,,zones ,,of ,,the ,,spirit ,a ,,book ,,of ,,thoughts ,,by ,,august ,,strindberg ,,author ,,of ,,the ,,inferno1 ,,the ,,son ,,of ,a ,,servant1 ,,etc4 ,,with ,,an ,,introduction ,,by ,,arthur ,,babillotte ,,translated ,,by ,,claud ,,field1 ,m4,a4 ,g4,p4 ,,putnam',s ,,sons ,,new ,,york ,,and ,,london ,the ,knickerbocker press #aiac ,,introduction ,seldom has a man gone through such profound religious changes as this ,swede1 who died last ,may4 ,the demonic element in him1 which spurred him on restlessly1 made him scale heaven and fathom hell1 gave him glimpses of bliss and damnation4 ,he bore the ,cain's mark on his brow3 ,a fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou be4 ,he was fundamentally religious1 for everyone who searches after ,god is so1--a commonplace truth certainly1 but one which needs to be constantly reiterated4 ,and ,strindberg's search was more painful1 exact1 and persevering than that of most people4 ,he was never content with superficial formulas1 but pressed to the heart of the matter1 and followed each winding of the labyrinthine problem with endless patience4 ,too often the ,divinity which he thought he had discovered turned out a delusion1 to be scornfully rejected the moment afterwards4 ,until he found the ,god1 whom he worshipped to the end of his days1 and whose existence he resolutely maintained against deniers4 ,as a child he had been brought up in devout belief in ,god1 in submission to the injustice of life1 and in faith in a better hereafter4 ,he regarded ,god as a ,father1 to ,whom he made known his little wants and anxieties4 ,but a youth with hard experiences followed his childhood4 ,the struggle for daily bread began1 and his heavenly ,father seemed to fail him4 ,he appeared to regard unmoved1 from some ,olympian height1 the desperate struggles of humanity below4 ,then the defiant element which slumbered in ,strindberg wrathfully awoke1 and he gradually developed into a free-thinker4 ,it fared with him as it often does with young and independent characters who think4 ,beginning with dissent from this and that ecclesiastical dogma1 his criticism embraced an ever-widening range1 and became keener and more unsparing4 ,at last every barrier of respect and reverence fell1 the defiant spirit of youth broke like a flood over all religious dogmas1 swept them away1 and did not stop short of criticising ,god ,himself4 ,meanwhile his daily life1 with its hard experiences1 went on4 ,books written from every conceivable point of view came into his hands4 ,greedy for knowledge as he was1 he read them all4 ,those of the free-thinkers supported his freshly aroused incredulity1 which as yet needed support4 ,his study of philosophical and scientific works made a clean sweep of what relics of faith remained4 ,anxiety about his daily bread1 attacks from all sides1 the alienation of his friends1 all contributed towards making the free-thinker into an atheist4 ,how can there be a ,god when the world is so full of ugliness1 of deceit1 of dishonour1 of vulgarity8 ,this question was bound to be raised at last4 ,about this time he wrote the ,new ,kingdom1 full of sharp criticisms of society and ,christianity4 ,as an atheist ,strindberg made various attempts to come to terms with the existing state of things4 ,but being a genius out of harmony with his contemporaries1 and always longing for some vaster1 fairer future1 this was impossible for him4 ,when he found that he came to no goal1 a perpetual unrest tortured him4 ,his earlier autobiographic writings appeared1 marked by a strong misanthropy1 and composed with an obscure consciousness of the curse3 ,a fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou be4 ,at last his consciousness becomes clear and defined4 ,he recognises that he is a lost soul in hell already1 though outwardly on earth4 ,this was the most extraordinary period in ,strindberg's life4 ,he lived in the ,quartier ,latin in ,paris1 in a barely furnished room1 with retorts and chemical apparatus1 like a second ,faust at the end of the nineteenth century4 ,by experiments he discovered the presence of carbon in sulphur1 and considered that by doing so he had solved a great problem1 upset the ruling systems of chemistry1 and gained for himself the only immortality allowed to mortals4 ,he came to the conclusion that the reason why he had gradually become an atheist was that the ,unknown ,powers had left the world so long without a sign of themselves4 ,the discovery made him thankful1 and he lamented that he had no one to thank4 ,from that time the belief in unknown powers grew stronger and stronger in him4 ,it seems to have been the result of an almost complete1 long1 and painful solitude4 ,at this time his brain worked more feverishly1 and his nerves were more sensitive than usual4 ,at last he reached the 7for an atheist7 astounding conclusion3 ,when ,i think over my lot1 ,i recognise that invisible ,hand which disciplines and chastens me1 without my knowing its purpose4 ,must ,i be humbled in order to be lifted up1 lowered in order to be raised8 ,the thought continually recurs to me1 ',providence is planning something with thee1 and this is the beginning of thy education4'#a ,soon after this he gave up his chemical experiments and took up alchemy1 with a conviction1 almost pathetic in its intensity1 that he would succeed in making gold4 ,although his dramas had already been performed in ,paris1 a success which had fallen to the lot of no other ,swedish dramatist1 he forgot all his successes as an author1 and devoted himself solely to this new pursuit1 to meet again with disappointment4 ,on ,march #bi1 #ahig1 he began the study of ,swedenborg1 the ,northern ,seer4 ,a feeling of home-sickness after heaven laid hold of him1 and he began to believe that he was being prepared for a higher existence4 ,i despise the earth1 he writes1 this unclean world1 these men and their works4 ,i seem to myself a righteous man1 like ,job1 whom the ,eternal is putting to the test1 and whom the purgatorial fires of this world will soon make worthy of a speedy deliverance4 ,more and more he seemed to approach ,catholicism4 ,one day he1 the former socialist and atheist1 bought a rosary4 ,it is pretty1 he said1 and the evil spirits fear the cross4 ,at the same time1 it must be confessed that this transition to the ,christian point of view did not subdue his egotism and independence of character4 ,it is my duty1 he said1 to fight for the maintenance of my ego against all influences which a sect or party1 from love of proselytising1 might bring to bear upon it4 ,the conscience1 which the grace of my ,divine protector has given me1 tells me that4 ,and then comes a sentence full of joy and sorrow alike1 which seems to obliterate his whole past4 ,born with a home-sick longing after heaven1 as a child ,i wept over the squalor of existence and felt myself strange and homeless among men4 ,from childhood upwards ,i have looked for ,god and found the ,devil4 ,he becomes actually humble1 and recognises that ,god1 on account of his pride1 his conceit1 his 1 had sent him for a time to hell4 ,happy is he whom ,god punishes4 ,the return to ,christ is complete4 ,all his faith1 all his hope now rest solely on the ,crucified1 whom he had once demoniacally hated4 ,he now devoted himself entirely to the study of ,swedenborg4 ,he felt that in some way the life of this strange man had foreshadowed his own4 ,just as ,swedenborg 7#afhh-aggb7 had passed from the profession of a mathematician to that of a theologian1 a mystic1 and finally a ghost-seer and theosoph1 so ,strindberg passed from the worldly calling of a romance-writer to that of a preacher of ,christian patience and reconciliation4 ,he had occasional relapses into his old perverse moods1 but the attacks of the rebellious spirit were weaker and weaker4 ,he told a friend who asked his opinion regarding the theosophical concept of ,karma1 that it was impossible for him to belong to a party which denied a personal ,god1 ,who alone could satisfy his religious needs4 ,in a life so full of intellectual activity as his had been1 ,strindberg had amassed an enormous amount of miscellaneous knowledge4 ,when he was nearly sixty he began to collect and arrange all his experiences and investigations from the point of view he had then attained4 ,thus was composed his last important work1 ,das ,blau ,buch1 a book of amazing copiousness and originality4 ,regarding it1 the ,norwegian author ,nils ,kjaer writes in the periodical ,verdens ,gang3 ,more comprehensive than any modern collection of aphorisms1 chaotic as the ,koran1 wrathful as ,isaiah1 as full of occult things as the ,bible1 more entertaining than any romance1 keener-edged than most pamphlets1 mystical as the ,cabbala1 subtle as the scholastic theology1 sincere as ,rousseau's confession1 stamped with the impress of incomparable originality1 every sentence shining like luminous letters in the darkness--such is this book in which the remarkable writer makes a final reckoning with his time and proclaims his faith1 as pugnaciously as though he were a descendant of the hero of ,lutzen4 ,the book1 in truth1 forms a world apart1 from which all lying1 hypocrisy1 and conventional contentment is banished2 in it is heard the stormy laughter of a genius who has freed himself from the fetters of earth1 the proclamation of the creed of a strange ,christian who interprets and reveres ,christ in his own fashion1 the challenge of an original and creative mind which believes in its own continuance1 the expression of the yearning of a lonely soul to place itself in harmonious relations with the universe4 ,an especially interesting feature of the ,blau ,buch is the expression of ,strindberg's views regarding the great poets1 artists1 and thinkers of the past and present4 ,he speaks of ,wagner and ,nietzsche1 the two antipodes2 of ,horace1 who1 after many wanderings1 recognised the hand of ,god2 of ,shakespeare1 who had lived through the experience of every character he created2 of ,goethe1 regarding whom he remarks1 with evident satisfaction1 ,in old age1 when he grew wise1 he became a mystic1 i4e4 he recognised that there are things in heaven and earth of which the ,philistines never dream4 ,of ,maeterlinck1 he says1 ,he knows how to caricature his own fairest creations2 and accuses ,oscar ,wilde of want of originality4 ,regarding ,hegel1 he notes with pleasure that at the end of his life he returned to ,christianity4 ,with deep satisfaction he writes1 ,hegel1 after having gone very roundabout ways1 died in #ahca1 of cholera1 as a simple1 believing ,christian1 putting aside all philosophy and praying penitential psalms4 ,in ,rousseau he recognises a kindred spirit1 in so far as the ,frenchman1 like himself1 hated all that was unnatural4 ,one can agree with ,rousseau when he says1 ',all that comes from the ,creator's hand is perfect1 but when it falls into the hands of man it is spoilt4' ,the ,blau ,buch marks the summit of ,strindberg's chequered sixty years' pilgrimage4 ,beneath him lies the varicoloured landscape of his past life1 now lit up with gleams of sunshine1 now draped in dark mists1 now drowned in storms of rain4 ,but ,strindberg1 the poet and thinker1 has escaped from both dark and bright days alike2 he stands peacefully on the summit1 above the trivialities1 the cares1 and bitternesses of life1 a free man4 ,he is like ,prometheus1 fettered to the rock for having bestowed on men the gift of fire1 but liberated after he has learnt his lesson4 ,in his calm is something resembling the dignity of ,goethe's old age4 ,as the latter sat on the ,kickelhahn1 looking down on ,thuringia1 and saw the panorama of his life pass before him1 so ,strindberg takes a retrospect in his ,blau ,buch4 ,it is the canticle of his life1 a hymn of thankfulness for the recovered faith in which he has found peace4 ,at its conclusion he thus sums up3 ,rousseau's early doctrine regarding the curse of mere learning should be repondered4 ,a new ,descartes should arise and teach the men to doubt the untruths of the sciences4 ,another ,kant should write a new ,critique of ,pure ,reason and re-establish the doctrine of the ,categorical ,imperative1 which1 however1 is already to be found in the ,ten ,commandments and the ,gospels4 ,a prophet should be born to teach men the simple meaning of life in a few words4 ,it has already been so well summed up3 ',fear ,god1 and keep ,his commandments1' or ',pray and work4' ,all the errors and mistakes which we have made should serve to instil into us a lively hatred of evil1 and to impart a fresh impulse to good2 these we can take with us to the other side1 where they will bloom and bear fruit4 ,that is the true meaning of life1 at which the obstinate and impenitent cavil1 in order to save themselves trouble4 ,pray1 but work2 suffer1 but hope2 keeping both the earth and the stars in view4 ,do not try and settle permanently1 for it is a place of pilgrimage2 not a home1 but a halting-place4 ,seek the truth1 for it is to be found1 but only in one place1 with the ,one who ,himself is the ,way1 the ,truth1 and the ,life4 ,,arthur ,,babillotte4 ,footnote #a3 ,strindberg's ,inferno4 ,,contents ,,the ,,history ,,of ,,the ,,blue ,,book ,a ,,blue ,,book-- ,the ,thirteenth ,axiom ,the ,rustic ,intelligence of the ,beans ,the ,hoopoo1 or ,an ,unusual ,occurrence ,bad ,digestion ,the ,song of the ,sawyers ,al ,mansur in the ,gymnasium ,the ,nightingale in the ,vineyard ,the ,miracle of the ,corn-crakes ,corollaries ,phantasms which are ,real ,crex1 ,crex6 ,the ,electric ,battery and the ,earth ,circuit ,improper and ,unanswerable ,questions ,superstition and ,non-,superstition ,through ,faith to ,knowledge ,the ,enchanted ,room ,concerning ,correspondences ,the ,green ,island ,swedenborg's ,hell ,preliminary ,knowledge ,necessary ,perverse ,science ,truth in ,error ,accumulators ,eternal ,punishment ,desolation ,a ,world of ,delusion ,the ,conversion of the ,cheerful ,pagan1 ,horace ,cheerful ,paganism and its ,doctrine of ,hell ,faith the ,chief ,thing ,penitents ,paying for ,others ,the ,lice-,king ,the ,art of ,life ,the ,mitigation of ,destiny ,the ,good and the ,evil ,modesty and the ,sense of ,justice ,derelicts ,human ,fate ,dark ,rays ,blind and ,deaf ,the ,disrobing ,chamber ,the ,character ,mask ,youth and ,folly ,when ,i was ,young and ,stupid ,constant ,illusions ,the ,merits of the ,multiplication-,table ,under the ,prince of this ,world ,the ,idea of ,hell ,self-,knowledge ,somnambulism and ,clairvoyance in ,everyday ,life ,practical ,measures against ,enemies ,the ,goddess of ,reason ,stars ,seen by ,daylight ,the ,right to ,remorse ,a ,religious ,theatre ,through ,constraint to ,freedom ,the ,praise of ,folly ,the ,inevitable ,the ,poet's ,sacrifice ,the ,function of the ,philistines ,world-,religion ,the ,return of ,christ ,correspondences ,good ,words ,severe and not ,severe ,yeast and ,bread ,the ,man of ,development ,sins of ,thought ,sins of ,will ,the ,study of ,mankind ,friend ,zero ,affable ,men ,cringing before the ,beast ,ecclesia ,triumphans ,logic in ,neurasthenia ,my ,caricature ,the ,inexplicable ,old-time ,religion ,the ,seduced become ,seducers ,large-hearted ,christianity ,reconnection with the ,arial ,wire ,the ,art of ,conversion ,the ,superman ,to be a ,christian is not to be a ,pietist ,strength and ,value of ,words ,the ,black ,illuminati ,anthropomorphism ,fury-worship as a ,penal ,hallucination ,amerigo or ,columbus ,a ,circumnavigator of the ,globe ,the ,poet's ,children ,faithful in ,little ,things ,the ,unpracticalness of ,husk-eating ,a ,youthful ,dream for ,seven ,shillings ,envy ,nobody6 ,the ,galley-slaves of ,ambition ,hard to ,disentangle ,the ,art of ,settling ,accounts ,growing ,old ,gracefully ,the ,eight ,wild ,beasts ,deaf and ,blind ,recollections ,children are ,wonder-,children ,men-resembling ,men ,christ is ,risen ,revolution-,sheep ,life ,woven of the ,same ,stuff as our ,dreams ,the ,gospel of the ,pagans ,punished by the ,imagination ,bankruptcy of ,philosophy ,a ,whole ,life in an ,hour ,the ,after-,odour ,peaches and ,turnips ,the ,web of ,lies ,lethe ,a ,suffering ,god ,the ,atonement ,when ,nations ,go ,mad ,the ,poison of ,lies ,murderous ,lies ,innocent ,guilt ,the ,charm of ,old ,age ,the ,ring-,system ,lust1 ,hate1 and ,fear1 or the ,religion of the ,heathen ,whom the ,gods ,wish to ,destroy ,the ,slavery of the ,prophet ,absurd ,problems ,the ,crooked ,rib ,white ,slavery ,noodles ,inextricable ,confusion ,phantoms ,mirage ,pictures ,trifle not with ,love ,a ,taking ,religion ,the ,sixth ,sense ,exteriorisation of ,sensibility ,telepathic ,perception ,morse ,telepathy ,nisus ,formativus1 or ,unconscious ,sculpture ,projections ,apparitions ,the ,reactionary ,type ,the ,hate of ,parasites ,a ,letter from the ,dead ,a ,letter from ,hell ,an ,unconscious ,medium ,the ,revenant ,the ,meeting in the ,convent ,correspondences ,portents ,the ,difficult ,art of ,lying ,religion and ,scientific ,intuition ,the ,freed ,thinker ,primus inter pares ,heathen ,imaginations ,thought ,bound by ,law ,credo quia 7et-si7 absurdum ,the ,fear of ,heaven ,the ,goat-god ,pan and the ,fear of the ,pan-pipe ,their ,gospel ,the ,deposition of the ,apes ,the ,secret of the ,cross ,examination and ,summer ,holidays ,veering and ,tacking ,attraction and ,repulsion ,the ,double ,paw or ,hand ,the ,thousand-,years' ,night of the ,apes ,the ,favourite ,scientific ,villainies ,necrobiosis1 i4e4 ,death and ,resurrection ,secret ,judgment ,hammurabi's ,inspired ,laws ,received from the ,sun-,god ,strauss's ,life of ,christ ,christianity and ,radicalism ,where are ,we8 ,hegel's ,christianity ,men of ,god's ,hand ,night-,owls ,apotheosis ,painting ,things ,black ,the ,thorn in the ,flesh ,despair and ,grace ,the ,last ,act ,consequences of ,learning ,rousseau ,rousseau ,again ,materialised ,apparitions ,the ,art of ,dying ,can ,philosophy ,bring any ,blessing to ,mankind8 ,goethe on the ,bible ,now we ,can ,fly ,too6 ,hurrah ,the ,fall and ,original ,sin ,the ,gospel ,religious ,heathen ,the ,pleasure-,garden ,the ,happiness of ,love ,our ,best ,feelings ,blood-,fraternity ,the ,power of ,love ,the ,box on the ,ear ,saul1 afterwards ,called ,paul ,a ,scene from ,hell ,the ,jewel-,casket or his ,better ,half ,the ,mummy-,coffin ,in the ,attic ,the ,sculptor ,on the ,threshold at ,five ,years of ,age ,goethe on ,christianity and ,science ,summa ,summarum ,zones of the ,spirit ,,the ,,history ,,of ,,the ,,blue ,,book 7,prefixed to the ,third ,swedish ,edition7 ,i had read how ,goethe had once intended to write a ,breviarium ,universale1 a book of edification for the adherents of all religions4 ,in my ,historical ,miniatures ,i have attempted to trace ,god's ways in the history of the world2 ,i included ,christianity in my survey by commencing with ,israel1 but perhaps ,i made the mistake of ranging other religions by the side of ,christianity1 while they ought to have stood below it4 ,a year passed4 ,i felt myself constrained by inward impulses to write a fairly unsectarian breviary2 a word of wisdom for each day in the year4 ,for that purpose ,i collected the sacred books of all religions1 in order to extract from them sayings on which to write4 ,but the books did not open themselves to me6 ,the ,vedas and ,zend-,avesta were sealed1 and did not yield a single saying2 only the ,koran gave one1 but that was a lion6 7see ,faith the ,chief ,thing1 ff474 ,then ,i determined to alter my design4 ,i formed the plan of writing apothegms of simply worldly wisdom regarding men1 and of calling the book ,herbarium ,humane4 ,but ,i postponed the work since ,i trembled at the greatness of the task and the crudity of my plan4 ,then came ,june #ae1 #aijf4 ,as ,i took my morning walk1 the first thing ,i saw was a tramcar with the number #cfe4 ,i was struck by this number1 and thought of the #cfe pages which ,i intended to write4 ,as ,i went on1 ,i entered a narrow street4 ,a cart went along by my side carrying a red flag2 it was a powder-flag4 ,the cart kept parallel with me and began to disturb me4 ,in order to escape the sight of the powder-flag1 ,i looked up in the air1 and there an enormous red flag 7the ,english one7 flaunted conspicuously before my eyes4 ,i looked down again1 and a lady dressed in black1 with a fiery-red hat1 was crossing the street in a slanting direction4 ,i hastened my steps4 ,immediately my eyes fell on the window of a stationer's shop2 in it a piece of cardboard was displayed1 bearing the word ,herbarium4 ,it was natural that all this should make an impression on me4 ,my resolution was now taken2 ,i laid down the plan of my powder-chamber1 which was to become the ,blue ,book4 ,a year passed1 slowly1 painfully4 ,the most remarkable thing that happened was this4 ,they began to rehearse my drama1 the ,dream ,play1 in the theatre2 simultaneously1 a change took place in my daily life4 ,my servant left me2 my domestic arrangements were upset2 within forty days ,i had six changes of servants--one worse than the other4 ,at last ,i had to serve myself1 lay the table and light the stove4 ,i ate black broken victuals out of a basket4 ,in short1 ,i had to taste the whole bitterness of life without knowing why4 ,one morning during this fasting period ,i passed by a shop window in which ,i saw a piece of tapestry which attracted and delighted me4 ,i thought ,i saw my dream-play in the design woven on the tapestry4 ,above was the growing castle1 and underneath the green island over-arched by a rainbow1 and with ,alpine summits illumined by the sun4 ,round it was the sea reflecting the stars and a great green sea-snake partly visible2 low down in the border was a row of fylfots--the symbol ,swastika1 signifying good-luck4 ,that was1 at any rate1 my meaning2 the artist had intended something else which does not belong here4 ,then came the dress-rehearsal of the ,dream ,play4 ,this drama ,i wrote seven years ago1 after a period of forty days' suffering which were among the worst which ,i had ever undergone4 ,and now again exactly forty days of fasting and pain had passed4 ,there seems1 therefore1 to be a secret legislature which promulgates clearly defined sentences4 ,i thought of the forty days of the flood1 the forty years of wandering in the desert1 the forty days' fast kept by ,moses1 ,elijah1 and ,christ4 ,my journal thus records my impressions3 ,the sun shines4 ,a certain quiet resigned uncertainty reigns within me4 ,i ask myself whether a catastrophe will not prevent the performance of the piece1 which perhaps ought not to be played4 ,in it ,i have1 at any rate1 spoken men fair1 but to advise the ,ruler of the ,universe is presumption1 perhaps blasphemy4 ,the fact that ,i have laid bare the comparative nothingness of life 7with ,buddhism71 its irrational contradictions1 its wickedness and lawlessness1 may be praiseworthy if it teaches men resignation4 ,that ,i have shown the comparative innocence of men in this life1 which of itself involves guilt1 is not indeed wrong1 but4444 ,just now comes a telephone message from the theatre3 ,the result of this is in ,god's hand4 ,exactly what ,i think1 ,i answer1 and ask myself again whether the piece ought to be played4 7,i believe it is already determined by the higher powers what the issue of the first performance will prove47 ,i feel as though it were ,sunday4 ,the ,white ,shape appears outside on the balcony of the growing castle4 ,my thoughts have lately been occupied with death and with the life after this4 ,yesterday ,i read ,plato's ,timus and ,phdo4 ,at present ,i write a work called ,the ,island of the ,dead4 ,in it ,i describe the awakening after death1 and what follows4 ,but ,i hesitate1 for ,i am frightened at the boundless misery of mere life4 ,lately ,i burned a drama2 it was so sincere1 that ,i shuddered at it4 ,what ,i do not understand is this3 ought one to hide the misery1 and flatter men8 ,i wish to write cheerfully and beautifully1 but ought not1 and cannot4 ,i conceive it as a terrible duty to be truthful1 and life is indescribably hideous4 ,now the clock strikes eleven1 and at twelve o'clock is the rehearsal4 ,the same day at #h ,p4,m4 ,i have seen the rehearsal of the ,dream ,play1 and suffered greatly4 ,i received the impression that this piece ought not to be played4 ,it is presumptuous1 and certainly blasphemous 7874 ,i am disturbed and alarmed4 ,i have had no midday meal2 at seven o'clock ,i ate some cold food out of the basket in the kitchen4 ,during the religious broodings of my last forty days ,i read the ,book of ,job1 saying to myself certainly at the same time that ,i was no righteous man like him4 ,then ,i came to the #bbnd chapter1 in which ,eliphaz the ,temanite unmasks ,job3 ,thou hast taken pledges of thy brother for nought1 and stripped the naked of their clothing2 thou hast not given water to the weary to drink1 and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry4444 ,is not thy wickedness great and thine iniquities infinite8 ,then the whole comfort of the ,book of ,job vanished1 and ,i stood again forlorn and irresolute4 ,what shall a poor man hold on to8 ,what shall ,i believe8 ,how can he help thinking perversely8 ,yesterday ,i read ,plato's ,timus and ,phdo4 ,there ,i found so much self-contradictory wisdom1 that in the evening ,i threw my devotional books away and prayed to ,god out of a full heart4 ,what will happen now8 ,god help me6 ,amen4 ,the stage-manager visited me yesterday evening4 ,we both felt1 in despair4444 ,the night was quiet4 ,april #af1 #aijg4--,read the proof of the ,black ,flags1#a which ,i wrote in #aijd4 ,i asked myself whether the book was a crime1 and whether it ought to be published4 ,i opened the ,bible1 and came on the prophet ,jonah1 who was compelled to prophesy although he hid himself4 ,that quieted me4 ,but it is a terrible book6 ,april #ag4--,to-day the ,dream ,play will be performed for the first time4 ,a gentle fall of snow in the morning4 ,read the last chapter of ,job3 ,god punishes ,job because he presumed to wish to understand ,his work4 ,job prays for pardon1 and is forgiven4 ,quiet grey weather till #c ,p4,m4 ,then ,g4 came with a piece of good news4 ,spent the evening alone at home4 ,at eight o'clock there was a ring at the door4 ,a messenger brought a laurel-wreath with the inscription3 ,truth1 ,light1 ,liberation4 ,i took the wreath at once to the bust of ,beethoven on the tiled stove and placed it on his head1 since ,i had so much to thank him for1 especially just now for the music accompanying my drama4 ,at eleven o'clock a telephone from the theatre announces that everything has gone well4 ,may #bi4--,the ,black ,flags come out to-day4 ,i make very satisfactory terms with the publisher regarding the ,blue ,book 7and ,i had thought it would not be printed at all74 ,so ,i determined to remain in my house1 which ,i had determined to leave on account of poverty4 ,august #bj4--;,i read this evening the proofs of the ,blue ,book4 ,then the sky grew coal-black with towering dark clouds4 ,a storm of rain fell2 then it cleared up1 and a great rainbow stood round the church1 which was lit up by the sun4 ,august #bb4--;,i am reading now the proofs of the ,blue ,book1 and ,i feel now as though my mission in life were ended4 ,i have been able to say all ,i had to say4 ,i dreamt that ,i was in the home of my childhood at ,sabbatsberg1 and saw that the great pond was dried up4 ,this pond had always been dangerous to children because it was surrounded by a swamp2 it had an evil smell1 and was full of frogs1 hedgehogs1 and lizards4 ,now in my dream ,i walked about on the dry ground1 and was astonished to find it so clean4 ,i thought now that ,i have broken with the ,black ,flags the frog-swamp is done with4 ,september #a4--,read the last proofs of the ,blue ,book4 ,september #b4--;,came across tramcar #cfe1 which ,i had not seen since ,i began to write the ,blue ,book on ,june #ae1 #aijf4 ,september #ab4--,the ,blue ,book appears to-day4 ,it is the first clear day in summer4 ,i dreamt ,i found myself in a stone-quarry1 and could neither go up nor down4 ,i thought quite quietly1 ,well1 ,i must cry for help6 ,the ,german motto to-day on the tear-off calendar is3 ,what is to be clarified must first ferment4 ,to-day ,i got new clothes which fitted4 ,my old ones had been too tight to the point of torture4 ,my little daughter visited me4 ,i took her home again in a chaise4 ,september #ad4--,the whole day clear4 ,towards evening1 however1 about a quarter to six1 the sky became covered with most portentous-looking clouds1 with black outlines like obliquely hanging theatre-flies4 ,afterwards these were driven out by a storm over the sea4 ,this evening my ,crown ,bride was performed4 ,thus1 then1 the ,blue ,book had appeared4 ,it looked well with its blue and red binding1 which resembled that of my first book1 the ,red ,room1 but in its contents differed as much from it as red from blue4 ,in the first ,i had1 like ,jeremiah1 to pluck up1 break down1 and destroy2 but in this book ,i was able to build and to plant4 ,and ,i will conclude with ,hezekiah's song of praise3 ,i said1 in the noontide of my days1 ,i shall go to the gates of the grave3 ,my age is departed1 and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent3 ,i have rolled up like a weaver my life2 he will cut me off from the loom4 ,from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me4 ,like a swallow or a crane1 so did ,i chatter2 ,i did mourn as a dove3 mine eyes fail with looking upward4 ,lord1 ,i am oppressed2 undertake for me4 ,what shall ,i say8 ,he hath both spoken unto me1 and himself hath done it4 ,behold1 it was for my peace that ,i had great bitterness2 ,thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption4 ,the living1 the living1 he shall praise thee1 as ,i do this day4 ,the father to the children shall make known thy truth4 99 99 99 99 99 ,i saw beforehand what awaited me if ,i broke with the ,black ,flags4 ,but ,i placed my soul in ,god's hands1 and went forwards4 ,i affix as a motto to the following book1 ,he who departeth from evil1 maketh himself a prey4 ,the strangest thing1 however1 is that from this moment my own ,karma began to complete itself4 ,i was protected1 things went well with me1 ,i found better friends than those ,i had lost4 ,now ,i am inclined to ascribe all my former mischances to the fact that ,i served the ,black ,flags4 ,there was no blessing with them6 ,footnote #a3 ,a roman clef in which ,strindberg fiercely attacks the ,bohemians and emancipated women of ,stockholm4 ,a ,,blue ,,book ,the ,thirteenth ,axiom4--,euclid's twelfth axiom1 as is well known1 runs thus3 ,when one straight line cuts two other straight lines so that the interior angles on the same side are together less than two right angles1 these two lines1 being produced1 will at length meet on that side on which are the two angles1 which are together less than two right angles4 ,if that is a self-evident proposition1 which can neither be proved1 nor needs to be proved1 how much clearer is the axiom of the existence of ,god6 ,anyone who tries to prove an axiom1 loses himself in absurdity2 therefore1 we should not attempt to prove the existence of ,god4 ,he who cannot understand what is self-evident in an axiom belongs to the class of people of a lower degree of intelligence4 ,one should be sorry for such dullards1 but not blame them4 ,the first point in the definition of ,god1 is that ,he is ,almighty4 ,thence it follows that ,he can abrogate ,his own laws4 ,but since we do not know all ,his laws1 we do not know when ,he employs a law which is unknown to us1 or suspends a law which is known to us4 ,what we call miracles1 may happen according to strict laws which we do not know4 ,we must therefore take care1 when confronted by unusual or inexplicable occurrences1 to see that we make no mistakes4 ,these draw down upon us the contempt of our fellow-mortals who are gifted with keener intelligence4 ,the ,rustic ,intelligence of the ,beans4--,the miller turns his mill and the seaman trims his sails according to the force and direction of the wind4 ,they do not see the wind1 but they believe in its existence1 since they observe the results produced by it4 ,they are wise people who use their intelligence4 ,intelligence 7ratio71 or rustic intelligence1 is an excellent faculty whereby to grasp what is perceptible by the senses1 even when it is invisible4 ,reason is a higher faculty wherewith one may grasp what is not perceptible by sense4 ,but when the rationalists try to comprehend the highest things with their rustic intelligence1 then they see light as darkness1 good as evil1 the eternal as temporal4 ,in a word1 they see distortedly1 for they see by the light of nature4 ,just as the rustic intelligence is indispensable when one goes to market1 deals with coffee and sugar1 or draws up promissory-notes1 even so is the use of reason necessary when one wishes to approach what is above nature4 ,voltaire and ,heine are counted among the greatest rationalists because they judged of spiritual things by rustic intelligence4 ,their arguments are therefore interesting1 but worthless4 ,and the most interesting fact about both these men is1 that they discovered their errors1 declared themselves bankrupt1 and finally used their reason4 ,but there the ,beans can no longer follow them4 ,beans is a classical name for the ,philistines who worshipped ,dagon1 the fish-god1 and ,beelzebub1 the god of dung4 ,the ,hoopoo1 or ,an ,unusual ,occurrence4--,johann was one day on his travels1 and came to a wood4 ,in an old tree he found a bird's nest with seven eggs1 which resembled the eggs of the common swift4 ,but the latter bird only lays three eggs1 so the nest could not belong to it4 ,since ,johann was a great connoisseur in eggs1 he soon perceived that they were the eggs of the hoopoo4 ,accordingly1 he said to himself1 ,there must be a hoopoo somewhere in the neighbourhood1 although the natural history books assert that it does not appear here4 ,after a time he heard quite distinctly the well-known cry of the hoopoo4 ,then he knew that the bird was there4 ,he hid himself behind a rock1 and he soon saw the speckled bird with its yellow comb4 ,when ,johann returned home after three days1 he told his teacher that he had seen the hoopoo on the island4 ,his teacher did not believe it1 but demanded proof4 ,proof6 said ,johann4 ,do you mean two witnesses8 ,yes6 ,good6 ,i have twice two witnesses1 and they all agree3 my two ears heard it1 and my two eyes saw it4 ,maybe4 ,but ,i have not seen it1 answered the teacher4 ,johann was called a liar because he could not prove that he had seen the hoopoo in such and such a spot4 ,however1 it was a fact that the hoopoo appeared there1 although it was an unusual occurrence in this neighbourhood4 ,bad ,digestion4--,when one adds up several large numbers1 one owes it to oneself to doubt the correctness of the calculation4 ,in order to test it1 one generally adds the figures up again1 but from the bottom to the top4 ,that is wholesome doubt4 ,but there is an unwholesome kind of doubt1 which consists in denying everything which one has not seen and heard oneself4 ,to treat one's fellow-men as liars is not humane1 and diminishes our knowledge to a considerable degree4 ,there is a morbid kind of doubt1 which resembles a weak stomach4 ,everything is swallowed1 but nothing retained2 everything is received1 but nothing digested4 ,the consequence is emaciation1 exhaustion1 consumption1 and premature death4 ,johann ,damascenus#a had passed through several years of wholesome doubt1 proving the truths of faith by systematic denial4 ,but when1 after minutely checking his calculation1 he had become sure of their asserted values1 he believed4 ,since then1 neither fear of men1 love of gain1 contempt1 or threats could cause him to abandon his dearly purchased faith4 ,and in that he was right4 ,the ,song of the ,sawyers4--,as ,damascenus wandered in ,qualheim1 he came to a saw-mill4 ,outside it1 on the edge of a stream1 sat two men1 and sawed a steel rail with a double saw4 ,they accompanied their sawing with a rhythmic chant in two voices1 and somewhat resembled two drinkers quarrelling4 ,what are you singing about8 asked ,damascenus4 ,about faith and knowledge1 answered one4 ,and then they recommenced4 ,what ,i know1 that ,i believe2 therefore knowledge is under faith1 and faith stands above it4 ,what do you know then8 ,what you have seen with your eye8 ,my eye sees nothing of itself4 ,if you were to take it out1 and lay it down here1 it would see nothing4 ,therefore1 it is my inner eye which sees4 ,can ,i then see your inner eye8 ,it is not to be seen4 ,but you see with that which is itself invisible4 ,therefore1 you must believe on the invisible6 ,now you know4 ,yes1 yes1 yes1 but1 but1 but4444 ,have you seen ,god8 ,yes1 with my inner eye4 ,therefore1 ,i believe on ,him4 ,but it is not necessary for you to see ,him1 in order for me to believe on ,him4 ,but knowledge is the highest4 ,yes1 but faith is the highest of all4 ,do you know what you believe8 ,yes1 although you don't know it4 ,prove it4 ,by two concurring witnesses8 ,here in this district alone ,i can collect two million witnesses4 ,that must be sufficient proof for you4 ,but1 but1 but1 but 444 ,and so on4 ,footnote #a3 ,strindberg gives himself this name1 probably in allusion to his mystery-play1 ,to ,damascus 7#aijj74 ,al ,mansur in the ,gymnasium4--,damascenus came into a large gymnasium1 which at first he thought was empty4 ,but presently he noticed that men stood along the walls with their backs turned towards him1 so that he only saw their perukes and red ears4 ,why do they stand and look at the wall1 and why do they have such red ears8 he asked his teacher4 ,they are ashamed of themselves1 answered the teacher4 ,during their lifetime they were regarded as very clever fellows1 but now they have discovered their stupidity4 ,what is stupidity8 ,he is stupid1 in the first place1 who is unpractical4 ,these have practised gymnastics all their lives1 but never used the strength which they have gained4 ,furthermore1 he is stupid who finds it difficult to comprehend simple propositions1 self-evident propositions or axioms2 for instance1 the axiom of the existence of ,god4 ,he is also stupid who cannot understand a logical proof2 he who cannot accept reasonable premises1 can draw no correct inferences4 ,but the height of stupidity is1 not to be able to accept an explanation founded on fact4 ,when the ,apostles told ,thomas that ,christ1 the ,son of ,god1 was risen from the dead1 he could not receive the new truth1 because it was beyond his horizon4 ,such a man is usually called thick-headed1 is he not8 ,damascenus did not answer1 but his ears grew red1 for he saw behind on the spring-board a man whom he thought he recognised by his broad neck and small ears4 ,what are you looking at8 asked the teacher4 ,who is the man there8 ,he was1 or was called ,al ,mansur1 the ,victorious1 because he lost all battles but one--the battle with himself4 ,by the ,greeks he is called ,chrysoroas1 or ',golden ,stream'2 by the ,romans1 ,john of ,damascus4 ,the ,nightingale in the ,vineyard4--,johann went with his teacher through a vineyard1 at the season when the vines were flourishing and exhaling their delicious perfume1 which resembles that of the mignonette4 ,do you notice the fine scent8 asked the teacher4 ,oh yes2 it is the scent of the vines4 ,can you see it8 ,no1 it is invisible4 ,then you can believe in what is invisible1 as well as enjoy it4 ,you are1 then1 on the way4 ,a nightingale was singing in a pomegranate tree4 ,can you see her notes8 asked the teacher4 ,but you are delighted by them4 ,similarly1 ,i delight in the invisible ,god through ,his way of revealing ,himself in beauty1 goodness1 and righteousness4 ,do you think ,god cannot reveal ,himself1 like the nightingale1 by invisible but audible tones8 ,yes1 certainly4 ,then you believe in revelations8 ,yes1 ,i am obliged to4 ,you believe that ,god is a ,spirit8 ,yes4 ,then you believe in spirits8 ,that is an incorrect inference4 ,i believe in one ,spirit4 ,have not men spirits or souls in their bodies8 ,certainly4 ,then you believe in spirits1 i4e4 in the existence of spirits8 ,you are right2 ,i believe in spirits4 ,don't forget that the next time one asks you4 ,and don't be afraid when the ,lord of ,dung comes and threatens you with the loss of bread1 honour1 wife1 and child4 ,the ,miracle of the ,corn-crakes4--,one summer evening the teacher went with ,johann through the clover-fields4 ,there they heard a sound1 ,crex6 crex6 ,what is that8 asked the teacher4 ,the corn-crake1 of course4 ,have you seen the corn-crake8 ,no4 ,do you know a man who has seen it8 ,no4 ,how do you know1 then1 that it is it8 ,everyone says so4 ,look6 ,if ,i throw a stone at it1 will it fly up8 ,no1 for it cannot fly1 or flies very badly4 ,but in autumn1 it always flies to ,italy6 ,how does that happen8 ,i don't know4 ,what do the zoologists say8 ,nothing4 ,do you believe that it flies over the ,sound1 runs through ,germany1 and wanders over the ,alps or through the ,st4 ,gothard ,tunnel8 ,they say nothing about it4 ,well6 ,brehm calculates there are a pair of larks to every acre of field and meadow2 if we reckon that there are a pair of corn-crakes to every two acres1 then there are in our country in spring five million corn-crakes4 ,the female lays from seven to twelve eggs during the summer1 so that in autumn in our country there are five-and-thirty million corn-crakes4 ,ought they not to be visible when they fly over the ,sound8 ,i cannot explain it4 ,a bad flyer cannot fly over the ,sound4 ,is it possible that they go round by the ,gulf of ,bothnia8 ,no1 for they have rivers to cross1 and one would see their flight like that of the lemmings4 ,besides1 in ,england there are seventy million corn-crakes every autumn1 and they cannot go by land4 ,then a miracle happens4 ,what is a miracle8 ,what one cannot explain1 but has no right to deny4 ,then the flight of the corn-crakes is a miracle2 it must take place according to unknown natural laws or be supernatural8 ,corollaries4--,the teacher said3 ,the bee is a little creature1 but gives plenty of honey4 ,the corn-crake is a little bird1 but it has shown us that some of the most ordinary natural occurrences cannot be explained by known natural laws1 and must therefore be regarded1 for the present1 as supernatural1 and for the rest1 be taken on faith4 ,you have never seen the corn-crake in fields or meadows1 but you believe that it is there4 ,if now a sportsman came1 who had shot the bird1 you would be more quickly convinced that the bird does appear in the district1 even though the sportsman were a liar4 ,but the fact that millions of birds not accustomed to flying cannot fly over great spaces of water or ,alpine glaciers1 does not explain the autumn flight of the corn-crakes4 ,since this cannot be explained on natural grounds1 it is supernatural4 ,we must accordingly admit that we believe sometimes on the supernatural1 or on miracles4 ,from this proved thesis you can deduce the corollaries for yourself if you possess the faculty of drawing inferences4 ,phantasms which ,are ,real4--,the teacher asked3 ,can one see a phantasm8 ,what is a phantasm8 ,there are in optics real images which can be caught on a screen4 ,an image reflected in a flat mirror cannot be caught upon a screen1 and is therefore a phantasm4 ,can you see your image in a flat mirror8 ,yes4 ,then you can see a phantasm1 or an unreal image4 ,the eye1 therefore1 is a skilful instrument1 which can make the unreal real4 ,one might thus be tempted to believe in ghosts4 ,what are ghosts8 ,they are phantasms1 or unreal images which the eye can take in at certain distances4 ,great and credible men1 such as ,luther1 ,swedenborg1 and ,goethe1 have seen ghosts4 ,goethe8 ,yes2 in the eleventh book of ,aus meinem ,leben he relates how he met the image of himself upon a country road4 ',i saw1 that is to say1 not with the eye of the body1 but of the spirit1' he adds4 ,do you consider ,goethe's testimony credible8 ,yes4 ,well1 such sights are not seen every day1 just as the hoopoo is not seen every day4 ,but that does not give one any right to doubt that they are seen4 ,crex1 crex6--,the pupil asked3 ,what is chance8 ,it means something accidental1 irregular1 illogical in the occurrence of an event4 ,but the word is often misused by those who see1 but do not understand4 ,for instance1 if after an evil deed you are systematically persecuted by misfortune1 that is no chance4 ,firstly1 because the misfortunes appear regularly1 but chance is irregular4 ,secondly1 because the punishment follows logically on the evil deed1 and chance is illogical4 ,it is therefore something else4 ,yes1 it must be so4 ,but what is it that causes me to fail in all my undertakings1 to meet in the streets only enemies1 to be cheated in all the shops1 to get the worst eatables in the market1 to read only of wickedness in the papers1 not to receive pleasant letters though they have been posted1 to miss my train1 to see the last cab engaged under my nose1 to be given the only room in the hotel where a suicide has been committed1 not to meet the person ,i have taken a special journey to see2 to have the money ,i earn immediately snatched away1 to have to remain in a strange town from which all my acquaintances have gone8 ,then at last1 when ,i have no food1 and am on the point of drowning myself1 ,i find a shilling in the street4 ,that cannot be chance8 ,what is it then8 ,it is something else1 but how it happens we don't know1 since we know so little about the most ordinary phenomena4 ,that's only twaddle4 ,crex1 crex6 ,that's the corn-crake4 ,yes1 it is4 ,the ,electric ,battery and the ,earth ,circuit4--,the pupil feigned ignorance1 and asked3 ,what is religion8 ,if you do not know from experience or intuition1 ,i cannot explain it to you2 in that case it would only seem to you folly4 ,but if you know beforehand1 you will be able to receive my explanations1 which are many4 ,religion is connected with the ,source or the head station4 ,but in order to carry on a conversation one must have an earth-current4 ,what is that8 ,that is the draining off of superfluous earthliness to the earth4 ,as one advances in technical knowledge1 one learns to speak without a wire4 ,but for that there are necessary strong streams of electricity1 clean instruments1 and clear air4 ,the electric battery is ,faith1 which is not merely credence1 but an apparatus for receiving and arousing the divine electricity4 ,unless you believe in the possibility of success in an undertaking1 you will not set to work1 and accordingly you acquire no energy4 ,with faith and a good will all is possible4 ,but ,faith is a gift for all that4 ,yes2 but if1 from pride or obstinacy1 you refuse to receive it1 it is no gift for you4 ,is that clear8 ,improper and ,unanswerable ,questions4--,the pupil asked3 ,if ,god is one1 why are there several religions8 ,since the existence of ,god is an axiom1 you should say1 ',since ,god is one1 why are there several religions8' ,i answer3 ,i do not know1 and1 strictly speaking1 it does not concern me4 ,all agree in the chief point--that there is a ,god1 and that the soul is immortal4 ,if the soul is immortal1 how is it that there are men who regard their souls as mortal1 and speak of the present life as their only one8 ,their feelings may be perverted1 like a man's who believes he has a snake in his stomach4 ,perhaps they have committed soul-suicide4 ,perhaps they think the doctrine of immortality foolish1 or their souls are really so rudimentary that they can be buried and dissolved4 ,if that is the case1 one cannot argue with them1 for they are right as regards themselves4 ,either theirs is an abnormal case1 or their perceptions are perverse2 ,i cannot say which4 ,i am inclined to regard the question as among those which are unanswerable1 or which have not yet been answered1 or which should not be asked4 ,superstition and ,non-,superstition4--,the pupil asked3 ,what is superstition8 ,i don't know2 but a sterile intellect calls the highest axioms superstitions1 e4g4 ,god1 the religious life1 conscience4 ,the believing fertile intelligence1 on the other hand1 calls it superstition when an unbeliever avoids a squirrel1 spits when he sees an old woman or when one wishes him luck1 or dares not begin a journey on the thirteenth of the month4 ,what is witchcraft8 ,when bad men misemploy their psychic forces on weaker minds1 dazzle them1 or torment them from a distance1 and so on4 ,you have seen all this at hypnotic seances4 ,in them1 for example1 the medium's eyesight can be so perverted as to take a raw potato for an apple4 ,are there then witches8 ,yes2 certainly there are4 ,an ugly and evil woman1 who so dazzles the eyes of a man that he sees her as the most beautiful and best1 is a witch4 ,should she be burnt8 ,no1 for she burns herself through her wickedness when she meets a man who is mail-clad with the love of ,god4 ,then the missiles of the witch rebound and strike herself4 ,but one should not talk of such4 ,he who touches pitch is defiled4 ,through ,faith to ,knowledge4--,the pupil asked3 ,how shall ,i know that ,i believe rightly8 ,i will tell you4 ,doubt the regular denials of your everyday intelligence4 ,go out of yourself if you can1 and place yourself at the believer's standpoint4 ,act as though you believed1 and then test the belief1 and see whether it agrees with your experiences4 ,if it does1 then you have gained in wisdom1 and no one can shake your belief4 ,when ,i for the first time obtained ,swedenborg's ,arcana ,clestia1 and looked through the ten thousand pages1 it appeared to me all nonsense4 ,and yet ,i could not help wondering1 since the man was so extraordinarily learned in all the natural sciences1 as well as in mathematics1 philosophy1 and political economy4 ,amid the apparent foolishness of the book were some details which remained riveted in my memory4 ,some time later1 in my ordinary life1 there happened something inexplicable4 ,subsequently light was thrown upon this by an experience which ,swedenborg refers to his so-called heaven and his so-called angels4 ,then ,i began to search and to compare1 to make experiments and to find explanations4 ,i come to the conclusion that ,swedenborg has had experiences which resemble those of earthly life1 but are not the same4 ,this he brings out in his theory of correspondences and agreements4 ,the theosophists have expressed it thus3 parallel with the earth-life we live another life on the astral plane1 but unconsciously to ourselves4 ,the ,enchanted ,room4--,the pupil became curious and asked3 ,what opened your eyes as regards ,swedenborg8 ,it is difficult to say1 but ,i will try to do so4 ,in my lonely dwelling there was a room which ,i considered the most beautiful in the world4 ,it had not been so beautiful at first1 but great and important events had taken place there4 ,a child had been born in it1 and in it a man had died4 ,finally ,i fitted it up as a temple of memory1 and never showed it to anyone4 ,one day1 however1 the demon of pride and ostentation took possession of me1 and ,i took a guest into it4 ,he happened to be a 'black man1' a hopeless despairer1 who only believed in physical force and in wickedness1 and called himself 'a load of earth4' ,as ,i admitted him ,i said1 ',now you will see the most beautiful room in the country4' ,i turned on the electric light1 which generally poured down from the ceiling such a blaze that not a dark corner was left in the room4 ,the man stood in the middle of the room1 looked round1 grumbled to himself1 and said ',i can't see that4' ,as he spoke1 the room darkened1 the walls contracted1 the floor shrank in size4 ,my splendid temple was metamorphosed before my eyes4 ,it seemed to me like a room in a hospital1 with coarse wall-papers2 the beautiful flowered curtains looked dirty2 the white surface of the little writing-table showed spots2 the gilding was blackened2 the brass fittings of the tiled oven were tarnished4 ,the whole room was altered1 and ,i was ashamed4 ,it had been enchanted4 ,concerning ,correspondences4--,now comes ,swedenborg1 but his explanation is somewhat difficult4 ,i must make a prefatory remark1 in order that you may not think ,i regard myself as an angel4 ,by 'angel' ,swedenborg means a deceased mortal1 who by death has been released from the prison of the body1 and by suffering in faith has recovered the highest faculties of his soul4 ,it is necessary to bear this definition of ,swedenborg's in mind1 and to remember that it does not apply to my guest or myself4 ,swedenborg further remarks regarding these dematerialised beings3 ',all which appears and exists around them seems to be produced and created by them4 ,the fact that their surroundings are1 as it were1 produced and created by them is evident1 because when they are no longer there the surroundings are altered4 ,a change in the surroundings is also apparent1 when other beings come in their place4 ,elysian plains change into their trees and fruits2 gardens change into their roses and plants1 and fields into their herbs and grasses4 ,the reason for the appearance and alteration of such objects is that they are produced by the wishes of these angel beings and the currents of thought set in motion thereby4' ,is not this a subtle observation of ,swedenborg's1 and have not the facts he alleges something corresponding to them in our lower sphere8 ,does it not resemble my adventure in the 'enchanted room8' ,perhaps you have had a similar experience8 ,the ,green ,island4--,the pupil answered3 ,i have certainly had strange experiences1 but did not understand them because ,i thought with the flesh4 ,as ,i just heard you say that our experiences can receive a symbolical interpretation1 ,i remembered an incident which resembled that which you have just related and compared with an observation of ,swedenborg's4 ,after a youth spent under intolerable pressure and too much work1 a friend gave me a sum of money that ,i might spend the summer on the sea in literary recreation4 ,when ,i saw the ',green ,island' with its carpets of flowers1 beds of reeds1 banks of willows1 oak coppices1 and hazel woods1 ,i thought that ,i beheld ,paradise4 ,together with three other young poets ,i passed the summer in a state of happiness which ,i have never experienced since4 ,we were fairly religious1 although we did not literally believe in the gods of the state1 and we lived1 as a rule1 innocently enough1 with simple pleasures such as bathing1 sailing1 and fishing4 ,but there was an evil man among us4 ,he was overbearing1 and regarded mankind as his enemies2 denied all goodness2 spied after others' faults2 rejoiced in others' misfortunes4 ,every time he left us to go to the town1 the island seemed to me more beautiful2 it seemed like ,sunday4 ,i was always the object of his gibes1 but did not understand his malice4 ,my friends wondered that ,i was not angry with him1 as ,i was generally so passionate4 ,i do not myself understand it1 but ,i was as though protected1 and noticed nothing1 whatever the cause may have been4 ,perhaps you ask whether the island really was so wonderful4 ,i answer3 ,i found it so1 but perhaps the beauty was in my way of looking at it4 ,swedenborg's ,hell4--,the pupil continued3 ,the next summer ,i came again1 but this time with other companions1 and ,i was another man4 ,the bitterness of life1 the spirit of the time1 new teachings1 evil companionship made me doubt the beneficence of ,providence1 and finally deny its existence4 ,we led a dreadful life together4 ,we slandered each other1 suspected each other even of theft4 ,all wished to dominate1 nobody would follow another to the best bathing-place1 but each went to his own4 ,we could not sail1 for everyone wished to steer4 ,we quarrelled from morning till night4 ,we drank also1 and half of us were treating themselves for incurable diseases4 ,my ',green ,island1' the first paradise of my youth1 became ugly and repulsive to me4 ,i could see no more beauty in nature1 although at that time ,i worshipped nature4 ,but wait a minute1 and see how it agreed with what ,swedenborg says6 ,the beautiful weed-fringed bay began to exhale such miasmas1 that ,i got malarial fever4 ,the gnats plagued us the whole night and stung through the thickest veil4 ,if ,i wandered in the wood1 and wished to pluck a flower1 ,i saw an adder rear its head4 ,one day1 when ,i took some moss from a rock1 ,i saw immediately a black snake zigzagging away4 ,it was inexplicable4 ,the peaceable inhabitants must have been infected by our wickedness1 for they became malicious1 ugly1 quarrelsome1 and enacted domestic tragedies4 ,it was hell6 ,when ,i became ill1 my companions scoffed at me1 and were angry1 because ,i had to have a room to myself4 ,they borrowed money from me1 which was not my own1 and behaved brutally4 ,when ,i wanted a doctor1 they would not fetch him4 ,the teacher broke in3 ,that is how ,swedenborg describes hell4 ,preliminary ,knowledge ,necessary4--,the pupil asked3 ,is there a hell8 ,you ask that1 when you have been in it8 ,i mean1 another one4 ,what do you mean by another one8 ,has your experience not sufficed to convince you that there is one8 ,but what does ,swedenborg think8 ,i don't know4 ,it is possible that he does not mean a place1 but a condition of mind4 ,but as his descriptions of another side agree with our experiences on this side in this point1 that whenever a man breaks the connection with the higher sphere1 which is ,love and ,wisdom1 a hell ensues1 it does not matter whether it is here or there4 ,he uses parables and allegories1 as ,christ did in order to be understood4 ,emerson in his ,representative ,men regards ,swedenborg's genius as the greatest among modern thinkers1 but he warns us against stereo-typing his forms of thought4 ,true as transitional forms1 they are false if one tries to fix them fast4 ,he calls these descriptions a transitory embodiment of the truth1 not the truth itself4 ,but ,i do not yet understand ,swedenborg4 ,no1 because you have not the necessary preliminary knowledge4 ,just like the peasant who came to a chemical lecture and only heard about letters and numbers4 ,he considered it the most stupid stuff he had ever heard3 ',they could only spell1 but could not put the letters together4' ,he lacked the necessary preliminary knowledge4 ,still1 when you read ,swedenborg1 read ,emerson along with him4 ,perverse ,science4--,the teacher continued3 ,swedenborg never found a contradiction between science and religion1 because he beheld the harmony in all1 correspondences in the higher sphere to the lower1 and the unity underlying opposites4 ,like ,pythagoras1 he saw the ,law-giver in ,his laws1 the ,creator in ,his work1 ,god in nature1 history and the life of men4 ,modern degenerate science sees nothing1 although it has obtained the telescope and microscope4 ,newton1 ,leibnitz1 ,kepler1 ,swedenborg1 ,linnus1 the greatest scientists were religious ,god-fearing men4 ,newton wrote also an ,exposition of the ,apocalypse4 ,kepler was a mystic in the truest sense of the word4 ,it was his mysticism which led to his discovery of the laws regulating the courses of the planets4 ,humble and pure-hearted1 those men could see ,god while our decadents only see an ape infested by vermin4 ,the fact that our science has fallen into disharmony with ,god1 shows that it is perverse1 and derives its light from the ,lord of ,dung4 ,truth in ,error4--,the teacher continued3 ,let us return for a moment to your green island4 ,there you discovered that the world is a reflection of your interior state1 and of the interior state of others4 ,it is therefore probable that each carries his own heaven and hell within him4 ,thus we come to the conclusion that religion is something subjective1 and therefore outside the reach of discussion4 ,the believer is therefore right when he receives spiritual edification from the consecrated ,bread and ,wine4 ,and the unbeliever is also not wrong when he maintains that for him it is only bread and wine4 ,but if he asserts that it is the same with the believer1 he is wrong4 ,one ought not to punish him for it2 one must only lament his want of intelligence4 ,by calling religion subjective1 ,i have not thereby diminished its power4 ,the subjective is the highest for personality1 which is an end in itself1 inasmuch as the education of man to superman is the meaning of existence4 ,but when many individuals combine in one belief1 there results an objective force of tremendous intensity1 which can remove mountains and overthrow the walls of ,jericho4 ,accumulators4--,when a race of wild men begin to worship a meteoric stone1 and this stone is subsequently venerated by a nation for centuries1 it accumulates psychic force1 i4e4 becomes a sacred object which can bestow strength on those who possess the receptive apparatus of faith4 ,it can accordingly work miracles which are quite incomprehensible to unbelievers4 ,such a sacred object is called an amulet1 and is not really more remarkable than an electric pocket-lamp4 ,but the lamp gives light only on two conditions--that it is charged with electricity and that one presses the knob4 ,amulets also only operate under certain conditions4 ,the same holds good of sacred places1 sacred pictures and objects1 and also of sacred rites which are called sacraments4 ,but it may be dangerous for an unbeliever to approach too near to an accumulator4 ,the faith-batteries of others can produce an effect on them1 and they may be killed thereby1 if they possess not the earth-circuit to carry off the coarser earthly elements4 ,the electric car proceeds securely and evenly as long as it is in contact with the overhead wire and also connected with the earth4 ,if the former contact is interrupted1 the car stands still4 ,if the earth-circuit is blocked1 an electric storm is the result1 as was the case with ,st4 ,paul on the way to ,damascus4 ,eternal ,punishment4--,the pupil asked3 ,what is your belief regarding eternal punishments8 ,let me answer evasively1 so to speak3 since wickedness is its own punishment1 and a wicked man cannot be happy1 and the will is free1 an evil man may be perpetually tormented with his own wickedness1 and his punishment accordingly have no end4 ,but we will hope that the wicked will not adhere to his evil will for ever4 ,a wicked man often experiences a change of nature when he sees something good4 ,therefore1 it is our duty to show him what is good4 ,the consciousness of fatality and being damned comes to everyone1 even to the incredulous4 ,that proves that there is an inborn sense of justice1 a need to punish oneself1 and that quite independent of dogmas4 ,moreover1 it is a gross falsehood that the doctrine of hell was invented by ,christianity4 ,greeks and ,romans knew ,hades and ,tartarus with their refined tortures2 the ,jews had their ,sheol and ,gehenna2 the cheerful ,japanese rival ,dante with their ,inferno4 ,it is therefore thoughtless nonsense to make ,christian theology solely responsible for the doctrine of hell4 ,it would be just as fair to trace it to the cheerful view of life of the ,greeks and ,romans1 who first came upon the idea4 ,desolation4--,the teacher continued3 ,when this feeling of fatality strikes an unbeliever1 it often appears as the so-called persecution-mania4 ,he believes himself1 for example1 persecuted by men who wish to poison him4 ,since his intelligence is so low that he cannot rise to the idea of ,god1 his evil conscience makes him conjure up evil men as his persecutors4 ,thus he does not understand that it is ,god who is pursuing him1 and therefore he dies or goes mad4 ,but he who has strength enough to bow himself1 or intelligence enough to guess at a method in this madness1 cries to ,god for help and grace1 and escapes the madhouse4 ,after a season of self-chastisement1 life begins to grow lighter2 peace returns2 he succeeds in his undertakings2 his ',green ,island' again blooms with spring4 ,this feeling of woebegoneness often occurs about the fortieth or fiftieth year4 ,it is the balancing of books at the solstice4 ,the whole past is summed up1 and the debit-side shows a plus which makes one despair4 ,scenes of earlier life pass by like a panorama1 seen in a new light2 long-forgotten incidents reappear even in their smallest details4 ,the opening of the sealed ,book of ,life1 spoken of in the ,revelation1 is a veritable reality4 ,it is the day of judgment4 ,the children of the ,lord of ,dung who have lost their intelligence understand nothing1 but buy bromkali at the chemist's and take sick-leave because of 'neurasthenia4' ,that is a ,greek word1 which serves them as an amulet4 ,swedenborg calls this natural process 'the desolation' of the wicked4 ,the pietists call it the 'awakening' before conversion4 ,a ,world of ,delusion4--,swedenborg writes3 ',the angels are troubled concerning the darkness on earth4 ,they say that they can see hardly any light anywhere1 that men live and strengthen themselves in lying and deceit1 and so heap up falsity upon falsity4 ,in order to ratify these1 they manage to extract1 by way of inference1 such true propositions from false premises1 as1 on account of the darknesses which conceal the true sources1 and because the real state of the case is unknown1 cannot be refuted4' ,this agrees with what every thinking man observes1 that lying and deceit are universal4 ,the whole of life--politics1 society1 marriage1 the family--is counterfeit4 ,views which universally prevail are based upon false history2 scientific theories are founded on error2 the truth of to-day is discovered to be a lie to-morrow2 the hero turns out to be a coward1 the martyr a hypocrite4 ,te ,deums are sung over a silver wedding1 and the wedded pair1 still secretly leading immoral lives1 thank ,god that they have lived together happily for five-and-twenty years4 ,the whole populace assembles once in a year to celebrate the memory of the ',destroyer of the ,country4' ,he who says the most foolish thing possible1 receives a prize in money and a gold medal4 ,at the annual asses' festival1 the worst is crowned the asses' king4 ,a mad world1 my masters6 ,if ,hamlet plays the madman1 he sees how mad the world is4 ,but the spectator believes himself to be the only reasonable person1 therefore ,he gives ,hamlet his sympathy4 ,the ,conversion of the ,cheerful ,pagan1 ,horace4--,among the conventional falsehoods of the apes1#a one of the best known is that conversion from irreligion is a purely ,christian doctrine4 ,by looking into ,kumlin's ,swedish translation of ,horace1 even a schoolboy can find this heading to the thirty-fourth ode of the first book1 ',the ,religious ,conversion of the ,poet4' ,horace belonged to the ,epicurean sect who only believed in phantom gods1 because they held that the divinities did not trouble themselves with the course of the world or of events1 but enjoyed a careless life of continual ease4 ,horace accordingly had not been remarkably zealous in his religious duties4 ,but a sudden flash of lightning and a heavy peal of thunder from a clear sky taught him at last that it was no blind unconscious force of nature1 but the hand of a ,god1 which hurled the lightning4 ,thereby he was awoken to reflection1 and tried to warn and sober his frivolous countrymen by dwelling on the power of ,jupiter4 ',god can change the lowest with the highest2 ,he puts down the exalted and uplifts the obscure4' ,after this ,horace preached like a ,jeremiah against the corruption of religion and morals4 ,a modern 'ape' might feel justified in calling him a pietist since he was converted6 ,cheerful ,paganism and its ,doctrine of ,hell4--,origen against ,celsus is the title of the first refutation of the lying accusations which the pagans have brought against ,christianity4 ,who will write a second8 ,who will show that the hell of the pagans was seven times worse than that of the ,christians8 ,in some ,christian countries the ,christian religion may not be taught in the schools1 but boys are obliged to read ,virgil's ,sixth neid1 which describes the terrors of the underworld4 ,there is the ,lernan ,hydra1 the ,chimra1 ,gorgons1 and ,harpies4 ,on the banks of ,cocytus roam crowds of the unburied2 there they must roam for centuries because they have never found a grave4 ,is that humane8 ,then there are the poor suicides everlastingly immersed in the ,styx4 ,and the field of mourning where unhappy lovers hide themselves4 ',even after death their pangs are not ended4' ,but these were comparatively innocent4 ,criminals1 however1 are punished first by the fury ,tisiphone4 ,she seizes the damned1 mocks them with hellish laughter1 and threatens them with snakes4 ,a ,hydra opens fifty black jaws4444 ,and so on till we come to the sieve of the ,danaids1 the wheel of ,ixion1 the thirst of ,tantalus4 ,let us remember1 however1 that the men of the ,renaissance1 ,dante and ,michael ,angelo1 have depicted the most extreme torments1 as though they believed in them4 ,anyone who wants to see how the cheerful ,japanese describe hell1 can look at the pictures which ,riotor and ,leofanti published in ,paris1 #ahie1 in the ,enfers ,bouddhiques4 ,footnote #a3 ,materialistic evolutionists4 ,faith the ,chief ,thing4--,the teacher continued3 ,pietism is a condition of repentance1 which men pass through like a purifying bath and gain a consciousness of inward cleanliness4 ,it is therefore no hypocrisy1 as the children of the ,lord of ,dung suppose4 ,he who is severe towards himself may easily appear malicious to the unintelligent2 and he who has suffered for his wickednesses feels himself freed from the past4 ,this feeling the unbelievers call 'self-satisfaction4' ,a penitent never attains perfection1 but ceaselessly relapses into the desires of the flesh4 ,this may easily cause him to appear a hypocrite4 ,luther quickly saw that it is impossible to make one's acts correspond to one's belief4 ,therefore he laid stress on faith1 let acts go1 and adduced as his authority ,st4 ,paul's solution of the paradox3 ',so ,i obey the law of ,god with the spirit1 but with the flesh the law of sin4' ,faith1 ,hope1 and ,love3 that is the essence and kernel of religion4 ,one's acts never come up to one's faith1 and often lag far behind it4 ,but there are some pious souls who persist in remaining in the condition of penance1 and it may easily seem as though they wished to gain heaven in advance of the rest4 ,but we should not blame them for it4 ,there may be secret reasons which we do not know1 and have never experienced4 ,socrates regarded the sense of shame and conscience as what distinguished man from the beasts4 ,to these two ,christ added pity4 ,penitents4--,the teacher continued3 ,muhammed early traversed the stage of desolation and became a pietist1 when he believed himself persecuted by devils4 ,set free finally by suffering and prayer1 he exclaims in the #icrd ,sura3 ',by the forenoon1 and the night when it darkens1 thy ,lord has not forsaken thee or hated thee1 and surely the future for thee will be better than the past4 ,and thy ,lord will give thee sufficient1 and thou shalt be satisfied4 ,did ,he not find thee an orphan and give thee shelter8 and find thee erring and guide thee8 and find thee poor with a family and nourish thee8 ,but as for the orphan1 oppress him not2 and as for the beggar1 drive him not away2 and as for the favour of thy ,lord1 discourse thereof6' ,when ,buddha left his father's palace and saw the sufferings of men and the instability of life1 he became a penitent1 left wife and child1 went into the wilderness1 and chastened himself by fasting and renunciation4 ,but after he had undergone the severest penances1 he cautiously returned to ordinary life1 and allowed himself moderate enjoyments in order not to devastate his soul4 ,some of his disciples deserted him and called him a recreant1 but that did not trouble him4 ,goethe himself passed through religious crises1 and was at one period intimate with the ,hermhuters1 the pietists of that time4 ,in his old age1 when he grew wise1 he became a mystic1 i4e4 he discovered that there are things between heaven and earth of which the ',beans' have never let themselves dream4 ,paying for ,others4--,the pupil said3 ,i must confess that ,i do not understand the ,atonement4 ,you mean1 understand it with everyday intelligence4 ,no one can4 ,the highest questions cannot be solved by us1 just as little as problems of the fourth dimension4 ,but the solution is given to us1 if we ask for it in a proper way4 ,as regards the redemptive work of ,christ1 you can comprehend it by an analogy4 ,you remember1 when you owed so many debts1 that there were knocks at your door all day long1 that you had to go out early in the morning in order to borrow1 or to escape your creditors4 ,finally you feared your room so1 that you dared not go home to sleep4 ,you sat on a seat in the park1 and said to yourself1 ',it is hell6' ,then there came a man who knew you2 he paid your debts2 you called him your saviour4 ,do you not see that one can pay for another1 and deliver him8 ,yes1 but one cannot make an evil deed undone4 ,no1 but the ,almighty can obliterate it from our memory1 and from the memory of others4 ,but mark this well3 every time that you rummage in the past of another1 although it has been atoned for1 the memory of your own evil deeds starts up4 ,just like a badly washed stain which goes through the stuff and appears on the other side4 ,all miracles are conditional1 just as vows are4 ,the ,lice-,king4--,as the teacher roamed one day in ,qualheim he came into a wood under whose shadow many decaying funguses grew4 ,on a footpath he saw what he thought at first was a snake writhing about4 ,it was no snake1 however1 but a mass of grubs clotted together4 ,the teacher asked his guide3 ,what is the meaning of that8 ,ask first what it is2 then ,i will tell you the meaning of it4 ,well8 ,these are the larv of the snake-worm1 which are obliged1 like clay and wadded straw1 to hold together in order not to perish4 ,they love poisonous funguses1 and cannot bear the light4 ,they maintain their existence by a mutual interchange of slime1 without which they become dead and dry4 ,but they call darkness light1 because the sun would kill them4 ,they feed on the poisonous funguses4 ,they hate each other1 but must keep together4 ,do you understand now1 or not8 ,what is the name of the creature8 ,it is called the snake-worm or lice-king1 appears once in every generation1 and is a herald of evil times4 ,what does it mean then8 ,it is a symbol of the men who talk with their faces turned backwards1 and therefore see everything distorted2 who call evil good1 and good evil4 ,because they live in pride and self-love they cannot see ,god1 but elect one of the mass to be their king1 and believe that they are1 collectively1 ,god4 ,by 'freedom1' they mean freedom to do evil4 ,often an ox or cow comes by and treads upon the motely mass4 ,then1 of course1 it is obliterated in slime1 but another soon takes it place4 ,it seems to be as eternal as evil4 ,the ,art of ,life4--,the teacher said3 ,life is hard to live1 and the destinies of men appear very different4 ,some have brighter days1 others darker ones4 ,it is therefore difficult to know how one should behave in life1 what one should believe1 what views one should adopt1 or to which party one should adhere4 ,this destiny is not the inevitable blind fate of the ancients1 but the commission which each one has received1 the task he must perform4 ,the theosophists call it ,karma1 and believe it is connected with a past which we only dimly remember4 ,he who has early discovered his destiny1 and keeps closely to it1 without comparing his with others1 or envying others their easier lot1 has discovered himself1 and will find life easier4 ,but at periods when all wish to have a similar lot1 one often engages in a fruitless struggle to make one's own harder destiny resemble the lot of those to whom an easier one has been assigned4 ,thence result disharmony and friction4 ,even up to old age1 many men seek to conquer their destiny1 and make it resemble that of others4 ,the pupil asked3 ,if it is so1 why is not one informed of one's ,karma from the beginning8 ,the teacher answered3 ,that is pure pity for us4 ,no man could endure life1 if he knew what lay before him4 ,moreover1 man must have a certain measure of freedom2 without that1 he would only be a puppet4 ,also the wise think that the voyage of discovery we make to discover our destiny is instructive for us4 ',let ,my ,grace be sufficient for thee2 ,my strength is made perfect in weakness4' ,the ,mitigation of ,destiny4--,the teacher continued3 ,some appear to be destined to honour and wealth1 others only to honour1 and others only to wealth4 ,many seem to be born to humiliations1 poverty1 and sickness--'struck like a coin in the mint1' as the saying is4 ,everyone can mitigate his destiny by submitting and adapting himself to it--by resignation1 in a word4 ,the inward happiness which one gains thereby1 excels all outward prosperity4 ,all things work for good to him who serves ,god4 ,the man who does not strive after honour and wealth is impregnable2 in a certain sense1 all-powerful4 ,the hardest thing is to see the injustice in the world2 but even that can be overcome by taking it as a trial4 ,if the wicked prospers1 let him2 we have nothing to do with it4 ,besides1 his happiness is not so great when one looks closer at it4 ,when you are persecuted by misfortune1 and your conscience cannot call it deserved1 take it quietly4 ,regard the endurance of the ordeal as an honour4 ,there will come a day when everything will improve4 ,then perhaps you will discover that the misfortunes were benefits1 or1 at any rate1 afforded opportunity for exercising endurance4 ,envy no man2 you know not what his envied lot might conceal1 if it actually came to changing places4 ,the ,good and the ,evil4--,the pupil asked3 ,is there really such a great difference between men8 ,the teacher answered3 ,yes and ,no6 ,but a sure mark of the evil man is1 he does evil for evil's sake4 ,that is the bad man--the sarcastic schoolmaster1 the domestic tyrant4 ,that is the child1 which torments its mother by finding out everything she dislikes4 ,that is the bad wife1 the fury1 who enjoys torturing and humiliating a man who only wishes her good4 ,in the battles of life it is quite human to rejoice when a foe is defeated4 ,on all battlefields ,god has been thanked for the victory4 ,that is something different4 ,when one sees the insolent struck by misfortune1 one rejoices that there is justice4 ,when one sees the wicked punished1 one feels satisfaction at seeing the balance of equity restored4 ,that is something different4 ,but he who rejoices over every evil deed which he himself has been under no necessity of committing2 he who rejoices when the criminal escapes his punishment2 he who gloats over the misfortune of a good man2 he who suffers when goodness and merit are rewarded--that is the evil man4 ,such were those who clamoured for the murderer ,barabbas's release and perhaps gave a feast in his honour4 ,modesty and the ,sense of ,justice4--,the teacher continued3 ,properly speaking1 the question you should have asked just now is1 ',what men are good8' ,socrates1 according to ,plato1 said1 ',those who possess modesty and a sense of justice4 ,those are the religious men4' ,he1 on the other hand1 who has neither faith nor hope1 can assume the outward aspect of an honourable man4 ,but when his worldly interests or advantages are concerned1 he lets honour drop4 ,similarly1 when it is a question of saving one of his associates from punishment4 ,then he can bear false witness1 and believe it is a good act4 ,he does not stick at helping forward an unworthy friend or relative4 ,he will swear falsely in order to attack a believer4 ,he thinks everything lawful1 i4e4 on his side against others1 and he never repents anything1 saying to himself1 ',he who lets himself be misled must pay for it4' ,when a religious man makes a slip1 he is wont to feel ashamed1 and to reproach himself4 ,often he is nave enough to confess his fault or his mis-doing4 ,then the ,lice-,king shouts ',hurrah6' ,for he would never be so simple4 ,still1 though a believer fall seventy times and seven1 he rises again and confesses his fault4 ,that is the difference4 ,derelicts4--,the pupil asked3 ,how is one to judge of the men who are overthrown in the battle of life without being armed for the conflict8 ,you remember such characters at school2 they could not learn1 could not attend2 they were not ashamed1 however1 but regarded themselves as a kind of victims4 ,they left school1 went out into life1 and collapsed4 ,it was not the fault of their domestic surroundings1 for they came of good families1 who supported them4 ,they were not bad1 possessed talents1 were clever1 but had no knowledge and no interests in life4 ',what is the object of it8' they were in the habit of saying4 ,they could not bring themselves to work1 but dozed at their desks4 ,they seemed to be born to do nothing1 which is a punishment for the active4 ,explain to me their destiny6 ,that ,i cannot4 ,some have died young in poverty2 others begged their way through to their sixtieth year1 while they saw former school-fellows who had been worse than they1 prosper and flourish4 ,i have seen and lamented them1 but ,i cannot explain their destiny4 ,then they are not to blame1 and yet live such lives of shame and poverty2 that is cruel4 ,hush6 ,criticise not ,providence6 ,what is now inexplicable may some day be explained6 ,and remember that life is not paradise4 ,two shall be grinding at one mill2 one shall be taken1 and the other left6 ,human ,fate4--,the teacher said3 ,the destinies of men are obscure2 therefore one should be extremely careful in judging4 ,the ,tower of ,siloam was ready to fall1 and fell on good and evil alike4 ,the disciples asked ,christ what sin the man born blind had committed4 ,christ answered that neither he nor his parents had committed any special sin4 ,when we see how some are born crippled1 blind1 deaf1 and dumb1 we had best be silent4 ,to lament their lot may annoy them1 for they seem to be protected in a mysterious way4 ,they are objects of pity1 and seldom fall into abject poverty4 ,they are good-humoured through life1 and hardly seem to suffer under their ailments4 ,but woe to the man who ridicules anyone marked out by such a fate6 ,if he is persistently pursued by calamity1 or struck himself by a greater misfortune1 one can hardly ignore it by using the formula 'chance4' ,a person who had scoffed at a blind man was struck in the eye by a stone which was thrown into a tramcar4 ,at first he was alarmed1 and thought of ,nemesis4 ,but when he heard that the stone had been so hurled as the result of some blasting operations he became cheerful1 i4e4 more ignorant1 and said it was a chance4 ,he saw the phenomenon1 but nothing behind it2 the effect1 but not the cause4 ,the ',beans' cannot see beyond their noses4 ,sometimes1 when they have long noses1 they see somewhat further4 ,the supernatural in nature is incomprehensible to their intelligence4 ,indeed1 all which passes their limited understanding is for them supernatural4 ,that is logical1 but these rustics regard it as illogical4 ,dark ,rays4--,as the teacher wandered through his ,inferno1 he came to a temple of black granite1 which was quite dark inside4 ,within it something was going on1 but he could not distinguish what4 ,what is it8 he asked a white-robed figure1 which wore a laurel-wreath1 but had a green face spotted blue like a corpse4 ,that is a temple of light1 it answered2 but the initiated cannot see our black rays until he receives the white arsenic-kiss from the ultra-violet priestess4 ,give me the kiss1 answered the teacher1 but he turned his back to her at the same time4 ,however1 she did not notice this1 as she could not distinguish back from front4 ,now his eyes were opened1 and he saw how within the temple they were offering incense to their gods of light1 as they called them4 ,there stood the murderer ,barabbas1 a halo round his head1 and a plate on his breast with the inscription3 ,acquitted because of insufficient evidence4 ,there sat ,judas ,iscariot under his fig-tree1 with the thirty pieces of silver1 in the bosom of his family1 promoted to be general-director of customs4 ,there were the ,emperor ,nero1 fresh from the bath1 with a white dove on his hand1 and ,julian the ,apostate near an altar1 with geese sacrificed upon it4 ,the priests and priestesses sang a chant of ,new ,birth and ,resurrection1 burned incense compounded of rose-leaves and arsenic-acid1 and danced a snake-dance1 which they called the joy of life4 ,then they began to quarrel about a laurel-wreath1 and fought one another4 ,as the teacher went1 they all sat there in the darkness and wept4 ,but when a fresh north wind blew through the temple1 they trembled like dry leaves4 ,blind and ,deaf4--,the teacher said3 ,there are1 as you know1 people with whom one cannot be angry4 ,perhaps it is because of their natural good-nature1 which shines even through a cutting jest4 ,and there are people whose malice comes to light long after one has met them4 ,such an after-effect ,i have experienced myself4 ,five-and-twenty years after a conversation with a man1 ,i felt angry with him4 ,naturally1 during a sleepless night1 when memory threw a new light on the scene which had taken place between us4 ,not till then did the insulting word he spoke receive its proper signification1 which ,i now understood4 ,there are words which can murder4 ,such a word this one was4 ,what a good thing that ,i did not understand it at the time6 ,it would have resulted in calamity to four people4 ,by developing a peculiar instinct ,i have succeeded in fabricating a kind of diving-costume1 with which ,i protect myself in society4 ,when the insulting word or the biting allusion is uttered1 the sound certainly reaches my ear1 but the receptive apparatus refuses to let it go further4 ,in the same way ,i can make myself literally blind4 ,i obliterate the face of the person ,i dislike4 ,how it is done1 ,i do not know1 but it seems to be a psychological process4 ,the face becomes a dirty whitish-grey spot and disappears4 ,it is necessary to make oneself deaf and blind1 or it is impossible to live4 ,one must cancel and go on6 ,that is generally called 'forgiving1' but it may be a device of the revengeful for sparing himself trouble1 or a scheme of the sensitive for not letting insults reach him4 ,one cannot undertake more than one can bear6 ,the ,disrobing ,chamber4--,the teacher continued3 ,swedenborg says in his ,inferno4444 ,say ',hell1' the pupil interrupted him4 ,i know that there is a hell1 for ,i have been in it4 ,well1 ,swedenborg has in his ,hell a disrobing chamber into which the deceased are conducted immediately after their death4 ,there they lay aside the dress they have had to wear in society and in the family4 ,then the angels see at once whom they have before them4 ,does ,swedenborg then mean that we are all hypocrites8 ,yes1 in a certain way4 ,an inborn modesty compels us to conceal what has to do with the animal2 politeness obliges us to be silent on many points4 ,consideration1 friendship1 kinship1 love1 oblige us to overlook our neighbour's weaknesses1 although we disapprove them even in ourselves4 ,a man who is ashamed of his faults is also silent about them4 ,to boast of one's faults is shamelessness4 ,can one really call such consideration hypocrisy8 ,hardly2 especially as things go wrong1 however one behaves4 ,yes1 life is not easy2 it is hard to be a man2 almost impossible4 ,the ,character ,mask4--,the teacher said3 ,i knew in my youth a man who was imperious1 quick to anger1 revengeful1 emotional4 ,accidentally his gifts as a speaker were discovered4 ,he could thrill the minds of his hearers1 bring them into touch with himself1 lift them up--yes1 and nearly carry them away4 ,but on one occasion when he was at the height of his oratory he halted1 became grotesque and ridiculous1 and people laughed4 ,the first time that this happened1 he was depressed4 ,but they thought he wished to produce a comical effect1 and he obtained the reputation of a humorous speaker4 ,out of his misfortune he made a virtue1 accepted the rle which had been assigned to him1 and finally enjoyed a great popularity as a humourist4 ,he often felt annoyed at having to play the part of a buffoon1 but the desire to hear his own voice and to be greeted with applause unceasingly spurred him on to win new triumphs4 ,society had made of him a sort of 'homunculus1' which it cultivated4 ,but in his family and in his office it was not to be found4 ,youth and ,folly4--,the teacher said3 ,what do you think of the proverb1 ',the young imagine that the old are fools1 and the old know that the young are fools8' ,it is quite true4 ,when ,i was young1 ,i imagined that ,i understood everything better than the old1 but ,i really understood nothing4 ,i was young and stupid1 confused my own knowledge with that of others'1 believed that what ,i had learnt was my own4 ,when ,i had read a book1 ,i went into society and proclaimed what ,i had read1 as though it were my own discovery1 ,i was therefore a thief4 ,but ,i was the victim of another delusion1 i4e4 ,i believed that ,i understood all that ,i remembered1 or that ,i knew what ,i happened at the moment to remember4 ,for instance1 when ,i was fourteen ,i did not understand logarithms1 but ,i learnt the way of proceeding with them by heart1 and used logarithms as a short-cut4 ,when one studies a science in detail1 one begins to collect material1 else the result is nil4 ,but the young man attacks the difficult science of life without experience1 i4e4 without material4 ,and the result is what we see4 ,i can see myself now as a young student4 ,how proud ,i was of borrowed knowledge and borrowed plumes6 ,how ,i despised the old6 ,and yet all that ,i had stolen from books was stolen from the old1 who had written the text-books4 ,the young write no text-books4 ,o ,youth6 ,o ,foolishness6 ,when ,i was ,young and ,stupid4--,when ,i was young and stupid1 ,i always had a band of hearers who saw a light in me4 ,when ,i grew older1 and wisdom came1 ,i was left alone with my lecture and regarded as an old ass4 ,but the passage from youth to age was bitter1 when ,i discovered that the old could not be deceived4 ,they read my secret thoughts behind my lofty words2 they anticipated my evil purposes2 they unmasked my crude desires2 they prophesied the results of my actions2 and found in my past the true cause of my present condition4 ,they seemed to me to be wizards and prophets1 although they were simple characters4 ,when ,i asked myself how they could know this and that1 ,i found the answer later--because they had collected material2 because they had passed through all the stages which were new to me2 because they had also tried to deceive the old in the same way1 but had not succeeded4 ,youth1 however1 is always believing that it can deceive old age1 were it only by stealing a thought from him4 ,i know1 moreover1 why the young obstinately imagine they are superior because they can deceive4 ,there are old wise men who have come to terms with life1 and therefore think it a duty to let themselves be deceived now and then2 they let themselves be deceived tastefully4 ,youth is only an idea1 an abstraction1 a boast1 a theme for an essay1 a song1 a toast6 ,constant ,illusions4--,the pupil continued3 ,when ,i was young ,i was never really happy1 because my seniors oppressed me1 because the future disquieted me1 because ,i lived on my parents' money almost as though ,i were a pensionary4 ,when the first symptoms of love showed themselves1 life became a hell4 ,i was never very well1 for the most serious illnesses--measles1 scarlet fever1 agues1 croup1 and others--affect only the young4 ,i could never satisfy an innocent fancy1 for ,i had no money2 every desire was nipped in the bud4 ,i was a slave1 for my time was not at my own disposal1 and ,i could not leave my place in order to visit foreign countries4 ,such is the huge humbug which is called 'youth4' ,no one has dared to unmask it1 for fear lest the young might pelt him with stones1 or draw caricatures of him on the walls4 ,the teachers in the schools crouch before them1 flatter them1 pretend to envy them4 ,if anyone comes who does not flatter these shameless and conscienceless little bandits1 these lewd apes who live in the age of innocence1 these parent-murderers--there is always some old woman there who exclaims1 ',ah6 he does not understand the young6' ,he understands them very well1 for he has been young himself4 ,but the young do not understand the old1 for they have never been old4 ,the young assert that the future is in their hands1 and that therefore they are feared by the cowardly4 ,let us wait and see6 ,if thirty per cent1 reach the future at all1 they will work just as their elders have done1 and with the thoughts which they have borrowed from them4 ,exceptions prove the rule4 ,the ,merits of the ,multiplication-,table4--,the teacher said3 ,all wish to haul at the rope called ',development4' ,the word generally signifies 'alteration1' and men usually love any novelty which does not injure them4 ,but there are some excellent things which are very old1 and therefore they remain unaltered4 ,the multiplication-table1 for instance1 is splendid1 though it is said to be as old as ,pythagoras4 ,the ,rule of ,three holds good1 though it was the ancient ,hindus who discovered this law of causes and effects4 ,the geometry of ,euclid and the logic of ,aristotle is still read in the schools4 ,our architecture imitates ,greek and ,roman models1 and the sculpture of the ancients is not despicable4 ,we regulate our calendar very much as the ,egyptians and ,chaldans did4 ,goethe and ,schiller can be read1 and ,shakespeare is still performed4 ,we see1 therefore1 that not all which has been done in the past is to be despised4 ,he who prophesies that ,christianity will disappear because it is old1 makes a miscalculation4 ,homer is a thousand years older4 ,and the ,old ,testament would first have to be cancelled4 ,but ,christianity lives and flourishes1 although it may be in secret and not published in the newspapers4 ,still they sing in schools and barracks every morning1 ',trust in ,god and in ,his word and strength in order to do good4' ,but it must go hard with the ,christians4 ',in this world ye have tribulation4' ,through periodical seasons of bondage under ,egyptian ,pharaohs1 they learn patience till they begin their wanderings in the wilderness4 ,under the ,prince of this ,world4--,the teacher wandered in ,qualheim and came to a town4 ,in the midst of the chief market-place there stood a bronze image of the destroyer of his country4 ,the youth of the place came out in holiday attire in order to celebrate the hero's memory4 ,the teacher asked his guide3 ,why do they celebrate the destroyer of the fatherland8 ,i do not know1 answered the guide4 ,are they mad8 ,probably4 ,here below everything is topsy-turvy4 ,this hero#a was considered mad1 and certainly he was so4 ,he carried on mad wars1 fled when defeated1 and cast the blame on others4 ,when misfortune came he collapsed like a weakling1 took to his bed1 and pretended to be ill4 ,in his leisure hours he plotted1 but always ill4 ,at last he made false coins1 but managed to procure a scapegoat1 who was broken on the wheel4 ,the country was ruined and could never recover its former prestige4 ,and this is the man they celebrate8 ,yes6 but they have other statues besides4 ,there back in the park stands one1 crowned with a laurel-wreath4 ,he was the wickedest man of his time4 ,and there by the harbour is a third statue--of a perjurer444 ,that is just as it is with us1 said the teacher4 ,yes1 it is about the same4 ,where are we then8 ,under the ,prince of this ,world1 the ,lord of ,dung4 ',but be of good courage6 ,i have overcome the world6' ,footnote #a2 ,he probably refers to ,charles ,,xii of ,sweden4 ,the ,idea of ,hell4--,the pupil asked3 ,when ,i read ,swedenborg's ,hell1 ,i often believed he was describing our life on earth4 ,is it possible that we are already there8 ,as a ,christian1 ,i have learnt that there was a ,fall followed by a curse4 ,certainly life seems to me rather an ,inferno than a school and a prison1 for nothing keeps what it promises4 ,the most beautiful things seem only made in order to become ugly1 the good in order to become bad4 ,have you never seen anything permanently beautiful here below8 ,yes1 ,nature at all seasons is so beautiful1 that ,i exclaim with a feeling of pain1 ',how super-naturally beautiful6 ,and we are so hideous6' ,life may also seem beautiful in a well-ordered family where there is peace and happiness and festival4 ,i have seen it so1 but only for two minutes at a time1 and perhaps it was my way of looking at it4 ,yet there are people who can thrive down here4 ,he who can thrive here is a pig4 ,i know fellows who think they are in ,paradise when they are on a summer holiday1 have a well-spread table lit up by ,chinese lanterns1 and let off rockets4 ,but ',woe to the man who is born sensitive6' says ,rousseau4 ,either he goes under1 or he must arm himself with brutality4 ,in the last case it may happen that he cannot divest himself of the armour1 which has become a second nature4 ,there are some extremely sensitive natures who cannot come to terms with life nor touch reality4 ,these unfortunates finally lose the power of looking after themselves1 and end in asylums4 ,self-,knowledge4--,the teacher said3 ,one may have already lived a long time1 consider oneself a respectable man1 and1 as such1 have enjoyed the esteem of others4 ,then there comes a day when one awakes as out of slumber1 sees oneself as a spectre1 is alarmed1 and asks1 ',am ,i that' ,one discovers that one has done things which now appear inexcusable4 ,and one asks oneself1 ',how could ,i8' ,on one occasion one has even committed a crime2 on another1 one has been dragged1 so to speak1 by the hair2 on a third1 one fell into a trap4 ,but there are men who are so sleepy that they never awake2 and so wanting in intelligence that they cannot see how black they are4 ,once ,i had a friend who was sixty years old4 ,on one occasion1 with an outbreak of stupid astonishment1 he exclaimed1 ',why are people so prejudiced against me8 ,i seem to myself an excellent fellow6' ,and this man was a tyrant who trampled men underfoot1 a hired executioner1 a murderer who betrayed the innocent1 took bribes1 and practised simony and all kinds of wickedness4 ,i did not wish to condemn him1 but tried to defend him4 ,perhaps he felt justified in becoming an executioner1 for there must be such officials2 so he adopted it as a profession4 ,he had an evil nature1 and found it therefore natural or right when he acted in accordance with it4 ,he lived in complete harmony with himself1 and those who resembled him pronounced him a 'fine fellow'--'healthy1 nave1 and1 therefore1 excellent society4' ,when he died1 ,i drew a picture of his character for an acquaintance4 ,the latter was himself a black sheep1 and answered quite navely1 ',you are unfair to him2 ,i think he was a fine fellow4' ,somnambulism and ,clairvoyance in ,everyday ,life4---,the teacher said3 ,i am now fifty-eight years old1 and have seen four generations4 ,i have not been pure-hearted1 for all black blood streams into the heart1 but ,i have had moments in which ,i was transported into a childlike1 unconscious mood1 and took delight in intercourse with men4 ,i knew that they hated me1 laughed at my misfortune1 and waited for my fall4 ,but ,i was immune against their malice4 ,i saw in them only poor men1 who liked my company and were sympathetic with me4 ,even when they made ill-natured jests against me1 ,i did not understand them2 and when they gave vent to an open rudeness1 ,i took it as a meaningless joke4 ,that is a kind of pleasant somnambulism4 ,often1 however1 ,i can be wide-awake2 then ,i see society naked2 ,i see their dirty linen beneath their clothes1 their deformities1 their unwashed feet4 ,but1 worst of all1 ,i hear the thoughts behind their words2 ,i see their gestures1 which do not harmonise with what they say2 ,i intercept a side-glance2 ,i notice a foot-stamp under the table1 a nose turning itself up over my wine1 or a fork critically passing by a dish4444 ,then life seems ghastly6 ,i had a friend1 who once in society had an attack of this clairvoyance2 he sat down on the middle of the table1 declared all he had seen in the course of the evening1 and stripped his friends bare4 ,the result was1 he was pronounced mad and taken to an asylum4 ,there are many kinds of madness4 ,let us confess that6 ,practical ,measures against ,enemies4--,the pupil asked3 ,how can ,i love my neighbour as myself8 ,in the first place1 ,i ought not to love myself2 secondly1 ,i feel so out of sympathy with men1 that it is difficult to regard them as objects of love4 ,the teacher answered3 ,the verb generally means only 'treating kindly1' and that you can manage to do4 ,but to love one's enemies is suicide4 ,you think so6 ,but have you tried this method8 ,it is very practical1 and ,i have tested it4 ,once against my worst enemy1 who attacked my honour and means of livelihood1 ,i established a wholesome hatred like a bulwark1 as ,i thought4 ,but my hatred became a conductor by which ,i received the currents of his4 ,they surprised me in my weak moments1 and his wickedness passed over to me4 ,he grew to gigantic proportions1 and became a ,frankenstein which ,i had myself produced4 ,then ,i resolved to break the conductor4 ,i avoided seeing him1 and never mentioned his name1 for that is a kind of incantation4 ,when people spoke of him in society1 ,i was silent1 or threw in a friendly word on his behalf4 ,my ,frankenstein pined away for want of nourishment1 and disappeared out of my thoughts4 ,finally information reached my enemy that ,i had spoken good of him4 ,he was struck with amazement1 dwindled down1 felt ashamed of himself1 and believed he had made a mistake4 ,therefore1 never speak ill of your enemy2 that only rouses people in his defence1 and procures him friends4 ,you see1 therefore1 what deep wisdom lies in the simplest teaching of the ,gospel1 which you believed yourself competent to criticise4 ,the ,goddess of ,reason4--,the teacher continued3 ,the fact that our intelligence finds so many contradictions and difficulties in the great truths of religion is due not only to defects in our understanding but to an evil will4 ,the presumption of wishing to understand ,god and ,his purposes is as though one attempted to steer a frigate with an oar4 ,every ,greek tragedy closes with a warning against insolence and ,greek3 hubris ,nothing is so displeasing to the gods4 ,swedenborg says3 ',as soon as we break our connection with what is higher1 our understanding is darkened4 ,at the same time we are punished by being allowed to imagine ourselves more illuminated than others4' ,all the philosophers of the ',illumination' grope in darkness4 ,that period of history which is jestingly called the ',illumination' is the darkest we have had4 ,the goddess of reason1 ,mademoiselle ,maillard1 was adored only by madmen4 ,the truths of religion never contradict reason until the latter has been clouded by an evil will4 ,but then the discoveries begin1 and then every religious truth 'contradicts reason1' such as the simple truth that ,god exists1 that the ,almighty can employ unknown laws or suspend laws which ,he ,himself has given1 that ,he can impart spiritual blessings by means of material symbols1 and so on4 ,all 'free-thinking' is foolishness1 for thought is not free1 but bound by the laws of thought1 by logic1 just as nature is bound by the laws of nature4 ,the evil will seeks freedom in order to do evil1 and the evil mind seeks freedom in order to think perversely4 ,stars ,seen by ,daylight4--,the teacher said3 ,the fool lives only for the present1 for the moment1 in the last fashionable error of the day1 in the diving-bell of his daily paper1 in dependence on public opinion1 in the slavery of partisanship4 ,the wise man lives in all times4 ,for him there is neither time nor space4 ,he is present always and everywhere2 on this side and that side of the grave4 ,he ranges over the world's history and fathoms the depths of himself2 he regards himself as an inhabitant of the ,universe1 and not merely of the earth4 ,he feels himself related to ,plato and ,aristotle2 holds converse with the great spirits of the past in their writings4 ,sometimes he lives in his childhood2 sometimes in his mature age4 ,he lives in the past1 as though it were present4 ,he can 'think himself' into the lives of others2 he rejoices with the joyful1 mourns with the sorrowful1 sympathises with the suffering4 ,he feels on behalf of humanity2 has no age1 no nation4 ,he sees the record of to-day's conflict laid up in historical archives1 often without any other result4 ,on the morrow1 to-day's wisdom is only straw1 in which something else grows2 even errors are useful as manure4 ,everything serves4 ,he bears everything1 for he hopes2 and hope is a virtue2 it means believing good of ,god4 ,ephemeral flies get excited about trifles1 and believe one can discover new truths among the telegrams in the breakfast-table newspaper4 ,if a new star is discovered1 they believe the others are extinguished4 ,but hitherto the new have all been extinguished4 ,the new star in ,perseus appeared only for two years1 and then it vanished4 ,the ,chinese ,y-,king says1 ',if one goes into one's tent1 and makes it dark about one1 one can see the star ,mei in the ,archer in broad daylight4' ,retire then sometimes to your tent in the wilderness1 and you will see the stars by day4 ,the ,right to ,remorse4--,the pupil asked3 ,is one right in feeling remorseful for one's past1 after discovering one's errors8 ,if you mean by 'feeling remorse1' wishing the past undone1 you are not right1 for in every man's life there is a rectifying element2 every error by being refuted becomes an involuntary occasion for the triumph of truth4 ,but if you mean by 'remorse1' hating yourself as a purveyor of falsity1 you are right4 ,but say something in your own defence4 ,i can say this much3 ,i was the child of an evil time2 ,i was misled by the seducers of my youth2 ,i mention none of them4 ,my understanding was stronger than my divine reason4 ,my flesh ruled over my spirit4 ,my inborn defiance of authority1 my inherited sensitiveness of nature received impressions1 without stopping to criticise them4 ,in a word1 ,i might call myself a victim of my seducers1 of heredity1 of my natural weakness1 and sensitiveness4 ,the final awakening of my reason1 however1 ,i reckon not as a merit of my own1 but as a grace conferred upon me4 ,the fact that ,i have had sufficient time in which to refute my former errors1 ,i count as the greatest good-fortune which has ever befallen me4 ,therefore ,i do not wish my past undone1 although ,i abominate it4 ,a ,religious ,theatre4--,it looks as though men did not think very highly of themselves4 ,if they see a maliciously satirical piece represented1 they enjoy it without applying it to themselves4 ,they take it as intended only for others4 ,in my youth there was a dramatist1 who was at first a satirist1 but finally came to feel sympathy with men4 ,after his feelings had become modified by his living a steady and fairly happy life1 he saw men in a more cheerful light4 ,accordingly1 he wrote a piece portraying only noble characters with fine feelings and warm hearts4 ,what happened8 ,the public believed at first it was irony4 ,but during the second act they discovered their mistake4 ,a voice exclaimed from the stalls3 ',deuce take it6 ,it is meant seriously6' ,the further the piece progressed1 the greater was the disgust6 ,the audience felt ashamed before each other1 and for the author4 ,some hurried out1 and those who remained ended by laughing4 ,they laughed at the goodness1 self-sacrifice1 renunciation1 forgiveness depicted in the piece4 ,they did not know themselves any more1 and regarded the descriptions as unnatural2 real life1 they said1 was not like that2 men were not angels4 ,it may therefore be risky to speak well of men4 ,but one must not forget that religious people do not visit the theatre1 because the theatre is godless4 ,greek tragedies used to commence with a sacrifice to the gods1 and all tragedies deal with the powerlessness of men in conflict with deities4 ,why do not our religious leaders build a theatre in which one might see the evil unmasked and put to shame8 ,through ,constraint to ,freedom4--,the teacher continued3 ,this world is governed by constraint4 ,all men are dependent on one another and press upon one another like the stones in a vaulted building--from above1 from below1 from the sides4 ,they watch and spy on one another4 ,there is therefore no freedom1 and there can be none1 in this edifice which is called ,government and ,society4 ,the foundation-stones have the most to bear2 therefore they must be of granite1 while the upper ones are of light brick4 ,for there are fancy-bricks1 which support nothing1 but are merely ornamental2 they are supported by others1 feel themselves in the way and dispensable2 but they serve as ornaments1 and of that they are aware4 ,he who demands more freedom than the rest1 is a thief and tyrant2 if he withdraws himself from his burden1 he lays it upon others4 ,this perpetual longing for freedom1 which figures in biographies as a virtue and a distinction1 is really only a weakness4 ,more strength is required to bear than to be home4 ,the only justifiable striving after relative freedom is1 not to have to bear more than one ought4 ,therefore it is the business of rulers to apportion the burdens precisely4 ,but for that1 adequate knowledge1 a mathematical gift1 and a nice sense of justice are necessary4 ,but behind this common longing after freedom lies another deeper one1 which is confused with the former4 ,that is the sighing of creation for deliverance from the bondage of the flesh4 ,this has found its strongest expression in ,st4 ,paul's exclamation3 ',oh1 wretched man that ,i am6 ,who shall deliver me from the body of this death8' ,but this freedom can only be won by patiently bearing the constraint of this world4 ,through constraint is the way to freedom therefore6 ,the ,praise of ,folly4--,in this world of foolishness one sees constantly how fools smile even when their views are ratified by time4 ,that is1 in truth1 a silly smile4 ,the fool says1 ',we are here in order to develop ourselves4' ,when they see a man who1 in the course of years1 has grown wiser and more righteous1 they should be glad that their assertion is established4 ,instead of that they make a malicious grimace1 and say scornfully1 ',yes1 now you have grown old6' ,yet we both started with the assumption that wisdom should come with years4 ,let us rejoice together that it is so4 ,if the ,devil really becomes a monk when he is old1 what a happiness and blessing for mankind that there is one evil spirit the less4 ,is it not so8 ,why should they make a grimace at it8 ,voltaire was a scoffer and a bit of a knave up to old age4 ,finally1 however1 he recovered his reason1 just like lunatics shortly before they die4 ,and then he wrote of human life3 ',pleasure1 in the freshness of youth1 ,i sought thy deliciousness2 ',finally1 in the winter of old age1 ,i discover thy vanity2 ',the thirst for reputation and honour makes men enemies to one another4 ,what was it that ,i thirsted for8 ,reputation is but vanity4 ',genius in its pride roams through realms of knowledge4 ',but my knowledge only plagues me2 knowledge is but vanity4' ,but the fools make grimaces1 when one of them recovers his reason4 ,then they say1 ',he has gone mad4' ,the ,inevitable4--,the teacher said3 ,the question1 ',what has one a right to feel remorse for8' is very complicated4 ,i once followed the career of a foreign writer4 ,i read his works1 which seemed to belong to another world1 with great admiration4 ,his dramas all appeared to breathe a melancholy fear of some unknown terror that was bound to come4 ,his philosophy was that of a saint4 ,his landscapes seemed to be bathed not in common air but in pure ther4 ,he was then about forty years old1 and ,i expected every day to hear that he had gone into a convent4 ,but afterwards ,i heard he had married an actress1 with whom he went about1 and who appeared as a 'living statue' in one of his pieces4 ,he also wrote new dramas for her1 and now1 when they became cynical and brutal1 he achieved a greater popularity than he had ever been able to gain before4 ,he degraded his person1 his genius1 his wife2 and as he sank1 ,i wept inwardly4 ,one day ,i read in the paper that she had deserted him1 but that may have been false4 ,the thought of his fate tormented me2 it seemed to have been predetermined4 ,all his dramas written while he was still unmarried treated of this terrible thing which he foresaw and feared4 ,it seemed to me as though he were compelled to take a mud-bath1 and obliged to let himself be besmirched by life precisely in this way4 ,it seemed as though he had not the right to ante-date heaven2 as though he were not allowed to lead a pure1 saintly life4 ,it is terrible1 because it is inexplicable4 ,the ,poet's ,sacrifice4--,the teacher continued3 ,this man's destiny reminds me of the ,indian drama1 ,urvasi4 ,a penitent who withdraws to solitude in order to purify his soul by renunciation1 may finally attain such lofty spiritual heights that his power may become dangerous to the lower deities4 ,in order to hinder such a penitent in his spiritual development1 the god ,indra sent an ,apsara1 a sort of celestial courtesan1 in order to distract and seduce him4 ,does not that resemble the case which ,i mentioned just now8 ,how can the one who has been seduced feel guilty in such a case1 or have the right to repent a wrong he did not do8 ,now a poet is something different to a recluse1 and in order to be able to describe life in all its aspects and dangers he must first have lived it4 ,what sort of a poet would ,shakespeare have been if he had lived as a steady young fellow1 continued in his father's honourable profession1 and in leisure hours written about his little affairs8 ,although one does not know much about the great ,englishman1 one sees from his works what a stormy life he must have led4 ,there is hardly a misfortune which he has not experienced1 hardly a passion which he has not felt4 ,hate and love1 revenge and lust1 murder and fire1 all seem to have come within the circle of his experience as a poet4 ,a real poet must sacrifice his person for his work4 ,i can conceive of a symbolical monument to ,shakespeare under the figure of ,hercules kindling his own pyre on ,mount ,oeta1 sacrificing his opulent life as an offering for mankind4 ,that is a good idea1 is it not8 ,the pupil answered3 ,truly you have the power of binding and loosing2 now you have loosed me4 ,the ,function of the ,philistines4--,the teacher said3 ,israel had some unpleasant neighbours called ,philistines1 who guarded the coast-line along the sea4 ,they worshipped weird gods1 such as ,dagon the ,fish-god1 ,beelzebub the ,lord of ,dung1 and ,astarte4 ,but unpleasant though they were1 they seemed to have had a part to play in the life of ,israel4 ,as soon as the chosen people abandoned the temple1 the ,philistines came and closed the sanctuary1 set the ,lord of ,dung upon the altar1 and burned incense before the ,fish-god4 ,as often as the children of ,israel quarrelled among themselves1 the ,philistines advanced irresistibly4 ,the hand of the ,lord was with them1 so that they punished and chastised their enemies4 ,once they took possession of the ,ark of the ,covenant4 ,we have our ,philistines on the ,bosphorus2 they are called ,turks4 ,when the ,christians were unfaithful to their ,lord1 the ,turk took possession of ,christ's grave1 and ,st4 ,sophia became a mosque4 ,whenever the ,christians fought with each other1 the ,turk appeared4 ,after the ,thirty ,years' ,war1 when the ,christians had tom each other like bloodhounds1 the ,turk came as far as ,vienna1 and the ,crescent surmounted the ,cross in ,hungary4 ,the pupil asked3 ,why do not the great powers recapture the ,holy ,sepulchre and the ,church of ,st4 ,sophia8 ,they could do it in a moment6 ,i do not know4 ,perhaps they cannot4 ,we need our ,philistine1 the bogie-man with whom one frightens children4 ,in ,france the churches were shut by the pagans when people ceased to attend ,mass4 ,now they set up the ,lord of ,dung on the altar4 ,marat1 in his time1 was buried in the ,pantheon2 but when ,christ reentered1 ,marat was thrown into the sewer4 ,the last to obtain apotheosis in the ,pantheon was an engineer1 who had a single merit--that of being murdered by a friend of freedom4 ,when we become ,christians again1 we shall receive back both the ,holy ,sepulchre and ,santa ,sophia4 ,we do not need to take them4 ,such is the great function of the ,philistines in the spiritual economy of nature4 ,world-,religion4--,the teacher continued3 ,goethe wrote in his youth a treatise maintaining that the religion imposed by the ,state was the most favourable for the maintenance of the ,state4 ,the pupil objected3 ,but how will it fare with the individual conscience8 ,as it has done hitherto4 ,the ,state determines the views of the individual in geometry1 botany1 history1 and religion1 by instruction in the schools1 by religious services in the colleges1 and prayers in camps and barracks4 ,but what about freedom of belief and thought8 ,we have already agreed that there is no freedom1 but that all is dependence and compulsion enforced by mutual pressure4 ,therefore misuse not the sacred name of freedom4 ,during the course of my long life1 ,i have often thought ,i could interpret the intention of ,providence thus3 ,if all religious forms fell off like husks1 and only the kernels remained1 they might grow together like botanical cells1 and form a single plant--a world-tree1 under whose shadow all nations might rest in devotion and in unity4 ,the teacher continued3 ,i had also believed that ,i had noticed there is a special purpose in the intermingling of races which is now proceeding4 ,this has already gone so far1 that in my insignificant family1 which is registered as ,scandinavian1 we find traces of all the five quarters of the world4 ,but do you really believe it8 ,i do not know4 ,and do you think that all nations will be united in a common ,christianity8 ,i do not know6 ,but the promise to ,abraham1 ',in thy seed shall all nations be blessed1' has already been fulfilled by ,abraham's descendant1 ,jesus ,christ4 ,as a matter of fact1 ,christian ,europe and the western hemisphere of ,north and ,south ,america rule the world4 ,and before the actual reality1 our wishes1 ideas1 theories1 and anticipations collapse4 ,the ,return of ,christ4--,the pupil asked3 ,are we to expect the promised return of ,christ8 ,christ ,himself answered this importunate question of his disciples by saying1 ',the ,kingdom of ,god is among you4' ,and when ,he left them ,he said1 ',behold1 ,i am with you always till the end of the world4' ,good4 ,but how is ,christ's ,kingdom to be set up on earth8 ,not by crusades1 as you perhaps believe4 ,you know that there are plants which cannot simultaneously thrive in the same ground2 one kind must die out4 ,so there are races which cannot dwell together in the same land4 ,as soon as ,christians become ,christians again1 the pagans do not thrive1 and depart4 ,just like the giants who got earache when they heard the sound of church-bells1 sniffed and snorted when they smelt ,christian blood1 and finally slunk back into their caves4 ,one ought to be tolerant1 but not to carry it so far as to take down the church-bells or lay the cross low1 because they make the giants ill4 ,swedenborg says that the gift of free-will is never revoked1 and that therefore the damned themselves choose their own hell4 ,if they come into a purer air1 they are tested2 if they happen to get into good company1 they do not thrive1 and cast themselves headlong into the region of the ,lord of ,dung4 ,there they find an environment in which they can breathe4 ,if therefore you wish to fly evil companionship1 you need not shut your door4 ,only acquire an upright character1 and your fellows will shun you like the pest4 ,correspondences4--,the teacher said3 ,we have discussed ,swedenborg's hells and found that they are partly states of mind1 and partly resemble earthly life under certain conditions4 ,i remember now certain striking details in them1 which bring to my mind certain experiences of everyday life4 ,the fire of hell consists1 he says1 partly in this1 that passions are aroused1 only to be mocked and punished2 partly in the kindling of desires1 which really must be gratified1 but die away immediately afterwards since suffering consists in missing something4 ,do you know that8 ,yes1 ,i know it4 ,further1 when heavenly light reaches the damned1 an icy chill pervades their veins1 and their blood ceases to flow4 ,do you know that8 ,yes1 ,i know it6 ,and ,i remember once when ,i was very wicked a good man began to talk kindly to me4 ,i was not warmed thereby1 but began to feel so cold in the room where ,i was1 that ,i put on my overcoat4 ,further1 they wander about lonely and gloomy3 they hunger1 and have nothing to eat2 they go to houses1 and ask for work1 but when they get it1 they go their way1 to be tormented again by ennui4 ,but when they return1 the doors are shut2 they must work for food and clothing1 and have a harlot for a companion1 is that so8 ,it is6 ,the ruling principles of hell are3 the desire to rule from self-love2 the desire for other people's goods from love of the world2 the desire for dissipation4 ,the ruling principles of heaven are3 the desire to rule with a good object2 the desire for money and property1 in order to use them for the benefit of others2 the desire for marriage4 ,good ,words4--,the pupil asked3 ,does ,swedenborg never speak a good word to comfort and cheer one8 ,the teacher answered3 ,yes1 certainly he does4 ,he says1 for example1 ',the chosen are those who have conscience2 the reprobate are those who have no conscience4' ,that agrees with ,socrates' definition of a man as a being possessing both modesty and conscience4 ,in another place ,swedenborg thus explains temptations3 ',evil spirits arouse in the memory of a man all the evil and falsity which he has thought and practised since childhood2 but the angels who accompany him produce his goodness and truth1 and in this manner defend him4 ,it is this conflict which causes pangs of conscience4 ',when a man is tried with respect to his understanding1 evil spirits summon up only the evil deeds which he has committed4 ,these are symbolised by unclean animals4 ,the evil spirits accuse and condemn by distorting the truth in a thousand ways4' ,swedenborg also mentions a kind of spirits who raise scruples about trifles1 and thus trouble the consciences of the unwary4 ,their presence arouses a feeling of discomfort at the pit of the stomach1 and they take delight in burdening the conscience4 ,finally there are some pagans from the countries inhabited by black men1 who bring with them from their earthly life the wish to be treated hardly1 under the idea that no one can enter heaven without having suffered punishments and torments4 ,because they have this belief1 they are at first treated hardly by some whom they call devils4 ,in another place ,swedenborg says3 ',there are no devils except bad men4' ,one word more4 ,the ,master met some in a state of despair1 who believed that pain would be everlasting4 ',but it was given me to comfort them4' ,these are good words for you4 ,severe and not ,severe4--,the pupil objected3 ,but ,swedenborg is in general too severe4 ,the teacher answered3 ,no6 it is not he1 but life which is severe1 and life's laws are severe for the unrighteous4 ,the ,master says3 ',women who attain to power and wealth from the lower ranks often become furies2 but women who are born to power and wealth1 and do not uplift themselves1 are happy4' ',to renounce the pleasures of life1' he says1 'and wealth and power1 with the idea of earning heaven by asceticism1 is a false view4' ,we know that ,swedenborg was temperate in everyday life1 but went willingly into society1 and then he allowed himself a poculum hilaritatus1 a cup of cheer4 ,he declares himself decisively against those who retreat from the world3 ',many think it is hard to lead a life which conducts to heaven1 because they have heard that1 for this object1 one must renounce the world and live to the spirit4 ,by this they understand that one must cut oneself off from all that is earthly1 and devotes one's whole life to spiritual contemplation and devotion4 ,but that it is not really so1 ,i have learned through long experience4 ,he who thus separates from the world in order to live to the spirit1 enters a gloomy life1 which is irreceptive of the joy of heaven4 ,in order to prepare for heaven one must live in the world in activity and employment4444 ,i have spoken with some who had withdrawn from their occupations in order to live a spiritual life1 and also with some who had tormented themselves in various ways1 because they believed they ought to suppress the desires of the flesh4444 ,as a rule they are puffed up with pride1 and regard heavenly joy as a reward without knowing what heaven and heavenly joy is4' ,the pupil interrupted3 ,this seems to be the case with the pietists4 ,not with all4 ,there are among them penitents1 or those who really prepare for death4 ,leave the pietists in peace1 and don't try to sever the wheat from the chaff4444 ,religion should not merely be a ,sunday suit1 but a gentle accompaniment to mitigate the ponderous tones of everyday life4 ,but one must not be cowardly or indifferent1 as so many modern ,christians are4 ,when they hear the big words ',development1' ',modern ,thought1' ',science1' they think at once that ,christianity is a thing of the past4 ,if they read in the papers that the ,lice-,king has overcome the ,christians1 they believe at once that ,god has forsaken ,his own4 ,they forget that the ,egyptian bondage was an education for ,canaan1 and that the ,philistines were employed as goads to spur on the lazy4 ,unbelief1 superstition1 deliberate falsehood1 error--all serve the ,truth1 for all things serve4 ,and to him who loves ,god1 all things turn out for good4 ,yeast and ,bread4--,the neo-pagans who have now rushed forward on the stage1 and believe they are the lords of the world because they serve the ,prince of the ,world1 seem to be a sediment of savage races which by marriage and immigration have penetrated the old nations of ,europe like yeast4 ,yeast fulfils its function in the warmth of the oven1 but is itself changed into gases and disappears1 leaving bubbles and holes behind4 ,the dough remains1 changed into mellow1 low1 crisp1 white1 fragrant1 warm bread4 ,yeast is a kind of mould produced by corruption1 yet it must be present in order to make white bread4 ,everything serves6 ,but mould by itself can make no bread4 ,one ought therefore not to be angry with the pagans1 for they know no better4 ,to enlighten them is difficult2 one can locate a grey star1 but not a black one4 ,one ought not to fear them1 for then they bite4 ,but they must have their day4 ',i have seen the wicked in great power1 and spreading himself like a green tree in its native soil2 but ,i passed by1 and1 lo1 he was not2 yea1 ,i sought him1 but he could not be found4' ,the ,man of ,development4--,the pupil asked3 ,can the pagans really not be enlightened8 ,experience has shown that it is almost impossible4 ,for a blockhead cannot understand the simplest things2 he cannot see the self-evident nature of an axiom4 ,if he is systematically followed by misfortune1 he calls it 'bad-luck'2 if he is prostrated with illness1 he rises as stupid as he was before2 if he gets into prison1 he sits there and meditates new tricks2 if he lies on the rack1 he thinks he is suffering for his faith1 although he has not got any2 from warnings and trials he emerges as great a calf as he was before1 for he has no intelligence4 ,all the denizens of the dunghill praise his firmness of character1 his strength of soul1 his strong belief in his cause4 ,he is sixty years old1 and he has worked for 'development1' but he has not been able to develop himself4 ,he hawks about the same rubbish as he did forty years ago1 when he discovered what he called 'the truth' in the books of his teachers2 he has never produced an original thought1 nor obtained a new view of an old subject4 ,he has stood still1 but the world has gone forward2 he believed he was leading the van1 when he was bringing up the rear4 ,christianity beckoned1 but crab-like he went backward to paganism4 ,such is the man of 'development4' ,do you know him8 ,i have known him1 but renounced his acquaintance4 ,sins of ,thought4--,the teacher said3 ,according to ,luther1 man is a child till his fortieth year4 ,i was a child till my fiftieth1 i4e4 unintelligent1 conceited4 ,i believed that ,i was inaccessible and irresponsible as regards my thoughts4 ,but ,i was obliged to change my opinion when ,i began to observe myself4 ,i discovered1 that is1 that when ,i had sinned1 hated1 killed1 stolen1 though only in thought1 and then came into the company of friends1 they treated me ruthlessly1 as though ,i were a murderer or a thief4 ,i could not explain1 but finally believed that my evil thoughts were legible in my face4 ,and when ,i observed that my friends began to touch on precisely the same unpleasant subject which had occupied my secret thoughts1 ,i saw that so-called thought-reading is daily and hourly practised in social life4 ,when subsequently ,i read ,maeterlinck's fine book1 ,the ,treasure of the ,humble1 my belief in this was strengthened1 for he made the same observation4 ,when ,i finally took in hand my own spiritual education1 ,i found that this was the principal point1 and by watching my thoughts ,i prevented them breaking out into action4 ,now for the first time ,i understood why ,i had so often in my life thought myself unjustly accused and punished for offences which ,i had not committed4 ,i confess now that ,i had committed them in thought4 ,but how did men know that8 ,assuredly there is a hidden justice which punishes sins of thought1 and when men make each other accountable for suspicions1 ugly looks or feelings1 they are right4 ,that is a hard saying1 but it is so4 ,sins of ,will4--,the teacher continued3 ,there are also sins of wish and volition4 ,you know that one can hate and worry a man dead4 ,i was once in a watering-place in which the hotel proprietor had introduced a sort of monopoly4 ,he had arrogated to himself the privilege of alone providing food for the boarders4 ,he starved them by cooking the goodness out of the meat before he roasted it1 by making soup of rye-meal1 and so on4 ,the boarders were patient1 and no one wished to make a disturbance4 ,but their hatred of the man increased4 ,after a month ,i observed that the hotel proprietor began to look yellow in the face and to pine away4 ,as he sat at his bar he became the object of glances full of hatred4 ,at last1 one day1 the whole company1 a hundred in number1 rose during the midday meal and departed4 ,then the proprietor became ill of a liver disease4 ,it seemed as though the collected gall of all the guests had somehow transferred itself to his liver1 and curdled there4 ,he vanished2 they had killed him4 ,but their hatred was this time justified1 or quite natural4 ,when1 however1 we hate a man because he will not admire us or further our selfish interests1 we may become simply murderers4 ,that1 however1 depends on the behaviour of the other4 ,if he is innocent in the matter1 he will be immune and irreceptive of the poison4 ,i know a person who hated me because she could not rob me4 ,she was a servant to whom ,i had shown nothing but kindness4 ,her hate did not affect me so long as ,i was upright4 ,the ,study of ,mankind4--,the teacher said3 ,one ought not to attempt to study men4 ,partly because they do not lay themselves open to be studied1 partly because they are aware when they became objects of deliberate investigation4 ,he who does not give himself1 receives nothing4 ,he who does not approach men in a spirit of sympathy1 finds no point of contact with them4 ,when ,i regard them as companions in misfortune1 fellow-wanderers in the wilderness1 they open themselves to me4 ,if ,i expose myself1 ,i show a confidence in them1 which meets with a response4 ,if ,i approach them with suspicion1 they show suspicion4 ,if anyone visits me1 in order to examine me1 ,i let him sit for his portrait to me4 ,when ,i have had frank intercourse for a considerable time with a man1 and then sum up his characteristics in my recollection1 ,i get a fair idea of him1 but never quite a correct one4 ,men have a right to hide their secrets4 ,when ,i was young and unintelligent1 ,i believed that1 as an author1 ,i had a right to investigate the past of others2 but ,i soon discovered that it is not allowed4 ,they seemed to be guarded4 ,he who says one ought to be so on guard in one's intercourse with a friend1 as though he might some day become an enemy1 has had little pleasure in friendship4 ,i have always behaved to men as though they were going to be my friends for life1 and therefore ,i have received something in return4 ,when they have disappointed me1 ,i have said to myself4 ',what matters it8 ,nothing for nothing6' ,friend ,zero4--,the teacher continued3 ,there are people who seem friendly1 harmless1 considerate2 they leave others in peace1 never pry into their affairs1 never say evil behind people's backs1 nor allow evil to be said4 ,i have admired and envied them for their good natural qualities4 ,but among such persons ,i have found some who keep remote from unpleasantnesses out of pure selfishness1 and who out of love for ease and comfort wish to know nothing of other people's affairs in order not to be drawn into them4 ,these are those who will not give evidence in court1 even for the sake of defending a friend4 ,they are silent when they ought to speak4 ,they avoid recommending a relative on the plea that 'they do not know him4' ,when their names are mentioned as authorities for such and such a report1 they have 'lost their memories4' ,they will not lend money to anyone who needs it1 because 'they do not wish to have a disagreement with him4' ,they have no positive virtues1 and no positive faults4 ,consequently they are colourless1 unreliable1 characterless1 formless2 they can not be classified under any system4 ,i once knew one of these for ten years2 then ,i forgot him4 ,twenty years later ,i found some of my old letters in an attic2 among them were hundreds of letters from my formless friend4 ,i was astonished to find that ,i had had such a lengthy correspondence with him4 ,and ,i looked to see what he had had to say4 ,i read five-and-twenty letters4 ,they contained nothing4 ,i read fifty2 the result was the same--nothing4 ,they consisted solely of handwriting1 ink1 paper1 envelopes1 and postage-stamps4 ,i burnt them and forgot ,friend ,zero henceforth4 ,he did not even leave a memory behind him4 ,affable ,men4--,the teacher said3 ,when ,i have seen a character-drama1 ,i have always asked myself1 ',are men really so simple and transparent8' ,there is a kind of men about whom one can never be certain4 ,they are so disposed by nature that they adapt themselves to their companions out of pure affability4 ,such a man once came into my circle2 ,i found him sympathetic1 lovable1 good-natured4 ,on one occasion ,i imparted to a third person my opinion of my affable friend4 ,he answered1 ',you don't know him6 ,he is a malicious man2 he has only put on an air of affability with you4' ,then there came a fourth3 ',he6 ,he is the falsest man in existence6' ,finally his wife came3 ',no6 he is neither malicious nor false2 he only wants to be on good terms with people4' ,at the beginning of our acquaintance 7he confessed it himself later on71 he had determined to win me by affability1 and to preserve my affection by doing everything1 or nearly everything1 that ,i wished4 ,he also abstained from contradicting me4 ,during a whole year ,i never heard him express a view of his own2 he only repeated my thoughts4 ,i believed he had no will1 no views1 not even feelings4 ,he seemed to me to be a mirror in which ,i was reflected2 ,i never found him1 only myself4 ,then ,i became tired of him1 did not know how to hold myself in1 and asked him to do something wrong4 ,then at last ,i discovered the man himself4 ,with an unparalleled strength of character1 he left wife1 child1 and home6 ,in order 'to save his soul1' as he said4 ',have you then got a soul8' ,i asked4 ',judge for yourself1' he answered1 and departed4 ,it is dangerous to be affable1 and it is dangerous to consider men simple4 ,cringing before the ,beast4--,the teacher said3 ,when a man once yields to desire1 the ceasing of a certain restraint carries with it a feeling of freedom and deliverance4 ,this pleasurable feeling we almost regard as a reward1 and conclude that we have acted rightly when we have thrown a bone to the barking dog4 ,but had we forborne to do so1 the dog would not have formed the habit of barking1 and we might have gone our way in the proud consciousness of not having cringed before the beast1 by bribing it to silence4 ,the feeling of pleasure would have been changed into a consciousness of victory and power1 which is far superior to sensuality4 ,never cringe before the beast2 then it will not get the better of you4 ,the suppression of an unlawful desire is like winding up a watch2 the mainspring contracts till it creaks1 but it does not do its work properly till then4 ,preserve your strength for yourself2 then you will conquer your foes in the battles of life4 ,waste not your virile energy1 or the woman will get the better of you4 ,you know very well what ,i mean by 'desire'3 ,i do not mean moderate eating and drinking2 and you know very well what 'waste' means4 ,you must also not believe that desire decreases with age4 ,it is not so2 but the intelligence and will-power increase1 and therefore the victory is proportionably easier4 ,i make you a present of this explanation3 keep it1 and show that you are intelligent enough to be able to receive a real one4 ,ecclesia ,triumphans4--,the teacher said3 ,the world is full of lies1 but there are also errors and misunderstandings4 ,no two men give words the same meaning4 ,but there are persistent lies which circulate like coins4 ,there are lies of the lower classes1 and lies of the upper classes2 lies of the ,catholics and of the ,protestants4 ,but those of the pagans are the worst of all4 ,they believe they have the right to lie1 because it profits them or their friends4 ,one of the greatest lies of the pagans which misled me for a long time is the false assertion that ,japan has accepted the material culture of ,europe1 but rejected ,christianity4 ,two ,japanese professors1 who lately visited our land1 declared on the contrary that there was a ,christian church in each of the larger towns of ,japan4 ,there are ,christians in the army1 parliament1 and universities4 ,their number is great--five-and-forty thousand ,protestants1 eight-and-fifty thousand ,catholics1 and five-and-twenty thousand adherents of the ,greek ,church4 ,in the ,second ,chamber of the ,japanese parliament two of the presidents have become ,christians4 ,and all that has taken place in thirty-five years4 ,a thousand years pass by like nothing1 and the future seems to belong to ,christianity1 since we have already seen that the chief powers of the world1 ,europe and ,america1 are ,christian4 ,there is certainly no obligation to be a ,christian1 but some day it may be a disgrace not to be one1 when one is born in a ,christian country4 ,it may come to be thought retrograde and conservative1 and a failure to keep pace with development4 ,the pagans celebrated the end of the eighteenth century as marking the overthrow of ,christianity1 but in #ahjb appeared the finest book which has been written on ,christianity1 ,le ,gnie du ,christianisme1 by ,chateaubriand1 and by its means the ,church triumphed again4 ,logic in ,neurasthenia4--,as the ,teacher wandered in ,qualheim1 he came into a mountainous region1 and saw a castle which was of dreamlike beauty4 ,who is the enviable man who lives in such a palace8 he asked4 ,his guide answered3 ,he is an unhappy1 helpless hermit1 without peace1 and without a home4 ,he was born with great artistic gifts1 but employed them on rubbish4 ,he drew nonsensical and trifling caricatures1 distorted all that was beautiful into ugliness1 and all that was great into pettiness4 ,how does he occupy himself now8 ,shall ,i say it8 ,he sits from morning till evening1 making balls out of dung4 ,you mean to say1 he continues as he began4 ,is that his punishment8 ,yes6 ,isn't it logical8 ,he obtained the castle1 but cannot use it4 ,then they went further and came into a garden1 where they found a man grafting peaches on turnips4 ,what has he done8 asked the teacher4 ,in life he was especially fond of turnips1 and now he wishes to inoculate peaches1 which he finds insipid1 with the fine flavour of turnips4 ,he was1 moreover1 an author1 and wished to rejuvenate poetry with bawdy peasant songs4 ,why1 that is symbolism6 ,yes1 and logical most of all4 ,then they came to a cottage1 where they found a man lying on a bed1 surrounded by piles of books4 ,the man had read himself ill2 he lay there exhausted by hunger and thirst1 and could hardly breathe4 ,what is he reading8 asked the teacher4 ,only theology1 exegetics1 dogmatics1 isogogy1 eschatology4 ,during lifetime he denied the existence of ,god4 ,now he seeks ,him in theology1 but has not yet found ,him4 ,will he find ,him8 ,yes1 certainly he will4 ,but he must first seek6 ,why1 it is just like that in our lunatic asylums4 ,and there is logic in neurasthenia1 here as there4 ,my ,caricature4--,the teacher said3 ,men often appear in our lives as though they were sent2 we do not know why they interfere with our destiny2 they themselves perhaps do not know4 ,when ,i was a young man who gave promise of a future1 which ,i had not fulfilled1 ,i received as a colleague in my work a man whom ,i at once felt to be antipathetic to me1 and who hated me4 ,but he sought me1 drew me out1 and compelled me to drink1 although ,i was not exactly difficult to persuade4 ,he drank himself terribly1 and often ,i thought he wished to make me drink myself to death4 ,when half-intoxicated1 he always made personal remarks on me1 both flattering and critical4 ,he also appeared as a charlatan1 professing to know and prophesy my destiny4 ,this sometimes attracted me1 and sometimes repelled me4 ,finally1 on one occasion when intoxicated1 he attacked me before others1 and called me 'a humbug who would come to nothing4' ,i was at that time fully conscious of my vocation as author2 excited by the attack1 and being partially in liquor1 ,i made a presumptuous assertion that ,i would be 'great4' ,then the man fell in a rage and swore by h--l that ,i should not be great4 ,after this our ways divided4 ,my friends noticed it1 and asked1 ',do you not go about any more with your caricature8' ',what do you mean by that8' ,i asked4 ',his face was really a caricature of yours4' ,and so it was4 ,two years afterwards ,i emerged from the ruck1 and remember that my thoughts turned back to the mysterious person who had interested himself in my destiny4 ,somewhat later ,i heard that the man had died at twenty-seven years of age under peculiar circumstances4 ,he was standing on a mountain in the evening of ,midsummer ,day when he had a stroke4 ',he flew asunder like a goblin in the sunlight1' ,i said jocosely4 ,this man looked like a ,hun or a death's-head4 ,he was born in the seventh month1 and preserved by being wrapped in wadding and laid in a corner of the tiled stove4 ,but that explains nothing perhaps8 ,the ,inexplicable4--,the teacher continued3 ,he had1 however1 a peculiar influence over people1 and that not only because he flattered them4 ,i saw him when he was twenty-five years old talking with our foremost statesman1 who was then fifty4 ,the widely experienced1 sceptical politician listened to the ill-dressed unwashed man1 flushed with wine1 who almost monopolised the talk4 ,he claimed an authoritative knowledge of all subjects1 teemed with facts and figures1 alluded to all prominent men as old acquaintances1 was well versed in family chronicles and political intrigues4 ',where did he get all that8' ,i asked someone4 ',i don't know1 but he is a remarkable man with great influence1' was the answer4 ,in addition to his other characteristics ,i can mention this3 with all his coarseness he had traits of sensitiveness4 ,he wept when he read of the cruelties in the ,russo-,turkish war4 ,he loved beautiful poetry4 ,he had a chivalrous enthusiasm for women4 ,he gave out his money generously1 but when he was tipsy he was stingy4 ,demons plagued him1 and he used to roam in the woods alone2 but he always smashed his top-hat first4 ,one could see into his nostrils1 and1 when he laughed1 all his back teeth could be counted4 ,he always wore too long trousers on which he trod1 for he was in the habit of walking on his heels4 ,he was beardless like ,attila1 because his cheeks simply consisted of nerves4 ,but what had he to do with my destiny1 and whence sprang his boundless hatred for me8 ,it is inexplicable1 like so much else4 ,old-time ,religion4--,the pupil said3 ,i have heard1 ,i have thought2 now ,i will speak4 ,i believe in ,christianity as a world-historical fact1 with which a new era has begun and proceeds4 ,i believe that all nations will one day bow the knee in the name of ,jesus ,christ4 ,every time that the pagans gain the upper hand1 ,i will regard it as a test1 and not immediately believe that ,god is with them against ,his own4 ,but let us have a simple1 cheerful ,christianity which gathers all to the ,sunday festival4 ,regard it as a misuse of ,god's name to have religious services every day4 ,simplify the dogmas and keep them flexible so that all may find a place in them4 ,shorten the services2 let praise1 thanks1 and worship predominate1 and let the sermon1 which should be only twenty minutes long1 be subordinate4 ,the preacher should stick to his text1 and not make personal allusions like a journalist4 ,not till that is done will one be able to talk of 'assemblies1' of national festivals like the ,pan-,athenan and ,olympian games4 ,but it is madness to put pagans at the head of a ,christian ,state as teachers1 educators1 or officials4 ,that is not tolerance1 but tomfoolery4 ,that is making the goat the gardener1 setting the foe in the fortress1 playing the coward before public opinion1 and mere weakness4 ,there will come a day in which the name ',christian' will be a title of honour and a diploma of nobility4 ,to say ',i am a ,christian' is equivalent to saying ',i am a ,roman citizen4' ,he who dares to call himself a pagan or an atheist1 will be regarded as a blockhead1 an old-fashioned ass1 a conservative reactionary1 a stick-in-the-mud4 ,the ,seduced ,become ,seducers4--,the pupil continued3 ,the reason why it has been so hard for me and many others to become really ,christian1 is that we are all directly descended from the pagans4 ,we were not acclimatised in the ,christian atmosphere1 but liable to wild impulses2 our flesh was too coarse to endure renunciation and restraint4 ,we had been educated in the evolutionary ape-theory1 and been taught that man belongs to the department of zoology and not that of anthropology4 ,we had also been told that the physical process that precedes the ,new ,birth of the soul1 which is called conversion from evil1 was neurasthenia1 and should be treated with warm baths or bromkali4 ,veterinary doctors held professorships of philosophy and introduced zoology as a compulsory subject in priests' examinations4 ,the servants of the ,lord learnt that religion was a deposit from the tertiary period1 that animals were more religious than man1 and that man had created ,god4 ,the seducer of our youth taught us that the ,life of ,jesus was a lubricous novel1 that the doctrine of the ,bible regarding ,christ simply amounted to this--that ,he was a prominent ,galilan2 and finally1 that the superman was the bandit who may commit any outrage against others1 provided he can prove a false alibi and has no witnesses4 ,it was a terrible period which recalled that of the ,roman emperors1 and like that1 heralded the arrival of ,christianity4 ,we1 who had been seduced1 then became seducers4 ,but we thank ,god that no harm was done4 ,everything serves1 and we had to serve as a terrifying example4 ,there is always something4 ,large-hearted ,christianity4--,but we ought not to frighten men with ,christianity1 nor become hair-splitters4 ,let faith be a uniting bond to lead us onward1 let faith be hope in a better life after this1 a connecting-link with that which is higher4 ,let the fruits of faith be seen to be humanity1 resignation1 mercifulness4 ,but don't go and count how many glasses of whisky your neighbour drinks2 don't call him a hypocrite if he once in a while gives way to the flesh1 or if he is angry and says hard words4 ,don't ask how often he goes to church2 don't spy on his words1 if in an access of ill-humour he speaks otherwise than he would4 ,you cannot see whether in solitude he does not regret it and chastens himself4 ,a white lie or the embellishment of a story is not a deadly sin2 an impropriety can be so atoned for by imprisonment that it ought to be forgotten4 ,do not secede from the ,church because of some dogmas which you do not understand4 ,don't form a sect with the idea of raising yourself to the rank of shepherd1 instead of forming part of the flock4 ,one should have a large-hearted ,christianity for daily use1 and a stricter one for festival days4 ,don't talk about religion4 ,it is too good for that4444 ,virtue consists in striving1 even when it does not always succeed4 ,the noble ,spirit now is free ,and saved from evil scheming1 ,whoer'er aspires unweariedly ,is not beyond redeeming4 ,and if he feels the grace of ,love ,that from on high is given1 ,the blessed hosts that wait above ,shall welcome him to heaven4 7,faust1 ,part ,,ii47 ,reconnection with the ,arial ,wire4--,the pupil spoke3 ,you said once that the tramcar comes to a standstill if it loses connection with the arial wire4 ,i know that very well4 ,would that my friends who are atheists and pagans knew what a relief it is to find the connection again4 ,it is like diving in crystal-clear sea-water after perspiring in the heat of the dog-days on a dusty high-road4 ,the heart grows light2 the systematic ill-luck ceases2 one has some success1 one's undertakings prosper1 one can sleep at night1 and neurasthenia ceases4 ,i remember how1 after a night of debauchery1 the most beautiful landscape at sunrise looked ghastly2 while after a night of quiet sleep the same scene looked paradisal4 ,when we gain the certainty1 and the belief founded on certainty1 that life is continued on the other side1 then we find it easier on this one1 and do not hunt after trifles till we are weary4 ,then we discover the divine light-heartedness of which ,goethe speaks1 which finds expression in a certain contempt of honours and distinction1 promotion and money4 ,we become more in-sensible to blows and abuse4 ,everything goes more softly and smoothly4 ,however dark the surroundings may be1 we become self-luminous so to speak1 and carry the little pocket-lamp hope with us4 ,the ,art of ,conversion4--,the pupil continued3 ,plato describes earthly life as follows3 ',men sit in a cavern with their backs towards the light4 ,therefore they only see the shadows or simulacra of what passes in front of the cavern4 ,whoever hits on the brilliant idea of turning round1 sees the originals1 the realities in themselves1 the light4' ,so simple is it6 ,only to turn round1 or be converted1 in a word4 ,but it is not necessary on that account to become a monk1 ascetic1 or hermit4 ,i almost agree with ,luther that faith is everything4 ,our deeds lag far behind1 and need only consist in refraining from all deliberate evil4 ,as a beginning1 one may be content with not stealing1 lying1 or bearing false witness4 ,if we have greater claims and wish to train ourselves into supermen1 we may4 ,but if we do not succeed1 we should not throw the whole system over-board1 but ceaselessly commence anew1 never despair1 try to smile at our vain efforts1 be patient with ourselves1 and believe good of ,god4 ,when the religious man falls1 he gets up again1 brushes himself1 and goes on2 the irreligious one remains lying in the dirt4 ,thus the whole art of life consists in not turning one's back to the light4 ,the ,superman4--,the gentlemen who talk about development say that ,christianity is out of date and lies behind us4 ,no6 ,christianity is everywhere2 behind us1 near us1 before us4 ,pagans of all kinds really created their gods in their own likeness4 ,but with ,christianity came the transcendent ,god and revealed ,himself to men who had the goodwill to understand ,him4 ,therefore ,christianity is the beginning of the world's history1 its middle1 and its end4 ',whither and whence everything streams1' as ,hegel says4 ,the multiplication-table is still older1 but is not out of date2 it is still used1 though logarithms have been discovered4 ,the laws of thought1 atomic weights1 oscillations of waves of light and sound1 have not been left behind us1 but are still continually close to us4 ,but if one does reattach oneself to ,christianity1 one should take it without refining--stock and barrel1 dogmas and miracles4 ,one should swallow it uncritically1 navely1 in great gulps1 then it goes down like castor-oil in hot coffee4 ',open your mouth and shut your eyes4' ,that is the only way4 ,i am a ,christian1 i4e4 ,i am a nobleman2 ,i belong to the upper class2 ,i have been vaccinated2 ,i have served my time in the army2 ,i am a citizen and of full age2 ,i am a white man2 ,i have a clean birth-certificate2 ,i am a superman4 ,to be a ,christian ,is not to be a ,pietist4--,the pupil continued3 ,if my pagan friends would only give up the idea that a ,christian must be a pietist1 they would come into our pantheon in crowds4 ,luther ate and drank what was set before him1 as ,st4 ,paul enjoins2 he played1 sang1 hunted1 and played skittles4 ,he swore also2 but notice well1 he never asked ,god to curse him1 or the ,devil to take him2 he only said1 ',curse such and such a thing1' or ',to the devil with it6' ,certainly ,i think he might have modified that habit1 as it created annoyance1 and he was a chief priest and prophet4 ,it is a standing error to think that we lay-men should live every day like priests4 ,we cannot2 we have neither the time nor the means2 it is a shame to demand it4 ,but with the priest it is otherwise4 ,he has devoted his life to the service of the ,lord4 ,he should spend the six days of the week in so preparing his sermon that he can say it by heart4 ,i will not compare the clergyman with the actor1 but on ,sunday he ought at any rate be able to repeat his rle verbatim4 ,for doing that he gets his bread4 ,if the congregation see that he reads his sermon1 they think1 ',we could do that too2 there is no art in that6' ,and the minister of the ,lord must take good heed to himself else he arouses annoyance4 ,people will not take it ill if he is austere1 and refrains from society1 for he is a representative1 not a private person4 ,with the layman it is otherwise4 ,he is a poor sinful man1 of whom too much cannot be demanded as he drags his daily burden through the wicked world4 ,strength and ,value of ,words4--,the teacher said3 ,thought is an act of the mind1 and words are congealed thoughts4 ,the uttered word can have an effect like a charm or an adjuration4 ,there are men who are so sensitive that they are aware at a distance whether people are speaking well or ill of them4 ,there are men who are not afraid of committing a crime1 but are startled at the word which names it4 ,weak men cannot endure hard words2 they make them ill4 ,a word may kill4 ,if ,i were a judge1 ,i would always first ask the man-slayer1 ',what did he say which made you strike him down8' ,and then ,i should allow for extenuating circumstances1 or even acquit the man1 if the deadly word caused the deadly blow as a reflex-action4 ,if for fifty years ,i have cherished the memory of my parents1 and my family1 property1 and honour is based on my relationship to them1 and then someone comes and tells me ,i am not my father's son1 he has killed me2 the whole edifice of my emotional life collapses4 ,he has paralysed my energy and willingness to sacrifice myself2 he has imposed upon me the monstrous task of radically changing my views of the world and men2 he has rooted-up my filial affection2 with a single word he has annihilated my whole life4 ,if he has lied1 he is simply a murderer6 ,the ,black ,illuminati4--,the teacher said3 ,everything serves1 and error often helps forward truth4 ,at the end of the last century1 the materialists began to sniff about in the occult4 ,one day they discovered the capacity of men1 when in a hypnotic state1 of seeing at a distance1 of beholding the invisible1 and of penetrating the future4 ,then they accomplished1 curiously enough1 the honourable task of establishing the truth of clairvoyance and prophecy1 as well as the possibility of miracles4 ,the theosophists1 who really at a terrible period of the 'black illumination' sought to penetrate behind phenomena and dug up useful fragments of ancient wisdom1 were however hostile to ,christianity4 ,they went so far as to send one of their prophets to ,india to warn the natives against the missionaries4 ,but in course of time they began to investigate ,christianity again2 they were now provided with the proper means for understanding the mysteries of ,christ's incarnation and atoning death1 of sacraments and miracles4 ,and see now6 their latest prophetess has written a book to explain and defend ,christianity6 ,all roads seem to lead to ,christ4 ,no one has done such good service to ,christianity as the materialistic occultists and the atheistic theosophists4 ,young ,france has been ,christianised by the pagans4 ,the last apostle of the rustic intelligence stands isolated there in his damnable infatuation1 believing himself to be the only 'illuminated' one in the world4 ,let us hope that he is the last of the ',illuminati4' ,yes1 let us hope so4 ,anthropomorphism4--,man is inclined to make everything after his own likeness4 ,when the heathen made themselves gods1 the latter resembled their creators in all their defects and sins4 ,that is called ,anthropomorphism4 ,the artist who paints a portrait1 always puts something of his own into it4 ,i know a sculptor who always used to model his own undersized figure with its two short legs1 whether he was representing mountaineers1 fauns1 men of science1 or kings4 ,the plumper he became in course of time1 the more rotund his figures grew4 ,i know a photographer who always retouches his portraits of people till they resemble himself4 ,he must admire his own exterior1 and wish to have it taken as a standard-type4 ,the critic when he describes an author1 proceeds in a similar fashion4 ,every point in which the author resembles him is reckoned a merit2 everyone in which he differs1 a fault4 ,when anyone says1 ',this poet is the best ,i know2 you must read him6' that means1 ',this poet has my views2 you must share them1 for they are the best in the world4' ,everyone would like to fashion humanity and the world in his own image4 ,but if everyone had his way1 what would the world look like8 ,fury-worship as a ,penal ,hallucination4--,the teacher said3 ,swedenborg describes1 in his fashion1 how the greatest tyrant arrived in ,hades4 ,he wished to stir up hell against heaven1 and he was punished by having a terrible woman sent to rule him1 whom he worshipped4 ,she was a compendium of original sin1 deliberate falsehood1 wilful deceit1 ugliness1 uncleanness1 destructiveness4 ,but he was compelled to see in her the good1 the beautiful1 the lovable2 he called her 'my angel4' ,all his adherents were obliged to worship her1 or he called them 'woman-haters4' ,whence ,swedenborg derived his narratives1 ,i know not1 but his descriptions are like photographs of our everyday life4 ,the modern worship of women does not come down from the ,christian ages of chivalry1 for those romanticists honoured womanhood in its virtues4 ,our new gyneolatry is derived from the heathen2 it is a kind of fury-worship imposed on us as a penal hallucination4 ,the sons of the ,lord of ,dung deify their furies1 and praise their faults4 ,in their view sin is virtue1 wickedness is character1 deceitfulness is a proof of intelligence1 coarseness is strength4 ,he who will not join in this devil-worship is called a woman-hater4 ,chaste wives and mothers are called old-fashioned and perverse4 ,euripides describes in the ,hippolytus how this king's son dedicated his devotion to the chaste ,diana and fled the demotic ,venus4 ,this impure goddess avenged herself by accusing the innocent ,hippolytus of incest and then caused him to be put to death4 ,euripides on account of writing this tragedy was called a 'woman-hater1' and is said to have been tom in pieces by female dogs4 ,that is a pretty legend6 ,amerigo or ,columbus4--,the teacher said3 ,human greatness and the way of becoming great is something very remarkable4 ,often envious hatred of the deserving seems to be converted into immense love for the undeserving4 ,the infatuation of hatred may go so far that when the deserving has done a good work1 the undeserving gets the glory of it4 ,but often also there are secret reasons for this abnormal result4 ,every schoolboy has asked why ,america was not named after ,columbus1 who discovered it4 ,i also made that inquiry1 and while ,i served the ,lord of ,dung ,i found it quite natural that the undeserving cartographer ,vespucci should have the honour of the discovery4 ,but when ,i recovered my reason 7and men called me mad71 ,i read the biography of ,columbus again4 ,there ,i found that1 together with his merits1 he had great faults4 ,like ,david1 he sinned by pride1 avarice1 cruelty1 and deceit4 ,his pride was boundless4 ,before undertaking his doubtful voyage1 he laid down as a condition that he was to be ,viceroy 7he1 the weaver's son67 and receive a tithe of the revenues4 ,well1 he never learnt that he had discovered a new quarter of the globe4 ,he died and was forgotten4 ,vespucci1 on the other hand1 was not only a cartographer1 but sailed round ,south ,america1 and discovered that the ,new ,world was not ,india4 ,he seems to have been a good-natured1 upright1 and modest man4 ,toscanelli1 his contemporary1 is also said to have announced the existence of a new world1 but that is not so certain4 ,a ,circumnavigator of the ,globe4--,the pupil said3 ,can you resolve my discords8 ,i will call you a circumnavigator of the globe4 ,you have sailed round it1 and returned to the point whence you set out4 ,no one can go further than that4 ,but you return with a freight of experience1 knowledge1 and wisdom4 ,therefore the journey was not in vain1 or to speak more correctly1 it has fulfilled its object4 ,max ,muller1 who at the time of the decadence was the scapegoat for all the atheists1 concludes his history of religion thus3 ',it is easy to say that the completest faith is a child's faith4 ,nothing can be truer4 ,the older we grow1 the more we learn to comprehend the wisdom of children's faith4' ,and in another place he says3 ',to explain religion by referring it to a religious impulse1 or a religious capacity1 is merely to explain the known by the less known4 ,the real religious impulse or instinct is the apprehension of the infinite4' ,thank your misfortunes that you have arrived at the infinite4 ',the fortunate do not believe that miracles still happen1 for only in misery we recognise ,god's hand and finger1 which leads good men to good4' ,do you know who said that8 ,no2 is it ,luther8 ,no2 it is ,goethe in ,hermann and ,dorothea4 ,and the 'great pagan' wrote in #aggi to ,lavater3 ',my ,god1 to whom ,i have been ever faithful1 has in secret richly blessed me4 ,for my destiny is quite hidden from men2 they can neither hear nor see at all1 how it is determined4' ,the ,lice-,king omits such expressions when he wishes to incorporate ,goethe among his slimy larv4 ,the ,poet's ,children4--,the teacher continued3 ,moreover1 as ,i have already told you1 you are a poet1 and must pass through your reincarnations here4 ,you have a right to invent poetic personalities1 and at every stage to speak the speech of the one you represent4 ,shakespeare has done so1 whether he did it consciously1 or whether life assigned him the various roles he played4 ,at one time he is a cheerful optimist2 at another1 the misogynist ,timon1 or the world-despiser ,hamlet2 he is the jealous ,othello1 the amorous ,romeo1 so-and-so the panegyrist of women1 and so-and-so the misogynist4 ,i believe indeed that he has1 by way of experiment1 been the murderer ,macbeth1 and the monster ,richard ,,iii4 ,he utters the malignant speeches of the last with real relish4 ,every rascal may defend himself1 and ,shakespeare is his advocate4 ,there the poet should have no grave2 his ashes should be strewn to all the winds of heaven4 ,he should only live in his works1 if they possess vital power4 ,men should accustom themselves to look upon him as something different from an ordinary man2 they ought not to judge him1 but regard him as something which they cannot understand4 ,you remember the dying ,epaminondas4 ,when they condoled with him because he left no children1 he answered3 ',children8 ,i have ,leuktra and ,mantinea4' ,faithful in ,little ,things4--,the pupil said3 ,i had a friend1 who died lately at the age of sixty4 ,according to my view1 he has in his own way realised the type of a good citizen and a good man4 ,he was a tradesman1 and had passed through a youth of hardship1 being from six in the morning till ten at night in the shop1 the doors of which were open even in winter4 ,under his first master he quickly discovered that dishonest tricks did not pay4 ,therefore he became rigidly honest1 studied the details of his trade1 made rapid progress1 kept sober and wide-awake4 ,accordingly he soon became his own master1 and wealth came of itself4 ,he married and had children1 who turned out excellently in consequence of their father's example4 ,now1 this man lived his whole life according to the teaching he had received in school and church4 ,he did his duty1 honoured father and mother1 obeyed law and authority1 never criticised those who managed the government of the country1 which he did not profess to understand4 ,he took no notice of selfish agitations1 did not worry himself about the riddle of the universe1 and warned his children not to be eager after novelties4 ,he also possessed positive virtues2 he was merciful and helpful1 faithful and modest4 ,when his sons began to study1 he did not attempt to vie with them in learning4 ,but when they attacked his childlike faith1 he defended it like a man4 ,he never ventured to occupy a public post1 for he knew his limits4 ,he never sought for distinctions1 nor did he obtain any4 ,well1 what name do the larv of the snake-worm give such a blameless1 good1 faithful man8 ,they call him 'a servile rascal4' ,is that just8 ,the teacher answered3 ,no6 it is flagrantly unjust6 ,but there are other types of character1 which are also laudable4 ,yes1 indeed1 but that does not lessen the value of his life2 he was faithful in small things4 ,the ,unpracticalness of ,husk-eating4--,the teacher said3 ,young people say1 ',what do we want with the wisdom of age8 ,we want to learn for ourselves4' ,i generally answer1 ',yes1 learn for yourselves--from us6 ,what good-fortune to be able to inherit the rich experiences of others1 and not to make these expensive1 dirty experiments for oneself6 ,if the young commenced where we left off1 the world and humanity would progress with giant strides4 ,instead of this everyone begins afresh1 that is1 in the moral sphere4 ,when it is a question of making a new incandescent lamp1 we do not begin with a machine for generating electricity1 but continue from the latest discovery of our predecessors4 ,i have also asked myself whether it is necessary first to be burnt in order to dread the fire4 ,i have never seen my children go to the oven and lay hold of the red dampers to see whether they would be burnt4 ,they let themselves be warned1 and therefore escaped the painful experience4 ,i have asked myself whether one must first feed with the swine before one can appreciate the food of the household1 and whether the ,prodigal ,son is a necessary transitionary type4 ,but to all these stupid and impertinent questions life has given a negative answer4 ,swedenborg says that all sin and wickedness leave traces behind them1 but that these are not apparent in the human face till old age4 ,subsequently1 in the disrobing-room on the other side1 they look as if they had been thrown through a magnifying-glass on a white screen4 ,i once looked into an attic-room2 the curtain was drawn aside1 and an old man put out his head in order to look at the sun4 ,when he saw me he hid his face immediately4 ,that was a face6444 ,god protect us6 ,a ,youthful ,dream for ,seven ,shillings4--,the teacher said3 ,there are people who carry about with them a measuring-rule for everything4 ,they demand exactness and order2 they love perfection in all things4 ,they are called discontented1 carping1 pedantic4 ,but it is unfair to blame them4 ,if one is content with the mediocre1 one will at last only get the worst4 ,men give only as little as they can1 and the whole of life is defective4 ,conscientious men are not happy1 for they cannot lower their demands2 they appear to simpletons who have not learnt1 that nothing is what it gives itself out to be1 that nothing answers the expectations we formed of it4 ,one is inclined to ask whether such men bring with them at birth recollections of a place or a condition where ideal perfection existed4 ,when ,i was seven years old1 ,i often remained standing fascinated before a music-dealer's shop window1 and contemplated a hunter's horn which was hung up there4 ,there was something charming in the proportions of these curved lines4 ,this brass tube tapered off beautifully from the great width of its bell-mouth to its narrowed mouthpiece4 ,in the gloomy street it made me hear nature's music in woods and fields2 ,i loved the instrument4 ,but when a boy told me that it cost thirty shillings1 ,i wondered whether life would ever fulfil my desire1 for in order to buy it ,i would have to go for two and a half years without breakfast4 ,finally ,i got to be thirty years old1 and had some money to spare for the first time in my life4 ,i bought the hunting-horn2 it cost only seven shillings2 the boy had told a lie4 ,but the instrument had only three notes4 ,when ,i got tired of my prize it was consigned to the attic4 ,it was1 at any rate1 the fulfilment of a youthful dream6 ,envy ,nobody6--,the teacher said3 ,envy nobody6 ,as a child ,i was boarded out in the country in mean surroundings4 ,i lived in a kind of shanty1 ate from an earthenware plate1 sat on a wooden stool4 ,but there was a castle in the neighbourhood1 a real castle1 with portraits of kings in the entrance-hall1 the ancestors of the young count who lived there4 ,one ,sunday we were allowed to go1 first into the castle1 then into the garden4 ,that was paradise6 ,we could bathe1 and were allowed to pick the cherries1 blood-black1 gold-yellow1 fire-red4 ,the count looked on1 but ate nothing2 he had had enough4 ,then we left1 and the gate of paradise was shut behind us4 ,fifty years later ,i saw the portrait of the young count1 and heard his history4 ,he looked unhappy and despairing1 as though he were weary of everything4 ,he had passed through the bitterest experiences of life1 including poverty for a time4 ,his affairs came into liquidation1 and he had to spend ten years abroad in an hotel1 his expenses being defrayed by his creditors4 ,he also had his wife with him1 who1 as she thought1 had married into paradise1 in order to be immediately driven out of it again4 ,the man had been nothing and had done nothing2 all he could do was to wait for his meals4 ,he had possessed horses and a yacht2 he had gambled and borrowed money2 he had eaten truffles and drunk wine2 but when he was forty had to give it up1 for his nose grew red and he had gout in his great toe4 ,i will not speak of his domestic miseries4 ,now he sits in his castle1 rich as ,crsus1 but lonely1 and educates his housekeeper's children1 which are his1 but which cannot bear his name4 ,his evening meal consists of gruel1 and he goes to bed at half-past nine4 ,he dares not use his wine-cellar1 for then his great toe aches4 ,his solitary comparative pleasure is to be able to walk1 in order to eat his gruel and be able to sleep4 ,envy nobody6 ,the ,galley-slaves of ,ambition4--,the teacher said3 ,balzac speaks in one place of the galley-slaves of ambition1 and describes their condition very much as ,swedenborg describes certain of his hells1 or as ,homer depicts ,tantalus1 ,ixion1 and the ,danaides4 ,they are ceaselessly haunted by their passion to be superior to others2 to be seen and heard before all others4 ,the malice and love of power which this involves are necessarily punished4 ,when the ambitious man cannot be the first and only one he becomes ill4 ,voltaire had to go to bed when a prince travelled past his house without visiting him4 ,if one of such people's letters remains unanswered they think it is a sign that their credit has sunk1 and they worry about the reason of it till they grow how hypochondriacal4 ,if they read in the paper such and such important people were present when the king landed1 and their names are omitted1 the world is darkened for them4 ,that is to say1 it is not enough for them that they should be praised and called the greatest2 they suffer pains like death when others are eulogised4 ,they feel perpetual fear lest they should be set aside and their juniors get ahead of them4 ,in that they resemble a great criminal who expects to be detected4 ,the portrait of an ambitious man has a great resemblance to that of a galley-slave4 ,imperiousness1 hatred1 fear--especially fear--are depicted in his face4 ,balzac1 on the other hand1 was impelled by the noble ambition to make discoveries1 and to do good work in which he took pleasure4 ,but his own life was hidden4 ,unknown and misunderstood in his own ,paris1 which he had discovered1 he saw petty chroniclers obtain the first prizes without being made ill by it4 ,and when1 at the age of fifty-one1 he had succeeded in making a home for himself1 into which he was about to bring his first and only wife1 he died on the day of the publication of the banns4 ,a fine death after a life of renunciation6 ,hard to ,disentangle4--,the teacher said3 ,with age1 as is well known1 one arrives at a different view of life than one had formerly4 ,then1 on account of its wealth and variety1 life is almost immeasurable1 and above all1 very difficult to disentangle4 ,at the age of forty ,i came home after an absence of many years4 ,on my arrival ,i received a dunning letter from an antiquarian bookseller4 ,curiously enough1 without my being able to explain why1 this debt caused me no further uneasiness of conscience4 ,but then a friend came and advised me to settle the matter1 as the bookseller was spreading an evil report about me4 ,i went and paid the trifling account1 but the bookseller looked so uneasy and strange1 was so polite and grateful1 that ,i began to reflect about him4 ,when ,i came home ,i remembered this3 twenty years previously ,i had entrusted him with an antique work of art to sell4 ,after ,i had visited the man several times in his shop and the article had not been sold1 ,i felt ashamed to go any more1 began to think of something else1 and forgot the matter4 ,his present thankfulness showed that he had not forgotten it2 we were then quits1 if he did not still owe me something4 ,now ,i felt ashamed on his account1 and determined not to mention the matter4 ,but then it occurred to me that ,i owed his predecessor a sum of money for books4 ,i went again1 found him showing the same uneasy manner as before1 and asked for his predecessor's address4 ,he was in ,america4 ,i asked whether he had relatives here in the town4 ,he had none4 ,i went home and thought to myself1 ',then we must drop that matter also4' ,in this way1 in old age1 one must alternate pay and let go2 now as a debtor1 now as creditor4 ,but who strikes the balance of accounts8 ,the goddess of justice1 and she is neither deaf nor blind4 ,the ,art of ,settling ,accounts4--,the teacher continued3 ,it really looks as though we could not go hence till everything is settled1 great and small alike4 ,recently there died an early friend of mine1 who1 at an important juncture1 had helped me with a hundred kronas4#a ,i had at first regarded it as a loan4 ,but he never dunned me1 and during the forty years which have since elapsed he was gradually transformed in my memory into a benefactor1 and all was well4 ,when at last he died a millionaire1 ,i did not wish to trouble his executors with the trifle1 but sent a wreath to the funeral with a sigh of gratitude and many kindly thoughts4 ,was that the end8 ,no6 ,shortly afterwards ,i felt a kind of inward admonition to resume relations with a bookbinder whom ,i had ceased to employ on account of his carelessness4 ,he came and was glad to get work again2 he was greatly pleased1 and declared that ,i had appeared just in time to deliver him4 ,when ,i understood his difficulties1 for he had a family1 ,i was willing to give him fifty kronas in advance1 but as ,i had no change ,i gave him a hundred1 though reluctantly4 ,i saw how his back straightened itself1 and his confidence in life reawoke4 ,he went--and never returned4 ,i was angry at first1 because he had treated me like a fool1 and ,i dunned him with letters4 ,but then the memory of my departed friend recurred2 various thoughts wove themselves together in my mind--the pleasure of calling him a scamp1 the fifty-krona note which had turned into a hundred-krona note1 the scamp's need1 and the part ,i had played as deliverer4 ,in my own mind ,i gave him a discharge1 and became quite quiet4 ,footnote #a3 ,a krona #as4 #c;d4 ,growing ,old ,gracefully4--,the teacher continued3 ,when one becomes old1 one wonders at first how men have1 as it were1 permission to do one an injustice4 ,if one complains1 one finds no sympathy4 ,even our friends take the part of those who injure us4 ,but when we have discovered the secret of it1 we take it all quietly4 ,one is cheated in ordinary business1 and says to oneself1 ',this is in requital for that4' ,our children prove ungrateful and difficult to manage1 exactly like we were4 ,young people are insolent and pert towards us1 and we see our former selves reflected in them4 ,servants do their work badly1 and perpetrate petty thefts2 we must put up with it1 when we think of our own work scamped on various occasions4 ,friends are faithless1 just as we have been ourselves4 ,by practice one comes at last so far1 that one asks for no more1 demands no more1 and is no longer angry4 ,i then always think of ,david when ,shimei cast stones at him and cursed him1 and ,abishai wanted to strike off the calumniator's head4 ,david declined to take vengeance1 saying1 ',let him curse1 for the ,lord hath bidden him4' ,when the same king1 because of his sins1 had to choose between famine1 pestilence1 or raids of the enemy1 he prayed 'to fall into the hands of ,god1 and not into the hands of man4' ,he understood how to grow old gracefully1 and to make up his accounts4 ,so he departed praising ,god1 ',who proveth the heart and loveth uprightness4' ,the ,eight ,wild ,beasts4--,the teacher said3 ,you know yourself that when one awakes from somnambulism1 one finds the world quite mad4 ,then one loses all hope and all confidence1 and believes we are delivered into the power of the ,devil4 ,once during such a moment of awakening1 ,i read the works of the ,adventists1 and the idea struck me that they were right4 ,they ground their belief on the ,revelation of ,st4 ,john1 and say as follows3 ',we live in the last era during which the eight wild beasts rule the earth4 ,of ,christianity no trace is to be found3 power1 wealth1 industry1 art1 science1 literature1 are in the hands of the pagans4 ,the state-craft of the wild beasts is lying and force1 alternating with the most insidious hypocrisy4 ,they preach peace1 distribute peace-prizes1 build peace-palaces1 but are always seeking war in order to be able to rob and tyrannise4 ,if their subordinates believe them1 and preach peace themselves1 they are thrown into prison4 ,but1 says ,st4 ,john1 nations will come from the ,east and destroy the godless who have rejected ,christ4 ,the last battle is to be at ,megiddo in ,syria4 ,but since all this takes place under ,god's control1 the wild beasts are protected in order to carry out their work of execution4 ,the number of the last wild beast1 #fff1 is not yet interpreted1 for it is not yet come4 ,the eight wild beasts you can find in a book1 which is called ,a de ,g2#a of the people of the ,east you read every morning in your paper4 ,it looks almost as though it were true4 ,the pietists believe it1 and keep their lamps burning4' ,deaf and ,blind4--,the teacher continued3 ,under the rule of the wild beast men have become demoralised4 ,they reject every idea of a retributive justice4 ,if anyone points to an instance of it1 he is suppressed4 ,if a blasphemer loses his tongue1 they call it ',actinomyces1' nothing more4 ,and the obstinacy of the unrepentant revolts against heaven itself3 ',it is so far to heaven2 what do we know about it8 ,we are ants2 no ,god troubles himself about us4' ,if something good happens to a man1 he attributes it to his own power2 if something evil1 he calls it 'bad-luck4' ,science explains earthquakes by algebra1 and if it wants to be very learned1 by seismology4 ,the quantity of crime and wickedness which must exist is fixed by statistics4 ,and yet heaven is so near4 ,god's invisible servants are around us1 in the streets and in our rooms4 ,we do not see them1 but those who have eyes1 and only they1 behold their operations4 ,the world is like a vast institute for the deaf and blind1 in which the unfortunates are told by their teachers that they are the only ones who can see and hear4 ,the theosophists say that we are already living two lives--a conscious one on the earth1 and an unconscious one above4 ,but most men seem to have broken off communication with the higher plane1 and therefore they cannot comprehend what is from above1 but have discovered that there is no higher and no lower in the universe4 ,footnote #a3 ,not explained in original footnote4 ,recollections4--,the pupil said3 ,often has my experience confirmed this saying of the theosophists1 that1 as well as here1 we live also on a higher plane from whence we receive our inspirations1 ideas1 and intuitions4 ,after such visitations 7do they take place by night87 ,i do not flourish down here1 but find everything perverse1 defective1 absurd4 ,i once conceived the strange idea that ,i have my true home somewhere else1 and that a vague recollection has made me give my present home an arrangement similar to that of my real one4 ,in my present abode there was a room which1 after certain storms that lasted for two years1 was so devastated that it looked as if devils had haunted it4 ,then a sum of money came into my hands unexpectedly4 ,the next morning ,i awoke with the distinct determination to repair and furnish the room4 ,i went at once to the upholsterer1 and knew so exactly what furniture and curtains ,i wanted1 that when ,i saw the material it looked to me familiar and welcome4 ,a workman came1 proved honest1 worked quietly like a spirit1 and in a few days the room was ready4 ,when ,i entered it1 ,i was seized with a sort of ecstatic shiver as though ,i had already seen this room once before under happy circumstances4 ,and now when ,i enter the room alone1 ,i see it resembles something which ,i do not remember1 but which waits for me4 ,i seem to know that there ,i am waited for by my only true wife1 by my children1 friends and relations1 and that this incompleteness ,i see is only a poor copy drawn from a dim recollection4 ,think1 if it only were so6 ,children ,are ,wonder-,children4--,the teacher answered3 ,what you say accords with ,plato's theory of recollection4 ,he believes that all which a child learns is recovered from some previous knowledge4 ,during my long experience it has often happened to me to meet people who1 the first time ,i saw them1 seemed like old acquaintances4 ,it seems1 too1 that the woman we love appears congenial to us1 made for us1 sent in our way4 ,but most of all is this the case with our children4 ,all children are1 in spite of idle talk1 wonder-children--till they have learnt to talk4 ,little children often say things which astound one4 ,they understand all that we say even when we hide it from them4 ,they seem to be thought-readers1 divine our most secret purposes1 and rebuke us beforehand4 ',don't do that1' said my two-year-old child before my plan was half formed4 ',what8' ,i asked4 ,the child did not answer1 but smiled roguishly and half embarrassed1 as though it wished to say1 ',you know yourself already4' ,when the child had learnt to be silent1 it pushed with its foot against the chair when the parents' talk bordered on impropriety4 ,often it spoke like an elder person who understands things better than others4 ,at three years old it pronounced this opinion on the nurse1 ',hannah is very nice1 but she does not understand how to treat children4' ,when her mother was sad1 it said1 ',sit down here and don't be sad2 ,i will tell you a story4' ,i will only add--there was no mimicry about it1 as the ape-king would be inclined to believe4 ,what was it then8 ,men-resembling ,men4--,the teacher said3 ,it seems as though some errors were necessary and unavoidable4 ,they appear as a kind of infectious virus4 ,a generation is inoculated with it1 carries the germ till it has sprouted1 and then there is an end of it4 ,views of the world and man come up1 are disseminated1 evaporated1 and disappear4 ,but those who have been inoculated with them believe they are their own views1 because they have assimilated them with their personality4 ,often the error ends in a compromise with a new view4 ,thus ,darwinism made it seem probable that men derived their origin from animals4 ,then came the theosophists with the opinion that our souls are in process of transmigration from one human body to another4 ,thence comes this excessive feeling of discomfort1 this longing for deliverance1 this sensation of constraint1 the pain of existence1 the sighing of the creature4 ,those who do not feel this uneasiness1 but flourish here1 are probably at home here4 ,their inexplicable sympathy for animals and their disbelief in the immortality of the soul points to a connection with the lower forms of existence of which they are conscious1 and which we cannot deny4 ,the doctrine that we are created after ,god's image involves no contradiction1 for the spirit is from ,god2 but there is no word which frightens these anthropomorphists so much as the word 'spirit4' ,yes1 there is one1 and that is the word 'spirits1' which makes the fleshy part of them shudder4 ,christ ,is ,risen4--,the teacher said3 ,after we have had ,christianity as a civilising agency for nineteen hundred years1 people begin to discuss it4 ,is this the opportune time to ask whether ,christ has existed and whether the documents of ,christianity are genuine8 ,it reminds one of the author who wrote a book to prove that ,napoleon never existed4 ,it is as if we were now to discover that ,csar's ,commentaries are false1 and that he never conquered ,gaul1 or as if we discussed whether the discovery of ,america had been useful4 ,ibsen's partisans have denied that ,columbus discovered ,america2 they say it was ,leif ,erikssen 7perhaps we shall soon hear it was his wife74 ,however1 ,christ returned again at the end of the last century1 and was received by all4 ,the pagans depicted him as the poor school-teacher2 the anarchists celebrated him as the type of suffering humanity2 the symbolists did homage to him as ,christus ,consolator2 the socialists preached his gospel to the obscure1 the weary1 and heavy-laden4 ,he was to be seen every-where--in the quarters of the ,french general staff and in the espionage office2 in ,lourdes and in ,rome2 on ,mont ,martre and in ,moscow4 ,his churches and convents were purified2 his miracles explained by occultists1 spiritists1 hypnotists2 science progressed and confirmed the prophecies4 ,finally we saw at the congress of religions in ,chicago in #ahig that all peoples and religions of the world bent their knees when ,christ's especial prayer1 the ,lord's ,prayer1 was recited4 ,then the believers gave each other the brotherly kiss and greeting1 ',christ is risen6' ,revolution-,sheep4--,the teacher continued3 ,in the year #ahhi we celebrated the ,french ,revolution1 but there was little life or order in the celebration4 ,everything which was uprooted in #aghi still existed--,church and ,state1 kings and courts1 priests and officials4 ,the ,french republic was the worst of all1 with its ,panama ,canal jobbers at the head3 ,wilson1 ,herz1 ,clemenceau1 ,arton4 ,the constitution was kept alive by bribes1 bills of exchange more or less false1 and pensions4 ,offices were created in order to find places for voters1 husbands of mistresses1 and the discontented4 ,at that time the ,french republic was governed by criminals1 and the ,church by pagans4 ,military and civil orders were sold1 works of art bought1 votes canvassed for4 ,one could not become a deputy for less than two hundred thousand francs4 ,then executioners and revolutions were necessary1 for the principles of the ,great ,revolution1 if one can talk of principles in connection with a volcano in eruption1 were forgotten4 ,now in the perspective of a hundred years the ',great' ,revolution appeared only like an execution1 a decimation on a large scale2 an experiment with negative results1 but as such certainly very interesting4 ,one of the recollections of my youth is that when we 'who were born with the ideas of the ,french ,revolution' 7ideas revived in #ahdh7 began to talk of the ',great' ,revolution1 we were called ',revolution-sheep4' ,i did not understand this at the time1 for ,i did not yet think for myself but merely drivelled4 ,but now ,i understand it4 ,now we know that the constitution of a country is almost a matter of indifference for the common weal2 thus one constitution is not much better or worse than another4 ,life ,woven of the ,same ,stuff as our ,dreams--,the teacher said3 ,life itself can often appear like a bad dream4 ,one morning ,i went for a walk in the country1 and was absorbed in my thoughts1 when a great ,danish dog rushed towards me4 ,a young rascal stood near1 laughing4 ,i drew my revolver1 and exclaimed1 ',call off the dog1 or ,i shoot it4' ,the young fellow only laughed1 the dog retreated1 and ,i went on4 ,on my way back1 a man armed with a musket met me1 and asked how ,i dared threaten to shoot his son4 ,i answered1 that the threat had only referred to the dog4 ,on the evening of the same day ,i was told that the dog had been found dead1 and that ,i was suspected of having poisoned it4 ,although ,i was innocent1 ,i was regarded as an assassin4 ,that was a nice business6 ,again3 one evening ,i went to see my four-year-old daughter1 who waited for me below in the park4 ,from the distance ,i saw her in the company of two unpleasant-looking children1 but she did not see me4 ,as ,i quickened my steps1 ,i saw that she went off farther with the children4 ,i called her1 but she did not hear4 ,i ran and saw her at the entrance of a cellar1 into which the children wanted to pull her down4 ,she resisted them1 but they took hold of her clothes4 ,now she screamed1 and consequently did not hear my call4 ,i wished to hasten to her1 but between us there was a grass lawn1 with an iron railing round it1 on which ,i did not venture to tread for fear of the police4 ,so ,i stood there and called4 ,at last my child pulled herself free1 but did not see me4 ,so weirdly things may happen sometimes6 ,the ,gospel of the ,pagans4--,the teacher continued3 ,the gospel of the pagans is immunity from punishment2 if one mentions a case where it has gone ill with a scoundrel1 the pagans snort and say one is too severe4 ,but it is life which is severe4 ,the gospel of the pagans consists in showing that virtue is simplicity and is seduced2 that religion is a disease2 that scoundrelism is a form of strength1 and ought to conquer by the right of the stronger4 ,sometimes1 by way of a change1 they demand that a weak rascal should be pardoned2 that everything should be forgiven and tolerated4 ,by 'toleration' they mean that one should let oneself be suppressed and persecuted by them4 ,if one resists1 they cry1 ',he revenges himself4 ,he is a bad man4' ,but revenge presupposes some offence as the cause1 and when the cause disappears the effect disappears4 ,certainly there are some men who avenge their own stupidity on the innocent4 ,i have an enemy1 who still revenges himself on me because he could not steal my money4 ,the gospel for him would be the law reversed1 ',you may steal1 but others may not4' ,punished by the ,imagination4--,the teacher continued3 ,swedenborg speaks of being punished by the imagination4 ,that is what doctors generally call 'hallucination4' ,he who suffers from persecution-mania is persecuted4 ,the ,philistines think he is only persecuted by his imaginations1 but if the wise man asks why he is persecuted by his imaginations1 conscience answers by ceaselessly endeavouring to discover the persecutor4 ,the patient goes through the whole list of the persons whom he has offended4 ,if they are many in number1 and their hatred is justified1 one may well suppose that the sick man is persecuted by their hatred1 for which his awakened conscience is now receptive4 ,in my inner life punishment by hallucinations has played the chief part2 but after ,i had discovered the rationale of it1 ,i regarded the hallucination itself as a punishment4 ,the severest form of punishment is suspicion1 when ,i am obliged to suspect the innocent4 ,that is irresistible4 ,my thoughts sway between trust and mistrust4 ,i struggle and conquer myself gradually1 either by acknowledging myself wrong1 or by accepting the breach of faith resignedly4 ,but if ,i give vent to suspicion ,i must ask for pardon2 then ,i take this humiliation as a discharge4 ,most of my misfortunes have been imaginary2 but they have had the same effect as real ones1 because ,i came to the consciousness of my own wrong-doing4 ,the incurable man is the obstinate one who believes himself wrongfully persecuted by other men4 ,bankruptcy of ,philosophy4--,when ,kant during the dark period of the ',illumination' had proved that philosophy can prove nothing1 he set up the theory of the categorical imperative and postulate1 i4e4 the demands of religion and morality4 ,put in plain language1 that is equivalent to faith4 ,this declaration of the bankruptcy of philosophy saved men from useless brain-cudgelling4 ,christianity revived1 now supported by the philosophers with ,hegel at their head4 ,but the old stream flowed parallel with it once more4 ,in spite of the bankruptcy of philosophy1 notes of exchange were issued and cashed by the dunder-headed free-thinkers ,feuerbach and ,strauss4 ,they wanted to approach ,god with the everyday intelligence which one uses in kitchens and grocers' shops4 ,the last fool was ,renan1 whose cheques still circulate mostly among college-students and the like4 ,at the beginning of the last century ,e4,t4,a4 ,hoffmann wrote thus3 ',in ancient times we had a simple generous faith2 we recognised that there was a ,higher1 but knew also that our senses were insufficient to reach it4 ,then came the ,illumination1 which made everything so clear1 that for sheer clearness not a trace could be seen4 ,and now we are told that the supernatural is to be grasped by a firm arm of flesh and bone4' ,to-day it is called the ,science of ,religion4 ,that is a science which starts from the false presupposition that religion is a mental disease because it cannot be mathematically proved4 ,a ,whole ,life in an ,hour4--,the teacher said3 ,i had a strange experience1 which ,i have not understood1 but which ,i must remember4 ,i woke up one morning feeling cheerful without any special reason4 ,obeying an impulse1 ,i went into the town4 ,as ,i wandered about at random1 ,i came into the quarter where ,i had been born and brought up4 ,i saw the kindergarten and school ,i used to attend1 and my parents' house4 ,i went through narrow streets and passed by the national school in which ,i was worried as a student-teacher4 ,i saw two different houses in which ,i had suffered as a private tutor4 ,i went northwards and came to another school in which ,i had been tortured4 ,in a market-place ,i passed another house in which1 during my childhood1 our only acquaintance lived1 and twenty years later in the same dwelling there lived my worst enemy4 ,i passed by a house in which my sister had been married thirty years before1 and another house in which my brother had had a hard struggle4 ,then ,i came to a third school in which ,i was a student2 in the same house lives still my first and last publisher4 ,i passed by a house where1 forty years ago1 ,i was accepted as an aspirant for the stage1 and where ,i offered my first drama2 also by the house where ,i was married for the first time4 ,then the meaning of it began to grow clearer4 ,i saw the furniture warehouse whence ,i ordered my furniture the last time4 ,i passed by the house where my wife and child lived three years ago4 ,in the space of one hour ,i had seen the panorama of my whole life in living pictures4 ,only three years were wanting to the present time4 ,it was like an agony or a death-hour when the whole of life rushes past one4 ,then ,i felt drawn northward where my last child and her mother live4 ,an instinct told me to bring perfume for the mother and school-fees for the child1 as that day it was going to the kindergarten for the first time4 ,then ,i began to hunt for the perfume2 it ought to have been lilac1 but ,i had to take lily-of-the-valley4 ,i also wanted flowers1 but could not find any4 ,so ,i continued northwards and came to their house2 the sun shone in1 the table was spread for coffee2 there was an air of comfort1 homeliness1 and kindness over all4 ,i was received in a friendly way1 felt in a moment that the whole of my black life lay behind me1 and realised the happiness of merely being alive4 ,the ,after-,odour4--,the teacher continued3 ,as ,i went thence1 ,i felt the happiness of the present4 ,all the past was only the dark background4 ,i was thankful in my heart1 when ,i remembered all ,i had come through without perishing4 ,when ,i came home1 ,i learnt through the telephone that my worst enemy had died on the morning of this very day4 ,his death-struggle was taking place at the very time that ,i made the pilgrimage through my past life4 ,i reflected3 ,why should ,i pass through my agony just when he died8 ,he was a 'black man'#a with an obsolete materialistic view of things which he thought was modern2 a literary huckster who wrote reviews of marchionesses' rubbishy books1 in order to be invited to their castles1 and praised his associates as long as they consorted with him2 the partisan of a coterie and a log-roller4 ,i had never come into personal contact with him1 but once1 a long time ago1 he had called himself my pupil4 ,he could not however grow1 nor follow me upwards4 ,it was now as though my old self had died in him4 ,perhaps therefore ,i suffered his death and felt it just now4 ,but why the perfume8 ,that ,i know not4 ,but when ,i learnt that the deceased decomposed so rapidly that he had to be buried at once1 ,i could not help connecting the perfume with his dissolution4 ,when1 eight days afterwards1 ,i read a posthumous review by the deceased of my last work1 and saw that he regretted that ,i was not a pagan and lamented my defection from the ,lord of ,dung1 it was as though ,i sniffed an after-odour from the dunghole1 and ,i seized the perfume-flask in good earnest4 ,footnote #a3 ,strindberg's expression for a free-thinker4 ,peaches and ,turnips4--,the teacher continued3 ,at the same time a similar death happened4 ,another of the ',black ,flags' departed under peculiar circumstances two days after the first4 ,i had known this man during the period in which the ape-king ruled4 ,we did not like each other1 but like condemned criminals were compelled to keep together4 ,our friendship was only the reverse-side of a hatred2 his hideous appearance frightened me2 his profession was equally repulsive1 but brought in much money4 ,he wrote according to the taste of the time1 and lived in the false idea that he was 'illuminated' and liberal-minded4 ,when his father died1 the son expressed his regret that 'his father had recovered the faith of his childhood4' ,what happened then8 ,the son who lived in faith in wickedness and ugliness1 began to develop this faith in a peculiar way4 ,he had in his writings shown a predilection for turnips2 in his latter days he inoculated peaches with turnip-juice in order to make the southern fruit partake of the beautiful flavour of the latter4 ,the same perverse taste was evident in his last book2 there his sympathy is decidedly on the side of the 'blacks4' ,he ended in an asylum4 ,he could not be saved1 for he did not know how to seek the ,saviour4 ,so he died4 ,i had just regretted not having sent some flowers to his grave1 when ,i saw in an obituary notice that the dead man had vented a noisome lie against me1 which a bosom friend of his now repeats in print4 ,in the same notice the world is threatened with his posthumous writings4 ,when they come out1 ,i will buy a flower and hold it under my nose1 while ,i breathe a sigh of gratitude to him1 who restored to me the faith of my childhood and saved me from the mad-house4 ,the ,web of ,lies4--,the pupil said3 ,i am eight-and-fifty years old2 have lied less than others2 and have therefore always believed what others said4 ,when1 in my old age1 ,i sit together with friends of my youth and make comparisons1 ,i find that my whole life is a web of lies4 ,last night ,i sat with such a friend1 and had a protracted talk of the following intelligent kind4 ,i said1 ',when the ,prince of ,x4 married4444' ',married6 ,he isn't married4' ',isn't he8 ,is that a lie too8' ',he has never been married4' ',now during twenty years ,i have spread it abroad that he was married1 and a whole story has been built on this lie1 which ,i was about to relate1 but now ,i must drop it4' ,here is another lie6 ,during thirty years ,i have told people that ,dr4 ,h4 was present when the ,malunger murderer was executed4 ,he had falsely informed me that1 as a medical student1 he had received a commission to examine the head after it had been cut off4 ,he gave me such interesting details on the subject that ,i was accustomed to describe them in company4 ,what a liar he was6 ',but he was there4' ',was he there8' ',certainly2 ,i saw him standing behind the priest when ,i took a photograph of the scaffold4' ',you8 ,have you 444 ,are you lying or is he8' ',i am not4' ',no2 now ,i don't know where ,i am4 ,everything is topsy-turvy4 ,for the last ten years ,i have retracted the lie which ,i had spread4 ,i have made ,dr4 ,h4 a liar6 ,one ought never to speak or write1 but only draw the things which one absolutely needs4 ,he was then really there6 ,how can ,i restore to him his honour1 of which ,i have robbed him8' ,lethe4--,the teacher answered3 ,this whole web of lies1 errors1 misunderstandings1 which forms the basis of our lives1 transforms life itself into something dreamlike and unreal1 and must be dissolved when we pass into the other life4 ,i read to-day of a dying man4 ,instead of seeing his life pass by him1 as is usually the case1 his whole life dissolved into a cloud2 his memory failed2 all bitterness and all trouble disappeared2 and on the other hand1 all his disappointed hopes assumed an aspect of reality4 ,he thought he was loved by his wife1 who had been cold to him2 he thanked her for all the tenderness which she had never shown him4 ,the children who had deserted him he saw again in the bright light of youth2 he seemed to hear the sound of little feet upon the floor1 the characteristic of a happy home1 and his face wore a happy smile4 ,the dark autumn weather outside changed into spring2 little girls handed him roses to kiss in order to enchance their value4 ,finally he saw himself and his family in an arbour drinking coffee out of ,dresden china cups1 into which they dipped yellow saffron-cakes4444 ,then he fell into his last sleep4 ,it was a beautiful and enviable death2 it was paradise4 ,from the ancient ,lethe he drank forgetfulness of the troubles he had undergone before he trod the ,elysian fields4 ,if it only were so6 ,to drag all one's bygone filth with one in memory cannot be favourable to a new life in purity4 ,there are illnesses in which one loses memory4 ,may death prove to be such an illness6 ,a ,suffering ,god4--,the teacher said3 ,the idea of a suffering ,god was foolishness to the ,greeks1 who considered a ,god as a tyrant gloating over the sufferings of men4 ,but the seeming contradiction is solved if one supposes that a ,holy ,being deposits itself1 so to speak1 in humanity1 and that humanity then becomes defiled4 ,that is a boundless grief like his who has deposited the best part of his soul and his emotions with a woman4 ,if she then goes and defiles herself1 she defiles her husband4 ,or a father's nature has passed over to his children1 and he wishes to see his best impulses continued and multiplied by them1 and his likeness ennobled4 ,if the children dishonour themselves1 the father suffers2 the stem withers when the roots are injured4 ,such ,i imagine to be the feelings of ,god the ,father when the sinfulness of humanity grows noisome and dishonours ,him1 and perhaps threatens to affect ,his own holiness4 ,he will be wroth and lament--perhaps even feel ,himself defiled--rather than cut off the cancerous limb of humanity4 ,christ is no more represented as beautiful1 but with features distorted by the sins of others2 these he has taken on himself or drawn to himself1 for he who approaches pitch is defiled4 ,in order to be free from the impure element he must die by the destruction of the body4 ,incarnation involved the greatest suffering of all4 ,but the death of ,christ may also signify that the ,father freed himself from the sins of humanity1 and broke off connection with the evil race who dishonoured ,him4 ,he who will now seek ,him must rise to ,his heights1 and gain admission by a pure life4 ,he ,himself will descend no more into this valley of filth2 the air is too thick1 the company too mixed4 ,and that is why things are as they are4 ,the ,atonement4--,the teacher said3 ,the work of the ,atonement has been very difficult for me to understand4 ,often ,i have tried to explain in a way satisfactory to myself1 but without success4 ,if ,god had offered up ,his ,son as an atonement for mankind1 there would necessarily have been peace and paradisal quietness on earth1 but such is not the case4 ,the period of the ,roman emperors before ,christ was indeed terrible1 but the next thousand years were no better2 they rather resembled a deluge in which the old nations were exterminated by barbarians4 ,the second millennium was better1 very much better4 ,the third will perhaps close with a complete reconciliation between humanity and ,god4 ,everything points to that1 though the heathen may reign for a while as instruments of chastisement1 and executioners and possessors of wealth4 ,the ,egyptian has an important part to play1 and slavery is not bad as a school of discipline4 ,in the desert one learns the difficult art of loneliness1 and in the strange land of ,assyria one feels a wholesome home-sickness4 ,still1 when the ,egyptian raises his stick to strike1 comfort yourself with ,christ's words to ,pilate1 ',thou wouldest have no power over ,me1 if it were not given thee from above4' ,and when you eat the bread of the heathen1 think like the ,maccabees1 ',i eat thy bread1 but ,i do not sacrifice upon thy altar4' ,everything is tolerable so long as we do not let ourselves be beguiled into believing that those who are in power are ,god's friends and favourites4 ,our fine gentlemen who imagine that they are forwarding development and are the sole trustees of right1 progress1 and illumination1 are only children of this world4 ,let that be granted them1 and much good may it do them6 ,when ,nations ,go ,mad4--,the teacher said3 ,nations are sometimes seized by madness as by other diseases4 ,the ,javanese are said to suffer from chronic madness2 the men run amuck with a knife in order to slay2 the women suffer from a mania for mimicry2 if they see anyone throw something into the air1 they imitate the gesture2 they can even under such circumstances throw their children away4 ,the ,japanese again are attacked by megalomania2 someone begins to shout1 ',we will conquer ,china6' and his cry is taken up by the whole town and the whole land4 ,the ,french were raving when1 in #ahgj1 they sang ',a ,berlin1' and did not even reach the ,rhine4 ,paris was captured4 ,but the ,french declared it was not captured1 but had surrendered4 ,when the enemy had marched in peaceably and spared the town1 and after peace was concluded the ,french set their own town on fire4 ,that was madness4 ,then they shot down thirty thousand of their own countrymen1 while in the war itself only eighty thousand ,french had fallen4 ,but some nations are seized by a mania for suicide4 ,i know a land from which people emigrate at the rate of a hundred a day2 in which the only important industry--iron-mining--is hampered by an export duty2 that is suicide4 ,in the same land1 where the taxes are generally collected by levying distraints1 they voted forty million pounds for the army2 but when the muster-rolls came to be made up1 the men were not to be found4 ,in the same country the ,state maintains a railway of a hundred miles in length2 recently the train came in with one passenger1 whose journey had cost the ,state more than a thousand kronas4 ,that is suicide4 ,the ,poison of ,lies4--,the teacher said3 ,let us return to life1 and to men whom we think we know better than anything else1 although self-knowledge is the hardest of all4 ,a perpetual accusation which people bring against each other is that of lying4 ,all lie more or less--by omitting principal points and emphasising secondary ones1 or by colouring matters of fact4 ,often they do it with an excusable purpose2 for instance1 when a friend is being spoken about4 ,but there are men who seem to be composed of falsehood and deceit4 ,such are the liars from necessity1 who lie in order to obtain something2 such1 too1 are the liars from ostentation1 who lie in order to be superior to others1 and to keep them down4 ,one may be poisoned in the atmosphere which they spread around them4 ,there is a pair of liars whom ,i have never seen1 but often heard spoken about4 ,when ,i merely hear about them and their falsehoods1 ,i feel my brain affected1 and their poison works telepathically on my nerves4 ,the pair are dogged by misfortune1 and live alone4 ,they tell each other lies also1 and pretend to themselves that they are martyrs1 although their misfortunes are solely due to their deceits4 ,they believe that they are persecuted by men1 while1 on the contrary1 men fly from them4 ,such they have been since childhood1 and seem unable to change4 ,perhaps their mendacity is a form of punishment1 for 'they that hate the righteous shall be guilty4' ,murderous ,lies4--,the teacher continued3 ,when one lives on intimate terms with liars1 one runs a risk of becoming a liar oneself4 ,one believes what they say1 bases his views on their falsehoods1 spreads their false reports in good faith1 defends their sophistries1 and is entangled in their deceits4 ,moreover1 one's whole view of life is distorted1 one loses contact with reality1 lives in a fictitious world of feeling1 regards friends as foes and foes as friends1 thinks one is loved while one is hated1 and vice versa4 ,on one occasion a liar with whom ,i lived on intimate terms made me think that my last book had been a failure4 ,for five years ,i believed it1 suffered under the belief1 and lost my courage4 ,on my return to ,sweden ,i found that the book had had a great success4 ,five years had been struck out of my life2 ,i was nearly losing self-respect and the courage to support existence4 ,that is equivalent to murder4 ,and this behaviour on the part of my only friend1 for whom ,i had worked and made sacrifices1 gave me such a shock that all my ideas were confused4 ,it took me years to rearrange them and bring them into proper order4 ,true and false were mingled together3 lies became reality1 and my whole life seemed as unsubstantial as smoke4 ,i was not far from ruin and the loss of reason4 ,innocent ,guilt4--,the teacher continued3 ,during the five years in which ,i believed myself unjustly treated1 ,i also incurred guilt4 ,i had cursed those who had been just towards me1 wished evil to my benefactors1 repelled my admirers1 avoided my adherents4 ,and when ,i should now have felt remorse for it1 ,i could not do so sincerely4 ,on the one hand ,i felt myself innocent1 and almost the victim of another's falsehood4 ,but the evil which ,i had done was there1 and must be atoned for4 ,such tangles are not easy to undo4 ,yet it is not good in life to show mistrust towards men2 one must take things easily1 without criticism and too careful reckoning4 ,the deceiver says1 to be sure1 ',he who does not keep a sharp look-out1 has himself to blame if he is cheated4' ,but if one does look out1 and will not let oneself be cheated1 one is credited with a morbid mistrustfulness4 ,it is not easy to live1 and among lawless men it is better to be cheated than to cheat4 ,the ,talmud says3 ',be rather among those who are cursed than those who curse2 rather among the persecuted than the persecutors3 read in the ,scripture1 ,no bird is more persecuted than the dove2 yet ,god has chosen it for a sacrifice on ,his altar4' ,the ,charm of ,old ,age4--,the teacher said3 ,the charms of old age are many4 ,the greatest is the consciousness that it is not long till evening when one can undress and lie down1 without the necessity of rising up and dressing again4 ,the diminution of the body's strength lessens its resistance to the free motions of the soul4 ,one's interest in merely temporal matters decreases1 and one begins to take a bird's-eye view of things4 ,seemingly important trifles shrink to insignificance4 ,old estimates of the values of things are changed4 ,all that one has experienced lies like a litter of straw under one's feet2 one stands in it and grows in the midst of one's past4 ,we have found a constant amid all variables1 that is1 the instability of life1 the transitoriness and mutability of all things4 ,everything is repeated2 there are scarcely any surprises4 ,we know everything beforehand1 expect no improvement1 are no more deceived by false hopes1 demand nothing more of men1 neither gratitude1 nor faithfulness1 nor love1 only some companionship in solitude4 ,if we are deceived1 we think it is part of the play1 and even find a sort of consolation in it1 because it confirms our views1 which we do not like to see refuted4 ,we become1 finally1 cheerful pessimists4 ,when1 on the discovery of a new cheat1 we can say1 ',what did ,i tell you8' we feel almost a sense of pleasure4 ,the ,ring-,system4--,the teacher said3 ,in our old schools1 the pupils were arranged not in classes1 but in rings1 and the forms were not placed in rows1 but in circles4 ,when ,i read of the circles of ,dante's hell1 ,i thought of my old school4 ,but outside in life1 ,i found this ring-system also4 ,men seemed linked together in concentric circles1 each of which formed a little system of views4 ,each circle spoke its own language1 expressed its meaning in old formulas1 revered its gods1 created its great men1 often out of nothing4 ,in each circle they had found the truth1 and worked for development1 but in a different way to the others4 ,the first circle was really the lowest1 but it considered itself the most important1 because it was the first4 ,when ,i read a paper or a book which comes from other circles than mine1 ,i only see so much--that they are mad or stand on their heads4 ,it stifles me1 and has a hostile effect4 ,i surmise that the five great races of the earth feel that1 when they meet one another4 ,in their minds they are as foreign to each other as though they came from the five great planets1 although they have many human characteristics in common4 ,lust1 ,hate1 and ,fear1 or the ,religion of the ,heathen4--,the teacher said3 ,you know one of my tasks in life has been to unmask gyneolatry1 the worship of women in history and life4 ,i have called it 'the superstition of the heathen1' because there is something exclusively heathenish about it4 ,woman-worship is the religion of the heathen1 but it is a religion of fear1 which has nothing to do with love4 ,lust1 hate1 and fear--those are the component parts of it4 ,as soon as a heathen comes in the proximity of a woman1 he becomes tame and cowardly2 faithless towards his friends1 his convictions1 and himself4 ,he immediately desires that others should venerate his idol whom he hates and fears4 ,that is a side of his animal self-love4 ,gyneolatry is not ,christian in its origin1 but heathenish4 ,all animals and savage races fear their women4 ,when heathenism in the ,grco-,roman and ,moorish colonies of southern ,france and ,italy got the upper hand1 then began gyneolatry1 the worship of mistresses4 ,this worship was dishonestly confounded with chivalrous reverence for the ,madonna1 which was quite another thing4 ,this religion of the heathen is the religion of fear and concealed hatred4 ,therefore all tyrants have been punished by having a woman oppress and torment them4 ,swedenborg explains the reason4 ,whom the ,gods ,wish to ,destroy4--,the teacher continued3 ,a man's goodwill and generosity towards his wife stands in direct relation to her behaviour4 ,when therefore a woman is ill-treated by her husband1 we know of what sort she is4 ,the apparently subordinate position which the woman occupies is the direct result of the position which nature has assigned to this immature transition-form between child and man4 ,the child has also a subordinate position2 that is quite natural1 and no reasonable man has objected to it4 ,woman is the earth-spirit who effectuates a certain harmony with the earth-life4 ,to this earth-life we must bring our sacrifice2 therefore it is that a man feels at home in his house1 and therefore wife and child comfort and protect us against the cold abstraction1 life4 ,marriage is the hardest school in which renunciation and self-conquest is learned2 it is also a forcing-house for wickedness of all kinds1 especially the hellish sin of imperiousness4 ,how low the sons of the ,lord of ,dung stand on the ladder of development may be seen from their conviction that they are only equal to the woman or subordinate to her4 ,blinded by this penal hallucination1 they work for their own destruction when they battle for the emancipation of women1 for the gods wish to destroy them4 ,the ,slavery of the ,prophet4--,stuart ,mill1 who became the prophet of the woman's cause1 had formed an attachment for another man's wife4#a ,as a punishment he had to live in the hallucination that he derived all his thoughts from her4 ,she was indeed his medium1 and as such she repeated his thoughts as though they came from her1 and he believed she was his superior4 ,when somebody asked if he had received his ',logic1' which he wrote before he knew her1 also from her1 he answered1 ',yes4' ,this sober ,positivist1 who only believed in tables of statistics1 was obsessed by the powerful delusion that the simple-minded woman was his ,genius4 ,he could not rise to a higher idea of ,god4 ,one thing ,i am sure of3 as soon as a man deserts ,god1 he becomes the thrall of a female devil4 ,all tyrants1 above and below1 are caught in these chains1 out of which only ,god in heaven can help a man4 ,but ,he can certainly4 ,one sees it in those who have come alive out of this hell4 ,i know one4444 ,i know two6 the pupil interrupted4 ,footnote #a3 ,mrs4 ,taylor4 ,absurd ,problems4--,the teacher continued3 ,there are several reasons why woman is depicted as a sphinx by men4 ,she is incomprehensible because her soul is rudimentary1 and she thinks with her body4 ,her judgments are dictated by interests and passions1 she draws conclusions according to the state of the weather and the phases of the moon4 ,she will sell her best friend for a theatre-ticket1 or leave her sick child to see a balloon ascend4 ,she murders her husband in order to be able to go to a bathing-resort1 and forswears her religion for a diamond ring4 ,at the same time she can appear to be a charming woman1 tender towards her children1 amiable1 and before all things polite and affable4 ,she may also appear a good household manager1 or at any rate enjoy the reputation of being one4 ,she can produce the illusion that she is quick at apprehension1 although she does not really understand a word4 ,she can exhibit sacrifices which are only ostentation1 and give away only in order to receive back4 ,why cannot one guess the riddle of this sphinx8 ,because there is no riddle there6 ,why is woman incomprehensible8 ,because the problem is absurd4 ,she is an irrational function because she operates with variable quantities under the radical signs4 ,nevertheless we take her as a charming actuality1 a delightful child who may pull three hairs out of our beard2 but if it pulls the fourth1 there is an end to the enchantment4 ,the ,crooked ,rib4--,the teacher said3 ,goethe says in his ,divan1#a ',woman is fashioned out of a crooked rib2 if one tries to bend her1 she breaks2 if one lets her alone1 she becomes still more crooked4' ,thus there is nothing to be done4 ,the only tactics one can adopt1 as ,napoleon did1 are flight1 or at any rate to break off contact and intimacy4 ,this never fails2 if one deprives a woman of the victim of her hatred1 she pines away4 ,man loves and woman hates2 man gives and woman takes2 man sacrifices and woman devours4 ,when the woman wishes to show her superiority in intellect1 she commits a rascality4 ,her utmost endeavour is to deceive her husband4 ,if she can trick him into eating horse-flesh without noticing it1 she is happy4 ,when woman gets her milk-teeth1 she does not learn to speak but to lie1 for speech and falsehood are synonymous for her4 ,every married man knows all that4 ,but politeness and his own vanity keep him silent4 ,often he is silent because of his children2 often because he is ashamed in the name of humanity4 ,he thinks how often one has drunk the toasts of mother1 wife1 sister1 daughter--these fictions in a world of deceit1 where all is vanity of vanities4 ,but many men are silent because they are afraid of being called 'woman-haters4' ,they are afraid6 ,footnote #a3 ,the saying is originally ,muhammed's4 ,white ,slavery4--,the teacher said3 ,in the whole of the upper and middle classes and a good way below them the following is the case with regard to marriage3 ,when a man marries1 his work1 which he can devolve on no one else1 increases4 ,his wife1 on the other hand1 at once gets a servant to do her work2 if she has children1 then she gets a nurse besides4 ,but she herself sits there without occupation1 and tries to kill time with useless trivialities4 ,in this way she can neither get an appetite for dinner1 nor sleep at night4 ,in the evening her husband comes home1 and wants to enjoy the domestic hearth2 but his wife wants to go to the theatre and restaurant4 ,she is not tired1 but bored by want of occupation1 and therefore wants amusement4 ,women1 in fact1 seem not to be born for domestic life1 but for the theatre1 the restaurant1 and the street4 ,therefore women complain that they must sit at home4 ,although they have slaves to serve them1 they call themselves 'slaves' and hold meetings to their own emancipation1 but not that of their servants4 ,their animalised husbands support them without observing that they themselves are slaves2 for he who works for the idle is a slave4 ,but it is written1 ',ye are bought with a price2 be slaves to no man4' ,noodles4--,the pupil asked3 ,what is a woman-hater8 ,the teacher answered3 ,i do not know4 ,but the expression is used as a term of reproach by noodles1 for those who say what all think4 ,noodles are those men who cannot come near a woman without losing their heads and becoming faithless4 ,they purchase the woman's favour by delivering up the heads of their friends on silver chargers2 and they absorb so much femininity1 that they see with feminine eyes and feel with feminine feelings4 ,there are things which one does not say every day1 and one does not tell one's wife what her sex is composed of4 ,but one has the right to put it on paper sometimes4 ,schopenhauer has done it the best1 ,nietzsche not badly1 ,peladan is the master4 ,thackeray wrote ,men's ,wives but the book was ignored4 ,balzac has unmasked ,caroline in the ,petites ,misres de la vie ,conjugale4 ,otto ,weininger discovered the deceit at the age of twenty2 he did not wait for the consequent vengeance1 but went his own way1 i4e4 died4 ,i have said that the child is a little criminal1 incapable of self-guidance1 but ,i love children all the same4 ,i have said that a woman is--what she is1 but ,i have always loved some woman1 and been a father4 ,whoever therefore calls me a woman-hater is a blockhead1 a liar1 or a noodle4 ,or all three together4 ,inextricable ,confusion4--,the teacher continued3 ,if on the other side of the grave there were a ,judge ,rhadamanthus appointed to arrange the disputes of men1 he would never come to an end4 ,life is such a tissue of lies1 errors1 misunderstandings1 of debts and demands1 that a balancing of the books is impossible4 ,i know men who have been lied about their whole lives through4 ,i know of one who was branded through his whole life with the stigma of a seducer1 although he has never seduced1 but was seduced himself4 ,i know of an uncommonly truthful man who had the reputation of being a liar4 ,i know an honourable man who passed for a thief4 ,i know a man who was three times married1 and had children in all three marriages1 but was said to be no man1 because he1 as a man1 would not be the slave of his wife4 ,i know many who are sincerely religious and yet are called hypocrites1 although the chief point in religion is sincerity4 ,but1 on the other hand1 ,i know heathen who professed to be atheists1 although in their bedchambers they sang penitential psalms when they were nervous in the dark and feared the consequences of their misdeeds4 ,they were so cowardly that they dared not fall under the suspicion of being religious1 but bragged of their courage and strength of character4 ,they would not abandon the ,black ,flag2 they would not be untrue to the ideal of their youth--godlessness4 ,rascally right and good-hearted stupidity form a problem too complicated for ,rhadamanthus himself to solve4 ,only the ,crucified could do it with the single saying which ,he addressed to the penitent thief1 ',to-day shalt thou be with ,me in ,paradise4' ,phantoms4--,the teacher said3 ,when intelligence and the power of reflection are matured1 and one thinks about men1 their outlines begin to dissolve1 and they turn into phantoms4 ,indeed1 one never really knows a man2 one knows only his own1 or others' ideas of him1 but when these ideas change1 the image of him becomes indistinct and is obscured with a veil4 ,we form our conception of a person whom we have never seen according to others' ideas of him4 ,thus1 for example1 the personality of a famous painter was described to me by an author4 ,after two years the author had formed another idea of him1 and imparted that to me1 and ,i had to alter my view of him4 ,then there came another describer1 and gave me quite a different idea of the painter4 ,he was followed by a third and a fourth4 ,after this ,i saw the painter's pictures1 and could not understand how he could paint in the way he did4 ,but the painter himself ,i never saw4 ,he has become for me a phantom without clear outlines1 composed of different-coloured pieces of glass1 which do not harmonise1 and alter according to my moods4 ,i expect that when ,i meet him he will not resemble my idea of him at all1 but have the effect of quite another independent phantom4 ,mirage ,pictures4--,the teacher said3 ,when ,i have lived for some time in solitude my acquaintances begin to appear like mirage-pictures before me4 ,some gain by distance1 occasion only friendly feelings1 and are surrounded by an atmosphere of light and peace4 ,others whom ,i really like very well when they are near1 lose by absence1 and appear to be hostile4 ,thus ,i may hate a friend in his absence1 look upon him as unpleasant and inimical1 but as soon as he comes1 enter into friendly contact with him4 ,there is a woman whose proximity ,i cannot bear1 but whom ,i love at a distance4 ,we write letters to each full of regard and friendliness4 ,when we have longed for each other for a time and must meet1 we immediately begin to quarrel1 become vulgar and unsympathetic1 and part in anger4 ,we love each other on a higher plane1 but cannot live in the same room4 ,we dream of meeting again1 spiritualised1 on some green island1 where only we two can live1 or1 at any rate1 only our child with us4 ,i remember a half-hour which we three actually spent hand in hand on a green island by the sea-coast4 ,it seemed to me like heaven4 ,then the clocks struck the hour of noon1 and we were back again on earth1 and soon after that1 in hell4 ,trifle not with ,love4--,the pupil said3 ,when a man and a woman are united in love1 a single being is the result1 whose existence is a positive pleasure1 as long as harmony reigns4 ,but this being is an extremely sensitive receptive instrument1 and is exposed to disturbances from outer currents which act from all distances1 an inconvenience which it shares with wireless telegraphy4 ,therefore a disturbance of the relationship between a married pair is the greatest pain which exists4 ,unfaithfulness is a cosmic crime which brings the one or the other member of the married pair into perverse relations with their own sex4 ,if the husband loves another woman1 his wife is exposed to terrible alternate currents2 by turns she loves and hates the woman who is her rival4 ,often she can be the friend of her husband's paramour1 but more often her enemy4 ,whoever comes between a pair who love1 does not so with impunity4 ,the hate which he arouses is so terrible1 that he can be lamed by the discharge1 lose all energy and pleasure in life4 ,therefore it is rightly said1 ',trifle not with love4' ,a ,taking ,religion4--,the pupil said3 ,when ,buddhism1 mixed with ,vedantism1 became fashionable in #ahij1 all the renegades from ,christianity flocked to it and tried to fill the vacuum in their religious lives4 ,six thousand new gods were received with applause forthwith2 the new trinity--,brahma1 ,vishnu1 ,siva--encountered no objections2 spirits1 ghosts1 genies1 fairies were thought quite natural2 ,gautama's heaven and hell were thrown into the bargain1 accompanied by a slight flavour of asceticism4 ,those who denied the ,resurrection found reincarnation quite a simple affair4 ,but the favourite was ,krishna4 ,he was the incarnation of the god ,vishnu1 who descended to earth in order to be born of earthly parents and to save fallen humanity4 ,his coming was prophesied1 and so dreaded that a massacre of new-born infants like that at ,bethlehem was plotted1 but unsuccessfully4 ,krishna fulfilled his mission1 conquered the evil powers1 and finally endured a voluntary death4 ,that 'took'6 ,the trinity ,brahma1 ,vishnu1 ,siva 'took1' but ,father1 ,son1 ,holy ,spirit did not 'take4' ,krishna 'took1' but not ,christ4 ,it was strange6 ,the ,sixth ,sense4--,the pupil continued3 ,the outer eye can reflect images1 the inner eye can conceive them4 ,there are therefore two kinds of sight1 an outer and an inner4 ,of the senses1 that of smell is the most immediate when it has to do with the conveyance of impressions4 ,but there seem also to be two kinds of faculties of smell4 ,swedenborg says that a false man smells of sour gastric juice1 but only for the person to whom he has been false4 ,in this case the smell-perception is only subjective1 but it is of great objective value in judging men4 ,in this case the organ of smell seems to operate with ther-waves4 ,according to ,swedenborg's doctrine of correspondences1 good men exhale sweet perfume1 and bad men a stench like that of corpses4 ,he says that misers smell like rats1 and so on4 ,legends of the saints relate that the corpses of those who have kept their souls and bodies pure1 when they dissolve1 exhale a flower-like perfume4 ,in short1 every soul has its scent1 which varies according to its characteristics4 ,this sixth sense the clothes-hygienist ,jger believed he had discovered after he had begun to observe and train his outer and inner man4 ,i will speak now of my own experiences in the matter4 ,they did not begin till ,i had passed through the great purgatorial fire which burnt up the rubbish of my soul1 and after ,i had scrambled out of the worst of the mire by self-discipline and asceticism4 ,they are accustomed to boil off the gum from raw silk before it is spun1 and so my nerve-fibres seemed to have been 'scoured' by the sufferings of life1 and gone through a process like the 'fining' of silk4 ,exteriorisation of ,sensibility4--,the pupil continued3 ,i happened once1 when watching a spider in a web1 to see her 'exteriorise her sensibility1' or in other words reel out a nerve-substance for herself with which she remains in touch1 and by means of which she becomes aware when flies come and when the weather changes4 ,raspail1 who in his masterly works has cast many a far-reaching glance behind the curtains of nature1 has in one place philosophised over the spider's web4 ,in other works dealing with transcendent natural sciences1 one finds the doubt expressed whether the object of the spider's web is only to be a fly-trap4 ,i myself have counted four and twenty radii in the web of the garden-spider resembling an hour-circle1 and have asked myself whether1 besides being a barometer and trap1 the web is also a kind of clock4 ,now it seems as though ,i had myself in a similar manner exteriorised my sensibility4 ,i feel at a distance when anyone interferes with my destiny1 when enemies threaten my personal existence1 and also when people speak well of me or wish me well4 ,i feel in the street whether those ,i meet are friends or foes2 ,i have felt the pain of an operation undergone by a man to whom ,i was fairly indifferent2 twice ,i have shared the death-agonies of others with the accompanying corporeal and psychical sufferings4 ,the last time ,i went through three illnesses in six hours1 and when the absent person with whom ,i suffered was liberated by death1 ,i rose up well4 ,this makes life painful1 but rich and interesting4 ,telepathic ,perception4--,the pupil said3 ,while ,i lived in the most intimate relations with a woman1 ,i arrived1 like ,gustav ,jger1 at 'the discovery of the soul4' ,i was always in communication with her1 often through obscure sensations1 but very often through the sense of smell2 these were subjective however1 as other people were not aware of them4 ,when she was travelling ,i knew whether she was in a steamer or on a train2 ,i could distinguish the revolutions of the screw from the vibration of the railway carriage and the puffing of the engine4 ,she used to make her presence felt by me at a certain hour of the day1 i4e4 five o'clock in the morning4 ,once1 when she was in ,paris1 this time changed to four o'clock4 ,when ,i consulted the table of time variations1 ,i found that it was four o'clock in ,paris when it was five o'clock with me4 ,another time she was in ,st4 ,petersburg1 then our meeting took place an hour later2 that also agreed with the time-table4 ,when she hated me1 ,i was conscious of a smell and taste like that of mortalin2 this happened one night so distinctly that ,i had to rise and open the window4 ,when she thought kindly of me1 ,i perceived a smell of incense and often of jasmine1 but these scents sometimes changed into sensations of taste4 ,when she was in society without me ,i felt that she was away1 and when the conversation turned on me ,i was aware whether they were speaking good or ill about me4 ,morse ,telepathy4--,the pupil continued3 ,i was spending one evening at home alone2 ,i did not know where she was1 but had the feeling that she was lost to me4 ,at #aj4dj p4m4 ,i was aware of a passing breath of perfume4 ,then ,i said to myself1 ',she has been in the theatre6 ,but in which8' ,i took the daily paper1 read the theatre advertisements1 and found that one theatre closed at #aj4dj4 ,further inquiry proved that my surmise was right4 ,on another occasion when in company ,i broke off a lively conversation with a smile4 ',what are you smiling at8' ',just now the train from the south entered the terminus4' ,another time under similar circumstances ,i said3 ',now the curtain falls on the last act in ,helsingfors6' and ,i heard the applause which greeted the prima donna who had played in my piece4 ,the conversation of the people in the restaurant after the conclusion of the piece sounded like ringing in my ears4 ,i can hear that as far as from ,germany when a prima donna is acting in one of my pieces there1 although ,i do not know beforehand that it is going to be played4 ,one evening ,i had gone to bed about half-past nine1 and was awoken about half-past eleven by a smell of punch and tobacco and in the impression that two of my acquaintances in a caf were talking about me4 ,i had every reason to believe that ,i had been present there in some way or another1 but ,i was so accustomed to this phenomenon that this time ,i did not test it4 ,flammarion gives a hundred such cases in his book ,the ,unknown4 ,nisus ,formativus1 or ,unconscious ,sculpture4--,the pupil continued3 ,once ,i signed a contract with a merchant4 ,after sleeping the night over it1 ,i noticed that he had cheated me4 ,with angry thoughts ,i went out for my morning stroll4 ,when ,i came back ,i wished to change my clothes1 and threw my handkerchief on the table4 ,after ,i had undressed myself ,i noticed that the handkerchief had been crumpled together by my nervous clutch1 and now1 where it lay1 formed a cast of the merchant's head1 like a plaster-of-,paris bust4 ,the question arises3 ,had my hand unconsciously formed an image of my thoughts8 ,linen is a very plastic material1 and one often finds excellent pieces of 'sculpture' in handkerchiefs1 sheets1 and cushions4 ,when a married man comes home with his wife from a ball1 he should look at the handkerchief chief which she has held the whole evening in her hand1 and then perhaps he might see with whom she preferred most to dance4 ,in ,india a ,buddhist priest is said to represent the #bjh incarnations of ,vishnu by putting his hand in a linen bag1 and moulding rapidly from within the linen of the bag into the shapes of an elephant1 tortoise1 etc4 ,when ,st4 ,veronica's napkin retained the impress of ,christ's face1 that is not more improbable than that my pillow in the morning should show the impress of faces which are not like mine4 ,i have read of ,indian vases which are so modelled that at first one only sees a chaos resembling clouds1 twisted entrails1 or the convolutions of the brain4 ,after the eye has become accustomed to this the confusion begins to be disentangled2 all kinds of objects such as plants and animals emerge in clear outline4 ,whether all observers see the same ,i know not4 ,but ,i believe that the moulder of the vase has worked unintentionally and unconsciously4 ,projections4--,the pupil continued3 ,but there are also projections which ,i cannot explain4 ,it is possible that only poets and artists possess the power so to project their inward images in every life that they become half real4 ,it is quite a usual occurrence that the dying show themselves to their absent friends4 ,living persons can also appear at a distance1 but only to those who keep them in their thoughts4 ,i used to show my initiated friends the following phenomenon3 ,i observed a stranger who resembled an absent acquaintance4 ,as soon as my eye completed the image1 whatever unlikeness remained was erased4 ',see1 there goes ,x41' ,i said4 ,my friends saw the resemblance1 understood that it was not ,x41 comprehended my meaning1 and agreed with me without further thought4 ,if we shortly afterwards met ,x4 we were astonished1 and attempted to find no explanation in face of the inexplicable latter part of the phenomenon4 ,but one day ,i went down a street and 'saw' my friend ,dr4 ,y4 who lived fifty miles away4 ,it was he1 and yet it was not he4 ,it was the same little figure although somewhat wavering and uncertain4 ,the grey-yellow face was also the same although almost ghost-like1 with deep furrows which followed the oval lines of the face1 and with the forced laugh of suffering4 ,when ,i came home ,i read in the paper that the man was dead4 ,apparitions4--,the pupil continued3 ,one evening ,i passed a well-known theatre while a performance was going on inside4 ,there was no one outside4 ,suddenly on the pavement ,i saw an actor who had died thirty years previously1 after he had first gone crazy with vexation because he had failed as an actor in this very theatre4 ,his face1 like that of my deceased friend the doctor's1 was lined with those parallel furrows which run from the forehead to the jaw4 ',was it he1 or not8' ,i asked myself1 and left the question open4 ,on another occasion ,i was travelling by rail in a foreign country4 ,the train halted at a station for three minutes4 ,on the platform in broad daylight a man was going up and down with a paint-box in his hand4 ,he looked nervous and suffering and was badly dressed4 ',that is he6' ,i thought4 ',how has he got here8 ,why has he come down in the world8' ,during this three minutes ,i suffered all the tortures of uncertainty and of a bad conscience1 for ,i was partly to blame for his misfortune and his poverty4 ,the train went on1 and ,i have never discovered whether it were really he4 ,it was certainly improbable4 ,yet another time ,i was travelling by rail4 ,at a remote station a man came into my compartment and sat opposite me4 ,i thought he was an acquaintance1 but he looked at me unrecognisingly4 ,then ,i let my eyes fall4 ,immediately he regarded me with an ironical smile which ,i again recognised4 ',it is he1' ,i thought1 'but he will not greet me4' ,so ,i suffered for some hours4 ,my conscience endured all that ,i owed him4 ,whether it really was he ,i know not1 but the effect was the same4 ,the ,reactionary ,type4--,the teacher said3 ,men seem to react against themselves and their own bad qualities when they demand from others what they cannot themselves do4 ,a man who is full of hate demands to be loved4 ,a faithless deceiver came lately to me and finished his wily talk by saying1 ',all ,i ask is that you trust me6' ,he only asked that in order that he might be able to deceive me4 ,but perhaps he trusted me more than himself2 he did not know himself1 but had an inkling of what he was4 ,perhaps he felt that my belief in him would strengthen and elevate him1 and might possibly neutralise his untrustworthiness4 ,it sounded at any rate very nave1 and ,i felt myself honoured by the compliment4 ,again1 a spendthrift who had no means of his own always cautioned me to be frugal4 ,he gave brilliant parties1 but when he came to me he only got potatoes and herrings1 and yet he thought that was beyond my means4 ,on one occasion ,i had bought #bjj grammes of nickel-sulphate for my chemical experiments4 ,they cost fifty-two pence4 ,the spendthrift came to visit me1 looked at the sulphate1 and exclaimed1 ',can you afford it8 ,nickel-sulphate which is so dear4' ,fifty-two pence6 ,then he invited me to a drive in a carriage1 and a meal which cost fifty-two kronas for an altogether unproductive purpose4 ,when he had to pay the reckoning he suffered torments4 ,perhaps he was by nature a skinflint1 who had yielded to a mania for extravagance and reacted against it4 ,i tried to explain this once to him1 as on principle ,i wished to think well of the man4 ,the ,hate of ,parasites4--,the teacher continued3 ,there are men who are spiritually so empty that they only live on others4 ,i have an acquaintance 7when one is over fifty one does not ask for friends any more7 who constantly visits me but never says anything4 ,our social intercourse consists in my speaking alone4 ,when he leaves me after several hours1 ,i feel as if ,i had been undergoing blood-letting4 ,it is certainly good to be able to talk oneself out often1 but one would often like to have an answer to one's questions2 but ,i never get an answer1 not even to a question in his own special line4 ,i can only remember one expression which this man used1 and that was extraordinarily stupid4 ,somebody had slandered me1 and my 'acquaintance' had believed every word and painted my figure in false colours4 ,finally one evening ,i defended myself1 and proved that my slanderer was not in his right senses4 ,he rejected my explanation1 exclaiming ',fie6 how cynical you are6' ,what did this answer mean8 ,first1 that ,i must not wash myself clean1 for he wanted to have me dirty2 secondly1 that he gave me the lie2 thirdly1 that his sympathies were on the side of the slanderer4 ,i draw the inference that this man hated me1 and therefore visited me4 ,if he could not have intercourse with me1 he could not abuse my confidence and gratify his hate4 ,his tactics were--to live my life1 to devour my soul1 to gnaw my bones4 ,the attraction he felt to me he called sympathy1 though it was antipathy4 ,there are many kinds of hate1 and a wife's 'love' to her husband is a variety of hate4 ,she desires his virile power in order to become a husband and make him into a passive-wife4 ,a ,letter from the ,dead4--,the teacher said3 ,it seems as though one could live the life of another parallel with one's own1 or as though one might be in touch with a stranger on another continent4 ,one morning ,i received a letter of twenty-quarto pages from ,america4 ,long letters make me nervous2 they always begin with flattery and end with scolding4 ,i read1 as ,i usually do1 the signature first1 which was unknown to me4 ,then ,i dipped into the letter here and there1 and saw that the writer wished to influence me4 ,one word pricked me like a needle1 and ,i tore the letter into small pieces which ,i threw in the paper-basket4 ,in the night ,i dreamt that the remarkable man1#a who seemed still to guide my steps after his death1 showed me an old manuscript which ,i had not found worth reading4 ,the old servant held the manuscript against the light1 and then ,i saw like a water-mark another writing between the lines4 ,immediately afterwards ,i saw in my dream a broken-off leaden wire1 but closer inspection showed its surface to be gold4 ,when ,i awoke in the morning ,i understood the dream in its perfectly clear symbolism4 ,i went to the paper-basket1 collected the fragments of the stranger's letter1 and spent six hours in piecing them together4 ,then ,i began to read4 ,i should premise that the handwriting was so like that of my deceased and honoured teacher1 that ,i believed ,i was reading a letter from the dead4 ,footnote #a3 ,he refers probably to the ,chief ,librarian in the ,royal ,stockholm ,library1 where he had been an assistant in his youth4 ,a ,letter from ,hell4--,the letter pricked me like a packet of needles4 ,but it was so interesting that ,i was continually lured onward to read to the end4 ,the writer began by saying that he had received his first intellectual awakening through my books4 ,since then his course for twenty years had been very irregular2 led astray by the prevailing ape-morality1 he had gone in evil ways4 ,in the midst of his wandering1 it happened to him as to ,dante and others--he came into hell1 but found a ,virgil who led him out and saved him4 ,then his own real life began4 ,he passed all the sciences from philosophy to chemistry under critical review1 and found them consisting of mere conventional lies4 ,he drifted about helplessly till he found an anchorage-ground in faith in ,christ1 the ,exorciser of demons1 the highest ,wisdom1 the ,redeemer who saves from doubt1 despair1 and madness4 ,during the perusal ,i felt sometimes as though ,i were reading my own life or a satire on it4 ,annoyed by what seemed a tactless encroachment1 ,i often wished to throw the letter away but could not2 the dream always recurred to me1 and the letter contained new and bold ideas sparkling in a chaos of contradictions and paradoxes4 ,in short1 it proved a turning-point in my life4 ,it exposed my faults1 but showed me at the same time that ,i had held the right course1 in spite of the deflections and cross-currents to which ,i had been exposed4 ,an ,unconscious ,medium4--,now let me say a few words about my deceased mentor1 who already in his lifetime exercised a great influence on my development1 though without knowing or wishing it4 ,i was young1 precocious1 dull1 and untrustworthy1 mostly because ,i wished to preserve my personal independence1 but also because ,i was godless1 and consequently immoral without any other principle except that of getting on4 ,he1 my chief1 attracted me1 in spite of the fact that ,i was antipathetic to him in most things4 ,my position required that ,i should serve him devotedly1 but ,i wished also to serve my own interests4 ,he was a spiritist and ,swedenborgian1 but ,i was a materialist4 ,this he was aware of1 because ,i was brutally truthful4 ,but struggle as ,i might1 ,i came under his influence and became his medium4 ,there were days on which he was so blind that he could not read the old manuscripts which he was editing4 ,one day he gave me a medival codex in a difficult character1 and half in joke told me to read it4 ,i read it at once1 without having learnt the character4 ,then he had discovered me4 ,but ,i worked alone1 although unconsciously4 ,one day ,i stumbled on a pile of old documents1 and found a date which he had been hunting for for twenty years4 ,another time ,i found an historic detail of great importance which altered our ideas of our early history4 ,one day our paths diverged4 ,the ,revenant4--,years passed4 ,i lived abroad1 but my thoughts often reverted to the savant who had had a great influence on my life4 ,often1 without any special reason1 ,i spoke of him for hours at a time--not always with the respect which ,i owed him4 ,i was1 it must be remembered1 a pioneer1 to whom nothing was sacred1 neither parents nor teacher4 ,one day ,i heard that the old man was dead4 ,eight days later there appeared in the paper this mysterious announcement4 ,an intimate friend of the deceased received1 eight days after his death1 through the post1 a letter from him4 ,the paper considered it a jocose mystification on the part of the deceased1 who loved jokes4 ,i guessed who might have been entrusted with the letter1 but felt astonished that a dying man could take such pleasure in jesting1 especially about things which he had taken so seriously4 ,when1 two years later1 began the experiences described in my book ,inferno1 ,i felt that ,i was in touch with my departed teacher4 ,there were certain roguish traits in the phenomena which reminded me of him4 ,i remember one night addressing the question to the darkness1 ',is it you8' ,the whole affair was in his style1 teasing in form1 but well-meaning in purpose4 ,i received no answer1 but the impression remained--a mixture of terrible grim earnest and behind it a friendly smile1 comforting1 pardoning1 protecting1 just as in his lifetime1 when he practised patience with my ill manners4 ,the ,meeting in the ,convent4--,the teacher continued3 ,during my wanderings ,i happened once to visit a convent with a travelling companion in a corner of ,europe4 ,what interested me specially was the library1 for ,i had long been trying to trace ,anschar's#a journal4 ,after ,i had slept the night in a cell which bore the inscription ',b4 ,victor ,,iii4 ,p4,p41' in memory of ,pope ,victor ,,iii 'who punished the heretics who denied the divinity of ,christ1' ,i was taken into the library4 ,the first thing shown me was a collection of ,latin hymns of the ,middle ,ages which had been edited by my deceased teacher4 ,the inner side of the title-page contained some handwriting by the editor1 which was so peculiar that it could hardly be imitated4 ,i asked the ,benedictine monk who accompanied me1 whose signature it was4 ,he answered1 ',the convent librarian's4' ',are you certain8' ,i asked4 ',yes1 quite certain4' ,this discovery of his handwriting1 which ,i had never seen elsewhere1 after so many years made a deep impression on me4 ,i asked myself whether the monk1 acting as a medium1 could have imitated the handwriting of the deceased editor4 ,after an afternoon's search ,i found the valuable explanation that ,anschar's journal had been taken by ,abbot ,thymo from ,corvey to ,rome in ,a4,d4 #abfa4 ,it was known that it had since disappeared1 but now ,i had found a trace of it4 ,i felt as though my deceased friend had brought me here into the convent in order to discuss ,anschar's journal1 concerning the fate of which we had often made guesses and searches4 ,footnote #a3 ,a famous ,french missionary in ,sweden1 a4d4 #hja-hfe4 ,correspondences4--,the teacher said3 ,it seems to me as though ,swedenborg's correspondences or correlatives were to be found again in all departments1 as though natural laws on a higher plane can be applied to the spiritual life of man4 ,if an object comes too close to the magnifying glass1 it becomes indistinct4 ,similarly one cannot see the object of one's affections if she comes too close4 ,she becomes small and indistinct1 loses outline and colour2 but remove her to the proper focus1 and she becomes magnified and clear4 ,thus it is with princes and their valets de chambre4 ,but there are also exceptions to the rule4 ,many friends gain by proximity2 one must see them often1 otherwise they change their shape and become ghostly and alarming4 ,others again seem better at a distance2 whenever we meet them we lose an illusion4 ,the attraction between lovers can increase in proportion to the square of the distance between them1 and also in reverse proportion2 the greater the distance1 the greater the pain of separation4 ,it seems also possible to apply the facts of electricity in the psychical sphere4 ,pellets of elder-pith attract one another so long as they are of opposite polarity1 but when they are saturated or over-saturated they repel one another4 ,but the mutual repulsion also takes place when a foreign body is interposed between them1 for then an influence is produced which operates laterally4 ,portents4--,the teacher continued3 ,as soon as ,i believe in an ,almighty ,god1 who can suspend the few natural laws which we know1 and bring into operation the countless host of laws which we do not know1 ,i must believe in miracles4 ,swedenborg does not deal so hardly with anyone 7at the same time that he commiserates them7 as the asses who revere the creation and the laws of nature1 without believing in the ,creator and ,law-giver4 ,they go with their noses on the ground1 and if anything unusual happens 'in the air1' as they say1 they call it 'a meteorological phenomenon1' and attribute it to such and such natural causes4 ,they register the phenomenon in their records without dreaming of anything behind it1 and forthwith forget the matter4 ,we1 on the other hand1 will mention some events of recent years and connect them with certain natural phenomena which may possibly denote the presence of warning and chastising powers4 ,on the #gth ,june1 #aije1 ,sweden and ,norway separated4 ,a year previous an earthquake took place which had its centre in the ,kattegat4 ,one shock reached ,christiania and caused a terrible panic in the churches2 people trampled one another to death or lost their reason4 ,another shock affected ,stockholm and caused alarm1 but in a minor degree2 among those affected by it was a prince of high military rank4 ,in ,january1 #aije1 a hurricane burst over ,christiania1 tore the roof from the royal castle1 and injured the fortress of ,akershus4 ,the same hurricane travelled east-ward to ,stockholm1 tore the roof from the guards' barracks and threw it on the drilling-ground4 ,these statements can be verified by reference to the newspapers4 ,the question is3 ',are these portents or not8' ,are symbolic natural phenomena portents8 ,the ,difficult ,art of ,lying4--,the teacher said3 ,when people lie deliberately1 usually with the object of gaining something1 ,i often do not hear what they say4 ,one day a carpenter came to me with a complaint4 ,i listened to him and helped him4 ,the next day he came again in order to do a piece of work4 ,then1 among other things he let this remark fall3 ',to-day1 thank ,god1 she is better4' ',who8' ,i asked4 ',i mentioned yesterday that my child had fallen down the staircase4' ,then ,i felt ashamed of having taken so little interest in his troubles1 and murmured some sympathetic words4 ,but when he had gone ,i thought over the matter4 ,since ,i generally hear very well and attend to what people say1 ,i was astonished that ,i had not noticed his account of his trouble4 ,i could not explain it to myself4 ,some time later1 after some months1 ,i conceived a strong feeling of distrust towards this man4 ,i remembered the ,german proverb1 ',a liar should have a good memory1' and determined to test him4 ,therefore ,i said to him abruptly1 ',did you have a good summer8' ',splendid1' he answered4 ',is your wife quite well8' ',perfectly4' ',your child too8' ',she has never passed through the summer so well4' ,accordingly he had lied when he said the little girl had had an accident1 and had subsequently forgotten it4 ,what was unreal could leave no impression behind--an interesting fact1 as it seemed to me4 ,in connection with this ,i remembered that an actor1 a pessimist and hopeless despairer1 had to play the part of a believing and positive character on a certain occasion4 ,that evening the audience could hardly hear a word of what he said4 ,i was astonished at the time1 but now ,i understand that he was lying4 ,religious and ,scientific ,intuition4--,the pupil said3 ,the everlasting strife between ,faith and ,knowledge would have been stifled at the outset if some sharp wit had discovered in time that the problem is wrongly stated1 for the two ideas form no real antithesis4 ,what ,i know1 that ,i believe2 consequently faith presupposes knowledge1 consequently knowledge is subsumed under faith4 ,but the word 'belief' has received other significations4 ,in religion it means reception or absorption4 ,science recognises the fact of intuition or rapid inference1 i4e4 the faculty of reaching certainty without sufficient reason and without a complete chain of proof4 ,that is scientific belief1 and is in complete analogy with religious belief4 ,when a man arrives at the knowledge of ,god and of ,his laws by way of intuition1 when he then tests this knowledge by observing his experiences and finds it confirmed1 then the final outcome of his investigation is ,belief4 ,belief is complete objective certainty1 but on a higher plane1 so that all scientific chatter that ,knowledge is higher than ,belief is mere nonsense4 ,by 'knowledge' in this case one understands for the most part information about stones1 plants1 and animals1 and historical facts such as the year in which a certain book was published1 when ,goethe was in ,strasburg1 whether ,rebecca ,ost's real name was ,popoffsky or ,johanna ,hagelstrom1 or whether an ,apostle-mug is genuine or imitation4 ,the antithesis ',faith or ,knowledge' is the stupidest dispute about words which ever took place1 and a disgrace to humanity4 ,the ,freed ,thinker4--,the teacher said3 ,in order to think rightly and in accordance with law1 ,i must free my reason from fetters of rustic intelligence1 from interests1 passions1 conventional considerations4 ,one must go into deep solitude1 and not be afraid of remaining alone1 deserted by all4 ,above all1 one must not belong to any party which regulates1 inspects1 and degrades4 ,in order to be able to dare to give up the weak and hampering support of men1 one must be able thoroughly to rely upon ,god4 ,in order to do that one must keep one's conscience as clean as possible1 must hate evil1 strive after righteousness and goodness1 bear everything except humiliation1 exercise mercifulness1 and take trials as such and not as persecutions4 ,the electric clock has contact and connection with a correctly-timed chronometer4 ,and so my reason cannot think logically till ,i have opened connection with the ,logos1 and no longer discharge contrary currents of sterile denial and doubt4 ,only in life with ,god is there freedom of thought1 freedom from impure impulses1 selfish and ambitious interests1 freedom from the wish to stand well with the crowd4 ,that is the freed thinker in contrast to the 'free-thinker1' who has left the rails and lost connection with the overhead wire2 he will come to grief at the next street-corner1 and is of no more use as a vehicle of traffic4 ,primus inter pares4--,the pupil continued3 ,religions seemed to be determined by regions like nationalities4 ,swedenborg hints at something of the sort1 saying that people have the religion which they ought to have4 ,those who have no religion are tramps and vagabonds1 pariahs and gipsies1 scoundrels and swindlers4 ,they think they are at home everywhere1 but are so only on the high-roads1 in the market-places1 behind the circus-stable1 in the alehouse4 ,when ,lessing asserts in ,nathan der ,weise that all religions are equally good1 he shows that he has not understood ,christianity1 which is the beginning and end of the world's history4 ,the ,muhammedans are certainly religious1 more religious than the ,christians1 and among the adherents of ,islam are many sects1 but no atheistic ones4 ,all observe the hours of prayer1 fasts1 and daily washings4 ,muhammed was no ,christ-hater4 ,but they are alien to our climate4 ,still we have something to learn from them2 they are not ashamed to show their religion1 while we shuffle with it4 ,they are not only religious on ,sundays but every day and all day4 ,but1 if we heard that a ,christian had gone over to ,islam we should regard it as a fall from the higher to the lower1 while the conversion of a ,muhammedan to ,christianity would be hailed as an ascent4 ,saladin was certainly noble and ,nathan wise1 but the nobleness of the former had somewhat of a pose about it1 and the wisdom of the latter was of the same homely kind as ,voltaire's4 ,on the other hand1 ,godfrey de ,bouillon accepted the crown of thorns instead of the king's crown1 and ,st4 ,louis gave his life for the wisdom which surpasses all understanding4 ,heathen ,imaginations4--,the teacher said3 ,religions are represented by regions1 defined territories1 circles1 of which each considers himself the centre4 ,the modern heathen sit in their little bag1 which is big enough to be seen1 and when they only see heathen they imagine that ,christianity is decaying or altogether done with4 ,and yet it is flourishing as it never did before2 everything serves the ,gospel with or against its will4 ,the heathen find new weapons in heaps of ruins and in temple-libraries2 they close churches and thereby bring ,christianity into life and into the domestic circle4 ,when they make life bitter for the ,christians1 the latter turn from the sour and seek the fresh4 ,the missionaries who were only lately regarded with a contemptuous smile are now discovered by great explorers in deserts and wildernesses1 where they have established oases of humanity and mercy4 ,there the plundered wanderer can rest his weary head1 secure of having found one trustworthy man4 ,he who wishes to know the effect of ,christianity on an idolater should read ,kanso ,utschimura's ,memoirs of a ,japanese2 or1 ,how ,i ,became a ,christian4 ,those who preach 'cheerful paganism' can see in this work how a polytheist is tom and tortured by doubt1 and tossed to-and-fro between the contradictory commands of eighty million gods4 ,thought ,bound by ,law4--,the teacher said3 ,when a young man comes and says he is a free-thinker1 say to him3 ',you lie4 ,you think with your stomach1 your throat1 your sexuality1 with your passions and your interests1 your hate and your sympathies4 ,but in your youthful immaturity you do not really think at all1 but merely drivel4 ,what is instilled into you1 you give out1 and dub your wishes by the name of thoughts4' ,moreover 'free-thought' is a contradiction in terms1 for thought obeys laws1 just as sound1 light1 and chemical combinations do4 ,thought is bound1 bound by laws4 ,if you say ',there is no ,god1' you speak without thinking4 ',non-existence' and ',god' are two incommensurate ideas which cannot be brought into juxtaposition4 ,if they are1 there results an absurdity which is the secretion or excretion of an illogical and confused mind4 ,if on the other hand you say ',there is no ,god for me1' there is something probable in that4 ,but you should be ashamed to speak of it4 ,it only means that you are a godless dog1 a perverse ape1 a conscienceless deceiver and thief whom men must avoid and detectives must watch4 ,fortunately godlessness is an hallucination imposed on haughty blockheads as a punishment4 ,when the 'free-thinker' discovers some day how stupid he is1 then he is freed1 and that is a mercy for him4 ,credo quia 7et-si7 absurdum4--,the teacher said3 ,if ,i call myself a ,christian it is because ,i recognise ,christ as a power1 a source of strength1 from whom ,i obtain strength by prayer in order to support tolerably the burdens of life4 ,but at the same time ,i confess that ,i cannot understand nor explain the doctrine of ,atonement through sacrificial death4 ,that is not1 however1 the fault of the doctrine but a defect in me4 ,i have also no right to deny a matter of fact because ,i do not understand it4 ,here is an illustration4 ,if ,i multiply #b by #b ,i obtain an increase--#d4 ,but if ,i multiply by ,i obtain as a result a decrease by half1 i4e4 4 ,here is an incomprehensible contradiction4 ,multiplication cannot produce a decrease4 ,yet it is mathematically true that #b multiplied by #b is doubled1 i4e4 #d1 but multiplied by is halved1 i4e4 4 ,my intelligence would fain deny it1 but ,i must believe it1 and in doing so ,i do well1 otherwise the whole science of mathematics would be unusable1 which would be a great loss4 ,credo quia absurdum4 ,that means1 ,i must believe a fact just because it is incomprehensible and absurd 7for me1 but not for others74 ,if ,i could understand it1 the emergency short-cut of 'faith' would not be necessary4 ,that is the sacrifice1 not of my reason1 but of my rustic understanding and of my pride4 ,the ,fear of ,heaven4--,the pupil said3 ,the astronomy or uranology of the astronomers has ceased to make any progress since it has become godless4 ,they have given up observing the sky4 ,they sit there and calculate1 with the express purpose of calculating ,god's existence away4 ,seven years ago ,i met a teacher of astronomy4 ,he did not know that the equator of the sky passes through the belt of ,orion1 and could not point out the ecliptic4 ,he boasted of not knowing the constellations1 saying it was no science to know them4 ,our nearest neighbour the moon has been ignored for a long time4 ,and yet in #ahff it was noticed that changes had taken place there1 and that the crater of ,linnus was on the point of disappearing4 ,on the other hand1 they are trying to signal to ,mars4 ,if man1 who lately in his folly thinks he has solved the riddle of the universe without ,god1 only knew how the 'gods' are to us1 and if he understood the signals which they send to us daily and hourly1 he would go out like ,peter and weep that he had denied his ,lord or behaved as though he knew ,him not4 ,the ,goat-god ,pan and the ,fear of the ,pan-pipe4--,the teacher said3 ,like all lower classes the apelings regard themselves as supermen1 who march at the head of all movements and can regulate developments4 ,their god is the shaggy ,pan1 who had been a goat and became a half-man1 and later the ,evil ,one1 ,satan1 or ,god's opponent4 ,but they must be ashamed of their god1 for they call themselves atheists4 ,their religion is that of the ,satanists4 ,when they hear of any good action they snort4 ,they delight in persecuting and tormenting anyone in whom there is any good visible1 and call him a hypocrite4 ,their children learn to lie as soon as they learn to talk4 ,the greatest poet of the apelings has written a lament over the ',decay of lying' and an heroic poem in six cantos in praise of unnatural vice4 ,they are all perverse1 mostly in secret1 but they betray themselves in their writers1 who write in the name of woman1 and from the woman's point of view1 against man4 ,for by confusion of sex they have lost all distinction of sex2 they have ceased to think and to feel as men4 ,they run like dogs with their noses on the track of the white man1 in order to bite him1 that he may become like one of them4 ,there are white men who have been seduced by the females of the apelings4 ,the children are bastards1 and their lives are a perpetual conflict against the ,satanic inheritance they have received from their mothers4 ,some fight in vain2 others find the ,helper4 ,there is only ,one--,jesus ,christ1 the ,exorciser of demons4 ,you know that ,i was such a bastard and fought the battle1 which is not yet concluded4 ,the apelings preach toleration4 ,by that they mean that whatever they do must be overlooked1 and that they should be left at liberty to propagate their doctrines1 while they more or less secretly persecute the ,christians4 ,as soon as they begin to scent ,christian blood they shudder4 ,then they begin to excommunicate the 'heretic4' ,his name is no more mentioned1 and if it appears in print it is cut out4 ,if he formerly belonged to the body of the apelings he is now called an apostate1 and must die as a traitor4 ,when an apeling dies he obtains an apotheosis in the absence of a pantheon4 ,at the burial the wreaths are counted1 and the inscriptions attached to them examined2 if anyone's name is missing he is excommunicated4 ,the ceremonial is just like that of a witches' sabbath when the 'faithful' gave their testimony4 ,but it may happen1 when they invoke ,pan1 that he answers with the reed-pipe4 ,then if he shows himself in the wood or in the bedchamber1 they are seized with a panic fear2 they weep like children who are afraid of the dark1 or fly to sanatoriums to be cured of their neurasthenia1 their sleeplessness1 and their heart-complaints4 ,their ,gospel4--,the teacher continued3 ,but the apelings have also constructed a dogmatic theology which is a parody of the ,christian faith4 ,they have a doctrine of reconciliation which proclaims reconciliation with life1 but it is really a compromise with all the dirt of life which one generally wipes off on the mat at the house-door4 ,they teach men to be tolerant towards turpitude and wickedness2 they describe men as good fellows1 as careless creatures who are thoroughly good at bottom--'there is no malice in them4' ,the really good men1 who cannot do anything wicked1 seemed to the apelings puritanical4 ',why should we torment ourselves in the only life we have8' they ask1 feeling quite sure that they will be annihilated at death1 like maggots4 ,according to this distorted gospel1 it is wrong to describe in a literary work how the malicious1 the liar1 the deceiver1 the pander get their deserts4 ,we should1 they say1 pardon the conscienceless and obstinate4 ,christianity1 on the other hand1 teaches that we should pardon the repentant who improve4 ,in the apelings' gospel all the teaching of ,christ is sophisticated4 ,in their view all ,magdalenes are interesting innocent victims of social circumstances1 while ,christ only received the ,magdalene who had abandoned vice4 ,the ,disposition of the ,apes4--,the teacher continued3 ,this is the whole kernel of ,darwinism1 this madness which infected the mind of a generation which was overstrained with the pursuit of power and luxury4 ,but this ,beelzebub could only be driven out by another4 ,that was ,nietzsche4 ,he was a demon let loose1 who killed the ape1 restored the man1 and altered the old popular estimates4 ,he was understood because he spoke the language of the apelings4 ,that was the only way to compel them to listen1 for they would never have heard a ,christian prophet4 ,but after he had his say his tongue was spiked and his tale was over4 ,joseph ,peladan was a ,christian prophet of the school of the ,therapeut and ,essenes4 ,the apelings feared him1 and could not name his name1 for it stuck in their throats4 ,only the ,christian upper class understood him4 ,his ,christianity was luminous and esoteric1 perhaps too luminous4 ,but after a pilgrimage to ,christ's grave he discovered the deceit1 turned his back on the 'reconciliation with life1' and forswore the worship of beauty which was merely the dressing up of the apes with white sheets and ivy leaves4 ,he ceased to be interested in the bestial and the nude1 saw through the 'joy of life' and ,nora1#a unmasked the humbug of tolerance1 and took the cross in real earnest1 as it is1 on himself4 ,peladan was a living protest against apishness4 ,he represented the undercurrent1 not the surface-stream4 ,still the undercurrent is always ready to mount and overflow and cleanse the banks1 which at the ebb-tide have served as a place for dumping down rubbish4 ,footnote #a3 ,the heroine of ,ibsen's ,doll's ,house4 ,the ,secret of the ,cross4--,the teacher said3 ,the conflict between paganism and ,christianity is now being fought out in the world4 ,but just as surely as ,christianity preceded paganism in time1 so surely does the future belong to ,christianity1 although for the moment the apelings have the upper hand4 ,their edict of toleration allows them in the name of freedom to forbid the preaching of ,christianity4 ,they close the churches1 declare ,judas innocent1 give mad women the vote1 write heathenish schoolbooks for children1 place forgers and pettifoggers in power1 for their kingdom is of this world4 ,but it is with ,christianity as with the walnut-tree1 whose fruit is knocked down with poles1 and which is roughly treated in order that it may bear fruit and thrive4 ,the night grows darker towards the dawn4 ,spinach-seed is trodden down that it may grow better2 the ground must be harrowed1 broken1 and rolled in order to be able to yield a crop2 gold must be refined in fire1 and flax be steeped in water4 ,the cross points upwards1 downwards1 sideways1 to the four quarters of heaven at once2 it is a completion of the compass4 ,suffering bums up the rubbish of the soul4 ,i have seen a man who had suffered all the griefs endured by humanity2 yet the more he suffered the more beautiful he became4 ,that is the secret of the cross and of suffering4 ',because ye are not of the world1 therefore the world hateth you4 ,in the world ye have tribulation1 but be of good cheer2 ,i have overcome the world4' ,examination and ,summer ,holidays4--,the teacher said3 ,when1 on reaching maturity1 one awakes to new consciousness and discovers that everything one has is borrowed1 one begins to cut oneself down to the root1 in order to let strike a new stem which is one's own4 ,when we enter old age this stem withers down to the root 7the process ,swedenborg calls 'desolation'72 the branches formerly cut down bloom again and put forth new foliage which is like1 and yet not like the former4 ,but when old and new flourish together1 the whole result is confusing2 but the root remains the same and reveals the nature of the plant4 ,the dissonances of life increase with the years1 and the material of life becomes so immense that it is impossible to survey it properly4 ,therefore one lives more in remembrance than in the present1 and along the whole line of one's experience4 ,sometimes ,i live in my childhood1 sometimes in my mature age4 ,but it is strange that one does not feel old age to be the beginning of an end but the introduction to something new1 i4e4 when one has recovered the belief or assurance that there is a life on the other side4 ,one feels as though one were preparing for an examination by doing preliminary exercises and one becomes literally young again4 ,there is a little touch of examination fever with it1 but also great hopes mingled with dreams of the future4 ,these remind us of ,christmas joys1 summer holidays1 family gatherings with reconciliations and wishes fulfilled4 ,but there is also a scent of broken-off birch-leaves and the seashore2 there is a sound of ,sunday bells and organs1 the attraction of new clothes1 white linen1 and a bath in green sea-water4 ,there is a feeling like that of evening prayer and a good conscience1 wife1 home1 and child after a journey1 the hearth-fire after a snow-storm1 the first ball and the one we loved to dance with most1 the opening of the savings-box1 and first and last the examination and the summer holidays4 ,veering and ,tacking4--,the teacher continued3 ,the ,theosophists speak of the seven planes of the ,kama-,loka1 the condition after death4 ,i will admit that1 in certain circumstances1 ,i have lived simultaneously on several planes4 ,this was difficult for me1 and still more difficult for my enemies to understand4 ,i should like to have explained these contradictions in existence by a cleavage of the personality or a multiplication of the ego4 ,i have also sought the solution of the riddle in the self-adaptation to one's surroundings1 to which ,st4 ,paul refers in the ,first ,epistle to the ,corinthians3 ',to the ,jews ,i became a ,jew4444 ,to those who are under the law1 ,i became as under the law4444 ,to those who are without law1 ,i became as one without law4 ,to the weak ,i became as weak4' 444 ,kierkegaard speaks of ,sympaschomenos who rejoices with the joyful1 mourns with the sad1 is coarse with the coarse1 refined with the refined4 ,swedenborg makes another suggestion1 ',when a man is to be born again1 his desires and falsities cannot be stripped off at once1 for that would be equivalent to destroying the whole man1 because as yet he only lives in them4 ,therefore for a long while evil spirits are left with him1 to stir up his desires that they may be dissolved in many ways4' ,formerly ,i believed1 when ,i was young with the youthful1 old and wise with the old1 mad with the mad1 that ,i was doing them a service4 ,as a poet1 ,i lived for the moment in their life and their moods1 which ,i then depicted and forgot myself4 ,often by these relapses into stages ,i had left behind1 ,i seemed to have worked myself higher1 as the ship tacks in order to get a more favourable wind4 ,attraction and ,repulsion4--,the teacher continued3 ,there is both an attraction and a repulsion between similar souls4 ,like loves like1 but not always2 often the unlike seeks the unlike4 ,a good man lamented to me that it was his lot always to be in bad society1 and never to meet good men who could elevate him4 ,since he was strong he was at any rate not drawn down1 but he did not observe that he exercised a good influence on his bad surroundings4 ,he had1 it is true1 occasion to see and to hear evil2 but1 on the other hand1 he was able to react against it through the disgust with which it inspired him4 ,without instituting a comparison we may say that ,christ did not attract people of high position and good character1 but poor devils and weak characters1 the sick1 the possessed1 the wicked1 thieves1 publicans1 and harlots4 ,his disciples did not understand his doctrine1 but interpreted it all in a material way4 ,he answered their reproaches by saying1 ',only the sick need a physician4' ,i will suppress my former objection1 for ,i bow myself experimentally before 'the folly of the cross1' since experience has taught me that wisdom can only be received by a humble mind1 and that obedience is more than sacrifice4 ,in recent times my constant prayer has been that ,i might come into good society which might elevate me1 and avoid evil companionship which1 to say the least1 involves an injurious connection with the lower plane4 ,it is in truth my fault that those who seek me seek my old ego1 and1 when they do not find it1 believe that ,i am not to be found4 ,the ,double4--,the pupil said3 ,when a man begins to love a woman he throws himself into a trance1 and becomes a poet and artist4 ,out of her plastic1 unindividualised material he fashions an ideal form into which he puts all that is best in himself4 ,thus he creates an homunculus which he adopts as his double1 and with that she lets him do as he likes4 ,but this astral image may be also the doll which she the huntress sets up as a decoy1 while she with a loaded gun lies behind the bush and watches for her prey4 ,the love of a man for his homunculus often survives every illusion2 he may have conceived a deadly hatred against herself1 while his love for his double continues4 ,but this masquerade gives rise to the deepest dissonances and troubles4 ,he becomes squint-eyed by contemplating two images which do not coincide4 ,he wishes to embrace his cloud1 but takes hold of a body2 he wishes to hear his poem1 but it is someone else's2 he wants to see his work of art1 but it is only a model4 ,he is happy during his trance1 although the world cannot understand him4 ,when he awakes from his somnambulism1 his hatred to the woman increases in proportion as she fails to correspond to his image of her4 ,and if he murders his double1 then love is done with1 and only boundless hate remains4 ,paw or ,hand4--,the pupil said3 ,in ,kipling's wonderful ,jungle ,book1 the boy is intimate with all kinds of animals but not with apes1 which are the worst of all creatures and composed of wickedness and crime4 ,when ,goethe1 in the second part of ,faust1 wishes to represent phantoms and evil spirits1 he uses the same masks and costumes as for the monkeys in the ,witches' ,kitchen in the first part4 ,and it is among these degenerate brutes that man 787 now does his best to seek his ancestry4 ,for my part ,i would rather trace my origin from a noble horse1 or a sagacious and honest elephant1 or from a courageous and thankful eagle4 ,but it is probable that apes spring from degenerate men1 escaped criminals1 and ship-wrecked ,robinson ,crusoes4 ,the hand of the chimpanzee is not a paw which is being evolved into a hand1 but it is a human hand which is degenerating into a paw4 ,a palmist could read the lines of it2 a manicurist could improve it and make it capable of wearing a glove4 ,if man really sprang from apes1 according to the law of phylogeny1 a child ought to be born with a hairy body4 ,but now it comes into the world as smooth as an angel1 often without hairs even on its head4 ,it is a disgrace to me that ,i served the ,ape-king1 the seducer of my youth6 ,and it was so stupid6 ,the ,thousand-,years' ,night of the ,apes4--,when the sun of ,christianity rose over the world1 it naturally became night for the apelings4 ,when they turned their backs to the light1 everything became distorted for them4 ,right became left1 east became west1 good became evil1 black became white1 day became night4 ,therefore one reads still of their thousand-years' night1 as they call the ,middle ,ages4 ,when the savage tribes of ,europe became tame1 when the aged and sick became objects of pity1 when governments ruled and laws protected1 when faith1 hope and love1 self-sacrifice and chivalry flourished1 then it was night for the pagans4 ,when ,europe received science1 when ,albertus ,magnus1 ,thomas ,aquinas1 ,roger ,bacon1 ,arnold1 and ,basilius founded chemistry1 metallurgy1 and physic1 their darkness increased4 ,when medival art culminated in the noblest work of art there is--the ,gothic cathedral--then it grew dark before the eyes of the giants2 their ears could not endure the chime of bells and organ-music4 ,finally the ,middle ,ages discovered gunpowder1 the compass1 and printing4 ,a religious man1 whose sails bore the sign of the cross1 discovered ,america4 ,but ,pauli1 the disciple of ,clemens ,romanus1 already knew the ocean which cannot be crossed by men1 and the lands which lie behind it4#a ,in the midst of the darkness of the heathen there was the light of convent-schools and universities1 in which spiritual as well as worldly wisdom was taught4 ,poems of chivalry1 romances and dramas were composed4 ,charlemagne was a ,christian ,king ,solomon2 he defeated the ,philistines in ,saxony1 built temples out of the ruins of ,rome1 held learned conversations and listened to legends1 cultivated the land and gave laws4 ,that was the brightest phase of a ,europe grown patriarchal and ,christian4 ,the gods certainly did not walk any more on earth1 but ,god's messengers were in constant communication with men1 and disclosed to them the secrets of ,god's kingdom1 which were written down in ,apocalypses and1 best of all1 in the ,legenda ,aurea4 ,thomas ,kempis's ,imitation of ,christ was printed and is still read even by ,protestants4 ,one can even read the ,church ,fathers1 ,augustine1 ,jerome1 ,chrysostom2 ,augustine was used in my youth as a confirmation-manual4 ,two hundred years before the ,reformation--the schism in the ,church as it should rather be called--,dante wrote the most ,christian of all poems1 which the heathen have tried to steal for themselves4 ,boccaccio expounded the ,inferno from a professor's chair1 a fitting penalty for the trespasses of his youth4 ,botticelli1 ,lippi1 ,ghirlandajo were the great religious painters of the ,middle ,ages4 ,their pupils ,michael ,angelo and ,raphael were devout ,christians1 although the heathen have wished to appropriate them under the false designation ,renaissance1 or new birth of heathenism4 ,when at the beginning of modern times it began to grow dusk1 the dawn rose for the heathen and for the last ,athenians4 ,the last8 ,there will certainly be more ,athenians who will wish to carry owls to ,athens4 ,footnote #a3 ,clement1 ,epistle to the ,romans1 chap4 xx4 ,the ,favourite4--,julian was an ,illyrian1 from the predatory state composed of a mixed ,phnician race who worshipped ,baal and ,astarte4 ,he had a small head1 and no occiput2 he had thick lips1 a beard that swarmed with vermin1 long nails and black hands with which he groped in the bleeding bodies of slain beasts in order to prognosticate the future from their hearts and livers4 ,his cheerful religious services consisted in the sacrifice of animals1 and were accompanied by the dances of immodest girls4 ,in order to refute ancient prophecy1 he wished to build again the ,temple at ,jerusalem4 ,but fire broke out of the ground1 so that the undertaking was frustrated at its commencement4 ,this madman once came to ,antioch1 where there were a hundred thousand heathen whom he expected to receive him with public sacrifices and dances4 ,instead of which he was met by a solitary priest bearing a goose4 ,that was all6 ,this unattractive person1 who has become the darling of ,the ,last ,athenian#a and the new heathen1 was finally enticed into a desert4 ,there he suffered hunger and thirst till a lance pierced his liver4 ,but it is incredible that he exclaimed1 ,thou hast conquered1 ,o ,galilean6 ,he was far too stupid for that4 ,scientific ,villainies4--,if anyone comes to you and says1 ,i don't understand the proof for the existence of ,god1 you should answer1 ,you don't understand because your wickedness darkens your understanding4 ,all atheists are rascals1 and all rascals are atheists4 ,their intelligence is so beclogged with sin that they cannot understand the simplest teachings of ,christianity1 the ,incarnation and1 consequently1 ,immaculate ,birth of ,god1 ,his ,resurrection and ,ascension4 ,when the sectaries came to ,luther and said that they could not understand him1 because they had another ,spirit1 he answered1 ,i smite your ,spirit on the snout6 ,god rebuke thee1 ,satan6 ,a godless man or a so-called free-thinker is a rascal who permits himself everything4 ,his natural sympathy for scoundrels is so strong that he will swear a false oath in order to save the guilty from condemnation by a false alibi4 ,he will accuse an innocent man1 and persecute him from one court of appeal to another1 in order to get him into prison1 and will demand a large sum of money as a reward for his ill-doing4 ,when the guilty is acquitted they give him a banquet1 his companions write odes in his honour1 he is promoted and finally appointed to be an instructor of youth4 ,when an atheist adopts the pursuit of science1 one is sure only villainy will result4 ,he says falsely that he has seen such and such things under the microscope1 in order to be able to write a treatise on them4 ,if he is an astronomer he will see as many canals in ,mars as his professor wishes4 ,if his professor does not believe in the canals in ,mars1 he will not see any4 ,footnote #a3 ,the ,last ,athenian1 title of a work by ,victor ,rydberg4 ,necrobiosis1 i4e4 ,death and ,resurrection4--,during the winter ,i found the chrysalis of a cockchafer and laid it on my writing-table4 ,one evening in the lamplight it began to click and make small movements4 ,believing that the warmth had developed my beetle ,i opened its black coffin1 but found to my astonishment only a white slime without a sign of organisation2 it smelt of sour gastric juice4 ,this half-fluid mass1 however1 possessed the capacity of movement4 ,later on1 when ,i had a microscope with a large field of view1 ,i opened the chrysalis of a butterfly and examined it4 ,on a clear yellow background of fluid matter there was sketched1 as it were1 the outline of the future butterfly in half-shadow1 without1 as yet1 any bodily organisation4 ,that is called necrobiosis1 or the dying-off of living tissue4 ,and the deliquescence of the chrysalis in slime is termed histolysis4 ,its reorganisation is said to take place by means of corpora adiposa1 or particles of fat4 ,more than this ,i do not know4 ,i wrote to ,germany 7where they are accustomed to know everything7 and asked for some works treating of the metamorphosis of the chrysalis1 but there were none on this most important and interesting question4 ,father ,darwin and his son ,haeckel knew nothing and wished to know nothing about the resurrection2 they only knew about birth and death4 ,finally ,i bought for five-and-twenty kroners a large work on butterflies composed by a professor4 ,there was not a word in it regarding the necrobiosis of the chrysalis4 ,but sometimes ,i see on a gravestone within a church wall this symbol3 caterpillar1 chrysalis1 and butterfly4 ,secret ,judgment4--,when one sees a fact repeated regularly and under defined conditions1 one believes one has discovered a law4 ,i think ,i have discovered a law1 and consequently a tribunal whose decisions we see1 but whose inner working we can only guess at4 ,i had a relative who had reached a certain age without ever having time to think of death4 ,on the #ahth ,january of the year #ah-- he had a stroke and fell4 ,that was the first warning4 ,then he began to think about death and the life after this1 and occupied himself thus for six years2 then he died exactly on the same day1 on the #ahth of ,january4 ,the fact of the interval being six years made me think of ,bismarck's six years in ,sachsenwald1 when he sat alone and brooded on the transitory character of greatness1 and curiously enough injured his reputation through being betrayed by vanity into making incautious revelations4 ,then it occurred to me that ,napoleon was six years on ,st4 ,helena1 and finally became so well prepared that he received the sacrament on his death-bed4 ,whether ,heine lay on the ground for exactly six years1 with his body wasted to the size of a child's and tormented by the fear of losing his wife1 ,i cannot say definitely2 but it was about six4 ,it is well known that the pious ,linnus had to spend his last years seated in a chair1 lamed by paralysis2 nor did even he escape being worried by a quarrelsome wife1 ,god alone knows why6 ,our great and glorious ,tegner received his first warning in #ahdj4 ,it was accompanied by a condition like that described in my ,inferno1 during which1 among other things1 he saw his whole poetical work in a depreciatory light1 and even at last wished to cancel it all4 ,after just six years' preparation he died on ,november #b1 #ahdf1 in a cheerful state of mind1 the sky being lit up at the time by a splendid aurora4 ,goldschmidt mentions that and still more remarkable things in his excellent ,nemesis ,divina4 ,i read lately how ,fersen was murdered in his carriage on ,june #bj1 #ahaj4 ,i recalled to mind that it was the same ,fersen who drove the carriage in which ,marie ,antoinette fled to ,varennes4 ,i referred to the ,history of the ,world1 and found that the flight to ,varennes took place on ,june #bj1 #agia4 ,the question arises3 ,was it a crime to wish to save the queen8 ,the author of the article in the ,biographical ,lexicon mentions the crime by name2 but it was something other than the attempt to further her escape4 ,hammurabi's ,inspired ,laws ,received from the ,sun-,god4--,the laws of ,hammurabi occupy fifteen quarto pages4 ,that is the whole find6 ,and these pages are to nullify the ,bible1 which is so unsearchably rich and possesses such mysterious depths that everyone in trouble1 who with humility seeks for counsel and comfort there1 finds it forthwith1 although he may first receive some blows which strike the nail on the head6 ,hammurabi's laws in fifteen pages resemble ,deuteronomy to a certain degree1 but are much more meagre2 they often recall our old ,swedish law with its trivialities4 ,for instance3 ,if anyone strikes out a man's teeth1 his teeth shall be struck out2 but if he strikes out the teeth of an emancipated slave1 he shall pay one-eighth of a mina of silver4 ,in any case ,god is one1 and ,his laws are in principle the same4 ,the ,bible may have used the same source as ,hammurabi4 ,but when the heathen try to use the laws of the ,assyrian clay tablets in order to prove that the ,bible is not inspired1 they miss the mark4 ,inspired means received from ,god4 ,see how the heathen has adorned his paltry pamphlet with a frontispiece1 which asserts1 against his will1 that ,hammurabi's laws were also inspired4 ,for the frontispiece portrays ,hammurabi receiving his laws from the ,sun-god4 ,strauss's ,life of ,christ4--,now that ,i am sixty years old1 it occurred to me to see what sort of a book ,strauss's ,leben ,jesu is before ,i depart4 ,in my youth1 in the 'sixties1 we read in school 7of our own accord1 however7 the last ,athenian's doctrine of the ,bible1 but we never succeeded in seeing the original ,life of ,jesus4 ,and although ,i have been in libraries1 collected books1 visited second-hand book-stalls1 ,i have not seen ,strauss's book4 ,it seemed as though it had been confiscated by the ,invisible ,powers4 ,now when ,i am sixty1 it has arrived and ,i tried to read it4 ,but ,i could not4 ,it was simply unreadable6 ,all these many pages contained nothing1 and what was printed seemed to me incomprehensible1 soulless1 dry4 ,a man who writes a book about what he does not understand2 a student who has learnt the sthetic systems by heart2 a philosopher who tries to define the beautiful2 a mathematician who wants to prove or disprove axioms2 a drunken man who tries to play the flute2 a feeble foolish attempt to explain ,god's great miracle in the ,atonement4 ,i threw the book away1 else ,i should have gone to sleep over it4 ,strauss died in #ahgd1 and in spite of the last stage of his development1 when he did not believe any more in the immortality of the soul1 he spent his last hours in reading ,plato's ,phdo1 in which at the death-bed of ,socrates the immortality of the soul is so clearly demonstrated4 ,his death was like that of ,socrates1 his pupils said4 ,but they do not inform us whether the cup of poison was at hand4 ,christianity and ,radicalism4--,christianity is really more radical than ,radicalism4 ,christ turns his back on the whole of society with its institutions1 science1 and art4 ,he warns us against the scribes2 the rich are not his friends1 but rather ,lazarus2 the rich youth is told to sell all that he has and to give to the poor4 ,to soldiers ,christ says1 ,those who take the sword shall perish with the sword4 ,he says nothing about science1 art1 and industry because ,he is indifferent to them4 ,he has no great illusions about men1 for he calls them a generation of vipers4 ,and rightly2 since the earth is a prison for those who have committed crimes in heaven1 we are all rascals2 but it is the prison chaplain's duty to preach pardon to those who behave properly4 ,to open the prison would be unwise and unlawful2 there ,christianity differs from ,anarchism4 ,give custom to whom custom is due1 and to ,csar what is ,csar's4 ,authority is ordained of ,god1 and beareth not the sword in vain4 ,christianity and ,radicalism accordingly agree in their criticism of society1 but not in the inferences they draw4 ,the ,christian endures the sufferings of the prison-house with religious resignation2 he does not waste valuable time in making foolish proposals regarding the reform of prison-life and management4 ,in order to obtain mitigation and pardon1 and to escape the dark cell and scourging1 he tries to behave well1 but he does not believe that the prison can be a place of recreation4 ,all that ,rousseau1 ,max ,nordau1 and ,tolstoi have said against the faults of society is quite true1 but their inferences are false4 ,socialism1 i4e4 pagan socialism1 which preached development and progress1 went its crab-like course backwards to the trade unions which had been dissolved1 limited industrial freedom1 introduced inquisitorial methods1 excommunicated heretics4 ,in the great strike non-socialists were refused water and gas1 bread and milk for children4 ,they compelled the contented to be discontented1 made men wild and despairing1 and really made things worse1 when they ought to have improved them4 ,but in their pagan ,radicalism they did not attain to the height of ,christianity4 ,unbelieving1 they believed in everything that was false--scientific fallacies1 politico-economical errors1 philosophical stupidities4 ,into a pagan one may instil every possible falsehood and stupidity2 but for the truth in its real relations he is deaf and blind4 ,to have a moderate quiet contempt of the world1 to be already half out of it1 one's staff in one's hand and one's knapsack on one's back1 ever ready for departure1 to have clean hands and a good conscience--that is the way not to be easily assailable4 ,then one is not envied1 and suffers not from disappointments and humiliations1 for one is prepared for all1 and has anticipated all in advance4 ,vanity1 ,vanity1 saith the ,preacher4 ,sow in the morning thy seed1 and in the evening withhold not thy hand1 for thou knowest not which shall succeed1 or whether both alike are good4 ,where ,are ,we8--,if men only knew where they are6 ,the description which the ancients gave of ,tartarus exactly fits our condition in this life4 ,the ambitious man rolls his stone up the hill like ,sisyphus1 and when he has got it to the top it rolls down again4 ,a certain architect spent twenty-five years of his life in working and intriguing in order to build a temple for the state4 ,the temple was built and consecrated1 a torch-light procession was held in honour of the architect1 and he was crowned with a laurel-wreath4 ,the next day the newspapers informed us that the temple must be pulled down because it was a failure4 ,the architect died half a year afterwards in an asylum2 the temple was demolished and the architect's name forgotten and obliterated4 ,tantalus1 the rich miser1 stands in the midst of a spring of water1 but cannot drink2 branches laden with fruit hang over his head1 but when he stretches out his hand to pluck a fruit a gust of wind comes and tears the branch away4 ,the rich man has worked and swindled till old age begins4 ,then at last1 when the grouse come flying towards him1 he has no teeth left2 his wine-cellar is full1 but the doctor has forbidden him wine4 ,that is ,tantalus6 ,ixion revolves on his wheel1 at one moment up1 at another down4 ,the ancients assigned as the reason of his punishment that he had boasted of the favour of a woman who had never been his4 ,the ,danaides1 the coquettes1 are perpetually drawing water1 but their vessel is like a sieve2 everything enters it1 but nothing remains4 ,all day long and every day one hears the expression ,that is hell6--such is the universal view4 ,when things look a little brighter1 the table is covered1 the bed made1 and we feel well again4 ,we cheat ourselves often with alcohol1 and continue our somnambulism4 ,then we are awoken by a noise1 start up1 rush about1 weep1 and then go to sleep again4 ,at last sleep is banished once for all1 and we wake never to sleep any more4 ,once we are well awake no opiates are of avail4 ,then we discover the whole cheat4 ,we see where we are1 and what our past1 which seemed so real1 was4 ,the comparatively wise man then turns away from the phantoms and shadows of reality in order to seek the other1 the true1 the actual ,real4 ,then the state is seen to be a prison2 the defenders of the fatherland are body-snatchers2 society is a madhouse1 whose warders are the officials and police2 family life is concubinage2 capitalists are usurers2 the fine arts are superfluities2 literature is printed nonsense2 industry feeds unnecessary luxury2 railways are instruments of torture2 the electric light ruins the eyes2 all the blessings of civilisation are either curses or superfluous4 ,when we have seen this1 we turn our backs on all and seek the only thing that holds1 that gives a real answer1 that fulfils what it promises4 ,but this super-real fools call a phantom4 ,hegel's ,christianity4--,there are two ,voltaires3 one1 the mocker at all definite religion1 who is revered by the godless2 the other1 the fanatical champion of ,god who is ridiculed by the atheists because he believed in ,god as navely as a child4 ,voltaire recovered his reason before he died1 as lunatics are wont to do2 when he died he was definitely religious and took the sacrament4 ,there are also two ,hegels4 ,but they are more complicated than ,voltaire1 who was as simple as a feuilletonist4 ,hegel discovered with his logic that what exists has a right to exist2 he defends the status quo1 society1 state1 religion with all their corollaries1 because they have proceeded from ,god2 everything is right since it exists4 ,it belongs1 he says1 to the essence of religion that it should realise itself in several historical religious forms4 ,of these1 however1 ,christianity is the only one which suitably expresses the essence of religion4 ,in her doctrine of the ,trinity the ,christian ,church contains the nucleus of all philosophical speculation4 ,for this signifies nothing less than that the ,eternal ,god1 enthroned in ,his majesty over the sphere of the finite1 condescends and reconciles ,himself to the finite1 becomes man1 suffers1 dies1 and returns to ,himself as the ,holy ,spirit4 ,that is well put2 but every schoolchild knew it already from ,luther's little catechism4 ,for what object then is this extraordinary accumulation of several thousand pages of incomprehensible philosophy8 ,to what purpose8 ,hegel died of cholera in #ahca1 after traversing many devious ways1 as a simple1 believing ,christian1 without any philosophy1 repeating the penitential psalms4 ,men of ,god's ,hand4--,that is ,kind ,david's expression 7,ps4 xvii41 #ad7 which he uses of the godless1 to whom the ,lord gave power over ,his people ,israel when they behaved badly4 ,thereby is the knotty problem solved1 why ,god gives the godless power1 honour1 and wealth1 while ,he often chastises ,his servants4 ,the ,pharaohs were idolaters and wizards1 but ,god's chosen people had to be their slaves4 ,the ,philistines worshipped ,baal and ,astarte1 but they were allowed to devastate ,canaan and even to carry away the ,ark of the ,covenant4 ,nebuchadnezzar was no saint1 quite the contrary1 but he was permitted to carry the children of ,israel into captivity4 ,good men are not adapted to be instruments of chastisement1 and the office of executioner is not an enviable one4 ,everyone has his ,egyptian armed with a rod1 whether they are called superiors1 employers1 customers1 the public1 newspapers1 or even public opinion4 ,all strive for an imaginary independence or so-called freedom1 while there is no independence and no freedom4 ,therefore the effort is vain4 ,only one thing remains--to reconcile oneself to obedience to human authority for the ,lord's sake1 and to pay taxes where taxes are due4 ,and where one earns one's bread1 one must be polite4 ,vex1 not thyself that thy trade and thy position are difficult2 ,god has so appointed it4 ,night ,owls4--,the maggot in the apple doubtless imagines that the apple was grown for its sake1 and that the world could not exist without apples4 ,so we also imagine that science and art are certainly necessary4 ,swedenborg1 in his description of another sphere1 tells us how happy men can be without such luxuries4 ,they know nothing of sciences as we see them in our world1 and wish to know nothing2 they call them 'shadows1' and compare them with clouds which come between the sun and the spectator4 ,this idea of the sciences they have derived from certain spirits who came from our earth and introduced themselves as those who had grown wise through science4 ,these spirits from our earth who made this claim belonged to those who see wisdom in such things as are pure matters of memory1 such as languages2 in historical matters1 which belong to the literary world2 in bare experiences and terms1 especially philosophical ones4 ,because these have not developed their faculty of reasoning through science1 they have in their second life little power of perceiving the truth1 for they see only in and by means of technical terms1 which like hills and thick clouds obstruct the sight of reason4 ,those who have employed the sciences in order to destroy matters of faith have their reason so thoroughly unsettled that in pitch-darkness they take false for true1 and evil for good1 like night-owls4 ,the flag of the university also carries the sign of an owl1 but they do not know what it means4 ,apotheosis4--,when a man who has been near to us dies1 he begins to loom magnified through a kind of haze4 ,all his less-pleasing characteristics are obliterated1 as if they were part of that dust which is now dissolved4 ,his better self1 on the other hand1 becomes larger and clearer4 ,it is indeed possible that the liberated spirit becomes ennobled by death1 and that therefore the survivor is right in forming a new conception of the personality of the deceased4 ,he with whom the survivor now holds spiritual intercourse is perhaps what the survivor feels him to be1 and has ceased to be what he was in life4 ,it is almost invariably the case that the survivor torments himself with reproaches that he has been guilty of some neglect towards the dead1 has done him slight injustices and spoken hard words4 ,even the coldest-hearted begs the dead secretly for forgiveness--forgiveness for all even when it was hardly ill-meant4 ,all this seems to signify that the dead one is alive1 and has need of kindly thoughts as a compensation for the reproaches he makes himself regarding those he has left behind4 ,painting ,things ,black4--,there are men who anticipate their troubles1 hoping thereby to neutralise or to bribe destiny4 ,but that is a mistaken calculation4 ,i know of an author who saw a great calamity approaching and tried to write it away4 ,he composed a drama on that theme1 and hoped thereby to have escaped it4 ,soon afterwards1 however1 it arrived and the effect was as strong as though it had never been written about1 perhaps even more4 ,theosophists say that we can create thought-forms which assume life and reality4 ,they mean that men can send from a distance evil suggestions which others carry out4 ,thus criminal romances have never deterred anyone from crime2 they have on the contrary given scoundrels bright ideas for new pieces of rascality4 ,i actually know of a society novel which criticised bank and joint-stock company frauds1 with the result that such frauds increased4 ,it is as though one let loose demons4 ,therefore it is dangerous merely to think evil of men2 one may do them harm thereby4 ,but what a supernatural effort is necessary always to see good where so little is to be found6 ,and when we try our best we find that we have played the hypocrite4 ,it is almost hopeless to hold the balance level when it is a matter of judging men justly1 for human nature is evil and cannot be altered4 ,the ,thorn in the ,flesh4--,whence come evil and ugly thoughts which start up in our most beautiful moments1 in the hour of devotion1 and even in prayer8 ,we wish to ignore them2 we have the impression that they come from without4 ,but it is possible that they are born of the habit of letting evil thoughts have free course in silence and solitude4 ,still it is mysterious that the greater the height to which we have attained by striving1 the deeper we fall4 ,and ,i can testify from my own experience that it is at the very time of renunciation and self-discipline that one is most liable to unclean thoughts and imaginations4 ,st4 ,anthony and other saints are examples of this4 ,a great sorrow1 for instance1 the longing for a lost child1 is the quickest and best means of burning away the rubbish4 ,but often1 alas6 on the sorrow there follows a boisterous joy which is not of the noblest kind4 ,immediately after our noblest moods1 when we have been inspired by the most beautiful thoughts and purposes1 it is possible in the next moment to feel like a coxcomb4 ,it is not strange that the ancients believed in demons who whisper into one's ear and suggest impure imaginations4 ,possibly this was ,st4 ,paul's thorn in the flesh1 which pricked him so that he should not be too much uplifted4 ,despair and ,grace4--,when in youth one sought to conquer evil desires1 and even harmless ones1 with the severest scourge provided by religion1 and then saw that one could not change one's vices1 one let go of the reins and life went as it went4 ,work was the chief occupation of middle life1 and there was no time to think of one's soul4 ,life itself moulded one's character1 and one threw a bone to the dog--the flesh in order to be able to work in peace4 ,then when in old age we come to reflect1 and at sixty find that we have remained very much the same1 we wish to begin our spiritual education1 but with indifferent success4 ,we had hoped that certain desires would disappear and certain virtues take their place by a kind of natural necessity1 as we had believed when young4 ,but1 alas6 that is not the case4 ,when now we again resume the struggles of our youth the case is thus4 ,we have raised our standard higher1 and wish to root out all the weeds4 ,what formerly seemed quite natural--envy of a fellow-worker1 revenge on an enemy1 pride in success1 exultation at a foe's downfall1 a small white lie--we now find hateful4 ,and so we begin to struggle against the outward manifestations of these things4 ,but when we find the inner evil just as strong as before1 we finally regard ourselves as great hypocrites and are ready to despair4 ,where is comfort to be found then8 ,religion only asserts that we are hypocrites1 and our fellow-men regard it as a fact4 ,absolute despair seizes us4 ,what follows then8 ,grace6 ,it becomes clear to us that everything is grace1 and from grace4 ,and that we have been living on the bread of charity which we believed we had earned4 ,the ,last ,act 7,from the life of a leader of the ,renaissance74--,the final act is the most important one in a drama1 and a dramatist generally begins his work at the end4 ,we sit out a long evening at the theatre in order to see the last act or how it will go4 ,but in the significant lives of certain men people like to ignore the last act1 because it is uncomfortable and might show how the godless fare at last4 ,he who wrote the operetta ,boccaccio had to append the last act to it2 the jovial ,florentine became a priest and delivered lectures on ,dante's ,hell1 though he only reached the seventeenth canto4 ,voltaire's last hours1 when he took the sacrament1 might furnish a subject for a tragedy like the second part of ,faust4 ,heine announced his conversion1 which took place in #ahea1 in the preface to the ,romancero3 ,i have returned to ,god like the prodigal son1 after ,i had fed swine with the ,hegelians for a long time4 ,this preface should be printed before every collection of ,heine's poems4 ,hegel singing penitential psalms on his death-bed might form the subject of a fresco painting for the entrance-hall of ,berlin ,university4 ,but the most affecting final act is ,oscar ,wilde's description of his prison life in ,de ,profundis4 ,he was the so-called renaissance leader1 who disinterred heathenism with its false worship of beauty1 which contains the foulest of all4 ,kierkegaard#a would have called him the sthete1 the ,sybarite cold as cast iron1 the egoist round whose petty ,i the whole world was to revolve in order to understand him alone4 ,many1 led astray like him by the seducing spirits of his youth1 remained fairly free from public punishment4 ,wilde seems to have been picked out to furnish a startling example1 for his position1 at any rate in his own country1 was almost that of an idol4 ,what he wrote lacks originality2 it is whipped-up foam2 glazing which1 when washed off1 leaves no texture2 it is as restless as cross-lights1 or like a mirror in a public restaurant1 in a labyrinthine hall with deceptive lines and false perspectives2 it runs out of the hand like albumen or frog-spawn2 it is perverse as in ,dorian ,gray1 the hero of which should have lost his youth by nightly excesses1 while on the contrary it is only his portrait which changes4 ,the last act was played1 and that outdid all horror1 was so horrible that ,wilde himself could not describe its details1 which1 however1 oral tradition has preserved in a ,swedenborgian legend4 ,de ,profundis arouses pity and fear1 and one would gladly acquit the man who was perhaps the victim of his delusion2 a worldly tribunal would not have judged him if he had not himself appealed to it1 and that indeed for a wrong done him4 ,it was what our renaissance-critic called a piece of stupidity when he made ,wilde out to be a martyr of hypocrisy1 as he called justice4 ,wilde however seems to have taken another view of the matter to his impartial defender3 ,a day in prison on which one does not weep is a day on which one's heart is hard1 not a day on which one's heart is happy4 ,once ,i had put into motion the forces of society1 society turned on me and said3 ',have you been living all this time in defiance of my laws1 and do you now appeal to those laws for protection8 ,you shall have those laws exercised to the full4' ,a man's very highest moment1 ,i have no doubt at all1 is when he kneels in the dust and beats his breast and tells us all the sins of his life4 ,the joy of life whose perfume he had inhaled at ,oxford through ,pater's ,renaissance now began to grow sour4 ,clergymen and people who use phrases without wisdom sometimes talk of suffering as a mystery4 ,it is really a revelation4 ,behind joy and laughter there may be a temperament coarse1 hard1 and callous4 ,pain1 unlike pleasure1 wears no mask4 ,there are times when sorrow seems to me to be the only truth4 ,the secret of life is suffering4 ,let us add that ,wilde derived his most dangerous doctrine from ,baudelaire and ,shakespeare's sonnets4 ,and let us close with the new view of the ,renaissance which he attained to in prison3 ,to me one of the things in history the most to be regretted is that the ,christ's own renaissance which has produced the ,cathedral at ,chartres1 the ,arthurian cycle of legends1 the life of ,st4 ,francis of ,assisi1 the art of ,giotto1 and ,dante's ,divine ,comedy1 was not allowed to develop on its own lines1 but was interrupted and spoiled by the dreary classical ,renaissance4 ,footnote #a3 ,danish theologian4 ,consequences of ,learning4--,as soon as a man buries himself in books he gets black nails and dirty cuffs1 forgets to wash1 to comb his hair1 and to shave4 ,he neglects his duties towards life1 society1 and men2 loses spiritual capacities1 becomes absent-minded1 short-sighted1 wears glasses1 and takes snuff in order to keep himself awake4 ,he cannot follow a conversation with attention1 cannot interest himself in other people's affairs1 does not see the face of the earth by day nor the stars by night4 ,behind his desire to investigate lies the insidious ambition to master his material1 to become an authority1 to tyrannise1 to make a career for himself1 and to receive distinctions4 ,if men only reflected what tyrants they obey--these black magicians who are called professors2 who settle what we are to think and believe2 who test and examine1 reject and choose2 who form committees1 write handbooks1 deliver lectures1 and bestow prizes on those who accept their hypotheses4 ,and has it ever occurred to a student to criticise his teacher8 ,no2 he swallows everything uncritically4 ,but if he goes into a church where he hears ,god's own word revealed by way of intuition to the prophets1 then he begins to exercise his critical faculty2 then he finds it very difficult to comprehend the simplest things2 then he wants mathematical certainty1 which he considers the highest while it is really the lowest4 ,swedenborg says in one place3 ,though goodness and truth are sent down through the heavens1 when they reach the hells they are changed into evil and falsity2 the brilliant light of the sun changes into ugly colours and its warmth becomes an evil odour4 ,rousseau4--,in my youth ,i read of an ,englishman who shot himself because life was so wearisome4 ,he had counted the buttons which he had to unbutton and button up every day--in his under-clothing half a dozen1 in his day-shirt half a dozen1 in his collar and cuffs half a dozen1 in his waistcoat1 trousers1 and coat a dozen1 in his boots1 gaiters1 and gloves two dozen4 ,when he wanted to ride out he had to change1 as he had also to do for dinner and the evening4 ,this story1 though absurd1 reveals the naked truth4 ,life has become so burdensome1 and half the day is spent in useless occupations3 unnecessary visits1 telephoning1 writing letters about nothing1 reading the papers2 especially in making one's toilette which formerly consisted of a becoming mantle fastened with a single cord1 but has now developed into a whole set of things with buttons1 hooks1 eyes1 strings1 ribbons1 needles1 buckles4 ,our toilettes are a miniature picture of our civilisation with all its time-wasting fussiness1 most of which is useless nonsense4 ,the man who lives in the country and cultivates the ground needs neither art1 science1 nor literature4 ,he who has nature needs no art1 and religion is more than science and literature4 ,there are churches everywhere1 but museums1 theatres1 book-shops1 and clubs only in the towns4 ,whether they are necessary is another question4 ,that is ,rousseau6 ,rousseau ,again4--,in ,southern ,france ,i once saw some half-wild ,arab horses running loose in a meadow4 ,they still had their long tails to hide what is not beautiful and to protect them against the stings of insects4 ,they seemed well adapted to their purpose1 but they were more than useful3 they were beautiful4 ,and when ,i contemplated the lines in these beautiful creatures' bodies--the curve of the withers such as is not found in geometry1 its continuation along the back and loins2 the noble construction and movements of the hind-legs2 the proportions of the shank below the knee tapering down to the hoof1 which leaves on the sand graceful prints like ,moorish arches--and when the proud creatures sped over the meadow in full gallop with movements like that of a sailing-boat on the waves1 then the curves played into new harmonies and changed their form1 tail1 mane1 and forelock floated like draperies about the body1 and ,i thought ,all that is certainly adapted for running1 but it is much more1 it is beautiful2 it has not come to be of itself1 but it is created by a ,contriver1 a wise and great ,artist4 ,it is1 however1 more than a work of art1 for it has life and individuality1 and no two horses are exactly alike4 ,then ,i thought of the attempts of men to improve this masterpiece1 of the ,english race-horses--those machines6 ,in this process of selection they have chosen the ugliest1 docked their tails1 robbed them of their fairest ornament1 placed an apelike jockey on their backs in order to make money by racing4 ,to this caricature men have degraded the beautiful gift of ,god4 ,anyone who has learnt at school to draw a horse knows how difficult it is to make these lines harmonise1 and fall and rise in the right places2 to draw the head not too large and not too small1 but exactly proportioned2 to bring the forepart and the loins into symmetrical relations with each other2 to make the neck slope gently into the fine curve of the back4 ,it was the work of many days merely to copy the outline correctly4 ,raphael could not draw a horse2 his ,attila rides on a rocking-horse4 ,one is often inclined to agree with ,rousseau when he says everything which comes from the hand of the ,creator is perfect1 but when it falls into the hands of man it is spoiled4 ,materialised ,apparitions4--,i have never seen it1 but it is said to be a fact that in hypnotic seances those who are present produce from the half-etherialised substance of the medium a kind of being which is visible and leads an apparitional life1 so long as the circle keeps together4 ,such among others was ,professor ,crookes' ,katie ,king4 ,but what causes me to believe this is a matter of everyday experience4 ,men create their idols out of nothing1 and by means of their imagination fashion their fellow-men1 both living and dead1 into something quite different to what they really are4 ,these creations naturally partake of their own substance and are after their own likeness4 ,sometimes they create something really great1 sometimes a monster1 a demigod1 or a devil4 ,we often see that hatred against one person is1 so to speak1 polarised and converted into love towards his antagonist4 ,a great unpopularity is1 in the person of another1 changed into a great popularity4 ,the reward which should have been given to the worthiest is given to the unworthy1 in order to crush the deserving4 ,at the award of a famous prize one who was uninitiated lately asked3 ,why did not ,x get the prize8 ,because ,y was to have it1 was the answer4 ,fifteen years ago a very remarkable book of #fej pages was published4 ,it obtained no notice in the press4 ,but at the same time a wretched pamphlet received all the praise which the large book ought to have had4 ,when ,i read the reviews of the paltry pamphlet ,i thought ,i was reading those of the book1 for the subject-matter was the same4 ,recently an important post was filled up1 connected1 let us say1 with road-making and hydraulic structures4 ,the person who received it was a very remarkable man4 ,public opinion 7though not private7 regarded him as the most deserving and suitable candidate4 ,he passed for a distinguished engineer1 thoroughly up in his profession1 was said to be well off1 an able organiser1 diligent and considerate towards his subordinates4 ,now it is to be remarked that the man was nothing of all that2 he had never made roads or constructed hydraulic works1 but left that to his skilful assistants2 he did not know his profession2 he neglected what he had in hand2 he was not to be found in his office1 for he played cards and spent the nights in carousing4 ,he was hard towards his employees1 managed so badly that he never knew the state of his affairs1 and was careless in money matters4 ,how then had he come to be elected8 ,some said he had been chosen in order to punish and humble the conceited engineers who had become unpopular4 ,others thought that the intention was that he should come to grief and be ruined because he was feared and hated4 ,however that may be1 he was a materialised apparition created by the hate1 envy1 and malignity of the crowd2 he had become an idea1 a lucky rascal1 a ruthless man whose elevation was necessary in order to still the tumult4 ,he was like a crude mass of ore which stood for four hundred years in the market-place and was supposed to represent ,justice1 but was really the counterfeit presentment of a thievish alderman foisted in by the burgomaster4 ,the ,art of ,dying4--,the wish for power is said to be a fundamental condition of the existence of the ego1 without which a man would perish1 as he could not resist the pressure of others4 ,so we were taught by the seducing spirits of our youth4 ,but ,swedenborg says the thirst for power comes from hell1 and ,balzac speaks of the galley-slaves of ambition who can never rest4 ,dante has a fine verse regarding the fate of the great painters3 one must retire in order to make place for another2 he passes into the shadow and is forgotten4 ,even when it is unjust1 as it often is1 one must acquiesce in being relegated to the back-ground1 for men get tired even of the best and desire change4 ,a great name becomes oppressive1 is felt as a tyranny1 and hinders others from also making great names for themselves4 ,napoleon and ,bismarck saw this clearly1 for both said beforehand that the world would give a sigh of relief when they were gone4 ,but1 in order to depart content1 we require religious resignation1 complete irrevocable withdrawal from the world4 ,such as ,charles the ,fifth's retirement into a monastery4 ,to receive a benefit on one's retirement and then to reappear on the stage is not becoming4 ,if one considers oneself dead to the world and takes no notice of it1 then a new life begins1 but on the other side2 it is a much more peaceful one1 for it is the resurrection from the dead already here6 ,beethoven was vexed that the ,viennese were ungrateful and forgetful when ,rossini appeared and brought again in fashion the ,italian opera1 which ,beethoven1 had devoted his life to extirpate4 ,beethoven however1 was a hard1 selfish1 and very proud man1 who was accordingly literally tormented out of life1 in great matters and in small4 ,increasing deafness1 a disagreeable lawsuit1 a mad young relative1 domestic scandal1 illnesses troubled his last years2 he had even to be exposed to the undeserved ridicule of underlings4 ,thus1 well prepared1 he turned his back on life1 and departed from all without missing anything4 ,so it should be1 in order that nothing should bind one either with longing or with hope1 in order that on the other side of the river one may not look back but go straight forward4 ,the object of the trials of old age is to adjust accounts1 to finish up unsettled affairs1 to see through the cheat of life1 and to become weary of the incomplete1 so that no backward longings may disturb the repose of the grave4 ,can ,philosophy ,bring any ,blessing to ,mankind8--,such was the title of a pamphlet written in the 'sixties by a teacher of philosophy1 ,pontus ,wikner4 ,the question was justified2 how it was answered ,i do not remember1 but the answer must have been evasive1 for the writer of the pamphlet was a professor4 ,if he had said that all philosophy1 especially systematic philosophy1 was rubbish1 his career would have been at an end4 ,when1 in #ahgj at the university1 ,i wished to study sthetics1 the professor of the subject sent me to the lecturer in order to take lessons4 ,as he sat there and talked for hours by the light of a composite candle1 ,i tried to decipher the furrowed brow of the pale man and to ascertain whether he really understood what he taught1 or whether he only taught by rote4 ,but ,i could not see through him and ,i despaired1 for ,i understood nothing1 and ,i cannot learn by heart what ,i do not understand4 ,that would be humbug4 ,about forty years later ,i met the professor who was now pensioned1 and consequently no longer a member of the college of augurs4 ,then ,i asked him whether he had ever mastered sthetics8 ,good gracious1 no6 ,that is why ,i sent you to the lecturer4 ,did he understand them then8 ,i don't think so4 ,but he had a good memory4 ,then after all it was not my fault1 and ,i was not more stupid than the rest4 ,anyone who reads a short history of philosophy1 and observes how one system replaces and refutes another1 must be inclined to say1 ,surely it is time to make an end of this drivel6 ,for the whole history of philosophy proves that thought cannot solve these problems1 or that they cannot be solved by constructing a system of philosophy4 ,the few philosophers1 on the other hand1 who have limited themselves to reflections on the variegated medley of life as seen in man1 politics1 and nature1 have been of some use1 but they are hardly counted philosophers4 ,one can read fragments of ,plato with interest1 and also the unappreciated ,schopenhauer1 especially in his least-valued work ,parerga and ,paralipomena1 but not in his systematic treatise ,the ,world as ,will and ,idea4 ,kierkegaard is not regarded as a philosopher1 nor are ,feuerbach and his pupil ,nietzsche1 but they are extraordinarily instructive4 ,all who construct an empty system with facts are fools4 ,such is ,bostrm1 who tries to subtilise conceptions1 analyse ideas1 and classify and arrange ,god1 man1 and human life under heads4 ,the history of philosophy is the history of errors1 the history of lying1 for nearly all philosophers are disguised rebels against ,god and opponents of religion4 ,philosophy is a history of falsehood1 and since it has demonstrated its own absurdity1 all professorships of philosophy should be abolished4 ,for a ,christian state frustrates its own aims and is foolish if it supports a teacher of error and falsehood4 ,if for once in a way a philosopher is religious1 people give him the contemptuous name of mystic1 although very few know what mysticism is4 ,in one professorial chair sits an ,hegelian and preaches ,hegel's pantheism as the truth1 and in another sits a ,bostrmian and pulls ,hegel to pieces4 ,but the student must be examined by both1 and give his adherence to both systems together4 ,that is the higher education1 academic culture1 and learning in its glory6 ,the mass of people believe that all which is difficult to understand is deep1 but it is not so4 ,what is difficult to understand is immature1 vague1 and often false4 ,the highest wisdom is simple1 clear1 and goes through the brain straight into the heart4 ,set a philosopher on the grave where his earthly hopes lie buried1 and let him discourse of ,herbert ,spencer and the blastoderm6 ,place a philosopher in the ,privy ,council1 and let him have a share in the conduct of the state6 ,ask a philosopher to write a drama1 to paint a picture1 or even to teach school-children1 and he is useless4 ,philosopher is synonymous with superannuated donkey6 ,away with him6 nd when he complained that the ,apocryphal books were missing1 ,goethe said among other things3 ,it is superfluous to raise the question of authentic or unauthentic in matters of the ,bible4 ,i regard the four gospels as completely genuine1 for in them shines the reflected splendour of the lofty personality of ,christ1 as divine as anything which has appeared on earth4 ,if any one asks me whether ,i find it possible to pay him worship and reverence1 ,i answer1 ',certainly6' ,then there follows some ,voltairian talk about the sun and religious relics1 about priestcraft and bishops' incomes1 which belonged to the bad tone of the time4 ,these stupid free-thinkers could not imagine how three could be equivalent to one1 and therefore they stumbled at the doctrine of the ,trinity4 ,did they not know that three thirds are equivalent to one1 and that one is equivalent to three thirds8 ,or was their reason so darkened by pride8 ,or did they not know that spiritual things must be spiritually judged2 that the ,highest cannot be reached by the highest mathematics8 ,for neither ,laplace nor ,poincar1 who busied themselves with the ,mcanique cleste1 reached heaven1 much less ,god4 ,now we ,can ,fly too6 ,hurrah6--,a friend of my youth1 who two weeks ago died in a distant place1 wrote on his last postcard to me these words1 ,now we can fly too6 ,hurrah6 ,he was a pagan1 i4e4 an atheist1 and this last word ,hurrah6 was an expression of scorn and a threat against heaven4 ,every gift of ,god is regarded by the pagans as a victory over ,god4 ,they always think that they have made the discovery1 and they still build at the ,tower of ,babel1 the truth of whose story they deny1 for they are lying spirits4 ,when the pious ,franklin drew down lightning with his damp twine1 he trembled and thanked ,god that ,he had not killed him4 ,but when the godless physicists imitated ,franklin1 and wished to store the lightning in laboratory bottles1 they were slain4 ,people do indeed make lightning-conductors nowadays1 but they are not always efficacious even when the conduction is right4 ,only imagine6--a man receives a gift1 and as a mark of gratitude puts out his tongue6 ,every time that ,god gives something1 irreligious science celebrates a triumph--that is1 puts out its tongue6 ,that is the nature of science6 ,and it seems as though it were still at present forbidden to touch the tree of knowledge1 for the transgression of the prohibition is always accompanied by ingratitude and a curse4 ,the ,fall and ,original ,sin4--,in these times when the ape-morality rules1 it is considered up-to-date to change the doctrine of vicarious satisfaction for that of heredity4 ,the blame for our faults is put on our parents1 especially1 as might be expected1 on the father4 ,but when the father was alive1 he put the blame on his father1 and so on till we come to our first parents4 ,that is indeed just like what the ,bible teaches about the ,fall and original sin1 and ought to confirm the teaching of religion1 but of course that cannot be6 ,that is the doctrine of heredity4 ,but whence comes it8 ,where is the starting-point8 ,since everyone nowadays feels burdened with evil impulses and disease germs which he has inherited1 and all our predecessors have felt the same1 the only thing left is to lay the blame on our first parents4 ,how then is one to get rid of guilt--the consciousness of guilt and the evil impulses8 ,christ answers more simply than the theologians who represent the work of grace as an examination course4 ,to-day shalt thou be with ,me in ,paradise1 ,he said to the thief who confessed that he suffered for his evil deeds2 but ,he did not say so to the other who reviled ,him4 ,generally speaking1 one should take one's doctrine straight from the ,gospels1 which are simpler1 greater1 diviner than other writings4 ,devotional books are like the higher mathematics1 mixed1 complicated1 and affected with human weaknesses4 ,the ,gospel4--,all boast of the ,gospel1 but they mean this joyful message--the abrogation of civic laws and the opening of the jails2 in a word1 immunity from punishment for themselves and more stringent regulations for others4 ,that was the ,renaissance morality preached at the conclusion of the ,middle ,ages as at the end of our century4 ,they wished to enlighten mankind by proclaiming that everything is lawful 7against others71 and that if one only understood men1 one would forgive them4 ,he does not understand1 was the formula in common use4 ,were ,i now to enumerate all the victims of this gospel1 which we had to learn1 people would cry ,scandal6 ,then they would proceed to explain the tragedies on natural grounds1 such as neurasthenia1 infection1 heredity 7but not from our first parents72 the unfortunate ,englishman1#a they say1 was wrongfully imprisoned1 because society consists of hypocrites2 not because of his own sin1 for it was not his own sin3 there is no sin4 ,every suggestion that there are misdemeanours which draw down the unpleasant consequences1 which are called punishments1 is taken ill4 ,five years ago ,i heard one of these evangelists exclaim1 ,morality6 that is a word which ,i cannot take in my mouth4 ,this saying was often quoted4 ,but shortly afterwards the same gentleman set heaven and hell in motion because a pupil had used a statement in one of his lectures to base a treatise on4 ,this innocent proceeding the evangelist stigmatised as theft1 and he wished to annihilate the thief4 ,the young man answered quite rightly that in that case people ought to be punished for stealing their knowledge out of manuals without acknowledgment1 or that if they gave chapter and verse for every statement1 a treatise would look like this3 ,sum1 ',i am' 7,rabe's ,grammar1 #fth edition1 ,stockholm1 #aheh71 called an auxiliary verb 7,sundelin ,schwedische ,sprachlehre1 rebro1 #aija71 which indicates the passive voice 7,sjoberg1 ,logic1 ,upsala1 #ahie71 and so on4 ,this gentleman was a very severe moralist1 although he could not take the word morality in his mouth4 ,footnote #a3 ,oscar ,wilde4 ,religious ,heathen4--,hardly anywhere are there such religious men as the ,orientals4 ,five times a day the muezzin calls from each minaret in eastern lands3 ,god is great6 ,i bear witness that there is no ,god but ,god6 ,i bear witness that ,muhammed is the ,apostle of ,god6 ,come to prayer6 ,come to salvation6 ,god is great6 ,there is no ,god but ,god6 ,early in the morning they cry in addition1 ,prayer is better than sleep4 ,on the streets and market-places1 in the shops and inns1 everywhere one is summoned to prayer4 ,is it not impressive to see a whole people1 of whom not one is ashamed of his ,god--not one6 ,a people among whom1 five times a day1 this joyful message comes from the ,lord1 the ,all-,merciful1 who has not forsaken and has not repulsed thee6 ,and is it not uplifting in the midst of the severe and squalid tasks of every day to hear a voice from above witnessing1 without attempting to convince1 that ,god is ,god8 ,anything so perverse and stupid as free-thinking and atheism does not exist in the ,orient4 ,if anyone attempted to assert such an abominable tenet as the non-existence of ,god1 he would be imprisoned or put to death4 ,and if anyone came and tried to close the mosques 444 but no one comes1 for the mosques are never empty3 ,by the splendour of the day1 ,by the darkness of the night1 ,thy ,lord hath not forsaken thee1 ,neither hath ,he repelled thee4--,koran4 ,that is the implicit and childlike faith which ,christian heathen called intolerance1 fanaticism1 and so on4 ,the ,pleasure-,garden4--,if the inexperienced man knew how much suffering a separation between a married pair involves1 he would reflect before taking such a step4 ,the two souls have so grown into each other1 that the dissolution of the duplex personality which they form is the most painful operation possible4 ,it is a kind of death4 ,when one uproots the weeds round a flower1 the flower fades away--partly because its roots are injured1 partly because it has been deprived of shade1 moisture1 and support1 or perhaps merely companionship4 ,the sorrow in this case resembles that which follows on a death1 but is not so uplifting and ennobling4 ,the image of the separated wife is always present to one's eyes1 and becomes idealised in memory2 ugly traits are obliterated1 one begins to reproach oneself1 there is a painful emptiness and longing2 one's soul is tom in pieces by her departure2 she has carried off its finest-fibred roots1 and one feels as though bleeding to death4 ,one can no more exchange common recollections4 ,the loss of the illusions of the first springtide of love shatters one's faith in everything4 ,a cry of mourning rings through the universe as though an irreparable crime had been committed1 such as the sin against the ,holy ,ghost4 ,love1 ,god's creative power1 the sun's warmth that fills the heavens1 the origin of life has ceased to exist4 ,chaos and darkness resume their reign4 ,it is a spiritual death1 without comfort and without hope4 ,nevertheless something remains1 if there ever was something there4 ,and though both may marry again1 there is a recollection of the former tie4 ,it cannot be as though it had not been1 nor be forgotten4 ,however unpleasant the relationship may have been1 still in its best hours it resembled something which is not to be found on earth4 ,in its glorious beginning it was a ,garden of ,eden1 such a heightening of existence that one felt nearer ,god4 ,that was no optical delusion1 but a higher reality4 ,then came the ,fall and the expulsion4 ,but the memory of the first joy remains1 and it is true that a real love never ends4 ,people ask whether it continues on the other side even when inclination has changed its object4 ,probably some of it remains1 but in an incomprehensible way1 even if one were to suppose that the personality is resolved into several monads1 of which one seeks a similar one1 and another another2 and what is called love can here become friendship4 ,according to ,plato's doctrine of reminiscence and the reincarnation theory of the theosophists1 one might believe that when two fall in love it is only a meeting again4 ,and all the beauty which they then see round them is the reflection of the memories of some far beautiful land where they have met before1 but which they now remember for the first time4 ,the continual illusions of love would then be connected with experiences on the other side1 which now come up in memory from the side where all is completion and beauty4 ,therefore we have such a terrible awakening from our dreams of happiness when we find that everything down here is distorted1 everything a caricature1 even love itself4 ,the ,happiness of ,love4--,even though earthly love be a caricature or bad copy of the heavenly it has some traits of resemblance to its prototype4 ,in the first spring-days of love there are elevated moments1 in which one compassionates other mortals who are not so happy4 ,we tremble for our blessedness1 finding it not quite just2 yet it is possible even to wish for a misfortune to rectify the balance4 ,there was a dramatist who became engaged1 and at the same time had just celebrated his greatest triumph on the stage4 ,the ground seemed to sway under his feet1 the air caressed his face1 men paid him homage on the streets2 he felt hardly on earth1 as he was beloved by the woman whom he loved4 ,then there came the crash of a failure6 ,all his former merits were forgotten2 he was called a noodle and a charlatan4 ,but he was so happy in his love that he did not feel the blow4 ,he felt1 on the contrary1 an inner joy that misfortune had drawn him and his fiance closer together2 he was so high that he did not grudge men the joy of pulling him down a little4 ,his fame had begun to bore them2 now that he was down1 he found sympathy1 while formerly he had been the object of envy4 ,that was the miracle of love6 ,it made him so little self-seeking1 that on behalf of men he suffered under his oppressive fame and his great happiness4 ,our ,best ,feelings4--,life is not beautiful2 on its animal1 domestic1 and business sides it brings us into so many ugly situations4 ,life is cynical since it ridicules our nobler feelings and flings scorn on our faith4 ,therefore it is difficult to use fine words in the stress of every-day2 one hides one's better feelings in order not to expose them to ridicule4 ,one might therefore say that men are partly better than they appear to be4 ,one is forced to play the sceptic in order not to perish1 and one is made cynical by the cynicism of life4 ,it is therefore unjust to call men hypocrites in a bad sense1 for most men1 on the contrary1 make themselves out worse than they are4 ,when a man writes a letter to an intimate friend1 or to the woman he loves1 he puts on his festive dress2 that is befitting4 ,and in the quiet letter1 on the white paper1 he expresses his best feelings4 ,the tongue and the spoken word are so vulgarised by everyday use1 that they cannot say aloud the beautiful things which the pen says silently4 ,it is not posing or attitudinising1 it is not falsity when one exhibits in correspondence a better soul than in everyday life4 ,the lover is not untrue in his love-letters4 ,he does not make himself out better than he is2 he becomes better1 and is so for the passing moment4 ,he is true at such moments1 the greatest which life grants us6 ,blood-,fraternity4--,blood-fraternity used to be sealed with a sacred ceremonial--the mingling of blood4 ,the life of the soul is in the blood1 says the ,old ,testament2 and it is probable that there was something mysterious in it which we do not understand1 as in all sacraments1 which we understand as little4 ,an old saga tells us that ,torger and ,tormod had mingled their blood and had fought battles and won victories together4 ,but one day1 when ,torger was intoxicated by success1 he carelessly remarked to his brother1 ,which of us1 do you think1 would prove the better man if we ventured on a conflict8 ,i don't know1 answered his brother1 but ,i know that your question makes an end of our living together4 ,i will not remain with you any more4 ,i did not seriously mean that we should try our strength on one another4 ,but it came into your mind1 since you said it4 ,he departed1 and their tie of brotherhood was at an end4 ,the narrator adds1 ,the bond of their friendship was so fragile1 that it could not bear the touch of an over-hasty thought4 ,marriage is a blood-bond and more--it is a sacred transaction4 ,it is so tender and so fragile1 that a hasty word--a joke1 as one calls it--can make an end of it for the whole of life4 ,it is no use afterwards to say1 ,it was only a jest4 ,we have the answer of the medival ,norse poet ,tormod1 ,it came into your mind4 ,long years must pay for the wrong of a second4 ,and then1 ,which of us two do you think would prove the master8 ,as soon as a married pair conceive their relation as a struggle for power1 while it is just the contrary1 hell comes into the house4 ,the woman has an inclination to rule4 ,but if1 in her defence1 ,i say that this inclination is her way of reacting against the suppressing1 not oppressive1 man 7for such a one ,i have never seen71 ,i hope ,i shall not have to repent it4 ,if we ventured on a conflict6 ,yes1 then it is as if one drew a weapon on oneself1 or as if a kingdom were divided4 ,every blow which one deals1 strikes one's own heart4 ,cicero says that friendship is only possible between friendly equals4 ,swedenborg says that marriage is impossible between godless people4 ,i am convinced of it2 for without contact with ,god1 who is the ,fountain-head of love1 no stream of illumination can flow from the ,eternal4 ,i have described the marriage of godless people4 ,i have suffered for doing so1 but ,i do not regret it1 and do not recall a word4 ,it is as ,i said4 ,the devout do not describe their marriages1 and they write neither dramas nor romances2 literary history which mostly deals with irreligious books1 should take notice of that4 ,the ,power of ,love4--,in ,france there lives a marquis who is an occultist4 ,endowed by nature with a sensitive type of soul1 refined by education1 protected by wealth against the brutality of life1 purified by suffering and renunciation1 he entered into contact with the higher forms of existence1 which the theosophists call the astral plane4 ,his sensitiveness was elaborated to such a pitch1 that he became a medium1 and could enter into touch with friends at a distance4 ,then he met a woman belonging to the same spiritual sphere1 a transparent airy figure1 whose steps were inaudible1 whose words were rather to be apprehended than heard4 ,this married pair were so united1 that each was1 as it were1 born in the other4 ,he carried her heart about in him literally4 ,when1 on a journey to some relatives1 she was frightened by a shying horse and had a fit of palpitations1 he felt it in his breast1 and his heart stood still for a moment when she fainted4 ,similarly1 when he once pricked himself with a needle1 she felt it4 ,they lived in each other1 were each other's children and each other's parents4 ,then she died4 ,he nearly died too1 did die perhaps1 and rose again4 ,and now he speaks with her1 hears her voice in his heart1 literally1 not in a figure4 ,i do not doubt it at all1 for ,i have had a similar experience1 and much1 much more4 ,the ,box on the ,ear4--,i was thirty years old1 and life was mine for the first time after ,i had lain in the potato-cellar and shot out white rootlets instead of growing4 ,i had secured a home1 wife1 and child1 and was my own master4 ,after ,i had done the day's task ,i used to invite friends in2 ,i call them friends because they got on well with me and ,i with them4 ,we did no harm2 we played like children with words and sounds2 we disguised ourselves in order to look more fine2 we composed and delivered speeches4 ,i think no one would grudge me these hours4 ,but soon there was something of satiety in it2 we had wounded the dignity of sacred sleep2 the wine turned sour in the glasses4 ,one night towards morning1 in a cheerful circle1 at a full table1 my high spirits broke bounds1 since fortune had given me everything at once1 and ,i uttered a word which a married man should not utter4 ,i immediately received a box on the ear from a strong hand4 ,i found it quite natural1 and continued what ,i was saying1 but in another and better tone4 ,no one took notice of what had happened2 all went on as before2 and we all parted as friends4 ,he who gave me the buffet was a bachelor of not superfine morals4 ,if he had disapproved my point of view1 it must have been a very low one4 ,for several days ,i had a blue mark on my cheek4 ,my wife said nothing1 only one of my friends let fall a remark1 ,how could you put up with that8 ,i must have felt that ,i deserved it6 ,otherwise ,i cannot explain it4 ,now1 when ,i am sixty years old1 ,i wish that ,i had received several such boxes on the ear1 for the first was no use4 ,recognising that1 ,i feel that it was a great piece of good-fortune that ,i was able to confess it4 ,and now ,i should like to live twenty years more1 in order to forget my slowness to learn1 with its sad consequences4 ,saul1 ,afterwards ,called ,paul4--,saul was standing by when ,stephen was stoned1 or1 at any rate1 kept the clothes of those who stoned him4 ,he also persecuted ,christ and the ,christians4 ,the question is often1 almost constantly asked1 ,had he a right1 later on1 to be severe against those who threw the stones8 ,one can only answer with an unconditional ,yes1 for he wished to make good the wrong he had done2 and it was his duty to speak with his new tongue4 ,but he is honourable and courageous enough to remind his hearers that he does not regard himself as an exception4 ,he calls himself the chief of sinners1 and says1 ,i thank ,him who has enabled me1 who was formerly a blasphemer1 and persecutor1 and evil doer2 but mercy was shown to me because ,i did it ignorantly in unbelief4 ,how entirely ,paul felt himself to be quite a different person to the dead ,saul one sees from his tremendous severity against the two blasphemers1 ,hymenus and ,alexander1 whom he delivered over to ,satan1 that they might learn not to blaspheme4 ,what is to be understood by these terrible words1 ,i have explained in the ,inferno4 ,he who has not understood it there1 can obtain a clearer explanation in the asylums1 where there is no rest1 no peace1 only terror and despair4 ,these cannot be cured by cold or by warm water baths1 for it is a sickness of the soul1 often called ,paranoia1 because the senses see what is not to be seen every day4 ,a ,scene from ,hell4--,the man who had been separated from his wife went one day to fetch his little six-year-old daughter from her mother4 ,they meant to go for a walk1 look at the shop-windows1 and buy toys only for an hour4 ,they were to meet before the mother's house4 ,the little one came1 half-sad1 half-joyful1 with a slightly roguish look4 ,this street1 this street1 this house1 these stairs which only a short time ago he had hurried up with his hands full of presents in order for an hour long to see his beautiful home1 and the best which life has to show--the young maidenly mother putting her child to bed6 ,the two together6 ,one still more beautiful than the other6 ,and made more beautiful by love1 or a friendship which has sprung up in painful solitude4 ,he took the little girl's hand1 and they went down the now darkened street4 ,then the child turned round1 and said aloud1 ,mamma is coming behind us4 ,why did he not turn round1 but went on still faster1 drawing the child with him8 ,ask the pains of seven long years1 which had robbed him of his self-esteem so that he no longer believed he possessed the poor solitary heart that followed him contritely and longed for reconciliation4 ,the child turned round yet again1 and several times1 as though it were a plot laid in all friendliness1 and the man felt by the throbbing of the little hand how its heart beat in hope and expectation4 ,but he went straight forward1 for he did not believe any more in the possibility of a return1 and he did not dare to encounter a scornful smile1 or a proud1 sharp word4 ,he turned down side-streets1 but he felt that she followed4 ,who suffered most during this five minutes in hell1 in this interplay of feelings8 ,the child with her beautiful hopes which were disappointed2 the mother with her injured self-esteem1 as she sought on the street what she had thrown away2 or the man with uncertainty and doubt in one half of his heart1 and in the other the immeasurable grief of being obliged to hurt the innocent little child-heart8 ,but while it was actually going on1 he felt almost nothing1 for he was stunned by the shock4 ,not till the next day did he feel the pain in his heart1 and the longer the time that elapsed1 the more that pain increased4 ,the ,jewel-casket or his ,better ,half4--,when a man during the first days of love has deposited the best and fairest part of his soul with the woman he loves1 he has laid up a treasure with her4 ,if then he sinks below the heavy burdens of everyday life and loses his ornaments1 he generally finds them again with her2 she has kept and guarded them 7not always1 however74 ,at such moments he calls her his better half1 and such she is4 ,she can1 at the right time1 return to him a beautiful thought or word1 which he has given her once2 then he is ashamed and laments over his fall4 ,and when he sees his earlier better self in her1 he realises how low he has sunk1 while she still stands on the clear cliff4 ,then he looks up to her1 cries out for help1 and when she reaches him her hand1 he is raised1 and he thanks her for having saved him4 ,paul explains this relation between man and wife1 which is so often misunderstood and really difficult to understand4 ,for in the ,lord1 neither is the man without the woman1 nor the woman without the man2 for as the woman is from the man1 so also is the man by the woman1 but all is of ,god4 ,therefore in a true marriage neither the husband nor the wife appear separate1 but both regard themselves1 and are regarded by others1 as one being4 ,if one receives any good from the other1 the recipient should thank1 and the giver also because he was able to give4 ,they thank each other because they are one being1 and the interchange of gifts is continuous and unceasing1 so that they cannot distinguish between giving and taking4 ,therefore a true marriage is indissoluble2 it cannot suffer severance1 for what it possesses is not alienable1 it is common2 it is a spiritual property which cannot be sold or bought4 ,but in the rough tumult of life the man loses his ideal part sooner than the woman1 who sits sheltered by the warm hearth of the well-protected home4 ,there she can guard his jewel-casket for him1 and if she does it faithfully1 he will always look up to her1 as to his better self4 ,the ,mummy-,coffin4--,seven years of marriage had passed2 they had not tended their lamp1 but it smoked so that everything in the beautiful home was blackened4 ,now each sits in their own comer of the dwelling1 because they cannot look each other in the eyes4 ,they lament each other as dead1 and miss each other like lost children4 ,then he opens a drawer and takes out a little box4 ,a scent of fresh roses streams into the room1 although it comes from dry rose-leaves pressed between sheets of paper4 ,those are her letters which she wrote during her engagement seven years ago4 ,how beautiful it all is3 the paper with its fine1 still unbleached lavender tint and gold borders1 just like the wedding-breakfast glasses2 the envelopes carefully folded like the embroidered cushion-cover of the cradle2 the letters themselves in beautiful rows of gentle words from beautiful lips which smile gracefully4 ,beauty and love in thoughts and feelings--there he had found her again in the little box embalmed with rose-leaves and violets4 ,but now she is dead1 and he weeps6 ,and at the other end of the house she sits over her little mummy-coffin and speaks with her beloved dead1 and weeps4 ,lost for ever6 ,for ever6 ,in the ,attic4--,only three years had passed since his marriage1 and now the storm had carried away all--his wife and child4 ,he had occasion to go up to the attic to fetch something which had been put away there4 ,so he came up to this room1 where it always rustled and creaked1 and cats slunk about1 and the viscera of the house1 so to speak1 were visible in beams and chimney1 where there were rust and soot and hanging cobwebs4 ,he unfastened the padlock4 ,there lay all the flotsam and jetsam after the wreck4 ,it was too late to turn back1 and he remained4 ,there was the canopy of their marriage-bed1 with green silk and gilt-brass ornaments4 ,there was the cradle of the little one1 and the six milk-bottles which the mother always used to wash with her small hands in the ice-cold water2 all the flower-vases and glasses which came into the house on the wedding evening1 when the table was laid in the hall4 ,there stood the basket once filled with roses1 which she had received on her engagement1 which had afterwards become a work-basket4 ,there were withered bouquets1 laurel-wreaths1 and even books1 presents from him at ,christmas and on birthdays1 with beautiful inscriptions4444 ,but there were also prehistoric articles3 pieces of furniture belonging to her girlhood which she had brought into the new home--a ,japanese umbrella adorned with chrysanthemums and golden pheasants1 a small carpet1 a flower-stand4444 ,but why did all these relics lie here in the dust and soot1 and not downstairs with him who cherished those memories8 ,was it that he did not dare to see them every day1 or did not wish to8 ,then his eyes fell on a little toy cupboard1 which lay in a paper-basket4 ,there occurred to his mind the faint recollection of a moment like a ,christmas evening1 a child's eyes1 little white milk teeth1 the first musical-box which the little one played to the ,christmas-tree1 the rocking-horse1 and her dolls ,rosa and ,brita4 ,he opened the toy cupboard2 it contained no musical-box1 but a phonograph1 very small and simple1 a toy which could only utter a single word6 ,he did not remember which4 ,the key lay close by2 he wound it up and set it going4 ,at first it hummed like a bee2 it did not sting1 however1 but whispered the only word it could1 ,darling6 ,and in her voice6 ,yes1 she had spoken it into the phonograph1 though he had forgotten it4 ,darling6 ,then he cried to ,god1 then he raged against fate1 and then he fell to the ground6 ,and as he lay there he could only lament1 ,if they were at least only dead6 ,if4444 ,for they were not dead4 ,they lived4 ,that was the thing which could not be altered nor atoned for1 and all these things were not relics2 they were the flotsam and jetsam of a wreck4 ,the ,sculptor4--,even when a man has found a masterpiece of creation in his wife1 he still tries to improve away little faults in design and colour1 in order to make his work of art as free from faults as possible4 ,his little wife does not always understand that1 and often becomes irritable4 ,you only see faults in me4 ,on the contrary1 you are for me the most beautiful that exists1 but ,i want to have you perfect4 ,you should1 for example1 never be angry1 for then your beautiful eyes grow ugly1 and ,i suffer4 ,you must not dress in verdigris-colour1 for that does not suit you1 and you look poisonous1 so that ,i turn my looks away4 ,and so on4 ,eating is not beautiful1 and to watch one's darling stowing away food in her beautiful mouth1 which ought to speak beautiful words1 smile bewitchingly1 and purse up her tender lips to a kind of flower-bud which one inhales in a kiss--that may be downright repugnant6 ,therefore one is accustomed to hide this unseemly function under light conversation1 and forgets what the beautiful mouth is occupied with4 ,you are always finding fault6 ,say something nice for once4 ,can you not read in my eyes that ,i admire you2 ,i do not generally say it first with my lips4 ,but ,i want you to be perfect4 ,that is the whole matter6 ,on the ,threshold at ,five ,years of ,age4--,a certain ,dr4 ,ogle states in his statistics that in six-and-twenty years four cases of suicide have taken place among children between five and ten years old4 ,when ,i read that1 between five and ten years old1 ,i thought1 ,no6 between five and ten6 ,is that possible8 ,and the reason of it8 ,i could not think more1 but ,i saw one scene1 two scenes1 three scenes4444 ,the little girl was five years old2 she was playing in the room near her mother2 children must have something to do1 but the mother was nervous1 because she had been going into gaiety and flirting beyond measure4 ,don't rock the horse2 it makes mamma's head ache4 ,the little one took the cat1 and pinched it1 so that it mewed4 ,don't do that1 child2 mamma is ill4 ,the child was good1 and did not wish to be troublesome4 ,she sat down at the table1 and was silent in order not to irritate mamma4 ,but a child's little body cannot be still2 nor ought it indeed2 it moves of itself4 ,probably the child must have been singing a song to itself1 for the little unruly feet beat time against the legs of the chair4 ,the mother started up1 ,go to ,ellen in the kitchen1 disobedient child6 ,the child was not disobedient2 doubly wounded in her little heart1 she went into the kitchen1 good and obedient4 ,but immediately afterwards she reappeared in the doorway1 ,ellen was washing up4 ,there stood the child on the threshold1 turned out and repulsed from both sides1 and could not go anywhere4 ,she looked like a despairing child1 tearless1 but with all the terror of the lonely in her face4 ,dumb1 turned to stone1 as though in the whole world there were no place for her1 as though no one would have her1 and she knew not why4 ,at this moment she really stood on the threshold of life1 for she suddenly brightened up1 and approached the open window1 which was high above the ground4 ,to the honour of the mother1 ,i must confess that she has described this scene to me with the greatest remorse2 it ended by her springing up1 taking the child in her arms1 and playing with her till the sun went down4 ,if anything had happened to the child1 ,i should have lived in a hell of self-reproach6 ,and now ,i think2 for every moment which ,i had not devoted to my child1 for every little joy which ,i had denied her1 ,i would1 if it had departed1 weep my soul out of my body2 ,i would plunge into space and seek the child under the stars in order to beg her forgiveness1 if ,i could be forgiven4444 ,to think of it6 ,at five years old1 on the threshold of life6 ,goethe on ,christianity and ,science4--,as ,i waded in ,professor ,delitzsch's dung-heap1#a ,i reached at last his third lecture4 ,in the last lines of the last page ,i found a pearl1 which ,i will set1 in order to show it to those who misuse poor ,goethe's name for their heathenish propaganda4 ,in a conversation with ,eckermann1 on ,march #aa1 #ahcb1 that is1 eleven days before his death1 ,goethe spoke these ever memorable words3 ,let mental culture go on advancing1 let the natural sciences go on gaining in depth and breadth1 and the human mind expand as it may1 it will never go beyond the elevation and moral culture of ,christianity as it shines in the ,gospel4 ,that was the fruit of a life of eighty years spent in seeking ,god and ,his ,son4 ,after long useless detours1 ,goethe found it again at the end of his life1 as is apparent from the conclusion of the second part of ,faust4 ,i will only add some words of ,goethe's on superstition1 as it is not comprehended by the apelings3 ,superstition is an inheritance of powerful1 earnest1 progressive natures2 unbelief is peculiarly characteristic of weak1 petty1 retrogressive men4 ,such is unbelief as ,goethe said in #ahjh4 ,footnote #a3 ,the work entitled ,babel und ,bibel4 ,summa ,summarum4--,since destructive science has proved itself so hollow1 consisting as it does of guesses1 false inferences1 self-deceit1 hair-splittings1 why does the ,state support these armies of conjecturers and soothsayers8 ,rousseau's first prize-essay regarding the curse of culture and learning should be repondered4 ,a ,descartes ought to return and teach men to doubt the untruths of the sciences4 ,another ,kant might write a new ,critique of ,pure ,reason and re-establish the doctrine of the ,categorical ,imperative and ,postulate1 which1 however1 is already to be found in the ,ten ,commandments and the ,gospels4 ,and a prophet must be born to teach men the simple meaning of life in a few words1 though it has been already so well summed up3 ,fear ,god1 and keep ,his commandments1 or ,pray and work4 ,all the errors and mistakes which we have made should serve to instil into us a lively hatred of evil1 and to impart to us fresh impulses to good2 these we can take with us to the other side1 where they can first bloom and bear fruit4 ,that is the true meaning of life1 at which the obstinate and impenitent cavil in order to escape trouble4 ,pray1 but work2 suffer1 but hope2 keeping both the earth and the stars in view4 ,do not try and settle permanently1 for it is a place of pilgrimage2 not a home1 but a halting-place4 ,seek truth1 for it is to be found1 but only in one place1 with ,him who ,himself is the ,way1 the ,truth1 and the ,life4 ,,the ,,end