{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_71260/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_71260","id":"gutenberg_71260","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/71260","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Essays","Spain -- Civilization"],"text":"ESSAYS AND\n                              SOLILOQUIES\n\n\n\n\n                   _BORZOI TRANSLATIONS SPRING 1925_\n\n\n                    _FROM THE SPANISH_\n                    FIGURES OF THE PASSION OF OUR LORD\n                    BY GABRIEL MIRO\n                    _Translated by C. J. Hogarth_\n\n                    _FROM THE FRENCH_\n                    THE MODERN ENGLISH NOVEL\n                    BY ABEL CHEVALLEY\n                    _Translated by Ben Ray Redman_\n\n                    _FROM THE GERMAN_\n                    DEATH IN VENICE\n                    BY THOMAS MANN\n                    _Translated by Kenneth Burke_\n\n                    _FROM THE RUSSIAN_\n                    THE CLOCK\n                    BY ALEKSEI REMIZOV\n                    _Translated by John Cournos_\n\n                    _TALES OF THE WILDERNESS_\n                    BY BORIS PILNIAK\n                    _Translated by F. O\u2019Dempsey_\n\n                    _FROM THE NORWEGIAN_\n                    SEGELFOSS TOWN\n                    BY KNUT HAMSUN\n                    _Translated by J. S. Scott_\n\n                    _FROM THE POLISH_\n                    THE PEASANTS\n                    BY LADISLAS REYMONT\n                    _Translated by Michael H. Dziewicki_\n\n\n\n\n                            [Illustration]\n\n                           MIGUEL DE UNAMUNO\n\n                        ESSAYS AND SOLILOQUIES\n\n                      TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH\n                      WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY\n                       BY J. E. CRAWFORD FLITCH\n\n                            [Illustration]\n\n                               NEW YORK\n                          ALFRED \u00b7 A \u00b7 KNOPF\n                                 1925\n\n\n\n\n              COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.\n              SET UP, ELECTROTYPED, PRINTED AND BOUND BY\n              THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, BINGHAMTON, N. Y.\n              ESPARTO PAPER MANUFACTURED IN SCOTLAND\n              AND FURNISHED BY W.F. ETHERINGTON & CO.,\n              NEW YORK.\n\n             MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n\n\n\n\n                               _Erratum_\n\n\nThe two paragraphs on pages 100-101 beginning:\n\n    In \u201cThe Tragic Sense of Life\u201d Unamuno says\n\nand:\n\n    Readers of Don Quixote will recall\n\nare a continuation of the footnote on page 99.\n\n\n\n\nAUTHOR\u2019S PREFACE\n\n\nI am writing these lines, to-day the 6th of June, 1924, in this island\nof Fuerteventura, an island that is propitious to calm thinking and to\na laying bare of the soul, even as this parched land is bare, bare even\nto the bone. Here I have been confined now for nearly three months, no\nreason for my confinement having been given other than the arbitrary\nmandate of the military power that is de-civilizing and debasing my\nnative country.\n\nHither came my friend Mr. J. E. Crawford Flitch to bear me company.\nHe was entrusted by Mr. Alfred A. Knopf with the task of making an\nanthology or _florilegium_ of my shorter articles and extracts from my\nmore extensive writings which should present a conspectus of my whole\nliterary work. It is he, my friend and translator, who is responsible\nfor the selection of the pieces which form this anthology.\n\nI am in principle an enemy of all such selections or anthologies of\nan author\u2019s works, and the more so when the author\u2019s influence is\ndue primarily not so much to his ideas as to the passionate tone\nand gesture with which he expresses them, to his style. This work\nof selection appears to me to be as difficult as would be that of\nabridging a sonata or a picture. And what appears to me almost\nimpossible is that the author himself should make the selection. It is\nnot possible for us to see ourselves from the outside, to become part\nof our public.\n\nIn any case, a work like this is a kind of index or catalogue, and\nits chief utility is to incite in the public a desire to get to know\nthe author better. It is, to put it bluntly, in the nature of an\nadvertisement.\n\nCollections of selected writings are most valuable when the chief\nimportance of an author lies in his ideology, which may or may not be\nwelded into a system; they are less valuable when he is distinguished\nnot so much by his ideas as by the warm images which incarnate them. It\nis relatively easy to give a summary of an author when we are asked:\n\u201cWhat does he say?\u201d but not so easy when the question to be answered\nis: \u201cHow does he say it?\u201d That is to say, it is possible to abridge a\nphilosophic system, but not a poem. In the poem, that which we call the\nargument is the most external element of its form, and its essence, the\nessence of the poem, is the rhythm, the aroma of the words, the style.\nRhythm may give birth to argument or subject, but subject does not\nalways give birth to rhythm.\n\nIn selecting these pieces--torsos, arms and heads of statuary--my\nfriend the translator has been guided by an artistic rather than by\na philosophical or ideological criterion, and for this I am grateful\nto him. And when I say that I am grateful to him, I mean that in this\nway he has best served the public that seeks to know me--me, the man,\nand not a system, for I have no system. Like Walt Whitman I would\nsay of each one of my works: \u201cThis is not a book, it is a man.\u201d It\nis comparatively easy, for example, to synthetize the philosophical\nsystem of Descartes, or that of Kant, or that of Hegel, or that of\nComte, or, still more so, that of Spencer; but it is not easy to\nsynthetize Goethe or Nietzsche, in both of whom is a latent philosophy.\nAnd still less so to synthetize Dante, Milton, Cervantes, Shakespeare.\nAnd it has not been the object of my translator to present a summary of\nan ideology but to give an impression of a spirit.\n\nTo elucidate this point still further would lead us into an intricate\nexamination of the relations which subsist between a man and his work,\nand to inquire whether the man makes the work or the work makes the man\nor whether each makes the other at the same time. The man makes himself\nin making his work and the work makes itself in making the man. The\nCreation makes God the Creator, and God the Creator makes the Creation,\nthe Universe.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nStrictly speaking, is not every translation in effect a new and\noriginal work? In being turned into English, however faithful the\ntranslator may be, shall I not say something different from what I\nhave said in Spanish? Does a song say the same when played on the\nviolin, the flute, the harp, the bassoon? Is a sonata the same when\nplayed on the piano and the organ? I know that when I have read my\nwritings translated into another language I have been aware of echoes\nand reverberations which lay sleeping in the depths of my spirit, I\nhave glimpsed horizons which the firm and severe contours of my native\ntongue did not permit me to see. And I have sometimes thought of\nmaking a new work based upon a retranslation of the translation.\n\nAmong these essays is one upon the religion of Quixotism. Hitherto I\nhave been meditating and perhaps dogmatizing upon this religion--now\nI am living it. For it is here, where the waves murmur tidings of\nmy native shores, the mountainous coast of the wild Bay of Biscay,\nit is here that I have felt most deeply all the melancholy grandeur\nof the ridiculous passion of the Knight of the impossible Chimera.\nWhile the cowardly comic-opera tyrants who have banished me here are\ndishonouring our Spain, her whom they call their mother, I am exalting\nand eternalizing her, and I call her my daughter.\n\nThere is a famous Spanish couplet which says that there is no handful\nof earth without a Spanish grave--\n\n    _No hay un pu\u00f1ado de tierra_\n    _Sin una tumba espa\u00f1ola,_\n\nand it would seem that these unhappy rulers wish to extend the national\ngraveyard. And I propose that there shall be no corner of heaven\nwithout a nest of Spanish thought.\n\nNests of Spanish thought are the pieces which compose this book.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd now I return to contemplate the sea, to feed my spirit upon it, to\nwatch its white-crested waves which are born and die and succeed one\nanother like the generations of men and of men\u2019s works in the sea of\nhistory. I return to contemplate the all-consoling sea which smiles,\nwith its superhuman smile, upon our tragic human frailties.\n\nGreeting! my readers of the English-speaking world. And when, having\nread this book, you wish me farewell, may you carry with you something\nof the quixotesque passion which I have put into my work and which is\nthe life of my life.\n\nMIGUEL DE UNAMUNO.\n\n_Fuerteventura,\n\nJune 6, 1924._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n_Author\u2019s Preface_                                                   xii\n\n_Introduction_                                                         3\n\n_The Spirit of Castile_                                               30\n\n_Spanish Individualism_                                               38\n\n_Some Arbitrary Reflections upon Europeanization_                     52\n\n_The Spanish Christ_                                                  76\n\n_The Sepulchre of Don Quixote_                                        82\n\n_The Helmet of Mambrino_                                              99\n\n_Don Quixote\u2019s Niece_                                                108\n\n_The Religion of Quixotism_                                          113\n\n_Large and Small Towns_                                              125\n\n_To My Readers_                                                      133\n\n_Soliloquies_                                                        142\n\n_My Religion_                                                        154\n\n_Solitude_                                                           163\n\n_Intellectuality and Spirituality_                                   170\n\n_The Materialism of the Masses_                                      190\n\n_The Man of Flesh and Bone_                                          195\n\n_The Problem of Immortality_                                         205\n\n_Creative Faith_                                                     217\n\n_The Song of the Eternal Waters_                                     226\n\n_The Tower of Monterrey_                                             233\n\n_Appendix_                                                           241\n\n_Bibliography_                                                       243\n\n\n\n\nESSAYS AND SOLILOQUIES\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nNo writer ever stood less in need of an introduction than Miguel de\nUnamuno, for probably none ever revealed himself so naturally and so\nnakedly in his writings. The identity between the author and the man is\nabsolute. He has a way of putting the whole of himself into all that\nhe writes so that to read him is not merely to learn his views as a\nphilosopher or a publicist, but to know his loves and hates, his hopes\nand despairs, as a man of flesh and bone. His method of communicating\nhis message is not to address an audience from the elevation of the\npulpit or the platform, but to accost the individual face to face, to\ngrasp him warmly by the hand, to look him full in the eyes and tell\nhim what is in his heart. The task of the introducer therefore may be\nrestricted to prefixing to the intimacy so immediately established\nbetween reader and author some few notes relative to the latter\u2019s\nhistory and the background against which he presents himself.\n\nThe determining events in his outward biography are soon told. Miguel\nde Unamuno y Jugo was born in Bilbao on September 29, 1864. Although\nhe comes of pure Basque stock, Unamuno\u2019s mother-tongue was Castilian,\na fact which precludes the supposition that the idiosyncrasies of his\nstyle are to be attributed to an early familiarity with the Basque\nspeech. His father, who had spent most of his life in Mexico, died\nin 1870. Four years later Bilbao was besieged and bombarded by the\nCarlist troops, the first shell falling only a few houses away from\nthat in which his family was living. The events of the siege naturally\nmade a lively impression upon the mind of the ten-year-old boy. At\nthe first sound of the horns blown to give warning of the renewal of\nthe bombardment, the family took shelter with the neighbours in the\ncellars, from which the youngsters sallied forth to collect the still\nburning fragments of the shells. The schools were closed and the whole\ntown became an extended playground, offering to the idle schoolboys\nthe novel liberty of clambering about roofless churches and conducting\nminiature bombardments of ruined houses with projectiles gathered from\nthe debris. This exciting holiday was terminated by the entry of the\nliberating troops on May 2, 1874. These personal experiences of Spain\u2019s\nlast civil war provided Unamuno with a background for his first novel,\n_Paz en la Guerra_.\n\nThe religious atmosphere of Unamuno\u2019s home was that of a Catholicism\nwhose traditions of simple and heart-felt piety bore a certain affinity\nto those of Anglo-Saxon Quakerism. The youthful Miguel was a member\nof the guild or _Congregaci\u00f3n_ of San Luis Gonzaga and on the feast\nof Corpus Christi used to walk in procession through the streets with\nlighted candle in his hand and the medal of the order suspended upon\nhis breast. About the age of fourteen he passed through that phase of\nspiritual ferment which usually characterizes the entrance of the soul\ninto puberty, a period of vague aspirations towards sanctity mingled\nwith the romanticism engendered in a lively imagination by the reading\nof Ossian. This religious _Schw\u00e4rmerei_, however, was tempered by the\ncourse of philosophy prescribed by his study for his baccalaureate.\nIntroduced through the reading of the Catalan philosopher Balmes to\nthe works of Descartes, Kant and Hegel, he at once plunged into the\nvertigo of metaphysics and proceeded to elaborate and transcribe into a\ntwopenny note-book a philosophical system of his own, \u201cvery symmetrical\nand bristling with formulas.\u201d\n\nIn 1880 Unamuno went to Madrid to continue his studies. Passionately\nattached to his native Bilbao and the wild mountain country in which\nall his youthful summers had been passed, Unamuno has related how\nhe entered Madrid with tears in his eyes. His spirit never became\nacclimated to the atmosphere of the capital and the years which he\nspent there were rendered unhappy by his sense of isolation and\nhome-sickness, preoccupations with ill health, intellectual strain and\nacute spiritual crises. Having taken his doctor\u2019s degree in philosophy\nand letters, he presented himself as a candidate for a professorship,\nfirst in psychology, logic and ethics, and then in metaphysics; but\nno doubt owing to a certain uncompromising independence of mind and\ncontempt of the conventional curriculum, he failed to obtain the\nsuffrages of the examiners. After two further unsuccessful attempts to\nobtain a chair in Latin, he was finally appointed to a professorship\nin Greek by a board presided over by the famous scholar Menendez y\nPelayo. After returning to Bilbao, where he married, he took up his\nresidence in Salamanca in 1891. There he conducted two courses of\nlectures, one on Greek literature, the other on the evolution of the\nCastilian language, and nine years later, in 1900, he was appointed to\nthe Rectorship of the University.\n\nUnamuno has always been possessed of a formidable capacity for work.\nHis scholastic activities, his administrative duties as head of the\nUniversity, his participation in municipal affairs, absorbed only a\nportion of his energies. An omnivorous reader, he is familiar not\nonly with the cultures of the ancient world but with all the modern\nliteratures of Europe and America, most of which his extensive\nknowledge of languages has enabled him to read in the original. But\nthe fertility of his mind and spirit manifested itself above all in a\ncontinual stream of creative work, taking the manifold forms of essays,\npoetry, novels, criticism and philosophy. His career as a publicist\ncoincided with the period following Spain\u2019s disastrous war with the\nUnited States, during which the fortunes of his country appeared to\nbe at their lowest ebb. Unamuno at once took a foremost place in that\ngroup of writers and public men, known as \u201cthe generation of \u201998,\u201d who\nwere preoccupied with the problem of national regeneration. Whereas the\nmajority of the regenerationists, however, pointed to \u201cmodernization\u201d\nand \u201cEuropeanization\u201d as the only possible path leading to material and\ncultural progress, Unamuno advocated a return to the eternal tradition\nof Spain and held that a spiritual renaissance was the necessary\npre-condition of her restoration as a world-power.\n\nIt was impossible for a man with so deep and intimate a love for his\ncountry to confine himself to the publication of general encyclicals\nfrom a professorial and not to step down into the stormy arena\nof practical politics. Without identifying himself with any one\nof the official political parties, Unamuno conducted a personal\nand independent campaign by means of newspaper articles and public\naddresses, frankly and fearlessly denouncing abuses and corruption\nwherever he discerned them, whether displayed in the acts of rulers\nor inherent in the governmental system of the country. Such outspoken\ncriticism from one who held his appointment from the state savoured\ntoo much, to the government of the day, of insubordination and was\nreproved accordingly by his removal from the office of Rector of the\nUniversity of Salamanca. Some time afterward, in virtue of two articles\nwhich he published in a Valencia newspaper, the ex-Rector was deemed\nto have contravened the law of _l\u00e8se-majest\u00e9_, for which offence he\nwas formally condemned by the courts to a period of sixteen years\u2019\nimprisonment. The sentence, which was of course never intended to be\ncarried out, was subsequently annulled by the royal grant of pardon.\n\nThe _coup d\u2019\u00e9tat_ of September, 1923, by which General Primo de Rivera\nsuspended the constitution and established the Military Directory,\nnaturally aroused Unamuno\u2019s vehement protestation. Liberty of speech,\nhowever, formed no part of the program of the new r\u00e9gime and the\nDictator, dispensing with the customary civil processes of writ,\ntrial and judgment, replied by an arbitrary decree of deportation. On\nFeb. 21, 1924, Unamuno received notice to prepare to proceed within\ntwenty-four hours under escort to Fuerteventura, the most remote and\nbarren of the Canary Islands. It is possible that the authorities\nmight have been willing to connive at the flight of their captive to\nthe Portuguese frontier, distant only some eighty miles from Salamanca;\nbut Unamuno refused to relieve them from any of the embarrassment which\nthe consequences of their action might entail. He packed up the few\nnecessaries for his journey, put a couple of books in his pocket--the\nGreek New Testament and Leopardi\u2019s poems--and awaited the arrival of\nthe escort.\n\nThe news of the banishment of one of Spain\u2019s foremost writers and\npatriots was received with a spontaneous outburst of denunciation both\nat home and abroad. Numerous councils of universities and learned\nsocieties in Europe and America passed resolutions of protest;\nthe newspaper press of almost every country published articles by\nrepresentative literary men condemning the action of the government and\ntestifying to the universality of the esteem which Unamuno had won in\nthe international republic of letters. The Directory was compelled to\nrecognize that the sole result of its act of petty tyranny had been to\nraise the prestige of its victim and damage its own. A project for the\nrescue of the exile was secretly organized in France, but its fruition\nwas forestalled by the publication of a decree of amnesty in July,\n1924. Unamuno embarked on the sailing-ship which had been dispatched\nfor his deliverance and on arriving at Madeira took ship to Cherbourg.\nAlthough free to return to Spain, he felt that under the present r\u00e9gime\nhis liberty of action would be too much circumscribed and therefore\npreferred to take up his residence temporarily in Paris.\n\nI think that it was in the year 1912 when travelling in Spain that I\nchanced to buy a book entitled _Mi Religi\u00f3n y Otros Ensayos_ by Miguel\nde Unamuno. Both the book and its author were then unkown to me. Before\nI had read many pages I knew that I was listening to a voice that spoke\nwith that accent of sincerity and intimacy which gives the assurance\nof immediate contact with a living man, a man of flesh and bone, a man\nwho had suffered, despaired, hoped and struggled with an intensity\nthat burned in every word. Next year was published _Del Sentimiento\nTr\u00e1gico de la Vida_, that passionate record of the adventures of the\nspirit that takes its place with the self-revelations of St. Augustine,\nPascal, Amiel and Kierkegaard. I resolved that if I could accomplish\nit this voice should be heard in the countries that speak the English\ntongue. The War intervened, and it was not until 1920 that I found\nmyself in Salamanca with the typewritten sheets of the translation of\n\u201cThe Tragic Sense of Life\u201d ready to be submitted to the author for\nrevision.\n\nI well remember how, on the afternoon after my arrival, I was sitting\nin a caf\u00e9 on the Plaza Mayor when the door opened and my eyes fell upon\nthe arresting figure of a man half-way through the fifties, clad in a\ndouble-breasted blue-serge jacket with a rim of white collar falling\nover a kind of clerical waistcoat that was void of the usual triangular\nopening for the display of shirt and necktie, his head crowned by a\nround parsonical black hat. There was an almost aggressive announcement\nof bluff health and energy in the erect carriage of the body, the\nalert set of the head on squared shoulders, the thick brush-like crop\nof iron-grey hair, the crisp curl of the close-trimmed beard that\nemphasized rather than masked the firm lines of the jaw, the keen\nglance behind gold-rimmed spectacles of eyes that gleamed bright and\nbrown like the eyes of a bird of prey. It would have been difficult for\none to whom he was a stranger to have guessed his vocation from his\nappearance. Certainly never was philosopher less sicklied o\u2019er with\nthe pale cast of thought. The tan that bronzed a skin glowing with the\nflush of health seemed to tell of a life that was spent in the air of\nthe mountains rather than in the study. It could scarcely be doubted\nthat the figure standing there in the doorway was that of a man of\naction and a fighter.\n\nDuring the course of the next two months I had ample opportunity to\nobserve the daily routine of Unamuno\u2019s life at Salamanca. An early\nriser, he may be seen in the streets before nine o\u2019clock on his way\nto the lecture-room. After the midday _comida_, at which he usually\nabstains from both wine and meat, he is accustomed to take his coffee\nat the Circulo Salmantino with a group of friends whose thought and\nconvictions are as widely varying as their occupations--university\nprofessors, students, doctors, magistrates, writers, poets and men\nof business. The quite unacademic conversation ranges over the whole\ngamut of human interests. While the talk is flowing freely or the\nargument being waged, Unamuno--who, by the way, is a non-smoker--may\nsometimes be seen folding square sheets of paper with deft fingers\ninto complicated geometrical patterns which presently grow into\nastonishingly realistic shapes of animals. Before the party breaks up,\nhis table is not infrequently covered with a menagerie of pigs, jumping\nfrogs, vultures and other wildfowl, to the no small delight of the\nstreet urchins whose noses are flattened against the other side of the\nwide plate-glass window. This _arte salmatino_, as its inventor calls\nit, presents baffling constructional problems, the solutions of which\nare sometimes thought out upon abstract geometrical principles in the\nsleepless watches of the night.\n\nWhen most of the members of the _tertulia_ have withdrawn either to\ntake their afternoon siesta or resume their avocations, Unamuno sets\nout for a long walk into the country, accompanied in winter by the few\nwho are willing to brave the icy winds that sweep over the treeless\ntableland from the snow-clad summits of the sierras. During the walk\nthe conversation is continued without intermission, the party halting\nto form a circle round the speaker whenever a point arises that demands\nspecial emphasis or elucidation. As these points arise at frequent\nintervals, a spectacle that must often arrest the wondering gaze of the\npeasant hurrying on his mule along the high road to Salamanca on wintry\nafternoons, is that of a group of individuals muffled in greatcoats and\nwaterproofs, with collars raised and hat-brims pulled down in a vain\nendeavour to protect tingling ears from the lashing flaws of rain and\nsleet, gathered round a robust, coatless figure, with double-breasted\nblue jacket thrown open to the blast, whose concentration upon the\nsubject-matter of his discourse renders him apparently oblivious of the\ninclemency of the elements and the physical discomfort of his auditors.\nThe point having been elucidated, the party struggles on again in the\nteeth of the gale, some of its weaker members perhaps hoping that no\nfresh dialectical crisis will arise until further exercise has restored\nthe benumbed circulation.\n\nOn days of storm or heavy rain, when faint-hearted disciples shrink\nfrom the exposure of the open country, the afternoon diversion takes\nthe form of a promenade beneath the arcades of the Plaza Mayor, perhaps\nthe finest square of its kind in Spain, into which towards evening\nmost of the population of the city seems to empty itself. The crowd\nsurges round in two opposing streams, for a time-honoured custom\ndemands that the men shall proceed in one direction and the women\nin another. Unamuno diversifies the monotony of this promenade by a\ncurious amusement. Having abstracted the crumb from his luncheon roll\nand kneaded it up into a kind of snowball, he manufactures therefrom a\nsupply of pellets, and these, during the course of his walk, he propels\nby means of a dexterous flick of the middle finger with deadly accuracy\nat selected members of the crowd. Whether the principle of selection\nis based upon friendly interest or personal dislike, or whether\nindeed there is any principle at all, is a question that must be left\nundetermined.\n\nAbout dusk he returns home and withdraws to his study, a spacious,\nlofty square room, the plain workshop of the intellectual worker,\nfurnished only with a large writing-table, a few simple chairs, and\ncrowded bookshelves which not only surround the walls but occupy most\nof the floor-space. A brazier underneath the table emits from its\nwhite ashes a faint warmth scarcely perceptible to ordinary senses.\nHaving refreshed himself with a drink of cold water, Unamuno takes\nup the work in hand and writes until the hour arrives for the evening\nmeal with his family. The theatre does not attract him--I only saw him\npresent once when Ibsen was being played--and it is very seldom that a\nsocial function keeps him from going to bed betimes.\n\nProfound as is his attachment to the city which has been his home for\nover thirty years, Unamuno always welcomes an opportunity to escape\nfrom streets and squares into the open country and the mountains. His\nknowledge of the Peninsula, as his books of travel testify, is both\nwide and intimate. His visits to the more distant provinces are of\ncourse reserved for the vacations, but during term-time his week-ends\nand the holidays occurring on the seasonal feasts are often spent in\nthe regions of the Sierra de Gredos and the Pe\u00f1a de Francia. During\nthese excursions he touches life at a multiplicity of centres and\npenetrates into all the various social strata. At every stage of the\njourney--at the railway stations, in the train, at the local club, in\nthe inn, in the village shop or the peasant\u2019s cottage--he is usually to\nbe seen at the centre of a group of men, discussing local affairs and\npolitics, inquiring into the technique of trades, saturating himself\nin the atmosphere of popular thought and belief. His knowledge and\nlove of Spain are thus fed by a familiarity with the inner life of the\npeople, the intra-historical life, as he calls it, the life that flows\nby unobserved for the most part by politicians and publicists and never\nagitates the surface of history.\n\nA minor outcome of this contact with the people, and with the\n_charros_ or peasants of the province of Salamanca in particular,\nhas been the enrichment of his vocabulary by many of those pungent,\nexpressive and sometimes beautiful words and locutions which have\nlong since disappeared from literary Spanish but still abound in\npeasant speech. This racy idiom of the soil often gives a peculiar\ntang to Unamuno\u2019s writing. When accused by the literary critic, as not\ninfrequently happens, of sprinkling his prose with words unearthed\nfrom the dusty works of some sixteenth or seventeenth-century author,\nhe will reply that the so-called archaisms, though possibly unfamiliar\nin literary coteries, still enjoy a vigorous life in the speech of the\npeople.\n\nIt will no doubt have been already gathered that Unamuno, like all good\nSpaniards, delights in talk. Indeed, some of those who have observed\nhow considerable a part of his leisure is spent in general conversation\nmay have wondered how and when he finds time for the production of the\nlarge volume of his writing. The answer is that much of his thought\nis generated and shaped into form in the act of talking. He has a\ndisrelish, amounting almost to a prejudice, for writing that has not\nthe vibration and elasticity of living speech, the prose of men who\nare usually found to be non-talkers. \u201cIdeas come with talking,\u201d I have\nheard him say. \u201cOne must speak, one must have to put one\u2019s thought\ninto words, one must hear how the words sound spoken. Writing for\noneself is not enough.\u201d It is in the conversational encounter, in the\nface-to-face conflict of disputants, in the exertion to convince an\nopponent, to unravel a difficulty, to press home a personal conviction,\nthat his mind is strung to its highest tension, seizes upon the aptest\nand keenest words with an instinctive sense of their effective values\nand wields them like sharp and flashing weapons. Returning to his\nstudy after a discussion at the Circulo Salmantino or an afternoon\u2019s\ndiscourse on the wind-swept heights above the Tormes, he transcribes\nwith the speed of dictation the substance of his argument or homily in\nphrases still vibrating with the passion of the spoken word. Hence his\nprose retains in a degree exceptional even in Spanish literature the\nqualities of animated talk--rapid, emphatic, exclamatory, elliptical,\ndisjointed, charged with intonation and gesture. And this written\ntalk, it must be noted, never develops into written oratory, for it is\naddressed in the first instance not to the general public but to the\npersonal interlocutor; it is the continuation or recapitulation of talk\nwith a friend, or the reply to the confessions of a correspondent, or\nsometimes the communing of the writer with _alter ego_.\n\nThere are times when the channel of written speech seems to afford\ntoo narrow an outlet for the flood of passion storming through it.\nUnamuno seems to be impatient of the mutism of the printed page,\nas if, like the written score of music, it were incomplete lacking\nembodiment in sound. The written symbols are an inadequate substitute\nfor the bodily presence, incapable of conveying the conviction, the\nforce, the sense of mass, which only the living organism with all its\nfull-charged vitality can impart. It might even be conjectured that\nfor Unamuno writing is after all only a _pis-aller_--he would prefer\nto talk, or rather he would prefer to dispense with words altogether\nand impose himself in some transcendental act of communion. Of one\nof Goya\u2019s pictures, the tumultuous _Third of May_ in the Prado, the\nItalian critic De Amicis says: \u201cIt is the last point which painting can\nreach before being transmuted into action; having passed this point,\none throws away the brush and seizes the dagger.\u201d A similar sense of\nan intolerable straining of the medium is sometimes felt in reading\nUnamuno. The texture of language is stretched to the breaking-point;\nwords are contorted in an endeavour to force them beyond the limits\nof their capacity; grammar and syntax collapse before the rush\nof passionate utterance. It is the pressure and drive of a whole\npersonality that seeks to translate itself into words and finds in the\nend that it is untranslatable.\n\nThe impulse towards action and the exertion of personal influence\nwhich forms one of the dominant features of Unamuno\u2019s character, finds\na considerable part of its expression in his participation in the\npublic affairs of his country. He has little patience with the view\nthat the scholar or professor ought to stand aside from the larger\nissues of the day in order to devote all his energies to perfecting\nhimself as a machine for grinding out erudition and culture. Indeed,\nhe considers that politics are themselves an invaluable instrument\nof culture, in that for large masses of the people they provide the\nprincipal, perhaps the only avenue of approach to a consideration of\ngeneral ideas. Devoting himself in his political activities primarily\nto the exposition of these general ideas, the basic principles of\ncitizenship, Unamuno has always evinced a whole-hearted contempt for\nthat preoccupation with political machinery and an intrigue which\ntends to make the professional politician, particularly perhaps in\nSpain, little more than an electioneerer. Unamuno is among the prophets\nrather than the politicians, and his followers form not a party but a\nband of disciples. \u201cAll round the ring,\u201d he said to me once, \u201csit the\nspectators. They applaud or hiss. But down in the arena, there I fight\nalone, face to face with the bull.\u201d\n\nTo the suggestion sometimes expressed by his well-wishers that he\nshould withdraw from the arena in order to devote himself more\nexclusively to poetry and philosophy, Unamuno would reply that this\npoetry and philosophy are simply the outcome of his intense, energetic\nand passionate living. If he had never known the dangers, the ardours,\nthe hopes and despairs of battle, his poetry might have withered for\nlack of roots. _Primum vivere, deinde philosopari_--the philosopher\nmust first live before he can philosophize. And the end of life,\nUnamuno has said, is living, not understanding. Nothing is more\nrepugnant to his spirit than the conception of \u00e6sthetics embodied in\nthe catch-phrase, \u201cart for art\u2019s sake.\u201d The idea that letters can be\nseparated from life and literature produced _in vacuo_ is inconceivable\nto one whose impulse to write springs directly from his zeal to affect\nand mould life. Unamuno provides yet another corroboration of Tchekov\u2019s\nmaxim that all great writers have axes to grind.\n\nIf the object of Unamuno\u2019s political opponents in banishing him from\nthe society of his fellows to the ocean-girt desert of Fuerteventura\nwas to reduce his spirit to submission, they little knew the man\nthey had to deal with. He has never overprized the amenities of\ncivilization and it is probable that he would have felt much more in\nexile if he had been condemned to live in the cosmopolitan atmosphere\nof Tenerife or Las Palmas. The Canaries have been identified with\nthe Fortunate Isles of the ancient world, and Unamuno remarked\nhumorously that Fuerteventura was indeed fortunate among islands in\nbeing one where there were no hotels _de luxe_, no bull-fights, no\ncinemas, no football, no boy-scouts. But apart from its lack of the\nmore futile expedients for killing time, there is something in the\nspirit and even in the structure of this stern and naked island that\nwas in harmony with Unamuno\u2019s temperament. It is, as he phrased it,\nnot merely _desnudo_ but _descarnado_, not merely without vesture\nbut without flesh. Like a bleached skeleton in the sun, it reveals\nevery articulation of its structure. In its landscape everything\nfugitive gives place to what is enduring and elemental; it bears the\nimpress of eternity rather than of time. Living in this austere but\nserene ambience, between the mountains and the sea, Unamuno found a\nrefreshment of mental and spiritual energy, the activity of his inner\nlife was perhaps never more intense and what he wrote during his four\nmonths\u2019 exile was quarried from those deeper strata of his spirit where\nthought and passion lie embedded in a single matrix.\n\nIn Puerto de Cabras, the cluster of low whitewashed houses that forms\nthe principal port of the island, time flowed in a tranquil stream that\nwas scarcely agitated by the weekly arrival of the steamer bringing the\nmail, provisions, water, and out-of-date newspapers from Las Palmas.\nFor the safer custody of the exile, fifty _guardias civiles_ had been\ndrafted to the island and stationed in couples at various points round\nthe coast. Every letter which he wrote or received was first opened and\ncensored by police officials. In other respects his liberty of movement\nwithin the island was not interfered with and he was free to visit the\ndistant villages that are sparsely scattered like oases in the midst\nof the stone-strewn wilderness of extinct volcanoes. Unamuno occupied\na room overlooking the sea in the principal _fonda_ of the port. He\nusually rose before the bell of the little church on the other side of\nthe wide cobbled street had rung for six o\u2019clock Mass, and spent the\nmorning working in his bedroom or composing a sonnet as he paced up\nand down the flat roof, bare-headed and stripped to the waist, in the\nsun. After a frugal lunch--the diet of Fuerteventura is of a Spartan\nsimplicity!--he took a siesta during the heat of the afternoon and\nafterward strolled along the rock-bound shore or the _carretera_ that\nleads into the interior of the island. Although the action can scarcely\nhave come within the compass of their duties, it was not surprising\nto see the lounging soldiers spring to salute when their prisoner,\nwith his native air of authority and command, passed before the\nbarracks-gate. When the brief twilight fell and the camels, returning\nfrom browsing on the scanty scrub, padded with muffled footfall through\nthe darkening street, Unamuno joined the circle of village notables\nwho were wont to assemble nightly on a row of chairs ranged on the\npavement in front of the general store. Then, until the tardy supper\nhour arrived, a flow of philosophy, philology, paradox, travel-lore and\npolitical wisdom fell upon the astonished ears of the shopkeepers and\npetty officials of the port. Fortunate islanders!\n\nPerhaps there is no more distinguishing mark of greatness of character\nthan that patience and inner quietude which springs from assurance of\nthe ultimate efficacy of the force latent within the soul. No term\nhad been fixed to Unamuno\u2019s banishment; it might have been his fate,\nfor all he knew, to have passed the best of his remaining years in\nthe island wilderness of Fuerteventura. But so far from chafing at\nhis enforced isolation and inaction, he seemed to be sustained by the\nconsciousness that it was beyond the power of circumstances to prevent\nthe work to which he had set his hand from accomplishing itself.\nWhatever might happen to the sower, the seed that had been scattered\nwould go on bearing fruit. In the plans which his friends had made for\nhis escape he took an uneager and slightly amused interest. A point\nwas fixed not far from the port where it was arranged that between the\nhours of ten and twelve at night the exile should await a boat that was\nto carry him to a sailing-vessel lying somewhere off the coast. Owing\nto unforeseen delays, the vessel did not finally arrive until after\nthe decree of banishment had been rescinded, and consequently many\nnights were spent in frustrated watching beneath the shadow of a ruined\ntower standing on a rocky ledge by the shore. These summer nights were\nbreathlessly still, the bright globe of the moon rose up out of the sea\ninto a clear sky thickly silvered with stars, the unrippled surface of\nthe water stretched between the arms of the bay like a sheet of metal.\nIn the distance the green harbour-light at the end of the stone jetty\ngleamed malignly. The only sound was the gurgling of the water in the\nhollows of the rocks. The far horizon was void of any vestige of a\nsail. Twelve o\u2019clock came and the fruitless vigil was broken off. Not\nwholly fruitless, perhaps, for during these tranquil hours of waiting\nUnamuno kept a vigil of the spirit, the fruit of which will doubtless\nappear when the poems of his exile are made known to the world.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOf the two elements which appear to be combined in every philosophy,\nthe impersonal, scientific investigation of the nature of reality and\nthe personal affective reaction to the scheme of things thus envisaged,\nit is with the latter that Unamuno\u2019s interest is overwhelmingly\nconcerned. It may be that it is not so much this attitude that\nsingularizes him as his candid avowal of it. At any rate, he himself\nappears to believe that the impersonal methods of philosophy merely\nprovide a conceptional framework for the personal _Weltanschauung_\nof the philosopher. And the core of this inward affective problem\nmust always be, for the human philosopher, the relation of man to\nthe universe. It is this point where philosophy and religion meet in\nconsidering the problem of human destiny, that forms the burning focus\nof the main energies of Unamuno\u2019s thought and passion.\n\nWhat distinguishes Unamuno from most other thinkers--and perhaps one\nshould say \u201cfeelers\u201d rather than thinkers--is the intensity of his\nrealization and awareness of his own personality, of his own unique\nindividual being, and the passion with which he desires the indefinite\npersistence of this being. This is the main ground for the charge of\negoism and egocentrism that has often been levelled against him. But\nso far from driving him to a narrow self-centred individualism, this\npassion is the source from which springs a generous sympathy with all\nhumanity. He rightly insists upon the fact that the problem of personal\nimmortality involves that of the future of the whole human species.\nHis passionate concern for his own destiny, his own salvation, Unamuno\ntransfers to all his brothers in humanity. The salvation of man, the\ncentral problem of all religion, is the axis about which his thought\nand emotion revolve. But it is salvation in what he understands to be\nthe Catholic rather than the Protestant sense, salvation not so much\nfrom sin as from death, from annihilation.\n\nTo a man of the modern world, endowed with any special degree of\nsensitiveness to his own personality, this problem tends to become\nincreasingly acute. The importance of man\u2019s place in the universe is\nseen to diminish in direct ratio to his knowledge with regard to it.\nIn the searchlight of science, the planet upon which he lives shrinks\nto infinitesimal proportions in relation to the incommensurable cosmic\nscheme; man takes his place no longer as the lord of creation but as\nan apparently meaningless by-product of the play of irresponsible and\nunconscious forces. This strange efflorescence of human consciousness\nin an obscure corner of the universe would appear to be a transitory\nphenomenon, resting upon an unstable equilibrium of natural forces and\ndestined to vanish completely when the inevitable working of these\nsame forces shall have dissipated the conditions under which life is\nable to sustain itself on this planet. This sense of the doom of\nannihilation impending over humanity is like a cloud looming upon the\nhorizon of Unamuno\u2019s consciousness and throwing a menacing shadow\nupon the whole terrestrial scene. It is the basis of his tragic sense\nof life. It projects upon the screen of his mind that vision which\nso often seems to occupy it, the vision of a world finally ordered\nand catalogued by human science, of a civilization perfected after\n\u00e6ons of agonized human effort, existing without any human or other\nconsciousness left to appropriate it.\n\nIt may be said that in the contemplation of this vision the only\nrational attitude for the human spirit to adopt is that of resignation\nto mortality. But this counsel can only be given by those who are\naffectively insensitive, and in Unamuno the will to live and to\nsurvive are too imperious to submit to it unprotestingly. The note of\npassionate protest rings in his writings. He inscribes upon his page\nthe challenge of S\u00e9nancour\u2019s _Obermann_: \u201c_L\u2019homme est p\u00e9rissable. Il\nse peut; mais p\u00e9rissons en r\u00e9sistant, et, si le n\u00e9ant nous est reserv\u00e9,\nne faisons pas que ce soit une justice._\u201d Life refuses to abdicate to\nreason; between the rationalistic and vitalistic attitude to existence\nthere is an impassable gulf. His own personal solution is found in the\ninspiration and energy which he draws from this position of uncertainty\nand conflict. \u201cI will not make peace between my heart and my head,\u201d he\ncries; \u201crather let the one affirm what the other denies and the one\ndeny what the other affirms, and I shall live by this contradiction.\u201d\nHis \u201cTragic Sense of Life,\u201d which is the record of the encounter of\nhis spirit with the problems centring round the salvation of man from\ndeath and annihilation, issues in the assertion that all virtue is\nbased upon \u201cuncertainty, doubt, perpetual wrestling with the mystery of\nour final destiny, mental despair, and the lack of any solid and stable\ndogmatic foundation.\u201d Convert _Obermann\u2019s_ sentence from its negative\nto a positive form--\u201cif it is nothingness that awaits us, let us so\nact that it shall be an injustice\u201d--and you get \u201cthe firmest basis of\naction for the man who cannot or will not be a dogmatist.\u201d A solution,\nperhaps, but a desperate one.\n\nUnamuno\u2019s concern is not only with the salvation of man from\nnothingness after death but also from the next-to-nothingness during\nlife into which he is plunged by the processes of an inhumane\ncivilization. He is never weary of affirming that man is an end in\nhimself, not a means. He protests passionately against the sacrifice\nof the individual concrete man upon the altar of the abstract idea,\nwhether the abstraction be that of the state, of society, of progress,\nof posterity, or of humanity itself. \u201cThey tell me that I am here to\nrealize I know not what social end; but I feel that I, like each one of\nmy fellows, am here to realize myself, to live.\u201d This individualism,\nit must be noted, has nothing in common with the anarchist\u2019s\nundiscriminating revolt against society. Nobody realizes more fully\nthan this champion of individualism that man is a social being, and\nthat he can exist and grow to his full stature only in society. But\nthe point which he is insistent in emphasizing and which so many\nsocial theorists appear to forget is that society exists for man, not\nman for society. \u201cThe weak point in our socialism,\u201d he says, \u201cis its\nconfused notion of the supreme end of the individual life.\u201d He is led\nto question the value of our modern civilization--that civilization\nwhich Spain is told by her would-be reformers that she ought to\nassimilate--because it has arrived at a point at which it suppresses\nrather than expands, enslaves rather than liberates, the life of\nthe individual. Man becomes exhausted with tending the machinery of\nprogress.\n\nIt is this distrust of the tendencies of modern Western civilization\nthat causes Unamuno to turn to the ancient, and--as he is willing to\nconsider--African, tradition of his own country. No native reformer\nor foreign critic can have said harder things of his compatriots than\nUnamuno. His essays reverberate with the sound of the lash with which\nhe chastises the besetting sins of the Spaniards of to-day, their\nservitude to the spirit of routine, their intellectual and spiritual\ninertia, their paralysing mutual suspicion and envy, their renunciation\nof the life of adventure and danger. But Unamuno distinguishes\nbetween the Spain of the passing generations and the Spain of the\neternal tradition, between the agitations that give a changing form\nto the surface and the life that sleeps and dreams in the depths of\nsubconsciousness. This dreaming, undying, subliminal Spain is the Spain\nof his love and of his faith. He appeals from Spaniards to Spain. He\nseeks to awaken this inner Spain to full consciousness of itself. And\nwhen it awakens it is possible that this Spain may be unable to find\nits expression in the terms of our current civilization. The culture in\nwhich the intellect and ideals of the advance-guard of the so-called\n_Kulturv\u00f6lker_ naturally clothe themselves, becomes an alien and\nill-fitting garment when forced upon the Iberian spirit. And perhaps\nthe secret of this difference lies in the greater importance in the\nSpanish social structure of the part played by the concrete individual\nrelatively to the instruments of culture. \u201cOther peoples,\u201d Unamuno\nsays, \u201chave left institutions, books--we have left souls.\u201d His message\nto Spain might perhaps be resumed in Whitman\u2019s words: \u201cProduce great\nPersons: the rest follows.\u201d\n\nA cardinal tenet of Unamuno\u2019s creed is the superlative value of the\nindividual soul. It is precious because it is unique and irreplaceable:\n\u201cThere cannot be any other I.\u201d In the whole world there is only one\nJuan L\u00f3pez or John Smith; the particular ingredients, good, bad or\nindifferent, that have combined to form this unique individuality can\nnever again reunite in precisely the same proportions to form another\nidentical combination. This theory, or rather this sense, of the\nuniqueness of personality may serve as the basis for an ethic. \u201cOur\ngreatest endeavour must be to make ourselves irreplaceable; to make the\ntheoretical fact--that each one of us is unique and irreplaceable--a\npractical truth.\u201d The whole duty of man is to discover himself, to\ndiscover his own reality, to discover what is unique in himself, to\nbring it to the light, not to shrink from exposing it, to express it in\naction and to impose it upon the world. The courage of self-affirmation\nis the virtue which Unamuno exhorts his fellow-countrymen to achieve.\nHe presents a symbol of it in his vision of the Tower of Monterrey\nthat lifts itself into the wintry air above the brown roofs of his\nbeloved Salamanca, definite in its clean-cut contours, sure in its\npoise and self-containment, serenely affirming its uniqueness and\nindestructibility. It says itself, and to say himself is the utmost\nthat a man can say.\n\nBut society, which is the necessary medium through which the individual\nmust express himself, is a resistant medium. It seeks to impose\nconformity upon the individual. It resents the exceptional, the\nidiosyncratic. And the social canons that circumscribe the expression\nof the individual\u2019s liberty of thought and conduct operate perhaps\nnowhere more oppressively than in Spain. They derive their sanction\nlargely from a sentiment by no means peculiar to Spain though perhaps\npeculiarly rampant there, the sentiment of envy, the sense of\nbitterness and hostility that is evoked by any salient excellence. And\nthe chief weapon which envy uses with which to assail the uniqueness of\nthe individual is ridicule. The special form, therefore, of the courage\nof self-affirmation that is demanded of the heroic individual is the\ncourage to confront ridicule. This courage finds its exemplary exponent\nin the figure of Don Quixote, whom Unamuno takes as the supreme symbol\nof the warfare of the individual soul. His \u201cCommentary upon the Life of\nDon Quixote and Panza\u201d is a clarion-call to his countrymen to emulate\nthe quixotic qualities of courage and faith--faith, even though it be\nin illusion--the quixotic tenacity of conviction, and the quixotic\ncontempt of the standards of worldly prudence and of the authority of\ncommon sense and the cold, mocking reason.\n\nIt must be claimed for Unamuno that he is, in the truest sense of\nthe word, a great humanist. He himself distinguishes between the\ntrue humanism, which he calls the humanism of man, and the humanism\nwhich is concerned rather with \u201cthe things of man\u201d--in other words,\nwith culture as it is generally understood. Towards the latter his\nattitude is tinctured with suspicion. For him there is an element of\nthe inhumane in the cult of knowledge for the sake of knowledge and in\nthe cult of science as a mere cataloguing of existence. Culture must\nhave reference to character and perhaps its definition as \u201cthe best\nthat is known and has been thought in the world\u201d he would feel to be\nincomplete without the addition of \u201cthe best that has been felt and\ndone.\u201d But mere knowledge and classification of the movements of the\nhuman mind or the achievements of human energy do not necessarily of\nthemselves touch the heart to finer issues. The most urgent need, at\nany rate as he sees it in his own country, is not so much for quickened\nintelligence as for reawakened capacity for feeling and enthusiasm. By\nitself sceptical enlightenment tends to paralyse action and the soil\nof a chilly intellectualism is not the most fertile for the burgeoning\nof that seed of faith from which all fruitful human endeavour must\nultimately spring. Unamuno seeks to generate warmth of feeling as the\nnecessary condition of high achievement. \u201cWarmth, warmth, more warmth,\u201d\nhe cries, \u201cfor we die of cold and not of darkness. It is not the night\nbut the frost that kills.\u201d Culture, therefore, as he understands and\ncounsels it, is not a dry light but an ardent flame and its purpose is\nto kindle \u201cthe most intense inner life, the life of intensest battle,\nof intensest disquietude, of intensest despair.\u201d\n\nUnamuno has always protested passionately against any attempt to\naffix a label to him. If a definition of himself is demanded of\nhim, he replies that he is \u201ca man of contradiction and strife.\u201d\nThe contradictions of which he is the synthesis are those of the\nCatholic and the agnostic, the mystic and the realist, the vitalist\nand the rationalist, the contemplative and the man of action, the\ncontradictions inherent in the man who finds consolation in despair and\npeace in conflict. But if he himself is not to be circumscribed within\nthe narrow limits of a definition, perhaps the scope of his aim and\nachievement may be most succinctly resumed in that description which\nGiordano Bruno gave of himself, _dormitantium animarum excubitor_--an\nawakener of sleeping souls.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SPIRIT OF CASTILE\n\n\nFrom whatever point you penetrate into the Spanish peninsula, you will\nfind yourself confronted almost at once by a region of hills; you\nwill then enter into a labyrinth of valleys, gorges and ravines; and\nfinally, after a longer or shorter ascent, you will emerge upon the\ncentral tableland, barred by the naked sierras whose wide and deep\nvalleys form the mighty cradles of mighty rivers. Across this tableland\nstretches Castile, the land of castles.\n\nLike all great expanses of earth, this tableland receives and\nirradiates heat more quickly than the sea and the coast-lands which\nthe sea refreshes and tempers. Hence, when the sun scorches it, an\nextreme of heat, and as soon as the sun forsakes it, an extreme of\ncold; burning days of summer followed by cool fresh nights during\nwhich the lungs gratefully inhale the breeze from the land; freezing\nwinter nights following hard upon days which the bright cold sun in\nits brief diurnal course has failed to warm. Winters long and hard and\nsummers short and fiery have given birth to the saying, \u201c_nueve meses\nde invierno y tres de infierno_\u201d--nine months of winter and three\nmonths of hell. In the autumn, however, there is a serene and placid\nbreathing-space. The sierras, shutting out the winds from the sea, help\nto make the winter colder and the summer hotter; but while they impede\nthe passage of the gentle low-trailing clouds they form no barrier\nto the violent cyclones which burst among their valleys. Thus long\ndroughts are succeeded by torrential deluges.\n\nIn this severe climate of opposing extremes, in which the transition\nfrom heat to cold and from drought to flood is so violent, man has\ninvented the cloak with which to isolate himself from his environment,\na personal ambience, constant in the midst of external changes, a\ndefence at once against both heat and cold.\n\nThe great storms of rain and snow bursting upon these sierras and\ndrained thence by the swollen rivers have in the course of centuries\nscoured the soil of the tableland, and the succeeding droughts have\nprevented the retention of the rain-washed soil in a network of fresh\nand robust vegetation. Thus it is that the view presents a wide and\ndesolate expanse of burning country, without foliage and without water,\na country in which a deluge of light throws dense shadows upon a\ndazzling surface, extinguishing all intermediate tones. The landscape\nis seen cut out in hard outline, almost without atmosphere, through a\nthin and transparent air.\n\nYou may sometimes range over leagues and leagues of desert country\nwithout descrying anything save the illimitable plain with its patches\nof green corn or yellow stubble, here a sparsely extended array of\noaks, marching in solemn and monotonous procession, clothed in their\naustere and perennial green, there a group of mournful pines, holding\naloft their uniform crests. Now and again, fringing a bright river or\nhalf-dry stream, a few poplars, seeming intensely and vividly alive in\nthe midst of the infinite solitude. As a rule these poplars announce\nthe presence of man: yonder on the plain lies some village, scorched by\nthe sun, blasted by the frost, built of sun-baked bricks very often,\nits belfry silhouetted against the blue of the sky. Often the spinal\nridge of the sierra can be seen in the distance, but if you approach it\nyou must not look to find rounded bossy mountains, fresh with verdure\nand clothed with woods, with the yellow of the gorse and the carmine of\nthe heather flecking the bracken. Here is nothing but a framework of\nbony fleshless rock, bristling with crags, sharp-cut hummocks nakedly\ndisplaying drought-cracked strata, covered at most with a scanty scrub,\nwhere flourish only the hardy thistle and the naked scented broom,\nthe poor _genestra contenta dei deserti_ of Leopardi\u2019s poem. Down in\nthe plain the highway with its festoon of trees loses itself in the\ngreyness of the earth, which kindles into an intense warm red when the\nsun sinks to rest.\n\nThe setting of the sun in these immense solitudes is full of beauty.\nThe sun dilates as it touches the horizon as if greedy to enjoy still\nmore of the earth and in sinking it sheds its light upon it like blood\nand fills the sky with a dust of gold. The infinite dome of the sky\ngrows paler and paler, then swiftly darkens, and the fleeting twilight\nis followed by the profundity of a night tremulous with stars. Here are\nno northern twilights, long, soft and languorous.\n\nBroad is Castile! And beautiful with a sad quiet beauty this sea\nof stone beneath its expanse of sky. It is a landscape uniform and\nmonotonous in its contrasts of light and shade, in its sharply\njuxtaposed and unmodulated colours. It presents the appearance of an\nimmense floor of mosaic, without variety of design, above which is\nspread out a sky of intensest blue. It is lacking in gentle transitions\nand its only harmonic continuity is that of the immense plain and the\nmassed blue which overspreads and illumines it.\n\nIt is a landscape that awakens no voluptuous sensations of _joie de\nvivre_, that inspires no longings for ease and idleness. Here are no\nlush green meadows inviting indolent repose, no dells that beckon like\nnests.\n\nIts contemplation does not call forth the sleeping animal in us, the\nanimal that delights to drowse in a leafy paradise, brooding over the\nremembered satisfactions of those appetites which have been kneaded\ninto the flesh since the earliest dawn of life.\n\nNature does not here recreate the spirit. Rather it detaches us from\nthe low earth and enfolds us in the pure naked unvarying sky. Here\nthere is no communion with nature, no absorption in her exuberant\nsplendours. This infinite landscape is, if it may be so said,\nnonotheistic rather than pantheistic. Man is not lost in it so much as\ndiminished by it, and in its immense drought he is made aware of the\naridity of his own soul.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe population of the Castilian country-side is concentrated for\nthe most part in hamlets, villages or towns, in groups of clustered\ndwelling-houses, separated from one another by immense and naked\nsolitudes. The villages are compact and sharply delimited, not melting\naway into the plain in a surrounding fringe of isolated homesteads,\nthe intervening country being entirely unpopulated. The houses seem\nto crowd together round the church as if for warmth or for defence\nagainst the rigour of nature, as if the inhabitants sought a second\ncloak in which to isolate themselves from the cruelty of the climate\nand the melancholy of the landscape. Thus it is that very often the\nvillagers have to journey considerable distances on mule-back in order\nto reach the fields where they work, one here, another there, in\nisolation, and it is already dark before they return to their homes to\nstretch themselves on the hard kitchen settles and sleep the comforting\nsleep of toil. A notable sight it is to see them at nightfall, mounted\non their mules, their figures silhouetted against the pale sky, their\nsad, slow, monotonous songs dying away on the sharp night air into the\ninfinity of the furrowed plain.\n\nWhile the men labour in the sweat of their brow on the hard land,\nthe womenfolk perform their tasks at home, filling the sunny arcades\nin front of the houses with a murmur of voices. In the long winter\nevenings it is usual for masters and serving-folk to assemble together,\nwhile the latter dance to the accompaniment of the sharp dry tap of the\ntambourine or sometimes to an old ballad measure.\n\nGo into one of these villages or drowsing cities of the plain, where\nlife flows slowly and calmly in a monotonous procession of hours, and\nthere you will find the living souls beneath whose transitory existence\nlies the eternal essence out of which is woven the inner history of\nCastile.\n\nWithin these towns and villages lives a breed of men of a dry, hard\nand sinewy constitution, burned by the sun and inured by the cold, a\nsober, frugal breed, the product of a long process of natural selection\nby searching winter frosts and intermittent periods of scarcity,\ntempered to withstand the inclemency of the skies and the asperities\nof penury. The peasant who gave you a grave \u201cGood day\u201d as he passed by\non his mule, huddled in his cloak, will receive you without overmuch\ncourtesy, with a kind of restrained sobriety. He is collected in\nhis movements, circumspect and deliberate in his conversation, with\na gravity which gives him the air of a dethroned king. Such at any\nrate he appears when he is not cunningly ironical. This sly biting\nirony--_socarroner\u00eda_, a racy word full of racy character--is the\nclassical form of Castilian humour, a quiet and circumspect humour,\nsententious and phlegmatic, the humour of Sanson Carrasco in _Don\nQuixote_ and of Quevedo, he who wrote the discourses of Marcus Brutus.\n\nHis slowness is matched by his tenacity, qualities that have an\nintimate association. His reaction-interval, as the\npsycho-physiologists would express it, is long; it takes him a\nconsiderable time to realize an impression or an idea, but once he has\ngrasped it he does not readily relinquish it, does not in fact\nrelinquish it until another has impinged upon it and driven it out. The\nslowness and tenacity of his impressions would appear to be due to the\nlack of an environing and unifying nimbus, blending them into a\nconjunctive whole; they do not merge into one another by subtle\ngradations, but each one disappears completely before the next takes\nits place. They seem to follow one another like the succession of\nuniform and monotonous tones in the landscape of his country, sharp\nedge against sharp edge.\n\nGo with him into his house. On the front wall the violent contrast of\nstrident blue paint against a snow-white background exposed to the full\nblaze of the sun is almost painful to the eye. Sit down to table with\nhim and partake of his simple dinner, prepared without much culinary\nart, accompanied only by keen and fiery condiments, a meal that is at\nonce both frugal and violent, providing the palate with sharp-edged\nsensations. After the dinner, if the day chances to be a holiday,\nyou will witness a dance, a dance slow and uniform, danced to the\nmonotonous beat of drum or tambourine, a series of stabbing sounds that\nstrike upon the ear like blows. And you will hear songs, wailing and\nmonotonous, full of long-drawn-out notes, songs of the steppes, with\nthe rhythm of the dragging labour of the plough in them. They testify\nto an ear that is incapable of appreciating the finer gradations of\ncadences and semi-tones.\n\nIf you are in a town and there are any pictures there of the old\ntraditional school of Castile, go to see them--for in the great days\nof its expansion this race created a school of realistic painting, of\na rude, vigorous, simplified realism, very limited in range of tone,\nwhich has the effect of a violent douche upon the vision. Perhaps you\nwill come across some canvas of Ribera or Zurbaran--your eye is held\nby the bony form of some austere hermit, whose sinewy muscles are\npresented in high light against strong shadows, a canvas meagre in\ntones and gradations, in which every object stands out sharp-edged.\nNot infrequently the figures fail to form a single whole with the\nbackground, which is a mere accessory of insignificant decorative\nvalue. Velazquez, who of all Castilian painters possesses most of the\nracial character, was a painter of men, of whole men, men all of one\npiece, rude and emphatic, men who fill the whole canvas.\n\nYou will find no landscape-painters, you will discover no sense of\ntone, of suave transition, no unifying, enveloping atmosphere, which\nblends everything into a single harmonious whole. The unity springs\nfrom the more or less architectonic disposition of the several parts.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn this country of climatic extremes, without any softness or mildness,\nof a landscape uniform in its contrasts, the spirit likewise is dry\nand sharp-edged, with but a meagre ambience of ideas. It generalises\nupon raw facts, seen in a discrete series, as in a kaleidoscope, not\nupon a synthesis or analysis of facts seen in a continuous series, in a\nliving stream; it sees them sharp-edged like figures in the Castilian\nlandscape and it takes them as they appear, in their own dress, without\nreconstructing them. And it has given birth to a harsh popular realism\nand to a dry formal idealism, marching alongside one another, in an\nassociation like that of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, but never\ncombining. The Castilian spirit is either ironic or tragic, sometimes\nboth at once, but it never arrives at a fusion of the irony and the\naustere tragedy of the human drama.\n\n\n\n\nSPANISH INDIVIDUALISM\n\n\nIn few books have I found so much food for reflection upon our Spain\nand us Spaniards as in Martin A. S. Hume\u2019s \u201cThe Spanish People:\nTheir Origin, Growth and Influence.\u201d It is written by one who knows\nand esteems us. It impresses us at a first glance as an excellent\ncompendium of the history of Spain, but on closer examination it is\nfound to be also an excellent psychological study of the Spanish people.\n\nIn the tenth chapter there is to be noted a very happy and graphic\nphrase--\u201cthe introspective individuality of Spaniards.\u201d And it is\nindeed true that we are much given to this direct contemplation of\nourselves, a practice which is certainly not the best method of getting\nto know ourselves, of fulfilling the precept \u201cKnow thyself\u201d in its\ncollective and social sense. Introspection is very deceptive and when\ncarried to an extreme produces an actual vacuity of consciousness,\nlike that into which the Yogi falls through perpetual contemplation\nof his own navel. For a state of consciousness which consisted purely\nand simply of consciousness contemplating itself would not be a state\nof consciousness at all, being void of all content. This supposed\nreflection of the soul upon its own self is an absurdity. To think that\none thinks without thinking of anything concrete is mere negation. We\nlearn to know ourselves in the same way that we learn to know others,\nby observing our actions, and the only difference is that, as we are\nalways with ourselves and scarcely anything that we consciously do\nescapes us, we have more data for knowing ourselves than we have for\nknowing others. But even so, we seldom know all that we are capable\nof until we put ourselves to it, and often we surprise ourselves by\nachieving something which we did not expect of ourselves.\n\nHence the utility of a people knowing its own history in order that it\nmay know itself. And Hume studies us in our history.\n\nIn one of his books the American humorist, Oliver Wendell Holmes,\nspeaks of the three Johns: the John as he himself thinks he is, the\nJohn as others think he is, and the John as he is in reality. And as\nfor every individual, so for every people there are three Johns. There\nis the Spanish people as we Spaniards believe it to be, there is the\nSpanish people as foreigners believe it to be, and there is the Spanish\npeople as it really is. It is difficult to say which of the first two\napproximates most nearly to the last; but it is certainly right that\nwe should compare them together and see ourselves both from within\nand from without. However much we may lament the injustice or the\nsuperficiality of the judgments that our foreign visitors pronounce\nupon us, it is possible that we are no less unjust or superficial in\nour own judgment of ourselves.\n\nHavelock Ellis, in a book published not long ago, \u201cThe Soul of Spain,\u201d\nspoke of the unity of our race. Spaniards have generally regarded\nthis view as absurd, but it may very well be that the differences\nthat separate the inhabitants of the various provinces of Spain\nare no greater than those which exist between the inhabitants of\nthe different districts of other nations which we suppose to be\nmore unified than ourselves, and that our lack of solidarity, our\nseparatist instinct, our _kabylism_, as it is called, proceeds from\nother causes than from differences of race. Little notice need be taken\nof certain ethnological assertions, not so much based upon scientific\ninvestigation as inspired by sentiments which, whether creditable or\nnot, furnish no basis for arriving at the truth. Thus, if a writer\nasserts that the Catalans are Aryans and all other Spaniards Semites,\nit is obvious that he is using the terms Aryan and Semite without a\nproper understanding of them; and as the distinction between Catalans\nand other Spaniards is one of philology rather than ethnology, it\nwould be interesting to know what language the ancestors of the\npresent Catalans spoke before Latin penetrated into Catalu\u00f1a, for\nthe supposition that they are descended from Greek colonists is too\nnonsensical to be taken seriously.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBefore proceeding further in this review of Hume\u2019s study of the\npsychology of the Spanish people, I should like to indicate a\ndistinction which I am in the habit of making between individuality\nand personality, a distinction which appears to me to be of great\nimportance.\n\nAll my readers know what is meant by \u201cindividual\u201d or \u201cindivisible,\u201d\na unity that is distinct from other unities and not divisible into\nunities analogous to it; and also what is meant by a person. The\nnotion of person refers rather to the spiritual content, and that of\nindividual to the containing limit. Great individuality, that which\nseparates an individual strongly and emphatically from other analogous\nindividuals, may have very little that is peculiar and personal to\nitself. It might even be said that individuality and personality are\nin a certain sense opposed to one another, although in another wider\nand more exact sense it may be said that they afford one another\nmutual support. Strong individuality is scarcely possible without\na respectable dose of personality, neither is a strong and rich\npersonality possible without a considerable degree of individuality\nto hold its various elements together; but the vigour of a vigorous\nindividuality may very easily contain only the minimum of personality\nand the richness of a rich personality may be contained within the\nminimum of individuality.\n\nI will endeavour, as is my wont, to make my meaning clearer by means of\nmetaphors.\n\nIn gases, according to the physicists, the molecules are in a certain\nstate of disassociation, moving rectilinearly in all directions--it\nis this which produces the phenomena of expansion--a state that is\nchaotic but not in reality very complex; and it is a well-known fact\nthat very complex bodies are not as a rule found in a gaseous state,\nbut only those that are simplest and least complicated. In solids,\non the other hand, the molecules are ordered according to relatively\nfixed orbits and trajectories--especially in the case of crystals; and\ntheir individuality is maintained by a principle of intense cohesion,\ntheir surfaces being in direct contact with their environment, capable\nof affecting it and being affected by it. A middle term is presented\nby liquids. And thus we may compare certain strongly individualized\nnatures with gases enclosed in a bottle or shell with rigid sides,\nwhile there are others, with flexible contours, in a free give-and-take\ncontact with their environment, which possess great internal\ncomplexity--in other words, a high degree of personality.\n\nOr we may compare the former with crustaceans, enclosed in hard\nshells which give them rigid and permanent forms, and the latter with\nvertebrates, which, since they carry their skeleton within themselves,\nare capable of considerable external modification.\n\nIndividuality refers rather to our external limits, it exhibits our\nfiniteness; personality refers principally to our internal limits, or\nrather to our inward unlimitedness, it exhibits our infinitude.\n\nAll this is somewhat tenuous and perhaps fails to meet the demands of\nstrict psychology, but it is enough if it has helped to make my meaning\nclearer.\n\nMy idea is that the Spaniard possesses, as a general rule, more\nindividuality than personality; that the vigour with which he affirms\nhimself before others and the energy with which he creates dogmas\nand locks himself up in them, do not correspond with any richness of\ninward spiritual content, which in his case rarely errs on the side of\ncomplexity.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn his preface Hume states that the Spaniards spring from an\nAfro-Semitic race, that \u201cthe keynote of this primitive racial\ncharacter is overwhelming individuality,\u201d and that to this root-cause\nis to be attributed all that we have accomplished in the world, our\ntransient imperial greatness and our permanent tenacity. This feeling\nof individuality lies deep down in the root of the race and cunning\npoliticians have turned it to the advantage of their ambitions.\n\nIn speaking of the Arab domination he says that \u201cthe Berber, like his\nfar-away relative the Iberian, was a man of strong individuality, with\nan obstinate reluctance to obey another unless he spoke in the name of\na supernatural entity.\u201d\n\nAt the conclusion of the ninth chapter in which he treats of our epoch\nof greatness in the middle of the 16th century, he writes the following\nnotable lines:\n\n    \u201cEach unlettered boor and swaggering soldier felt in an undefined\n    way that he was a creature apart by reason of his faith; that\n    Spaniards and the Spaniards\u2019 king had a higher mission than was\n    accorded to other men; and that from among the eight million\n    Spaniards alive the particular Juan or Pedro in question stood out\n    individually, in the sight of God and men, as pre-eminently the\n    most zealous and orthodox of them all. To this had the policy of\n    Fernando and Isabel brought the mass of the Spanish people.\u201d\n\nAnd in corroboration of this he draws a striking portrait of Philip II,\nthe idol of our traditionalists:\n\n    \u201cIntense individuality in him, as in so many of his countrymen,\n    was merged in the idea of personal distinction in the eyes of God\n    by self-sacrifice.... At heart he was kindly, a good father and\n    husband, an indulgent and considerate master, having no love for\n    cruelty itself. And yet lying, dishonesty, cruelty, the infliction\n    of suffering and death upon hosts of helpless ones, and the secret\n    murder of those who stood in his path, were not wrong for _him_,\n    because, in his moral obliquity he thought that the ends justified\n    the means, and that all was lawful in the linked causes of God and\n    Spain.\u201d \u201cHe was blind and oblivious to all but the blood-boltered\n    Christ, before whom he writhed in a maniacal agony of devotion,\n    sure in his dark soul, as were so many of his countrymen, that\n    the divine finger pointed from glory alone upon him as the one\n    chosen man who was to enforce upon earth the rule of the Most\n    High, with--as a necessary consequence--Philip of Spain as his\n    viceregent.\u201d\n\nI know that many who look upon this portrait will come forward with\nthe familiar objection that this Philip II is the Devil of the South\nof the Protestant legend, and will advance the counter-legend--equally\nlegendary--which is being built up out of a mass of minute data by\nhistorians who combine the method of Dr. Dryasdust with the spirit of\nrabid partisanship.\n\nWhat interests me in Hume\u2019s description is his statement that every\nSpaniard regards himself as an individual apart, specially and\npersonally chosen by God. This recalls Pascal\u2019s claim that Jesus Christ\nin dying shed a drop of blood for him, Blaise Pascal, who was destined\nto live in France in the middle of the 17th century. There is a certain\ncharacteristic common to all those whom we call geniuses or great men\nand other heroes. Each of them has a consciousness of being a man\napart, chosen very expressly by God for the performance of a certain\nwork.\n\nIn this respect we Spaniards are inclined to think ourselves geniuses,\nor rather we have a very robust conception of the Divinity--we think of\nHim not as the frigid and exalted God of the French Deism of the 18th\ncentury, nor yet as the good-natured and easy-going God of good people\nthat B\u00e9ranger depicts, but rather as a God whose attention and care\nextends to the very last ant, regarded as a separate individual, as\nwell as to the very greatest and most splendid of suns.\n\nIn actual fact all these claims to singularity and to being one\napart from the rest may become reprehensible, but it is at least\nunderstandable that an orator, for example, or a writer, or a singer,\nshould regard himself as the best orator, the best writer, or the\nbest singer. What is not understandable is that a man who is neither\norator, writer, painter, sculptor, musician, nor man of business, that\na man who does nothing at all, should expect by the mere fact of his\npresence to be reputed a man of extraordinary merit and exceptional\ntalent. And nevertheless here in Spain--I do not know how it may be\nelsewhere--there are many examples of this curious phenomenon.\n\nI know of the man who is ready to admit that others may be handsomer,\nsmarter, stronger, healthier, wiser, more intelligent, more generous,\nthan he, that in each and all of their endowments they have the\nadvantage over him; but nevertheless he, Juan Lopez, the individual in\nquestion, is superior to everyone else just because he is Juan Lopez,\nbecause there is no other Juan Lopez exactly like him and because it is\nimpossible that all the qualities, good, bad and indifferent, that make\nhim him, Juan Lopez, should ever be assembled together again. He is a\nunique individual, he cannot be substituted by anyone else--and he is\nin a measure right in thinking so. He can say with _Obermann_: \u201cIn the\nuniverse I am nothing; for myself I am everything.\u201d\n\nThis violent individualism, combined with very meagre personalism, with\na great lack of personality, is a factor that explains a great deal of\nour history. It explains that intense thirst for individual immortality\nwhich consumes the Spaniard, a thirst that lies hidden beneath what is\ncalled our cult of death. Homage to this cult of death is rendered no\nless by the most furious lovers of life, by those in whom the joy of\nliving is unable to extinguish the hunger for survival. It appears to\nme a very great error to assert that the Spaniard does not love life\nbecause he finds life hard. On the contrary, it is because his life is\nhard that he has not arrived at the _t\u00e6dium vit\u00e6_, the _Weltschmerz_\nof the satiated, and that he has always aimed at prolonging it\nindefinitely beyond death.\n\nIn the third part of the \u201cEthics\u201d of Spinoza, a Jew of Spanish\norigin--or Portuguese, which amounts to the same thing--there are\nfour admirable propositions, the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth, in\nwhich he lays it down that everything, in so far as it is in itself,\nendeavours to persist in its own being; that the endeavour wherewith\na thing endeavours to persist in its being is nothing else than the\nactual essence of that thing (_conatus, quo unaqu\u00e6que res in suo esse\nperseverare conatur, nihil est pr\u00e6ter ipsius rei actualem essentiam_);\nthat this effort or endeavour involves no finite time but an indefinite\ntime, and that the spirit endeavours to persist in its being for an\nindefinite period and is conscious of this its endeavour. It is not\npossible to express with more precision the longing for immortality\nthat consumes the soul.\n\nThis strong individualism, the individualism of an individual who\nendeavours to persist, has led the Spaniard to follow always the\npath of conduct and will, and this is the reason of Schopenhauer\u2019s\nadmiration of Spaniards, whom he deemed to be one of the peoples most\nfully possessed of will--or rather of wilfulness--most tenacious of\nlife. Our indifference to life is only on the surface and really\nconceals a most dogged attachment to it. And this practical tendency\nis manifest in our thought, which ever since Seneca has inclined to\nwhat is called moralism and has evinced but little interest in pure\nmetaphysical and speculative contemplation, in viewing the world as a\nspectator.\n\nIt is this imperious individualism that has led us to the dogmatism\nthat corrodes us. Spain is the country of those who are more\npapistical than the Pope, as the saying is. Spain is the chosen and\nmost propitious soil for what is called _integrism_, which is the\ntriumph of the maximum of individuality compatible with the minimum\nof personality. Spain was, in short, and in more than one respect\ncontinues to be, the land of the Inquisition.\n\nOf the Inquisition and inquisitorialism, Hume writes very aptly.\n\u201cInnate cruelty, individual pride, a vivid imagination long fed with\nextravagant fables, religious and secular, and lust for unearned\nwealth, all combined under the eager blessings of the Queen [Isabel]\nand the Church to make the Spaniards, as a race, relentless persecutors\nof those who dared to think differently from themselves.\u201d Beneath the\nmanifest and not inconsiderable exaggeration, there is here a large\nbasis of truth. Spaniards could do no wrong \u201cbecause they were working\nfor and with the cause of God.\u201d \u201cThe bureaucratic unity of the Romans\nwas no longer possible [in the time of Fernando and Isabel], for out\nof the reconquest had grown separate nations; but at least the various\npeoples, the autonomous dominions, the semi-independent towns, might\nbe held together by the strong bond of religious unity; and with this\nobject the Inquisition was established, as a governmental system, to\nbe developed later into a political engine.... Thus it is that Spain\nappears for the first time in the concert of modern European nations a\npower whose very existence in a concrete form depends upon its rigid\ndoctrinal Catholicism.\u201d This last assertion appears to me so doubtful\nand I am so far from believing it to be just that I shall have to\ndevote a special study to its refutation.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis Spanish individualism has undoubtedly been the cause of another\ncharacteristic feature of our history, a feature to which Hume pays\nvery particular attention. It is known as _cantonalism_ or _kabylism_.\nI refer of course to our tendency to disruption, to separate into\ntribes. Hume alludes to it at the beginning of his history in the\nfollowing notable lines: \u201cIn any case, what is known of their physique\nseems to negative the supposition that they [the Iberians] were of\nIndo-European or Aryan origin; and to find their counterpart at the\npresent time, it is only necessary to seek the Kabyl tribes of the\nAtlas, the original inhabitants of the African coast opposite Spain,\nwho were driven back into the mountains by successive waves of\ninvasion. Not alone in physique do these tribes resemble what the\nearly Iberian must have been, but in the more unchanging peculiarities\nof character and institutions the likeness is easily traceable to\nthe Spaniard of to-day. The organization of the Iberians, like that\nof the Atlas peoples, was clannish and tribal, and their chief\ncharacteristic was their indomitable local independence. Warlike and\nbrave, sober and light-hearted, the Kabyl tribesman has for thousands\nof years stubbornly resisted all attempts to weld him into a nation\nor subject him to a uniform dominion, while the Iberian, starting\nprobably from the same stock, was blended with Aryan races possessing\nother qualities, and was submitted for six centuries to the unifying\norganization of the greatest governing race the world ever saw--the\nRomans; yet, withal, even at the present day, the main characteristics\nof the Spanish nation, like that of the Kabyl tribes, is lack of\nsolidarity.\u201d\n\nThis fundamental idea appears all through Hume\u2019s book like a refrain or\n_leitmotiv_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOut of all this, two questions now emerge: the first, what is the\norigin of this individualism? and the second, what is its cure?--the\none ethnological, the other therapeutical.\n\nAs I indicated at the beginning, in quoting the opinion of Havelock\nEllis, I am not at all disposed to believe that _kabylism_ or\n_cantonalism_, the separatist tendency, proceeds from differences of\nrace. If Catalu\u00f1a or the Basque provinces could be forthwith removed\nand isolated in the middle of the Atlantic, we should very soon see\nthem torn by internal dissensions, by separatist tendencies, and\nconflicts for supremacy would arise between the various dialects of the\nCatalan and Basque languages. In the Basque provinces such internal\ndissensions are beginning to be patent even to the least acute observer.\n\nThere is one capital sin that is very peculiarly Spanish, and that sin\nis envy. It is a result of our peculiar individualism, and it is one\nof the causes of _kabylism_. Envy has crippled and still cripples not\na few of the best minds of Spain, minds that are in other respects\nvigorous and exuberant. We are all familiar with the famous simile of\nthe greasy pole. Deep down in our racial character there is a certain\nsediment of spiritual avarice, of lack of generosity of soul, a certain\npropensity to consider ourselves rich only in so far as others are\npoor, and this sediment requires to be purged away.\n\nSpanish _kabylism_ and individualism both appear to me to be effects\nof one and the same cause, the cause that also produced _picarism_. In\nhis book entitled _Hampa_, Salillas showed very clearly how the poverty\nof the soil, its failure to serve as a basis for the support of the\npeople, was responsible for the seasonal migration of flocks and herds\ntogether with the vagabond life that resulted therefrom. It appears\nto me more concrete and more historical to say that it obliged the\nIberians to be herdsmen. Hume expresses it exactly when he says that\nthe pure Spaniard has always been \u201can agriculturist by necessity and a\nshepherd by choice,\n\n    The spectators, so far from encouraging or applauding the\n    competitors, are said to pull them back and generally hinder them\n    from securing the prize.\n\nwhen he was not a soldier.\u201d I believe that a consideration of this\npastoral character of our people would help to explain a great deal of\nour history and to modify accepted verdicts. At bottom the expulsion of\nthe Moriscos, an industrious people of agriculturists and gardeners,\nappears to me to have been due to the traditional hatred which those\nwhom I will call Abelites, the spiritual descendants of Abel, the\nkeeper of flocks, bore towards the descendants of Cain, the tiller of\nthe ground, who killed his brother. For the Hebrew legend of Cain and\nAbel presents one of the most profound intuitions of the beginnings of\nhuman history.\n\nAnd what is the cure for this individualism? The first thing is to see\nwhether it is an evil, and if it appears to be one, to see if it may\nnot be converted into a good, for it is evident that vices and virtues\nproceed from the same stock and a single passion may be turned either\nto good or to evil.\n\nThe exigences of life in past ages made our remote ancestors herdsmen;\nbeing herdsmen, they acquired all the qualities that pastoral life\ntends to develop--they were idlers, they were wanderers, and they\nwere disunited. The lapse of time, civilized and urban life, the\nnecessities imposed by industrial and commercial competition--progress,\nin short--will modify this basal character. Can this process be\naccelerated, and by what means?--But that is another question.\n\n\n\n\nSOME ARBITRARY REFLECTIONS UPON EUROPEANIZATION\n\n\nIt is a not unprofitable task to examine the national consciousness by\nexamining ourselves and to ask ourselves as Spaniards what there is of\nintrinsic and permanent worth in most of these schemes for our national\nregeneration which almost all of us are discussing nowadays, some more\ninsistently than others.\n\nAll those things which are being demanded and which almost all of us\nhave demanded on behalf of our people, with a greater or less degree\nof comprehension of what these demands mean, may be summed up in\ntwo terms--_European_ and _modern_. \u201cWe must be modern,\u201d \u201cwe must\nbe European,\u201d \u201cwe must modernize ourselves,\u201d \u201cwe must go with the\ncentury,\u201d \u201cwe must Europeanize ourselves\u201d--such are the watchwords of\nthe hour.\n\nThe term _European_ expresses a vague idea, very vague, excessively\nvague; but much vaguer is the idea that is expressed by the term\n_modern_. If we combine the two together it would seem that they ought\nto limit one another and result in something concrete, and that the\nexpression \u201cmodern European\u201d ought to be clearer than either of its two\ncomponent terms; but perhaps it is really vaguer still.\n\nIt will be apparent that I am proceeding by way of what some would call\narbitrary statement, without documentation, without verification,\nindependent of modern European logic and disdainful of its methods.\nPerhaps. I seek no other method than the method of passion; and when I\nam moved with disgust, with repugnance, with pity or with contempt, I\nlet the mouth speak from the fullness of the heart and the words come\nforth as they will.\n\nWe Spaniards, so they say, are arbitrary charlatans, we fill up the\nbroken links of logic with rhetoric, we subtilize skilfully but\nuselessly, we lack the sense of consecutiveness and induction, we have\nscholastic minds, we are casuists ... etc., etc.\n\nI have heard similar things said of St. Augustine, the great African,\nthe fiery soul that overflowed in waves of rhetoric, in phraseological\ncontortions, in antitheses, in paradoxes and conceits. St. Augustine\nwas at once a gongorist and a conceptist. Which leads me to believe\nthat Gongorism and conceptism are the natural forms of passion and\nvehemence.\n\nThe great African, the great ancient African! Here you have an\nexpression, \u201cancient African,\u201d which can be opposed to that of \u201cmodern\nEuropean,\u201d and which is at least of equal value. St. Augustine was\nAfrican and he was of the ancient world; so also was Tertullian. And\nwhy should we not say: \u201cWe must Africanize ourselves ancientwise\u201d or\n\u201cWe must ancientize ourselves Africanwise\u201d?\n\n    Luis de Gongora (1561-1627) elaborated an affected and euphuistic\n    style of composition. Conception is the name given to the\n    employment of _conceptos_, a characteristic Spanish form of\n    conceits. It is exemplified in the writings of Quevedo (1580-1645)\n    and its subtleties were reduced to an exact code by Baltasar\n    Graci\u00e1n in his _Agudeza y arte de ingenio_ (1642).\n\nTurning my glance inwards upon myself after the lapse of years, after\nhaving wandered among the various fields of modern European culture,\nI ask myself, face to face with my conscience: Am I European? am I\nmodern? And my conscience replies: No, you are not European, not what\nis called European; no, you are not modern, not what is called modern.\nAnd I ask myself again: Is the fact that you feel that you are neither\nEuropean nor modern due to the fact that you are a Spaniard? Are we\nSpaniards, at heart, irreducible to Europeanization and modernization?\nAnd if that be the case, is there no salvation for us? Is there no\nother life than modern and European life? Is there no other culture--or\nwhatever you like to call it?\n\nFirst of all, so far as I myself am concerned, I must confess that the\nmore I reflect upon it, the more I become aware of the inner repugnance\nthat my spirit feels for all those that are considered to be the\nguiding principles of the modern European spirit, for the scientific\northodoxy of to-day, for its methods, for its tendencies.\n\nThere are two things that are often talked about--science and life. And\nI must confess that both the one and the other are antipathetic to me.\n\nIt is unnecessary to define science, or Science, if you like, with the\ncapital letter, this thing which is now being so widely popularized,\nthe purpose of which is to give us a more logical and exact idea of the\nUniverse. When I used to be something of a Spencerian I believed myself\nto be enamoured of science; but afterwards I discovered that this\nwas a mistake. It was a mistake like the mistake of those who think\nthat they are happy when they are not. (It is evident that I reject,\narbitrarily of course, the idea that being happy consists in thinking\nthat one is happy.) No, I was never enamoured of science, I always\nsought for something behind it. And when, endeavouring to get beyond\nits fatidical relativity, I was led to the _ignorabimus_ position, I\nrealized that science had always irked me.\n\nAnd what are you going to put in its place? I shall be asked. I might\nsay ignorance, but that is not certain. I might say, with the Preacher,\nthe son of David, king of Jerusalem, that he who increases knowledge\nincreases sorrow and that the same end awaits the wise man and the\nfool; but no, it is not that. I don\u2019t need to invent a word, however,\nto express what it is that I oppose to science, for the word exists,\nand it is _sabidur\u00eda_--the _sagesse_ of the French, the _wisdom_ of\nthe English, the German _Weisheit_ or _Klugheit_. But is it opposed to\nscience? I shall be asked. And I, following my arbitrary method, guided\nby the passion of my spirit, by my innate aversions and my innate\nattractions, reply: Yes, they are opposed; science robs men of wisdom\nand usually converts them into phantom beings loaded up with facts.\n\nThe other thing that is being incessantly talked about to-day is life,\nand to this it is easy to find an opposite. The opposite to life is\ndeath.\n\nAnd this second opposition helps me to explain the first. Wisdom is to\nscience what death is to life, or, if you prefer it, wisdom is to death\nwhat science is to life.\n\nThe object of science is life, and the object of wisdom is death.\nScience says: \u201cWe must live,\u201d and seeks the means of prolonging,\nincreasing, facilitating and amplifying life, of making it tolerable\nand acceptable; wisdom says: \u201cWe must die,\u201d and seeks how to make us\ndie well.\n\n_Homo liber de nulla re minus quam de morte cogitat, et eius\nsapientia non mortis, sed vita meditatio est_--so Spinoza announces\nin Proposition LXVII of the fourth part of his \u201cEthics\u201d: The free man\nthinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is a meditation\nnot of death but of life.\n\nIn this case, this wisdom, this _sapientia_, is no longer wisdom, but\nscience. And it is also necessary to inquire what kind of man is meant\nby this \u201cfree man.\u201d The man free from the supreme anguish, free from\nthe eternal heartache, free from the gaze of the Sphinx, that is to\nsay, the man who is not a man, the ideal of the modern European.\n\nAnd here we have another concept which is as little sympathetic to me\nas those of life and science, the concept of liberty. There is no other\ntrue liberty than the liberty of death.\n\nAnd what is at the bottom of all this? What are they seeking and\npursuing, those who grasp at science and life and liberty, turning\ntheir backs, whether they are aware of it or not, upon wisdom and\ndeath? What they are seeking is happiness.\n\nI believe--perhaps this belief of mine is also arbitrary--I believe\nthat here we touch the bottom of our inquiry. The so-called modern\nEuropean comes to the world to seek happiness for himself and for\nothers, and believes that man ought to succeed in being happy. And\nthis is a supposition to which I am unable to conform. And now, as\nI am confessing myself, I am going to put before you an arbitrary\ndilemma--arbitrary, because I cannot prove it to you logically, because\nit is imposed upon me by the feeling of my heart, not by the reasoning\nof my head: either happiness or love. If you want the one, you must\nrenounce the other. Love kills happiness, happiness kills love.\n\nAnd here it would be very apposite to adduce all that our mystics, our\nadmirable mystics, our only classic philosophers, the creators of our\nSpanish wisdom, not our Spanish science--perhaps the terms \u201cscience\u201d\nand \u201cSpanish\u201d are, happily, mutually repellent--have felt, felt rather\nthan thought, about love and happiness--the _muero porque no muero_ and\nthe _dolor sabroso_ and all the rest that emanates from the same depths\nof feeling.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd what relation does all this bear to the spiritual problem of Spain?\nIs it anything more than a purely and exclusively personal, that is to\nsay arbitrary, position? Is it as a Spaniard that I feel all this? Is\nit suggested to me by the Spanish soul?\n\nIt has been said that with the Catholic Kings and the beginnings of\nnational unity the course of our history was turned into another\nchannel. It is certain that since then, with the discovery of America\nand our intermeddling in European affairs, we have been drawn into the\ncurrent of other peoples. Spain entered into the strong current of the\nRenaissance and our medi\u00e6val soul began to be obliterated. And the\nRenaissance was in its essence just this: science, above all in the\nform of humanities, and life. And thought dwelt less upon death and the\nmystical wisdom gradually disappeared.\n\nIt has frequently been said that the Spaniard is too much preoccupied\nwith death; and we have been told, in a variety of ways and especially\nby those who deal in platitudes, that the preoccupation with death\nprevents us from living like moderns and like Europeans. The blame even\nfor our death-rate and for our squalor and for our lack of health has\nbeen thrown upon our so-called cult of death. And it seems to me, on\nthe other hand, that we think too little about death, or rather that we\nonly half think about it.\n\nAnd we half think and half meditate about death because we pretend to\nbe European and modern without ceasing to be Spaniards, and that is\nimpossible. And we have made an infamous commixture of our classic\nwisdom and exotic science, of our innate deep feeling for death and\na borrowed solicitude for life. And we have thought we were keenly\ninterested in progress whereas in fact we trouble very little about it.\n\n\u201cYou deceive yourself,\u201d a foreign friend of mine once said to me,\nthinking that although I was a Spaniard I was also European and\nmodern, \u201cyou deceive yourself--Spaniards in general are incapable of\ncivilization and refractory to it.\u201d\n\nAnd I left him cold with stupor when I replied: \u201cAnd is that a fault?\u201d\nThe man looked at me as one looks at someone who has suddenly gone mad;\nit must have seemed to him as if I had denied a postulate of geometry.\nHe began to reason with me and I said: \u201cNo, don\u2019t attempt to give me\nreasons. I think I may say without boasting, and yet without the\nhypocrisy of modesty, that I know all the reasons you can bring forward\non this point. It is not a question of reasons but of feelings.\u201d\n\nHe insisted, attempting to talk to me about feeling, and I added: \u201cNo,\nmy friend, no, you know all about logic, but it is not logic, but\npassion, that governs feelings.\u201d And I left him and went away to read\nthe confessions of the great African of the ancient world.\n\nIs it not perhaps true that we Spaniards are, in effect, spiritually\nrefractory to what is called modern European culture? And if this be\nso, ought we to be distressed about it? Is it not possible to live and\nto die, above all to die well, without this fortunate culture?\n\nAnd by this I don\u2019t mean that we are engulfed in inaction, in ignorance\nand in barbarism--no, not that. There are means of augmenting the\nspirit, of exalting it, of enlarging it, of ennobling it, of making\nit more divine, without having recourse to this same culture. We can,\nI believe, cultivate our wisdom without accepting science except as a\nmeans to this end, taking due precautions against its corrupting the\nspirit.\n\nJust as love of death and the feeling that it is the principle of our\ntrue life ought not to lead us to a violent renunciation of life,\nto suicide--for life is a preparation for death, and the better the\npreparation, the better the thing prepared for--so neither ought love\nof wisdom to lead us to a renunciation of science, for that would be\nequivalent to mental suicide, but to an acceptance of science as a\npreparation, and as nothing more than a preparation, for wisdom.\n\nFor my part I can say that if I had never made excursions into the\nfields of some of the modern European sciences, I should never have\ntaken the delight that I have taken in our ancient African wisdom, in\nour popular wisdom, in what scandalizes all the Pharisees and Sadducees\nof intellectualism, that horrible intellectualism that poisons the\nsoul. It is hearing hymns in praise of them that has made me view\nscience and life with distrust, perhaps with horror, and love the\nwisdom of death, the meditation which, according to Spinoza, the free\nman, that is, the happy man, does not meditate.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA few days ago I read an article by my friend and fellow-Basque, P\u00edo\nBaroja, entitled \u201cThe Sad Country,\u201d in which he says that Spain is a\nsad country, just as France is a beautiful country. He opposes smiling\nFrance, with its level fertile soil, with its mild climate, with its\nbright transparent rivers that slide smoothly along flush with their\nbanks, to our peninsula, full of stones, burnt by the sun and frozen\nwith the winter frost. He observes that in France the products of the\nspirit cannot compare with the products of agriculture and industry;\nthat the dramas of Racine are not fashioned so finely as the wines of\nBordeaux; that the pictures of Delacroix are not so good as the oysters\nof Arcachon; and that, on the other hand, our great men, Cervantes,\nVelazquez, El Greco, Goya, are the equals or more than the equals of\nthe great men of any other country; while our actual life is not equal\nto, not the life of Morocco, but the life of Portugal.\n\nAnd I say: Is it not worth while to undergo the hardship of renouncing\nthis pleasant life of France in order to breathe the spirit that\ncan produce a Cervantes, a Velazquez, an El Greco, a Goya? Are not\nthese perhaps incompatible with the wine of Bordeaux and the oysters\nof Arcachon? I believe--arbitrarily of course--that it is so, that\nthey are incompatible, and I take my stand with _Don Quixote_, with\nVelazquez, with El Greco, with Goya, and against the wine of Bordeaux\nand the oysters of Arcachon, against Racine and Delacroix. Passion and\nsensuality are incompatible; passion is arbitrary, logic is sensual.\nFor logic is nothing but a form of sensuality.\n\n\u201cAll our material and intellectual products are hard, rugged and\ndisagreeable,\u201d Baroja continues. \u201cThe wine is thick, the meat bad, the\npapers boring and the literature sad. I don\u2019t know what it is that\nmakes our literature so disagreeable.\u201d\n\nHere I must pause. I am not sensible of this identification of the\nsad with the disagreeable; and I will even say--although there may\nbe some simple enough to take this to be a paradox--that for me the\ndisagreeable is that which is called gay. I shall never forget the\nhighly disagreeable effect, the deep disgust, which the strident\nhilarity of the Parisian boulevard produced upon me seventeen years\nago, and the feeling of disquiet and uneasiness that came over me\nthere. All that world of youth, dancing, jesting, playing, drinking,\nmaking love, seemed to me to be composed of puppets endowed with sense;\nthey seemed to lack consciousness, to be appearances merely. I felt\nalone, utterly alone among them, and this feeling of loneliness pained\nme. I could not bring myself to accept the idea that these roisterers,\nthese devotees of the _joie de vivre_, were beings like myself, my\nfellows, or even the idea that they were living creatures dowered with\nconsciousness.\n\nHere you have an instance of the way in which gaiety jarred upon\nme, was disagreeable to me. And on the other hand, when I am in the\nmidst of heart-sick multitudes crying to heaven for mercy, chanting\na _De profundis_ or a _Miserere_, I cannot help feeling myself among\nbrothers, united to them by love.\n\nLater on, Baroja says: \u201cFor me, one of the saddest things about Spain\nis that we Spaniards cannot be frivolous or jovial.\u201d\n\nAnd for me it would be one of the saddest things for Spain if we\nSpaniards could become frivolous and jovial. In that case we should\ncease to be Spaniards, yet without even becoming Europeans. In that\ncase we should have to renounce our true consolation and our true\nglory, which consists precisely in this inability to be either\nfrivolous or jovial. In that case we might be able to repeat in chorus\nall the unsubstantialities of the popular scientific handbooks, but\nwe should be incapacitated for entering into the kingdom of wisdom.\nIn that case we might perhaps have better and finer wines, purer oil,\nbetter oysters; but we should have to renounce the possibility of a\nnew _Don Quixote_, or a new Velazquez, and, above all, the possibility\nof a new St. John of the Cross, a new Fray Diego de Estella, a new St.\nTeresa de Jes\u00fas--whether orthodox or heterodox, it matters not which.\n\nAnd Baroja concludes: \u201cA sad country in which everywhere all people\nlive their lives thinking of nothing less than of life.\u201d\n\nAnd this arbitrariness provokes my arbitrariness and I exclaim: Unhappy\nthose modern European countries in which people live their lives\nthinking of nothing more than of life. Unhappy those countries in\nwhich men do not continually think of death and in which the guiding\nprinciple of life is not the thought that we shall all one day have to\nlose it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere I must halt a moment--if it is possible to speak of halts in\na course such as my thought is taking here--and explain, if it is\npossible to explain it, what this arbitrariness really is.\n\nForeigners, the French in particular, take from us precisely that\nwhich is least ours, that which least clashes with their spirit, and,\nnaturally enough, that which best accommodates itself to the idea\nthat they have formed of us, an idea that is always and necessarily\nsuperficial. And we, poor fools, yield to this delusive adulation and\nhope for this external applause, the applause of those who really don\u2019t\nhear us, and even when they do hear us don\u2019t understand us.\n\nI don\u2019t really know what they want in taking from us just what they do\ntake, just that which confirms the popular notion they have of us. If I\nwere in their place, what I should take from Spain and make known to my\nfellow-countrymen would be what was most wounding to their convictions,\nwhat amazed them most, what was most repellent to their spirit, what\nwas most different from them.\n\nBut after all what they do is natural, for people want to be told\njust that which they already think, that which confirms them in their\npreconceived ideas, their prejudices and their superstitions: men want\nto be deceived. And so it is here.\n\nIn face of this attitude of theirs, what must be our attitude? In face\nof this process that tends to decharacterize us, to rob us of that\nwhich makes us what we are, what course of action is the best for us to\nadopt? Admonished by those voices that say: \u201cIf you want to be like us\nand save yourselves, take this,\u201d what must we do?\n\nBut this question of attempting to Spaniardize Europe, the only means\nwhereby we may Europeanize ourselves, so far as it is fitting that we\nshould be Europeanized, or rather, whereby we may digest those elements\nin the European spirit which we can convert into our spirit--this\nquestion must be left for separate treatment.\n\nAll this will appear arbitrary--it is arbitrary. How can I help it?\n\n\u201cEnough,\u201d some logical modern European reader will say; \u201cnow\nI\u2019ve caught you. You yourself admit that your assertions have no\nfoundation, that they are arbitrary, that they cannot be proved, and\nsuch assertions ought not to be taken seriously.\u201d And I will say to\nthis poor logical modern and European reader, who may be assumed to\nbe in love with science and life, that the fact that an assertion is\narbitrary and cannot be proved by logical reasons, does not mean either\nthat it is without foundation or, still less, that it is false. And\nabove all it does not mean that such an assertion may not excite and\nanimate the spirit, may not strengthen its inner life, that inner life\nwhich is a very different thing from the life that the logical and\nscientificist reader is in love with.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI broke off this essay at this point two days ago, with the intention\nof continuing it, of resuming the broken thread, as occasion offered,\nand now to-day, the 13th of May, I have just read a phrase that alters\nthe course of my discourse. Something of the kind happens to rivers\nwhen a rock deflects their course and causes them to disembogue many\nleagues away from where they would otherwise have disembogued, perhaps\ninto another sea altogether.\n\nIt is curious what happens to our ideas. We have often in our mind a\ncrowd of ideas that vegetate in the darkness, withered, incomplete,\nunacquainted with one another and avoiding one another. For in the\ndarkness, ideas, like men, are afraid of one another. And they remain\nobscured, disassociated, avoiding contact. But suddenly a new and\nluminous idea enters the mind, emitting light and illuminating the\ndark corner, and as soon as the other ideas see it and see their own\nfaces, they recognize one another, they arise and gather round the new\narrival, they embrace and form a fraternity and recover their full life.\n\nSo it has happened with me to-day when a number of half-alive and\nshadowy ideas that have been lying isolated in a corner of my mind\nhave been joined by this new idea that I have just read in a Madrid\nnewspaper, _La Correspondencia de Espa\u00f1a_, of yesterday\u2019s date, the\n12th of May.\n\nIn an article that it publishes, entitled \u201cCurrent Events--C\u00e1novas,\u201d\nthe author says: \u201cSagasta understood Spaniards, but not Spain. C\u00e1novas\nnever knew of what stuff his fellow-countrymen were made.\u201d\n\nThe moment that I read this, I realized, as if by a sudden\nillumination, the difference that there is between the soul of Spain\nand the aggregate of the souls of all us Spaniards who are living\nto-day, the actual synthesis of these same souls. And I remembered that\nat the time of the last Carlist civil war, when I was a boy, I heard\nsomeone in my native town say: \u201cEven though all we men of Bilbao were\nto become Carlists, Bilbao would remain liberal.\u201d A paradox--that is\nto say, a profound arbitrary truth, a truth of passion, a truth of the\nheart, and one that I shall never forget.\n\n\u201cSagasta understood Spaniards, but not Spain.\u201d And all our commonplace\nrulers, those who let themselves drift with the stream and enjoy\nlong years of office, all our commonplace writers, those who\nwrite books that are just long tirades, books that sell, all our\ncommonplace artists and all our commonplace thinkers, understand their\nfellow-countrymen, but not their country.\n\nNot only our own souls, the souls of us who are living to-day, are\nalive and operative in the soul of Spain, but in addition to these,\nthe souls of all our forefathers. Our own souls, those of the living,\nare those that are least alive in it, for our soul does not enter into\nthe soul of our country until it is no longer a detached entity, until\nafter our temporal death.\n\nWhat is the use of our wanting to make our thought modern and European\nwhen our language is neither European nor modern? While we are\nendeavouring to make it say one thing, it is endeavouring to make us\nsay something different, and thus we don\u2019t say the thought that we\npretend we are saying, but we say the thought that we don\u2019t wish to say.\n\nWe endeavour--that is to say, many of us endeavour--to deform our\nspirit conformably with an external standard, and we succeed neither\nin making ourselves like those whom we pretend to copy nor in being\nourselves. Whence results a horrible spiritual half-breed, a kind of\nbarren hybrid.\n\nAnd the most curious thing about it all is this--something that will\nbe understood one day, if the day ever comes when anyone will occupy\nhimself in investigating the spiritual condition of Spain at the\ntransition from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries--the most\ncurious and surprising thing is that those who are held to be most\nSpanish, most true-blooded and of the old stock, most authentically\nSpanish, are those who are the most Europeanizing, the most exotic,\nthose whose soul contains the most alien strains; and on the other\nhand those whom many simple-minded folk regard as exotic spirits,\nanglicized, gallicized, Germanized, Norwegianized, are the ones whose\nroots intermingle most closely with the roots of those who created the\nSpanish soul. I have observed how frequently a skin-deep classicism,\na classicism of external grammatical and rhetorical forms, goes hand\nin hand with a complete alienation from the national soul, and vice\nversa. I have known a portentous fool, once an esteemed author, who\nused to read our mystics in order to learn from them how to write\ngood Castilian and upon whom the ardent soul of these most genuinely\nSpanish spirits made no impression whatever; and on the other hand I\nknow a man who, although he has never read them nor concerned himself\nin any way to preserve their literary tradition or their religious\northodoxy, in breathing the national spiritual atmosphere has breathed\nthe air of that mysticism that is inherent in this atmosphere.\n\nWhat is the origin of this confusion? I cannot tell, but I presume that\nit must originate in the same cause that makes Spaniards insist on\ncalling him a wise man who has least wisdom in him and demanding logic\nfrom a man who is passionate and arbitrary.\n\n\u201cPeople want and demand _things_,\u201d so a friend of mine says to me\nwhen I talk to him about these matters, \u201cthat is to say, concrete\nideas, utilizable facts, scientific theories, information, rational\nexplanations, and it is no use going to them with feelings and dreams.\u201d\nUsually my first thought on hearing this is, \u201cUnfortunate people!\u201d\nbut immediately afterwards I pull myself up and say: \u201cThey are partly\nright; it is right that they should demand that; but why must so many\nof them reject the other? and above all why should they not demand from\neach one just that which he has and which he can give?\u201d\n\nAnd, to apply this to our own people, why must we persist in distorting\nour inner nature and rejecting what it gives us in order to try to\nforce it to give us something else?\n\nOur defects, or what others call our defects, are usually the root of\nour excellencies; the qualities that are censured as our vices are the\nfoundation of our virtues. It is not a universal \u00e6sthetic, applicable\nto all peoples alike, a pure \u00e6sthetic--for I doubt whether such an\n\u00e6sthetic exists or even can exist--that has condemned our conceptism\nand gongorism, for example, and that has decreed that our genuine and\nnatural instinct for emphasis is in bad taste. It is not a universal\n\u00e6sthetic, valid for all peoples alike, but the \u00e6sthetic of other\npeoples, or rather of one other people, the French, that has imposed\nthis canon upon so many of us. The literary and artistic vices of\nthis terribly logical, desperately geometrical, Cartesian people are\ncertainly not those of conceptism or gongorism, and this people has\nsucceeded in great measure in teaching us its virtues and in teaching\nus its vices. There is nothing more intolerable than gallicized\nSpanish literature; nothing more false, more futile, more displeasing,\nthan Spanish writers who have formed themselves by imitating French\nliterature.\n\nEmphasis? But what if emphasis is natural to us? What if emphatic\nexpression is the spontaneous expression of our nature? What if\nemphasis is the form of passion, just as what is called naturalness is\nthe expression of sensuality and of good sense? What I am sure of is\nthat when a man is really irritated or really enthusiastic, he does not\nexpress himself in concise, clear, logical, transparent phrases, but he\nbreaks out into emphatic exclamations, into redundant dithyrambs. What\nI know, and what everybody knows, is that in love-letters, if the love\nbe real love, tragic love, love that cannot be happy, everything is\npoured forth in a flood of burning commonplaces.\n\nI have often thought that gongorism and conceptism are, in a certain\nmode, expressions of passion. I affirm it of conceptism, arbitrarily,\nof course. Almost all the great men of passion that I am acquainted\nwith in the history of human thought, including the great African of\nwhom I have already spoken, have been conceptists, have poured forth\ntheir longings, their aspirations, in antitheses, in paradoxes, in\nphrases that at first sight seem to be merely ingenious. Perhaps this\nis owing to the fact that passion is the enemy of logic, in which it\nsees a tyrant, for passion desires that what it desires should exist,\nand does not desire what must exist, and conceptism in its essence is a\nviolation of logic for the sake of logic itself. He plays with concepts\nand does violence to ideas who is impeded by concepts and ideas, for he\nis unable to make them comply with the demands of his passion.\n\nI need the immortality of my soul, the indefinite persistence of my\nindividual consciousness--I need it. Without it, without faith in\nit, I cannot live, and doubt, the inability to believe that I shall\nattain it, torments me. And since I need it, my passion leads me to\naffirm it, and to affirm it arbitrarily, and when I attempt to make\nothers believe, to make myself believe, I do violence to logic and\nmake use of arguments which are called ingenious and paradoxical by\nthose unfortunate people who have no passion and who contemplate their\nultimate dissolution with resignation.\n\nThe man of passion, the arbitrary man, is the only real rebel, and\nnothing makes a more grotesque impression upon me than when I come\nacross those--usually gallicized--individuals who proclaim themselves\nemancipated from all tyrannies, lovers of liberty, _esprits forts_,\nanarchists sometimes, frequently atheists, but who nevertheless are the\nfaithful devotees of logic and of the code of good taste.\n\nYes, emphasis, turgidity, conceptism, paradoxism, these are the\nlanguage passion speaks, and, on the other hand, there is nothing less\nnatural, for us Spaniards at any rate, than that which the French call\n_naturel_ and which is usually the refined product of an exquisite and\nartificial elaboration.\n\nSome Frenchman has said that French literature is that which gives the\nmost eloquent expression to the great commonplaces of humanity; but I\nwould say that it is in this literature, which has done and still does\nso much harm in Spain, that all middling ideas and middling feelings\nfind their most adequate form and expression, and that it is hostile to\nextreme ideas and extreme feelings.\n\nObserve that the French spirit has produced no great mystic, no really\ngreat pure mystic. Observe that upon Pascal, although he was somewhat\narbitrary and passionate, geometry made a profound impression. And\nconsider the fact that Pascal is one of the French spirits that we are\nbest able to appropriate. It is to this most profound and tortured\nspirit that we owe two great and profound instances, among others, of\ntormentingly arbitrary utterance: that of the _pari_ or wager, and that\nof _il faut s\u2019ab\u00eatir_, \u201cwe must become as fools\u201d--in order to believe,\nbeginning with acting as if we did believe. But I don\u2019t know of any\ngreat mystic, any really pure mystic, who was a Frenchman. And here\nI should like to say something about the gentle, tranquil, sensual\nand logical St. Francis of Sales, so full of common sense and of a\nspiritual _via media_, but I must leave it for some other time.\n\nAnd it is the \u00e6sthetic of this people, so opposed to our own, in spite\nof all that nonsense about the Latin sisterhood--I don\u2019t know whether\nthey are Latin, I don\u2019t know whether we are, and as regards myself\npersonally, I believe that there is nothing Latin about me--it is the\n\u00e6sthetic of this people that is deforming the fruit of our spirit as it\nis expressed in many of our spiritual creators.\n\nLatins. Latins? And why, if we are really Berbers, must we not feel\nand assert that we are Berbers, and why must not the poetry in which\nwe endeavour to give expression to our sorrows and our consolations\nconform to the Berber \u00e6sthetic?\n\nThe only way of entering into vital relations with another is the\naggressive way; only those succeed in mutually penetrating one another,\nin forming a spiritual brotherhood, who strive to subjugate one another\nspiritually, whether in the case of individuals or of peoples. It is\nonly when I strive to put my spirit into the spirit of my neighbour\nthat I receive my neighbour\u2019s spirit in mine. The apostle is blessed\nin receiving in himself the souls of those whom he converts; in this\nconsists the nobility of proselytizing.\n\nNo, none of this _laissez-faire_ and _laissez-aller_--don\u2019t let us\nshrug our shoulders at the ideas, still less at the feelings, of\nothers, but rather try to wound them. It is thus and only thus that\nthey will wound ours and keep them awake within us. For my part I know\nthat those to whom I owe most are those who have acted as if they\nrejected, who have wished to reject, what I offered to them. The deep\nmoral life is a life of aggression and mutual penetration. Everyone\nmust endeavour to make others in his own image and likeness, as God is\nsaid to have made us in His image and likeness.\n\nThe condemnation of him who tries to mould himself upon another lies in\nthe fact that he will cease to be himself without succeeding in being\nthe other whom he takes as his model, and so he will be nobody.\n\nUnquestionably there is something, there are many things, in modern\nEuropean culture and in the modern European spirit that it behoves us\nto receive into ourselves in order that we may convert them into our\nflesh, just as we receive the flesh of various kinds of animals into\nour body and convert it into our flesh. With the brains of oxen I\nnourish my brain, with the ribs of hogs I make my heart beat, with fish\nand birds I feed my body so that my spirit can plunge into the deeps\nand swim in them and ascend to the heights and fly there. And must we\nnot eat the modern European spirit? Yes, but we first kill these oxen,\nhogs, fishes and birds, upon which we nourish ourselves, imposing our\nwill upon them, and we must deal with this spirit in the same way\nbefore eating it.\n\nI am profoundly convinced, arbitrarily of course--the more profoundly,\nthe more arbitrarily, as is always the case when truths of faith\nare concerned--I am profoundly convinced that the real and deep\nEuropeanization of Spain, that is to say, our digestion of that part of\nthe European spirit which it is possible to convert into our spirit,\nwill not begin until we strive to impose ourselves upon the European\nspiritual order, to make the Europeans swallow our spirit, that\nwhich is genuinely ours, in exchange for theirs, until we strive to\nSpaniardize Europe.\n\nAnd to-day--I say it with shame and sorrow--when a Spaniard seeks to\nenter into the European world, that is to say, in the case of men of\nletters, when he wishes to be translated, all that he is concerned\nabout is to deform himself, to de-Spaniardize himself, to leave the\ntranslator nothing to do but to translate the letter, the external\nlanguage. And thus it is that one hears remarks like that which a\nFrenchman made to me the other day, when, speaking of the translation\nof a contemporary Spanish novel, he stated that it was better in French\nthan in Spanish. To this I replied that it had been translated back\ninto its original language.\n\nEach human faculty has its method, that is to say, its procedure, its\nmode of action. That which we call logic is the method of reason,\nthe way of discovering conclusions satisfactory to reason. In this\nway science is made. But when it is a question neither of addressing\nnor satisfying reason, there is no need of logic. And for my part, I\nrarely, very rarely, address myself to the reason of those who hear\nor read me, and when I do so, it is not I myself who speak or write,\nbut rather an artificial self--and because artificial, therefore\ndetachable--which those who hear or read me impose upon me.\n\nIt has been said that the heart has its logic, but it is dangerous\nto call the method of the heart logic; it would be better to call it\n_cardiac_.\n\nAnd there is also the method of passion, which is arbitrariness and\nwhich must not be confounded with caprice, as often happens. It is one\nthing to be capricious and another very different thing to be arbitrary.\n\nArbitrariness, the brusque affirmation of a thing because I wish\nit to be so, because I need it to be so, the creation of our vital\ntruth--truth being that which makes us live--is the method of passion.\nPassion affirms and the proof of its affirmation is founded upon the\nenergy with which it is affirmed. It needs no other proofs. When some\npoor intellectual, some modern European, opposes ratiocinations and\narguments to any of my affirmations, I say to myself: reasons, reasons,\nand nothing more than reasons!\n\nAlthough he deserved to have been a Spaniard for writing them, it was\nnot a Spaniard but an Englishman who wrote these lines:\n\n  For nothing worthy proving can be proven\n  Nor yet disproven; wherefore thou be wise,\n  Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt,\n  And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith.\n\nIt was Lord Tennyson who wrote these pregnant lines, and in the same\npoem, \u201cThe Ancient Sage,\u201d he tells us that \u201cknowledge is the swallow on\nthe lake that stirs and sees the surface-shadow there, but never yet\nhath dipt into the abysm.\u201d\n\nLet, then, my last words here, while I am preparing to consider how it\nis possible to Spaniardize Europe, be that nothing worthy proving can\nbe proven nor yet disproven.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SPANISH CHRIST\n\n\nHe was a foreigner, a South American, and he came from Paris. \u201cBut\nthese Christs!--Good God!\u201d he said to me, as we stood before one of the\nbloodiest of those that are to be found in our cathedrals, \u201cthis thing\nrepels, revolts----\u201d\n\n\u201cIt revolts him who knows nothing of the cult of suffering,\u201d I said.\nAnd he replied: \u201cBut suffering is not blood. There is bloodless\nsuffering, serene suffering.\u201d ...\n\nAnd we began to talk about it.\n\nI confessed to him that I have the soul of my people, and that I like\nthese livid Christs, emaciated, purple, bloody, these Christs that\nsomeone has called ferocious. Lacking in art? Barbarous? I don\u2019t know.\nAnd I like these harsh Marias Dolorosas, rigid with grief.\n\nThe Spanish Christ--so Guerra Junqueiro has often said to me--was born\nin Tangiers. Perhaps. Perhaps He is an African Christ. Would He be more\nChrist if He were an Attic or a Parisian or an English Christ? For\nthe other Christ, the Galilean, the historical, we must bid farewell\nto. And as for history as applied to Christianity.... This history is\nthe history of the last twenty centuries, and here, in Spain, history\nis Spanish. He was born then, perhaps, in Tangiers. Not very far from\nTangiers was born St. Augustine.\n\nBloodless, serene, purified suffering.... Yes, yes, \u201cstylistic\u201d--or\nshall we say, artistic?--suffering. The cry of suffering breathed into\na flute and become a dirge. Very good. All that the Laoco\u00f6n inspired in\nLessing was just that.\n\nVery good. But it is the same with this kind of suffering as with\nirony. Usually ironists are people who are never angry. He who is\nangry is insulting. The ironist forgives everything and says that it\nis because he understands everything. And what if it is because he\nunderstands nothing? I don\u2019t know.\n\nThis harsh, raw manner of ours--I said to my friend, the South\nAmerican--not everyone can bear it. It has been said that hate is rife\nin Spain. Perhaps. Perhaps we begin by hating ourselves. You will\nfind many here, a great many, who dislike themselves. We follow the\nprecept of \u201clove thy neighbour as thyself,\u201d and since, in spite of\ninevitable egoism, we do not love ourselves, so neither do we love our\nneighbours. The ascetic and the egoist are made in the same way. Not\nthat the ascetic is not an egoist; egoistic he may indeed be, and with\na vengeance. But even when an egoist, he does not know how to love\nhimself.\n\nWhen you see a bull-fight, I continued, you will understand these\nChrists. The poor bull is also a kind of irrational Christ, a\npropitiatory victim, whose blood cleanses us from not a few of the sins\nof barbarism. And leads us, nevertheless, to others. But is it not true\nthat forgiveness leads us--unhappy humans!--to sin again?\n\nMy friend saw a bull-fight in Madrid and wrote to me as follows;\n\n    \u201cYou are right. The Spanish people likes violent spectacles, which\n    beget the emotion of tragedy, or rather of ferocity. I had no\n    difficulty in understanding this at the bull-fight last Sunday. I\n    understood it also when I conversed with various people, and in\n    particular with literary people, who tear one another to pieces\n    with unparalleled ferocity. Poor Christ, pierced and bathed with\n    blood! There is no hope that His wounds will ever heal in these\n    Spanish cathedrals or that the grimace of His frenzied pain will\n    ever relax--for here there is no knowledge of the return of Jesus\n    to heaven, after His martyrdom.\u201d\n\nPerhaps--who knows?--our heaven is martyrdom itself.\n\nNot a few foreigners who have learnt to know us have been struck with\nthis ferocity with which, here in Spain, men of letters destroy one\nanother. Yes, here all men, but particularly artists and writers,\ndestroy one another with the ferocity of bull-fighters--or it may be\nwith the Christian ferocity of our Tangerine Christianity.\n\nAnd I, who do not like bull-fights and never go to see them, I, who\ndo not like flaying my fellow writers (for the office of executioner\ndirties the hands), I like these Tangerine Christs, purple, livid,\nblood-stained and blood-drained. Yes, I like these bleeding and\nexsanguious Christs.\n\nAnd the smell of tragedy! Above all, the smell of tragedy!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYou should read the great Sarmiento\u2019s comparison between bull-fights\nand tragedy, in his account of his journey in Spain about the middle of\nthe last century. In the bull-fight there is none of the insupportable\nunities of the pseudo-classical tragedy, and there is, moreover, real\ndying. Real dying, and, above all, real killing. The bull is killed\njust as an infidel dog was killed by a good Spanish Christian in the\ngood old days--really killed.\n\nFor many people, perhaps for my friend the American, all this creates\nan atmosphere difficult to breathe, an acrid atmosphere. But if you\ntake away the taste, other atmospheres too become insipid. It is like\nthe austere beauty of our bleak upland deserts. He who tempers his\nsoul, or distempers it--I know not which--in the contemplation of\nthese blood-stained and blood-drained Christs, never accustoms himself\nafterwards to others.\n\nAnd this hate, this same hate that circulates everywhere here, like a\nsubterranean stream of lava, this same hate ...\n\nIt has its source in what is deepest in ourselves; we hate ourselves\nand not one another only, but each one his own self.\n\n\u201cBut you people have no real love of life, although you are tenacious\nof it,\u201d another foreigner said to me once, a Frenchman, as one who\nmakes a discovery. And I replied: \u201cPerhaps!\u201d He exclaimed again: \u201cBut\nthis is a veritable cult of death!\u201d And I answered: \u201cOf death, no--of\nimmortality!\u201d The fear that if we die, we die utterly and altogether,\nmakes us cling to life, and the hope of living another life makes us\nhate this one.\n\n_La joie de vivre._ It has been translated _la alegr\u00eda de vivir_. But\nit is only a translation. This _alegr\u00eda de vivir_--let them say what\nthey like--is a gallicism. It is not an authentic Spanish phrase. I\ndo not remember to have met with it in any of our classics. For man\u2019s\ngreatest crime is that of having been born.[1] Indeed it is!\n\nAnd this same literary ferocity with which our men of letters bite\nand tear and flay and quarter one another is not without its sharp\nvoluptuousness for the spectator. And it is in this strife that our\nmasterminds are tempered. Many of their ripest have been produced\nin the atmosphere of defamatory coteries. And they carry with them,\nnaturally enough, the acrid flavour of their origin. They smell of\nhate. And the public, scenting hate, becomes excited and applauds.\nApplauds as it does at the bull-fight when it smells blood. Blood of\nthe body or blood of the soul, what is there else?\n\nIs this cultured? is this civilized? is this European? I don\u2019t know.\nBut it is Spanish.\n\nOught we to be ashamed of it? Why? Better to probe into it, scrutinize\nit, stir up the depths of it, make ourselves fully conscious of this\nhatred of our own selves. The evil lies in our being unconscious of it,\nfor once it is revealed to us for what it is, a hatred and abhorrence\nof our own selves, it is already in the way of becoming ennobling and\nstrengthening and redeeming. Do you not remember that terrible paradox\nof the Gospels about having to hate father and mother and wife and\nchildren in order to take up the cross, the blood-stained cross, and\nfollow the Redeemer? Hatred of ourselves, when it is unconscious,\nobscure, purely instinctive, almost animal, engenders egoism; but when\nit becomes conscious, clear, rational, it is able to engender heroism.\nAnd there is a rational hatred, yes, there is.\n\nYes, there is a triumphant, heavenly, glorious Christ, He of the\nTransfiguration, He of the Ascension, He who sits at the right hand\nof the Father; but He is for when we shall have triumphed, for when\nwe shall have been transfigured, for when we shall have ascended. But\nfor here and now, in this bull-ring of the world, in this life which\nis nothing but tragic bull-fighting, the other Christ, the livid, the\npurple, the bleeding and exsanguious.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SEPULCHRE OF DON QUIXOTE\n\n\nYou ask me, my friend, if I know of any way of loosing a delirium, a\nvertigo, any kind of madness, upon these poor ordered and tranquil\nmultitudes who are born, eat, sleep, reproduce themselves and die.\nIs there no means, you ask me, of reproducing the epidemic of the\nFlagellants or of the Tarantists? And you talk of the millennium.\n\nLike you, I often feel a nostalgia for the Middle Ages; like you, I\nshould like to live in the throes of the millennium. If we could make\npeople believe that on a given day, say the 2nd of May, 1908,--the\ncentenary of our shout of independence--Spain would come to an end\nfor ever, that on that day we should be scattered like sheep, then I\nbelieve that the 3rd of May, 1908, would be the greatest day of our\nhistory, the dawn of a new life.\n\nBut now it\u2019s all hopeless, utterly hopeless. Nothing whatever matters\nto anybody. And if any isolated individual attempts to agitate\nany problem or question, he is supposed to be prompted either\nby self-interest or by a thirst for notoriety and a passion for\nsingularizing himself.\n\nNot even madness is understood here to-day. Even of the madman they\nsay that there is method and reason in his madness. The wretched\nmultitude takes for granted the reason of unreason. If our Lord Don\nQuixote were to rise again and return to this Spain of his, they would\ngo about looking for some ulterior purpose in his noble extravagances.\nIf any one denounces an abuse, attacks injustice, fustigates orthodox\nplatitudes, the slavish crowd asks: What is his object in that? What\nis he aiming at? Sometimes they believe and say that he does it in the\nhope of being paid to keep quiet; sometimes that he is actuated by\nbase and despicable passions of vengeance and envy; sometimes that his\nmotive is vainglory, that he only wants to make a stir in order to get\nhimself talked about; sometimes that he does it for the sake of killing\ntime, for amusement, for sport. Pity that there are so few who go in\nfor this kind of sport!\n\nMark this well!--When confronted by any act of generosity, of heroism,\nof madness, all these stupid bachelors, curates and barbers of to-day\nthink only of asking: Why does he do it? And as soon as they think they\nhave discovered the reason of the action, whether their supposition is\ncorrect or not, they exclaim: Bah! he has done it for the sake of this\nor for the sake of that. As soon as they know the _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_ of a\nthing, that thing has lost all its value for them. Such are the uses of\nlogic, filthy logic.\n\nTo understand is to forgive, it has been said. And these mean souls\nneed to understand in order to forgive their being humiliated, to\nforgive the indirect reproach of deeds and words that show up their own\nmeanness.\n\nWhen it has occurred to them to ask themselves, stupidly enough, why\nGod made the world, they have answered: For His own glory! And the\nfools are as pompously satisfied with the answer as if they knew what\nis meant by the glory of God.\n\nThings are made first, their wherefore comes afterwards. Give me any\nnew idea about anything and it will tell me its wherefore afterwards.\n\nWhenever I put forward some project, something which it appears to\nme ought to be done, there is always somebody who is sure to ask me:\nAnd afterwards? To such a question the only possible reply is another\nquestion. To the \u201cAnd afterwards?\u201d one can only ripost by an \u201cAnd\nbefore?\u201d\n\nThere is no future, there is never any future. This thing that is\ncalled the future is one of the greatest of deceptions. The real\nfuture is to-day. What is going to happen to us to-morrow? There is no\nto-morrow. What is happening to us to-day? That is the only question.\n\nAnd so far as to-day is concerned, all these petty souls are quite\ncontent because to-day they exist. Existing suffices them. Existence,\nsheer, naked existence, fills their whole soul. They don\u2019t feel that\nthere is something more than existing.\n\nBut do they exist? Do they really exist? I believe not. For if they\nexisted, if they really existed, they would suffer because they\nexisted, existing would not content them. If they really and truly\nexisted in time and in space they would suffer because they did not\nexist in eternity and in infinity. And this suffering, this passion,\nwhich is nothing other than the passion of God in us, of God who in\nus suffers at feeling Himself imprisoned in our finitude and our\ntemporality, this divine suffering would cause them to break all\nthose paltry logical chains with which they seek to bind their paltry\nmemories to their paltry hopes, the illusion of their past to the\nillusion of their future.\n\n\u201cWhy does he do it?\u201d Did Sancho, perchance, never inquire why Don\nQuixote did the things that he did?\n\nAnd to return to your question, to your preoccupation: With what\ncollective madness could we inoculate these tranquil multitudes? With\nwhat delirium?\n\nYou yourself have hinted at a solution in one of those letters in which\nyou bombard me with questions. \u201cDo you not believe,\u201d you asked me,\n\u201cthat it might be possible to start some new crusade?\u201d\n\nYes, I believe that it is possible to start the holy crusade for the\nredemption of the sepulchre of Don Quixote from the dominion of the\nbachelors, curates, barbers, dukes and canons who have taken possession\nof it. I believe that it is possible to start the holy crusade for the\nredemption of the sepulchre of the Knight of Folly from the dominion of\nthe mandarins of Reason.\n\nThey will defend their usurpation, naturally, and will endeavour to\nprove with many and elaborate reasons that the guard and custody of the\nsepulchre belongs to them. They guard it in order that the Knight shall\nnot rise again.\n\nThese reasons must be answered with insults, with stone-throwings,\nwith shouts of passion, with lance-thrusts. These people are not to be\nreasoned with. If you try to reason against their reasons, you are lost.\n\nIf they ask you, as they usually do, by what right you claim the\nsepulchre, answer nothing. They will find out afterwards. Afterwards\n... perhaps when both they and you no longer exist, at any rate not in\nthis world of appearances.\n\nAnd this holy crusade has one great advantage over those other holy\ncrusades which spread the dawn of a new life upon this old world. Those\nother ardent crusaders knew where the sepulchre of Christ was, where\nit was said that it was; but our new crusaders will not know where the\nsepulchre of Don Quixote is to be found. It must be sought for in the\nact of fighting to redeem it.\n\nYour quixotesque madness has led you more than once to speak to me\nof quixotism as of a new religion. And I must tell you that this new\nreligion which you propose, if it should ever come to materialize,\nwould have two notable characteristics. First, that we are not sure\nwhether its founder, its prophet, Don Quixote--not Cervantes, of\ncourse--was a real man, a man of flesh and bone; indeed, we rather\nsuspect that he was a pure fiction. And second, that this prophet was a\nridiculous prophet; the butt and laughing-stock of the world.\n\nIt is courage that we need most of all--courage to face ridicule.\nRidicule is the weapon wielded by all the miserable bachelors, barbers,\ncurates, canons and dukes who guard the hidden sepulchre of the Knight\nof Folly. The Knight who made all the world laugh but never made a joke\nhimself. He had too great a soul to make jokes. He was laughed at for\nhis seriousness.\n\nBegin then, my friend, to play Peter the Hermit and call the people to\njoin you, to join us, and let us all go to redeem this sepulchre which\nlies we know not where. The crusade itself will reveal the holy place\nto us.\n\nYou will see that as soon as the sacred squadron begins to march, a new\nstar will appear in the sky, a bright and sounding star, which will\nsing a new song in the long night that encompasses us, and the star\nwill begin to move when the squadron of the crusaders begins to march,\nand when they have conquered in their crusade, or when they have all\nsuccumbed--which is perhaps the only way of truly conquering--the star\nwill fall from the sky, and the place where it falls will be the place\nof the sepulchre. The sepulchre will be where the squadron dies.\n\nAnd where the sepulchre is, there is the cradle, there is the\nbirth-place. And from there the bright and sounding star will mount\nagain heavenwards....\n\nQuestion me no more, dear friend. When you force me to speak of these\nthings, you force me to bring to light from the depths of my heart,\nsick with the atmosphere of conventionality that harasses and oppresses\nme on all sides, sick with the slime of the slough of falsehood in\nwhich we are mired, sick with scrabbling cowardice which shows itself\non every hand, you force me to bring to light from the depths of my\nsick heart visions without reason, concepts without logic, things of\nwhich I know not the meaning and whose meaning I do not wish to try to\nfathom.\n\nWhat do you mean by that? you ask me yet again. And I reply: Perhaps I\ndon\u2019t even know myself.\n\nNo, my friend, no. The meaning of many of these utterances of my spirit\nI do not know myself, or rather it is not I who know them. There is\nsomeone within me who dictates them to me, who speaks them to me. I\nobey him and I never penetrate within to behold his face or to ask his\nname. Only I know that if I beheld his face and if he told me his name,\nI should die that he might live.\n\nI am ashamed of having sometimes created fictitious beings, the\npersonages of my novels, in order that I might put into their mouths\nthat which I dare not put into my own and make them say in jest what I\nfeel in deadly earnest.\n\nYou know me, and you know how far I am from intentionally going in\nsearch of paradoxes, extravagances, and mannerisms--whatever some\ndull fools may think. You and I, my good friend, my only absolute\nfriend, have often debated between ourselves as to what madness really\nis, and we have commented upon that saying of Ibsen\u2019s Brand, the\nspiritual son of Kierkegaard, to the effect that the man who is mad\nis the man who is alone. And we have agreed that madness ceases to be\nmadness when it becomes collective, when it is the madness of a whole\npeople, of the whole human race perhaps. In so far as a hallucination\nbecomes collective, becomes popular, becomes social, it ceases to be\na hallucination and becomes a reality, something that is external to\neach one of those who share it. And you and I are agreed that the\nmultitudes, the people, our Spanish people, must be inoculated with\nsome madness or other, the madness of some one of its members who is\nmad--but really mad, not mad only in jest. Mad, and not foolish.\n\nYou and I, my good friend, have been scandalized at that which they\ncall here fanaticism and which--to our shame be it said--is not\nfanaticism at all. No, nothing is fanaticism that is regulated and\nrestrained and directed by bachelors, curates, barbers, canons and\ndukes; nothing is fanaticism that carries a banner inscribed with\nlogical formulas, nothing that has a program, nothing that holds\nout for to-morrow merely a proposition that an orator can develop\nmethodically in a speech.\n\nOnce--do you remember?--we saw a group of eight or ten youths and one\nof them said: \u201cLet\u2019s do something rash!\u201d and the others followed him.\nAnd you and I long for the people to get together and shout: \u201cLet\u2019s\ndo something rash!\u201d and begin to march. And if any bachelor, any\nbarber, any curate, any canon or any duke should stop them and say:\n\u201cMy children, that\u2019s right! I see that you are bursting with heroism\nand righteous indignation. I also will go with you. But before we all\ngo, and I along with you, to do this rash deed, don\u2019t you think that\nwe ought to agree as to the rashness that we are going to commit?\u201d--if\nany of these mandarins should stop them and say that, then they ought\nto knock him down on the spot and walk over him, trampling on him, and\nthat would be a beginning of the heroic rashness. Don\u2019t you think, my\nfriend, that there are many lonely souls amongst us whose heart craves\nfor some rashness, something to set it aflame? Go then and see if you\ncan\u2019t gather them together and form them into a squadron and start us\non the march--for I will go with them and march behind you--to redeem\nthe sepulchre of Don Quixote, which lies, thank God, we know not where.\nThe bright and sounding star will tell us.\n\nBut--you say in your hours of depression, when your spirit fails\nyou--may it not be that when we think we are marching forward into\nnew countries, we are really all the time revolving round the same\nspot? In that case the star will rest quietly over our heads and the\nsepulchre will be within us. And then the star will fall, but it will\nfall in order that it may bury itself in our souls. And our souls will\nbe turned to light, and when they are all fused together in the bright\nand sounding star, the star will mount upwards, brighter still, and it\nwill change into a sun, a sun of eternal melody, to lighten the sky of\nour redeemed country.\n\nForward then! And take care that no bachelors, barbers, curates,\ncanons or dukes disguised as Sancho Panzas join the sacred squadron of\ncrusaders. No matter if they ask you for islands; what you have got\nto do is to throw them out directly they ask to be informed of the\nitinerary of the march, directly they begin to talk about a program,\ndirectly they whisper to you and ask you, maliciously, to tell them\nthe whereabouts of the sepulchre. Follow the star! And do like the\nKnight--redress the wrong that lies in front of you. Do now what is to\nbe done now; do here what is to be done here.\n\nBegin the march! Where are we going? The star answers: To the\nsepulchre! What are we going to do on the way, as we march? What?\nFight! Fight, and how?\n\nHow? If you come across a man who is telling lies, shout out Liar!\nin his face, and forward! If you come across a man who is stealing,\nshout out Thief! and forward! If you come across a man who is talking\nfool-talk to a crowd listening with gaping mouths, shout out Idiots!\nand forward! Always forward!\n\n\u201cAnd is this the way,\u201d a would-be crusader asks me, \u201cthat you propose\nto abolish lying and thieving and foolishness from the world?\u201d Why not?\nThe most pusillanimous of all pusillanimities, the most detestable and\npestilent sophistry of cowardice, is that of saying that it is no use\ndenouncing a thief because others will go on stealing, that nothing is\ngained by calling a fool a fool to his face, for this will not lessen\nthe sum of foolishness in the world.\n\nYes, it has got to be repeated a thousand and one times--if you can\nfinish once, only once, utterly and for ever, with only one liar, then\nyou will have finished with lying for good and all.\n\nMarch then! And throw out of the sacred squadron all those who begin to\npay too much attention to the step that has to be kept on the march, to\nits time and rhythm. Above all, out with those who are always talking\nabout rhythm. They will turn your squadron into a quadrille and the\nmarch into a dance. Out with them! Let them go and sing to the flesh\nsomewhere else.\n\nThose who would seek to turn your marching squadron into a quadrille\ncall themselves and call one another poets. They are not. They are\nanything else you like. They only go to the sepulchre out of curiosity,\nto see what it is like, to get a new sensation, and to amuse themselves\non the way. Out with them!\n\nThey it is whose Bohemian tolerance contributes to the maintenance of\ncowardice and falsehood and all the other ignominies that overwhelm us.\nWhen they preach liberty, the only liberty they are thinking about is\nthat of making free with their neighbour\u2019s wife. They are compact of\nsensuality, and they have a sensual attitude even to the great ideas\nthat they are enamoured of. They are incapable of marrying themselves\nto any great and pure idea and begetting a family upon it; they only\nintoxicate themselves with ideas. They make mistresses of them, and\nsometimes tire of them after a single night. Out with them!\n\nIf when on the march anyone wants to pluck a flower that smiles by\nthe roadside, let him pluck it, but in passing, without stopping, and\nlet him follow the squadron, whose leader must not take his eyes off\nthe bright and sounding star. And if he fastens the flower to his\nbreastplate, not to look at himself but for others to look at, out\nwith him! Let him go off, with his flower in his buttonhole, and dance\nsomewhere else.\n\nListen, my friend. If you wish to fulfil your mission and serve your\ncountry, you must needs make yourself hateful to all those sensible\nyoung men who see the world only through the eyes of the woman they\nlove. Or worse still: your words must be strident and bitter in their\nears.\n\nThe squadron must halt only at night, at the edge of the wood or in\nthe shadow of the mountain. The crusaders will pitch their tents, they\nwill wash their feet, they will sup on what their wives have prepared\nfor them, and afterwards they will beget sons on them, they will give\nthem a kiss, and then they will fall asleep and the following day they\nwill continue their march. And when any one of them dies, they will\nleave him by the roadside, shrouded in his armour, to the mercy of the\nravens. Let the dead bury their dead.\n\nIf during the march anyone essays to play the fife or the pipe or the\nflute or the guitar or whatever it may be, break his instrument and\nthrow him out of the ranks, for he hinders the others from hearing the\nsong of the star. And, what is more, he himself does not hear it. And\nhe who does not hear the celestial song must not go in quest of the\nsepulchre of the Knight.\n\nThey will talk to you, these poet-dancers. Pay no heed to them. He who\nbegins to play his Pan-pipes beneath the sky of heaven and does not\nhear the music of the spheres, does not deserve to hear it. He does\nnot know the abyss-deep depths of the poetry of fanaticism, he does\nnot know the infinite poetry of empty temples, without lights, without\nornament, without images, without pomps, without incense, without\nanything of what is called art.\n\nThrow all these Pan-pipe dancers out of the squadron. Throw them out\nbefore they leave you for a mess of pottage. They are the cynical\nphilosophers, the tolerant Bohemians, the good fellows who understand\neverything and forgive everything. And he who understands everything\nunderstands nothing and he who forgives everything forgives nothing.\nThey have no scruples about selling themselves. As they live in two\nworlds at the same time, they are able to preserve their liberty in the\nother world and sell themselves as slaves in this. They serve art and\nat the same time they are the servants of L\u00f3pez or P\u00e9rez or Rodriguez.\n\nIt has been said that hunger and love are the two mainsprings of human\nlife. Of this low human life, of the life of earth. The dancers dance\nonly because of hunger or because of love; hunger of the flesh, love\nalso of the flesh. Throw them out of the squadron and let them dance\ntheir fill in yonder meadow, while one plays the pipe, another claps\nhis hands to the music, and another sings in praise of his pottage or\nof his mistress\u2019s thighs. And there let them invent new dancesteps, new\npirouettes, new figures of a rigadoon.\n\nAnd if anyone shall come to you and say that he knows how to construct\nbridges and that perhaps a time will come when you will wish to avail\nyourself of his science in order to cross over a river, out with him!\nOut with the engineer! Rivers will be crossed by wading or swimming\nthem, even if half the crusaders drown themselves. Let the engineer go\noff and build bridges somewhere else, where they are badly wanted. For\nthose who go in quest of the sepulchre, faith is bridge enough.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMy friend, if you want to fulfil your task duly, distrust art, distrust\nscience, or at any rate distrust that which is called art and science\nand which is nothing but a wretched mockery of true art and true\nscience. Let your faith suffice you. Your faith will be your art, your\nfaith will be your science.\n\nMore than once, when I observed what pains you take in composing your\nletters, I have doubted whether you would be able to accomplish your\nwork. They are full of erasures, emendations, corrections, Pan-pipings.\nThey don\u2019t jet forth violently, driving out the plug. Occasionally\nyour letters degenerate into literature, into that filthy literature\nwhich is the natural ally of all slaveries and of all ignominies.\nSlavedrivers know well enough that when the slave is singing a hymn to\nliberty, he is consoling himself for his slavery and not thinking about\nbreaking his chain.\n\nBut at other times I regain my faith and hope in you when I feel\nbeneath the hurrying, spontaneous, cacophonous words the voice\ntrembling with the fever that consumes you. There are times when your\nspeech may be said to belong to no determinate language. Let everyone\ntranslate it into his own.\n\nAim at living in a continual vertigo of passion, be the passion that\ndominates you what it may. Only men of passion achieve works that\nreally live and bear fruit. When you hear it said of someone that his\nworks are impeccable, in whichever sense that stupid word is employed,\nfly from him--above all if he is an artist. Just as the man who is\nmost a fool is he who has never done or said a foolish thing, so\nthe artist who is least a poet, most anti-poetic--and among artists\nanti-poetic natures are common--is the impeccable artist, the artist\nwhom the Pan-pipe dancers decorate with the pasteboard laurel crown of\nimpeccability.\n\nYou are consumed, my friend, with a perpetual fever, with a thirst for\nunfathomable, shoreless oceans, with a hunger for universes, with a\nhome-sickness for eternity. Reason is suffering to you. And you don\u2019t\nknow what you want. And now, now you want to go to the sepulchre of the\nKnight of Folly and there dissolve yourself in tears, consume yourself\nin fever, die of your thirst for oceans, of your hunger for universes,\nof your home-sickness for eternity.\n\nBegin to march, alone. All the other lonely souls will march by your\nside, even though you don\u2019t see them. Each one will think that he\nmarches alone, but together you will form a sacred battalion, the\nbattalion of the holy and unending crusade.\n\nYou don\u2019t yet understand, my good friend, how all lonely souls, without\nknowing one another, without beholding one another\u2019s face, without\nknowing one another\u2019s names, journey together and lend one another\nmutual support. The others, those who are not lonely, talk about one\nanother, offer one another their hands, congratulate one another,\nbelaud and denigrate one another, chatter among themselves--and each\none goes his own way. And they all fly from the sepulchre.\n\nYou don\u2019t belong to the coterie but to the battalion of free crusaders.\nWhy do you hover round the walls of the coterie to hear what they are\ncackling about inside? No, my friend, no! When you pass close to a\ncoterie, stop your ears, fling your word and go straight on, on to\nthe sepulchre. And let the word that you fling vibrate with all your\nthirst, with all your hunger, with all your home-sickness, with all\nyour love.\n\nI remember that unhappy letter that you wrote me when you were on the\npoint of succumbing, of yielding, of joining the confraternity. I saw\nthen how much your solitude weighed upon you, that solitude which must\nbe your consolation and your strength.\n\nYou had arrived at the most terrible and desolating state of all; you\nhad approached the brink of the precipice of your perdition; you had\ncome to doubt your solitude, you had come to believe that you were\nsurrounded by companions. \u201cMay not this notion that I am alone,\u201d you\nsaid, \u201cbe mere cavilling, the fruit of pride, of petulance, perhaps of\nmadness? For when I am tranquil, I see myself companioned, I feel my\nhand warmly clasped, I hear voices of encouragement, words of sympathy,\nI receive all kinds of proofs that I am not alone--far from it.\u201d And I\nsaw you deceived and lost, I saw you flying from the sepulchre.\n\nNo, you are not deceived in the accesses of your fever, in the agonies\nof your thirst, in the anguish of your hunger; you are alone, eternally\nalone. Not only are the bites that you feel really bites, but those\nthat seem like kisses are bites too. Those who applaud you are hissing\nyou, they want to stop you marching to the sepulchre when they shout\n\u201cForward!\u201d Stop your ears. And, above all, beware of a terrible\ntemptation--however much you may try to shake it off, it will return to\nyou with the pertinacity of a fly--beware of the temptation to concern\nyourself with how you appear to others. Think only of how you appear to\nGod, think only of the idea that God has of you.\n\nYou are alone, much more alone than you imagine, and yet, even so,\nyou have not arrived at absolute, utter, real solitude. Absolute,\nutter, real solitude consists in not being even with yourself. And you\nwill not be really, utterly, absolutely alone until you have emptied\nyourself of yourself, by the side of the sepulchre. Holy Solitude!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll this I said to my friend, and he answered me, in a long letter,\nfull of furious dismay, in these words:\n\n    \u201cAll that you say is good, very good. But don\u2019t you think that\n    instead of going in quest of the sepulchre of Don Quixote and\n    redeeming it from the bachelors, curates, barbers, canons and\n    dukes, we ought to go in quest of the sepulchre of God and rescue\n    it from the atheists and deists who occupy it, and there, giving\n    voice to our supreme despair and dissolving our heart in tears,\n    wait for God to rise again and save us from nothingness?\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE HELMET OF MAMBRINO\n\n\n_\u201cPray, good gentlemen,\u201d said the barber,[2] \u201clet us have your opinion\nin this matter. I suppose you will grant this same helmet to be a\nbasin?\u201d \u201cHe that dares grant any such thing,\u201d said Don Quixote, \u201cmust\nknow that he lies plainly, if he is a knight; but, if a squire, he lies\nabominably.\u201d_\n\nThat\u2019s right, my lord Don Quixote, that\u2019s right. It is courage, it is\nthe barefaced courage that is ready to affirm a thing aloud and before\nall the world and to defend the affirmation of it to the death, it is\ncourage that creates all truths. Things are so much the truer the more\nthey are believed, and it is not intelligence but will that imposes\nthem upon the world.\n\n\u201cNow I swear before you all,\u201d said Don Quixote, \u201cby the order of\nknighthood which I profess, that that is the same individual helmet\nwhich I won from him, without the least addition or diminution.\u201d To\nwhich Sancho added, in timid support of his master: \u201cThat I will swear,\nfor since my lord won it, he never fought but once in it, and that was\nthe battle wherein he freed those ungracious galley-slaves, who by the\nsame token would have knocked out his brains with a shower of stones,\nhad not this same honest basin-helmet saved his skull.\u201d\n\nIn \u201cThe Tragic Sense of Life\u201d Unamuno says: \u201cI wrote my _Vida de\nDon Quixote y Sancho_ in opposition to the Cervantists and erudite\npersons, in order to make a living work of what was and still is for\nthe majority a dead letter. What does it matter to me what Cervantes\nintended or did not intend to put into it and what he actually did\nput into it? What is living in it is what I myself discover in it,\nwhether Cervantes put it there or not, what I myself put into and under\nand over it, and what we all put into it. I wanted to track down our\nphilosophy in it.\u201d\n\nReaders of Don Quixote will recall the encounter between the Knight\nof La Mancha and the barber who had clapped his brass basin on his\nhead to keep his hat from being spoiled by the rain. Having routed his\nenemy, the Knight seized the basin, which he asserted to be the golden\nhelmet of Mambrino, a famous Saracen (see _Orlando Furioso_, Canto I).\nWhen afterwards the barber met Don Quixote at an inn and claimed his\nbasin, the dispute as to whether it was really a basin or a helmet\nwas referred to the rest of the company, some of whom sided with the\nKnight and others with the barber.\n\nBasin-helmet? Basin-helmet, Sancho? We must not do you the injustice\nto suppose that your calling it a basin-helmet was one of your sly\njokes--no, it marks the progress of your faith. You were unable to pass\nfrom what your eyes assured you of, showing you the object in dispute\nin the likeness of a basin, to what faith in your master assured you,\nshowing it to you in the likeness of a helmet, without catching at this\ncompromise of a basin-helmet. In this respect there are many Sanchos\nlike you and you have invented this notion that virtue consists in\nthe _via media_. No, friend Sancho, no, there is no basin-helmet that\nis worth a straw. It is a helmet or it is a basin according to him\nwho uses it, or rather it is basin and helmet at the same time for it\nserves both turns. Without the least addition or diminution it can\nand ought to be both helmet and basin, all of it helmet and all of it\nbasin; but what it can never be nor ought to be, however much be added\nto it or taken away from it, is basin-helmet.\n\nThe barber to whom the basin belonged found the other barber, Master\nNicolas, and Don Fernando and the curate and Cardenio and the judge\nmore emphatic, for to the amazement of all the others who were present\nthey insisted that it was a helmet. One of the four pursuivants,\nregarding this as a laborious joke, became annoyed and treated those\nwho said it was a helmet as if they were drunk. Don Quixote called him\na liar and hurled himself upon him; both sides prepared for battle\nand fell to blows. Then it was that Don Quixote, thinking that he was\ncertainly involved in the disorder and confusion of King Agramant\u2019s\ncamp, lifted up his voice and quieted the tumult.\n\nWhat! it surprises you that the question as to whether the basin was a\nbasin or a helmet should have given rise to a general dispute? Other\nand more involved disputes have broken out in the world with regard to\nother basins and those not belonging to Mambrino. As to whether bread\nis bread and wine wine and the like. Human sheep flock round Knights\nof the Faith and maintain for various reasons or for no reason at\nall, that the basin is a helmet, as the Knights assert, and they are\nsurprisingly rewarded for so maintaining it, and the strange thing is\nthat most of those who contend that it is a helmet really believe it\nto be a basin. The heroism of Don Quixote communicated itself to his\nmockers, who became quixotized in spite of themselves, and Don Fernando\nmade one of the pursuivants measure his length on the ground because\nhe had dared to maintain that the basin was not a helmet but a basin.\nHeroical Don Fernando!\n\nThus we see Don Quixote\u2019s mockers mocked by him, quixotized in their\nown despite, joining in the fray and fighting with all their might\nto defend the Faith of the Knight, although without sharing it. I am\nconvinced--although Cervantes does not tell us so--I am convinced that\nthe partisans of the Knight, the quixotists or helmetists, after having\nreceived and administered punishment, began themselves to doubt whether\nthe basin were a basin and to believe that it really was the helmet of\nMambrino, for their ribs bore evidence of their belief. It must be\naffirmed here yet again that it is martyrs who create faith rather than\nfaith that creates martyrs.\n\nIn few of his adventures does Don Quixote appear greater than in this\none, in which he imposes his faith upon those who mocked at it, so that\nthey are led to defend it with kicks and blows and to suffer for it.\n\nAnd what was it that inspired them to do so? Simply his courage in\naffirming before everybody that that basin, which he no less than they\nsaw with his own eyes to be a basin, was the helmet of Mambrino, for to\nhim it served the office of a helmet.\n\nThis is the courage of the purest water--that which resists not merely\na shock to the reason or decay of fortune or loss of honour, but also\nbeing taken for a madman and an idiot.\n\nThis is the courage that we need in Spain and our soul remains\nparalysed because of the lack of it. It is because of the lack of it\nthat we are neither powerful nor wealthy nor cultured; it is because of\nthe lack of it that we have no system of irrigation, no good harvests;\nit is because of the lack of it that it doesn\u2019t rain more on our\ndrought-parched fields, or that when it does rain it rains in torrents,\nsweeping away the manure and sometimes sweeping away the houses too.\n\nThis seems to you like a paradox? Go into the country and propose\nto any farmer some improvement in his methods of cultivation or the\nintroduction of a new kind of crop or of a new agricultural machine,\nand he will say: \u201cThat doesn\u2019t pay here.\u201d \u201cHave you tried it?\u201d you\nask, and he simply repeats: \u201cThat doesn\u2019t pay here.\u201d He doesn\u2019t know\nwhether it pays or whether it doesn\u2019t pay, for he hasn\u2019t tried it and\ndoesn\u2019t mean to try it. He would try it if he were sure of its success\nbeforehand, but the prospect of the possibility of a failure, with the\nconsequent mockery and derision of his neighbours, the possibility\nof their taking him for a deluded fool or a lunatic, this prospect\nterrifies him and so he doesn\u2019t experiment. And then people are\nsurprised at the triumph of those who have the courage to face ridicule\nserenely, of those who rid themselves of the herd-instinct.\n\nIn the province of Salamanca there was a remarkable man who rose from\nthe greatest poverty to be a millionaire. The peasants of the district,\nwith the sheep-like instincts of their kind, were only able to explain\nhis success by supposing that in his younger days he had embezzled\nmoney, for these wretched peasants, crusted over with common sense\nand entirely lacking in moral courage, believe only in theft and the\nlottery. But one day I was told of a quixotic feat which this cattle\nfarmer had performed. It seems that he had brought sea-bream\u2019s spawn\nfrom the Cantabrian coast to put in one of his ponds! When I heard\nthat, I understood everything. He who has the courage to face the jeers\nwhich are bound to be provoked by bringing the spawn of a salt-water\nfish to put in a pond in Castile, he who does that deserves his fortune.\n\nBut it was absurd, you say? And who knows what is absurd and what is\nnot? And even if it were! Only he who attempts the absurd is capable\nof achieving the impossible. There is only one way of hitting the nail\non the head and that is by hammering on the shoe a hundred times. And\nthere is only one way of achieving a real triumph and that is by\nfacing ridicule with serenity. And it is because our agriculturists\nhaven\u2019t the courage to face ridicule that our agriculture languishes in\nits present backward condition.\n\nYes, all our ills spring from moral cowardice, from the individual\u2019s\nlack of staunch resolution in affirming his own truth, his own faith,\nand defending it. The soul of this people, this flock of somnolent\nsheep, is smothered and swathed in falsehood, and their stupidity\nproceeds from their very excess of prudence.\n\nIt is claimed that there are certain principles that are beyond\ndiscussion and when anyone attempts to criticize them the air rings\nwith shouts of protest. Not long ago I proposed that we should\ndemand the abolition of certain of the articles of our law of Public\nInstruction, and a pack of poltroons began to bellow that such a course\nwas inopportune and impertinent, not to mention stronger and more\noffensive epithets that were used. I am sick of hearing everything that\nis most opportune called inopportune, everything that tends to disturb\nthe digestion of the full-bellied and infuriates fools. What are they\nafraid of? That it will result in a brawl? that a new civil war will\nbreak out? Better and better. That\u2019s what we need.\n\nYes, that\u2019s what we need--a new civil war. It is necessary to assert\nthat basins ought to be and are helmets and to get up a fight about\nit like the fight they got up at the inn. A new civil war, let the\nweapons be what they will. Can\u2019t you hear those spiritless creatures\nwhose hearts are dried and shrivelled up reiterating that these kinds\nof disputes lead to nothing practical? What do they understand by\npractical? Can\u2019t you hear them reiterating that there are discussions\nwhich ought never to be broached?\n\nThere are plenty of cowardly spirits who are always drilling it into\nus that we ought to leave religious questions on one side, that the\nfirst thing to do is to become powerful and wealthy. And the poltroons\ndon\u2019t see that it is just because we ignore what concerns our inward\nwell-being that we are not and never shall be wealthy and powerful. I\nrepeat it yet again, there will never be any agriculture or industry or\ncommerce in our country, nor roads where there ought to be roads, until\nwe have discovered our Christianity, which is Quixotic Christianity.\nWe shall never have a powerful and splendid and glorious and strong\nexternal life until we have kindled in the hearts of our people the\nfire of the eternal disquietudes. We cannot be rich so long as our life\nis nothing but deceit, and deceit is our spirit\u2019s daily bread.\n\nCan\u2019t you hear the solemn ass that opens his mouth and says: \u201cIt\u2019s\nforbidden to say that here\u201d? Can\u2019t you hear all those who are bound\nwith the fetters of falsehood talking about peace, a peace that is more\ndeadly than death itself? That terrible and ignominious rule which\nfigures in the list of regulations of almost all the social clubs in\nSpain, \u201cpolitical and religious discussions prohibited\u201d--does that say\nnothing to you?\n\nPeace! peace! peace! all the frogs of our national pond croak in chorus.\n\nPeace! peace! peace! Yes, but peace established upon the triumph of\nsincerity, peace established upon the overthrow of falsehood. Peace,\nbut not a peace of compromise, not a hollow political agreement, but a\ncomprehensive peace. Peace, yes, but only after the pursuivants have\nrecognized Don Quixote\u2019s right to assert that the basin is a helmet;\nand, furthermore, only after the pursuivants themselves have admitted\nand affirmed that in the hands of Don Quixote the basin is a helmet.\nAnd the wretched crowd that shout \u201cPeace! peace!\u201d dare to take upon\ntheir lips the name of Christ! They forget that Christ said that He\ncame not to bring peace but war, and that because of Him they of the\nsame household should be divided against one another, father against\nson and brother against brother. And this should be because of Him,\nbecause of Christ, that His kingdom might be established, the social\nkingdom of Jesus--which is the very reverse of that which the Jesuits\ncall the social kingdom of Jesus Christ--the kingdom of real sincerity\nand real truth and real love and real peace. In order that the kingdom\nof Jesus may be established, there must be war.\n\n\n\n\nDON QUIXOTE\u2019S NIECE[3]\n\n\nThe good Alonso Quixano went on with the dictation of his will and\nbequeathed all his estate to Antonia Quixano, his niece, but imposing\nit upon her, as a necessary condition of enjoying the bequest, that \u201cif\nshe is desirous of marrying, she marry none but a man who, upon strict\ninquiry, shall be found never to have read a book of knight-errantry in\nhis life; and in case it appears that he has been conversant with such\nbooks, and that she persists in her resolution to marry him, she is\nthen to forfeit all that I have bequeathed her, which in such case my\nexecutors shall dispose of to pious uses at their own discretion.\u201d\n\nHow clearly Don Quixote recognized the violent mutual incompatibility\nthat exists between the office of husband and that of knight-errant!\nAnd in dictating this clause, may not the good knight have been\nthinking of his Aldonza and of how, had he but ventured to break\nthe seal of his too great love, he might have been spared all the\nmisfortunes of his knight-errantry and remained by his own fireside a\nhappy prisoner in the arms of his love?\n\nYour will has been faithfully executed, Don Quixote, and the young\nmen of this your country have renounced all knight-errantry so that\nthey might enjoy the estates of your nieces--and among these must be\ncounted almost all the women of Spain--and enjoy the nieces themselves\ntoo. In their arms all heroism is smothered. They tremble lest it\nshould strike their lovers and husbands with its rushing wind as it\nstruck their uncle. It is your niece, Don Quixote, it is your niece\nwho rules and governs Spain to-day--it is your niece, not Sancho. It\nis the timorous, home-keeping, narrow-souled Antonia Quixano, she who\nfeared lest you should turn poet, \u201ca catching and incurable disease\u201d;\nshe who so zealously assisted the curate and the barber in burning your\nbooks; she who presumed to tell you to your face that all stories of\nknight-errantry were nothing but a pack of lies and fables--a maidenly\naudacity which provoked you to exclaim: \u201cBy the God that sustains me,\nwert thou not my proper niece, my own sister\u2019s daughter, I would take\nsuch revenge for the blasphemy thou hast uttered as would resound\nthrough the whole world\u201d; it is she, \u201cthe young baggage who scarce\nknows how to manage a dozen lace-work bobbins,\u201d and who presumed to put\nin her oar and censure the histories of knights-errant, it is she who\nmanages and dangles and juggles with the sons of your Spain as if they\nwere puppets. It is not Dulcinea del Toboso, no. Neither is it Aldonza\nLorenzo, she for whom you sighed for twelve years without seeing her\nmore than four times and without ever confessing your love. It is\nAntonia Quixano, she who scarce knew how to manage a dozen lace-work\nbobbins, who controls your countrymen to-day.\n\nIt is Antonia Quixano, who, because she has a small soul and no belief\nin her husband\u2019s greatness, keeps him at home and hinders him from\ngoing forth to seek heroic adventures which would win him glory and\nan everlasting name. If it were only Dulcinea!... Dulcinea, yes, for\nhowever strange it may seem, Dulcinea can make a man renounce all\nglory, can make him choose the glory of renouncing glory. Dulcinea,\nor let us rather call her Aldonza, the ideal Aldonza might say to\nhim: \u201cCome, come to my arms and let all your wild longings melt away\nin tears upon my breast. Come to me. Yes, I see you set up on a lofty\npinnacle for all time, I see all your brother men gazing up at you, I\nsee you acclaimed by generations yet unborn--but come to me, renounce\nit all for my sake, and that will make you great, my Alonso, that will\nmake you greater still. Take my mouth and cover it with warm kisses in\nsilence, and renounce a cold eternity of fame in the mouths of those\nwhom you will never know. Will you hear them speaking of you when you\nare dead? Bury all your love in my breast, and if it is a great love,\nit is better that you should bury it in me than that you should lavish\nit among men who easily forget and soon pass away. They are not worthy\nof admiring you, my Alonso, they are not worthy of it. You will live\nfor me alone and so you will live more truly for all the universe and\nfor God. So living, your might and your heroism will seem to be lost,\nbut don\u2019t mind that. Do you not know the infinite streams of life which\nflow from a silent and heroic love, flowing out in wave after wave\nbeyond humanity to the orbit of the remotest of the stars? Do you not\nknow that the silent and triumphant love of a happy pair of lovers is\na fount of mysterious energy that irradiates a whole people and all\ngenerations to come to the end of time? Do you not know what it is to\nguard the sacred fire of life, fanning it to ever brighter flame in\nsimple and silent worship? Love, the simple act of loving, without\ndeeds, is itself a heroic deed. Come and renounce all your deeds in my\narms--the dim obscurity of your repose in my arms will be a seed-time\nwhich will bear fruit in the deeds and glory of others to whom your\nvery name will be unknown. When even the echo of your name is no longer\nborne upon the air, when there is no longer any air to bear the echo\nof it, the embers of your love will warm the ruins of perished worlds.\nCome and give yourself to me, Alonso, for though you should never ride\nabroad redressing wrongs, your greatness will not be lost, for in my\nheart nothing is lost. Come, rest your head upon my heart and I will\ncarry you thence to the rest that has no ending.\u201d\n\nWith such words Aldonza might speak, and in renouncing all glory in her\narms Alonso would be truly great; but such words you can never speak,\nAntonia. You do not believe that love is of more worth than glory; what\nyou believe is that neither love nor glory is worth as much as sleepy\nfireside peace and quiet, that neither love nor glory is worth as much\nas the certainty of the daily mess of pottage; you believe that those\nwho don\u2019t sleep easily in their beds come to a bad end, and you don\u2019t\nknow that love, like glory, never sleeps but watches.\n\n\n\n\nTHE RELIGION OF QUIXOTISM\n\n\nI become more and more convinced that our philosophy, the Spanish\nphilosophy, is liquescent and diffused in our literature, in our life,\nin our action, above all in our mysticism, and not in philosophical\nsystems. It is concrete. (And is there not perhaps as much philosophy\nor more in Goethe, for example, as in Hegel?) The poetry of Jorge\nManrique, the Romancero, _Don Quijote_, _La Vida es Sue\u00f1o_, _La Subida\nal Monte Carmelo_, imply an intuition of the world and a concept of\nlife--_Weltanschauung und Lebensansicht_. This philosophy of ours could\nwith difficulty formulate itself in the second half of the nineteenth\ncentury, a period that was a-philosophical, positivist, technicist,\ngiven up to pure history and the natural sciences, a period essentially\nmaterialist and pessimistic.\n\nWe shall find the hero of Spanish thought, perhaps, not in any\nphilosopher who lived in flesh and bone, but in an entity of\nfiction and of action, more real than all the philosophers--in Don\nQuixote. For there is doubtless a philosophic Quixotism, but there\nis also a Quixotic philosophy. Was not perhaps the philosophy of the\nConquistadores, of the Counter-Reformers, of Loyola, and, above all,\nthe philosophy latent in the abstract but passionate thought of our\nmystics, in its essence none other than this? What was the mysticism\nof St. John of the Cross but a knight-errantry of the heart in the\ndivine warfare?\n\nAnd the feeling that animated Don Quixote cannot strictly be called\nidealism; he did not fight for ideas. It was spiritualism; he fought\nfor the spirit.\n\nSpeculative or meditative Quixotism is, like practical Quixotism,\nfoolishness, a daughter-foolishness to the foolishness of the cross.\nAnd therefore it is contemned by reason. Philosophy at bottom abhors\nChristianity, and well did the gentle Marcus Aurelius prove it.\n\nThe tragedy of Christ, the divine tragedy, is the tragedy of the Cross.\nPilate, the sceptic, the man of culture, sought by means of ridicule\nto turn it into comedy and conceived the farce of the king with the\nreed sceptre and crown of thorns, saying: \u201cBehold the man!\u201d But the\npeople, more human than he, the people that thirsts for tragedy, cried:\n\u201cCrucify him! crucify him!\u201d And the other tragedy, the human, the\nintra-human tragedy, is that of Don Quixote with his face lathered for\nthe ducal servants to laugh at, and for the dukes, as much slaves as\ntheir servants, to laugh at too. \u201cBehold the fool!\u201d--so they would say.\nAnd the comic, the irrational tragedy is suffering beneath ridicule and\ncontempt.\n\nFor an individual, as for a people, the highest heroism is being\nwilling to face ridicule--still more, being willing to make oneself\nridiculous and not flinching at the ridicule.\n\nAntero de Quental, the tragic Portuguese who committed suicide, wrote\nas follows, smarting under the ultimatum which England delivered to\nhis country in 1890: \u201cAn English statesman of the last century, also\ncertainly a perspicacious observer and a philosopher, Horace Walpole,\nsaid that life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those\nwho think. Very well then, if we have to end tragically, we Portuguese,\nwe who _feel_, we much prefer this terrible, but noble, destiny to\nthat which is reserved, and perhaps at no very remote future date, for\nEngland, the country that _thinks_ and _calculates_, whose destiny is\nto end miserably and comically.\u201d We may leave on one side the assertion\nthat England thinks and calculates, implying that she does not feel,\nthe injustice of which is explained by the circumstance that provoked\nit, and also the assertion that the Portuguese feel, implying that they\nscarcely ever think or calculate--for we sister peoples of the Atlantic\nhave always been distinguished by a certain sentimental pedantry; but\nthere remains the terrible underlying idea, namely, that some, those\nwho put thought above feeling--I should say reason above faith--die\ncomically, and those die tragically who put faith above reason. For\nit is the ridiculers who die comically, and God laughs at their\ncomic ending, while the portion, the noble portion, of those who are\nridiculed is tragedy.\n\nAnd what we must look out for in the record of Don Quixote is ridicule.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe philosophy in the soul of my people presents itself to me as the\nexpression of an inward tragedy analogous to the tragedy of the soul of\nDon Quixote, as the expression of a conflict between the world as the\nreason of science exhibits it to us and the world as we wish it to be,\nas our religious faith tells us that it is. And in this philosophy is\nto be found the secret of what is usually said about us, that we are\nfundamentally irreducible to _Kultur_, that is to say, that we do not\nresign ourselves to it. No, Don Quixote resigns himself neither to the\nworld nor to its truth, neither to science nor to logic, neither to art\nnor aesthetics, neither to morality nor to ethics.\n\n\u201cIn any case the result of all this,\u201d so I have been told more than\nonce and by more than one person, \u201cwill simply be to urge people on to\nthe maddest kind of Catholicism.\u201d And they have accused me of being a\nreactionary and even a Jesuit. So be it! And what then?\n\nYes, I know, I know that it is folly to seek to turn the waters of the\nriver back to their source, and that it is the crowd that seeks the\nmedicine for its ills in the past; but I know too that everyone who\nfights for any ideal whatsoever, even though it may seem to belong\nto the past, is urging the world on to the future, and that the only\nreactionaries are those who find themselves at ease in the present.\nEvery pretended restoration of the past is a creation of the future,\nand if the past is dream, something not properly known, so much the\nbetter. As always, the march is towards the future; he who marches,\nmarches thither, even though he march backwards way--and who knows if\nthat is not the better way?\n\nI feel that I have a medi\u00e6val soul and I believe that the soul of\nmy country is medi\u00e6val--that it has been forced to traverse the\nRenaissance, the Reformation and the Revolution, learning from them,\nyes, but without allowing them to touch the soul, preserving the\nspiritual heritage of those ages that are called dark. And Quixotism is\nnothing but the most desperate phase of the struggle of the Middle Ages\nagainst their offspring, the Renaissance.\n\nAnd if some accuse me of furthering the cause of Catholic reaction,\nperhaps the others, the official Catholics, accuse me of.... But\nthese, in Spain trouble themselves little about anything and are only\ninterested in their own quarrels and dissensions. And besides, poor\nfolk, they are somewhat dull of understanding.\n\nBut the fact is that my work--I was going to say my mission--is to\nshatter the faith of both these and those and of others besides, faith\nin affirmation, faith in negation and faith in abstention, and this\nfor the sake of faith in faith itself; it is to war against all those\nwho resign themselves, whether to Catholicism or to rationalism or\nto agnosticism; it is to make them all live lives of inquietude and\npassionate desire.\n\nWill this work be efficacious? But did Don Quixote believe in the\nimmediate and visible efficacy of his work? It is greatly to be\ndoubted, and at any rate he did not risk putting the visor he had\nmade to the test by giving it a second blow. And many passages in his\nhistory indicate that he did not believe much in the immediate success\nof his design to restore knight-errantry. And what did it matter so\nlong as he himself thus lived and immortalized himself? And he must\nhave surmised, and did in fact surmise, that his achievement would have\nanother and a higher efficacy--namely, that it would go on working\nin the minds of all those who in the spirit of devotion read of his\nexploits.\n\nDon Quixote made himself ridiculous, but did he perchance know the most\ntragic ridicule of all, the ridicule that is reflected in the eyes of\na man\u2019s own soul, the ridicule with which a man sees his own self?\nTransfer Don Quixote\u2019s battlefield to his own soul; conceive him to\nbe fighting in his soul to save the Middle Ages from the Renaissance,\nnot to lose the treasure of his infancy; turn him into an inward Don\nQuixote--with his Sancho, a Sancho equally inward and equally heroical\nat his side--and then talk to me of the comic tragedy.\n\nAnd what has Don Quixote left, do you ask? I answer that he has left\nhimself, and a man, a living and eternal man, is worth all theories and\nall philosophies. Other peoples have left principally institutions,\nbooks--we have left souls. St. Teresa is worth any institution, any\n\u201cCritique of Pure Reason.\u201d\n\nDon Quixote was converted? Yes, but only to die. But the other,\nthe real Don Quixote, he who remained on earth and lives among us,\nbreathing his spirit into us, this Don Quixote was never converted,\nthis Don Quixote goes on inciting us to make ourselves ridiculous,\nthis Don Quixote must never die. And the conversion of the other Don\nQuixote--he who was converted only to die--was possible because he was\nmad, and it was his madness, not his death or his conversion, that\nimmortalized him and earned for him the forgiveness of the crime of\nhaving been born. _Felix culpa!_ Neither was his madness cured but only\ntransformed. His death was his last knightly adventure--in dying he\nstormed heaven, which suffereth violence.\n\nThis Don Quixote died and descended into hell, and he entered it lance\non rest and freed all the condemned, as he freed the galley-slaves,\nand he shut the gates of hell, and tore down from them the scroll that\nDante saw there, and replaced it by one on which was written \u201cLong\nlive hope!\u201d and escorted by those whom he had freed, and they laughing\nat him, he went to heaven. And God laughed at him paternally and this\ndivine laughter filled his soul with eternal happiness.\n\nAnd the other Don Quixote remained here amongst us, fighting with\ndesperation. Is not despair the mainspring of his fighting? How\nis it that among the words that English has borrowed from our\ntongue--_siesta_, _camarilla_, _guerilla_ and the like--there\noccurs this word _desperado_? This inward Don Quixote that I\nspoke of, conscious of his own comicness, is he not a man of\ndespair--_desesperado_? A desperado, yes, like Pizarro and like Loyola.\nBut \u201cdespair is the master of impossibilities,\u201d as Salazar y Torres\ntells us, and it is despair and despair alone from whence springs\nheroic hope, absurd hope, mad hope. _Spero quia absurdum_, it ought to\nbe said, rather than _credo_.\n\nAnd Don Quixote, who lived solitary, sought more solitude still, sought\nthe solitudes of the Pe\u00f1a Pobre in order that there, alone, without\nwitnesses, he might plunge into yet wilder extravagances to the easing\nof his soul. Yet he was not quite solitary, for Sancho accompanied him,\nSancho the good, Sancho the believing, Sancho the simple. If, as some\nsay, in Spain Don Quixote is dead and Sancho lives, then we are saved,\nfor Sancho, his master dead, will become a knight-errant himself. At\nany rate he is waiting for some other mad knight to follow yet again.\n\nAnd there is also a tragedy of Sancho. The other Sancho, the Sancho who\njourneyed with the mortal Don Quixote--it does not appear certain that\nhe died, although some say that he died hopelessly mad, calling for his\nlance, and believing that all those things which on his death-bed his\nconverted master abominated as lies had been really true. But neither\ndoes it appear certain that the bachelor Sanson Carrasco, or the\ncurate, or the barber, or the dukes and canons are dead, and it is with\nthese that the heroic Sancho has to fight.\n\nDon Quixote journeyed alone, alone with Sancho, alone with his\nsolitude. And shall we not also journey alone, we his lovers creating\nfor ourselves a quixotesque Spain which exists only in our imagination?\n\nAnd again we shall be asked: What has Don Quixote bequeathed to\n_Kultur_? I answer: Quixotism, and that is no little thing. It is a\nwhole method, a whole epistemology, a whole aesthetic, a whole logic,\na whole ethic, above all a whole religion, that is to say, a whole\neconomy of things human and divine, a whole hope in the rationally\nabsurd.\n\nFor what did Don Quixote fight? For Dulcinea, for glory, for life, for\nsurvival. Not for Iseult, who is the eternal flesh; not for Beatrice,\nwho is theology; not for Margaret, who is the people; not for Helen,\nwho is culture. He fought for Dulcinea, and he won her, for he lives.\n\nAnd what is greatest in him is his having been ridiculed and overcome,\nfor it is in being overcome that he overcame; he overcame the world by\nmaking it laugh at him.\n\nAnd to-day? To-day he feels his own comicness and the vanity of his\nefforts so far as temporal issues are concerned; he sees himself from\nwithout--culture has taught him to objectify himself, that is to say,\nto alienate himself from himself instead of to enter into himself,\nand in seeing himself from without he laughs at himself, but with a\nbitter laughter. Perhaps the most tragic character would be an inward\nMargutte, who, like the Margutte of Pulci, should die bursting with\nlaughter, but with laughter at himself. _E rider\u00e1 in eterno_, he will\nlaugh for all eternity, said the Angel Gabriel of Margutte. Do you not\nhear the laughter of God?\n\nThe mortal Don Quixote, in dying, understood his own comicness and wept\nfor his sins; but the immortal Don Quixote understands and rises above\nhis comicness and triumphs over it without renouncing it.\n\nBut now Don Quixote hears his own laughter, he hears the divine\nlaughter, and since he is not a pessimist, since he believes in eternal\nlife, he has to fight, attacking the modern scientific inquisitorial\northodoxy by adducing a new and impossible Middle Age, dualistic,\ncontradictory, passionate. Like a new Savonarola--an Italian Quixote\nof the end of the fifteenth century--he fights against this Modern Age\nwhich began with Machiavelli and which will end comically. He fights\nagainst the rationalism inherited from the eighteenth century. Peace of\nconsciousness, reconciliation between reason and faith, are now, thanks\nto the providence of God, impossible. The world must be as Don Quixote\nwishes it to be, and inns must be castles, and he will fight against\nit and will, to all appearances, be overcome, but he will triumph by\nmaking himself ridiculous. He will triumph by laughing at himself and\nmaking himself laughed at.\n\n\u201cReason speaks and feeling bites,\u201d said Petrarch; but reason also bites\nand bites in the heart of hearts. And more light does not make more\nwarmth. \u201cLight, light, more light!\u201d they tell us that the dying Goethe\ncried. No, warmth, warmth, more warmth, for we die of cold and not of\ndarkness. It is not the night but the frost that kills.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe philosophy of Bergson, which is a spiritualist restoration,\nin its essence mystical, medi\u00e6val, quixotesque, has been called\n_demi-mondaine_ philosophy. Leave out the _demi_; call it _mondaine_,\nmundane. Mundane--yes, for the world and not for philosophers, just as\nchemistry ought not to be for chemists alone. The world wishes to be\ndeceived--_mundus vult decipi_--either with the illusion antecedent to\nreason, which is poetry, or with the illusion subsequent to reason,\nwhich is religion. And Machiavelli has said that whosoever wishes to\ndeceive will always find someone who will let himself be deceived.\nAnd blessed are those who are made fools of. A Frenchman, Jules de\nGaultier, has said that it was the privilege of his countrymen _n\u2019\u00eatre\npas dupe_--not to be taken in. A sorry privilege!\n\nScience does not give Don Quixote what he demands of it. \u201cThen let\nhim not demand it,\u201d it will be said, \u201clet him resign himself, let him\naccept life and truth as they are.\u201d But he does not accept them as\nthey are, and he asks for signs, urged thereto by Sancho who stands\nby his side. And it is not that Don Quixote does not understand what\nthose understand who talk thus to him, those who are able to resign\nthemselves and to accept rational life and rational truth. No, it is\nthat the needs of his heart are greater. Pedantry? Who knows?\n\nAnd in this critical century Don Quixote, who has contaminated himself\nwith criticism also, has to attack his own self, the victim of\nintellectualism and sentimentalism, and it is when he wishes to be most\nspontaneous that he appears most affected. And the poor fellow wishes\nto rationalize the irrational and irrationalize the rational. And he\nsinks into the inner despair of the critical century whose two greatest\nvictims were Nietzsche and Tolstoi. And through despair he attains the\nheroic fury of which Giordano Bruno spoke--that Don Quixote of the mind\nwho escaped from the cloister--and he becomes an awakener of sleeping\nsouls (_dormitantium animorum excubitor_), as the ex-Dominican said of\nhimself. \u201cHeroic love,\u201d Bruno wrote, \u201cis the property of those superior\nnatures called insane [_insano_]--not because they do not know [_non\nsanno_], but because they over-know [_soprasanno_].\u201d\n\nBut Bruno believed in the triumph of his doctrines--at any rate they\nhave stated on the inscription at the foot of his statue in the Campo\ndei Fiori, opposite the Vatican, that it is dedicated to him by the age\nwhich he foretold (_il secole da lui divinato_). But our Don Quixote,\nthe Don Quixote who has risen from the dead, the inward Don Quixote,\nthe Don Quixote who is conscious of his own comicness, does not believe\nthat his doctrines will triumph in this world, because they are not of\nit. And it is better that they should not triumph. And if the world\nwished to make Don Quixote king, he would retire to the mountain,\nfleeing from the king-making and king-killing crowds, as Christ retired\nalone to the mountain when, after the miracle of the loaves and fishes,\nthey sought to proclaim Him king. He left the title of king to be\nwritten upon the cross.\n\nWhat, then, is the new mission of Don Quixote in the world of to-day?\nTo cry aloud, to cry aloud in the wilderness. But the wilderness hears,\nthough men do not hear, and one day it will be transformed into a\nsounding forest, and this solitary voice that falls upon the wilderness\nlike seed, will yield a gigantic cedar, which with its hundred thousand\ntongues will sing an eternal hosanna to the Lord of life and of death.\n\n\n\n\nLARGE AND SMALL TOWNS\n\n\nI regret that I have not by me a certain essay dealing with this\nsubject by Guglielmo Ferrero. I read it in some review the name of\nwhich I have forgotten, but I preserve a clear recollection of it,\nfor it interested me greatly. Ferrero treated the subject from the\nhistorical and sociological point of view, and I, who am neither an\nhistorian nor a sociologist, intend to treat it, as is my custom, from\nthe point of view of purely personal opinion and individual impression.\n(This is my custom, and yet in spite of the fact I cannot prevent\npeople from insisting on calling me a savant and talking about my\ntheories. I have no theories. I have only impressions and sensations.)\n\nBut, since I am unable to put some quotation from Ferrero at the head\nof this essay--this habit of basing our assertions upon authority is\nthe conventional way of giving them a deceptive air of objectivity--I\nwill head it by a sentence from George Meredith, that extremely\nsubtle English novelist. In \u201cThe Egoist\u201d it is stated that Willoughby\n\u201cabandoned London as the burial-place of the individual man.\u201d\n\nI, to-day, am one with Willoughby in believing that great cities\nde-individualize, or rather de-personalize, us. This may perhaps be\ndue to the fact that, though not an egoist like the hero of Meredith\u2019s\nnovel, I still remain, according to Ramiro de Maeztu, an incorrigible\negotist.\n\nGreat cities are levelling; they lift up the low and depress the high;\nthey exalt mediocrity and abase superlativeness--the result of the\naction of the mass, as powerful in social life as in chemistry.\n\nSoon after I came to this ancient city of Salamanca which has now\nbecome so dear to me, a city of some thirty thousand souls, I wrote to\na friend and told him that if after two years\u2019 residence here he should\nbe informed that I spent my time playing cards, taking siestas and\nstrolling round the square for a couple of hours every day, he might\ngive me up for lost; but if at the end of that time I should still\nbe studying, meditating, writing, battling for culture in the public\narena, he might take it that I was better off here than in Madrid. And\nso it has proved to be.\n\nI remember that Guglielmo Ferrero\u2019s conclusion, based upon a review of\nancient Greece, of the Italy of the Renaissance and of the Germany of\na century ago, is that for the life of the spirit, small cities of a\npopulation like that of Salamanca are the best--better than very small\ntowns or large ones of over a hundred thousand inhabitants.\n\nThis depends, of course, upon the quality of the spirit in question. I\nam convinced that the monastic cloister, which so often atrophies the\nsoul and reduces the average intelligence to a lamentable slavery to\nroutine, has in certain exceptional cases exalted the spirit by its\narduous discipline.\n\nGreat cities are essentially democratic, and I must confess that I feel\nan invincible platonic mistrust of democracies. In great cities culture\nis diffused but vulgarized. People abandon the quiet reading of books\nto go to the theatre, that school of vulgarity; they feel the need of\nbeing together; the gregarious instinct enslaves them; they must be\nseeing one another.\n\nI think it was Taine who observed that the majority of French geniuses\nwere either themselves country-born or the sons of country-born\nparents. And I assure you that I should find it difficult to believe in\nthe genius of a Parisian born of Parisians.\n\nGuerra Junqueiro once said to me: \u201cYou are fortunate in living in a\ncity in which you can walk along the streets dreaming, without fear of\npeople disturbing your dream!\u201d And certainly in Madrid it is impossible\nto walk along the streets dreaming, not so much for fear of motors,\ntrams and carriages as because of the continual stream of unknown\nfaces. The distraction of a great city, so agreeable to those who\nmust have something, no matter what, to occupy their imagination, is\nnecessarily vexatious to those whose chief concern is not to have their\nimagination diverted. Personally I find nothing more monotonous than a\nParis boulevard. The people seem to me like shadows. I cannot endure a\ncrowd of unknown faces.\n\nI am afraid of Madrid. That is to say, I am afraid of myself when I\ngo there. It is easy to say that in great cities everyone can live\nthe life that suits him best, but it is easier to say it than to do\nit. When I am in the capital, I return home every night regretting\nhaving gone to the party or to the meeting that I went to and\nresolving never to go again, but only to break my vow the very next\nday. I am surrounded, hemmed in and invaded by a lethal atmosphere of\ncompliance, an atmosphere that is generated by this so-called life of\nsociety.\n\nI have always felt an aversion from this so-called life of society,\nwhich has for its object the cultivation of social relationships. Is\nthere anything more terrible than a \u201ccall\u201d? It affords an occasion for\nthe exchange of the most threadbare commonplaces. Calls and the theatre\nare the two great centres for the propagation of platitudes.\n\nA man of society, a drawing-room man who can make himself agreeable to\nwomen when he pays a call, is always a man whose principal concern is\nto suppress any arresting spontaneity, not to let his own personality\nshow through. For it is a man\u2019s own personality that people find\nirritating. People like to meet the average man, the normal man, the\nman who has nothing exceptional about him. The exception is always\nirritating. How many times I have heard the terrible phrase: \u201cThis man\nirritates me.\u201d Yes, it is \u201cthe man\u201d that irritates, and the hardest\nfight for the man who feels that he is a man is the fight to win\nrespect for his own individuality.\n\nAnd in a small town? Its stage is very restricted; the players soon\ntire of playing the parts allotted to them and the real men begin\nto appear underneath, with all their weaknesses--that is to say,\nwith precisely that which makes them men. I have a great liking for\nprovincial life, for there it is easiest to discern tragedy lurking\nbeneath an appearance of calm. And just as much as I abhor comedy, I\nlove tragedy. And, above all, tragi-comedy.\n\nI have heard it said that there are no such seething intestine rancours\nand dissensions as in a merchant vessel or a monastery; that whenever\nmen are obliged to live together, cut off from the rest of the world,\ntheir personalities, their most real and intimate selves, immediately\nclash against one another. And I dare say that this is the only way of\nattaining that knowledge of ourselves which ought to be our chief aim.\nIt seems to me scarcely possible that a man should get to know himself\nby shutting himself up in the wilderness, contemplating--what? The best\nway of knowing one\u2019s self is to clash, heart against heart, that is to\nsay, rock against rock, with one\u2019s fellow.\n\nI know that I shall be told that I am indulging my love of paradox,\nbut nevertheless I maintain that if it is true that the most ardent\nadmirations are those which are disguised in the form of envy, very\noften the strongest attractions are those which take the appearance of\nhate. In one of these tragi-comic, or rather comi-tragic, small towns\nI know two men who, though obliged to see one another constantly in\nthe way of business, never greet one another in the street and profess\na mutual detestation. Nevertheless at bottom they feel themselves\nreciprocally attracted to one another and each one is continually\npreoccupied by the other.\n\nThese irreconcilable feuds into which small towns are so often divided\nare much more favourable to the development of strong personalities\nthan the bland comedy of a great metropolis, where those who fight a\nduel to the death on the public stage embrace one another behind the\nscenes. Do you suppose that the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is possible\nin a city that counts its inhabitants by the million?\n\nAnd I ask you, do you suppose that anyone who sees a multitude of\npeople in the course of the day, listens to this man to-day, to another\nman to-morrow and to another man the day after, and attends twenty\nor thirty conferences--do you think that such a one can preserve his\nspiritual integrity without any leakage? In such a life a hedgehog\nwould end by becoming a lamb, its quills would turn into softest\nfleece, and for my part I would rather be a hedgehog than a lamb.\n\nI understand why Willoughby fled from London as from the burial-place\nof the individual man. Is it not a terrible thing to walk through two\nor three miles of city streets and pass two or three thousand people\nwithout meeting a single known face to set a spark to a train of human\nthought? A glance of hate from a known enemy is sweeter than a glance\nof indifference, if not of disdain, from an unknown stranger. For man\nhas acquired the habit of disdaining those whom he does not know, and\nseems to suppose that every stranger must be presumed to be an imbecile\nuntil he proves himself otherwise.\n\nAnd those who say that they are bored in a small town? The reason is\nbecause they have not dug down to its tragic roots, to the august\nseverity of the depths of its monotony.\n\nIt is my belief that in great cities proud natures become vain, that is\nto say, the quills become fleece.\n\nAnd for the man who is engaged in any kind of work in which he can\nexercise his influence from a distance, for the writer or the painter,\nthe small town offers the inestimable advantage of enabling him to live\nfar from his public and of its being possible that the effects which\nhis work produces either do not reach him or reach him only after a\nsearching process of filtration. He can live more or less independently\nof his public, without allowing himself to be influenced by it, and\nthis is the only way of making a public for oneself instead of adapting\noneself to it.\n\nIf this be the case, it may be urged that a village would be better\nthan a small town, a hamlet or perhaps even a remote farm-house. But\nno, for then there would be lacking that minimum of organic society\nwithout which our personality runs as much risk as it runs in the heart\nof a metropolis.\n\nEssentially, in the sphere of psychologico-sociological relations--this\nis for the benefit of those who insist on labelling me savant--it is a\nquestion of what is perhaps the most fundamental of all problems, the\nproblem of maxima and minima. This is the problem that is the nerve of\nphysical mechanics and the nerve also of social mechanics or economics.\nThe problem always is how to obtain the maximum result or profit with\nthe minimum effort or expense, the largest return with the least\nexpenditure. It is also the fundamental problem of \u00e6sthetics; it is at\nthe root of all the problems of life.\n\nAnd with regard to the subject I am now considering, it is a question\nof obtaining the maximum of our own personality with the minimum\nof others\u2019 society. Less society, or a society less complex, would\ndiminish our personality, and so also would more society, or a society\napparently more complex. And I say apparently, for I am not aware that\nan elephant is more complex than a fox.\n\nVery well then--he who has no sense of his own personality and is\nwilling to sacrifice it on the altar of sociability, let him go and\nlose himself among the millions of a metropolis. For the man who has a\nlonging for Nirvana the metropolis is better than the desert. If you\nwant to submerge your own \u201cI,\u201d better the streets of a great city than\nthe solitudes of the wilderness.\n\nIt is not a bad thing now and again to visit the great city and plunge\ninto the sea of its crowds, but in order to emerge again upon terra\nfirma and feel the solid ground under one\u2019s feet. For my part, since\nI am interested in individuals--in John and Peter and Richard, in you\nwho are reading this book--but not in the masses which they form when\nbanded together, I remain in the small town, seeing every day at the\nsame hour the same men, men whose souls have clashed, and sometimes\npainfully, with my soul; and I flee from the great metropolis where my\nsoul is whipped with the icy whips of the disdainful glances of those\nwho know me not and who are unknown to me. People whom I cannot name\n... horrible!\n\n\n\n\nTO MY READERS\n\n\nYes, I know it--I am not sympathetic to all those who read me, perhaps\nnot even to the majority of them. But what I am to do?... So long as\nthey go on reading me.... For the fact is I would rather that they\nshould find me not sympathetic and nevertheless go on reading me than\nthat they should find me sympathetic and cease to read me. Sympathy is\noften purchased at the cost of authority and respect. I confess that\nthe quality of being sympathetic does not appear to me to be a very\ndesirable thing in a writer. It is perhaps the beginning of discredit,\na discredit that is none the less profound because it wears a gilded\ndisguise.\n\nYes, I know that I am not sympathetic, that I have perhaps succeeded\nin making myself antipathetic to many of those who read me and who in\nspite of this antipathy--or rather because of it--still continue to\nread me.\n\nA short time ago a friend wrote to me saying that although he often\ndisagrees with me he reads me because his reaction to my opinions\nstimulates ideas in him. I profess myself well content with this, to\nbeget ideas in those who read me, although these ideas should be the\ncontrary of those which I expound and defend.\n\nBut there are many, very many readers who don\u2019t like being obliged to\nthink and who only want to be told what they already know, what they\nhave already thought. In order to become sympathetic a writer has\nonly to flatter and confirm his readers\u2019 preconceptions, clinching\nthe commonplaces to which their minds have given assent. That is the\nway for a writer to become sympathetic and it is also the way for him\nto become soon tedious, so that the reader remarks: \u201cAh, yes, a very\nsympathetic writer, very understanding!\u201d and ceases to read him.\n\nMost people--I have said this more than once before and as I am an\ninsistent writer, another quality which does not help to make me\nsympathetic, I shall have to repeat it many times more--most people\nread in order not to be informed. Yes, literally, not to be informed.\nThe worthy Ful\u00e1nez takes the paper or the review at breakfast-time and\nreads it as he would listen to a waltz-tune, in order to while away the\ntime. He dislikes being agitated, he dislikes being contradicted; but\nmost of all he dislikes being told something that he has never thought\nof before.\n\nThere is a spiritual pain analogous to physical pain; there is a\nspiritual pain when the tissues of the soul are torn away. For just as\nthe body has its tissues of cells and filaments, so the soul has its\ntissues of impressions, memories, sensations and ideas. The breaking\nof an association of ideas is like the breaking of an association of\nbodily cells and may produce anything from a slight irritation to the\nmost acute pain.\n\nIt is a matter of common observation that the pain which we feel at the\ndeath of someone dear to us, with whom we have lived together, at first\ngoes on increasing until it reaches a point when it begins to diminish.\nIts progress might be described by a rapidly ascending and gradually\ndescending curve. The first effect is one of stupor. The pain becomes\nmost acute when we feel the gap that has been left in our existence,\nwhen we feel the rupture of our associations of ideas and feelings. The\nimage of the loved one was intimately woven into the spiritual tissue\nof our life, and death cannot tear it away without destroying the\ntissue.\n\nAnd every rupture of an association of ideas and feelings is\naccompanied by a disturbance which varies in degree from the pain\nthat we feel at the death of a father, husband, wife, brother or son,\nto the minor irritation which is caused by the exploding of some\ncommonplace that had become a habit of our mind. And we writers who are\ngiven to breaking these associations--and that is why we are called\nparadoxists--jar on people and incur their antipathy. It is our fate.\n\nAnd they tell us that what jars is not so much what we say as our way\nof saying it. Yes, it is because instead of cutting these associations\nwith surgical delicacy, first chloroforming or hypnotizing the patient,\nwe tear them roughly and when he is most wide awake. It is a question\nof method, and it is a question of temperament. Chloroform, the\nclinical as well as the literary variety, has its inconveniences, and\nthere are cases in which the patient has to suffer pain. To irritate\npeople may even become a duty binding upon the conscience, a painful\nduty, but a duty none the less.\n\nAnd then there is another thing which makes me antipathetic, I know,\nand that is my lack of impersonality, my incapacity to produce what is\ncalled objective work, my putting my whole self, more or less, into\nall my writings, my egotism, as it is called. But what am I to do?...\nI am amazed at those who are able to eliminate their own selves, I am\namazed, but I don\u2019t imitate them and I don\u2019t wish to imitate them.\n\nI don\u2019t know how it may be elsewhere, but here in Spain the man, the\nindividual man, irritates us. And as I believe that the great battle is\nhow to win respect for man, respect for individuality, I for my part\nirritate the myriad-headed, anonymous multitude. Let them respect me.\nThus they will learn to respect every individual, to respect themselves\nas individuals.\n\nYes, yes, it is quite right to use one\u2019s knowledge with discretion,\njust as it is quite right to use one\u2019s wealth with discretion. But\nneither knowledge nor wealth is one\u2019s self; they are something annexed,\nsomething that comes and goes, that can be taken or left. But I cannot\nmake a discreet use of myself. If I am deprived of a shilling or a\ndollar I can submit to it, but I cannot easily submit to being deprived\nof an arm or, still less, of a piece of my soul. A shilling or a\ndollar I can give away discreetly, but an arm or a piece of my soul,\nthese I can only tear off and give away passionately, that is to say\nindiscreetly. And I do not give ideas, I do not give knowledge--I give\npieces of my soul. The ideas that I expound matter to me less, far\nless, than the way I expound them.\n\nIt is not the shilling that I give you that counts, but the warmth that\nit carries with it from my hand.\n\nThese antipathies that I provoke proceed--as well I know, in spite\nof whatever those who see only the surface may say--from the fact\nthat I am not an intellectual but a man of passion. Almost all the\nthings that I have said, hundreds, thousands, have said before me. I\nam neither erudite nor a savant. There is no great originality in my\nideas. Whence, then, the potency which, thanks to God, I have attained?\nWhence these antipathies and sympathies, and how is it that I am able\nto say, thanks to God, that I am seldom read with indifference?--It is\ndue to passion, to the tone of my voice.\n\nYes, I know it, I am antipathetic to many of my readers, and one of the\nthings that makes me most antipathetic to them is my aggressiveness,\nmy sometimes morbid aggressiveness. I don\u2019t deny it. But the truth is,\nmy friend, that this aggressiveness is directed against myself. When\nI attack others I am attacking myself. I live in a state of inward\nconflict. I imagine that I am misinterpreted? Very likely, since I\nmyself do not always succeed in interpreting myself aright. The ideas\nthat crowd in upon me from all quarters are always battling together in\nmy mind and I fail to make peace between them. I fail because I don\u2019t\neven try. I need these battles.\n\nAnd, moreover I am not anxious for a reputation among scholars, for I\nam not a scholar, I am not what is called a scholar. Nor even among men\nof culture, although I am always preaching culture. But by culture I\nunderstand the most intense inner life, the life of intensest battle,\nof intensest disquietude, of intensest desire. I come of a race which\nsome people say is still, in its essence, in a state of savagery, a\nrace of a turbulent and taciturn spirit, a race of which Salmer\u00f3n said\nthat it had not yet adapted itself to European civilization. And so far\nas I myself and my own branch of the race[4] are concerned, I accept\nthis judgment and I accept it with pride.\n\nNo, no, friend, I am not a philanthropist. The hunger and thirst for\nGod are too strong within me for me to love men in the philanthropic\nway. Needs must be sown among men germs of doubt, of distrust, of\ninquietude, and even of despair--why not? yes, even of despair--and\nif thereby they lose what they call happiness, since it is not really\nhappiness, they have lost nothing.\n\nAnd above all and before all, none of this living in peace with all\nthe world! Living in peace with all the world--horrible, horrible,\nhorrible! No, no, no, none of this living in peace. Peace, spiritual\npeace I mean, is usually a lie and is usually stagnation. I do not wish\nto live in peace either with others or with myself. I need war, inward\nwar. We all need war.\n\nTruth before peace. That is my watchword. And to give it greater\nbrilliance I will write it in Latin: _veritas primus pace_. And it goes\nwithout saying that the war that I need as the sustenance of my life\nand of the lives of others is a spiritual war, not war with gun and\nsword.\n\nAll the rest--in spite of whatever the champions of the central current\nof culture and of disciplined solidarity and of respect for the\nso-called definitive conquests of the human spirit may say--all the\nrest I understand and I am even ready to applaud it if you like; but it\nis not my concern, it is not my lot to put myself at its service.\n\nAnd above all, my friend, there is one thing that I have hated all my\nlife and that I hope to die hating, and that is, becoming the prisoner\nof my public, submitting to follow the course marked out for me by my\nreaders. I will not sacrifice my independence, above all I will not\nmortgage my future. You understand? I will not mortgage my future. I\nwill keep it open and free.\n\nAnd so I alienate sympathy?... Who knows? What I want to avoid is\npublic indifference. Sympathies and antipathies are perhaps the same\nthing. Antipathy--now for a paradox!--is a form of sympathy. Reading me\nfor the sake of being annoyed and quarrelling with what I say or my way\nof saying it, is the same as reading me and agreeing with what I say.\nTo combat a man is one way of animating and confirming him.\n\nI have put warmth and life into my books and it is for the sake of the\nwarmth and life I have put into them that you read them. I have put\npassion into my books. Passion of hate, passion of disdain, passion\nof contempt very often--I don\u2019t deny it. But does warmth come only\nfrom this thing that they call love and which, ninety times out of a\nhundred, is nothing but drivelling mawkishness and debility of spirit?\nAnd I have put my loves into my books too, those loves which beget my\nindignations, those loves which are the cause of my being so often\nharsh, severe, disdainful. Yes, love makes me antipathetic, a greater\nand purer love than that delusive sympathy which some people urge me to\nseek after.\n\nNever, never, never! Let such apostleship be for others. Every man has\nhis own destiny.\n\nAnd this is not a presumption of superiority. No, don\u2019t think that.\nIf you suspect such a thing it is because you don\u2019t know me. No, it\nis not that. I don\u2019t condemn your opinion; I don\u2019t regard the advice\nyou give me as bad; I only say that it is no use to me. I tell you\nthat you are mistaken about me. And not because you lack intelligence,\nno, a thousand times no. You are mistaken because each of us sets out\nfrom a different point of view, or rather from a different point of\nfeeling. You appear to me to be an optimist, or at any rate a man who\nbelieves that progress will alleviate the pains of mankind; you speak\nwith a certain unction of the noble crusade of thought and of the great\nenterprise of culture, and I believe that the best that this enterprise\ncan do is to make us forget that we have been born and that we have to\ndie. I confess that I have a tragic sense of life. I confess it without\npetulance or pedantry, and I know that you will not doubt my sincerity.\n\nThis bitterness that you find so disagreeable in my writings has grown\nwith being exercised against myself. I am the sword and the whetstone\nand I sharpen my sword on myself. Hence it is that I am as tired with\nthe sword-play as I am with sharpening the sword that I play with.\n\nAnd if I am to tell you the truth, it hurts and wounds me to see men\nmarching as confidently as if they marched on solid ground, some\nconfident in the prejudices and anti-prejudices of their religious\nbeliefs, others slaves of science, others slaves of ignorance, slaves\nall of them. I would have them doubt, I would have them suffer, above\nall I would have them despair, I would have them be men and not mere\npartisans of the party of progress. Despair, even though it be a\nresigned despair, is perhaps the highest state that man can attain to.\n\nGod, friend, did not send me into the world to be an apostle of peace,\nor to reap sympathy, but to be a sower of disquietude and irritation\nand to endure antipathy. Antipathy is the price of my redemption.\n\n\n\n\nSOLILOQUIES\n\n\nI\n\nIt would seem, Miguel, that your audience will have to allow you,\nif only just for once, to talk aloud to yourself, to unburden your\nheart.--Do it now, and then it will be all the easier to do it again\nsome other day.--Writing for the public is a harsh kind of slavery.\n\nDoubtless you willed it. You chose to be a writer and you must\npatiently bear the consequences of your choice. But are we as free to\nchoose our vocation as we think we are?\n\nYou crave retirement, tranquillity and silence in order that you may\ndevote yourself to some solid and unhurried task, remote from the\nturmoil that deafens the ear with its noise and blinds the eye with its\ndust. Your heart with its yearning for solitude turns longingly towards\nthose men of old who dedicated themselves to works that endure, far\nfrom the traffic of the world with its daily contentions and anxieties.\nYou yearn for the classic, the eternally classic. But the vertigo of\nlife sweeps you along and you find yourself involved in the burning\ndissensions of your contemporaries. You cannot live among the dead; you\nhave to live among the living.\n\nAnd yet, dear Miguel, what a source of consolation and strength is this\nintercourse with the glorious dead, whose works never die! How the soul\nis refreshed by the vivifying streams that flow from those immortal\nspirits who live their deepest lives in us--Homer, Plato, Virgil, St.\nAugustine, Shakespeare, Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Goethe, and so many\nothers!\n\nYes, there is no doubt about it--this insane eagerness to know what\nthose round about us are saying or repeating hinders us from following\nthe progress of the human soul as it reveals itself in its immortal\nsons, those erect pillars that are landmarks for all time. What does\nit matter to you, tell me, what your neighbour is clamouring about?\nYou are not going to follow the example of those whose time and soul\nare so absorbed in listening to all the superficialities of their\ncontemporaries that they have no time left to enjoy the enduring legacy\nof humanity. This form of modernity serves only to enfeeble both men\nand peoples. Distrust novelties, Miguel, and be sure that there is\nnothing more novel than what is for ever. Homer and Shakespeare are\nmore modern than most of the living writers who are accounted most\nmodern. You will learn more from Plato than from the author of the\nlatest volume in Alcan\u2019s Library of Modern Philosophy. The modern is\nthe fashionable and you must fly from all fashions.\n\nBut it is useless--I know it--useless. I can see that the voices round\nabout you, the ardent voices of the living, have caught your ear,\nperhaps in spite of yourself. It is the voice of humanity, and you are\nand ought to be before all else a man. Do you remember what your dead\nfriend Coleridge, the wonderful Coleridge, says in his _Biographia\nLiteraria_ about his contemporaries? I will repeat it to you again:\n\n    \u201cThe great works of past ages seem to a young man things of another\n    race, in respect to which his faculties must remain passive and\n    submiss, even as to the stars and mountains. But the writings of a\n    contemporary, perhaps not many years older than himself, surrounded\n    by the same circumstances, and disciplined by the same manners,\n    possess a reality for him, and inspire an actual friendship as of a\n    man for a man. His very admiration is the wind which fans his hope.\n    The poems themselves assume the properties of flesh and blood. To\n    recite, to extol, to contend for them is but the payment of a debt\n    due to one who exists to receive it.\u201d\n\nConsider this same Samuel Taylor Coleridge who wrote these words and\ntell me if the memory of this man who died many years before you were\nborn can give you that glow which the recollection of one still living\ngives you. And nevertheless, you will say, how sweet and peaceful it is\nto converse with those who once were and to-day sleep in the lap of the\nteeming earth.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYou have dreamed of producing a _magnum opus_ that would endure, and\nyou find yourself condemned to the fragmentary and fugitive labour of\njournalism. Must you repine at that? We never know, believe me, when we\nhave succeeded best.\n\nAnd remember that the slowly and carefully elaborated work of the\nsolitary author, holding himself aloof from all collaboration with his\npublic, is perhaps after all only the monument of his own egoism.\n\nCollaboration with the public, I say. For the public collaborates more\nor less ostensibly in the work of every publicist, sometimes with\napplause, sometimes with censure. I know that you have been influenced\nin your work by the letters which from time to time you receive from\nunknown readers, especially from those in America, and which have\nprovided you with helpful notes and suggestions. But in addition to\nthis, you are influenced, perhaps without knowing it, by the reaction\nof your readers, of those who follow your work, and this reaction\naffects what you write, forcing you sometimes to adapt yourself to your\nreaders\u2019 point of view, sometimes to combat it and endeavour to make it\nconform to yours.\n\nIt is said that some of the greatest dramas, among others those of\nShakespeare, have been actually created on the stage, in collaboration\nwith the public, having been modified at every representation according\nto the way in which the public received them. And do you not think that\nthe successive works of a productive author are not very often merely\nsuccessive editions, more or less revised, of one and the same work?\n\nEvery author who writes much repeats himself much; the more original\nhe is and the more he draws from his own depths instead of merely\nechoing what he hears round about him, the more he repeats himself.\nThe greatest geniuses have been men of few and simple ideas expressed\nwith vigour and efficacy, but expressed also with more uniformity and\ncontinuity than those of writers of only average ability. There have\nbeen men whose greatness has been owing to the fact that they were\nmen of one idea, men who were simply an idea incarnate. By dint of\nliving one single but noble and fruitful idea, they have succeeded in\npresenting it to us in all its forms. Variety, multiplicity of points\nof view, almost always indicates a certain spiritual weakness. But I\ndo not need to convince you of this, for I know how much you admire\nAthanasius for being a man of one idea.\n\nYes, your own works, in spite of their apparent variety--novels,\ncommentaries, essays, poems--are, if you consider it carefully, simply\nthe continuous development in multiple forms of but one and the same\nfundamental idea. And in thus seeking to communicate this central\nthought of yours, you go on condensing it more and more and discovering\nnew forms of expression for it, until perhaps some day you will hit\nupon the most adequate, the most precise form. And, believe me, a\nwriter achieves a lasting place when he has discovered the permanent\nform of any idea, when he has succeeded in giving it its definitive\nbody. And in your effort to discover this, who shall say that this\nwriting of fugitive and fragmentary pieces is not as useful as any\nother way of search? You know that very often one thinks more when\ntalking than when meditating.\n\nDo you remember that experience which occurred to you one afternoon\nwhen you were walking with your friend Vincent, that wise and subtle\nspirit, so unhappily cut off in his prime? You were arguing as usual;\nhis subtle objections forced you to concentrate your mind, and after\na quick reply to one of his questions, almost before the words were\nout of your mouth, you exclaimed delightedly: \u201cHow right that is! how\nexact! how precise!\u201d And when he showed surprise that you should be\nastonished by one of your own remarks, you said: \u201cThe fact is, it is\nas new to me as it is to you. Doubtless the solution was already there\nin my mind, but it was dim and confused. I myself was not conscious of\nits being there. It was only in the effort to meet your objections that\nit took shape and disclosed itself to me. And so you see it was really\nas new to me as to you.\u201d\n\nAnd so it often happens. Thought depends upon language, for we think\nwith words, and language is a social thing. Language is conversation.\nAnd thought itself is therefore social. The only clear thought is\ntransmissible thought. If anyone tells you that he sees a thing quite\nclearly but that he does not know how to communicate it, you may\nreply that he cannot be sure whether he sees it clearly or not. To\nevery writer it has happened more than once that he has realized the\nabsurdity or obscurity of his own thought only after he has seen it in\nprint.\n\nBe assured, then, that you meditate more and meditate better when you\nare writing things like this letter that you are now addressing to\nyourself than when you shut yourself up in your room to devote yourself\nto what is called meditation and what is really only mind-wandering.\nThe necessity of giving your thought transmissible expression is that\nwhich makes it a living and effective process. It is when your pen is\nin your hand that things occur to you most readily, and the reason is\nbecause then you are not thinking for yourself but thinking for others.\nThinking for oneself is not properly thinking--it is losing oneself\nin vague reveries, like a man on the verge of sleep idly watching the\ndrift of his cigar-smoke. To think is to think for others; thinking is\na social function.\n\nYou have sometimes heard it said that Paul of Tarsus used to draw\ninspiration from his own words, that these words provoked ideas, and\nthat in his epistles it is possible to follow this process of ideation\nby means of verbal associations. And of Augustine of Hippo--one of\nthe immortal pillars, like Paul, Bernard and Martin Luther, of the\nChristianity of the heart--it has been said that he developed his theme\nby antitheses, that is to say rhetorically. And both Paul and Augustine\nwere men of burning passion, not solitary contemplatives, but active\nfighters.\n\nThey consider you to be an egotist because you often refer to\nyourself--you are doing it now in this soliloquy--and talk about\nyourself, but the truth is that this self of yours, in so far as you\nare a writer, is something that belongs to all the world--you stand\nin the middle of the street, hailed by everybody and answering back.\nYou would be not merely an egotist but a miserable egoist if you shut\nyourself up in the tower of ivory, far from your fellows, and worked\nday after day upon some minute and exquisite jewel. You work in the\nopen air, in the public gaze, and from time to time, in order to keep\nyour work clean, you blow away the dust of the turmoil that has settled\nupon it.\n\nEnough. Let us talk no more together, you and I, this hidden and\nintimate self and this apparent and public self. Are they really two?\nAre you anything else but a writer? Or rather, this self that is not\nthe publicist, of what worth is it?\n\n\nII\n\nIt appears to be the fact that many people believe me to be a man who\nlives shut up in a library, buried among books, isolated from the\nworld. They say that I lack what they call the sense of reality. As\nfor the first charge, that I spend my days devouring books, it is a\npure fiction. I travel more than I wish to travel and I see more people\nthan I wish to see. With regard to the second, my lack of the sense of\nreality--let us consider it.\n\nThat which men of the world--and in my speech and writings I always use\nthis phrase in a sufficiently depreciatory sense--that which men of\nthe world call the sense of reality appears to me to be no more than a\nsense of apparentiality. A man is said to possess the sense of reality\nwho stops to consider only the transient surface of things and does not\npenetrate into their permanent substance.\n\nThose who are said to possess this sense of reality are interested\nonly in news, what is called the latest information. And as for me--I\nmust say it perfectly frankly--I detest the latest information. There\nis nothing in the newspaper that strikes me as so empty as the page\ndevoted to the latest news. This craving to have news, news usually\nlacking in any deep import, as quickly as possible, seems to me\npuerile. The important thing, I have always supposed, is to know things\nthoroughly, not to know them quickly.\n\nBut the current runs in the other direction. For one who reads a book\nwith the sole purpose of knowing, enjoying and profiting by it, there\nare twenty who read it simply in order to say that they have read it\nand to gain kudos by quoting from it.\n\nThere are, or at any rate there ought to be, in each one of us two men,\nthe temporal and the eternal, the one who is preoccupied with the cares\nof the passing day and the one who is preoccupied with the eternal\npreoccupations, the one who says: \u201cWhat shall I eat, or how shall I\namuse myself to-morrow?\u201d and the one who says: \u201cWhat will happen to us\nafter death?\u201d In some cases the inner man dominates and leads captive\nthe external man and then the individual either retires to a monastery\nor he lives a life of resigned despair, ceaseless wrestling with\nmystery; and in some cases the external and temporal man subjugates\nand strangles the inner and eternal man, and then we have the man of\nthe world, the man who boasts of being practical and of possessing the\nsense of reality. And this practical man does not interest me in the\nleast.\n\nWhen I find myself in a modern city, in one of these cities that are\ncalled progressive because of their system of police and hygiene,\nwith smoothly paved streets, pretentious buildings, electric trams,\nluxurious motors replete with fashionably dressed women, well-kept\nparks, comfortable clubs, theatres--in short, complete with all the\napparatus of a modern city--whenever I find myself in such a city\nI am enveloped, invaded and oppressed by a sense of profound and\nutter solitude. The men appear to me like shadows without substance.\nAnd like Diogenes I begin to look for a man, a real man, a man who\nwrestles with destiny and mystery, a man of religious spirit, a man,\nin short, who believes in God or denies Him, but who believes in Him\nor denies Him passionately, with the heart, not merely in virtue of\nsome philosophical formula forming part of the general knowledge that a\nwell-educated man is expected to possess.\n\nI set about looking for a man ... and rarely, very rarely, do I find\nhim. \u201cThe man you ought to know is L\u00f3pez,\u201d they tell me, \u201ca man of\nculture and distinction.\u201d And so, although without any illusion, and\nchiefly in order not to offend the friend who recommends him to me, I\nget to know L\u00f3pez. And in effect L\u00f3pez has read a great deal and knows\nthe names of the most prominent writers and publicists and discusses\nComte and Spencer and Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, and has read the\nlatest French novelists, and knows several famous passages of poetry\nby heart and has his tincture of history, sociology, psychology and\nnatural science, and L\u00f3pez ... is not the man I am looking for.\n\nIt is not the great classic authors that L\u00f3pez has read, the essential\ngeniuses, the men who have gazed at the Sphinx face to face, but rather\ntheir expositors and commentators; he knows the great minds of all\ntime as they are reflected in manuals of the history of philosophy or\nliterature. Once perhaps, not so much even for curiosity\u2019s sake as to\nbe able to say that he has read them, he has looked into the book of\nJob or St. Augustine or Pascal or \u00e0 Kempis, but his heart has not been\ntouched. And naturally L\u00f3pez does not interest me, does not even appear\nto me to be a man; he is simply a member of a club, or a member of\nParliament, or a brilliant figure in polite society. His distinction\nis of the same category as that of his wife\u2019s mediocre facility in\nplaying the piano. L\u00f3pez knows how to present himself to the best\nadvantage.\n\nBut fortunately and thanks to God I do not live in one of these\ncities, which are all alike, all attempting to imitate Paris. I live\nin an ancient city, whose age is perpetual youth, whose golden stones\ndistil memories. And even so, whenever I can I escape into the country\nand there I talk with some old shepherd who has brooded for long\nhours beneath the sky upon eternal themes. And this man who reads no\nnewspapers, who does not know where Serbia is and has never heard of\nDreyfus or Anatole France or the Kaiser, who knows nothing about the\nlatest sociological theory or the latest fashion in morning coats, this\nman speaks to me the ancient words of the wisdom of Ecclesiastes. And\nas he has never read Ecclesiastes, but has derived his wisdom from the\nsame fount, the ancient words come to me new, eternally new.\n\nMany times I have wished in my secret heart that I had lived in one of\nthose ages of burning faith, among a people consumed by an infinite\npassion, among the Crusaders or among the Albigenses, in the ranks of\nCromwell\u2019s Ironsides or of Coligny\u2019s Huguenots, or in the obscurity\nof the monastery in which Heinrich Seuss underwent his tremendous\nmortifications.... But who in God\u2019s name, if he be a man and a real\nman, can stand one of those banquets with which the friends of the\ndistinguished L\u00f3pez celebrate the honour of his being appointed\ngovernor of a province, with their interminable toasts, all full of the\nsame empty platitudes, pronounced to the hateful accompaniment of the\npopping of champagne corks? When the unavoidable exigencies of social\nservitude compel me to attend one of these ceremonies of homage, I feel\na desire to get up and say: \u201cBrothers, let us meditate upon death!\u201d and\nlaunch forth into a sermon. I don\u2019t do so, of course, though not for\nfear of ridicule, but because I know that it would avail nothing.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut enough of unbosoming myself. You needn\u2019t be afraid, I know that\nI am a slave, I know that we are all slaves.... I will return to the\nbeaten track, I will return to \u201cobjective\u201d themes, but.... But must\nmy heart never be allowed the relief of a sigh, a sigh at once of\nresignation and rebellion? Must I not be allowed some time to say that\nall this that you call civilization appears to me to be nothing but the\ntrappings of culture and that those who are content merely with the\ntrappings are savages muffled in royal robes, and that the splendour of\nyour metropolises leaves me cold?\n\n\n\n\nMY RELIGION\n\n\nA friend writing to me from Chile tells me that he has met people\nacquainted with my writings who have asked him: \u201cWhat, in a word, is\nthe religion of this Se\u00f1or Unamuno?\u201d I myself have several times been\nasked a similar question. And I am going to see if I cannot--I will not\nsay, answer it, for that is a thing I do not pretend to be able to do,\nbut endeavour at any rate to elucidate the meaning of the question.\n\nIndividuals as well as peoples characterized by intellectual\ninertia--and intellectual inertia is quite compatible with great\nproductive activity in the sphere of economics and in other kindred\nspheres--tend to dogmatism, whether they know it or not, whether they\nwish it or not, whether they intend it or not. Intellectual inertia\nshuns the critical or sceptical attitude.\n\nI say sceptical, taking the word scepticism in its etymological and\nphilosophical sense, for the sceptic does not mean him who doubts, but\nhim who investigates or researches, as opposed to him who asserts and\nthinks that he has found. The one is the man who studies a problem and\nthe other is the man who gives us a formula, correct or incorrect, as\nthe solution of it.\n\nIn the order of pure philosophical speculation it is premature to\ndemand that an investigator shall produce a definite solution of\na problem while he is engaged in defining the problem itself more\nexactly. When a long calculation does not work out correctly, it is\nno small step forward to rub it all out and begin afresh. When a house\nthreatens to collapse or becomes completely uninhabitable, the first\nthing to do is to pull it down and not to demand that another shall be\nbuilt on top of it. The new house may indeed be built with materials\ntaken from the old one, but only after the old one has first been\ndemolished. In the meantime, if there is no other house available, the\npeople can find shelter in a hut or sleep in the open.\n\nAnd it is necessary not to lose sight of the fact that in the problems\nof practical life we must seldom expect to find definite scientific\nsolutions. Men live and always have lived upon hazardous hypotheses\nand explanations, and sometimes even without them. Men have not waited\nto agree as to whether or not the criminal was possessed of free will\nbefore punishing him, and a man does not pause before sneezing to\nreflect upon the possible injury that may be caused by the obstructing\nparticle that provokes him to sneeze.\n\nI think that those men are mistaken who assert that they would live\nevilly if they did not believe in the eternal pains of hell, and the\nmistake is all to their credit. If they ceased to believe in a sanction\nafter death, they would not live worse, but they would look for some\nother ideal justification for their conduct. The good man is not good\nbecause he believes in a transcendental order, but rather he believes\nin it because he is good--a proposition which I am sure must appear\nobscure or involved to those inquirers who suffer from intellectual\ninertia.\n\nI am asked, then: \u201cWhat is your religion?\u201d And I will reply: My\nreligion is to seek truth in life and life in truth, even though\nknowing full well that I shall never find them so long as I live; my\nreligion is to wrestle unceasingly and unwearyingly with mystery; my\nreligion is to wrestle with God from nightfall until the breaking\nof the day, as Jacob is said to have wrestled with Him. I cannot\naccommodate myself to the doctrine of the Unknowable or to that of\n\u201cthus far and no farther.\u201d I reject the everlasting _Ignorabimus_. And\nat all hazards I seek to scale the unattainable.\n\n\u201cBe perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect,\u201d Christ said to us,\nand such an ideal of perfection is, without doubt, unattainable. But He\nput the unattainable before us as the goal and term of our endeavours.\nAnd He attained to it, say the theologians, by grace. And I wish to\nfight my fight careless of victory. Are there not armies and even\npeoples who march to certain defeat? Do we not praise those who die\nfighting rather than surrender? This, then, is my religion.\n\nThose who put this question to me want me to give them a dogma, a\nsolution which they can accept without disturbing their mental inertia.\nOr rather it is not this that they want, so much as to be able to\nlabel me and put me into one of the divisions in which they classify\nminds, so that they can say of me: He is a Lutheran, a Calvanist, a\nCatholic, an atheist, a rationalist, a mystic, or any other of those\nnicknames whose exact meaning they do not understand but which dispense\nthem from further thinking. And I do not wish to have myself labelled,\nfor I, Miguel de Unamuno, like every other man who aspires to full\nconsciousness, am a unique species. \u201cThere are no diseases, but only\npersons who are diseased,\u201d some doctors say, and I say that there are\nno opinions, but only opining persons.\n\nIn religion there is but little that is capable of rational resolution,\nand as I do not possess that little I cannot communicate it logically,\nfor only the rational is logical and transmissible. I have, it is true,\nso far as my affections, my heart and my feelings are concerned, a\nstrong bent towards Christianity, but without adhering to the special\ndogmas of this or that Christian confession. I count every man a\nChristian who invokes the name of Christ with respect and love, and I\nam repelled by the orthodox, whether Catholic or Protestant--the latter\nbeing usually as intransigent as the former--who deny the Christianity\nof those who interpret the Gospel differently from themselves. I know a\nProtestant Christian who denies that Unitarians are Christians.\n\nI frankly confess that the supposed rational proofs--ontological,\ncosmological, ethical, etc.--of the existence of God, prove to me\nnothing; that all the reasons adduced to show that a God exists appear\nto me to be based on sophistry and begging of the question. In this I\nam with Kant. And in discussions of this kind, I feel that I am unable\nto talk to cobblers in the terms of their craft.\n\nNobody has succeeded in convincing me rationally of the existence of\nGod, nor yet of His non-existence; the arguments of atheists appear to\nme even more superficial and futile than those of their opponents. And\nif I believe in God, or at least believe that I believe in Him, it is,\nfirst of all, because I wish that God may exist, and then, because He\nis revealed to me, through the channel of the heart, in the Gospel and\nin Christ and in history. It is an affair of the heart.\n\nWhich means that I am not convinced of it as I am of the fact that two\nand two make four.\n\nIf it were a question of something that did not touch my peace of\nconscience or console me for having been born, perhaps I should pay\nno heed to the problem; but as it involves my whole interior life and\nthe spring of all my actions, I cannot quiet myself by saying: I do\nnot know nor can I know. I do not know, that is certain; perhaps I can\nnever know. But I want to know. I want to, and that is enough.\n\nAnd I shall spend my life wrestling with mystery, and even without\nhope of penetrating it, for this wrestling is my sustenance and my\nconsolation. Yes, my consolation. I have accustomed myself to wrest\nhope from despair itself. And let not fools in their superficiality\nshriek: Paradox!\n\nI cannot conceive of a man of culture without this preoccupation, and\nin point of culture--and culture is not the same as civilization--I\ncan hope but little from those who live without interest in the\nmetaphysical aspect of the religious problem, and only study it in\nits social or political aspects. I can hope but very little for the\nenrichment of the spiritual treasury of mankind from those men or from\nthose peoples who, whether it be from intellectual inertia, or from\nsuperficiality, or from scientificism, or from any other cause, are\nunmoved by the great and eternal disquietudes of the heart. I can hope\nnothing from those who say: \u201cWe must not think about these things!\u201d I\ncan hope even less from those who believe in a heaven and a hell such\nas those which we believed in when we were children; and still less can\nI hope from those who affirm with a fool\u2019s gravity: \u201cAll this is but\nmyth and fable; he who dies is buried and there\u2019s an end of it.\u201d I can\nhope for something only from those who do not know, but who are not\nresigned not to know; from those who fight unrestingly for the truth\nand put their life in the fight itself rather than in the victory.\n\nThe greater part of my work has always been to disquiet my neighbours,\nto rob them of heart\u2019s ease, to vex them if I can. I have said this\nalready in my commentary upon \u201cThe Life of Don Quixote and Sancho,\u201d in\nwhich I have confessed myself most fully. Let them seek as I seek, let\nthem wrestle as I wrestle, and between us all we will tear some shred\nof secret from God, and at any rate this wrestling will make us more\nmen, men of more spirit.\n\nIn order to accomplish this work--a religious work--among peoples like\nthose that speak the Castilian tongue who suffer from intellectual\ninertia and superficiality, slumbering in the routine of Catholic\ndogma or in the dogmatism of free-thought or of scientificism, it has\nbeen necessary for me to appear sometimes shameless and indecorous,\nat other times harsh and aggressive, and not a few times perverse\nand paradoxical. In our pusillanimous literature it was a rare thing\nto hear anyone cry out from the depths of his heart, to get excited,\nto exclaim. The shout was almost unknown. Writers were frightened of\nmaking themselves ridiculous. They behaved and still behave like those\nwho put up with an affront in the street for fear of the ridicule of\nbeing seen with their hat on the ground marched off by the police.\nBut I, no! When I have felt like shouting I have shouted. Never have\nI been restrained by decorum. And this is one of the things for which\nI have never been forgiven by my colleagues of the pen, so discreet,\nso correct, so disciplined, even when they preach indiscretion and\nindiscipline. Literary anarchists are more punctilious about style and\nsyntax than about anything else. And when they play out of tune they do\nso tunefully; their discords resolve themselves into harmonies.\n\nWhen I have felt a pain I have shouted and shouted in public. The\npsalms which are to be found in my _Poes\u00edas_ are simply the cries from\nthe heart with which I have sought to make the heart-strings of the\nwounded hearts of others vibrate. If they have no heart-strings or only\nheart-strings that are too rigid to vibrate, then my cry will awaken no\necho in them and they will declare that it is not poetry and they will\nproceed to investigate its acoustic properties. It is possible also to\nstudy acoustically the cry that is torn from the heart of a man who\nsees his son suddenly fall down dead--and he who has neither heart nor\nsons will understand no more of it than the acoustics.\n\nThese psalms, together with various other pieces in my _Poes\u00edas_, are\nmy religion, a religion that I have sung, not expressed in logic and\nreasoning. And I sing it as best I can, with the voice and ear that\nGod has given me, because I cannot reason it. And he to whom my verses\nappear to be more full of reasoning and logic and method and exegesis\nthan of life, because they are not peopled with fauns, dryads, satyrs\nand the like or garbed in the latest modernist fashion, had better\nleave them alone, for it is evident that I shall not touch his heart\nwhether I use a violin bow or a hammer.\n\nWhat I fly from, I repeat, as from the plague, is any kind of\nclassification of myself, and when I die I hope I shall still hear\nthese intellectual sluggards inquiring: \u201cAnd this gentleman, what is\nhe?\u201d Liberal or progressive fools will take me for a reactionary and\nperhaps for a mystic, without understanding of course what they may\nmean; and conservative and reactionary fools will take me for a kind of\nspiritual anarchist; and both of them will pity me as an unfortunate\ngentleman anxious to distinguish himself by singularity, hoping to\nbe reputed an original, and with a bonnet full of bees. But no one\nneed worry about what fools think of him, be they progressive or\nconservative, liberal or reactionary.\n\nAnd since man is naturally intractable, and does not habitually thirst\nfor the truth, and after being preached at for four hours usually\nreturns to all his inveterate habits, these busy inquirers, if they\nchance to read this, will return to me with the question: \u201cWell, but\nwhat solutions do you offer?\u201d And I will tell them, once and for all,\nthat if it is solutions they want, they can go to the shop opposite,\nfor I do not deal in the article. My earnest desire has been, is and\nwill be that those who read me should think and meditate on fundamental\nthings, and it has never been to furnish them with thoughts ready made.\nI have always sought to agitate and to suggest rather than to instruct.\nIt is not bread that I sell, not bread, but yeast, ferment.\n\nI have friends, and good friends, who advise me to abandon this task\nand to concentrate upon what they call some objective work, something\nwhich will be, so they express it, definitive, something constructive,\nsomething that will last. They mean something dogmatic. I declare that\nI am incapable of it, and I claim my liberty, my holy liberty, even,\nif need be, the liberty of contradicting myself. I do not know whether\nanything that I have written or may write in the future is destined to\nlive for years and centuries after I am dead; but I know that if anyone\nagitates the surface of a shoreless sea the waves will go radiating\nwithout end, even though at last they dwindle into ripples. To agitate\nis something. And if thanks to this agitation another who comes after\nme shall create something that will live, then my work will live in his.\n\nIt is a work of supreme mercy to awaken the sleeper and to shake the\nsluggard, and it is a work of supreme religious piety to seek truth in\neverything and to expose fraud, stupidity and ignorance wherever they\nare to be found.\n\n\n\n\nSOLITUDE\n\n\nIt is my love for the multitude that makes me fly from them. In\nflying from them, I go on seeking them. Do not call me a misanthrope.\nMisanthropes seek society and intercourse with people; they need them\nin order to feed their hatred and disdain of them. Love can live upon\nmemories and hopes; hate needs present realities.\n\nLet me, then, fly from society and take refuge in the quiet of the\ncountry, seeking in the heart of it and within my own soul the company\nof people.\n\nMen only feel themselves really brothers when they hear one another\nin the silence of things in the midst of solitude. The hushed moan of\nyour neighbour which reaches you through the wall that separates you\npenetrates much more deeply into your heart than would all his laments\nif he told you them to your face. I shall never forget a night that I\nonce spent at a watering-place, during the whole of which I was kept\nawake by a very faint intermittent moaning--a moaning that seemed to\nwish to stifle itself in order not to awaken those who were asleep,\na discreet and gentle moaning that came to me from the neighbouring\nbedroom. That moaning, which came from I know not whom, had lost all\npersonality; it produced upon me the illusion of coming out of the\nsilence of the night itself, as if it were the silence or the night\nthat lamented, and there was even a moment when I dreamt that that\ngentle lament rose to the surface from the depths of my own soul.\n\nI left the following day without having sought to ascertain who was the\nsufferer or why he suffered. And I believe that I have never felt so\nmuch pity for any other man.\n\nIt is only solitude that dissolves that thick cloak of shame that\nisolates us from one another; only in solitude do we find ourselves;\nand in finding ourselves, we find in ourselves all our brothers in\nsolitude. Solitude unites us, believe me, just as much as society\nseparates us. And if we do not know how to love one another, it is\nbecause we do not know how to be alone.\n\nIt is only in solitude, when it has broken the thick crust of shame\nthat separates us from one another and separates us all from God, that\nwe have no secrets from God; only in solitude do we raise our heart to\nthe Heart of the Universe; only in solitude does the redeeming hymn of\nsupreme confession issue from our soul.\n\nThere is no other real dialogue than the dialogue that you hold with\nyourself, and you can hold this dialogue only when you are alone. In\nsolitude and only in solitude can you know yourself as a neighbour;\nand so long as you do not know yourself as a neighbour, you can never\nhope to see in your neighbours other I\u2019s. If you want to learn to love\nothers, withdraw into yourself.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am accused of not caring about or being interested in the anxieties\nof men. It is just the contrary. I am convinced that there is no more\nthan one anxiety, one and the same for all men, and never do I feel it\nor understand it more deeply than when I am alone. Each day I believe\nless and less in the social question, and in the political question,\nand in the \u00e6sthetic question, and in the moral question, and in the\nreligious question, and in all the other questions that people have\ninvented in order that they shall not have to face resolutely the only\nreal question that exists--the human question, which is mine, yours,\nhis, everyone\u2019s.\n\nAnd as I know that you will say that I am playing with words and that\nyou will ask me what I mean by this human question, I shall have to\nrepeat it once again: The human question is the question of knowing\nwhat is to become of my consciousness, of yours, of his, of everyone\u2019s,\nafter each one of us has died. So long as we are not facing this\nquestion, all that we are doing is simply making a noise so that we\nshall not hear it. And that is why we fear solitude so much and seek\nthe company of one another.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe greatest thing that there is among men is a poet, a lyric poet,\nthat is to say a real poet. A poet is a man who keeps no secrets from\nGod in his heart, and who, in singing his griefs, his fears, his hopes\nand his memories, purifies and purges them from all falsehood. His\nsongs are your songs, are my songs.\n\nHave you ever heard any deeper, any more intimate, any more enduring\npoetry than that of the Psalms? And the Psalms are meant for singing\nalone. I know that they are sung by crowds, assembled together under\nthe same roof in religious services; but in singing them the crowd\nceases to be a crowd. In singing the Psalms, each one withdraws into\nhimself and the voices of others echo in his ears simply as the\nconsonance and reinforcement of his own voice.\n\nAnd I observe this difference between a crowd assembled together to\nsing the Psalms and a crowd assembled to see a drama or to hear an\norator: it is that the former is a real society, a company of living\nsouls, in which each one exists and subsists by himself, while the\nother is a formless mass and each one of those who compose it no more\nthan a fragment of the human herd.\n\nI have never felt any desire to move a crowd, to exercise influence\nupon a mass of people--who lose their personality in being massed\ntogether--and on the other hand I have always felt a furious desire to\nperturb the heart of each individual man, to exercise an influence upon\neach one of my brothers in humanity. Whenever I have spoken in public\nI have almost always succeeded in employing a kind of lyrical oratory,\nand I have endeavoured to force upon myself the illusion that I was\nspeaking to only one of my hearers, to any one, no matter which, to\neach one, not to all of them _en masse_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe men are impenetrable. Spirits, like solid bodies, can only\ncommunicate with one another by the contact of surfaces, not by\npenetrating one another, still less by fusing together.\n\nYou have heard me say a thousand times that most spirits seem to me\nlike crustaceans, with the bone outside and the flesh inside. And when\nin some book that I have forgotten I read what a painful and terrible\nthing it would be if the human spirit were to be incarnated in a crab\nand had to make use of the crab\u2019s senses, organs and members, I said to\nmyself: \u201cThis is what actually happens; we are all unfortunate crabs,\nshut up in hard shells.\u201d\n\nAnd the poet is he whose flesh emerges from the shell, whose soul oozes\nforth. And when, in our hours of anguish or joy, our soul oozes forth,\nwe are all of us poets.\n\nAnd that is why I believe that it is necessary to agitate the masses,\nto shake men and winnow them as in a sieve, to throw against one\nanother, in order to see if in this way their shells will not break\nand their spirits flow forth, whether they will not mingle and unite\nwith one another, and whether the real collective spirit, the soul of\nhumanity, may not thus be welded together.\n\nBut the sad thing is, if we are to go by past experience, that all\nthese mutual rubbings and clashings, far from breaking the shells,\nharden, thicken and enlarge them. They are like corns that grow larger\nand stronger with rubbing. Although perhaps it is that the clashes are\nnot violent enough. And in any case it must be clashing, not rubbing. I\ndo not like to rub against people but to clash against them; I do not\nlike to approach people obliquely and glance off them at a tangent, but\nto meet them frontally, and if possible split them in two. It is the\nbest service I can do them. And there is no better preparation for this\ntask than solitude.\n\nIt is very sad that we have to communicate with one another by\ntouching, at most by rubbing, through the medium of the hard shells\nthat isolate us from one another. And I am convinced that this hard\nshell becomes weaker and more delicate, in solitude, until it changes\ninto the most tenuous membrane which permits of the action of osmosis\nand exosmosis. And that is why I believe that it is solitude that makes\nmen really sociable and human.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere are two kinds of union: one by removing differences, separating\nthe elements that differentiate from those that unite, the other by\nfusion, bringing these differences into agreement. If we take away from\nthe mind of each man that which is his own, that way of looking at\nthings that is peculiar to him, everything that he takes care to hide\nfor fear people should think him mad, we are left with that which he\nhas in common with everyone else, and this common element gives us that\nwretched thing that is called common sense and which is nothing more\nthan the abstract of the practical intelligence. But if we fuse into\none the differing judgments of people, with all that they jealously\npreserve, and bring their caprices, their oddities, their singularities\ninto agreement, we shall have human sense, which, in those who are rich\nin it, is not common but private sense.\n\nThe best that occurs to men is that which occurs to them when they\nare alone, that which they dare not confess, not only not to their\nneighbour but very often not even to themselves, that which they fly\nfrom, that which they imprison within themselves while it is in a state\nof pure thought and before it can flower into words. And the solitary\nis usually daring enough to express this, to allow it to flower, and\nso it comes about that he speaks that which others think in solitude\nby themselves and which nobody dares to publish. The solitary thinks\neverything aloud, and surprises others by saying that which they\nthink beneath their breath, while they seek to deceive one another by\npretending to make them believe that they are thinking something else,\nbut without anybody believing them.\n\nAll this will help you to deduce for yourself in what way and to what\nextent solitude is the great school of sociability, and how right it is\nthat we should sometimes withdraw ourselves from men in order that we\nmay the better serve them.\n\n\n\n\nINTELLECTUALITY AND SPIRITUALITY\n\n    There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,\n    Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.\n                        _Hamlet_, Act I, Scene V.\n\n\nFor some days he had been spiritually restless. His sterile mind\nflitted hither and thither like a butterfly. Nothing succeeded in\ninteresting him. He picked up a book, read two or three pages and then\nhad to close it again, unable to control his wandering attention. He\ntried to write, but half of the sheets that he wrote he tore up. And\nyet he had never enjoyed better health, never felt the blood coursing\nmore vigorously through his veins, or the heart and lungs working in\nbetter unison. At the same time he had a premonition of something\nstrong and mature within himself striving to come to birth; he felt\nthat he was on the verge of bringing forth thoughts brimful of vitality\nand splendour. But something, a kind of solemn calm, against which he\ncontended in vain, encompassed and paralysed him. It was no doubt sheer\ninsensibility in him not to wait in peace for the grace of the Spirit\nto visit him but to seek to force it with violence.\n\nAt last, one afternoon, when the light of the setting sun was pouring\nupon the wide balcony of his cell-like room, he shut himself up in it,\nwith its dumb books, with all its familiar objects the sight of which\nwas always grateful to him. It was like shutting himself up within\nhimself, or even better than that, for this wonted ambience served him\nas a means of communion with the world. That square glass inkstand,\nthose fat pen-holders, that carpet, that stout leather arm-chair in\nwhich his body rested while his mind went galloping away, those rough\nplain chairs, those rows of books against the white naked walls: all\nthese things were a kind of prolongation of his spirit and at the same\ntime they were like arms which the world stretched out to enfold him\nin. They belonged to him and yet they belonged also to the world; they\nwere himself and at the same they were the not-himself. They would not\ndeceive him, no. He had touched them once and a thousand times and\nevery touch had linked itself with all the other touches, until at last\nthese things of humble use had become invested with a kind of soul made\nup of the outpourings of spirit and memories.\n\nHe had books that were like lovers, grateful, remembering, for whenever\nhe opened them at random they opened themselves of their own accord at\nthe same place, always offering him the same passage, the choicest, the\nmost intense, the most life-giving that they had to offer. And when he\nread the passage over again, the intimate ambience of the peaceful room\nyielded up the memory of all the other fugitive moments when he had\nread it before, and his soul vibrated across the gulf of time until its\nvibrations were lost in that remoteness of the past where consciousness\nloses itself too.\n\nFrom the balcony of his room, across red roofs stained here and there\nwith the green of lichen, he could just glimpse the clouds glowing\nin the sunset light. And nearer at hand, along the eaves of the roof\nopposite, the white stone-crop blossomed, its tiny flowerets nourishing\ntheir life upon the moist earthy sediment washed down by the rain from\nthe sun-baked clay tiles and deposited in the guttering. In summer,\npigeons flew down from the neighbouring belfry to bill and coo upon the\nroof, picking the seeds of the stone-crop at its edge, while the dark\nswifts skimmed through the air above. Sometimes cats crept stealthily\nwith sinuous movement across the tiles. Upon this roof too his eyes had\noften rested; the little wild garden in the gutter, the pigeons, the\nswifts, the cats, these too belonged to him and at the same time to the\nworld; and often while he had held them in his gaze his mind had been\nintent upon his innermost thoughts.\n\nHe shut himself up there in his study, like an oyster in its shell. He\nuntethered his mind, letting it roam at will, without spur or bridle.\nFor a time it wandered up and down, plucking at passing ideas, ranging\nover the backs of the books and divining famous names and titles of\nrenown. Then it collected itself and withdrew into the body that it\nanimated and made use of, and presently the arm of this body reached\nout for a sheet of paper and the eyes glanced over it.\n\nIt was the strident manifesto that had been so much talked about; it\nwas the famous composition into which he, he himself, who was now\nsitting at ease in his cow-hide arm-chair, had emptied his spirit. He\nbegan to read it, and as he read it a strange disquiet invaded him. No,\nthat was not his, that was not what he had thought and believed, that\nwas not what he had written. And yet there could be no doubt about it.\nThat, that which now seemed so strange to him, he had written that, and\nit had increased his fame. He read it over again.\n\nNo, we do not communicate what we want to communicate, he reflected.\nNo sooner does a thought incarnate itself in words and issue forth\ninto the world than it belongs to someone not ourself, or rather it\nbelongs to nobody because it belongs to everybody. The flesh with which\nlanguage clothes itself is communal and external; it wizens up thought,\nit imprisons it and even reverses and falsifies it.\n\nIt was a singular and disturbing effect that was produced in him\nby reading himself as if he were a stranger, as if his writing had\nbeen written by someone else. This effect of the duplication of his\npersonality reminded him of a former experience of self-duplication\nwhich he never recalled without a shudder. Once when gazing at the\nreflection of his own gaze in a mirror he had the sensation of seeing\nhimself as someone else; he regarded himself as an unsubstantial\nshadow, as an impalpable phantom, and this alarmed him to such a degree\nthat he called to himself softly by his own name. And his voice sounded\nto him as if it were the voice of another, a voice which came forth out\nof space, out of the invisible, out of impenetrable mystery. He cleared\nhis throat, touched himself, felt the quickened beating of his heart.\nHe had never forgotten that unforgettable experience.\n\nHis present feeling was not the same, but it had something that\nresembled it. Had he written that? Was he the same person as the man\nwho had written that? Did he contain within himself more than one\nperson? Might it not be that he carried within him a whole legion of\nsouls sleeping one below another? Were not all his ancestors sleeping\nsomewhere in the limbo of his brain? Did others see him as he saw\nhimself, or did they see him quite differently, and was he always\nactually doing and saying that which he thought he was?\n\nThis last idea, an absurd and extravagant idea, had obsessed him for\nsome time past and it caused him anguish, for he said to himself: This\nis madness, this is sheer madness.\n\nOnly too often, in fact, as he walked quietly along the street, it\nhad occurred to him to think something like this: \u201cWhat if, instead\nof walking quietly and soberly, I were really pirouetting or making\nridiculous contortions or behaving improperly? This hostility which I\nhave remarked in certain of my acquaintance, may it not have arisen\nbecause I have said things to them which I am unaware of having said,\nor because when I thought I was offering them my hand I was in fact\nmaking some impudent or contemptuous gesture? When I imagine myself to\nbe saying one thing, may it not be they hear something very different\nor perhaps contrary?\u201d\n\nThis absurd obsession disquieted him, irritated him, made him doubt the\nsanity and vigour of his reason, and he had to exercise all the power\nof autosuggestion at his command to overcome it.\n\nWith a vigorous effort he threw off this obstinate vagary of his mind,\nbut only to return to the question of the strangeness of what he had\nwritten.\n\nFormerly, a long time ago, he had been a convinced determinist, unable\nto tolerate even the mention of free will, so irrational did the\nsupposition of it seem to him. But later on, after further examination\nof the question, his inflexible determinist faith had broken down; and\nnow, at the time at which we discover him, seated in his arm-chair\nin his study, he has put this question of determinism and free will\naway into the lumber-room of metaphysics from which he rarely takes\nit out. He believes now that science has not succeeded in putting\nthis question in its true light, but that it always involves it in a\n_petitio principii_. But what he really does feel--he feels rather\nthan thinks it--is that however free a man may be within himself, in\nso far as he has to exteriorize and manifest himself, to speak or to\nact, to communicate with his fellows, in so far as he has to avail\nhimself of his body and of the bodies of others, he remains bound by\nthe rigid laws of these bodies, he is a slave. My acts--he thinks--are\nnever exclusively mine: if I speak I have to make use of air that is\nnot mine in order to produce my voice; neither are my vocal cords,\nstrictly speaking, mine; nor is the language mine which I must use if\nI wish to make myself understood; and the case is the same if I write,\nif I strike a blow, if I kiss, if I fight. And he asks himself in\nconclusion: \u201cAm I myself really mine?\u201d And so the tormenting obsession\nbuzzes round him again.\n\nThere is something which we have incorporated and made our own and\nthere is much that is completely alien to us; and between these two\nextreme terms everything is partly ours and partly not ours. Our life\nis a continual combat between our spirit which seeks to make itself\nmaster of the world, to make the world its own, to make the world it,\nand the world which in its turn seeks to possess itself of our spirit,\nto make our spirit its own. I wish to make the world mine--our man\nthinks--to make it myself, and the world tries to make me its, to make\nme it; I strive to personalize it and it strives to depersonalize me.\nAnd in this tragic combat--for yes, the combat is a tragic one--I have\nto make use of my enemy in order to dominate him, and my enemy has to\nmake use of me in order to dominate me. Whatever I say, write or do, it\nis only with the world\u2019s help that I can say, write or do it; and thus\nthe world at once depersonalizes my saying, writing and doing and makes\nthem its own, and I appear to be different from what I am.\n\nWhat an unhappy necessity is that of writing! What woeful constraint\nis that of having to talk! Between any two who talk together, language\nmediates, the world mediates, that which is neither one nor the other\nof the interlocutors mediates; they are involved in this intrusive\nelement which, while enabling them to communicate, separates them. If\nit were only possible to create language in the very act of speaking\nour thought!...\n\nUndoubtedly speech is a more perfect medium than writing, because\nit is less material: the vibrations of the air are dissipated,\nwhile the trace of the ink remains. Undoubtedly the _flatus vocis_,\nlike everything fugitive, is richer in association, more complete\nin orchestration, while writing, like everything concrete, remains\ndetached. But better still if pure thought could communicate itself\nby means only of those vague and fluid words upon which it floats\nwithin the soul! To make oneself understood in words or writing is to\ncommunicate the accidents, not the substance, of thought.\n\nOur man looks at the clouds in the western sky, combed out by the\nunseen comb of the wind, and watches them turn to flame in the light of\nthe setting sun. And he thinks of the substantial communion of spirits,\ncommunication by the act of spiritual presence alone. He remembered\nhow once, on hearing some old ballad sung by a shepherd boy, the sound\nof which had come to him faintly through a leafy screen of grey oaks,\nhe had trembled and felt as if he heard voices from another world,\nnot from another world beyond this world, but from a world that lives\nwithin the world we know--voices which seemed to issue from the very\nheart of things, as if they were the song of the soul of the oaks, of\nthe clouds, of the pebbles of the stream, of the earth and of the sky.\nWhere had he heard that song before?\n\nWho knows? Perhaps one night, when he lay asleep, the shepherd boy\nhad passed by singing his song, and the song had lapped his dream and\nsteeped it in the fountains of life.\n\nAnother time--he remembered--when on a journey, he had met a woman, a\nforeigner, who did not know his language nor did he know hers. Neither\nof them knew any human tongue in which they could make themselves\nunderstood, and they sat there in the railway carriage alone, opposite\none another, looking and sometimes smiling at one another. Theirs was a\nprotracted and mute conversation. When he thought kindly and tenderly\nof her the stranger smiled, and when a less innocent desire stirred\nwithin him the shadow of a frown crossed her brow. Perhaps they heard,\nwithout themselves knowing that they heard, the measured beating of\ntheir hearts, beating in unison while their eyes gazed at one another;\nbut without a doubt the breath of their souls mingled together. For the\nsoul breathes.\n\nThe soul breathes.--Why not speak in metaphors?\n\nOur man began to think about breathing and how the air, penetrating\ninto the cells of the lungs, aerates the blood, this inner atmosphere\nof our bodies. It is the material substance of the world--he\nthought--which circulates within us; it is the world diluted and made\nour own. And from this he went on to imagine a kind of spiritual\naeration of our mind, and how the world of colours, forms, sounds and\nimpressions of every kind is diluted in it.\n\nBut these are metaphors, nothing but metaphors, he said, then at once\nreflecting: Metaphors? and what is not metaphor? Science is built up\nof metaphors and language is essentially metaphorical. Matter, force,\nlight, memory--all metaphors. When positivists, or those who consider\nthemselves positivists, try to sweep science clean of metaphors, they\nsweep them away with a metaphorical broom, and so sweep the metaphors\nback again.\n\nAnd then his mind began to play around one of his specially favourite\nideas, namely the idea of the superiority of what we call imagination\nover the other so-called faculties of the spirit, and how the\nexcellency of poets was greater than that of men of science and men of\naction.\n\nA thousand times he had deplored the barbarous intransigence of most of\nthose with whom he had to communicate--in accidental, not substantial,\ncommunion; that dismal lack of comprehension of every opinion which\nthey do not themselves share; that ridiculous belief that there are\nideas which one must necessarily consider absurd and which can only be\nprofessed by confused and unhinged minds. All that--he was wont to say\nto himself--is simply lack of imagination, incapacity to see things\noneself, even momentarily, as others see them, sheer aridity of mind.\nHow far from all that was the large spirit of the great Goethe, who was\nable to feel himself deist, pantheist, atheist all at the same time,\nwhose mind embraced a profound understanding of paganism together with\nan equally profound understanding of Christianity! But Goethe was a\npoet, the poet, a true and essential poet, not a miserable didacticist\nor dogmatist like those who think they travel more safely the more\nballast of formal logic they carry, at the expense of intelligence, and\nthe more closely they hug the level shores of thought, moored fast to\ntradition and the senses.\n\nOur man cast his eyes once more over the manifesto and said to himself:\n\u201cAnd I have been called an intellectual! I! I who abhor intellectualism\nmore than anybody! If they had labelled me \u2018an imaginative\u2019--well and\ngood. But an intellectual?\u201d And he thought of Paul of Tarsus and the\npregnant sentences of his epistles.\n\nHe thought of Paul of Tarsus and his classification of men into carnal,\nintellectual and spiritual, for so he was pleased to translate it, or\nrather to interpret it. For there was a time when he had delighted\nin exegesis. Not scientific exegesis; not investigating and searching\nfor the actual meaning of the writers of the sacred books; not\nco-ordinating them logically and trying to discover, by reference to\nthe ideas and sentiment of the age and country in which they lived,\nwhat they really felt and thought; but taking as his starting-point the\ntext that had been consecrated and enriched by centuries of tradition\nand thence launching out into free speculation. The moment that Paul\nof Tarsus gave his epistles to the world they ceased to be his, they\nbelonged to the world, they were part of the common stock, of the\npatrimony, of humanity, and it was possible for him to understand them\nand feel them altogether differently from the way in which the Apostle\nhimself had felt and understood them. That which others did to his\nwritings when they read them and commented upon them, it was possible\nfor him to do to the Apostle\u2019s, provided he undertook the task with\nknowledge and conscientiousness. The actual text furnished his mind\nwith the necessary foothold, it was the jumping-off place from which\nhis imagination could take flight.\n\nAnd in Paul of Tarsus, in his epistle to the Romans and his first\nepistle to the Corinthians, he found those three classes of men: the\ncarnal or _sarcinal_, \u03c3\u03ac\u03c1\u03f0\u03b9\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9, the natural or psychical, \u03a8\u03c5\u03f0\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03af,\nand the spiritual or pneumatical, \u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u03c5\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03af. He had often read that\n14th verse of the 7th chapter of the epistle to the Romans: \u201cFor\nwe know that the law is spiritual [_pneumatical_]; but I am carnal\n[_sarcinal_], sold under sin\u201d; and that 44th verse of the 11th chapter\nof the first epistle to the Corinthians which says that there is a\nnatural or _psychical_ body and a spiritual or _pneumatical_ body; and\nhe was aware that for the Apostle the _psyche_, \u03a8\u03c5\u03f0\u03ae, was something\ninferior, something that was more or less equivalent to what was later\nto be called the vital force, the sensitive soul, common to men and\nanimals; the _pneuma_, on the other hand, being the higher part of\nthe soul, the spirit, the \u03ae\u03b3\u03b5\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03bd of the Stoics, something that\nsurvives the body. But he preferred to give it another interpretation,\nand he always regarded the _psyche_ as the intellectual power that is\nbound to the necessities of our actual earthly life, the slave of a\nlogic that is educated and trained by the struggle for life, ordinary,\ncommon, current knowledge, necessary in order to enable us to live, the\nknowledge from which science is evolved. He could not help thinking\nof psychical men as intellectuals, men of common sense and logic, men\nwhose ideas are dominated by the associations which the external and\nvisible world suggests to them, reasonable men who are trained to some\nprofession and practice it, who, if they are doctors, learn how to cure\ndiseases, if engineers to construct roads, if chemists to prepare drugs\nand analyse compounds, if architects to build houses. These psychical\nmen are the average men, those who take the middle course, those of\nwhom it is said that they have a sound and clear judgment and standard,\nthose who do not believe in any fallacy that is not consecrated by\ntradition and habit, those who never swallow any new absurdity, because\ntheir minds are already so stuffed with timeworn absurdities.\n\nBetween these and the carnal or _sarcinal_ men he always established\na difference. For him the carnal men were the brutish, the absolutely\nuncultured, those who scarcely think of anything but eating, drinking\nand sleeping, those who are wholly and completely immerged in animal\nlife. The psychical man, no; the psychical man is interested in\nquestions of science and culture; the psychical Spaniard preaches\nnational regeneration, is enthusiastic about the telephone, the\ngramophone and the cinematograph, reads Flammarion, Haeckel, Ribot,\nbuys popular works on philosophy, and if he is in the neighbourhood of\na railway stands in ecstatic contemplation of the majestic progress\nof the locomotive. If the psychical man is an orthodox Catholic, he\nadmires the genius of St. Thomas Aquinas, although he has never read\nhim, he knows that modern geology squares with the Mosaic account of\nthe Creation, and that it is legitimate to admit a part of Darwinism,\nand that the Church possesses a remedy for all the social ills that\nafflict our age. The psychical man is an intellectual, his intellect\nmay be small or great, but fundamentally he is an intellectual.\n\nAnd lastly come the spiritual men, the dreamers, those whom the\nintellectuals contemptuously call mystics, those who tolerate the\ntyranny neither of science nor of logic, those who believe that there\nis another world within our world and mysterious dormant forces in the\ndepths of our spirit, those who speak the language of the heart and\nmany who prefer not to speak at all. Most of the great poets have been\nspiritual men, not intellectuals. Of one of them, of the sweet singer\nWordsworth, it has been said that he was a genius without talent, that\nis to say a great spirit without sufficient intelligence.\n\nHow many times had he not read and re-read the end of the second\nand the beginning of the third chapter of the first epistle to the\nCorinthians! \u201cFor what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit\nof man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but\nthe spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world,\nbut the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that\nare freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the\nwords which man\u2019s wisdom teacheth [not with didactical arguments,\nwhich is the term employed in the text], but which the Holy Spirit\nteacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural\nman [_psychical_, or as our man translated it, intellectual] receiveth\nnot the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him:\nneither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But\nhe that is spiritual [_pneumatical_] judgeth all things, yet he himself\nis judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord that he\nmay instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. And I, brethren,\ncould not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal\n[_sarcinal_], even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk,\nand not with meat; for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither\nyet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal....\u201d\n\nHe turned again to the epistles of Paul of Tarsus and re-read the\nverses that he had so often read before. \u201cThe things of God knoweth no\nman, but the Spirit of God.\u201d And he said to himself: Useless to seek\nto know the things of God by the method of didactical argument, of\ntheology, of logic; a theology is a contradiction in terms, for the\n_theos_ is at war with the _logia_; arguments do not help us to reach\nGod. And he remembered Kant and his shattering of the supposed logical\nproofs of the existence of God, and how in his own spirit all that\nscaffolding of a metalogical belief, spiritual and not intellectual,\npsychical and not pneumatical, had collapsed. The ontological proof,\nthe cosmological proof, the metaphysical proof, the ethical proof, all\nhad come tumbling down in his mind at the same time, and with them the\nso-called God of reason. All that theological rationalism had come to\nearth in his spirit with a crash, though the noise of it was heard\nonly by himself, destroying not a few delicate flowers in its fall and\ncovering the ground with rubbish. Upheavals of the heart, earthquakes\nof the spirit, had cleared the ground of the debris, and in a new way,\na way the intellectuals do not know, there sprung up within him a faith\nwhich came from the Spirit of God. For the things of God knoweth no\nman, but the Spirit of God.\n\n\u201cWhich things also we speak, not in the words which man\u2019s wisdom\nteacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth, comparing spiritual things\nwith spiritual.\u201d--Mystic! This word, spat out with contempt, like an\ninsult or a reproach, seemed to be spoken into his ear, and so near, so\nclear, so distinct it was, that he involuntarily turned his head. And\nthere at his side, not in the body, visible and tangible, but present\nin the spirit, was the prototype of the intellectual, with all his most\nexclusively intellectual attributes--there was the psychical man, the\nnatural man _par excellence_. There he was repeating his physiological\ncreed parrot-wise, while in his heart he rebelled against his poetic\nand creative impotence, against his unconfessed unspirituality.--He\nshrugged his shoulders, smiled and turned again to look at the slowly\ndarkening sky. The sunset clouds now appeared like mountains of ashes,\nthe remains of the solar conflagration. He turned on the electric\nswitch and the wire thread glowed in the bulb--there was light, light\nof man\u2019s making, light of applied science.\n\n\u201cBut the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for\nthey are foolishness into him: neither can he know them, because they\nare spiritually discerned.\u201d Foolishness ... madness ... he repeated\nto himself, while his eyes wandered over those familiar objects which\nthe electric light had called forth out of the dark shadows. Madness\n... and what is madness? There are alienists, phreno-pathologists,\npsychiatrists, and who knows by how many other names they are\ncalled?... But what is sanity? For perhaps one ought to begin with that.\n\nHealth is that condition in which a man is free from every kind of\ndisease; but what is disease? Health, others say, is \u201cthat condition in\nwhich the organism exercises all its faculties normally.\u201d[5] Normally\n... normally ... and what is the normal? He stretched out his hand\nfor a book which he was just then reading, a book stored with a mass\nof data relating to the mysterious life of the spirit, the work of\nthat noble mind that had been the soul of the Society for Psychical\nResearch, and he read:\n\n\u201cThe word _normal_ in common speech is used almost indifferently to\nimply either of two things, which may be very different from each\nother--conformity to a standard and position as an average between\nextremes. Often, indeed, the average constitutes the standard--as\nwhen a gas is of average density; or is practically equivalent to the\nstandard--as when a sovereign is of normal weight. But when we come\nto living organisms a new factor is introduced. Life is change; each\nliving organism changes; each generation differs from its predecessor.\nTo assign a fixed norm to a changing species is to shoot point-blank\nat a flying bird. The actual average at any given moment is no ideal\nstandard; rather, the furthest evolutionary stage now reached is\ntending, given stability in the environment, to become the average of\nthe future.\u201d[6]\n\nHe shut the book and said to himself again: Normal ... madness ...\nsanity ... disease ... health.... The madness of to-day will be the\nsanity of to-morrow, just as the sanity of to-day will appear madness\nto-morrow. Intellectuals call that madness which they are unable\nto understand, for it can only be discerned spiritually. And an\nintellectual, what is he, in the last instance, but a normal man, a\nman of the _via media_, equally far removed from the carnal and from\nthe spiritual man? The intellectual is the man of the _via media_, at\nan equal distance from the enormous mass of carnality and from the\nvery limited quantity of conscious spirituality--for the other kind of\nspirituality, the unconscious and potential, is dormant in all men\nand is perhaps more alive in the carnal men themselves than in the\nintellectuals. For it is easier for the flesh than for the intellect\nto receive the spirit; between intellect and spirit the logic of the\nschools interposes. The intellectual is the man of average sense, which\nhe calls common sense, and which is as far from the universal, cosmic\nor instinctive sense in which carnal men live, as it is from that\nprivate sense which fortifies the spirit of spiritual men.\n\n\u201cBut he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged\nof no man.\u201d By what right do those whose own spirit is buried beneath\ntheir intellect judge the things of the spirit?\n\n\u201cFor who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But\nwe have the mind of Christ.\u201d At this word Christ our man\u2019s thinking\nwas arrested. He had arrived at what is called the religious problem\nand it presented itself to him in the form under which he had been\ncontemplating it now for some time. In this problem--_the_ problem, the\nreligious problem--he saw the principal touchstone that distinguishes\nthe intellectuals from the spiritual men.\n\nIn so far as the religious question is concerned, the intellectuals\npresented themselves to him, in effect, as divided into two large\ngroups, usually called believers and unbelievers. Taking these terms\nin the concrete and in relation to his own country, they resolved\nthemselves into intellectual Catholics and intellectual non-Catholics,\nwho in practice were always anti-Catholics. These two factions\ncontended one against another; but as a contest is only possible on\na common basis, they contended on the same ground. No contest is\npossible between a fish which never emerges from the depths of the sea\nand a bird which never descends from the altitudes of the air. These\ntwo factions contended facing one another--that is to say, one looking\nin one direction and the other in another--but both standing on the\nsame ground, both on the same plane of intellectuality. And woe to him\nwho should address them either from above or from below, from another\nplane than theirs, from the plane of spirituality or from the plane of\ncarnality. They will both unite in calling him either a madman or a\nbrute.\n\nThese two factions contend together. For the one, religion is needful\nas the necessary basis of morality, social order being impossible\nwithout the fear of hell, of death and of the devil; religion is\nassured by external proofs, prophecies, miracles--or, rather, accounts\nof miracles--and before all and above all, by a tradition of centuries\nresting upon an authority. For the other, proofs of the truth of\nreligion are wanting; social order can be established without hell\nor the fear of death and of the devil, and the tradition has neither\nbeen constant nor does it possess any convincing logical value. Both\napproach the question from the same side: the one sees in religion\na social institution devoted to the interests of order, the other a\nsocial institution devoted to the interests of despotism; the one\nseeks for external logical proofs and the other rejects these proofs.\nAdvocates, and merely advocates, both of them! For both of them it\nis a question of a social institution, something based upon external\nauthorities and evidences or inevidences, upon something logical or\nillogical. It is what they call the conflict between reason and faith,\nalthough this faith is not faith but only belief. It was not possible\nfor him, for our man, to feel it in that way, and the arguments of the\none side interested him as little as those of the other. Disputes of\nintellectuals!...\n\nHe was now called to supper and he went away to attend to the wants of\nthe body, giving it first food and then sleep.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MATERIALISM OF THE MASSES\n\n\nIn the course of my frequent peregrinations, when I go up and down the\ncountry preaching my lay sermons in the towns and cities of Spain, I\nhave a way of taking my audiences as raw material for experiment. I\ncarry out tests upon them, observing how they respond and react to my\nwords. And I have observed that whenever they hear me say something\nwhich they think, however erroneously, implies a kind of negation\nof the immortality of the soul and of the existence of another life\ntranscending this world, they break out into applause. And this\napplause saddens me and sometimes prompts me to attack.\n\nIf these outbursts of applause meant simply: \u201cHear, hear! Bravo! This\nman\u2019s honest. He puts love of truth, however painful the truth may\nbe, before love of consolation\u201d--if the applause meant that, I would\naccept it, though with a certain sadness. But no, this applause means\nsomething different. It means: \u201cHear, hear! Excellent! We don\u2019t want\nanother life! This life is enough for us!\u201d And this wounds me, for it\nis an explosion of the most debasing materialism.\n\nNot believing that God exists or that the soul is immortal,\nor believing that God does not exist and that the soul is not\nimmortal--and believing that the soul is not immortal is not the same\nas not believing that it is immortal--this is a belief that I can\nrespect; but not wishing that God should exist or that the soul should\nbe immortal is a thing profoundly repellent to me.\n\nAnd it is precisely because I have this thorn in my heart of hearts,\nbecause I cannot resign myself to one day returning to unconsciousness,\nbecause I have a thirst for eternity, that this applause bruises\nmy heart. That a man should not believe in another life, that I\nunderstand, for I myself find no proof of it; but that he should resign\nhimself to this, and above all that he should not desire anything more\nthan this life, that is a thing I do indeed not understand.\n\nAnd then these gross calumniations of Christ and of Christianity, these\nstupidities that go contrary to nature and that have stunted the human\nspirit, and all this alluvion of vulgarity that so many unfortunate\npeople swallow whole....\n\nIn one of those series of popular publications which flatter and\nseduce the coarsest instincts of the unlettered multitudes, there is a\nbook--translated from the Italian, I believe--entitled \u201cJesus Christ\nHas Never Existed.\u201d It is one of the most deplorable, shallow, and\nworthless books imaginable, inspired not by a love of truth but by\nthe most blatant sectarianism. I was talking about it one day to a\nman who had read it and who had been delighted with it, and I said:\n\u201cIt is not the thesis that shocks me. The thesis that Jesus had no\nhistorical existence, that He is a myth, has many times been put\nforward, and with apparently very plausible arguments, at any rate with\nerudition--recently by Karthoff--but it is a thesis that has been\ndemolished by the most judicious investigators, no matter what their\npersonal creed may have been.\u201d He replied: \u201cThen I\u2019m sorry, for He\nought not to have existed.\u201d And naturally I did not know what to say to\nthat.\n\nThis lack of ideality, this aridity and poverty of inward life, which\nis implied by not longing for another and transcendental life, all this\npractical materialism, is dismaying to the mind of whosoever meditates\na little upon the worth of human life. For my own part, I have very\nlittle hope of peoples who fall into this materialistic attitude.\n\nUnderstand me clearly: I am not assuring you, nor can I assure you,\nthat there is another life; I myself am not convinced that there is;\nbut I cannot conceive that a man, a true man, should not merely resign\nhimself to the enjoyment of this life only, but that he should renounce\nand even spurn another life. And as for this idea that we shall\ncontinue to live in our works, in our children, in the memory of other\ngenerations, and that everything renews and transforms itself, and that\nwe shall help to build up a more perfect society--all this appears\nto me to be the most miserable subterfuge for escaping the depths of\ndespair.\n\nThis is the reason why the radicalism of certain sections of the masses\ndismays me and why I cannot hope that anything fruitful will come\nof it. The radicalism of the masses in Spain, and perhaps in other\nso-called Latin, or, more strictly speaking, Catholic, countries, is\nlacking in the spirit and substance of religion. The weak point in our\nsocialism is its confused notion of the supreme end of the individual\nlife.\n\nLet us better the economic condition of man--good! Let us put an end to\nthe division between rich and poor--exactly! Let us realize a state in\nwhich a moderate amount of work will be sufficient to satisfy all our\nwants--very good! And then? We have now created a society such as Bebel\nor Kropotkin dreamed of, and what is to happen to each one of us in\nthis society? What is to be the end of this society? What shall we live\nfor?\n\n\u201cGet rich!\u201d said Guizon, the Calvinist, to the Catholic bourgeoisie of\nFrance; \u201cget rich!\u201d Very good. And then, when we have got rich?...\n\nA country in which the people think only of getting rich is a country\n... well, I would rather not inquire what kind of a country it is.\nSuffice it to say that I at any rate should die in it of cold, of\nshame, of disgust.\n\nAnd if a country which is solely preoccupied with getting rich is\nabhorrent to me, still more abhorrent is the country in which the\ndominant preoccupation is that of enjoyment, of diversion. In other\nwords, of self-stupefaction.\n\nA collective patriotic enthusiasm, an imperialistic instinct, a\npassionate desire to influence other peoples and to impress your own\nstamp upon them--this, after all, is something. But this enthusiasm,\nthis instinct, this desire, lives and burns in those peoples which\npreserve the inward spring of religion, an underlying inextinguishable\nthirst for eternity.\n\nThe people that is satisfied with this life lives, strictly speaking,\non the defensive, and the people that lives on the defensive ends\nby being absorbed and dominated by those in whom the aggressive and\ndominating instinct is uppermost. The so-called struggle for life\nis efficacious only when the struggle is for predominance, not for\npreservation. The essence of being, as Spinoza showed, consists not\nso much in the effort to persist in mere being as in the effort to\nbecome more, to become everything. It is the appetite for infinity and\neternity.\n\nI do not know what is to be hoped from peoples that have been\nmaterialized by a long indoctrination of implicit Catholic faith, whose\nbeliefs are a matter of routine, in whom the inner spring appears to be\nexhausted--that inward disquietude which distinguishes the essentially\nProtestant spirit. I do not know what is to be hoped from peoples in\nwhom centuries of a religion more social than individual, characterized\nrather by ritual and ceremony and externality and authority than by\ninward struggle, have resulted in generating a kind of free-thinking\nthat issues in indifference and in resignation to the life of this\nworld.\n\nFrom the superstition of a ridiculous and childish heaven and hell they\nhave fallen into the superstition of a gross and unspiritual earth.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAN OF FLESH AND BONE\n\n\n_Homo sum; nihil humani a me alienum puto_, said the Latin playwright.\nAnd I would rather say: _Nullum hominem a me alienum puto_: I am a man;\nno other man do I deem a stranger. For to me the adjective _humanus_ is\nno less suspect than its abstract substantive _humanitas_, humanity.\nNeither the \u201chuman\u201d nor \u201chumanity,\u201d neither the simple adjective nor\nthe substantivized adjective, but the concrete substantive--man. The\nman of flesh and bone; the man who is born, suffers, and dies--above\nall, who dies; the man who eats and drinks and plays and thinks and\nwills; the man who is seen and heard; the brother, the real brother.\n\nFor there is something else that is also called man, and he is the\nsubject of many more or less scientific speculations. He is the\nlegendary featherless biped, the \u03be\u1ff7\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b9\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03c5 of Aristotle, the\nsocial contractor of Rousseau, the _homo economicus_ of the Manchester\nschool, the _homo sapiens_ of Linn\u00e6us, or, if you like, the vertical\nmammal. A man neither of here nor there, neither of this age nor of\nanother, who has neither sex nor country, who is, in brief, merely an\nidea. That is to say, a no-man.\n\nOur man is the other man, the man of flesh and bone--I and you, my\nreader, and the other man over there, all of us who weigh upon the\nearth.\n\nAnd this concrete man, this man of flesh and bone, is at once the\nsubject and the supreme object of all philosophy, whether certain\nself-styled philosophers like it or not.\n\nIn most of the histories of philosophy that I know, philosophic systems\nare presented to us as if they grew out of one another and their\nauthors, the philosophers, appear only as mere pretexts. The inward\nbiography of the philosophers, of the men who philosophized, occupies a\nsecondary place. And it is this, nevertheless, this inward biography,\nthat explains most things to us.\n\nIt behoves us to say, before all, that philosophy lies closer to poetry\nthan to science. All philosophic systems that have been constructed as\na supreme concord of the final results of the individual sciences have\nin every age possessed much less consistency and less life than those\nwhich have expressed the integral desire of the spirit of their authors.\n\nFor the fact is that the sciences, important to us as they are and\nindeed indispensable for our life and thought, are in a certain sense\nmore extraneous to us than philosophy. They fulfil a more objective\nend, that is to say, an end more external to ourselves. They are, at\nbottom, a matter of economics. A new scientific discovery, of the\nkind called theoretical, is like a mechanical discovery--that of the\nsteam-engine, the telephone, the phonograph, or the aeroplane--a thing\nthat is useful for something. Thus the telephone may be useful to us in\nenabling us to communicate at a distance with the woman we love. But\nshe, what is she useful to us for? A man takes an electric tram to go\nto hear an opera and asks himself: Which is in this case more useful,\nthe tram or the opera?\n\nPhilosophy answers to our need of forming a complete and unitary\nconception of the world and of life, and as a result of this\nconception, a feeling which gives birth to an inward attitude\nand even to an activity. But in fact this feeling, instead of\nbeing a consequence of this conception, is the cause of it. Our\nphilosophy--that is, our mode of understanding or of not understanding\nthe world and life--springs from our feeling towards life itself. And\nthis, like everything affective, has subconscious, perhaps unconscious,\nroots.\n\nIt is not usually our ideas that make us optimists or pessimists,\nbut it is our optimism or our pessimism, of physiological or perhaps\npathological origin, as much the one as the other, that makes our ideas.\n\nMan, they say, is a reasoning animal. I do not know why he has not\nbeen defined as an affective or feeling animal. Perhaps that which\ndifferentiates him from other animals is feeling rather than reason.\nMore often I have seen a cat reason than laugh or weep. Perhaps it\nweeps or laughs inwardly--but then perhaps the crab also resolves\nequations of the second degree inwardly.\n\nAnd thus in a philosopher what must most concern us is the man.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMan is an end, not a means. All civilization addresses itself to\nman, to each man, to each \u201cI.\u201d What is this idol--call it Humanity\nor call it what you will--to which all men and each individual man\nmust be sacrificed? For I sacrifice myself for my neighbours, for my\nfellow-countrymen, for my children, and these sacrifice themselves in\ntheir turn for theirs, and theirs again for those who come after them,\nand so on in a never-ending series of generations. And who receives the\nfruit of this sacrifice?\n\nThose who talk to us about this fantastic sacrifice, this dedication\nwithout an object, are wont to talk to us also about the right to live.\nAnd what is this right to live? They tell me that I have come into the\nworld to realize I know not what social end; but I feel that I, like\neach one of my fellows, am here to realize myself, to live.\n\nYes, yes, I see it all--an enormous social activity, a mighty\ncivilization, an accumulation of science, of art, of industry, of\nmorality, and afterwards, when we have filled the world with industrial\nmarvels, with great factories, with roads, with museums, with\nlibraries, we shall fall exhausted at the foot of it all, and it will\nendure--for whom? Was man made for science or was science made for man?\n\n\u201cWhy!\u201d--the reader will exclaim--\u201cwe are getting back to what the\nCatechism says: \u2018Q. For whom did God create the world? A. For man\u2019?\u201d\nPrecisely--so ought the man who is a man to reply. The ant, if it took\naccount of these matters and were a person, conscious of itself, would\nreply: \u201cFor the ant,\u201d and it would reply rightly. The world is made for\nconsciousness, for each consciousness.\n\nA human soul is worth all the universe, someone has said--I know not\nwho, but it was excellently well said. A human soul, mind you! Not\na human life. Not this life. And it is a fact that the less a man\nbelieves in the soul, that is to say, in his conscious immortality,\npersonal and concrete, the more he will exaggerate the worth of this\npoor transitory life. Hence arises the effeminate sentimental feeling\nagainst war. True, a man ought not to wish to die, but it is the other,\nthe eternal death, that he ought not to wish. \u201cWhosoever will save his\nlife shall lose it,\u201d says the Gospel; but it does not say \u201cwhosoever\nwill save his soul,\u201d the immortal soul--the soul that we believe and\nwish to be immortal.\n\nAnd all those definers of objectism do not realize, or rather do\nnot wish to realize, that a man, in affirming his \u201cI,\u201d his personal\nconsciousness, affirms man, man concrete and real, affirms the true\nhumanism--the humanism of man, not of the things of man--and in\naffirming man he affirms consciousness. For the only consciousness of\nwhich we have consciousness is that of man.\n\nThe world is for consciousness. Or rather this _for_, this notion of\nfinality, and feeling rather than notion, this teleological feeling is\nborn only where there is consciousness. Consciousness and finality are\nthe same thing fundamentally.\n\nIf the sun possessed consciousness it would think, no doubt, that it\nlived in order to give light to the worlds; but it would also and above\nall think that the worlds existed in order that it might give them\nlight and joy in giving them light and so live. And it would think well.\n\nAnd all this tragic fight of man to save himself, this immortal\ncraving for immortality which caused the man Kant to make that\nimmortal leap[7] of which I have spoken, all this is simply a fight for\nconsciousness. If consciousness is, as some inhuman thinker has said,\nnothing more than a flash of light between two eternities of darkness,\nthen there is nothing more execrable than existence.\n\nIt is possible that someone will discover that everything that I\nam saying rests upon a contradiction, since sometimes I express a\nlonging for immortality and at other times I say that this life does\nnot possess the value that is attributed to it. Contradiction? To be\nsure! The contradiction of my heart that says Yes and of my head that\nsays No. Of course there is contradiction. Who does not recollect\nthose words of the Gospel: \u201cLord, I believe, help thou my unbelief\u201d?\nContradiction? Of course! For we only live upon contradictions and by\nthem; life is tragedy, and the tragedy is perpetual struggle, without\nvictory or the hope of victory; life is contradiction.\n\nIt is a question, as you see, of an affective value, and against\naffective values reasons do not avail. For reasons are nothing more\nthan reasons, that is to say, they are not even truths. There are\ndefinition-mongers--pedants by nature and by grace--who produce an\neffect upon me like that of a man who consoles a father for the loss of\na son, dead in the prime of his life, by saying: \u201cPatience, friend, we\nall must die.\u201d Would you think it strange if this father were irritated\nby such an ineptitude? For it is an ineptitude. How often may it not\nbe said--\n\n    _para penser cual t\u00fa, s\u00f3lo es preciso_\n    _no tener nada m\u00e1s que inteligencia?_[8]\n\nThere are, in fact, people who appear to think only with the brain or\nwith whatever other organ may be the specific organ for thinking; while\nothers think with the whole body and with the whole soul, with the\nblood, with the marrow of the bones, with the heart, with the lungs,\nwith the belly, with the life. And the people who think only with the\nbrain become definition-mongers; they become the professionals of\nthought. And you know what a professional is....\n\nIf a philosopher is not a man, he is anything rather than a\nphilosopher; he is, above all, a pedant, that is to say, a caricature\nof a man. The cultivation of any science--of chemistry, of physics, of\ngeometry, of philology--may be, though within very narrow limits and\nrestrictions, a work of differentiated specialization; but philosophy,\nlike poetry, is either a work of integration and harmony or else it is\nmere philosophism, pseudo-philosophical erudition.\n\nAll knowledge has an ultimate object. Knowing for the sake of knowing\nis, say what you will, nothing but a solemn begging of the question.\nWe learn a thing either for an immediate practical end, or in order to\ncomplete the rest of our knowledge. Even the ideas that appear to us\nmost theoretical--that is to say, of least immediate application to\nthe non-intellectual necessities of life--answer to an intellectual\nnecessity, which is also a real necessity, to a principle of unity and\ncontinuity of consciousness. But just as scientific knowledge has its\nfinality in the rest of our knowledge, the philosophy which we may\nbe forced to choose has another extrinsic finality--it refers to our\nwhole destiny, to our attitude towards life and the universe. And the\nmost tragic problem of philosophy is that of reconciling intellectual\nnecessities of the heart and the will. For it is just here that every\nphilosophy that claims to resolve the eternal and tragic contradiction\nthat is the very basis of our existence breaks down. But do all men\nconfront this contradiction?\n\nLittle can be hoped for from a ruler, for example, who has not been\npreoccupied at some time or other, even if only in some dim way, with\nthe first beginning and ultimate end of all things, and, above all, of\nmen, with their first \u201cwhy\u201d and their ultimate \u201cwherefore.\u201d\n\nAnd this supreme preoccupation cannot be purely rational, it must be\naffective. It is not enough to think about our destiny, it must be\nfelt. And the would-be leader of men who says and proclaims that he\npays no heed to the things of the spirit, does not deserve to lead\nthem. Which does not mean, of course, that any determinate solution is\nto be required of him. Solution? Is there, indeed, any?\n\nFor my part, I will never willingly yield myself, nor entrust my\nconfidence, to any popular leader who has not a real conviction that\nthe leader of a people is a leader of men--men of flesh and bone; men\nwho are born, suffer, and, although they may not wish to die, die;\nmen who are ends in themselves, not merely means; men who have to be\nthemselves and not others; men, in short, who seek that which we call\nhappiness. It is inhuman, for example, to sacrifice one generation of\nmen to the generation following when there is no regard for the destiny\nof those sacrificed--not merely for their memory, for their names, but\nfor themselves.\n\nAll this idea that a man lives in his children, or in his works, or\nin the universe, is but vague verbiage which satisfies only those who\nsuffer from affective stupidity and who may, for the rest, be persons\nof a certain cerebral distinction. For it is possible to possess a\ngreat talent or what we call great talent, and yet to be stupid as far\nas the feelings are concerned, and even morally imbecile. There have\nbeen instances.\n\nThose who are mentally talented and affectively stupid usually say\nthat it is useless to seek to delve into the unknowable or to kick\nagainst the pricks. It is as if one should say to a man whose leg has\nbeen amputated that it is useless to think about it. And we all lack\nsomething; only some of us feel it and others do not. Or they pretend\nnot to feel it, and then they are hypocrites.\n\nThere is something which, for want of a better name, we will call\nthe tragic sense of life, which carries with it a whole conception\nof life itself and of the universe, a whole philosophy, more or less\nformulated, more or less conscious. And this sense may be possessed,\nand is possessed, not only by individual men but by whole peoples.\nAnd this sense does not flow from ideas but rather determines them,\nalthough afterwards, of course, these ideas react upon the sense\nand confirm it. Sometimes this sense may proceed from a casual\nillness--from dyspepsia, for example--but at other times it is\nconstitutional. And it is useless to speak of men who are healthy and\nmen who are unhealthy. Apart from there being no normal standard of\nhealth, nobody has proved that man is necessarily cheerful by nature.\nAnd, further, man, by the very fact of being man, of possessing\nconsciousness, is, when compared with the ass or the crab, already a\ndiseased animal. Consciousness is a disease.\n\nAmong men of flesh and bone there have been typical examples of those\nwho possess the tragic sense of life. I recall now Marcus Aurelius, St.\nAugustine, Pascal, Rousseau, _Ren\u00e9_, _Obermann_, Thomson,[9] Leopardi,\nVigny, Lenau, Kleist, Amiel, Quental, Kierkegaard--men laden with\nwisdom rather than with knowledge.\n\nAnd there are, I believe, also peoples who possess this tragic sense of\nlife.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PROBLEM OF IMMORTALITY\n\n\nThe great master of rationalist phenomenalism, David Hume, begins his\nessay \u201cOn the Immortality of the Soul\u201d with these decisive words: \u201cIt\nappears difficult by the mere light of reason to prove the immortality\nof the soul. The arguments in favour of it are commonly derived from\nmetaphysical, moral, or physical considerations. But it is really\nthe Gospel, and only the Gospel, that has brought to light life and\nimmortality.\u201d Which is equivalent to denying the rationality of the\nbelief that the soul of each one of us is immortal.\n\nKant, who took Hume as the starting-point for his criticism, attempted\nto establish the rationality of this longing for immortality and the\nbelief that it imports, and that is the real origin, the inward origin,\nof his \u201cCritique of Practical Reason\u201d and of his categorical imperative\nand of his God. But in spite of all this, the sceptical affirmation\nof Hume remains unshaken. There is no way of rationally proving\nthe immortality of the soul. There are, on the other hand, ways of\nrationally proving its mortality.\n\nIt would be not merely superfluous but ridiculous to explain here at\nlength how far the individual human consciousness depends upon the\norganization of the body, how it comes gradually to birth according\nas the brain receives impressions from without, how it is temporally\ninterrupted during sleep, swoons, and other accidents, and how\neverything leads us to the rational conjecture that death carries with\nit loss of consciousness. And just as before our birth we were not, nor\nhave we any personal pre-natal memory, so after our death we shall no\nlonger be. This is the rational position.\n\nRationalism--and by rationalism I mean the doctrine that abides solely\nby reason, by objective truth--is necessarily materialist. And let not\nidealists be scandalized thereby.\n\nThe truth is--it is necessary to state it clearly--that what we call\nmaterialism means for us nothing else but the doctrine which denies\nthe immortality of the individual soul, the persistence of personal\nconsciousness after death.\n\nIn another sense it may be said that, since we know what spirit is,\nand since matter is for us no more than an idea, materialism is\nidealism. In fact, and as regards our problem--the most vital, the\nonly really vital problem--it is all the same to say that everything\nis matter as to say that everything is idea, or everything energy,\nor what you please. Every monist system will always seem to us\nmaterialist. The immortality of the soul is saved only by the dualist\nsystems--those which teach that human consciousness is something\nsubstantially distinct and different from other manifestations of\nphenomena. And reason is naturally monist. For it is the function\nof reason to understand and explain the universe, and in order to\nunderstand and explain it, it is in no way necessary for the soul to\nbe an imperishable substance. For the purpose of understanding and\nexplaining our psychic life, for psychology, the hypothesis of the soul\nis unnecessary.\n\nAll the attempts to substantivate consciousness, making it independent\nof extension--it will be remembered that Descartes opposed thought to\nextension--are but sophistical subtleties intended to establish the\nrationality of faith in the immortality of the soul. It is sought to\ngive the value of objective reality to that which does not possess\nit, to that of which the reality exists only in thought. And the\nimmortality that we crave is a phenomenal reality, it is a continuation\nof this life.\n\nFrom whatever side we look at it, it is always found that reason\nconfronts our longing for personal immortality and contradicts it. And\nin strict truth, reason is the enemy of life. All that is vital is\nanti-rational, and all that is rational is anti-vital, for reason is\nessentially sceptical.\n\nRationalists persist in endeavouring to convince men that there are\nmotives for living and that there is a consolation for having been\nborn, even though there must come a time, at the end of some tens or\nhundreds or millions of centuries, when all human consciousness shall\nhave ceased to exist. And these motives for living and working, this\nthing which some call humanism, illustrate the amazing affectional and\nemotional hollowness of rationalism and of its stupendous hypocrisy--a\nhypocrisy that is resolved to sacrifice sincerity to veracity and not\nto confess that reason is a dissolvent and disconsolatory power.\n\nMust I repeat again what I have already said about all this idea of\ncreating culture, of progressing, of realizing good, truth, and\nbeauty, of establishing justice on earth, of ameliorating life for\nthose who shall come after us, of subserving I know not what destiny,\ndivorced from all preoccupation with the ultimate end of each one of\nus? Must I again declare to you the supreme vacuity of culture, of art,\nof good, of truth, of beauty, of justice ... of all these beautiful\nconceptions, if at the last end of everything, in four days or in four\nmillion centuries--it matters not which--no human consciousness shall\nexist to appropriate this culture, this science, art, good, truth,\nbeauty, justice, and all the rest?\n\nMany and various have been the rationalist devices--more or less\nrational--from the days of the Epicureans and the Stoics, by means\nof which it has been sought to discover rational consolation in\ntruth and to convince men--though the convincers were themselves\nunconvinced--that there are motives for working and lures for living,\neven though the human consciousness be destined ultimately to disappear.\n\nThe Epicurean attitude, the extreme and grossest expression of which is\n\u201cLet us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,\u201d or the Horatian _carpe\ndiem_, which may be rendered by \u201cLive for the day,\u201d is not radically\ndifferent from the Stoic attitude with its \u201cDo what your conscience\ntells you, and afterward let it be as it may be.\u201d Both attitudes have a\ncommon base, and pleasure for pleasure\u2019s sake comes to the same thing\nas duty for duty\u2019s sake.\n\nIt is true that there are people who assert that reason suffices them,\nand they counsel us not to seek to penetrate into the impenetrable.\nBut of those who say that they have no need of any faith in eternal\npersonal life in order to find incentives to living and motives for\naction, I know not well how to think. A man blind from birth may also\nassure us that he feels no great desire to enjoy the world of sight\nnor suffers any great anguish from not having enjoyed it, and we must\nneeds believe him, for _nihil volitum quin pr\u00e6cognitum_, nothing can be\nwilled that is not previously known. But I cannot be persuaded that he\nwho has once in his life, either in his youth or at some other point\nof time, cherished the belief in the immortality of the soul, will\never find peace without it. And this kind of blindness from birth is\nscarcely possible among men, except by a strange aberration. And the\nmerely and exclusively rational man is an aberration and nothing but an\naberration.\n\nI do not know why so many people were scandalized, or pretended to be\nscandalized, when Bruneti\u00e8re proclaimed once again the bankruptcy of\nscience. For science, in so far as it is a substitute for religion,\nand reason, in so far as it is a substitute for faith, have always\nfoundered. Science will be able to satisfy in an increasing measure,\nand in fact does satisfy, our increasing logical and intellectual\nneeds, our desire to know and understand the truth; but science does\nnot satisfy the needs of our heart and our will, our hunger for\nimmortality--far from satisfying it, it contradicts it. Rational life\nand truth stand in opposition to one another. And can it be that there\nis any other truth than rational truth?\n\nIt must remain established, therefore, that reason, human reason,\nwithin its limits not only does not prove rationally that the soul\nis immortal and that the human consciousness is through all the ages\nindestructible, but that it proves rather--within its limits, I\nrepeat--that the individual consciousness cannot persist after the\ndeath of the physical organism upon which it depends. And these limits,\nwithin which I say that human reason proves this, are the limits of\nrationality, of what we know by demonstration. Beyond these limits\nis the irrational, which is all the same whether it be called the\nsuper-rational or the infra-rational or the contra-rational. Beyond\nthese limits is the absurd of Tertullian, the impossible of the _certum\nest, quia impossible est_. And this absurd can only base itself upon\nthe most absolute incertitude.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe vital longing for human immortality, therefore, finds no rational\nconfirmation, nor does reason give us any incentive or consolation\nfor living or give to life itself any real finality. But here, in the\ndepths of the abyss, the despair of the heart and the will and the\nscepticism of reason meet face to face and embrace fraternally. And\nit will be from this embrace, a tragic, that is to say a profoundly\nloving, embrace, that the fountain of life will flow, a life earnest\nand terrible. Scepticism, uncertainty--the ultimate position at which\nreason arrives by practising its analysis upon itself, upon its own\nvalidity--is the foundation upon which the despair of the vital sense\nmust build its hope.\n\nDisillusioned, we have had to abandon the position of those who seek\nto convert rational and logical truth into consolation, pretending\nto prove the rationality, or at any rate the non-irrationality, of\nconsolation; and we have had to abandon likewise the position of those\nwho seek to convert consolation and motives for living into rational\ntruth. Neither of these positions satisfies us. The one is at variance\nwith our reason, the other with our feeling. Peace between these two\npowers is impossible and we must live by their war. We must make of\nthis war, of war itself, the condition of our spiritual life.\n\nFaith in immortality is irrational. And nevertheless, faith, life and\nreason have mutual need of one another. This vital longing is not\nproperly a problem, cannot be formulated in propositions capable of\nrational discussion; but it announces itself in us as hunger announces\nitself. Neither can the wolf that throws itself upon its prey to\ndevour it or upon the she-wolf to fecundate her, enunciate its impulse\nrationally and as a logical problem. Reason and faith are two enemies\nneither of which can maintain itself without the other. The irrational\ndemands to be rationalized and reason alone can operate on the\nirrational. They are compelled to seek mutual support and association.\nBut association in conflict, for conflict is a mode of association.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is no possible permanent position of agreement and harmony\nbetween reason and life, between philosophy and religion. And the\ntragic history of human thought is simply the history of a struggle\nbetween reason and life--reason bent on rationalizing life and making\nit resign itself to the inevitable, to mortality; life bent on\nvitalizing reason and forcing it to serve as a support for its vital\ndesires. And this is the history of philosophy, inseparable from the\nhistory of religion.\n\nOur sense of the world, of objective reality, is necessarily\nsubjective, human, anthropomorphic. And vitalism will always rise up\nagainst rationalism, the will will always stand up against reason.\nHence the rhythm of the history of philosophy and the alternation\nof periods in which life imposes itself, giving birth to spiritual\nforms, with periods in which reason imposes itself, giving birth to\nmaterialistic forms, although both of these classes of forms of belief\nmay disguise themselves under other names. Neither reason nor life ever\nacknowledges itself vanquished.\n\nNo doubt it will be said that life ought to submit to reason and to\nthis we shall reply that nothing ought to be done that cannot be done,\nand life cannot submit to reason. \u201cOught, therefore can,\u201d some Kantian\nwill retort. To which we shall demur: \u201cCannot, therefore ought not.\u201d\nAnd life cannot submit to reason, because the end of life is living and\nnot understanding.\n\nThere is always someone who will tell us of the religious duty of\nresigning ourselves to mortality. This is indeed the very summit of\naberration and insincerity. And over against sincerity will be set the\nopposing ideal of veracity. Be it so, and yet it is quite possible to\nreconcile the two. Veracity, respect for what I believe to be rational,\nfor what we call truth in the logical sense, moves me to affirm that\nthe immortality of the individual soul is a logical contradiction,\nis something not only irrational but contra-rational; but sincerity\nleads me to affirm also that I do not resign myself to this former\naffirmation and that I protest against its validity. What I feel is a\ntruth, as much a truth at any rate as what I see, touch, hear, and what\nis demonstrated to me--I believe that it is even more of a truth--and\nsincerity obliges me not to hide my feelings.\n\nAnd in self-defence life searches for the weak point in reason and\nfinds it in scepticism, which it seizes hold of, endeavouring to save\nitself by maintaining its hold. It needs the weakness of its adversary.\n\nIn an outburst of passion, Lamennais exclaims: \u201cBut what! All hope\nlost, shall we plunge blindly into the mute depths of a universal\nscepticism? Shall we doubt that we think, that we feel, that we are?\nNature does not allow it; she forces us to believe even when our reason\nis not convinced. Absolute certainty and absolute doubt are both alike\nforbidden to us. We hover in a vague mean between these two extremes,\nas between being and nothingness; for complete scepticism would be\nthe extinction of the intelligence and the total death of man. But it\nis not given to man to annihilate himself; there is in him something\nwhich invincibly resists destruction, I know not what vital faith,\nwhich the will itself cannot master. Whether he like it or not, he must\nbelieve, because he must act, because he must preserve himself. His\nreason, if he listened only to that, teaching him to doubt everything,\nitself included, would reduce him to a state of absolute inaction; he\nwould perish before even he had been able to prove to himself that he\nexisted.\u201d[10]\n\nIt is not strictly true that reason leads us to absolute scepticism.\nNo, reason does not lead me and cannot lead me to doubt that I exist.\nWhither reason does lead me is to vital scepticism, or more properly to\nvital negation--not merely to doubt but to deny that my consciousness\nsurvives my death. Vital scepticism comes from the clash between reason\nand desire. And from this clash, from this embrace between despair\nand scepticism is born holy, sweet, saving incertitude, our supreme\nconsolation.\n\nThe absolute and complete certainty, on the one hand, that death is a\ncomplete, definite, irrevocable annihilation of personal consciousness,\na certainty of the same order as the certainty that the three angles\nof a triangle are equal to two right angles, or, on the other hand,\nthe absolute and complete certainty that our personal consciousness\nis prolonged beyond death in these or those conditions, including\nwithal the extraneous and adventitious addition of eternal rewards\nand punishments--both of these certainties would equally make life\nimpossible for us. In the most secret chamber of the spirit of him\nwho believes himself convinced that death puts an end to his personal\nconsciousness, his memory, for ever, there lurks a shadow, all unknown\nto him perhaps, a vague shadow, a shadow of a shadow of uncertainty,\nand while he says within himself: \u201cWell, let us live this passing life,\nfor there is no other!\u201d the silence of this secret chamber speaks to\nhim and murmurs: \u201cWho knows!...\u201d He may not think he hears it, but he\nhears it. And likewise in some secret place of the soul of the believer\nwho most firmly holds the faith in future life, there is a muffled\nvoice, a voice of uncertainty, which whispers in the ear of his spirit:\n\u201cWho knows!...\u201d These voices are like the humming of a mosquito when\nthe gale roars through the trees in the wood; we cannot distinguish\nthis faint humming, nevertheless, merged in the clamour of the storm,\nit reaches the ear. Otherwise, without this uncertainty, how could we\nlive?\n\n\u201cIs there?\u201d \u201cIs there not?\u201d--these are the bases of our inner life.\nThere may be a rationalist who has never wavered in his conviction of\nthe mortality of the soul, and there may be a vitalist who has never\nwavered in his faith in immortality; but at the most this would only\nprove that just as there are monsters, so there are people who are\naffectively and feelingly stupid, however much intelligence they may\nhave, and people who are intellectually stupid, however great their\nvirtue may be. But in normal cases I cannot believe those who assure\nme that never, not even for a moment, not in the hours of greatest\nloneliness and tribulation, has this murmur of uncertainty breathed\nupon their consciousness. I do not understand the men who tell me that\nthe prospect of the yonder side of death has never tormented them, that\nthe thought of their own annihilation never disquiets them. For my part\nI do not wish to make peace between my heart and my head, between my\nfaith and my reason--I wish rather that there should be war between\nthem.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\u201cLord, I believe; help thou my unbelief!\u201d This may appear to be a\ncontradiction, for if the man believes, if he trusts, how is it that he\nbeseeches the Lord to help his lack of trust? Nevertheless it is this\ncontradiction that gives all its deepest human value to this cry torn\nfrom the heart of the father of a demoniac. His faith is a faith that\nis based upon incertitude. Because he believes, that is to say, because\nhe wishes to believe, because he has need that his son should be\ncured--he beseeches the Lord to help his unbelief, his doubt that such\na cure could be effected. Of such a kind is human faith. Of such a kind\nwas the heroic faith that Sancho Panza had in his master, the knight\nDon Quixote de la Mancha, as I think I have shown in my \u201cLife of Don\nQuixote and Sancho\u201d--a faith based upon incertitude, upon doubt. Sancho\nPanza was indeed a man, a whole and a real man, and he was not stupid,\nfor only if he had been stupid would he have believed without a shadow\nof doubt in the follies of his master. Neither did his master believe\nin them without a shadow of doubt, for neither was Don Quixote, though\nmad, stupid. He was fundamentally a man of despair, as I think I have\nshown in my book. And because he was a man of an heroic despair, the\nhero of that inward and resigned despair, he is the eternal exemplar\nof every man whose soul is the battle-ground of reason and immortal\ndesire. Our Lord Don Quixote is the prototype of the vitalist whose\nfaith is based upon incertitude, and Sancho is the prototype of the\nrationalist who doubts his own reason.\n\n\n\n\nCREATIVE FAITH\n\n\nWhen as a boy I began to be disquieted by the eternal problems, I read\nin a book, the author of which I have no wish to recall, this sentence:\n\u201cGod is the great x placed over the barrier of human knowledge--as\nscience advances, the barrier recedes.\u201d And I wrote in the margin:\n\u201cOn this side of the barrier, everything is explained without Him; on\nthe further side, nothing is explained, either with Him or without\nHim. God, therefore, is superfluous.\u201d And so as far as concerns the\nGod-Idea, the God whose existence is supposed to be logically proved, I\ncontinue to be of the same opinion. Laplace is said to have stated that\nhe had not found the hypothesis of God necessary in the construction of\nhis system of the origin of the Universe, and it very certainly is so.\nThe idea of God does not in any way help us to understand any better\nthe existence, the essence and the finality of the Universe.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe living God, the human God, is reached not by the way of reason but\nby the way of love and of suffering. Reason rather separates us from\nHim. It is not possible to know Him in order that afterwards we may\nlove Him; we must begin by loving Him, longing for Him, hungering for\nHim, before knowing Him. The knowledge of God proceeds from the love of\nGod, and it is a knowledge that has little or nothing of the rational\nin it. For God is indefinable. To seek to define Him is to claim to\nlimit Him in our mind--that is to say, to kill Him. In so far as we\nattempt to define Him, we are confronted by Nothingness.\n\nThe idea of God which the would-be rational theodicy presents us with\nis merely an hypothesis, like the hypothesis of the ether, for example.\n\nThe ether is, in effect, merely a hypothetical entity, which is of\nvalue only in so far as it explains that which by means of it we seek\nto explain--light, or electricity, or universal gravitation--and only\nso far as these facts cannot be explained in any other way. Similarly\nthe idea of God is also an hypothesis which is of value only in so far\nas we explain by means of it that which we seek to explain--the essence\nand existence of the Universe--and only so long as these cannot be\nexplained better in some other way. And since in reality we explain the\nUniverse neither better nor worse with this idea than without it, the\nidea of God, the supreme _petitio principii_, fails of its purpose.\n\nBut if the ether is nothing but an hypothesis intended to explain\nlight, air on the other hand is a thing that is directly felt; and\neven though it did not enable us to explain sound, we should have a\ndirect sensation of it, and, above all, of the lack of it in moments of\nsuffocation or air-hunger. And in the same way, God Himself, not the\nidea of God, may become a directly felt reality; and although the idea\nof Him may not enable us to explain either the existence or the essence\nof the Universe, we have at times the direct feeling of God, above all\nin moments of spiritual suffocation. And this feeling--mark it well,\nfor herein lies its tragicness and the whole tragic sense of life--is a\nfeeling of hunger for God, of lack of God. To believe in God is, in the\nfirst instance, to wish that there may be a God, not to be able to live\nwithout Him.\n\nSo long as I pilgrimaged through the fields of reason in search of\nGod, I could not find Him, for I was not taken in by the idea of God,\nneither could I take an idea for God; and it was then, as I wandered\namong the wastes of rationalism, that I told myself that we ought to\nseek no other consolation than the truth, meaning thereby reason, and\nyet for all that I was not comforted. But as I sank deeper and deeper\ninto rational scepticism on the one hand and into heart\u2019s despair on\nthe other, the hunger for God awoke within me, and the suffocation of\nspirit made me feel the want of God, and with the want of Him, His\nreality. And I wished that there might be a God, that God might exist.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe problem of the existence of God, a problem that is rationally\ninsoluble, is in its essence none other than the problem of\nconsciousness, the very problem of the substantial existence of the\nsoul, the very problem of the perpetuity of the human soul, the\nvery problem of the human finality of the Universe. To believe in a\nliving and personal God, in an eternal and universal consciousness\nthat knows us and loves us, is to believe that the Universe exists\n_for_ man. For man, or for a consciousness of the same order as the\nhuman consciousness, of the same nature, although sublimated, a\nconsciousness that is cognizant of us, in whose depths our memory lives\nfor ever.\n\nPerhaps by a supreme and desperate effort of resignation we might\nsucceed in making the sacrifice of our personality if we knew that\nin dying it would go to enrich a Supreme Personality, a Supreme\nConsciousness, if we knew that the Universal Soul was nourished by\nour souls and had need of them. Perhaps we might meet death with a\ndesperate resignation or with a resigned desperation, delivering up our\nsoul to the soul of humanity, bequeathing to it our work, the work that\nbears the stamp of our personality, if this humanity were in its turn\nto bequeath its soul to another soul after the ultimate extinction of\nconsciousness upon this earth with its burden of longings. But if it be\notherwise?\n\nAnd if the soul of humanity is eternal, if the human collective\nconsciousness is eternal, if there is a Consciousness of the Universe\nand if this Consciousness is eternal, why should not our own individual\nconsciousness, yours, reader, and mine, not be eternal?\n\nIn the whole of the vast universe must there needs be such a thing as\na consciousness that knows itself, loves itself and feels itself, an\nexception united to a organism that can only live between such and such\ndegrees of heat, a transitory phenomenon? No, it is not mere curiosity\nto wish to know whether or not the stars are inhabited by living\norganisms, by consciousness akin to our own, and there is an element\nof profound longing in the dream of the transmigration of our souls\nthrough the stars that people the vast remotenesses of the heavens.\nThe feeling of the divine makes us wish and believe that everything is\nanimated, that consciousness, in a greater or lesser degree, extends\nthrough all things. We wish not only to save ourselves but to save the\nworld from nothingness. And therefore God. Such is His felt finality.\n\nWhat would a universe be without any consciousness to reflect it and to\nknow it? What would the objectified reason be, without will and without\nfeeling? For us it would be the same as nothing--a thousand times more\ndreadful than nothing.\n\nIf such a supposed universe is reality, then our life lacks value and\nmeaning.\n\nIt is not, therefore, rational necessity but vital anguish that\nleads us to believe in God. And to believe in God--I must repeat it\nagain--is, before all and above all, to feel hunger for God, hunger for\ndivinity, to feel the lack and absence of God, to wish that God may\nexist. And it is to wish to save the human finality of the Universe.\nFor we might even succeed in resigning ourselves to being absorbed by\nGod if our consciousness rests upon a Consciousness, if consciousness\nis the end of the Universe.\n\n\u201cThe wicked man has said in his heart: There is no God.\u201d And there is\ntruth in this. For it is possible for a righteous man to say in his\nhead: God does not exist. But only the wicked can say it in his heart.\nNot to believe that there is a God or to believe that there is not\na God, is one thing; to resign oneself to there not being a God is\nanother thing, though an inhuman and horrible thing; but not to wish\nthat there is a God exceeds every other moral aberration. Although in\nfact those who deny God do so because of their despair at not finding\nHim.\n\nAnd now once again there comes the rational question, the question\nof the Sphinx--the Sphinx, in effect, is reason--does God exist?\nThis eternal and eternalizing Person who gives meaning--I do not add\n\u201chuman,\u201d for there is no other meaning--to the universe, is He a\nsubstantial something external to our consciousness, external to our\ndesire? Here you have something that is insoluble, and it is better\nthat it should be insoluble. Let it suffice for reason that the\nimpossibility of His existence cannot be proved.\n\nTo believe in God is to long for His existence, and, furthermore, it is\nto act as if He existed. It is to live by this longing and to make it\nthe inner spring of our action.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo believe is to place confidence in someone, and it has reference\nto a person. I say that I know that there is an animal called the\nhorse, and that it has such and such characteristics, because I have\nseen it; and I say that I believe in the existence of the giraffe or\nthe ornithorhyncus, and that it has such and such qualities, because\nI believe those who assure me that they have seen it. And hence the\nelement of uncertainty that attaches to faith, for a person may be\ndeceived or he may deceive us.\n\nBut, on the other hand, this personal element in belief gives it an\naffective character, it connects it with love, and above all, in\nreligious faith, it carries with it a reference to what is hoped for.\nPerhaps there is nobody who would sacrifice his life for the sake of\nmaintaining that the three angles of a triangle are together equal\nto two right angles, for such a truth does not require the sacrifice\nof our life; but on the other hand there are many who have lost their\nlives for the sake of maintaining their religious faith, and it is\nmartyrs that make faith rather than faith that makes martyrs. For faith\nis not the mere adherence of the intellect to an abstract principle; it\nis not the recognition of a theoretical truth in which the will does\nnothing save move us to understand; faith is a matter of the will, it\nis a movement of the mind towards a practical truth, towards a person,\ntowards something that makes us live and not merely understand life.\n\nBut although we said that faith is a matter of the will, it would\nperhaps be better to say that it is the will itself, the will not to\ndie, or rather some other psychic force distinct from intelligence,\nwill and feeling. We should then have feeling, knowing, willing, and\nbelieving or creating. For neither feeling nor intelligence nor will\ncreates; they operate upon a material already given, upon a material\ngiven by faith. Faith is the creating power of man. But since it has\na more intimate relation with the will than with any other of his\nfaculties, we present it under the form of volition.\n\nFaith is, then, if not creative power, the fruit of the will, and its\nfunction is to create. Faith, in a certain sense, creates its object.\nAnd faith in God consists in creating God, and since it is God that\ngives us faith in Him, it is God who is continually creating Himself\nin us. Hence St. Augustine said: \u201cI will seek Thee, Lord, by calling\nupon Thee, and I will call upon Thee by believing in Thee. My faith\ncalls upon Thee, Lord, the faith which Thou hast given me, with which\nThou hast inspired me through the Humanity of Thy Son, through the\nministry of the Preacher\u201d (\u201cConfessions,\u201d Book I, chap. I). The power\nof creating God in our own image and likeness, of personalizing the\nUniverse, simply means that we carry God within us, as the substance of\nwhat we hope for, and that God is continually creating us in His image\nand likeness.\n\nBut after all this I shall be told that to show that faith creates its\nown object is to show that this object is an object for faith alone,\nthat it has no objective reality external to faith itself--just as,\non the other hand, to maintain that faith is necessary in order to\nrestrain or to console people is to declare that the object of faith is\nillusory. What is certain is that for thinking believers to-day, faith\nis, before all and above all, wishing that God may exist.\n\nWishing that God may exist, and acting and feeling as if He did\nexist. And it is in this way, wishing for God\u2019s existence and acting\nconformably with this desire, that we create God in ourselves, that\nis, that God creates Himself in us, manifests Himself to us, opens and\nreveals Himself to us. For God goes out to meet him who seeks Him with\nlove and by love and withdraws Himself from him who seeks Him with the\ncold and loveless reason. God wills that the heart should have rest but\nnot the head, while in the physical life the head sometimes rests and\nsleeps and the heart wakes and works unrestingly. And thus knowledge\nwithout love removes us from God; and love, even without knowledge, and\nperhaps better without it, leads us to God, and through God to wisdom.\nBlessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFaith is our longing for the eternal, for God; and hope is God\u2019s\nlonging, the longing of the eternal, of the divine in us, which\nadvances to meet our faith and raises us up. Man aspires to God by\nfaith and cries to Him: \u201cI believe--give me, Lord, wherein to believe.\u201d\nAnd God, the divinity in man, sends him hope in another life in order\nthat he may believe in it. Hope is the reward of faith. Only he who\nbelieves truly hopes, and only he who truly hopes believes. We believe\nonly what we hope, and we hope only what we believe.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SONG OF THE ETERNAL WATERS\n\n\nThe narrow road, hewn out of the naked rock, goes winding along above\nthe abyss. On one side rise high tors and crags, on the other side is\nheard the ceaseless murmur of waters in the dark depths of the ravine,\ndeeper than eye can reach. At intervals the track widens so as to form\na kind of refuge, just large enough to hold about a dozen people, a\nresting-place, screened by leafy branches, for those who travel along\nthe road above the ravine. In the distance, crowning the summit of a\njutting crag, a castle stands out against the sky. The clouds passing\nover it are torn by the pinnacles of its tall towers.\n\nWith the pilgrims goes Maquetas. He walks hurriedly, sweating, seeing\nnothing but the road in front of his eyes, except when from time to\ntime he raises them towards the castle. As he walks he sings an old\nwailing song that his grandmother taught him when he was a child, and\nhe sings it so that he shall not hear the ominous murmur of the torrent\nflowing unseen in the depths of the abyss.\n\nAs he approaches one of the resting-places, a maiden who is sitting\ninside on a bank of turf calls to him:\n\n\u201cMaquetas, come here and stop awhile. Come and rest by my side, with\nyour back to the abyss, and let us talk a little. Nothing heartens us\nfor this journey like a few words spoken in love and companionship.\nStay awhile here with me. Afterwards you will go on your way again\nrefreshed and renewed.\u201d\n\n\u201cI cannot, my girl,\u201d Maquetas replied, slowing his pace but without\nhalting, \u201cI cannot. The castle is still a great way off and I must\nreach it before the sun sets behind its towers.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou will lose nothing by staying here awhile, young man, for\nafterwards you will take the road again with more mettle and with new\nstrength. Are you not tired?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat I am, lass.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen stay awhile and rest. Here you have this turf for your couch and\nmy lap for your pillow. Come, stay!\u201d\n\nAnd she opened her arms, offering him her bosom.\n\nMaquetas paused for a moment, and as he did so there came to his ears\nthe voice of the invisible torrent flowing in the depths of the abyss.\nHe quitted the road, stretched himself on the turf and laid his head on\nthe girl\u2019s lap. With her fresh rosy hands she wiped the sweat from his\nbrow, while his eyes gazed up at the morning sky overhead, a sky that\nwas as young as the eyes of the girl.\n\n\u201cWhat is it you are singing, lass?\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2019Tis not I singing--it is the water that flows down there, behind us.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what is it that it sings?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt sings the song of eternal rest. But now rest yourself.\u201d\n\n\u201cEternal, did you say?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, that is what the torrent sings. But now rest.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd afterwards....\u201d\n\n\u201cRest, Maquetas, and don\u2019t say \u2018afterwards.\u2019\u201d\n\nThe girl put her lips to his lips and kissed him. Maquetas felt the\nkiss melt and flow through all his body, and so sweet it was that\nit seemed as if all the sky poured itself down over him. His senses\nswooned. He dreamed that he was falling endlessly down into the\nbottomless abyss....\n\nWhen he awoke and opened his eyes he saw above him the sky of evening.\n\n\u201cO lass, how late it is! Now I shall not have time to reach the castle.\nLet me go, let me go.\u201d\n\n\u201cGo then, and God guide and companion you. And don\u2019t forget me,\nMaquetas.\u201d\n\n\u201cGive me one kiss more.\u201d\n\n\u201cTake it, and may it strengthen you.\u201d\n\nWith the kiss Maquetas felt that his strength was increased a\nhundredfold and he began to run along the road, the lilt of his song\nkeeping time with his strides. And he ran and ran, leaving the other\npilgrims behind him. One of them shouted to him as he passed:\n\n\u201cYou\u2019ll stop, Maquetas.\u201d\n\nThen he saw that the sun was beginning to set behind the towers of the\ncastle and Maquetas felt a chill strike his heart. The fires of the\nsunset lasted but for a moment. He heard the grating of the chains of\nthe drawbridge. And Maquetas said to himself:\n\n\u201cThey are shutting the castle-gate.\u201d\n\nNight began to fall, an impenetrable night. Very soon Maquetas had to\nhalt, for he could see nothing, absolutely nothing. Blackness enveloped\neverything. Maquetas stood still, silent, and in the impenetrability\nof the darkness he heard only the murmur of the waters of the torrent\nin the abyss. The cold grew denser.\n\nMaquetas stooped down, felt the road with his numb hands, and began to\ncreep along on all fours, warily, like a fox. He kept edging away from\nthe abyss.\n\nHe went forward like this for a long, long time. And he said to himself:\n\n\u201cAh, that lass deceived me! Why did I heed her?\u201d\n\nThe cold became horrible. It penetrated everywhere, like a\nthousand-edged sword. Maquetas no longer felt the touch of the ground,\nhe no longer felt his own hands; he was benumbed. He stopped still. Or\nrather he scarcely knew whether he was stopping or crawling.\n\nMaquetas felt himself suspended in the midst of the darkness, black\nnight all around him. He heard nothing but the ceaseless murmur of the\nwaters of the abyss.\n\n\u201cI will call out,\u201d Maquetas said to himself, and he made an effort to\nshout. But no sound was heard; his voice did not come forth out of his\nchest. It was as if it were frozen within him.\n\nThen Maquetas thought:\n\n\u201cCan I be dead?\u201d\n\nAnd as this thought took hold of him, it seemed as if the darkness and\nthe cold fused together and eternalized themselves round about him.\n\n\u201cCan this be death?\u201d Maquetas went on thinking. \u201cShall I have to live\nhenceforward like this, in pure thought, in memory? And the castle? And\nthe abyss? What do the waters say? What a dream, what an appalling\ndream! And not to be able to sleep!... To die like this, dreaming,\ndying little by little, and not to be able to sleep!... And now what am\nI going to do? What shall I do to-morrow?\n\n\u201cTo-morrow? What is to-morrow? What does to-morrow mean? What is this\nidea of to-morrow that seems to come to me out of the depth of the\ndarkness, where the waters are singing? To-morrow? For me there is now\nno to-morrow. Everything is now, everything is blackness and cold. Even\nthis song of the eternal waters seems like a song of ice--just one\nprolonged note.\n\n\u201cBut can I really have died? How long the dawn is in coming! But I\ndon\u2019t even know how long it is since the sun set behind the towers of\nthe castle....\n\n\u201cOnce upon a time,\u201d he went on thinking, \u201cthere was a man who was\ncalled Maquetas, a great wayfarer, and he walked for days and days\njourneying to a castle, where a good dinner awaited him and a warm\nfire and a good bed to rest in, and in the bed a good bedmate. And\nthere in the castle he was going to live days without end, listening to\nstories that went on for ever, joying in his sweet companion, a life of\nperpetual youth. And those days would be all alike and all peaceful.\nAnd as they passed, oblivion would fall on them. And all those days\nwould be thus one eternal day, one same day eternally renewed, a\nperpetual to-day overflowing with a whole infinity of yesterdays and\nwith a whole infinity of to-morrows.\n\n\u201cAnd Maquetas believed that that was life, and set out on his journey.\nAnd he journeyed on, stopping at inns where he slept, and when the sun\nrose he went on his way again. And once, as he was leaving an inn,\nhe met an aged beggar who was sitting on the trunk of a tree by the\ndoor, and the beggar said to him: \u2018Maquetas, what meaning have things?\u2019\nAnd that Maquetas answered him, shrugging his shoulders: \u2018What does\nthat matter to me?\u2019 And the aged beggar asked him again: \u2018Maquetas,\nwhat does this road mean?\u2019 And that Maquetas, now somewhat irritated,\nanswered him: \u2018Why do you ask me what the road means? How should I\nknow? Does anybody know? Does the road mean anything? Leave me in\npeace, and God be with you.\u2019 And the aged beggar knitted his brows and\nsmiled sadly, gazing on the ground.\n\n\u201cAnd then Maquetas came to a very rugged country and had to cross a\nwild mountain ridge by a precipitous footpath hewn out of the rock,\nhigh up over an abyss, in the depths of which sang the waters of an\ninvisible torrent. And thence he discerned afar the castle that he had\nto reach before the sun set, and when he discerned it his heart leaped\nfor joy in his breast, and he quickened his steps. But a lass, sweet as\na vision, compelled him to stop and rest awhile on a bank of turf, and\nthat Maquetas rested his head on her lap and stopped. And when he left\nher the lass gave him a kiss, the kiss of death, and as soon as the sun\nset behind the towers of the castle the cold and the darkness closed in\nall round him and the darkness and the cold grew denser and merged into\none. And there fell a silence from which only that song of the eternal\nwaters emerged. Yonder, in life, sounds, songs, murmurs, used to issue\nout of a vague murmurous background, out of a kind of mist of sound;\nbut here this song emerged out of the profound silence, the silence of\ndarkness and cold, the silence of death.\n\n\u201cOf death? Yes, of death, for that Maquetas, that valiant wayfarer,\ndied....\n\n\u201cHow sweet the story is, and how sad! It is sweeter, far sweeter,\nsadder, far sadder, than that old song my grandmother taught me. Let me\nsee, how does it go? I will repeat it over again.\n\n\u201cOnce upon a time there was a man who was called Maquetas, a great\nwayfarer, and he walked for days and days journeying to a castle....\u201d\n\nAnd Maquetas repeated to himself again and again and again and again\nthe story of that other Maquetas, and he continues repeating it and\nso he will go on repeating it as long as the waters of the invisible\ntorrent go on singing, and the waters will sing for ever, ever, ever,\nwithout a yesterday and without a to-morrow, for ever, ever, ever....\n\n\n\n\nTHE TOWER OF MONTERREY\n\n\nIt is freezing. A biting north wind cuts short the breath. From the\nsteely blue a pale sun sheds a glittering light that cuts out the\nshadows and models the landscape into a kind of architectural relief.\n\nFor this crystal-clear light, bright as frost, without haze, appears\nnot so much to illumine as to civilize Nature; it makes it civil,\nwhich means that it makes it more than human. To humanize is much, but\nto civilize is more. To civilize, to make civil--or, if you like, to\ncitizenize--is to superhumanize. Humanity seems to us, so far as man is\nconcerned, to be everything; but civility embraces more than humanity;\nit is more than all, for it is the future in never-ending process of\nrealization--it is the ideal. The all is that which is and that which\nis permanent; but the more than all is that which, over and above all\nthat has been and is, will be. The all is the past that is condensed in\nthe present; the more than all is the eternity that embraces the past,\nthe present and the future. The all is the universe and the more than\nall is thought. For thought exceeds all that has been thought and all\nthat is thinkable and goes beyond them.\n\nThe city also is Nature. Its streets and its squares and its erect\npillared towers also are landscape. And its lines are like the lines of\nthe country. Baroque lines they are said to be. But not all.\n\nThe escarpments which slope down from the vast tableland of La Armu\u00f1a\nto the banks of the Tormes are like the buttresses of a gigantic\ncathedral; they are architectonic. There are villages which seem as if\nthey were sculptured out of the earth of the bleak upland plains, out\nof the rock itself. And if you look long enough at some dark poplar\nstanding near the spire of a village church, you begin to wonder which\nis the tree and which the spire. And the skeleton trees, all swart\nnaked bone, look like the pillars of a ruined temple the roof of which\nhas fallen in.\n\nIn travelling through this barren rocky Iberian land, have you never\nsometimes fancied that you discerned in some distant craggy hill the\noutline of a Baroque cathedral?\n\nAnd conversely, here in the city, one might imagine oneself to be in\nthe midst of some vast geological formation. Men, like coral insects,\nhave built up these masses of grey and golden coral, gleaming in the\nnaked winter sun.\n\nEvery one of these fabrics of stone might be said to be an immense\narchitectonic phrase, an aphorism in lines. In a phrase culminates and\nis condensed a whole system of ideas, of thoughts. In the title--_La\nVida es Sue\u00f1o_--of Calder\u00f3n\u2019s drama, the immortal fellow of \u201cDon\nQuixote,\u201d is condensed (as Farinelli rightly says in his work _La Vita\n\u00e9 un Sogno_, which I have just been reading) \u201cthe substance of all\nearthly philosophies.\u201d It was by a phrase that each of the seven wise\nmen of Greece won a lasting place in the memory of their race; for\nthese seven wise men eternalized themselves in the thought of their\npeople as being the authors of seven single sentences. And a phrase,\na civil sentence, civil rather than human, is an edifice of thought in\nwhich economy of material and of brute force has achieved its supreme\ntriumph. The Pyramids are phrases of stone which rise up from the sands\nof the desert; and like an immense phrase, like one of the periods of\nDemosthenes, or rather of Pericles, which Thucydides has bequeathed to\nus for ever, stands the Parthenon. And these towers are phrases too,\ncivil phrases, phrases of civility now made one with Nature.\n\nI know not how I am to translate to you in sounding words--words that\nare winged, yet captive, words that fly and soar, yet abide--that which\nthis harmonious phrase of hewn stone, this tower of Monterrey, says to\nme, says to us all, in the fine cutting light of these benumbing winter\nmornings, when the frost sleeps idly on its lofty pinnacles; but I know\nthat it is a phrase when I see it clear-cut against the blue of heaven.\nAnd if men pass away and yet abide, these stones will abide to tell\nNature that once there was Humanity, once there was thought; they will\nabide to tell of plan, and of order, and of proportion, to the Universe.\n\nAnd why should not the planets which journey through space in obedience\nto the laws which they themselves communicated to Kepler, understand\ngeometry and mathematics? Is not the whole vast structure of the\nUniverse a great city, the city of God, its supreme Architect and\nInhabiter?\n\nAll this is a dream. True! But this dream of stone, in the clarified\nfrosty light, tells us that dream is what abides, the lasting, the\npermanent, the substantial, and that on the surface of the dream, like\nwaves on the surface of the sea, roll our sorrows and our joys, our\nhates and our loves, our memories and our hopes. The waves are of the\nsea; but the waves pass and the sea abides; the sorrows and the joys,\nthe hates and the loves, the memories and the hopes, are of the dream,\nthe dream of life; but they--sorrows, joys, hates, loves, memories,\nhopes--pass away and the dream abides. And it abides thus, converted\ninto stone, stone of the earth, but civilized, civil or spiritual\nstone, a phrase minted for ever, _monumentum \u00e6re perennius_, more\nenduring than bronze.\n\nThis dream of stone enters into the soul and sinks into it, into the\ninnermost depths of it, into the soul\u2019s soul, into what is innermost\nin the soul itself, and it bears our soul along with it into the\nunderlying substance of all souls, fugitive waves submerged in the sea\nof souls. Is it a sea? Is it liquid? Is it not rather a rocky floor,\na plain, a stony stratum of many mansions for civil human thought\nto dwell in? And is not each one of our souls a stone which life\nhews--hews with hammer-strokes of sorrow and joy, of hate and love,\nof memory and hope--so that it may fit into the great civil, human\ncathedral, in the temple of our civil and human God?\n\nIt was but yesterday, but a moment ago, that is to say it was five\nand twenty years ago--the third of a full lifetime--that I first saw\nyou, tower of Monterrey, and you carry me beyond, far beyond, those\ntwenty-five years, back to when, before ever I was born, I beheld\nyou--where?--and in beholding you, you carry me from the midst of these\ntwenty-five years, beyond, far beyond, to when, after I am dead and\ndead indeed, I shall go on beholding you--this vision of you which in\nthe clarified frosty light is imprinted on my soul will abide with me,\nat rest and buried deep in the sea of souls. Dream abides. It is the\nonly thing that abides; vision abides.\n\nSpirit, when it suffers or rejoices, when it hates or loves, when it\nremembers or hopes, becomes earth, becomes water, becomes fire or\nbecomes air; and stone, when it thinks and thinks civilly, becomes\nabiding spirit, congealed, crystallized, substantivated. This tower is\na diamond of spirit.\n\nAnd what does it say? It says nothing that is not itself; it says\nitself, it proclaims itself immortal, it affirms itself. No matter\nif an earthquake or a bombardment--which is another earthquake--or\nany other accident that the hate of Nature or of man may bring about,\nthrows you to the ground and scatters your stones in confusion, tower\nof Monterrey, for the vision of you will remain. It will remain fused\nin the souls which behold you.\n\nAnd to the soul that beholds you, tower of Monterrey, you say that he\nsays the utmost that can be said who says himself, who expresses his\nperson, who strips his spirit naked in the icy-clear light of the civil\nworld, standing statue-like before the world of men. The greatest thing\nthat men can see is another man, and if they but once saw him utterly\nand completely, they would carry him with them for ever.\n\nAnd this tower and other towers fill our soul with the tormenting\nlonging to say the unsayable, to leave in words that are borne on wings\nof sound and pass away and are lost, something that does not pass away\nand is never lost. To say what one sees and to say it so that it is\nseen in being heard; to see what is heard: that is the whole secret of\nArt. Art makes the blind to see--and many are blind whose eyes reflect\nthe images of what they see upon the mind--and it makes them see with\nthe word; Art makes the deaf to hear--and many are deaf whose ears\nvibrate with the sounds they hear round about them--and it makes them\nhear with the vision. A poem gives sight to the blind; a picture gives\nhearing to the deaf. Art fuses the senses, descending to that which\nunites them in a common root and ascending to that which also unites\nthem in a common crown.\n\nTower of Monterrey, not the tower which I see with my eyes when I go\nforth from my house on these benumbing mornings of clarified light\nto read the divine Plato with my pupils--O noble word degraded to so\nignoble use!--my tower of Monterrey, the tower that I carry in the\ncrystal of my mind, as if it were a vision which by some enchantment\nhad remained frozen for ever upon the frozen surface of a lake, this\ntower of mine tells me that he who says himself remains for ever too.\nIt matters not, my soul, what you say if you say yourself. For what art\nthou but a phrase in the thought of God?\n\nThe thought of God is History: human history, civil history, the\nhistory of this civil humanity in which God became man and dwelt among\nmen, and proclaimed that His kingdom, the kingdom of God, that is, the\nkingdom of Man, the kingdom of God-Man, is not of this world of sorrows\nand joys, of hates and loves, of memories and hopes. For the kingdom\nof God, the kingdom of Man, is of thought, which is above sorrow and\njoy, above hate and love, above memory and hope, although it is made\nof these, as the towers that abide in History are made of stones. The\nthought of God is History; History is what God thinks, what He goes\non thinking. And he who lives in History, more or less audible and\nvisible, whatever the fashion of his life, however far beneath the\nsurface, lives in the thought of God, and, abiding in God\u2019s thought, he\nabides in God. And everyone who, willingly or unwillingly, knowingly or\nunknowingly, helps to make History, lives in History; everyone, however\nobscurely and hesitatingly he lives, who has civil consciousness.\nAbsolute death is unconsciousness.\n\nAnd this my tower of Monterrey speaks to me of our Renaissance, of the\nSpanish renaissance, of the eternal essence of Spain, and tells me to\nsay my Spanish self and to affirm that if life is dream, dream is the\nonly thing that abides, and that the rest, all that is not dream, is\nnothing but a process of digestion that passes away, as sorrow and joy,\nhate and love, memory and hope, pass away. Yes, life without dream is\nnothing but digestion and respiration, breath that vanishes. Breath,\nair, _pneuma_, _anima_, _spiritus_, such are the names that have been\ngiven to the life that animates the body but is not dream; and the\nbreath passes away, but the dream abides.\n\n\u201cLife is dream!\u201d affirmed the man, the Spaniard, who believed in the\neternal and the substantial, and those who do not believe in it say in\nthe foolishness of their hearts: \u201cLife is breath!\u201d And the tower of\nMonterrey, my tower of Monterrey, my tower of the Spanish renaissance,\nof renaissant Spanishness, tells me that life is not breath that passes\naway and is lost, but dream that abides and triumphs.\n\nWhen I go forth in the morning and the tower says to me: \u201cHere am I!\u201d\nI, beholding it, say to it: \u201cHere am I!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\n\nThe foregoing essays are derived from the following works.\n\n\u201cThe Spirit of Castile\u201d--_En Torno al Casticismo_, 1895, _Ensayos_,\nVol. I.\n\n\u201cSpanish Individualism\u201d--_El Individualismo Espa\u00f1ol_ (_A prop\u00f3sito del\nlibro_ de Martin A. S. Hume, \u201cThe Spanish People: Their Origin, Growth\nand Influence,\u201d London, 1901), 1902, _Ensayos_, Vol. IV.\n\n\u201cSome Arbitrary Reflections upon Europeanization\u201d--_Sobre la\nEuropeizacion_ (_Arbitrariedades_), 1906, _Ensayos_, Vol. VII.\n\n\u201cThe Spanish Christ\u201d--_Mi Religi\u00f3n y Otros Ensayos_ (_El Cristo\nEspa\u00f1ol_), 1910.\n\n\u201cThe Sepulchre of Don Quixote\u201d--Introduction to 2nd edition of _La Vida\nde Don Quijote y Sancho_, 1913. (Originally published in _La Espa\u00f1a\nModerna_, February, 1906.)\n\n\u201cThe Helmet of Mambrino\u201d--_La Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho_, Part I,\nChap. XLV.\n\n\u201cDon Quixote\u2019s Niece\u201d--_La Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho_, Part II,\nChap. LXXIV.\n\n\u201cThe Religion of Quixotism\u201d--_Del Sentimiento Tr\u00e1gico de la Vida_ (_Don\nQuijote en la Tragi-Comedia Europea Contempor\u00e1nea_), 1912.\n\n\u201cLarge and Small Towns\u201d--_Por Tierras de Portugal y de Espa\u00f1a_\n(_Grandes y Peque\u00f1as Ciudades_), 1908.\n\n\u201cTo My Readers\u201d--_Soliloquios y Conversaciones_ (_A Mis Lectores_),\n1911.\n\n\u201cSoliloquies\u201d--_Soliloquios y Conversaciones_ (_Soliloquios_ and\n_Desahogo Lirico_), 1911.\n\n\u201cMy Religion\u201d--_Mi Religi\u00f3n y Otros Ensayos_, 1910.\n\n\u201cSolitude\u201d--_Soledad_, 1905, _Ensayos_, Vol. VI.\n\n\u201cIntellectuality and Spirituality\u201d--_Intellectualidad y\nEspiritualidad_, 1904, _Ensayos_, Vol. IV.\n\n\u201cThe Materialism of the Masses\u201d--_Mi Religi\u00f3n y Otros Ensayos_,\n(_Materialismo Popular_, 1909).\n\n\u201cThe Man of Flesh and Bone,\u201d \u201cThe Problem of Immortality,\u201d \u201cCreative\nFaith\u201d--_Del Sentimiento Tr\u00e1gico de la Vida_, 1912.\n\n\u201cThe Song of the Eternal Waters\u201d--_Mi Religi\u00f3n y Otros Ensayos_ (_El\nCanto de las Aguas Eternas_, 1909).\n\n\u201cThe Tower of Monterrey\u201d--_Andanzas y Visiones Espa\u00f1olas_ (_La Torre de\nMonterrey_, 1916).\n\n\n\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n\n_PAZ EN LA GUERRA_ (Peace in War. Novel). Fernando F\u00e9, Madrid, 1897.\n\n_DE LA ENSE\u00d1ANZA SUPERIOR EN ESPA\u00d1A_ (Secondary Education in Spain).\n_Revista Nueva_, Madrid, 1899.\n\n_TRES ENSAYOS_ (Three Essays). B. Rodriguez Serra, Madrid, 1900.\n\n_AMOR Y PEDAGOGIA_ (Love and Pedagogy. Novel). Heinrich y Cia.\nBarcelona, 1902.\n\n_PAISAJES_ (Landscapes). Colon, Salamanca, 1902.\n\n_DE MI PAIS_ (About My Country). Fernando F\u00e9, Madrid, 1903.\n\n_VIDA DE DON QUIJOTE Y SANCHO_ seg\u00fan Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra\nexplicada y comentada por Miguel de Unamuno (Life of Don Quixote\nand Sancho, with explanation and commentary by Miguel de Unamuno).\nRenacimiento, Madrid, 1905. Second edition, with introductory article,\n_El Sepulcro de Don Quijote_, 1913.\n\n_POESIAS._ Fernando F\u00e9 y Victoriano Suarez, Madrid, 1907.\n\n_RECUERDOS DE NI\u00d1EZ Y DE MOCEDAD_ (Recollections of Childhood and\nYouth). Fernando F\u00e9 y Victoriano Suarez, Madrid, 1908.\n\n_MI RELIGION Y OTROS ENSAYOS BREVES_ (My Religion and other short\nessays). Renacimiento, Madrid, 1910.\n\n_POR TIERRAS DE PORTUGAL Y DE ESPA\u00d1A_ (Travels in Portugal and Spain).\nRenacimiento, Madrid, 1911.\n\n_ROSARIO DE SONETOS LIRICOS_ (Rosary of Lyrical Sonnets). Fernando F\u00e9 y\nVictoriano Suarez, Madrid, 1911.\n\n_SOLILOQUIOS Y CONVERSACIONES_ (Soliloquies and Conversations).\nBiblioteca Renacimiento, Madrid, 1912.\n\n_CONTRA ESTO Y AQUELLO_ (Against This and That). Renacimiento, Madrid,\n1912.\n\n_EL PORVENIR DE ESPA\u00d1A_ (The Future of Spain. A series of open letters\nexchanged between Miguel de Unamuno and Angel Ganivet, reprinted from\n_El Defensor de Granada_). Renacimiento, Madrid, 1912.\n\n_EL ESPEJO DE LA MUERTE_ (The Mirror of Death. Short Stories).\nRenacimiento, Madrid, 1913.\n\n_DEL SENTIMIENTO TR\u00c1GICO DE LA VIDA EN LOS HOMBRES Y EN LOS PUEBLOS_\n(The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Peoples). Renacimiento, Madrid,\n1913.\n\n_NIEBLA_ (Mist. Novel). Renacimiento, Madrid, 1914.\n\n_ENSAYOS_ (Essays. Collected Edition, 7 Vols.). Renacimiento, Madrid,\n1916-18.\n\n_ABEL S\u00c1NCHEZ, una historia de pasi\u00f3n_ (Abel S\u00e1nchez, a story of\npassion. Novel). Renacimiento, Madrid, 1917.\n\n_TRES NOVELAS EJEMPLARES Y UN PR\u00d3LOGO_ (Three Exemplary Novels and a\nPrologue). Calpe, Madrid and Barcelona, 1920.\n\n_EL CRISTO DE VELASQUEZ_ (The Christ of Velasquez. Poem). Calpe,\nMadrid, 1920.\n\n_LA TIA TULA_ (Aunt Tula. Novel). Renacimiento, Madrid, 1921.\n\n_ANDANZAS Y VISIONES ESPA\u00d1OLAS_ (Things Done and Seen in Spain).\nRenacimiento, Madrid, 1922.\n\n_FEDRA_ (Play, originally published in _La Pluma_). Madrid, 1924.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1]\n\n    Pues el delito mayor\n    Del hombre es haber nacido.\n     --CALDERON, _La Vida es Sue\u00f1o_, Act I, Scene II.\n\n\n[2] Unamuno describes his \u201cCommentary upon the Life of Don Quixote\u201d as\n\u201ca free and personal exegesis.\u201d \u201cI do not think I need repeat,\u201d he says\nin his preface, \u201cthat I feel myself to be a Quixotist rather than a\nCervantist and that I have allowed myself sometimes even to differ from\nthe way in which Cervantes understood and dealt with his two heroes.\nThe truth is, I believe that these fictitious personages possess a\nlife of their own, with a certain autonomy, within the mind of the\nauthor who created them, and that they obey an inner logic of which\nthe author himself is not wholly conscious.\u201d Cervantes did not so much\ncreate them, he maintains, as derive them from the spiritual depths of\nthe Spanish people, and therefore it is possible for us to understand\nthem better even than their author. It may be conjectured that Unamuno\ncan never quite forgive the slightly ironical attitude that Cervantes\nalways adopts towards his hero.\n\n[3] It will be remembered that Don Quixote, otherwise known as Alonso\nQuixano, when he turned knight-errant, resolved that it was proper\nfor him to have some lady to whom he might send the trophies of his\nvalour. Accordingly he chose for his mistress one Aldonza Lorenzo, \u201ca\ngood, likely country lass,\u201d for whom he had long cherished an unavowed\npassion. He bestowed upon her the name of Dulcinea, with the addition\nof Del Toboso from the place where she was born.\n\nAccording to Unamuno\u2019s exegesis, Dulcinea stands \u201cfor glory, for life,\nfor survival.\u201d\n\n[4] The Basque race.\n\n[5] This is the definition given by the _Real Academia de la Lengua_.\n\n[6] \u201cHuman Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death,\u201d by Frederic\nW. H. Myers. Chap. 3, para. 306.\n\n[7] The leap from the \u201cCritique of Pure Reason,\u201d in which he subjected\nthe traditional proofs of the existence of God to a destructive\nanalysis, to the \u201cCritique of Practical Reason,\u201d in which he\nreconstructed God, but the God of the conscience, the Author of the\nmoral order.\n\n[8] To think as you think, all that is necessary is to possess nothing\nmore than intelligence.\n\n[9] James Thomson, author of \u201cThe City of Dreadful Night.\u201d\n\n[10] _Essai sur l\u2019indiff\u00e9rence en mati\u00e8re de religion_, Part III, chap.\nlxvii.\n\n\n\nTypographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:\n\nexample, to snythetize=> example, to synthetize {pg vii}\n\npossibly unfamilar=> possibly unfamiliar {pg 14}\n\ninadequate susbtitute=> inadequate substitute {pg 15}\n\nuniqueness and indestrucibility=> uniqueness and indestructibility {pg\n27}\n\nthat of the the immense plain=> that of the immense plain {pg 33}\n\nthe suppostion that=> the supposition that {pg 48}\n\ninnate atttractions=> innate attractions {pg 55}\n\nit sees a tryant=> it sees a tyrant {pg 70}\n\nnot know know what=> not know what {pg 111}\n\nnot for philosphers=> not for philosophers {pg 122}\n\nSchopenhauer and Neitzsche=> Schopenhauer and Nietzsche {pg 151}\n\nthe poltical question=> the political question {pg 165}\n\nmaking ricidulous=> making ridiculous {pg 174}\n\ncummunicate itself=> communicate itself {pg 176}\n\na social instituion=> a social institution {pg 188}\n\npeople is a a leader=> people is a leader {pg 202}\n\nshadow of uncertainity=> shadow of uncertainty {pg 214}\n\nheroic dsepair=> heroic despair {pg 216}\n\nsupreme Achitect=> supreme Architect {pg 235}","title":"Essays and soliloquies","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":66477}