer such\nan offence really means to abdicate the throne. Surely Ivanov was a\nvassal, and so he must remain. How dare he let his tongue advise, how\ndare he raise his voice when it is his part to listen reverently, and\nto obey in silent resignation? This is rank rebellion! Lvov attempts to\ndraw himself up to his full height and answer the arrogant rebel with\ndignity. Nothing comes of it. In a weak, trembling voice he mutters the\naccustomed words, which but lately had invincible power. But they do\nnot produce their customary effect. Their virtue is departed. Whither?\nLvov dares not own it even to himself. But it is no longer a secret\nto any one. Whatever mean and ugly things Ivanov may have done--Tchekhov\nis not close-fisted in this matter: in his hero's conduct-book\nare written all manner of offences; almost to the deliberate murder\nof a woman devoted to him--it is to him and not to Lvov that public\nopinion bows. Ivanov is the spirit of destruction, rude, violent,\npitiless, sticking at nothing: yet the word 'scoundrel,' which the\ndoctor tears out of himself with a painful effort and hurls at him,\ndoes not stick to him. He is somehow right, with his own peculiar\nright, to others inconceivable, yet still, if we may believe Tchekhov,\nincontestable. Sasha, a creature of youth and insight and talent,\npasses by the honest Starodoum-Lvov unheeding, on her way to render\nworship to him. The whole play is based on that. It is true, Ivanov in\nthe end shoots himself, and that may, if you like, give you a formal\nground for believing that the final victory remained with Lvov. And\nTchekhov did well to end the drama in this way--it could not be spun\nout to infinity. It would have been no easy matter to tell the whole of\nIvanov's history. Tchekhov went on writing for fifteen years after, all\nthe time telling the unfinished story, yet even then he had to break it\noff without reaching the end....\n\nIt would show small understanding of Tchekhov to take it into one's\nhead to interpret Ivanov's words to Lvov as meaning that Tchekhov,\nlike the Tolstoi of the _War and Peace_ period, saw his ideal in the\neveryday arrangement of life. Tchekhov was only fighting against\nthe idea, and he said to it the most abusive thing that entered his\nhead. For what can be more insulting to the idea than to be forced\nto listen to the praise of everyday life? But when the opportunity\ncame his way, Tchekhov could describe everyday life with equal venom.\nThe story, _The Teacher of Literature,_ may serve as an example. The\nteacher lives entirely by Ivanov's prescription. He has his job, and\nhis wife--neither Jewess nor abnormal, nor blue-stocking--and a home\nthat fits like a shell...; but all this does not prevent Tchekhov\nfrom driving the poor teacher by slow degrees into the usual trap, and\nbringing him to a condition wherein it is left to him only 'to fall\ndown and weep, and beat his head against the floor.' Tchekhov had no\n'ideal,' not even the ideal of 'everyday life' which Tolstoi glorified\nwith such inimitable and incomparable mastery in his early works. An\nideal presupposes submission, the voluntary denial of one's own right\nto independence, freedom and power; and demands of this kind, even a\nhint of such demands, roused in Tchekhov all that force of disgust and\nrepulsion of which he alone was capable.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: A hero from Fon-Vizin's play _The Minor._ Starodoum is a\n_raisonneur,_ a 'positive' type, always uttering truisms.]\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nThus the real, the only hero of Tchekhov, is the hopeless man. He\nhas absolutely no _action_ left for him in life, save to beat his\nhead against the stones. It is not surprising that such a man should\nbe intolerable to his neighbours. Everywhere he brings death and\ndestruction with him. He himself is aware of it, but he has not the\npower to go apart from men. With all his soul he endeavours to tear\nhimself out of his horrible condition. Above all he is attracted to\nfresh, young, untouched beings; with their help he hopes to recover his\nright to life which he has lost. The hope is vain. The beginning of\ndecay always appears, all-conquering, and at the end Tchekhov's hero\nis left to himself alone. He has nothing, he must create everything\nfor himself. And this 'creation out of the void,' or more truly the\npossibility of this creation, is the only problem which can occupy and\ninspire Tchekhov. When he has stripped his hero of the last shred, when\nnothing is left for him but to beat his head against the wall, Tchekhov\nbegins to feel something like satisfaction, a strange fire lights in\nhis burnt-out eyes, a fire which Mihailovsky did not call 'evil' in\nvain.\n\nCreation out of the void! Is not this task beyond the limit of human\npowers, of human _rights_? Mihailovsky obviously had one straight\nanswer to the question.... As for Tchekhov himself, if the question\nwere put to him in such a deliberately definite form, he would probably\nbe unable to answer, although he was continually engaged in the\nactivity, or more properly, because he was continually so engaged.\nWithout fear of mistake, one may say that the people who answer the\nquestion without hesitation in either sense have never come near to\nit, or to any of the so-called ultimate questions of life. Hesitation\nis a necessary and integral element in the judgment of those men\nwhom Fate has brought near to false problems. How Tchekhov's hand\ntrembled while he wrote the concluding lines of his _Tedious Story_!\nThe professor's pupil--the being nearest and dearest to him, but like\nhimself, for all her youth, overstrained and bereft of all hope--has\ncome to Kharkov to seek his advice. The following conversation takes\nplace:\n\n\"Nicolai Stepanich!\" she says, growing pale and pressing her hands to\nher breast. \"Nicolai Stepanich! I can't go on like this any longer. For\nGod's sake tell me now, immediately. What shall I do? Tell me, what\nshall I do?\"\n\n\"What can I say? I am beaten. I can say nothing.\"\n\n\"But tell me, I implore you,\" she continues, out of breath and\ntrembling all over her body. \"I swear to you, I can't go on like this\nany longer. I haven't the strength.\"\n\nShe drops into a chair and begins to sob. She throws her head back,\nwrings her hands, stamps with her feet; her hat falls from her head and\ndangles by its string, her hair is loosened.\n\n\"Help me, help,\" she implores. \"I can't bear it any more.\"\n\n\"There's nothing that I can say to you, Katy,\" I say.\n\n\"Help me,\" she sobs, seizing my hand and kissing it. \"You 're my\nfather, my only friend. You're wise and learned, and you've lived long\nI You were a teacher. Tell me what to do.\"\n\n'\"Upon my conscience, Katy, I do not know.\"\n\n'I am bewildered and surprised, stirred by her sobbing, and I can\nhardly stand upright.\n\n'\"Let's have some breakfast, Katy,\" I say with a constrained smile.\n\n'Instantly I add in a sinking voice: \"I shall be dead soon, Katy....\"\n\n'\"Only one word, only one word,\" she weeps and stretches out her hands\nto me. \"What shall I do?...\"'\n\nBut the professor has not the word to give. He turns the conversation\nto the weather, Kharkov and other indifferent matters. Katy gets up and\nholds out her hand to him, without looking at him. 'I want to ask her,'\nhe concludes his story. '\"So it means you won't be at my funeral?\" But\nshe does not look at me; her hand is cold and like a stranger's ... I\nescort her to the door in silence.... She goes out of my room and walks\ndown the long passage, without looking back. She knows that my eyes are\nfollowing her, and probably on the landing she will look back. No, she\ndid not look back. The black dress showed for the last time, her steps\nwere stilled.... Good-bye, my treasure!...'\n\nThe only answer which the wise, educated, long-lived Nicolai\nStepanovich, a teacher all his life, can give to Katy's question is,\n'I don't know.' There is not, in all his great experience of the\npast, a single method, rule, or suggestion, which might apply, even in\nthe smallest degree, to the wild incongruity of the new conditions of\nKaty's life and his own. Katy can live thus no longer; neither can he\nhimself continue to endure his disgusting and shameful helplessness.\nThey both, old and young, with their whole hearts desire to support\neach other; they can between them find no way. To her question: 'What\nshall I do?' he replied: 'I shall soon be dead.' To his 'I shall\nsoon be dead' she answers with wild sobbing, wringing her hands, and\nabsurdly repeating the same words over and over again. It would have\nbeen better to have asked no question, not to have begun that frank\nconversation of souls. But they do not yet understand that. In their\nold life talk would bring them relief and frank confession, intimacy.\nBut now, after such a meeting they can suffer each other no longer.\nKaty leaves the old professor, her foster-father, her true father and\nfriend, in the knowledge that he has become a stranger to her. She\ndid not even turn round towards him as she went away. Both felt that\nnothing remained save to beat their heads against the wall. Therein\neach acts at his own peril, and there can be no dreaming of a consoling\nunion of souls.\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nTchekhov knew what conclusions he had reached in _The Tedious Story_\nand _Ivanov._ Some of his critics also knew, and told him so. I\ncannot venture to say what was the cause--whether fear of public\nopinion, or his horror at his own discoveries, or both together--but\nevidently there came a moment to Tchekhov when he decided at all costs\nto surrender his position and retreat. The fruit of this decision was\n_Ward No. 6._ In this story the hero of the drama is the same familiar\nTchekhov character, the doctor. The setting, too, is quite the usual\none, though changed to a slight extent. Nothing in particular has\noccurred in the doctor's life. He happened to come to an out-of-the-way\nplace in the provinces, and gradually, by continually avoiding\nlife and people, he reached a condition of utter will-lessness, which\nhe represented to himself as the ideal of human happiness. He is\nindifferent to everything, beginning with his hospital, where he can\nhardly ever be found, where under the reign of the drunken brute of an\nassistant the patients are swindled and neglected.\n\nIn the mental ward reigns a porter who is a discharged soldier: he\npunches his restless patients into shape. The doctor does not care,\nas though he were living in some distant other world, and does not\nunderstand what is going on before his very eyes. He happens to enter\nhis ward and to have a conversation with one of his patients. He\nlistens quietly to him; but his answer is words instead of deeds. He\ntries to show his lunatic acquaintance that external influences cannot\naffect us in any way at all. The lunatic does not agree, becomes\nimpertinent, presents objections, in which, as in the thoughts of many\nlunatics, nonsensical assertions are mixed with very profound remarks.\nIndeed, there is so little nonsense that from the conversation you\nwould hardly imagine that you have to do with a lunatic. The doctor\nis delighted with his new friend, but does nothing whatsoever to\nmake him more comfortable. The patient is still under the porter's\nthumb as he used to be, and the porter gives him a thrashing on the\nleast provocation. The patient, the doctor, the people round, the\nwhole setting of the hospital and the doctor's rooms, are described\nwith wonderful talent. Everything induces you to make absolutely no\nresistance and to become fatalistically indifferent:--let them get\ndrunk, let them fight, let them thieve, let them be brutal--what does\nit matter! Evidently it is so predestined by the supreme council of\nnature. The philosophy of inactivity which the doctor professes is\nas it were prompted and whispered by the immutable laws of human\nexistence. Apparently there is no force which may tear one from its\npower. So far everything is more or less in the Tchekhov style. But\nthe end is completely different. By the intrigues of his colleague,\nthe doctor himself is taken as a patient into the mental ward. He\nis deprived of freedom, shut up in a wing of the hospital, and even\nthrashed, thrashed by the same porter whose behaviour he had taught his\nlunatic acquaintance to accept, thrashed before his acquaintance's\nvery eyes. The doctor instantly awakens as though out of a dream. A\nfierce desire to struggle and to protest manifests itself in him. True,\nat this moment he dies; but the idea is triumphant, still. The critics\ncould consider themselves quite satisfied. Tchekhov had openly repented\nand renounced the theory of non-resistance; and, I believe, _Ward No.\n6_ met with a sympathetic reception at the time. In passing I would say\nthat the doctor dies very beautifully: in his last moments he sees a\nherd of deer....\n\nIndeed, the construction of this story leaves no doubt in the mind.\nTchekhov wished to compromise, and he compromised. He had come to feel\nhow intolerable was hopelessness, how impossible the creation from a\nvoid. To beat one's head against the stones, eternally to beat one's\nhead against the stones, is so horrible that it were better to return\nto idealism. Then the truth of the wonderful Russian saying was proved:\n'Don't forswear the beggar's wallet nor the prison.' Tchekhov joined\nthe choir of Russian writers, and began to praise the idea. But not\nfor long. His very next story, _The Duel,_ has a different character.\nIts conclusion is also apparently idealistic, but only in appearance.\nThe principal hero Layevsky is a parasite like all Tchekhov's heroes.\nHe does nothing, can do nothing, does not even wish to do anything,\nlives chiefly at others' expense, runs up debts, seduces women.... His\ncondition is intolerable. He is living with another man's wife, whom he\nhad come to loathe as he loathes himself, yet he cannot get rid of her.\nHe is always in straitened circumstances and in debt everywhere: his\nfriends dislike and despise him. His state of mind is always such that\nhe is ready to run no matter where, never looking backwards, only away\nfrom the place where he is living now. His illegal wife is in roughly\nthe same position, unless it be even more horrible. Without knowing\nwhy, without love, without even being attracted, she gives herself to\nthe first, commonplace man she meets; and then she feels as though\nshe had been covered from head to foot in filth, and the filth had\nstuck so close to her that not ocean itself could wash her clean. This\ncouple lives in the world, in a remote little place in the Caucasus,\nand naturally attracts Tchekhov's attention. There is no denying the\ninterest of the subject: two persons befouled, who can neither tolerate\nothers nor themselves....\n\nFor contrast's sake Tchekhov brings Layevsky into collision with the\nzoologist, Von Koren, who has come to the seaside town on important\nbusiness--every one recognises its importance--to study the embryology\nof the medusa. Von Koren, as one may see from his name, is of German\norigin, and therefore deliberately represented as a healthy, normal,\nclean man, the grandchild of Goncharov's Stolz, the direct opposite\nof Layevsky, who on his side is nearly related to our old friend\nOblomov. But in Goncharov the contrast between Stolz and Oblomov is\nquite different in nature and meaning to the contrast in Tchekhov. The\nnovelist of the 'forties hoped that a _rapprochement_ with Western\nculture would renew and resuscitate Russia. And Oblomov himself is not\nrepresented as an utterly hopeless person. He is only lazy, inactive,\nunenterprising. You have the feeling that were he to awaken he would\nbe a match for a dozen Stolzs. Layevsky is a different affair. He is\nawake already, he was awakened years ago, but his awakening did him no\ngood.... 'He does not love nature; he has no God; he or his companions\nhad ruined every trustful girl he had known; all his life long he\nhad not planted one single little tree, nor grown one blade of grass\nin his own garden, nor while he lived among the living, had he saved\nthe life of one single fly; but only ruined and destroyed, and lied,\nand lied....' The good-natured sluggard Oblomov degenerated into a\ndisgusting, terrible animal, while the clean Stolz lived and remained\nclean in his posterity! But to the new Oblomov he speaks differently.\nVon Koren calls Layevsky a scoundrel and a rogue, and demands that\nhe should be punished with the utmost severity. To reconcile them is\nimpossible. The more they meet, the deeper, the more merciless, the\nmore implacable is their hatred for each other. It is impossible that\nthey should live together on the earth. It must be one or the other:\neither the normal Von Koren, or the degenerate decadent Layevsky.\nOf course, all the external, material force is on Von Koren's side\nin the struggle. He is always in the right, always victorious,\nalways triumphant--in act no less than in theory. It is curious that\nTchekhov, the irreconcilable enemy of all kinds of philosophy--not\none of his heroes philosophises, or if he does, his philosophising is\nunsuccessful, ridiculous, weak and unconvincing--makes an exception\nfor Von Koren, a typical representative of the positive, materialistic\nschool. His words breathe vigour and conviction. They have in them even\npathos and a maximum of logical sequence. There are many materialist\nheroes in Tchekhov's stories, but in their materialism there is a\ntinge of veiled idealism, according to the stereotyped prescription of\nthe 'sixties. Such heroes Tchekhov ridicules and derides. Idealism of\nevery kind, whether open or concealed, roused feelings of intolerable\nbitterness in Tchekhov. He found it more pleasant to listen to the\nmerciless menaces of a downright materialist than to accept the\ndry-as-dust consolations of humanising idealism. An invincible power\nis in the world, crushing and crippling man--this is clear and even\npalpable. The least indiscretion, and the mightiest and the most\ninsignificant alike fall victims to it. One can only deceive oneself\nabout it so long as one knows of it only by hearsay. But the man who\nhad once been in the iron claws of necessity loses for ever his taste\nfor idealistic self-delusion. No more does he diminish the enemy's\npower, he will rather exaggerate it. And the pure logical materialism\nwhich Von Koren professes gives the most complete expression of our\ndependence upon the elemental powers of nature. Von Koren's speech\nhas the stroke of a hammer, and each blow strikes not Layevsky but\nTchekhov himself on his wounds. He gives more and more strength to\nVon Koren's arm, he puts himself in the way of his blows. For what\nreason? Decide as you may. Perhaps Tchekhov cherished a secret hope\nthat self-inflicted torment might be the one road to a new life? He\nhas not told us so. Perhaps he did not know the reason himself, and\nperhaps he was afraid to offend the positive idealism which held such\nundisputed sway over contemporary literature. As yet he dared not\nlift up his voice against the public opinion of Europe--for we do not\nourselves invent our philosophical conceptions; they drift down on the\nwind from Europe! And, to avoid quarrelling with people, he devised\na commonplace, happy ending for his terrible story. At the end of\nthe story Layevsky 'reforms': he marries his mistress; gives up his\ndissolute life; and begins to devote himself to transcribing documents,\nin order to pay his debts. Normal people can be perfectly satisfied,\nsince normal people read only the last lines of the fable,--the moral;\nand the moral of _The Duel_ is most wholesome: Layevsky reforms and\nbegins transcribing documents. Of course it may seem that such an\nending is more like a gibe at morality; but normal people are not too\npenetrating psychologists. They are scared of double meanings and, with\nthe 'sincerity' peculiar to themselves, they take every word of the\nwriter for good coin. Good luck to them!\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\nThe only philosophy which Tchekhov took seriously, and therefore\nseriously fought, was positivist materialism--just the positivist\nmaterialism, the limited materialism which does not pretend to\ntheoretical completeness. With all his soul Tchekhov felt the awful\ndependence of a living being upon the invisible but invincible and\nostentatiously soulless laws of nature. And materialism, above all\nscientific materialism, which is reserved and does not hasten in\npursuit of the final word, and eschews logical completeness, wholly\nreduces to the definition of the external conditions of our existence.\nThe experience of every day, every hour, every minute, convinces us\nthat lonely and weak man brought to face with the laws of nature,\nmust always adapt himself and give way, give way, give way. The old\nprofessor could not regain his youth; the overstrained Ivanov could\nnot recover his strength; Layevsky could not wash away the filth\nwith which he was covered--interminable series of implacable, purely\nmaterialistic _non possumus,_ against which human genius can set\nnothing but submission or forgetfulness. _R\u00e9signe-toi, mon c\u0153ur,\ndors ton sommeil de brute--_we shall find no other words before\nthe pictures which are unfolded in Tchekhov's books. The submission\nis but an outward show; under it lies concealed a hard, malignant\nhatred of the unknown enemy. Sleep and oblivion are only seeming.\nDoes a man sleep, does he forget, when he calls his sleep, _sommeil\nde brute_? But how can he change? The tempestuous protests with which\n_The Tedious Story_ is filled, the need to pour forth the pent-up\nindignation, soon begin to appear useless, and even insulting to\nhuman dignity. Tchekhov's last rebellious work is _Uncle Vanya._ Like\nthe old professor and like Ivanov, Uncle Vanya raises the alarm and\nmakes an incredible pother about his ruined life. He, too, in a voice\nnot his own, fills the stage with his cries: 'Life is over, life\nis over,'--as though indeed any of these about him, any one in the\nwhole world, could be responsible for his misfortune. But wailing and\nlamentation is not sufficient for him. He covers his own mother with\ninsults. Aimlessly, like a lunatic, without need or purpose, he begins\nshooting at his imaginary enemy, Sonya's pitiable and unhappy father.\nHis voice is not enough, he turns to the revolver. He is ready to fire\nall the cannon on earth, to beat every drum, to ring every bell. To\nhim it seems that the whole of mankind, the whole of the universe, is\nsleeping, that the neighbours must be awakened. He is prepared for\nany extravagance, having no rational way of escape; for to confess at\nonce that there is no escape is beyond the capacity of any man. Then\nbegins a Tchekhov history: 'He cannot reconcile himself, neither can\nhe refuse so to reconcile himself. He can only weep and beat his head\nagainst the wall.' Uncle Vanya does it openly, before men's eyes; but\nhow painful to him is the memory of this frank unreserve! When every\none has departed after a stupid and painful scene, Uncle Vanya realises\nthat he should have kept silence, that it is no use to confess certain\nthings to any one, not even to one's nearest friend. A stranger's eye\ncannot endure the sight of hopelessness. 'Your life is over--you have\nyourself to thank for it: you are a human being no more, all human\nthings are ah en to you. Your neighbours are no more neighbours to you,\nbut strangers. You have no right either to help others or to expect\nhelp from them. Your destiny is--absolute loneliness.' Little by little\nTchekhov becomes convinced of this truth: _Uncle Vanya_ is the last\ntrial of loud public protest, of a vigorous 'declaration of rights.'\nAnd even in this drama Uncle Vanya is the only one to rage, although\nthere are among the characters Doctor Astrov and poor Sonya, who might\nalso avail themselves of their right to rage, and even to fire the\ncannon. But they are silent. They even repeat certain comfortable and\nangelic words concerning the happy future of mankind; which is to say\nthat their silence is doubly deep, seeing that 'comfortable words' upon\nthe lips of such people are the evidence of their final severance from\nlife: they have left the whole world, and now they admit no one to\ntheir presence. They have fenced themselves with comfortable words, as\nwith the Great Wall of China, from the curiosity and attention of their\nneighbours. Outwardly they resemble all men, therefore no man dares to\ntouch their inward life.\n\nWhat is the meaning and significance of this straining inward labour\nin those whose lives are over? Probably Tchekhov would answer this\nquestion as Nicolai Stepanovich answered Katy's, with 'I do not\nknow.' He would add nothing. But this life alone, more like to death\nthan life, attracted and engaged him. Therefore his utterance grew\nsofter and slower with every year. Of all our writers Tchekhov has\nthe softest voice. All the energy of his heroes is turned inwards.\nThey create nothing visible; worse, they destroy all things visible\nby their outward passivity and inertia. A 'positive thinker' like Von\nKoren brands them with terrible words, and the more content is he with\nhimself and his justice, the more energy he puts into his anathemas.\n'Scoundrels, villains, degenerates, degraded animals!'--what did Von\nKoren not devise to fit the Layevskys? The manifestly positive thinker\nwants to force Layevsky to transcribe documents. The surreptitiously\npositive thinkers--idealists and metaphysicians--do not use abusive\nwords. Instead they bury Tchekhov's nerves alive in their idealistic\ncemeteries, which are called conceptions of the world. Tchekhov himself\nabstains from the 'solution of the question' with a persistency to\nwhich most of the critics probably wished a better fate, and he\ncontinues his long stories of men and the life of men, who have nothing\nto lose, as though the only interest in life were this nightmare\nsuspension between life and death. What does it teach us of life or\ndeath? Again we must answer: 'I do not know,'--those words which\narouse the greatest aversion in positive thinkers, but appear in some\nmysterious way to be the permanent elements in the ideas of Tchekhov's\npeople. This is the reason why the philosophy of materialism, though\nso hostile, is yet so near to them. It contains no answer which can\ncompel man to cheerful submission. It bruises and destroys him, but\nit does not call itself rational; it does not demand gratitude; it\ndoes not demand anything, since it has neither soul nor speech. A\nman may acknowledge it and hate it. If he manages to get square with\nit--he is right; if he fails--_vae victis._ How comfortably sounds\nthe voice of the unconcealed ruthlessness of inanimate, impersonal,\nindifferent nature, compared with the hypocritical and cloying melodies\nof idealistic, humanistic conceptions of the world! Then again--and\nthis is the chiefest thing of all--men can struggle with nature still!\nAnd in the struggle with nature every weapon is lawful. In the struggle\nwith nature man always remains man, and, therefore, right, whatever\nmeans he tries for his salvation, even if he were to refuse to accept\nthe fundamental principle of the world's being--the indestructibility\nof matter and energy, the law of inertia and the rest--since who will\ndispute that the most colossal dead force must be subservient to\nman? But a conception of the world is an utterly different affair!\nBefore uttering a word it puts forward an irreducible demand: man must\nserve the idea. And this demand is considered not merely as something\nunderstood, but as of extraordinary sublimity. Is it strange then\nthat in the choice between idealism and materialism Tchekhov inclined\nto the latter--the strong but honest adversary? With idealism a man\ncan struggle only by contempt, and Tchekhov's works leave nothing\nto be desired in this respect.... But how shall a man struggle with\nmaterialism? And can it be overcome? Perhaps Tchekhov's method may\nseem strange to my reader, nevertheless it is clear that he came to\nthe conclusion that there was only one way to struggle, to which the\nprophets of old turned themselves: to beat one's head against the wall.\nWithout thunder or cannon or alarm, in loneliness and silence, remote\nfrom their fellows and their fellows' fellows, to gather all the forces\nof despair for an absurd attempt long since condemned by science.\nHave you any right to expect from Tchekhov an approval of scientific\nmethods? Science has robbed him of everything: he is condemned to\ncreate from the void, to an activity of which a normal man, using\nnormal means, is utterly incapable. To achieve the impossible one must\nfirst leave the road of routine. However obstinately we may pursue\nour scientific quests, they will not lead us to the elixir of life.\nScience began with casting away the longing for human omnipotence as in\nprinciple unattainable: her methods are such that success along certain\nof her paths preclude even seeking along others. In other words,\nscientific method is defined by the character of the problems which\nshe puts to herself. Indeed, not one of her problems can be solved by\nbeating one's head against the wall. But this method, old-fashioned\nthough it is--I repeat, it was known to the prophets and used by\nthem--promised more to Tchekhov and his nerves than all inductions and\ndeductions (which were not invented by science, but have existed since\nthe beginning of the world). This prompts a man with some mysterious\ninstinct, and appears upon the scene whenever the need of it arises.\nScience condemns it. But that is nothing strange: it condemns science.\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n\nNow perhaps the further development and direction of Tchekhov's\ncreation will be intelligible, and that peculiar and unique blend\nin him of sober materialism and fanatical stubbornness in seeking\nnew paths, always round about and hazardous. Like Hamlet, he would\ndig beneath his opponent a mine one yard deeper, so that he may\nat one moment blow engineer and engine into the air. His patience\nand fortitude in this hard, underground toil are amazing and to\nmany intolerable. Everywhere is darkness, not a ray, not a spark,\nbut Tchekhov goes forward, slowly, hardly, hardly moving.... An\ninexperienced or impatient eye will perhaps observe no movement at all.\nIt may be Tchekhov himself does not know for certain whether he is\nmoving forward or marking time. To calculate beforehand is impossible.\nImpossible even to hope. Man has entered that stage of his existence\nwherein the cheerful and foreseeing mind refuses its service. It is\nimpossible for him to present to himself a clear and distinct notion of\nwhat is going on. Everything takes on a tinge of fantastical absurdity.\nOne believes and disbelieves--everything. In _The Black Monk_ Tchekhov\ntells of a new reality, and in a tone which suggests that he is himself\nat a loss to say where the reality ends and the phantasmagoria begins.\nThe black monk leads the young scholar into some mysterious remoteness,\nwhere the best dreams of mankind shall be realised. The people about\ncall the monk a hallucination and fight him with medicines--drugs,\nbetter foods and milk. Kovrin himself does not know who is right. When\nhe is speaking to the monk, it seems to him that the monk is right;\nwhen he sees before him his weeping wife and the serious, anxious\nfaces of the doctors, he confesses that he is under the influence of\nfixed ideas, which lead him straight to lunacy. Finally the black\nmonk is victorious. Kovrin has not the power to support the banality\nwhich surrounds him; he breaks with his wife and her relations, who\nappear like inquisitors in his eyes, and goes away somewhere--but in\nour sight he arrives nowhere. At the end of the story he dies in order\nto give the author the right to make an end. This is always the case:\nwhen the author does not know what to do with his hero he kills him.\nSooner or later in all probability this habit will be abandoned. In\nthe future, probably, writers will convince themselves and the public\nthat any kind of artificial completion is absolutely superfluous.\nThe matter is exhausted--stop the tale short, even though it be on\na half-word. Tchekhov did so sometimes, but only sometimes. In most\ncases he preferred to satisfy the traditional demands and to supply his\nreaders with an end. This habit is not so unimportant as at first sight\nit may seem. Consider even _The Black Monk._ The death of the hero is\nas it were an indication that abnormality must, in Tchekhov's opinion,\nnecessarily lead through an absurd life to an absurd death: but this\nwas hardly Tchekhov's firm conviction. It is clear that he expected\nsomething from abnormality, and therefore gave no deep attention to\nmen who had left the common track. True, he came to no firm or definite\nconclusions, for all the tense effort of his creation. He became so\nfirmly convinced that there was no issue from the entangled labyrinth,\nthat the labyrinth with its infinite wanderings, its perpetual\nhesitations and strayings, its uncaused griefs and joys uncaused--in\nbrief, all things which normal men so fear and shun--became the very\nessence of his life. Of this and this alone must a man tell. Not of our\ninvention is normal life, nor abnormal. Why then should the first alone\nbe considered as the real reality?\n\n_The Sea-Gull_ must be considered one of the most characteristic, and\ntherefore one of the most remarkable of Tchekhov's works. Therein the\nartist's true attitude to life received its most complete expression.\nHere all the characters are either blind, and afraid to move from\ntheir seats in case they lose the way home, or half-mad, struggling\nand tossing about to no end nor purpose. Arkadzina the famous actress\nclings with her teeth to her seventy thousand roubles, her fame, and\nher last lover. Tregovin the famous writer writes day in, day out;\nhe writes and writes, knowing neither end nor aim. People read his\nworks and praise them, but he is not his own master; like Marko, the\nferryman in the tale, he labours on without taking his hand from the\noar, carrying passengers from one bank to the other. The boat, the\npassengers, and the river too, bore him to death. But how can he get\nrid of them? He might give the oars over to the first-comer: the\nsolution is simple, but after it, as in the tale, he must go to heaven.\nNot Tregovin alone, but all the people in Tchekhov's books who are\nno longer young remind one of Marko the ferryman. It is plain that\nthey dislike their work, but, exactly as though they were hypnotised,\nthey cannot break away from the influence of the alien power. The\nmonotonous, even dismal, rhythm of life has lulled their consciousness\nand will to sleep. Everywhere Tchekhov underlines this strange and\nmysterious trait of human life. His people always speak, always think,\nalways do one and the same thing. One builds houses according to a plan\nmade once for all (_My Life_); another goes on his round of visits\nfrom morn to night, collecting roubles (_Yonitch_); a third is always\nbuying up houses (_Three Years_). Even the language of his characters\nis deliberately monotonous. They are all monotonous, to the point of\nstupidity, and they are all afraid to break the monotony, as though it\nwere the source of extraordinary joys. Read Tregovin's monologue:\n\n'... Let us talk.... Let us talk of my beautiful life.... What shall\nI begin with? [Musing a little.] ... There are such things as fixed\nideas, when a person thinks day and night, for instance, of the moon,\nalways of the moon. I too have my moon. Day and night I am at the\nmercy of one besetting idea: \"I must write, I must write, I must.\" I\nhave hardly finished one story than, for some reason or other, I must\nwrite a second, then a third, and after the third, a fourth. I write\nincessantly, post-haste. I cannot do otherwise. Where then, I ask you,\nis beauty and serenity? What a monstrous life it is! I am sitting with\nyou now, I am excited, but meanwhile every second I remember that\nan unfinished story is waiting for me. I see a cloud, like a grand\npiano. It smells of heliotrope. I say to myself: a sickly smell, a\nhalf-mourning colour.... I must not forget to use these words when\ndescribing a summer evening. I catch up myself and you on every phrase,\non every word, and hurry to lock all these words and phrases into my\nliterary storehouse. Perhaps they will be useful. When I finish work\nI run to the theatre, or go off fishing: at last I shall rest, forget\nmyself. But no! a heavy ball of iron is dragging on my fetters,--a new\nsubject, which draws me to the desk, and I must make haste to write and\nwrite again. And so on for ever, for ever. I have no rest from myself,\nand I feel that I am eating away my own life. I feel that the honey\nwhich I give to others has been made of the pollen of my most precious\nflowers, that I have plucked the flowers themselves and trampled them\ndown to the roots. Surely, I am mad. Do my neighbours and friends treat\nme as a sane person? \"What are you writing? What have you got ready\nfor us?\" The same thing, the same thing eternally, and it seems to me\nthat the attention, the praise, the enthusiasm of my friends is all\na fraud. I am being robbed like a sick man, and sometimes I am afraid\nthat they will creep up to me and seize me, and put me away in an\nasylum.'\n\nBut why these torments? Throw up the oars and begin a new life.\n_Impossible._ While no answer comes down from heaven, Tregovin will\nnot throw up the oars, will not begin a new life. In Tchekhov's work,\nonly young, very young and inexperienced people speak of a new life.\nThey are always dreaming of happiness, regeneration, light, joy. They\nfly head-long into the flame, and are burned like silly butterflies.\nIn _The Sea-Gull,_ Nina Zaryechnaya and Trepliev, in other works other\nheroes, men and women alike--all are seeking for something, yearning\nfor something, but not one of them does that which he desires. Each\none lives in isolation; each is wholly absorbed in his life, and is\nindifferent to the lives of others. And the strange fate of Tchekhov's\nheroes is that they strain to the last limit of their inward powers,\nbut there are no visible results at all. They are all pitiable.\nThe woman takes snuff, dresses slovenly, wears her hair loose, is\nuninteresting. The man is irritable, grumbling, takes to drink, bores\nevery one about him. They act, they speak--always out of season.\nThey cannot, I would even say they do not want to, adapt the outer\nworld to themselves. Matter and energy unite according to their own\nlaws;--people live according to their own, as though matter and energy\nhad no existence at all. In this Tchekhov's intellectuals do not differ\nfrom illiterate peasants and the half-educated bourgeois. Life in the\nmanor is the same as in the valley farm, the same as in the village.\nNot one believes that by changing his outward conditions he would\nchange his fate as well. Everywhere reigns an unconscious but deep and\nineradicable conviction that our will must be directed towards ends\nwhich have nothing in common with the organised life of mankind. Worse\nstill, the organisation appears to be the enemy of the will and of man.\nOne must spoil, devour, destroy, ruin. To think out things quietly, to\nanticipate the future--that is impossible. One must beat one's head,\nbeat one's head eternally against the wall. And to what purpose? Is\nthere any purpose at all? Is it a beginning or an end? Is it possible\nto see in it the warrant of a new and inhuman creation, a creation out\nof the void? 'I do not know' was the old professor's answer to Katy.\n'I do not know' was Tchekhov's answer to the sobs of those tormented\nunto death. With these words, and only these, can an essay upon\nTchekhov end. _R\u00e9signe-toi, mon c\u0153ur, dors ton sommeil de brute._\n\n\n\n\nTHE GIFT OF PROPHECY\n\n\n(For the twenty-fifth anniversary of F. M. Dostoevsky's death.)\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nVladimir Soloviev used to call Dostoevsky 'the prophet,' and even\n'the prophet of God.' Immediately after Soloviev, though often in\ncomplete independence of him, very many people looked upon Dostoevsky\nas the man to whom the books of human destiny were opened; and this\nhappened not only after his death, but even while he was yet alive.\nApparently Dostoevsky himself too, if he did not regard himself as a\nprophet--he was too eagle-eyed for that--at least thought it right\nthat all people should see a prophet in him. To this bears witness\nthe tone of _The Journal of an Author,_ no less than the questions\nupon which he generally touches therein. _The Journal of an Author_\nbegan to appear in 1873, that is on Dostoevsky's return from abroad,\nand therefore coincides with what his biographers call 'the highest\nperiod of his life.' Dostoevsky was then the happy father of a family,\na man of secure position, a famous writer, the author of a whole\nseries of novels known to all: _The House of the Dead, The Idiot, The\nPossessed._ He has everything which can be required _from_ life, or,\nmore truly, he has taken everything which can be taken from life. You\nremember Tolstoi's deliberations in his _Confession_? 'Finally, I shall\nbe as famous as Pushkin, Gogol, Goethe and Shakespeare--and what shall\ncome after?' Indeed, it is difficult to become a more famous writer\nthan Shakespeare; and even if one succeeded, the inevitable question,\n'And what shall come after?' would by no means be removed. Sooner or\nlater in the activity of a great writer a moment comes when further\nperfection seems impossible. How shall a man be greater than himself\nin the world of literature? If he would move, then by his own will or\nin spite of it he must step on to another plane. And this is plainly\nthe beginning of prophecy in a writer. In the general view the prophet\nis greater than the writer; and even the possession of genius is not\nalways a guarantee against the general view. Even men so sceptical as\nTolstoi and Dostoevsky, men always ready to doubt everything, more than\nonce were the victims of prejudices. Prophetic words were expected\nof them, and they went out to meet men's desires, Dostoevsky even\nmore readily than Tolstoi. Moreover both prophesied clumsily: they\npromised one thing, and something wholly different happened. So Tolstoi\npromised long ago that men would awake to their error soon and would\nput away from them fratricidal war, and would begin to live as true\nChristians should, fulfilling the Gospel commandment of love. Tolstoi\nprophesied and preached; people read him, as, it seems, they read no\nother writer: but they have not changed their habits nor their tastes.\nFor the last ten years Tolstoi has perforce been a witness of a whole\nseries of horrible and most savage wars. And now there is our present\nrevolution[1]--armed mobs rioting, the gallows set up, men shot down,\nbombs--the revolution which came to replace the bloody war in the Far\nEast!\n\nAnd this is in Russia, where Tolstoi was born, lived, taught and\nprophesied, where millions of people sincerely hold him to be the\ngreatest genius of all! Even in his own family Tolstoi could not\neffect the change that he desired. One of his sons is an officer\nin the army; the other writes in the _Novo\u00efe Vremya,_ as though he\nwere Souvorin's[2] son, not Tolstoi's.... Where, then, is the gift\nof prophecy? Why is it that a man so great as Tolstoi can foresee\nnothing, and seems to peer his way through life? 'What will to-morrow\nbring forth?' 'To-morrow I'll work miracles,' said the magician to\nthe Russian prince of old. For reply the prince drew his sword and\nstruck off the magician's head; and the excited mob, which believed in\nthe magician-prophet, became calm and departed home. History is ever\nstriking off the heads of prophetic predictions, and yet the crowd\nstill runs after the prophets. Of little faith, the crowd looks for\na sign, because it desires a miracle. But can the ability to predict\nbe accounted as evidence of the power to work miracles? It is possible\nto predict an eclipse of the sun or the appearance of a comet, but\nthis surely means a miracle only to the ignorant. An enlightened mind\nis secure in the knowledge that where prediction is possible, there\nis no miracle, since the possibility of prediction and of foreseeing\npresupposes a strict uniformity. Therefore not he will appear a prophet\nwho has great spiritual gifts, nor he who desires to dominate the world\nand to command the very laws, neither the magician, nor the sorcerer,\nnor the artist, but he who, having yielded himself beforehand to the\nactual and its laws, has devoted himself to the mechanical labour of\nrecord and calculation. Bismarck could foretell the greatness of Russia\nand Germany; and not only Bismarck, but an ordinary German politician,\nfor whom everything is reduced to _Deutschland, Deutschland \u00fcber\nalles,_ could read the future for many years ahead; yet Dostoevsky and\nTolstoi could foresee nothing. In Dostoevsky the failure is still more\nremarkable than in Tolstoi, because he more often attempted prediction:\nmore than half of his _Journal_ consists in unfulfilled prophecies. So\noften did he commit his prophetic genius.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: This essay was written during the revolution of 1905.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The famous editor of the _Novo\u00efe Vremya._]\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nTo some it may perhaps seem out of place that in an article devoted to\nthe twenty-fifth anniversary of the writer's death, I call to mind his\nmistakes and errors. The reproach is hardly just. A certain kind of\ndefect in a great man is at least as characteristic and important as\nhis qualities.\n\nDostoevsky was not a Bismarck. But is that so terrible that we must\nlament it? Moreover, for writers of the type of Tolstoi and Dostoevsky,\ntheir social and political ideas are without any value. They know well\nthat no one obeys them. Whatever they may say, history and political\nlife will go on in the same way, since it is not their books and\narticles which guide events. And, probably, here is the explanation\nof the amazing boldness of their opinions. If Tolstoi really imagined\nthat it would be enough for him to write an article demanding that\nall 'soldiers, policemen, judges, ministers' and the rest, all those\nguardians of the public peace, whom he detested--and, by the way, who\nloves them?--should be dismissed, for all prison-doors to be flung\nwide before the murderers and robbers--who can tell whether he would\nhave shown himself sufficiently firm and resolute in his opinions, to\ntake upon himself the responsibility for the effects of the measures\nwhich he proposed? But he knows beyond all doubt that he will not be\nobeyed, and therefore he calmly preaches anarchy. Dostoevsky's part as\na preacher was quite different; but it too was, so to speak, platonic.\nProbably it came as a surprise even to himself, that he became the\nprophet, not of 'ideal' politics, but of those most realistic tasks\nwhich governments always set themselves in countries where a few men\ndirect the destinies of peoples. Listening to Dostoevsky, one may\nimagine that he is discovering ideas which the government must take\nfor its guidance and set itself to realise. But you will soon convince\nyourself that Dostoevsky did not discover one single original political\nidea. Everything of the kind that he possessed he had borrowed without\nexamination from the Slavophiles, who in their turn appeared original\nonly to the extent to which they were able without outside assistance\nto translate from the German and the French: _Russland, Russland\n\u00fcber alles._ (Even the rhythm of the verse is not affected by the\nsubstitution of the one word.) But what is most important is, that\nthe Slavophiles with their Russo-German glorification of nationality,\nand with them Dostoevsky who joined the chorus, have neither taught\nnor educated one single man among the ruling classes. Our government\nknew all that it needed to know by itself, without the Slavophiles\nand without Dostoevsky. From time immemorial it had gone its way by\nthe road which the theorists so passionately praised: so that nothing\nwas left to them but to eulogise those in power and to defend the\npolicy of the Russian government against the public opinion which was\nhostile to it. Autocracy, Orthodoxy, Nationality--all these were held\nso firmly in Russia that in the 'seventies when Dostoevsky began to\npreach they needed no support whatever. And surely every one knows that\npower never seriously reckons upon the help of literature. Certainly it\nrequires that the Muses should pay tribute to it with the others, nobly\nformulating its demands in the words: _Blessed be the union of the\nsword and the lyre._ It used to happen that the Muses did not refuse\nthe request, sometimes sincerely, sometimes because, as Heine said, it\nis particularly disagreeable to wear iron chains in Russia, on account\nof the heavy frosts. In any case the Muses were only allowed to sing\nthe praises of the sword, but by no means to wield it. There are all\nkinds of unions. And here again Dostoevsky, for all his independent\nnature, still appeared in the r\u00f4le of a prophet of the Russian\ngovernment: that is, he divined the secret devices of the powers\nthat were, and in this connection then recalled all the 'high and\nbeautiful' words which he had managed to hoard up in the course of his\nlong wanderings. For instance, the government began to cast covetous\nglances towards the East (at that time the Near East still); Dostoevsky\nbegins to argue that we must have Constantinople, and to prophesy that\nConstantinople will soon be ours. His 'argument' is, of course, of a\npurely 'moral character,' and, sure enough, he is a writer. Only from\nConstantinople, he says, can we make avail the purely Russian ideal\nof embracing all humanity. Of course our government, though indeed\nwe had no Bismarcks, perfectly well understood the value of moral\nargument and of prophecy based upon them, and would have preferred a\nfew well-equipped divisions and improved guns. To realist politicians\none single soldier, armed not with a gun but with a blunderbuss, is\nof more importance than the sublimest conception of moral philosophy.\nBut still they do not drive away the humble prophet, if the prophet\nknows his place. Dostoevsky accepted the r\u00f4le, since it gave him still\nthe opportunity of displaying his refractory nature in the struggle\nwith Liberal literature. He sang paeans, made protests, uttered\nabsurdities--and worse than absurdities. For instance, he counselled\nall the Slav peoples to unite under the aegis of Russia, assuring\nthem that only thus would full independence be guaranteed them, and\nthe right of shaping themselves by their own culture, and so on--and\nthat in the face of the millions of Polish Slavs living in Russia. Or\nagain, the _Moscow Gazette_ gives its opinion that it would be well\nfor the Crimean Tartars to emigrate to Turkey, since it would then be\npossible for Russians to settle in the peninsula. Dostoevsky catches up\nthis original idea with enthusiasm. 'Indeed,' he says, 'on political\nand state and similar considerations'--I do not know how it is with\nother people, but when I hear such words as 'state' and 'political'\non Dostoevsky's lips, I cannot help smiling--'it is necessary to expel\nthe Tartars and to settle Russians on their lands.' When the _Moscow\nGazette_ projects such a measure, it is intelligible. But Dostoevsky!\nDostoevsky who called himself a Christian, who so passionately preaches\nlove to one's neighbour, self-abasement, self-renunciation, who taught\nthat Russia must 'serve the nations'--how could he be taken with an\nidea so rapacious? And indeed almost all his political ideas have the\nmark of rapacity upon them: to grab and grab, and still to grab....\nAs the occasion demands, he now expresses the hope that we may have\nGermany's friendship, and again threatens her; now he argues that we\nhave need of England, and again he asserts that we could do without\nher,--just like a leader-writer in a _bien-pensant_ provincial paper.\nOne thing alone makes itself felt among all these ludicrous and\neternally contradictory assertions,--Dostoevsky understands nothing,\nabsolutely nothing, about politics, and moreover, he has nothing at all\nto do with politics. He is forced to go in tow of others who, compared\nwith him, are utter nonentities, and he goes. Even his ambition--and he\nhad a colossal ambition, an ambition unique in its kind, as befitted\na universal man--suffers not one whit: chiefly because men expected\nprophecy from him, because the next title to that of a great writer is\nthat of a prophet, and because a ring of conviction and a loud voice\nare the signs of the prophetic gift. Dostoevsky could speak aloud: he\ncould also speak with the tone of one who knows secrets, and of one\nwith authority. One learns much in the underworld. All these things\nserved him. Men took the poet-laureate of the existing order for the\ninspirer of thoughts and the governor of Russia's remotest destinies.\nIt was enough for Dostoevsky. It was even necessary for Dostoevsky. He\nknew of course that he was no prophet; but he knew that there had never\nbeen one on earth, and that those who were prophets had no better right\nto the title than he.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nI will permit myself to remind the reader of Tolstoi's letter to his\nson, lately published by the latter in the newspapers. It is very\ninteresting. Once more, not from the standpoint of the practical man\nwho has to decide the questions of the day--from this standpoint\nTolstoi, Dostoevsky, and their similars are quite useless--but man does\nnot live by bread alone.\n\nEven now in the terrible days through which we have to live, now, if\nyou will, more than ever before, one cannot read newspapers alone, nor\nthink only of the awful surprises which to-morrow prepares for us. To\nevery one is left an hour of leisure between the reading of newspapers\nand party programmes, if it be not an hour in the day when the noise\nof events and the pressure of immediate work distracts, then an hour\nin the deep night, when everything that was possible has been already\ndone, and everything that was required has been said. Then come flying\nin the old thoughts and questions, frightened away by business, and\nfor the thousandth time one returns to the mystery of human genius and\nhuman greatness. Where and how far can genius know and accomplish more\nthan ordinary men?\n\nThen Tolstoi's letter, which during the day aroused only anger and\nindignation,--is it not outrageous and revolting, think some, that\nin the great collision of forces which contend with one another in\nRussia, Tolstoi cannot distinguish the right force from the wrong, but\nstigmatises all the struggling combatants by the one name of ungodly?\nDuring the day, I say, it is surely outrageous: in the daytime we would\nlike Tolstoi to be with us and for us, because we are convinced that\nwe and we alone are seeking the truth,--nay, that we know the truth,\nwhile our enemies are defending evil and falsehood, whether in malice\nor in ignorance. But this is during the day. In the night-time, things\nare changed. One remembers that Goethe also overlooked, simply did not\nnotice, the great French Revolution. True, he was a German who lived\nfar from Paris, while Tolstoi lives close to Moscow, where men, women,\nand children have been shot, cut down, and burnt alive. Moreover,\nthere is no doubt that Tolstoi has overlooked not merely Moscow, but\neverything that went before Moscow. What is happening now does not seem\nto him important or extraordinary. For him only that is important to\nwhich he, Tolstoi, has set his hand: all that occurs outside and beside\nhim, for him has no existence. This is the great prerogative of great\nmen. And sometimes it seems to me--perhaps it is only that I would have\nit seem so--as though there were in that prerogative a deep and hidden\nmeaning.\n\nWhen we have no more strength in us to listen to the endless tales\nof horrible atrocities which have already been committed, and to\nanticipate in imagination all that the future holds in store for us,\nthen we recall Tolstoi and his indifference. It is not in our human\npower to return the murdered fathers and mothers to the children nor\nthe children to their fathers and mothers. Nor stands it even in our\npower to revenge ourselves upon the murderers, nor will vengeance\nreconcile every one to his loss. And we try no longer to think with\nlogic, and to seek a justification of the horrors there where there is\nand can be none. What if we ask ourselves whether Tolstoi and Goethe\ndid not sec the Revolution and did not suffer its pain, only because\nthey saw something else, something, it may even be, more necessary and\nimportant? Maybe there are indeed more things in heaven and earth than\nare dreamed of in our philosophy.\n\nNow we may return to Dostoevsky and his 'ideas'; we may call them\nfearlessly by the names which they deserve, for though Dostoevsky is\na writer of genius, this does not mean that we must forget our daily\nneeds. The night and the day have each their rights. Dostoevsky wanted\nto be a prophet, he wanted people to listen to him and cry 'Hosanna!'\nbecause, I say again, he thought that if men had ever cried 'Hosanna!'\nto any one, then there was no reason why he, Dostoevsky, should be\ndenied the honour. That is the reason why in the 'seventies he made his\nappearance in the new r\u00f4le of a preacher of Christianity, and not of\nChristianity merely, but of orthodoxy.\n\nAgain, I would draw attention to the far from accidental circumstances\nthat his preaching coincided with the 'serenest' period of his life. He\nwho had in time past been a homeless wanderer, a poor man who had not\nwhere to lay his head, had provided himself with a family and a house\nof his own, even with money (for his wife was saving). The failure\nhad become a celebrity; the convict a full citizen. The underworld,\nwhere-into his fate had but lately driven him, it might seem for ever,\nnow appeared to him a phantasmagoria which never had been real. In the\ngalleys and the underworld had been born within him a great hunger for\nGod which lived long; there he fought a great fight, the fight of life\nagainst death; there for the first time were made the new and awful\nexperiments which allied Dostoevsky with everything that is rebellious\nand restless on earth. What Dostoevsky wrote during the closing years\nof his life (not merely _The Journal of an Author,_ but _The Brothers\nKaramazov_ as well) has value only in so far as Dostoevsky's _past_\nis reflected therein. He made no new step onwards. As he was, so he\nremained, on the eve of a great truth. But in the old days that did\nnot suffice him, he hungered for something beyond; but now he does not\nwant to struggle, and he cannot explain to himself or to others what is\nreally happening within him. He pretends to be struggling still, nay,\nmore, he behaves as though he had won the final victory, and demands\nthat his triumph should be acknowledged by public opinion. He loves to\nthink that the night is already past and the actual day begun: and the\ngalleys and the underworld, reminding him that the day is not yet, are\nno more. All the evidences of a complete illusion of victory seem to\nbe there--let him only choose the text and preach! Dostoevsky clutched\nat orthodoxy. Why not Christianity? Because Christianity is not for\nhim who has a house, a family, money, fame, and a father-land. Christ\nsaid: 'Let him leave all that he hath and follow me.' But Dostoevsky\nwas afraid of solitude, he desired to be the prophet of modern, settled\nmen to whom pure Christianity, unadapted to the needs of civilised\nexistence in a governed state, is unfitted. How should a Christian\nseize Constantinople, drive out the Tartars from the Crimea, reduce\nall Slavs to the condition of the Poles, and the rest--for all the\nprojects of Dostoevsky and the _Moscow Gazette_ defy enumeration? So,\nbefore accepting the Gospel, he must explain it....\n\nHowever strange it may appear, it must be confessed that one cannot\nfind in the whole of literature a single man who is prepared to accept\nthe Gospel as a whole, without interpretation. One man wants to seize\nConstantinople according to the Gospel, another to justify the existing\norder, a third to exalt himself or to thrust down his enemy; and each\nconsiders it as his right to diminish from, or even to supplement,\nthe text of Holy Writ. I have, of course, only those in view who\nacknowledge, at least in word, the divine origin of the New Testament;\nsince he who sees in the Gospel only one of the more or less remarkable\nbooks of his library, naturally has the right to subject it to whatever\ncritical operations he may choose.\n\nBut here we have Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, and Vladimir Soloviev. It is\ngenerally believed, and the belief is particularly supported and\ndeveloped by the most recent criticism, that Tolstoi alone rationalised\nChristianity, while Dostoevsky and Soloviev accepted it in all the\nfullness of its mysticism, denying reason the right to separate\ntruth from falsehood in the Gospel. I consider this belief mistaken:\nfor Dostoevsky and Soloviev were afraid to accept the Gospel as the\nfountain of knowledge, and relied much more upon their own reason and\ntheir experience of life than upon the words of Christ. But, if there\nwas a man among us who, though but in part, took the risk of accepting\nthe mysterious and obviously dangerous words of the Gospel precepts,\nthat man was Leo Tolstoi. I will explain myself.\n\nWe are told that Tolstoi made the attempt, in his works published\nabroad, to explain the miracles of the Gospel in a way intelligible\nto human reason. Dostoevsky and Soloviev, on the other hand, readily\naccepted the inexplicable. But generally the miracles of the Gospel\nattract the people who believe least, for it is impossible to repeat\nthe miracles, and this being so, then it follows that a merely external\nfaith is sufficient, a mere verbal assertion. A man says that he\nbelieves in miracles: 'his reputation as a religious man is made, both\nin his own mind and in others', and as for the rest of the Gospel,\nthere remains 'interpretation.' Consider, for instance, the doctrine\nof non-resistance to evil. It need not be said that the doctrine of\nnon-resistance is the most terrible, and the most irrational, and\nmysterious thing that we read in the Gospel. All our reasoning soul is\nindignant at the thought that full material freedom should be given\nto the murderer to accomplish his murderous acts. How can you allow a\nmurderer to kill an innocent child before your very eyes, and yet not\ndraw the sword? Who has the right to give that abominable precept?\nSoloviev[3] and Dostoevsky alike repeat that question, the one in a\ndisguised, the other in an open attack on Tolstoi. Yet since the\nGospel plainly declares 'Resist not evil,' both of our believers in\nmiracles have suddenly remembered reason and turned to its testimony,\nknowing that reason will naturally destroy any meaning whatever that\nmay be in the precept. In other words, they repeat the question of\nthe doubting Jews concerning Christ: 'Who is He that speaketh as one\nhaving authority?' God commanded Abraham that he should offer up his\nson. By his reason, his human reason, Abraham refused to acknowledge\nany intelligible meaning in the cruel command, but yet made ready to\nact according to the word of God and made no attempt to rid himself\nof the hard and inhuman obligation by cunning interpretation. But\nDostoevsky and Soloviev refuse to fulfil Christ's demands so soon as\nthey find no justification in the human reason. Yet they say that they\nbelieve that Lazarus was raised from the dead and that the man who\nwas sick of a palsy was cured, and all the other miracles which are\nrelated by the Apostles. Why then does their belief end just at the\npoint where it begins to place obligations upon them? Why the sudden\nrecourse to reason, when we know exactly that Dostoevsky came to the\nGospels only to be rid of the power of reason? But that was in the\ndays of the underworld. Now the 'serene' period of his life has begun.\nBut Soloviev, evidently, had never even known the underworld. Only\nTolstoi boldly and resolutely tries to test the truth of the Christian\nteaching, not in his thoughts alone, but in part in his life also.\nFrom the human point of view it is mad to make no resistance to evil.\nHe knows that every whit as well as Dostoevsky, Soloviev and the rest\nof his many opponents. But he is really seeking in the Gospels that\ndivine madness, since human reason does not satisfy him. Tolstoi began\nto follow the Gospel in that clouded period of his life when he was\nhaunted by the phantoms of Ivan Ilyich and Pozdnyshiev. Here belief in\nmiracles, belief in the abstract, divorced from life, avails nothing.\nFor belief's sake one must surrender all that is dearest--even a\nson--to the sacrifice. Who is He that spake as one having authority?\nWe cannot now verify whether He did in truth raise Lazarus from the\ndead, or satisfy thousands with a few handfuls of loaves. But if we\nunhesitatingly perform His precepts, then we may discover whether He\nhas given us the truth.... So it was with Tolstoi; and he turned to\nthe Gospel which is the sole and original source of Christianity.\nBut Dostoevsky turned to the Slavophiles and the teachings of their\nstate-religion. Orthodoxy infallible, not Catholicism nor Protestantism\nnor even simple Christianity; and then, the original idea: _Russland,\nRussland \u00fcber alles._ Tolstoi could prophesy nothing in history, but\nthen, as if deliberately, he does not interfere with the historical\nlife. For him our present reality does not exist: he concentrates\nhimself wholly upon the riddle which God set Abraham. But Dostoevsky\ndesired at all costs to prophesy, prophesied constantly and was\nconstantly mistaken. We have not taken Constantinople, we have not\nunited the Slavs, and even the Tartars still live in the Crimea. He\nterrified us by prophesying that Europe would be drenched in rivers\nof blood because of the warfare between the classes, while in Russia,\nthanks to our Russian ideal of universal humanity, not only would our\ninternal problems be peacefully solved, but a new unheard-of word would\nstill be found whereby we should save hapless Europe. A quarter of\na century has passed. So far nothing has happened in Europe. But we\nare drowning ourselves, literally drowning ourselves, with blood. Not\nonly is our alien population oppressed, Slav and non-Slav alike, but\nour own brother is tortured, the miserable starving Russian peasant\nwho understands nothing at all. In Moscow, in the heart of Russia,\nwomen, children, and old men have been shot down. Where now is the\nRussian universal soul of which Dostoevsky prophesied in his speech on\nPushkin? Where is love, where are the Christian precepts? We see only\n'Governmentalism,' over which the Western nations also fought; but they\nfought with means less cruel and less hostile to civilisation. Russia\nwill again have to learn from the West as she had to learn more than\nonce before. And Dostoevsky would have done far better had he never\nattempted to prophesy.\n\nBut there is no great harm done even if he did prophesy. I am glad\nwith all my heart even now that he rested a little while from the\ngalleys at the end of his life. I am deeply convinced that even had he\nremained in the underworld until the day of his death, yet he would\nhave found no solution of the questions which tormented him. However\nmuch energy of soul a man puts into his work, he will still remain 'on\nthe eve' of truth, and will not find the solution he desires. That is\nthe law of human kind. And Dostoevsky's preaching has done no harm.\nThose listened to him who, even without his voice, would have marched\non Constantinople, oppressed the Poles, and made ready the sufferings\nwhich are necessary to the soul of the peasant. Though Dostoevsky gave\nthem his sanction, on the whole he adds nothing to them. They had no\nneed of literary sanction, quite correctly judging that in practical\nmatters not the printed page, but bayonets and artillery are of\ndeciding value.\n\nAll that he had to tell, Dostoevsky told us in his novels, which even\nnow, twenty-five years after his death, attract all those who would\nwrest from life her secrets. And the title of prophet, which he sought\nso diligently, considering that it was his by right, did not suit him\nat all. Prophets are Bismarcks, but they are Chancellors too. The\nfirst in the village is the first in Rome.... Is a Dostoevsky doomed\neternally to be 'on the eve'? Let us once more try to reject logic,\nthis time perhaps not logic alone, and say: 'So let it be.'\n\n\n[Footnote 3: _War and Christianity,_ by Vladimir Soloviev.]\n\n\n\n\nPENULTIMATE WORDS\n\n\n\nI\n\n_De omnibus dubitandum_\n\n\nThere are but few orthodox Hegelians left among philosophers nowadays,\nyet Hegel is still supreme over the minds of our contemporaries. It\nmay even be that certain of his ideas have taken deeper root nowadays\nthan when Hegelianism was in full bloom: for instance, the conception\nthat history is the unfolding of the idea in reality, or, to put it\nmore briefly and in terms more familiar to the modern mind--the idea of\nprogress. Try to convince an educated person of the contrary: you are\nsure to be worsted. But, _de omnibus dubitandum,_ which means in other\nwords, that doubt is called upon to fulfil its mission above all in\nthose cases where a conviction is particularly strong and unshakable.\nTherefore one must admit, whether he will or no, that progress so\ncalled--the development of mankind in time--is a fiction.\n\nWe have wireless telegraphy, radium and the rest, yet we stand no\nhigher than the Romans or the Greeks of old. You admit this? Then,\none step further: although we have wireless telegraphy and all the\nother blessings of civilisation, still we stand no higher than red-or\nblack-skinned savages. You protest: but the principle compels. You\nbegan to doubt: then what is the use of drawing back?\n\nFor myself, I must confess that the idea of the spiritual perfection\nof savages entered my mind but lately, when, for the first time for\nmany years, I looked through the works of Tylor, Lubbock and Spencer.\nThey speak with such certainty of the advantages of our spiritual\norganisation, and have such sincere contempt for the moral misery\nof the savage, that in spite of myself stole in the thought: Is it\nnot exactly here, where all are so certain that no one ever examines\nthe question, that the source of error is to be found? High time to\nrecall Descartes and his rule! And as soon as I began to doubt, all my\nformer certainty--of course I fully shared the opinion of the English\nanthropologists--disappeared in a moment.... It began to appear that\nthe savage indeed is higher and more important than our savants,\nand not our materialists only, as Professor Paulsen thinks, but our\nidealists, metaphysicians, mystics, and even our convinced missionaries\n(sincere believers, not the profit-mongering sort), whom Europe sends\nforth into the world to enlighten the backward brethren. It seemed to\nme that the credit transactions common among savages, with a promise\nto pay in the world beyond the grave, have a deep meaning. And human\nsacrifices! In them Spencer sees a barbarity, as an educated European\nshould. I also see in them barbarity, because I also am a European\nand have a scientific education. But I deeply envy their barbarity,\nand curse the cultivation which has herded me together with believing\nmissionaries, idealist, materialist, and positivist philosophers, into\nthe narrow fold of the sultry and disgusting apprehensible world. We\nmay write books to prove the immortality of the soul, but our wives\nwon't follow us to the other world: they will prefer to endure the\nwidow's lot here on the earth. Our morality, based on religion, forbids\nus to hurry into eternity. And so in everything. We are guessing, at\nthe best we are sicklied with dreams, but our life passes outside\nour guesses and our dreams. One man still accepts the rites of the\nChurch, however strange they may be, and seriously imagines that he\nis brought into contact with other worlds. Beyond the rites no step\nis taken. Kant died when he was eighty; had it not been for cholera,\nHegel would have lived a hundred years; while the savages--the young\nones kill the old and ... I dare not complete the sentence for fear of\noffending sensitive ears. Again I recall Descartes and his rule: who\nis right, the savages or we? And if the savages are right, can history\nbe the unfolding of the idea? And is not the conception of progress\nin time (that is the development from the past to the present and\nto the future) the purest error? Perhaps, and most probably, there\nis development, but the direction of this development is in a line\nperpendicular to the line of time. The base of the perpendicular may be\nany human personality. May God and the reader forgive one the obscurity\nof the last words. I hope the clarity of the foregoing exposition will\nto some extent atone for it.\n\n\n\nII\n\n_Self-renunciation and Megalomania_\n\n\nWe are obliged to think that nothing certain can be said either of\nself-renunciation or of megalomania, though each one of us in his own\nexperience knows something of the former as well as of the latter. But\nit is well known that the impossibility of solving a question never yet\nkept people from reflecting. On the contrary: to us the most alluring\nquestions are those to which there is no actual, no universally valid,\nanswer. I hope that sooner or later, philosophy will be thus defined,\nin contrast to science:--philosophy is the teaching of truths which\nare binding on none. Thereby the accusation so often made against\nphilosophy will be removed, that philosophy properly consists of a\nseries of mutually exclusive opinions. This is true, but she must be\npraised for it, not blamed: there is nothing bad in it, but good, a\nvery great deal of good. On the other hand, it is bad, extremely bad,\nthat science should consist of truths universally binding. For every\nobligation is a constraint. Temporarily, one can submit to a restraint,\nput on a corset, fetters; one can agree to anything temporarily. Rut\nwho will voluntarily admit the mastery over himself of an eternal law?\nEven from the quiet and clear Spinoza I sometimes hear a deep sigh, and\nI think that he is longing for freedom--he who wasted all his life,\nall his genius in the glorification of necessity.... With such an\nintroduction one may say what he pleases.\n\nIt seems to me that self-renunciation and megalomania, however little\nthey resemble one another apparently, may be observed successively,\neven simultaneously, in one and the same person. The ascetic, who\nhas denied life and humbles himself before everybody, and the madman\n(like Nietzsche or Dostoevsky), who affirms that he is the light, the\nsalt of the earth, the first in the whole world or even in the whole\nuniverse--both reach their madness--I hope there is no necessity to\ndemonstrate that self-renunciation as well as megalomania is a kind of\nmadness--under conditions for the most part identical. The world does\nnot satisfy the man and he begins to seek for a better. All serious\nseeking brings a man to lonely paths, and lonely paths, it is well\nknown, end in a great wall which sets a fatal bound to man's curiosity.\nThen arises the question, how shall a man pass beyond the wall, by\novercoming either the law of impenetrability or the equally invincible\nlaw of gravity, in other words, how shall a man become infinitely small\nor infinitely great? The first way is that of self-renunciation: I want\nnothing, I myself am nothing, I am infinitely small, and therefore I\ncan pass through the infinitely small pores of the wall.\n\nThe other way is megalomania. I am infinitely strong, infinitely\ngreat, I can do all things, I can shatter the wall, I can step over\nit, though it be higher than all the mountains of the earth and though\nit has hitherto dismayed the strongest and the bravest. This is\nprobably the origin of the two most mysterious and mighty spiritual\ntransformations. There is no single religion upon which are not more or\nless clearly impressed the traces of these methods of man's struggle\nwith the poverty of his powers. In ascetic religions the tendency to\nself-renunciation predominates: Buddhism glorifies the suppression\nof the individual and has for its ideal Nirvana. The Greeks dreamed\nof Titans and heroes. The Jews consider themselves the chosen people\nand await the Messiah. As for the Gospel, it is hard to say to which\nmethod of struggle it gives the preference. On the one hand are the\ngreat miracles, the raising from the dead, the healing of the sick, the\npower over the winds and the sea; on the other: 'Blessed are the poor\nin spirit.' The Son of God who will sit on the right hand of power now\nlives in the company of publicans, beggars, and harlots, and serves\nthem. 'Who is not for us, is against us'; the promise to thrust down\nhis enemies into the fiery hell; eternal torment for blasphemy against\nthe Holy Spirit, and equal with these the exhortation to the extreme\nof humility and love to the enemy: 'Turn to him the other cheek also.'\nThroughout, the Gospel is permeated with contradictions, which are\nnot extraneous and historical, concerned with facts, but intrinsic,\ncontradictions of mood, of 'ideals,' as the modern man would say.\nWhat is in one chapter praised as the noblest task is in the next\ndegraded to an unworthy labour. It is in no way strange that the most\nopposite teachings should find justification in this little book,\nwhich is half composed of repetitions. The Inquisitors, the Jesuits,\nand the old ascetics called themselves. Christians; so do the modern\nProtestants and our Russian sectaries. To a greater or less degree\nthey all are right, even the Protestants. Such contradictory elements\nare intertwined in the Gospel, that men, above all those who travel\nthe high road, who can move in one direction only, and under one\nconspicuous flag, who have become accustomed to believe in the unity\nof reason and the infallibility of logical laws, could never fully\ngrasp the teaching of the Gospel, and always aspired to give to the\nwords and deeds of Christ a uniform explanation which should exclude\ncontradictions, and more or less correspond to the common conceptions\nof the work and problems of life. They read in the mysterious book,\n'Have faith and thou shalt say to this mountain: be thou removed,' and\nunderstood it to mean that always, every hour and every minute, one\nmust think and desire the self-same thing, prescribed beforehand and\nfully denned; whereas in these words the Gospel allows and commends the\nmaddest and most perilous experiments. That which is, did not exist for\nChrist; and only that existed, which is not.\n\nThe old Roman, Pilate, who was apparently an educated man, clever and\nnot bad at heart, though weak in character, could neither understand\nnor elucidate the cause of the strange struggle which took place\nbefore him. With his whole heart he pitied the pale Jew before him,\nwho was guilty of nothing. 'What is truth?' he asked Christ. Christ\ndid not answer him, nor could He answer, not through ignorance, as\nthe heathen desired to believe, but because that question cannot be\nanswered in words. It would have been necessary to take Pilate's head,\nand turn it towards the other side, in order that he might see what\nhe had never seen before. Or, still better; to have used the method\nto which the hunch-backed pony turns in the fairy tale, in order to\nchange sleepy Ivanushka into a wizard and a beauty: first, to plunge\nhim into a cauldron of boiling milk, then into another of boiling\nwater, then a third of ice-cold water. There is every reason to suppose\nthat with this preliminary preparation Pilate would have begun to\nact differently, and I think the hunch-backed pony would agree that\nself-renunciation and megalomania would be a fair substitute for the\ncauldrons of the tale.\n\nGreat privations and great illusions so change the nature of man\nthat things which seemed before impossible, become possible, and the\nunattainable, attainable.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n_Eternal Truths_\n\n\nIn the _Memorabilia_ Xenophon tells of the meeting of Socrates with\nthe famous sophist Hippias. When Hippias came to Socrates, the latter\nas usual held forth, and as usual asked why it is that men who wish to\nlearn carpentry or smith's work know to whom they should apply, but if\nthey desire to learn virtue, cannot possibly find a teacher. Hippias,\nwho had heard these opinions of Socrates many times before, remarked\nironically: 'So you're still saying the same old things, that I heard\nfrom you years ago!' Socrates understood and accepted the challenge, as\nhe always accepted challenges of this kind. A dispute began, by which\nit was demonstrated (as usual in Plato and Xenophon) that Socrates was\na stronger dialectician than his opponent. He succeeded in showing that\nhis conception of justice was based on the same firm foundation as all\nhis other conceptions, and that convictions once formed, if they are\ntrue, are as little liable to the action of time as noble metals to\nrust.\n\nSocrates lived seventy years. He was once a youth, once a man, once\na greybeard. But what if he had lived a hundred and forty years,\nexperienced once again all the three seasons of life, and had again met\nHippias? Or, better still, if the soul, as Socrates taught, is immortal\nand Socrates now lives somewhere in the moon or Sirius, or in any other\nplace predestined for immortal souls, does he really go on plaguing his\ncompanions with discourses on justice, carpenters, and smiths? And does\nhe still emerge victorious as of old from the dispute with Hippias and\nother persons who dare to affirm that everything (human convictions\nincluded) may be, and ought to be, subject to the laws of time, and\nthat mankind not only loses nothing, but gains much by such subjection?\n\n\n\nIV\n\n_Earth and Heaven_\n\n\nThe word justice is on all men's lips. But do men indeed so highly\nprize justice as one would think, who believed all that has been\nsaid and is still being said concerning it? More than this, is it so\nhighly appreciated by its sworn advocates and panegyrists--poets,\nphilosophers, moralists, theologians--even by the best of them, the\nmost sincere and gifted? I doubt it, I doubt it deeply. Glance at the\nworks of any wise man, whether of the modern or the ancient world.\nJustice, if we understand it as the equality of all living men before\nthe laws of creation--and how else can we understand it?--never\noccupied any one's attention. Plato never once asked Destiny why she\ncreated Thersites contemptible and Patroclus noble. Plato argues that\nmen should be just, but never once dares to arraign the gods for their\ninjustice. If we listen to his discourses, a suspicion will steal into\nour souls that justice is a virtue for mortals, while the immortals\nhave virtues of their own which have nothing in common with justice.\nAnd here is the last trial of earthly virtue. We do not know whether\nthe human soul is mortal or immortal. Some, we know, believe in\nimmortality, others laugh at the belief. If it were proved that they\nwere both in the wrong, and that men's destinies after death are as\nunequal as they are in life: the successful, the chosen take up their\nabode in heaven, the others remain to rot in the grave and perish with\ntheir mortal clay. (It is true that such an admission is made by our\nRussian prophet, the priest of love and justice, Dostoevsky, in his\n_Legend of the Grand Inquisitor._) Now, if it should turn out that\nDostoevsky is really immortal, while his innumerable disciples and\nadmirers, the huge mass of grey humanity which is spoken of in _The\nGrand Inquisitor,_ end their lives in death as they began them with\nbirth, would Dostoevsky himself (whom I have named deliberately as\nthe most passionate defender of the ideal of justice, though there\nhave been yet more fervent and passionate and remarkable defenders of\njustice on earth whom I ought perhaps to name, were it not that I would\navoid speaking lightly of sacred things--let him who finds Dostoevsky\nsmall, himself choose another)--would Dostoevsky reconcile himself to\nsuch an injustice, would he rise in revolt beyond the grave against the\ninjustice, or would he forget his poor brethren when he occupied the\nplace prepared for him? It is hard to judge _a priori: a posteriori_\none would imagine that he would forget.\n\nAnd between Dostoevsky and a small provincial author the gulf is\ncolossal; the injustice of the inequality cries out to heaven.\nNevertheless we take no heed, we live on and do not cry, or if we\ndo, we cry very rarely, and then, to tell the truth, it is hard to\nsay certainly why we cry. Is it because we would draw the attention\nof the indifferent heaven, or is it because there are many amateurs\nof lamentation among our neighbours, like the pilgrim woman in\nOstrovsky's _Storm,_ who passionately loved to hear a good howl? All\nthese considerations will seem particularly important to those who,\nlike myself at the present moment--I cannot speak for to-morrow--share\nDostoevsky's notion that even if there is immortality, then it is\ncertainly not for everybody but for the few. Moreover, I follow\nDostoevsky further and admit that they alone will rise from the dead\nwho on the existing hypotheses should expect the worse fate after\ndeath. The first here will be the first still, there, while of the last\nnot even a memory will remain. And no one will be found to champion\nthose who have perished: a Dostoevsky, a Tolstoi, and all the other\n'first' who succeed in entering heaven will be engaged in business\nincomparably more important.\n\nSo continue, if you will, to take thought for the just arrangement of\nthe world, and, after the fashion of Plato, to make the teaching of\njustice the foundation of philosophy.\n\n\n\nV\n\n_The Force of Argument_\n\n\nSchopenhauer answered the question of the immortality of the soul in\nthe negative. In his opinion, man as Thing-in-Himself is immortal, but\nas phenomenon mortal. In other words, all that is individual in us\nexists only in the interval between birth and death; but since each\nindividual according to Schopenhauer's teaching is a manifestation of\n'Will' or 'Thing-in-Itself,' the unalterable and eternal principle\nwhich is the only reality of the world, continually made object in the\nmanifold of phenomena, then, in so far as this principle is displayed\nin man, he is eternal. This is Schopenhauer's opinion, evidently\nderived as a logical conclusion from his general philosophic doctrine,\nboth from that relating to the Thing-in-Itself, and from that which\nrelates to the individual. The first part shall go unregarded: after\nall, if Schopenhauer was mistaken, and the Thing-in-Itself is mortal,\nwe need not weep over it, nor is there any cause to rejoice over its\nimmortality. But here is the individual. He is deprived of his right to\nimmortality, and for reason is alleged an argument which is at first\nsight irrefutable. Everything which has a beginning has an end also,\nsays Schopenhauer. The individual has a beginning, birth; therefore an\nend, death, awaits him. To Schopenhauer himself the general proposition\nas well as the conclusion seemed so obvious, that he did not admit\nthe possibility of mistake even for a moment. But this time we have\nan incontestable case of a wrong conclusion from a wrong premiss.\nFirst, why must everything which has a beginning also have an end? The\nobservations of experience point to such an hypothesis; but are the\nobservations of experience really strong enough to support general\npropositions? And are we really entitled to make use of propositions\nso acquired as first principles for the solution of the most important\nproblems of philosophy? And even if we admit that the premiss is\ncorrect, nevertheless the conclusion at which Schopenhauer arrived is\nwrongly drawn. It may indeed be that everything which has a beginning\nalso has an end; it may indeed be that the individual is sooner or\nlater doomed to perish; but why identify the moment of the soul's\ndestruction with the death of the body? It may be that the body will\ndie, but the soul which the same fate attends at some future time will\nfind for itself a more or less suitable integument somewhere in a\ndistant planet, perhaps still unknown to us, and live on, though only\nfor a little while and not for all eternity, as the extreme optimists\nbelieve. How important would it be for poor humanity to retain even\nsuch a hope: particularly seeing that we can hardly say with certainty\nwhat it is that men desire when they speak of the immortality of the\nsoul. Is it that they merely desire at all costs to live eternally, or\nwould they be satisfied with one or two lives more, especially if the\nsubsequent lives should appear to be less offensively insignificant\nthan this earthly existence, wherein even the lowest rank of nobility\nis to many an unattainable ideal? It seems to me that it is not every\none who would consent to live eternally. And what if every possibility\nshould have been exhausted, and endless repetition should begin?\n\nIt does not of course follow from this that we have the right to\nreckon upon an existence beyond the grave. The question remains open\nas before, even when Schopenhauer's arguments have been refuted. But\nit does follow that the best arguments on closer consideration often\nappear worthless. _Quod erat demonstrandum--_ naturally pending the\ndiscovery of arguments to refute my refutation of Schopenhauer's. I\nmake this reserve to deprive my critics of the pleasure and possibility\nof a little wordplay.\n\n\n\nVI\n\n_Swan Songs_\n\n\nIt cannot be doubted that _When We Dead Awake_ is one of the most\nautobiographical of Ibsen's plays. Nearly all his dramas reveal\nstriking traces of his personal experience; their most valuable\nquality, even, is the possibility of following out in them the\nhistory of the author's inward struggle. But there is a particular\nsignificance in _When We Dead Awake,_ which comes from the fact that\nit was conceived and written by the author in his old age. Those who\nare interested in overhearing what is said and watching what is done\non the outskirts of life set an extraordinary value on the opportunity\nof communing with very old men, with the dying, and generally with\nmen who are placed in exceptional conditions, above all when they are\nnot afraid to speak the truth, and have by past experience developed\nin themselves the art and the courage--the former is as necessary as\nthe latter--to look straight into the eyes of reality. To such men\nIbsen seems even more interesting than Tolstoi. Tolstoi indeed has not\nyet betrayed his gift; but he is primarily a moralist. Now, as in his\nyouth, power over men is the dearest thing of all to him, and more\nfascinating than all the other blessings of the world. He still gives\norders, makes demands, and desires at all costs to be obeyed. One may,\nand one ought, to consider this peculiarity of Tolstoi's nature with\nattention and respect. Not Tolstoi alone, but many a regal hermit of\nthought has to the end of his life demanded the unconditional surrender\nof mankind. On the day of his death, an hour before end, Socrates\ntaught that there was only one truth and that the one which he had\ndiscovered. Plato in his extreme old age journeyed to Syracuse to plant\nthe seeds of wisdom there. It is probable that such stubbornness in\ngreat men has its explanation and its deep meaning.\n\nTolstoi, and also Socrates and Plato, and the Jewish prophets, who\nin this respect and in many others were very like the teachers of\nwisdom, probably had to concentrate their powers wholly upon one\ngigantic inward task, the condition of its successful performance\nbeing the illusion that the whole world, the whole universe, works\nin concert and unison with them. In Tolstoi's case I have elsewhere\nshown that he finds himself at present on the brink of Solipsism in\nhis conception of the world. Tolstoi and the whole world are to him\nsynonymous. Without such a temporary delusion of his whole being--it\nis not an intellectual delusion, of the head, for the head knows well\nthat the world is by itself, and Tolstoi by himself--he would have to\ngive up his most important work. So it is with us, who know since\nCopernicus that the earth moves round the sun, that the stars are not\nclear, bright, golden rings, but huge lumps of various composition,\nthat there is not a firm blue vault overhead. We know these things:\nnevertheless we cannot and do not want to be so blind as not to take\ndelight in the lie of the optical illusions of the visible world. Truth\nso-called has but a limited value. Nor does the sacrifice of Galileo\nby any means refute my words. _E pur si muove,_ if ever he uttered the\nphrase, might not have referred to the movement of the earth, though\nit was spoken of the earth. Galileo did not wish to betray the work of\nhis life. Who will, however, stand surety to us that not only Galileo\nis capable of such sacrifice, but his pupil also, even the most devoted\nand courageous, who has gained the new truth not by his own struggle\nbut from the lips of his master. Peter in one night thrice denied\nChrist. Probably we could not find a single man in all the world who\nwould consent to die to demonstrate and defend the idea of Galileo.\nEvidently great men are very little inclined to initiate the outsider\ninto the secret of their great deeds. Evidently they cannot themselves\nalways give a clear account of the character and meaning of the tasks\nwhich they set themselves. Socrates himself, who all his life long so\nstubbornly sought clarity and invented dialectics for the purpose, and\nintroduced into general use definitions designed to fix the flowing\nreality; Socrates, who spent thirty days without interruption in\npersuading his pupils that he was dying for the sake of truth and\njustice; Socrates himself, I say, perhaps, most probably even, knew as\nlittle why he was dying as do simple people who die a natural death, or\nas babes born into the world know by what beneficent or hostile power\nthey have been summoned from nonentity into being. Such is our life:\nwise men and fools, old men and children march at random to goals which\nhave not yet been revealed by any books, whether worldly or spiritual,\ncommon or sacred. It is by no means with the desire to bring dogmatism\ninto contempt that I recall these considerations. I have always been\nconvinced, and am still certain, that dogmatists feel no shame, and\nare by no means to be driven out of life; besides, I have lately come\nto the conclusion that the dogmatists are perfectly justified in their\nstubbornness. Belief, and the need of belief, are strong as love, as\ndeath. In the case of every dogmatist I now consider it my sacred\nduty to concede everything in advance, even to the acknowledgment\nof the least, and least significant, shades of his convictions and\nbeliefs. There is but one limitation, one only, imperceptible and\nalmost invisible: the dogmatist's convictions must not be absolutely\nand universally binding, that is, not binding upon the whole of\nmankind without exception. The majority, the vast majority, millions,\neven tens of millions of people, I will readily allow him, on the\nunderstanding that they themselves desire it, or that he will show\nhimself skilful enough to entice them to his side--violence is surely\nnot to be admitted in matters of belief. In a word, I allow him almost\nthe whole of humankind, in consideration whereof he must agree that\nhis convictions are not intrinsically binding upon the few units or\ntens that remain. I agree to an outward submission. And the dogmatist,\nafter such a victory--my confession is surely a complete victory for\nhim--must consider himself satisfied in full.\n\nSocrates was right, Plato, Tolstoi, the prophets were right: there is\nonly one truth, one God; truth has the right to destroy lie, light\nto destroy darkness. God, omniscient, most gracious and omnipotent,\nwill like Alexander of Macedon conquer nearly all the known world, and\nwill drive out from his possessions, amid the triumphant and delighted\nshouts of his millions of loyal subjects, the devil and all those who\nare disobedient to his divine word. But he will renounce his claim to\npower over the souls of his few opponents, according to the agreement,\nand a handful of apostates will gather together on a remote isle,\ninvisible to the millions, and will there continue their free, peculiar\nlife. And here--to return to the beginning--among these few disobedient\nwill be found Ibsen as he was in the last years of his life, as he is\nseen in his last drama. For in _When We Dead Awake_ Ibsen approves and\nglorifies that which Gogol actually did fifty years ago. He renounces\nhis art, and with hatred and mockery recalls to mind what was once\nthe business of his life. On April 15, 1866, Ibsen wrote to King Karl:\n'I am not fighting for a careless existence; I am fighting for the\nwork of my life, in which I unflinchingly believe, and which I know\nGod has given me to do.' By the way, you will hardly find one of the\ngreat workers who has not repeated this assertion of Ibsen's, whether\nin the same or in another form. Evidently, without such an illusion,\ntemporary or permanent, one cannot compass the intense struggle and the\nsacrifices which are the price of great work. Evidently, illusions of\nvarious kinds are necessary even for success in small things. In order\nthat a little man should fulfil his microscopical work, he too must\nstrain his little forces to the extreme. And who knows whether it did\nnot seem to Akaky Akakievitch that God had assigned to him the task\nof copying the papers in the office and having a new uniform made? Of\ncourse he would never dare to say so, and he would never be able to,\nfirst because of his timidity, and then because he has not the gift of\nexpression. The Muses do not bring their tribute to the poor and weak:\nthey sing only Croesus and Caesar. But there is no doubt that the first\nin the village consider themselves as plainly designated by fate as the\nfirst in Rome. Caesar felt this, and not mere ambition alone spoke in\nhim when he uttered the famous phrase. Men do not believe in themselves\nand always yearn to occupy a position wherein the certainty, whether\njustified or mistaken, may spring up within them that they stand in the\nsight of God. But with years all illusions vanish, and among them the\nillusion that God chooses certain men for his particular purposes and\nputs on them particular charges. Gogol, who had thus long understood\nhis task as an author, burnt his best work before his death. Ibsen did\nalmost the same. In the person of Professor Rubek he renounces his\nliterary activity and jeers at it, though it had brought him everything\nthat he could have expected from it, fame, respect, riches.... And\nthink why! Because he had to sacrifice the man in him for the sake of\nthe artist, to give up Irene whom he loved, to marry a woman to whom he\nwas indifferent. Did Ibsen at the end of his life clearly discover that\nGod had appointed him the task of being a male? But all men are males,\nwhile only individuals are artists. Had this been said, not by Ibsen,\nbut by a common mortal, we would call it the greatest vulgarity. On\nthe lips of Ibsen, an old man of seventy years, the author of _Brand,_\nfrom which the divines of Europe draw the matter for their sermons, on\nthe lips of Ibsen who wrote _Emperor and Galilean_ such a confession\nacquires an unexpected and mysterious meaning. Here you cannot escape\nwith a shake of the head and a contemptuous smile. Not anybody, but\nIbsen himself speaks--the first, not in the village, not in Rome even,\nbut in the world. Here surely is the human law at work: 'Forswear not\nthe prison nor the beggar's wallet!'\n\nPerhaps it is opportune to recall the swan songs of Turgeniev.\nTurgeniev, too, had high ideals which he probably thought he had\nreceived direct from God. We may with assurance put into the mouth\nof Brand himself the phrase with which his remarkable essay, _Hamlet\nand Don Quixote,_ concludes: 'Everything passes, good deeds remain.'\nIn these words is the whole Turgeniev, or better, the whole conscious\nTurgeniev of that period of his life to which the essay belongs. And\nnot only in that period, but up to the last minutes of his life, the\nconscious Turgeniev would not recant those words. But in the _Prose\nPoems_ an utterly different motive is heard. All that he there relates,\nand all that Ibsen tells in his last drama, is permeated with one\ninfinite, inextinguishable anguish for a life wasted in vain, for a\nlife which had been spent in preaching 'good.' Yet neither youth, nor\nhealth, nor the powers that fail are regretted. Perhaps even death has\nno terrors.... What the old Turgeniev cannot away with are his memories\nof 'the Russian girl.' He described and sang her as no one in Russian\nliterature before him, but she was to him only an ideal; he, like\nRubek, had not touched her. Ibsen had not touched Irene; he went off\nto Madame Viardo. And this is an awful sin, in no wise to be atoned,\na mortal sin, the sin of which the Bible speaks. All things will be\nforgiven, all things pass, all things will be forgotten: this crime\nwill remain for ever. That is the meaning of Turgeniev's _senilia_;\nthat is the meaning of Ibsen's _senilia._ I have deliberately chosen\nthe word _senilia,_ though I might have said swan songs, though it\nwould even have been more correct to speak of swan songs. 'Swans,' says\nPlato, 'when they feel the approach of death, sing that day better\nthan ever, rejoicing that they will find God, whom they serve.' Ibsen\nand Turgeniev served the same God as the swans, according to the Greek\nbelief, the bright God of songs, Apollo. And their last songs, their\n_senilia,_ were better than all that had gone before. In them is a\nbottomless depth awful to the eye, but how wonderful! There all things\nare different from what they are with us on the surface. Should one\nhearken to the temptation and go to the call of the great old men,\nor should he tie himself to the mast of conviction, verified by the\nexperience of mankind, and cover his ears as once the crafty Ulysses\ndid to save himself from the Syrens? There is a way of escape: there\nis a word which will destroy the enchantment. I have already uttered\nit: _senilia._ Turgeniev wished to call his _Prose Poems_ by this\nname--manifestations of sickness, of infirmity, of old age. These are\nterrible; one must run away from these! Schopenhauer, the philosopher\nand metaphysician, feared to revise the works of his youth in his old\nage. He felt that he would spoil them by his mere touch. And all men\nmistrust old age, all share Schopenhauer's apprehensions. But what if\nall are mistaken? What if _senilia_ bring us nearer to the truth?\nPerhaps the soothsaying birds of Apollo grieve in unearthly anguish\nfor another existence; perhaps their fear is not of death but of life;\nperhaps in Turgeniev's poems, as well as in Ibsen's last drama, are\nalready heard, if not the last, then at least the penultimate words of\nmankind.\n\n\n\nVII\n\n_What is Philosophy?_\n\n\nIn text-books of philosophy you will find most diverse answers to this\nquestion. During the twenty-five hundred years of its existence it\nhas been able to make an immense quantity of attempts to define the\nsubstance of its task. But up till now no agreement has been reached\nbetween the acknowledged representatives of the lovers and favourites\nof wisdom. Every one judges in his own way, and considers his opinion\nas the only true one; of a _consensus sapientium_ it is impossible\neven to dream. But strangely enough, exactly in this disputable matter\nwherein the agreement of savants and sages is so impossible, the\n_consensus profanorum_ is fully attained. All those who were never\nengaged in philosophy, who have never read learned books, or even any\nbooks at all, answer the question with rare unanimity. True, it is\napparently impossible to judge of their opinions directly, because\npeople of this kind cannot speak at all in the language evolved by\nscience; they never put the question in such a form, still less can\nthey answer it in the accepted words. But we have an important piece of\nindirect evidence which gives us the right to form a conclusion. There\nis no doubt that all those who have gone to philosophy for answers\nto the questions which tormented them, have left her disenchanted,\nunless they had a sufficiently eminent gift to enable them to join the\nguild of professional philosophers. From this we may unhesitatingly\nconclude, although the conclusion is for the time being only negative,\nthat philosophy is engaged in a business which may be interesting and\nimportant to the few, but is tedious and useless to the many.\n\nThis conclusion is highly consoling as well for the sage as for the\nprofane. For every sage, even the most exalted, is at the same time\none of the profane--if we discard the academical use of words--a\nhuman being, pure and simple. To him also it may happen that those\ntormenting questions will arise, which ordinary people used to bring\nto him, as for instance in the case of Tolstoi's Ivan Ilyich or\nTchekhov's professor in _The Tedious Story._ And then he will of course\nbe obliged to confess that the necessary answers are missing from\nthe great tomes which he has studied so well. For what can be more\nterrible to a man than to be compelled in the hard moments of his life\nto acknowledge any doctrine of philosophy as binding upon him? For\ninstance, to be compelled to hold with Plato, Spinoza, or Schopenhauer\nthat the chief problem of life is moral perfection, or in other words,\nself-renunciation. It was easy for Plato to preach justice. It did\nnot in the least prevent him from being the son of his time, or from\nbreaking to a permissible extent the commandments which he himself\nhad given. By all the evidence Spinoza was much more resolute and\nconsequent than Plato; he indeed kept the passions in subservience, but\nthat was his personal and individual inclination. Consistence was not\nmerely a property of his mind, but of his whole being. Displaying it,\nhe displayed himself. As for Schopenhauer, it is known that he praised\nthe virtues only in his books; but in life, like many another clever,\nindependent man, he was guided by the most diverse considerations.\n\nBut these are all masters, who devise systems and imperatives. Whereas\nthe pupil, seeking in philosophy an answer to his questions, cannot\npermit himself any liberties and digressions from the universal rules,\nfor the essence and the fundamental problem of any doctrine reduces to\nthe subordination not merely of men's conduct, but of the life of the\nwhole universe to one regulating principle. Individual philosophers\nhave discovered such principles, but to this day they have reached no\nfinal agreement among themselves, and this to some extent lightens the\nburden of those unhappy ones who, having lost the hope of finding help\nand guidance elsewhere, have turned to philosophy. If there is not\nin philosophy one universal principle binding upon and acknowledged\nby all, it means that it is permitted to each man, at least for the\nmeantime, to feel and even to act in his own way. A man may listen\nto Spinoza, or he may stop his ears. He may kneel before Plato's\neternal ideas, or he may give his allegiance to the ever-changing,\never-flowing reality. Finally, he may accept Schopenhauer's pessimism,\nbut nothing on earth can compel him to celibacy on the ground that\nSchopenhauer successfully laughed at love. Nor is there any necessity\nat all, in order to win such freedom for one's self, to be armed\nwith the light dialectic of the old Greek philosopher, or with the\nheavy logic of the poor Dutch Jew, or with the subtle wit of the\nprofound German. Neither is it necessary to dispute them. It is even\npossible to agree with them all. The room of the world is infinite,\nand will not only contain all those who lived once and those who are\nyet to be born, but will give to each one of them all that he can\ndesire: to Plato, the world of ideas, to Spinoza, the one eternal and\nunchangeable substance, to Schopenhauer, the Nirvana of Buddhism. Each\nof these, and all the other philosophers, will find what they want in\nthe universe even to the belief, even to the conviction, that theirs\nare the only true and universal doctrines. But, at the same time,\nthe profane will find suitable worlds for themselves. From the fact\nthat people are cooped up on the earth, and that they must put forth\nefforts beyond belief to gain each cubit of earth, and even their\nillusory liberties, it by no means follows that poverty, obscurantism,\nand despotism must be considered eternal and original principles, and\nthat economical uniformity is the last refuge of man. A plurality of\nworlds, a plurality of men and gods amid the vast spaces of the vast\nuniverse--this is, if I may be forgiven the word, an ideal. It is true\nit is not built according to the idealists. Yet what a conclusion does\nit foreshadow! We leave the disputes and arguments of philosophers\naside, so soon as we begin to speak of gods. According to the existing\nbeliefs and hypotheses the gods also have always been quarrelling\nand fighting among themselves. Even in monotheistic religions people\nalways made their God enter a fight, and devised an eminent opponent\nfor him--the devil. Men can by no means rid themselves of the thought\nthat everything in heaven goes on in exactly the same way as it does\non the earth, and they attribute all their own bad qualities as well\nas their good ones to the denizens of heaven. Whereas it is by far the\nmost probable that a great many of the things which are, according to\nour notions, perfectly inseparable from life do not exist in heaven.\nAmong other things, there is no struggle. And this is well. For every\nstruggle, sooner or later, develops inevitably into a fight. When\nthe supply of logical and ethical arguments is exhausted, one thing\nis left for the irreconcilable opponents--to come to blows, which do\nin fact usually decide the issue. The value of logical and ethical\narguments is arbitrarily assigned, but material force is measured by\nfoot-pounds and can be calculated in advance. So that where on the\ncommon supposition there will be no foot-pounds, the issue of the\nfight will very often remain undecided. When Lermontov's demon goes\nto Tamara's cell, an angel meets him on the way. The demon says that\nTamara belongs to him; the angel demands her for himself. The demon\nwill not be dissuaded by words and arguments: he is not built that way.\nAs for the angel, he always considers himself doubly right. How can the\nissue be decided? At last Lermontov, who could not or dared not devise\na new solution, admitted the interference of material force: Tamara\nis dragged away from the demon exactly as the stronger robber pulls\nhis prey from the weaker on earth. Evidently the poet admitted that\nconclusion, that he might pay his tribute to the piety of tradition.\nBut in my opinion the solution is not pious, but merely blasphemous.\nIn it the traces of barbarity and idolatry are still clearly visible.\nThe tastes and attributes of which earthly despots dream are attributed\nto God. By all means he must be, he desires to be, the strongest, the\nvery first, just like Julius Caesar in his youth. He fears rivalry\nabove all things, and never forgives his unconquered enemies. This is\nevidently a barbarous mistake. God does not want to be the strongest,\nthe very first, at all. Certainly--for that would be intelligible and\nin accordance with common sense--he would not like to be weaker than\nothers, in order that he might not be exposed to violence; but there\nis no foundation at all for attributing to him ambition or vainglory.\nTherefore there is equally no reason to think that he does not suffer\nequals, desires to be supreme, and seeks at all costs to destroy the\ndevil. Most probably he lives in peace and concord even with those\nwho least adapt themselves to his tastes and habits. Perhaps he is\neven delighted that not all are as he, and he readily shares his\npossessions with the devil, the more readily because by such a division\nneither loses, since the infinite--I admit that God's possessions are\ninfinite--divided by two and even by the greatest possible finite\nnumber still leaves infinity.\n\nNow we can return to the original question, and it seems that we\ncan even give an answer to it--two answers even, one for the sage,\nanother for the profane. To the first, philosophy is art for art's\nsake. Every philosopher tries to construct a harmonious and various\nsystem, curiously and nicely fashioned, using for his material his own\nintrinsic experience as well as his own personal observations of the\nlife beyond him, and the observations of others. A philosopher is an\nartist of his kind, to whom his works are dearer than everything in\nlife, sometimes dearer than life itself. We very often see philosophers\nsacrifice everything for the sake of their work--even truth. Not so\nthe profane. To them philosophy--more exactly, that which they would\ncall philosophy if they possessed a scientific terminology--is the last\nrefuge when material forces have been wasted, when there are no weapons\nleft to fight for their stolen rights. Then they run for help and\nsupport to a place which they have always taken care to avoid before.\nThink of Napoleon at St. Helena. He who had been collecting soldiers\nand guns all his life, began to philosophise when he was bound hand and\nfoot. Certainly he behaved in this new sphere like a beginner, a very\ninexperienced and, strange to say, a pusillanimous novice.\n\nHe who feared neither pestilence nor bullet, was afraid, we know, of\na dark room. Men used to philosophy, like Schopenhauer, walk boldly\nand with confidence in a dark room, though they run away from gun\nshots, and even less dangerous things. The great captain, the once\nEmperor of nearly all Europe, Napoleon, philosophised on St. Helena,\nand even went so far as to begin to ingratiate himself with morality,\nevidently supposing that upon morality his ultimate fate depended. He\nassured her that for her sake, and her sake alone, he had contrived\nhis murderous business--he who, all the while a crown was on his head\nand a victorious army in his hands, hardly knew even of the existence\nof morality. But this is so intelligible. If one were to come upon a\nperfectly new and unknown world at the age of forty-five, then surely\neverything would seem terrible, and one would take the incorporeal\nmorality for the arbiter of destiny. And one would plan to seduce\nher, if possible, with sweet words and false promises, as a lady of\nthe world. But these were the first steps of a tyro. It was as hard\nfor Napoleon to master philosophy as it was for Charlemagne at the\nend of his days to learn to write. But he knew why he had come to the\nnew place, and neither Plato nor Spinoza nor Kant could dissuade him\nof this. Perhaps at the beginning, while he was as yet unused to the\ndarkness, he would pretend to agree with the acknowledged authorities,\nthinking that here too, just as there where he lived before, exalted\npersonages do not tolerate opposition; perhaps he would lie to them\nas he lied to morality, but his business he would not forget. He came\nto philosophy with _demands,_ and would not rest till he had received\nsatisfaction. He had already seen how a Corsican lieutenant had\nbecome a French Emperor. Why should not the beaten Emperor fight his\nlast fight?... And how shall he be reconciled with self-renunciation?\nPhilosophy will surrender: it is only necessary not to surrender in\none's self. So does a Napoleon come to philosophy, and so does he\nunderstand her. And until the contrary is proven, nothing can prevent\nus from thinking that the Napoleons are right, and therefore that\nacademical philosophy is not the last nor even the penultimate word.\nFor, perhaps, the last word is hidden in the hearts of the tongue-tied,\nbut bold, persistent, implacable men.\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n_Heinrich Heine_\n\n\nMore than a hundred years have passed since the birth, and fifty\nyears since the death, of this remarkable man, but the history of\nliterature has not yet finally settled accounts with him. Even the\nGermans, perhaps the Germans above all, find it impossible to agree\nupon the valuation of his gift. Some consider him a genius, others a\nman devoid of talent and insipid. Moreover, his enemies still bring as\nmuch passion to their attacks upon him as they did before, as though\nthey were waging war upon a live opponent in place of a dead one. They\nhate him for the same things which made his contemporaries hate him.\nWe know that it was principally for his insincerity that they did not\nforgive him. No one could tell when he was speaking seriously and when\nin jest, what he loved and what he hated, and finally it was quite\nimpossible to determine whether or not he believed in God. It must be\nconfessed that the Germans were right in many of their accusations. I\nvalue Heine extremely highly; in my opinion he is one of the greatest\nGerman poets; and yet I cannot undertake to say with certainty what\nhe loved, what he believed, and often I cannot tell how serious he is\nin uttering one or another of his opinions. Nevertheless I find it\nimpossible to detect any insincerity in his works. On the contrary,\nthose peculiarities of his, which so irritated the Germans, are in my\neyes so many proofs of his wonderful and unique sincerity. I think that\nif the Germans were mistaken and misunderstood Heine, hypertrophied\nself-love and the power of prejudice is the cause. Heine's usual method\nis to begin to speak with perfect seriousness, and to end with biting\nraillery and sarcasm. Critics and readers, who generally do not guess\nat the outset what awaits them in the event, have taken the unexpected\nlaughter to their own account, and have been deeply offended. Wounded\nself-love never forgives; and the Germans could not forgive Heine\nfor his jests. And yet Heine but rarely attacked others: most of his\nmockery is directed against himself, and above all in the work of his\nlast creative period, of the years when he lived in the _Matrazengrab._\n\nWith us in Russia many were offended with Gogol, believing that he\nwas jeering at them. Later, he confessed that he had been describing\nhimself. Nor does the inconstancy of Heine's opinions in any way\nprove him insincere. His intention was by no means always to fling at\nthe Philistines. Indeed, he did not know what to believe; he changed\nhis tastes and attachments, and did not even always know for certain\nwhat he preferred at the moment. Of course, had he wished, he might\nhave pretended to be consequent and consistent. Or, had he been less\neagle-eyed, he might with the vast majority of men have adopted a\nceremonial dress once for all, he might have professed and invariably\npreached ideas which had no relation to his real emotions and moods.\nMany people think that one ought to act thus, that (particularly in\nliterature) one must speak only officially and exhibit lofty ideas\nthat have been proclaimed by wise men since time immemorial, without\ntheir having made the least inquiry whether they correspond to their\nown natures or not. Often cruel, vindictive, spiteful, selfish, mean\npeople sincerely praise goodness, forgiveness, love to one's enemy,\ngenerosity and magnanimity in their books, while of their tastes\nand passions they speak not a single word. They are confident that\npassions exist only to be suppressed, and that convictions only are to\nbe exhibited or displayed. A man rarely succeeds in suppressing his\npassions, but it is extremely easy to hide them, especially in books.\nAnd such dissimulation is not only not condemned, but recognised and\neven encouraged. The common and familiar programme is accepted: in life\n'passions' judge 'convictions,' in books 'convictions,' or 'ideals,'\nas they are called, pass sentence upon 'passions.' I would emphasise\nthe fact that most writers are convinced that their business is not to\ntell of themselves, but to praise ideals. Heine's sincerity was really\nof a different order. He told everything, or nearly everything, of\nhimself. And this was thought so shocking that the sworn custodians of\nconvention and good morals considered themselves wounded in their best\nand loftiest feelings. It seemed to them that it would be disastrous if\nHeine were to succeed in acquiring a great literary influence, and in\ngetting a hold upon the minds of his contemporaries. Then would crumble\nthe foundations, constructed through centuries of arduous labour by the\nunited efforts of the most distinguished representatives of the nation.\nThis is perhaps true: the lofty magnificence of life can be preserved\nonly upon the indispensable condition of hypocrisy. In order that it\nshould be beautiful, much must be hidden and thrust away as far and\ndeep as possible. The sick and the mad must be herded into hospitals;\npoverty into cellars; disobedient passions into the depths of the\nsoul. Truth and freedom are only allowed to obtrude upon the attention\nas far as is compatible with the interests of a life well arranged\nwithin and without. The Protestant Church understood this as well as\nthe Catholic, perhaps better. Strict puritanism elevated spiritual\ndiscipline to the highest moral law, which ruled life with unrelenting\nand inexorable despotism. Marriage and the family, not love, must be\nthe aim of man; and poor Gretchen, who gave herself to Faust without\nobserving the established ceremonial, was forced to consider herself\neternally damned. The inward discipline still more than the outward\nguarded the foundations and gave strength and force to the State as\nwell as to the people. Men and women were not spared; they were not\neven taken into account. Hundreds and thousands of Gretchens, men and\nwomen, were sacrificed, and are being sacrificed still, without pity to\n'the highest spiritual interests.'\n\nAcknowledgment and respect for the prescribed order had become so\ndeeply rooted in the German soul--I speak of Germany, because no\nother nation upon earth is so highly disciplined--that even the most\nindependent characters yielded to it. The most dreadful sin is not the\nbreaking of the law--a violation which like Gretchen's can be explained\nby weakness and weakness alone, though it was not forgiven, was less\nseverely condemned--but rebellion against the law, the open and daring\nrefusal to obey, even though it be expressed in the most insignificant\nact. Therefore every one tends to show his loyalty from that side\nfirst of all. In a greater or less degree all have transgressed the\nlaw, but the more one has violated it in act, the more imperative he\nconsiders its glorification in words. And this order of things aroused\nneither suspicion nor discontent. Therein could be seen acknowledged\nthe superiority of spirit over body, of mind over passion. Nobody ever\nasked the question: 'Is it really true that the spirit must have the\nmastery over the body, and the mind over the passions?' And when Heine\nallowed himself to put the question and to answer it in his own way,\nthe whole force of German indignation burst upon him. First of all\nthey suspected his sincerity and truthfulness. 'It is impossible,'\nsaid the pious, 'that he really should not acknowledge the law. He is\nonly pretending.' Such a supposition was the more natural because the\nring of conviction was not always to be heard in Heine's tone: one of\nhis poems ends with the following words: 'I seek the body, the body,\nthe young and tender body. The soul you may bury deep in the ground--I\nmyself have soul enough.' The poem is daring and provocative in the\nextreme, but in it, as in all Heine's daring and provocative poems, may\nbe heard a sharp and nervous laugh, which must be understood as the\nexpression of the divided soul, as a mockery of himself. It is he who\ntells of his meeting with two women, mother and daughter. Both please\nhim: the mother by her much knowledge, the daughter by her innocence.\nAnd the poet stands between them, in his own words, like Buridan's\nass between two bundles of hay. Again, daring, again, the laugh; and\nagain the well-balanced German is irritated. He would prefer that no\none should ever speak of such emotions, and if they are to be spoken\nof, then it must be at least in a penitent tone, with self-accusation.\nBut Heine's misplaced laughter is indecent and quite uselessly\ndisconcerting. I repeat that Heine himself was not always sure that\nhis 'sincerity' was lawful. While he was still a youth he told how\nthere suddenly ran through his soul, as through the whole earth, a\nrent which split asunder the unity of his former emotions. King David\nwhen he praised God and good did not remember his dark deeds--of\nwhich there were not a few--or, if he did remember them, it was only\nto repent. His soul was also divided, but he was able to preserve a\nsequence. When he wept, he could not and did not want to rejoice;\nwhen he repented, he was already far from sin; when he prayed, he did\nnot scoff; when he believed, he did not doubt. The Germans, brought\nup on the great king's psalms, had come to think that these things\nwere impossible and ought never to be possible. They admitted the\nsuccession of different, and even contradictory spiritual conditions,\nbut their simultaneous existence appeared to them unintelligible and\ndisgusting, in contradiction with divine commandments and the laws of\nlogic. It seemed to them that everything which formerly existed as\nseparate, had become confused, that the place of stringent harmony had\nbeen usurped by absurdity and chaos. They thought that such a state of\nthings threatened innumerable miseries. They did not admit the idea\nthat Heine himself might not understand it; in his creation they saw\nthe manifestation of a false and evil will, and they invoked divine and\nhuman judgment upon it. The Philistine irritation reached the extreme\nwhen it became clear that Heine had not humbled himself even before the\nface of death. Stricken by paralysis, he lay in his _Matrazengrab,_\nunable to stir a limb; he suffered the most intense bodily pains,\nwith no hope of cure, or even of relief, yet he still continued to\nblaspheme as before. Worse still, his sarcasms every day became more\nruthless, more poisonous, more refined. It might have been thought that\nit was left to him, crushed and destroyed, only to acknowledge his\ndefeat and to commit himself utterly to the magnanimity of the victor.\nBut in the weak flesh a strong spirit lived. All his thoughts were\nturned to God, the power of whose right hand, like every dying man,\nhe could not but feel upon him. But his thoughts of God, his attitude\nto God, were so original that the serious people of the outer world\ncould only shrug their shoulders. No one ever spoke thus to God, either\naloud or to himself. The thought of death usually inspires mortals\nwith fear or admiration; therefore they either kneel before him and\nimplore forgiveness or sing his praises. Heine has neither prayer nor\npraise. His poems are permeated with a charming and gracious cynicism,\npeculiar and proper to himself alone. He does not want to confess his\nsins, and even now on the threshold of another life he remains as he\nwas in youth. He desires neither paradise, nor bliss, nor heaven; he\nasks God to give him back his health, and to put his money affairs in\norder. 'I know there is much evil and many vices on earth. But I have\ngrown used to all that now, and besides I seldom leave my room. O God,\nleave me here, but heal my infirmities, and spare me from want,' he\nwrites in one of his last poems. He derides the legends of the blissful\nlife of sinless souls in paradise. 'Sitting on the clouds and singing\npsalms is a pastime quite unsuited to me.' He remembers the beautiful\nVenus of the Louvre and praises her as in the days of youth. His poem,\n_Das Hohelied,_ is a mixture of extreme cynicism, nobility, despair,\nand incredible sarcasm. I do not know whether dying men have had such\nthoughts as those which are expressed in this poem, but I am confident\nthat no one has expressed anything like them in literature. In Goethe's\n_Prometheus_ there is nothing of the provocative, unshakable, calm\npride and the consciousness of his rights which inspired the author\nof _Das Hohelied._ God, who created heaven and earth and man upon the\nearth, is free to torment my body and soul to his fill, but I myself\nknow what I need and desire, I myself decide what is good and what is\nbad. That is the meaning of this poem, and of all that Heine wrote in\nthe last years of his life. He knew as well as any one that according\nto the doctrines of philosophy, ethics, and religion, repentance and\nhumility are the condition of the soul's salvation, the readiness even\nwith the last breath of life to renounce sinful desires. Nevertheless,\nwith his last breath he does not want to own the power over himself\nof the age-old authorities of the world. He laughs at morality, at\nphilosophy, and at existing religions. The wise men think so, the wise\nmen want to live in their own way; let them think, let them live. But\nwho gave them the right to demand obedience from me? Can they have\nthe power to compel me to obedience? Listening to the words of the\ndying man, shall we not repeat his question? Shall we not take one step\nfurther? Heine is crushed, and if we may believe, as we have every\nreason to believe what he tells us in his 'Song of Songs,' his painful\nand terrible illness was the direct effect and consequence of his\nmanner of life. Does it mean that in the future, too (if future there\nis), new persecutions await him, until the day when of his own accord\nhe will subscribe to the proclaimed and established morality? Have we\nthe right to suppose that there are powers somewhere in the universe\npreoccupied with the business of cutting out all men, even down to\nthe last, after the same pattern? Perhaps Heine's contumacy points to\nquite a different intention of the arbiters of destiny. Perhaps the\nillness and torture prepared for those who fight against collars and\nblinkers--experience demonstrates with sufficient certainty that any\ndeclination from the high road and the norm inevitably brings suffering\nand ruin in its train--are only the trial of the human spirit. Who\nwill endure them, who will stand up for himself, afraid neither of\nGod nor of the devil and his ministers, he will enter victoriously\ninto another world. Sometimes I even think, in opposition to existing\nopinion, that _there_ the stubborn and inflexible are valued above\nall others, and that the secret is hidden from mortals lest the\nweak and compliant should take it into their heads to pretend to be\nstubborn, in order to deserve the favour of the gods. But he who\nwill not endure, but will deny himself, may expect the fate of which\nphilosophers and metaphysicians generally dream. He will be united\nwith the _primum mobile,_ he will be dissolved in the essence of being\ntogether with the mass of individuals like himself. I am tempted to\nthink that the metaphysical theories which preach self-renunciation\nfor the sake of love, and love for the sake of self-renunciation,\nare by no means empty and idle, as the positivists affirm. In them\nlies a deep, mysterious, and mystical meaning: in them is hidden a\ngreat truth. Their only mistake is that they pretend to be absolute.\nFor some reason or other men have decided that empirical truths are\nmany, but that metaphysical truth is one. Metaphysical truths are\nalso many, but that does not in the least prevent them from living in\nharmony one with another. Empirical truths like all earthly beings are\ncontinually quarrelling, and cannot get on without superior authority.\nBut metaphysical truths are differently arranged and know nothing\nwhatsoever of our rivalry. There is no doubt that people who feel the\nburden of their individuality and thirst for self-renunciation are\nabsolutely right. Every probability points to their at last attaining\ntheir purpose and being united to that to which they should be united,\nwhether neighbour or remote, or perhaps, as the pantheists desire, even\nto inanimate nature. But it is just as probable that those who value\ntheir individuality and do not consent to renounce it either for the\nsake of their neighbours or of a lofty idea, will preserve themselves\nand will remain themselves, if not for ever and ever, at least for a\nsufficiently long while, until they are weary. Therefore the Germans\nmust not be cross with Heine, at least those Germans who have judged\nhim not from the utilitarian point of view--from this point of view I\ntoo utterly condemn him, and find for him no justification at all--but\nfrom the lofty, religious or metaphysical point of view, as it is\ncalled nowadays. He cannot possibly disturb them in any way. They will\nbe united, down to the last they probably will be united in the Idea,\nthe thing in itself, in Substance, or any other alluring unity; and not\nHeine with his sarcasms will keep them from their lofty aspirations.\nWhile if he and those like him continue to live in their own way in a\nplace apart and even laugh at ideas--can that really be the occasion of\nserious annoyance?\n\n\n\nIX\n\n_What is Truth?_\n\n\nThe sceptics assert that truth does not and cannot exist, and the\nassertion has eaten so deep into the modern mind, that the only\nphilosophy which has spread in our day is that of Kant, which takes\nscepticism for its point of departure. But read the preface to the\nfirst edition of _The Critique of Pure Reason_ attentively, and you\nwill be convinced that he had absolutely no concern with the question:\n'What is truth?' He only set himself to solve the problem, what should\na man do who had been convinced of the impossibility of finding the\nobjective truth. The old metaphysic with its arbitrary and unproven\nassertions, which could not bear criticism, irritated Kant, and he\ndecided to get rid, even though by accepting the relative legitimacy of\nscepticism, of the unscientific discipline which he, as a teacher of\nphilosophy, had to represent. But the confidence of the sceptics and\nKant's deference are not in the least binding upon us. And after all\nKant himself did not fulfil the obligations which he undertook. For if\nwe do not know what is truth, what value have the postulates of the\nexistence of God and the immortality of the soul? How can we justify\nor explain any one of the existing religions, Christianity included?\nAlthough the Gospel does not at all agree with our scientific notions\nof the laws of nature, yet it does not in itself contain anything\ncontrary to reason. We do not disbelieve in miracles because they are\nimpossible. On the contrary, it is as clear as day to the most ordinary\ncommon sense that life itself, the foundation of the world, is the\nmiracle of miracles. And if the task of philosophy had reduced to the\nmere demonstration of the possibility of a miracle, her business would\nhave been splendidly accomplished long ago. The whole trouble is that\nvisible miracles are not enough for people, and that it is impossible\nto deduce from the fact that many miracles have already taken place\nthat other miracles, without which mere existence is often impossible,\nwill also happen in due course. Men are being born--without doubt\na great miracle; there exists a beautiful world--also a miracle of\nmiracles. But does it follow that men will rise from the grave, and\nthat paradise is made ready for them? The raising of Lazarus is not\nmuch believed nowadays even by those who revere the Gospel, not because\nthey will not admit the possibility of miracles in general, but because\nthey cannot decide _a priori_ which miracles are possible and which\nare not, and therefore they are obliged to judge _a posteriori._ They\nreadily accept a miracle that has happened, but they doubt the miracle\nthat has not happened, and _the more they doubt,_ the more passionately\ndo they desire it. It costs nothing to believe in the final triumph\nof good upon the earth (though it would be an absolute miracle), in\nprogress or the infallibility of the Pope (these too are miracles and\nby no means inconsiderable), for after all men are quite sufficiently\nindifferent to good, to progress, and to the virtues of the Pope. It\nis much harder, nay quite impossible, standing before the dead body of\none who is near and dear, to believe that an angel will fly down from\nheaven and bring the dead to life again, although the world is full of\nhappenings no less miraculous than the raising of the dead.\n\nTherefore the sceptics are wrong when they assert that there is no\ntruth. Truth exists, but we do not know it in all its volume, nor can\nwe formulate that which we do know: we cannot imagine why it happened\nthus and not otherwise, or whether that which happened had to happen\nthus, or whether something else quite different might have happened.\nOnce it was held that reality obeys the laws of necessity, but Hume\nexplained that the notion of necessity is subjective, and therefore\nmust be discarded as illusory. His idea was caught up (without the\ndeduction) by Kant. All those of our judgments which have the character\nof universality and necessity, acquire it only by virtue of our\npsychological organisation. In those cases where we are particularly\nconvinced of the objective value of our judgment, we have merely\nto do with a purely subjective certainty, though it is immutable\nand secure in the visible world. It is well known that Kant did not\naccept Hume's deduction: not only did he make no attempt to banish the\nfalse premisses from our intellectual economy, as Hume did with the\nconception of necessity, but, on the contrary, he declared that such\nan attempt was quite impracticable. The practical reason suggested to\nKant that though the foundations of our judgments are vitiated by their\nsource, yet their invariability may be of great assistance in the world\nof phenomena, that is in the space between the birth and death of man.\nIf a man has lived before birth (as Plato held), and will live after\ndeath, then his 'truths' were not, and will not be necessary there,\nin the other world. What truths are _there,_ and whether there are\nany truths at all, Kant only guesses, and he succeeds in his guesses\nonly because of his readiness to ignore logic in his conclusions. He\nsuddenly gives faith an immense right to judge of the real world, a\nright of which faith would never dream had it not been taken under his\nspecial patronage by the philosopher himself. But why can faith do that\nwhich reason cannot? And a yet more insidious question: Are not all\npostulates invented by the same mind which was deprived of its rights\nin the first Critique, but which subsequently obtained a verdict of\n_restitutio in integrum,_ by changing the name of the firm? The last\nhypothesis is the most probable. And if so, then does it not follow\nthat in the real world so carefully divided by Kant from the world of\nphenomena we will find much that is new, but not a little that is old.\n\nIn general it is clear that the assumption that our world is a world\nof an instant, a brief dream, utterly unlike real life, is mistaken.\nThis assumption, first enunciated by Plato, and afterwards elaborated\nand maintained by many representatives of religious and philosophical\nthought, is based upon no data at all. There's no denying, it is very\npleasant. But as often happens, as soon as the wish was invested\nwith language, by the mere fact it received too sharp and angular an\nexpression, so that it lost all resemblance to itself. The essence\nof the true, primordial life beyond the grave appears to Plato as\nabsolute good refined from all alloy, as the essence of virtue.\nBut after all Plato himself cannot suffer the absolute emptiness\nof the ideal existence, and constantly flavours it with elements\nwhich are by no means ideal, but which give interest and intensity\nto his dialogues. If you have never had the occasion to read Plato\nhimself, acquaint yourself with his philosophy through the teaching\nof any of his admirers and appreciators, and you will be struck by\nits emptiness. Read the thick volume of Natorp's well-known work,\nand you will see what value there is in Plato's 'purified' doctrine.\nAnd in passing I would recommend as a general rule, this method of\nexamining the ideas of famous philosophers, by acquainting oneself with\nthem not only in the original works, but in the expositions of their\ndisciples, particularly of faithful and conscientious disciples. When\nthe fascination of the personality and the genius disappears and the\nnaked, unadorned 'truth' remains--disciples always believe that the\nmaster had the truth, and they reveal it without any embellishment or\nfig leaf--only then does it become quite clear of how little value\nare the fundamental thoughts of even the most exalted philosophers.\nStill more obvious does it become when the faithful disciple begins\nto draw conclusions from his master's proportions. The book of the\naforesaid Natorp, a great Plato expert, is a _reductio ad absurdum_\nof all his master's ideas. Plato is revealed as a logical Neo-Kantian,\na narrow-minded savant, who had been put thoroughly through the mill\nat Freiburg or Heidelberg. It is also revealed that Plato's ideas, in\nthe pure state, do not in the least express his real attitude to life\nand to the world. One must take the whole Plato with his contradictions\nand inconsequence, with his vices and virtues, and value his defects at\nleast as much as his qualities, or even add one or two defects, and be\nblind to one or two virtues. For it is probable that he, as a man to\nwhom nothing human was alien, tried to assume a few virtues which he\ndid not possess, and to conceal a few failings. This course should be\nfollowed with other masters of wisdom and their doctrines. Then 'the\nother world' will not appear to be separated by such an abyss from our\nearthly vale. And perhaps, in spite of Kant, some empirical truths\nwill be found common to both worlds. Then Pilate's question will lose\nmuch of its all-conquering certainty. He wished to wash his hands of\nthe business, and he asked, 'What is truth?' After him and before him,\nmany who had no desire to struggle have devised ingenious questions and\ntaken their stand upon scepticism. But every one knows that truth does\nexist, and sometimes can even formulate its own conception with the\nclarity and precision demanded by Descartes. Is the miraculous bounded\nby the miracles that have already been seen on earth, or are its\nlimits set much wider? And if wider, then how much?\n\n\n\nX\n\n_More of Truth_\n\n\nPerhaps truth is by nature such that its communication between\nmen is impossible, at least the usual communication by means of\nlanguage. Every one may know it in himself, but in order to enter into\ncommunication with his neighbour he must renounce the truth and accept\nsome conventional lie. Nevertheless the value and importance of truth\nis by no means lessened by the fact that it cannot be given a market\nvaluation. If you were asked what is truth, you could not answer the\nquestion even though you had given your whole life to the study of\nphilosophical theories. In yourself, if you have no one to answer,\nyou know well what the truth is. Therefore truth does not by nature\nresemble empirical truth in the least, and before entering the world\nof philosophy, you must bid farewell to scientific methods of search,\nand to the accustomed methods of estimating knowledge. In a word, you\nmust be ready to accept something absolutely new, quite unlike what is\ntraditional and old. That is why the tendency to discredit scientific\nknowledge is by no means so useless as may at first sight appear to the\ninexperienced eye.\n\nThat is why irony and sarcasm prove to be a necessary weapon of the\ninvestigator. The most dangerous enemy of new knowledge always has\nbeen, and always will be, inculcated habit. From the practical point\nof view it is much more important to a man to know the things which\nmay help him to adapt himself to the temporary conditions of his\nexistence, than those which have a timeless value. The instinct of\nself-preservation always proves stronger than the sincerest desire for\nknowledge. Moreover, one must remember that the instinct has at its\ndisposal innumerable and most subtle weapons of defence, that all human\nfaculties without exception are under its command, from unconscious\nreflexes up to the enthroned mind and august consciousness. Much\nand often has been said in this regard, and for once the _consensus\nsapientium_ is on my side. True, this is treated as an undeniable\nperversion of human nature--and here I make my protest. I think that\nthere is in this nothing undesirable. Our mind and consciousness must\nconsider it an honour that they can find themselves in the service of\ninstinct, even if it be the instinct of self-preservation. They should\nnot be conceited, and to tell the truth they are not conceited, but\nreadily fulfil their official mission. They pretend to priority only\nin books, and tremble at the thought of pre-eminence in life. If by\nsome accident they were allowed freedom of action they would go mad\nwith terror, like children lost in a forest at night. Every time that\nthe mind and consciousness begin to judge independently, they reach\ndestructive conclusions. And then they see with surprise that this\ntime too they were not acting freely, but under the dictation of the\nself-same instinct, which had assumed a different character. The human\nsoul desired the work of destruction, and she loosed the slaves from\ntheir chains, and they in wild enthusiasm began to celebrate their\nfreedom by making great havoc, not in the least suspecting that they\nremained just as they were before, slaves who work for others.\n\nLong ago Dostoevsky pointed out that the instinct of destruction\nis as natural to the human soul as that of creation. Beside these\ntwo instincts all our faculties appear to be minor psychological\nproperties, required only under given, and accidental, conditions.\nOf truth--as not only the crass materialists now confess, but the\nidealists also have found in their metaphysic--nothing remains but\nthe idea of the norm.--To speak in more expressive and intelligible\nlanguage, truth exists only in order that men who are separated in time\nand space might establish between themselves some kind of communication\nat least. That is, a man must choose between absolute loneliness\nwith truth, on the one side, and communion with his neighbours and\nfalsehood, on the other. Which is the better, it will be asked. The\nquestion is idle, I reply. There is a third way still: to accept\nboth, though it may at first appear utterly absurd, especially to\npeople who have once for all decided that logic, like mathematics,\nis infallible. Whereas it is possible, and not merely possible--we\nwould not be content with a possibility: only a German idealist can be\nsatisfied with a good which was never realised in any place at all--it\nis continually observed that the most contradictory spiritual states\ndo coexist. All men lie when they begin to speak: our language is so\nimperfectly arranged that the principle of its arrangement presupposes\na readiness to speak untruth. The more abstract the subject is, the\nmore does the disposition to lie increase, until, when we touch upon\nthe most complicated questions, we have to lie incessantly, and the\nlie is the more intolerable and coarse the more sincere we are. For a\nsincere man is convinced that veracity is assured by the absence of\ncontradictions, and in order to avoid all appearance of lie, he tries\nto make a logical agreement between his opinions: that is to raise his\nlie to Herculean heights. In his turn, when he receives the opinions\nof others, he applies the same criterion, and the moment he notices\nthe smallest contradiction, he begins naively to cry out against the\nviolation of the fundamental decencies. What is particularly curious\nis that all the learned students of philosophy--and it is strictly to\nthem that I address myself here, as the reader has probably observed\nlong ago--certainly are well aware that no single one of the mightiest\nphilosophers has hitherto succeeded in eliminating all contradictions\nfrom his system. How well armed was Spinoza! He spared no effort,\nand stuck at nothing, and yet his remarkable system will not bear\nlogical criticism. That is a matter of common knowledge. So it appears\nthat we ought to ask what the devil is the use of consistency, and\nwhether contradictions are not the condition of truthfulness in one's\nconception of the world. And after Kant, his disciples and successors\nmight have answered quietly that the devil alone knows the use of\nconsistency, and that truth lives by contradictions. As a matter of\nfact, Hegel and Schopenhauer, each in his own way, partly attempted to\nmake an admission of this kind, but they derived small profit from it.\n\nLet us try to draw some conclusions from the foregoing. Certainly,\nwhile logic can be useful, it would be unjustifiable recklessness\nto refuse its services. Nor are the conclusions devoid of interest,\nas we shall see. First of all, when you speak, never trouble to be\nconsistent with what you said before: that will put an unnecessary\ncheck upon your freedom, which, without that additional fetter, is\nalready chained in words and grammatical forms. When you are listening\nto a friend or reading a book, do not assign great value to individual\nwords or even to phrases. Forget separate thoughts, and give no great\nconsideration even to logically arranged ideas. Remember that though\nyour friend desires it, he cannot express himself save by ready-made\nforms of speech. Look well to the expression of his face, listen to\nthe intonation of his voice--this will help you to penetrate through\nhis words to his soul. Not only in conversation, but even in a written\nbook, can one over-hear the sound, even the timbre of the author's\nvoice, and notice the finest shades of expression in his eyes and\nface. Do not fasten upon contradictions, do not dispute, do not demand\nargument: only listen with attention. In return for which, when you\nbegin to speak, you also will have to face no dispute, nor to produce\narguments, which you know well you neither have nor could have. So you\nwill not be annoyed by having pointed out to you your contradictions\nwhich you know well were always there, and will always be there, and\nwith which it is painful, nay quite impossible, for you to part. Then,\nthen--and this is most important of all--you will at last be convinced\nthat truth does not depend on logic, that there are no logical truths\nat all, that you therefore have the right to search for what you like,\nhow you like, without argument, and that if something results from your\nsearch, it will not be a formula, not a law, not a principle, not even\nan idea! Only think: while the object of search is 'truth,' as it is\nunderstood nowadays, one must be prepared for anything. For instance,\nthe materialists will be right, and matter and energy are the basis\nof the world. It does not matter that we can immediately confound\nthe materialists with their conclusions. The history of thought can\nshow many cases of the complete rehabilitation of opinions that have\nbeen cast off and reviled. Yesterday's error may be to-morrow's truth,\neven a self-evident truth. And apart from its content, wherein is\nmaterialism bad? It is a harmonious, consistent, and well-sustained\nsystem. I have already pointed out that the materialistic\nconception of the world is just as capable of enchanting men as any\nother--pantheistic or idealistic. And since we have come so far, I\nconfess that in my opinion no ideas at all are bad in themselves: so\nfar I have been able to follow with pleasure the development of the\nidea of progress to the accompaniment of factories, railways, and\naeroplanes. Still, it seems to me childish to hope that all these\ntrivialities--I mean the ideas--will become the object of man's serious\nseeking. If that desperate struggle of man with God and the world\nwere possible, of which legend and history tell--think of Prometheus\nalone--then it was not for truth and not for the idea. Man desires to\nbe strong and rich and free, the wretched, insignificant creature of\ndust, whom the first chance shock crushes like a worm before one's\neyes,--and if he speaks of ideas it is only because he despairs of\nsuccess in his proper search. He feels that he is a worm, he fears that\nhe must again return to the dust which he is, and he lies, pretending\nthat his misery is not terrible to him, if only he knew the truth.\nForgive him his lie, for he speaks it only with his lips. Let him say\nwhat he will, how he will; so long as we hear in his words the familiar\nnote of the call to battle, and the fire of desperate inexorable\nresolution burns in his eyes, we will understand him. We are used to\ndecipher hieroglyphs. But if he, like the Germans of to-day, accepts\ntruth and the norm as the final goal of human aspiration, we shall also\nknow with whom we have to deal, were he by destiny endowed with the\neloquence of Cicero. Better utter loneliness than communion with such a\nman. Yet such communion does not exclude utter loneliness; perhaps it\neven assists the hard achievement.\n\n\n\nXI\n\n_I and Thou_\n\n\nThe familiar expression, 'to look into another's soul,' which by\nforce of habit at first sight seems extremely intelligible, on closer\nobservation appears so unintelligible that one is forced to ask whether\nit has any meaning at all. Try to bend, mentally, over another's soul:\nyou will see nothing but a vast, empty, black abyss, and you will only\nbe seized with giddiness for your pains. Thus, properly speaking, the\nexpression 'to look into another's soul' is only an abortive metaphor.\nAll that we can do is to argue from the outward data to the inward\nfeelings. From tears we deduce pain, from pallor, fear, from a smile,\njoy. But is this to look into another's soul? It is only to give room\nto a series of purely logical processes in one's head. The other's soul\nremains as invisible as before; we only guess at it, perhaps rightly,\nperhaps mistakenly. Naturally this conclusion irritates us. What a\nmiserable world it is where it is quite impossible to see the very\nthing that we desire above all to see. But irritation is almost the\nnormal spiritual state of a man who thinks and seeks. Whenever it is\nparticularly important to him to be sure of something, after a number\nof desperate attempts he is convinced that his curiosity cannot be\nsatisfied. And now the mocking mind adds a new question to the old:\nWhy look for another's soul when you have not seen your own? And is\nthere a soul? Many have believed and still do believe that there is no\nsoul at all, but only a science of it, called psychology. It is known\nthat psychology says nothing of the soul, considering that its task is\nconfined to the study of spiritual states--states, by the way, which\nhave as yet hardly been studied at all.... What is the way out? One can\nanswer irony with irony, or even with abuse. One can deny psychology\nthe right to be called a science and call the materialists a pack of\nfools, as is often done. Incontestably, anger has its rights. But this\nhas sense and meaning only while you are among people and are listened\nto. Nobody wants to be indignant alone with oneself, when one is\nnot even reckoning upon making use of one's indignation for literary\npurposes: for even a writer is not always writing, and is more often\npreoccupied with transitory thoughts than with his forthcoming works.\nOne prefers to approach the enchanted cave, though for the thousandth\ntime, with every possible precaution. Perhaps it is only upon the\napproach of an outside soul that another's soul becomes invisible,\nand if she be caught unawares she will not have time to disappear.\nSo that ponderous psychology, which like any other science always\nproclaims its plans and methods aloud before undertaking anything, is\nutterly unsuited to the capture of a thing so light and mobile as the\nhuman soul. But let us leave psychology with the honourable name of\nscience; let us even respect the materialists, while we endeavour to\ntrack down the soul by other means. Perhaps in the depth of the dark\nabyss of which we spoke, something might be found, were it not for\nthe giddiness. Therefore it is not so necessary to invent new methods\nas to learn to look fearlessly into the depths, which always appear\nunfathomable to the unaccustomed eye.\n\nAfter all, unfathomability is not so entirely useless to man. It was\ndriven into our heads as children that the human mind could compass\nonly those things which are limited. But this only proves that we have\nyet another prejudice to get rid of. If it comes to giving up the right\nof abusing the materialists and of being taught by psychology, and\nsomething else into the bargain--well, we are used to that. But in\nreturn we may at last be granted a glimpse of the mysterious 'thou,'\nand perhaps the 'I' will cease to be problematical as well. Patience\nis a sickening thing; but remember the fakirs and the other worthies\nof the same kind. They succeed by patience alone. And apparently\nthey arrive at something; but not at universal truths, I am ready to\nvouch for that. The world has long been weary of universal truths.\nEven 'truth' pure and simple makes no whisper in my ear. We must find\na way of escape from the power of every kind of truth. This victory\nthe fakirs tried to win. They can produce no arguments to prove their\nright, for the visible victory was never on their side. One conquers\nby bayonets, big guns, microscopes and logical arguments. Microscopes\nand logic give the palm to limitation. And yet, though limitation often\nstrengthens, it also happens that it kills.\n\n\n\n\nTHE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE\n\n\n\n_The Theory of Knowledge as Apologetics_\n\n\nThe modern theory of knowledge, though it always consciously takes\nits rise from Kant, has in one respect quite disregarded the master's\ncommandment. It is very strange that the theorists of knowledge,\nwho usually cannot agree among themselves upon anything, have as it\nwere agreed to understand the problem of knowledge quite otherwise\nthan Kant. Kant undertook to investigate our cognitive faculties in\norder to establish foundations, in virtue of which certain existing\nsciences could be accepted, and others rejected. One may say that the\nsecond purpose was chief. Hume's scepticism made him uneasy only in\ntheory. He knew beforehand that whatever theory of knowledge he might\ninvent, mathematics and the natural sciences would remain sciences and\nmetaphysics be rejected. In other words, his aim was not to justify\nscience but to explain the possibility of its existence; and he started\nfrom the point of view that no one can seriously doubt the truths of\nmathematics and natural science. But now the position is different. The\ntheorists of knowledge direct all their efforts towards _justifying_\nscientific knowledge. Why? Does scientific knowledge really need\njustification? Of course there are cranks, sometimes even cranks of\ngenius, like our own Tolstoi, who attack science; but their attacks\noffend no one, nor do they cause alarm.\n\nScientists continue their researches as before; the universities\nflourish; discovery follows discovery. And the theorists of knowledge\nthemselves do not spend sleepless nights in the endeavour to find\nnew justifications for science. Yet, I repeat, though they can come\nto an understanding about practically nothing else, they amaze us\nby their unanimity upon this point--they are all convinced that it\nis their duty to justify science and exalt her. So that the modern\ntheory of knowledge is no longer a science, but an apology. And\nits demonstrations are like those of apology. Once science must\nbe defended, it is necessary to begin by praising her, that is by\nselecting evidence and data to show that science fulfils some mission\nor other, but indubitably a very high and important one, or, on the\nother hand, by painting a picture of the fate that would overtake\nmankind, if it was deprived of science. Thus the apologetic element\nhas begun to play almost as large a part in the theory of knowledge\nas it has done hitherto in theology. Perhaps the time is at hand when\nscientific apologetics will be officially recognised as a philosophic\ndiscipline.\n\nBut, _qui s'excuse s'accuse._ It is plain that all is not well with\nscience, since she has begun to justify herself. Besides, apologetics\nare only apologetics, and sooner or later the theory of knowledge\nwill be tired of psalms of praise, and will demand a more complex and\nresponsible task, and a real labour. At present the theorists start\nwith the assumption that scientific knowledge is perfect knowledge,\nand therefore the premisses upon which it is builded are not subject\nto criticism. The law of causation is not justified because it appears\nto be the expression of a real relation of things, nor even because we\nhave data at our disposal which could convince us that it does not and\nwill never admit exceptions, that uncaused effects are impossible. All\nthese things are lacking; but, we are told, they are not needed.\n\nThe chief thing is that the causal law makes science possible, while\nto reject it means to reject science and knowledge generally, all\nanticipation, and even, as some few hold, reason itself. Clearly, if\none has to choose between a slightly dubious admission on the one side\nand the prospect of chaos and insanity on the other, there will be no\nlong hesitation. Apologetics, we see, has chosen the most powerful of\narguments, _ad hominem._ But all such arguments partake of one common\ndefect; they are not constant, and they are double-edged.\n\nTo-day they defend scientific knowledge; to-morrow they will attack it.\nIndeed, it so happens that the very belief in the causal law begets a\ngreat disquiet and turmoil in the soul, which finally produces all the\nhorrors of chaos and madness. The certainty that the existing order\nis immutable is for certain minds synonymous with the certainty that\nlife is nonsensical and absurd. Probably the disciples of Christ had\nthat feeling when the last words of their crucified Master reached them\nfrom the cross: 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?' And the\nmodern theorists may explain triumphantly that when the law became the\ninstrument of chaos and madness, it was _ipso facto_ abolished. 'Christ\nhas risen,' say the disciples of Christ.\n\nI have said that the theorists may triumph; but I must confess that I\nhave not found in any of them an open glorification of such an obvious\nproof of the truth of their teaching. Of the resurrection of Christ\nthey say not a word--on the contrary, they make every effort to avoid\nit and pass it by in silence. And this circumstance compels us to pause\nand think. A dilemma arises: if you grant that the law of causation\nsuffers no exception, then your soul will be eternally haunted by the\nlast words of the crucified Christ; if you do not, then you will have\nno science. Some assert that it is impossible to live without science,\nwithout knowledge, that such a life is horror and madness; others\ncannot be reconciled to the thought that the most perfect of men died\nthe death of a murderer. What shall we do? Without which thing is it\nimpossible for man to live? Without scientific knowledge, or without\nthe conviction that truth and spiritual perfection are in the last\nresort the victors of this world? And how will the theory of knowledge\nstand with regard to questions such as these?\n\nWill it still continue its exercises in apologetics or will it at last\nunderstand that this is not its real problem, and that if it would\npreserve the right to be called philosophy, it will have not to justify\nand exalt the existing science, but to examine and direct some science\nof its own. It means above all to put the question: Is scientific\nknowledge really perfect, or is it perhaps imperfect, and should it\ntherefore yield its present honourable place to another science?\nEvidently this is the most important question for the theory of\nknowledge, yet this question it never puts. It wants to exalt existing\nscience. It has been, is now, and probably will long continue to be,\napologetics.\n\n\n\n_Truth and Utility_\n\n\nMill, seeking to prove that all our sciences, even the mathematical,\nhave an empiric origin, brings forward the following consideration.\nIf on every occasion that we had to take twice two things, some deity\nslipped one extra thing into our hands, we should be convinced that\ntwice two is not four but five. And perhaps Mill is right: perhaps we\nshould not divine what was the matter. We are much more concerned to\ndiscover what is practically necessary and directly useful to us than\nto search for truth. If a deity with each four things slipped a fifth\ninto our hands, we should accept the additional thing and consider\nit natural, intelligible, necessary, impossible to be otherwise. The\nvery uniformity in the sequence of phenomena observed by the empirical\nphilosophers was also slipped into our hands. By whom? When? Who dares\nto ask? Once the law is established no one is interested in anything\nany more. Now we can foretell the future, now we can use the thing\nslipped into our hands, and the rest--cometh of the evil one.\n\n\n\n_Philosophers and Teachers_\n\n\nEvery one knows that Schopenhauer was for many years not only not\nrecognised, but not even read. His books were used for waste-paper.\nIt was only towards the end of his life that he had readers and\nadmirers--and, of course, critics. For every admirer is at bottom a\nmost merciless and importunate critic. He must understand everything,\nmake everything agree, and of course the master must supply the\nnecessary explanations. Schopenhauer, who did not have the experience\nof being a master till his old age, at first behaved very benevolently\nto his disciples' questions and patiently gave the explanations\nrequired. But the further one goes into the forest, the thicker are\nthe trees. The most loyal perplexities of his pupils became more and\nmore importunate, until at last the old man lost patience. 'I didn't\nundertake to explain all the secrets of the universe to every one who\nwanted to know them,' he once exclaimed, when a certain pupil persisted\nin emphasising the contradictions he had noticed in Schopenhauer. And\nreally--is a master obliged to explain everything? In Schopenhauer's\nwords we are given an answer, not ambiguous. A philosopher not only\ncannot be a teacher, he does not want to be one. There are teachers\nin schools, in universities: they teach arithmetic, grammar, logic,\nmetaphysics. The philosopher has quite a different task, one which does\nnot in the least resemble teaching.\n\n\n\n_Truth as a Social Substance_\n\n\nThere are many ways, real and imaginary, of objectively verifying\nphilosophic opinions. But they all reduce, we know, to trial by\nthe law of contradiction. True, every one is aware that no single\nphilosophic doctrine is able to support such a trial, so that, pending\na better future, people consider it possible to display a certain\ntenderness in the examination. They are usually satisfied if they\ncome to the conclusion that the philosopher made a genuine attempt\nto avoid contradictions. For instance, they forgive Spinoza his\ninconsistency because of his _amor intellectualis Dei_; Kant, for his\nlove of morality and his praise of disinterestedness; Plato, for the\noriginality and purity of his idealistic impulses; and Aristotle, for\nthe vastyness and universality of his knowledge. So that, strictly\nspeaking, we must confess that we have no real objective method of\nverifying a philosophical truth, and when we criticise other people's\nsystems, we judge arbitrarily after all. If a philosopher suits us\nfor some reason, we do not trouble him with the law of contradiction;\nif he does not, we summon him before the court to be judged with the\nutmost rigour of the law, confident beforehand that he will be found\nguilty on every count. But sometimes there arises the desire to verify\none's own philosophic convictions. To play the farce of objective\nverification with them, to look for contradictions in oneself--I do not\nsuppose that even Germans are capable of that. And yet one desires to\nknow whether he does indeed possess the truth or whether he has only a\nuniversal error in his hands. What is to be done? I think there is a\nway. He should think to himself that it is absolutely impossible for\nhis truth to be binding upon anybody. If in spite of this he still\nrefuses to renounce her, if the truth can suffer such an ordeal and\nyet remain the same to him as she was before, then it may be supposed\nthat she is worth something. For often we appreciate conviction, not\nbecause it has an intrinsic value, but because it commands a high price\nin the market. Robinson Crusoe probably had a totally different way\nof thinking to that of a modern writer or professor, whose books are\nexposed to the appreciation of his numerous confr\u00e8res, who can create\nfor him the renown of a wise man and a scholar, or utterly ruin his\nreputation. Even with the Greeks, whom we are accustomed to regard as\nmodel thinkers, opinions had--to use the language of economics--not so\nmuch a demand, as an exchange value.\n\nThe Greeks had no knowledge of the printing-press, and no literary\nreviews. They usually took their wisdom out into the market-place,\nand applied all their efforts to persuade people to acknowledge its\nvalue. And it is hard to maintain that wisdom, which is constantly\nbeing offered to people, should not adapt itself to people's tastes.\nIt is truer to say that wisdom became accustomed to value itself to\nthe exact degree to which it could count on people's appreciation. In\nother words, it appears that the value of wisdom, like that of all\nother commodities, not only with us, but with the Greeks before us, is\na social affair. The most modern philosophy has given up concealing the\nfact. The teleology of the rationalists, who follow Fichte, as well as\nof the pragmatists who consider themselves the successors of Mill is\nopenly based upon the social point of view, and speaks of collective\ncreations. Truth which is not good for all, and always, in the home\nmarket and the foreign--is not truth. Perhaps its value is even defined\nby the quantity of labour spent upon it. Marx might triumph: under\ndifferent flags his theory has found admission into every sphere of\ncontemporary thought. There would hardly be found one philosopher who\nwould apply the method of verifying truth which I have proposed; and\nhardly a single modern idea which would stand the test.\n\n\n\n_Doctrines and Deductions_\n\n\nIf you want to ruin a new idea--try to give it the widest possible\npublicity. Men will begin to reflect upon it, to try it by their daily\nneeds, to interpret it, to make deductions from it, in a word to\nsqueeze it into their own prepared logical apparatus; or, more likely,\nthey will cover it up with the _d\u00e9bris_ of their own habitual and\nintelligible ideas, and it will become as dead as everything that is\nbegotten by logic. Perhaps this explains the tendency of philosophers\nto so clothe their thoughts that their form may hinder the approach of\nthe general public to them. The majority of philosophic systems are\nchaotically and obscurely expounded, so that not every educated person\ncan understand them. It is a pity to kill one's own child, and every\none does his best to save it from premature death. The most dangerous\nenemies of an idea are 'deductions' from it, as though they followed of\nthemselves. The idea does not presuppose them; they are usually pressed\nupon it. Indeed, people very often say: 'The idea is quite right, but\nit leads to conclusions which are not at all acceptable.' Again, how\noften has a philosopher to attend the sad spectacle of his pupil's\ndeserting all his ideas, and feeding only upon the conclusions from\nthem. Every thinker who has had the misfortune to attract attention\nwhile he was yet alive, knows by bitter experience what 'deductions'\nare. And yet you will rarely find a philosopher to offer open and\ncourageous resistance to his continuators; and still more rarely a\nphilosopher to say outright that his work needs no continuation, that\nit will not bear continuation, that it exists only in and for itself,\nthat it is self-sufficient. If some one said this, how would he be\nanswered? People could not dispute with him--try to dispute with a man\nwho wants neither to dispute nor to demonstrate.\n\nThe only answer is an appeal to the popular verdict, to lynch law.\nPeople are so weak and na\u00efve that they will at all costs see a teacher\n(in the usual sense of the word) in every philosopher. In other words,\nthey really want to throw upon him the responsibility for their\nactions, their present, their future, and their whole fate. Socrates\nwas not executed for teaching, but because the Athenians thought he\nwas dangerous to Athens. And in all ages men have approached truth\nwith this criterion, as though they knew beforehand that truth must\nbe of use and able to protect them. One of the greatest teachings,\nChristianity, was also persecuted because it seemed dangerous to the\nself-appointed guardians, or, if you will, because it was really very\ndangerous to Roman ideals. Of course, neither Socrates' death nor the\ndeaths of thousands of the early Christians saved the ancient culture\nand polity from decay: but no one has learned anything from the lesson.\nPeople think that these were all accidental mistakes, against which no\none was secure in ancient times, but which will never again recur; and\ntherefore they continue to make 'deductions' as they used from every\ntruth, and to judge the truth by the deductions they have made. And\nthey have their reward. Although there have been on earth many wise men\nwho knew much that is infinitely more valuable than all the treasures\nfor which men are ready even to sacrifice their lives, still wisdom is\nto us a book with seven seals, a hidden hoard upon which we cannot lay\nour hands. Many--the vast majority--are even seriously convinced that\nphilosophy is a most tedious and painful occupation to which are doomed\nsome miserable wretches who enjoy the odious privilege of being called\nphilosophers. I believe that even professors of philosophy, the more\nclever of them, not seldom share this opinion and suppose that therein\nlies the ultimate secret of their science, revealed to the initiate\nalone. Fortunately, the position is otherwise. It may be that mankind\nis destined never to change in this respect, and a thousand years hence\nmen will care much more about 'deductions,' theoretical and practical,\nfrom the truth than about truth itself; but real philosophers, men who\nknow what they want and at what they aim, will hardly be embarrassed\nby this. They will utter their truths as before, without in the least\nconsidering what conclusions will be drawn from them by the lovers of\nlogic.\n\n\n\n_Truths, Proven and Unproven_\n\n\nWhence did we get the habit of requiring proofs of each idea that\nis expressed? If we put aside the consideration, as having no real\nmeaning in the present case, that men do often purposely deceive their\nneighbours for gain or other interests, then strictly speaking the\nnecessity for proof is entirely removed. It is true that we can still\ndeceive ourselves and fall into involuntary error. Sometimes we take\na vision for a reality, and we wish to guard against that offensive\nmistake. But as soon as the possibility of _bona fide_ error is\nremoved, then we may relate simply without arguments, judgments, or\nreferences. If you please, believe; if you don't, don't. And there is\none province, the very province which has always attracted to itself\nthe most remarkable representatives of the human race, where proofs\nin the general acceptation are even quite impossible. We have been\nhitherto taught that that which cannot be proved, should not be spoken\nabout. Still worse, we have so arranged our language that, strictly\nspeaking, everything we say is expressed in the form of a judgment,\nthat is, in a form which presupposes not merely the possibility but\nthe necessity of proofs. Perhaps this is the reason why metaphysics\nhas been the object of incessant attack. Metaphysics evidently was not\nonly unable to find a form of expression for her truths which would\nfree her from the obligation of proof; she did not even want to. She\nconsidered herself the science _par excellence,_ and therefore supposed\nthat she had more largely and more strictly to prove the judgments\nwhich she took under her wing. She thought that if she were to neglect\nthe duty of demonstration she would lose all her rights. And that, I\nimagine, was her fatal mistake. The correspondence of rights and duties\nis perhaps a cardinal truth (or a cardinal fiction) of the doctrine\nof law, but it has been introduced into the sphere of philosophy by a\nmisunderstanding. Here, rather, the contrary principle is enthroned:\nrights are in inverse proportion to duties. And only there where\nall duties have ceased is the greatest and most sovereign right\nacquired--the right of communion with ultimate truths. Here we must not\nfor one moment forget that ultimate truths have nothing in common with\nmiddle truths, the logical construction of which we have so diligently\nstudied for the last two thousand years. The fundamental difference is\nthat the ultimate truths are absolutely unintelligible. Unintelligible,\nI repeat, but not inaccessible. It is true that middle truths also are,\nstrictly speaking, unintelligible. Who will assert that he understands\nlight, heat, pain, pride, joy, degradation?\n\nNevertheless, our mind, in alliance with omnipotent habit, has,\nwith the assistance of some strained interpretation, given to the\ncombination of phenomena in the segment of universal life that is\naccessible to us, a certain kind of harmony and unity, and this from\ntime immemorial has gained repute under the name of an intelligible\nexplanation of the created world. But the known, which is the familiar,\nworld is sufficiently unintelligible to make good faith require of us\nthat we should accept unintelligibility as the fundamental predicate\nof being. It is impossible to hold, as some do, that the only reason\nwhy we do not understand the world is that something is hidden from\nus or that our mind is weak, so that if the Supreme Being wished to\nunveil the secret of creation to us, or if the human brain should so\nmuch develop in the next ten million years that he will excel us as\nfar as we excel our official ancestor, the ape, then the world will be\nintelligible. No, no, no! By their very essence the operations which we\nperform upon reality to understand it are useful and necessary only so\nlong as they do not pass a certain limit. It is possible to understand\nthe arrangement of a locomotive. It is also legitimate to seek an\nexplanation of an eclipse of the sun, or of an earthquake. But a moment\ncomes--only we cannot define it exactly--when explanations lose all\nmeaning and are good for nothing any more. It is as though we were led\nby a rope--the law of sufficient reason--to a certain place and left\nthere: 'Now go wherever you like.' And since we have grown so used to\nthe rope in our lives, we begin to believe that it is part of the very\nessence of the world. One of the most remarkable thinkers, Spinoza,\nthought that God himself was bound by necessity.\n\nLet any one probe himself carefully, and he will find that he is not\nmerely unable to think but almost unable to live without the hypothesis\nof Spinoza. The work of Hume, who so brilliantly disputed the axiom\nof causal necessity, was only half done. He clearly showed that it\nis impossible to prove the existence of necessary connection. But it\nis also impossible to prove the contrary. In the result, everything\nremained as before: Kant, and all mankind after him, has returned to\nSpinoza's position. Freedom has been driven into an intellectual world,\nan unknown land,\n\n                     'from whose bourne\n    No traveller returns,'\n\nand everything is in its former place. Philosophy wants to be a science\nat all costs. It is absolutely impossible for her to succeed in this;\nbut the price she has paid for the right to be called a science, is\nnot returned to her. She has waived the right of seeking that which\nshe needed wherever she would, and she is deprived of the right for\never. But did she really need it? If you glance at contemporary German\nphilosophy you will say without hesitation that it was not needed at\nall. Neither by mistake, nor even in pursuit of a new title, did she\nrenounce her great vocation: it has become an intolerable burden to\nher. However hard it may be to confess, it is nevertheless indubitable\nthat the great secrets of the universe cannot be manifested with the\nclarity and distinctness with which the visible and tangible world is\nopened to us. Not only others--you will not even convince yourself of\nyour truth with the obviousness with which you can convince all men\nwithout exception of scientific truths.\n\nRevelations, if they do occur, are always revelations for an instant.\nMahomet--Dostoevsky explains--could only stay in paradise a very short\ntime, from half a second to five seconds, even if he succeeded in\nfalling into it. And Dostoevsky himself entered paradise only for an\ninstant. And here on earth, both of them lived for years, for tens of\nyears, and there seemed to be no end to the hell of earthly existence.\nThe hell was obvious, demonstrable; it could be fixed, exhibited,\n_ad oculos._ But how could paradise be proven? How could one fix,\nhow express, those half-seconds of paradisic beatitude, which were\nfrom the outside manifested in ugly and horrible epileptic fits with\nconvulsions, paroxysms, a foaming mouth, and sometimes an ill-omened\nsudden fall, with the spilling of blood? Again, believe, if you will:\nif you won't, don't. Surely a man who lives now in paradise, now in\nhell sees life utterly differently from others. And he wants to think\nthat he is right, that his experience is of great value, that life is\nnot at all as it is described by men of different experience and more\nlimited emotions. How desperately did Dostoevsky desire to persuade all\nmen of his rightness, how stubbornly he used to demonstrate, and how\nangry he was made by the consciousness that lived in the depths of his\nsoul that he was impotent to prove anything. But a fact remains a fact.\nPerhaps epileptics and madmen know things of which normal men have\nnot even the remotest presentiment, but it is not vouchsafed to them\nto communicate their knowledge to others, or to prove it. And there\nis a universal knowledge which is the very object of philosophical\nseeking, with which one may commune, but which by its very essence\ncannot be communicated to all, that is, cannot be turned into verified\nand demonstrable universal truths. To renounce this knowledge in order\nthat philosophy should have the right to be called a science! At times\nmen acted thus. There were sober epochs when the pursuit of positive\nknowledge absorbed every one capable of intellectual labour. Or perhaps\nthere were epochs in which men who sought something other than positive\nscience were condemned to universal contempt, and passed unregarded: in\nsuch an epoch Plato would have found no sympathy, but would have died\nin obscurity. One thing at least is clear. He whose chief interest\nand motive in life is in undemonstrable truths is doomed to complete\nor relative sterility in the sense in which the word is generally\nunderstood. If he is clever and gifted, men may perhaps be interested\nin his mind and talent, but they will pass his work with indifference,\ncontempt, and even horror; and they will begin to warn the world\nagainst him.\n\n    'Look at him, my children,\n      He is stern and pale and lean.\n    He is poor and naked,\n      And all men count him mean.'\n\nHas not the work of the prophets who sought for ultimate truths been\nbarren and useless? Did life hold them in any account? Life went its\nown way, and the voices of the prophets have been, are, and ever\nwill be, voices in the wilderness. For that which they see and know,\ncannot be proved and is not capable of proof. Prophets have always\nbeen isolated, dissevered, separate, helpless men, locked up in their\npride. Prophets are kings without an army. For all their love to their\nsubjects, they can do nothing for them, for subjects respect only those\nkings who possess a formidable military power. And--long may it be so!\n\n\n\n_The Limits of Reality_\n\n\nAfter all, not even the most consistent and convinced realist\nrepresents life to himself as it really is. He overlooks a great deal;\nand on the other hand he often sees something which has no existence in\nreality. I do not think there is any need to show this by example. For\nall our desire to be objective we are, after all, extremely subjective,\nand those things which Kant calls synthetic judgments _a priori,_ by\nwhich our mind forms nature and dictates laws to her, do play a great\nand serious part in our lives. We create something like the veil of\nMaia: we are awake in sleep, and sleep in wakefulness, exactly as\nthough some magic power had charmed us. And just as in sleep we feel\nfor instants that what is happening to us is like a half-dream, an\nintermediate half-life. Schopenhauer and the Buddhists were right in\nasserting that it is equally wrong to say of the veil of Maia, the\nworld accessible to us, either that it exists or does not exist. It is\ntrue that logic does not admit such judgments and persecutes them most\nimplacably, for they violate its most fundamental laws. But it cannot\nbe helped: when one has to choose between philosophy which is alluring\nand promising, and empty logic, one will always sacrifice the latter\nfor the former. And philosophy without contradictory judgments would\nbe either doomed to eternal silence, or would be churned into a mud of\ncommonplace and reduced to nothing. Philosophers know that. The same\nis true of our own case: we must confess that we are at the same time\nawake and dreaming dreams, and at times we must own that though we\nare alive, yet we have long since been dead. As living beings we still\nhold to the accepted synthetic judgments _a priori,_ and as dead, we\ntry to do without them, or to replace them by other judgments which\nhave nothing in common with the former but are even opposite to them.\nPhilosophy is occupied in this work with extreme diligence, and _in\nthis and this alone_ is the meaning of the idealistic movement which\nhas never, since the time of Plato, disappeared from history. The\nproblem is not for us to find another, primordial, better, and eternal\nworld to replace the visible world accessible to all, as idealistic\nphilosophy is usually interpreted by her official and, unfortunately,\nher most influential representatives. Interpretation of that kind\ntoo obviously bears the mark of its empiric utilitarian origin: they\nbring us as near to super-empiric reality as do the notions wherewith\nwe define what is valuable in life. We might as well consider the\nsuper-empiric world as one of gold, diamond, or pearls simply because\ngold, diamonds, and pearls are very costly. But so it usually happens.\nGod himself is usually represented as glimmering with gold and precious\nstones, as omniscient and omnipotent. He is called the King of Kings\nsince on earth the lot of a crowned head is considered most enviable.\nThe meaning and value of idealistic philosophy thus appears to be that\nshe for ever ratifies all that we have found valuable on earth during\nour brief existence. Herein, I believe, is a fatal error. Idealistic\nphilosophy, it is true, gave an excuse for falsely interpreting her,\nsince she loved to be arrayed in sumptuous apparel. The religion of\nalmost all nations has always sought for forms outwardly beautiful\nwithout stopping even before such an obvious paradox--not to put it\nmore strongly--as a golden cross studded with diamonds. And for the\nsake of sumptuous words and golden crosses men overlooked great truths,\nand perhaps great possibilities. The philosophy of the schools also\nloved to array herself, so that she should not be behind the masters in\nthis respect, and for the sake of dress she often forgot her necessary\nwork. Plato taught that our life was only a shadow of another reality.\nIf this is true, and he discovered the truth, then surely our first\ntask is to begin to live a different life, to turn our back to the wall\nabove which the shadows are walking and to turn our face to the source\nof light which created the shadows or to those things of which the\nvisible outlines give only a remote resemblance. We must be awakened,\nif only in part; to this end what is usually done to a person sound\nasleep must be done to us. He is pulled, pinched, beaten, tickled,\nand if all these things fail, still stronger and more heroic measures\nmust be applied. At all events, it is out of the question to advise\ncontemplation, which may well make one still sleepier, or quietude,\nwhich leads to the same result. Philosophy should live by sarcasm,\nirony, alarm, struggles, despairs, and allow herself contemplation\nand quietude only from time to time, as a relaxation. Then perhaps she\nwill succeed in creating, by the side of realistic dreams, dreams of\na quite different order, and visibly demonstrate that the universally\naccepted dreams are not the only ones. 'What is the use?' I do not\nthink this question need be answered. He who asks it, shows by the fact\nthat he needs neither an answer nor philosophy, while he who needs them\nwill not ask but will patiently await events: a temperature of 120\u00b0,\nan epileptic fit, or something of this kind, which facilitates the\ndifficult task of seeking....\n\n\n\n_The Given and the Possible_\n\n\nThe law of causation as a principle of inquiry is an excellent thing:\nthe existing sciences afford us convincing evidence of that. But as an\nidea in the Platonic sense it is of little value, at times at least.\nThe strict harmony and order of the world have fascinated many people:\nsuch giants of thought as Spinoza and Goethe paused with reverent\nwonder in contemplation of the great and unchangeable order of nature.\nTherefore they exalted necessity even to the rank of a primordial,\neternal, original principle. And we must confess that Goethe's and\nSpinoza's conception of the world lives so much in each one of us that\nin most cases we can love and respect the world only when our souls\nfeel in it a symmetrical harmony. Harmony seems to us at once-the\nhighest value and the ultimate truth. It gives to the soul great peace,\na stable firmness, a trust in the Creator--the highest boons accessible\nto mortal men, as the philosophers teach. Nevertheless, there are\nother yearnings. Man's heart is suddenly possessed by a longing for\nthe fantastic, the unforeseen, for that which cannot be foreseen. The\nbeautiful world loves its beauty, peace of soul seems disgraceful,\nstability is felt as an intolerable burden. Just as a youth grown\nto manhood suddenly feels irritated by the bountiful tutelage of\nhis parents, from which he has received so much, though he does not\nknow what to do with his freedom, so is a man of insight ashamed of\nthe happiness which is given to him, which some one has created. The\nlaw of causation, like the whole harmony of the world, seems to him\na pleasant gift, facilitating life, but yet a degrading one. He has\nsold his birthright for peace, for undisturbed happiness--his great\nbirthright of free creation. He does not understand how a giant like\nGoethe could have been seduced by the temptation of a pleasant life,\nhe suspects the sincerity of Spinoza. There is something rotten in the\nstate of Denmark. The apple of the tree of knowledge of good and evil,\nhas become to him the sole purpose of life, even though the path to it\nshould lie through extreme suffering.\n\nAnd, strangely, nature herself seems to be preoccupied in urging man to\nthat fatal path. There comes a time in our life when some imperative\nand secret voice forbids us to rejoice at the beauty and grandeur of\nthe world. The world allures us as before, but it no longer gives pure\nhappiness. Remember Tchekhov. How he loved nature! What immeasurable\nyearning is audible in his wonderful descriptions of nature! Just as\nthough each time that he glanced at the blue sky, the troubled sea or\nthe green woods, a voice of authority whispered to him: 'All this is\nyours no longer. You may look at it, but you have no right to rejoice.\nPrepare yourself for another life, where nothing will be given,\ncomplete, prepared, where nothing will be created, where there will\nbe illimitable creation alone. And everything which is in this world\nshall be given to destruction, to destruction and destruction, even\nthis nature which you so passionately love, and which it is so hard and\npainful for you to renounce.' Everything drives us to the mysterious\nrealm of the eternally fantastic, eternally chaotic, and--who\nknows?--it may be, the eternally beautiful....\n\n\n\n_Experiment and Proof_\n\n\nWhen _cogito ergo sum_ came into Descartes' head, he marked the\nday--November 10, 1619--as a remarkable day: 'The light of a wonderful\ndiscovery,' he wrote in his diary, 'flashed into my mind.' Schelling\nrelates the same thing of himself: in the year 1801 he 'saw the light.'\nAnd to Nietzsche when he roamed the mountains and the valleys of\nthe Engadine there came a mighty change: he grasped the doctrine of\neternal recurrence. One might name many philosophers, poets, artists,\npreachers, who like these three suddenly saw the light, and considered\ntheir vision the beginning of a new life. It is even probable that all\nmen who have been destined to display to the world something perfectly\nnew and original have without exception experienced that miracle of\nsudden metamorphosis. Nevertheless, though much is spoken of these\nmiracles and often, in nearly all biographies of great men, we cannot\nstrictly make any use of them. Descartes, Schelling, Nietzsche tell\nthe story of their conversion; and with us, Tolstoi and Dostoevsky\ntell of theirs; in the less remote past, there are Mahomet and Paul\nthe Apostle; in far antiquity the legend of Moses. But if I had\nchosen tenfold the number, if thousands even had been collected, it\nwould still be impossible for the mind to make any deduction from\nthem. In other words, all these cases have no value as scientific\nmaterial, whereas one fossil skeleton or a unique case of an unknown\nrare disease is a precious windfall to the scientist. What is still\nmore interesting, Descartes was so struck with his _cogito ergo sum,_\nNietzsche with his eternal recurrence, Mahomet with his paradise, Paul\nthe Apostle with his vision, while we remain more or less indifferent\nto anything they may relate of their experiences. Only the most\nsensitive among us have an ear for stories of that kind, and even they\nare obliged to hide their impressions within them, for what can be done\nwith them?\n\nIt is even impossible to fix them as indubitable facts, for facts\nalso require a verification and must be proved. There are no proofs.\nPhilosophic and religious teachings offered by men who have had\nextraordinary inward experiences, not only do not generally confirm,\nbut rather refute their own stories of revelation. For philosophic and\nreligious teaching have always hitherto assigned themselves the task\nof attracting all and sundry to themselves, and in order to attain\nthis end they had to have recourse to such methods as have effect with\nthe ordinary man, who knows of nothing extraordinary--to proof, to the\nauthority of visible and tangible phenomena, which can be measured,\nweighed and counted. In their pursuit of proofs, of persuasiveness\nand popularity, they had to sacrifice the important and essential,\nand expose for show that which is agreeable to reason--things already\nmore or less known, and therefore of little interest and importance.\nIn course of time, as experimental science, so-called, gained more\nand more power, the habit of hiding in oneself all that cannot be\ndemonstrated _ad oculos,_ has become more and more firmly rooted,\nuntil it is almost man's second nature. Nowadays we 'naturally'\nshare but a small part of an experience with our friends, so that\nif Mahomet and Paul lived in our time, it would not enter their\nheads to tell their extraordinary stories. And for all his bravery,\nNietzsche nevertheless passes quickly over eternal recurrence, and\nis much more occupied with preaching the morality of the Superman,\nwhich, though it at first astounded people, was after all accepted\nwith more or less modification, because it was demonstrable. Evidently\nwe are confronted with a great dilemma. If we continue to cultivate\nmodern methodology, we run the risk of becoming so accustomed to it\nthat we will lose not only the faculty of sharing all undemonstrable\nand exceptional experiences with others, but even of retaining them\nfirmly in the memory. They will begin to be forgotten as dreams, they\nwill even seem to be waking dreams. Thus we will cut ourselves off\nfor ever from a vast realm of reality, whose meaning and value have\nby no means been divined or appreciated. In olden times men could add\ndreams and madmen's visions to reality; but we shall curtail the real\nindubitable reality, transferring it to the realm of hallucinations and\ndreams. I suppose even a modern man will feel some hesitation in coming\nover to the side of this methodology, even though he is incapable of\nthinking, with the ancients, that dreams are by no means worthless\nthings. And if this is so, then the rights of experiences must not be\ndefined by the degree of their demonstrability. However capricious\nour experiences may be, however little they agree with the rooted and\npredominant conceptions of the necessary character of events in the\ninward and outward life--once they have taken place in the soul of man,\nthey acquire, _ipso facto,_ the lawful right of figuring side by side\nwith facts which are most demonstrable and susceptible of control and\nverification, and even with a deliberate experiment.\n\nIt may be said that we would not then be protected against deliberate\nfrauds. People who have never been in paradise will give themselves out\nfor Mahomets. That is true; they will talk and they will he. There will\nbe no method of objective verification. But they will surely tell the\ntruth also. For the sake of that truth we may make up our minds to swim\nthrough a whole ocean of lies. Yes, it is not in the least impossible\nto distinguish truth from lie in this realm, though, certainly, not by\nthe signs which have been evolved by logic; and not even by signs, but\nby no signs at all. The signs of the beautiful have not yet been even\napproximately, defined, and, please God--be it said without offence to\nthe Germans--they never will be defined, but yet we distinguish between\nApollo and Venus. So it is with truth: she too may be recognised. But\nwhat if a man cannot distinguish without signs, and, moreover, does\nnot want to?... What is to be done with him? Really, I do not know;\nbesides, I do not imagine that all men down to the last should act\nin unison. When did all men act in agreement? Men have mostly acted\nseparately, meeting in certain places, and parting in others. Long may\nit be so! Some will recognise and seek after truth by signs, others\nwithout signs, as they please, and yet others, in both ways.\n\n\n\n_The Seventh Day of Creation_\n\n\nSocrates said that he often used to hear from poets thoughts remarkable\nfor their profundity and seriousness, but when he began to inquire of\nthem more particularly, he became convinced that they themselves did\nnot understand what they were saying. What did he really mean? Did\nSocrates wish to compare the poets to parrots or trained blackbirds\nwho can learn by heart, with the assistance of a man to teach them,\nany ideas whatever, perfectly foreign to them. That can hardly be.\nSocrates hardly thought that what the poets say had been overheard by\nthem from some one, and mechanically fixed in their mind, though it\nremained quite foreign to their soul. Most probably he used the word\n'understand' in the sense that they could not demonstrate or explain\nthe soundness and stability of their ideas,--they could not deduce\nthem and relate them to a definite conception of the world. As every\none knows, Socrates thought that not merely poets, but all men, from\neminent statesmen down to ignorant artisans, had ideas, even a great\nmany ideas, but they never could explain where they had got them, or\nmake them agree among themselves.\n\nIn this respect poets were the same as the rest of people. From some\nmysterious source they had acquired truths, often great and profound,\nbut they were unable to explain them. This seemed to Socrates a great\nmisery, a real misfortune. I do not know how it happened--not a single\nhistorian of philosophy has explained it, and indeed very little\ninterest has been taken in it--but Socrates for some reason decided\nthat an unproven and unexplained truth had less value than a proven and\nexplained one. In our times, when a whole theory, even a conception\nof the world, has been made of Socrates's idea, this notion seems\nso natural and self-evident that no one doubts it. But in antiquity\nthe case was different. Strictly, Socrates thought that the poets\nhad acquired their truths, which they were unable to prove, from a\nvery respectable source, which deserved all possible confidence: he\nhimself compared the poets with oracles, and consequently admitted\nthat they had communion with the gods. There was, therefore, a most\nexcellent guarantee that the poets were possessed of real, undiluted\ntruth--the pledge of its purity being the divine authority. Socrates\nsaid that he himself had frequently been guided in his actions, not by\nconsiderations of reason, but by the voice of his mysterious 'demon.'\nThat is, at times, he abstained from certain actions--his demon gave\nhim never positive, but only negative advice--without being able to\nproduce reasons, simply because the secret voice, more authoritative\nthan any human mind, demanded abstinence from them.\n\nIs it not strange that under such circumstances, at an epoch when the\ngods vouchsafed truths to men, there should have suddenly appeared in\na man the unexplained desire to acquire truths without the help of the\ngods, and in independence of them, by the dialectic method so beloved\nof the Greeks? It is doubtful which is more important for us, to\nacquire the truth or to acquire for one's self with one's own effort,\nit may be a false, but one's _own_ judgment. The example of Socrates,\nwho has been a pattern for all subsequent generations of thinking\nmen, leaves not the slightest doubt. Men do not need a truth ready\nmade; they turn away from the gods to devote themselves to independent\ncreations. Practically the same story is told in the Bible. What indeed\nwas lacking to Adam? He lived in paradise, in direct proximity to God,\nfrom whom he could learn anything he wanted. And yet it did not suit\nhim. It was enough that the Serpent should make his perfidious proposal\nfor the man to forget the wrath of God, and all the dangers which\nthreatened him, and to pluck the apple from the forbidden tree. Then\nthe truth, which until the creation of the world and man had been one,\nsplit and broke with a great, perhaps an infinitely great, number of\nmost diverse truths, eternally being born, and eternally dying. This\nwas the seventh day of creation, unrecorded in history. Man became\nGod's collaborator. He himself became a creator. Socrates renounced the\ndivine truth and even spoke contemptuously of it, merely because it\nwas not proven, that is, because it does not bear the marks of man's\nhandiwork. Socrates really did not prove anything, but he was proving,\ncreating, and in this he saw the meaning of his own life and of all\nhuman lives. Thus, surely, the pronouncement of the Delphic oracle\nseems true even now: Socrates was the wisest of men. And he who would\nbe wise must, imitating Socrates, not be like him in anything. Thus did\nall great men, and all great philosophers.\n\n\n\n_What does the History of Philosophy teach us?_\n\n\nNeo-Kantianism is the prevalent school of modern philosophy. The\nliterature about Kant has grown to unheard-of proportions. But if\nyou attempt to analyse the colossal mass that has been written upon\nKant, and put the question to yourself, what has really been left to\nus of Kant's teaching, then to your great amazement you will have to\nreply: Nothing at all. There is an extraordinary, incredibly famous\nname--Kant, and there is positively not a single Kantian thesis which\nin an uninterpreted form would have survived till our day. I say in\nan uninterpreted form, for interpretations resolve at bottom into\narbitrary recastings, which often have not even an outward resemblance\nto the original. These interpretations began while Kant was still\nalive. Fichte gave the first example. It is well known that Kant\nreacted, demanding that his teaching should be understood not in the\nspirit but in the letter. And Kant was, naturally, quite right. Of\ntwo things one: either you take his teaching as it is, or you invent\nyour own. But the fate of all thinkers who have been destined to\ngive their names to an epoch is similar: they have been interpreted,\nrecast, till they are unrecognisable. For after a short time had\nelapsed, it became clear that their ideas were so overburdened with\ncontradictions, that in the form in which they emerged from the hands\nof their creators, they are absolutely unacceptable. Indeed, all the\ncritics who had not made up their minds beforehand to be orthodox\nKantians, came to the conclusion that Kant had not proved a single\none of his fundamental propositions. Something stronger may be said.\nBy virtue of the fact that Kant, owing to the central position which\nhe occupied, attracted much attention to himself and was forced to\nsubmit to very careful criticism, there gradually emerged a truth which\nmight have been known beforehand: that Kant's teaching is a mass of\ncontradictions. The sum-total of more than a century's study of Kant\nmay be resumed in a few words. Although he was not afraid of the most\ncrying contradictions, he did not have the smallest degree of success\nin proving the correctness of his teaching. With an extraordinary\npower and depth of mind, with all the originality, boldness, and\ntalent of his constructions, he really provided nothing that might be\nindisputably called a positive acquisition of philosophy. I repeat that\nI am not expressing my own opinion. I am only reckoning the sum-total\nof the opinions of the German critics of Kant, of those same critics\nwho built him a monument _aere perennius._\n\nThe same may be said of all the great representatives of philosophic\nthought beginning with Plato and Aristotle, and ending with Hegel,\nSchopenhauer and Nietzsche. Their works astonish by their power, depth,\nboldness, beauty and originality of thought. While you read them it\nseems that truth herself speaks with their lips. And what strong\nmeasures of precaution did they take to prevent themselves from being\nmistaken! They believed in nothing that men had grown accustomed to\nbelieve. They methodically doubted everything, reexamined everything,\ntens, hundreds of times. They gave their life to the truth not in\nwords, but in deed. And still the sum-total is the same in their case\nas in Kant's: not one of them succeeded in inventing a system free from\ninternal contradictions.\n\nAristotle was already criticising Plato, and the sceptics criticised\nboth of them, and so on until in our day each new thinker struggles\nwith his predecessors, refutes their contradictions and errors,\nalthough he knows that he is doomed to the same fate. The historians\nof philosophy are at infinite pains to conceal the most glaring and\nnoticeable trait of philosophic creation, which is, at bottom, no\nsecret to any one. The uninitiated, and people generally who do not\nlike thinking, and therefore wish to be contemptuous of philosophy,\npoint to the lack of unity among philosophers as evidence that it is\nnot worth while to study philosophy. But they are both wrong. The\nhistory of philosophy not only does not inspire us with the thought\nof the continual evolution of an idea, but palpably convinces us of\nthe contrary, that among philosophers there is not, has not been, and\nwill never be, any aspiration towards unity. Neither will they find\nin future a truth free from contradiction, for they do not seek the\ntruth in the sense in which the word is understood by the people and\nby science; and, after all, contradictions do not frighten them, but\nrather attract. Schopenhauer begins his criticism of Kant's philosophy\nwith the words of Voltaire: 'It is the privilege of genius to make\ngreat mistakes with impunity.' I believe that the secret of the\nphilosophic genius lies here. He makes great, the greatest, mistakes,\nand with impunity. Moreover his mistakes are put to his credit, for\nthe important matter is not his truths, or his judgments, but himself.\nWhen you hear from Plato that the life we see is only a shadow, when\nSpinoza, intoxicated by God, exalts the idea of necessity, when Kant\ndeclares that reason dictates laws to Nature,--listening to them you\ndo not examine whether their assertions are true or not, you agree with\neach of them, whatever he says, and only this question arises in your\nsoul: 'Who is he that speaketh as one having authority?'\n\nLater on, you will reject all their truths, with horror, perhaps with\nindignation and disgust, even with utter indifference. You will not\nconsent to accept that our life is only a shadow of actual reality,\nyou will revolt against Spinoza's God, who cannot love, yet demands\nlove for himself, Kant's categorical imperative will seem to you a cold\nmonster,--but you will never forget Plato, or Spinoza, or Kant, and\nwill for ever keep your gratitude to them, who made you believe that\nauthority is given to mortals. Then you will understand that there are\nno errors and no truths in philosophy; that errors and truths are only\nfor him above whom is set a superior authority, a law, a standard. But\nphilosophers themselves create laws and standards. This is what we are\ntaught by the history of philosophy; this is what is most difficult for\nman to master and understand. I have already said that the historians\nof philosophy draw quite a different moral from the study of the great\nhuman creations.\n\n\n\n_Science and Metaphysics_\n\n\nIn his autobiography Spencer confesses that he had really never\nread Kant. He had had _The Critique of Pure Reason_ in his hands,\nand had even read the beginning, the Transcendental Aesthetic, but\nthe beginning convinced him it was no use for him to read further.\nOnce a man had made the unconvincing admission which Kant had made,\nby accepting the subjectivity of one form of perception, of space\nand time, he could not be seriously taken into account. If he is\nconsistent, all his philosophy will be a system of absurdity and\nnonsense; if he is inconsistent,--the less attention does he deserve.\n\nSpencer confidently asserts that, once he could not accept Kant's\nfundamental proposition, he not only could not be a Kantian any more,\nbut he found it useless even to become further acquainted with Kant's\nphilosophy. That he did not become a Kantian is nothing to grieve over\n--there are Kantians enough without him--but that he did not acquaint\nhimself with Kant's principal works, and above all with the whole\nschool that rose out of Kant, may be sincerely regretted. Perhaps, as\na new man, remote from Continental traditions, he would have made a\ncurious discovery, and would have convinced himself that it was not at\nall necessary to accept the proposition of the subjectivity of space\nand time in order to become a Kantian. And perhaps with the frankness\nand simplicity peculiar to him, which is not afraid to be taken for\nna\u00efvet\u00e9, he would have told us that not a single Kantian (Schopenhauer\nexcepted), not even Kant himself, has ever seriously accepted the\nfundamental propositions of the Transcendental Aesthetic, and therefore\nhas never made from them any conclusions or deductions whatever. On\nthe contrary, the Transcendental Aesthetic was itself a deduction from\nanother proposition, that we have synthetic judgments _a priori._ The\noriginal r\u00f4le of this, the most original of all theories ever invented,\nwas to be a support and an explanation of the mathematical sciences.\nIt had never had an independent, material content, susceptible of\nanalysis and investigation. Space and time are the eternal forms of our\nperception of the world: to this, according to the strict meaning of\nKant's teaching, nothing can be added, and nothing abated. Spencer, not\nhaving read the book to the end, imagined that Kant would begin to make\ndeductions and became nervous. But if he had read the book to the end,\nhe would have been convinced that Kant had not made any deductions, and\nthat the whole meaning of _The Critique of Pure Reason_ indeed is that\nfrom the propositions of the Transcendental Aesthetic no deductions can\nbe made. It is now about a hundred and fifty years since _The Critique\nof Pure Reason_ appeared. No philosophic work has been so much studied\nand criticised. And yet where are the Kantians who attempt to make\ndeductions from the proposition as to the subjectivity of space and\ntime? Schopenhauer is the only exception. He indeed took the Kantian\nidea seriously, but it may be said without exaggeration that of all\nKantians the least like Kant was Schopenhauer.\n\nThe world is a veil of Maia. Would Kant really have agreed to such\nan interpretation of his Transcendental Aesthetic? Or what would\nKant have said, if he had heard that Schopenhauer, referring to the\nsame Aesthetic in which he saw the greatest philosophic revelation,\nhad admitted the possibility of clairvoyance and magic? Probably\nSpencer thought that Kant would himself make all these deductions, and\ntherefore threw away the book which bound him to conclusions so absurd.\nIt is a pity that Spencer was in such a hurry. Had he acquainted\nhimself with Kant, he would have been convinced that the most absurd\nidea might serve a very useful purpose; and that there is not the least\nnecessity to make from an idea all the deductions to which it may lead.\nA man is a free agent and he can deduce if he has a mind to; if he has\nnot, he will not; and there is no necessity to judge the character\nof a philosophic theory by its general postulates. Even Schopenhauer\ndid not exploit Kant's theory to the full, which, if it had really\ndivined the truths hitherto hidden from men, would have not only put\nan end to metaphysical researches, but also have given an impulse and\na justification to perfectly new experiments which from the previous\nstandpoint were quite mad and unimaginable. For if space and time are\nforms of our human perception, then they do indeed hide the ultimate\ntruth from us. While men knew nothing of this, and, simple minded,\naccepted the visible reality for the actual real, they could not of\ncourse dream of true knowledge. But from the moment when the truth was\nrevealed to them through Kant's penetration, it is clear that their\ntrue task was to use every possible means to free themselves from\nthe harness and to break away from it, while consolidating all those\njudgments which Kant calls synthetic judgments _a priori_ for all\neternity.\n\nAnd the new, the critical metaphysics, which should take account of\nthe stupid situation in which these had hitherto found themselves who\nsaw in apodeictic judgments eternal truths, had a great task to set\nherself: to get rid at all costs of apodeictic judgments, knowing them\nfor false. In other words, Kant's task should not have been to minimise\nthe destructive effect of Hume's scepticism, but to find a still more\ndeadly explosive to destroy even those limits which Hume was obliged\nto preserve. It is surely evident that truth lies beyond synthetic\njudgments _a priori,_ and that it cannot at all resemble an _a priori_\njudgment, and in fact cannot be like a judgment of any kind.\n\nAnd it must be sought by methods quite different from those by which\nit has been sought hitherto. To some extent Kant attempted to describe\nhow he represented to himself the meaning hidden beneath the words:\n'Space and time are subjective forms of perception.' He even gave an\nobject-lesson, saying that perhaps there are beings who perceive the\nworld otherwise than under the forms of space and time: which means\nthat for such beings there is no change. All that we perceive by a\nsuccession of changes, they perceive at once. To them Julius Caesar\nis still alive, though he is dead; to them the twenty-fifth century\nA.D., which none of us will live to see, and the twenty-fifth century\nB.C., which we reconstruct with such difficulty from the fragmentary\ntraces of the past which have accidentally been preserved to us, the\nremote North Pole, and even the stars which we cannot see through the\ntelescope--all are as accessible to them as to us the events which\nare taking place before our eyes. Nevertheless Kant, in spite of all\ntemptation to acquire the knowledge to which such beings have access,\nnotwithstanding his profound conviction of the truth of his discovery,\ndid nothing to dispel the charm of forms of perception and categories\nof the reason, or to tear the blinkers from his eyes and see all the\ndepth of the mysterious reality hitherto hidden from us. He does not\neven give a little circumstantial explanation why he considered such a\ntask impracticable, and he confines himself to the dogmatic assertion\nthat man cannot conceive a reality beyond space and time. Why? It is\na question of immense importance. Compared with it all the problems\nof _The Critique of Pure Reason_ are secondary. How is mathematics\npossible, how are natural sciences possible?--these are not even\nquestions at all compared to the question whether it is possible to\nfree ourselves from conventional human knowledge in order to attain the\nultimate, all-embracing truth.\n\nHerein the Kantians display an even greater indifference than Kant\nhimself: they are even proud of their indifference, they plume\nthemselves upon it as a high virtue. They assert that truth is not\n_beyond_ synthetic judgments _a priori,_ but indeed _in_ them; and\nthat it is not the Creator who put blinkers upon us, but we ourselves\ndevised them, and that any attempt to remove them and look open-eyed\nupon the world is evidence of perversity. If the old Serpent appeared\nnowadays to seduce the modern Adam, he would retire discomfited.\nEven Eve herself would be no use to him. The twentieth-century Eve\nstudies in a university and has quite sufficiently blunted her natural\ncuriosity. She can talk excellently well of the teleological point of\nview and is quite as proof as man against temptation. I do not share\nKant's confidence that space and time are forms of our perception,\nnor do I see a revelation in it. But if I had once accepted this\napocalyptic assertion, and could think that there was some truth in it,\nI would not depart from it to positive science.\n\nIt is a pity that Spencer did not read _The Critique of Pure Reason_ to\nthe end. He would have convinced himself of an important truth: that a\nphilosopher has no need to take into consideration all the deductions\nfrom his premisses. He need only have goodwill, and he can draw from\nthe most paradoxical and suspicious premisses conclusions which are\nfully conformable to common-sense and the rules of decency. And since\nKant's will was as good as Spencer's, they would have agreed perfectly\nin their deductions, though they were so far apart from each other in\ntheir premisses.\n\n\n\n_A Tacit Assumption_\n\n\nSchopenhauer was the first philosopher to ask the value of life. And he\ngave a definite answer: in life there is much more suffering than joy,\ntherefore life must be renounced. I must add that strictly speaking\nhe asked not only the value of life, but also the value of joy and\nsuffering. And to this question he gave an equally definite answer.\nAccording to his teaching joy is always negative, suffering always\npositive. Therefore by its essence joy cannot compensate for suffering.\n\nIn all this philosophical construction, both in formulating and\nanswering the questions, there is one tacit, particularly curious,\nand interesting and unexpressed postulate. Schopenhauer starts from\nthe assumption that his valuation of life, joy and suffering, in\norder to have the right to be called truth, must contain something\nuniversal, by virtue of which it will in the last resort coincide with\nthe valuation of all other people. Whence did he derive this idea?\nPsychologically the train of Schopenhauer's thought is intelligible\nand easily explained. He was used to the scientific formulation and\nsolution of problems, and he transferred to the question which engaged\nhim methods of investigation which by general consent usually conduct\nus to the truth. He did not verify his premiss _ad hoc,_ and usually\nit is impossible to verify a premiss every time that a need arises\nfor it. It is not even becoming to exhibit it, to speak of it. It is\nunderstood. If the fundamental sign of any truth is its being universal\nand obligatory, then in the given case the true answer to the question\nof the value of life can only be something which will be absolutely\nadmissible by all men to all creatures with a mind. So Schopenhauer\nwould probably have answered, if any one had questioned his right to\nformulate in such a general way the question of the value of life.\n\nStill Schopenhauer would hardly be right. This, by the way, is being\nmade clear by the objections which are put forward by his opponents.\nHe is accused because his very statement of the question presupposes a\nsubjective point of view--eudaemonism.\n\nThe question of the value of life, people object, is not at all\ndecided by whether in the sum life gives more joy than pain or _vice\nversa._ Life may be deeply painful and devoid of joy, life may in\nitself be one compact horror, and still be valuable. Schopenhauer's\nphilosophy was not discussed in his lifetime, so that he could not\nanswer his opponents. But, if he were still alive, would he accept\nthese objections and renounce his pessimism? I am convinced that he\nwould not. At the same time I am convinced that his opponents would\nbe no less firm and would go on repeating: 'The question is not one\nof happiness or suffering. We value life by a quite different and\nindependent standard.' And in the discussion it would perhaps become\nclear to the disputants that the premiss mentioned above, which both\naccepted as requiring no proof and understood without explanation, does\nindeed require proofs and explanations, but is provided with neither.\nTo one man the eudaemonistic point of view is ultimate and decisive,\nto another contemptible and degrading, and he seeks the meaning of\nlife in a higher, ethical or aesthetic purpose. There are also people\nwho love sorrow and pain, and see in them the justification and the\nsource of the depth and importance of life. Nor do I mention the fact\nthat when the sum-totals of life are reckoned different accountants\nreach different and directly contradictory results, or that insoluble\nquestions arise concerning these, or other details. Schopenhauer for\ninstance finds, as we have seen, that sufferings are positive, joys\nnegative. And hence he concludes that it is not worth while to submit\nto the least unpleasantness for the sake of the greatest joy. What\nanswer can be made? How can he be convinced of the contrary?\n\nNevertheless the fact is obvious: many people regard the matter in\nquite a different light. For the sake of a single happiness they\nare ready to endure a great many serious hardships. In a word,\nSchopenhauer's premiss is quite unjustified, and not only cannot\nbe accepted as an indubitable truth, but must be qualified as an\nindubitable error. It is impossible to be certain beforehand that to\nthe question of the value of life a single, universally valid answer\ncan be given. So here we meet with an extraordinarily curious case\nfrom the point of view of the theory of knowledge. It appears that\nby the very essence of the matter no uniform answer can be given\nto one of the most important questions, perhaps the most important\nquestion of philosophy. If you are asked what is life, good or evil,\nyou are obliged to say that life is both good and evil; or something\nindependent of good and evil; or a mixture of good and evil in which\nthere is more good than evil, or more evil than good.\n\nAnd, I repeat, each of these answers, although they logically quite\nexclude each other, has the right to claim the title of _truth_; for\nif it has not power enough to make the other answers bow down before\nit, at all events it has the necessary strength to repel its opponents'\nattacks and to defend its sovereign rights. Instead of a sole and\nomnipotent truth before which the weak and helpless errors tremble,\nyou have before you a whole line of perfectly independent truths\nexcellently armed and defended. Instead of absolutism, you have a\nfeudal system. And the vassals are so firmly ensconced in their castles\nthat an experienced eye can see at once that they are impregnable.\n\nI took for my instance Schopenhauer's doctrine of the value of life.\nBut many philosophic doctrines, although they issue from the premiss\nof one sovereign truth, display examples of the plurality of truths.\nIt is usually believed that one should study the history of philosophy\nin order to be palpably convinced that mankind has gradually mastered\nits delusions and is now on the high road to ultimate truth. My opinion\nis that the history of philosophy must bring every impartial person,\nwho is not infected by modern prejudices, to a directly opposite\nconclusion. There can be no doubt that a whole series of questions\nexists, like that of the value of life, which by their very essence\ndo not admit of a uniform solution. To this testimony is often borne\nby men whose very last concern is to curtail the royal prerogative of\nsovereign truth: Natorp confidently asserts that Aristotle not only did\nnot understand but could not understand Plato. 'Der tiefere Grund ist\ndie ewige Unf\u00e4higkeit des Dogmatismus sich in der Gesichtspunkt der\nkritischen Philosophie \u00fcberhaupt zu versetzen.' 'Eternal incapability'\n--what words! And used not of any common-place person, but of the\ngreatest human genius known to us, of Aristotle. Had Natorp been a\nlittle more inquisitive, 'eternal incapability' of that kind should\nhave worried him at least as much as Plato's philosophy, on which he\nwrote a large book. For here is evidently a great riddle. Different\npeople, according to the different constitution of their souls,\nare while yet in their mother's womb destined to have different\nphilosophies. It reminds me of the famous Calvinistic view of\npredetermination. Just as from before birth God has destined some to\ndamnation, others to salvation; so to some it is given and from others\nwithheld, to know the truth.\n\nAnd not Natorp alone argues thus. It would be true to say all modern\nphilosophers, who are always contending with each other and suspecting\neach other of 'eternal incapability.' Philosophers have not the same\nmeans of compelling conviction as the representatives of other positive\nsciences: they cannot force every one to undeniable conclusions. Their\n_ultima ratio,_ their personal opinion, their private conviction,\ntheir last refuge, is the 'eternal incapability' of their opponents to\nunderstand them. Here the tragic dilemma is clear to all. Of two things\none: either renounce philosophy entirely, or allow that that which\nNatorp calls the 'eternal incapability' is not a vice or a weakness,\nbut a great virtue and power hitherto unappreciated and misunderstood.\nAristotle, indeed, was organically incapable of understanding Plato,\njust as Plato could not have understood Aristotle, just as neither of\nthem could understand the sceptics or the sophists, just as Leibnitz\ncould not understand Spinoza, as Schopenhauer could not understand\nHegel, and so on till our riotous modern days when no philosopher\ncan understand any one except himself. Besides, philosophers do not\naspire to mutual understanding and unity, but usually it is with the\nutmost reluctance that they observe in themselves similarity to their\npredecessors. When the similarity of Schopenhauer's teaching to that\nof Spinoza was pointed out to him, he said _Pereant qui ante nos\nnostra dixerint._ But representatives of the other positive sciences\nunderstand each other, rarely dispute, and never argue by referring to\nthe 'eternal incapability' of their confr\u00e8res. Perhaps in philosophy\nthis chaotic state of affairs and this unique argument are part of the\ncraft. Perhaps in this realm it is necessary that Aristotle should\nnot understand Plato and should not accept him, that the materialists\nshould always be at war with the idealists, the sceptics with the\ndogmatists. In other words, the premiss with which Schopenhauer began\nthe investigation into the value of life, and which as we have shown he\ntook without verification from the representatives of positive science,\nthough perfectly applicable in its proper sphere, is quite out of place\nin philosophy. And indeed, though they never speak of it, philosophers\nvalue their own personal convictions much more highly than universally\nvalid truth. The impossibility of discovering one sole philosophic\ntruth may alarm any one but the philosophers themselves, who, so soon\nas they have worked out their own convictions, take not the smallest\ntrouble to secure general recognition for them. They are only busy with\ngetting rid of their vassal dependence and acquiring sovereign rights\nfor themselves. The question whether there will be other sovereigns by\ntheir side hardly concerns them at all.\n\nThe history of philosophy should be so expounded that this tendency\nshould be clearly manifest. This would spare us from many prejudices,\nand would clear the way for new and important inquiries. Kant, who\nshared the opinion that truth is the same for all, was convinced that\nmetaphysics must be a science _a priori,_ and since it cannot be a\nscience _a priori,_ must therefore cease to exist. If the history\nof philosophy had been expounded and understood differently in his\nday, it would never have entered his mind thus to impugn the rights\nof metaphysics. And probably he would not have been vexed by the\ncontradictoriness or the lack of proof in the teachings of various\nschools of metaphysics. It cannot be otherwise, neither should it\nbe. The interest of mankind is not to put an end to the variety of\nphilosophic doctrines but to allow the perfectly natural phenomenon\nwide and deep development. Philosophers have always had an instinctive\nlonging for this: that is why they are so troublesome to the historian\nof philosophy.\n\n\n\n_The First and the Last_\n\n\nIn the first volume of _Human, All too Human,_ which Nietzsche wrote\nat the very beginning of his disease, when he was still far from\nfinal victory and chiefly told of his defeats, there is the following\nremarkable, though half-involuntary confession: 'The complete\nirresponsibility of Man for his actions and his being is the bitterest\ndrop for the man of knowledge to drink, since he has been accustomed to\nsee in responsibility and duty the very patent of his title to manhood.'\n\nMuch bitterness has the inquiring spirit to swallow, but the bitterest\nof all is in the knowledge that his moral qualities, his readiness to\nfulfil his duty ungrudgingly, gives him no preference over other men.\nHe thought he was a man of noble rank, even a prince of the blood,\ncrowned with a crown, and the other men boorish peasantry--but he is\njust the same, a peasant, the same as all the rest. His patent of\nnobility was that for which he fulfilled his most arduous duty and made\nsacrifices; in it he saw the meaning of life. And when it is suddenly\nrevealed that there is no provision made for titles or patents, it\nis a horrible catastrophe, a cataclysm--and life loses all meaning.\nEvidently the conviction expressed with such moving frankness in these\nwords, was with Nietzsche a second nature, which he could not master\nall his life long. What is the Superman but a title, a patent, giving\nthe right to be called a noble among the _canaille?_ What is the pathos\nof distance and all Nietzsche's teaching of ranks? The formula, beyond\ngood and evil, was by no means so all-destructive as at first sight it\nseemed. On the contrary, by erasing certain laws graven on the tables\nof mankind of old, that formula as it were revealed other commandments,\nobliterated by time, and therefore invisible to many.\n\nAll morality, all good in and for itself is rejected, but the patent of\nnobility grows more precious until it becomes, if not the only value,\nat least the chief. Life loses its meaning once titles and ranks are\ndestroyed, once he is deprived of the right to hold his head high, to\nthrow out his chest, his belly even, and to look with contempt upon\nthose about him.\n\nIn order to show to what extent the doctrine of rank has become\nattached to the human soul, I would recall the words of the Gospel\nabout the first and last. Christ, who seemed to speak in a language\nutterly new, who taught men to despise earthly blessings--riches, fame,\nhonours, who so easily yielded Caesar his due, because he thought\nthat only Caesar would find it useful--Christ himself, when he spoke\nto men, did not think it possible to take away from them their hope\nof distinction. 'The first shall be last.' What will there be first\nand second there, too? Yes, so it stands in the Gospel. Is it because\nthere is indeed in the division of men into ranks something original\nand warrantable, or is it because Christ who spoke to humankind could\nnot but use human words? It may be that, but for that promise, and\ngenerally the series of promises of rewards, accessible to the human\nunderstanding, the Gospel would not have fulfilled its great historic\nmission, it would have passed unnoticed on the earth, and no one\nwould have detected or recognised in it the Evangel. Christ knew that\nmen could renounce all things, save the right to superiority alone,\nto superiority over one's neighbours, to that which Nietzsche calls\n'the patent of nobility.' Without that superiority men of a certain\nkind cannot live. They become what the Germans so appropriately call\n_Vogelfrei,_ deprived of the protection of the laws, since the laws\nare the only source of _their_ right. Rude, nonsensical, disgusting\nreality--against which, I repeat, their _only_ defence is the patent\nof nobility, the unwritten charter--approaches them closer and closer,\nwith more and more menace and importunacy, and claims its right. 'If\nyou are the same as all other men,' it says, 'take your experience\nof life from me, fulfil your trivial obligations, worse than that,\naccept from me the fines and reprimands to which the rank and file\nare subject, even to corporal punishment.' How could he accept these\ndegrading conditions who had been used to think he had the right to\ncarry his head high, to be proud and independent? Nietzsche tries\nwith dull submissiveness to swallow the horrible bitterness of\nhis confession, but courage and endurance, even _his_ courage and\nendurance, are not enough for this his greatest and most terrible task.\nHe cannot bear the horror of a life deprived of rights and defences: he\nseeks again for power and authority which would protect him and give\nhim his lost rights again. He will not rest until he receives under\nanother name a _restitutio in integrum_ of all the rights which had\npreviously been his.\n\nAnd surely not Nietzsche alone acted thus. The whole history of ethics,\nthe whole history of philosophy is to no small degree the incessant\nsearch for prerogative and privilege, patents and charters. The\nChristians--Tolstoi and Dostoevsky--do not in the least differ from\nthe enemy of Christianity, Nietzsche. The humble Jew, Spinoza, and the\nmeek pagan, Socrates, the idealist Plato, and the idealist Aristotle,\nthe founders of the newest, noblest and loftiest systems, Kant, Fichte,\nHegel, even Schopenhauer, the pessimist, all as one man seek a charter,\na charter, a charter. Evidently life on earth without a charter\nbecomes for the 'best' men a horrible nightmare and an intolerable\ntorment. Even the founder of Christianity, who so easily renounced all\nprivileges, considered it possible to preserve _this_ privilege for\nhis disciples, and perhaps--who knows?--for himself too.\n\nWhereas if Nietzsche and those other philosophers had been able\nresolutely to renounce titles, ranks, and honours, which are\ndistributed not only by morality, but by all the other Sanhedrim,\nreal and imaginary, which are set over man; if they could have drunk\nthis cup to the dregs, then they might have known, seen, and heard\nmuch that was suspected by none of them before. Long since men have\nknown that the road to knowledge lies by way of a great renunciation.\nNeither righteousness nor genius gives a man privilege above others.\nHe is deprived, for ever deprived, of the protection of earthly laws.\nThere are no laws. To-day he is a king, to-morrow a slave; to-day God,\nto-morrow a worm; to-day first, to-morrow last. And the worm crushed\nby him to-day will be God, his god to-morrow. All the measures and\nbalances by which men are distinguished one from another are defaced\nfor ever, and there is no certainty that the place a man once occupied\nwill still be his. And all philosophers have known this; Nietzsche,\ntoo, knew it, and by experience. He was the friend, the ally, and\nthe collaborator of the great Wagner, the herald of a new era upon\nearth; and later, he grovelled in the dust, broken and crushed.\nAnd a second time this thing happened to him. When he had finished\n_Zarathustra,_ he became insane, more exactly, he became half-idiot.\nIt is true he carried the secret of the second fall with him to the\ngrave. Yet something has reached us, for all his sister's efforts to\nconceal from carnal eyes the change that had befallen him. And now\nwe ask: Is the essence of life really in the rank, the charter, the\npatent of nobility? And can the words of Christ be understood in their\nliteral sense? Are not all the Sanhedrim set over man, and as it were\ngiving meaning to his life, mere fictions, useful and even necessary\nin certain moments of life, but pernicious and dangerous, to say no\nmore, when the circumstances are changed? Does not life, the real and\ndesirable life, which men have sought for thousands of years, begin\nthere where there is neither first nor last, righteous or sinner,\ngenius or incapable? Is not the pursuit of recognition, of superiority,\nof patents and charters, of rank, that which prevents man from seeing\nlife with its hidden miracles? And must man really seek protection\nin the College of Heralds, or has he another power that time cannot\ndestroy? One may be a good, able, learned, gifted man, even a man of\ngenius, but to demand in return any privileges whatsoever, is to betray\ngoodness and ability, and talent and genius, and the greatest hopes of\nmankind. The last on earth will nowhere be first....","title":"Anton Tchekhov, and Other Essays","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":51180}